by Tina Whittle
“Does Addison work at home a lot?” I said.
“She’s a writer. She’s always working.” He leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. “Look, Addison can be overprotective, and Quint can be a downright ass. But it’s because they care about me. So even if you find a bullet, and that bullet has fingerprints and a signature on it, we’ll deal with the situation ourselves.” He waved a hand in my direction. “Which means, according to Finn anyway, you and Trey. And you obviously have your own reasons for keeping things on the QT.”
He didn’t phrase it like a question. But it was.
I uncrossed my legs. “Can we talk? Person to person?”
“Sure.”
“Trey was convinced you were a killer. Now he’s convinced you’re not. He’s wracked with guilt over what happened to you, and he’s trying his best to make it right again.”
Nick looked discombobulated. “Okay. And?”
“And so he’s on the justice trail. He has his own reasons to avoid getting the authorities involved, as do you. And your brother. And Finn. And me.” I leaned forward, folded my arms on the table. “That means you need to be telling the truth, about everything.”
“Are you accusing me of lying?”
“Not yet.”
He studied me. Not aggressively. Surprisingly calm. I was dying to quiz him about Addison, Diego Martinez too, and the contradictions between their stories. Was Nick lying or lied to? Was this information best kept in pocket or deployed strategically?
A knock interrupted us. Nick turned around, and a man stuck his head through the crack in the door. He was short, stocky, with thick salt-and-pepper hair and a tailored dove gray suit. Like a hobbit who shopped at Brooks Brothers.
Nick held out his hand. “Thank you, Oliver.”
The man hesitated. “If we could speak out here a second?”
Nick didn’t budge. “Do you bring a check or not?”
“Nick—”
“Check or not? Simple question.”
“Quint said no.”
Nick’s eyes simmered. “Does my brother understand that this is a piece of evidence in an investigation that he himself needs to keep quiet? That if this piece of evidence gets into the wrong hands, we’ll have cops breathing down our necks and a PR tsunami?”
Oliver wasn’t rolling over. “Quint said you need to come talk to him first.”
Nick started shaking his head, his jaw clenched. Oliver looked concerned, but didn’t say anything. Nick pulled out his wallet and handed me four crisp hundreds.
He shoved his chair back. “There. See if you can at least make a down payment. Can you find your way back out? I have to go yell at my brother now.”
I stood too. “Absolutely.”
Trey returned my call just as I reached the car. “I got your message,” he said. “Did you say something about a giant cactus?”
I pulled out my keys. “The quick and dirty is this: can you buy a ridiculously expensive piece of ridiculous art and maybe or maybe not get reimbursed for it? Because if you can’t, your missing bullet may be headed to Burning Man, where who knows—”
“Yes. I can.”
“Cool. I just texted you the contact info.”
Across the parking lot, I saw a female figure marching toward my car fast and angry, fists pumping like a really aggressive fitness walker. Addison. Her black hair swished as she pushed her sleeves up, and even from a distance, I could see the fury in her eyes.
I unlocked the door but didn’t get inside. “Uh oh. Enraged fiancée headed my way.”
“What’s happened?”
“Stay on the line and find out.”
I slipped the phone into my back pocket as Addison came around my car. “What in the hell did you say to him?” she said. “His pulse rate is through the roof.”
“I suspect that has more to do with Quint than me.”
Addison didn’t seem to hear me. “You need to back the hell off. I know how your type operates, and I won’t have it.”
My type? I pushed up my sleeves too. “Listen. I am in no way putting the moves on Nick Talbot. I have zero interest. But you, you interest me a lot.”
She looked startled. “What?”
“Oh yes, you are definitely a person of interest. Let’s start with—”
My phone vibrated through my jeans. Insistently. I didn’t have to look to know who was texting me. I closed my mouth and took a deep breath. Don’t say anything, I told myself. Do not mention her and Diego’s actual relationship. Do not bring up that she lied about her whereabouts the night of Nick’s attempted shooting. Do not explain that if those lab results show he was indeed overdosed, and that if we really do pull a bullet from that cactus, then she was going to be our prime suspect.
I yanked open the car door. “Never mind.”
She glared. “Upset him again and you’re fired.”
I got in the car. “Guess what, Buttercup? You didn’t hire me, so you can’t fire me.”
“No. But I can make Nick do it.”
“Probably. And then when the next shooter doesn’t miss, you can explain to the prosecutor why ditching the people trying to protect him seemed like a great idea.”
At the word “shooter,” her cheeks flared crimson, and her eyes flashed behind the glasses. I thought for a second she was going to come at me, and some part of me went liquid and bright at the prospect.
Addison pulled out her radio. “Security. We have a situation in the front parking lot. Make sure the woman in the red hillbilly car leaves the property this instant.”
And then she stomped back toward the production offices. I reached for the seatbelt, put the phone to my ear just as two security guys appeared, Addison pointing helpfully in my direction.
“Are you okay?” Trey said.
“I’m fine. But Addison’s showing her true colors.”
“Indeed.”
