Читать книгу The Private Concierge - Suzanne Forster, Suzanne Forster - Страница 15

“It’s a go, Ashley. Sign the lease.” A squeal on the other end of the line forced Lane to lower the volume of her earpiece. But she couldn’t suppress a grin as she walked briskly down the Avenue of the Stars, toward the Santa Monica Mountains in the distance. She’d just green-lighted the plans to open the TPC branch in Dallas. She’d been putting it off for weeks, and she was as excited as Ashley, who’d been stranded in Dallas, scouting locations. Probably as nervous, too.

“Make sure it’s the entire tenth floor,” Lane said, “and we’re good to go. Next step is getting the place staffed. You’re going to be running the show, so put together your short list of contenders for the key positions and set up the interviews. I can be there this Thursday. That gives you four days.”

“Will do! I’ll have everything ready when you get here, and thank you so much for this opportunity. This is it for me, the ultimate, really. My dream.”

“And your chance to make it come true,” Lane said, congratulating her warmly, even though Ashley was really Val’s choice. But that felt good, too. It was time to let go of the reins and give Val his head. He’d been pushing for the expansion, and he knew the staff better than she did, in terms of their leadership abilities. Besides, Lane was not the maverick that some people thought. She believed in teamwork. She’d played some beach volleyball when she was in college, and she’d admired the way the really good teams worked. One set up the shot, and the other one took it. That’s what she and Val had just done, although he still didn’t know it.

Lane excused herself, gently cutting the conversation short with Ashley. Lane’s next call was to their receptionist, letting Mary know the Dallas move was official and to order champagne. Lane had decided the office needed something to celebrate, given their latest client fiasco—the frightening business that very morning with Priscilla Brandt. But Mary reminded her that Val was holding staff meetings all afternoon, so Lane’s bright idea would have to be postponed.

She dropped her cell in her suit pocket and kept walking, oblivious to the fashion incongruity of white Nike Turbo Plus jogging shoes and a black spandex designer suit with a pencil skirt. She probably should have been a New Yorker. Walking was a requirement for her sanity. And today, she’d had no choice. She’d been stuck for too long, mired in doubt and indecision about the expansion. Walking helped clear her head and give her the perspective she needed to make decisions. It felt like she was moving forward in all ways, not just physically. She was charging, going somewhere.

But Jerry had told her never to venture out at night, so here she was, on her lunch hour, despite the obvious drawbacks of walking in L.A. at noon. Car exhaust, for one. It really wasn’t a good idea to walk in cities where you could see the air you were breathing. Worse, it was the middle of the day, and hot. Her breasts were sweating again. And walking was costing her a fortune, no matter what anyone said about it being the low-cost alternative to health clubs. She was paying dearly just for the privilege of living close enough to walk back and forth to work.

But who’d have thought she would ever have a fortune to pay. Not so terribly long ago she was penniless and homeless. She attended high school classes in juvenile hall and later tackled college on a scholarship, supplemented by multiple part-time jobs, one of which was helping a professor who’d penned a surprise bestseller and desperately needed someone to organize his life. He’d been so thrilled with her efforts he’d referred his entertainment lawyer to her, who’d referred more clients. It had started like that, a chain reaction. And then she’d dragged Darwin, kicking and screaming, into the fold, and he’d invented his crazy “electronic bodyguard” phone, as he called it in those days. Finally, after two years of abject toil, she’d bagged her first really big client, who’d become another source of referrals, and ready cash.

And she hadn’t stopped moving since.

Rick Bayless watched Detective Mimi Parsons take a huge bite of her PB & J on Wonder Bread, give it several distracted chews and then wash everything down with a slug of milk from a quart carton, which she’d probably swiped from the coffee room. She was glued to the tabloid magazine on her desk and hadn’t noticed him standing not six feet away, observing her and the otherwise empty police-station bullpen.

Everyone’s out to lunch, Rick thought, especially her.

At least she wasn’t into health food, like the rest of southern California. She had snack packages of potato chips and chocolate-chip cookies lined up for her second and third courses. Not into highbrow reading material, either. The article was upside down to Rick, but he could make out the title from where he stood by the door, and it had something to do with a transgender female prison inmate giving birth to a fur-bearing baby of questionable species.

Not much has changed, he thought, smiling to himself. Mimi was still a mess. Her desk was stacked high with case files, unfinished reports and research data. Her blazer jacket was wrinkled and too large on her petite frame, not that he was any expert on fashion. Most notably, though, she was completely tuned out to everything but what held her attention at that moment. That’s what had made her a stellar detective when they were partners, her avid, Peeping Tom–like concentration.

