Ice Blonde Read online

  “They’ll get over it.”

  “No, they won’t.” I checked my dashboard clock. Top of the hour. TV would have a news update. I moved over to the side of the road, pulled my iPad from the neoprene case that kept it warm in the cold weather, and called up the local TV station’s website. Sure enough, Juliet’s disappearance was the main story. “Watch this,” I said, and held the iPad so we both could see it.

  Onscreen, a haggard, red-eyed Midge LaRouche was pleading: “Please, if you know where my little girl is, please help. Time is running out.”

  I saw – and heard – the tears in Juliet’s mother’s voice. Daisy stared at the video stone-faced, then stuck in her ear buds as I threaded the Charger through the traffic.

  “Hey, Daisy. Didn’t you see that video? That was Juliet’s mother and she’s frantic with worry. Take those things out of your ears! Now! We’re going to the Minterns’ house and you’re going to let me in.”

  “No! You’re kidnapping me. I’m calling the police.” She waved her cell phone like a weapon.

  “Go ahead. I’ll tell them you think she’s at the Minterns’ house. They’ll break down the door and you and your friends will be busted – no more holiday hideout. It’s your pick: the cops check the Minterns’ or we do. And while we’re driving there, you’re going to tell me about this boyfriend. Who is he?”

  A sullen silence. Then, “Some dickhead named Dex – I think it’s short for Dexter – Gordon. His dad’s a mechanic. Owns a shop. In Toonerville.”

  “How did she meet him?”

  Daisy twisted a hunk of dirty-blonde hair. Her pale face was pink with anger. “Her father took his car there. Shop’s called Gordon’s Repairs and Restorations. It’s cheaper than the Beemer dealer, but her daddy’s paying big-time now. She’s fucking that little nobody.”

  “Is Dex handsome?”

  Daisy shrugged. “If you like greasers. Her parents hate him, so she has to sneak out to see him.”

  My car hit a pothole, then slid slightly on a patch of ice. I steered into the skid and the car righted itself. Daisy paled and gripped the door handle.

  “What’s wrong with Dex, except that his father is a mechanic?” I was on a cleared road again, and the ride was smoother.

  “Isn’t that enough? Juliet’s mother is always lecturing her to meet ‘suitable young men.’” Daisy made those last three words singsong.

  “What’s that mean? Smart? Interesting?”

  “Rich and well-connected.” The girl sounded world-weary, sixteen going on sixty. “You know. The so-called Forest first families. Juliet’s mother has big plans for her. Her father’s given a shitload of money so when she turns eighteen Juliet can be Queen of the Daughters of Versailles Ball. Juliet doesn’t give two shits about being a DV Queen, but her mother’s nuts on the subject.”

  “Why does Midge care? Don’t most debs think the DV Ball is boring?”

  “Yeah, it’s like so 1950. More like 1850. But Juliet’s mother scored big at her DV debut. My mom says her family has a good name but no money, and Prentice LaRouche is loaded. Well, kinda loaded. Bella’s family is richer.”

  Bella. I assumed she was the cousin who had the party. “Prentice isn’t exactly standing in the welfare line. He has his own jet.”

  “It’s only a Mustang. He’s cheaping out because it only needs one pilot. Most jets have two. Mrs. L. wants Juliet to date the right boys. Juliet thinks they’re boring. She likes Dex’s car, too. It’s not one more Beemer.”

  What kind of world do you live in, I wondered, where you’re bored with Beemers at sixteen?

  “What’s Dex drive?”

  “A sixty-eight tangerine orange GTO. It’s like vintage. He restored it himself. Dex can’t pick her up at her house, and his car makes it hard for Juliet to sneak out and be with him – it’s like the only one in the Forest and the muffler’s noisy.”

  “So how does Juliet sneak away?”

  “She takes the path through the woods that runs around the back of her house. It’s only about half a block to her house on the path, but you can’t see it from the street because there are so many trees. It comes out by the stop sign that leads to her street. Dex picks up Juliet by that sign and her parents never know.”

  “Why is she hiding out so long this time?”

  “To get away from her parents? Get them off her case? She needed time away and I’m not going to interfere.”

  “Even if the whole Forest is looking for her?”

  Daisy shrugged. “They love it. Makes them feel like heroes.”

