Miguel was frowning. “I bet when people flip out at you for trying to help, it’s not easy to take, either.”
Veronica gave him a small smile. “There is that risk.”
“I really am sorry about that, Veronica,” he said. “I have no excuse. I was an ass.”
“Water under the bridge,” she said, and meant it. She liked Miguel, and she hoped she could help him, and Ariana, and his father. She hoped that when all that was over, maybe she and Miguel could be friends—she thought maybe if he gave her some painting lessons, it might get her back into her art. But that was as far as it went, really. He had a temper and that had effectively extinguished any attraction she felt for him. The only guy she was really into was sitting next to her, and she had to figure out a way not to drive him crazy with her psychic crises.
Steph returned with their drinks and asked for their orders. Miguel and Daniel were ready with selections but Veronica hadn’t even read the menu.
“Let’s just order ours,” Daniel said. “If what the check-in woman told us is true, that should be plenty.”
Steph nodded vigorously. “Oh yes. I’ll bring an extra plate and you all can share. The portions are so big you’ll all have plenty to eat.”
“Okay,” Veronica agreed.
When their food came, she saw that they were right. They shared Miguel’s fried seafood platter, which had tilapia, crab cakes, and shrimp, and Daniel’s spicy seared tuna platter. The food was all very good, and there was so much of it, Veronica had all she wanted and there was some left over after all.
The conversation left the topic of Veronica’s gift and veered into territory Veronica didn’t have much to contribute to. Miguel and Daniel compared their experiences going up nonwhite in California—Miguel was heartily sick of stereotypes that cast Mexicans as lazy and Daniel argued that the opposite, stereotypes that cast Asians as overachievers, were also problematic.
“Though when I was an older teenager, it changed some. Then people were starting to get wound up about Asian gangs. I heard way too many Yakuza jokes,” Daniel said.
Miguel nodded. “Yeah, all Mexican kids are gangbangers, too. You know what I heard? Some military manual out there claims that Mexicans are naturally skilled at knife fights.”
Daniel snorted. “Well, we’re all supposed to be Bruce Lee.”
Miguel raised his eyebrows. “Did you ever study a martial art?”
“Taekwondo,” Daniel admitted. “From the age of four until I was twelve. I haven’t used it in any substantial capacity since, though.”
“Yeah,” Miguel said with a nod. “I heard that all those martial arts look really good on screen but in the real world they aren’t that effective.”
Daniel shrugged. “I had to investigate a street fight that ended in a death a few years ago. A brown belt in Taekwondo tore the throat out of a guy in the fight. So, pretty effective. It’s just not something I pursued once I got to high school and now I’d be pretty rusty.”
They proceeded to discuss various martial arts styles and their uses in professional fighting competitions, and Veronica tuned out completely. She wished she could call Mel and Sunny but she didn’t want to be rude. After a few more minutes of the conversation, she pulled out her phone and started sending texts. By the time they finished dinner, the men had moved off of fighting competitions to football and basketball, and Veronica had gotten Sunny to go by and feed her pets, and she’d set up the movie marathon at Melanie’s on Saturday, with Sunny bringing brunch, and Veronica contributing coffees.
There still was no word from Wyatt Williams, though, and Veronica wanted nothing more than to go back to their room and lie down. She said as much, and they split up. Veronica promised to call Miguel right away if Williams contacted her.
In the hotel room she pulled the rose-colored comforter all the way off the bed and sprawled out, enjoying letting her arms and legs relax completely.
Daniel gazed at the comforter wadded in a corner of the room. “Was that really necessary?” he asked.
“I saw a show. I forget what it was. They tested hotel comforters. The results were… eye-opening.”
“Huh.”
Daniel came and sat by her legs. “Ronnie, did it bother you when I said your gift is hard to live with? Because I was just joking around.”
