Rock Wolf Investigations: Boxset

by Dee Bridgnorth

  Caroline immediately dropped her side of their burden when they got outside. Then she wiped off her hands as though she didn’t want to get skank all over herself. “Eww. She’s covered in something slimy.”

  “I think that’s called sweat,” Ellie grunted as she tried to keep from dumping the strangely lethargic Kari Jo on the ground. “Would you help me?”

  “Do what?” Caroline’s wrinkled nose suggested she wasn’t interested in helping with much.

  “Just get the door to my backseat open, all right?” Ellie began dragging the uncooperative Kari Jo Mounds toward her sensible little car. “We should get her back to the theater. Adam will probably be there. He will know what to do. Why is she here anyway? Didn’t she perform tonight?”

  Caroline shrugged as she used the keyless entry pad on Ellie’s car door to get it open. Then the two of them sort of folded the young singer into the tiny backseat and stuffed her legs in so that they could close the door.

  Ellie fished the key fob out of the tiny, otherwise useless clutch purse tied to her right wrist and then leaned in through the front door to start the car. They had to get moving. Ellie just wasn’t entirely certain what was wrong with Kari Jo.

  “Does it seem like she’s weirder than usual?” Ellie asked Caroline as the two of them got into the front seats of Ellie’s car.

  Caroline made a face and affected a careless shrug. “She’s probably been drugged.”

  “What?” Ellie spoke sharply, turning her head to glare at Caroline. “You make that sound like it happens all the time.”

  “Kinda does,” Caroline admitted. She pursed her lips. “It’s not my fault if Kari Jo Mounds is so stupid and so conceited that she thinks she can accept drinks from strangers and not pay the price.”

  Ellie was dumbfounded. “Meaning that you know better?”

  “Of course!” Caroline actually sounded offended. “You never take a drink from someone. You take it from the bartender. You never drink it if you turned your back on it for ten seconds either. You should always hold a drink in your hand. You cover it with the other hand if you turn around to check something out. It’s just a good rule of thumb.”

  As Ellie drove from the Pioneer Club to the Ozark Star using a maze of back roads to avoid the usual post show traffic, she contemplated what Caroline was saying. The young woman Ellie had always credited with being less intelligent than a box of rocks had obviously applied her intellect to this very important task of not getting drugged on accident. So, she wasn’t stupid, just unmotivated. Great.

  Ellie’s mind wandered back to Kari Jo Mounds. Who had drugged the young woman and why? Was it a young man who had been sending her letters and then waiting for his chance to take advantage of her? Was it something more complicated than that? Who had done it and why? Was it just a coincidence because Kari Jo was young and out there playing the field in a world that apparently didn’t cut you any slack?

  “That’s really smart,” Ellie suddenly told Caroline.

  Caroline turned to stare at Ellie as though she’d just spoken Latin. “Huh?”

  “What you just said about making sure nobody drugs your drink while you’re out trying to have a good time.” Ellie felt silly, but she wanted Caroline to know this anyway. “I was just saying that everything you said is really smart. That’s all. I never would have known that stuff without you. I appreciate your willingness to share your knowledge. That sort of thing.”

  “Wow.” Caroline actually smiled. Not a smirk, a real smile. “Did you just find out you have terminal cancer or something?”

  Ellie groaned. Some things were never going to change. Not completely.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Oh, Aaa-dam!” Margo’s voice sang down the hallway with enough sarcasm to make Adam grind his teeth. “You’ve got viss-itors!”

  Adam had been on his way toward the front of the theater but for some reason, Margo’s voice was coming from behind him, as though she’d been checking the back doors and side entrances used by staff members to make sure everything was locked up tight. Why she would be letting anyone into the theater right now was beyond Adam’s comprehension.

  He was prepared to tell Margo off for bothering him and letting anyone into the theater without permission, but by the time he had taken a breath and made it to a point just past the green room where Margo was standing with her hip cocked and an expression of total snarky satisfaction on her face, Adam spotted three young women coming down the hallway. Well, sort of. He spotted three young women and they were definitely moving in the direction of his office. But they weren’t all moving under their own power and they looked as though they had escaped from a documentary about the dangers of clubbing.

