The Leah Ryan Thrillers Box Set: Three Chiller Thrillers (Repo Chick Blues #1, Finding Chloe #2, Dirty Business #3) (Leah Ryan Thrillers Box Set, Books 1-3)

by Tracy Sharp

I already had burgers, sausages and hot dogs on the grill when Mitch pulled into my driveway. Jack sat on my porch swing with his legs stretched out, kind of pushing himself back and forth the way he does, wearing an annoying grin that I wanted to slap off his face.

  I looked at him and sighed, one hand on a hip. “You know, Jack, you can be really juvenile.”

  “Uh huh.”

  Mitch looked good as he came up the walkway. He looked good to me no matter where he was. He carried a six-pack of beer in one hand and a large brown envelope in another. I busied myself at the grill, finding it hard to look at him after what had happened in-between. The memory of his lips on my skin made me feel suddenly hot, and I felt the heat flush my skin and race up my neck and into my face. I hoped he wouldn’t notice.

  “Triple X.” Jack sounded impressed. “That’s good beer.”

  Mitch nodded. “I’m from Canada. We don’t mess around when it comes to beer.” He handed one to Jack.

  “I guess not.”

  I turned to Mitch, risking a look at his face. “Jack’s girlfriend Sharon is in Toronto studying Computer Science right now.”

  Mitch raised his eyebrows and nodded. “I like Toronto. But just to visit. Wouldn’t want to live there. Too fast. They call it ‘little New York’.”

  Jack chuckled. “Sharon loves it.”

  “Good. It’s a great place. Has everything.”

  Jack began his own grilling of Mitch. “What part of Canada are you from?”

  “Northern Ontario. About five hours north of Toronto.”

  “Whoa, so you’re from way up there. How’d you end up here?”

  “My ex-wife is from here.” Mitch kept his voice neutral.

  “Oh, sorry, man.”

  “It’s okay. Just didn’t work out. We’re on good terms. We have a little girl, so we try to keep things friendly.”

  “You miss Canada?”

  “Sure I do. But my daughter is here. We visit every year.”

  I wanted to tell Jack to back off, but I knew he meant well, and Mitch seemed to be taking it all in stride. Jack seemed to appreciate Mitch’s willingness to discuss personal issues. So I let them go on for as long as the food would allow me without burning.

  “Well, fellas.” I looked at the burgers that seemed to be getting pretty well-done. I have a tendency to over-cook or burn everything. “Looks like lunch. What do you boys want to start with?”

  “One of each,” Jack said behind me.

  “I’ll second that,” Mitch said.

  Good thing I made a lot. I turned off the grill and gave them each a plate full of food. I settled for poking a fork through a wiener for myself, then sat on one of the patio chairs, one leg folded beneath me.

  I couldn’t wait for lunch to be over to find out what Mitch knew. I was dying to know what was in the envelope. “So what’ve you got?”

  “I got a call from a political rival of Michael Nolan’s.” He took a large bite of his sausage on a bun.

  My jaw dropped open. “No way.”

  “Way. Gary Wright.”

  I frowned. “That sounds vaguely familiar.”

  “He’s one of the lesser knowns,” Jack said. “I saw him on a news clip a few months ago. Something about the city not taking care of the garbage collection properly in his ward.”

  “Right.” Mitch said. “ He’s not very high profile, though he’d like to be. Nolan had voiced his intention of running for mayor.”

  “And the plot thickens,” Jack said.

  Mitch nodded. “Nolan had been successful in every political venture he’d taken on. His father being a judge probably hadn’t hurt his chances there. Wright was certain that Nolan was going to win, and he might’ve been right, given Nolan’s track record.”

  “So he blackmailed him.” Jack wiped his mouth with a napkin, then took a pull of his beer.

  “Yeah.” Mitch tipped his beer toward Jack. “That’s exactly what happened. He hired somebody to follow him.” He put his plate on the plastic side table next to his chair and reached for the envelope next to him. “Wait until you see these.” He handed me the envelope.