Veronica forced a small and a short laugh. “Bother me? No way. I mean—I’m totally aware of how hard it must be, sometimes, you know? Waking up in the middle of the night—trying to talk me through some crazy vision—driving all the way to Reno to deal with spirit business—”
Daniel frowned and shook his head. “I don’t mind any of that, Ronnie. You’re this incredible woman with this incredible ability. I feel lucky to be a part of your life.”
Veronica tried to keep her tone light. “And you’re a wonderful support. You help me all the time. I just—I realize maybe I lean on you too much…”
“No way,” Daniel said.
How could he just sit there and deny it? It was probably better to let the whole thing drop. She didn’t want to say anything she might regret. But the worry she’d been carrying around since his off-handed comment about getting hitched wouldn’t let her drop it.
“Daniel, no one can blame you if you feel like I’m a little… high maintenance. I get it.”
“What? High maintenance? Where is this coming from?”
Veronica made a scoffing noise. “What do you mean, ‘Where is this coming from’? You have to worry about me getting mobbed by spirits if I walk into a cemetery—you have to comfort me four nights out of seven after some spirit sends me a nightmare—”
“Not all the time. And I told you, I don’t mind any of that. Though honestly I wish you would have called me before going into that cemetery to figure out who stole Ariana’s remains…”
“Exactly. That’s the kind of thing. What normal girlfriend needs her boyfriend to babysit her if she visits a cemetery?”
Daniel shook his head again. “What normal boyfriend can call his girlfriend up when he needs help with a murder case?”
“Yeah, okay,” Veronica said, sitting up and swinging her legs off the side of the bed. “But don’t you get sick of it? I mean, you have to deal with death and murder and all that stuff at work. Don’t you wish you could come home and leave it all behind?”
Daniel crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s not the kind of work you can just leave behind. You don’t clock out and forget everything you saw after a day on the homicide taskforce.”
“Maybe not, but you might have a chance of relaxing and putting it out of your mind if you weren’t living with someone who talks to dead people.”
Daniel’s frown deepened. “Ronnie, it kind of sounds like you’re trying to convince me not to live with you anymore.”
Veronica grimaced. “Of course not.”
“Are you sure? I mean, what’s all this, ‘wouldn’t you be happier if you weren’t with someone who talks to dead people’ stuff?”
She stood up and walked to her purse, pretending to look for something inside. It would be great to find a way out of this conversation, but she couldn’t figure out how. “It’s nothing. I mean, I’m not trying to say you shouldn’t live with me,” she said, peering into the purse. Her phone. Maybe she could pretend to get a text from Melanie or something, and say she had to make a call.
“Something’s eating you,” Daniel said.
Veronica let out a loud sigh and immediately regretted it. Showing her frustration wasn’t going to bring an end to the dialogue.
“Ah, see. I was right,” Daniel said.
“Nothing’s eating me. I’m fine.”
“Too late, Ronnie. Just tell me what’s the matter.”
“Nothing’s eating me! Nothing’s the matter!”
“I don’t believe you.”
Veronica let out a groan of frustration, and she knew she couldn’t avoid it any longer. She dropped her purse on an armchair. “It’s just something you said. On the
way here.”
“Okay…”
“You made a joke. About us ‘getting hitched.’”
“And…?”
“And… well, I didn’t realize us getting married was a joking matter. And then I thought about it, and I realized. Of course it is. Because who would want to take all my bullshit on permanently? But Daniel, I’m going to work on it, okay? I’m going to try to create more of a boundary between the stuff I deal with and our relationship—”
“Veronica, I was just making a joke about getting married in Reno—I mean, I don’t think you’d be into having Elvis do the ceremony, right? I mean, I think it would be kind of cool, but I just assumed…”
Veronica glared at him. “I can’t believe you’re still joking about this. One joke, fine, but I’m trying to tell you it really kind of bothered me.”
“And I’m sorry about that—”
“And yet you start talking about Elvis? I mean, I told you, I get it. But I also don’t really need any more jokes about it.”
“Ronnie, you’re being kind of dense about this.”
