Again, the question for which I had no answer confronted me: how did one rebuild trust once it was broken? I hadn’t a clue.
Until I had an epiphany, I decided to keep my own counsel—at least I’d never let me down . . . well, not intentionally, anyway, and I’d never hidden my betrayal from myself. Oh boy, I was losing it. I needed sleep . . . in the worst way.
“Any ideas?” Teddie asked, his voice flat, his face a mask.
Closing in on myself, I didn’t answer—I had nothing to say, not to Teddie, anyway. Too tired, scared, and hurt for any more civility, I crossed my arms and kept my mouth shut.
“Let me help you,” Teddie implored, his tone just a hair short of begging.
Stopping, I turned and stared him down. “You need to go. Safer that way . . . for both of us.”
“Lucky.” He rose and moved toward me.
I turned my back. “I don’t need you, and I don’t need your help. Please go.”
He didn’t touch me, thank God. After a few moments, the sound of the door closing echoed, then reverberated in my heart.
I had doubts, so many unanswered questions, but I was certain of one thing:
Everybody was right—it was time for me to go home.
* * *
After a fitful night, I finally abandoned hope of true rest and staggered into the day. Yesterday had defeated me a bit, and I was in need of some serious attitude. Formfitting skinny black jeans ending above some Jimmy Choo sparkle and a silver sweater slipping off one shoulder did the trick. Grabbing my Birkin, I hooked it onto an elbow and headed out.
I gave myself a last once-over in the metal doors to the elevator while I rode down, and I felt some sass filtering in. I’d phoned Romeo and then left the note and the chip downstairs for him. He hadn’t been pleased, taking a bite out of my ass over taking stuff from the crime scene. Although Teddie was the culprit, I didn’t begrudge Romeo his venting. The messenger always took the brunt, so I shrugged it off.
Today started the same as most days—too many questions with too few answers—but I had learned one thing in the past twenty-four hours: I was tired of getting kicked around by life, by men. My own fault really, too often I fell in love with a man’s potential, overlooking his limitations to actually reach the heights I perceived. Done in by my own optimism, I vowed to rein in the horses and take a long, hard look before jumping into the game of love once more. Yes, a bit cynical for me, but in the interest of self-preservation I adopted the new plan, realizing, of course, that putting it into effect was the impossible part.
I needed to grow some balls. To solve some problems. To move on before I could look back.
And I needed to catch a killer, before somebody else got fricasseed.
* * *
“Mr. Livermore is pacing back and forth in your office,” Miss P. announced when I walked through the office door.
Stopping in front of her desk, I traced the new gold stenciling on the corner—maintenance had finally found time to do as I asked. Of course, they couldn’t finish my office, but they could letter the Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock’s name—minus the beautiful part, that would be too ego-gratifying for him—on the corner of Miss P’s desk across the exact bit of real estate his butt usually occupied. I bit my lip to keep from smiling as I looked up into Miss P.’s stern countenance.
“Proud of yourself?” She tried to sound unhappy, but failed miserably. Giving into the grin, she pressed a mug of steaming coffee into my hand. With the day already amped to full wattage, I found myself dangerously undercaffeinated. Holding the mug under my nose, I breathed deep. “Ah, Don Francisco Vanilla Nut, the best.” I gave her a look through the steam before I took a sip. “You’re treating me awfully well for a Monday morning.”
“Tuesday.”
“Tuesday?” I took a sip of the coffee, savoring the hit. Caffeine and alcohol kept me functional—obviously not optimal, but I no longer cared.
Miss P. nodded. I thought I saw a flash of sympathy, but I might have imagined it. We all were overworked; thank God we weren’t underpaid.
Something was missing. It took me a moment to figure it out. “Why is the bird still covered? I’m not sure how to start a day without being called a filthy whore.”
“That would be me.”
“Right.” I took another slug of coffee and felt a hint of my smile. It hadn’t been so hard to find after all. “What am I, I forget?”
