Maria found Pedro sitting at a slot machine in the Golden Nugget. He had an oversized cup of beer in one hand, and his phone in the other. He was barely paying attention to the flashing lights and spinning wheels in front of him. When the wheels stopped, he peeked up, pushed some buttons, and turned his attention back to his phone.
Maria sat there, watching him for a bit. He looked the same as he’d looked to her when they’d had lunch that day, a mid-thirties man with a potbelly and flabby arms. He needed a shave, but he’d recently cut his hair, and it was neatly parted. He could have been just a normal guy enjoying his night playing slots. Maybe hoping to get lucky with a tourist.
But Maria was sure he'd picked this location because of all the cameras. If Connor and Dillon had succeeded in killing Patrick Miller and somehow Pedro was found to be involved, he could truthfully say he was at a casino under hundreds of cameras when it happened.
But why kill Patrick Miller?
The only way to find out was to ask.
Pedro barely looked up when she sat next to him. Just eyed her and went back to his beer. Maria couldn’t decide if he was hiding shock or disappointment. He checked his phone.
“You’ve been a hard man to find,” Maria said.
“Apparently not, you walked right up,” Pedro said.
“It wasn’t easy,” Maria said.
“Is this an official visit, detective? Rumor has it that you aren’t a part of the Las Vegas police department anymore. Supposedly, the FBI is very interested in you for various reasons,” Pedro said.
“Not as interested as they’re going to be when they hear you were meeting with two men who then attempted to assassinate a candidate for governor,” Maria said.
Pedro didn’t flinch. But he didn’t respond right away, either. He was definitely more calculating than Maria had ever given him credit for.
“I wouldn’t know anything about any assassination attempts. I’ve just been here enjoying a beer and trying to hit it big. Us reporters, we don’t make much money,” Pedro said.
“I don’t know. Les seemed to be raking it in with those projects. At least until he died. I guess Tom will have to be calling you now,” Maria said.
“Tom? Like Tom and Jerry?” Pedro said.
“Save it. I know Tom. I spoke with him recently, and he told me you were in the meetings with him and Les. Was he purposefully giving me your motive for killing Les, or did it come out by accident? I don’t know, nor do I really care,” Maria said.
Pedro turned to look at her.
“Killing Les? Me? Are you crazy?”
“You’re the only one with a motive. You had the most to gain,” Maria said.
“I had nothing to gain from Les’s death. You think those big money guys are going to deal with me? Once Les died, all my benefits went with him. As did whatever protection I might have had,” Pedro said.
“At least you’re done pretending that you didn’t know anything about what was going on,” Maria said.
Pedro took a sip of his beer. Checked his phone again.
“Connor and Dillon aren’t going to call. Last I saw, they were running across a soccer field, the minivan resting against a fence it crashed into while Patrick Miller’s taillights disappeared around a bend,” Maria said.
Pedro sat there, running over what she had just said. Figuring out his options. Definitely much more calculating than she had ever given him credit for.
“At this point, I don’t really care about Les or Patrick Miller. I just want to know who kidnapped Ariella because that’s who killed my girlfriend. So, if you were involved, just admit it now because if I have to beat it out of you, it won’t go very well for you,” Maria said.
“Finding Ariella’s killer is what we all want because it’s my fault she was killed in the first place,” Pedro said.
Pedro met Ariella at the bar she worked at. They became friends, Pedro hoping for something more, but quickly finding out he was in the friend zone, permanently. Still, he stuck around just in case some miracle would free him. They often talked about his work because she seemed interested in it. Most people acted interested in reporters and their job, but the minute Pedro actually started talking about the job, their eyes glazed over. Not so with Ariella, she not only paid attention, she asked questions.
Eventually, Pedro told her about the projects he did with Les. Mostly just because he wanted to impress her, make her think he was something more than just some guy going to boring council meetings, and writing down what was said, even though that’s basically what he was.
Even the projects with Les, Pedro’s part was always kind of small. Basic research.
