by Robena Grant
“Hey, what’s up?” Dena asked. “Are you looking for some more moonlighting jobs? I’ve got a suspected cheating husband on the loose. Want to take photos?”
Debbie laughed. “No thanks. I remember my one and only time doing that for you. But listen, I want to run a thought by you, about…well, about the murder in the alley.”
“Okay.”
“Two odd things happened today. Two strange men have crossed my path and they both disturbed me.”
“I hope that was disturbed in a good way.” Dena laughed.
Debbie pulled in a deep breath. In a soft voice she quickly brought Dena up to speed.
“For some reason I’m not worried about your cowboy, but tell me about the other man. And then tell me again about your phone call. What was his tone of voice like?”
“Pushy and cold.” Debbie thought about that for a second. “And an odd inflection on the word today. It was sort of an accent but I can’t figure out what. And now that I think about it, he hadn’t sounded at all like he was in pain. So, why had he been so rude?”
“My thoughts exactly. You know you’ve got good instincts. I like that about you and I’m definitely interested in getting you some more part-time work with the firm. But take good care, and don’t mess with the angry phone caller. I want you to call me or Zeke if he calls or turns up at your business. Promise?”
“Okay. I promise. And on the other thing, moonlighting would be great, and heck, I’ll even follow cheaters if I have to. Talk with you tomorrow.”
She hung up the phone still thinking about adding to her income and Dena’s words about her instincts. She shot a quick glance toward the dolphin room. She’d locked them both inside. Could this stranger, this man who’d recently come to town, this man with the Montana license plate, be another bad guy?
****
Jack kicked off his boots, stretched out on the bed and felt foolish. He’d never led a pampered life and had no idea what to expect. He wondered if Debbie-of-the-perceptive-gray-eyes could see him. He hadn’t noticed any two-way mirror. No telltale video cameras, but there could be one hidden in a plant. He smirked and waved at a ficus tree, just in case.
Debbie looked like a serious Janelle, but even more beautiful. They both had that elfish quality. Waiflike, that’s what they were. Tiny little bodies with delicate bone structure, straight, pale blond hair and big eyes. She wore her hair shorter than her daughter and it framed her face in a soft disheveled way. He’d bet they were mistaken for sisters more times than not.
How young was she when she got pregnant?
He reminded himself he’d come here to find clues and got up to search the room. After a thorough investigation, and finding nothing, he clambered back onto the undulating bed and stretched out on his back. His eyelids got heavy, and he started to drift off.
Janelle had said she was twenty-one. Debbie couldn’t be more than thirty-six or seven. Could she? So, she had to have been a kid raising a kid. That would’ve been tough. Maybe that’s why she seemed serious, why her gray eyes looked like an Irish sea in the dead of winter. His Irish-born mother’s eyes had been similar in color, but they always sparkled with merriment. He’d gotten his father’s dark eyes, dark hair, and probably his dark nature. At least he imagined that he had from what he could remember of the black bastard, as his mother had not so affectionately referred to the deserter.
He opened his eyes. Synchronized lights played over the blue walls and music with dolphin vocalizations filled the room. Dolphin images swam across the walls and the ceiling. He felt as though he were under the sea with them, dolphins playing, cavorting. He flinched and raised his head a few inches.
Cavort? That wasn’t even a word in his normal vocabulary. Tension crept back into his shoulders and his butt muscles tensed. He gave himself a reprimand. If he was paying $35 for this crap he’d better relax and get what he could out of the treatment. Then he’d ask questions.
He closed his eyes again, sighed heavily as the bed moved beneath him, and wondered about the woman behind that closed door. He focused on murders and drug deals, anything to calm the interest that stirred his body. Juan, the cousin of one of the most wanted drug lords in Mexico, had been dismembered and stuffed into a dumpster in this tiny farming town that butted up to La Quinta, a posh golfing community, a city that catered to the rich and famous. Why here?
