“Her name is Mary Whittaker,” Marlee says, pinning me a stare across the table between us.
Thankfully, I now have a decent cup of coffee in my hand as well as a burger and fries in front of me. Apparently aiding a cross-agency federal investigation comes with perks like getting fed after a fake kidnapping you thought was real.
“So, you already know about her? Guess it’s not much of a lead then” I say around a mouthful of cheeseburger goodness.
“It’s a connection we needed, Aiden. Now we have a link between Mary’s brother, Jason, and Justin, therefore Decker. The only link we had to Marquis was her working there. Obviously, I haven’t been able to ask Decker about it since he doesn’t know he’s a) under surveillance or b) that I’m undercover. This means any information we can get is helpful.”
“What happened to Mary then?”
“Nobody knows, that’s the problem. She worked a week behind the bar before she quit, or so the story goes. From there, we have her rent paid for two months—first and last—but nobody at her apartment building has seen or heard from her. Jason reported her missing two weeks ago after not being able to get in contact with her but we didn't learn about it till he reported it in Vegas ten days ago.”
“It's out of character for her then?”
“Very much so,” she replies. “Jason turned up at my precinct and demanded to speak to my LVPD boss because wouldn't you know it, Marquis just happens to be within our jurisdiction. And although he reported her missing in Cody, Wyoming, they're so behind on paperwork that they didn't pass it on. He then drove 800 miles to come find her himself.”
“LVPD couldn't locate her?”
“Not yet. The report was taken by a colleague of mine and since the taskforce I'm working with—”
“That I’m now working with too,” I add, earning rolled eyes.
“You’re my informant, Aiden. That’s the only capacity in which you can be involved. You realize that, right?”
I sigh. “Yes, Marls. I know. I was just fucking with you.”
“OK. Well as you know, I was already looking into Decker so the missing persons report was given to me. But we haven't been able to find her, or work out what happened as yet.”
I frown, wondering how someone can just seemingly disappear. “What about her cell phone?”
“She hadn't gotten around to getting one yet,” she replies. “She was a small-town girl in the big city and according to her brother, money was tight.”
“OK. Let's pin that for a moment. I have a question I've been dying to ask you and since you're now being so forthcoming with me, I should get a freebie.”
“You feel like I owe you that?” she says, arching a brow as a small smirk tilts her mouth.
“I want to know how you became involved in a cross-agency task force focused on Decker James.”
She frowns, tilting her head as she does it. All I need to see now is her nose to scrunch up and I’ll be out for the count. There’s something about the way she expresses herself so openly with her features that has always done it for me. Whatever the mood, whatever the situation, Marlee Manning has always been an open book. That is, until a year ago…
“Long story for another day,” she replies.
“That sounds like a brush off.”
She leans back in her chair and crosses her arms over her chest. “What is this, show and tell?” Her lips twitch. “Sorry to say, Aiden, but you’ve already seen everything I have to show, and I’m not in the mood to tell you anything more than I have to right now. How about that?” There's that fire I love.
“And here was I thinking we were making some headway. Damn, I must be losing my touch,” I say melodramatically.
“How about this then? It all depends on how badly you piss me off in the foreseeable future,” she retorts. I can’t help the slow-growing grin that takes over my face because that my Marlee. “Can we get back to Mary Whittaker now though? Because It’s 2 a.m. and I’d rather be sleeping than sitting here eating enough calories to see me through for the week.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her she could eat a million burgers and still be hot as hell but it’s not the time and Marlee is not anywhere near ready to hear anything like that from me.
“OK, Beautiful. We can do that,” I reply softly. Her eyes warm ever so slightly before she catches herself and it transforms into a glare. I hold my hands up in surrender. “Sorry, sorry. Force of habit.”
“Then make sure you break yourself out of that. Let’s get back to Mary. Did you hear anything else about her?”
“Nope. The first time was tonight at the bar. I was with Hawk and the bouncers from the club. just shooting shit and playing pool. It's the one night most of us have off together, so when Hawk invited me to tag along, I wasn't going to say no.”
“Because you’re still working your case?” she asks.
“Yes, but also because I meant it when I said I wanted to help you. Having an ear to the ground with the men who work the door will always be useful because they see and hear almost everything.”
Marlee nods, taking a sip of her coffee. “Was anything else said that we might be interested in? Anything at all, no matter how inconsequential it might seem.”
“The brother—Jason, you said—he came to the club on Saturday night, about the same time we were in the closet. Or maybe afterward when you were sucking face with Decker in the booth.”
She freezes, her eyes widening and her teeth sinking into her bottom lip. “It wasn't—”
I hold my hand up. “It doesn't matter, Marls. When you're undercover, you do what you've got to do. I get it.”
“Don't think you do,” she murmurs. It’s definitely not the time to get into this. “Anyway. The brother. What happened with him?”