  I put down my plate and reached into the envelope, pulling out several eight by ten glossies. All the pictures were of Michael Nolan with Tyler Pine. Nolan talking to Tyler in Boy’s Town. The two of them in Nolan’s car. The two of them going through the door of a seedy motel somewhere. A couple of pictures of them leaving the motel, Nolan’s hand cupping Tyler’s cheek. Another of them in Nolan’s car, Michael kissing Tyler.

  “Holy shit,” I breathed.

  “Yeah.” Mitch nodded as he reached for his plate again. “Keep going, though. Those are the early ones.”

  I kept going through the photos and they became more and more interesting. There were photos of Nolan and Tyler having lunch on the patio of a restaurant.

  “That was taken in Boston. They started going on trips together.” Mitch sat back down again and began working on a hot dog.

  There were photos of Nolan and Tyler going into various apartment blocks and town houses.

  “They were apartment hunting,” I said.

  Mitch nodded, swallowing a large bite. “They settled on the building in Brandywine Crescent. It has a tennis court, a gym and a swimming pool for Tyler’s pleasure.”

  Jack grimaced. “Christ.”

  My stomach turned. I’d lost my appetite. “Where is this place?”

  “It’s in a new development with several buildings that all look the same. Mostly college kids.”

  “So he put Tyler up in his own pad. That way he could go see him whenever he wanted.”

  Mitch nodded. “That’s about the size of it, yeah.”

  “What a slime ball.” Jack stood up and moved to the grill, looking down at the food and deciding what he wanted to eat next. “Why didn’t Wright go to the cops with this information? It’s clearly important to their investigation.”

  Mitch shrugged. “I’m not really sure why. I didn’t ask him. I was too glad to have the pictures in my hand.” He thought about it for a moment. “But if I were a betting man, I’d say that he was ashamed of what he did. Hiring someone to dig dirt up on a political rival is common place, but because Nolan killed himself, he must figure the pictures pushed him over the edge.”

  “Did Nolan back out of the race before he killed himself?” I asked Mitch.

  “No. Not formally. I guess him killing himself was his way of backing out.” It was Mitch’s turn to stand over the grill.

  I marveled at the iron stomachs of these two men. I looked down at the stack of pictures in my lap. “But did he kill himself because Tyler had been murdered, or because his career was over?”

  “Hard to say.” Mitch speared a hot dog and dropped it onto his plate. “Maybe a combination of the two.”

  “His career was definitely over,” Jack said, biting into a hamburger.

  I slid the envelope back to Mitch, happy to have the photos out of my hands, which suddenly felt dirty. “Politicians can get away with a lot. But you know the old adage, the only thing that can kill a politician’s career is to be found with a dead girl or a live boy.”

  “Yeah.” Jack’s face was somber. “And in Nolan’s case, it was a dead boy.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Jack and Jesse had decided they were basically moving in until “everything sorted itself out”, as Jesse put it. Given the experiences I’d had in the last week, I could see their point.

  Despite the danger and the deep throb in my shoulder, I slept like a rock that night. I guess the need for sleep eventually takes priority over fearing for your life, but then I didn’t think about it much. I stayed focused on finding Chloe’s body and hopefully finding her killer, and unraveling the mystery of who killed Tyler Pine. I couldn’t help but think his death was somehow related to Chloe’s disappearance. It just seemed too coincidental that she and Michael Nolan were siblings, and that her disappearance and possible death was so close in timing to Tyler’s death. There
had to be a link there somewhere.

  I needed to get Martin to talk to me. He was hiding something. The fact that he’d fired me didn’t faze me. But Jack and Jesse both voiced their protests about me going to Martin’s alone. I was tired of having Jack hovering over me, but I agreed to compromise.

  I took Buddy’s chain collar from the hook where it hung in the hall, and the second he saw it he smiled. I opened it wide to give him enough space to put his head through and he lowered his head eagerly, pushing it through the collar until it hung on his large neck. I grabbed his leash in case we decided to go for a walk. He did a little happy dance on the kitchen floor, which is something to see, considering he weighs a hundred and twenty-five pounds. Dainty and graceful he is not.

