Olivia spun about and pointed to Hilary. “You shouldn’t be in here unless you actually have a ticket. Your press pass doesn’t entitle you to come in without being a paying customer.”
Hilary waved a purple ticket in her hand. “Got mine right here, but I’ll admit that I’m a bit more interested in poking around the theater than I am in seeing this tired old show. After all, it will make a much better story when I tell my readers all about how Olivia Houghton is shaking down mothers with toddlers and accusing them of conspiring together to commit theft.”
Olivia felt her cheeks flame red hot. She really didn’t want to deal with this right now. And, she didn’t have to. “You report whatever you want. Nobody can stop you and it’s not like you’re ever interested in the truth anyway. So, have fun with your bullshit. In the meantime, I’m going to go and do something productive.”
But walking away from Hilary was much easier said than done. Olivia had barely gotten twenty yards down the long hallway as she headed for the retail store when she ran right into Duke Dunbar. Hilary was still right behind her. That meant Olivia was now the filling in a Hilary and Duke sandwich with no hope of an end in sight.
I just want this night to be over.
“Well, if it isn’t the big investigator come to unravel the mystery of the sticky finger toddler.” Hilary’s voice was filled with nasty humor. “Oh my word! Aren’t I the brilliant one? I think I just came up with my headline.”
Chapter Six
Duke already wasn’t Hilary Allenwood’s biggest fan. Hearing her snide comments to Olivia Houghton only made that opinion sink lower. Sure, Duke had been in the audience. He’d been half watching the show but was more interested in the crowd. What kind of setup did the old theater have? What sort of access did people have to each other, to other sections of seating, and to the wings of the house during the performance? Those were the things occupying his mind when he saw Olivia speak with the mother of the squirmy toddler. Had he thought the toddler was some kind of diversion for a pickpocket scheme? No, but he respected the hell out of Olivia for being gutsy enough to consider the possibility.
“Ahem.” Duke cleared his throat with enough volume and gravel to make both women turn around in the hallway in order to look at him.
Duke did not miss the expression of irritation that flitted across Hilary Allenwood’s face before she hid it behind carefully controlled blandness. “Oh look,” Hilary said sarcastically, “it’s the guard dog you hired, Olivia. I suppose I’ll just head on back to the gift shop to get some quotes for my newspaper story.”
And with those words, Hilary sauntered off toward the front of the theater as though she owned the place. And maybe in her mind, she did. It was difficult to tell with Hilary. She was a woman who always had a plan guaranteed to make you want to shoot her right between the eyes.
“Thank you,” Olivia said after Hilary had disappeared around a bend in the hallway. “I appreciate your good timing.”
Olivia seemed to be heading toward the gift shop as well. Duke fell into step beside her. They were supposed to meet by the Will Call desk, but since he’d already found her, he figured the plan had changed.
“You don’t have to escort me,” Olivia told him. She did not look up at him though, and her expression was anything but confident. “I’m perfectly capable of handling Hilary if I see her again.”
“We had agreed to meet after the show,” Duke reminded her.
She did not miss a beat. “The show isn’t over. You’re missing the finale.”
“I wanted to see what you’d discovered about the mother and the toddler.”
She stopped walking so quickly that her feet nearly tangled together in her kitten heels. “What? You saw that?”
“Of course.” What was she paying him for? Assuming she was paying of course. Duke still hadn’t gotten around to that bit of the details. He felt like he needed to—soon. “I noticed the woman from my seat. I wondered what she was up to, but my view was different than yours so I noticed the kid right away.”
“Ah.” Olivia started walking again, quickly. “So, you wouldn’t have embarrassed yourself by dragging that poor mother out of the show to check her handbag for stolen wallets?”
“I didn’t say that.” Wow, she was defensive. Duke wondered if Olivia was honestly used to everyone in her life trying to run roughshod over her. “I just said I’d had a different view. I think if you’d had my view, you would have been less inclined to find her suspicious. However, I also think it’s a stand-up decision to ask to check her bag. Why not? It’s not like you know her. And if you think about it, that’s probably the best cover for a pickpocket job that any criminal could ever come up with. A toddler? Brilliant!”
“Right?” Olivia’s excitement was plain in her tone. Then her face fell and she looked glum once again. “But I insulted the mother and so now I’m heading to the gift shop to make sure the woman has a fifty dollar credit in merchandise.”
Duke shrugged that off. It was classic. “So what? That’s the old, give them fifty free and they’ll spend another hundred when they only intended on spending twenty-five in the first place.”
He could actually feel her staring at him now. He had evidently surprised her. Hilary stopped walking and grabbed the door leading to the back entrance of the retail shop. She held the door for him. “You’re not exactly what you look like, are you Duke Dunbar?”
“That’s funny,” he murmured as he followed her inside the shop. “I think I’m exactly what I look like. A tall, broad-shouldered man who stays in good physical condition.”
She snorted and shook her head. One of her black curls strayed down over her forehead and Duke had to resist the urge to gently tuck it back into the mass of silky curls atop her head. She really was quite lovely, even if she looked entirely breakable, as in a man Duke’s size would snap her like a twig if he tried to hug her.
