Tammy swept past me and then stopped.
“Summer! Smile! It’s a party!” And then she was gone again.
I sighed, pasted on a smile, and started forward again.
And ran straight into the boss.
Rupert Carmichael was tall and lean and had a small smattering of silver in his dark hair. Like a fox. It made him look distinguished. He was also in his forties; a young-looking forties. He was hot. A hot fox. Steel-blue eyes caressed my skin as he took in my elf ears, my elf hat, and then my bountiful bosom.
He disguised the perusal of my cleavage as interest in my flashing button, but I thought perhaps he wished I was flashing something other than a badge that said I’d been naughty.
Or perhaps not.
“Hello,” he said. “What are you offering?”
It wasn’t exactly suggestive, but somehow he made it sound that way.
I held the pitcher up and said, “Care for a Jingle Jangle Juice Holiday Punch?”
“I would love one,” he drawled. “But I don’t have a glass.”
I stepped to the side, where a wait stand was situated, and uplifted a tumbler; scooping up ice out of a bucket, I began to pour.
He stepped closer.
“Have you been doing this sort of thing for long?” he asked.
“On and off,” I said, smiling.
I didn’t want to smile. I wanted to run. My neck felt cold and prickly. My stomach was doing somersaults.
Mikey, I reminded myself. I needed to find Mikey, and this man might know something.
He accepted the drink and then nodded to the rest of the waiting glasses.
“Pour yourself one,” he instructed.
“I’m working,” I told him.
“I insist. My party. My rules.” He smiled at me, all charm and expensive cologne. He was cleanly shaven. Aunt Sadie would have objected.
I reached out and grabbed a glass, scooping up ice and pouring a drink. Everyone knew the customer was always right, and Tammy had warned us that we had to please Carmichael. This job could very well make it for Tammy’s Tasty Treats Catering Company.
I doubted it, but I took a decent swallow and offered an arched brow and small smile to Big Wig.
“What’s your name?” he asked, not drinking his own punch.
I wondered if he was one of those types; the type who pushes excess on others but abstains from it himself. I wondered if he liked to watch people make a fool of themselves; the behaviour of his staff would indicate as much. I wondered if he was a sociopath.
“Summer,” I said.
“That would be why you’re so hot.”
I let a little breath of air out, trying, and no doubt failing, to not roll my eyes too much. He laughed and stepped closer. As if my dismissal of his flirting was a direct challenge to advance.
“Where have you been hiding, Summer?” he asked.
“I’m a local,” I said. “I live here.”
“Ever thought of trying your luck in the Big Smoke?”
I shook my head. “I like it right where I am, thank you.”
“Have another drink,” he said. “Loosen up.”
“I’m working.”
“I think you work too hard, Summer. Life’s a party, and you’re invited.”
I had to give him credit. He had the lines down pat. I smirked and took another mouthful of my drink.
“Much better,” Carmichael said. “Now, tell me. How have my staff been behaving?”
“Perfectly,” I offered.
He chuckled. Despite the situation, it was attractive. But I was sure he knew that. “I’m disappointed,” he said. “I thought we were being honest with each other. I’ll tell you my secrets if you tell me yours.”
He looked at me intently as if his words meant more than they should. I felt unease wash through me. I felt trapped, pinned by his gaze, his touch.
His touch?
I noticed he was running a finger over my ear. My elf ear, but still. He smiled at me and said, “Drink up, Summer. I want you to have a good time.”
I took an unsteady gulp of my fruit punch and felt the world waver.
“See?” he said, his words sounding distant. “Everything’s going to be fun.”
Alarm bells rang in my head. My neck was sending me signals like a signalman trying to win the semaphore event at the Olympics. Everything flickered and then dimmed. And then flickered brighter again.
Son of a two-bit magician! He’d slipped something in the glass, maybe before I’d even picked it up. Before I’d even got here, that’s why he wasn’t drinking his own punch. He was roofie-ing me. I reached out and pressed my hand into the wall, trying to steady myself.
