Reality Check in Las Vegas: A Tiffany Black Mystery (Tiffany Black Mysteries Book 5)

by AR Winters

  Lana followed my glance. “Oh, that. It’s Gordon’s.”

  “What—why is it here?”

  Lana looked from me to Ian and rolled her eyes. “Well. If you must know, we get together sometimes. Romantic-like. But not romantic. You know.”

  I looked at her in disbelief, trying to process what it meant.

  “But,” said Ian, “you’re so much older than him. He’s like, twenty, and you’re eighty.”

  “Fifty-two,” Lana said. “And we get along well.”

  Ian shook his head. “That doesn’t mean you need to sleep with him.”

  “He’s very good at what he does,” Lana said. “And I’m good at enjoying it.”

  “Urgh,” said Ian. “I always see him in the tabloids with these other girls.”

  I tried not to remember the kiss. Gordon’s mouth, hot and demanding, and his hard body pressed against mine. I had no doubt he was good at what he did with Lana.

  “How long have you… been together?” I said.

  “Soon after we started the show,” Lana said. “I don’t want to date anyone. Gordon knows we’re just having fun. And he’s free to sleep with anyone else he wants.”

  “Yuck,” said Ian. “I keep reading about him and all his women.”

  “Doesn’t it bother you?” I said. “That he’s… you know. Tasting all the cupcakes in the store?”

  Lana shrugged. “He’s a free man. And I’m a grown woman. I like his discretion. And his talents.”

  I looked at the gray hoodie again. “But he could be the one trying to hurt you.”

  “He wouldn’t try to hurt me,” Lana said. “He likes me. And I made his career. He knows I can make whatever he wants happen.”

  “Maybe he met someone else.” I didn’t believe the words even as I said them. “Someone he’s serious about. Maybe he’s in love. And he’s scared to tell you.”

  Lana laughed. “Oh, honey. He’d never be serious about anyone. There’s no such thing as love in Hollywood.”

  “But still.” The gray hoodie bugged me. “He might want you out of the picture.”

  Lana shook her head. “I like Gordon. I trust him. He’s definitely not trying any funny business.”

  I thought back to the way he’d kissed me. I was sure the man had something to hide; why else would he kiss me? And surely the gray hoodie couldn’t be a coincidence?

  Just then, there was a knock on the door and Gordon walked in. He looked at all of us, sitting around seriously, and said, “I heard about the coffee. You need to stop eating food lying around.” He turned to look at me and said, “Why don’t you supply all her food from now on?”

  “I can try,” I said, trying not to sound resentful. I was a PI, not a gopher. “But I’m not always free.”

  He turned to Ian. “What about you?”

  “We can supply her with food sometimes,” Ian said. “But she needs to get her own coffee. I can’t get here early enough for the morning coffee run.”

  “It’s a deal,” Gordon said. “I’ll be in charge of her morning coffee.”

  I was about to protest, since I didn’t entirely trust Gordon. But then I stopped midsentence. If everyone knew that Gordon was getting the coffee, then he wouldn’t dare to poison it and be held responsible.

  Lana said, “I only eat salads, soup and grilled fish and chicken. No red meats.”

  “Uh-huh.” I was watching Gordon closely, and seeing his concern was making me rethink my own suspicions. He seemed really concerned about Lana. “Who else knows about you two?”

  Gordon looked at me and gulped. Had he thought I wouldn’t find out about Lana? I tried not to look at him too coldly. Everyone else seemed so modern and cosmopolitan, with their free-love theories. Was I the only one in the studio who believed in true love? Sure, I might be single, but I knew that one day I’d be happy and in love.

  Lana said, “Carlos suspects. But he doesn’t know for sure. He’s always coked up.”

  “And Steve,” said Gordon. “He asked me once, and I said no. Not sure if he believed me.”

  “Are you really sure nobody else knows?” Ian said. “Maybe someone saw one of you sneaking into the other’s room at night, or kissing in an empty hallway.”

  Gordon shrugged. “They would’ve asked us if they suspected, or even tried to leak it to the press. Someone from the crew or one of the contestants might’ve seen us, but I don’t think so.”

