Who Glares Wins (Lexi Graves Mysteries)

by Camilla Chafer

  "Right," I said, clinging on to that. It came back to me now. Ally was the one friend I hadn't managed to get hold of, despite visiting her home and leaving her messages. I wondered if she was one of the girls in the photo I’d just seen.

  "I'm sorry I didn't get your messages. I've been out of town because my dad is sick," she told me. "I just got home this morning. I called Elisabeth and she said Marissa was still missing and the police weren’t doing anything."

  "What else did Elisabeth tell you?"

  "Just that no one else has seen her for a couple weeks, and she was really worried."

  "I've been looking for her and we're worried something might have happened to her. When was the last time you saw her?"

  "Uh, let me see... Sunday, just before I got my train."

  "Our reports were that she went missing on Sunday. Her car was found abandoned and she hasn't been home since."

  "Huh. Well, let me see. I saw her when I was at the train station, except there weren't any long-stay parking places left. Marissa said she was walking, and she offered to drive my car back to my house. I was so grateful. I would have missed my train if it hadn't been for her."

  I pondered that. Marissa could have ditched her car in favor of another convenient one, one which she knew wouldn’t be reported missing. "Where's your car now?"

  "The garage, I guess."

  "Could you go check for me, please?"

  "Well, sure. I'm on the cordless, so, uh, come with me." Ally laughed, but it sounded hollow. I listened to her footsteps, then the sound of a door opening, then an exclamation of surprise. "My car isn't here."

  "Have you been away the whole time? Since that Sunday when Marissa offered to drive your car?"

  "Yes."

  "So, Marissa could have kept your car, and you wouldn't have known about it?"

  "I guess so, but why would she do that?"

  "I don't know, but I'm going to find out. What's the plate?"

  Ally gave it to me. "Do I need to report my car stolen?" she asked.

  "No, let me make some inquiries first. I'll call you back."

  Now I knew Marissa had access to another car that gave me two possibilities. Either she'd been abducted in Ally's car, which seemed unlikely; or she had a car to escape in, one she knew wouldn't be missed for a while. I called Garrett, got his voicemail, and immediately called Daniel, who picked up.

  "I need you to run a plate for me," I told him. “Pretty please.”

  "With a babysitting IOU on top?”

  “Ugh. Fine.”

  “Great. What for?"

  "I just need to know if it's been in an accident or impounded."

  "Give it to me."

  I told Daniel and waited a moment. "Nothing reported on it," he said. "Anything you want to tell me about?"

  "Nope."

  "Your boyfriend is on the other side of the room with a face like a bulldog chewing nettles. Anything you want to tell him about?"

  That didn't sound good. "Definitely, nope."

  "Anything you want me to tell him about?" Daniel persisted.

  "Let's go with a no on that one too."

  "You owe me," he said. “I will collect on that IOU.”

  “I’m going to have ten children, and you and Garrett are going to babysit for me so often. I’ll feed them all additives before I go out, too.”

  Daniel made a rude noise, so I blew a raspberry and hung up. With all the favors I was giving out, I might as well become a wish fairy.

  I called Ally back and she answered right away. "I think Marissa still has your car," I told her. "Don't report it missing yet. I'm going to look for it."

  "Where?" she asked. And yeah, that stumped me too.

  "Don't worry about it," I said smoothly glossing over my clueless moment. "Just give me a couple of days, and hopefully, I'll have it back."

  "I don't much care about my car," she replied. "Just find Marissa."

  Easier said than done.

  While I contemplated what to do about that, something still niggled me about Sylvia. As my final undercover act of the day, I decided it was time for some serious snooping.

  Sylvia was still overseeing the convention, so after double-checking her location, I made my way to her empty office. She had scored the corner office on the other side of the kitchens from mine. In most office buildings, this would have been prime real estate, but in actuality, Sylvia's office wasn't much better than my own temporary closet. The door was shut. I took a quick look behind me, saw no one, and tried the handle. It wasn't locked and the door edged open. One more look to the front and behind, and I slipped in, shutting the door behind me. I figured I didn't have long to snoop around. What I needed was something obvious, like boxes loaded with the stolen property, or a sheaf of switched rotas with the words “ha-ha-ha suckers!” scrawled across the top.

