Racing the Light (Elvis Cole #19; Joe Pike #8)(39)

Real estate.

The file Ryan discovered on Josh’s computer contained downloads about real estate. Boring, he’d said. Dull. Downloaded on dates that coincided with Skylar’s calls. Ryan had sent the file, but I hadn’t opened it. I called him. His phone rang four times before his voice mail picked up.

I said, “Ryan, it’s Elvis Cole. Call me.”

I hung up and googled the Chinese jet’s tail number.

The jet was a twin-engine Gulfstream G500 registered to the Crystal Future Hospitality Group headquartered in Shanghai, China. A flight tracker site showed the G500 had departed Shanghai for Sapporo, Japan, then crossed the Bering Sea to Anchorage, hopped to Vancouver and turned south to Ontario. Six thousand, seven hundred, ninety-nine miles. The balding man had gone to a lot of trouble to get here.

I googled Crystal Future Hospitality Group next.

The CFHG website was written in Chinese, but an English language option was available. Crystal Future appeared to be in the hotel business. The company’s mission statement claimed CFHG was committed to “aggressively expanding” their network of “crown jewel hotel and resort properties offering unparalleled luxury accommodations” throughout the global market. Photos of sleek, modern hotels in Shanghai, Ho Chi Minh City, and Buenos Aires accompanied the statement. They looked expensive. I checked to see if the Crystal Emperor Hotel was part of their aggressively expanding network. Big surprise. It was.

I was reading about Crystal Future when Ryan called back.

He said, “Hey, this is Ryan Seborg.”

“Does the name LWL Development ring a bell?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Did Josh ever mention it?”

“I dunno. I don’t think so.”

“It’s a real estate development firm in San Gabriel. You said Josh downloaded articles about real estate after Skylar called.”

Ryan hesitated.

“Yeah, well, I’ve been thinking. I was wrong.”

“About what?”

“I dunno. Josh was talking about real estate stuff last year. I just forgot, I guess. It wasn’t new.”

“Don’t the dates match up with Skylar?”

“You get new dates when you re-save files. I was just pissed, but now I remember him talking about this crap last year, so I thought you should know.”

Ryan Seborg was lying.

I said, “Uh-huh.”

“Yeah, well, you know.”

I could see him scuffing his feet and hanging his head.

“What’s going on, Ryan?”

“I just remembered!”

“That Josh was interested in real estate long before Skylar.”

“He wanted to go mainstream. I told you. I should’ve kept my mouth shut.”

He sounded like a six-year-old trying to sell a lie.

“Okay, Ryan. Thanks for sending the file. I’ll check it out.”

“Fine.”

“Don’t go back to his bungalow. I mean it.”

“Eat me.”

Ryan hung up.

I moved to my laptop and downloaded the file.

Josh’s secret stash contained twenty-seven PDFs of articles taken from the Los Angeles Times, the Daily News, LAist, three local television stations, two real estate gossip blogs, and a handful of business journals.

I was about to open the first when my phone rang.

The caller ID read april bohlen.





26





April Bohlen called from her cell phone, which was why her name appeared in the caller ID. She probably wasn’t calling from home and she had gone to the trouble of finding my number. These were good signs. They suggested she was willing to talk about Rachel.

“Um, hi, I couldn’t talk. My mom was there.”

April sounded nervous.

“No worries, April. I’m really glad you called. You sounded a little tense yesterday.”

“We don’t talk about Rachel. My mother goes off. Rachel’s like, I dunno, the family Satan.”

“You and Rachel are cousins?”

“Uh-huh. My dad and her dad are brothers. Her dad is my dad’s big brother.”

“So you must be younger than Rachel.”

“Uh-huh. I’m seventeen. Rachel is like twenty-nine? I’m not really sure.”

Twelve years was a large gap.

“So you were pretty young when she left Visalia.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you know her much when you were little?”

“Um, yeah, Rachel was fun. She was older, but we all got together. NFL game day every Sunday. Barbecues and family stuff. Rachel used to babysit for me ’til she started acting out.”

Acting out.

“Have you stayed in touch with her?”

“Um, not really, no. She went to Los Angeles. I guess you know that.”

“Yeah.”

“Staying in touch has not been encouraged. Not in my house.”

“What about her mom and dad? Do they keep in touch with her?”

“Her mom passed. They got divorced, and, I dunno, her mom got real depressed or sick or something? She up and left. Nobody talked about it, at least not to us, but, I dunno, a couple of years later maybe—I was in ninth grade, so maybe three years—Uncle George called one day and told Daddy she passed. My mother, of course, the saint of Visalia, says it’s on Rachel.”