“And why do you suddenly have the vocabulary skills of a third grader? What’d he do—screw you senseless?” she asked with a laugh.
“Over and over again.”
“O. M. G.” Darcy wheezed in excitement in between each letter. “You and Brad had sex?”
Adding another one for emphasis, Trina said, “Over and over and over again.” Why was Darcy so shocked? “You know he’s totally over Dana. Has been for a while now. Or maybe you didn’t know?”
“If I’d known he was so ready to move on, I would’ve fixed you guys up. My BFF with Coop’s. It’s perfect. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were all focused on the road. I figured we’d have lots of time to talk once we stopped tailing and segued into the stakeout portion of the day.”
Darcy rubbed her hands together. “Oh, we’ll definitely need all this time. I don’t want you to leave out a single detail. I want ratings in all categories: dexterity, stamina, muscles, inventiveness, overall prowess—”
Trina signed for a time-out. She was getting good flutters in her belly just thinking about all of that. Although oh-so-true, she knew labeling him Best Sex Ever wouldn’t satisfy Darcy. “He’s a solid ten across the board. Two thumbs up. Five gold stars. If sex was a competitive event, Brad would dominate the medal stand.”
“Should I start planning a double wedding?”
Trina rolled her eyes. Tried not to imagine even for a second how much fun that would be. “Bite your tongue. We’ve barely started dating. We just slept together. And I don’t have a great track record with committing to anything, as you’ve pointed out. Brad doesn’t deserve to get his heart broken again. It’s just...hard.”
Darcy held up one hand and started ticking off items on her fingers. “Um, a job you really like, your best friend planning a wedding in which you’re obviously the maid of honor, and a sexy new boyfriend—what precisely is hard about any of those things?”
“I get to be maid of honor?” Sure, they’d joked about it for years, but it was so much better to get the official ask.
“Of course.”
“Can I choose my own dress?”
“Of course not,” Darcy said with that same, indulgent smile.
“I’m scared to decide what to do next,” she blurted out. “About life. Work. And Brad.” Crap. Not that she was afraid to tell Darcy the truth. Her BFF had never looked down on her for not having a college degree. Never once asked Trina to call her Dr. Trent after she’d earned the letters PhD after her name. Trina knew the occasional shame at her untraditional career path was entirely her own. Having a best friend who was so much smarter was rough.
“Because...” Darcy prompted.
“Joe thinks I have this off-center way of looking at things that’ll make me a strong investigator. He wants me to keep working with him. But only if I take a bunch of college courses to get a certificate in investigation. And you know how I feel about tests and studying. It’ll be horrible,” she wailed. “I’ll suck. I might fail.”
“Or you might not. No matter how you do on the tests, you know you’ll learn everything. That’s what counts, in the end, not the grades. Look, I’ll help you. Tests and studying are what I do best. I’m an idiot savant of prep and cramming.”
Trina dropped her gaze to the dead phone sitting in the middle of the console. Gave into a moment of self-pity. Or self-disgust. “I’m just the idiot part of whatever you just said.”
“Shut up.” Darcy pinched her on the thigh. “I don’t let anyone insult my best friend—not even you.”
“It’s such a big decision. I prefer the fly by the seat of my pants approach to life.” She stared out the window at a bunch of seagulls looping and swirling through the air. They had it easy. “This is a big-ass, fork-in-the-road, turning-point, all-grown-up moment. And I know it’s more than time for that to happen.”
“Do you remember when you ate that ice cream cone on Labor Day and it made your tooth hurt?”
Of course. Trina never forgot an ice cream cone. “It was chocolate and peanut butter awesomeness until the pain started. That zing was so sharp I dropped my whole cone in the grass. What a waste.”
“You didn’t want to go to the dentist.” Darcy undid the seatbelt to twist and face Trina. “Fear held you back. You kept trying to swallow cold drinks on one side of your mouth and dribbling on all your shirts. When you finally went and got that cavity filled, what did you do?”