But the Patrick Miller project was a big deal. Les saw it as a way to break out in a way he hadn’t broken out before. Les was sure that Patrick Miller was hiding something really dark because no one walked away from the kind of money he’d walked away from for nothing.
But they needed someone on the inside of the campaign.
Pedro suggested Ariella.
“So, Ariella was put in as a volunteer to get close to Patrick Miller?” Maria said.
“Sort of. Ariella was a looker, and she was smart. Not just book smart. She was quick. She could read people really well. Les took a liking to her immediately. Said if she’d been born thirty years earlier, she could have ended up working for a high-end magazine,” Pedro said.
“But Patrick Miller was the rarest of politicians. Faithful to his wife, so why send Ariella?” Maria said.
“Les doubted any man could really be as faithful as Patrick Miller supposedly was. Besides, he had Dillon with his OnlyFans models to tempt Patrick. But an article about infidelity, it would get Les paid, but it wouldn’t give him the recognition he wanted. He needed something deeper, so he wanted Ariella to befriend the wife,” Pedro said.
“So, Connor and Dillon were already working with Les before Ariella?” Maria said.
“Yeah, I brought Ariella on later. Les had used Dillon a couple of times before, and Connor worked for Dillon as security from time to time. When Les found out Dillon was friends with a cop, he felt like he’d hit the jackpot. He wanted license plates run and background checks, but Connor told him to pound sand,” Pedro said.
“So, the fact that all three of them went to high school together was a coincidence,” Maria said.
“They were years apart in high school and barely knew each other,” Pedro said.
“Ok, so tell me why this is your fault that Ariella was killed?” Maria said.
“I’m getting there,” Pedro said.
Pedro didn’t know how Les did it, but he had a sixth sense for human weakness, and he divined that the wife was lonely. Apparently, the wife was not only lonely, but she’d had a kid sister who had been kidnapped and killed when she was in high school. As traumatic an experience as anyone could go through, and Ariella was roughly the age the sister would have been if she’d lived. So, Les had instructed Ariella to befriend the wife. He basically wanted her ignoring Patrick. He said the wife was too smart to not be involved in Patrick’s campaign and whatever was going on that had caused Patrick to stiff the developers, the wife would know.
And Ariella did exactly as she was told and became close to the wife.
“And then the wife told her what was up, but that was the night Ariella disappeared,” Maria said.
“How did you know?” Pedro said.
“The wife told me, more or less, without giving all the details. The wife really liked Ariella. Les was right to focus on her, but that’s also a pretty deep betrayal,” Maria said.
“And no one can really account for the candidate’s whereabouts when Les was killed, can they?” Pedro said.
“Did you know that Connor and Dillon were at Les’s house that night?” Maria said.
“I was there too. We had a meeting about Ariella having gone missing. Connor and Dillon left to go looking for one of her friends,” Pedro said.
“You failed to mention that the first time we met,” Maria said.
“Can you blame me?” Pedro said.
She couldn’t blame him, but still, he’d lied before. He could be lying now. At the least, he was still hiding something.
“I was wondering why Connor and Dillon knew she was missing so quickly,” Maria said.
“She messaged me as she was walking out of the wife’s apartment. Told me she’d found out everything, and she was heading home. We were going to meet at the bar she worked at, so she could tell me,” Pedro said.
“And she never showed? But we checked her phone records. She never called or texted you,” Maria said.
“Everything was through an app. No phone calls because the calls show up on the logs even if it's via an app,” Pedro said.
“So why did Dillon and Connor just try to kill Patrick Miller?”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Pedro said.
Maria resisted the urge to reach out and grab Pedro by the throat and slam him into the slot machine. The urge lingered longer than a brief flash of anger should.
“Yet you met with them in a parking lot right before they went off after Patrick Miller,” Maria said.
Pedro had been good so far at keeping his cool, but this time, the surprise showed on his face.
“I saw it with my own two eyes, and then I followed Connor and Dillon and watched them attack Patrick Miller, so what was that all about? Revenge?” Maria said.
