“I wouldn’t answer that just yet,” she warned. “Not until you have the full story.”
“Okay,” he said, sending it to voicemail. “I’m glad my calls to him didn’t go through when I tried on the way back up here. I saw that he called three times, just like you did. Did the world turn upside down while I was staring at the ocean?”
“Maybe,” she said and proceeded to fill him on Bridget Newhouse’s solo trips to Peninsula over the last eighteen months, her possible affair with a resort employee, her apparent disappearance, and Jessie’s concern that the killer might be cleaning up their dirty work. She was just concluding with Jude Austen’s potential as a suspect when the cart rolled over the final hill and the yoga pavilion came into view.
There was a class in session. An older couple was trying to master downward dog. Jessie recognized the person putting them through the paces. With his tall, elegant body and brown, ponytailed hair bobbing up and down, Austen was hard to miss.
The sight of him caused a mixed emotions in Jessie. If he was here, doing his job, that likely meant one of two things: either he was uninvolved in Bridget’s disappearance and had just been doing his job, or he’d already done something to her and gone back to work to make everything look normal.
“When did this class start?” Jessie asked Hugo.
“Noon.”
“And when did you pull security off the Newhouse casita?’ she wanted to know.
“I was on duty there today,” Geordy said from the driver’s seat. “I got the call at 11:30, told Mrs. Newhouse that I was going, and left right after.”
“And she seemed okay at that time?” Ryan asked.
“Totally normal,” he answered. “I mean normal under the circumstances. She looked wiped out and like she’d been crying, but nothing more than that.”
“And I got to the casita a few minutes before noon,” Jessie said. “So that gave Austen a window of about twenty minutes to get in and out of her place and still make his class, assuming he didn’t have one during that stretch of time.”
“He didn’t,” Hugo said. “He wasn’t booked from 11 to 12 today. And I checked his schedule for yesterday. He wasn’t booked for a class during the time of Newhouse’s death either.”
“That’s interesting, “Ryan said. “But how would he have known when security had been pulled off Bridget?”
Hugo had an answer for that one too.
“Every employee is assigned a two-way radio so they can be reached on short notice. With the cell issues you know well, we can’t depend on phones. He could have been monitoring the security personnel channel.”
They arrived at the pavilion and everyone got out. Austen and the couple looked over, surprised to see the large group converge on them.
“If you guys don’t mind,” Hugo said quietly, “I think I can make this a little less awkward.”
Jessie and Ryan exchanged shrugs.
“Go for it,” she said.
Hugo turned on a high-wattage smile and walked over to the confused threesome.
“Sorry to interrupt your practice, folks,” he said remorsefully. “But we just got word that there may be a risk of unexpected erosion on this cliff. It’s probably nothing. The Beaches and Harbors Department tends to be a little overcautious. But until we get the all clear, we’re going to have all guests leave this immediate area. I apologize for the hassle. We can either refund you for the time, or depending on your schedule, rebook you for after we get approval to resume. In the meantime, Geordy is here to escort you wherever you’d like to go.”
“I’m at your service, folks,” Geordy said enthusiastically.
“Bring a jumbo cart back out here once you drop them off,” Hugo whispered to him so that only Jessie and Ryan could hear. “We may need it to transport someone.”
Geordy nodded. As the couple shuffled into the cart, Jude gave Hugo a perplexed look. But he knew better than to say anything until the cart pulled away and the couple was out of earshot.
“What’s going on Hugo?” he asked. “This cliff was refortified just last fall.”
“Mr. Austen,” Ryan said, stepping forward, “we need to talk.”
Jessie watched Jude Austen’s face sink at the words.
“I already talked to your partner there yesterday,” he said, nodding at Jessie.
“Only in passing,” Jessie reminded him. “We’d like to have a longer chat.”
“Okay,” he replied cautiously, “about what?”
She fixed her eyes on him closely as she readied to drop her first bomb.
“About your affair with Bridget Newhouse,” she said simply.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Jessie didn’t have to be a criminal profiler to see what was going on in the man’s head.
His eyes were wide and his jaw dropped open. It took him several seconds to muster any kind of response.
“I wasn’t…,” he stammered, “I didn’t have…that with her.”
“Come on Jude,” she said sharply, “We’re well past the denials. You have bigger concerns than that at this moment anyway. Where is Bridget right now?”
“What?’ he asked. His expression was still one of shock but she couldn’t tell whether it was due to being called out for the affair or being asked about Bridget’s whereabouts.
“We can’t find her, Jude,” Ryan said. “It’s time for you come clean. What did you do with her?”
“I didn’t do anything!” he shouted, his head darting back and forth between them.
And then, with no warning at all, he started running toward the cliff. Ryan, who was the closest to him, was briefly startled but managed to regroup and take off after him.
Jessie grabbed one of the yoga support pillows on the floor of the pavilion and flung it at the man’s legs, causing him to stumble briefly. That was enough for Ryan to make up some distance. Austen was about ten paces from the cliff’s edge when Ryan threw himself at him, tackling him from behind.
He was up on his knees immediately, pinning down the taller, thinner man as he tried to wriggle away. At one point, he grabbed Austen’s ponytail and yanked hard. That appeared to stun the man and, as his hair came loose and fell around his face, he seemed to lose some of his fight.
By the time Jessie and Hugo got to them, he was already handcuffed. Ryan pulled him to his feet. Jude Austen, barefoot and hiding his face behind a wall of hair, looked pathetic. Jessie glanced down and saw his hair tie start to blow away from the ocean breeze.
It only took her a second to process that it wasn’t actually a hair tie. It was a thick, navy blue and white ribbon, one that looked exactly like the one that had been used to strangle Scott Newhouse in the steam room. She rushed over, picked it up, and held it out for Ryan to see. She could tell he knew exactly what he was looking at too. He turned to Austen.
“Jude Austen,” he began, “You have the right to remain silent.”
*
They held him in the same security office interview room where they’d questioned Ronnie Nance yesterday.