“I drank a raspberry slushy, and then ate a three-scoop sundae, because I finally could again without any pain.” Life without ice cream just wasn’t worth living.
“If you’d given in to your fear, you’d still be drinking lopsidedly. Instead, you sucked it up, had a couple of bad hours, and now things are great. This certificate course is just like getting a cavity filled. Are you really going to let fear hold you back from a lifetime of great?”
Darcy made a stellar point. Trina kind of hated that. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Are you really ready to walk away from Brad?”
“No.” Wow, that popped out of her mouth before her brain even processed the question. “But this was just supposed to be a fling. Nothing can come of it.” No matter how much she wanted to stick with her hot cop.
Darcy rummaged in the glove compartment. “Why not?”
This stakeout was worse than boring—it was introspective. “I’m his rebound girl. Everyone knows those don’t stick. Ever. They’re like the bread before the perfect prime rib dinner. Nice, but nobody lingers and makes a meal out of it. Maybe I’d be better off not even waiting for the end.” Better to protect her heart before it filled up any more on Brad. “Make a clean break after this weekend. I’ve distracted him from thinking about his non-honeymoon. My job is done.”
“Or maybe it’s just beginning to get good. Aha!” She triumphantly brandished a pack of gum. “Trina, I’ve never told you what to do. I’m not going to start now. I’m just going to tell you that whatever decision you make, it has to be for the right reasons. Upending your life for the wrong reasons isn’t a solution.”
“Gee, if you made the font really small, I bet you could fit that saying into a fortune cookie. Restaurant guests would be thrilled.”
Misty suddenly reappeared. She fluffed her white-blond mane of teased hair, then got back into her car. Darcy started to turn the key in the ignition, but Trina put out a hand to stop her.
“Shouldn’t we follow her?”
“No.” Trina watched until the little yellow car was not only out of the lot, but out of eyeshot. “We need to find out why she came here. What’s behind that door?”
“Um, a warehouse?”
“Could be. Could be a place where they cook up meth. Could be a giant Santa Claus suit-making factory.”
“Or salt-water taffy?”
“All the more reason to go take a look-see.” Also, Trina really hoped the building contained a bathroom. Camera in hand, she got out of the car and ran to the duo of Dumpsters.
“Why are you running on your tiptoes?”
“It feels stealthier.” There were a handful of other cars in the lot. But they were all parked nearer to the other buildings. The coast looked clear, at least from the outside. Trina slanted her eye to the hinge of the door. “I can’t see anything.”
“Do we go in?”
“Yes. If anyone asks, we’re just lost and looking for a bathroom.” Joe said the best lies were rooted in truth. Technically, that was all true. She turned the knob. Thought about easing it open, but decided that wouldn’t jibe with their cover story. So Trina yanked open the door and walked right inside, bold as could be.
It was your standard, industrial warehouse with horizontal slits for windows that kept the room in a gray shadow. Gray drywall. Low ceiling. Acres of shelving. A couple held unformed cardboard boxes and s
hipping labels. Most of them were jammed full of boxed-up merchandise. TVs. All sorts of smart phones. DVD players. Laptop computers. Expensive sneakers. Handbags. Designer sunglasses. It was a shoppers’ paradise.
Trina had to admit that for just a second, she wanted to run wild in there. Grab one thing off of every shelf and hotfoot it back to the car. But the urge passed. It was quickly replaced by the thrill of discovery.
“It’s like a genie snapped his fingers and made everything in the SkyMall catalog appear right in front of us,” Darcy said in a hollow, awed voice. “What do you think this place is?”
A jolt of dead-certain knowledge speared through Trina like a miniature paper umbrella through an orange slice on a Mai Tai. When faced with the formality of a written test, Trina found it hard to organize her thoughts to fit the questions. But she rocked at retaining whatever she learned. A steel-trap mind, that just had to be pried open the right way. And everything about this situation unlocked a very specific set of facts in her head.
“Oh, I don’t think. I know. We’ve just strolled into the middle of an immense credit card scamming operation.”
