A Whole Latte Murder

by Caroline Fardig

I opened the envelope, and sure enough, it was a brochure for Genesis. “I was offered this at my sleep clinic appointment this morning. They said they often send their too-stressed-to-sleep college patients there. I guess they prefer overambitious eggs.”

  Maya plucked the envelope from my hand and took out the information form. “Looks like you’ve got your newest undercover op, Juliet.”

  “Oh, no. I’m done pretending to be someone I’m not. You do it.”

  “Says here I’m too old. They want thirty-one and under. I’m thirty-four.” Maya snapped her fingers. “Darn the luck.”

  “That lets me out, too,” Mallory said.

  “How thorough is this undercover op going to be? Am I actually going to have to part with some of my eggs?” I asked uneasily.

  Maya waved off my concern. “Of course not. If you’re good, you should be able to get your intel and get out before you have to spread your legs.”

  “Really? Are you speaking from personal experience?” I joked.

  She winked slyly at me. “Cheeky.” She put the information form down on the desk and handed me a pen. “Get to work. Make yourself look like a good candidate. Here.” She scrabbled around in her purse and produced a card. “Use this name and address. It’s one I use when I need to remain anonymous.”

  “You know, if we’re going to lie on the form anyway, you might as well do it and lie about your age,” I pointed out.

  “And take all the fun away from you? Never.”

  I grudgingly did as instructed, with Mallory looking over my shoulder and offering advice on the medical information sections. Maya paced the room, muttering under her breath.

  I looked up from my work. “You okay?” I asked Maya.

  She stopped pacing, only to begin tapping the toe of her high-heeled boot against the wood floor. “There has to be something here. Something they missed.”

  Mallory slapped her forehead. “Silly me. I forgot Jack had a safe put in here years ago.” She hurried across the room and pulled a picture away from the wall, revealing a safe. “Jack is terrible with remembering combinations. It’s going to be something obvious. I’ll try the same combo as the one at home.” She typed in a few numbers, but when she pulled the handle, nothing happened. “Hmm…” She typed a few more, pulled the handle again, and still nothing. She began pacing, screwing up her face in concentration. “Oh!” Hurrying back over, she typed in a few numbers and the safe popped open.

  “Now we’re talking,” Maya said, going over to peruse the contents with Mallory. As Mallory reached into the safe, Maya stopped her. “Wait.” She dug into her pocket, produced a pair of latex gloves, and put them on. “Just in case this is evidence we want the police to find later.” She carefully removed a cellphone, a bundled stack of hundred dollar bills, and a laptop from the safe, laying them in front of me on Jack’s desk.

  “Hello, mother lode,” I breathed.

  Mallory stared at the items, her eyes glazing with tears.

  Maya tried to turn the cellphone on, but it was dead. She asked Mallory, “Is this his personal laptop or is it for work?” She opened the laptop and began tapping at the keyboard, trying and failing to get access to his system.

  Mallory shrugged. “I don’t remember seeing it before.”

  A few minutes later, after Maya directed a particularly rude stream of expletives at the laptop, I said, “I know someone who can help you with that.”

  “Jack doesn’t want us doing this, so I assume you’re not talking about him,” Mallory muttered.

  “Nope. My guy is an excellent hacker and he’ll work for cookies.”

  Maya smiled. “Sounds like my kind of guy. Call him.”

  “I will if you’ll finish my form for me.”

  She grumpily agreed, and I called Trevor.

  “Hey, neighbor. Doing better yet?” he said when he answered.

  “I’m good. How about you?”

  “The cops are off my back at least.”

  “Good. So how would you feel about a little hacking?”

  “I could probably be persuaded. Usual reimbursement?”

  I laughed. “Absolutely.”

  “What do you need done?”

  “I need you to hack into a doctor’s laptop.” When he didn’t reply quickly, I added, “Don’t worry, his wife has approved it.”

  His voice sounded unconvinced. “What kind of information are you going to get from it? Patient files?”

