Rock Wolf Investigations: Boxset

by Dee Bridgnorth

  “Excuse me, Ms. Allenwood?” Ellie slipped past Hilary and placed herself between Adam and Hilary. “You need to back off and exit the theater. I know you have some kind of deal with Margo up there at the desk and she allows you back here to pester people in exchange for some—well I don’t even care to speculate on the sort of deal you have going with Margo, but you need to realize that your press status does not give you the right to start interviewing and interrogating police persons of interest before the police have had the chance.”

  Ellie glared down at Hilary and Adam was surprised to see the tenacious reporter back off a step or two. Evidently, Hilary could be reasoned with if you had the right ammunition. Or whatever the magic formula was. Her expression turned hard and she glared at Ellie as though she were considering violence as an alternative method of interviewing her subjects.

  “Don’t. Even. Think. About. It,” Ellie growled. “Just turn and walk away.”

  Hilary pointed her finger right in Ellie’s face. “All of you Rock Wolf morons will get what’s coming to you. You just wait. You’re going to find out that your precious leader isn’t so squeaky clean as you think. I know things… I know more than you do, Ellie Pierce!” Hilary was so intense that spittle flew from her mouth and her already pale face had turned the color of sour milk. “I know things about you too, Ellie Pierce, former FBI SA Pierce.”

  “Good for you,” Ellie said in a low voice filled with such calm that Adam could hardly believe she was even ruffled or worried at all. “It’s so nice that you’ve learned to use a computer and can pay people for information that the rest of us understand should be private. But I don’t care what you think you know. The truth is you only ever know half of what you think and far less than what you wish.”

  “Oh, listen to you!” Hilary sneered. “What are you? A philosopher?”

  “No, just someone who understands a lot more about life than you ever will,” Ellie muttered. “Now, get out of here before I call the police you cherish so much and have you forcibly removed. You wouldn’t want me to have to call Mr. Lightman and tell him what Margo has been up to, now would you? That wouldn’t be such a nice friendly thing to do.”

  “You bitch,” Hilary muttered. “Fine. I’ll leave, but this isn’t over and you know it isn’t.”

  “Nope. It’s just starting,” Ellie agreed.

  Adam watched Hilary stalk off in the direction of the theater’s front entrance and realized Ellie knew far more about the inner workings of this whole mess than he’d given her credit for.

  “How did you know about Margo and Hilary?” Adam murmured when Ellie turned around to face him. “Sorry, I think that was the first thought in my mind at the moment.”

  Ellie shrugged. “Call it a calculated guess. We heard at the office that DJ Aston Ryan had been murdered last night. Let’s just say that Hilary reported on the story for the Register. I tried to call you when I saw the story, but you didn’t answer. I got worried, so here I am. I only have a minute or two. The police are going to be coming to the office to talk to all of us about what we know about last night at the club. I have to get back for that.”

  Adam rubbed a hand down his face. The beeping that had woken him on the cot must have been his phone trying to tell him that he was getting a call. “Sorry. I’m a little out of it this morning.”

  She gazed at him and the compassion on her face was far more than he deserved at the moment. Then she lifted her hand and lightly stroked his cheek. “You’ve got a pillow mark on your face, Adam. Are you all right? You look as though you were rode hard and put away wet.”

  The silly phrase made him smile. It wasn’t really her style and yet he had a feeling that he had yet to scratch the surface on what Ellie Pierce’s style really was. “I feel like death warmed over,” Adam admitted with a wry smile. “Cal just left—the doctor? He said Kari Jo’s respiration and her heartrate are better. She just needs to sleep off the alcohol and take a couple of aspirin like she probably does on any other morning when she wakes up with a hangover.”

  “Then I guess the need for worrying has passed,” Ellie murmured.

  She was still staring at him. He couldn’t help but feel as though she was thinking so many things and yet he could not penetrate a single one of those thoughts. He wanted to though. He wanted to know what went through that quick mind. She was an enigma. A woman who was absolutely different from any other female he’d ever met. But then, perhaps Adam had been in show business for far too long now.

  “So, you’re leaving then?” Adam felt pathetic. He should not be worried about that. “I’m sorry. Of course you’re leaving. You said the police were going to be at your office interviewing the staff about the party last night at the club.”

  “Yes.” She pursed her lips and looked thoughtful. “We should really have a meeting and talk about what we know and what we don’t, especially once I get some more information about this DJ and how he was killed. I’m not sure where all of this is heading, Adam. There is a lot more to it than I originally thought. I’ll admit that.”