Darcy crooked an eyebrow in the same annoying way she had in the third grade when Trina tried to convince her that clouds were made out of marshmallows. “Remember, I’m a scholar at heart. I prefer to see at least three footnotes to support every assertion. What on earth made you leap to that assumption?”
“I read all about it a few weeks ago in a big article on different kinds of white collar crime in PI Magazine.” Joe had asked her to read a year’s worth of back issues as homework. Talk about great timing.
“That magazine can’t be real.”
“Oh, it is. And it’s chock-full of all sorts of useful articles about how to interpret facial expressions on Botoxed witnesses, or how to investigate a wrongful conviction.”
“Nothing on keeping at least a dozen disguises in your car at all times?” Darcy teased with her tongue in her cheek.
Hmm. She would totally write that and submit it someday. “No, but there is an article comparing different types of toupee and moustache glue. Which will hold up when running, or if you happen to be in flight.” She walked around a shelf unit and started snapping pictures. Lots of pictures.
“In flight?”
If Darcy was so darn curious, she should just read the article herself. Trina had the biggest clue of her career to document. “You know, hang-gliding. Skydiving. Or if you’re in a hot-air balloon.”
Darcy laughed so hard she bent over to brace herself on her thighs. “Because all the best private investigators follow people via the steampunk transport of choice.”
Civilians. They just didn’t understand. “I’ll give you the latest issue to read. Then you’ll stop mocking it. I’ve learned a lot.”
“Okay. I believe you. So how is this a credit card scam operation?”
Trina let the camera hang from the strap around her neck to wave an arm at the packed shelves. “You put all these items up for sale on sites like eBay, using fake identities, and creating bogus payment accounts. When a buyer wins an auction, you legitimately send them the new TV. Except you’ve purchased it with a stolen credit card, so you get to pocket the entire payment.”
“That’s...entirely believable.” Mouth open, Darcy spun in a slow circle, layering the visual of the room to Trina’s explanation.
“It isn’t just merchandise. You can do a big business in operating the same scam with gift cards, from fast-food restaurants to home redecorating stores to, well, you name it.” Trina hustled down to the far end, by the shipping supplies. Down there was a hub of at least a dozen computers, all open to generic shopping sites. She turned on her camera and started snapping away. Close-ups, to make sure she captured the screen shots. “I wish I’d brought a flash drive.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. We didn’t know what we’d find when we started tailing Misty. Or rather, you didn’t know what you’d find. I was pretty solidly betting on her leading us to a motel where the sheets get changed by the day, and not by the customer.”
Still, Trina filed away the mental note. Flash drives were small. Even if she didn’t know thing one about computers, it was easy enough to copy files and take it back to the office for Joe to decipher. Next time she’d do better.
“Do you see what this means?”
“That you’ve got all the proof you need to get the police involved?” Darcy was already edging back toward the door, relief stamped all over her face.
“Probably. I’ve got at least enough to show Joe. But what I meant was that Club Eden must be where they steal all the credit card numbers. Strippers take the cards before a lap dance. They always get the money first. While they’re grinding on some unsuspecting perv, another stripper must copy down all the info. Or maybe emboss it in wax, so they can make a replica card. By the time he’s fully frustrated and sporting wood, they’re done.”
“So if the strippers steal the card, that insulates whoever is running the show from the actual crime?”
“Yep. A little, anyway, until someone like me finds a way to tie them together with this warehouse.” Trina gave in to the thrill of the find and did a sailor kick to celebrate. “But I bet that’s not all. Who do you think makes the run to the mall to buy all this stuff?”
Staring at each other, the women intoned simultaneously, “The strippers.”
Dancing around the desk, Trina snapped a few more shots. “This has to be why Ralph is there so often. Club Eden is where he tells the dancers what he needs them to get once they pass along the card info.”
Perching on the edge of the desk, Darcy asked, “Can we go now?”
“I want to be sure I don’t miss anything.”
“And I want to be sure we don’t have to trot out our lame bathroom excuse.”