  I moved over to the cabinets first, opening each one, but nothing obvious spilled out, just file after file of reports. My shoulders sank. Of course, it couldn't be this easy. I looked around, wondering what I should search next.

  The office was small, but untidy. It seemed like Sylvia ran into work, wedged her way through the boxes that lined the floor from the door to the desk, worked, and ran out again, not taking the time to file anything. The career temp in me wanted to take her filing in hand. The private investigator in me wished she was a little more orderly and wanted to know where to start.

  I fixed on the most obvious thing. The desk. Skirting my way past the boxes, I sat in Sylvia's chair, hoping that no one would come in because I didn't know how I would explain what I was doing in her office. But less procrastination, more snooping. I opened the drawers, finding hotel stationery and pens in the top drawer, a cluster of elastic bands, and a single Band-Aid. Not exactly the incriminating evidence that would crack my case.

  Opening the second drawer, I found a photograph of Sylvia and Chef Fabien. It had been ripped in half, severing Fabien's arm and right ear, then Sellotaped back together, like someone couldn't decide if they were really over, or back together again. Hmm, I wondered if there was still something there. I tossed it back in the drawer and fingered through the other things. There was a file marked “Conferences.” I opened it. There were seventeen conferences listed for the coming months, and eight of them had heavy pen lines drawn through them. Cancellations. The second folder had details of the canceled conferences. I peered at Sylvia's handwriting. She'd made a note of how each conference had been canceled and the reasons why. I wondered if she was listing excuses to make sure she didn't wear them out. I closed the file and put them back; then opened the bottom drawer.

  There was only one item in the last, and deepest, drawer: the sexiest pair of shoes. Black pumps with a neat heel, and a beautiful arch. I turned one heel over, taking in the elegant red sole. Despite Sylvia's somewhat questionable taste in work attire, she clearly had much better taste than she let on. I closed the drawer and hit the space bar on the keyboard. The screen of the desktop PC immediately came to life, the log-in panel requesting a name and password. I typed SylviaCooper, all one word, as per hotel policy and hesitated, screwing my mouth up as I thought, What could her password be? Statistics showed passwords were generally something that meant something to a person, like a pet, a favorite destination, something they loved.

  I thought about the red-soled shoes and typed ChristianDior. That said love to me. Unfortunately, the computer didn't agree.

  Leaning back in the chair, and ignoring the squeaks of protest from the joints, I tried to remember what I knew about Sylvia, which took all of twenty seconds. I knew nothing about Sylvia. I didn't know if she had any pets, or where she vacationed, or her mother's maiden name. All I knew was that she had been engaged to Fabien, but it was now off.

  Seeing as I had nothing else to work from, I typed “Fabien” in the box. Jackpot! The screen disappeared, replaced by the desktop. I scanned the files, but they all looked ordinary. A file of menus, with different documents for seasonal suggestion
s, canapés, weddings, formal dinners, and more. A file of wedding bookings, and another one for conferences. The computer was surprisingly cleaner than the office itself, so I called up her internet browser and clicked on “history,” scrolling through. Instead of sabotage tips for beginners, I got link after link for shopping, vacations, and dating sites. All fairly normal. In fact, it looked like my own laptop, minus the dating websites. If Maddox stopped liking me, I might have to reconsider my position on looking for love online.

  Thinking about Maddox made my heart jump and sink. I hated that he was mad at me, and that he would hate that I was still on the job. Perhaps, he might have thought I would agree to stay away from the hotel after our heated conversation. In all honesty, I was a little emotional at the time and hazy on the details. There was a good chance Maddox might think I would take a good, long look at the spray paint on my walls and decide, Heck no! before getting back to the wonderful world of temping.

  I grimaced. I could always beg for forgiveness later. Like, after I solved the case and gave Edward Killjoy his hotel back, saboteur-free.

