Caballo Security Box Set

by Camilla Blake

  “After what happened to you, one would assume you wouldn’t want to surround yourself with people who could be reminders of an unpleasant time.”

  “Angela, Jenny, and Tony didn’t have much to do with all that. They were peripheral characters, just like I always was until Heather set her sights on me. I could have gone my entire time in high school without her knowing my name if not for one little crush that got out.”

  “Do you know where this Heather is now?”

  “Last I heard, she got married to a lawyer in Chicago.” She pulled back and looked up at me. “You’re not thinking that pig’s head had something to do with my high school problems, are you?”

  “I have to check out every possible lead.”

  “It’s more likely to do with Michael Fabre’s offer than anything else. There’s a lot of jealousy in this industry. Someone might have gotten advance warning about the offer and come after me, hoping to scare me away from Paris.”

  “Did you know about the offer before you came here?”

  “No. But that doesn’t mean someone else hadn’t put two and two together. We’re a small community, Brock.” She kissed the center of my chest. “Can we talk about something else now?”

  How could I resist that sparkle in her eyes? I held her face lightly in my palm before I drew her into me.

  This sure beat showering alone!

  Chapter 14

  Luna

  I found myself watching Angela as we drove across town to my first meeting of the day. We were running late—my morning shower had taken much longer than usual, but the memory would forever warm my thoughts—so Angela was busy pushing back the rest of the day’s meetings. I already had contracts with five different designers to use my jewels in their fashion shows this year. Five. That was two more than I’d walked away with last year and I still had meetings with three more designers.

  All in all, I’d say this year’s fashion week had been a success for me.

  Brock had gotten me thinking, though. Was it possible someone from the past had it in for me, even after all this time? I couldn’t imagine who or why, but I supposed it was possible. What had happened four years ago was petty and stupid, a childish act. Anyone of any age was capable of such childishness.

  Somehow, it felt bigger than all that, though.

  Who else knew about what had happened? Who else might want to use it all against me?

  I could think of very few people. My father knew, obviously, but he was my father. He wouldn’t tell anyone.

  My classmates, including those who were ahead of and behind me at school.

  The principal and a few of the teachers had been paying enough attention to have noticed some of the harassment. My art teacher had tried to force the principal into action against Heather but had failed. After all, it was a small town and Heather’s father owned half of it, including the donation that was set to rebuild the school library.

  I couldn’t think of anyone else who knew, but it probably wasn’t hard to figure it out. It hadn’t exactly been a secret.

  I felt a little paranoid. Brock’s idea that this went back to school was ridiculous. It had to be about the fashion industry. It had to be about Michael’s offer—right? The pig’s head had shown up before I even left town and there hadn’t been anything since. The blood someone was tossing around last night at the party was about the protestors, not about me. There was no connection—right?

  It had to be over. This whole mess was just someone trying to scare me into staying home, and it hadn’t worked. I was here. I was a fucking hit! There was nothing more anyone could do to hurt me.

  We arrived at the café where the meeting was set to take place. Brock helped me out of the car and Angela followed, a good little minion with her iPad in hand. Time to get down to what we’d come here for.

  ***

  I found myself thinking about my childhood as I listened to the designer make her pitch. I thought about the night my mother died, that night my father was in his uniform, his gun still in the holster at his side. I’d been fascinated with that gun from an early age, loving it when he took me out into the country to shoot at trees. I was five the first time we did that, if my memory served me correctly. I don’t know where my mother was at the time, probably in a bar somewhere. She was a drinker, my mother, one of those drinkers who loses herself so deeply in a bottle that she’s never truly sober. She left me in a grocery-store cart once, but remembered to take the bottle of wine she’d purchased. She was a loser, someone who lost herself so early in life that she never could find her way back to who she was meant to be.

  She drove her car into a tree. I remember thinking how much like the bullets my father allowed me to fire into trees she’d been. It seemed really appropriate to my nine-year-old brain. I remember the funeral, remember all these women coming around afterward, trying to console my father, promising to always be there for the two of us. And I remember him ignoring their promises, shooing them away the moment it was polite to do so. And I remember him spending a great deal of time sitting in his bedroom in the dark, staring at a picture of him and my mother on their wedding day.

  It’s an odd thing for a child, but I used to wonder how he could miss her. She’d been so cruel to him, always angry, always screaming at the two of us when she wasn’t so drunk that she forgot we even existed. And then there were the times she came home stinking of some man, the times when her clothes were ripped and I could hear my father accusing her of stepping out on him. Even then, even as a small child, I understood what was happening, what she was doing.

  I was never going to be her. I was never going to be that kind of person.

  And then Heather began torturing me, calling me a whore, and accusing me of being that kind of person. I was innocent, but the whole school believed her over me. Perception was a funny thing.

  I’d taken the way people viewed me and I’d twisted it, turned myself into something respectable. I was better than my mother, better than Heather. I’d pulled myself out of a dark place and brought myself into the light and now I was celebrating in that light, enjoying success that no one ever imagined I’d achieve. I wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of that.

