BILLIONAIRE ANGEL (Point St. Claire, where true love finds a way)

by Robyn Grady

  “Check.”

  “And no flapping your gums around friends.”

  “But I have a couple of really good—”

  “No. Now say it.”

  “I won’t tell my friends what we’re doing.” She lowered her voice. “What are we doing exactly?”

  “Digging around a little.”

  She sighed. “You and me. A team. Like Holmes and Watson. Like Bones and Booth.”

  When she presented her hand for a fist bump, he hesitated and then gave her knuckles a light knock.

  But his body language...the ghost of a crooked smile... She could tell.

  Jax Angel was psyched, too.

  “Anyone ever mention that you’re a darker version of Ryan Gosling?”

  Entering Billy’s home, Jax cocked a brow. “Uh, all the time.”

  “I can see you playing a hard-nosed detective, a toothpick hanging between your teeth while you interview some mysterious femme fatale.”

  Assuming the role, she hitched a shoulder up under her chin and sent over a seductive pout.

  His own lips twitched. “Needs work.”

  “We have time. After we’ve cracked this case, you might even want to keep me around.”

  Belinda Slade was super keen and inexperienced and more off-limits attractive than she probably knew. But he never mixed business with pleasure. Or not any more. This relationship was, and would remain, plutonic. When lines got blurred, things got messy.

  Got dangerous.

  Belinda Slade’s place sat on a quiet tree-lined street in Point St. Claire. Inside was small, neat and, given her vocation as an actress, partly predictable. Overlapping movie posters littered the walls. Several stacks of DVDs towered beside an LCD. Then there was the tutu she was wearing and the dance pole stuck in one corner of the living room.

  Don’t ask.

  An old-fashioned desk crouched against the far wall. The timber was dark with an old-world smell about it. In another time, it might have taken pride of place in some big banker’s office. Reminded him a little of the one he’d left behind at his old job, not that he’d ever used it much.

  Now Belinda leaned back against the desk’s ledge, scrutinizing him, the pink tutu sticking out around the hips of her low-waist skinny jeans. Cute. Enticing. All the more reason to tell her again.

  He wasn’t going to ‘keep her around’.

  “This is a one-time only thing,” he explained. “Strictly short-term.”

  Her brows knitted. “Why?”

  “Because I have a full-time commitment at the club and—”

  “I mean why’d you give away your P.I. work?”

  That took him aback and he frowned like he meant it because he did. “I ask the questions, remember?”

  “Sorry. Except…I’ve known you five minutes, and it blazes out like a neon sign. You are so suited to this Sam Spade stuff.”

  He understood her need to know more, to burrow deeper. He’d known that same drive all his life. These past years, he’d wondered where he’d be now if he’d directed his curiosity toward science or inventing some must-have device, like an app to predict heart attacks or a stock market crash. Something that saved lives rather than―

  Jax don’t go there.

  In the kitchen, he accepted a full steaming cup and wandered over to straighten a listing photo frame hung on the wall. Decked out in a costume, the girl in the picture was accepting a bunch of flowers on stage. Brunette hair cascaded around slender shoulders all the way past her waist. She was at least a head shorter than the rest of the kids. The smile was bright and just as infectious as it was today.

  Lifting his cup, he took a sip. And another. Whoa. This coffee was good.

  “End of year drama performance,” she explained, pouring herself a cup. “Heard of Shakespeare?”

  “To be or not to be.”

  She grinned. “Needs work.” After adding in an inch of cream, she joined him. “We performed Twelfth Night. I played a female who dresses up as a male.”

  He studied the photo again. “So, the habit goes back a ways.”

  When she didn’t answer, he glanced across—looked harder. Was that remorse glistening in her eyes?

  “Last week, guess I lost my head a little. After that police sergeant brushed me off, I didn’t know where to turn next. Sorry I broke into your club.”

  His lips twitched. “Maybe you’re only sorry you got caught.”

  “Are you sorry you caught me?”