  Hovering the mouse pointer over the red “x,” I closed the window and opened the email program next. I typed “sabotage” into the search box and a few emails came up between Sylvia and Edward, as well as the concierge desk. Then there was a terse two-line message from Louisa, asking them all not to speculate because it was unproductive and would blow over eventually. I sort of agreed with her, even if she was a little too optimistic. The only problem: it was obvious everyone was speculating. They said as much to me and I'd already overheard it in the corridors. They all wondered if a colleague was the one messing with their livelihoods. I browsed her emails for another couple of minutes and concluded there was nothing to find. If Sylvia was our saboteur, she was clearly too clever to leave evidence. I shut the email program down, then logged off, scanning the desk to see if it was obvious I'd moved anything. I couldn't tell, and that was good enough for me.

  I slipped out of the office and turned, running headfirst into Louisa. We both squeaked and took a step backwards. Louisa frowned at me.

  "I'm looking for Sylvia," I told her.

  "She's in the events center," said Louisa. "I thought you knew she would be there all day."

  "Oh. I didn't see her," I lied smoothly, the dim, blank smile creeping onto my face. "I thought she came back here."

  "No, definitely not. Were you in her office?"

  "Yes. Uh, I thought I heard someone, so I went in. I, uh, wanted to tell her that the event looked like it was going well and Edward was really, uh, pleased." I needed to practice my lying skills.

  "Okay. Great!" Louisa nodded, and for a moment, I thought she was going to challenge me. Then, she just nodded again and stepped around me, turning the corner, headed toward the kitchens.

  "Close call," I said to myself as I hurried away from Sylvia's office. Home time hadn't come a minute too soon. The Montgomery Hotel was starting to freak me out; and I feared I was taking on the same worried, frazzled expressions of my new colleagues. And just like them, I was nervous about what tomorrow would bring.

  Chapter Fourteen

  As I climbed into my car, I got my second unexpected call of the day. Solomon.

  "I need a full report on the case," he told me without preamble. "I heard there have been some problems."

  "That's putting it mildly. I'm just leaving. I'll come by the office." Could today get any longer? I mentally calculated how many hours it would take me to get to the office, write up my day's notes, print out the photos of the graffiti on my wall to add to the file, and then present it all to Solomon. If I were lucky, I would have enough time to microwave some food before crawling into bed.

  "I'm not there. Come to my house."

  "You have a house?" It never occurred to me that Solomon lived in a house. Somehow, I didn't really think of him existing outside of the office, except for the odd occasions when he popped up unannounced. He somehow always seemed to know where I was, like the park or tailing Ted. In all the time I'd known Solomon, which wasn't very long, he hadn't volunteered his home address or any information about his living set-up, though he had been to my apartment several times, even crashing a dinner date with Maddox once. I was fairly sure that wasn’t accidental.

  "Think of it as a portal to another dimension," said Solomon.

  "Ha-ha. Very funny."

  "You have thirty minutes if you want dinner."

  "You're offering to cook for me?" This was surprising too, and pleasantly so. I could do dinner at Solomon's. A business dinner. Curiosity got the better of me.

  "It seems like the best way to prod you to get a move on," he admitted, a hint of amusement in his voice. Well, he wasn’t wrong.

  I started up the engine and he gave me the address. "Do you know it?" he asked.

  "I know the area." Solomon lived in a very nice area. Not showy expensive, like Bedford Hills, or up-and-coming fashionable, like Harbridge, but quiet and I-have-lots-of-money-but-don't-need-to-prove-it expensive. As I turned into the Chilton district, I drove past a nice, upscale shopping area, full of boutiques. There were the other usual trappings of smart neighborhoods: a good deli, a wine store that didn't have any two-for-one offers, and a baby boutique. It had such a beautiful window display, it made me do a double take, wondering if I would find something nice for my baby niece inside.

  I made a mental note to come back another time. Then I drove three blocks, and made the turn, driving slowly while I searched for Solomon's number. Solomon’s Lexus was nowhere to be seen. I parked in between a Mercedes and a vintage Jaguar, figuring my VW was safer between them, as both were a hundred times more appealing for a chop shop than my wheels. I looked up at the number Solomon had given me.

