Then Mindy frowned. She worked at the House of Mirrors. It was basically a mirror maze that people could walk through. The solution was ridiculously easy once you knew it but most people spent quite a lot of time enjoying a trip through the confusing paths and then discovering their way out the other side. It was a multi-story attraction with three spiral staircases to the second floor all made of metal and lined in mirrors.
“I remember,” Mindy began slowly, “when the mirror maze first opened and the boss called the newspaper to get a reporter out to do a feature on it so we could really get a boost in business, she refused to come out.”
“Did she?” Lowell was now staring blatantly over Mindy’s shoulder at Ash Forbes. “And did this reporter have red hair?”
“Yes. And green eyes,” Mindy added. “I believe she had gotten lost in the mirror maze during the pre-opening era. She had asked to come through on the local preview. The boss did that for area appreciation the year we opened. It was super popular and it got tons of people to invite their friends and relatives from out of town.”
Mindy realized the two men’s eyes were glazing over as she sort of devolved into advertising and public relations mode. She immediately stopped talking and waited for the guys to catch back up with her. At least Detective Lowell looked thoughtful.
“So, you’ve met Hilary Allenwood,” Lowell mused. “She’s the one that we can’t quite figure out. She obviously fits in with the police department. We’re just not sure how. If you kind of catch my drift.”
“Sure,” Mindy murmured.
Mindy hazarded a look over at Ash Forbes. He was mostly sitting behind her. That meant she had to make a surreptitious turn in her chair each time she wanted to see his expression. Did the guy ever smile? He seemed rather dour. But when you looked like Ash Forbes, you probably didn’t actually need to be super nice. People loved you no matter what. Women fell all over you. You probably got the best seat in a restaurant and jobs and money just fell into your lap.
She felt herself nearly laughing out loud at her fanciful thoughts. She had no idea what this man’s life was like. It could be awful. She had no way of knowing and honestly wasn’t sure she cared all that much. It wasn’t any of her business, after all. And it wasn’t like he seemed all that keen to become friends either, which sort of brought Mindy back around to the very first question in her mind. “I’m sorry, Detective Lowell, but what does Mr. Forbes do exactly?”
“Ash Forbes works for Rock Wolf Investigations,” Detective Lowell said in a tone that made it sound like Mindy should know that. “He’s a security specialist, and a former US Marshall. The owner of Rock Wolf Investigations and I have been working together to try to dig up some information here and there about the corruption in our local police department.”
It occurred to Mindy that they shouldn’t be telling her any of this. She was literally some random stranger off the street. Why would they be telling her that there was a joint task force—if that was actually a thing? Her belly churned a little as she thought about the possible implications of what that might mean. Was this one of those things you saw on television where they had to kill her if she didn’t agree to help them or something?
“You look upset, Ms. Hall.” Detective Lowell’s eyebrows slanted down. “What’s wrong?”
“I just don’t understand why you’re talking to me about this. That’s all.” She swallowed. Where had this lump in her throat come from? At some point, she was going to really have to get a grip. “It’s none of my business. You know?”
Lowell’s grin was not making her feel better. “Ms. Hall, let me be frank with you. We have not had luck trying to get any sort of concrete evidence or witnesses for the Internal Affairs’ investigation.”
The churning sensation in Mindy’s stomach jumped to the next level. Knotting. Yes. Her stomach was knotting itself into a painful mass in her gut. “And how does that involve me?”
“Well, I was thinking you could speak to your brother and perhaps the two of you could start working undercover for us. Sort of.”
“Is that legal?” Ash Forbes said from just behind her right shoulder.
“I mean, I would be selling drugs!”
“No. You would be pretending to sell drugs,” Lowell corrected.
Was that really better? Somehow Mindy didn’t think so. “Great. So, I would get in trouble with the local drug kingpin for never selling as much product as they want me to. That sounds like a fantastic idea.”
“No,” Lowell said again. “You would be their top seller because we would be providing you with the money to sell to a customer, but it would actually be a fake customer.”
Mindy couldn’t help herself. “Where on earth does the Branson Police Department get the funds to pretend to buy drugs in an operation like that?”
“The DEA,” Lowell said without hesitation. “And that’s all you need to know about that.”
For some reason, that made Mindy feel better. Like there was a boundary on what they were going to tell her. Except, that sort of suggested that she was considering this notion. And why would she be doing that? Going undercover? Really? That wasn’t Mindy’s style. How was she supposed to do that?
“I’m a really bad actress,” Mindy told Lowell. There was a snort behind her and she managed to quell the urge to turn around and glare at Ash Forbes. “I don’t think this is a good idea. I won’t be able to make it convincing. At all. That’s just not me.”
But Detective Lowell smiled. “Can you be totally silent?”
“What?”
“Can you just stay totally silent and not say anything at all?” Lowell was looking at her as though she was a simpleton. Maybe she sounded like one at this point. “You’d be surprised how much better it would be if you just didn’t say anything at all. That’s the way to let them sort of assume you’re there to do what they want. You’ve made no promises. They can just think you are the perfect employee, or whatever. It’s extremely simple.”
