The Evan Buckley Thrillers: Books 1 - 4 (Evan Buckley Thrillers Boxsets)

by James, Harper

  ‘I’m sorry, sugar, but he got called away. He asked me to give you this.’ She handed Gina a business card. ‘He’s good looking, isn’t he? Makes me wish I was your age.’

  She winked and walked away, swinging her hips as if she still was.

  Gina looked at the card. Detective Angel Garcia. She turned it over. He’d scribbled his cell phone number on the back. She leaned back and stared up at the ceiling, her heart rate slowly subsiding to something like normal. She felt nauseous. She didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry—she’d had a reprieve but now it would be ten times worse next time.

  She got up and left, the waitress’ words following her out. He’s good looking, isn’t he?

  Chapter 7

  EVAN GAVE KATE GUILLORY a call. Guillory was a detective with the local police department who’d got Evan started on his current career path—if that was the right way to describe it. The two of them had become friends over the last few months and at times he’d got the feeling that in other circumstances it might have gone further. Aside from that, they’d developed an easy, working relationship, based on a mutual lack of respect.

  ‘I suppose you want some more help from the grown-ups.’ Guillory said brightly.

  ‘Why keep a dog and bark yourself?’

  Guillory pretended she hadn’t heard.

  ‘Besides,’ Evan continued, ‘I seem to remember on the Clayton case I did ninety per cent of the work and you took ninety per cent of the praise.’

  The Clayton case had been the turning point in Evan’s life. Linda Clayton’s husband Robbie and her son Daniel had disappeared ten years previously. The case had been dead in the water almost from day one, Linda Clayton resigned to never knowing what happened, until Guillory put her onto Evan. To everyone’s surprise—including his own—Evan had come through for her. So, despite his words, he owed her.

  ‘Only ninety? I must have been feeling generous.’ She chuckled quietly to herself. She was the most unflappable, self-confident person Evan had ever met. ‘It won’t happen again.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Evan said. He meant it too. ‘I just wasn’t too happy about Ryder sharing in it.’

  Evan had never got along with Guillory’s partner, Ryder. It had started out badly and gone steadily downhill. The mutual animosity was a perennial source of amusement to Guillory.

  ‘Anyway, what do you want? Some of us have got work to do.’

  She listened while Evan told her about Jesse’s problem.

  ‘A hedge fund manager? Jeez, I’m really sorry for the guy.’

  ‘You shouldn’t let personal jealousy get in the way of your duties, Kate. It’s not professional.’

  Guillory snorted. ‘And you know all about that I suppose?’

  ‘I don’t have to. I haven’t got a badge.’

  ‘Or a gun, I hope. Thank the Lord for small mercies, that’s what I say. What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Can you give Louisville PD a call, see if they know anything about it, if it’s happened before? I don't want to schlep all the way down there if there's already a major investigation going on.’

  An exaggerated gasp of astonishment come down the line.

  ‘Isn’t that what you do best? Interfering in official police business. Mr Mayhem.’

  ‘Only when the local police haven't got a clue. If there’s a proper, well-run investigation going on, that’s different ...which usually means I’m never short of work.’

  ‘I don't know why I like you, Buckley.’ Evan pictured her shaking her head but with that small smile he was getting to know on her lips. ‘So, what’s in it for me?’

  ‘A beer? Maybe two.’

  She laughed, a rich throaty sound that always surprised him. ‘Steady on, don’t blow this month’s budget in one go.’

  He hemmed and hawed a while longer until he got to what she was after.

  ‘Dinner then.’

  ‘Promise to iron a shirt and comb your hair?’

  He sucked in air between his teeth as he gave it some thought. It was a big ask.

  ‘Only if you wear lipstick.’

  ‘Deal. I’ll hold you to it.’

  Chapter 8

  IF JESSE HAD ANY lingering doubts about going back to Louisville they were blown out of the water when he got home that night. Diane’s car wasn’t in the driveway which was unusual. A frisson of fear crawled over his skin as he walked up to the door.

