TEDDIE WAS gone.
Tangible and real, his absence throbbed like a deep wound.
Before I opened my eyes to the new day, and hoping I was wrong, I moved my hand under the covers to his side of the bed. The sheets were cold.
We’d decided to sleep at my place, which was all of one floor below Teddie’s. I guess he’d thought it would be easier for me to wake up alone in my own bed. He was wrong.
The clock had rolled over to 2 a.m. just before I’d drifted to sleep with Teddie wrapped around me. Later, we’d made love. Slow and delicious, make-up sex was almost worth the irritation leading up to it. Almost.
I’d spent most of my life sleeping by myself, getting up by myself, eating alone. I even had a list of the finest restaurants in Vegas catering to a table of one. I could certainly function on my own. Yet, if I was so all-fired self-sufficient, why did Teddie’s absence leave a hole in my heart?
Like a punch I never saw coming, the truth hammered home—I could never go back. Worse, along with my heart, I had sacrificed control. Love changed everything, and now my love was in California. He’d come back…wouldn’t he? But what if his dreams were bigger than me? Bigger than us?
My mother always told me that if I had a worry I couldn’t do anything about, I should mentally lock it away and throw away the key. Closing my eyes, I tried her trick.
It didn’t work.
A giant chasm of uncertainty, the day yawned in front of me.
I swung my feet to the floor, then went in search of coffee. My apartment, a vast expanse of hardwood floors and whitewashed walls, wasn’t nearly as grand as Teddie’s place, but it was home. Huge floor-to-ceiling windows invited the bright desert sun inside. Pastels of the many moods of the Mojave hung on the walls. Clusters of furniture in bright colors broke the huge main room into definable areas, each with its own function—talking, eating, making love…
I clamped a lid on those memories. The whole visual thing was too much at this hour, especially without Teddie. God, I so needed to get my libido under control. If this is what I was like after a few hours of not even the remotest chance of meaningful sex, I’d be a blithering idiot by the time Teddie came home. Or I’d be really popular with the male half of the population. Or in jail.
I punched the button on the coffee machine, then grimaced as the grinder whirred like a jet engine at full power. On the theory fresh-ground coffee beans made better coffee than the stuff in hermetically sealed cans, I’d suffered the assault of the grinder each morning for months now. To be honest, I couldn’t discern any difference in the coffee. One of these days the morning decibel overload would clash with a preceding night of liquid overindulgence, and I’d fling the offending machine over the balcony. Coffee really wasn’t my thing anyway. It was merely the most expedient caffeine delivery vehicle.
After cutting the dark brew with equal parts whole milk, I took my first sip. Like an addict savoring a hit, I sighed at the sheer physical delight of the caffeine jump-start. Good thing the drug was still legal or I’d be in serious need of a twelve-step program.
Scratching sounds from the corner reminded me I wasn’t alone—I still had a roommate.
I might not have Teddie, but I had Newton.
As I pulled the cover from the large cage, Newton greeted me. “Asshole! Asshole! Asshole!” The macaw’s head bobbed up and down as he scurried from one side of his perch to the other.
“Glad to see you, too.” I pushed a piece of browned apple from the plate by his cage through the bars.
“Screw you!” Newton hurled at me, then grabbed the fruit.
“You’re welcome.” I changed the big bird’s water while he worked on his treat. Newton and his foul mouth had found me a couple of years ago. Listening to his repertoire, I’d been appalled at the home he must’ve come from. Unable to send him back, I kept him despite the fact that pet ownership was inconsistent with my lifestyle.
Running back and forth from work to home to feed him and cover him for the night had lasted three days. Defeated, I hired a service to come twice a day—a good solution, so far.
Watching him, I drained my mug of coffee, then refilled it, and headed off to the shower. Time to start the day. Romeo would be waiting.
The bright yellow sign announced the Omelet House had been in business in the same location since 1979—a feat deserving of historical landmark status in Vegas, the town of constant renewal. The parking lot was almost full, but I managed to find two spaces to angle the Porsche across. For a moment I thought better of taking more than my share. I might avoid a door ding but get a fist to the hood for my efforts. In this neighborhood that was a possibility, but, after careful deliberation, I decided to take my chances.