“Simple?” Maybe this was the time to let Detective Lowell know that Mindy wasn’t all that great at being quiet either. She could button up her lip when she had to, but for the most part she kind of talked the ear off of whomever was around.
Behind her, Ash Forbes cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Lowell, but I have to step in here. You can’t be serious. No offense to Ms. Hall, of course, but she doesn’t seem like the quiet type so far.”
Now Mindy did swing around. To glare at him. She felt he was laughing at her. It was so rude, even though he’d helped her before. What was this guy’s problem? It was like he was just not interested in her issue or something, as if he didn’t believe they actually had the same problem. Detective Lowell thought they did. Maybe it was time for Mindy to buy into the detective’s way of thinking. After all, he was the professional here. Not her and certainly not Ash Forbes.
“I’ll do it,” Mindy told Detective Lowell, turning her back on Ash Forbes once again to hopefully further drive home her point. “I’ll do what you need me to do to put a stop to whatever drug dealing is going on at Dino Golf.”
“Thank you, Ms. Hall. That is all I needed to know.”
Chapter Five
Ash had never been so ready to throttle anyone in his entire life. But that wasn’t going to get him anywhere. So, instead of giving Detective Lowell a piece of his mind, Ash headed back to the office on Route 76 to yell at Titus Holbrook. That was safer. Sort of.
“You and I need to talk,” Ash said tightly as he marched through the front door of the office.
Titus was at his desk near the back wall. The plentiful windows filled the office with bright sunlight from the beautiful summer day outside. But that was outside. The interior of the office was frigid and it had nothing to do with the air conditioner going full blast in the background.
Ash stopped near the desk he shared with Younger Adair. Younger was out for the day. He was finishing up a very complicated security job at the Branson Landing. It had only been a few days
since the Landing had been the site of some pretty serious vandalism orchestrated by a disgruntled employee of the security team.
With Younger gone, that left nothing but Ash’s junk on his desk. All of it. And he was someone who had difficulty purging things. He knew it and he struggled with it. No matter what, Ash continually thought things could be useful, even when they should have been tossed out with the garbage.
“We need to talk?” Titus did not look up from the report on his desk. Ash got the feeling this was because he and Caroline were there by themselves. Was Titus avoiding Caroline? How odd.
“Yes,” Ash began slowly. He moved past his cluttered desk and went all the way to the back of the office where he leaned against a corner of Titus’s big metal desk. “I want to talk to you about Detective Lowell.”
“Lowell?” Titus frowned. “Lowell is a good guy. A straight shooter.”
“Uh huh,” Ash agreed. “A straight shooter who just—”
But Titus cut him off. “Are you hungry? Because I’m starving and I have to tell you it sort of feels like you’re about to go off on one of your rants again and I need some food before I can focus on that stuff.”
Ash drew back, surprised. He glanced at the clock on the wall. It was mid-afternoon. At least more than a little past the lunch hour. “Food? Now?”
“Yeah. Let’s go over to that pizza place. You know, the little one on the highway in Kimberling City?” Titus was already half out the door. At the last second, he turned to Caroline. “Do you want us to bring you anything?”
“No.”
Ash frowned at Caroline’s simple reply. It wasn’t like her. Where was the tirade about nasty little pizza dives in tiny towns and how they were so not good enough for someone like her, blah, blah, blah?
“Is she all right?” Ash asked Titus once the front door was securely closed behind them. “I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen her act so… I don’t even know what the word is.”
“Subdued,” Titus provided as he climbed into the passenger side of Ash’s lifted black Chevy truck.
Ash almost paused to ask why they weren’t taking Titus’s truck when he noticed the vehicle wasn’t there. How was that possible? There were no busses here in this area. Or rather, there were lots of busses, if you were on a tour from some far flung place. But there was no public transportation system to speak of and people used cars regularly.
“How did you get here this morning?” Ash wanted to know as he put the key in the ignition and started up the truck. It rumbled to life with a satisfying purr.
“I walked,” Titus said flatly. “I wanted to get here early, before Caroline, and not leave her any indicator that I was here.”
Ash frowned. He left the question for once they were securely out on the busy four lane highway on their way toward the intersection at Branson West that would take them to secondary highway that led to Titus’s favorite pizza place. “And why did you want to surprise her like that?”
“Because she’s been coming in early and stealing files. I don’t know if she’s copying them or what she’s doing.” Titus sounded so calm. It was baffling given what he was saying. “But I do know that she’s most definitely giving information to Hilary Allenwood. I heard them at a restaurant a few days ago. There were some tense words. Caroline wanted to quit working for me. Hilary Allenwood told her no.”
“Hilary Allenwood told her she had to stay employed at Rock Wolf?” Ash actually thought he might drive off the highway. This wasn’t just strange or odd. It was bad. “That’s not good, Titus. You have to let her go. Is that why you made me drive us out here to talk about Detective Lowell? You didn’t want me to say anything in front of Caroline?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not cool, Titus!” Did the man not see what was going to happen? “That means we can’t do any business inside the building!”
“No. It means certain business conversations need to take place away from Caroline. But the other stuff? Let her. That way, I will know exactly what Hilary Allenwood knows and doesn’t know. We can even start feeding Caroline misinformation.”