  I had reached the residential part of Chouteau Forest again. “How far to the Minterns’ house from here?”

  “Next right. Third house on the left.”

  As I turned off Gravois, I saw groups of Boy Scouts searching the nearby woods. Someone had set up a tent with hot drinks. A police car with lights flashing was parked nearby. The wind had picked up, and the snow was drifting. I prayed Juliet was in the Minterns’ house.

  “Most of us don’t really like Dex,” Daisy said. “We don’t understand why she’s in love with him. But we like her, and she’s crazy about him, so he tags along.”

  We passed the first estate, and I saw cameras bristling on the curlicued wrought-iron gates. “What kind of security do the Minterns have – besides the alarm code?”

  “Cameras.”

  “How do you get past them?”

  “Dex hit them with water in a spray bottle. Iced the lenses. Frozen over lenses happen all the time in cold weather, so the security company doesn’t come rushing out.”

  “Clever.”

  Daisy wouldn’t even give Dex that. “At least he’s good for something.”

  “Then we’re definitely going in.”

  “Can’t we wait?”

  “Not another minute,” I said.

  CHAPTER 4

  Tuesday, December 27, 11:25 a.m.

  In the mid-1950s, Russell Jedidiah Mintern did the unthinkable: he tore down his family’s Victorian castle. The ancestor-worshipping Forest dwellers were shocked. But that shock turned to envy when they heard about Mintern’s greatly reduced heating bills and smaller household staff – not to mention his efficient air-conditioning during the sweltering Missouri summers. No first family would do that to their family houses, but the Mintern house was an interesting experiment.

  I liked the clean lines of the brick and redwood Mintern estate. The “new” house was huge by any standard – three cantilevered stories jutted in different directions. Wide windows let in the light and sun. Beyond the gates, the drive curved into the thickly wooded area that sheltered the house.

  “Oh, good,” I said. “The driveway’s been shoveled. My car won’t leave tracks in the snow.”

  Daisy kept her sullen silence. I stopped at the gate entrance and Daisy punched the code into the keypad. The gates swung open and I followed the twisting drive around to the back of the house. There, my heart dropped in disappointment. “No cars.” I was afraid to add, Juliet isn’t here.

  “Well, duh,” Daisy said. “We’re not dumb enough to park our cars on the property. We’d get caught. We come in through the back fence. If you follow that path through the woods, there’s a hole in the chain-link that we sorta fixed.”

  “Fixed?”

  “Made it wider so we could squeeze through. It was snagging our clothes. There’s an old floor mat in a tree limb that we use to protect us when the ground’s muddy.”

  Daisy pointed to the path, and I saw the snow had been trampled. A good sign. Juliet was inside, and soon she’d be reunited with her family.

  “We go in on the garden level.” Daisy was whispering. I hoped the girl was keeping her voice low so she wouldn’t disturb Juliet. I followed Daisy down rough stone steps to a sunken garden, now shrouded in snow. The stairs were treacherous. The steps had been shoveled and salted, but they were still slick with ice. I hung onto the railing. Daisy had skipped ahead. “Hurry up!” she called. “I’m freezing, and I can’t pun
ch in the code until you get here. We only have ninety seconds to get in.”

  I finally reached the garden level door. Daisy wiped her feet on the mat, then punched in the code. “Take your boots off and leave them on the rug,” she whispered.

  The warm, humid air smothered me, and my hair frizzed and hung in my face. The garden level was a jungle of palms, from small, bushy cabbage palms to twenty-foot date palms. Green vines twisted up trellises to grow lights in the ceiling. Purple orchids bloomed in hanging baskets. I heard a fountain splashing. I was sweating. I unbuttoned my coat and followed Daisy on a wet concrete path through the steamy jungle and out into a vast, open room with a stone fireplace and groups of mid-century modern furniture. The closest was a low red couch, two acid yellow side chairs, and a scattering of egg-shaped sculptures.

  Daisy picked a roach out of the fireplace and held it up. “See. This is what I mean. Some idiot was toking and left this.” She put the joint in her purse. “And here’s a Bud Light can. What’s wrong with these people? They’re going to ruin everything.”

  She emptied the dregs of the beer can into the fireplace, then stuck that in her purse, too. Daisy plumped the couch pillows, mumbling to herself.