I paused at the newspaper box. A minute of rooting in my Birkin and I’d found enough change to spring for this morning’s Review-Journal. Numbers Neidermeyer had made the front page again. I scanned the article quickly—nothing really important other than the byline—“Flash” Gordon, a friend and ally. Today was looking up.
Behind solid-wood double doors surrounded by leaded glass, the Omelet House lurked in the back end of a strip center that had seen better days. I grabbed the handle of the right door and yanked. Most of the time the left side was locked. With its dark wood paneling, dim lights, and floors stained with the passage of time, the interior did little to inspire confidence. Autographed pictures of celebrities competed for wall space with framed certificates from the annual “Best of Vegas” competition run by the Review-Journal. The Omelet House was a perennial winner in the Best Breakfast category. Kitschy knickknacks adorned the walls. Frank Sinatra crooned in the background.
Betty, the hostess, was as much an institution as the restaurant itself. A short woman with dark red hair, Betty wore an ever-present smile and so many gold bangles she was in serious danger of not being able to lift her arms. Each morning she corralled the patrons with a kind word and an iron hand—a good thing since the line often extended into the parking lot.
With a hint of her native Italy, she greeted me like an old friend. “How ya doin’, Ms. O’Toole? Good to see ya.”
“Good.” I would’ve asked her how she was doing, but then I would have wanted to linger and chat and I didn’t have the time. Romeo was waiting. “I’m meeting someone.”
“Cute young fella?” She gave me a wink.
I nodded.
“Your secret’s safe with me.” She grabbed a menu and turned on her heel. “He’s waiting in your regular spot. It’s not in Shirley’s section today, but I’ll let her know you’re here.”
I followed Betty up a small ramp to an elevated section of booths. My favorite was the last one on the right—don’t ask me why. For some unfathomable reason, all of the booths had one side overstuffed like a built-in booster seat. I had a sneaky suspicion the carpenter who had built them must have been short, but I never could prove it, not that I’d tried.
Betty had put me on the high side…once. Now Romeo occupied that position. If he was uncomfortable, I couldn’t tell from looking at him. Young and still wet behind the ears, Romeo had yet to adopt the jaded expression of a cop who’d seen it all, which made sense because he hadn’t. In fact, he hadn’t even seen a small fraction of the dirty side of the street.
His unruly sandy-blond hair, blue eyes, quick grin, and gee-whiz attitude reminded me more of a kid hoping for a Triple-A contract with the 51s than a future Columbo. Yet, he was my best contact in Metro, and, conveniently, he’d done the investigation up to this point on Shark-Bait Neidermeyer. A while ago I’d helped him score some points with the brass, and now it was payback time. I needed to know what he knew.
“Sorry I’m late.” I slid into the booth as Betty poured me a mug of coffee and freshened Romeo’s. “I don’t know if you’ve already made your decision, but their green chili is a religious experience.”
The kid grabbed his menu. “Really? I didn’t see that.”
“They call it ‘chili verde.’” I pushed my menu aside as I tried to open a creamer into my coffee. The white liquid squirted across the table. “Damn. These things always get me.”
Romeo gave me the look a parent would give a helpless child. “Let me.” He opened one and got all the white stuff into the mug with nary a squirt.
“Thanks. My skill set clearly excludes opening creamers.” I took a sip of steaming coffee. I’d probably had enough already—the top of my head felt like it was going to explode—but lead this horse to caffeine, and you won’t have a problem making her drink. “Order the number one,” I instructed Romeo. “With scrambled eggs, pumpkin bread, crisp potatoes, and a small side of chili verde. You won’t be disappointed.”
My favorite waitress appeared as if summoned. A thin woman with dancing dark eyes and a ready smile, Shirley knew all the regulars. “Hey Lucky! You keepin’ them in line at that hotel of yours?”
“They seem to be getting the better of me these days,” I said, being more truthful than Shirley thought.
“And that cutie, Teddie, where is he today?” she asked, giving Romeo the eye. Teddie made fans wherever he went.
“He’s in California. This is Detective Romeo.”
Shirley looked relieved. Had she really thought I could handle Teddie and the kid? Or would want to? Clearly I was projecting the wrong image.
“I’ll tell Teddie hello for you,” I said.
“You do that.” Shirley pulled her pencil from the mass of curls on top of her head. “I know you want your usual,” she said to me, then looked at Romeo. “And, young man, what’ll it be?”
Romeo thought for a moment. “I’ll have what she’s having.”
