Читать книгу D.b. Hayes, Detective - Dani Sinclair - Страница 10

Finding a gray cat is not like looking for a needle in a haystack. It is the haystack. The world is full of gray cats—at least, Lakewood Park was on this particular day.

There were dozens of small parks in and around town, not to mention the valley, a system of parks that twisted around a good portion of Cuyahoga County. But using my deductive abilities, I took the direction the kid had headed and his comment about the pool and chose Lakewood over Madison Park, since they were the only two that had pools nearby.

Searching for a cat is a job for Animal Control, not a private investigator, but the kid had hooked me with those sad eyes. And I admit the whole bit about his father being killed had dangled a carrot I couldn’t resist. It could have been a traffic accident. Heck, it probably had been a traffic accident. But I wanted more information.

Besides, the kid had given up a Glimmer Man game—whatever that was—to hire a detective to find his uncle’s old cat so his mom wouldn’t cry anymore. Heck. I didn’t have any choice. Not when he’d paid up front.

I had no intention of keeping his money, of course. I’d locked it away in my aunt’s desk drawer and I’d give it back to him as soon as he picked up his cat. And hopefully one of the two beasts I’d managed to catch would turn out to be Mr. Sam.

Not being totally stupid, I’d stopped by a pet store on my way to the park to pick up a few things I figured I was going to need to trap and hold Mr. Sam. Silly me. I should have added bandages, iodine, even tourniquets, to my list of necessities. Blood still trickled down my hand, squishing between my fingers and smearing the steering wheel with sticky residue. I should have remembered that cats come with claws. Nevertheless I had two mostly gray cats that sort of matched the picture Mickey had given me. One of them had better be Mr. Sam.

As far as I’m concerned, one gray cat looks pretty much like another. Even though the first one was a darker gray and had white under his chin and the second one had a patch of white on his belly, either one could be the cat in the picture as far as I could tell. The two nasty-tempered little monsters were in my car yowling at the top of their considerable lungs. They’d been friendly enough when I was petting them and offering them treats, but once I’d put them inside, all hell broke loose.

Sam One was inside the box a stock boy had given me. Since I hadn’t planned on finding more than one cat, I didn’t have a second box, but Sam Two had come willingly into my arms until I’d tried to add him to the same box. Hence all the blood. Sam Two was now crouched on the floorboard in the narrow backseat after tearing strips of skin off my hand.

Driving with a cat loose in the car made me nervous, but I wasn’t about to try picking the beast up a second time. And short of putting him in the trunk, there was no other option. To make matters worse, I’d spotted a third gray cat right before leaving the park. By then my need to help the kid was waning big-time. It was growing late and my stomach was grumbling over the small salad I’d had for lunch, and where would I have put a third cat anyhow? As it was, I was going to have to smuggle the two beasts into my apartment without being seen and I doubted they were going to cooperate.

I debated blowing my diet by stopping for a fast-food hamburger on my way home, but given my luck, Sam Two would prefer fast food to the kitty tuna I’d bought. He’d probably have it eaten before I got it out of the car. He’d certainly eaten the treats I’d offered him as if he’d been starving—which, from the paunch on that cat, was a big, fat lie.

I figured my best bet was to go straight home and change into something more appropriate for tailing someone who lives in the Shaker Heights area. I could get fast food on my way to the assignment. Besides, I needed to call Aunt Lacy and remind her I wanted to borrow her car tonight. I could hardly drive around on the east side of town in an antique VW Beetle painted mostly in primer-gray.

My cell phone rang as I pulled onto Lake Avenue coming out of the park. I dripped a splotch of blood on the seat cover while reaching over to answer the summons. I wouldn’t have bothered except that my cell phone is listed on my business cards and I can’t afford to ignore a possible client.

“D.B. Hayes,” I snapped out, hoping for a red light so I could use a tissue to mop the blood before it stained. Between the rivulets of sweat dripping down my body, the throbbing gouges on my hand and the noise emanating from both cats, I was not in the best of moods.

There was a pause on the other end that made me regret my tone. Then a familiar voice—one that sounded as if the speaker had swallowed gravel shards—spoke in my ear.