I pulled out of the lot, tossed the security guys a little wave. “Thanks for the text.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I was about to start running down the list of every piece of evidence we had on her just to watch her implode with fury.”
“I guessed as much. That would have been counterproductive at this time.”
The security guys watched me leave. Traffic was heavy, dusk falling. The sky had gone gunmetal gray, low cloud cover trapping the day’s heat close to the ground.
“About the cactus,” I said.
“I took care of it.”
“You did?”
“Yes. I’ll explain later tonight. Right now I have to go.”
At the other end of the line, I heard traffic noise. Not Phoenix noises.
“Where are you?”
“Chastain Park. I’m attempting some reconnaissance.”
“Is this more training?”
“No.” A pause. “Would you like to join me?”
“Sure. Reconnaissance sounds fun.” I pulled onto the highway. “You’re not claiming this is your turn at date night, are you? Because if there’s no making out, it’s not date night. And reconnaissance does not sound conducive to making out.”
“It’s not. Will you come anyway?”
I thought about that. I did love stake-outs. There was something about the darkness and the hush, two people in a car, the danger and subterfuge.
“Who are we surveilling?”
“Not a who, a what. The Talbot estate. I’ll text you the coordinates.”
“I thought you said you were in the park?”
“I am. I’ll explain when you get here.”
And then he hung up.
Chapter Thirty-one
By the time I got to Chastain Park, the last smear of sunset was dying at the horizon. The coordinates Trey had dropped me put his location east of the Talbot
home, across Powers Ferry at the edge of the park trail. I checked my phone again. Supposedly I was standing right beside him, but he was nowhere in sight.
I pushed down a ripple of panic and thumbed him a quick text. Where are you?
His reply came almost instantly. Look up. I tilted my head back and scrutinized the branches spreading above me. A flash of movement caught my eye, a blur of black and green about twenty feet up.
I moved closer to the trunk and craned my neck. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Trey was sitting in the crook of a thick, almost horizontal branch, legs stretched out, booted feet crossed at the ankle. He had his hands folded on his stomach, his back against the trunk.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“Surveillance.”
“How’d you get up there?”
“I climbed.”
He played a flashlight beam around the base of the tree, where a tidy metal ladder ascended into the branches. It was sturdily mounted, designed to blend in with the bark. I grabbed a rung and hoisted myself into the dense canopy of leaves. When I reached the top, Trey extended a hand and steadied me onto the seat, a small rectangle painted the same dark green and gray pattern as his pants. It was built for two as long as the two didn’t mind close company.
I eased myself down. “SWAT equipment?”
“Deer-hunting. Price let me borrow it.”
I balanced my feet on the footrest. Trey handed me a bottle of water, readjusted himself. We were shoulder to shoulder, perched like strange birds while the traffic rushed beneath us.
“Marisa can’t get you from behind your desk no matter how hard she tries, and yet here you are, literally up a tree.” I unscrewed the water bottle and took a swig. “Speaking of. She’s seriously pissed at you.”
“I suspected as much based on the messages she left. Did you speak with her?”
“Briefly. Where were you this afternoon?”
“At the camera store.”
He pointed to a case bungee-corded next to him. I saw a camera there, shiny new, with a long-distance lens already screwed in place. The binoculars around his neck were also new.
“Did you get the matter of the turquoise cactus taken care of?” I said.
“I extended my offer. We’ll know tomorrow if it was accepted.”
Once my eyes adjusted, I could see right into Nick Talbot’s former backyard. Dark now, no outdoor lights except for the pool, just as it had been the night of the shooting. In the ice-white guest house, one room burned brightly, and though the shades were pulled, I could see a figure moving about inside.
“Who’s that?”
“Quint. He appears to be residing in the guest house.”
“Oh, really? Alone?”
“Presently, yes.”
He raised the binoculars, trained them on the house. He’d told me once that the thing he enjoyed most about being a sniper was the recon. Peering through the scope of a Bergara BCR20 rifle, gathering intel, relaying his discoveries to the rest of the team.
“So there’s marital unrest in the Talbot household,” I said. “Is that why you’re spying on him?”
“Not spying. Surveilling. And yes, it is. Finn’s currently surveilling Portia.” He handed me his phone without removing his eyes from the binoculars. “With interesting results.”
I swiped through a series of photos featuring Portia in the darkened corner of some restaurant, her features illuminated by candlelight. A man sat opposite her—broad shoulders, iron-gray hair, square-rimmed glasses. In one frame, their heads were bent close. In another, Portia glanced furtively over her shoulder.
“Ah. Portia’s having an affair.”
“That’s one theory. Finn has yet to verify it, nor has she identified the man in the photo.”
Everything was theory with Trey. It would take photos of Portia and her dining companion naked and rolling around in satin sheets to make adultery a fact. But the two did look illicitly cozy.
I returned the phone to Trey’s pocket. It felt good off the ground, the air filtered by shadows and leaves. The humidity could still choke a horse, but at least the breeze didn’t smell like baked sidewalk.
“Is this legal?” I said.
“What, covert surveillance? Of course.”
“Even up a tree in Chastain Park, which is city-owned, and as such, has a million restrictions about what people can and cannot do?”