“That’s a dangerous game, Titus,” Ash cautioned. He could not believe he had to actually say that out loud. “You must be out of your mind to think that’s a good idea.”
Titus had a very odd smile on his face. “I didn’t come up with the idea, actually. It was my neighbor, Kylie.”
“Kylie?” Now Ash almost did run off the road. “I’m sorry. Are you talking about a woman? When does Titus Holbrook talk to a woman? Other than Ellie of course, but I’m not sure she counts.”
“I think Ellie would be hurt to hear you say that,” Titus said with a chuckle. “And actually, I talk to plenty of women. They’re all a part of my neighborhood watch program and let me tell you, it’s just so much fun.” Titus sounded like he was talking about a root canal. The sarcasm was very evident. “But Kylie is different. She’s not in her eighties and in possession of a demon dog. She’s got a surprisingly good brain, if you know what I mean. She works over at one of the wineries. I believe she manages a hospitality room.”
“Wow,” Ash murmured as he turned into the parking lot of the pizza place and picked a spot on the edge of the rocky hillside to park. The parking lot bordered a huge cliff that dipped down fifty or sixty feet toward the lake. “You’re saying complimentary things about her, Titus. I might think you’re interested if you keep that up.”
Titus gave a hearty laugh and Ash turned off the truck. “Don’t think anything of it. She just happened to be around when I found out about Caroline’s double agent status.”
“You took her advice,” Ash reminded Titus dryly. “That’s enough to worry me straight away.”
The two of them made their way up the steps and into the restaurant. They were greeted by a bald headed gentleman with a big smile. He gestured them toward any seat they wanted and then hustled off to get menus. The place was pleasantly crowded considering the hour of the afternoon. There were at least two other occupied tables and the smell of baking pizza and spicy red sauce filled the air.
“God, I love this place,” Titus said as he sat down.
Ash wasn’t a huge pizza eater, but this was a good place to get good crust and a really amazing selection of fresh ingredients. It only took a moment to order. It wasn’t like they were first time visitors and at this point Titus was bouncing up and down in his seat like a little kid.
“Okay,” Titus said once their drinks had arrived and they’d ordered their meals. “You want to talk about Lowell. Do you want what I know or do you want what I think?”
That seemed rather cryptic. “Start with what you know,” Ash suggested.
“I know Detective Lowell hasn’t been with the department for very long. He seems to have come from Springfield, but he doesn’t actually know anyone there. I don’t know if he just wasn’t in that office for very long or what.” Titus looked thoughtful. “He’s been determined from the first time I managed to get him on the phone to get that department cleaned up.”
Ash had a sudden thought, “Did you call him first or did he call you?”
“He called me.”
“Like he knew you were suspicious of the Allenwood-Sellers-Caprico connection?” Ash’s mind was beginning to draw a picture and he wasn’t sure he liked where it was going.
“Yes. I think he had been tracking down cases that were never pursued and had seen notes that suggested we had taken over.” A slow and rather enigmatic smile spread over Titus’s face. “There’s also a possibility he heard of us courtesy of Sellers and Caprico.”
“You mean because he would have heard them complaining about us interfering in things and stirring up trouble, right?” Ash could actually see this happening. So, Lowell had been checking on them before Titus contacted him and started a working relationship.
“And why this sudden mistrust of Lowell?” Titus tilted his head and stared at Ash for a long moment or two. “You have been working with him on the sly for a few
weeks now.”
“Yes.” Ash had been technically “on vacation” from the office, but the truth was Titus had enlisted Ash’s help to start digging into the dirty cops in Branson. It had been a rather enlightening experience, but this latest bit with Mindy Hall was pushing the line. “But today, there was this woman.”
Titus actually rolled his eyes. Their pizza was coming and Titus moved his drink to make room for the large pans. “Ash, anytime someone starts a sentence with there was this woman, I feel like it’s just all going downhill from there.”
The owner of the pizza place—Frank—just laughed as he hustled away to seat the next customers who had wandered in the door. Ash found that even though he hadn’t really been hungry, his stomach was growling now that he had gotten a whiff of the incredible yeasty scent of pizza dough and buffalo sauce. His favorite buffalo chicken and blue cheese calzone was tempting and tasty every single time.
“What about this woman?” Titus asked before shoving a piece of his meat extravaganza pizza into his mouth.
Ash swallowed his first bite. “Apparently, she had just walked into the police station to report a drug crime. Her brother came home high on what sounded like prescription painkillers last night from his job at Dino Golf. The girl says her brother was told the two of them could make extra money by selling drugs. When she went up to Dino Golf to check it out, she swears Caprico told her to scram.”
“Caprico,” Titus mused thoughtfully. “And what’s your problem with this information?”
“My problem,” Ash began, “is that Lowell enlisted the help of this poor woman to be what amounted to an undercover spy to sell drugs and get insider information on these guys.”
Titus blinked and started on his second piece of pizza even though he had chowed down so quickly on the first piece that Ash had hardly realized it was gone. Finally, Titus seemed to think of a response. “And you what? You don’t think this woman can help out?”
Rock Wolf Investigations: Boxset Page 75