“Ms. Hayes, this is Albert Russo.”

I cringed. Clenching the cell phone against my ear, I prayed he wasn’t calling to cancel tonight’s job. The rent was due next week and I’d counted on that money.

“Mr. Russo!” I exclaimed, trying to infuse my voice with enthusiasm. “What can I do for you?”

This time the pause was enough to send my heart in my throat.

“Have I called at a bad time, Ms. Hayes?”

“Of course not.”

Sam Two contradicted me with a plaintive yowl. The sound filled the interior of the car. I grimaced.

“Sorry about the noise, Mr. Russo. I’m transporting a pair of unhappy cats, uh…for a friend.”

What else could I say?

He sniffed. “Nasty creatures, cats.”

I wasn’t about to argue the point. At the moment they didn’t rank high in my esteem either. I only hoped they had all their shots. And why hadn’t I thought of that before I’d gone and picked them up with my bare hands?

“Ms. Hayes, I’m wondering if you could see your way clear to start the assignment a bit earlier this evening than we agreed?” he went on. “It seems my wife made dinner plans with some acquaintances and just communicated this information to me. I’m sorry for the short notice, but she intends to leave the house a little past six. You will need to be in position before then.”

I glanced at the dashboard clock. It was a few minutes past five already. Rush hour. And his address was clear across town in an area I wasn’t familiar with. There was no way I could go home and change clothes and still make it to Shaker Heights before six. I glanced down at my shorts and stained blouse and bit my bottom lip.

“Is your wife going somewhere fancy for dinner?” I asked. If so, I was doomed.

“I believe she mentioned Bergan’s in Legacy Village. Is that a problem, Ms. Hayes?”

His cold tone indicated it had better not be a problem.

“Of course not,” I lied. “I’m on my way.”

“Excellent. I’ll send someone by your office tomorrow morning for a copy of the pictures and your report.”

“Ah, that’ll be fine, Mr. Russo, but, well, there isn’t anyone at the shop before nine. If you like, I can bring everything by your office earlier than that.”

“Nine o’clock will suffice, Ms. Hayes. My associate will call on you then.”

“Okay, if that’s your preference.”

“It is. Good evening, Ms. Hayes.”

“Too late for that,” I muttered at the sound of the click on his end.

Actually I could have gotten to the shop earlier than nine, but I’m not a morning person. Besides, I didn’t want to risk any flower shop customers coming in when I was there alone with a client. Or in this case, a client’s representative.

The cat in the box on the seat beside me was scrabbling furiously at the cardboard and swearing at me in cat. The one in the back had settled for piteous mews of unhappiness. I wasn’t sure which was worse.

“Look, guys, let’s just make the best of this, all right? Whichever one of you is Mr. Sam is going back home tomorrow. The other one gets to go to the animal shelter to find a nice new home, so let’s be quiet and let me drive, okay?”

Not a chance. Time stretched unbearably between the cats and rush-hour traffic. All in all I made decent time to Shaker Heights, but then I got lost on the side streets trying to find the address.

I was sweating profusely by the time I stumbled on it through sheer dumb luck. The sweat was only partly due to frustration. Mostly it was a result of the lack of cool air in the small car. I didn’t dare open the windows, even the wings, more than a crack, for fear Sam Two might prove suicidal.

The east side of Cleveland is different from my part of town. Binky wouldn’t raise eyebrows on the west side, but here he stood out like hot pink at a funeral. Somehow I was pretty sure no one in this neighborhood was apt to mistake him for one of the trendy reissued Bugs that had come out a couple of years ago. Binky made no pretenses about what he was. His numerous rust spots had been sanded, filled in and painted with primer, but I’d broken things off with Ted Osher again before the mechanic got around to putting any paint on Binky for me. Bad timing on my part.

I’ve known Ted since high school. We graduated together. He’s a nice enough guy when he isn’t being a jerk, but our relationship is not exactly the romance of the century. More like a comfortable habit when we’re both at loose ends. Ted’s happiest when he’s covered in grease, with auto guts spread all around him. Whatever our relationship at any given moment, I have to give him credit for keeping the important parts of Binky running all these years past their prime.