I take a sip of my drink before putting it down and pushing it away. “I'll never sleep if I keep mainlining that stuff.” She snorts and I continue, ignoring how cute I used to find her little idiosyncrasies. “All Hawk said was that she was sweet and innocent. Even went so far as to call her a church mouse. She doesn’t sound like the type that would fit in well there. Regardless, apparently her brother was telling anyone who'd listen that Decker had something to do with Mary's disappearance and that he knew where she was. Then he got inside the lobby and Hawk said that Justin 'took care of it' after that.”
Her eyes flash. “That would've been just before Justin came to get Decker and he had to leave me.”
She turns her attention to the file on the table, flicking it open between us. One quick look shows it is the LVPD missing person's report for Mary. Reading upside down, I see she’s twenty-two and had only lived in Las Vegas for a week before she started at Marquis—same as me.
“You said she'd paid first and last months' rent, correct?”
Marlee nods as she lifts her gaze to mine.
I press on, thinking aloud. “So one week in Vegas then she works at the club for a week, then she's gone? That doesn't just seem out of character, Marls. That seems suspicious as hell. You don’t uproot your life from your hometown, move to the big city lights and then disappear. Not like that.”
“Yep. It also doesn't help that we didn't know she was missing until ten days ago.”
“You were investigating Decker before all of this happened? I figured it was some cross-state crime that landed on your lap.”
She opens her mouth then shuts it again, looking unsure and it's that indecision that feels like a knife to the gut. “I need to check how much I can tell you. You turning up and getting involved in this case wasn't exactly on our radar,” she says, sounding almost apologetic. Our radar?
“Look, I get there are things you can't tell me. But you know me, Marls. You know how I work.”
“By talking it out,” she replies, sounding resigned. I'm starting to believe she hates the fact she has to work with me again. “I know.”
“And while I appreciate that there will be things pertinent to the case that you can’t share with me, I need more to go on so that I know what to look for and who to look at when I’m at working at the club.”
She nods, slumping in her chair. “You turning up and investigating the money side of things at the request of a silent partner that none of us can identify has thrown us for a loop. We're not sure if it's part of a bigger picture or just a huge coincidence.”
“Or it's a distraction to divert attention,” I suggest, thinking out loud.
“Pretty much.”
Something I haven’t thought about hits me. “Does the fact that it’s me that was sent here play into this?”
Her lips twist. “I have considered that. But we can’t know whether you’re here on purpose or not until we can identify your client.”
I run back over what Harry said when he told me about the case. “Harry said he’d worked with the client last year and owed him a favor. This case was the client calling in that marker.”
Marlee jerks back, frowning. I don’t miss the way she looks toward the large mirror on the side wall. I noticed it when I was checking out the room but didn’t think much more about it until now.
“You going to tell me who’s joining us, Marls?” I jerk my head toward the glass.
“No one,” she answers a little too quickly. “It’s the middle of the night, Aiden.”
“I’m not an idiot.” I turn to the glass and wave. “Hi there, whoever you are. I don’t care who hears what I’m saying because I’ve got nothing to hide. So feel free to reveal yourself any time…”
I stare back at Marlee knowing why she can’t trust me but wondering if there could or will ever be a time when she does. Or maybe I’m an idiot for still holding out hope.
Her phone on the table vibrates, grabbing her attention. Turning it up, she reads whatever is on the screen before putting it back face down again.
“Can we get back to Decker and why he's being investigated by your task force?” I ask, getting frustrated at myself more than anything. I'm missing something—something big—but I can't seem to put my finger on it.
“We know he's got millions in offshore accounts.”
“That’s not necessarily a crime, or illegal,” I counter. “Suspicious, yes. But it could easily be a tax thing.”
“Agree. But how Decker got all his money is of interest.” She reaches over and steals a fry from my plate, her lips starting to curve into a cheeky grin before she catches herself and schools her expression. “Decker has been on our radar for about six months, and the FBI's for longer than that.” She puts the stolen food into her mouth and I fight not to be distracted by it. I fail.
“Let me guess,” I say, tapping my chin and getting my thoughts back on track. “Drugs, sex trafficking, money laundering… which one?”
“Maybe all of the above, maybe none. But we know it started with him becoming the Vegas underworld’s go-to guy to get things done.”
“A fixer.”
“Yes, but the fixer. Even with everything he’s suspected of doing, there’s no record. It’s all rumor and conjecture. He’s so good that there’s nothing to pin on him. He’s hired by people who want to stay clean and have nothing to connect it back to them. And by guaranteeing he can do that, he charges a premium for the privilege. You’ve met him. Would you expect him to be a criminal mastermind?” she asks.
