“I’d say call me if you find anything, but no cell phones.”
Victoria was already scanning the crowd. In case things with Manny didn’t work out? I had another moment of sympathy for her husband. The way she was eyeing the gladiator made me wonder if she ever broke her own rules.
But that was not for me to worry about. I was going to take a self-guided tour of the grounds.
I walked across the courtyard, past the pool area. A few people soaked in the hot tub, but otherwise the grounds were deserted. I headed around the pool, and just as I was about to turn right, in the direction of the restaurant, the squeak of a door opening drifted through the air. I turned toward the row of buildings along the edge of the grounds, bordering the parking lot.
I moved closer, peering into the darkness, my breath catching in my throat when I saw a dark shadow move from one building to the next. I went with my instinct. Whoever it was had to be doing something they shouldn’t be.
A flurry of nerves hit the pit of my stomach. I had no plan. I’d come tonight to ferret out information, not to chase down a bad guy. No weapon, other than my black belt in kung fu. With no backup. I moved forward anyway, stealthy as a cat on the hunt, curious. And suspicious. But I stopped abruptly when a hand came down on my shoulder.
A scream shot up my throat, but another hand clamped over my mouth, stifling it before I could unleash it into the quiet night.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Shhh. Lola, it’s me.”
Jack? My senses were tingling and I suddenly felt something hard against my hip. ¡Ay, caramba!
My heart stopped. I slowly turned around and—
Breathed again. His idea of a skimpy costume was right up there with Manny’s: shirtless. Only instead of the black leather that Manny had on, Jack was wearing jeans and chaps, and the hard thing I’d felt was a toy gun holstered and slung low on his hips.
He held his finger to his mouth. “Shhh.”
“How did you…? Why are you…?”
He answered in one word. “Zac.”
I cursed my cousin under my breath, but then I knew Jack Callaghan had my back. Mi amor.
“So you came to help?”
He lowered his chin, giving me a look that I translated in my head to mean, Are you serious? You at a nudist resort, left to your own devices? His smoldering gaze dropped to my pink and black mini mini skirt and knee socks. “Where else would I be? After our last conversation—”
I put my finger to his lips. “I hardly remember that conversation, pero gracias.”
His slow perusal of me, and the pause at my bare belly—and above—made my skin blister and my knees go weak. “Brings back a few high school memories,” he said, his dimple etching into his cheek as his lips curved up.
“Of who? You and Greta Pritchard?” I batted my eyelashes at him.
“Hardly,” he said, and I remembered how he’d said he’d had a crush on me back then. If only I hadn’t been his best friend’s little sister.
The wait had been worth it.
“What are you spying on?” he asked.
Back to business. I notched my head toward the building. “Someone’s in there.”
He used two fingers, pointing toward a cluster of trees along the edge of the property. I followed him, tiptoeing so the heels of my shoes wouldn’t sink into the soft ground.
I turned back to the buildings and crept forward. Jack didn’t make a sound, but I knew he was right behind me. The buildings were each lit by a single wall-mounted lamp, giving off just enough light to see the shape of the structures but not any details.
“Who is it?” Jack whispered, his breath in my ear sending a shiver down my spine.
“I don’t know.”
“Does it have something to do with your case?”
“Jennifer had some numbers written on brochures I found in her apartment. I was thinking they might correspond with those buildings. And now someone’s in them, and at this hour? And during the party? Seems odd, pero no sé.”
“Oh no. No Spanish right now. English only, por favor,” he said.
I turned and saw the heat in his eyes—was it from my costume, speaking to him in my native tongue, or both? “Lo siento—oops.” I put my fingers to my lips, smiling innocently and tossing my ponytails back. “I mean, sorry.”
“Cruz.” A definite note of warning tinged his voice.
“Callaghan.”