Rick had asked for Coop at the desk, but the clerk told him Don Cooper had been loaned out to the Palos Verdes Estates Police Department on a case. Rick figured that was apt punishment for Don’s loquaciousness. Not much to talk about at PVEPD. A big case there involved victims of rabid squirrel attacks on golf courses. Occasionally someone got nailed by a runaway cart.

Rick had done a little more digging with the clerk, found out that Mimi was peripherally involved in the Ned Talbert case, and used all of his considerable stealth to sneak in here and surprise her. He and Mimi had done their thing fifteen years ago, working juvenile vice out of the downtown L.A. bureau. A year or so after he resigned, in part because of remarks he’d made that were critical of the juvenile-hall system, Mimi had called and told him she was switching to homicide. She’d sailed through the requirements, eventually transferred down here to the West Side police station, and she’d been an integral part of their detective division ever since.

Rick had been instrumental in helping her get the job. She’d wanted out of the grinder, and he had pulled a few strings. Mimi actually did owe him for that, not that she’d ever admit it. Theirs had been a love-hate relationship, never romantic, sometimes trying, but always interesting.

He scuffed his feet, and she looked up, eyes narrowing at the sight of him. “What in the H are you doing here, Bayless? I haven’t fired my gun yet this year. You’re going to make me break that record?”

It was her way of saying hi. Rick nodded, unsmiling. His way.

He braved her suspicious, get-out-of-my-space glare and walked to her desk. Conversationally, he said, “I hear you’re working with the Robbery Homicide Division on the Ned Talbert case.”

She slapped down her sandwich, yielding to his rude intrusion. “And Ned was a friend of yours, I know. I’m sorry about that, I really am, but I can’t tell you anything beyond what’s been in the news, and you know it.”

“So, you are working with RHD.” LAPD’s Robbery Homicide Division often took jurisdiction when homicides involved high-profile individuals or special circumstances, even if the crime had happened within the jurisdiction of another bureau. Ned’s home was within the physical boundaries of the West bureau, which made the West L.A. station the occurrence division. So, fortunately for Rick, even if Robbery-Homicide was running the case, the West L.A. people would have been first at the scene, which meant Mimi may have had a near-virgin look at the crime scene.

“If I was working with them, that would be all the more reason I couldn’t help you. Sorry.”

“Who said I wanted help? Maybe I have some things to tell you.”

“Yeah? Like?”

“Like Ned may have joined a private-concierge service just before he died. And like several other high-profile clients of that service have been accused of criminal acts. Big names, major shit, and all of it recent, like within the last month.”

She glanced at the tabloid, which she so clearly preferred over his company. “What kind of criminal acts?”

“International drug smuggling and child pornography, for starters. Mimi, it may not be a coincidence that they all belong to the same service. It could be the link that connects them.”

“Connects them to what, a serial killer? Are they all dead?”

“Not dead. Caught. Snared. They’re all embroiled in career-ending scandals and most are looking at significant prison time if they’re convicted. Maybe Ned wasn’t supposed to die. Maybe he was supposed to have his career ended, too, and something went wrong. Someone should follow up on that. You, for example.”

This was the moment when Rick would have handed her the TPC card with the word Extortion? on the back in Ned’s handwriting, but he didn’t want to have to lie to her about where he got it. And he wasn’t quite ready to talk about the missing package, either.

“Where did you come up with this information? Do you know all these people personally?”

“Ned? Personally? I’ve known him since he was five, and he isn’t into whips and chains. He’s not a killer, and he wasn’t suicidal. He had everything to live for, as the cliché goes.”

“Did Ned tell you about this service? Did he have suspicions?”

Lie, Bayless. She’s never going to get the significance otherwise.

He drew Lane Chandler’s card out of his jacket pocket. “Ned was using this as a marker in a book he loaned me. Take a look at what he wrote on the back.”

She glanced at the question Ned had scribbled on the back, her lips pursing as she turned the card over and continued to scrutinize it. “Not much to go on, Sherlock.”

“Right, but Ned also paid me a visit at my cabin the night before he and his girlfriend were found dead. He said he was in trouble, that someone was trying to blackmail him. I had other things on my mind and sent him away. The next day, well, you know what happened.”

She closed one eye, squinting at him. “So, this is about your guilt?”

“It’s about follow-up, Mimi. Your specialty. You need to check this out—or get one of those RHD hotshots to do it.”

Her expression said gimme a fricking break, but he knew Mimi, and she wouldn’t have cleaned it up that much. “You know how they are, Rick. They’re gods. The stink of the O.J. case will never go away, but they still walk on water. What do you think my chances are of getting them to go along with this? They’ll laugh me off the case and loan me out to Palos Verdes.”

It was a credit to Rick’s years of practice that he didn’t smile.