Veronica bristled but said nothing.
Daniel continued, “I wasn’t joking about us getting married in general, just here. Just doing it spur of the moment. Because my understanding is that most women would prefer a bigger deal, with guests, and maybe doing it in a church—heck, I have some family members who would skin me alive if I didn’t get married at the SKPC.”
“The SKPC…?”
“Sacramento Korean Presbyterian Church.”
Veronica nodded. She was still frustrated but she was also feeling really tired. She gazed longingly at the chair where her purse rested, but she felt like if she sat down in it, Daniel would see that as another expression of her frustration. “Look, let’s just drop it, okay?”
“No,” Daniel said. “I don’t want you feeling insecure like this.”
“Insecure? Daniel, you aren’t ready to think about marriage. I guess I kind of was. That doesn’t make me insecure, it makes me—I don’t know. It makes me reevaluate where we’re at. And it made me realize some things, and that’s not bad. It’s good to stop yourself from taking a person for granted.”
“You can take me for granted, Ronnie. I want you to call me before you go marching into cemeteries, okay?” Daniel took a step toward her, and Veronica kept herself from taking a step back.
“It doesn’t always have to be you,” she said in what she hoped was a reasonable tone. “I have friends. I could call Khalilah. She loves the psychic stuff.”
“I love the psychic stuff.”
“That’s not what you said at dinner, Daniel,” she said, allowing herself to turn away from him and walk to the edge of the bed. “I think maybe you don’t even realize how it’s tiring you out.”
“At dinner?”
“You said my gift is a lot for you to handle.”
A scoffing noise erupted from Daniel’s mouth. “I was kidding.”
“People joke to let off steam—they joke about things that really bother them.”
“I thought we were past all this second guessing,” Daniel said. “I thought we were a team, and it was working well.”
Veronica didn’t know what to say to that. They were a team, of course, and having Daniel to help her and support her was invaluable to her. But she knew she had to find a way to scale back how much she relied on him.
Finally she said, “You’ve been the absolute best, Daniel. I just don’t want to—I don’t want you to burn out.”
“Will you please let me be the judge of whether I’m burning out?”
At that moment, her cell phone went off. Veronica grabbed her purse and rummaged until she caught hold of it. The number on the screen was unfamiliar. “It might be Wyatt Williams,” she told Daniel. “Hello?” she said into the phone.
“Hello?” came a male voice. “Is this Veronica Barry?”
“This is she.”
“Hi. You left me a note? I’m Wyatt Williams. The note said you needed to meet with me?”
“That’s right,” Veronica said. “I represent the family of someone you knew. Can we meet right now?”
“Yeah, but it’s got to be quick. My break’s only for fifteen minutes.”
“Where can we find you?”
“I’ll be in the west wing of the tower, level fifteen. There’s a break room for employees. It’s on the directory map—you’ll see it when you get out of the elevator.”
Veronica met Daniel’s eyes. “We’ll be there in five minutes.”
~~~
Miguel, Daniel, Veronica and Wyatt Williams all sat down around a white table in the break room on the fifteenth floor. They were the only ones there.
“So what’s this about?” Williams asked. He was eyeing Miguel as if he recognized him.
“Do you remember a woman who used to come to this casino named Ariana Santiago?” Daniel asked.
Williams paled and leaned back in his chair. “Oh, god, I knew you looked familiar,” he said to Miguel.
No one said anything for a moment.
“She showed me pictures of you and your family,” Williams said at last, still addressing Miguel. “You’re her brother?”
Miguel nodded. “So she used her real name with you?” he asked.
Williams sighed and nodded. “Yeah. We were… kind of close. Oh, god. It just—I read online about her funeral. I mean, I knew she had… she had died. I mean I didn’t know, but I didn’t really have any doubts. And then I read that.”
Miguel nodded.
“You say you two were close?” Daniel asked.
Williams nodded.