  I opened the back of the Jeep and he hopped in easily. Buddy loves the Jeep. He can see through the windows on all sides, and he thinks that’s pretty cool. His tongue lolled out and he grinned at me as I got in and started the engine. I opened the passenger window halfway to let the breeze blow around in the back for him. Every year some idiot leaves their dog in a car with the window opened just a crack, thinking that’s enough air. But cars are thirty times hotter for an animal than they are for people. A crack simply isn’t enough. Even with the windows completely down, it’s really too hot for a dog to be in a car for long. Every year some idiot’s dog dies a horrible, agonizing death. I couldn’t help but wish for the opportunity to dish out the same fate to the pet owner.

  The clock on the dash read eight-thirty. We’d get to Martin’s house at about nine o’clock. The Nolan’s would definitely have been up for at least three hours by then, probably more. No civilized person would sleep past six o’clock, after all. Martin probably was up at the crack of dawn, coffee in hand, newspaper in front of him. Muriel would’ve made him a respectable breakfast. A single soft-boiled egg and toast with marmalade.

  I almost hated to interrupt his tranquility.

  Almost, but not quite.

  Buddy and I enjoyed the ride to Saratoga. He never minds me singing along with the radio at the top of my lungs. He’s a true pal, and is probably the only male who would put up with me for long stretches. He actually seems to enjoy my company, where human males want to tear their hair out in large chunks before long.

  Just as I’d imagined, Martin was sitting outside reading his newspaper and sipping a mug of coffee. He lifted his head upon hearing my approach, and although I was too far away to see his face properly, I sensed his disapproval of my showing up at his home again, especially after he’d fired me.

  He stood up as I parked the Jeep, and his eyes widened when he saw Buddy in the car.

  I left the passenger window open halfway, and opened the driver’s side window as well. There was enough of a chill to the spring early morning air to keep Buddy cool while he waited for me.

  Martin had folded the paper and was standing with both hands on his hips when I approached. “What is that dog doing here? More to the point, what are you doing here?”

  I didn’t bother with acting cheerful, but made sure there was purpose in my step. I wasn’t leaving without some answers. “Don’t worry. He’s staying in the car. And I have something I need to discuss with you.”

  “There’s nothing more to discuss. The police are investigating Chloe’s ... disappearance. We no longer require your services. I thought I’d made myself clear.”

  “Oh, you did. Crystal clear.” I stood face to face with him, and looked him in his cool blue eyes. “Now let me make myself clear. You’ve been keeping secrets, Martin. And those secrets may have cost your daughter her life.”

  His face registered surprise, and for a split second it looked as if he’d take a step back, but he recovered quickly and stood his ground.

  “My secrets are none of your business.”

  “Really? Well it appears that someone has made at least one of them his business.”

  He was becoming annoyed, his face turning a deeper shade of red with each passing second. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’d love to give you the benefit of the doubt, Martin, but I have a strong hunch that you knew about your son’s taste for young boys.”

  At first I thought he was going to start screaming. His face was now a dangerous shade of purple, and I feared he’d have a heart attack or a stroke right in front of me. I didn’t want that on my conscience.

  “Look, Martin. Sit down and let me tell you what information has come to my attention.”

  He took a few deep breaths and finally sat back down. “Why did you have to go on poking around my family’s business after I told you to stop?”

  “Because I care about what happened to Chloe. And this information about Michael may somehow lead us to what happened to her. Don’t you want to know, Martin?”

  “I told you, the police are on it.”

  “That’s well and good, but the police may not head into the dirty little nooks and crannies to find her that I will.”

  He stared out into the yard, silent.

  “A political rival of Michael’s came to a friend of mine with photographs of him with a young male prostitute who ended up dead.”

  Martin swung his head toward me, his face shocked. “Oh, no.”

  “This rival was using these photos to force Michael to back out of the race for Mayor. The photos, combined with the boy’s murder, may have driven Michael to kill himself.”

  “I didn’t know about the boy.”

