Baby Brother Blues (Sammy Dick, PI Series: Book 1)

by Trudi Baldwin

  Yay! I hope this phone call involves action, rather than writing down actual evidence on a blank friggin’ yellow legal pad.

  I flipped open my cell phone cover at lightning speed. I could see it was Geo. “Yes?”

  “I was surfing during my pre-law class and guess what?”

  “What?”

  “Your intuition might be working after all.”

  “Oh, ye of little faith! What did you find out?”

  “Remember how you wanted me to search for some kind of connection between Karl’s drug arrests in Belgium and Liang’s here?”

  “You actually found a connection?” I crowed.

  “I’m not sure, but I think I may have hit the jackpot. In one of Karl’s trial records where they were attempting to convict him of drug dealing, Karl walked, but his accomplice, Charles Tunisia, was not so lucky. The man landed in jail for three years. So, then on your hunch, especially since my pre-law class was getting so boring, I ran the records of Liang’s arrests here, and guess what?”

  “What? You’re killing me with this long, drawn out description.”

  “Sammy, I’ve only said a few sentences and you’re already impatient.”

  “Look, Geo, I’ve been sitting in Starbucks trying to summarize our findings for my meeting with Swane and Michael on Friday, and all I’ve concluded is that I’m shallow. I haven’t been able to write down anything and now I have the jitters from all of the caffeine. So, without sounding too impatient, what the hell did you find, Geo?”

  “I found out that Liang’s accomplice, in at least two of his court proceedings for drug-related arrests, was a man named Charles Tunis. In both instances, Charles walked away with probation and Liang walked away scot free.”

  “Liang was probably sailing out on the wings of the family money,” I concluded. “Tunis and Tunisia sound enough alike to bear further research.”

  “Yeah, Liang does appear to be sailing out on the family’s money and his sister’s interventions on his behalf, as far as I can infer from the court records, anyway.”

  “So where is Charles Tunis aka Tunisia now?”

  “If it is the same man, my assumption is that he’s still somewhere in Phoenix because his name came up a few times again.”

  “Probably still lurking within or on the edges of the drug world. Let me call Dad or Montaigne and see if I can learn more. Maybe we can put Charles Tunis in a compromising position and somehow catch Liang and/or Karl with their hands stuck in the proverbial cookie jar.”

  Oh, yay, yay! Time to act. I launched my empty paper Fourbucks cup in a neat arc across the room into the trash, scoring an amazing long shot. I almost yelled out, “She shoots. She scores!” but decided against it and left the cozy confines of Fourbucks, much to the relief of the lovers at the next table. Before I left, I switched out of my mini and back into my jeans in the restroom.

  Chapter 31

  The second the Starbucks door swished shut behind me, I flipped open my cell again and speed-dialed Montaigne. I’d been thinking about sex all morning and so I couldn’t help myself. Besides, Montaigne almost always proved to be very helpful in more ways than one.

  He picked up on the first ring. “This you, Sammy?”

  “Sure is, Mountain Man. How are you?” I said in my sexiest voice.

  “I’ve been wasting away because I’ve been missing you at the gym, Sammy.”

  “That’s a nice thing to say. I’ve been busy working on a case, but I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately, Montaigne.”

  “You have? What’s up?” an edge of suspicion had crept into his voice.

  “Just missin’ you, Mountain. How about meeting for lunch? I’ll pay.” My voice had more syrup in it by now than Geo and Kathy’s morning toaster waffles.

  “Now I’m getting suspicious, Sammy. Do you need some investigation help?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Translation: Yes,” Montaigne quipped. “Where are you?”

  “Downtown at the Arizona Center. Where are you?”

  “Working an investigation near Central and Camelback. I’ve still got some more to do here. How about we meet at the Eggery right near here at eleven for an early lunch?”

  “You’re the best, Mountain Man.”

  “No promises, Sammy, but I’ll help you if I can.”

  “You always make things better.”

  “Hmm,” Montaigne said inconclusively. Then the connection went dead.