  “Do we have a deal?” the designer across from me asked.

  I lowered my head and smiled. “Of course. I’ll have my lawyer send you a contract tonight and we can nail down the manufacture dates after that.”

  The designer practically clapped. “Fantastic. Thank you!”

  People wanted my jewels. People wanted me. I wasn’t just the daughter of the town drunk and the broken cop anymore.

  I was Luna Walsh.

  God help the next person who messed with me.

  “An alarm has been tripped back at the hotel. We need to go.”

  I shook my head, ignoring the surprise in Brock’s eyes. “You deal with it. I have meetings.”

  “Luna, this could be important.”

  “Then deal with it. I have to make these meetings. They’re important, too.”

  I walked off, leaving him staring after me. What did he think? That I’d give up my career the moment we started sleeping together? That wasn’t happening.

  Chapter 15

  Brock

  A security guard from the hotel’s staff was waiting for me outside the door to Luna’s suite. I shook his hand and listened as he explained in rapid French what had happened:

  “We got an alarm downstairs that the room had been accessed with a former maid’s master key. By the time I got up here, the safe was open and the room was empty. We called you immediately.”

  “Wait here.”

  I entered the room and carefully walked around, looking behind curtains and closed closet doors, making sure the room was empty. You could never be too careful. When I was satisfied, I walked over to where the safe was hidden behind a painting on the wall in the entryway. The painting was pushed aside and the safe door stood open. The case that held Luna’s demonstration jewels was on the l
ittle table under the safe, open and empty. Inside the safe was a goat’s head with fresh blood still dripping from the cut in its neck. And draped over the goat’s head, in his twisted horns and dangling from his snout, were the jewels that had been inside the case.

  “You didn’t touch anything when you came in?” I called to the security guard.

  “Non, Monsieur.”

  “What about security cameras? You have them in the hallway, don’t you?”

  “Oui, Monsieur. I can have them pulled up and we’ll let you know when they can be viewed.”

  “Will the police be notified?”

  The security guard looked uncomfortable for a moment. “We prefer not to involve the local police if this can be handled internally.”

  That didn’t surprise me. A lot of hotels were that way, needing to protect their guests as best as they could from the press as well as from crimes like this. Involving the police would just be an added complication to that process.

  “Merci, Monsieur.” I gestured for him to go. “I’ll handle it from here.”

  “The manager would like to speak to you. He’d like to assure you and Ms. Walsh that this will be handled swiftly and with appropriate consequences for those involved.”

  “I’m sure it will. Now, if you’ll leave me to deal with this…”

  When he was gone and I’d secured the door, I quickly took photographs of the head, making sure to get it from every angle I could. I removed the jewels, one at a time, and placed them carefully inside plastic bags I’d retrieved from my luggage—you never know when you might need evidence bags—labeling each one and placing it temporarily in the case. Once the jewels were all bagged, I found a shopping bag that I was able to stow the goat’s head inside of. Then I took a box I’d gotten from the concierge on my way upstairs and packed everything inside as carefully as I could.

  The overnight mail service was going to get a lot of expense money from this case!

  Then I called Skylar.

  This was number three. I needed to know exactly who might know that this would get under Luna’s skin and why they would feel the need to upset her in this way.

  “I don’t know,” Skylar said when I asked her the question. “Luna was a quiet kid. I mean… look, I was three years ahead of her in school. My little sister was a senior at the same time as Luna and she told me most of what I know about all this. I talked to her last night and she said that she thought it was all Heather, an attempt to punish Luna for getting too close to her boyfriend. But… I don’t know. To be honest, I barely knew Luna by more than name.”

  “Why did you know her name? Is it that small a school?”

  “Well, sort of. But I knew her more because of her mom. She was… what’s a polite way of saying this?”

  “Just say it.”

  “She got around. She drank a lot and she was pretty—super pretty; she could have given any model a run for her money. When a woman like that offers herself to a man, he’s sure to jump—you know what I mean?”

  “How did her father handle that?”

  “He wasn’t too happy about it. He was a cop before he got booted from the force. I heard a rumor the reason he left the force was because he confronted one of his wife’s lovers and things got out of hand; the guy threatened to sue the department, so her dad resigned to keep from getting fired. Then he went to work at the prison.”

  “You knew her because of her reputation.”

  “Yeah. I don’t think she knows me. I walked her into Ox’s office the other day and she didn’t seem to remember me.”

  I was quiet a long moment while I mulled all this information over. “Can you ask Cheryl to check out this Heather Masters person? And check deeper on Jenny Samuels and Anthony Greene. I want to rule them out before I go looking at other possibilities.”

  “No problem.”

  “Have Cheryl call me directly when she has the information.”

  When I hung up, I sent the pictures I’d taken to the investigative department back at Caballo, then arranged for the mailing company to come get the box. Once that was done, I headed downstairs and asked the desk clerk for Jenny’s room number.

  “Ms. Samuels checked out two days ago, sir.”