That settled, Shirley disappeared, then Romeo dove right in. “I know you didn’t invite me to breakfast because you miss me. You want the skinny on the shark-tank lady.” Under Romeo’s Clark Kent exterior lurked a guy who could cut to the chase.
From the moment I’d met Romeo, I knew he had potential.
“She was no lady,” I said with a scowl. “But, yes, you’re right.”
“I don’t know anything you don’t know.” Romeo kept his expression bland.
“Then why did you grill Jeremy Whitlock?”
Romeo’s eyes grew a fraction wider. He had a thing or two to learn about bluffing. “The district attorney seemed to think your Mr. Whitlock knew more than he was letting on.”
“I see.” I said, although I didn’t. Why was Lovie Lovato pushing so hard? “And did he?”
“Not that I could tell.” Romeo’s expression collapsed. He played with his fork and knife, knocking them together until I slapped a hand on them to silence the clanging. “It’s the darnedest thing. I think everybody in this town wanted that woman dead.”
“That’s a fair assessment, but only one somebody actually followed through.” I held my mug out for freshening when a lady with the coffee pot passed by.
“Did you?”
“Did I what?” I asked, stalling for time.
“Want her dead?”
“Kid, I was probably on the list but way down toward the bottom. Anybody who had anything to do with Numbers Neidermeyer eventually found themselves praying for her to have an accident.”
“So where were you last night between four-thirty and seven this morning?”
I narrowed my eyes at my young detective. “Don’t mess with me, Romeo.”
The kid’s eyes skittered away from mine.
“So exactly how did Ms. Neidermeyer become fish bait?” I asked casually.
“Somebody rigged a remote device to disable the cameras. The side door to Shark Reef was jimmied, but it’s an internal door and not alarmed. They turned on all the lights, tossed her into the tank from the catwalk above, left her purse, and bolted. The sharks did their thing.” The kid looked a little green around the gills as he finished. “The shark-keeper found what was left of her when he arrived at about seven.”
“Turned on all the lights?”
“That’s the signal to the sharks that it’s feeding time. They get all excited and will eat anything tossed in front of them.”
“Did the sharks kill her, or was she dead before she hit the tank?”
Romeo gave me a rueful smile. “The ME couldn’t really tell. Nor could he pinpoint a time of death. He doesn’t have much to go on, only a few pieces. I have some pictures here.” The kid reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a few glossies, which he spread on the table between us.
I scanned the photos, then was instantly sorry. “Small pieces” was right. “May I keep these?”
“I probably shouldn’t let you have them, but we’re a team, right?”
“Team? Sure. Besides, you owe me.” I picked up the photos and gave each one the once-over before I stowed them in my pocket.
Now I felt a little queasy—just in time for breakfast. Shirley silently set our plates in front of us. Romeo and I could only stare at the food.
I pushed at mine with my fork. “Anything of interest in her purse?”
Romeo rummaged in his pocket. Not finding what he wanted in that pocket, he started on another. This time he pulled out a crumpled bit of paper. He smoothed it on the table and pushed it to me. “Here’s a list of the contents.”
I raised an eyebrow at him.
“I knew you’d want it,” he said, looking sheepish. “And, besides, I haven’t won an argument with you, yet. This just saves time.”
As I said, he had real potential. I scanned the list. Nothing jumped out at me. She had the usual—wallet with money and credit cards, two ticket stubs to last Friday’s fights at the French Quarter, hairbrush, makeup kit with lipstick, eye shadow, mascara, a mirror, a box of Trojans, keys. “Can I keep this?”
He nodded. “See anything interesting?” The kid had finally found his appetite and was forking in the eggs and green chili.
“No, but you never know how things are going to play out. Something might become interesting later.” I took a bite of the pumpkin bread. “How’s your breakfast?”
“Awesome.”
Another happy customer. I picked at the potatoes—they were my favorite part—but I had lost my appetite. “I know you said you couldn’t pinpoint the time of death, but do you have an approximate?”
“She was last seen at your hotel at about four-thirty in the morning. One of your cameras caught her crossing the casino by herself. And, no, she wasn’t being followed—at least not overtly.” This was bad; the kid knew what I was going to ask almost before I did.
“I assume you’ve looked at the tapes your boys seized. Did she talk to anybody?”
“Only your Jeremy Whitlock and that Tamale guy.”
