Private Investigations

by Tori Carrington

  Ripley turned the key over in her hand.

  “Looks like a locker key,” Joe said. “One of those you find in an airport or something.”

  “Or a bus station, or a train station, or even a health spa.”

  He held his hand palm out, and she dropped the key into his palm. No identifying marks to indicate exactly where it was from, only the locker number, 401.

  Ripley pulled her knees to her chest and rested her arms against them. “The locker could be anywhere from here to St. Louis and beyond.”

  He grimaced. “You weren’t actually thinking to open it if you did know where it was, were you?”

  She shrugged her slender shoulders. “Sure. The contents would probably help to explain a lot.”

  He reluctantly handed her the key then put the box on the bed next to him. “Judging by how things have gone down so far, I’d recommend against it.”

  She blinked at him. “And what would you recommend?”

  “I say you should give the box and its contents to the FBI tomorrow, including the key.”

  She frowned, curling her toes against the carpeting. She had sexy toes. Slender, fingerlike, the nails painted a metallic pink. “Then we might never find out what’s really going on.”

  “Fine by me.”

  Her brown eyes narrowed as she considered him. “Really? I mean, you can just walk away without knowing who Christine Bowman is, what Nicole’s relationship is to her and what’s in this locker to explain why the FBI’s involved?”

  “Walk away isn’t the way I’d put it. Run would probably cover it more accurately.”

  She turned to stare at the key resting in the middle of her palm.

  She just didn’t get it, did she? He didn’t care about Nicole Bennett, Christine Bowman or that damn key she held. All he cared about was her. And the only mystery he wanted to uncover was whether or not they had a future together.

  11

  RIPLEY SAT facing the three goons with FBI IDs who were squashed into the booth opposite her. She was concentrating on her breakfast. The middle goon elbowed the one on the end, and he nearly fell out of the bench and onto the floor, reminding her of an old Three Stooges episode.

  The rejected agent stumbled to his feet, then stood, his mirrored sunglasses reflecting the table and its occupants but nothing about what was going on inside his head.

  “Sir,” a waitress said, trying to pass. “I’m going to have to ask you to sit down.”

  Not a flicker of emotion passed over his stone face as he gave their table a once-over, then moved to sit at the counter some fifteen feet away, positioning his stool so he could keep an eye on them.

  “Where’s the box?”

  Ripley smothered jam on a half piece of toast. Ever since meeting in the lobby of the hotel half an hour ago, she’d been delaying giving the agents what they were after. There were a few things she wanted from them first. And she wasn’t going to get what she wanted if she rolled over and played dead.

  Okay, she’d had to concede to Joe that maybe trekking through every plane, train and bus station from Memphis to St. Louis wasn’t a very good idea, even if she was chomping at the bit to see with her own two eyes what lay in the locker the key opened. So she’d offered a compromise. She’d hand the key over to her new friends here, but only when they shared some information with her.

  She wiped her hands on her napkin then fished the box from her purse, the back of her hand grazing Joe’s side where he sat beside her. His eyes held a mixture of amusement and exasperation.

  “Here,” she said, setting the box in the middle of the table.

  Agent Miller glanced around the restaurant then plucked the box up while Ripley picked up her toast and took a bite.

  A moment later, he stared at her. “Where’s the rest?”

  She squinted at him, pretending not to understand. “Can you take off your sunglasses, please? I don’t much like talking to my own reflection.”

  He whipped them off so fast she was surprised he didn’t put an eye out. He gave her a steely gaze that half tempted her to tell him to put the glasses back on. “Ms. Logan, I’d suggest you put your cards on the table now before I take you into protective custody and order a body search.”

  Obviously he’d used the threat before. And even she had to admit that the imagery wasn’t particularly pleasant. “That would be a waste of time. It’s not on me.”

  What went unsaid was that it was the key. The same key she’d sealed in an envelope and put in the hotel safe early that morning, long before the agents showed up for their meeting.