“What’s wrong, Summer? Do you need some fresh air?”
I shook my head, the glass slipping from my grip. He caught it. His free hand wrapped around my upper arm and he turned me away from the party. Of all the times for the kitchen passage to be deserted. But then, maybe he’d orchestrated it. He’d orchestrated everything else.
“Wh..what are you doing?” I asked, my voice alarmingly shaky.
“Getting you some fresh air,” he told me as if it were a perfectly reasonable answer.
I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t decide if this was it and Big Wig was the murderer and why hadn’t Danvers bugged me so he could rush in and throw chilli sauce at this creeper.
And then we were outside in a private courtyard, and Big Wig set me down in a recliner chair. I stared up at the sky. There’re the stars, I thought. And a rug was thrown over my body.
“Sleep it off, sweetheart,” Big Wig said, and then he was gone.
I blinked. The stars twirled and danced. The sea salt air washed over my flushed cheeks, and then I was falling down, down, down.
I woke up to a seagull drilling into my head. The sun was just rising, making the waters of Cable Bay sparkle like a jewel-encrusted blanket. My hands fluttered over the blanket covering me. A fine layer of dew was on it. I turned my head; my breath sucked in on the spike of pain that stabbed me through the back of my neck. I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath and then tried to focus on my surroundings.
I was still at the Shimmering Sands. On the balcony of one of the vacant apartments. It didn’t make sense. For a second I couldn’t remember how I got here. Why I was at the Shimmering Sands at all. If it hadn’t have been for my neck sending me a series of sensations, I thought perhaps I wouldn’t have been able to piece it together.
The soft brush of sheets. The coarse rub of fishing rope. The chill of ice down my neck.
I closed my eyes and lay back on the recliner.
Big Wig knew I was working for the cops and he got me out of the party so I couldn’t spy on them. Not that any of his staff had given away any of his secrets. I rubbed a hand over my face. I realised there were tears on my cheeks. Was I crying?
I made a grunting sound and brushed the tears away. OK, so I’d stuffed up. Big Wig was onto me. But he’d drugged me, and I was sure that was illegal somewhere, and Danvers would use it to arrest the corporate creeper.
I rolled off the recliner, and the world spun.
Reaching into my skirt pocket, I withdrew my cell phone. It was all I had on me, and I was mildly surprised that it was still there. But everything wasn’t making a lick of sense. Adding to the turmoil of emotions inside me was the fact that I was completely unarmed. The cell phone didn’t count. There’d been nowhere to secretly stash a gun last night. I’d felt naked without it. I’d felt vulnerable when Big Wig had cornered me. I felt panicked about it now.
My hands shook as I dialled the police station, my legs went numb and forced me to crash back down on the recliner, landing in an undignified and crooked slump.
Crazy Maisey answered. Her too-bright voice and the clack of her fingernails on the keyboard to Loyal by Dave Dobbyn just about did me in.
“Maise,” I said; my voice came out in a whisper-croak. I tried to clear it, but my throat hurt. I started crying again.
>
I fisted my hands and blinked my eyes. The world swam, but I eventually stopped the waterworks.
“Hang in there, sweetie,” I heard Maisey saying. “We’re tracing your cell now.”
I’d missed something. Maybe a lot of somethings. I felt small and naked, and so I curled up in a little ball under the blanket, pulling it up over my head to hide the sunlight.
My neck didn’t like that. I felt like I was suffocating. The rope came back, wrapping around my throat. I gasped for breath, threw the blanket off and shuddered like a packet of Shake n’ Bake in Lady Sadie’s wobbly hands.
Shake and bake, I thought bizarrely. Wasn’t that what they called a type of meth? One-pot meth. Pot but not like the pot the Rikas cultivated.
My neck went silent as if in approval.
My body stopped shaking.
Maisey was still talking.
I heard the police car sirens as they approached.
This was all connected. Big Wig and the Rikas and the drug deal gone wrong that led to murder. This was all tied up together like on-the-go meth.
“Meth,” I said as car doors slammed and voices shouted out.