“Tamale?”
“Taco, Tamale, Enchilada—I’m from the North. I can’t keep all that Mexican stuff straight.” The kid reddened. “You know, the fighter guy.”
“She talked to Tortilla Padilla?” I pushed my plate away and concentrated on my coffee.
“That’s the one. Tortilla! What a name!”
“I don’t think it’s the one his mother picked. So Numbers talked to him right before she left or before that?”
“He was the last person we could see that she talked to.”
“And they found her at seven?” I’d seen her between two-thirty and three-thirty arguing with Jeremy, then heading into the casino. Where she went between then and four-thirty would be mighty interesting.
Romeo nodded, his mouth full. He swallowed, then wiped his mouth with the napkin. His plate clean, he settled back with a contented sigh. “Good grub.”
“If this place were all-you-can-eat, they’d lock the door whenever they saw you coming.” I nibbled on the corner of one slice of potato—grease and starch, the breakfast of champions. “Are you following any other leads?”
“That’s sorta why I’m here.”
I raised an eyebrow at him.
Like an involuntary reflex, he reddened again. I liked that about him. “Look, you and I both know I’m new at this. But I’m smart enough to have figured out there are two sides to this city. They taught me at the Academy how to deal with one side. For the other side, I need a guide.”
Cradling my coffee mug in both hands, I leaned back and let the kid talk. Already he was smarter—by far—than most of the Metro higher-ups.
Romeo leaned forward. “That’s where you come in. You got a foot in both worlds. You’re my pipeline to the guys who’ve been here forever, and who know everything.”
“They’re not too keen on talking to cops.”
“I know,” he said, as he leaned toward me. “But they’ll talk to you.”
While I waited for the bill, I sent Romeo off to start another day protecting the good citizens of Vegas from the evils of crime. Although I’d already planted a bug in Jimmy G’s ear, I let the kid assume I would be doing the favor for him.
When the bill didn’t materialize because Shirley was swamped, I slapped enough money to cover our tab on the table, added a twenty, and said my good-byes.
Still accustomed to the muted light of the interior, my eyes watered at the assault of the sun. Blinking furiously and shading my peepers, I almost missed the bit of paper stuck under one of the Porsche’s wipers. I pulled it out, opened the car door, and squeezed inside. My eyes no longer under direct assault, I looked at the scrap.
It was a note.
In crayon.
Warning me off the Neidermeyer matter.
I laughed out loud. Who were they kidding? Somebody had been watching too many television cop shows. When I met the ass who had written it—and I had no doubt I would—I’d tell him that crayon really diminished the threatening tone.
Of course, Numbers Neidermeyer had ended up in pieces…I shrugged off the shiver that threatened to race down my spine.
The note might have been a bit dramatic, but it told me one thing for sure—I had stepped on somebody’s toes. I had no idea who or how, but I was wandering in the right direction.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Romeo maneuvering his sedan out of a tight space. Without too much public humiliation I flagged him down.
Looking like a kid taking the family station wagon out for a joy-ride, he eased the big car to a stop in front of me and rolled down the window. “What’s up?”
I thrust the scrap of paper at him. “We’ve attracted somebody’s attention.”
Careful to handle the note as little as possible, he grabbed a corner and held it up. Tilting his head to match the angle of the paper dangling from his fingers, he quickly scanned down the page. “Sounds like they mean business.”
I made a rude sound. “I found the crayon to be particularly threatening.”
Romeo looked up at me, his eyes telegraphing his concern. “Lucky, this is serious stuff. Somebody’s already been killed.”
“Don’t worry about me, I can take care of myself.” I squinted against the sun as I glanced around. Nobody was taking any interest in us. “Let me know if you pull any interesting prints off of that, okay?”
“Sure.” The kid set the note on the seat beside him. “I know you’re pretty savvy, but watch your back, okay? Cocky can get you killed.”
“I don’t like being made the fool,” I told him.
“Just the same, I really don’t want to fish pieces of you out of the shark tank.”
I seconded that.
The office was empty when I showed up. I clicked on the lights, took the phone off call-forwarding, then headed for my little corner of the universe. I stowed my purse in the closet and settled myself behind a pile of paperwork on my desk. I was still staring at the pile trying to think of a way to get out of tackling it when I heard the outer office door burst open. A beat passed, then Miss Patterson appeared in my doorway. Today she wore black from head to toe, including the circles under her eyes.
