Olivia swallowed the lump that had suddenly appeared in her throat. She didn’t know what to say. “And if I don’t want that to be my life for good?”
“I don’t think you get to decide that.” Riley actually screwed up his face as though he was contemplating what she had proposed. “You work for me. End of story.”
“And if I would rather be running my own dance studio?”
Riley’s snort was only matched in sarcastic quality by his boisterous laugh. It was so enthusiastic that his entire rail thin body shook with the force of it and Chili gave him a look of annoyance. “That’s a joke, right? Your own dance studio? Ha! How would you ever do that? You’re not qualified to run a dance studio. You were never much of a dancer anyway!”
“Not qualified,” Olivia whispered. “Seriously? You would say that to me? To me? You would say that I’m not qualified when I’ve been running this show and this theater for years now? What is it that you think I couldn’t do? Hire competent staff? Teach? You think that I can’t dance anymore?” Olivia got to her feet and glared at her uncle. “Well, you’re wrong!”
He scoffed at her, not even saying a word. He just made a sound, a noise that made Olivia feel as though he didn’t even think she was worth the trouble to speak about. As though he was writing her off.
Olivia felt the sting of tears, but she refused to cry. “You’re supposed to be my uncle. My family! The person who supports and loves me no matter what. You are all that I have left! Why would you crap on me like that? Why would you try to stomp on my dreams and tell me that I’m not fit to do anything but make sure you get to do what you want in life! Isn’t that a bit backwards, Uncle Riley? The young making sure the old gets to fulfil his dreams? Didn’t you already have your turn?”
“Don’t be dramatic.” He gave her a droll stare that made Olivia feel as though he had just listened to every word she’d said to him and still felt the desire to laugh at her. “You’re acting like a spoiled brat.”
“Oh, wait just a damn second here.” Olivia got right in his face. Poor Chili Pepper was hiding her face against his arm as though she wished she could be anywhere but the middle of this. “You think I’m the one acting like a spoiled brat? That’s rich. You just told me you didn’t bother to ask or look for or pay for any of the veterinary information for a new animal you just acquired. You don’t really have a place for it. You aren’t concerned about its welfare. You just want it because you want it.”
“It’s for my show!”
“That doesn’t make it better,” Olivia retorted. “You just assume that everyone else will bend over backwards to get you what you want. How is that not the action of a spoiled rotten brat?”
He was glaring at her now. Olivia felt the heat of his anger. How had she missed this rather large flaw in her uncle’s personality? Except that she hadn’t ever seen him like this before. He had never acted with such callous disregard for her or her thoughts and ideas. At least not to her face. But now that this was happening, Olivia’s mind could not help but take it that much farther. She could not think there wasn’t a whole laundry list of things she had missed all these years. Or rather, things she had intentionally ignored.
“You need to get your head screwed on straight,” Riley growled, “before you do something stupid to screw everything up.”
“Everything?” Olivia licked her lips. Her palms were sweaty and she felt as though she could not catch a full breath. “What’s everything? Your show? This donkey you want to add to your act? Or are we talking about something else?”
He turned his back on her so abruptly that Olivia felt the breeze from his sudden, violent motion. “Don’t be ridiculous.” He started to walk away and then stopped. “The smartest thing you ever did was fire those stupid private detectives. We don’t have a problem. People will lose things in a city like Branson. They will suffer a few loses. It’s just part of a crowded place full of tourists. They can deal with it. But making a big deal out of those losses is never a good idea.”
Riley stomped off leaving Olivia feeling as though she had just been put through the wringer. She watched him exit stage right and then the lights shut off and she was left in utter darkness. He had turned off the lights and just left her there as though he didn’t care at all.
Olivia didn’t understand. No, that wasn’t right. She just didn’t want to understand. She didn’t want to think the man who had taken her in when her parents died was anything less than what she had always thought.