She held out the card, which he pointedly ignored.

“It ain’t happening, Bayless,” she insisted. “From what I hear, the case is being written up as a murder-suicide, and the lab results aren’t even in yet. That’s how sure they are.”

Rick’s jaw clenched so tightly he could hear a click in his ears. “How sure they are? How could they be sure of anything at this point? Maybe it’s how anxious they are to be rid of this case. Did you ever think to ask yourself why, Mimi? Did it even occur to you that something else might be going on here?”

Mimi sighed. “I know cover-up is a buzz phrase these days, but it’s a little early for that, don’t you think? I was at the crime scene, and it sure as hell looked like a murder-suicide to me.”

That’s what Rick had been waiting to hear from her, but he didn’t want to look too eager. Better to continue his rant a little longer. “And isn’t that convenient for everyone concerned. They’re not even going to bother with the lab reports? Either that came down from above, which raises more questions, or these guys are lazy.”

Mimi shrugged, as if to say probably both. She peered at Rick. “If it were me, I’d write it off as a coincidence. Do you think it might be your history, not to mention animosity, toward the department that’s causing you to look for conspiracies where there are none?”

“My history is exactly why I can’t write it off.” With that, he changed the subject. “Take another look at that card. Do you recognize the name?”

“Lane Chandler?” She shook her head. “Should I?”

“We booked her for prostitution when she was a juvenile living on the streets—fifteen years old, to be exact. She was calling herself Lane Chandler, but her real name was Lucy Cox.”

Mimi rolled back in her chair, stunned. She stared at the card. “Holy shit, this is the kid that set off the firestorm. You might still be working in vice if not for her. Me, too, for that matter.”

“I never shed a tear about leaving vice. The point is, Lane Chandler has a criminal past, even if she was a juvenile at the time—and we need to know what she’s been doing since. Does she have an adult record, anything at all? I’d love to know how she ended up with clients like the CEO of TopCo and a hot commodity like Simon Shan.”

“She represents Simon Shan?”

Mimi’s eyes widened. Apparently Shan was a hot commodity. Rick didn’t keep up with celebrity gossip, but he’d seen enough of it on Gotcha.com to know that Lane’s service had become a lightning rod. The coincidence of so many clients in trouble at one company had not slipped Seth Black’s attention, either. Of the bunch, Shan had been cited as the one with the most to lose.

That was before Ned Talbert died under gruesome circumstances, but Ned wasn’t mentioned as a client of TPC, which meant the list had probably been made up before he joined—and Black had noticed the pattern even before Ned’s death.

Rick added some more names. “U.S. congressman Burton Carr and Priscilla Brandt, who’s hawking a book about manners. It’s quite a list.”

“Ms. Pris?” Mimi seemed impressed. “Still, the case is all but closed, and they’re not going to open it up again because Ned joined a concierge service whose clients are having a string of bad luck. So, what do you think is going on?”

“I don’t know, but I sure as hell wish I’d listened to what Ned was trying to tell me.”

She scribbled down a note on her desk blotter, which was unlikely ever to be found again, given all the doodling already there. “Maybe I could do some checking on Lane Chandler or Lucy Cox, just for old time’s sake and because I’m kind of curious myself. Not that I owe you any favors. Because I sure as hell don’t.”

“Thanks,” he said, deadpan. Better not to let her know that he was breathing easier. He lingered, wondering how to segue to his next concern.

She ripped open a bag of chips, about to wedge a few too many into her open mouth, when she realized he was still intent on something—her. “What? You hungry?”

“I was just wondering about the evidence from the crime scene. No big deal, but I left a package over at Ned’s. I thought one of the techs might have picked it up.”

“Rick, you’re not really asking me to mess with the evidence, are you? Tell me you’re not.”

He shrugged, tilting just enough to grab a couple chips from her bag. He was taking a chance by tying himself with the package, but what the hell. Getting caught with his hand in a fifteen-year-old cookie jar was the least of his worries these days, especially with his gut telling him the package had been lifted before the police ever got there. Mimi might be able to confirm that for him.

“You could tell me if it’s there, couldn’t you?” he coaxed. “It’s an old brown bubble pack, eight by eleven, unmarked but pretty beaten up. I’d like to have it back when the investigation’s over.”

“What’s inside?”

“Personal stuff,” he said, wondering if he could still blush. “It’s a little embarrassing.”

She heaved a sigh and picked up her sandwich, poking a bubble of red jelly back between soggy crusts. “Don’t push it, Rick.”

He nodded. “Right, I’ll leave you to your lunch.” He had a feeling she would check. Yeah, definitely, Mimi was going to check. It was that Peeping Tom thing. Whether she’d tell him was another question.