  “Daisy, we don’t have time to clean the house. Where’s Juliet?”

  “Well, we sort of hang on this level, mostly in this room.”

  I pointed to three closed doors. “What about those?”

  “You can check them, but I don’t think she’s inside.”

  The first door led to a laundry room. I was sure Juliet wasn’t hiding in there. She wasn’t in the utilities room either. The food storage room looked like it had been ravaged by raccoons; crumpled packages of Oreo cookies and snack boxes were strewn on the floor. Empty chip and Doritos bags littered the floor along with snack food wrappers.

  “Daisy, have you seen this?”

  Daisy burst into a string of curses. “Those stupid fuckers. It’s bad enough they cleaned out the snacks, but they trashed the room, too. Assholes!” She started gathering the packages, but I stopped her. “Later! We need to find Juliet.”

  I followed Daisy up to the next level, a dazzling display of colorful 1950’s furniture with the classic shapes: a boomerang coffee table, lamps shaped like nuclear reactors, sleek oval chairs, a kidney-shaped couch, and a bronze sculpture of an abstract female figure that I thought might be a Henry Moore.

  Daisy surveyed the room and said, “Thank gawd they weren’t here. Last time, somebody left a go-cup on that statue.”

  I followed the girl through a maze of bedrooms. One bed looked like it had been slept in, and I felt a flash of hope. “Do you think Juliet slept in this room?”

  “Doubt it.” Daisy picked a gym sock off the floor and said, “That’s rank. Ew!” She ran into a bathroom, wrapped the offending – and offensive – sock in toilet paper, and stashed it in her now bulging purse.

  I wouldn’t let her stop to remake the bed. “We’re looking for Juliet, remember?”

  Daisy whined and I said, “At least you get to search for her in a nice warm house instead of the freezing woods.”

  We checked the kitchen last. The lime Formica counters were sticky with soda, and crumbs littered the round table. “I have to clean those. They’ll draw bugs.” I helped Daisy wipe down the counters and table top, then said, “That’s the whole house. She’s not here. Where’s Juliet?”

  I was interrogating the girl in the breakfast room under a 1950s Sputnik star-burst lamp that looked like a metal spider.

  Daisy’s eyes glittered in the light and her damp hair was wild. “I know she’s not dead.” Her voice had lost some of its confidence.

  “Then she’s alive. Whose house was she at last night?”

  “I told you, Bella’s. She had to invite Dex to her party and she didn’t want to, but Juliet cried and made her.”

  “That’s her cousin, right? Is she related to Old Reggie Du Pres?”

  “Yes, they’re all related, but I’m not sure how. My mom pays attention to that.” Daisy’s pale face was sullen and her nose was shiny. She sniffled and I wondered if she was crying for her lost friend or getting a cold. “Can’t we go to the Olive Garden now? Please? You promised.”

  “I also promised Juliet’s parents that I’d find their daughter, and that promise comes first. The sooner we find Juliet the sooner you can go to the Olive Garden.”

  Daisy made a move to stand up, and I blocked her. “Sit! And tell me about this party.” Overhead, the shining, spidery lamp seemed ready to pounce.

  Daisy sat. “Bella had it at her house. Her parents are cool. They let us party and went upstairs and shut the door to their room and we could do like anything.”

  “Drink?”

  “Of course we drank. And had a DJ, and more. Dex and Juliet had a fight.”

  “What did they fight about?”

  “You’d have to ask Bella.”

  “I will. I want to talk to her now.”

  “She’s at home.”

  “Then we’ll go there.”

  “No!” Daisy stood up again.

  “Sit down!” I said. “You’re miles from your house. There’s no way you can walk home in this cold. Text Bella that you need to see her now.”

  “Can we go to the Olive Garden?”

  “What the hell’s wrong with you? It’s one o’clock. Juliet has been missing for more than thirteen hours. If she’s outside, she’s frozen like a pork chop.”

  Daisy started to cry. “You’re mean. You didn’t have to say that.”

  I tried to feel bad, but I couldn’t. Reality was cold – even colder than the deep-freeze weather. I softened my voice. “I’m sorry you’re upset, Daisy. But this isn’t a game. If you want to save Juliet, we’re wasting time. Please text Bella. We’ll talk in my car.”