“Summer!” I heard Danvers calling.
“Ms O’Dare!” I heard Candy shout.
I tried to answer, but my mouth felt like cotton wool had mated with a Brillo pad, and my mind was racing.
Mikey and murder. Mikey and meth.
The Rikas and Big Wig. The stolen corporate intelligence.
Was it a meth recipe that was stolen? Was Big Wig a drug dealer? Was Darren branching out and got his brother murdered?
I shook my head. The world was slowly righting itself, but I still saw two Alex Danvers as he careened through the ranch slider and out onto the deck.
“Summer,” he said sounding almost desperate. He crouched down in front of me, hands on my knees, squeezing gently.
“Detective Douche,” I whispered back.
He scowled at me. And then his eyes danced all over my face and head.
“What are you wearing?” he asked.
I reached up and touched the elf ears. The hat had fallen off. The button still flashed, albeit weakly. Danvers stared at the words as they flashed to Naughty. He shook his head.
“Are you all right?” he finally said.
I wasn’t. Not by a long shot. I’d been roofied. But thankfully not taken advantage of. Big Wig had just wanted me out of the way last night. Or he had been sending me a message.
I opened my mouth, and no words came out.
“Hey,” Danvers said. “It’s OK. Everything’s going to be OK now.”
I shook my head. Mikey was in trouble or might be dead. The corporate info stolen from Big Wig could have possible drug-related consequences. And Carmichael hadn’t been subtle in the slightest.
Which meant, whatever he’d roofied me with was likely untraceable. It would be my word against his.
“Last night,” I started.
“You had us worried,” Danvers cut in. “When the owner of the catering company said you’d run off without saying a word, we all thought the worst.”
The worst had almost happened.
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“I didn’t run off,” I said.
“People saw you having an argument with one of the dickheads at the party. Saw him pinch your arse more than once and then try to get a kiss. Carmichael fired him. Everyone saw it. And then you took off, and when they couldn’t find you, they called us in.”
I stared at him, horrified that Big Wig had gone to such lengths.
Stunned that Danvers believed him.
But then, why wouldn’t he? Big Wig was the victim here. He’d had info stolen. He’d hung around when he could have fled. Why would anyone think him the bad guy?
I looked at Danvers. Constable Candy hovered nearby. No-Name was in the background along with the cross-eyed property manager. I felt sick.
Danvers held my wild-eyed gaze steadily and then cocked his head.
“Unless,” he whispered so only I could hear, “you know something I don’t.”
He’d emphasised the “know”. Not mockingly. Not judgementally. Just…knowingly.
“Talk to me, Summer.”
“Donut,” I said.
Chapter 17
She Was Mousey But Cute
I ate my donut and slurped my coffee as I watched Danvers pace. The paramedic had left, having taken a sample of my blood for the path lab in Kaitaia to analyse. Constable Candy and his sidekick were tracking down the punch bowl and glasses from last night, but I knew that they wouldn’t succeed. If Big Wig himself hadn’t removed the evidence, he would have had someone else do it. Or Tammy had cleaned up after the catering gig had finished and the corporate creeper hadn’t even had to lift a finger.
He’d been one step ahead of us all the way. Acting the innocent victim, staying in Cable Bay as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Which begged the question, Why was he staying? What was in it for him to stick around?
It couldn’t just be a cover, an act to confuse the cops. It didn’t make sense.
“What I don’t understand,” Danvers said as he continued to pace across his office floor. We were at the police station. In Detective Pieter’s old office which was now Detective Douche’s domain. “Why tell us that something was stolen at all? Why draw our attention to him in the first place?”
I studied the certificates that Danvers had framed on his wall. A couple of newspaper clippings showed him accepting awards. There was a photo of him with the last prime minister. He hadn’t been in uniform. He’d been in a suit with a tie and a very discrete earpiece in his ear. If you didn’t look for it, you wouldn’t see it. But I looked for everything.
