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couldn’t help
but smile as I looked at the colorful Mexican Talavera pots that lined the
entry, in spite of the small fact that all the plants and flowers and vines
were scorched and dead.
    When I
stepped inside Carly sat at the kitchen bar, her eyes swollen with wannabe
tears she held on to with all her strength. She mumbled, “I don’t know why
we’re here.”
    “I
shouldn’t have asked you to come along,” I said.
    “No, I’m
glad. But why?” she urged me. “We have to believe the sheriff’s department has
already looked around.”
    “But
they didn’t know her like we do. Maybe we won’t find anything, but I have to
believe maybe we’ll feel something
here.”
    Carly
cocked her head in disbelief. A last minute lift of her chin told me of her willingness
to help.
    “Let’s
look around,” I said, placing the animal carrier near the door. Maybe there’s
something they missed. It wasn’t a big investigation, Carly. Cut and dried, for
them. I think we need to look for signs. Maybe signs that can affirm she did
commit suicide and at least we’ll know why. Let’s look for anything financial that
might tell us she was in over her head. Look for stock market records or
certificates. Maybe something from the Paris Bourse.”
    “Paris?”
Sterling asked.
    I
explained the wild goose-chase to see if by chance Payton had certificates
through the Parisian CAC-40.
    “That
girl barely got by financially. Can’t imagine why she’d look to overseas market
indexes.”
    “Just a
thought, while we’re here. Or maybe she was having an affair that went sour and
we didn’t know about it. I’ll check the medicine cabinet. Maybe she was
sick—really sick, and didn’t want anyone to know.”
    Sterling
was already riffling through Payton’s jewelry. Payton’s mother had clearly
instructed us to take anything we wanted. It was Sterling’s nature and her
business, and I found nothing wrong with it.
    “She
still had a few good pieces,” Sterling sighed, “in spite of her brother.”
    “He took
her for a lot of money,” Carly said.
    “He
borrowed a lot of money before he went missing,” I said.
    “But she
still loved him. She loved everything about him. When he disappeared I thought
we were going to lose Payton, then and there.”
    I walked
into the study. Although scoured clean, I could see every drop of blood Payton
might have lost. I smelled the distinct smell of blood—copper.   I could almost hear the gunshot.
    “Wait a
minute. Her computer is gone,” I said, disappointment and frustration lacing my
throat.”
    “Oh. Her
mom has that,” Sterling called from the other room. “She thought maybe she
could learn how to use it.”
    We
scoured Payton’s house for almost two hours. Nothing affirmed a suicide.
Nothing screamed otherwise. Sterling made a list of the few items of jewelry
with any value. She thought she could contact Payton’s mother and offer to sell
the pieces for her. The only object we walked away with, and yes, I took it,
was a large inlaid mother-of-pearl box holding Payton’s sadness. The box was
stuffed with small objects and papers that evidenced Payton’s relentless search
to find her missing brother, Mike.
    Oh, and
the cat. Teddy was going home with me.

 
    Chapter Fourteen
    A
Sticky Situation
    THE
ALARM ON MY CELL sounded at five. Sleeping in the double King suite, Sterling
groaned in the bed next to me. I grabbed my phone to silence the shrill
ringtone. An early start would be the only way we could make a Sonoran desert
hike in August and survive.
      “Let me get this straight, because it doesn’t
sound like the Lauren Visconti I’ve known since grade school,” Sterling whined,
“We’re supposed to start hiking somewhere in all this desert and assume we can
find something, but we don’t have a clue where to start or what we’re looking
for?”
    Payton’s
last email to anyone was to me, and the words still made no sense to me.
    Saguaro
National Forest. CAC Trail. 3