by Leona Karr
“Are you familiar with personality profiles drawn from samples of handwriting?” she asked him.
“I’ve never put much stock in it,” he admitted.
“Handwriting analysis is really quite fascinating, and has proven to be surprisingly reliable.”
“I can see how it would be helpful in forgeries, but that’s about all,” he said flatly.
“I’ve used it in past cases to help me get a sense of the person I’m looking for,” she admitted. “You can tell whether the person is bold or timid, angry, careless, has a strong ego or a weak one, and a hundred other things. Of course, more than one sample of handwriting is needed for a really thorough analysis.” Kerri paused, trying to retrieve some nebulous question about the note. What was it that bothered her? What was she missing? Try as she would, she couldn’t draw it out of the shadows.
“Well, what does Ardie’s handwriting tell us? That she’s terribly loving and maternal? Or that she’s manipulative and self-centered?”
Kerri hated to admit it, but Mark was closer in his second guess. Single letters in the handwriting showed more aggressive and egocentric traits than any gentle traits or the desire to please. It was apparent from the woman’s profile that Reno was definitely the place to look for someone caught up in the high living life-style of a gambling mecca. The graphologist had just reinforced what they already knew about the missing woman. Kerri’s usual eagerness to pick up the trail of her quarry was tinged with a reluctance to bring any more unsavory details to light As always, thinking about the children made this assignment harder than any she’d ever accepted.
Mark had been watching the tightening of her lips and the setting of her jaw. “What now, boss?”
“We find someone who knows her. If we’re lucky, they’ll tell us something that will show us our next move.” She didn’t add that there was a good chance this trip to Reno was only a dead end.
The plane began its sharp descent, and Kerri glimpsed a high-rise Hilton hotel as they landed at the airport in the middle of the sprawling town. The terminal of the Biggest Little City in the World welcomed travelers in its own special way. A myriad of slot machines stretched from the concourse gates to the baggage area, and Kerri didn’t see a single vacant seat as they passed them. Clanging machines and dropping coins created a hypnotic seduction that provided an immediate fix for the gamblers arriving in droves twenty-four hours a day. Kerri hoped that Lady Luck would smile on her own gamble of a different kind.
After they claimed their baggage, they rented a car and drove to the Hilton, a short distance away. They had just entered the lobby when a good-looking redheaded man, somewhere in his thirties, sauntered toward them, wearing a bright green sport shirt open at the neck, and matching smooth-fitting slacks. His broad grin and open arms were for Kerri. “Hi, sweetheart. Long time, no see.”
Mark stiffened as the man’s arms went around Kerri in a bear hug that lifted her off the floor. Mark had an unreasonable urge to drop his bag and punch the man in the nose. Who in the hell was this guy? Kerri hadn’t said anything about meeting anyone, but watching her laugh as the grinning redhead set her down, Mark felt like an idiot. Had he stupidly pushed himself on Kerri when she had other plans for her stay in Reno?
“Ken Nabors, meet Mark Richards.” Kerri made the introductions.
“Oh, yes, the client.” Ken flashed him a measuring smile. “Well, Mr. Richards, you hired yourself the best investigator around—and the prettiest, too.” He winked at Kerri. “She keeps us all in business.”
“And what business is that?” Mark asked coolly.
Kerri shot a look at his glowering face, and answered quickly, “Ken is a private investigator from Phoenix. I’ve used him several times on other cases. He can follow up leads that would be difficult or inconvenient for my agency.”
“Have badge, will travel. A roving PI, that’s me.” He started humming, “Just one of the roving kind…”
“You never change, Ken,” Kerri said, laughing. “Thanks for coming on such short notice.”
“No problem, honey. When Debbie called me yesterday and filled me in on the case, I was off and running—or flying, rather. I checked into the hotel about nine o’clock last night. I guess you’ll want to get settled before we huddle?”
Huddle? Mark’s itch to deliver a well-placed punch on this guy was growing with every minute.
“Why don’t we meet in the lounge, say, in an hour?” she suggested.