“Effin’ bitch.”
“Right.” I eyed her over the mug. “You said that with a bit too much relish for my taste.”
“You asked.”
“I asked for information. The enthusiasm was all yours.” Needing the caffeine jolt, I downed half the mug of coffee as quickly as the heat would allow. “I need a favor. It’s time for me to go home. Could you make it happen, please?”
Miss P. paused and gave me a penetrating stare. I didn’t wilt.
With an exaggerated sigh, she caved. “Cleaning crew first, then pack you up and move?”
“Whatever it takes.” I sipped my coffee a bit more sedately now as I wandered to the glass wall and concentrated on the lobby below.
“And your time frame?”
“Cleaned, fresh linens, stocked fridge and bar . . . by tonight.” Before she could verbally carve off a chunk of my flesh, I added, “For Jordan. He’ll be here later or tomorrow, I forget. Regardless, he is expecting his ‘regular accommodations’: his words, not mine.”
Tossing a Hollywood hunk, even a gay one, to her was a surefire way to mollify.
“Jordan Marsh?” Miss P. whispered like a lovesick schoolgirl, which made me grin. News of his sexual orientation had done little to cool her ardor. Granted, Jordan Marsh was the absolute pinnacle of male pulchritude.
Even in my all-men-are-pigs mode, I pretty much got it. “Yes, and we don’t want to disappoint Jordan, do we?”
Miss P. switched gears. As she reached for the phone, I could see her brain whirling, planning. This delegating thing really had its moments.
“Power has its privileges,” I announced as if I believed it. However, it was simply a bluff, a comment carefully crafted to elicit a response, except I don’t think it even registered. If it did, Miss P. ignored me, which wasn’t unusual.
My mug dangerously low, I wandered toward the little kitchen cubby, raising my voice as I did. “So, you said there is a Mr. Livermore burning off steam in my office? Guess he’s not a happy camper?”
“I most certainly am not!” A disembodied, unfamiliar male voice, pitched on the high side, answered me.
Guess my voice carried further than I thought. For some reason, I didn’t feel the need to apologize.
“Well, then. May I offer you some coffee? It’s been known to cure all manner of ills.”
“I don’t partake of stimulants. I consider them a sign of weakness.”
Holding the coffee pot poised in mid-air, I peered around the corner, eyeballing him.
A small man, he lurked in the makeshift doorway to my office. A splash of dust decorated the shoulder of his dark jacket—he should have known better than to wear a dark suit in a construction zone. His round face and squinty eyes reminded me of a cave-dwelling rodent, if there was such a thing. With pasty skin and thinning hair highlighted by an ill-fitting, coarse toupee that missed his real hair color by several shades, Mr. Livermore had the look of terminal middle management about him. The fact that the hair bolting from his head had apparently migrated and taken root in his eyebrows completed the expectation. He couldn’t have looked any more nondescript had he planned it.
“A sign of weakness? Most assuredly,” I said in a chatty tone as I poured myself another mugful. Tasting the witch’s brew, I sighed, then replaced the pot on the warmer. Thus fortified, I felt capable of dealing with the Mr. Livermores of the world. “Let’s go into my office, and you can tell me how I may be of assistance.”
“Nelson Livermore.” He pressed one of his cards into my hand. “No, we’ve not met. I’ve been sitting i
n there for the better part of an hour.”
“Did we have an appointment?” I asked, knowing full well we didn’t.
He wilted under my steady gaze and my five-inch height advantage. “No.”
With my coffee mug, I motioned through the door into my office, such as it was. He turned and slithered thorough the doorway. Following him, I moved around my desk as I eyeballed his card.
Mr. Livermore sought refuge on the couch, eschewing the chairs in front of me.
Stepping to my chair, I set the coffee mug on my desk. “Insurance investigation? How may I help you?” I asked, but my thoughts were elsewhere. My desk had been tampered with—it didn’t look right. The piles of paper looked the same, even the layer of fine dust. Through the lingering morning haze, I tried to focus.