  “We’re not sure if he uses it for work or personal. But we’re not looking for patient files. Probably more like access the guy’s calendar and notes and stuff like that.”

  “Why don’t you just have his wife ask him for his password?”

  “Um…He’d probably say no. Also he’s kind of…in jail.”

  Silence.

  “Trevor?”

  “Who is it?” Now he sounded angry.

  I knew the last person Trevor would want to help was the man accused of having an affair with and murdering Chelsea, Trevor’s unrequited love. Convincing him wouldn’t be easy.

  I sighed. “It’s Jack Beaumont.”

  “Are you trying to help the cops nail his ass to the wall or what?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Then I’m out.”

  I grimaced, getting some raised eyebrows from Maya and Mallory. “Wait, Trevor. Don’t hang up. We think this thing is way bigger than just Jack. We want to find out who’s pulling his strings.”

  He raised his voice. “Again, why don’t you just ask the bastard?”

  “He won’t tell us anything. The fact that he’s willing to be jailed for a murder he swears he didn’t commit points to the fact that there’s more at stake here. What if he didn’t kill Chelsea? Don’t you want to make sure the real killer is punished?”

  Hesitating, he said, “Well…I guess…Are you going to tell your boyfriend about the hacking? Because I can’t handle any more trouble with the cops.”

  “Not a chance. And this is kind of old news, but he and I are finished.”

  “No big loss. Dude can be kind of a dick.”

  Sometimes I agreed, but I hated it when other people pointed it out. “So will you help us?”

  “Yeah, I’ll do it. But I can’t be there for a couple of hours.”

  “Not a problem. Meet us at my friend Mallory’s house.” I rattled off the address for him and hung up. Turning to the girls, I said, “Trevor will meet us at Mallory’s in a couple of hours. What now?”

  Maya handed me the information form she’d finished. “It’s time for you to be a good egg and run along to the clinic.”

  I groaned, but couldn’t resist replying, “Please don’t egg me on.”

  Mustering my courage, I headed down the hall to the door marked Genesis. I knocked, and after a moment, a young man answered the door. “Can I help you?”

  I smiled sweetly. “Yes, hello. I’m Leslie Kaufman. I wanted to drop off my donor information form in person because…I…had a couple of questions for you.”

  The man studied me while I was speaking, casting his eyes up and down my body. He was a little man, not much taller than I was, studious-looking in his black-framed, thick-rimmed glasses. He had a pleasant smile, though. “Sure. Come right in, Leslie. I’m Dr. Micah Perry.”

  Doctor? This guy had either skipped a grade or just graduated. He didn’t look much older than my college-aged neighbors.

  “Nice to meet you, Dr. Perry.”

  “I’m still getting used to the title of ‘Doctor.’ You can call me Micah.”

  He helped me settle into a chair facing his desk. This was the office Pete and I had seen from the outside the night we followed Kira.

  “You look pretty banged up there,” he said.

  I pulled a face. “Leave it to me to be so focused on a business call that I stepped out into the street without looking. In my line of work, you have to be driven to get ahead. Just not so much that you get driven over, right?”

  Micah laughed easily. “Focus is a go
od thing, but maybe next time you’ll remember to focus on the traffic.”

  “Lesson learned. I won’t soon forget this.”

  He took a moment to look over my information form. “I see you’re a sound engineer for one of our neighboring record labels. Musical and technical. Good combo.”

  I figured I knew enough from listening to Pete talk about work that I could pull off speaking intelligently about sound recording. “I certainly love what I do.”

  Nodding, he continued to peruse the form. He set it aside and asked, “Why do you want to donate your eggs?”

  I borrowed a plot from a horrid TV movie I’d watched recently. “Truthfully, I’m not interested in having children of my own. But as I’ve watched a friend go through one failed fertility treatment after another, desperate to have a baby, my heart has broken for her. I hate to see any woman go through that kind of anguish just because her body won’t do what it was made to do. Having a baby should be the most basic thing in the world, not the most challenging.”