  He’d tried to call her before leaving the office but she hadn’t picked up. That was strange too and had only served to magnify the growing trepidation he’d been living with the past couple of days.

  He opened the door and went in. The house felt empty somehow even though it looked exactly the same. He was being stupid. It was just his guilty conscience. He called her name but there was no answer. The frisson of fear upped its game a notch. His head felt like he was holding his breath too long underwater; his pulse pounding behind his eyes, the pressure making him giddy, like he’d bent over for too long.

  He called her name again, louder this time. Still no answer. He ran into the kitchen, half expecting to see a note pinned to the table with a carving knife, maybe even the lost photograph slashed to ribbons and the word bastard written with red lipstick in huge letters on the wall.

  But the kitchen looked exactly the same as it had when he left for work that morning. Except for one thing. His heart missed a beat. He hardly dared move. What was that poking out from under the kitchen cabinet? It couldn’t be true. Surely it couldn’t be the missing photograph. It just wasn’t possible that it had been there the whole time. He leapt across the room and snatched it up off the floor. He stared at it and let out a strangled groan—but of despair, not relief. It wasn’t the missing photograph. It wasn’t a photograph at all. It was just some stupid recipe she’d cut out of a magazine. It didn’t even look like anything he’d want to eat. Some vegetarian crap. He screwed it into a ball and threw it against the wall with all his might just as her car pulled into the driveway.

  ‘Good God, Jesse, you look awful,’ she said as she flounced through the door. ‘Are you ill?’

  He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and scream Where the hell have you been? I thought you’d run out on me.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said instead. ‘You’re home late.’ He tried not to make it sound like an accusation.

  ‘Well, you know, lots to do.’

  Like going to see a divorce lawyer?

  ‘Seen Jo lately?’

  She gave him a questioning look. ‘No. What a strange question. I thought you hated her.’

  He sat down wearily at the table. ‘I do.’

  She stood behind him and massaged his neck and shoulders. He wanted to scream, wanted to scoop his brain out with a spoon to stop it driving him berserk. Is this what you’d do if you’d just found a photograph of your husband with a couple of whores? Maybe she was sizing his neck up to decide if her hands were big enough to strangle him. Perhaps she wanted to find the exact location of the carotid artery. Whatever it was, he dropped his head and enjoyed it while it lasted.

  ‘You’ve been so uptight the last few days,’ she said, working her fingers right into the knotted muscle.

  She dropped her hands and worked her thumbs upwards just inside his shoulder blades, squeezing a grunt out of him when she found a really tight spot.

  ‘It’s just work.’

  The words came out one per breath, in time with the kneading of her thumbs.

  ‘And now I’ve got to go back to Louisville.’

  Was that a momentary pause in the fluid movement of her hands? Of course it might just be she couldn’t bear the thought of another lonely night away from her darling husband. Or that she couldn’t believe the cheating bastard was going back for seconds. Was she momentarily distracted as she looked around the kitchen to see where the carving knife had got to? He couldn’t take much more of this emotional rollercoaster. And he still didn’t know what had happened to the photograph.

  H
e was going back and that was all there was to it.

  She leaned forward and put her lips to his ear. He tensed. Was this all a sick game leading up to a hysterical showdown? Her warm breath caressed his cheek and her hair tickled the back of his neck. She dug her strong thumbs into a particularly knotty muscle, easing another grunt out of him.

  ‘Anywhere else that’s stiff? Maybe needs a bit of massage?’ she whispered and poked her tongue into his ear.

  She pushed off from him and skipped away towards the stairs. He didn’t know what had got into her. Perhaps he should drop a few more of the photos around the house. For a moment he just watched her shapely butt moving, calling sweetly to him from under her thin cotton skirt, and then he jumped up from the chair and headed after her. His mind was so addled, he didn’t know if he’d be up to the job, but he’d give it his best shot. Yes sir. These days he never knew when it might be for the last time.