“As my card indicates, I’m with the hotel’s insurance carrier.” Mr. Livermore sounded officious and dull—of course, he was a claims adjuster.
I paid him only half a mind, which was all I had, anyway. “Shouldn’t you be talking to the legal department?”
“They sent me to you.”
I glanced up at him, still trying to identify what was wrong. “Why?”
The little man nervously worried the watch on his left wrist—it looked like a Timex. “I’m here about a truffle. You see,” he started in, as if his story was riveting, “the truffle did not go where it was supposed to go.”
All of a sudden, it hit me. “Miss P.!” I shouted. “Get in here!”
Both Miss P. and Brandy, my other assistant, or now actually Miss P.’s assistant—I had trouble keeping the pecking order straight—dashed into the room. The bird shouted, “Fuck, fuck,” in the background.
“Did somebody die?” Miss P. asked in a glacial tone. I guess she liked to be summoned by a shout as much as I did.
I pointed to my desk, the surface of which was curiously empty. “My cockroach. Where is it?”
Mr. Livermore pulled his knees to his chest, raising his feet off the floor.
I didn’t even smile. I pointed to the round mark in the dust. “It’s gone.”
Miss P. and Brandy stood there, dumbfounded. Miss P. said, “Last time I saw it, it was on my desk, remember?” She shot me a worried glance. “I put it back on your desk as you asked.”
“You have a cockroach,” Mr. Livermore squeaked.
I pawed through the papers littering my desk. “It’s a paperweight. A gold cockroach encased in Lucite with a green felt bottom.”
“It’s dead?” His voice still quivered.
I shot him a look.
Mr. Livermore replaced his feet on the floor with a thud. He straightened his tie and, with a hand on top of his head, mashed his toupee down, wiggling it into place. “Was this item valuable?”
Simultaneously, Miss P. said no and I said yes.
Mr. Livermore glanced between the two of us. “Which is it?”
“Only sentimental value,” I admitted.
“But everyone knows about it,” Miss P. added. “It’s Lucky’s signature item, like a totem.”
I opened my mouth to argue, then snapped it shut. What was the point, anyway? “It was like a good luck charm,” I said to Mr. Livermore, refusing to accept that my staff associated a roach with me.
“But iconic?” Mr. Livermore pressed.
Miss P. and Brandy both nodded.
Terrific.
Mr. Livermore made a tsking sound. “We’ve been getting a rash of these sorts of claims. Kids think it’s sort of funny. Somebody stole a garden gnome from the Conservatory and took it on a tour of Paris. It’s harmless, really.”
I could only blink at him in incomprehension. “But it’s stealing,” I managed to mumble.
“Technically,” he agreed. “But they usually return the item when they’ve had their fun, so no harm, really.” Mr. Livermore motioned Brandy over to the computer behind my desk, the one I never turned on if I could help it. “Why don’t you do a quick search, see what you find?” He frowned and added what sounded like an afterthought. “There was also the case of a Mr. Potato Head who someone brought, I believe, here to Vegas for a tour, taking pictures of it in iconic places.”
Brandy perched on the edge of my desk chair, which I had relinquished, stepping to the side, out of the way but still able to see the screen. She booted up the computer, then let her fingers fly over the keyboard. As I watched her, I felt woefully anachronistic—sort of like a dinosaur staring up at the asteroid as it hurtled earthward through the atmosphere.
I sipped my coffee, and the others remained glued to the screen as Brandy searched the ether.
“Ah-ha!” Brandy settled back into the chair, her mouth turned up at the corners in a self-satisfied smirk. “He was right!”
She caught me mid-swallow. I gagged as the coffee went down the wrong pipe.
Miss P. banged on my back. “Raise your hands.”
I glared at her as I fought for air.
Lowering her head, she looked at me over her cheaters in a show of maternal patience. “If you raise your hands it opens your windpipe.”
Thankfully, I got some air without sticking my hands in the air like a fool.