Alex Danvers had been part of the Diplomatic Protection Service. Quite a gig. And one I wouldn’t have thought he’d leave willingly. According to his certificates, he’d been a cop before he’d been a member of the DPS; which was fairly standard procedure. What wasn’t standard, was returning to the police force.
“Summer?” Danvers said, calling my attention to him. “Are you all right?”
“Still a bit foggy,” I admitted.
“Understandable.” He stopped his pacing and stared at me with a look I didn’t much like. A sympathetic look, but one laced with an awkward kind of regret.
He wanted to ask me something he didn’t think I’d like.
“Say it,” I said.
He sighed. “Have you told me everything?”
I nodded. I had. I’d even told him the connections I’d surmised - although I’d used the word “uncovered” - regarding the Rikas. And that Mikey was missing. Tia was going to kill me. Darren would probably do worse. And I didn’t even want to think what Nana Rika would do to me.
I shuddered.
“Are you cold?” Danvers asked. “Can I get you another blanket?”
He’d been fussing. Doing his best to dispel the douchetag I’d landed him with. I could almost believe he really did care. My eyes flicked back to the certificates and awards and photos on his wall. Alex Danvers was a man who cared very much about many things, I thought.
“Why is he still here?” I asked.
Danvers accepted my conversation segue and moved on from the blanket. He might care, but he was also all about the case.
“It’s like you said,” he murmured, “there’ll be no trace of a drug in your system. Or if there is, it’ll be one that is easily explained. Perhaps even justified by evidence left somewhere indicating you did this to yourself.”
I felt sick. The donut I’d just eaten was surfing a gnarly wave inside my stomach. Doing 360s in rad barrels and shredding the breaks.
I was spending way too much time with Charlie.
“His staff are in on this,” Danvers went on. “They all made similar statements to the fact you argued with Timothy Nichols, the exec who pushed for a kiss, and then left the party without telling anyone. Even the catering company couldn’t account for your whereab
outs or what you say transpired. He’s…”
“You do believe me, don’t you?” I said, picking up on his carefully chosen words. He was speaking like a cop or a lawyer. I half expected to hear an “alleged”.
He stared at me. For a moment, I thought he was going to shoot me down. Like so many had before him. But he let out a measured breath of air and said, “I do.”
I hadn’t realised how much his belief would mean to me. I felt a weight lift off my shoulders and to cover the relief that coursed through me and had to be showing on my face, I took a hurried gulp of my coffee, burning my tongue. I screwed up my nose and stuck the offending organ out; panting like a dog.
Danvers studied me.
“You are perhaps,” he said slowly, “the strangest woman I have ever met. But I do believe you, Summer.”
I met his blue-eyed gaze. He held mine steadily.
“Why?” I asked.
“You don’t want me to believe you?” he questioned.
I shook my head. “No, that’s not it. It’s just; most people don’t. Or if they do, they think bad things about me. About how I figure things out.”
“Do you figure them out?”
“If you mean, do I look for clues and evidence and piece them together to find answers, then yes.”
“And where do you find your clues?”
“I’m a private investigator,” I told him. “I investigate. Privately. Or not so privately. It depends on the situation.”
He studied me for a long moment and then said, “The Rikas stole something.” And we were back to abrupt subject changes again. “You overheard that in the Taipa Tavern. What did you say Darren Rika said?”
“‘They don’t know we took it,’” I quoted. “But I can’t confirm that what they took is the same thing as what was stolen from Carmichael.”
“No. I agree. But this was said in conjunction with whatever Mikey Rika was exchanging at the Mangonui Wharf.”
I didn’t correct him. I might have spilt the beans, but the beans had been cleaned and prepped for a meal only I had the recipe to. It was one thing to tell Danvers everything about the case. It was another to tell him how I came by certain parts of it. Like the wharf and my neck leading me there when thinking of Mikey making his exchange. One of Darren’s goons had mentioned a boat, but that was hardly enough to link Mikey and the Mangonui Wharf together. Doubtless Bay had hundreds of different locations where an exchange on a boat could have gone down.
Chasing Summer Page 14