  He bought my bullshit, evidenced by the captivated look on his face. “I couldn’t have said it better myself. Let’s get you set up for an appointment to get your physical exam and blood work done.”

  This was going too well and too quickly. “Right, but…my questions. Remember, I had some questions?”

  “Sure. Ask away.”

  “Um…will it…hurt to have my eggs harvested?” Well, that sounded stupid.

  “There can be some discomfort, yes, but we use anesthesia so you don’t have to power through it naturally.”

  “Okay. Also…I don’t know anyone who has been an egg donor. Are there any women who have been through the process here who would be willing to share their experiences with me? You know, to ease my mind.”

  He hesitated for a moment. “Not really. Genesis prides itself on being discreet and anonymous, both on the donor and the recipient side. That’s why we don’t advertise. We rely solely on referrals from trusted recruiters. Where did you say you’d heard about us?”

  Oh, crap. Leslie Kaufman hadn’t been to the sleep clinic, so if he followed up on the referral, I’d be toast. It was the only place I knew to say, though, so I went with it. “From the sleep clinic downtown.”

  He made a notation on my form. “Still having sleep problems?”

  “No. They fixed me right up.”

  “Your diagnosis?”

  “Um…” Pointing to a medical or mental condition would probably have been a deal breaker. “Stress. It was just stress. I manage it with yoga now.”

  “Excellent.” He picked up a camera from the desk and pointed it at me. “Now I’ll just take your photo to put with our records, and we’ll get you scheduled for your next visit. Say cheese.”

  I tried to smile, but it probably came off somewhere between surprise and constipation. I could think of nothing else, so I went for the oldest trick in the book. I started coughing.

  “Oh.” Cough, cough. “I think I must have swallowed a bug or something.” Cough, cough. “Could I trouble you for some water?” Cough, cough.

  “No problem. I’ll be right back.”

  The moment he went into the next room, I hopped as fast as I could to the laptop on the desk and searched the application he’d left open for Kira’s name. “Come on, come on,” I muttered, when the computer took its dear sweet time to perform the search. I gasped when the information popped onto the screen. Bingo. Kira was an egg donor. Before I could start typing Chelsea’s name in, I heard footsteps, so I backed out of the search screen and hastily hopped back into my seat.

  The door opened, and Micah came through with a bottle of water. I remembered a little belatedly to cough again for his benefit.

  Cough, cough. “Thanks so much, Micah.” I opened the bottle and took a swig. “Much better.”

  He returned to his seat and typed something into his laptop. “How does your schedule look late next week for an exam?”

  “Late next week?” Our investigation couldn’t wait until next week. “Um…now that I’ve made up my mind to donate, I’m very excited to get started. Do you have anything sooner?”

  Frowning at his screen, he said, “Well, I have a procedure scheduled for this evening, but I don’t think it will take quite as long as it’s scheduled for. I might be able to squeeze you in around eight. You’ll have to enter through the back door.”

  “That would be perfect, but I hate to keep you so late on a Friday night. Is there no Mrs. Micah you should be taking out on the town instead?” I asked coyly, keeping the charade going.

  I was out of tricks, and I hadn’t been able to find out about Chelsea or Amelia, so I had to come back for the exam. Looked like Maya wasn’t so far off base with the leg-spreading thing after all. I was not going that far to take one for the team, but I decided to accept the appointment anyway, hoping to fake a last-minute change of heart before Dr. Micah got too up close and personal.

  He laughed. “No, there’s not. We keep evening and weekend hours, mainly to accommodate our college donors, so I don’t have a lot of time to date.”

  “A handsome guy like you? That’s too bad.” Smiling at him, I got up without looking too much like a klutz. “See you later tonight, doc.”

  Micah hurried over to open the door for me. As soon as it shut behind me, I closed my eyes and leaned back against the wall. I was suddenly exhausted.

  “What were you doing in there?” a terse voice hissed.

  Chapter 32

  I popped open my eyes to see Ryder coming around the corner on the other side of the stairs. Shit. I so didn’t have the energy for a second confrontation with him today.