Except there was no reason to think about hugging her anyway. What did it matter if she wasn’t his type. Duke like big women. Tall, athletic, with lots of curves and a big sense of humor to match. Confident women who didn’t get all breathy and damsel in distress when they heard what he did for a living. Eventually, Duke intended to head back to the southwest corner of Missouri and his family farm to find a nice farm girl to marry.
Dammit. His mind had totally wandered. At least it wasn’t right after he had made claims to be a genius. In fact, his escort had already hurried up to the cash register to tell the clerks about her deal with the offended mother of the escaping toddler. Duke would still argue that Olivia had made the right decision to ask to see inside the bag. Besides, it made him absolutely sure that she was on the level about the pickpocketing. One did not embarrass oneself like that unless one fully believed the situation was real.
Duke turned a slow circle inside the store. It was jam-packed with the usual stuff like T-shirts, sweatshirts, sweaters, polos, hoodies, and tons and tons of stuffed ponies and chihuahuas. The kids clothing section was full of the kind of junky stuff parents buy just to shut their kids up.
Duke reached for a plastic stick with a set of pinchers on one end and a handle with a squeeze button on the other. For a moment he actually considered buying the thing. The possibilities for annoying the hell out of Titus in the office with this toy were endless. Plus, he could just say he’d purchased it as a tool for Caroline to use when she couldn’t reach something behind a desk, which was a current and constant gripe of hers.
“Find something to entertain yourself?” Olivia asked with obvious amusement as she walked up behind Duke.
He turned and squeezed the button to make the pinchers snap closed a few times. “This is priceless. If I had owned one of these as a kid, my mother would have locked me out of the house.”
“Oh really?” Olivia’s brown eyes finally softened a bit. Duke was rather surprised to see that they were kind of beautiful in the bright overhead lights of the store’s interior. “And where did you grow up that you think that
toy would have been so awful for your mother?”
“Oh, I grew up on a farm,” he said offhandedly as he attempted to pluck a rubber dog ball off a display with the pinchers. It was harder than it looked. “I suppose my mother didn’t have to lock me out very often anyway. I spent most of my time outside. She had a harder time getting me indoors than out.”
“You must have been a filthy little kid,” Olivia observed.
That was an interesting statement. It said a lot about Olivia’s childhood, whether she realized it or not. “How did you get into show business?” Duke wondered out loud as he considered the possibility of dropping the ball he’d managed to pick up, letting it bounce, and then attempting to catch it on the bounce with the pinchers.
“Riley Saunders is my uncle.”
The ball hit the ground about the same time Olivia dropped her bombshell of information. Unfortunately, this meant Duke’s attention wavered just long enough to make him miss the ball with the pinchers. With his left hand, he snatched it out of the air and put it back on the display shelf.
“Um, wow.” She was staring at him right now as though he were some kind of sports god. “That was an impressive show of reflexes.”
“Dumb athlete,” he reminded her. He wondered if she realized that his “dumb bouncer,” “musclebound idiot” image came in really handy in his current line of work.
She was staring at him with her head cocked to one side. It looked as though she wanted to say something else about the ball, his athlete comment, something. But she didn’t and in the end, he saw her mind visibly turn toward another line of inquiry. “So, you saw the show and you saw the layout of the theater. What are your thoughts on our security?”
“There isn’t any,” Duke observed casually. “Don’t think I’m saying that as criticism though. There isn’t really any security, but there isn’t necessarily a need for any. The seats are really packed in there. The visibility is incredible. You would have to be a mother chasing a toddler for people not to notice you wandering in and out of their seating area.”
“That’s all good, right?” Olivia sounded desperate. She bit her lower lip and looked crestfallen. “But that means we don’t know where the wallets are going missing.”
“That’s actually a good point.” Duke’s mind was coming up with a list of things to check even as he put the mechanical grabber back on the shelf. “I want to have a look at the public restrooms. And I want to take a look at the reports. I assume the guests have been reporting these thefts to your office, right? Because I went to talk to Detective Sellers and the police don’t have a file.”
“Not a proper one,” Olivia agreed. “They have a general file that includes reports on missing or stolen wallets and personal items, but they don’t have a file specifically for the Moonrise because they don’t believe it’s an issue.”
“Yeah, I gathered that.”
Duke really didn’t want to go into this with her right now. The subject of the failed wedding and the whole leaving-a-guy-at-the-altar thing was way beyond what Duke needed for this investigation, as far as information anyway.
“So, you have a file, right? Something that specifies when people last saw their wallets and what they remember about where they were when the item went missing?”
Olivia’s face went blank for a moment. “I—I don’t know if that stuff is on our lost item report or not. I suppose we could look. The file is in my office.”
“All right then, lead the way.” Duke figured she would just turn around and walk right out in the direction of her office, but she didn’t move.
“Duke, I don’t think we talked about money.”
“Right.” Damn. He’d forgotten again. “I assume you knew something about our fee schedule since you came down to the office earlier and made arrangements for me to be here tonight.” He looked at her face and felt a slight tightening in his own gut. “Or was I wrong about that?”
