Elwood grumbled under his breath, and slowly pushed himself out of his chair. He waddled away from us, presumably heading toward the room where files for open investigations were kept. We waited a few minutes, ‘til he returned, carrying a single piece of paper.
My heart fell. I'd been hoping to see him carrying a large, thick file—presumably one that would have all the details of the case.
“This is what I can tell the public,” Elwood said, looking down at the paper. “Charlene Nelson's body was found off the highway in the desert, three days back. The LVMPD are investigating the case, and are not able to comment further at this time.” Elwood looked up from the paper and grinned at us. “So that's all I can tell the public.”
I tilted my head backward, and stifled a groan.
“I'm sure you can tell us something more,” Ian said pleadingly.
Elwood glanced around, as though he was wary of being watched. But by now, most of the cops at the precinct knew me and Ian, and they surely wouldn’t be too suspicious of Elwood talking to us.
“Maybe I’ll see what I can do,” Elwood said slowly. “There might be some files I could show you.”
“What files?” said a familiar voice.
Detective Ryan Dimitriou took a few brisk steps forward. He seemed to materialize out of thin air, standing next to Elwood, and grinning down at us.
He was as handsome as ever, with his sparkling gray eyes, tan skin, and broad shoulders. As usual, I smiled back at him, and little pitter patter footsteps ran across my heart.
“We're investigating a case that’s yours,” I said. I tried my best not to sound apologetic—there was no reason to apologize. Yet. “Charlene Nelson.”
A hint of dismay flashed in Ryan’s eyes before he turned quickly to look at Elwood.
Elwood raised his eyebrows at Ryan, and said, “I've been telling them what we've told the press. No more than that.” He held out the paper to Ryan, as though it were proof of his innocence.
“We were hoping you could tell us a bit more,” Ian said.
Ryan looked at us and sighed. “Come on, let's go head over to a conference room and chat.”
We followed Ryan over to one of the small conference rooms on the right of the bullpen. It looked different from when I'd last been here—instead of a plain wooden table surrounded by metal chairs, there were a few loveseats scattered around, and a comfy-looking wingback armchair covered in a light floral pattern. The room looked warm and cozy, and I gave Ryan a quizzical look. “Did someone here take an interior decorating course?”
Ryan shrugged. “We’re supposed to be friendlier. A lot of the people who come in have gone through trauma, and want to report a crime. This room is meant to make them feel at ease. I'll be right back with the Charlene Nelson file.”
Ian and I settled in and waited, our nerves slightly on edge. A few minutes later, Ryan appeared, brandishing a thick file.
“What did you want to know?” he said, settling in on the loveseat opposite us.
“Anything you can tell us,” I said hopefully. “I know it's still an open investigation, but Ian and I have to do our best. So I’ll leave it up to you—let us know anything you think might help us.”
Ryan’s cheeks dimpled. “I'll see what I can do. You know I'm not supposed to be telling you any of this at all right? We never had this conversation.”
Ian and I nodded like bobbleheads.
“I really appreciate you helping us out,” I said warmly. “I know it's… I know you don't like us investigating open cases. But we'll do what we can to stay out of your way.”
“It's a slow investigation anyway,” Ryan said, leaning back in his chair. “We're flooded with all kinds of touristy crime. We need to keep the tourists happy, so the mayor wants us to focus on creating a safe city for them, make the Strip safer, all that kind of stuff.”
I leaned forward. “What have you got?”
“I can show you photos of the scene,” Ryan said, pulling out the crime scene photos he'd been talking about and handing them over to us. “Charlene's body was found in the desert off the highway, but she'd been stabbed. Whoever killed her did it somewhere else and then transported her body to the desert. The blood stains found weren’t consistent with her being killed in the desert.”
“You think they were trying to hide the body?”
“I do. It would never have been found, except for one of those hipster amateur photographers who decided to go to strange places to take artistic shots. He's the one who found the body.”
A shudder racked my body. “How terrible. Lucky about the photographer, though. If he hadn’t been there, the body might’ve lain in the desert for ages.”
The photos were gory, and I glanced at them quickly before handing them over to Ian. They showed a young girl who had freckled skin and blond hair with dark roots showing. Her skin had gone a strange shade of white, and her eyes were vacant and unseeing. She was wearing a silver necklace with a heart-shaped locket, and a T-shirt and Bermuda shorts. Her clothes were covered in blood, and her limbs seemed to be at odd angles.
“Do you know when she was killed? Andrew told us he was supposed to see her at nine at night for their dinner date, so she must’ve been killed before then.”
“One of the neighbors last saw her at seven. She’d gone out for a walk.”
“So she must’ve been killed between seven and nine,” I mused thoughtfully.
When we handed the photos back, Ryan asked, “Who hired you? Brad, her brother, right?” Ian and I exchanged a look, but neither of us said anything, so Ryan went on. “Brad was really shook up each time we went to talk to him. He’d been having dinner with his partner Chris the night Charlene was killed, and he was so upset when we talked to him. I think he and Charlene had been really close, growing up together, and then moving to Vegas together. I hate cases like this, and I had to tell Brad he’d probably do well with some counseling.”
