Moonlight Avenue

by Gerri Hill

  Which suited her just fine. Perhaps Finn really didn’t remember. That would be super, wouldn’t it? Rylee wouldn’t have to face the embarrassment then. Because meeting strangers at bars—sleeping with them—was something she never, ever did.

  So why that night? Why was that night different? Was she lonely? Not particularly so. She was in a new city, sure. But even in Amarillo, she wasn’t constantly surrounded by people…or friends. So why that night?

  She had no idea. Couldn’t resist? That seemed too easy of an excuse, even if it was the truth. To be honest, she was the one who suggested a motel, not Finn. They’d gotten carried away, kissing and…and touching. She felt her face turn red at the memory. Right there in a dark and shadowy bar—with a stranger—making out like a teenager in the backseat of a car, fogging windows. Making out? That was an understatement. Finn’s hands had been…well, in places that they shouldn’t have been.

  She should have called it a night right then. She should have walked away. But Finn had hesitated and she’d hesitated and the next thing she knew, they were on their way to a motel. Fifteen minutes later, they were naked. She blushed again. She’d had her first orgasm within thirty seconds.

  She whipped her head around at the sound of someone knocking on the front door. She’d locked it as Finn had instructed.

  “Hello? Are you open?”

  Oh, crap. It was a woman. Should she open it? Finn said not to open it for anyone, she reminded herself. In fact, she had been adamant about it.

  “Hello?”

  She moved closer to the door. This was just a woman, she reasoned. Probably a potential client. It wasn’t a murderer. Surely, it wasn’t.

  “Who is it?” she called.

  “Excuse me?”

  Rylee bit her lip. This was no way to conduct business. No wonder Finn wasn’t overrun with clients. She unlocked the door and opened it, finding a young woman about her own age staring back at her.

  “Is this Moonlight Avenue Investigations?” She took a step back. “Or…I guess I’m at the wrong place, huh?”

  “No, no. You’re at the right place. I’m sorry, come in.” Rylee held the door open wider. “We’ve been moving offices around so…”

  “Oh. Well, the sign is kinda small and…the neighborhood…”

  “Yeah…kinda scary,” Rylee said with a smile. “Just kidding, of course. Come in. What can I help you with?” She spotted the police car across the street. Oh, Finn was going to kill her.

  “Are you a private investigator?”

  Rylee swallowed nervously. “I am,” she said with as much confidence as she could muster.

  “I…well, I’ve never done this before,” the woman said. “In fact, I only chose you because of your location. I didn’t dare go to one of the larger agencies. I would die of embarrassment if someone saw me.”

  Rylee nodded appropriately. “We get that a lot. What is it you’re looking for?” Rylee sat down at her desk—the receptionist desk—and motioned to one of the visitor’s chairs she’d placed there not thirty minutes ago. “I apologize, but the offices aren’t really set up yet for clients. Will this do?”

  “Oh, it’s fine.”

  “Good. What’s your name?”

  “Carolyn. Carolyn Baxter.”

  Rylee held her hand out across the desk. “I’m Rylee Moore. What can I help you with today, Carolyn?”

  “Well, this might sound strange, but…well, I have a new boyfriend,” she said with a big smile.

  Rylee grinned back at her. “Congratulations.”

  Carolyn blushed. “Yeah…he’s a really nice guy.”

  “But?” she prompted.

  “Well, I’d read somewhere that it was a good idea…um, to do this sort of thing, you know, before things got too serious.”

  “Oh, I see. You want to check him out first? See if he’s been lying about his past? His employment? That sort of thing?”

  “Yes. It’s crazy, isn’t it? I mean, I should trust him. Right?”

  “You’re absolutely doing the right thing,” Rylee said. “You don’t want to marry the guy and find out later that he spent time in prison for rape or murder or something, right?”

  Carolyn’s eyes widened.

  “Not that I’m insinuating anything,” Rylee said quickly, holding her hand up. “Women do this all the time.” Do they? “Better to be safe than sorry,” she added.

