‘And if she doesn’t?’
Alex leaned forward and placed one hand on his arm, feeling the tension in it. ‘Mr Price, I don’t know if I can help you, but I promise I’ll give it a damn good try, so why don’t you go home and sleep on it and give me another call tomorrow? And if you’d rather not come to my office, why don’t we meet at Caroline’s cottage in a day or two? It can often provide clues that even close relatives miss.’
She wondered if Norman Price had even bothered to look for such clues. He was an oddball if she ever saw one. And he wasn’t half as drunk as she had at first imagined. Just keen to get his hands on his daughter’s inheritance. Maybe. As yet, she couldn’t really fathom him at all. She saw him nod slowly.
‘All right. I’ll call you tomorrow morning with my decision. And thank you for your time.’
He shook her hand, and Alex noted that his was clammy. There was nothing unusual in that. Her clients were frequently either distressed or hyperactive. It was to be expected. Nobody liked airing their private thoughts in public, and it took some people a lot of courage to do so.
After he left, she scribbled a few details in her notebook while they were fresh in her mind. Yes, definitely an oddball. And he hadn’t told her everything yet. In fact, he’d hardly told her anything at all...
***
‘Are you sticking with orange juice all night, or do you fancy something a bit more exciting to tickle your taste-buds?’
Alex didn’t need to look up from her scribblings to recognize the voice, and nor did she miss the double entendre in the words. The biker lounged in front of her, arms folded, powerful and dark against the smoky background of the club. He was every inch the Clint Eastwood of his day — or maybe James Dean reincarnated, she thought faintly.
But why not? The night was still early...
‘I’ll have a vodka and lime if you’re buying,’ she said, a damn sight cooler than she felt inside.
‘If you’re selling, I’m buying,’ he said with a lazy, seductive smile.
She watched him as he moved smoothly back to the bar, and adjusted her earlier opinion of him. He didn’t just have a nice bum. He was a wow, even if he was a pick-up, and she felt the familiar tug on her nerve-ends at the thought.
And there was no way she could misinterpret his words: he was as blatant as they come. She smiled faintly as the words entered her head and tried to concentrate on Norman Price.
Usually, after her first meeting with a client, she went home and tried to assess everything she had learned so far which wasn’t much, she admitted again, but as always, it was far more than the client thought.
For a start. from his generous agreement to her fees, she guessed that Father Price was well-heeled, despite tonight’s charade of dressing down for the company. Maybe he was in disguise too, acting a part in life, the way she did.
It was an intriguing thought. She’d already looked him up in the phone book and he wasn’t listed, even though he’d given her a number where she could reach him. So he was ex-directory, and he was using a contact number... or a private one that could mean anything, from a mistress’s address to a hideaway holiday place.
But now that she knew a little more about the missing daughter, she would start on the trail of both of them tomorrow. If the woman was a crossword compiler, she shouldn’t be hard to trace. She noted that Price hadn’t volunteered the name of any newspaper group, but that wouldn’t be hard to find either. Caroline sounded like a loner, so there may not even be an agent involved. Pity. That would have been a start.
The biker was coming back to the table with two drinks in his hand, and Alex abandoned all thoughts of work for tonight. Sometimes it was best to do just that. Make her mind a blank and let her subconscious ask the questions and sort out some of the answers. It could work spectacularly well.
And sometimes there were more important things to think about, anyway. She crossed one silk-clad leg over the other, and her short skirt revealed the lacy top of her sheer black stockings.
The guy noted it and grinned.
‘If we’re going to spend the night together, we’d better get properly acquainted,’ he said, as brash as you like.
‘You’re taking a bloody lot for granted, aren’t you!’
He laughed, showing those amazing white teeth. Alex could almost taste his minty toothpaste already.
‘Am I?’ he said, oozing sexiness as he reached forward and caressed her velvety cheek. ‘You tell me.’