She tugged on the fingers of one black glove, removed it, then started on the other. “I couldn’t sleep. I felt useless at home. The walls were closing in.”
She looked a mess, but I couldn’t send her away. “If it’s work you want…” I motioned to the pile of papers in front of me. “You can start with these.”
After hanging her coat in the closet, she smoothed her blouse, then looked at me. “I’ve already been through them. That’s your pile.”
How easily she doused my tiny flame of hope. “Silly me, I thought as the boss, I could delegate the grunt work.”
“You want me to forge your signature?’’
“Probably not a good thing.” Defeated, I leaned back in my chair. “Where’s the Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock? Not getting into any more trouble, I hope?”
“He went to fill up the car. He’ll be back in a bit.” She didn’t smile.
“When he shows up, I’d like a word with him.”
With the stack of papers diminished by half, I was congratulating myself when my push-to-talk spoke my name. Excitement charged through me. I glanced at the number and frowned. My heart rate returned to normal. Security was calling. Ten-thirty and I had yet to hear from Teddie. Out of sight and all of that, I guessed, but it still pricked.
“Hey, Jer. Don’t they ever let you go home?”
“I’m keeping your kinda hours, these days.” Jerry sounded as tired as I imagined he’d be. Security took the hit leading up to and during fight weekend—they had to clean up the messes.
I merely had to smooth things over enough so we didn’t get sued…or land on the front page of the paper. “Don’t tell me the craziness is starting already.”
“It’s in the air. I got a call from one of my guys in the Bazaar. Your new chef has arrived, and he’s putting on quite a show.”
Three minutes later—a new record—I joined the throng in front of the future home of Burger Palais—or so said the sign above the doorway. I narrowed my eyes—Burger Palais? That was so not going to happen.
I muscled between two burly security guys. The crash of crockery punctuated an angry tirade of French streaming from the interior. I didn’t need a translator to catch the drift—invectives sounded the same in every language.
Charging through the door, I didn’t stop until I skidded into the kitchen. “What the hell is going on in here?”
All movement and sound stopped as heads swiveled in my direction. A man, presumably our chef, stared at me. The plate he’d been holding slipped through his fingers and shattered on the floor. Five of our kitchen staff, looking like rabbits cornered by a fox, huddled against the stove. Four other staff members stood by the prep table. They didn’t look nearly as traumatized. Presumably they were the imported staff and, as such, were more accustomed to bad behavior from their boss.
I pointed to one of our staff. “Go take down that sign out front. It’s tacky, and we do not do tacky at the Babylon.” That was a bit of a fabrication, but it sounded good, so I went with it. Then I turned my attention to our new burger-meister.
I don’t know what I was expecting—maybe Paul Prudhomme motoring his bulk around on a little cart—but I certainly wasn’t expecting the incredibly good-looking man staring at me, his mouth set in a firm line.
Trim and fit, our new chef had the whole European thing going on. Looking not at all like a chef, he was dressed in creased slacks that could only have been Italian. They hugged his every curve and bulge but somehow avoided being obscene. His silk shirt draped over broad shoulders and tapered to a teenager’s waist. A silk scarf knotted jauntily at his neck, his brown hair touching his collar, he looked like he’d stepped right off a yacht, except for the crimson complexion.
Disdain was written on his face in a language anyone could understand as he gave me the once-over. “You will leave,” he announced in an imperious manner.
Oh, God, another delicious accent infusing sexiness and seduction into every word.
“Leave. Now!”
Okay, maybe not every word. I resisted rolling my eyes. Was boorish behavior a required course in culinary school? I didn’t know who he thought he was, but to me, he was just another in a long line of pompous Continental peacocks I’d had the misfortune to deal with.
Broken shards of crockery crunched beneath my feet as I closed the distance between us until we stood toe-to-toe, eye-to-eye. “I most certainly will not leave.” My voice was low. “Get this straight. The Big Boss may have hired you, but it’s me you have to go through.”
Although clearly taken aback, the burger-man didn’t give ground. “And you are?”
“Your worst nightmare if you continue to channel Gordon Ramsay playing to the cameras.”