As I drove past the address I’d been given, I wondered what it would be like to live in a place this fancy. Somehow I didn’t think I’d be comfortable behind an ornate fence in a neighborhood where even the houses managed to look snobbish.

Since there was nowhere I could park and look inconspicuous, I pulled to the side of the road a few houses down and spread out the map I’d been trying to read when I’d gotten lost. I had the perfect cover story ready in case someone came along demanding to know what I was doing here. I’d tell the curious that I was trying to deliver a pair of lost cats to their owner. I’ve found it always pays to use what you have to hand.

Besides, I wasn’t the only car parked along the street, even if the other vehicle was a burgundy Honda that looked far more presentable in this neighborhood than Binky. Tough cookies, as Trudy liked to say. I was here and I was staying here until my quarry appeared. I had her picture, her license plate number and a description of her car. All I had to do was wait and pray Elaine Russo hadn’t left before I’d found her house.

My hand had stopped bleeding, so I used tissues and spit to clean up as best I could. I was running out of saliva when I realized the car had grown ominously silent. No sound came from inside the box. Worse, there was nothing from the backseat.

My shoulders tensed. My neck prickled. Was Sam Two preparing to spring over the seat and attack me? Or worse, had he died of asphyxiation back there? The last thing I needed was a pair of dead cats. I hadn’t thought to poke any air holes in the box since I hadn’t expected him to be in there for any length of time. But cats like heat, right? They were always pictured curled up in front of a roaring fire.

I lowered the windows as far as I dared and opened the wings to the extent where I was pretty sure the cat’s head wouldn’t fit through. Then I debated lifting a flap to check on Sam One. Except things would be worse if he got loose in the car with the other one. I was twisting to peer over the backseat to check on Sam Two when movement over near the burgundy Honda caught my attention.

A man appeared between some tall hedges. Not just any man. This was a delicious hunk of serious eye candy. He strode toward the car with the assurance of someone who knew where he was going. A sporty white shirt, open at the neck, over neatly tailored black dress slacks gave him a suave, debonair look that captured my full attention—and my imagination.

Yum. He was gorgeous. Even his dark hair, curled slightly against the nape of his neck and in need of a trim, didn’t diminish his appeal. He carried his tall, lean frame with comfortable authority. His features carried a trace of ruggedness that kept him from being too pretty, but it was a face no sane woman would mind waking up beside. The man exuded raw sex appeal.

I sighed wistfully and decided I needed to get out more. My love life was nonexistent. Since moving back to Ohio, the only guys I’d dated on a regular basis had been Ted Osher and Billy Nugent. Billy was my aunt’s accountant. A freckle-faced strawberry-blond, he was another nice guy, but he saved his passion for neat little rows of numbers and football. Put him in a crowded stadium with a group of men wearing shoulder pads and the transformation was downright scary. The meek accountant turned into a raging maniac.

Now, I like football as well as the next armchair quarterback, but it’s a game! Billy took every bad play as a personal affront. He’d actually thrown a ledger through his mother’s television set one time when the Browns missed a field goal. With the season about to begin again, I knew it was time to start looking around for someone else to date.

Ted and Billy are okay to look at, steadily employed, good to their mothers and…well, frankly, boring. The man sliding into the Honda did not look the least bit boring. I couldn’t speak to the rest, but it was too bad I hadn’t been hired to tail him.

I looked back toward the driveway just in time to see a gleaming white Jaguar glide through the open gate of the Russo’s driveway. Elaine Russo was leaving.

Her car turned right onto the street. The opposite direction I was facing, naturally. The handsome stranger’s car fell in several car lengths behind her while I had to shoo Sam Two back over the backseat and start Binky.

Putting him into gear, I made a tight U-turn on the narrow street as the burgundy car disappeared around the corner at the end of the street. Both animals protested loudly as I hurried to close the distance. Sam One went back to desperately clawing the insides of the box while Sam Two tried to drown him out with sheer volume right behind my seat.