  “Are you sure you don’t want something to eat?” she asked.

  They stared at her.

  She shrugged and leisurely finished her breakfast, letting them chew on the information they already had—that she had the key and knew that they wanted it.

  Joe shifted uncomfortably next to her. The waitress tried to refill his cup, and he put his hand over the rim to stop her. “Decaf, please.”

  Ripley accepted the full octane, then added four sugar packets and heavy cream. She looked Agent Miller full in the face. “I need you to fill in some missing gaps for me.”

  “What do you want to know?’

  “What relationship does Nicole Bennett have to Christine Bowman, aka Clarise Bennett?”

  For a long moment, it appeared he might not answer. Then finally he said in a short, clipped voice, “Bennett hired on as Bowman’s housekeeper and cook a week ago.”

  Ripley raised her eyebrows. “Referred? Through an agency?”

  “Cold interview as a result of an ad in a newspaper.”

  “Then she took off with the box.”

  “Yes.”

  “Which is why Christine followed Nicole here to Memphis.”

  He narrowed his eyes. Ripley shivered then stiffened her shoulders. “You’ve seen Christine Bowman?” the agent asked.

  Joe leaned close to her. “I, um, left out the details of our little Clarise hunt the other night. Of course, I didn’t know Clarise Bennett was Christine Bowman at the time, either.”

  God, but he smelled good. “Ah,” she said slowly.

  The agent leaned closer. “I need to know the details.”

  “Tell me what’s in the locker first.”

  He went silent.

  Ripley sighed, much as she would have had she been talking to a stubborn five-year-old. “Okay. But what I’m about to tell you I’m only offering as a good-faith gesture. With or without you, I am going to find out what’s in the locker the key opens.”

  Silence again.

  She launched into her explanation. “When we were making arrangements with the pawnshop owner to purchase the box and its contents, I noticed Christine getting out of a cab on the street outside. When I started to approach her she got back into the cab and took off. We followed her to the Pyramid, where we lost her. But we ran into an armed Nicole Bennett.”

  Agent Miller glanced at the agent next to him.

  Ripley sighed. “I don’t much like having my client run from me or having a gun held on me, so you can see why I’m interested in finding out what this is about.”

  Miller stared at her. “The pawnshop owner is dead.”

  Ripley nearly choked on her coffee.

  Dead? The pawnshop owner was dead? She rested her head against her hands, trying to stop the spinning of the room. The problem lay in that the room wasn’t spinning, she was.

  “Define dead,” Joe said quietly next to her.

  Ripley looked up. Could Agent Miller have meant, “He’s dead,” as in, “I’m going to kill him for selling the box to you?” Figuratively speaking?

  Miller motioned for the waitress to fill his cup when she came with Joe’s decaf. “His body was found late last night, stuffed inside one of his own display cases.”

  Nope, there was no figuratively in that equation.

  Every last trace of bravado seeped from Ripley’s muscles. She sank against the red plastic of the booth, wishing hersel
f one with it. Images of her ransacked hotel room, her torn clothing, her shredded mattress chased the air from her lungs.

  “Christine?” Joe asked.

  The agent nodded. “We’re guessing that right before she swung by your room with her straight edge, she made that visit to the pawnshop that she had aborted when you happened across her. I don’t think she liked what the owner had to say. Clean shot straight to the head, execution style.” He made a gun with his hand and pressed his index finger between his eyes. Ripley started when he made a pow sound.

  “Oh, boy,” she whispered, not for the first time feeling way out of her league here.

  She’d never had direct contact with a known killer before. Clarise…Christine had seemed so normal. Just your average, everyday, run-of-the-mill woman concerned about her sister’s welfare.

  “Who is this person?” she asked.

  “If we told you, we’d have to kill you.”

  Ripley nearly dropped her coffee cup. He cracked a small smile.

  “Ha, ha. Agent humor. I get it.”