  “Excuse me? What do you mean she checked out?”

  “She said she had a family emergency and she checked out.”

  Neither Luna nor Angela had mentioned that. I frowned, brushing the hair back from my face. “What about Anthony Greene?”

  The clerk focused on his computer screen, trying very hard not to look me in the face. Once again, I’d gone without my mask. It was almost freeing, leaving the room without the plastic stuck to the side of my face. But it also felt strange not having that little bit of protection from the stares of strangers like this man. I brushed my hair in front of my face, hiding the scars as best as I could.

  “That room number, please!”

  “Ten-twenty,” the clerk said. “He’s in ten-twenty.”

  “Thank you.” I started to turn, but then spun back around. “Can you tell me what room Angela Powers is in?”

  The clerk tilted his head slightly, looking at me as though he thought I’d lost my mind. “Ten-twenty.”

  “No, that’s Mr. Greene’s room.”

  “They share a room, sir.”

  No one had mentioned to me that Angela and Tony were together. I nodded, slapping my hand on the top of the counter, leaving behind a couple of folded euro notes. I jumped into the elevator in front of a couple of tourists, just as it was about to close, causing them to give me a rude look as the doors slid to a close.

  On the tenth floor, I made my way down the winding hallway until I found the room in question. The man who opened the door did not look like the man I remembered from the plane.

  “Mr. Greene?”

  He frowned, drawing the towel he wore around his waist tighter against him. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Brock Mills with Caballo Security. Who are you?”

  The man started to close the door, but I shoved my foot between the door and the jamb. He backed away, holding up his hands as he shook his head.

  “You can’t just come in here! You can’t invade my private space!”

  “You’re not paying for this room—Luna Walsh is. I can do anything I damn well please.”

  To prove it, I marched into the room and allowed the door to slam behind me. He backed up all the way to the window on the far side of the room, visibly shaking as he pulled the towel tighter around his waist. The thing slipped between his shaking fingers, however, and revealed a swimsuit underneath.

  “Who are you and why are you in this room?”

  “It’s my room!”

  “This room was assigned to Tony Greene and Angela Powers.”

  “I don’t know who Tony Greene is, but Angela’s my wife!”

  I frowned, wondering what kind of game was being played here. “How did you get to Paris?”

  “A commercial flight two days ago.”

  “What airline?”

  He told me, and I made a mental note, planning to have Cheryl check it out back at Caballo. “Do you know Jenny Samuels?”

  The man frowned. “I’ve heard the name. I think she and my wife were friends in college.”

  “Was your wife in this room early this morning?”

  “Where else would she be? She was here until she went upstairs to the dragon lady’s room about 08:30 a.m.”

  I nodded. I knew it wasn’t possible that Angela placed the goat’s head in the safe. It had to have happened while Luna was taking her morning meeting, and Angela was right there beside her the whole time. But this guy…

  “Where were you this morning?”

  “I slept until an hour ago. You can ask the receptionist at the front desk. She gave me a wakeup call.”

  I went back downstairs, my hands tied for the moment as far as that man’s appearance went. I’d have to talk to Angela when she arrived, but that wasn’t to be for hours. Luna ha
d meetings all over town that would keep her busy until nearly dinnertime. The driver was escorting the two of them, with a stand-in from a local security firm who’d agreed to be me for the day. Both had standing orders to call me if anything happened that required my attention.

  The security guard I’d spoken to earlier was waiting for me by a door that opened into a small corridor that ran behind the public spaces of the hotel. I followed him until we came to a narrow office where a bank of computer monitors sat, hung one on top of the other above a desk and the computers that ran them. He touched one monitor in particular and said, “This is the camera in the corridor outside the suite.”

  He pushed a button and, as we watched together, a woman got off the elevator with a scarf wrapped around her head. She was of average height, slender, wearing dark clothing that couldn’t be identified beyond the fact that her top was a shirt and her pants appeared to be a pair of slacks. Or they could have been dark denim. It was almost impossible to tell for sure which it was.

  “Do you have another camera that might show her face?”

  The security guard silently pressed another button. The camera in front of the elevator on that floor showed her exiting, but she seemed to know where the camera was and how to avoid it. Her head was tilted, her features hidden under the scarf from that angle, too.

  “We have this, too,” the guard told me, pulling up another bit of footage, this time from inside the elevator. But, again, she seemed to know where the camera was and how to avoid it. She raised her hand once or twice, touching the top of the scarf, but that was it. Nothing to show us anything definitive about her, nothing that told me who she was.

  The only thing I knew for sure was that it wasn’t Angela or her husband.

  “Could you print still photos of that footage? One of the full length of her, one of her scarf, one of her hand?”

  “Sure.”

  “Thank you. Send them up to the suite when you have them, if you could.”

  I walked out of the office with a confident air, but I wasn’t confident. I had no idea who had left a goat’s head in Luna’s suite and I had no idea if it was a threat against her life, or someone just playing games with her. All I did know was that I was no closer to the truth than I’d been this morning before everything went insane.