I turned on the radio in self-defense and hung back as far as I dared as soon as I spotted the white Jaguar some distance up ahead. There was no way I was inconspicuous if she was watching for a tail. I blessed the burgundy Honda’s presence in between us until it turned off onto a side street and left me the only car on the road behind her.

Apparently Elaine wasn’t paying attention to her rearview mirror. While she might not be concerned if she did notice me back here, that would change if she continued to see my car everywhere she went. If only there’d been time to borrow my aunt’s light gray Buick.

Fortunately Elaine didn’t seem to be in a hurry. Everyone had heard of Legacy Village, but I’m a west-side girl. The east side of Cleveland isn’t my territory, so I wasn’t sure how to get there from here. My map was so old, it didn’t even show the development. That meant I had to stay close enough to the Jag that Elaine didn’t lose me.

I was concentrating on maintaining the proper distance when it suddenly occurred to me to wonder why Albert Russo had selected me to tail his wife. I mean, there had to be other female private investigators he could have hired. Ones that lived on his side of town. They would have been more familiar with the area and no doubt would have blended in far better than I was doing.

When Russo had called and asked for a meeting, I’d simply been grateful for the work. Now I started wondering. They say you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, but, as Trudy liked to point out, how else are you going to determine how sharp the teeth are?

Both cats continued making a ruckus as I pulled into the shopping center two cars behind the Jag. The village concept for housing tracts is all the rage right now, even though I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that Walt Disney pioneered the concept long before I was born. The problem is, with land being at such a premium, the builders make their money on retail spaces, not parking spaces, so they don’t bother planning for adequate parking.

The Jaguar had no problem, of course. Cars couldn’t get out of its way fast enough. Those same cars sneered at Binky. I lost two parking places to vehicles that cost more than the contents of my entire apartment before I got lucky. A Lexus started pulling out four cars down from me. I had to beat out a jerk with a dark-tinted SUV to claim the spot, but Binky’s tight turn radius outmaneuvered him, and I zipped in with ease. Not only that, but it was one of the few spots completely in the shade. I thanked the fates as I climbed out of the car, taking care that I was the only one who got out.

Fortunately my camera was in the trunk. The last thing I wanted to do was dispute territory with the angry animal on the backseat. The box on the front seat gave me pause. I was pretty sure Sam One couldn’t eat his way through the heavy cardboard, but it sounded as if he was giving it a valiant try.

There was no time to worry about that now. I grabbed my camera and set off after Elaine Russo before I lost her in the crowd. A tall, leggy blonde with short swingy hair and an aristocratic bearing, she strolled along as if she owned the place, looking neither left nor right.

If her husband had thought this dinner was a cover for an assignation with a lover, he was going to be sadly disappointed. I was in a good position to watch her meet with three women close to her age—twenty-eight, according to what her husband had told me. Elaine was obviously a trophy wife. Albert was close to seventy if he was a day.

I snapped several good shots of the women while I pretended to photograph the area. Elaine had her back to me the whole time. I willed her to turn around to no avail. I figured it didn’t matter since Russo knew what she looked like. It was the people she met with he wanted pictures of.

The restaurant was surprisingly crowded for a Monday evening. People stood inside and outside talking in clusters. The four women were standing outside. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to be able to get inside with them, but I decided it didn’t matter as long as I didn’t miss Elaine when she left. Besides, I felt self-conscious dressed the way I was. There were plenty of other people wearing shorts and T-shirts, but theirs hadn’t come from a discount store, nor were they stained with blood and smudged with dirt and cat hairs.

At least the crowds offered plenty of cover for me. I stood wilting in the sun, trying to appear as though I belonged there and was waiting to meet someone. And as I was looking around for a place with a view to wait while they ate dinner, I glimpsed a dark-haired man moving away from me. Something about him reminded me of the sexy stranger with the Honda. To my profound disappointment, he stepped inside a store before I could get an unobstructed view of him.

I shouldn’t really be wasting time ogling sexy strangers anyhow. My job was to keep my eye on Elaine, and it was a good thing I did. We’d only been standing there a matter of minutes when she did the unexpected. She left.