I shifted in my seat, not looking forward to speaking with Brad. “No, it was actually Andrew, the man who'd gone out on a date with Charlene just before she was killed.”
“Right. I remember him. He kept saying this might be his fault somehow, that maybe it was all fate. You know, you meet people like that sometimes—they come to Vegas, and something strange happens, and they think it's all because of fate, or luck.”
“We do play up the Lady Luck aspect of life.”
Ryan's gray eyes grew thoughtful, and he looked off into the distance. “Not everything is about luck.”
“But some things are,” I argued. “Like running into you in that parking lot. We might not have met if it hadn't been for that day.”
Ryan smiled at me. “We might still have met. If you do believe in fate, something important that's meant to happen will happen anyway. But you don't believe in fate, do you?”
“Not always. Before I started working as an investigator, I didn't believe in fate at all. But now—I'm not so sure.”
“Did you talk to the roommates?” Ian said impatiently, noticing how our conversation had strayed away from the case.
Ryan nodded. “I did. We talked everyone, but no one seemed to have any motive for killing her. We think this might just be a random one-off crime, but we’re still investigating, of course.”
“Did you learn anything unusual?”
Ryan shook his head, and closed the folder. “No, it all seemed very normal.”
We sat in silence for a few seconds, and then I said, “Is that all you can tell us?”
“Yep.” A serious look had come over Ryan’s face, a look that I'd come to know as his “cop face.” “I'm afraid that's it. I should’ve asked you who hired you first. I’d just assumed that Brad, the brother, had hired you. But now that I know it's not him, I have to tell you guys to be careful. I don't want you upsetting any of the people who knew Charlene. Especially not Brad. He seems so fragile.”
“You know we’re always professional.” I tried not to sound defensive, but I could feel t
hat old annoyance bubbling up.
Ryan leaned forward and smiled into my eyes. “I know. You’re a good detective. But I remember Brad too well—it’s hard to deliver bad news to loved ones. He kept mumbling that it was his fault, that he should’ve been a better brother. He needs counseling sooner rather than later, not some nosy PI—don’t glare, you know you’re nosy!—poking around.”
I sighed. “Oh, all right. We’ll be less nosy. And super discreet. We always are.”
“So you keep telling me,” Ryan said, with a twinkle in his eyes. “But I wouldn't be doing my job right if I didn't tell you not to meddle too much. And you do know that you have to stick to the rules, and you can't break into people's places, or steal their mail, or go through their trash, or record them without their knowledge—all the things like that.”
I tried my best to keep a straight face, but out of the corner of my eye I could see Ian fidgeting and looking away guiltily. He'd left his tiny button-sized camera in the car, and hopefully no one else would find out about it.
“We know all of that,” I said. I tried my best not to sound as sheepish as I felt.
“On previous cases, some suspects have accused you of breaking into their apartments. I heard you once even took Nanna with you.”
“That's not—” I wanted to say that it wasn't true, but it actually was.
Ryan stared at me seriously. “I don't want you to compromise an open investigation, especially one that I’m working on. You got lucky a few times in the past, but you can’t keep breaking the rules.”
Our conversation had started out so nicely. “I thought we’d be working together on this one.”
Ryan rubbed his temples as though I was giving him a headache. “We can work together. I just don’t want you making people feel uncomfortable. I feel so sorry for the poor brother.”
“And you can't feel sorry for anyone else who wants to know the truth?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, our client wants us to investigate and find out that truth.”
“He didn’t even know her properly. He’s just someone who’s decided to believe in fate and lucky charms and things that are meant to be. I think he’s one of those people who’s come into lots of money suddenly, and doesn't know how to spend it.”
“He's an accountant,” Ian protested. “He knows perfectly well, better than most people, how to track his spending and income.”
“It's always the quiet, logical ones who become obsessed and dangerous,” Ryan said. “I know I can't discourage you from looking into this case, but I do have to do my job and tell you not to obstruct the police investigation. Don’t let your meddling make our job harder. We’re the professionals.”
I glowered at Ryan silently. I was a professional too, just as much as him.
Charlene’s death was a mystery I was determined to investigate properly, and with any luck, I’d be the one to solve it.
Chapter 6
Ian and I went straight from the precinct to my parents’ house in North Las Vegas. Before Ian and I had accepted this case, I’d agreed to a family lunch today, and there was no backing out of this.
I didn't like being told how to do my job, and I wished I could take a bit of a break from seeing Ryan so frequently. I was hopeful that our relationship would get back to the happy, calm normalcy that we’d enjoyed, as soon as this case was over. But while we were working on it, I didn't feel like explaining myself or my methods to Ryan.
Ian and I pulled up in front of my parents’ house, and got out of the car warily. We both put on fake grins when Nanna opened the door, and we followed her into the den where everyone else, other than Ryan, was already gathered around.
There was Wes, Nanna's new husband, and Wes's brother Glenn, who also happened to be my downstairs neighbor and a retired baker, and Glenn's aging hippie girlfriend Karma. For once, my mother was also settled down in a chair, and not rushing around in the kitchen, and my dad sat next to her. They were all talking animatedly about the upcoming baseball season, and whether the Mets would do well or not. I didn't follow baseball, so I lost interest when the talk turned to batting averages and previous injuries.