  By now I was practically skipping among the bronze frogs in the Arizona Center courtyard in anticipation of seeing Montaigne and maybe coercing him into a little afternoon delight or evening delight, depending upon when his shift ended. I also planned to grill him about Charles Tunis. In this happy state, I decided to speed-dial my dad.

  “Yo, Daddy, how are you?”

  “Yo, Sammy, my girl, excellent, but working a case. How are you?”

  “Excellent too. Since you’re busy, I’ll get to the point. Were you able to find out anything of substance on the Leary murder or the arson investigation of the title company?”

  “They’re still working on it, Sammy. I did get them to dig deeper and try to make a connection to this St. Pierre, or whatever his real name is, but so far, nothing has come up substantial enough to even bring the man in for questioning. He may have been using so many aliases that it’s very hard to attach him specifically to any crime, especially without fingerprints or physical evidence from the murder scene. They can’t even find conclusive evidence of arson yet at the title company fire. Either the man’s smart, or lucky, or there is no connection.”

  “Well, if Geo’s girlfriend is right, I’m bettin’ on smart, but I don’t know her well enough to fully trust her judgment. Don’t tell Geo that. By the way, at the scene of Leary’s murder did they find any evidence of files or research on something called the Obsidian Towers Project? Was his computer still there?”

  “I didn’t know to ask. I’ll call over there and find out. Then get back to you. Gotta go, Sammy. Anything else I can help you with?”

  “Nah, I’m meeting Montaigne for lunch. He might be able to help me with a few things.”

  “I’ll warn him,” Dad said with a chuckle.

  “You’d better not. Surprise is the best form of advantage.”

  “I doubt he’ll be too surprised, given your history with him. I wish him luck, though. Bye, Love.”

  “Bye, Dad. Take care.”

  “You too.”

  By now I’d left Arizona Center and was practically running in my high-heeled sandals back to the lot where my Ninja was parked. My head was swimming with thoughts, but after the grueling, introspective morning at Starbucks, most of my thoughts now centered around Montaigne’s great body and his deep brown, sincere eyes. All of my soul-searching thoughts about sex and attraction had somehow converged on a single human being: Montaigne.

  Everyone knew that Montaigne had a crush on me. He’d had a crush on me for years, ever since Dad first introduced us, but since I was the elusive, non-committed type, Montaigne had resorted to lightly playing the field and pretending that I was just a good friend—a good friend that he occasionally helped out of some pretty serious scrapes with very little reward in return, except an ongoing playful banter and a few pecks on the cheek when we met in the gym.

  In my mind, Montaigne was the kind of good, brave, intelligent man, like my father, whom I reserved for marrying some time, maybe way, way later in life when all the fun has died down. I wasn’t even remotely close to that stage of my life, so I tended to keep the Mountain Man at arm’s length, yet close enough to tantalize him.

  So it was strange that after I’d switched to my boots, plopped my sandals and the wretched, empty legal pad into my plastic side bags, donned my helmet and swung my leg over the big Ninja, all I could think about was Montaigne’s great physique and how smart and nice and sexy and supportive and… I revved up the Ninja, spun out on the gravel, hung a right and barreled out onto 1st Avenue like a sex-crazed ho
ming pigeon, only to find myself barreling headlong into ongoing traffic. Wrong way on a one-way street! Whoa! I hung a U as quickly as I could, and flew back the other way. Watch out, Mountain Man, here I come!

  The Eggery on Camelback and Central was only a short roar away on my Ninja, so I arrived well before 11 A.M., our scheduled meeting time. The Eggery is a charming little faux-French restaurant and serves all kinds of goodies and breakfast-like stuff. I barely noticed the surroundings though, I was so anxious to meet Montaigne. I asked to be seated at a cozy little booth near the back, where I could have full view of the restaurant and my back to the wall in deference to my wild west mentality. Then I settled in to wait for Montaigne.

  That worked for about two seconds. Then I became fidgety. Luckily, the theme from Mission Impossible played loudly again, annoying everyone who sat near me. Yay! My cell was calling me.

  “May I help you?” I didn’t recognize the number.