  Any answer stuck in his throat because suddenly she was standing too close. A few inches more and her chest would be brushing his shirt. Her floral scent was playing tricks with his oxygen levels, too. And her lips looked almost too plump, in a completely natural, annoyingly kissable way.

  Clenching his jaw, Jax moved to the counter.

  Business, Angel. Not pleasure.

  “Ten years ago, before or after the break-in here,” he said, “did anyone ask a lot of questions, hang around, act in a suspicious manner?”

  “That dialogue is so authentic,” she murmured, like she was filing it away for future reference. Then, focusing, she followed him across to the counter. “Back then, the police asked that same question. There’s nothing I remember.”

  “Even something small that, looking back, didn’t quite fit.”

  “I wasn’t functioning too well at the time. It hadn’t been long since…”

  Her gaze drifted to the end of the counter and another photo, a family shot this time—a woman and two teenage girls. He remembered: Belinda’s mom had passed away not long before that theft. Which begged the question…

  Was it a coincidence that her mother’s death occurred so close to the break-in? Or was the connection something more sinister?

  “Have you spoken to your sister about seeing that ring on the Net?”

  “Ann’s the oldest. Back then, she felt responsible. But she’s put it all behind her now. She’s married. Has a great life. She doesn’t want to dwell on the past. You know, drag up painful memories.”

  Jax’s jaw tightened.

  Oh, yeah. He knew about them.

  “You two have a good relationship?” he asked.

  “Sure. But we’re different. She likes jazz and Tolstoy. I’m into rap and vampires. True not Diaries. When I was a kid, she seemed to have all the right answers to all the hard questions. Do you have sisters? Brothers?”

  He was looking around the room for anything that might help. “No siblings. A couple of cousins. Taylor and Leo.” When she laughed softly, he frowned across at her. “What’s funny?”

  “A light came to your eyes when you said their names. I could see you looking back and smiling at all the stuff you’d done together.”

  He wasn’t that transparent. Although he did have a stack of good memories growing up with that pair. Taylor had wanted to be a fireman, Leo a baseball star. And Jax? He’d been sharpening his detective skills even back then. There’d been The Case of the Missing Momma Cat. The Case of the Stolen Apple Pie.

  “I feel like that, too, sometimes when I look back,” she went on. “Remembering simple stuff like ice skating or carving my name on a tree.” Her gaze sharpened. “I bet you’re the oldest, too. The bossy, I know best, one.”

  “I’m not so bossy.” More...instructional.

  “Do you still see each other?”

  “We hang out when we can.”

  “For a beer,” she surmised. “At the hockey.”

  Running a hand through his hair, Jax coughed out a laugh. “Did you pay someone to sneak a look at my file?”

  “Show me a guy who doesn’t drink beer. And, seriously, who’s not a Bears fan?”

  “You like hockey?”

  “Sure. Can’t remember the last game I went to though. College, I guess.”

  “Wait. You went to college?”

  “Don’t look so shocked.” She buffed her nails on her shirt. “Honors in Accounting right here.”

  Accounting, huh? Maybe she could give him a few tips wi
th The M Lodge’s books. Then again, it was hard enough to concentrate on those numbers as it was.

  He set his cup down on the counter, got his thoughts back on track. “Did you have any male friends at the time of the robbery?”

  “I was seeing a boy. Dean McPherson. Nothing serious.”

  “How serious can you get at fourteen?”

  “Ever hear of Romeo and Juliet?”

  He cocked a brow. “I’m familiar with it, yes.”

  “Teenage love can be as strong as any.” She nudged her chin at him. “You must have had a girl hanging off your every word in high school. Kicking her heels and shaking her pom-poms every time your puck slammed into a net.”

  Shaking pom-poms? Pucks in nets? Was it his dirty mind or―

  Jax squared his shoulders.

  “Belinda, we need to focus.”

  “Billy,” she said. “Friends call me Billy.”

  Studying those green eyes so full of innocence and anticipation, telltale warmth coursed through his veins. Curious. Pleasant. And for so many reasons, not happening.

  But friends?

  Sure. He could do that.

