“Where were you when you had this misunderstanding?”
“Mis…?”
“Spat.”
“We were…” She made a flourish of her hand. “Outside. In park. Forget name.”
Val noticed Marta wasn’t wearing the megasize bling she’d had on the other day, and that Drake had seemed interested in.
“You’re not wearing your engagement ring. Did you and your fiance break up during that spat?”
Marta glanced at her hand, back to Val. “No, we not break up. I leave it at jeweler’s to check its worth. If I learn he ditch me, I sell it.”
“He being Drake, your fiance.”
“Of course.”
She casually glanced out the window, next to the door. There sat Marta’s black Lexus. Too far to read the license plate.
“So,” Val said nonchalantly, “do you have any idea where he might be? Favorite bar? Casino?”
“No. He’s, what you say, home person.”
“Homebody.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t want to tell me the kind of work he did before, but as he’s missing, it would be helpful to know where he’s employed.”
“He out of place.”
“Out of work?”
“Yes. I think you go back to Dino’s. He there a lot. People know him, maybe he tell them…”
She caught a movement out the front. Drake strode up to Marta’s Lexus, held his smartphone close to the license plate. She quickly looked at Marta, who was pushing the wad of bills toward her.
“There will be more when you find him,” she said. “You have my number. Call me. No text. I go now.”
Val glanced out the window again. No Drake. She eased out a pent-up breath.
After the Lexus pulled out of the lot, the grandfather clock chimed five times. Val sat in the guest chair and peered at her smartphone. The video ran as long as it detected motion, so she was, as they said on TV news, live.
“My name is Val LeRoy, and I am an intern P.I. at Diamond Investigations. Today is Saturday, August 10, 2013, five p.m. The interview began approximately seventeen minutes ago. The woman in this video is Marta, and she has refused to give her last name. My mentor, Las Vegas private investigator Drake Morgan, believes Marta may be linked to a recent arson, although I do not have that address.”
She reflected on the kinds of information Jayne stated on her recorded interviews, such as the time, date, location, names of people present. In legal cases, interview tapes like this were reviewed by lawyers, judges, juries, so Val had to do this right. And cover her behind.
She moved the wad of bills so it could be seen. “I do not consent to investigating this case as it is illegal for interns to do so.” Sounded good, even if she said so herself. “I accepted this money on behalf of Drake Morgan.”
She picked up the camera, turned off the app, then jumped a little when she saw Drake.
He slouched against the wall, his shirt partially untucked, lazily blinking those gray eyes. A white plastic bag lay next to his feet.
“I didn’t want to make you nervous, so I stayed in the hall until you were finished.”
She waited. He hadn’t seen her conduct an investigative task yet on her own. Oh, she’d dug through the trash for a short while with him yesterday, but he hadn’t been there when she found the cigarette. Otherwise he only seemed to catch her bloopers, most of which had revolved around her badly—as in illegally—handling client transactions.
But this interview was different. It had been Val flying on her own, solo, relying on her memory of Jayne’s interviews, and she knew it wasn’t illegal because she had referenced that her role had been as an intern only, under the mentorship of a licensed P.I. She felt no small amount of pride that at the last minute she’d relied on her quick thinking and creativity to rig a camera on Marta and record a damning interview.
If the mountain doesn’t go to you, go to the mountain. “Did I do well with my first interview?”
Squeak, squeak.
He grinned at Hearsay on the doggie bed. “Hearsay, buddy, you like your new toy?”
She waited a few moments, listening to more squeaking and doggie-love talk. Okay, she got it. He dug Hearsay. So did she.
When he finally glanced up, she managed a smile. Maybe not the hundred-dollar variety, but at least a seventy-five.
“Hey,” she said softly.
Men, even the densest ones, could pick up on a woman’s signals as though they’d been zapped by a cattle prod. Didn’t mean they understood what was going on, but they definitely picked up that something was wrong, and the problem had to do with them.
He scowled. “What?”
She refused to let his coolness dampen her spirits. “Did I do well with my first interview?” she asked again.
He gave her a look as though she’d just landed in an alien spacecraft. “You want a report…on your report?”
She could argue this, get defensive, make a joke or pretend it didn’t matter, then spend the next few minutes listening to the incessant squeaking that was starting to get on her nerves, big-time.
Or she could ask for her due.
“Yes, I’d like a report.”
He made a disgruntled sound, as though he were being called on by the teacher to give a book report on a story he didn’t like.
“Probably not a problem recording her in the office, although a sharp defense attorney will claim invasion of privacy, which could throw the interview out the window, especially as you recorded without her permission. What else…you didn’t ask her pertinent questions, such as her address or last name—”
“Last time I talked to her, she refused to give those!”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, but it would have been helpful to have asked again during this interview. Let’s see…knocking her purse off the desk…let’s see, a savvy defense lawyer can easily claim trespass, because you knocked over her purse and then inventoried its contents, as well as violated her privacy.”
“But…I didn’t find anything.”
He shrugged. “It isn’t about what you didn’t find, Val, it’s about how you tried to find it, which reflects badly on you. Oh, and there were some problems with your wrap-up, which we can go over later.” He straightened, glanced at the time on the grandfather clock. “Ready to go? Said we’d be there by six.”
