“Oh, yeah. He’s here a lot.”

“What about Ryan Fordham, a doctor,” Whitney surprised him by asking.

“I don’t recognize the name. What did he look like?”

Whitney described her ex and Adam waited, watching her. Why would Ryan be out here? Sure, doctors made money, but he wasn’t in the same league as the other high rollers.

“I’m not certain, but he sounds like one of the regulars. But I haven’t seen him around in months. Come to think of it, Broderick Babcock hasn’t been here either.”

With those words Crystal Burkhart stomped off toward the stage door. They watched her go in silence.

“Your ex is a gambler?” Adam asked when Crystal disappeared inside the building.

“Yes. I just found out. Rod Babcock told me at lunch.” She sounded despondent. He put his arm around her and pulled her close. “Funny, my attorney didn’t mention that he’s also a big-time gambler.”

Adam’s brain scrambled to connect the dots. Gambling. Ryan Fordham. Rod Babcock. Saffron Blue. Somehow they were all connected.

“Miranda quit just about a year and a half ago,” Whitney said. “Right around the time Crystal says Broderick stopped coming here. He claims not to know my cousin, but I think there might be a connection.”

“You’re right. We need to ask him what he knows.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

WHITNEY WAITED UNTIL they had driven away from Saffron Blue before adding, “In retrospect, I should have had some idea, but I didn’t. When Ryan went out in the evening, I believed he’d gone to the hospital.”

“At some point you must have wondered. What made you suspicious?”

She considered his question for a long moment. “I’m not sure exactly. It was just a vague feeling I had that something was wrong.” She hesitated again, uncertain how much of her personal life to reveal. She hadn’t even told Miranda much except the barest details. Somehow she felt Adam would understand. Or maybe she just needed to talk to him, to feel closer.

Doing her best to keep her voice steady, she continued, “To be honest, a lot had been wrong in our marriage for some time, but I’d chalked it up to the stress of a pressure-packed residency followed by the difficulties of setting up a new practice. Then I began to have the feeling it was something…more. I was taking his suits to the cleaners and discovered a hotel receipt. Then I knew. I thought it was just another woman, which would have been bad enough. Now I know he was also gambling and I never knew it.”

“Babcock told you today at lunch?”

She picked up something in his tone that she couldn’t quite interpret. “Yes, Rod was in La Jolla taking a deposition. He asked me to meet him for lunch. His firm had begun to review my property agreement. He doesn’t want me to sign until he has the details about the toxic-waste report.”

They were on the freeway now, heading back toward the house. Adam was staring straight ahead and didn’t respond for a long moment. “Babcock could easily have discussed this with you over the phone.”

For a second, her heart forgot its rhythm. He couldn’t be jealous, could he?

“I think it’s more likely Babcock wanted to see you again. To learn if you’d found out anything more about Miranda.”

She was a tiny bit disappointed, she confessed to herself. Adam wasn’t jealous. He was merely being a detective and analyzing the situation critically. “Well…he did ask if I’d discovered where Miranda went. I told him about her Volvo being in the airport, but I didn’t tell him how we knew.”

“He didn’t ask?”

“No. Do you think that’s unusual?”

“I’m not sure what to make of the whole situation. Babcock claimed not to know your cousin, right? And you didn’t look familiar to him even though you closely resemble Miranda.”

“That’s right. He really seemed to be telling the truth. If he wasn’t, he sure fooled me.” But Ryan had deceived her, too, and she knew him a lot more intimately. How could she be certain the lawyer had been telling the truth? Something stirred deep in her brain, but she couldn’t quite bring it to the surface.

“Maybe I ought to talk to Babcock.”

She recalled the attorney’s parting words to Trish Bowrather. “Tomorrow night, Rod will be at a reception Trish is throwing for one of her artists. I promised to be there. You could come with me. We might catch him off guard that way.”

He grinned at her and winked. “Good idea.”

They rode in silence for a few minutes, then Adam asked,

“Did that woman who phoned to interview you about taking care of her dog ever call again?”

With all the excitement, Whitney had forgotten all about it. “No. I never heard from her, and she didn’t leave any message on voice mail.”

“I’ll bet she’s linked to whoever tried to kill your cousin. They wanted to be sure she was home.”

The second he said it, Whitney realized Adam was right. “Of course. The call came to Miranda’s telephone. It was the first time I’ve ever used call forwarding to my cell. Now that I think about it, the woman sounded funny. It wasn’t just her accent-calling the dog a poo-dell. It might have been a man disguising his voice.”

Adam turned onto Torrey Pines Road. “I keep going back to motive. It’s the detective training.”

“You told me crimes of passion and money were behind most murders.”

“True, but at John Jay we learned to analyze carefully. Crimes of passion usually involve a weapon that’s handy-a knife, or more likely, a gun.”

“It calls for premeditation to construct a pipe bomb. It may be relatively easy to make but it takes planning. It’s not something a rejected lover usually does. They like to make it more personal. Look you in the eye so you know who’s killed you.”

Her stomach flopped. As much as she’d come to despise Ryan, Whitney couldn’t imagine killing him. She couldn’t envision hurting anyone or anything.

“The more I think about this, the more I’m inclined to believe Miranda knew something, and someone wanted to silence her forever.”

Again something niggled at the back of Whitney’s brain. Then she realized what was troubling her. “You know, Miranda had keys to a lot of homes. She went in when the owners weren’t there to feed or walk their dogs. She told me about an incident when she’d been accused of stealing a woman’s ring.” Whitney explained the insurance fraud scheme that had finally been uncovered, clearing Miranda’s name.

“It’s possible Miranda saw something or came across something,” Adam said.

“I was around her for several days. She didn’t seem jumpy or nervous. She didn’t act like anyone was after her.”

“Yet she was preparing to vanish. What could Miranda have seen or found that would make her run but wouldn’t panic her into leaving instantly?”

Whitney slapped her thigh with the open palm of her hand. “I’ve got it! The owners weren’t due back for some time. When they returned, they would discover…whatever. That gave her a chance to leave without rushing.”

“Possibly, but if she stumbled on something illegal or life threatening, why didn’t she go to the police?”

Whitney hesitated a moment, not wanting to verbalize her suspicions. “She stole something from one of the homes and knew they’d discover it when they returned. Otherwise, why wouldn’t they go to the police? Why try to kill her instead?”

Adam considered this for a moment. “Because whatever she found was illegal. That’s the only reason I can think of that would account for everyone dodging the police. Most likely it was drugs.”

“I doubt it. What would Miranda do with a load of drugs? Don’t you have to have a network-”

“Could have been drug money. If you report a theft of a lot of cash, you’d better have a good explanation for where you got it.”

“That must be it,” Whitney told him. “Miranda stole someone’s cache of drug money. It doesn’t have anything to do with the strip club.”