  Chapter 9

  ‘IT’S WHAT YOU DO, EVAN.’

  ‘Not any more, it isn’t.’

  He was acutely aware that he told Tom Jacobson exactly that, less than twenty-four hours previously. And now there was a better than evens chance he’d be eating his words. An irritated snort came down the phone line, one that Evan recognized only too well when his younger sister, Charlotte, didn’t get her own way. He’d been on the receiving end of it his whole life.

  ‘What? You’ve forgotten how? And I’m not going to hang myself in the garage, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

  Evan closed his eyes, started counting, felt no different by the time he got to ten. Some things didn’t deserve a reply. A few months previously a client had done just that, hung himself from the rafters in his garage, after Evan proved his wife was having an affair with his business partner.

  ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’

  There weren’t many times when he agreed with Charlotte, but this was definitely one of them.

  ‘No. You shouldn’t—’

  ‘What would you have felt like if you thought Sarah was cheating on you?’

  Evan laughed silently to himself. Obviously, she thought that apologising for her first hurtful remark cleared the way to make the next one. He bit back the automatic response that came to mind.

  At least I’d have known where she was.

  He wasn’t about to give her the chance to tell him to stop wallowing in self-pity. After the initial honeymoon period of support, Charlotte had quickly moved on to the pull yourself together phase. But then she’d never really liked Sarah.

  ‘It’s not like I want you to take any disgusting pictures. Or whatever else you do—’

  ‘Used to do.’

  ‘—I just need you to follow him. How difficult can that be?’

  Not difficult at all, just inappropriate.

  ‘Mitch knows what I look like.’

  He knew then that Charlotte had got her way, as usual. He wasn’t arguing in principle now, he was arguing specifics.

  ‘Wear a disguise. Isn’t that what you do.’

  He laughed out loud.

  ‘Like a false nose and mustache, you mean? Besides, he knows my car.’

  ‘So hire a rental.’

  ‘You paying for that, are you?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  Evan thought about putting the phone on the desk, getting up and making himself a coffee, maybe use the bathroom, then come back and listen to the rest of it, as if he’d never been away. He’d done it before.

  He was determined he wasn’t going to slip back into his old ways. And he’d been doing pretty well. He didn’t need Charlotte chipping away at his resolve. Besides, he liked Mitch. They hadn’t spent as much time together since Sarah’s disappearance, but that was understandable. Even so, a glass eye in a duck's ass could see that it was inappropriate for him to be trailing his brother-in-law.

  ‘Are you listening to me?’

  ‘Hanging on every word.’

  ‘Don’t you take that tone of voice with me. Are you going to do this for me or not?’

  He didn’t miss the emphasis on the for me. He now had two straight choices. Either bite the bullet, say yes and get her off the damn phone as soon as possible. Or settle in for a half hour lecture on how supportive she’d been when Sarah disappeared, how he’d never have got through it on his own, and then say yes and get her off the damn phone as soon as possible.

  Then Charlotte started to cry. He just hoped Kate Guillory never found out about it.

  Chapter 10

  GINA WOKE AT FIVE the next morning with a dry mouth and a fuzzy head. She wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep again. Despite getting home from Chi Chi’s totally exhausted she’d hardly slept. There were too many things going around and around in her mind. She’d been over it a thousand times but she still didn’t know what to do. Deep down she knew it came down to doing the right thing on one hand against her pride and feelings on the other.

  Going to the police was now so much more difficult after meeting Angel the previous day. She was sure police departments all over the country were full of ugly, old detectives who spent their off-duty time in strip clubs themselves, but she could hardly call up and ask to speak to one of them.

  And the stakes were getting higher. After last night at the club, she now knew she’d been right. She’d definitely seen one of the girls slip something into a guy’s drink while one of the other girls distracted him.

