by A B Plum
“We need to talk about my good news,” Elijah said.
Her pulse skittered. “You found The Monkey Boys?”
“Haven’t even told Danny yet.”
“How much money do they want?”
“They don’t.” His eyes narrowed.
“Really?” He’s waiting for me to overreact. Disgusted by her brainless reply, she pushed a pizza crumb to the end of the counter. “What do they want?”
Elijah slammed the door shut under the sink and stood straight. “A job.”
“A job,” she parroted, tipping the pizza crumb over the edge of the counter and catching the grainy scrap in her cupped hand. “Let me guess. They want to play with The Stoned Gang.”
He snapped his fingers. “Bingo. How’d you guess?”
“They looked like rockers—at least Bozo did. El Creepo looks like a surfer.”
“Which one’s Bozo?”
“The blond. Big biceps. Lots of hair on his arms and fingers.”
“Harper—Harpo’s what they call him—Marks.
“Harpo Mar—was he pulling your leg?”
“Marks. M-a-r-k-s. He showed me his driver’s license. Plays guitar and sings. Has every CD and tape The Stoned Gang every produced.”
Ryn massaged the small of her back. “Then he knows The Stoned Gang has a guitarist who sings. Amber’s going to give up her place to some guy off the street when Elvis sits down on stage next to her. Or does Harpo—Harper—think he can replace Stone?”
“Said he didn’t. Said if he was in Amber’s place, he wouldn’t step aside without raising hell, either. I told him we don’t even know if The Stoned Gang will continue recording. Maybe they’ll form a new group—”
“A new group?” Ryn shouted. “Guy probably sounds like a frog with laryngitis. What’d you promise him?”
“Nothing. Told him I had to talk to Danny first—”
“I can’t believe this.” She stretched toward the ceiling. “What else?”
“Told him he might have to come down a little on his expectations. Told him if a breath of what you did to him and his buddy Chance Hunter ever got out, the whole deal’d go south so quick he’d think he’d been dreamin’.”
“I think I must be dreaming. Danny’s never—”
“Let’s wait and see what Danny says, okay?”
Ryn went up on her toes and stretched again. “FYI, Danny doesn’t have the final say in this.”
“Just sayin’.” Elijah opened his palms wide. “Danny’s one smart lawyer or Stone wouldn’t have kept him around.”
Ryn’s fingers twitched. She wanted to throw something at him. See if that might raise his cool a few degrees. Overreacting. She dropped to her heels and carried the solitary pizza crumb over to the sink and dropped it onto the gleaming stainless steel.
Elijah turned on the faucet. “If anyone can figure out how to make these guys think their dreams are coming true without it costing you twenty million bucks, it’s Danny Leopold.”
Ryn clicked her tongue behind her front teeth and turned off the water. “I’ll be lucky if money’s all I have to shell out.”
Elijah loaded glasses into the dishwasher. “You probably figure I know more about quantum physics than I know about music, right?”
Damned right. Ryn tapped her thumb against her bottom lip. He probably doesn’t know beans about quantum physics, either.
“Am I right?” Elijah repeated, folding the dish towel and laying it over the sink. Then, as if looking for hand cream, he opened the cabinet door next above the sink, peered inside, shuffled a few bottles, and reclosed the door. “The way I figure you see it? I’ve handed Harper and Chance the power to blackmail you at worst and the power to make your life miserable at best.”
He reads minds
He arched a thick black eyebrow, met, and held her gaze. “What I don’t know about music, you don’t know about investigating, Miz Davis.”
And the ball, as they say, is in my court. Ryn maintained eye contact. She liked that he hadn’t defended himself, hadn’t told her how many years’ experience as a PI, hadn’t revealed he had a Ph.D. in music theory.
“Do you always go for the jugular?” She massaged her throat.
Elijah threw back his curly head and laughed, his eyes dancing, and his whole body shaking. After a few guffaws, he said, “Only when necessary. I didn’t need to with The Monkey Boys—so I didn’t.”