  The smile disappeared. “The only thing you need to know is that she’s a dangerous woman. We’ve been trailing her for over ten months now, trying to get the drop on her, and she’s always been one step ahead of us.”

  “Until Nicole, who I’m guessing is a thief, unwittingly targeted Christine’s house.”

  “Right.”

  “Do you know where the locker is?” Joe asked.

  The agent didn’t blink, didn’t say anything.

  Ripley swallowed. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “Ms. Logan, I can’t emphasize enough how important it is that you give us that key. So long as you have it, you remain a target.”

  “A target for what?”

  He really didn’t have to answer that, and thankfully he didn’t.

  Joe slid his arm around the back of the booth then pulled her to rest against his side. She was glad for his closeness and warmth. Suddenly, she felt cold.

  “Explain something. How does your gaining possession of the key help me?” she asked. “As far as you know, Christine doesn’t know of your involvement. So if I hand over to you what she wants, then she’s going to think I still have it anyway.”

  “She already suspects we’re onto her.”

  “Maybe so, but how does she know I handed over the key? Unless…”

  “Unless you tell her that,” Joe finished for her.

  Ripley sat bolt straight. “Call me stupid, but I’d prefer it if I didn’t have to come within spitting distance of Christine Bowman again, at least not in this lifetime.”

  Everyone at the table went eerily silent. Ripley stared at the empty plates that had held her super breakfast, wondering if it had been a mistake to eat all she had. Of course, when she’d thought she’d get one over on the agents, she hadn’t known murder was included anywhere in the picture. The waitress cleared her plates away, and she was left with nothing to stare at but the other men at the table. After flicking a gaze at the two agents across from her, she looked at Joe, and felt sanity slowly return.

  So Nicole Bennett was a thief who had cased and targeted Christine Bowman’s house, stealing from someone who was already on the wrong side of the law, eliminating any risk of Christine reporting the theft to the police. She’d brought the goods to Memphis, unloaded them at the pawnshop and…

  But that didn’t explain why she didn’t leave after the sale. Why had she been at the Pyramid?

  Ripley shook her head. Wrong avenue. This wasn’t about Nicole, it was about Christine.

  Then it occurred to her. A plan that would take care of Christine, keep her and Joe safe and, she hoped, give her the answers she was looking for.

  “Tell me what’s in the locker, and I’ll tell you how we’re going to handle this,” she said stoically.

  JOE WAS RUNNING on borrowed time. He’d pretty much figured that out over breakfast with Ripley and the three agents. Hell, he’d worked out that much one day into his bizarre, sexy relationship with her. But now that their plane had touched down in St. Louis, and he and Ripley were in her ancient Ford Mustang—which might have been a classic had the previous owner or owners taken care of it—chugging toward her apartment, he could hear the clock ticking on the time he had left with Ripley.

  “Diamonds,” Ripley whispered next to him, kicking the windshield wipers into action to combat the rapidly falling rain.

  Heavy gray clouds choked the sky, seeming to crowd around the car as she negotiated the slippery streets to her place. It was just after noon, but the storm overhead made it look more like dusk. There was a burst of lightning on the horizon, then a crack of thunder seemed to shake the already shaky vehicle. What Joe wouldn’t do for his own car, which was sitting in a parking lot at Memphis International Airport.

  Diamonds. That’s what Agent Miller had finally told Ripley was in the storage locker. Ten months ago someone hit a wholesale jeweler in New York, making off with a bag of flawless, uncut white diamonds. That person was Christine Bowman. The catch was that they hadn’t had much luck in proving the priceless gems were in Christine’s custody, thus the reason she had yet to be arrested. Then Nicole Bennett had entered the picture and had thrown everything into a tailspin.

  That connection between Christine and the diamonds was what Ripley had promised to give the agents.

  “Do you think they told us the truth?” Ripley asked him, taking her eyes from the road.