“Is Ryan coming?” my mother asked me, and I nodded.
“He should be here in a few minutes. We've just met him at the station.”
My mother smiled, and watched me carefully. “That sounds nice. But was it for work?”
I grimaced and sighed. “Yes, we have to investigate another case that Ryan is working on.”
The baseball talk died down abruptly, and everyone stared at me.
“You two worked together on that reality TV show murder, didn't you?” Nanna said gently. “That worked out okay in the end.”
“Yeah, I think we’ll soon start getting used to working with each other.” I tried to sound upbeat and hopeful, but the emotions I wanted to project didn't quite make it into my voice.
“I'm sure everything will be fine,” Wes said reassuringly. “Every relationship has its hiccups. Because you and Ryan work in the same business, your hiccups are a bit different from most people’s, that’s all.”
I glanced at Karma. Glenn's girlfriend frequently had “premonitions” that I used to discount—but the last few premonitions she'd had turned out to be true. I was hoping she would say something about my relationship with Ryan, but instead, she glanced off to one side, and refused to meet my eyes.
I wasn’t going to let her get off that easily, so I said, “Karma, you don't have some kind of premonition about this, do you?”
Karma finally turned to look at me and smiled. She had make-up free, wrinkled skin, and straight gray hair that fell to her waist. As usual, she was wearing a black tank top, and a long, flowing bohemian skirt.
“I don't have a premonition,” she said. “But relationships can be tricky. I'm sure everything will work out for the best. What happened to that other nice young man who used to come to family lunches, Stone? The one you kept saying was just a friend?”
Nanna burst out laughing. “I don’t see how Tiffany can stay ‘just friends’ with a man who’s so nice and handsome. We never do see him around these days.”
“I heard he was wanted by the CIA,” my mother said, thin-lipped.
“It's all a misunderstanding,” I reassured her. “It'll get sorted out soon.”
Ian and I exchanged a glance. I wished I could tell my parents the truth about Stone, but it was still too soon.
My mother made a tut-tut noise. “No matter how good looking or polite someone is, it's best to stay away from them if they keep getting into danger.”
Ian said, “Tiffany keeps getting into danger.”
But that just made my mother shake her head. “Too often for my liking.”
I smiled to myself, glad that I rarely told my mother how dangerous my work was—I tried not to let her know that I’d been stalked and shot at.
“Why can't you focus on your work at the casino?” Mom went on. “I heard from my friend Ruby's sister Carla, that you'd been offered a job as a pit boss, or to get fast-tracked to management.”
I rolled my eyes. “The Vegas gossip mill is still in session.”
“But it's true, isn’t it?” my mother insisted. “Why turn down a nice management position?”
“Because I could never work in management after working on the floor,” I said honestly. “After the Treasury brought in those new executives and tried to cut costs, I saw firsthand how out of touch management is with the people who do the real work on the floor. It's all theory to management—but when you're on the ground, doing your job, you have to be practical. I don't want to be one of those people who make up ridiculous rules and targets, and tries to force them on everyone else.”
“Not all management is bad,” Wes said. “I know someone—”
The conversation was interrupted by a loud knock at the door, and my mother stood up and smiled at me. “That must be Ryan. I'm sure it’ll be nice for you two to have a good family meal together
. Stop thinking about work all the time, and maybe focus on each other.”
With that, she was gone. Ryan followed her in a few seconds later, and I noticed that my mother was holding a large bunch of flowers.
“Ryan brought these over,” she said. “Isn't that nice of him?”
Ryan and I exchanged a smile. He must've stopped off at the florist’s, and I was actually glad to see him again, away from work.
Greetings were exchanged all around, and then Ryan said. “What are we talking about?”
There was silence for a few seconds, and then Ian quickly said, “Baseball. Do you think Kris Bryant's going to have another good season?”
Ryan looked as though he didn't believe that we’d really been talking about baseball, but everyone started talking about the Red Sox, and what their odds were this time round.
A few minutes later, my mother announced that the roast was ready, and we all headed over to the dining room, where we settled down for a delicious meal of Greek-style lamb, roast potatoes, and Greek salad. It just so happened that Ryan and I were sitting at different ends of the table, and for once, we barely spoke to each other throughout the meal. It was as though everyone at the table was intent on keeping the conversation to non-offensive topics, but I couldn't help feeling the slight awkwardness and tension every now and then.
Ryan got a text halfway through the meal, and just before dessert was served, he excused himself and said he had an emergency. He gave me a quick peck on the cheek, and then he was gone.
After he'd left, and dessert was served, my mother turned to me and said, “Things will never work out between you two unless you're honest about what's happening. I know it's difficult to work together, but you can't hide things from him.”
“He said he'd found out we'd broken into a suspect's house with Nanna once,” I said slowly. “We can't be honest about things like that.”
“Then maybe you should stop breaking into suspect’s houses.”
I looked at my mother and shook my head. “That break-in hadn’t been my idea. It's always Nanna and Ian who come up with crazy plans like that.”
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