“My favorite kind of office.”
Kerri shook a warning finger at him, “I’m not picking up a giant tab as a business expense.”
“Now, Kerri, honey, you never can tell when buying someone a couple of drinks will pay off,” he chided and boldly tweaked her nose in a playful fashion. “Besides, you didn’t call me in on the case to sit in a hotel room and read the Gideon’s Bible, did you?”
“That would be the day,” Kerri answered dryly as she turned toward the registration desk.
Ken gave Mark a nod of dismissal. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Richards.”
“I suspect we’ll be seeing quite a bit of each other,” Mark replied, making the remark sound more like a warning than polite pleasantry.
Going up in the elevator to their rooms on the twenty-sixth floor, Kerri was well aware of Mark’s dark mood. He was abrupt, touchy as hell. It was easy to see that Ken had definitely rubbed Mark the wrong way. She supposed she should have warned him that she had called in another investigator, but she wasn’t in the habit of conferring with anyone else about business decisions. Besides, Ken was exactly the kind of PI she needed in a setting like Reno. He could move in and out of the casinos, fit in with any gambling crowd, and act the innocent playboy role to perfection.
Kerri waited until the bellhop let them into rooms across the hall from each other, before she went into Mark’s and confronted him about his hostile attitude. “We might as well clear the air, right now. Unless you want to take me off the case, I intend to use Ken Nabors in this investigation. I’ve worked with him before, and I know what he can do.”
“It’s obvious that you’re old friends.”
“Business associates,” she corrected him. “Nothing more.”
“Didn’t look like that to me. Anyone with eyes in his head could tell he was coming on to you.”
“And anyone with eyes in his head should be able to tell that he flirts as easily as he breathes. And, maybe, being charming is Ken’s secret weapon for success,” she admitted. “If Ken runs into any woman that’s been close to Ardie, he has a good chance of finding out what our missing mother is up to these days. I can’t get as close to the sources that he can. I’m depending upon him to get me some firsthand info about Buddy Browski’s ill-fated con game, and what might have gone wrong enough to get Browski killed.”
“Why couldn’t you have given him the assignment over the phone? Why make the trip yourself?”
“There’s plenty of other footwork for me to do. As soon as I unpack, I’ll decide where to start.” She paused in the doorway of his room. “If you truly think that I’m here for a tête-à-tête with Ken Nabors, you’re a blind, pigheaded fool.” She gave his door a punctuating slam.
LATER, WHEN HE HEARD her door open and close, he forced himself not to rush after her. He paced his room, starting to leave a dozen times, and then changing his mind. He wasn’t about to admit to adolescent jealousy, but at the moment, he couldn’t come up with any mature reason for acting the way he had. The fact that he’d even thought she was capable of arranging a rendezvous with someone while on business made him ashamed. She was right to hire the best man for the job, but it still bothered him that she was downstairs in the lounge with the guy.
He got on the phone and spent a half an hour taking care of business. After he hung up, he grabbed a financial journal he needed to read, left his room, and went down to the lobby. As casually as he could, he chose a chair that gave him a clear view of the entrance to the lounge. Twenty minutes later, he put down h
is journal when Kerri and the PI came into the lobby. They walked toward the front entrance of the hotel, and Mark thought they were leaving, but they stopped at the door. Kerri said something to Nabors and then the PI left alone.
As Kerri turned back into the lobby, she saw Mark sitting there watching her. A flash of warmth burned her cheeks as she walked over to him. “Are you spying on me?”
“No, just waiting for you,” he assured her with an easy smile, as he rose to his feet. “I thought you might need a chauffeur this afternoon, and I’m at your service.” He gave a mock bow that disarmed her and brought a smile to her eyes.
“All right, you’re hired. I want to check out the address on Ardie’s driver’s license, and also that place listed in your brother’s name that showed up on his telephone calls. We can knock on a few doors and see if we come up with anything helpful.”
“Sounds good to me.”