  “In show business,” Lana said, “you need to keep affairs like this a secret. It would be terrible for Gordon’s career if it got out. All the young girls think they’ve got a shot with him, and we need to manage his image.”

  I tried to keep my tone light as I said to Gordon, “And what’re you willing to do to keep this a secret?”

  Gordon crossed his arms defensively, and Lana said, “Don’t be silly.”

  “You’re looking in the wrong place,” Gordon said. “Nobody here would want to hurt Lana.”

  “Well,” I said. “Clearly, someone does.”

  There was a knock on the door, and the red-haired assistant, Pam, walked in. “Morning mail,” she said. Like most of the women on the crew, Pam went all googly-eyed when she saw Gordon. She batted her lashes at him as she handed over his mail, but I don’t think he noticed. Thankfully, there was nothing for Ian and me, and she left.

  “What’s that?” Ian said. “Fan mail?”

  “And hate mail,” said Lana, rolling her eyes and tossing the envelopes onto an existing pile. “I don’t even bother reading them.”

  “Maybe that’s where we should look,” I said slowly. “Maybe someone hates you so much that they can’t stop at sending letters.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Ian and I spent the next couple of hours going through Lana’s hate mail together. Some of it was actually fan mail, complimenting her for being such a strong woman, and a great role model for little girls.

  But mostly, it was people telling her off for being so mean. “I loved Singer X on the show,” the typical letter would read. “Why were you so mean to them? You shouldn’t be so mean.”

  Of course, some of the letters weren’t grammatically correct, some were misspelled, and some contained ridiculous amounts of unnecessary obscenities.

  And then I found two that seemed a little different.

  The first one said, “Why are you sleeping with Gordon? He deserves better.”

  The second one said, “Leave Gordon alone, or I’ll make you.”

  The letters were both in unstamped envelopes, and when I showed them to Lana she shook her head. “What a creep.”

  “But no one knows about you and Gordon.”

  She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Maybe this person figured out something. Maybe it’s like Ian said, maybe someone saw us together.”

  I gulped, wondering if the same person had sent me the letter about meeting up at Mulligan’s. Since the letters were in unstamped envelopes, they’d clearly been hand-delivered. “Could it be someone Gordon slept with?” I mused.

  “He seems to meet some floozy every other day,” Lana said, rolling her eyes. “Girls go gaga when he smiles at them.”

  I tried not to remember ever having been attracted to Gordon. “Maybe there’s a clue in his mail.”

  Lana agreed, and Ian and I set off to Gordon’s room.

  “Sure, all my mail’s right here,” Gordon said when we asked to go through it.

  He waved towards a massive pile of envelopes. Most of them had been opened, and the letters read and then stuffed back into the envelopes.

  The pile looked about six feet high, and Ian and I exchanged a glance. “I really have to go to the casino this afternoon,” I said. “I’ve missed too many shifts in a row.”

  Ian took a deep breath. “I guess I signed up for this.”

  We got started with the mail. It was all gushing and sickening—how handsome he was, how beautiful his eyes, what a great judge. I wanted to puke. I could tell that Ian felt the same way, and after a few hours
, I excused myself to get to work.

  “Good luck,” I said to Ian. “Maybe you’ll find Lana’s stalker all by yourself.”

  I got to the Treasury ten minutes early, for a change, and my shift went by pretty uneventfully in the bustling, brightly lit casino pit—until I took a break at around one in the morning and checked my voice mail.

  It was Ian.

  “Come over to the hospital,” he said. “Lana’s been stabbed.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I muttered convoluted excuses to the shift supervisor, saying something about a family member falling ill, and that I’d have to rush off to the hospital. Which I did.

  Ian met me at the hospital entrance.

  “What happened?” I said. “How could this… how is she?”

  Ian took a deep breath. “She’s doing okay now.”

  “What happened?” I repeated. Ian looked clearly shaken, and we headed into the hospital waiting area, where we each grabbed a seat. The place smelled strongly of antiseptics, and the bright overhead lights created a distorted perception of time, making it seem like midday. There were a few other people waiting at this hour, and we could hear the low hum of a receptionist talking on the phone.