Juan had never been involved in the drug trade, Jack knew that. Five years ago, they’d worked together in Colombia, documenting coca plantations and mapping locations of labs from the air. Juan had been the pilot. They’d recently hooked up again at Jack’s request. Juan had agreed to work with the U.S. and Mexican governments, undercover, and to provide information about his cousin’s compound high in the Sierra Madres, even though he was a business owner in Cancun. He’d been about to send the exact coordinates of the compound’s secret entrance. Did his cousin get wind of that? Was this a revenge killing?
Jack’s eyes got heavy and he rode the waves, played with dolphins in his mind, felt vibrations through his skin and muscles, and wondered exactly how long it had been since he’d had sex. Not that it was anyone’s fault but his own; he’d shut down, emotionally and physically. After his mother died he figured it was better to not have to care for anyone ever again. Not in the high risk positions he held. Why put a wife or child through that? Debbie Williams’s face flashed through his thoughts. Nah, not going there. No uptight, small town do-gooder for me.
“Mr. Davis, your treatment is over.” Debbie’s soft voice floated in over the intercom. “Take your time, don’t hurry.”
Jack jerked his head up and glanced at his watch. Hell, he’d been in the treatment room for forty-five minutes. He’d fallen asleep. He rubbed at his jaw, felt for his gun, and raised his head off the pillow. Then he sat up and checked his cell phone for messages. There were none.
The dolphins had stopped swimming, and the music had ended. He sat on the side of the bed, dangling his legs, and raised both arms above his head, stretched and yawned. He got up and walked unsteadily across the room as if he had sea legs. Sitting on a small white bench with a navy blue canvas cushion that made him think again of being on a boat, he pulled his boots back on, and shrugged into his beaten up brown leather jacket.
Damn. The therapy had worked. He slid his hands up beneath the jacket, hooked a thumb at either side of his waist in the front, and rubbed his fingers up and down his back. It felt great.
He sauntered out to the desk, roughed up his hair, and pulled out his credit card. The one the bureau had issued him along with his identity.
Debbie moistened her lips and her gray eyes glinted. She almost smiled.
A rush of heat hit his groin. Then he noticed her eyes were focused on the top of his head.
“You might, um…want to freshen up,” she said. “The restrooms are down that hall.”
“Oh, yeah, thanks.” He started to walk away. His hair must be sticking up like a cock’s comb, along with other things. He turned around, handed her the credit card. “Be back in a sec.”
****
“Rachel, I met this guy,” Debbie said softly into her cell phone, even though she’d closed and locked the door to the spa after the cowboy left. Stretched out on the dolphin therapy bed, she looked forward to the much needed treatment. And because the work day was over, a relaxing glass of chardonnay. “Jack Davis.”
“I’ll bet he’s another short, fair-haired mommy’s boy.”
Debbie laughed then took a long sip of wine. “No. Not even close.”
She’d been tempted to not change the sheet he’d slept on, and then realized how sick and needy that would make her. But even now with an aroma therapy candle lit, she could still smell Jack’s manly muskiness, and couldn’t help but inhale deeply.
“Not at all my type,” she said. “Six-two, black hair with a slight dusting of silver at the temples, eyes so dark brown they’re almost black. And I think he’s a cop.”
“Ya don’t say.”
<
br /> “Yep.” Rachel knew all of the cops in the Coachella Valley, maybe in all of Riverside County. With any luck, she’d know him.
“Doesn’t ring any bells,” Rachel said. “So where’d you meet him? At Cliffs?”
“No. That’s the weird part. He came here to the spa, for dolphin therapy.”
“You’re putting me on.”
“No seriously. And, he booked six sessions. I’m a bit confused about why—”
“Hang on a minute.”
A long pause ensued and Debbie heard dishes clinking and scraping sounds. Rachel was rough around the edges, but a downright sweetheart, and Debbie trusted her implicitly. They’d been friends ever since Rachel came to her aide and kicked Willie Valenti’s butt back in elementary school, when he’d been mean and pushed her down the slide. Yeah, the same dude that had grown up to become their mayor. She snickered.
“I took today off,” Rachel said, coming back on the line. “What’s funny?”
“Nothing. Just a weird thought. So, what did you do today?”