  I was banking on the probability that Michael’s pedophilia had been a problem before. One that Martin had kept quiet for the sake of his career and his family’s image. “You didn’t know about that particular boy, but you knew of others, didn’t you?”

  He stared at me, then looked at the table and nodded slowly. “There had been a problem when Michael was about fifteen years old. A neighborhood boy complained. I sent Michael for treatment out of state. I thought he’d be fine, that he was just ... confused.”

  I said nothing.

  Martin looked back at me, the lack of sleep showing in his dark ringed eyes. “Did he ... did he kill the boy?”

  “I don’t know for certain, but my gut tells me that he didn’t.”

  Martin sighed, his relief obvious, but his face was sunken with grief and regret.

  “Some pedophiles believe that what they are feeling for the children they target is love. They have the emotional intelligence of children themselves, and so to them it feels like it’s okay.”

  Martin leaned forward, elbows on the table, and rested his head in his hands. “I don’t know how it all ended up this way.” He sat up and looked at me. “When you discover that you’re going to have a child, you have so many dreams for them. You don’t think...”

  “I know. Nobody does. Sometimes things just happen and you can never predict them.”

  He swallowed and blinked back tears, nodding silently.

  “Martin, I need to know what else you’re keeping from me. Is there anything else that may be important to Michael’s death or Chloe’s disappearance?”

  “I honestly don’t know. I’ve been keeping secrets so long, I think I’ve lost track of them myself.”

  I decided to try Michael’s wife again. I drove the short distance to her home and this time I parked in her driveway, right beside the red Jag. As I walked past it, I took in the personalized license plate. B1gD1q, it read. I grinned. So the guy’s name was Richard. And I was certain that he was, in fact, a big dick. Monolithic, even. Susan wouldn’t like that I parked right next to her lover’s pretty new car. Maybe if I made her uncomfortable enough she’d talk to me just to get rid of me.

  As I headed toward the stairs leading to her porch I heard the door open. She emerged, hair and make-up perfectly in place, and stood out on the deck, arms crossed. Annoyed would be an understated word to describe the look on her face.

  “I have nothing to say to you.”

  I stood my ground just before the stairs and smiled up at her. “Well, I have a few thin
gs to say to you. I know about Michael’s preference for young boys.”

  She blinked and the color went out of her face.

  “Now are you sure you won’t talk to me? Maybe offer me a cup of coffee? I know you learned good manners in whatever finishing school you attended. Your teachers would be mortified by your lack of courtesy, don’t you think?”

  She scanned the street, her nervous eyes shifting back and forth. “What do you want? Money?”

  “Um, no. I just want to know what you know about your husband and a fourteen-year- old prostitute named Tyler Pine.”

  “My husband used the services of several prostitutes over the years, I’m sure. I didn’t make it a habit of learning the names of them.”

  “Don’t ask, don’t tell?”

  “Something like that. He had his ... interests,” she said as if the word tasted foul in her perfectly painted mouth. “And I had mine.” She tilted her head toward the house.

  “Are you telling me that you didn’t know about his proclivity for young boys?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “The less I knew about his activities, the better.”

  This woman was a real sweetheart. “Do you have any receipts, anything of that nature, which might help me to remove your husband from suspicion of Tyler’s murder?”

  “No I don’t.”

  “Come on, Mrs. Nolan. You haven’t gone through his receipts, any of his belongings? You haven’t found anything you didn’t know about?”

  “It’s Mrs. Bain. Not Nolan. I’ve gone back to my maiden name. And no, I haven’t. I want nothing of his that he left behind.”

  Right. Except for his money.

  “It wasn’t what you’d call a happy marriage.” She lifted her chin and glanced at a window.

  I followed her eyes and saw a curtain drop.

  I grinned. “Ah. That would be Big Dick.”

  She threw me a filthy look just as the door opened, and a Ken doll came swaggering out, complete with plastic hair and a spray-on tan.

  “Is everything all right, Susan?” He put a protective arm around her shoulders.

  She leaned into him. “Yes. This woman was just leaving.”