  “Whoa,” he said, grabbing the dashboard. “Can we talk about this when we get to your place?” And off this slippery road in this poor excuse for a car.

  She waved off his comment. “I drive in this stuff all the time. Have to, or else I’d be housebound now, wouldn’t I? Besides, we’re not going to my place. Not yet.” She looked directly at him. “Anyway, I’m still waiting for an answer to my question.”

  “I’d feel better if this old thing had a passenger-side air bag.” He glanced at her. “And what do you mean we’re not going to your place?”

  She smiled.

  He released a long breath. “Why wouldn’t they tell you the truth?”

  “I don’t know. Call me cynical, but everything connected with this case hasn’t been what it seems.”

  Everything? Joe looked at her, wondering if that comment extended to them and their tentative relationship.

  He ran a hand through his damp hair. “Back to the not going to your place part…”

  The plan Ripley had worked out with Miller included her returning to St. Louis, going straight to her apartment and waiting for Christine Bowman to contact her. The minute she did, Ripley was to arrange for a public meeting in which she would ask for what remained on her fee and then pass the box, including the key, to Christine. Pretend she’d never been contacted by the FBI. That she didn’t know Christine was indeed Christine. And act like she had no idea the pawnshop owner had been stuffed in his own display case. Ripley was a simple P.I. who had performed a simple task. She’d tracked down Nicole, recovered the stolen items her client directed her to, and was returning those items. Nothing more, nothing less.

  And Joe liked absolutely nothing about this.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the road behind them. He was pretty sure that agents were tailing them, but he’d be damned if he could make them out. “You know, they’re not going to like this very much.”

  “Tough.” She glanced at him. “Besides, where I’m going will only take a few minutes.”

  “And that is?”

  “The park.”

  “Hmm. The park.” The response should have surprised him, but it didn’t. Only Ripley knew how Ripley’s mind worked. Like always, he was just along for the ride.

  She rubbed her palms over the steering wheel. “You see, while we know what the locker holds, we still don’t know its location.”

  “And that affects us how?”

  She looked at him. “I want to be there when Christine goes after those diamonds.”

  Joe st
ared at it her. Had she gone completely insane? Forget that they were talking about a woman who didn’t hesitate to whack those who didn’t cooperate with her. There was no telling what she would do if she spotted Ripley anywhere within a hundred-mile radius of that locker.

  “I think it’s safe to assume it’s here in St. Louis,” she said, appearing to think aloud. “Miller would never have asked us to return here if it weren’t. Besides, this is where Christine started out. The only reason we ended up in Memphis in the first place was—”

  “Because of Nicole Bennett.”

  Joe didn’t know what concerned him more. That he was in tune enough with her to finish her sentences or that he was nodding in agreement.

  He cleared his throat. “So how do you propose we find out where this locker is?” He glanced out the back window again. “I think our friends will be suspicious if we start hitting bus and train stations.” He jabbed a thumb toward the back seat. “And we just left the airport and didn’t check there.”

  “How?” Her smile made something go thump in his chest. “You’ll see.”

  “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

  A few minutes later Joe pretty much thought he had their tail pegged. It was a late model SUV with a woman driving, though there was a baby seat in the back—empty—and the guy wearing a ball cap in the passenger’s seat appeared somehow too relaxed. But when Joe suspected Ripley didn’t make an expected turn, the guy sat up, instantly alert.

  He glanced at Ripley. God, but even now he found her the most attractive woman he’d ever been around. It was more than physical beauty. A buzzing kind of energy seemed to emanate from her, a thirst for life that made him hum just being next to her. Made him question things he wasn’t so sure he wanted to question. Made him want her beyond anything having to do with sex. Well, okay, sex, too. But he was increasingly wanting more, while she appeared happy with the way things were.

  She pulled to the side of the road and parked at the curb, throwing the car into park. She glanced at him, the telltale way she worried her bottom lip making his stomach tighten. “Um, I think it would be a good idea, you know, if you waited here.”