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For Sam Furiness, cousin and reader, who makes my life richer with his thoughtfulness, intellect, and friendship
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Also by Laura DiSilverio
About the Author
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my family—my husband, girls, and mother—for understanding my passion for writing and encouraging me, always, to write. Thanks to my agent, Paige Wheeler, and my editor, Toni Plummer. A big thank-you to lawyer Bob DiSilverio for explaining the laws related to harboring fugitives. Finally, thanks to my unfailingly helpful and honest critique group—Lin Poyer, Amy Tracy, and Marie Layton—for pushing me to make my books better.
1
Oprah said, or maybe I heard it on Ellen, that public speaking scares more people than spiders and snakes and heights put together (and they all give me the heebie-jeebies, too). Having lots of company didn’t make me feel any better as I struggled into the Spanx hose that made it possible to zip my skirt and slipped on the new Louboutin pumps I shouldn’t have bought even on sale. They were an investment, I told myself guiltily. I needed to look professional for my presentation to the managing partner of a law firm in hopes he’d retain Swift Investigations. Hm, which earrings said competent and trustworthy, but fashionable? My gaze lighted on the clock: 7:30. It only took twenty minutes to get from my Broadmoor house to downtown Colorado Springs, and my appointment wasn’t until nine, but I wanted to make sure I was there in plenty of time. Things have a way of happening to me, even when I plan ahead.
My bedroom door flew open. “Mom, I need more lunch money.”
My forehead puckered as I stared at my beautiful fourteen-year-old Kendall. She’s slim and blond, the image of me, Les always said, when he first met me. Thirty-five years and thirty—well, forty—pounds ago. “Honey, I gave you a check just last week. What happened to it?”
She shrugged. I hate that shrug. She started doing it when she turned eleven, and it’s the only answer I get from her half the time. “Dunno. Must have lost it.”
“Baby, didn’t we talk about how you need to be more responsible?” I pulled a twenty from my purse, which left me with only seven dollars. “We all lose things from time to time. Why, I can’t find the new diet book I bought last week, the one that says you can lose five pounds a week if you eat Greek yogurt at every meal, but—”
“I’m late.” With a flip of blond hair, she turned to go.
“Wait. Which do you like better—the black earrings or the topaz?” I held one of each up to either ear.
“Whichever.”
“Kendall, get your ass down here or I’m leaving without you.”
She whisked herself out the door as her brother, my son, Dexter, bellowed up the stairs. I started to tell him we didn’t use that kind of language in this house; “tush” or “fanny” was preferable. The door slammed shut behind them before I made it to the landing. Les had given Dexter a red BMW for his sixteenth birthday, and while it was nice that I didn’t have to drive the kids to school, I never knew where Dexter was anymore. My friend Albertine said that was a good thing. “Trust me,” she’d said last time we discussed it, “no mother really wants to know what her teenage son is up to.”
Unfortunately, the principal, the police, and the truant officer insisted on keeping me updated on some of Dexter’s activities, so I couldn’t exist in blissful ignorance. Sighing, I slipped the earrings in, picked up my purse, made sure the CD with the PowerPoint presentation was in it, and left.
* * *
The conference room Danner and Lansky’s snooty receptionist showed me into was intimidating. An oblong table of dark, shiny wood took up most of the room. Matchy-matchy chairs with maroon upholstery lined either side. Nubby gray carpet and heavy drapes muffled any sounds and made the room feel like a funeral parlor. What the place needed was a few accent pillows or framed posters with yellows and pinks to brighten it up. Some plants would help, too. A laptop computer, a projection screen, and some sound equipment gleamed darkly from a cabinet near the podium, and I was glad I’d gotten here early enough to figure out how to work it all. If that was possible. Saying Mr. Danner would be in in five minutes, the receptionist slipped out. I fumbled the CD case from my Coach bag and opened it. Oh, no. I stared at the empty case in dismay. I must have left the CD in my computer.
My breaths came fast and shallow, and I dropped the CD case. I couldn’t call Charlie for help because she was still recovering from a bullet wound in her fanny, which was why I was here in the first place. Maybe Albertine—. Reschedule. I needed to reschedule the meeting.
I was about to scurry after the receptionist when a door at the far end of the conference room opened and a man stepped in, trailed by a woman in her midforties and a younger man. Too late! I was trapped. I forced a smile.
“You must be Ms. Goldman.” The older man, about my age, stepped forward with a friendly smile and his hand outstretched. He was short and slim, with an expensive suit and watch and thick gray-brown hair. “I’m Rich Danner.”
“Georgia Goldman,” I said, flustered. I shook his hand. “But I go by Gigi. G. G. for Georgia Goldman, get it?”
“I get it,” he said with a hint of a smile. “I’ll bet you’re from Georgia, too.”
My accent gave me away every time. “Atlanta, originally.” He seemed nice, not the ferocious legal shark I was expecting, and I relaxed an itty bit.
Danner’s two associates took seats halfway down the long table. Danner sat at the front and gave me an expectant look. “Let’s get started.”