With a wave and a smile she sauntered back to the parking lot, nearly catching me flat. Maybe Albert Russo hadn’t misread his wife after all. It appeared that this dinner with friends was nothing more than a setup for her real assignation.

I felt a hum of excitement. I had no idea where she was going next, but this was bound to be the reason Russo had hired me. If she lost me now, my client would be most unhappy.

The idea of a man with possible mobster ties being unhappy with me started a thread of tension mingling with my excitement. Tension quickly turned to panic when I nearly lost her coming out of the parking area. There was some sort of fender bender two rows over that caused enough confusion that she made the traffic light and I didn’t.

I spent several minutes sweating buckets and muttering incoherently before I was able to charge down the road in the direction she had taken. I didn’t slow down until I came up on the white Jag driving at a leisurely pace a short distance in front of me. Breathing a considerable sigh of relief, I noted Elaine was talking to someone on her cell phone as she drove. The boyfriend to tell him she was on her way?

Elaine was a careful driver. That came as something of a shock because the perky blonde didn’t strike me as the slow and methodical type. Still, I was deeply grateful as she all but led me by the hand, using her turn signals well ahead of time as we headed into downtown Cleveland near the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I was on more familiar territory now, but my relief was short lived. I was seriously underdressed for her next stop.

Scarpanelli’s is a new Italian restaurant with a commanding view overlooking Lake Erie near the Burke Lakefront Airport. I wasn’t sure, but I thought it might be one of the places my client, Albert Russo, owns. I’d heard the food was superb if you didn’t mind dropping close to a hundred dollars on a meal. I minded. I didn’t even date guys with that sort of money.

Assuming I could get the hostess to let me inside dressed in shorts, I still had a problem. I couldn’t afford an appetizer, let alone a meal in there. The restaurant was busy but not yet crowded. That would come later. Right now it was mostly wealthy families and the blue-rinse walker-and-cane crowd. Elaine would stand out in that mix. Too bad I wouldn’t be able to see who she was standing out to meet. This was not good. In fact, this was very bad.

I debated calling Russo on the number he’d given me to explain the problem, but I couldn’t see him being particularly sympathetic. He was attending some important business dinner tonight and he’d hired me to do a job. He wouldn’t want excuses as to why I couldn’t do said job.

From now on, I vowed, I’d keep a couple of outfits in the trunk for emergencies like this one. In the meantime I was stuck. I couldn’t follow her inside, so I’d have to see if I could find a place outside where I could peer in.

No such luck. The entire back wall was elevated and composed of tinted glass. Patrons could see out over the lake, but I couldn’t see in.

I was making my way around the building when I surprised a young man near the kitchen entrance. He was puffing a joint in a secluded nook near the trash bins. His body jerked, sharply startled when I appeared around the corner.

“Hey. What are you doing here? You aren’t allowed back here.”

At a guess, he was about seventeen. Based on his dark pants and white shirt I figured him for a busboy. I offered him a friendly smile.

“You aren’t allowed to smoke weed either, but that doesn’t seem to be stopping you. Look, I’m not interested in your drug habits, I’m a private investigator,” I told him before he could get bent out of shape.

“Yeah, right.”

Whipping out my ID folder, I offered him proof. He studied it almost as carefully as Mickey had.

“Hey, cool. You want a hit?”

“No, thanks, but I could use your help.”

“Yeah?”

“There’s a woman inside the restaurant. Tall blonde, short hair with bangs. She’s wearing a pale blue skirt and a matching silk blouse.” I pulled out the picture of Elaine Russo and gave him a look. “She went in alone a few minutes ago. I need to know who she’s meeting in there. There’s a twenty in it for you if you can help me out.”

Which would leave me exactly three dollars in cash until I found an ATM. But, hey, I’d get the money back under expenses.

The kid smirked. He looked me up and down curiously. I could see he was intrigued.

“How come you want to know about her?”

I shrugged, trying for blasé. “It’s my job. Her husband hired me to see if she’s meeting another man.”

“I thought P.I.’s were guys like they show on television.”