Fumbling for her phone in the pile of clothing inside her gym bag, Olivia was finally able to activate the flashlight app so she could at least see her way to the door. She had to scramble her clothing and things by the eerie white light of her flashlight. In a way, it felt right. She was standing in the dark with nothing but a tenuous light to guide her faltering steps. Was that what was going on in real life too?
Riley had told her he wasn’t responsible for the thefts here at the Moonrise Theater. He claimed the incompetent investigators were blaming him because they couldn’t come up with a better suspect. But there wasn’t a lot of sense to be made in that theory. Why would anyone blame Riley? It wouldn’t be a wise move for an outside contractor. They were essentially telling her the star of the show, the entire center around which the Riley Saunders Show functioned, needed to do some jail time for petty theft. That was pretty much telling her that by hiring them, she was shutting down her business. Why would any outsider security contractor say that if it was not true?
But there was another question too. One that Olivia hadn’t really had a chance to sort through because wasn’t the real question why? Why was Riley stealing from random tourists? What was the purpose of that? Why did he feel as though he needed to do that? Was he getting a high from it like some kleptomaniacs described? Or was this bigger? Was he really doing it to supplement his income? Was there something else going on?
Olivia swiped at her eyes as she left the theater with her belongings clutched against her chest. She was walking through the theater in her ballet slippers again. She didn’t like to do that. Going outside on the pavement wasn’t good for the soft leather soles. But right now, Olivia felt like it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Her life wasn’t what she thought. Her uncle wasn’t who she thought he was. And tomorrow, she was going to have to go back to the office of Rock Wolf Investigations and tell them she needed to apologize and admit she was wrong.
Pushing the side door of the Moonrise open and stepping out into the still hot and balmy night, Olivia wondered if that was the best route to take. Surely, she could just try to investigate this for herself. Right?
She had to be there early tomorrow anyway thanks to the arrival of some poor donkey who would probably not have the proper documentation. Why couldn’t Olivia start poking around a bit on her own? Maybe it was high time that she asked a few more questions and demanded a few more answers.
Chapter Twenty
Duke stared at the steam rising from his cup of coffee. It seemed to curl in on itself before disappearing into the sticky, humid air. It was going to be one of those days. A day when you didn’t leave the front door open for very long even though you wanted fresh and not refrigerated and recycled air. It was hot as hell; even at seven o’clock in the morning there was a haze hanging over the lake that seemed to stretch into the atmosphere and make it impossible to see the horizon or even tell where the sun was in the sky.
Perhaps hot coffee wasn’t such a good idea. But Duke needed something. He hadn’t slept very well last night. Not at all really. His mind had been consumed with thoughts of Olivia Houghton and her uncle and their aging theater with its dog and pony show. Duke could not help but think this entire thing was somehow waiting for him to unravel it, like a puzzle with a solution that was just outside his reach.
“No burrito?” Caroline sniffed as she walked into the office. Without a word of inquiry or explanation, she turned and closed the door and then flipped on the air conditioner. “Good God, what were y
ou waiting for? Hell to freeze over?”
“What kind of sense does that make?” Duke asked absently as he continued to stare at his coffee mug. “If I waited for Hell to freeze over, then we wouldn’t need air conditioning anymore. It would probably mean another Ice Age or something of the like.”
“Do you honestly believe I care?” Caroline’s tone was icy enough to negate the need for air conditioning at all. She could just freeze the whole room with the force of her personality.
She was already seated at her desk getting her morning started with the computer, which probably involved more online shopping than answering messages and doing actual work. She seemed tense. Duke was trying to imagine what had crawled up her butt when he remembered Titus saying that Ellie and Younger were due back into the office today. To say that Caroline and Ellie didn’t get along was a massive understatement.
Sometimes, Duke wondered what it was about women in an office. It was almost like they felt this undeniable need to get into a pissing contest that never ended with anyone winning and usually involved a whole lot of dramatic cat fighting ugliness.