  “Sammy? Is that you?”

  The voice was pleasant, warm, familiar, syrupy. “Kathy?”

  “Yes, it’s me.”

  “How are you?”

  “Still scared. But I’m at work, researching the Obsidian Towers Project and making some phone calls.”

  “Are you finding anything out?”

  “Actually, it doesn’t make me any less scared, but I’ve found out a lot.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as I hunted through my flash drive records and sent them to Geo because I suspected that the buyers for the Obsidian Towers Project were in there, but in kind of a code form to disguise the information. Those were the records that made me suspicious in the first place, but I couldn’t figure out the code. Geo figured it out fairly quickly. That enabled me to call some of the buyers of the Penthouse Eye. It’s hard to tell from the code and they live all over the world, so I’m not sure if the purchased locations are in Phoenix, Madrid or Dubai. But it doesn’t matter; I called at least six buyers on the pretense of asking them if they are still interested in going through with their purchase. I was careful not to refer to the city. Every single one of them said yes. We have, at a minimum, at least six simultaneous buyers who currently think they’re in escrow for a Penthouse Eye and each has delivered a check or wire to the tune of one million dollars to American and International Title to hold the property until construction is complete. That’s six million dollars unaccounted for and there are only three Penthouses. Geo says it looks like there are many more buyers than six, so we’re talking multi-millions of dollars. To make matters even worse, it looks like there might me simultaneous sales of some of the larger condos as well. This is one of those things that will take years to sort out and who knows where the money is or if it can ever be accounted for? Geo is attempting to hack into the accounts as we speak. I’m so glad I now have a job with a different title company because I don’t see how American and International Title can stay afloat after this crime goes public, even if everyone else besides St. Pierre is innocent, and that remains to be seen.”

  “Wow, Kathy! No wonder you’re afraid. You know way too much. Be careful.” I began to feel some reluctant admiration for her investigative skills.

  I wondered if Sylvester’s little brother, Sonny, was involved, since Sonny owned a huge, commercial construction company and seemed pretty tight with Soul Patch/St. Pierre, but I kept those thoughts to myself and made a mental note to explore it with Sylvester.

  Kathy continued. “It gets worse, Sammy. I also called Leary’s widow. I’d met her once at a company function. She even remembered me, so she opened up. She was heartbroken over her husband’s murder. She said she was just to the point where she had regretted ever leaving him and was about to return to make another go at their marriage, when she received the gruesome news of his murder. She cried when she told me about it. When I gently asked her if her husband, Franklin, could have been involved in any drug dealing, she was adamant that he was not. She said he would never, ever be involved in something like that, and I believed her.”

  “That probably means the drugs were planted at the scene to divert the investigators, and it worked,” I concluded.

  “That’s what I think after talking to poor Franklin’s widow. I then asked her if Franklin had ever mentioned something called the Obsidian Towers Project. She responded immediately with a yes. In fact, Franklin’s obsessive interest in something called Obsidian was the final straw that broke up their marriage. She said Franklin had always been a workaholic, but when he got wind of this Obsidian Project, he began to work longer and longer hours and recede deeper inside himself. He became preoccupied, nervous and tense. Detached. This went on for a period of about three years. When she couldn’t get through to him no matter what she tried, she finally gave up and left. Now she regrets it.”

  “Kathy, I’m sorry to have to tell you this but right now, according to my dad, there’s no physical evidence whatsoever to tie Soul Patch to any crime that we suspect him of. Plus, my dad suspects that Soul Patch, or whatever his real name is, may use so many aliases that it’s not possible to issue a warrant to even tie him to his real estate crimes, much less the murder or other crimes. They’re working on it, though.”

  “Sammy, we’ve got to find a way to get him. Otherwise, a merciless killer is walking in our midst with his sights set on me! I’m either going to have to leave town again, which I do not want to do, or we’re going to have to figure out a way to get this man. I think I have an idea.”

  “You mean your sting idea? In theory, I like it. Please go into more detail for me, and I’ll see what we can do.”