The squeak of a door stopped our flirting cold. I whirled back around, peering through the bush in front of me. A person stopped in the threshold. Whoever it was looked right, then left, then straight ahead. My skin crawled as I felt the gaze settle on me, but Jack and I stood as still as stone Aztec ruins. The building was open and the light was on inside, but even with the outdoor lamp, it was too dark for me to see who stood there, so it was impossible for anyone to see us hidden behind the shrubbery.
I held my breath and waited. Finally, the person moved, leaving the doorway and turning right, past the first building and into the parking lot.
I darted a quick glance around. All the partygoers were inside the main building behind us. The lights blazed from the event room. No one else was outside.
The coast was clear and there wasn’t a second to waste. I reached behind me, wrapping my hand around Jack’s wrist, then pulled him forward. “¡Vente!” I said with a hiss, then I let go and sprinted as fast as I could in my short skirt, braless top, and high heels.
I had seriously underestimated how long it would take to run across the grounds where I’d been hiding to the building with the open door. I plowed on, glancing back just long enough to know that Jack was right behind me. With my skirt flapping up and down as I ran and nothing but a black lacy thong on underneath. Ay, Dios.
And then he was in front of me, easily passing me up as my foot landed in a divot, my ankle twisting under me. I bit back the yelp that shot up my throat.
He reached for me, grabbing my arm but still pulling me forward. “You okay?”
“I think so.” I shook off the pain radiating from my ankle and kept going, limping slightly, until we were finally within ten yards of the door.
Jack made it to the threshold first, urging me on. “Hurry up.”
Just then, a movement to the left caught my eye. Shit.
Jack must have read my expression. “Hurry, Lola.”
I made it to the small cement pad in front of the door, the pain in my ankle like a knife through the bone. Damn high heels. I couldn’t put my finger on what I heard, but I knew whoever we’d seen leave the building was almost back. Before the person could round the corner, Jack grabbed my hand and yanked me inside.
His voice dropped to a low hiss. “Over there,” he said, dragging me toward a freestanding shelf. We slipped behind it just as the thump, thump, thump of footsteps hit the cement floor.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It was impossible to see a thing and we didn’t dare move. As it was, I was pretty sure whoever was in the building with us could hear my pounding heart.
I zeroed in on the sounds, hoping to get some clue. Woman or man? Larry? But if he’d had a thing for Jennifer, what would he be doing here now that she was gone?
The sound of a cardboard box being shoved aside was followed by a low grunt, the patter of footsteps, and the slam of a door.
“Shit, this is crazy,” Jack whispered.
He could say that again.
I stood, my ankle buckling under me, but Jack was there with his arm around me. A slice of light shone through the window. My eyes adjusted, and I registered the shadowy details of the ten-by-ten room. Boxes. Shelves. And more boxes. I grabbed the first one I saw, ripping it open and peering inside. It was full of tubs of the containers sold in the resort’s front office. “Protein powder.”
“It’s just a storage facility,” he said, but then he shook his head. “Why would someone be loading up boxes of this stuff now, in the middle of a party?”
“It has to be Craig,” I said
. “He told he had to check the food supply before he could give me a tour, but he could have easily slipped out here.” He’d been married to Jennifer. A new idea slid into my mind. “What if…Oh boy, what if he’s doing something illegal here and she found out about it?”
I searched my memory for the sound of his footsteps as he’d walked away, but the music had been too loud, and were bare-feet footsteps really identifiable, anyway? Then it dawned on me. I’d heard the thump, thump, thump of shoes on the floor, not the slap, slap, slap of bare feet.
“Maybe he put on shoes to come out here,” Jack suggested when I told him why it probably wasn’t Craig we’d seen.
“Maybe.” But my gut said no, and one thing my super-stitious abuela had taught me was to always follow my gut.
I closed the flaps of the box and shoved it aside. “Let’s check another one.”
“Over there,” Jack said, pointing across the room.
A few boxes were missing from a shelf. Those had to be the ones just taken out of the building.