‘I don’t have to tell you anything—’
He shrugged. ‘OK. So I’ll tell you what I see. I see somebody way out of her environment in the Rainbow Club. Slumming it, I guess. The question is — why?’
‘And what’s the answer?’ Alex said, despite herself. Who was the detective here, for God’s sake!
‘Well, you’re not a hooker, that’s for sure.’
‘Thanks!’
‘So you’re either a snoopy journalist taking notes for a magazine article, or you’re doing research for a book — or you’re looking for somebody.’
‘How clever you are!’ Alex murmured, giving nothing away, but thinking at the same time that at least the guy had a brain. And she liked that. She liked it a lot.
‘So which is it?’ he asked, taking a long drink and not taking his eyes off her face.
‘Guess.’
‘The journalist.’
‘You’re wrong, but thanks for the compliment. I’ve always fancied working in that line,’ she lied. ‘Now forget it.’
‘OK, but I know you’re into something from the way you kept jotting down notes in that little book of yours.’
Alex was glad it was safely tucked inside her bag now. Among tonight’s doodles was a rough drawing of Norman Price, and another of the guy sitting opposite her now. It was gratifying to know that her aptitude for art had come in handy for something. She wasn’t wonderful, but she wasn’t bad, either, and she could create a passable likeness. Even a passable mug-shot on occasion.
‘I’m Gary, by the way. Gary Hollis,’ he said, when the silence between them lengthened.
‘Alexandra,’ she said non-committally.
‘Classy. So, Alexandra, where are you taking me tonight?’
‘What’s the matter? Don’t you have a place to sleep?’ she said, suddenly suspicious.
She’d met pick-ups before. Drifters who came into town and played up to anybody who would give them a free bed for the night. She was mildly disappointed. Somehow she hadn’t expected this guy to be one of the transient kind.
‘Sure I do. But I’d far rather sleep at your place,’ he said. ‘And don’t tell me you’re not interested.’
She could see the sexual challenge in his eyes, and she was aware of her own weakness.
Virile guys with sexy eyes could always turn her on, and she could already imagine her fingers running through that collar-length dark hair... she gave a small shiver.
‘Alternatively, how about a blast on the bike while you think about it?’ he went on.
A different kind of excitement ran through Alex’s veins at the words. ‘You do have a bike then?’
‘Only the very best. A Harley is at your disposal, ma’am, ready, willing and eager, just like its owner.’
She ignored that, but she knew enough about motor bikes to know that if he owned a Harley Davidson he was no drop-out. And his leathers were of good quality that hadn’t been bought at some cheapskate everything-must-go warehouse sale.
And, thinking ahead, she also registered that he might be useful if ever she needed to get somewhere in a hurry while trying to track down the missing Caroline Price. A motor bike could often reach the parts that a car couldn’t.
As always, her client’s needs were never far from her mind, even when she tried to abandon them for the time being.
But that was what being professional was all about. Let the ideas simmer on the back-burner of the mind, and eventually, with any luck, they would burst into flame.
; ‘All right, I’ll take a ride with you,’ she said, seeming to capitulate. ‘Providing you’ve got a spare crash helmet.’
‘Lady, I’ve got all the protection you’ll ever need,’ Gary said with a grin that told her he definitely wasn’t just talking about biking gear.
***
They surfaced a joyful couple of hours after getting back to Alex’s flat. By then, the duvet and pillows had found their wayto the floor, to join the frantic scattering of clothes that had been shed between the sitting-room and the bedroom. The leathers and silk skirt mingled with the trail of stockings and lacy underwear...
‘Nice,’ Gary murmured against her breasts as he carefully shifted his weight to circle each stiffened nipple with his tongue. ‘I think I might move in.’
Alex hoisted him off the bed so fast that he hit the floor with a howl of rage.
‘What the hell did you do that for?’
She rose naked from the bed. pulling on her red kimono dressing-gown to hide the burgeoning thighs, while briefly wondering why she was getting so paranoid about the damn things. He’d seen it all, and he certainly hadn’t minded... he reached for her and they both fell onto the bed again.