  “Oh, good. So you get these kinds of requests a lot?”

  “We do,” Rylee said, not knowing if Finn did or not. She pulled out a pad. “So, what’s his name?”

  “It’s Johnny Arnold.”

  “Is Johnny his real name? His legal name?”

  “Oh.” The woman gave her a tentative smile. “I don’t know. It’s just Johnny.”

  Rylee winked at her. “Well, we’ll find out for you. Where does he work?”

  Before Carolyn could answer, the door opened rather abruptly. Finn stood there with a panicked look on her face. That panicked look then turned into a scowl. Oh, no. Finn did not look happy with her.

  “Lock it. Don’t let anyone inside.” Finn cocked an eyebrow. “Remember?”

  Rylee felt a blush light her face as she stood up quickly. “Carolyn Baxter…this is Finley Knight, owner of Moonlight Avenue Investigations.” She met Finn’s gaze, trying to decide if the look in her eyes was really anger. “Carolyn would like us to…to do a background check on her new boyfriend. I was just getting the information.”

  “I see.”

  Finn smiled rather charmingly at Carolyn Baxter and Rylee noted how the smile transformed her face. While she considered Finn to be nice-looking—she’d practically devoured her that night, hadn’t she?—it wasn’t until that very moment that she realized just how attractive she really was. Only the charming smile wasn’t directed at her. Not this time.

  “If you’ll allow me a minute or two to speak with…with my assistant here,” Finn said, glancing back to Rylee. “Then she’ll be right out to get all the information we need.”

  “Of course.”

  “Great. Can I offer you something to drink? A bottle of water? A soda?”

  “Oh, I’m fine.”

  Finn nodded politely. “Okay. Thank you. She’ll be back in a second.”

  Finn turned and headed down the hallway to her new office and Rylee smiled apologetically at Carolyn.

  “Be right back.”

  She hurried after Finn, wondering if she was about to get fired from a job she’d had for less than a week. Lock the door and don’t let anyone in. Okay, so she’d ignored that directive. But they had a client. And from what she could tell…clients were few and far between here on Moonlight Avenue.

  Finn was leaning against her desk when Rylee went into her office. Finn glanced at the door and Rylee took that to mean she wanted it closed. She closed it and leaned back against it, much like Finn was doing at the desk. As she met her eyes, she realized it wasn’t anger that she saw there. For that, she was relieved.

  “So…you got a client, huh?”

  “I guess.”

  “Did she break the door down? Pick the lock?”

  Rylee chewed on her lower lip. “I…I opened it for her.”

  Finn pushed off the desk. “There’s a killer out there. He thinks I have something. The woman he killed this morning—or last night—he thought she might have what he’s looking for. He tortured her before killing her.” Finn stood in front of her. “There’s a reason the police have a car watching my house, watching the office. There’s a reason I said to keep the door locked and not to let anyone inside.”

  Okay, so maybe Finn was a little angry. She chanced meeting her gaze, wanting to plead her case. “But she’s a woman. I could tell that she wanted—”

  “You assumed. But what if you were wrong? What if he was using her to get you to open the door?”

  Rylee blew out her breath. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  Finn took a step closer. “I’m always right. Always. Remember that
.”

  “Of course.”

  Finn then smiled, relieving some of the tension in the room. “So what information are you getting from her?”

  “Name, where he works, his address, that kind of thing.”

  Finn nodded. “Cell phone number. We can use that to access a lot of information.”

  “So you’re not mad?”

  Finn stared at her. “I’m a little mad, yeah.”

  Rylee swallowed nervously. “Please don’t fire me.”

  “I’m not going to fire you.” She paused. “Do you like cats?”

  Rylee frowned. “Cats? I guess. Why?”

  “Because I’ve got one out in my car.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “It was at the Fraziers’ house. The woman who was killed. The police were going to take it to the pound until someone claimed it.”