There was a boyish enthusiasm in Mark’s tone that made Kerri smile, but she didn’t say anything. He’d find out soon enough that sleuthing was mostly boring, painstaking work that wore patience down to a frazzle.
Unfortunately, their first stop proved to be a case in point. The address that Ardie had given on her twoyear-old driver’s license, 2712 Moana St., was a huge motel fairly close to the strip of gambling casinos on Virgina Street. They talked to the office manager who informed them that the motel’s clientele was transient, the average stay only a week or two. He told them that with over a hundred units in the complex, the likelihood of anyone remembering a woman who stayed there two years ago was minute. Kerri agreed and reluctantly crossed the address off her list of possible leads.
“Forward and onward,” Mark said, giving Kerri a reassuring smile as they drove to the address he’d been able to get from the telephone company. If his brother had made repeated calls to that number after his marriage, it stood to reason that Ardie had been living there while Jason was still in California.
Kerri agreed. Maybe Jason had rented it while he was courting Ardie, and had kept it while they were working out arrangements for her to come to Los Angeles. What kind of business could have kept her in Reno for several months after their marriage?
Mark braked in front of the wrought-iron gate of the Medallion Condominiums. A security fence enclosed the exclusive complex, and a sign, Adult Occupancy Only, was clearly posted.
As they stared at the sign, neither of them said anything, but Kerri’s disappointment was already setting in. She knew what the restrictions meant—Ardie couldn’t have lived here with a baby and two lively youngsters.
Mark asked himself, if Ardie hadn’t been living in his brother’s condo, who had? For the hundredth time, he cursed himself for not having kept closer tabs on his brother’s personal life.
“Well, let’s see what the manager has to say,” Kerri said. “Maybe we’ll pick up something that will lead us in a different direction.” She knew that sometimes an apparent dead end could open up some unexpected avenues.
An electronic gate allowed residents with the proper magnetic key to enter and leave the premises, but a gatehouse was positioned to monitor everyone else. Mark pulled the car close to the small window and a gaunt-looking white-haired man rose to his feet in a slow, lumbering fashion and squinted as if he couldn’t quite see them through the thick lenses of his glasses.
“We’d like to talk to someone in the office about a condo that my brother occupied some months ago,” Mark told him.
The elderly man cocked his head slightly to one side as if not quite hearing, and Mark repeated what he had said in a louder voice. With deliberate slowness, the gatekeeper nodded. “You’d be wanting to see Mr. Lamquist.”
“Mr. Lamquist,” Mark repeated. “Thank you, and where will I find him?”
He waved a skeleton hand. “He has an office in the first building. You can’t miss it,” he assured them, but made no movement toward opening the gate.
“Thanks for your help,” Mark said, as if those were the magic words to gain entrance to the place.
“Mr. Lamquist ain’t here, though. He’s in San Diego.”
Kerri covered her mouth to hide a smile. Mark’s frustration mirrored her own on so many occasions that she couldn’t help but be amused. Used to the cutand-dried world of business, he was doing his best not to lose his temper with the elderly man’s inefficiency, but she could see a cord in his neck flickering.
“We’ll talk to someone else in the office,” Mark told him slowly with forced patience. “Will you please open the gate?”
As if the gatekeeper were considering whether or not it was a good idea, he hesitated. Then, shrugging his thin shoulders, he finally pushed a button that let the wrought-iron gate swing open. Mark drove the car through the opening, holding his breath, hoping that the elderly man wouldn’t change his mind before they got through.
Beautifully landscaped grounds surrounded ultramodern condos that shouted six-figure incomes. Mark knew all too well that Jason had never been judicious about money, even though he had been in a position to invest wisely and accrue modest wealth. Living in a place like this cost plenty. Something didn’t add up. Jason didn’t have this kind of money. Even when he won at the races, he turned around and lost it as quickly as he could make the next bet.
He put a guiding hand on Kerri’s elbow as they went into the building. After he had identified himself as Jason Richards’s brother to a pretty lady behind a counter in the condo office, he stepped aside and let Kerri take charge from there.
