She didn’t shove his hand away. “I haven’t listened to them, but I assume so. And it fits. Rachel said that Cullen believed the Web site he wanted her to design would make him famous. Tanya told us he wanted to be a shock jock, like Howard Stern.”
Her excitement was contagious. He read from the Web site, “Sex is a game. The O’Man plays to win.”
Holly added, “His whole site is about how to seduce women. So these names, like Desperate Housewife—”
Wes jumped in. “It’s like you said. He identified Tanya as attention starved, paid attention to her, and got her in bed. And if Nora is the Invisible Woman, that would imply she felt invisible and all he had to do was single her out in a crowd to make her feel special.” He looked at Holly. “What do you want to bet these podcasts are descriptions of how to seduce these women, and then graphic stuff from the sex?”
She arched her brows. “One way to find out. We’re going to have to listen.”
“I’ll help,” Tanya said.
Wes took his hand from Holly’s neck and straightened up.
Tanya stood a couple feet away, her face a red mask of anger. When she saw them both looking at her, she lifted her chin. “I want to help. I want to, you know, learn from this. I’m tired of falling for men who don’t really care about me.”
Ouch, Wes thought. He looked at Holly.
She said, “Okay, I’ll get you started. I’d like you to keep notes on what is in each podcast. And as you listen to them, I want you to think about the women we know Cullen slept with. We want to match these nicknames he’s using for his podcasts to the real names. Are you up to it?”
Tanya nodded, walking up to look at the screen. “It looks like he’s going from the last woman he slept with—me—and I guess he never finished that one since it says ‘Coming Soon.’ But then that would make Helene the Anti-Princess.”
“Yes, and we know Bridget is Barbie Babe. Not counting Desperate Housewife, she’s fourth down the list. That fits. But,” Holly added, “Rodgers said last night that they have proof Bridget was in Sacramento the night of the murder, visiting a relative. She’s not a suspect.” She looked back to Tanya. “But we still want to match the real names up to the nicknames, so keep an open mind. Listen to the podcasts and see if it fits.”
Tanya stared at the screen. “What a cruel thing to do.”
“Yeah,” Holly agreed. “And it got him killed.” She dug out her iPod. “Can you figure out how to download this?”
“Piece of cake.” Tanya sat down in Holly’s chair.
“Brockman, you and I have work to do. I need to get one of my brothers over here to keep the girls safe. Then I’m going to get my laptop and we’re going to your house.”
He assumed that she wanted to work at his house where they wouldn’t have to censor anything they said for Tanya, Kelly, or Jodi.
Before he could reply, Tanya jumped in. “Holly, I’ll be here. I’ll keep an eye out. We’ll stay inside, keep the doors locked. If Kelly and Jodi don’t mind.” She lifted up her purse. “I have pepper spray and I’m not afraid to use it.”
Chapter 13
Holly set up her laptop on the kitchen table while Wes moved around his kitchen making coffee. Monty was making a nuisance of himself, running back and forth between them with his ball. His golden face, thick, furry ears, and big, brown puppy eyes tugged at something warm and fuzzy inside of her.
Something dangerous.
Holly kicked the stupid ball just to make the dog leave her alone. He bounded after the ball, his oversized, clumsy paws slipping and sliding on the kitchen floor. She yanked her gaze away to watch her computer boot up.
Why had Wes come over to her house this morning? What did he want? She’d made the boundaries clear last night. She was a PI, and he was her client. The sex had been a side benefit. Once he made it complicated, they were done with the sex.
Monty put his paws on the edge of her chair, and nudged her arm with his cold nose. He had the slobbery ball in his mouth.
“No, Monty,” Wes said in a firm voice, saving her from having to deal with the dog’s pleading eyes.
Monty dropped to the floor, crawled under the table, and curled up on her feet.
Stupid dog. She took a breath and focused. Her job was to find the killer. She had it narrowed down to three suspects. “Since Bridget was out of town, our three main suspects are Nora, Helene, or Maggie. If there’s only one killer, why would two of them cover for the one who murdered Cullen? They all alibi one another.”