  Rylee smiled. “How sweet. I wouldn’t have taken you to be such a softie.”

  “Oh, yeah? A softie? Why do you think I hired you?”

  Rylee’s smile broadened. “Thank you very much.”

  “So? You’ll help with the cat?”

  “Sure.”

  Finn nodded, then motioned to the door. “Good. Now go take care of your client.”

  * * *

  As soon as Rylee fled the room, Finn allowed a quick smile to her face. So the kid had a client. And yeah, she’d been a little angry when she’d found the front door unlocked. Angry and worried. She admitted that for a second there, she was almost afraid to open the door…afraid of what she might find. It had been damn stupid of her to leave Rylee here alone in the first place. Whatever the hell it was that Michael Drake wanted, he wasn’t afraid to kill for it. She doubted that the patrol car parked down the street would have stopped him.

  She shook her head. She had a receptionist. An assistant, she corrected. And now she had a damn cat. What the hell was wrong with her?

  A softie? She would have never used that word to describe herself, but yeah, the cat—a ball of gray fur—had looked so pitiful when they’d scared her out of her hiding spot in an upstairs closet. The cat ran from the two officers trying to catch her and had darted between Finn’s legs. She’d scooped up the frightened little thing without giving it a thought. The next thing she knew, Dee had found the litter box and food and had loaded up her car. To her surprise, the cat had sat quietly in her lap on the drive over. Finn had expected it to yowl its head off. The only sign the cat was scared were the claws that were digging into Finn’s leg. And right now, she wondered if those claws weren’t digging into her leather seats.

  With a sigh, she went around to her desk and opened her laptop. Despite Dee telling her to stay out of it, she had a few things she wanted to check out. Namely, why was one of the pizza places moving so much more cash than the others?

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Instead of using the intercom at Finn’s gate, Dee pushed in the four-digit security code Finn had given her. The gate swung open and she drove inside. In her mirror, she saw the gate close again behind her. She was later than she’d planned. The briefing with Mabanks had taken longer than she’d thought and she admitted that it hadn’t gone well.

  The three murders were obviously linked; he wanted more than only her and Joel on the case. She, on the other hand, didn’t know what good it would do to have more hands in the pot. There were no witnesses. There were no prints. It was a professional job—all three had been. She already had four guys pulling up everything they could find on Daniel and Connie Frazier and the Pizza Jamboree. She paused as she got out of the car. Yes, Daniel and Connie Frazier.

  And Finley Knight.

  She knew she really didn’t have a legitimate reason to investigate Finn. And if Finn found out, she’d be pissed as hell, no doubt. She told herself that she was simply covering all her bases. And even though she believed Finn, everyone else involved was either dead or—as in Michael Drake’s case—nowhere to be found. It could be that Finn was a player in this game—linked somehow to the Fraziers—and she didn’t even know it. So Dee wasn’t going to feel guilty about investigating Finn and her past. It was her job.

  Finn opened the door before she could knock.

  “I was about to start without you.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I remember being a detective,” Finn said. “Hard to keep decent hours working a homicide.”

  Dee walked past her, taking the time to look around. She’d been to Finn’s house twice before, once after Sammy died and then again at Thanksgiving. As it had been on those occasions, the house was impeccably neat and hardly looked lived in. She glanced over at Finn.

  “Do you have a housekeeper?”

  Finn looked surprised by her question. “Do I need one?”

  “Everything is so neat. Nothing out of place.”

  Finn shrugged. “There’s actually not a whole lot here that could get out of place.” She paused, as if deciding on whether to explain or not. “It was furnished when I moved here. I’ve replaced most of the furniture over the years, but I don’t have a lot of personal stuff.”

  Dee went into the kitchen and felt Finn following her. “Did you keep it at the office?”

  “It what?”

  Dee met her gaze. “Personal stuff.”

  Finn leaned against the counter. “What is it you’re fishing for?”