  “So, Billy, you were seeing a boy,” he went on.

  “A couple of boys.”

  Two boys? “Did they ever come over to the house?”

  “Sure.”

  “Either of them know about the ring?”

  “None of my friends knew.” She hesitated. “Except Fay.”

  His detective antennae quivered. “Did you show Fay the ring? Was she ever in any kind of trouble at home? With the police?”

  “I mentioned the ring to her once. I explained its past, how it had been handed down. I don’t think she believed me. And no. Fay was a good girl, like me.”

  “There are different shades of good. Everyone takes at least one trip to the principal’s office.”

  “Not me. I was one of those sickening A grade students. How were your grades at school? Bet you were a dux.”

  “Focus.” He could really get upset if she wasn’t so darn cute. “Your friend—Fay,” he went on. “Did the police question her?”

  “Maybe. Not sure.”

  “Does she still live around here?”

  “Next town up. We’ve lost touch.”

  “And the boys you were seeing?”

  “One joined the army. The other—no idea.”

  “Neighbors?”

  “All nice people.” She flinched. “Except one. He was kinda weird. Very quiet. Kept to himself. Mr. Alder. Reed Alder. Shouldn’t you write all this down?”

  Jax tapped his temple. All up here. “I’ll need Fay’s full name.”

  Billy found a yearbook in a drawer, pointed out some names and headshots.

  “I appreciate this,” she said. “Really, really.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “I never had a big brother to look out for me. No father, either. He left when I was five. Mom said he was loner. Went off to fell trees in Alaska.” She exhaled, shrugged. “I can’t think of anything worse. It’d be so lonely. So...hopeless.”

  A feeling swelled up inside of him, hot and fierce and tender all at the same kind. What kind of fink father abandons his young family like that? How does a kid grow up thinking they aren’t important enough for a parent to hang around?

  “Yep. Definitely Ryan Gosling,” she was saying, studying him with an approving grin.

  Jax cleared his throat. He wasn’t a star by any stretch of the imagination. And this wasn’t a movie. But, like he’d said, he could dig a little deeper.

  Maybe give Billy Slade a little hope.

  Chapter 4

  “Am I under some kind of investigation?”

  “I’m making enquiries for Belinda Slade.”

  “And who the hell are you?”

  When Jax flipped open his still current P.I. license, Dean McPherson narrowed his eyes then pressed back into his high-backed office chair.

  “Is Billy in trouble?”

  “Would it be a surprise if she were?”

  Earlier, Jax had tracked down McPherson’s place of work, a well known Portland gymnasium. Inside he’d found people of all builds and ages working out hard, or taking a well-earned timeout by the water cooler. Way more earthy than the gym at the Lodge. Jax had told the receptionist he was enquiring after a membership and had been given McPherson’s name.

  McPherson had charged out, arms swinging, white smile beaming.

  He wasn’t smiling now.

  Jax wondered. Just how far had the younger McPherson and Billy’s relationship gone? Dates to the movies? Some necking? Not unexpected at fourteen, right?

  But that was ten years ago. Was Billy seeing anyone now? He’d ask next time they met. Basic profiling is all.

  “From what I remember,” McPherson said, “Billy was a lot of fun, but her nose was always to the grindstone. Schoolwork. Dance classes. She had dreams of being an actress some day. I had a massive crush on her, but we were more friends than anything. She wasn’t interested in fooling around, losing her way.”

  Jax cocked a brow. So, Billy had been a good girl.

  “What’s this about?” McPherson asked.

  “Ten years ago, Billy and her sister were victims of a crime. A robbery at their home in Point St. Claire. A piece of jewelry was taken.”

  Jax asked basic questions while taking in the awards and champion photographs hanging on the walls. This guy obviously worked hard, competed and found reward in effort as well as achievement. Jax’s gut said: not a former burglar. Certainly not a man who had progressed to more nefarious crimes.

  “You had a buddy back in high school,” Jax went on. “Murray Elson.” Boyfriend number two.

  “We kept in touch after he joined the services.” McPherson’s jaw flexed. “He was killed during a tour.”