At once, she knelt over him, holding his arms back over his head. She was surprisingly strong, and she could see by his expression that he hadn’t expected her to be. It was a legacy from tramping the Dales in all weathers, and her fair-weather keep-fit sessions at the gym.
In her job, you never knew how much sprinting you might need to do, nor how much physical strength would be needed to overpower an assailant. It wasn’t all chicken-feed stuff.
‘You can forget any ideas about moving in,’ she snapped. ‘We had a great time. Gary, but that was it.’
‘So now it’s goodbye? You disappoint me, Alexandra. Anyway, I thought that was supposed to be my line.’
‘Not unless you’ve been living in a time-warp for the last couple of decades,’ she whipped back.
But she was all too aware that his passion was on the rise again. And she fancied him like mad, damn it, as she freely admitted now that she had done from the moment she saw him. His sensual mouth curved into a smile as he saw the matching desire in her eyes, and his hands slid down to push the dressing-gown aside and stroke between her thighs.
Oh well, what the hell, she thought weakly? She’d probably never see him again anyway...
She was still waking up properly as she heard the roar of the Harley departing around 7 a.m. Gary had kissed her thoroughly before he left, and her own musky smell had wafted around his lips.
‘I’ll see you around,’ was all he had said.
And then he had gone. But that was OK. She had work to do, and too much involvement usually got in the way.
She got up half an hour later, had a shower and grimaced at the love-bites on her neck. He was an enthusiastic and inventive lover all right, she’d say that for him. She felt her heartbeats quicken, remembering just how good it had been, then resolutely washed every vestige of him out of her mind and body.
As she rinsed away the sweet-scented shower gel with the spray, she found herself wondering about Caroline Price’s love-life, or if she’d even had one. She realized she was unintentionally thinking about her in the past tense. and she revised the thought at once.
Missing nearly-thirty-year-olds were more likely to disappear for some personal and private reason rather than from anything sinister. And if they did so, they would certainly have the nous to cover all their tracks, so that no inquisitive father could find them.
But in this case, there was a large inheritance waiting to be claimed in about six weeks’ time. And if it wasn’t claimed satisfactorily, then, according to Norman Price, a cousin would be waiting in the wings to claim it.
Alex’s first instinct was to ask herself what was in it for the father? She sensed that it wasn’t just for his daughter’s well-being that he wanted her to claim what was rightfully hers. Her second instinct was to remember that in all traditional detective stories, the villainous cousin would be the most likely suspect to have abducted Caroline until it was too late for her to claim her inheritance, and everything would be rightfully his.
So usually, he was the least likely suspect. Except that you could never quite ignore the possibility, damn it. It was all too easy to dismiss what was right under your nose. And besides, what would he do with the girl after abducting her? He couldn’t just return her home again.
The gnawing likelihood of what frequently happened in such circumstances was something Alex didn’t care to think about too deeply.
She’d grown up in a harsh environment, and she’d had to hold on to that toughness to survive. But she could never get used to seeing some poor sod zipped up in a plastic body bag after a violent death had occurred.
Or having to stand by while some grieving relative identified a loved one. Somebody had to do it, and she knew she had the reputation among the local plods for being as cold as ice on such occasions. But she wasn’t. Inside, she was always falling apart.
***
The phone was ringing as she was drying her hair and waiting for the toaster to pop up with her wholemeal slice. She wasn’t the world’s tidiest person, and her kitchen was in its usual state of chaos, but the area where she lived now reflected her pride in building A BETTER LIFE for herself by her own efforts. Her life was definitely upwardly mobile since Audrey had become Alexandra. Despite the chaos.
‘Alexandra Best,’ she said into the phone.
‘Good morning, Miss Best. I hope I’m not too early. This is Norman Price. If you’re prepared to continue with the investigation, I’m happy to retain you. So would you meet me at my daughter’s cottage at twelve o’clock? And I apologize for any lack of finesse on my part last night. I’d like to make up for it by buying you lunch.’