“Lots of them are,” I agreed, trying not to grit my teeth. “Haven’t you ever heard of Charlie’s Angels?”

His eyes lit. “Like the movies?”

“Less death-defying action but the same concept.”

“Yeah? That’s cool. You carry a gun?”

He seemed to be trying to decide where I was hiding one under my snug white shorts and thin pink T-shirt.

“Not at the moment. This is a simple tail job. No guns required. Think you can help me out?”

He finished his joint and nodded. I could see the questions bubbling up inside him, so I was surprised when he glanced at his watch and straightened.

“I’ll check for you, but you’d better wait around the corner over there. Benny’ll be dumping trash pretty soon and he won’t like you hanging here.”

“Thanks. That’s fine.”

“I’ll be back, but it might be a while.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Unless Elaine decided to leave here all of a sudden, too.

I tried not to feel conspicuous as I moved to stand near the corner of the restaurant where I could keep an eye on the parking lot. The day’s heat was finally melting away. There was even a welcome breeze coming in off the lake. Unfortunately I was too nervous to be properly appreciative. The luscious smells wafting from the kitchen were making me drool. I wondered if they fed strays at the kitchen door. I’d willingly sit up and beg for a taste of what I was sniffing. The longer I stood there, the louder my stomach complained. I fervently wished my busboy would return and tell me what was going on inside.

After what felt like I’d been standing there for hours, he scooted out the back door and rushed over to where I was waiting.

“I can’t stay,” he told me breathlessly. “Your woman’s in there, all right. Table thirty-two. She ordered the French onion soup with tonight’s special, the lobster fettuccine—”

“Did she meet anyone?” I interrupted before he could give me any more details. Visualizing food when my stomach was knocking against the back of my ribs was sheer torture. “Has anyone approached her table?”

“Nope. As far as I can tell, she’s completely alone. Kinda surprising. I mean, she’s not bad looking for an older woman, you know? She just ordered coffee and the white-chocolate-mousse cake, so she’ll probably be in there for another half hour or so. She doesn’t seem to be in any hurry.”

I fished out my twenty and watched it disappear into his hip pocket. “Thanks. I appreciate your help.”

“No problem. Want me to bring you something from the kitchen while you’re waiting?”

More than anything in the world. With extreme reluctance I shook my head, reminding myself I was supposed to be on a diet anyhow.

“Thanks, but I have to be ready to roll when she is. What’s your name, anyhow?”

“Rob. Rob Deluth.”

I stuck out my hand. “Dee Hayes,” I told him as we shook. “Thanks again for your help, Rob. If you ever need a P.I., look me up. I’m in the phone book. I don’t have any cards on me at the moment.” The new ones I’d printed were still sitting on my desk in the office back at the flower shop. I’d forgotten to stick them in my folder again.

“Cool. Thanks. I gotta get back before they miss me.”

As he ran back to the kitchen entrance, I hurried across the parking lot to the Jaguar. There were a lot of people moving about now, but no one gave me a second glance. I’m not sure why I went over to her car, really. I wasn’t looking for anything specific, but since I had time to kill, checking out her car seemed like the natural thing to do.

Elaine hadn’t struck me as a careless person. She certainly didn’t drive like one, yet she’d left her driver’s door unlocked. The temptation was irresistible. This was probably the only opportunity I’d ever have to sit in a Jaguar. Besides, there was a sheet of paper lying on the passenger’s seat. I needed to check it out. It could be a clue.

The plush leather seat cocooned me the moment I sank down. The opulent interior still retained a trace of coolness from the air conditioner. Reaching for the paper, I saw it was a set of hand-printed directions to a piano lounge downtown called Victor’s. I’d never heard of the place, but the directions were straightforward and it wasn’t far from here. Tuesday, 8:00 p.m., and a phone number had been printed across the top like an afterthought.

This was almost too easy. Fate seemed to be nurturing me for once. I blew it a mental kiss and made a note of the phone number. I wondered if the number went with the lounge or the person she was supposed to meet. Since it looked like a cell phone number, odds were it was the latter, but I wouldn’t know for sure unless I gave the number a try.