“I had a few appointments, and that meeting…c’mere baby…I’m giving Ralph his dinner. Bet your guy’s undercover.”
“He didn’t look like a cop. But he had that attitude, maybe.”
He’d been so observant and intuitive when he’d taken silent stock of her establishment. His eyes were like camera’s taking snapshots. She’d bet he had a retentive memory, too. She wet her lips and rubbed them together, then shook her head. She loved intelligent men, but as a business woman, and a single-mother, she didn’t indulge in fantasies. Hell, she hardly ever dated, and now she salivated over a stranger like he was a prime rib dinner at Cliffs.
“And what…he’s ringing your chimes?”
“In a scary sort of way, yes,” Debbie said, and then laughed.
“Undercover. Gotta be a Fed.”
“You can’t say that for sure though. He might be a visitor.”
Rachel laughed. “Yeah, sure…but listen, you’re the suspicious one otherwise you wouldn’t be calling me. Bet he’s gonna question you about that guy in the dumpster.”
“Question me?” Debbie asked, her voice squeaking. “What have I got to do with that?”
“Not you, silly. It’s not that you’re under suspicion. He’ll be looking for info. Stuff the cops can’t get. Stuff that slips out when people are going about their normal day.”
“Well, why wouldn’t he frequent Betty’s place?” Debbie asked. Her voice rose and a tiny whistle came out on the next breath. Damn it. Maybe she did have asthma. She coughed, and then took a slow deep breath. The last thing she wanted was a stranger asking questions and hanging around her place, drawing unwanted attention to her business and sending her clients running. “It was a shared Dumpster. Not only mine.”
“Yeah, yeah, but it had nothing to do with Betty either. How’s she doing?”
“Wendy said she might never come back to work.” Debbie watched the dolphins play over the wall in front of her and tried to push away the memories.
“Betty will be back,” Rachel said. “That boutique is her life.”
“She’ll come back…if they find the murderer.”
Another reason Debbie felt so determined to find answers. The buzzer on the front door sounded. She raised her head. Nobody ever rang the buzzer after hours. It could be that angry man who’d called earlier. If so, she wanted to give a description to Dave Stanton, in case the guy became a problem.
The buzzer sounded again.
“Stay on the phone with me. There’s someone at the front door,” Debbie whispered.
“Sure,” Rachel said.
Gooseflesh rippled over her arms, and Debbie wrapped a blue blanket around her shoulders like a shawl to hide her pale skin. She left the overhead lights off, sidled along the wall into the foyer, and then slid behind the receptionist’s countertop, dropping to her knees on the hard floor.
“It’s him,” Debbie whispered into the cell phone, as she peeped over the counter.
“Who?” Rachel whispered back.
Debbie stared at the shape almost blocking the glass front door. The pale golden streetlights silhouetted his frame. “Jack Davis.”
“The Fed?”
“Yes,” she whispered. A tiny tremor of desire mixed with fear ran through her. How come the guys who excited her the most were also the most dangerous? Ever since she’d graduated high school, and put her wild life behind her, she’d chosen small, quiet men. Deliberately.
“What’s happening?” Rachel asked in a hoarse whisper, and Ralph yapped excitedly in the background. “You gonna let him in?”
“Um…I’ve been drinking wine. And anyway, what if he isn’t a cop?” She hadn’t told Rachel about her strange and scary caller. Could that have been Jack using a disguised voice? But why would he do that? A warning thought said not to let him inside. “He could be a thug. He’s big, and he’s dark enough to be mafia, or—”
“Stay where you are,” Rachel said. “I’m bringing Ralph.”
Debbie almost laughed as she ended the call. Ralph? He was an eleven pound Bichon Frise whose owner had a penchant for dressing him in neckerchiefs. Ralph didn’t even bite other dogs. If he was their only protection, then they were two women in trouble. They’d be up against the smarts of a possible Fed, or cop, or bad guy, and a large well-muscled one at that.
She had to call for back-up, but would it be Dave, or Joe?