“Gordon Ramsay? Who is—”
I swept my arm, taking in the whole of the restaurant. “This restaurant belongs to the Babylon. The Babylon is my responsibility, and here are the rules.” I poked him in the chest for emphasis. “First, you will treat my staff as the professionals they are. Second, you will clean up this mess. Each plate missing from the inventory will be billed to you.” Our eyes locked. “And you will pay.”
“Who are—” His face a mottled red, he looked ready to fillet me.
I felt the same about him. “Then you will get to work. You promised the Big Boss you would be open by Saturday. I’ll have your head on a platter if you aren’t.”
“I have never—”
“You got it?”
His eyes broke the lock with mine. He gave a curt motion to his staff, who again fell to work, hiding smirks. He clamped his mouth shut, then spun on his heel. He didn’t look back.
On my mental scorecard, I chalked one up for my team even though I knew from past experience the war was far from over. A pity, too. I cocked my head as I watched him stalk away. He had a nice ass.
Right then and there I realized trim-cut men’s pants were Italy’s legacy to womankind.
Hey, if I quit looking, I’m dead, right?
As promised, the Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock perched in his normal position—one cheek on the corner of Miss P’s desk—when I returned. A month ago, I had taken the liberty of having maintenance stencil his name in gold where one half of his butt now resided. Both he and his squeeze had been pleased.
Today, seeing them together made me feel alone. I felt a pity party of one coming on.
“Jeremy, I want you to go to Security,” I said, pretending to be in charge. “See if you and Jerry can figure out where Ms. Neidermeyer went in this hotel between the time she was seen talking to you and four-thirty, when she apparently left the hotel alone.”
“So she didn’t leave right after talking to me?” Jeremy followed me into my office.
I glanced at my phone…no missed calls. As I plopped myself on the couch against the window, I felt a black cloud settle over me. I redeposited the offending device in my pocket. “No. Romeo said the tapes showed her by herself, walking across the casino at four-thirty.”
“So that leaves a chunk of time unaccounted for.”
“Right.” I motioned to the chair across from me. “Another thing…” I waited while Jeremy turned the chair to face me, then took his place in it.
Today was the first day I’d ever seen him in blue jeans—although with their perfect crease and coupled with a starched button-down in a light shade of pink, they didn’t detract from his GQ image. Loafers with no socks completed the picture.
“Who dressed you this morning? Ralph Lauren? Don’t you know it’s cold outside?”
“Pardon?” He flashed his dimples at me.
“Sorry.” I shook my head and took a deep breath. Like sand through my fingers, I felt self-control slipping away. Teddie had really done a number on me. No, I’d really done a number on myself. “My brain has several channels. Apparently my mouth dialed in the wrong one.”
“Might be fun listening to the nonpublic commentary.”
“For you, maybe.” I paled at the thought. “Trust me, the world is not ready.”
He crossed one leg over the other, resting his ankle on the other knee. His foot bounced as he said, “So you wanted to know…?”
“Night before last, when you were arguing with Ms. Neidermeyer, you told me you were following hunches. What were they?”
“I was getting nowhere at the French Quarter, so I stepped back and looked at the big picture.” He paused and closed his eyes for a moment as if trying to conjure that night. “The only two real facts I had were that the betting anomalies all centered around the Friday night fights, and Numbers Neidermeyer was the foremost authority and the premier oddsmaker in that venue.”
“So you looked for connections.”
“I hadn’t even gotten that far. Like I do with everyone who shows up on my radar, I ran a background check on the cow.” He shifted his legs, crossing the other one. “I’ve been in the business a good while—I’ve got damned good sources. But with Ms. Neidermeyer, I came up cold.”
“Cold?”
“It’s like she never existed until she showed up in Vegas ten years ago as Evelyn Wabash Neidermeyer.”
That was a mouthful. No wonder she went by Numbers. “Didn’t exist?”
Jeremy shook his head. “And here’s the kicker. The real Evelyn Wabash Neidermeyer died in 1990.”
Needing time for that little pearl to penetrate the gray matter, I leaned back and closed my eyes. “Could there have been more than one?”
“I’ve checked all of that. There was only one.”
“So who was she if she wasn’t a Neidermeyer?”
“I don’t know. I’ve pulled every string I could reach trying to catch the scent. So far, I’m rolling craps.”
“So you asked her?”
He snorted. “Don’t be a stupid cow.”