  “I was with her the whole time,” Ian said. “We went to auditions, then afterward, Lana said she wanted some air. We walked along the Strip, past the casinos, and then Lana wanted to explore, so we turned into a side street.”

  I groaned. “Where is she now? How is she?”

  “She’s getting stitched up. She’s not too bad.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “So what happened after?”

  “Yeah, well, there was a spot where a streetlight was out, and there weren’t too many people. I was a few paces behind, and then someone in a ski mask rushed up and pushed Lana to the ground. I got there before too much happened, and then the ski mask guy rushed off.”

  “Did you see who he was? Anything?”

  “Gray hoodie,” Ian said somberly.

  We exchanged a glance. This was not good. Not good at all.

  My presence was supposed to help Lana figure out what was going on, not push her stalker over the edge.

  We waited till Lana was out of surgery and visited her in the room. They were keeping her in for another hour, a kindly nurse explained.

  “I’m totally fine, honey!” Lana exclaimed. “Other than this ugly bandage.”

  She had a long white bandage running down the side of her neck, and Ian paled at the sight.

  “I almost fainted from all the blood,” he said. “You’re lucky the stabber ran off.”

  “Yeah,” Lana complained. “But how can we audition with me looking like this? My fans expect me to look like a star.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the nurse. She had deep wrinkles and short-cut blond hair that was obviously from a bottle. Her eyes were kind but firm. “You need to keep that bandage on for at least twenty-four hours. But, yes, you are fine. We just need you to be careful dressing the wound.”

  Lana rolled her eyes and made a pouty face, and when the nurse left, I said, “Did you notice anything at all? Did you feel like you were being followed?”

  “Of course not!” snapped Lana. “Everything was fine. And then this psycho jumped me from behind. I couldn’t even see what happened.”

  I sighed and tried to ask her a few more questions—had she noticed anything, anything at all? Anything odd during the audition? Or maybe earlier in the day?

  But Lana couldn’t recall anything, and a few minutes later, Detective Dimitriou showed up.

  “Ian reported a stabbing,” he said. “What happened?”

  Ian and Lana repeated the whole story, and Dimitriou asked the same questions I had. Lana and Ian hadn’t noticed anything other than what they’d already told me, and while everyone else was talking, I watched Dimitriou.

  It was almost four in the morning, and Dimitriou looked like he’d already been awake for some time. He was dressed in khakis and a blue-and-white checked shirt. His skin was dark, his eyes somber. He’d clearly come here from some other case, and his face had a neutral, set gaze.

  “I’m very sorry this happened to you,” he said to Lana, and then he turned to me. “You weren’t there at all?”

  “I had to go to my shift at the casino.”

  His eyes flickered with mild interest, and he seemed to notice my dealer’s uniform. I hadn’t had time to change, and there hadn’t seemed to be much point once I’d gotten to the hospital.

  “The Treasury,” he said. “I hear they’re introducing big changes soon.”

  I slitted my eyes and crossed my arms. “Yeah.”

  My annoyance made him smile. “What did you expect?” he said. “It’s how the casinos work.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “Anyway, it’s good that you stayed out of trouble, for once.”

  He smiled at me and a little shiver ran down my spine. He was definitely the best-looking cop I’d seen. And I kind of wished he wasn’t. It was easier to deal with Elwood and his grumpy ways. At least I knew where I stood with Elwood. Dimitriou made me feel all kinds of nervous.

  “I need a bodyguard,” Lana declared from the hospital bed where she was half-reclining. “This town is far too dangerous for me. And I’m a celebrity. Don’t you cops try to keep visitors safe?”

  Dimitriou turned to Lana again. “Yes. It’s obvious now that you’re in danger. We’ll assign someone to you. Inside the Riverbelle, you should be safe, and if you’re not—well, if you feel nervous, you can ask them to assign someone. It’s private property. Once you’re outside, we’ll have a uniform stick with you.”