  “Oh thank goodness! Adam, we’ve got a little problem here with Kari Jo. Could you possibly let us into her dressing room or something?”

  It actually took Adam a moment to recognize Ellie Pierce. She looked awful. Or rather, different. She was wearing enough makeup to paint a cast of clowns and it was running down her cheeks in glittery streaks. Her feet were bare and he guessed she had ditched a pair of shoes that probably matched the ridiculous stilettos on the feet of the woman on the other side of a drooping Kari Jo Mounds.

  “Ellie?” The surprised sound of her name crossed Adam’s lips before he could even fumble his keys from his pocket. “Yes. Bring her this way. We can put her in her dressing room. What happened?”

  Ellie cast a meaningful look in Margo’s direction and Adam realized the bookkeeper’s expression was satisfaction moving right on to relish. Obviously, Margo was enjoying this and there was no need to give her any more of a show than she’d already had for one evening.

  “Thank you, Margo, that will be all,” Adam said pointedly as he hurried to unlock the dressing room door labeled KARI JO MOUNDS. Kari Jo had been adamant that they plaster the outside with stars like she’d seen on television even though nobody actually did that sort of thing anymore. “And if you wouldn’t mind, I believe this incident falls under your contractual obligation for privacy and discretion.”

  “Uh huh. Sure.” Margo snorted and turned on her heels. She was presumably going back to the task of doing a last check of the theater before final lock up, as it was close to midnight and time to close up the theater and go home.

  Finally, Adam turned and entered Kari Jo’s dressing room and closed the door firmly behind him. Then he locked it for good measure. There were fans around the room to keep the air moving. The ventilation system at the Ozark Star was pretty good since the theater was one of the newer ones.

  Kari Jo was dressed in her familiar club wear. At first, Adam thought the third person in the room was one of Kari Jo’s club hopping cronies. Then he caught a good look at the narrow features and realized it was actually Ellie’s coworker at Rock Wolf Investigations. The bimbo secretary with the attitude problem, Caroline, who had made Adam so sure he wanted Ellie to be on Kari Jo’s case. What on earth was she doing here?

  “Caroline thinks that someone slipped something into Kari Jo’s drink. She seemed fine, sort of,” Ellie explained to Adam as she lightly patted Kari Jo’s cheeks and fanned her with a towel.

  The dressing room was a pretty big mess. There were empty cans of soda and energy drinks everywhere. Clothing was draped over every available surface and it looked as though the makeup table and mirror had been dusted in glitter by some demented fairy. Ellie and Caroline had swiped the mixture of stuffed animals and dead flowers off the sofa just to clear it for Kari Jo to lay down. The young woman appeared to be struggling to come to and there was no doubt in Adam’s mind they probably needed to take her to the emergency room. He just hated to do that because of what it would do to Kari Jo’s privacy. No doubt whatever happened at the hospital would be hot news the next day.

  “What sort of drugs?” Adam asked, directing his question to Caroline.

  Caroline gave a negligent shrug. She still had that same annoying sort of detachment going on, even now. “Oh, you know. The usual.
They use a lot of roofies.” Caroline looked to Ellie. “What’s that actually called?”

  “Rohypnol,” Ellie muttered. “What else do they use at the club though? We don’t really know what the purpose was or why someone bothered to drug her. That Aston idiot said she was always there with a different boy. Right? That kind of suggests she’s a bit loose with the morals. So, why drug her when she’s going to give it out for free anyway?”

  Caroline snorted. “Yeah, but even though Kari Jo was fast and loose, she was picky. She made guys work for it. They had to buy her drinks and promise her things and she never looked at a guy who wasn’t already top dog somewhere else.”

  “Like that Aston Idiot,” Ellie muttered.

  Adam was confused. “Who is Aston Idiot?”

  “Aston Ryan,” Caroline corrected drily. “He’s Kari Jo’s on-again, off-again boyfriend.”