His broad face looked so earnest and honest that she considered telling him what was really on her mind. He shifted his weight a little, and she felt her gut tighten. She wished she could trust him. Knew in her head he was on her side. Like Comfrey. And Danny. And Beau.
Aware he was watching her as if she might attack him, she pitched her voice to light and teasing. “Bet you wonder what you’ve gotten into, huh?”
Elijah shook his head. “Nope. I know exactly what I’ve gotten myself into.”
Chapter 24
“I promise, Ryn,” Beau said, his face and voice solemn. He sat on the white sofa with Maj in his lap, his dainty feet barely touching the floor. “I will be very good while you sleep.”
“Thank you, Beau.” Ryn stood in the middle of the living room, surveying the contents. As soon as Elijah had left—his nose only slightly out of joint—Beau had helped her put all the lamps, vases, and other breakables in the kitchen—which was off-limits while she napped.
Also off-limits was giving Maj a bath, going into the guest bedroom, checking on Ryn, and answering or using the landline phone. Lying in bed, Ryn stared at the ceiling. What had she forgotten?
Succinct specificity was the key to survival around Beau. She remembered telling him once she had eyes in the back of her head. From that moment on, he did whatever she said—as long as she was succinctly specific. That meant giving him no more than four or five points at a time to remember.
She yawned and closed her eyes. Under the circumstances, she’d done the best she could. If Beau wrecked the place, she’d pay for the damages. Unless he took out the entire building, the renovation tab should come in under two hundred million dollars. Of course if Elijah was wrong about how much money The Monkey Boys would settle for …
Sleep tiptoed into the room quietly as fog off the ocean. The quiet closed down around her, and she stopped thinking—vaguely wondering if she'd made a mistake giving Elijah keys to the lobby and the elevator.
Ninety minutes later, Ryn woke up to shattering silence. She raised her head. Listened. Her breathing—harsh, uneven—reminded her of Maj with a mouse.
“Beau? You and Maj catnapping out there?”
Hope springs eternal in the human heart.
A cliché which did nothing to get her on her feet. She rolled onto her side.
“Up and at ‘tem,” she muttered and swung her cement legs over the side of the bed. Before taking her first step, she shook her head to clear away the cobwebs.
Wake up. The fuzzy halos around the lamps might mean she was caught in that vacuum between sleeping and waking. She shuffled across the bedroom carpet with almost no sensation in her feet. She didn’t understand why the quiet magnified her growing certainty.
Beau's broken something else. He's hiding. Must be close to catatonia.
“Catatonia? Isn’t that a province in Spain?” The question proved that while she slept, one of those zany Greek gods had stolen her mind, but she needed the reassurance she was now awake—even though she often talked in her sleep and sometimes remembered what she’d said.
“Beau?” Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat. “Beau? It’s time to stop playing now.”
In the living room, she required less than ten seconds to confirm what she already knew. Beau wasn’t in a corner or anywhere else in the room where she’d left him eons ago. Not in the kitchen, dining room, guest bedroom, den, or either of the two other baths. Had he sneaked into her bedroom while she searched the rest of the apartment?
You’re awake. Think. She ignored logic and backtracked to her room. S
he added insult to stupidity and checked the shower. Sweat rolled down her back and sides.
A hammering at her front door pounded her brain. “Ryn! It’s Elijah.”
“Ryn! It’s Beau.”
When she threw open the door, Beau grinned like an angel. Maj squirmed and growled, pushing on his stomach with her back paws and hurtling through space to land on the slippery marble floor. All four of her feet skidded out from under her. For a second, she lay sprawled there, claws scratching for purchase.
Beau ducked under Ryn’s arm at the instant the cat managed to stand and dive for the carpeted living room. Her tail slithered through Beau’s fingers.
“I thought I was dreaming,” Ryn said. “Now I feel caught in a Marx Brothers’ movie.”
One glance at Elijah’s face and she swallowed the laugh filling her throat.
“Change that to The Godfather and I’ll agree.” Elijah stepped into the entry and shut the door.
Arms out wide, Beau fell to his knees and made a tent with his soft belly and outstretched arms. But Maj slid through a hole between his legs and streaked for Ryn’s bedroom.