  “What if she doesn’t want to talk?” Daisy sniffled.

  “She’ll talk.” I tried to smooth the snarl out of my voice. “Or I’ll tell my cop friends that her parents were serving liquor to minors.”

  “So? Happens all the time.” Daisy was defiant – and right. The Forest police went out of their way to protect and serve the one percent. They not only overlooked drunken underage drivers, they helped park cars for the parties.

  “Maybe it does, but this time one of those minors disappeared in ten below weather. If the cops aren’t worried about a teen booze party – though I think they will be – there’s always TV. The St. Louis stations are covering Juliet’s disappearance and they’ll go nuts with that information.”

  “That’s so uncool.” Daisy meant that barb to hurt, but it bounced off my hide. Juliet was missing, and I didn’t care how many toes I stepped on to find her.

  “Uncool? So is having cops and reporters at Bella’s house. Text her that I’m on my way and explain why she’d better talk.”

  The text ping was back two minutes later. “She’ll do it, but she doesn’t want us to come up her driveway. She’s got a cough and she’s not supposed to go outside. She’ll take the path and meet us before we get to her gate.”

  Two minutes later, I was carefully climbing the Minterns’ stone steps to my car. The temperature was dropping. A harsh wind blew snow across the newly shoveled steps. Daisy frowned down at me from the top of the stairs. “Come on. I’m freezing. Open your car.”

  I had no sympathy for the girl. “So is Juliet if she’s outside. Let’s hope she’s not frozen.” I chirped open my car.

  “You’re awful. I’m glad Bella only lives two houses away. Less time with you.”

  Fine with me, I thought, but decided not to provoke the girl. Back in the Charger, I blasted the heat and defogged the windows. As I turned left out of the Mintern driveway, I saw lines of bundled up adults, moving like Michelin men through the woods around Bella’s house, and wondered if they were doing a grid search.

  “Stop!” Daisy shouted. “That’s Bella.”

  The clipped yew bushes by the roadside parted and a short, sturdy, brown-haired girl
in a long dark green coat hurried to the car. Daisy crawled into the back seat so her friend could sit up front. Bella greeted us with a hacking cough. She smelled like menthol cough drops.

  “I shouldn’t–” hack, hack “–be out of bed.” Wheeze.

  I thought the girl was overdoing it. I didn’t see any signs of a bad cold – no watery eyes or red, runny nose, no fever flush. Bella clutched a tissue in her mittened paw but didn’t use it.

  “You can go back home as soon as you give me the information I need.”

  Sigh. “Okay.” Bella gave that word four syllables. “What do you want?”

  “Tell me about Dex Gordon.”

  “He was Juliet’s first.” Hack, hack. “She made a big deal out of it. I don’t see the issue over a piece of tissue, but she wanted her first to be special. Dex didn’t seem all that special to me, but he was to her.” Hack, hack. “At the party, I heard him bragging about ‘putting it to her’ and I thought Juliet should know.” Hack, hack. “So I told her. It’s always better to know the truth.” Hack, hack.

  You little witch, I thought. “How did Juliet take it?”

  “I was careful when I told her. She’d been playing beer pong, and she was drunk. She got drunk pretty quick. She weighs like a hundred-fifteen pounds. She doesn’t really like beer anyway. She just drank it because of the game. She got tired of beer and found some Grey Goose in my parents’ liquor cabinet. She poured some into her water bottle and drank that, too. She was not having a good time. Besides Dex, she’d already had some kind of fight with Brock.”

  “Brock who?” I asked.

  “Brock Sedgwick,” Bella said, as if I was too stupid to understand.

  Another Forest first family.

  “What about?”

  She shrugged. “He’s wanted to do her for a long time. See if she’s really blonde down there. He’s really pissed she puts out for a Toonerville nobody. She told him no again. I’ve never seen him so angry. He called her a slut, and then he punched the wall so hard his knuckles were bloody. So Brock upset her. Mom was down in the kitchen getting herself a snack. She came the back way so she wouldn’t bother us. She said something and that got Juliet crying and stuff. Mom calmed her down and gave her some kinda present or something, but Juliet was still upset. And the Dex thing was like the last straw. I made sure she’d had a few before I told her. I’m not like cruel or anything.”