I took a step, hobbling as fast as I could, the pain spiraling around my ankle. Jack was ahead of me, tearing into a box from the shelf he’d pointed out. “More protein powder,” he said.
He quickly closed the flaps, rearranging the boxes so the one he’d opened wasn’t on top. The low buzz of a phone sounded from just outside the door, followed by a clipped, “What?”
I gasped. We hadn’t found anything, and now we were on the verge of being caught. Caught doing what, I didn’t know, but I still didn’t want to explain why we were here.
Jack and I stared at each other, then in perfect unison, we both dropped to our knees. I moved first, scurrying around the corner of the shelf. It was only after I started crawling, the cold air from outside blowing into the building and chilling the flesh of my bare behind, that I remembered what I wasn’t wearing. Full coverage chonis. Damn. I could almost feel the heat of Jack’s gaze on my backside, but there was nothing I could do about it at the moment.
I hurried. Jack hurried. We rounded the corner just as the door opened and a man said, “Done.”
Not a good enough sampling to identify a voice—if I even knew who it was.
He must have hung up the phone. The next second, the thump of footsteps pounded against the cement, coming to a stop in front of the shelf we’d just been at. Another box slid from it, then more footsteps out the door, but this time, the light went out, the door slammed shut, and Jack and I were alone.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I counted to ten in my head, in case whoever had been here decided to come back.
“He’s gone,” Jack said, his voice sounding loud in the hollow darkness of the storage building.
“…ocho, nueve, diez,” I muttered, finishing my count. Then I cocked my head to the side, flipping my ponytails back as if that would help me hear better. All was silent. “Yep.”
Jack stood, then held his hand out so I could grab it and stand without putting too much weight on my foot. “Any better?” he asked.
“Maybe. I think so.”
He started toward the door as I processed my thoughts aloud. “So someone was loading up a delivery of protein powder at, what, like, ten thirty? Eleven?” The numbers on Jennifer’s brochures must not be related to these buildings at all. It was a dead end.
Jack, ever the investigative reporter, poked his head out the door into the darkness, then turned back to me. “Let’s check the other buildings.” He grabbed a nearby tub of protein powder and placed it between the door and the jamb. “In case we want to come back in here,” he explained.
Ah, mi amor! I knew I liked him for his brains. “Good thinking,” I said, crinkling my nose as my fake glasses slipped down. If I’d had a pocket, I would have tucked them away. But I didn’t, so I slid them back into place and followed Jack out the door, testing my weight on my ankle. So far, so good.
He glanced down at it a few times. “It’s fine,” I said under my breath, although I knew a whopping dose of Advil was in my future.
He tested the door handle of the second building. Locked. I limped around to the side of building two while he jogged to the others. I cupped my hands and peered through the window. Not much to see but shadows. Except—
A hand came down on my shoulder. “It’s me,” Jack said quickly enough that I could stifle the yelp hovering on my tongue. “They’re all locked.”
“What does that stuff look like to you?” I asked, pointing to the window.
“It’s dark in there,” he said, but he did exactly what I’d done, cupping his hands and peering through the glass. “Furniture. Chaise longues and stuff.”
My shoulders sank. “Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.”
We went back to the first building. “We have to be missing something,” I said. My instincts couldn’t be wrong on this!
He followed me inside, closing the door behind us. We didn’t dare turn on the lights, but after another minute, my eyes adjusted, the moonlight streaming in enough to show us the shelves.
“What do you think you’re going to find?” Jack asked.
“Good question. I don’t know.” Something tickled the back of my brain, but I couldn’t drag it out to the surface. “There’s nothing here, and yet…”
He walked alongside the shelves, touching the boxes and moving them to look behind. I went the other direction, doing the same, but stopped when the box I pushed nearly flew off the shelf. I shoved it out of the way, touching the one below it. “Jack,” I called.
He was by my side in a flash, standing behind me as I opened the box. “Empty?”