“I don’t know anything about any killings. They told me they were going to talk to him,” Pedro said.
Maria leaned forward and looked Pedro right in the eyes. He averted his gaze, but she stayed there until he gave her his full attention.
“You’re on your own. Connor and Dillon have some serious charges pending against them. Les is dead. No one is going to help you out. Your only hope is that I save your pathetic ass from the mess you’ve created. So, what is it that convinced all of you that Patrick Miller was involved in the disappearance of Ariella?”
“Who else could it be?” Pedro said.
“People don’t attack high profile targets over ‘who else could it be.’ And whatever Connor might have gotten himself into, he is not stupid. So, I ask you again, what is it that has you convinced Patrick Miller was involved?” Maria said.
“The sniper rifle. Connor found video footage of the campaign’s SUV being in Dillon’s neighborhood the day you found the rifle,” Pedro said.
“That’s still pretty weak. They could have been cutting through or coming out of a meeting with some donor at Queensridge,” Maria said.
“The SUV went into the neighborhood and then back out the same way ten minutes later. Why would the SUV have done that if it wasn’t doing something there?” Pedro said.
“The driver could live there and been running home for something,” Maria said.
“Or the driver was hiding the rifle,” Pedro said.
“There has to be something more,” Maria said.
Pedro handed Maria his phone. A messaging app was opened. The chat was labeled Ariella. The last message was from about three minutes before she disappeared. The message said, “it’s a coverup of a murder. C u @ the spot in twenty.”
The next message was from Pedro, “what murder?”
That message had never been read.
“The spot?” Maria said.
“The bar she worked at,” Pedro said.
“So, you think Patrick Miller found out she knew something and had her killed to keep it quiet,” Maria said.
“What other explanation could there be?” Pedro said.
A ton of other explanations, Maria thought. The planning of everything was too advanced for something so last second. If the killing had been as Pedro laid it out, Ariella wouldn’t have been placed in a shack with a live feed. There wouldn’t have been houses laid out ahead of time. There had to be something else going on, something deeper.
But the chances of Patrick Miller not being involved were slim.
Maria actually liked him a lot more for the Les killing now than before. She’d need to take another run at the wife. Not that Maria had much leverage. Still, maybe she could bluff her way through, but even getting to the wife might be impossible at this point. They’d all know she wasn’t on the case anymore. At least not officially.
The answer was there, somewhere, but so far, she only knew bits and pieces.
“I’d get an attorney,” Maria said.
“I haven’t done anything,” Pedro said.
“Your associates just tried to kill a political candidate. You think that isn’t going to blow up in your face?” Maria said.
“They were just supposed to talk to him. Scare him a little bit, masks and guns, but just questions, no killings,” Pedro said.
“Good luck with that excuse,” Maria said.
Maria stood. Looked around.
“Is it true you were there when she died?” Pedro said.
Maria nodded. Turned to go.
“But you don’t think it’s Patrick Miller,” Pedro said.
“It doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what I know and what I can prove, and the only thing I know right now is that you’ve been lying from the start,” Maria said.
“So why aren’t you arresting me on some bullshit charge and dragging me in?” Pedro said.
“Because eventually all of this is going to come back around and the guns are going to be pointed at you, and if you survive, then you’ll be ready to tell me what’s really going on,” Maria said.
“I’m telling you the truth. All of it,” Pedro said.
“I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Maria said.
On the way home, Maria drove by where the minivan had crashed. She expected to see the area sealed off and detectives and crime scene technicians collecting evidence, but all she saw was a tow truck loading the minivan onto the back of a truck and a bored-looking cop watching.
Maria slowed down and asked the cop what was happening.
“Somebody crashed it and ditched it. Probably drunk,” the cop said.
Maria drove off, wondering why Patrick Miller wouldn’t notify the police of an attempt on his life. Maybe Pedro’s theory made sense after all.
But how the hell was she going to get close enough to the suspects to figure it out?