“But you didn’t know for sure she had died until you read the news of the funeral online?” Daniel said.
Williams looked away from Miguel for the first time, turning to Daniel. “Yeah. I mean, it had been almost two years since I’d heard from her, you know. And when she left she told me she thought she was in danger.”
“What?” Miguel said.
Williams turned back to him. “Oh yeah. You didn’t know?”
Miguel grimaced and dug a hand into his hair.
Williams narrowed his eyes and closed his mouth. Veronica didn’t need to read his mind to know he’d decided they might not know everything he did, and he wasn’t going to give away any more information.
“Why did she think she was in danger?” Daniel asked.
Williams cut his eyes to Daniel, but his face remained closed. “I’m not sure,” he said.
“You can trust us, Mr. Williams,” Veronica said, leaning forward a little. “We know what Ariana was doing.”
Williams glanced at her but his expression didn’t change.
“We know about Thad Bayer,” Veronica said. “How she was blackmailing him.”
That made his eyes widen a bit. He wiped a hand over his mouth and then dropped it and crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you know why? Do you know what that scumbag did to her?”
Veronica nodded. “We know,” she said. “But why didn’t she go to the police? She had evidence he was abusing another girl.”
Williams took a deep breath and shook his head. “Not just one. She had photos of three different girls. Those photos didn’t leave anything to the imagination, either.”
Miguel made a noise and turned his face away. Veronica thought he looked a bit green.
Turning her attention back to Williams, she repeated her question. “Okay, so why not go to the police?”
Williams shook his head again. “Don’t you get it? That’s who she was afraid of—I mean, Thad Bayer. He has a lot of money and he doesn’t mind using it to get rid of his problems.”
“What does that mean?” Daniel asked.
“Well, like he kept paying Ariana off to be quiet, for one thing. Though she was pretty sure he was getting sick of it.”
“But why blackmail him in the first place?” Veronica persisted.
“Because if she went to the police, he said he would hurt her father someho
w. She made it sound like her father was sick, and wouldn’t be able to defend himself if someone tried to hurt him.”
“What made her think Bayer would target her father like that?” Daniel asked.
Williams snorted. “He told her. One of the last times she saw him, he threatened her. He said something like, ‘Too bad old Hector Santiago’s not the force he used to be,’ or something. ‘He’s such an easy target these days.’ Something like that.”
“But she kept blackmailing him anyway?” Miguel said, his voice tense.
Williams shrugged. “She thought of it as punishing him, and it was like she couldn’t stop. Then he must have scared her somehow, because she packed up all her stuff and left.”
“You saw her before she did?” Daniel asked.
Williams nodded. His eyes were sad. “She was all over the place, crying, not even really making sense. She said she had to get back to Sacramento to protect her father, but she was also talking about how he never listened to her, how mad she was—”
“At our dad?” Miguel said.
“Yeah,” Williams said. “And she said something about trying to see your mother, too. To warn her, I think.”
“Did your mom ever say anything about this to you?” Daniel asked Miguel.
Miguel shook his head. “I don’t think she’d have hidden it from me, either. I’m guessing Ariana never made it to see her.”
“But she died in the jail,” Veronica said. “That’s what she told me, anyway.”
Williams blinked at her, but she didn’t elaborate. If she didn’t have to come out to him as psychic she wouldn’t. It might become necessary, but so far, she’d avoided it. Let him puzzle over the meaning of her words.
“Did she say it was a suicide?” Daniel asked.
“No,” Veronica said, thinking back. “That’s something I assumed, because she told me she was sad.”
“I should’ve dug up the incident reports for the jail two years ago,” Daniel said. “We need to figure out how she died.”
“We need access to that safe deposit box,” Miguel said, clenching his fists on the tabletop. “Mr. Williams—”
“Jeez, call me Wyatt. Only my supervisor calls me ‘Mr. Williams,’ and when that happens, it’s never good.”
The Gamble and the Grave (Veronica Barry Book 4) Page 20