‘Thank you. I accept,’ Alex said at once, registering the polished smoothness in the voice now.
Oh yes, this was the real McCoy all right, and last night’s show had been just to capture her sympathy. But she was wise to that game. As a pathetic old man, lost without his daughter, it hadn’t rung true.
She didn’t accept his lunch invitation for the joy of eating with the slob, but because informal meetings often gave out the unwitting clues the clients were too inhibited to reveal otherwise. She quickly noted down the address of Greenwell Cottage. It sounded rural and picturesque, and was situated in a small village north of Bishop’s Stortford.
And she was on a very healthy retainer. Alex’s normally good spirits lifted still more, visualizing a trip to the country on expenses, and her cruise becoming even more of a reality. But first, she had some detective work to do.
Dressed in a casual trouser suit in her trademark black, she left her flat and drove to the building where she had her office.
She felt the familiar glow at seeing the gleaming gilt lettering on the nameplate, Alexandra Best, Private Investigator. She unlocked her glass-panelled door and went inside, picking up the mail as she did so and tossing it into a wire tray after a cursory glance at the envelopes. There was nothing that couldn’t wait until later.
First, she switched on her computer and opened the file for Caroline Price. She ran down the usual leads to follow, checked the necessary volumes of Who’s Who and other directories on her shelf, and spent some time making phone calls. Her frown had deepened by the time she had finished.
None of the big newspaper groups or magazines had ever heard of a crossword compiler called Caroline Price. Nor had any of the literary agencies she tried as a last resort, though she hardly expected them to be interested in such small commission stuff.
Even if the woman used a pseudonym, those people would have known her real name. And not even the additional tag of being a deaf woman could identify her. Alex checked the local hospitals, but no woman of that name had been admitted during the past two weeks. She checked the airports and ferry terminals and again she got nowhere.
It seemed that Caroline Price had s
imply vanished off the face of the earth. Transported by aliens, maybe... which was crazy, and just the kind of thing that Alexandra in her dumbest mode might imagine, Alex thought in sudden annoyance. But she was shrewder than that.
Caroline had to be somewhere. People didn’t just vanish. People must know her. People must be missing her. Unless it was Norman Price himself who was crazy, and there was no daughter, and no inheritance at all.
And Alex had just arranged to meet him alone in a cottage in a remote Hertfordshire village at noon.
Chapter 2
The likelihood of it all being some bizarre hoax was ridiculous. Alex had heard some stories in her time, but never a man who had invented a missing daughter. There were women who wanted a child so much they imagined they’d given birth, and even resorted to snatching another woman’s baby. Even though the new thinking was that women who had had miscarriages or had lost a child through cot-death were the least likely to want any other woman’s child, she’d had one traumatic case like that, and she didn’t particularly want another, thank you very much. But nobody invented a missing daughter of thirty years old!
‘So where the hell are you, Caroline?’ she muttered.
She saw a shadow outside the glass door of her office and visibly jumped, feeling as if she had somehow conjured up the missing woman out of her imagination. Quickly, she told herself not to get twitchy. Nobody could get into the building without pressing the security button and getting official admittance. She wasn’t expecting anybody, but there were one or two who were admitted on the strength of their ID cards. She must speak to the guy on the desk about that...
Her door opened after a brief knock, and a face she knew all too well came around the door. DI Nick Frobisher from the local constabulary had been chasing her for months now, even though she had only given him minimal encouragement, having decided early on that it would be fatal to mix a useful business contact with pleasure.
Though she had to admit that Nick was a super guy if you liked the tall, lean, black-moustachioed type, and she supposed his Latino appearance helped to disarm the crims he came into contact with. He often said proudly that his rough looks were identifiable with theirs. Alex liked him a lot, but that was all. He was a useful inside contact because he often gave her tips she’d never get from the police otherwise.
Thicker Than Water (Alexandra Best Investigations Book 1) Page 2