  Solomon's home was a brownstone. Neat stone steps with rounded lips led up to double doors painted in a blue so dark, it was almost black. The fittings looked brand new. I knocked, counted to ten, and Solomon opened the door. He wore black jeans with not a single spot of faded ink, and a dark gray sweater, with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, over a similarly colored shirt. He was clean-shaven, his closely cropped hair looked like it had recently visited the barber, and when he smiled, his smile was swoon-worthy. He must have been home awhile because he was wearing socks.

  "I have files," I said, holding an imaginary file up. Not complete files, given that I hadn't been able to swing by the office to access my email or print out the photos, but I had a file in my head.

  "And I have dinner."

  "You win." I stepped inside and took off my jacket, handing it to Solomon. There were a few card boxes left in the parquet hallway and the white paint on the walls looked fresh. "Did you just move in?" I asked as I followed him past an open, square archway that led into the living room. We walked further along the corridor before turning into the dining room.

  The table that dominated the room was solid wood, with four thick, square legs, and the old top was sanded and buffed to perfection. There were enough leather chairs to seat ten, but it only had two settings at one end, opposite each other. A bottle of wine stood breathing between the two settings, and tea lights flickered in glass votives.

  "Yes," said Solomon. "I just finished the renovation a couple weeks ago."

  I didn't ask where he'd been living before that, even if the curiosity cat nagged at me. "Did you make this?" I asked, pointing to the food.

  "Do I earn extra points if I say yes?"

  "Absolutely."

  "Then, yes."

  I sat and Solomon poured a glass of wine, passing it to me. I took a sip. It tasted full and fruity, and expensive.

  "What are you saving points for?" I asked.

  Solomon met my eyes, smiled, and poured his own glass, sitting at the table opposite me. "Leave the files for later," he said. "Or the food will get cold."

  I had no problem with that. My stomach growled twice on the way over and I was ready to eat. Plus, the food looked good. Very good. Butterflied chicken, parme
ntier potatoes, sprinkled with herbs, and green beans that gave off a faint whiff of lemon. There was basket of bread rolls, far more than we could eat, and a small plate with pats of butter. I took a roll and broke it open, trying to catch the flakes of bread, feeling awkwardly out of place in his pristine house. It wasn't that it was don't-touch-pristine or uninviting; it was just the opposite. It begged for people to crowd the table, turn up the music, and turn down the lights. But though the lights were low, there was no music and it was just Solomon and me.

  Alone.

  My stomach flipped.

  I'd eaten with Solomon before, but it was always on the hoof—a sandwich on the way somewhere, or while talking in the office. But this... this had a distinct, date-like feel. Perhaps I was reading it wrong. I tried to imagine Delgado in my place. Would Solomon have lit a candle? And poured wine in nice glasses for Delgado?

  I didn't think so.

  I could see them at a sports bar, drinking beers, with a pizza between them and a game on screen. I couldn't see candlelight and talking, even if it were about business.

  "This is nice," I said, looking around, trying to think of something to make conversation. "What made you go for a house and not an apartment?"

  "Fewer neighbors and more space."

  "Both excellent reasons." I happened to like my downstairs neighbor, Lily, a whole lot. I barely saw my upstairs neighbor, as it was a short-term let with a permanently revolving door. While I thought it was currently occupied, I didn't know by whom. Also, I didn't need a lot of space, but I always imagined that I would eventually live in a house, just like my parents, and my married brothers and my sister—a house with a husband and children. Or my dream house, the butter-yellow bungalow. So far, I was doing okay with a rented apartment, a boyfriend who wasn't speaking to me, and overactive ovaries every time I clapped eyes on baby Victoria. I wondered if Solomon bought the house with a family in mind. It was definitely a family neighborhood. I hadn’t thought of him as a family man.

  "How's the food?"

  "The chicken's perfect." I cut a cube and forked it into my mouth, occasionally glancing over at Solomon as I chewed. I watched him relax, enjoying the meal more as our conversation picked up speed.