The car itself was so pristine, it could have just come from a car wash. Heck, it probably had. Binky hadn’t seen the inside of a car wash since…come to think of it, he may never have seen the inside of a car wash. I decided to make it up to him first chance I got while I continued to search the interior of the Jag. I didn’t expect to find a thing.

Certainly not the .38 revolver she had tucked up under the driver’s seat.

That gave me serious pause. Why was someone like Elaine Russo carrying concealed? I guess it made sense if her husband was a mobster. And I suppose it was possible she had a permit. Still, that heavy lump of metal made me very nervous. It implied a whole lot of things and none of them were good. People with guns have a bad habit of firing them.

I own a gun, but I’ve only ever used it on a firing range. It isn’t something I carry around, even though I have a permit. I replaced the weapon carefully back under the front seat. A strand of blond hair on the carpeting caught my attention.

Interesting. Either Elaine had extremely dry, coarse hair or she liked wigs. Wearing one in this heat didn’t seem likely unless she had some sort of a physical problem requiring one.

Tucking the hair in my pocket, I stepped from the car and crossed the lot to where I’d parked Binky. Sam Two sat on the driver’s seat scratching at the box on the passenger side. The minute he saw me, he leaped onto the box and over the seat into the back once more.

Binky was warmer inside than the Jag had been, but the temperature wasn’t too bad anymore. That breeze coming in off the lake through the windows had cooled things down considerably, and it probably helped that I was parked in the shade. Still, I was worried about the cats.

“Sorry, guys. I should have asked Rob for some water. I could use a drink myself, but we’ll have to wait until I get you home.”

Neither of them made a sound as I reached for my cell phone and punched in the number printed on the paper I’d found.

“Hello?” A decidedly delicious voice answered.

Deep, rich, sexy and male, the sound washed over me. Definitely not Victor’s Lounge unless this was Victor himself.

“Sorry,” I told the voice. “I must have the wrong number.”

“Who were you trying to reach?”

There was a sudden edge to the voice. It was still a great voice.

“Sharon Armstrong,” I told him. I pulled a friend’s name off the top of my head and read him back his number, transposing the last two digits. He corrected me immediately.

I could have listened to his voice forever, but my quarry chose that moment to leave the restaurant, so I apologized and hung up. I wondered if the man matched his voice. Then I wondered if I was about to find out. Was she on her way to meet the man behind that voice?

There was enough traffic on the street that I didn’t have to worry about being spotted now. When I felt certain Elaine’s destination was the address on the paper, I decided to take a chance. I turned off, took a shortcut that would bring me up on the street behind Victor’s and parked the car where I’d have no trouble getting out in a hurry. I walked around the block and stood across the street in the doorway of a closed shop. It afforded me a good view of the parking lot as well as the front door of the lounge while keeping me relatively concealed.

Elaine pulled in even as I slipped into position. She stepped from the Jag and flashed a look around as if she was expecting someone. After a few seconds, she frowned and headed for the entrance.

I decided to give her ten minutes to get settled before going inside myself. I was regretting my generosity with Rob. Since I only had three dollars left, I couldn’t go sit at the bar. The best I could do was have a quick peek inside to see who she met. I might be able to snap a picture unobserved, but it wasn’t likely. I’d have to try for the man’s picture when they came back outside.

And I was fairly sure it would be a he. A woman doesn’t go to a place like Victor’s alone unless she’s meeting someone or trolling. Either way I needed to capture the moment on my digital camera.

Since I couldn’t read my watch in the growing darkness, I had to guess at the time. I was about to make my move when there was a movement near the back of the lounge’s parking lot. Someone had stepped out of a car that was already parked back there. The car was a burgundy Honda. It must have been sitting there before Elaine arrived or I would have noticed it pulling in. Given that I don’t believe in coincidence, I knew who the driver would turn out to be even before he came into view.

My heart skipped a beat, then started thumping like a wild thing. I almost forgot to bring up the camera. I was right. The zoom lens wasn’t necessary to tell me that this was the same man who’d been parked on Elaine’s street earlier this evening.