  Kathy proceeded to explain her idea, grounded in her knowledge of the title and real estate industry, in vivid detail. She’d obviously been planning out the details since last night.

  I listened carefully. Even took a few notes on the blank yellow legal pad. “Sounds doable, Kathy. Geo and I might want to add in some surveillance electronics for protection and some weapons. Soul Patch is clearly a very dangerous man. I think we might need some reinforcements to pull this off, at least someone who’s never met Soul Patch, so our decoy won’t be recognizable.”

  I glanced up to see Mountain striding through the Eggery doors. I said to Kathy, “And the man I have in mind for that role is strolling into the restaurant where I’m at right now. Gotta go! I’ll get back to you soon with some specifics. Meanwhile, watch your back, Kathy, and you’d better have Geo pick you up and carry the gun I gave him wherever you two go.”

  “I’m being very cautious, Sammy. Thank you so much for helping me with my plan.” We clicked off.

  As I watched Mountain Man scan the restaurant for me, my heart and my libido swelled simultaneously. I could barely remain seated in the booth, my temperature was rising so fast. Then he spotted me and started with his swinging gate and kind eyes towards me. I looked him straight on, full into his face, and my heart did a little flip flop. Holy shit! Was I in love with Montaigne? It was way too early in my career to settle down, but the raw attraction on multiple levels was undeniable. What’s a girl to do?

  I leaped up and threw my arms around his neck and planted a big kiss on his cheek. He smelled good. Like Montaigne. Safe, sweet, good. But safe, sweet, and good scared me a lot more than bad, risky and part-time. Montaigne, by his very nature, was a full-time commitment. It was the way he was, at least for me. So after the initial crush of the cheek kiss and an overly prolonged hug against his rock-hard body, I pulled away, panting slightly and trying to compose myself. During the hug, I could almost feel his temperature rise too and then his usual wariness set in because of his history with me. He backed away first. Then I did, too, by pretending there were no undercurrents rushing all around and through us.

  “How are you, Montaigne, my man?”

  “Good, Sammy, and even better now that I’m with you.”

  “You always say that,” I volleyed lightly.

  “It’s because I always mean it, Sammy,” he said, scanning my face and sighing ever so slig
htly. “What’s up?”

  I wanted to say, I’m up! I want to jump your bones and make you my own, but I didn’t. I just wasn’t ready for something that true and that deep. I didn’t know if I’d ever be, so for right now in my life, I’d just have to resign myself to men who were not of the caliber of Mountain Man. If I lost him completely somewhere along the way, it would be my loss.

  I took a deep breath and said, “Okay, Montaigne, I think I may need your help on something. Do you think you might have some time this week to help us out?”

  “Sammy, I will always be here to help you out.”

  My heart flip flopped again, but I caged my emotions and plunged onward in a friendly, chit chatty way, even though the undercurrents swirled all around us, almost drowning us both.

  “Here’s what we know so far,” I said, and proceeded to tell him everything about the Obsidian Towers Project from beginning to end. We planned out our sting, sitting unnecessarily close to each other the whole time, thighs touching.

  When we had written the plan for every possible contingency, I picked up the legal pad, now covered with our plans and stuffed it and the pen in my purse. Montaigne stood up, stiff from sitting so long next to me and my thigh. He crossed the floor through some tables, found the server and handed her a twenty-dollar tip. She smiled up at the gorgeous man. Who wouldn’t? Then Montaigne paid our bill and we headed out of the Eggery. Two hours had passed. Montaigne gave me a quick, gruff hug. I put my arms around his neck and kissed him lightly on the lips. “Thanks, Montaigne. Talk to you soon.” Montaigne pulled away, slid into his unmarked car, slammed the door shut with a little too much finality, and then sped away.

  I felt my heart sink in an odd way. It was then that I realized in the heat of the planning and thigh rubbing, I’d completely forgotten to ask him about my other investigation and Charles Tunis.

  I decided to keep the connection alive a little longer, and speed-dialed Montaigne.

  “Yes, Sammy? You just can’t get enough of my company?”