She showed the woman her credentials, and asked for her help in trying to locate a missing person. “A telephone was listed at this address to Jason Richards and we want to verify that he had a residence here.”
“Yes, Mr. Richards leased one of our condos for three months,” the lady said with a pleasant smile.
“I see. And is his the only signature on the lease?” Kerri asked. “We understood that he was married at that time.”
“I can show you the signed form if you’d like,” she said graciously. With quick efficiency, she found the correct file and laid it out on the counter for Kerri and Mark. “As you can see, the condo was leased to Jason P. Richards for a period of three months. Our records show that he gave us one check for the entire amount and moved out on this date.”
Three weeks before he died in the car accident Kerri noted, and avoided looking at Mark. “And you don’t have a record of anyone else living there with him?”
“No, it’s listed as single occupancy,” she said, and then added with a meaningful smile, “but that doesn’t mean he might not have had a houseguest from time to time.”
“Would it be possible for us to talk with some of the tenants who live in neighboring condos?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, most apologetically. “Privacy is of utmost importance to our tenants, and unless someone willingly puts your name on their approved list, we have a strict code that prohibits nonresidents freedom of the premises. You understand?”
Mark opened his mouth to protest, but Kerri put a staying hand on his arm. They’d have to come at this another way. “Thank you for your time.”
Any thoughts Mark had about ignoring the rules and seeking out Jason’s neighbors quickly faded as they left the office and returned to the car. He was acutely aware of two young and muscular security guards who watched them until they had driven off the premises.
Mark’s hands were tight on the steering wheel, and his jaw ridged. “There’s no way Jason could afford a place like that And even if he had a run of luck and decided to pay off the lease with his winnings, why would he lease it for three months when Ardie and the kids couldn’t live in it?”
“I don’t know, but obviously someone was living in it while your brother was working in Los Angeles. He wouldn’t have been calling an empty apartment.”
“It only makes sense if Jason took the condo for Ardie and his newly acquired family.”
“Ardie could have made other arrangements for the kids.�
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“Dumped them on somebody else, you mean,” he muttered. “I feel damn sorry for those kids. I’ll have a thing or two to tell the woman when I get her faceto-face. Why my brother ever took up with her, I’ll never know.”
“It’s too early to judge her,” Kerri cautioned, and then thinking aloud added, “For some reason, Ardie could have been staying at Jason’s condo alone until the lease was up, three weeks before Jason’s accident. If only we knew why and where she went after that, we might have a lot of answers.”
“I don’t see how any of it helps us find out where the woman is now.”
Kerri shrugged. “Circles of the past often bring us up to the present If we’re lucky we’ll find that circular path.”
“I certainly hope so,” Mark said without much conviction. He’d rather make a prediction on the stock market any day.
When they got back to the hotel, there was a message from Ken Nabors that seemed promising. “Good news,” she told Mark. “Ken’s meeting someone who knew both Ardie and her husband, Buddy. Eight o’clock at the Locust Club if I want to join them.”
“You’re not going alone,” Mark said flatly.
Ordinarily Kerri would have bristled at his authoritative tone, but strangely enough, it felt nice to have someone determined to look after her—even when she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself.
“I didn’t think you cared much for this sleuthing business,” she teased as they left the elevator and walked down the hall to their rooms.
“You’re not very smart if that’s what you think I care about.” He stopped by her door and putting his hands gently on her shoulders, turned her toward him. “In case you haven’t noticed, you’ve put my whole life in a tailspin. I used to think that I had everything in proper order, and knew what I wanted and how to get it.”
She was startled by the intensity of his expression. Her heart suddenly took an unexpected lurch into her throat. “And now you don’t?”
“No. You’ve changed all that. Don’t you realize that I can’t imagine a future without you in it? I don’t know how it happened, but you moved into an empty space in my life that I didn’t even know existed. And you’ve brought me an awareness of myself that makes me want to be the kind of man that would appeal to someone like you. Do you think that’s possible?”