Blinking nervously, I explained about not having my slideshow. “S-so I’m just going to wing it,” I said, twisting my bangle round and round my wrist.
“Wing away,” Danner said.
Stuttering a bit to start, I told him about Swift Investigations, emphasizing Charlie’s credentials as a former Air Force Office of Special Investigations agent and her many years in the private investigator business.
“And you?” Danner asked, giving me a penetrating look.
“I’m kind of new to being a PI,” I admitted. He didn’t need to know about Les dumping me and running off to Costa Rica with his personal trainer, leaving me with only the house, the Hummer, and half interest in Swift Investigations. “I do a lot of the computer searches,” I said, hurrying o
n to tell him about how we could help his firm with employee background checks, process serving, surveillance, and other investigation needs. “We’re really good and we work hard,” I concluded fifteen minutes later, rubbing my sweaty palms down the sides of my skirt. The skin on my neck prickled, and I hoped it wasn’t a hot flash coming on.
“I don’t know why we can’t give Swift Investigations a try,” Danner said, rising. “As long as there’s no padding of the expense account. That’s why we’re looking for a new PI firm.”
I nodded vigorously. “Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir. You won’t catch us falsifying expenses.”
“I won’t catch you or you won’t pad them?”
My mouth fell open, but he laughed, signaled to his staff, shook my hand, and headed toward the door he came in. “By the way, I like your earrings. Shows you march to the beat of a different drummer. That can be useful in an investigator.” He disappeared.
It wasn’t until I got to the garage where I’d left the Hummer and peered in the rearview mirror that I realized I’d put on one black and one topaz earring.
* * *
I called Charlie on my way to the office to give her the good news. “They gave us a couple of background investigations to get started on,” I said, glancing happily at the short stack of folders on the passenger seat. I asked how she was feeling, although I knew she’d say “Fine,” like she always did.
“Fine.” She congratulated me on landing Danner and Lansky’s business. “If it weren’t for this stupid infection, I’d be back in the saddle. The doc says I can come back to work next week.”
Her wound had gotten infected because she had ignored the doctor’s advice about taking it easy. Charlie’s not too good with being told what to do. The surgeon had chewed her out but good for trying wind sprints less than ten days after getting shot. “I’ll hold the fort,” I promised, turning into the strip mall parking lot where Swift Investigations was located.
You’d think a PI firm would be up a flight of dingy stairs in some seedy building—at least, that’s where they always seemed to be in the old movies I watched—but no. Swift Investigations sat in a perfectly ordinary strip mall on Academy Boulevard, a couple of miles south of the United States Air Force Academy. We shared a parking lot with a Mexican café called Guapo Bandito that made yummy sopaipillas; a bridal shop where I was hoping to get a discount on Kendall’s prom dress; Domenica’s, a sex toys store run by a lovely woman named Carol; and Albertine’s, the Cajun restaurant and bar owned by my new friend. Everyone’s so neighborly that I enjoy coming to work every day.
Chilly wind and traffic noise chased me into the office. It’s a small place, and kind of bare bones, but Charlie put the kibosh on my plans to make it more homey; she insisted that our clients preferred a sparse, businesslike atmosphere. I added a couple of plants, though, and photos of my kids on my desk, and a coffeepot, so it wasn’t quite as plain as when I’d started working here six months ago. I patted the bison head hanging behind my desk—Bernie was part of my costume on my first ever undercover job as a PI—and started the coffeepot. Decaf. My body didn’t seem to process coffee the same way now that I was in the midst of the Change, and too much caffeine revved up my bladder, which made things difficult, to say the least, when I did surveillance. Not that I did much surveillance since the meth lab fiasco. I poured myself a cup and was taking my first sip when the door opened. I turned, expecting to see Carol from next door, or maybe Albertine.
A slender twentysomething woman with honey-colored hair stood in the doorway. She had flawless tan skin, amazing cheekbones, and boobs like cantaloupes stretching her thin white sweater to its limits. Long legs in stretch jeans and high-heeled, midcalf leather boots completed the look of model-like perfection. A surge of hatred rose in me, so intense it made my hands shake so my coffee spilled.
“Same old Gigi,” the beauty said, stepping in and closing the door with a snap. “Still klutzy as ever.”
I opened and closed my mouth, but no sound came out.
“You look like a goldfish,” she observed, sauntering forward to perch on the edge of Charlie’s desk.
How dare she? “I don’t—. What do you—? Get out, you … you bitch!” I don’t think I’d ever called anyone that, and I only wished I’d had the nerve to use the C-word.
My words didn’t faze Heather-Anne Pawlusik, the personal trainer and home-wrecking tramp who ran off to Costa Rica with my Les.
“Tut-tut,” Heather-Anne said, arching one perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Is that any way to talk to a paying customer?”
“What?” I goggled at her.