The office door opened and Younger sailed in with an enormous grin on his face. “Duke! First into the office as always I see.”
“I don’t think I’ve changed that much in the last five days, Younger,” Duke commented wryly. “In fact, I feel pretty much exactly the same right now as last week when you left to go on your little staycation. How was it?”
“Man, it was incredible,” Younger gushed. “I spent the entire five days out on the boat. I didn’t even come in at night.”
“Is your bass boat big enough for a porta john?” Duke teased. “Because I think the water patrol and the conservation guys frown on people doing their personal business in the lake.”
Younger gave a boisterous laugh. Younger Adair was in his late thirties. He’d been a Marine until he’d been given a medical discharge for a bad knee injury sustained during time served in the Middle East. Still, the freckle-faced, brunette Ozark native seemed to have hung onto his good nature. Not that he’d ever left the Marines too far behind. Even in this ridiculous heat he was wearing a pair of summer weave military grade cargo pants, combat boots, and a white T-shirt tucked with painful neatness into his waistband. He even had on a webbed belt he’d probably been wearing since basic training.
Younger gestured to Duke. “Are you observing casual day, brother? What’s this cargo shorts and sandals nonsense? And a tank top?”
Duke picked up the right shoulder strap of his tank top and wagged it at Younger. “See the company logo, man? I’m totally wearing our company uniform right now. Just because you’re afraid to show anyone those chicken legs you’ve got going on there doesn’t mean the rest of us are worried about whether or not our outfits make our butts look big.”
Younger guffawed and gave a huge grin. It was good to have him back. Even Caroline seemed to like Younger. At least Duke always assumed that’s what her twittering and ridiculous eyelash batting was all about. She acted like a teenaged groupie at a music concert whenever Younger was around. It was both hilarious and sad since Younger was totally oblivious.
“Good morning, boys, Caroline,” Ellie Pierce sailed in through the door and went straight to her desk. She proceeded to carefully unpack her attaché case with as much precision as a surgeon might perform a procedure in the operating room.
Younger looked at Duke and winked. Ellie Pierce was former FBI. She was very tight lipped about why she had left the agency. She had been a field agent, they knew that much, and she had mentioned once upon a time that she had gone to Quantico. Beyond that, the forty-something woman with the no nonsense attitude, total OCD tendencies, and pristine khaki pants, white tennis shoes, and polo shirt with the Rock Wolf logo on the pocket was so controlled, you might have thought her a robot. Ellie even wore her black hair pulled back into a tight bun. Her skin was a deep olive color, as though she might be of a mixed heritage of some kind, but nobody knew what that might be and Ellie wasn’t telling.
Ellie looked around the office and frowned. “Where’s Ash?”
Ash Forbes was the last member of their little team. Duke flashed Ellie a smile. “It’s Ash’s turn to be on vacation.”
“Oh, right.” Ellie slanted a sideways look at Caroline’s desk. “When is it Caroline’s turn to be on vacation?”
“Caroline,” Caroline said irritably, “is going to go on a real vacation at the end of August. I’m going on a cruise. If anyone cares.” Caroline sniffed and went back to her desktop computer where she was probably in the process of purchasing her cruise wardrobe.
“Good morning, everyone,” Titus said as he entered the office. The door clicked shut behind him and he pressed his back against it as though he was relieved to be indoors. “It’s a hot one out there today.”
Ellie did not look as though she had sweat glands. The woman never looked sweaty. She always looked perfect. Duke wondered if she ironed her underwear. He could not help but think about Olivia. Olivia wasn’t the type to be that fastidious. She might be a dancer with her own share of issues, but super over control wasn’t one of them.
“Hello?” Younger was waving both hands at Duke as though he were trying to flag him down. “Where are you?”
“He’s probably thinking about that scrawny girl who runs the show at the Moonrise Theater,” Caroline said snidely. “He’s been doing that a lot lately.”