Wes reached up over the coffeemaker, got down two cups, and looked over his shoulder at her. “Maybe the three of them plotted it together?”
She considered that. “Maybe. I don’t think they were all three in the store when Cullen was killed. The scene is too clean and controlled. Rodgers thinks there was one killer, too. And when I talked to Nora’s next-door neighbor, she heard the women arrive at Nora’s and a movie being played pretty loud. So until we get evidence otherwise, let’s go with the theory that one woman met Cullen at the store and killed him. Then what were the other two doing?”
Waiting for the coffee to finish brewing, Wes leaned his hips against the counter. “Stealing the laptop?”
“Okay. Why? Cullen’s Web site is still up, so it wasn’t to somehow take the site down.” She had to put herself in that woman’s head. “I need to think like the killer. She finds out Cullen has a Web site, sees herself in the nickname…” It came to her then. “Her real identity, which links her to the nickname, is on the laptop.”
Wes shifted to look out the door to his deck, which led to the beach. “They are all three business owners. They may have felt vulnerable about anyone finding out who they are.”
Holly sighed. “This isn’t adding up. All three of them decide to kill Cullen? What are the chances that they all three plotted to kill him? Would Nora agree to that?”
“Maybe to protect her son.”
She stared at the O’Man Web site. “It’s all conjecture until we can find a connection. I can start by finding out if any of them has a gun permit.” Pushing the computer away, she ignored the puppy sound asleep on her feet and snoring. Holly pulled over her tablet of paper. “We have the three suspects, the murder victim, the bookstore, and we think we can tie those together.” She wrote all that down then looked up. “How do you and Michelle fit in?”
Wes turned back to look at her. His green eyes darkened. “Something to do with my past. Someone knows I disappeared to protect Michelle.”
Holly shook her head. “Someone from both your past and your present. This killer has not made any assumptions. She knew exactly what would push your buttons—a murder in your bookstore; starting rumors with the parents of your Little League team; running your two clerks off the road; and that magazine article in your car.” She made a quick note about trying to talk to the valets. But Holly knew that in an upscale place like the Biltmore, the valets, were all going to deny they’d let anyone into Wes’s car, or that they placed the magazine in there for someone. Detective Rodgers would be all over the valets which would scare them off entirely. She looked up at him. “Who knows that you are Nick Mandeville?”
He turned around and poured the coffee. “I haven’t told anyone but George about my past in three years. Until you.” He set a cup in front of Holly.
She watched him sit down on her left. “What about George? I know what you said before, but how well do you really know him?”
Wes ran his hand through his hair. The longish dark strands shifted and fell over his forehead. “George is not involved in this. You’ll just have to trust me on that.”
That annoyed her. “Trust doesn’t get the job done. How do you know George is who he says he is?”
He leaned back in his chair. “Because the DEA agents I worked with on the case against Bart Gaines sent me to George.”
She had been reaching for her coffee, but dropped her hand when she heard his answer. “He’s the one who got you the new identity?”
/>
He shook his head. “That’s not the point. I needed protection for my sister and George knew how to make it happen. He told me what to do and I did it. If he wanted to hurt Michelle, he could have done it anytime.”
She suspected that George wasn’t just a security consultant if DEA agents sent people to him. “Is he government?”
Wes locked his jaw.
They both heard a knock at the front door, followed by the door swinging open. Monty woke up, scrambled to his feet, and raced out from under the table, barking.
Holly grabbed her purse from the floor at her feet. She stood up, turned so that she was in front of Wes, and raised her gun to the entryway.
George walked through, holding a wiggling, ridiculously happy Monty. He spotted Holly with the gun and went still. He lowered his head to look over his blue-tinted glasses. “Problem?”
“Put the gun away, Holly,” Wes said behind her.