Before Trina could think longingly of just how great it would be to find a bathroom, a door slammed open in the opposite corner of the warehouse. Light spilled out of a small bathroom. In its doorway stood a very angry Ralph. And her need for a bathroom tripled.
“What are you doing in my warehouse?”
Darcy tugged at her hand. Hard. But Trina saw running as their second choice. No reason why they couldn’t bluff their way out of there much more easily. “We’re lost. Got all turned around trying to get to Brigantine Beach. Can you help us?”
He took a few steps closer. Narrowed his fleshy eyes. “I recognize you. You’re a Club Eden girl.”
Thinking fast, she let recognition ripple across her face. And pulled her shoulders back tight to pop her boobs a little. “I sure am. Oh, you’re...wait, I’ll remember...you always order a Manhattan without cherries, right? I never forget a customer’s favorite drink.”
“Did Star send you?”
“What? No, I told you. We’re lost.”
“I don’t believe you.” He took a step toward the desk in the corner. Reached down, and stood with a baseball bat clenched in his meaty fist. “I’ll ask nice one more time, and after that things will get ugly. What are you doing in my warehouse?”
Okay. Her newly acquired self-defense skills were great and all, but the first and last thing they’d hammered into her was when to put up a fight and when not to. Once a weapon made an appearance, Trina knew the smartest option was to run. She spun on her heel. Clutching Darcy’s hand in a death grip, Trina bolted for the door. Footsteps thudded behind them. Then the rhythmic whack of the bat against each metal shelf he passed. As far as an intimidation factor, it worked.
“Open the door. I’m getting the keys,” yelled Darcy.
Trina twisted the knob. In her suddenly sweaty hand, it didn’t turn at first. Another series of whacks grew closer. Gulping, she wiped her palm on her shorts and tried again. The door opened, and they staggered out into the sunlight. Darcy aimed the remote to unlock the car doors. As sh
e jammed the key in the ignition, Ralph burst out of the warehouse.
“Don’t fucking think you can get away from me,” he yelled.
Why weren’t they moving? Trina looked over to see Darcy fumbling with her seatbelt. “Are you kidding me? Drive!” She took off the emergency brake and shifted the car into reverse. Gravity rolled them backward just enough to keep Ralph’s bat from connecting with the hood of the car. Darcy spun the wheel and finally hit the gas. In a screech of tires, they backed up the whole length of the warehouse.
Trina kept her eyes peeled on Ralph. He fumbled with his keys outside of a black Cadillac Deville. Dropped them. And by the time he got inside, Darcy had them out on the road.
“Where should I go?”
“Away. Fast as you can.” Trina threw an arm out when she spotted a sign for the expressway. “Turn here! Now!”
Without slowing or even (in a very un-Darcy-esque disregard of the rules of the road) using her blinker, Darcy banked left. Grateful for her quick response, Trina reached across to fasten her friend’s seatbelt. She left her own off. Instead, she turned around and knelt in her seat, watching for any sign they were being followed. After a tense and utterly silent five minutes, she flopped back around. With the fear and adrenaline drained from her, Trina felt limper than an overcooked rice noodle.
“We’re safe,” she pronounced.
Darcy shot her a look of pure scorn. “Um, that’s a pretty optimistic statement to make.”
“Ralph doesn’t know who you are. He doesn’t know my name. He’s got no idea where we’re staying. And we’ve got enough evidence to call Joe.”
“Not the cops?”
“I don’t know.” Trina had no problem admitting when she was in over her head. It happened too often to bother getting embarrassed. “I don’t have enough experience to differentiate between circumstantial evidence and the real deal. I know in my gut what this is. But explaining to a skeptical desk sergeant that it matches an article I read in a magazine? That wouldn’t go over well. I’d rather get Joe up here, have him assess everything, and then figure out what to do next. If the case is too weak, the cops will just ignore me, and it’ll be twice as hard to get their attention when I do dig up more.”
Love on the Boardwalk Page 14