  I sighed. “Can we make this quick? I’m tired. You can yell at me, maybe throw in a glare or two, and I’ll fire off a few snarky comebacks. Then we can call it good, okay?”

  “Don’t try to worm your way out of this, Juliet,” he said, taking hold of my good arm and pulling me over to the other hallway with him. “Tell me what you’re doing in this building, and in that fertility office specifically.”

  “I could ask you the same question.”

  “You first.”

  “Well, I figure since I’m going to be a lonely, childless spinster all my life, someone might as well get the benefit of my eggs while I’m still young enough to sell them. Your turn. Why are you here?”

  He ignored my question, too busy picking his jaw up off the ground. “You’re selling…your eggs? Why in the hell would you want to do that?”

  “Like I said, I’m not going to need them. I’ve got to be able to hold on to a man first in order to make good use of them.”

  “You shouldn’t sell your eggs,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “Why do you care? You obviously have no use for them.”

  Ryder pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. It was childish, I knew, but it gave my spirits a lift to piss him off. “Eggs aside, I don’t want you going back in that office. There’s something fishy about the place.”

  “Yeah, there is. They literally peddle flesh. It’s disgusting, but they pay well for it. Who am I to judge?” For once, a conversation with Ryder was actually going in my favor. He must have been bothered by the egg thing enough not to question my questionable motives.

  “You need to go now.”

  I stared up at him dubiously. “You need to quit telling me what to do.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

  “I came here in a cab,” I lied. He did not need to know I was sniffing around in Jack’s office with Maya and Mallory. I had to let this play out.

  “Then I’ll drive you.”

  I let out a bark of laughter. “I thought we could no longer be in contact.”

  He clenched his jaw. “I need to get you out of here. But after that, I’ll be happy to cut you loose.”

  “I’m looking forward to it. Make sure it sticks this time.”

  He smirked at me. “Back at ya, sweetheart.” He took hold of my arm agai
n, pulling me along quickly.

  “Hey, I can’t go so fast on these things,” I complained. Even after being up and about all day on my crutches, I was no better at using them, especially at breakneck speed.

  He slowed his pace and helped me out the door and into his car, which was parked out front on the street. Once he got in, he said, “You can barely use those crutches. How do you get up your stairs?”

  “I don’t. I’m staying with Pete.”

  “Oh,” he said softly.

  Ryder drove me over to Pete’s house in a tense silence. I discreetly texted Maya to let her know I’d run into a snag and would meet up with them later. Ryder very kindly helped me out of the car and to Pete’s door, which was unlocked.

  “Thanks for driving me,” I said, not really meaning it since now I had to find a way back to the Genesis Building. My car was stuck at Mallory’s house.

  “You’re welcome,” he said.

  “See you later.”

  Ryder didn’t make a move to leave, so I went on ahead into Pete’s house. Unfortunately, he followed me.

  “Jules, is that you?” Pete yelled from the back of the house.

  “Yeah,” I yelled back.

  Pete emerged, his face turning puzzled when he saw Ryder standing behind me. “And I see you’ve brought a guest?”

  “Not intentionally,” I said.

  Ryder pushed his way in and approached Pete. “Can you try to talk some sense into her, please? Because I can’t.”

  The corner of Pete’s mouth pulled up, but he managed not to smile. “What did she do this time, officer?”

  Ryder gave him a condescending glare. “She’s selling her eggs.”

  “Eggs?” Pete asked, his expression one of confusion.

  “Yes, didn’t you know I’ve converted my bedroom into a chicken coop?” I joked.

  “Her reproductive eggs,” Ryder said through gritted teeth.

  Pete made a face. “How does that work? Like how do they get them out?”

  Ryder had clearly had enough of our antics. He ran his hands through his hair. “I should have known neither of you would take this seriously. I’m out of here.”

  “Later,” Pete replied as Ryder stormed out the door. He turned to me, chuckling. “What has his man panties in a bunch? Are you really selling your eggs?”