“Did we see the same version of The Godfather?”
“Actually,” Elijah blew out a long breath, “I prefer Westerns.”
“Remember, I’m officially diagnosed as sleep deprived.” Ryn sat on the sofa. “Which means I don’t solve higher math problems in my head or follow non sequiturs with ease.”
Elijah sat in the wing chair. “Sorry. I’m not being intentionally obtuse. Guess where I found our friends?”
“I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know.” She clasped her hands together. “I didn’t specifically say Beau couldn’t leave the apartment.”
“Guess that explains why I found them near 280.” Elijah stared at his feet.
“Interstate-280?” Ryn’s breath caught. “That’s … two or three miles from here, isn’t it?”
“Two point five miles. There must be a god because they should be road pizza.”
“Shiii—” She covered her mouth and tried to breathe.
“Two guys—bad guys—according to Beau—in a big black Caddy limo with tinted windows like Stone’s limo—picked them up. Ergo, my Godfather reference.”
From the bedroom, a loud crash followed by total silence. Ryn locked her jaw.
Elijah continued, “You know Stone was involved with los Colombianos, right?”
“Whaaat?” She leaped off the sofa and watched Elijah watch her. She felt like a snack for a patient lizard. “If you mean the cartel when you say Colom—”
“None other.” Elijah’s eyelids dropped down over his eyes.
“Bzzzzt.” Channeling a basketball ref, Ryn waved her hands in front of her chest, walking in a small, tight circle at the end of the sofa. “No drugs. Before we met, Stone admitted he’d tried every drug out there at least once. After we met—I didn’t know everything he did, but I’ll swear he wasn’t using drugs. Except for alcohol,” she amended.
Elijah stretched his basketball legs out in front of him. “I didn’t say he was using.”
Ryn’s legs quivered and she collapsed onto the couch. “Dealing?” She swallowed, squeezing her eyes shut for a second, a quicksilver image of Stone’s face flashing on her mental TV screen. “I don’t believe—dealing, no. No way.”
Dealing? For a heartbeat, she doubted she’d really said the word.
Was it possible? Would dealing drugs explain their incessant arguments, his increased depression and wild mood swings for the past six months?
Out loud, talking more to herself than to Elijah, Ryn said, “I don’t know if you’re aware I work at a women’s halfway house for recovering drug addicts.”
“Uh-huh.” Elijah nodded. “Esperanza House. You teach computer classes there.” Those hazel-flecked eyes, wide open now, glittering, held her gaze.
“Stone made some pretty large contributions over the past six years—over two million dollars—not including the memorial he established to his mother last year. Call me a doubting Thomasina, but I don’t believe he was dealing.”
First, this PI turns up in Los Altos and gives Bozo and El Creepo ideas of a music career. Then, he starts talking about Stone dealing drugs. What’s he doing for me?
Elijah straightened his back, pulled his legs in so that his knees stuck out in front of him, and raised three fingers. “First, I didn’t say Stone was dealing. Second, I said Stone was involved with los Colombians. Third, Danny hired me to investigate that involvement.”
Ryn pressed her lips together and managed to keep her mouth from falling open, but her brain and mind definitely had stopped cooperating. She understood each word Elijah had spoken. She did not understand their meaning.
“I thought Danny hired you to find proof I’m innocent.”
“He did. But fourteen months ago, he hired me to find out about the cartel’s West Coast boss. The Feds broke up the cartel except for Carlos Luis Vega. He was sniffing around trying to find ways to get a piece of Stone’s business. Thought the music scene would be the perfect way to find some new customers for his … products.” Elijah paused, his dark face hard as onyx. “I made a pretty comprehensive report to Danny.”
A high-pitched roar clanged in Ryn’s ears. “Why didn’t Danny tell me about any of this? I was—am—Stone’s business manager.”
“Can’t speak for the man.” Elijah shrugged. “Far as I know, Stone didn’t even know Danny hired me.”
“Why not?” She waved a finger and answered her own question. “Stone would’ve popped an artery if he found out Danny hired you.” Stone liked his secrets.