“Better to spend my time thinking about a client and a case than on shopping for next season’s wardrobe on Amazon,” Duke retorted without thinking.
There was a moment of silence in the room. Duke realized he had kind of stepped in it here. Not that they all didn’t know what Caroline was up to most of the day, but she got her work done for the most part and did her job and they all sort of let her online shopping slide. For some reason though, Duke couldn’t help but feel like Caroline had asked for it.
“Hey,” Duke finally said to break the awkward silence in the room, “if she is going to be snarky then I feel like I should be able to give it right back.”
“He’s got a point,” Titus told Caroline. “And if you honestly believe that we don’t all know what you do at that computer all day long, then you’ve forgotten that we are a security firm that specializes in bodyguard and private investigative services.”
Younger’s guffaw filled the room and Duke had a feeling his presence was the only thing keeping Caroline from blowing her stack. Her pale cheeks were bright red with embarrassment and she looked as though she was having to really choke back all of the nasty words she wanted to let fly. But she’d never show her true colors in front of Younger. Not when she had so obviously developed a crush on the handsome ex-Marine.
The bell over the front door rang once more as the door was pushed open. This time it was a hesitant kind of push instead of the confident entrance of a regular visitor or employee. The woman entering their office was in her forties with neatly cut brown hair, a round face, and clothes that made her appear to be on vacation. Her expression didn’t suggest she was enjoying herself however. Even though Duke could not place her, she looked vaguely familiar in a nagging way that made him rack his brain trying to remember where he knew her from.
“Excuse me, but this is the office of Rock Wolf Investigations, right?” The woman stepped in and then closed the door behind her. “Sorry, I just—well it’s hot outside.”
“Come on in,” Titus urged.
He glanced around the room and probably realized the five-foot-six-inch tall visitor probably felt like she’d just stepped into the pages of Gulliver’s Travels and the giants. With the exception of Caroline, and she was sitting down, they were all nearly six feet tall or more, even Ellie.
Titus gestured to the crew. “You’ve just come into our morning meeting. So, that’s why it probably seems like we’re all just staring at you.”
“Oh!” The woman looked apologetic. “Should I go then? I could maybe come back later.”
“No, ma’am,” Titus said quickly. “You are just fine. What can we help you with?”
The woman fidgeted and looked uncomfortable. “My name is Beth Alred. I’m a tourist here in town… obviously. Sorry. I just had my wallet stolen yesterday and I’m a little upset about it, especially since the report I filed down at the police station doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.”
Titus’s gaze swung toward Duke but Duke was already shooting to his feet. “You’re the one with the purse!”
That made no sense to anyone else. Duke could tell. He hurried to explain. “I saw you yesterday at the Moonrise Theater. After the show. Riley Saunders pretended to get hung up in your purse.”
“Right!” Beth Alred looked so suddenly relieved that Duke almost had no doubt what was coming next. “I kept telling my husband that that was when my wallet went missing. He wouldn’t believe me. And the cops wouldn’t either. They said it’s pretty common in areas like this for people to misplace their wallet and that it usually turns up.” Beth glanced around the room as though she wanted them all to share in her rampant disbelief. “He said that people turn them in because this is such a low crime area that nobody would think of stealing the contents of a lost wallet. They turn them in to the nearest store or security station! Can you believe that rubbish? I’m from Dallas, and yeah, I get it. We’ve got the usual big city crime problems, but I can’t honestly believe anyone telling me not to be concerned about my wallet because I’m just expecting everyone to be a Good Samaritan!”
Duke pressed his lips into a tight line and shared a look with Titus. Younger and Ellie looked mystified by what they were hearing. But Duke knew Titus was thinking exactly what he was—there was obviously a problem with the local police department wanting to admit to a string of thefts thanks to the fear of it affecting the area’s reputation and harming tourism. What a great plan to keep the town of Branson crime-free. Denial.
Rock Wolf Investigations: Boxset Page 15