Chapter 15 When We See Ramona Watts #3
“Hmm. Can’t speak to that. If I were mentoring you in the art of private investigation, I would certainly suggest having your ducks in a row before you spoke to someone as openly hostile as Chad has revealed himself to be.
And I would also point out that the two of you looking for Ramona directs public sympathy and interest to her that Chad would prefer be pointed at him.
When this episode of The Howling airs, he wants the moment to be about Sloan and Chad, not poor missing Ramona Watts and the adorable sapphic duo who couldn’t find her.
Or who did find her.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Either way.”
“I hate it here,” Bex said. “Doesn’t anybody get that Ramona isn’t a pawn for her or anyone else’s comeback? That she’s a real live person who people are worried about?”
“Oh, no.” Ashleigh smiled. “They do not. But take a note that I wanted to help you. Not Chad.”
Sam was cold. The rain and wind made her feel like an irrelevant speck in the middle of the big ocean.
She had to admit that Ashleigh’s insight into Sloan and Chad’s motivations was useful, but it wasn’t a full picture.
Chad was controlling, not stupid. He didn’t act without reasons.
The reasons Ashleigh was giving them didn’t add up to a motive that made Sam suspect Chad in Ramona’s disappearance.
“You’ve got your money,” she said.
Ashleigh didn’t protest. She moved to her car door and opened it, snapping down her umbrella and shaking it out as she put one leg into her car. “You’ll call me again,” she said. “You need what I can do, however distasteful you think it is.”
Then she got in her dark sedan and drove away.
“I have no idea if I like her or not,” Bex said as Ashleigh’s taillights faded into the mist.
“Maybe the world would be a better place if it wasn’t important if a woman was likeable,” Sam said. “I’m not sure we won’t call her again.”
Once they were back on the road, with the truck’s heat blowing them dry, Sam found herself thinking of Juliette, alone on a boat in the frigid Pacific.
It was hard to think about Juliette.
Hard, too, to think about Ramona, screaming out at the dark water while her friend drifted beyond her reach.
“I’ve always looked up to her. Ramona.” Sam’s voice sounded peculiar against the drumming of the rain. “I don’t know if I’ve said that. I’d like to get a chance to meet her.”
She glanced at Bex in the passenger seat. Her auburn hair was sparkling with raindrops, her skin damp, her eyes full of all the feelings Sam wasn’t handling as well as she wanted to.
“Then you will,” Bex said firmly. “We’ll find her, and you’ll get to meet her. Frankie will act like it’s no big deal. Vic will say something outrageous. You’ll wear an outfit that makes me feel feelings I don’t know how to categorize.”
“Don’t you?”
“And I will bustle and talk too loud and possibly cry. That’s what’s going to happen when we meet Ramona Watts. And it’s all I’m going to say on the subject.”
Sam felt a little warmer from Bex’s reassurance. “Consult your notebook, then, and tell me what’s next.”
“I hate to tell you this, but what’s next is the 101.”
“That’s him,” Bex said as they turned into the parking lot of the Encino Gymboree.
She pointed at a tall, huskily built man, with brush-cut hair and deep brown skin, standing outside the building beneath an awning. He had a cup of coffee clasped between his palms. His tweedy jacket gave him the air of a college professor.
Sam pulled into a spot ten feet away. Archie stared into their car, positively glowering.
“Yikes,” Bex said. “We’re on time. More or less.”
“Remember, he hates everyone, so it’s not personal,” Sam said. “Probably.”
They jumped down from the truck and dashed under the Gymboree awning. Even through the glass double doors, Sam could hear the happy screaming of children and the beat of primary-colored music.
“Hello,” she said with an understated wave. “I’m Sam, and this is Bexley. Macie told you why we wanted to talk to you, I think.”
“My daughter is done in five minutes.” Archie’s accent sounded London-born.
“We understand,” Sam told him. “Thanks for meeting with us. Long story short, in Macie’s search and our helping, we heard you’d been spending time with Ramona on the Howling set, and Ramona’s home security cameras captured you looking for her on Monday morning after she didn’t show for work.
Colin Worth let us know that you may have been collaborating with Ramona on a project related to your Ice Crew documentary.
We thought it was important to talk to you about where you think she might be, given all of those”—Sam searched for a word that was not clues—“connections.”
Archie took a long, pointed drink from his coffee cup, watching the two of them with discerning eyes.
Then he leaned out from beneath the awning to throw the cup away.
He seemed not to notice the rain running off his inky hair and beading on the shoulders of his jacket.
“You’re the TV detectives. Who’s Ramona to you? ” He directed the question to Bex.
“We’re helping at Macie’s request.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Ramona’s parents are filing a missing person report,” Bex said.
“But even though Ramona’s famous, law enforcement is less likely to spend resources on a missing adult unless the adult is vulnerable or known to be in distress.
No one wants to miss anything. Or waste time.
She could be in grave danger.” There was more than a thread of warning in Bex’s tone.
“She could be in Cabo,” Archie countered briskly. “It’s none of your business.”
“Her friends are worried,” Sam tried. “You must be worried, too. You drove to her house.”
Archie’s face somehow went both blank and furious at the same time.
“If Ramona wanted the world to know what she was doing, she’d issue a press release.
If she wanted you lot to know, she’d ask her manager for your phone number.
She hasn’t done that, has she? That tells me what she would want me to tell you is ‘Back the fuck off and leave her be.’”
Well. That was definitive. Sam clenched her hands in the pockets of her sweater.
Bex took a step closer to Archie. Then another. When she leaned up toward him, the difference in their height meant he had to rear back and crane his neck to make sure she wasn’t about to attack.
“I appreciate your concern for Ramona’s privacy,” she said.
“But she has other friends than you, and she isn’t answering their texts.
She isn’t returning their phone calls. Macie says it’s out of character.
We know that Ramona’s phone has either gone off the grid or been disabled.
It’s been like that for days, so it doesn’t look like she’s on vacation.
It looks like she’s gone. Furthermore, it looks like there are people who might have had a reason to harm her.
You’re right to say we’re not anything to Ramona Watts.
We are, however, people willing to do whatever we can to make sure she’s okay, and that’s a good thing. Objectively.”
Archie’s eyebrows knit together. “Are you done?” he growled.
“I am. Sam?”
“You covered it.”
The music inside turned off, and there was a change in the noise of the children. “That will be my daughter,” he said. “I don’t have anything else to say to you.”
He went to the door. Just as he put his fingers to its handle, he paused.
Sam held her breath.
“If you want someone who will tell you what you want to know and a lot you don’t besides, talk to Kessler.
He’s the type who will be delighted instead of horrified that two actresses have started messing about in other people’s lives, deputizing themselves with their own make-believe.
” Archie pushed open the door. “Leave off with your stunts. And leave me the fuck alone.”