  “Excuse me?” Adam shook his head. He wasn’t buying this. “Who told you that nonsense? If Kari Jo had a regular guy she went with, I would know about it.”

  Caroline rolled her eyes with enough dramatic flair to put one of Shakespeare’s dark comedies to shame. “Oh honey, you can tell yourself that, but everyone on the club scene knew about Kari Jo and Aston Ryan. He was trying to get her a new manager.”

  “What?” Adam could barely get the word out through his tight throat. “That’s impossible!”

  “No. She didn’t want her mother to know about Aston Ryan. Mama didn’t approve and Mama is one crazy bitch.”

  During this entire monologue, Ellie focused on Kari Jo. She knelt beside the couch and carefully rubbed Kari Jo’s hands and arms. Then she pulled back her eyelids every few minutes to check her pupils. Finally, she seemed to come to a decision.

  “She has to go to the ER,” Ellie announced, cutting off something else Caroline had been saying about Rhiannon Mounds. “We can’t let this go without some kind of medical attention.”

  Adam pulled out his cell phone. “I’ll call a doctor, but we really shouldn’t take her to the ER unless we have to. It will be a media circus.”

  Ellie stared at Adam for one long moment and he could not help but feel that he had somehow lost ground in her good opinion by saying that out loud. “Fine. Whatever. She’s your client, but I’m telling you that she probably needs her stomach pumped.”

  Adam pushed the contact on his screen and waited. When the voice came on the line, the old man sounded sleepy. Adam didn’t care. It was after midnight, but that’s what Doctor All Saint was for. “I need you at the Star right now. Hurry. There’s a possible roofie involved.”

  Putting his phone back into his pocket, he stared at Ellie. She was staring at him too. “In this business, you learn who to trust and who not to trust and who can make house calls to handle just about every medical emergency this side of the need for surgical intervention.”

  Ellie grimaced. “Is that what got you into trouble in California?”

  “No. It’s not.” Adam felt stung by her words. But then he had to remind himself that she had pulled up his background check. She probably knew far more than he’d told her and none of it good. How could he fault her for wanting to make sure their mutual client was still alive come morning? “This is different. Much different. Trust me.”

  “Kari Jo and this DJ are an item,” Ellie said, abruptly changing the subject. “Ron Skaggs was the first one to tell me about him.”

  “Ron Skaggs?” Adam had no doubt that there was a good deal of shock on his face. “How does Ron Skaggs know anything?”

  Ellie’s lips twisted into a smile. “Ron is an old guy. He knows a lot more than you think and he’s observant. Never forget that.”

  Adam wouldn’t forget—ever again. He cleared his throat. “Okay, fine. So, Kari Jo has been seeing this boy off and on and he considers himself her boyfriend. Is he our stalker?”

  “No. I think whomever put the drugs in her drink is our stalker. I think Kari Jo has been going behind your back to try to find a new manager and I think that’s why she’s using DJ Dumbass to help her. He has contacts. I believe that much. Beyond that? I don’t know.”

  Adam had to consider this possibility. It made him sick. Then he realized it also created as many questions as it did answers. “Do you think her mother found out about the young man and the plan to move onto a more lucrative contract, presumably without anything set aside for Rhiannon?”

  “I don’t know.” Ellie frowned. “Does your contract with Kari Jo give her mother a piece of the financial action?”

  “Yes, because she was a minor. It was detailed in the contract itself,” Adam admitted. “When she negotiates a new contract with her new manager in a few more months, it would leave that part out, of course, because she is an adult and adults do not need their parents to sign off on things for them as a guardian.”

  Ellie bit her lip and put her hands on her hips. Adam could not help but notice the scrap of fabric she was wearing in lieu of a dress seemed to reveal an awful lot of skin. In spite of the makeup and being barefoot, Ellie Pierce was one of hell of a good looking woman. She was stocky and about five foot eight, but she was packed with muscle. The definition in her arms and legs was incredible. Adam had never seen anything like it. And her skin appeared to be like warm caramel, in color and perhaps the silky texture as well. Even though Adam needed to keep his hands and his thoughts to himself, he could not help but be attracted to what he was seeing. She was just that kind of woman. Attractive. In so many ways.