  Lana smiled at him and batted her eyelashes. “Can’t you be the one sticking to me?”

  I wanted to puke. I wasn’t entirely sure why I was jealous of her flirting, but I was.

  Dimitriou seemed to be immune to her charms. He smiled politely and said, “I’m afraid not.” He turned to me and said, “I’ll see you around.”

  And then he left.

  “Well, look at that!” Lana said to me. “No smile for me, but he says he’ll see you around.”

  I tried not to blush. “He probably meant professionally. Since I’m a PI and all that.”

  Lana said, “Oh, honey. You need to wear that dress I bought you more often.”

  I didn’t want to talk about Dimitriou anymore, so I said, “Well, at least now you’ll have some protection when you want to step out for some air.”

  “Yes, but what about the rest of the time? This guy’s getting bolder than ever, Tiffany.”

  Ian and I shared a glance. Lana was right: whoever this guy was, he wasn’t messing around with staging accidents anymore.

  I needed to hurry up and find him, before it was too late.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  It was almost dawn by the time Ian and I left the hospital, and I remembered to ask for a few guest passes for Karma, Sam and Simone.

  “There are tours of the studio area each morning,” Lana said. “They usually only allow in a few people at once, and it’s very personalized.”

  I thanked her and left the passes in Glenn’s mailbox. Ian went off to his apartment for some beauty sleep, and I decided to grab a quick nap before I went back to the Singing Duos studio in the Riverbelle.

  I got there early in the morning, and before I went over to Lana’s room, I popped my head into the break room opposite Lana’s studio. As usual, Linda was in there by herself, pretending to read something on her phone.

  “You’re up early,” I said to her.

  She gave me a slightly frosty glance. “Yeah, well.”

  “Where’s Aaron?”

  She shrugged. “He was up before I was. Left a note that he’d gone to visit an old friend in Vegas.”

  I frowned. Aaron had seemed nice enough when we’d first met him at the Singing Duos audition, but his behavior was certainly not typical of a devoted husband. I didn’t want to worry her, so I said, “I’m sure he didn’t want to bore
you. Some guys have very childish friends. You know, the kind of friends who never get married and keep wanting to stay up all night doing shots.”

  Linda nodded, clearly not convinced by my words.

  Once again, I wondered if perhaps she’d been making up the whole thing about Aaron. She could’ve chosen to wait for him anywhere; it didn’t have to be in the room opposite Lana’s studio.

  I left her to go check on Lana. Judging from the empty coffee cups lying around in Lana’s room, I guessed she was trying to stay alert.

  “What’re the plans for today?” I said, settling down on the couch. “Ian can stop by later, when I’ve got to go to my shift.”

  “No need,” said Lana. She was sitting at her desk, looking through some notes. “I’m taking a rest day.”

  I raised one eyebrow. She didn’t seem to be doing much resting. When I rested, I liked to put the caffeine aside.

  “There’s no auditions today,” she went on. “Can’t do any shooting with this great big ugly bandage on my neck. So I’m gonna do phone interviews.”

  I looked at her in shock. “You’re going to talk about this attack?”

  “Don’t be silly,” she said. “I don’t want this guy to know we’re on to him. I’m gonna talk to radio show hosts about the show, and how great my fans are and how hopeless most singers are.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I couldn’t really see much wrong with the plan. I took a good hard look at the tarantula, who seemed to be napping in her cage, and then a basket of muffins caught my eye. There was a great big card attached to the basket.

  “What’s that?”

  “Huh.” Lana waved a hand dismissively. “It’s from Gordon. Apparently they’re diet muffins. Cheese and zucchini or something, for when I want a treat.”

  I was tempted to check the card, but it was probably private. “Where’s Gordon now?”

  “Up in his room. I couldn’t see him last night, and so he brought back some floozy. They’re having breakfast before he kicks her out.”

  I tried to keep my expression neutral, grateful that I’d never let that kiss go any further. I couldn’t imagine living in a world where love didn’t exist, where it was all about appearances, and the occasional carnal indulgence. But clearly, Lana and Gordon were happy with their version of the world. “So these are apology muffins?”