by G. K. Parks
“Aww, that’s so sweet that he’s helping.” I focused on the man at the bar, but he stayed cool. Cross must have coached him. “Wow, he’s really buff. You’re one lucky lady.”
“I know.” Her smile grew even brighter. The adoration had to be mutual.
“Sweetheart,” O’Connell gave my side a squeeze, “I’m standing right here. Try to refrain from drooling over other men in my presence, okay?”
“Whatever you say, snook-ums.”
Eve zeroed in on a photographer. “I’ll check back with you later. Please, enjoy yourselves. Try the crab puffs. They’re amazing.” She hurried past us, leaving a trail of perfume in her wake.
We watched her make her way to a photographer and a few members of the media. I recognized one of them from his photo in a business magazine that had featured Martin on the cover last year. “She pulled out all the stops for this event. She must have some powerful people on speed dial.” I scanned the room, spotting Colton Raine at the large round table in the center of the VIP area. The privacy curtains had been removed and the tables and booths rearranged. Colton’s table was in the center of the raised platform, making him the main attraction. From the large gathering around him, everyone else thought so too.
“I’m going to look around, talk to some of the staff, and see if I spot any familiar faces. Depending on how that goes, I might head out,” O’Connell said. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Yep. It’s about time I get to work too. Thanks for the ride.”
“Anytime. I’ll catch you later, Alex.”
O’Connell headed toward the back rooms, and I headed to the bar. Andre North and Cross continued to chat, so I ordered a lemon drop martini and took a seat beside my boss.
“Alex,” Andre said, “lovely to see you.”
“You too.” I waited to see if he’d ask any questions, but my client had been informed of my presence and role at the club.
Andre finished his drink and placed the empty glass back on the napkin. “All right, I’m going to find Eve.” He put some cash in the tip jar. “Which way did she go?”
I pointed toward the VIP area where she’d led the reporters.
“Thanks.” Andre nodded to me and shook hands with Cross. “Lucien, I’m looking forward to hearing from you soon.”
“Absolutely.” Cross waited for Andre to walk across the dance floor before turning around to face me. “I see you’re finally dressed appropriately.” He gazed down at my shoes. “How’s the leg?”
“Not happy with this arrangement.”
He gestured to the bartender for a refill and eyed my glass. “You brought the detective here.”
“You knew about that.”
“I don’t like it. He could jeopardize your role.”
“Assuming you haven’t done that already.” I picked up my glass, ran the lemon wedge around the rim to pick up some of the sugar, and bit into the sour fruit.
“Since you found your own invite to the party, you don’t need me here.” Cross eyed the VIP section, practically salivating over his desire to speak to Colton Raine and pitch him on signing with Cross Security. As it stood, I wasn’t positive he wouldn’t have Elegant Events agree to put us on retainer too. However, that would complicate matters, and Cross didn’t like complicated.
“In that case, why did you stay so long?” I asked.
“It’d be rude not to.” He looked around before scooting his chair closer to mine. He leaned in, crowding me to block our conversation from anyone who might find it more entertaining than the party going on around us. “You didn’t come back to the office last night after you left Eve with Andre.”
“I had to work out my leg and catch up on some sleep. What’s going on?”
“Justin found a discrepancy in Eve’s travel records. Her passport wasn’t scanned when she left or reentered the country on her last trip. At first, I thought it might be an oversight. She flew on a private jet. Occasionally, things are overlooked, so I did a bit more digging. I contacted her carrier and checked to see where her cell phone pinged during the two weeks she was gone.” Cross glanced around. “She never left the city.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“Could she have left her phone behind?”
“That’s what I thought, but while I was talking to Andre, I asked, and he said that he and Eve spoke several times during her trip.”
“Could she have used another phone and had the calls forwarded?”
Cross cleared his throat, growing frustrated with my questions. “No. I checked into every possibility. She was here. She never left.”
“Do you know where she was?”
“I was hoping you might have some suggestions. The other day you seemed sure she had no intention of going through with the wedding, that her relationship with Andre was one-sided, so you tell me where she might have been. It wasn’t at work.”
“What about her apartment?”
“I thought you searched her apartment while she was away.”
“I did. She wasn’t home.” I thought about the empty fridge and the dying flowers. “She stayed elsewhere.” I gave Cross my wide-eyed stare. “You pinged her phone. Didn’t you get a location?”
“Nothing definitive. She bounced around, hitting most of the towers in the area.”
“She didn’t go the gym or continue with any of her normal habits. Is it possible she stayed here to coordinate her celebrity client’s Dubai bash and just wanted to take a break from the rest of her life for a while?”
“You tell me.”
I didn’t know Eve, but I knew what it was like to want to crawl into a hole and hide from the world for days at a time. “Since she wasn’t at home, work, or the gym, she must have had another place to stay.”
“Uh-huh.” Cross sipped his scotch, waiting for me to provide him with an answer.
“I haven’t run across anything. I haven’t discovered any of her real friends, not the kind who’d let her hide out for a couple of weeks anyway. I’m still not sure if she’s cheating.” I swallowed. “She has the Priapus app on her phone, and when I spoke to Andre, he mentioned they met on a dating app, one that didn’t have profile photos or the usual method of meeting but more of a want ad type of interface.”