“I have a permit.”
He pointed to a card clipped to his sleeve. The same special permit that allowed him to hide in trees at Doll’s Head Trail. I had to admit, he’d dotted his I’s and crossed his T’s. That part was classic Trey. But the rest of this…
I nodded down below. “Does Quint know you’re out here being covert?”
“He knows we’re investigating.”
“So that’s a no.”
He shot me a pointed look. “It’s called covert surveillance for a reason.”
The leaves caught the edge of the first evening breeze, rising on thermals. Night birds flitted in the foliage, darting, otherwise silent. No squirrels, thank goodness.
I stretched my legs alongside Trey’s. “You’re using cop words, but you’re behaving like a criminal.”
“I am not.”
“Yes, you are. All last weekend, you played bad guy while the trainees played good guy. And now here you are up a tree spying on people.”
“Surveilling.”
“Uh huh. How many trees did you ever climb as a cop?”
He kept the binoculars up. “I worked as an urban countersniper. Treetop hide sites were not appropriate for that work.”
“So zero?”
He ignored me. I knew that Trey could alter his personality, his very brain waves, by changing his clothes. In an Armani suit behind a desk, he was polite and businesslike. In workout clothes on the mat, he was disciplined and relentless. And up a tree, in special ops camo, he was a SWAT guy again. Sort of.
I drank some more of the lukewarm water. “So what exactly does Quint’s marital trouble have to do with Nick Talbot’s assassination attempt? Or Jessica Talbot’s murder?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you think they’re connected?”
“I think we cannot afford to ignore any avenues of investigation.”
“We being you and Finn?”
“We being you and I.” He lowered the binoculars and handed them to me. “Finn is directing the investigation, but we’re the team.” He picked up the camera. “Also, I suspect I’ve missed something. Something I should be seeing, would be seeing if I could configure the evidence correctly.”
“About Quint?”
“About the shooting. And Quint. And Nick. And the house. I—”
He aimed the camera down below, quickly firing off a series of shots. I adjusted the binoculars and scanned the backyard. A light bobbed in the living room, someone’s cell phone flashlight coming through the darkened house. The visitor came out the back door onto the patio, then past the pool and straight to the guest house.
I pointed. “I know that guy! He was at the studio earlier and got caught in an argument between Nick and Quint. Oliver something.”
“Oliver James. CFO of Talbot Creative, formerly Quint Talbot’s personal accountant.”
He took another flurry of photos. Down below, Oliver knocked on the door of the guest house. Quint opened it a sliver. The two men exchanged terse words. Then Quint slammed the door. Oliver didn’t leave, though. He walked over to the pool, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and lit one up. He took a long drag, blew smoke at the sky.
“What do we know about him?” I said.
“Four years at Stanford for his bachelor’s, then two more for his master’s. Opened his own accounting firm in Los Angeles, then sold that and joined Talbot Creative. He became the
CFO five years ago, and then…wait. Look.”
I refocused the binoculars. Quint came out of the guest house, fastening his shirt. He said something to Oliver, who turned around, anger blossoming on his face.
“Dude is not happy with Quint,” I said.
“And Quint is not happy with him.”
The argument continued. Quint was working himself into a fury, steaming and frothing. He stomped back into the guest house and slammed the door. Oliver dropped his cigarette on the etched concrete and ground it out with the toe of his fine leather loafer. He left in a huff. Quint watched him through the window. He glared at the cigarette like he was going to yell at Oliver to come back and get it. Instead, he went outside and picked up the butt, distaste flaring across his features. He carried it back into the guest house and slammed the door again.
“Has anyone interviewed Oliver?” I said.
Trey shook his head. “No. But I’ll tell Finn and see what she decides.”
I started to argue, and then bit back the response. This wasn’t my call, it was Trey’s, and he was much more adept at following a chain of command. I chafed at any chain. Or command.
I settled back against the tree trunk. In the guest house, the lights went out. A small lamp flickered on a few seconds later, followed by the blue glow of a computer screen. Quint had retired to the bedroom with his laptop.
Trey sat back too, camera in hand. “You should have known the Ritz Carlton wouldn’t share my employment record. And that I would have the account flagged so that I would be alerted if an unauthorized person tried to access it.”
I shrugged. “I suspected as much. But I had to cover all the bases.”
“Of course.” He nudged the toe of my boot with his. “Are you ready to give up yet?”
I nudged him back. “Not on your life.”
Chapter Thirty-two
I spent Thursday morning getting the shop ready for Kenny. He didn’t like modern firearms, but he was comfortable with the reenactment trade, so I locked the semi-autos and revolvers in the main safe, prepped the day box, ran the ATF paperwork…and then spent lunch rewatching the season finale of Moonshine. The last scene showed Portia’s character Mad Luna as she’d been at the photo shoot—gore-spotted, blond hair in tangled fairy-locks, a gun in each hand. She stood alone, the ruins of her ancestral home crumbling behind her. Then a shotgun blast from offscreen, the heavy thud of a body dropping, a spatter of crimson on the mossy rocks. Fade to black.