  Okay, so maybe she did feel guilty. She decided to come clean. “I’m investigating your background. Your past.”

  As expected, Finn’s expression changed and Dee saw a flash of anger in her eyes.

  “I’m sure there’s a reason you’re invading my privacy,” Finn said, her words a little clipped.

  “I’m not trying to invade your privacy, Finn. I want to make sure you’re not unknowingly involved somehow.”

  “Unknowingly? Is that a nice way of saying you think I could be ‘unknowingly’ withholding information from you?” she asked, making quotations in the air.

  “Finn, I don’t want to get into an argument with you. I thought you had a right to know, that’s all.” She took a step closer. “We have no usable prints. We have no witnesses. Our only choice is to dig into the backgrounds of these people and poke around…you included.”

  “I never met Daniel Frazier until he came to my office that day. My only link to him was that I ate pizza occasionally. So no, I don’t appreciate you poking around into my past.”

  “Are you saying you have something to hide?”

  “I’m saying I’m a private person.” Finn turned and opened the oven door. “But you’re right. I don’t want to argue.”

  Dee couldn’t help but laugh as Finn pulled the pizza box from the oven, the Pizza Jamboree’s familiar logo emblazoned across the top.

  “I suppose that’s appropriate,” she conceded. “I’m surprised they’re still open. I think after Daniel’s death, Connie did little more than sign checks at the request of the managers. I’m not sure what’ll happen now.”

  “I would assume the son will take over. He’s been on the payroll for the last year or more so I imagine he’s already dabbled in the business.” She motioned to the fridge. “I’ve got beer, if you’re off duty.” She glanced at Dee. “He’s due to graduate in early December, by the way.”

  “And how do you know all that?”

  Finn shrugged. “I may have poked around and broken a few privacy rules. Smart kid. Business degree. Marketing. 3.58 grade point average.”

  “You’re very bad.”

  “Uh-huh. I’m sure you already have that information too.”

  “We do.”

  The beer was poured into two frosty mugs Finn took from the freezer and they ate at the bar instead of the table. The tension that had sprung up between them still lingered and Dee wrestled to find something to talk about that didn’t involve the case.

  “So…where’s the cat?”

  Finn’s expression softened. “At the office. The damn thing sat in my lap most of the afternoon.”

&n
bsp; “Well, she was probably traumatized by what happened. Caging her up at the pound didn’t seem right.”

  “You notify their kids?”

  Dee raised her eyebrows. “The Fraziers? Captain Mabanks actually took care of that for me.” She put her pizza down and wiped her mouth with the paper napkin. “Speaking of Mabanks, he wants to bring in another team on this one.”

  “Three murders…I suppose so.”

  Dee picked up her mug of beer and took a swallow before speaking. “Obviously you’re still snooping around. What else have you found?”

  “Probably the same thing you have,” Finn said evasively.

  Dee sighed tiredly. “Are we going to play that game?”

  Finn stared at her for a long moment, then took a swallow of her beer too. “I was surprised by how lucrative the pizza business is.”

  Dee nodded. So yes, they had found the same thing. “Especially at the one over past the Causeway. The one on the island. Jamboree Number One.”

  Finn smiled. “Yeah, particularly that one. Maybe because it’s the original restaurant.” She picked up the pizza again. “Where do you think the money’s coming from?”

  “Drugs, most likely.”

  “That would be logical, but I don’t think it fits in this case,” Finn said. “There’s nothing in Daniel Frazier’s background to indicate he’s involved in the drug business.”

  “That could be hidden easily.”

  “My gut tells me it’s something else.”

  “Such as?”

  “If it’s drugs, what could Daniel Frazier have had—that they’re willing to kill for—that would implicate them?”

  “Suppliers, dealers, the traffic routes of how they move it across the border. Anything.”

  Finn shook her head. “Unless Daniel Frazier was very high up in an organization, there’s no way he would know those things. Being anonymous—secretive—is how they survive.”