  Jax’s stomach muscles clenched and he filled his lungs before he asked a final question—of personal as well as routine importance.

  “The original report,” Jax said, “lists David Green as a person who might be of interest.”

  “Don’t think I knew a David Green.”

  “He was in the drama club with Billy.”

  “I saw a few of her performances. Billy’s a natural. But, like I said, I don’t know any David Green.” McPherson shifted in his chair. “Can I ask? Why investigate this now, a decade later?”

  “Billy believes she might’ve tracked the piece down. I suggested we do a little background work and fit some pieces together before going forward.”

  McPherson said he was sorry he couldn’t help.

  They shook hands and, a moment later, about to slip into his vehicle in the parking lot, Jax heard McPherson call out. The fitness instructor was jogging over in shoes fitted with NASA quality springs; he was bouncing on air.

  “Just remembered something that might help,” McPherson said, pulling up. “I met Billy’s sister a few times. Nice lady. A bit of an overachiever, but I get that.”

  “Ann Slade was acting strangely?”

  “She and Billy had just lost their mom. Neither of them were their normal selves. It was Ann’s boyfriend. That dude made my scalp crawl. A person’s eyes reveal a lot. That guy’s eyes were…”

  “Shifty?”

  “Guarded. Like he wasn’t sure if you knew what he was thinking. And something else.”

  What McPherson had to say next took a few seconds to relay. It took Jax a while longer to digest.

  Turning the coupe into her street, Billy caught sight of Jax sitting on her porch steps, head down, concentrating on his smartphone, looking too sexy for words. Was he working on something connected to their case? Or taking care of other business, which couldn’t have been nearly as much fun.

  Stuffy gentleman’s club versus hunting down clues to solve a decade old crime. No contest.

  She and Jax had exchanged numbers. Now, as she pulled up in the driveway, her cell phone sounded. A text.

  About time, Jax messaged.

  Biting th
e lower lip of a cheeky grin, she texted back. Got something for me?

  Next message:Something you won’t like.

  Billy jumped out of the car and hurried over to the porch as Jax got to his feet. He looked as delicious in his jeans and well-loved gym shoes as he had that morning when he’d set off to ask some questions. But his expression was even more serious than the day he’d ousted her in that locker room.

  She lifted her chin. “I can take it. Just give it to me straight.”

  Jax’s mouth hooked up at one side. “That’s gotta be a line from a movie.”

  The suspense was killing her. “What’d you find out, Jax?”

  “How about we grab a bite to eat and something to wash it down with while we talk?”

  Billy’s appetite was suddenly non-existent. But Jax had been out all day, chasing down info. And guys were always hungry. So, they climbed in his car and she showed him the way to the best blueberry pie around.

  When they were seated inside Miller’s Bakery, Billy noticed Judd Everett at a table nearby, concentrating on an opened hand-sized notepad. Neat silver gray hair, scarred Bean boots, Judd was a retired lobster man turned local handyman. In his seventies, Judd made a business of knowing everything there was to know about these parts, going back as far as you’d like. He was friendly and helpful and never missed a trick. Someone Jax might want to talk to.

  After a waitress took their orders, Jax passed on details of his meeting with her old school chum, Dean. No additional information about the theft itself. Billy wasn’t prepared for his other news though.

  “McPherson kept in touch with Murray Elson,” Jax said. “I’m sorry. Your friend didn’t make it home from his last tour.”

  Billy couldn’t speak. She was flooded with memories of Murray as a teen, waving his inflated “number one” hand at hockey games...helping her and Faye with brain-numbing bio homework. She could imagine him as a soldier, protective, loyal...

  “You okay?” Jax reached across to hold her hand fisted on the tabletop.

  She willed away the sting of tears. “Just hard to believe is all. I wish I’d known. I would’ve liked to have paid my respects.”

  Jax squeezed her hand and when her gaze met his, for the briefest moment, she saw into his soul and she knew. Jax Angel understood grief. Understood it in a way that made her want to squeeze his hand right back.