“You think she’s using the app to find a new beau?”
“I have no idea. I hoped you would. You gave me Priapus.”
“For the detective’s case, not yours.”
“Did you know they were connected?”
Cross took another sip, his expression souring even more by the second. “No, and now isn’t the time to discuss such matters.”
“You’re right. It’s also not the time to openly discuss our client’s case or his girlfriend’s potential cheating.” However, my mind went straight to Colton Raine. She could have been holed up with the race car driver. That would explain how she’d gotten the caterers’ uniforms made so quickly. Frankly, if she hadn’t known she’d need them at least a week in advance, I didn’t see how she’d have been able to get so many of them custom made in less than two days. Unless Elegant Events operated its own sweatshop, that was the only reasonable answer I could come up with. “I’ll check into Colton Raine in the morning, snoop around his apartment, and question his neighbors.”
“Good idea.”
“Uh-huh.” I resisted the urge to say something snarky and instead took a sip of my martini.
Cross left to mingle, so I hung around the bar, grabbing snacks and finger foods off the freshly filled trays. When I had eaten enough to make sure the vodka didn’t go to my head and my thigh had recovered from our walk to the club, I decided it’d be best to find Eve and keep an eye on her.
The private areas of Spark remained private, but since the caterers and other staff Eve hired had everything set up back there, I wandered around under the guise of collecting info for my upcoming wedding. Unfortunately, I didn’t spot anyone or anything of importance. Eve wasn’t having sex with a str
anger, and I didn’t recognize any of the staff or caterers as dead ringers for the police sketches O’Connell had made from the hotel security footage and Ritch Summers’s recollection.
So I left the back rooms, wandered across the dance floor, finding the live band to be the epitome of fast, before making my way to the tables. This was like a blend of the events Martin had dragged me to mixed with the feel of a wild college party.
Eve wasn’t anywhere. I checked the perimeter again and headed up to the VIP area. Colton Raine’s table was empty. It had been for the last hour or so. I figured he’d gone somewhere else to speak to investors or give an interview, but his absence didn’t bode well.
“Excuse me,” I stepped up to a table where several attractive women were seated, “have you seen Colton?”
“He took off forty-five minutes ago,” one of them said. “I’m sure he’ll be back after the cigarette.”
“Did he leave with someone?”
She snorted. “He’s Colton Raine. The man doesn’t know how to go anywhere alone.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. I searched the rest of the VIP area, but I didn’t spot Eve either. Shit. I’d lost sight of my mark. Cross would not be pleased.
Thirty-eight
“Have you seen Andre?” I asked when I found Cross coming out of the restrooms.
“He just asked me to find Eve. She went to take care of something with the media, and when she came back, there was a problem with the ice sculpture. Andre went to get a drink while she worked, but he said that was over an hour ago. He hasn’t seen her since. Where is she?”
“I don’t know.” I’d lost sight of everyone for a couple of hours. No Eve. No Andre. The only thing I knew for certain was O’Connell had left after he finished speaking to the caterers and staff. “Colton Raine left about an hour ago, according to the women upstairs.”
“I know,” Cross said. “I wanted to speak to him, but he went upstairs to the owner’s loft to give an interview. When he came back down, he snuck out the back.”
“Dammit.” I pulled out my phone and clicked furiously, searching for the GPS signal I put on Eve’s car. I’d gone back and forth over the possibility of Eve cheating, but to leave a party with the host while her fiancé waited for her was unfathomable. It never even occurred to me Eve would do anything like this. She had always appeared professional. “Her car’s outside. I’ll check and see if Colton’s is here, but they probably had a limo waiting. I’ll find her and figure out what’s going on.”
“I’d expect nothing less.”
Some help you are, I thought as I went out the front door.
Colton’s car remained where I’d last seen it. I went over to it and felt the hood. It was cold, and no one was inside. I checked Eve’s car, but it was also empty.
Returning to my car, I unlocked the doors and got behind the wheel. I’d memorized Colton’s address, so I figured I’d start there. I didn’t know if they’d go back to his place or pop into the nearest hotel or gas station bathroom. But they didn’t strike me as the gas station bathroom types. And if what Andre had said about the sex dungeon was true, Colton and Eve might want to play rough. I should have realized Eve and Colton were sleeping together. She had the paraphernalia in her closet. Maybe Colton helped her explore her wild side.
I was halfway to his apartment when my phone rang. O’Connell. He’d left the party before I did. He was probably back at the precinct following up on leads.
“Hey, what’s going on?” I asked.
“I just got called to the scene of another murder. No obvious signs of foul play, but it appears the victim recently had sex. I’m guessing cause of death is poison, but the ME will have to tell us for sure.” He paused. “This one’s different than the others. We have a big problem.”
“Shit.”
Cross wouldn’t like it, but I detoured and headed back the way I came. When I passed Spark, my stomach did a little flip. O’Connell didn’t tell me who the victim was, but the hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. Stomping down harder on the accelerator, I went another block and screeched to a stop when I spotted the parked police cars.