She fiddled with things on her desk, not wanting him to see her embarrassment. How pathetic, scrounging for a pat on the head.
“Did you take Hearsay out for a break this afternoon?” he asked.
“No.”
“Should’ve. Take it you’ve never owned a dog.”
“Just cats.”
“I’ll take him outside through the back—not a good idea for me to be seen coming or going from Diamond Investigations’ main entrance anymore. He’ll stay in my office while we’re at dinner. I’ll put out food and water.”
“Hearsay was such a good boy during the interview.” She would show Drake how to give a real compliment. “Watched Marta for a moment or two, then went back to his doggie bed. Didn’t even chew on his squeaky toy. A real team player.”
“Yeah,” he said, warmth infusing his voice, “he’s a champ. I’ll be back to pick him up as soon as we’re done with dinner.”
Which meant she’d be driving Drake back here. Val LeRoy, Beck and Call Taxi Service.
He gestured to the white plastic bag at his feet. “Mind putting that bag in your car? It’s not heavy, just a few small cameras I’m taking to my mom’s.”
Make that Taxi and Moving Service.
“Pick me up in the parking lot behind Al’s Bail Bonds down the street. Be there in ten.” He gave a low whistle to Hearsay. “C’mon, buddy, time to do your business.”
As the dog got up and yawned, Drake picked up the doggie bed. The two of them disappeared down the hallway. A moment later, she heard the connecting door close with a click, followed by the grating of a bolt lock sliding into place.
Good grief. Wh
at did he think she was going to do? Tear after him, throw open his door and violate his privacy?
She put the wad of bills into her desk drawer and locked it. Then picked up her purse and the plastic bag, turned off the lights and exited Diamond Investigations.
Small pools of heat shimmered on the asphalt. Air was so thick, it took extra energy just to breathe. After setting the bag in the backseat, she started the engine, cranked up the air-conditioning and put her face in front of it, entertaining the fantasy of breezing right past Al’s Bail Bonds with a little toodle-loo wave to Drake I’m-the-Man Morgan.
Let him see what it feels like to hit your mark, or try to anyway, and have someone blow right past it.
* * *
DRAKE STOOD IN the parking lot behind Al’s Bail Bonds, a square of cracked, buckling asphalt with scrawny cholla cactus around the perimeter. There was no Al, a fact he’d learned after the real owner, a hefty, far-side-of-sixty woman named Mallory, had hired him to run several locates. Her pool of clients mostly came from jails, which provided phone books to inmates but no computers, and A came before M, hence the Al in the business name.
There were no cars in the lot, but then, Mallory was rarely at the office anymore. Time for me to retire while I can still smell the roses, she’d told him, puffing on one of her nonstop cigarettes.
He checked the time on his smartphone for the third time. Five thirty-seven. He told Val to be here in ten minutes, which would have been five-thirty, and she was late. Diamond Investigations was less than a block away—what was taking her so long?
He mopped his brow and closed the app he’d been monitoring on his phone. Thumbing through the saved phone numbers on his phone, he found Val’s and punched it. As it started to ring, her rental Honda sped into the lot, lurched over a warped section of asphalt and pitched to a stop thirty feet away.
The entire lot was empty and she couldn’t park closer? With a disgruntled shake of his head, he walked to the passenger door and tugged on the hot metal handle.
Locked.
He glowered at her through the window.
She gave a sorry-about-that shrug and perused the dashboard, tapping a finger against her bottom lip.
Great. She had no idea how to unlock the effing doors. She’d been driving the car for four days, and she hadn’t figured that out yet? Strands of her hair fluttered, so the air-conditioning had to be on full blast. Sure, she could take her sweet time looking for the magic button because she was nice and cool. Meanwhile, he was stuck outside, the sun grilling him to medium well.
He peered inside the car, spied a series of buttons on the driver’s door panel. He rapped on the window.
She turned and smiled at him.
“Look at the driver’s panel.” He jabbed a finger toward her door.
She frowned, shook her head. “What?” she mouthed.
Drops of sweat stung his eyes. Blinking them back, he walked around the car and stopped at her window. He pointed at the driver’s panel and its buttons.
She looked down, then back up with a look of wonder as though she’d discovered a small pot of gold. Nodding eagerly, she punched a button on the panel. The back passenger window rolled down. With an oh-can-you-believe-I-did-that look on her face, she punched it again and it closed. Making a give-me-a-moment gesture, she scanned the buttons again, then pressed another one.
The door locks clicked open.
He walked back around the car, smelling the stink of melting asphalt, thinking how he’d once heard that crimes tapered off after temperatures hit seventy-five degrees. Seemed when people got overheated, their urge to do wrong diminished. At ninety or a hundred degrees, especially during the day, people apparently lost the drive altogether to commit any misdeeds.
Those stats didn’t apply to him. At the moment he wanted nothing more than to throttle a certain someone.
“You storing meat in here?” he muttered, climbing in and strapping on the seat belt. When she gave him a funny look, he explained, “It’s so cold in here, it feels like a meat locker.”