Chapter Four
Jack stood beneath the light in front of the Healing Center front door. Chilly evening air hit the back of his neck and he turned up the collar on his leather jacket, suppressing a shiver. It amazed him how quickly the temperature dropped in the desert in the late fall. He bit back on his exasperation, and resisted banging on the door.
Can’t the woman see me?
Her tiny body, draped in something that made her look like a large blue bat, had flitted along the blue-tinged interior walls and slid behind the countertop minutes ago. She couldn’t be scared of him, could she? He cupped his hands around his face and peered through the glass. She wasn’t about to let him back in.
He cussed softly and shook his head. He’d made it to the car, turned on the ignition, and about to call his boss at the DEA office and give a report out of sheer habit, he realized he was on his own and anyway, he had nothing to report. He’d walked out of the spa without asking a single damn question. Heavy footsteps approached, and he spun around. “You okay, buddy?” the guy asked, and stopped a few feet away from him.
Jack noticed the hairnet and white apron, beefy arms, heavy set body, and deep scowl. No way would he tangle with him.
He indicated the spa. “I had a treatment and needed to speak to the owner, Debbie Williams.” He said the name clearly to let the guy know he knew who owned the place.
The guy eyed him up and down. “She’s gone for the night.”
“Oh,” Jack said. “I didn’t see her leave.”
“Yeah, well…she’s gone. We have a business neighborhood watch. We check up on loiterers. Get each other’s backs.”
Jack bristled, but tried to keep the hackles down. He knew all about the community efforts. He’d heard from Deputy Stanton that Debbie had worked hard to get all of the business owners to do their part in fighting crime. But still, he had his rights.
“There’s nothing to say that I can’t stand here,” he said, and waved a hand around at the street signs. “I’ll give her another five minutes. If she doesn’t show, I’ll shove off.”
“See that you do,” the bruiser said, and walked down the middle of the mall road. He stood in the shadows for a few minutes, took out his cell phone and made a call.
Further down, Jack could see the flashing neon sign of the guy’s pizza place. Suspicion sure ran high in small towns. Not that he could blame them. He peered through the door again but kept a decent distance from the pane of glass. He couldn’t see the top of Debbie’s head anymore. She must be on the floor. He rang the buzzer again. Would she
dial 911?
He’d have some explaining to do to the local cops. He grimaced, knowing he needed to speak to Stanton again and get on his good side. He’d been kind of short with him this morning, but that was more about resisting where they’d seated him for the meeting. It wasn’t Stanton’s fault. He’d been following orders. Stanton had sneered at him throughout most of this morning’s town hall meeting. But then again, he’d sneered at everyone. Local cops and undercover feds and DEA often conflicted. Too many egos clashing, he supposed.
Jack pulled in a deep, cold breath. He moved away from the door and leaned against the side wall of the spa. Debbie had to close up for the night. He could wait.
Five minutes later, Jack’s cell phone rang.
“Davis.”
“Stanton here.”
“What’s up?”
“Heard you were harassing the business owners in Old Town,” Stanton said, and then laughed. “Got a complaint and a description.”
“And you knew it was me?”
“Yeah, you stick out like a sore thumb.” Stanton chortled. “Anyway, I’d intended to call you. I figured you’d need this information. Intel has it that another agent, FBI out of San Diego, is in the Coachella Valley. Deep undercover.”
“Well, hell, that’s a conflict of interest. Why wasn’t I briefed?”
A long pause ensued. “I’m briefing you now,” Stanton said.
“Okay, sorry. Ah, so we need to hook up so we don’t tangle up?”
“Yeah, I hear he’s a real stuffed shirt.”
Well, that crushed his first thoughts of Trig being undercover. Jack envisioned a crew cut, starched collar, and a badge. He worked at keeping the irritation out of his voice. “Okay.”
“He claims he’s not on this case. Specialty is murder-for-hire investigation. Got a lead on some dude he’s had under surveillance for a few months. He says his guy doesn’t dismember. He only recently crossed the border into the U.S. It’s all on a top secret ‘need to know’ basis.”
“Gotcha,” Jack said. Then he hesitated a moment and rubbed at his jaw. “When did his guy cross?”