  “This gives her mother a very large motive to hurt Kari Jo,” Ellie mused in a low voice. Adam could practically see the wheels turning in Ellie’s formidable brain. “She’s got motive and probably opportunity. I would guess her mother doesn’t have to buy a ticket to the show?”

  “No. She has VIP seating. It was part of the contract between Kari Jo and the theater,” Adam explained.

  Even as the words came out of Adam’s mouth, he realized that was the answer. Her mother. It wasn’t about the weirdos that Adam had discovered who were purchasing six tickets in a month to see this show. It was the woman who was being methodically squeezed out of the picture by her grown up daughter.

  “We need to talk to Kari Jo’s mother.” The distaste was pretty plain in Ellie’s body language. She glanced at Adam. “Can you get her over here?”

  “Now?” Adam had barely managed to process that possibility when there was a knock at the door.

  Ellie leaped to her feet. “Who is that?”

  “The doctor.” Adam hastily went to the door. “He’s got a key to the theater. I honestly think he might have a key to all of them.”

  Adam opened the dressing room door and ushered Dr. All Saints into the room. His name was actually Cal Tarkington. He was a real MD who was licensed to practice in Missouri and had a small clinic with very limited hours and an exclusive clientele. The guy was in his sixties yet knew all about the latest treatments both for cosmetic issues and real medical issues and conditions.

  “Cal, thanks for coming by,” Adam said quickly. He gestured to Kari Jo. “We think she got drugged at a club.”

  The doctor tsked and hustled to the side of the sofa with his black bag of tricks in hand. Adam had once picked up the bag; it was heavy as hell and clanked like a medicine chest. No matter what the problem was, Cal seemed to have something in the bag to help out.

  Cal took Kari Jo’s wrist and recorded her pulse and her respirations. He seemed totally focused on his patient. “I’m going to guess that however said she was drugged was right. I won’t know exactly what until we do some bloodwork, but we can at least give her a shot of epinephrine and keep an eye on her while she sleeps it off. Her respirations and heartrate are a little lower than I would like.”

  “Are you sure you shouldn’t take her to a hospital and pump her stomach?” Ellie pressed.

  Cal only shook his head. “It wasn’t poison that she took. It’s a drug. It needs to run through her system and be flushed. I’m going to put her on an IV bag with
fluids to get things moving a little faster than they normally would. But she should be fine with no ill effects. At least unless she did something very bad or embarrassing while under the drug’s influence?”

  Ellie made a face. “I have a feeling that she was just starting to get woozy when she decided to punch me. That must have tipped her over the edge, but it likely ruined the plans of whomever gave her the drug to begin with.”

  “Seems likely,” Cal agreed. He glanced at Adam. “You and I can spend the night here, Adam. Do you have cots or anything? I don’t want to leave her alone.”

  “I’ll arrange something,” Adam said, his thoughts already spinning in circles. He glanced at Ellie and Caroline. “You go home, both of you. Get changed and get some rest. I’ll call you if anything changes, otherwise we’ll plan on meeting tomorrow first thing for a meeting?”

  “Yes, good idea,” Ellie agreed. “Are you sure you’re all right here with her?”

  “There are two of us, and he’s a doctor,” Adam reminded her. “Just go. Get some rest and we’ll start at the bottom tomorrow with what we have and what we know.”

  Ellie pursed her lips for a moment and then nodded. “All right. You’re the boss.”

  He was nothing of the sort, but Adam appreciated the thought.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ellie could hardly walk the following morning. Even a few hours in those killer heels had left her feeling as though she was walking on pins and needles. This time it was Caroline who was laughing when Ellie hobbled into the office the following morning. Even Ellie’s face was sore from all of the makeup that she’d had to peel off the previous night before she could go to bed.

  “No laughing,” Ellie told Caroline, not even caring how irritable she sounded. “I was still getting glitter off my eye lashes this morning.”