They were candid shots. From this very restaurant. Reeve was in several of them, wearing a casual button-down shirt and khaki shorts, his hand clapped around the shoulder of someone in one. Raising a bottle of an imported beer in another. He wore the same outfit in each of them, so I guessed they were all from the same event. I just couldn’t tell what the event was or when it took place.
But if they were recent…
Though my eyes naturally went to the pictures with Reeve in them, I studied the other faces now looking for Amber, hoping she might be in one. And also the ones with Reeve in them. He was too photogenic not to. Too beautiful. Too captivating.
“He’s a real looker, isn’t he?”
I peered over my shoulder to find Lucy, her hand outstretched toward me with my glass of wine. I took it from her, nodding my thanks. “He’s not bad on the eyes,” I conceded, returning my focus to where I’d been looking a moment before. It was in a smaller frame, a white matte surrounding it so that only a three-inch picture showed. Reeve was in it, with two women in bikini tops and long skirts. Several buttons of his shirt were undone as if this was later in the evening. His smile was bright, his eyes sparkling. He seemed to be enjoying himself, and while I was drawn to the serious expression that I’d seen from him most often, this look was awfully appealing too.
I pointed to the display on the wall. “When were these taken, anyway?”
Lucy had returned to her place behind the bar, but she answered as she wiped down the counter. “His thirtieth birthday. It was quite a party. Not too big. A hundred or so friends and family. We closed the pool outside and he held the whole thing in here.”
Reeve was thirty-six now. Amber wouldn’t be in these pictures. I kept looking anyway, fixating on one of the women. She had her head turned away from the camera, her hand covering her mouth as if she was laughing so it was hard to really see her face. “Oh, wow,” I gasped, when I recognized who she was. “That’s Missy Mataya.”
Missy Mataya was at the center of Reeve’s dangerous reputation. They’d dated for a while. Or fucked. Whatever it was that he did with his female companions. Much like all the women he was seen with, he’d never claimed her as a girlfriend, and if they’d ever demonstrated public displays of affection, they weren’t caught on camera. Also like Reeve’s women, Missy had been gorgeous. She’d been an up-and-coming supermodel. Exotic. Young. Well loved.
Then – probably soon after the picture I was looking at had been taken – she’d fallen from a cliff edge and died. Or jumped. Or been pushed. No one was ever sure. Some people said she’d probably committed suicide. A few believed it had been an accident. Many pointed the finger at her lover. They’d been at his private island in the Keys, after all, and every other person with them on that trip said the last they’d seen her she’d been with Reeve.
Reeve had never been one to address rumors or accusations of any kind, and this occasion was no different. He didn’t release a statement. He shared his story with no one. Every reporter that attempted to get an interview was denied. The police claimed they’d questioned him and declared he wasn’t a suspect in the incident, but when no one was charged at all, people weren’t happy. It was Missy’s fans that began the public attacks against Reeve, flocking to social media to proclaim him a murderer and a liar. Soon others joined the cause. There were all sorts of people ready to hate a man like Reeve. Business opponents. Middle-class citizens who felt that the rich were inherently evil. Conspiracy theorists who were sure Reeve had paid off the police. Members of the Christian right who were more than happy to crucify a man who lived such a tawdry life.
Reeve publicly ignored these accusations as easily as he’d ignored any others in his life. It wasn’t as if the claims would turn into anything. As far as the law was concerned, Reeve Sallis was innocent. A good part of the nation’s people, however, believed he was just another rich man who had used his money and power to get away with his crime.
I’d never had an opinion on the matter. Even after Amber went missing, I’d refused to take Missy’s death into consideration. There was no proof that it had been anything but an accident. I needed tangibles, not hearsay.
“Missy’s up there?” Lucy asked. “Huh, I thought I’d gotten all the pictures of her taken down.”
I turned toward her. “Why? Did he ask you to?” The answer didn’t matter, I realized after I’d asked. It wouldn’t tell me if he’d done it or not.
Lucy shook her head. “Oh, no. Not him. But there’s too many… you know. Her photos just beg for people to say things and that girl’s had enough of that already. Let the dead rest, I say.”
“Of course. That’s the right thing to do.” I debated whether or not I should do the same and let the subject go.
But I couldn’t. I hadn’t been interested in her before, but this was an opportunity to learn more and I might not have it again. “Do people – guests, I mean – ever say anything about him” – I nodded at the picture of Reeve – “and her?”
“You mean do they call him a murderer? Oh, yes. Not as much as they did. But sometimes.” Unlike Greg, Lucy didn’t seem at all cautious about what she said, which surprised me. Though the cantina wasn’t very crowded, there were still ears that could overhear.
If she wasn’t worried, neither was I. “Do you think it was really an accident?” It was only slightly more polite than the question I wanted to ask, which was, Do you think he did it?