She wasn’t so sure. “Who are you?” she demanded from the man calling himself George. He had inky black hair, a slightly dark complexion, dark eyes that were deep wells of experience, and his well-cut clothes didn’t hide the lean hardness of his body. His free hand hung loose and slightly away from his body.
Wes put his hand on her shoulder. “Holly, it’s all right. He’s not in on this thing.”
She ignored Wes and focused on George’s jacket. When Monty wiggled, moving the jacket, she could see the bulge. “You have a gun.”
“Yes.” His gaze stayed on her, his eyes growing amused while he continued to pet the dog. “You’re thinking I’m helping the woman doing this to Wes.”
“Crossed my mind.” She noticed that he didn’t look to Wes to help him. No, he considered Holly the threat.
George nodded carefully. “Just as I’ve considered that you are in on it.”
She forced herself to keep her face tight and blank. Her? Why would he suspect her?
George enlightened her. “You showed up at the bookstore the night of the murder. You go home with Wes, but leave before the time of the murder. You admit to being at the public parking lot to watch Cullen and Tanya return from Cullen’s boat. You show up the next morning at the bookstore before Wes opens it and finds the body.” He arched a single dark brow at her as if to ask if he needed to go on.
Rather than explain herself, Holly turned the tables on George. “Someone researched Wes. They know who he is, and what his vulnerable spots are. This killer has known Wes, or they’re getting their information from someone who does.” She had to take a breath to control her anger. Wes had spent three years trying to fix his screw-ups and his life was being destroyed. He’d give up the one thing he loved more than anything else—his sister—to protect her. He didn’t deserve this.
“Holly.” Wes gently squeezed her shoulder. “George isn’t in on this.”
She didn’t let Wes sway her. Her job was to protect him, and if that meant challenging the one friend he’d had in three years, she’d damn well do it. “Who are you?”
George moved slowly, raising one hand to slide his glasses back up his nose while hanging onto Monty with the other. “Can I get some coffee first?”
Holly relied on her gut, and her gut told her that George was not a threat to Wes. Lowering her gun, she said, “You can’t talk and walk at the same time?”
His lips twitched. “Touché.” He set Monty down on the floor. The puppy scampered over to the chew toy by his food bowl and set to work on that. George headed to the coffeemaker and said, “I’m ex-DEA.”
By this time, she wasn’t surprised. It rang true, as he had the skills from what she could see. She’d seen his expression go “cop” when he’d seen her gun. Even though he had his glasses on, she had seen him assessing the danger and reacting. Plus he knew things, things like how to get Wes a new identity. The question was, “Why did you leave?”
After filling a cup, George walked to the table and sat down across from her. “My identity was cracked and information saturated the Internet. I was, still am, a walking dead man.”
Holly sat down and placed her gun on the table within her easy reach. Life sucked sometimes. “So you went underground? To do private security work?” Got IDs that probably weren’t legal but kept people alive? She didn’t bother asking that one out loud.
He nodded. “I’ll be moving on as soon as we resolve Wes’s situation.”
In his dark eyes, Holly saw the emptiness. The vast, deep, and dog tired emptiness. There was nothing left. George had one more goal in life. To help Wes recover a life.
Then he was done. Finished.
She’d seen it with burned out cops. But it was magnified in George. Turning to look at Wes, she knew that he saw it, too.
“Told you,” Wes said.
She returned his stare. “No, you didn’t. You just said trust me.”
Holly felt the challenge in the silence between them until George snorted and broke the moment. She glared at him. “What?”
“I told Wes hiring you was a mistake.”
She leaned her head back and stared at the ceiling while stretching her neck. “Like I give a shit what you think.”
Laughing outright, George said, “You have a rep of a bull dog. I knew you’d sink your teeth in and pick apart Wes’s life. What I didn’t know was if he could count on your loyalty.”
She lifted her head. “And now?”
He arched both eyebrows over his glasses. “We’ll find out, won’t we?”