Mr. Livermore didn’t look surprised. “See? You’ll get it back when the show is over. Now, about my truffle . . .”
I pointed to him. “I’ll get to that.” I must’ve sounded harsher than I intended. Mr. Livermore curled up in his chair and clamped his mouth shut. I turned back to Brandy. “This is absurd. Let me see.”
She angled the monitor, focusing the picture on the screen. And there it was. My cockroach paperweight . . . okay, a photo of it. I leaned closer and squinted, concentrating on the background. “Where is that?” I mused out loud.
Miss P. moved in next to me. The three of us, heads together, focused on the image on the screen.
“My truffle?” Mr. Livermore’s voice lacked strength.
“Shush.” The three of us females said in unison, then refocused as one on the image of the Lucite-encased cockroach. It sat on a table of mosaic tiles, a white napkin underneath it. In red ink and a scrawl I recognized was the single word: Max.
Miss P. pointed to a blurred, triangular image in the background. “What’s that?”
“Looks like a lantern,” Brandy said. “You know, like one of those stained glass things they hang on patios.”
I pushed myself to my feet, shocking everyone, myself included. My head sort of swum—it was going to be that kind of day. “Grab your stuff,” I said to my assistants.
“You know where that is?” Miss P. looked dubious.
“Call for a Ferrari.” I fingered the delicate fabric of my off-the-shoulder sweater—pretty thin for November temps. The black jeans were great, but I’d forgotten a jacket.
Miss P. must’ve read my thoughts as she disappeared, then returned quickly with a light jacket from the closet in my former office. She thrust it at me without a word.
“Thanks.”
Brandy vacated my chair and moved to stand by the door.
“My truffle?” Mr. Livermore trailed off under my gaze.
“Process the claim. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“Where are you going?” Mr. Livermore sprang to his feet. “Do you know where Chef Bouclet is?”
I stopped, leveling a gaze at him, my voice calm. “I should think he’s in his kitchen, where he always is. Has he gone missing?”
Mr. Livermore blanched, if that was possible with his sickeningly white skin. “How would I know? The legal department sent me to you. They said you would help coordinate with the Bouclets.”
I gave him a curt nod. “And we will do our best.”
Miss P. addressed Brandy. “You go with Lucky. The car only holds two, and someone needs to stay here and actually work.” She retreated to her office with a grin. I heard her pick up the phone and ask for the Ferrari dealership.
I stayed where I was, but I used the moment I had to draw out Mr. Livermore a bit more. “Okay, you said the truffle
didn’t go where it was supposed to go. Could you explain?”
Uncurling, he sat up straight, his knees pressed together like a schoolgirl’s in church. His hands on his knees, he took his time before he answered, which I sort of deserved, so I waited. “The truffle, it was supposed to come here.”
God, I just love it when people try to beat me into submission with the obvious. I cocked an eyebrow at him, which, amazingly enough, he read properly.
Sensing my impatience, he cut to the chase. “The shipment should’ve come here directly, but it didn’t. The shipper routed it through a facility in Kansas.”
“Kansas? I don’t know much about very expensive food products, but routing them through Kansas seems . . . wrong. It’s not like Kansas is the epicenter of the gourmet world.” I was pretty sure it fell on the opposite end of the spectrum, but I didn’t say so. Miss P. grew up on a farm in Iowa, which I thought was close to Kansas, in every way, and I knew she was listening.
Mr. Livermore actually smiled. “That’s why the legal department sent me here.”
“Because they think I have a Kansas connection?”
This time Mr. Livermore laughed. I couldn’t shake the feeling he was playing me . . . something about him seemed a bit forced. “I don’t think so. I need to talk to”—he consulted a note he pulled from his inside coat pocket—“Jean-Charles Bouclet and Desiree Bouclet, his sister, I believe. I’ve been led to believe they are both here at the hotel. My search for them has yielded nothing. The legal department told me you could help.”
Lucky Catch Page 16