“You’re a private investigator now, right?” She looked around the office, eyes skimming Charlie’s pristine desk, glancing off the lavender in-box and ceramic figures painted years ago by Dexter and Kendall on my desk, and lingering on Bernie, who gazed at her with—I was sure—disapproval. “Well, I need to hire a private investigator.”
My brain unfroze sufficiently for me to ask, “Where’s Les?” I looked past her to the door, but it remained closed.
“Now, that,” she said, “is the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.”
It took me a minute. “You want me—us—to find Les?”
“Exactly.”
2
“Would you like some coffee?” I asked, my raised-in-the-South politeness taking over. “I mean—” I couldn’t make myself take back the offer.
Heather-Anne curled her lip. “No, thanks. I gave up caffeine three years ago—it’s bad for the complexion.” She ran a hand over her revoltingly smooth, unwrinkled, twentysomething face.
About to tell her it was decaf, I bit the inside of my cheek. I didn’t owe her anything, not even a cup of Decaffeinated Mocha Hazelnut Supremo. “You can leave now,” I said, concentrating on sucking in my stomach as I returned to my desk. No amount of sucking—unless it involved a liposuction tube—was going to make it as flat as Heather-Anne’s.
She looked taken aback. “What?”
“Go away. Get out.”
“Now, Gigi, I know you were probably a little pissed at me and Les—”
A little? I blinked at her. I was horribly hurt and depressed. Les leaving was the worst thing that ever happened to me.
“—but these things happen. It’s nothing to hold a grudge over.” She looked at me like I was being unreasonable.
I was about to tell her again to get lost, but she withdrew a roll of cash from her purse, and I heard Charlie’s voice in my ear telling me a paying customer was a paying customer and we didn’t have to like everyone we worked for. Sensing my hesitation, she peeled off ten bills. “Here’s a thousand dollars to get you started.”
She held the money out to me, and I noticed her French-manicured nails were as perfect as the rest of her, although kind of boring compared to my garnet-painted ones. “I don’t know…”
“Oh, come off it, Gigi. Les always said this place was the worst investment he ever made, that he’d be amazed if it was showing a profit by 2020. So don’t pretend you don’t need this.” She dropped the bills to my desk and one fluttered to the floor. Ben Franklin stared up at me, offering me no help with this decision.
I turned away, brushing against an acrylic box on my desk and knocking it over. Paper clips rained to the floor. I ignored them. “No.”
“No?”
Heather-Anne acted like she’d never heard the word before. “No.” I said it louder. “I’m not going to find Les for you.” I drew myself up, glad to be taller than Heather-Anne.
“But … but you have to!” She looked to be on the verge of tears.
Something in her voice—fear, maybe—made me ask, “Why?”
“Because he’s in danger.”
I bit my lip. Part of me wanted to say “Good!” and throw Heather-Anne out. I didn’t want anything really bad to happen to Les, though, even though he’d dumped me. If he was in danger …
“What kind of danger?”
“I’m not sure exactly, but I kn
ow it’s serious. I think someone’s after him. He wouldn’t have run off if he didn’t fear for his life. He wouldn’t!”
I eyed her uncertainly, not completely believing her but hearing real fear in her voice. Come to think of it, there’d been people after Les when he deserted me, too: the victims of his embezzling. Some of them would still be happy to rip his head from his shoulders. Reluctantly, I reached for the bills and tucked them into my desk drawer, pretending I didn’t notice Heather-Anne’s triumphant smirk. Trying to act professional, even though I wanted to scratch her perfectly beautiful face and rip out clumps of her perfectly highlighted hair, I pulled out my notepad. I tried to remember the sorts of questions Charlie asked when a client came in with a missing person case. “Um, okay, Heather-Anne. I need some information from you. What makes you think Les is missing?”
“Because he hasn’t come home.”
“In how long?”
“Four days.”
“And where is home? I mean, I know from his lawyer that Les went to Costa Rica, but where exactly?”
“A little town on the coast. Tamarindo. It’s paradise. We’ve got a place on the beach—”
“Address?” I choked on the word, trying to block out the images her words brought up: my Les and Perfect Miss Skinny sunbathing, splashing in the surf, drinking mai tais on the lanai or whatever they called a veranda in Costa Rica.
She gave it to me, and I wrote it down carefully. “We’ll need copies of his last several credit card bills, his ATM and bank records, his phone bill—” I noticed she was looking a little uncomfortable, twirling a strand of honey hair around her finger. “What?”
“Les and I kept our finances separate,” she said airily. “I don’t have access to that stuff.”
“The bills didn’t come to your house?” I widened my eyes at this evidence of … what? Les might have set up housekeeping with Heather-Anne, but he hadn’t trusted her. Hah! At least we’d shared a joint checking account. Which enabled him to clean out every penny when he took off.
“He has a postal box. So do I. I do have this.” She pulled out a cell phone bill and handed it to me. “He left it on his desk after he paid it. Usually he shredded things.” She slid off the desk and wandered the office, twiddling with the blinds wand, brushing her fingers across the ficus leaves, clinking the letter opener and markers in my Hello Kitty pencil holder.
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