“I—well…” she bit her lower lip, “I suppose I thought this was part of the consultation.”
Duke was almost certain he had misheard her. “You thought my coming down here and spending the entire evening looking over your security, watching your customers, and coming up with a possible plan to catch your pickpocket in action was part of the consultation?”
“Yes?”
Her expression said that wasn’t true at all. Duke pressed his lips into a tight line. He didn’t like to think that men like Mathias or Sellers were correct, yet the evidence was right there in front of him. He wasn’t even entirely sure he believed she was telling the truth about the thefts anymore.
“Is this just some kind of ploy to get the Moonrise Theater back in the news?” Duke asked quietly.
Her brow furrowed. “What? No!” She pursed her lips and looked at the store clerks who were watching them with more than just police interest. “Can we go talk privately in my office please? I don’t really care to hash all of this out in front of my staff.”
“Uh huh.” Duke was no longer convinced. He was thinking about taking that pincher toy home as a fee for tonight’s services since he had a bad feeling his only compensation was going to be a free ticket to a show he wouldn’t have signed up to see anyway.
He followed her out of the shop and around the corner toward the front entrance of the theater. At the last second, they entered the alcove beside the enormous public restrooms and Duke found himself in a tiny office with a view of the bright lights of the Branson 76 strip. It was a rather cruel twist to things really. She could sit here in the evenings and look out at the lights of the rest of Branson’s successful shows and wonder why the Moonrise wasn’t doing nearly as well.
Olivia closed the door and suddenly the two of them were shut into a tiny space no bigger than a fourteen by fourteen box stall in the barn. Duke did not sit. He didn’t want to give the impression he was going to stick around for very long. Not just because of the close space either. He wasn’t into working for free.
“I’m sorry that we didn’t discuss the money thing,” Olivia began rather lamely. “I just—I thought that you would want to make sure you would work the case before you took a fee.”
“Oh really?” Duke folded his arms over his chest and glared at her. “We don’t decide whether or not to work a case once we’ve determined how easy or hard it’s going to be. We take the case and then we determine how difficult it is and other than expenses, there’s no change in the money that our customers pay dependent upon how easy or hard their situation might be when it comes to finding a solution. The way I see it, you asked me to come here tonight and gave me a free ticket to the show because you intended to get something for free.”
Her chin trembled. “That’s not true! I never intended to get you to solve the case for me without compensating you!”
“No. That’s not what I said. You wanted me to come here and give you a direction to pursue and then you intended to pursue that strategy yourself to save a few bucks.” He was roaring now, his voice bouncing crazily off the walls and giving him a headache. “And why is that? Is nobody else willing to put up the cash because they know there’s no crimes?”
“No! It’s nothing like that. Why would you think that? Or did the police get to you too?” she fired back angrily. “You’re just like they are!”
“Oh really?” He was done with this. Duke could not believe how quickly the whole thing had fallen apart. But the situation as now untenable. He wasn’t going to stick around and be accused of that sort of behavior. “Well then, I suppose we’re done here. Aren’t we?”
Chapter Seven
Duke started to reach for the door knob and Olivia saw her future heading out the door with him. She could not let him go. She had to apologize or something. It wasn’t that she had intentionally deceived him. She’d just—well she’d hoped he would feel sorry for her because of her situation. She’d just miscalculated. That’s it.
“Mr. Dunbar, please? Don’t go. Just… just give me a chance to explain. All right?”
“Explain? Explain what?” Duke’s face was set in lines of irritation that did not instill confidence. “You’ve basically told me you wanted something for nothing. What? You thought I would be so moved by your tale of woe and the fact that you couldn’t end a relationship before you deserted the guy at the frigging altar?”
“Hey!” Olivia felt a shot of adrenaline kick into her bloodstream. Her hands were shaking and she clenched her fists until her nails bit into her palms. Somehow, the tiny pinpricks of pain helped her hang onto the shreds of her self-control. “What would you say if I told you that your personal life, no matter how embarrassing or regretted or publicly debated, was going to suddenly be the only thing that people thought about or considered when they looked at your professional life? How would you feel about that? Do you want your dirty laundry aired out in front of everyone you work for? Is that what you want to talk about when you take on a new case? Should we stand here and discuss your love life as a reason to hire you for this job or not?”
“That’s enough.” He held up his hands, palms out. “I’m not trying to say your personal life is my business, but you have to admit that when you say you think I should feel bad for your situation, it sucks your personal life right in.” Duke pointed at her. “Remember? You were the one who mentioned it.”
Right, she had. Sort of. “I just meant the fact that Harvey Lightman is the theater owner and he won’t kick in any money at all to try to find out what’s causing all of these thefts. He says to let it be, but then he would rather people stop coming to the show entirely because that means Uncle Riley won’t keep up his end of the contract. When the show is no longer turning a certain percentage of profit for the theater, then we immediately have to renegotiate and it gives Harvey Lightman a chance to kick us out. Then he can sell to a developer, pocket the cash, and we’re out a place to perform.”
Rock Wolf Investigations: Boxset Page 5