“It’s hot outside.”
“You don’t say,” he muttered, swiping a drip of sweat off his chin. “Why were you late?”
“You said ten minutes.”
“Which in your time zone apparently means seventeen minutes.”
“I wasn’t that late.”
A conversation that could only go in one direction—nowhere—so he addressed the next issue that pissed him off.
“Why did you park thirty feet away from where I stood?”
“My, aren’t you the number man,” she said, all huffy. “Seven minutes late. Thirty feet away.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I’m not the best parker in the world.”
He bit the inside of his cheek, wondering if this was worth pursuing. It was. “You didn’t park. You braked.”
She scoffed, gave him a look. “Like there’s a difference.”
“Do you park at a red light?”
“Of course not!” She gave him a look as though he’d lost it. “What I meant was, when you’re pulling up to pick up someone, it’s like parking.”
This discussion was headed in the same direction as the other one. He’d stop talking altogether, which a wise man would do, but at the moment, his bad mood trumped wisdom.
“You’ve driven this car for four days and you don’t know how to unlock the doors?”
“Back to the number game, are we?” Her thick black lashes fluttered. “I’ve never unlocked the doors for anybody else because I’ve been the only person in this car. Hard to know how to do something if you’ve never done it before.”
He sucked in his aggravation and blew it out. Did he bother correcting her about being the only person in the vehicle by bringing up their trash run? “Let’s go,” he said between his teeth, “we’re late.”
She muttered something about men and moods while stepping on the gas and spinning a one-eighty, the tires kicking up dust and rocks. After gunning it for fifteen feet—a number that would not pass his lips—she jerked to an abrupt stop at the street crossing.
“Okay,” she said brightly, “which way?”
“What’s with the NASCAR moves?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, all sweetness and light, “you said we’re late, so…”
“Left,” he growled.
She punched the gas pedal so hard his head jerked back. He was about to yell at her to slow down when she sidled past a stop sign into the middle of a four-way, scaring the bejesus out of the driver in an Acura crossing the intersection. He hit his horn, she hit hers and the Honda sailed through.
Drake looked at her. “You need to—”
She waved him off. “No more.”
“No more what?” He jabbed his index finger at an upcoming cross street. “Turn right up there.”
“No more correcting me. We’re not at work.”
“When did I correct you?”
“Oh, please.” She jerked the wheel, executing a right turn that could make an atheist believe in a higher being. “You disapproved of my spiel at the end of the Marta interview.”
“Disapproved? Because I offered feedback?”
“Yes.”
“It’s called constructive criticism, Val, not disapproval. You seem to forget that I’m mentoring you.”
She emitted a self-righteous exhale. “Do you realize how nerve-racking that was for me when she came in and I knew she was possibly part of the arson that occurred? That I kept my cool even though I was scared as a cat at the dog pound? And yet I managed to record her—at close range—without her knowing. Okay, so I trespassed and violated her privacy when I caused her purse to topple, but what if I’d seen a pay stub with her real name, or the name of a bar she hangs out at? You’re the one dragging your feet to talk to the arson investigator because you want more evidence before you do—I might have found some for you! What about them beans?”
He was trying to focus on what Val was
saying, but he could barely focus on his own thoughts. Being in the car with Val driving was like sitting shotgun in some cheesy TV show car chase scene. Any moment he expected to hear the swell of guitar-grinding, piston-pumping background music.
“…and I was pretty cool when I saw you sneaking around her Lexus,” she continued, swerving around a car that appeared out of nowhere. “Somebody else might have acted surprised or nervous, alerting Marta that something weird was going on, but I kept it together. And last, I’m sorry I didn’t take your dog outside, but he seemed quite happy lying on his doggie bed and squeaking and sleeping. What was I supposed to do—wake him up and insist he do his duty?”
She brought the car to a jerky halt at a stop sign.
The beauty of this part of downtown was these small two-lane streets, which mostly catered to local traffic and got cars off the congested main roads. The constant stop signs were annoying, though, especially if someone named Val LeRoy was driving.
“After you get through this intersection,” he said, peering out the windshield, “pull over.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m driving.”
“Correcting me again?”
“Only because I’d like to live long enough to see my mother and grandmother one more time.”
After a beat, a laugh escaped her. “You shouldn’t hide that sense of humor, Drake. It softens your macho edge.”
“I’ll do that. Now, pull over.”
She did.
Unsnapping her seat belt, she gave him a sly look. “Got a confession. Took me six tries to get my driver’s license. But I promise you, Drake, I’ll be a better P.I. one day than I’ll ever be a driver.”
He didn’t want to bring up that she’d have to put rolling surveillances, those conducted while driving a vehicle, onto her never-do list, along with undercover work, because they appeared to be on somewhat civil terms again. No need to muck things up by opening his big mouth and shoving both his feet in it.
They got out of the car and swapped places. After Drake slid behind the wheel, he pulled out his phone and set it on his thigh. Seeing her looking at it, he explained, “So I can answer without being seen talking and driving.”
“Good idea.”
Sleepless in Las Vegas Page 16