I raised my head and leveled my gaze on Jeremy. “I’m not the prettiest gal you’ll come across and probably not the brightest by a good margin, but, I warn you, the last person to call me a stupid cow was Billy Watkins in the seventh grade. I broke his nose and at least one other appendage.”
“Sorry. Would you believe something got lost in the translation?”
“I’ll buy that.” I’d probably buy just about anything the Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock had to sell, but he didn’t need to know that. “So what was she so steamed about?”
“She’d gotten wind I was asking around. She didn’t like it.”
“I can see why. She was hiding a pretty big secret.” I gave Jeremy a stern look. “Why didn’t you tell me this last night?”
“I didn’t know about the real Ms. Neidermeyer until a friend of mine called this morning. To be frank, when I came up cold, I thought I’d gotten some fact wrong or something. With computers, if you put garbage in, you get garbage out. It’s happened before.” He gave me a rueful shrug. “I’m good, but I’m not perfect.”
That sounded like a reasonable explanation rather than an excuse, so I let the Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock off the hook. “Now that I think about it, why don’t you leave the security tapes and the unaccounted-for time to me?”
“And what do you want me to do?”
“I want to know who Numbers Neidermeyer really was, and why she landed in my town.”
My little black cloud had morphed into a thumper of a headache behind my right eye, which did little to improve my mood. I listened to Jeremy say his good-byes to Miss P.
I eased my left eye open and took a gander at the clock. Noon and still no word from Teddie. I snapped the eye shut again.
“Are you okay?” Miss P asked, her voice emanating from the direction of the doorway.
“Yes. No.” I stopped and regrouped. “Could you get me some aspirin, please?”
In a jiffy she was back. “Here.”
I pushed myself upright and reluctantly opened my eyes. Three Extra Strengths should do the trick. I washed them down with a slug of bottled water. I’d had way too much caffeine already.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“No.” My heart still ached, along with my head. And worries niggled for attention. “Teddie’s in California, and I’m afraid he’s not coming back.” There, I’d said it.
“California?”
“He got a call late yesterday afternoon from Dig-Me O’Dell. Apparently, Teddie’s music shook L.A. like a high-Richter earthquake. They wanted him on the next plane.”
“I see.” Miss P plopped down on the couch next to me. “No, I don’t see. Isn’t this what you wanted?”
“Yes. No.” I sighed. “Okay, I clearly didn’t think it through.” I felt better with my eyes closed, so I shut them again. “What if he doesn’t come back?”
Miss Patterson knew me well enough to resist offering hollow assurances in an attempt to make me feel better. “We’re a real pair. Both worried sick.”
“Just two casualties on the rocky road to love.” I felt a bit guilty wallowing in self-pity—my worries didn’t include my love getting tossed into the slammer. “Can you and Brandy handle fight weekend by yourself? I’m seriously considering running away from home.”
“You wouldn’t throw us to the wolves,” Miss P announced with conviction.
“You sound pretty sure about that.” My assistant had a lot of faith in me, which I thought was a bit misplaced. “Way back in my callow youth, before I became wedded to this job, when I actually used to have relationships, they were so much easier when I didn’t care. The sex was good and the guy mildly amusing. When it was over, so what? Sex and amusement are fairly common commodities.”
“You know what they say about risk and reward.” Miss P might be above hollow assurances, but the same didn’t hold true with platitudes.
“In every other aspect of life you can manage your risk,” I said, answering politely. “In love, it’s all or nothing—absolute bliss or total devastation—pretty scary stuff.”
“Well then…” Miss P sat up and announced, “You know what they say about letting something go, and, if it returns, it’s yours forever.”
“That is such a crock.” I, too, sat up, but did so gingerly. My head didn’t fall off, so I risked opening my eyes.
“I know, but it makes me feel better,” she said blithely as she stood, then grabbed my hand and pulled me up as well.
“And what about the part of the saying that says if it doesn’t come back, you hunt it down and kill it? Does that make you feel better, too?” I rubbed my temple trying to erase the lingering vestiges of my headache.
“Why do you think I have that Smith and Wesson by my bed?” she asked, smiling innocently.
“Because it precludes that tawdry moment where you have to negotiate the price before you have the sex?”
She gave me a look. “Come on. Let’s go drown our worries with a Diet Coke and a good hamburger.”
“Diet Coke I can handle, but not a hamburger. Definitely, not a hamburger.”