  The girls tried to be discreet when they were spiking the drinks but they were more concerned with stopping the other customers from seeing, rather than worrying about what the girls on stage might be able to see. She didn’t know if they were suspicious or she was just unlucky, but the girl doing the spiking, a tramp who called herself Blue, had caught her watching. Nothing was said afterwards but it was one more thing for her to worry about.

  End result was, she had the same decision to make but with the stakes raised all round.

  She knew she was going to do the right thing in the end so why not just get on with it? No reason at all—apart from the fact that it was five a.m. in the morning, so she spent the next three hours going over in her head what she was going to say to him, how to gently introduce the information that I take my clothes off for money. It was a complete waste of time—whenever she was nervous it was as if she just opened her mouth and let the wind blow her tongue around. Who could say what was going to come out?

  ‘I wondered if you’d call,’ he said when she finally plucked up the courage.

  He sounded pleased that she had. She pictured his easy smile, the one that was going to make everything so much more difficult. And the sparkle in his eyes—the one she was about to snuff out.

  ‘Why wouldn’t I?’ She hoped it sounded bright and breezy, but knew it didn’t.

  ‘I don’t know—you suddenly went really quiet. It was like you’d got cold feet.’

  She tried to laugh but it didn’t come out right. ‘There’s nothing like sticking them into the fire to cure that.’

  ‘Am I really that hot?’

  She couldn’t believe it. Was he on a fishing trip? She heard the smile in his voice, the gentle teasing. Did he think it made things any easier for her?

  ‘I don’t know—ask your mother’s friend.’

  She regretted saying it as soon as it was out. She hadn’t meant to put him down, but it was water off a duck’s back to him.

  ‘I did. She said you look like a very nice girl, by the way.’

  Tell me that again in an hour’s time.

  She was glad he was on the other end of the line and couldn’t see her smiling to herself. Why was it never as easy as this with any of the guys she dated?

  ‘You want to know what else she said?’

  ‘No thank you.’

  She felt the heat climb up her face even though he couldn’t see her.

  ‘Is there anywhere we can meet where we won’t bump into your extended family and friends?’

  He sucked air in throu
gh his teeth like a mechanic about to tell you that you need a new transmission.

  ‘Difficult, it’s a big family. My mother’s always on at me how I’m letting the side down on that front. How about you come in here?’

  ‘Nice try, but no thanks. It’s bad enough dealing with just one of you.’

  ‘Okay. Have you had breakfast?’

  ‘Yeah,’ she lied.

  There was a brief silence.

  ‘But I don’t mind watching you,’ she added, not wanting to turn him down.

  They agreed to meet at a place he knew that wasn’t far from her campus and which did the best breakfast in town according to him. It also meant she could be on time for her first class for once. And it gave her the perfect excuse to get away if things got out of hand.

  Chapter 11

  EVAN WAS SURPRISED WHEN Kate Guillory got back to him the very next day. He’d been sitting around the office wondering what to do next. His feet were up on the desk, ankles crossed, leaning back with his hands behind his head. He jumped when his phone rang and swung his feet off the desk.

  ‘That was quick. They must be bored down in Louisville.’

  Guillory snorted at the other end of the line. She did it a lot. One day he was going to tell her that it wasn’t her most attractive feature, but he’d have to make sure he picked his moment carefully.

  ‘Well, you know how it is. We’re all just sitting here on our butts doing sweet FA—I seem to remember you accused Ryder of that one time—so when we get an urgent request from one of the taxpayers who pays for our salaries we jump to it.’

  Evan faked a yawn down the phone. ‘Glad to hear it. And ...’

  ‘And nothing. I spoke to a detective called Angel—’

  ‘Of mercy or death?’

  ‘Damn. I forgot to ask. Do you think it’s important?’

  ‘Sloppy work, Guillory. I knew I should have put Ryder on it.’

  ‘Anyway, he said this is one hell of a coincidence.’

  Evan stopped staring vacantly out the window. ‘How so?’

  ‘Well, there isn’t anything official going on in terms of an investigation, but this is the second time in two days he’s been approached about the same club.’