CHAPTER THREE

Thirteen Years Later…

 

 

May 12, 2015

5:45 P.M.

Las Vegas, Nevada

 

Retired Detective Bayard Lott hummed softly to himself as he unpacked the supplies he had just bought for the poker game this evening, spreading them out over his light granite countertop in his kitchen. Chips, soda, pretzels, and a bag of peanut M&Ms for “The Sarge” as everyone called him.

Lott had never imagined four years ago when Carol, the love of his life and wife for thirty years died, that he would ever be happy again. But he honestly was and mostly didn’t feel guilty about being happy anymore either.

On his wooden kitchen table, smelling like heaven sent to tempt him, was a large tub of Kentucky Fried Chicken, original recipe. Damn he loved KFC and his daughter, Annie, accused him of living on the stuff. He had to admit, many meals during a regular week were KFC.

Once a week, he hosted from four to six retired detectives in his basement poker room for a friendly game, depending on who could make it each week. The group called themselves the Cold Poker Gang. Besides playing cards, they also worked on cold cases for the Las Vegas Police Department.

They used the poker games to discuss process on different cases and brainstorm ways to break the case open.

They had been so successful over the last two years solving old cases that the Chief of Police had given members of the Cold Poker Gang special status. Not active and paid, but not fully retired and shunned.

The Chief allowed them to carry their guns if needed and keep their badges and act on behalf of the department as long as they stayed inside the regulations.

Lott loved being part of the Cold Poker Gang. When he had retired five years ago to take care of Carol in her last year of cancer, he felt like he still had a lot of years left to give the city.

So now the Cold Poker Gang allowed him to do just that, only in a much more relaxed fashion, and without all the annoying paperwork.

He had just filled a large plastic bowl with peanut M&Ms when there were two quick knocks on the back door and Retired Detective Julia Rogers walked in. She had her long brown hair pulled back and tied and her face was slightly red. She had on jeans and a light-tan blouse that he could see a running bra through.

He and Julia weren’t really dating, but he thought of them as a couple and so did she. They were getting closer to making their dating status official.

“Isn’t it early in the year to be getting this hot?” she asked, clearly enjoying the cool air-conditioning of his kitchen when she came in.

Lott had to admit, outside it did feel hot, especially after the fairly cool spring they had just had. But this was Las Vegas. It got hot.

Julia was retired from the Reno Police Force because of a bullet that had shattered her leg and caused her to walk with just a slight limp. The two of them had been getting closer and closer since they had solved her husband’s cold case murder (actually fake murder) six months before.

Compared to Lott’s six foot frame, sixty-four years of age, and tight gray hair, Julia was five-three at best, had no gray that she let show in her long brown hair, and was only fifty-five years old.

They both spent hours each day exercising. He walked and lifted weights, she ran and did aerobics to stay in shape. He really loved the shape she was in, that was for sure. He considered her the most attractive woman he knew.

Because they both wanted to have a healthy relationship when they finally allowed it to happen, both of them were getting professional counseling help. He needed it to help him deal better and accept Carol’s death.

Julia said the counseling was to help her get past what her husband had done to her and her daughter when he faked his death and left them before her daughter was even born.

He and Julia had agreed that to have anything solid between them that would last, they needed to move their pasts into the past.

So in six months, they had been slowly becoming a couple, but had not yet brought sex into the relationship. But they both seemed to know that was all right. They wanted to build something good, without too many ghosts from their pasts getting in the way.

And honestly, Lott enjoyed the teasing and flirting they did. It made him feel really young again.

Every week, Julia came over early before the game to help him set up. And they often went out to dinner after the game either with other players or on their own.

A few nights a week they had movie night, either here or in her home near the university. And a few other nights a week they both played together in a poker tournament down at the Golden Nugget.

Julia was a fine poker player and often he hung around to watch her win money in the end.

They were becoming friends, close friends, before ever moving forward with any relationship. They talked and saw each other every day and spent a lot of time together. They were a couple. They just hadn’t called it that yet.

And Lott liked that as well.

Lott had a hunch that Carol would have been glad he was slowly healing as well. His not moving on was her biggest worry in her last days of life. He had promised her he would, because she had made him, but he never thought he actually would.

Him not moving on with life had been his daughter Annie’s worry as well for a couple years after Carol died. Annie had got him to build the poker room downstairs and start to remodel some of the house. Lott had still not touched the living room, where Carol had spent most of her last year sitting and watching television, covered in a blanket. But eventually he knew he would even remodel that.

Eventually.

Annie loved Julia, and half the time they would laugh about something that Lott just missed. Lott figured that if his really smart daughter liked Julia, he couldn’t be far off in his own taste.

Julia went to the fridge, got out a bottle of cold water, and drank a third of it before turning to him while leaning against the fridge.

He glanced back from where he was opening packages of snacks for the game and realized in her wonderful green eyes that something was really wrong.

She was pretending to smile, but after six months he knew her well enough to know that was just a show.

He quickly grabbed some paper plates, some napkins, and a few forks, and pointed to the table. “Sit and tell me what’s going on.”

“That obvious, huh?”

“Everything all right with Jane?” Lott asked as they sat down.

Jane was her daughter and a grad student at UNLV. Lott liked her a great deal, and so did Annie.

“Jane’s great,” Julia said, waving away any suggestion of something wrong there as she dug into the tub and grabbed a wing.

Lott took one of the legs and bit into the wonderful taste, letting the oil and tender meat from the chicken melt in his mouth. Wow, he had been hungrier than he had thought.

He quickly finished off the leg, putting the remains on the edge of his plate.

Julia didn’t like legs and he didn’t like wings. Somewhere in their first month together, he had teased her once about that being enough to base a relationship on and she had agreed, then laughed at his shocked look.

Licking his fingers and then using the paper towel to wipe off his face, he looked at the woman he was falling for more every week. “So what’s the problem?”

“Remember I told you about my friend Trish Vittie?”

Lott remembered clearly. In fact, he and Julia had talked about her a number of times because Julia so often got worried about Trish. Julia called worrying about Trish one of her hobbies.

The two had been friends in high school and stayed friends, at least e-mail and call friends. From what Lott remembered of the conversations about Trish, she was very different than Julia. Trish was a floating free spirit that liked to bounce through husbands as well as adventures.

“I do,” he said, staring into the worried green eyes of Julia. “What’s happened?”

“She was supposed to contact me last week and didn’t,” Julia said. “So I tried to contact her in all our normal manners and nothing. No internet, no phone, nothing.”

Lott nodded and waited for Julia to finish.

“So I called the friends she has set up as contacts when she moved back into the mountains in Idaho a year ago and they haven’t seen or heard from her in two weeks either. And I tricked someone at the post office to see if her mail had been picked up and it hadn’t been picked up.”

Lott sat back, worried, and not really knowing what to say. “Isn’t she living in a remote part of Idaho? Somewhere up in the mountains?”

“She is,” Julia said. “About three hours out into the mountains from McCall, Idaho.”

Lott sat forward as if his chair had been wired with electricity. “Is Trish wearing her hair long and blonde?”

Julia nodded, now looking really worried.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Lott said, grabbing his phone. He had a hunch that chilled him to the bone. More than likely, Julia’s friend was fine.

More than likely.

In fact, probable.

But if his hunch was right, this wasn’t good.

Not good at all.