Men. They were both pushing her to be something she wasn’t. Wes was looking for the soft woman inside of her, and George was looking for the faithful female lapdog inside of her. They were both going to find out that was all hard-ass PI. “Whatever. Do you have any information that might help the case?”
“Maybe.” He shifted his gaze to Wes. “I’ve been in New York talking to your ex-wife.”
That had caught Holly’s attention. “What did you find?”
George drank some coffee, then said, “I told her that I was investigating the disappearance of Nick, her ex-husband. She told me that she’s had a reporter calling her, wanting to interview her about that. But she declined. She’s remarried to a Trump-like businessman and doesn’t want the publicity. Nor does she want to hurt Michelle.”
Wes said, “How is Tiffany? Does she talk to Michelle?”
“Your ex-wife is fine. She seems happy, though saddened by your disappearance. She told me you were an excellent surfer and swimmer. She doesn’t know what to think about the way you just disappeared but your surfboard washed up on shore. Especially since you cancelled your life insurance policy and deposited a lot of money in Michelle’s bank account before you disappeared.”
Holly surmised that Wes had cancelled the policy to keep Michelle from innocently committing fraud by filing for the insurance, and to keep insurance investigators from actively looking for him.
Wes went on. “What about Michelle?”
“She lives in Hawaii and Australia now. They talk occasionally. Mostly about you. Michelle misses you.”
Holly saw Wes look down at his coffee. She took over. “Who was the reporter that contacted her?”
George turned to her. “She didn’t remember. But the woman asked about Michelle, said she wanted to get in contact with Michelle to get some kind of permission. That bothered Tiffany. Michelle has never talked about Nick, or what happened between them, in public. But privately Michelle told Tiffany that the police caught the two guys who beat her up. They weren’t hired by the mob, but by some woman.”
The connection. Holly sat bolt upright in her chair, feeling the connection. There it was—a woman manipulating Wes three years ago by hiring a couple thugs to beat up Michelle.
But what the hell did it mean?
Wes snapped his head up, his green eyes zeroing in on George. “What the hell? Who did hire them? Did they prosecute them?”
George shook his head. “Michelle refused to come back to California to testify. She did identify their photos but she
just didn’t want to go back to Los Angeles. They dropped the charges. The two men claimed they didn’t know who hired them—a female voice on the phone and a money drop once it was done.”
Wes stood up and paced to the door leading to the deck. “Christ. I should have found those pricks myself. And why would some woman hire them to beat up Michelle?”
Holly could feel his agitation. His regret. His love for his sister. “Because even then, this woman knew who you were and your weak spots. She figured Michelle getting knocked around would get you to back off the case.” But how did she do this without Wes knowing the woman? She had to be somewhere on the fringes of his life. It was so frustrating.
George nodded his head. “It’s done more than you think.”
Wes stalked back to the table and stared down at them. “Who is she?”
“That’s what we have to figure out,” Holly said. She looked at her notes. “It could have been your baseball player’s wife. She might have been so angry that you let her husband die that she decided to get revenge.”
Wes shook his head. “She wanted me to testify, Holly. It was her husband who died.”
Holly met his gaze. “Grief isn’t always rational. What we have to do is find the connection between a woman in your book club and the woman in your life three years ago.”
“Wouldn’t I recognize her? I would recognize Lacey, Conrad’s wife. I’m sure of it.”
She nodded and made some notes. “Okay. Who else stood to benefit by scaring you off from testifying against Bart Gaines? Bart, obviously, so what woman would he get to hire thugs to beat up Michelle?” Looking up from her notepad, she said, “Was he married?”
Wes nodded. “He was married. I don’t remember if I ever saw her. I wasn’t in court except when I testified. Her name was…” He frowned and looked down into his coffee. “Ashley. She was some kind of executive and always working.”
“What did she do? Can you remember?”
Wes shook his head. “No.”
“Would Bart have known much about you and told his wife, Ashley?”
The Sex On Beach Book Club Page 17