“Would I pick him as a man who can get anything and anyone he wants with the click of his fingers and the flash of his black card? Definitely. A cold, heartless man who can organize someone's death and destruction for a price? I'm starting to think so. He's not dumb, Marls. He’s pretty fucking smart, actually. You said he worked his way up to the top. You've got to be motivated and focused to do that.” She nods. “And if that club is the center of everything for him, then I need to get in deeper and take a few more risks to find out exactly what's going on.”
“You have to be careful, Aiden. There are cameras everywhere and probably some that you don’t even know about. I can’t even wear a wire inside the club because everyone is scanned, remember?”
“And yet I still managed to get you into a closet unnoticed, didn’t I?” I say with a smirk, unable to resist. A thud from behind the mirror has Marlee turning pale. I arch a brow when she turns back to me with a guilty expression.
“He was suspicious that night. I thought we were made,” she says quietly. “That’s why I let him kiss me.”
A tight ring strangling my chest eases now that I know why she did it. That doesn't mean I still don't want to make sure it never happens again.
I shake my head, trying to get back on track as a huge yawn takes hold of me. “What caused you to go undercover and get close to Decker?”
“A lot of things, but mainly it was the new DA wanting a clean slate and a big case to close to start his tenure.”
“All this for politics? You know Decker will have big men in high places in his pocket, don’t you?”
“Of course we know that,” she snaps. “But we can’t have a man like him get a stronger stranglehold on this city. The plan is to cut the snake off at the head—”
“And hope that the rest of them fall or go away quietly? Don't you get it? There's always someone waiting in the wings to take over. Besides, if Decker's just another middleman, then—”
She shakes her head. “That's what you don't get, Aiden. Decker isn't a middleman. He's the new boss.”
“Boss of what?”
“Of everything illegal in Vegas.”
“What? No. He can’t be. He’s far too public, too flashy, too—”
“Obvious? Yeah, that's the whole point. He just doesn't care. He's the power maker and breaker. He brokers deals, covers asses, and takes care of the business that others don't want to. He was biding his time, working his way up, gaining people's trust, and doing what he had to in order to get dirt on those who stood in his way. Then suddenly he's front and center, the face of the hottest club on the Strip, the man with a different woman on his arm, who people want to be or be seen with. The man with all the money and all the power.”
“On the surface, he's a clean, upstanding citizen just living the American dream,” I say, finishing the picture that she's painted. “But he’s still ‘The Fixer’ while also running the Vegas underworld and doing it with his smiling face being on the side of Marquis.”
She nods. “You’ve got it.”
“So where does the FBI come in?”
“Money. And now bodies. At least ten of them. Missing persons with some sort of connection to the club, or Decker's past.”
“Wait… You said Mary was from Cody, Wyoming?”
She looks down at the file. “Yep. Population less than a thousand. Why's that?”
“Decker's mother lives in Dubois.”
“Where's that?” she says, brows pinched.
“Wyoming.”
“It'll be a coincidence,” she says, dismissively. “That’s too sloppy for Decker. He’s meticulous, remember. He never slips up, never leaves a trail.”
“Maybe. But it could be something,” I say, but the connection sticks with me.
She nods. “Going back to your question about why we’re moving faster now and why I’m taking you on your offer is the discover that Decker's so-called 'business partner' is suddenly calling in a favor and sending in a PI—you–into the club undercover to look at the books? An ex-cop with a checkered past and who might be seen as being an easy mark to look the other way. Or even better, cross over to the dark side himself.”
All the reasons why my cover is solid. “Shit. Why do I feel like I've walked into a trap.”
Her eyes soften. “We don't know that you have yet.”
“But you can't rule it out, can you?”
She shakes her head. “No.”
“I need to call Harry,” I say, patting my pocket for my phone and coming up empty. I sigh, rolling my eyes as I look over the table. “You think I can get my phone back?”
“Soon,” she says. “It’s being checked over right now.”
“Of course it is. I'll call Harry in the morning. He probably wouldn't appreciate an early morning wake-up call anyway.”
Marlee leans forward, resting her arms on the table and pinning me in place with an intense stare that has the hairs on my arms standing on end. “You can’t do that, Aiden,” she warns. “You can’t tell anyone what I’ve told you tonight. Especially Harry”
I jerk back, my chair scraping against the floor from it. “Why not?”
She swallows hard but she doesn’t look away, which means I see the war being waged in her gaze. What is she hiding?
She looks away first, just as footsteps get closer outside the room. “You’ve got to understand, Aiden. I couldn’t… I just…—” That reaction confirms my suspicion.
“Just say it, Marls. Rip off the Band-Aid.”
Then the door opens and I’m the one frozen, one of the reasons she’s being cagey becoming very clear.
“Because,” Barrett Lucas says, coming to a stop next to Marlee and crossing his arms over his chest, the flash of his gold wedding band on his ring finger twisting that invisible but ever-present knife inside me all that much deeper. “We think Harry’s involved.”