Spark loomed just to our right. The crime scene was closer than the parking space O’Connell had found earlier. Oh god. I got out of the car and took a step forward on wobbly legs. The uniformed officer standing guard at the crime scene tape wouldn’t budge.
“Nick,” I called.
O’Connell turned from where he’d been crouched in front of the victim. “Let her through. She’s consulting.”
“Yes, sir.” The officer lifted the tape, and I ducked beneath it.
O’Connell stood up, brushing his hands on his pants and leaving little gravel stains behind. An almost empty bottle of white wine remained on the edge of the dumpster with lipstick stains on the lip of the bottle.
“That’s her calling card,” I said. “Another poisoning?”
“It appears that way.” O’Connell tilted his chin to the side, stretching his neck. I’d seen him do that whenever he was particularly frustrated. He exhaled and stepped out of my way, so I could see the body.
His belt was undone. The buttons on his pants remained open. His shirt was untucked and wide open. A few loose threads hung from the side as if someone had ripped open his shirt. Lipstick smears covered his chest and low abdomen. On the ground beside the body was a freshly discarded condom.
It took a good ten seconds before I brought myself to look at his face. Colton Raine. I’d seen the man alive less than two hours ago. And now he was dead. Stumbling backward, I managed to clear the crime scene tape before I heaved. This was why eating was such a bad idea.
My entire body shook so violently that every appendage trembled. Colton Raine was dead. I didn’t stop it. I could have saved him. I should have saved him. O’Connell grabbed my waist to keep me from falling over while I pressed my palms against the side of the building and vomited into a bush.
“This is on me,” O’Connell said in my ear.
“I missed it.” I swallowed and straightened, keeping my hands against the building for support. “Eve’s the killer.”
“What?”
“She left the party without anyone noticing, sometime in the last two hours. She never left the city. She didn’t go to Dubai. She was here when Landau was killed. I think it’s her.”
“If it isn’t, she could be another victim.” O’Connell took the radio from the patrolman and made several requests. Units would raid Spark and question the guests. We’d find out what happened. After that, O’Connell alerted everyone to be on the lookout for Eve Wyndham. He gave them a description of what she’d been wearing and where we’d last seen her. “If she’s not the killer, she must know who is. This was her party. Her friend. Possibly her lover.”
“We need her DNA. We need to know for certain.”
“I’ll get a warrant.” O’Connell made more calls.
I remained on the sidelines while the crime scene unit worked to process the evidence from the alley. The medical examiner arrived, checked the body, and found a puncture mark at the back of Colton’s neck. Besides the wine bottle and condom, they didn’t find anything else of interest.
“Another unit is serving the search warrant. We’ll be able to pull prints and hair samples from Eve’s apartment. We’ll know if she’s our common denominator within the hour.” O’Connell rubbed a hand over his mouth as the ME carted Colton’s body away.
“DNA takes longer than that.”
“Prints don’t.” O’Connell offered me his coat, but I shook my head. “Follow me back to the station. We’ll figure this out.”
“Uh-huh.”
As I drove past Spark, it looked like the launch party was still raging inside. I wondered what would happen to Colton Raine’s new venture. Did he have a partner who’d take over the business? Would they capitalize on his murder to sell more car parts, or would this turn into entertainment news fodder? I couldn’t think about any of that now. We had to
find Eve.
When I arrived at the precinct, I grabbed my bag from the car and went into the women’s locker room. After changing into jeans and a t-shirt, I went upstairs to major crimes and took a seat behind O’Connell’s computer to see what progress the police had already made.
“Have they found her yet?” I asked when he returned from speaking to a patrolman.
“No, but the prints we found inside her apartment are a match to the set we lifted off the wine bottle in the alleyway. They also match the ones found on the wine glasses from our four other murder scenes.” He grabbed Thompson’s empty chair and rolled it around to his side of the desk. “You said you discovered Eve didn’t leave the city. Tell me what you know.”
“Not much. Cross pulled me aside after you left. We’ve been looking into Eve’s phone records and internet history, trying to figure out if she was having an affair. Her social media posts and credit card purchases placed her in Dubai. But Cross said her cell phone pinged in the city. She never left.”
“Do you know who went to Dubai in her place?”
“No.” I hadn’t thought about it. “I went by Elegant Events while she was supposedly away, but all of her assistants were present and accounted for.” I bit my lip and stared at the computer screen, seeing nothing. “I missed it, Nick. I fucking missed it.”
“So did I. This isn’t your fault.”
“He was right there. Colton Raine was inches away.” I sucked in a shaky breath before I could start crying. No one wanted that, especially me. “We saw him with the reporters and his friends. Why couldn’t I save him? Why can’t I save anyone?”
“I need you to focus, Parker. Stay with me. We have to find Eve.”
I nodded, not sure I’d make it through the next few minutes let alone the rest of the night. “You need to bring everyone in. Everyone from the party. Someone might have seen or heard something. The people there work for Eve. Andre’s there. Someone must know where she’d go.”