Elijah leaned over his knees. “Danny wasn’t interested in a client with ties to the cartel or anyone dirty. He wanted to be sure Stone really had turned down Señor Vega.”
“What makes you so sure …” Inhaling hurt her chest too much to argue.
“Let’s just say a friend of a friend is undercover at Vega’s house.” Elijah snorted. “If you call forty-two rooms on five acres in Holmby Hills a house. My friend was working there both times when Vega invited Stone. Wined and dined him. Brought along a couple of lovely señoritas. Laid out the welcome offer pretty thick. Stone still said hell no.”
Ryn blinked. How many arguments had erupted between her and Stone about doing the right thing—for Beau? For Esperanza House? For Amber? The list never ended. But here was a case when Stone had done the right thing, and she hadn’t had a clue what he’d done.
“Did they kill him—because he said no?”
“I wish I knew.” Elijah got to his feet. “But by grabbing Beau, I think they’ve made me a hundred percent sure they killed Lavender.”
“Lavender ran a stop sign. The accident was her fault.”
“Not if someone tampered with the brakes. Not if the other driver got paid big bucks to be the vic.”
“He’ll never walk again.” Ryn couldn’t feel her fingernails digging into her palm so she raked the flesh on the underside of her arm. Nothing. “That story sounds like one you’d read in a tabloid.”
“The tabloids can’t concoct stories wild enough to portray the cartel. If Vega wanted Stone—and he wouldn’t play—killing his mother would give them pleasure. They love playing with people’s heads.”
“Beau told me Stone had a secret apartment. Do you know anything about it?”
“Not yet. I’ll do some checking. I’m sure you’ll agree Beau’s not the most reliable witness.”
“He was pretty sure about it. Said it was a penthouse. Which isn’t much, I know.”
“I’ll check. In the meantime, you’d better chat with Beau about taking calls from strangers on his cell. He says someone called while you were sleeping and offered proof you hadn’t killed Stone. They were waiting for him as soon as he stepped outside. I suspect, given the chance, he’d take the bait again.”
Tears welled, but she scrubbed her eyes and hugged her waist. “Won’t happen again.”
Chapter 25
Ryn sat o
n the sofa in the shadowy living room. Maj snored at her side. Elijah and Beau had left twenty minutes earlier to find something to eat. Ryn had promised to set the table as part of her contribution to the meal. So far she hadn’t made a move to get out plates and silverware. Elijah’s pronouncement about Lavender made setting the table seem a little too prosaic.
She pulled her knees up under her chin. If the Colombian cartel could kill Lavender and make it look like a car accident she’d caused, why couldn’t they murder Stone and make Ryn look guilty? And hadn’t the Colombian cartel been rounded up and jailed years ago?
She shivered and stood to turn on the hall light. All the living room lamps and vases she and Beau had removed earlier still sat in the kitchen—which looked like a cluttered cave. As she passed in front of the big front window, Ryn scanned the street for green Corollas. An old-fashioned streetlight threw off a small yellow circle to light the deserted sidewalk and street. Across from the apartment building, bungalows lit from within looked cozy and inviting—despite the dark closing down around them.
No signs of green Corollas or black Cadillac limos.
She stared at the spot Beau swore was where the Cadillac had parked. He figured the man who stepped out of the car was the guy who said something on the phone Beau hadn’t completely understood. Something about helping Ryn.
“So I went downstairs.” Was Ryn mad because he forgot he couldn’t get back into the building? “I did remember to take the elevator key.”
Ryn sighed and closed the drapes. Beau had reasoned she should be mad at herself. “Because you never told me I couldn’t leave the apartment. Did you?”
"No, I didn't tell you—I thought—"
"Thought I could read minds?"
Ryn’s face burned and she hugged her waist. He was right. She’d never specifically and succinctly told him not to leave the apartment. And he’d gone out because he thought she was in trouble—even though she was asleep in the bedroom. Naturally, he took Maj.
They could’ve killed him. When he didn’t answer the whole bunch of questions they asked, they could’ve killed him. Instead they’d ordered him out of the limo. Told him to walk back to Ryn’s since he didn’t want to help them out.