I turned and saw all his bare-chested glory. I swallowed the lump that rose in my throat. “Um, yeah. Empty.” I averted my eyes. “Why would there be empty boxes stacked here?” We went through a few more. Empty, each and every one, but shelved as if they were full of tubs of nutritional supplements.
Bending over, I peered between the shelves, leaning in to reach for the wall. Only it wasn’t a wall, it was—“A door.”
I pulled my head out from between the shelves, straightened up, and turned to find a smoldering, almost pained expression on Jack’s face, his gaze directed at my backside. Ay, caramba. Not now. If I couldn’t let my mind wander there, neither could he. We’d have plenty of time for that later.
I stood and snapped my fingers. “Callaghan. Focus.”
He blinked, his eyes still dark and seductive, but his attention back where it should be. “A door.” Then, as if a lightbulb turned on, he repeated, “A door?”
“Ayúdame,” I said, slipping into Spanish. His curiosity bypassed his desire, because he grabbed the end of the shelf and slid it back enough that we could fit behind it.
The whole time, that niggling feeling kept tapping in the recesses of my mind. I could hear Jennifer’s voice telling me something…something important. Pero, what was it? Manny’s voice came next. “Just wait. It’ll come to you. Remember your hypothesis.”
One of my hypotheses was that Larry Madrino had some jealous, unrequited love going on for Jennifer, but that just didn’t feel right. Manny’s voice popped into my head again. “‘Doesn’t feel right’ isn’t enough. Hard and cold facts, that’s what you need.”
“It’s unlocked,” Jack said, and just like that, Manny’s voice was gone.
We stepped inside. There were no windows, so I closed the door behind me and ran my hand along the wall. Finally, I found it and flipped it up.
Ceiling-mounted fluorescent lights flickered on and the room was suddenly blazing with brightness.
Jack and I stared at the long, rectangular table, the buckets, the tubing, and the glass jars in the center of the room. “Is it a meth lab?” I asked when I found my voice again. It had to be. Why else would all these chemicals and supplies be here? I could see the headline now:
RURAL SACRAMENTO NUDIST RESORT FRONT FOR CRYSTAL METH LAB
Jack’s jaw pulsed as he walked around the science lab setup.
I read the n
ames of the chemicals. Benzyl Alcohol and Benzyl Benzoate, whatever that was. Grapeseed oil. Beakers and needles. And testosterone cypionate.
After a minute, he turned to face me, the color draining from his face. “Shit.”
“What?” What could a chemist make with testosterone cypion—“Holy Mary Mother of God,” I said. “It’s not meth, is it? Someone’s making steroids.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I grabbed Jack by the arm, an idea crashing into my head. “The drug scandal with the Royals a few years ago.”
Jack’s expression was grim. “What about it?”
My heart raced. We were close to the answer, I could feel it. “Players were suspended.”
“Right. Lance Koning and Mike Javorski.”
Those names. My breath caught in my throat. “Twenty-three and fifty-one.”
He tilted his head, studying me.
Lines criss-crossed in my head, making me dizzy. “I saw those jerseys at Jennifer’s house.” Numbers 23 and 51. The trophies she’d had tucked away in her box. The gladiator from the party spun into my head. Number 11, Christof.
Jennifer’s words floated back to me. “She majored in chemistry,” I told Jack.
He leaned against the table, cupping his hand to his chin, crossing one leg over the other. He was one part sexy cowboy, one part brainy journalist. “Who?” he asked.
“Jennifer Wallace.”
“How do you know?”
“She told me.”
His brows lifted.
“I know,” I said. “Not your stereotypical cheerleader.”
“And you think—”
My skin tingled with the thrill of discovery. What if Jennifer hadn’t been an innocent in all of this? “It’s possible. If Jennifer used this place to make some sort of super-steroid, she could have sold it to the players.”
Bare-Naked Lola (A Lola Cruz Mystery) Page 22