  Adam exhaled a little sigh and nodded. “Me too. You’ve been great, Ellie. Really. Even though there are times when I have no idea what’s going on, you’re still working yourself to the bone behind the scenes. Look what happened last night! First day on the job and you managed to rescue Kari Jo at a club.”

  “That was a total accident,” Ellie said quickly. “I wasn’t even expecting Kari Jo to be there.”

  He gazed at her lovely features and could not help but think that she had something of the exotic about her. “No, you weren’t expecting it, but you managed to save the day anyway.”

  “You texted me some information that you got from the credit card receipts. I have to go through that. I’m sorry that I haven’t had a chance yet. I promise I wasn’t ignoring your input.”

  If he had ever been irritated about that, he wasn’t now. “I decided to pay a professional security team because I needed someone to decide which leads were a priority and which were not. That would suggest you’re only doing your job.”

  She shook her head and looked a little exasperated. “You’re cutting me an awful lot of slack.”

  Adam gazed at her. He probably was cutting her slack. He kept telling himself that his was all about solving the mystery of Kari Jo’s stalker. It wouldn’t do Kari Jo any good if Adam hampered the private investigator running the investigation.

  “You are so beautiful,” Adam whispered. He could not think of why he was saying this out loud or what it had to do with this moment here and now. “You’re so competent and your mind is quick and seems to make the most impossible connections and you make it look effortless to boot!”

  She stepped back, frowning at him with a new look of suspicion on her face. “Are you drunk?”

  “No.” He chuckled. “I suppose I probably seem it. I’m sorry. I had no right to say that about you. The part about you being beautiful.”

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with this case.” She cleared her throat and looked uncomfortable. “Besides, “I’m not beautiful. Not a bit. I’m just a woman. And at the moment I’m a total disaster. One night in real girl clothes and I’m totally incapable of putting myself together this morning. I don’t know how those women do it in heels day in and day out. My feet are killing me!”

  Adam laughed. She didn’t realize it, but that was half the attraction right there. She was so very real. Ellie was a woman and yet she didn’t need to employ layers of makeup and hair product and push up underwear to look like it.

  “Well, for the record, I think you look lovely this morning,” Adam assured her.

  She bit her lip. “Thank you. I should go. I—uh—can I meet you for lunch then?” Her expression was strange. “To talk about the case, I mean.”

  “Of course.” Adam nodded. “I look forward to it.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ellie could not help but feel strange about her peculiar conversation with Adam that morning. They wer
e supposed to be professional. Or rather, she was supposed to be professional. To feel professional about this case, the client, Adam, or perhaps Adam really was the client. It was all rather confusing and convoluted and perhaps everything was always convoluted when people like Kari Jo Mounds were involved.

  “What’s up with you this morning?” Duke Dunbar threw a paperclip at Ellie from his desk right next to hers.

  Ellie looked up at the big clock hanging in the back of the office. She had been back for nearly forty-five minutes and there was still no sign of the police to do their “interview.”

  “I just can’t believe those jackasses are making us wait like this. I’ve got a lunch appointment and I hurried back here to do this stupid interview and now if this keeps up I’m going to be late for lunch!”

  Duke did not look particularly impressed by her tirade. Instead, he tilted his head and gazed at her for a long moment. “You know, Olivia and I did go talk with Adam Cathcart. He’s a stand-up guy, Ellie. I think you’d like him to be something other than what he is, but honestly, I was pretty impressed with the way he seemed to be really concerned about Olivia and the other acts at the Moonrise.”

  Ellie did not pause to mention that Duke would be impressed with anyone who wanted to do his Olivia a favor. Duke was hopelessly biased in that direction. “Okay. So he managed to impress you with his empathetic skills. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a checkered past.”

  “Don’t we all?”

  That was a fair point. But Ellie didn’t want to think about letting the stuff from the past just go. She wanted to talk about how that past information made someone untrustworthy in the future. “Why would Ron Skaggs say that Adam Cathcart isn’t what he says he is?”

  “That doesn’t have to be bad,” Duke pointed out.

  Ellie shot him a droll stare and leaned back in her seat. She hated to admit it but coming to work in yoga clothes was super comfy. “That’s not how Skaggs made it seem.”

  “Yeah, but does Skaggs have his own agenda?” Duke was apparently not going to back down on this. “I don’t believe Adam is a bad guy. I think he’s probably got some secrets. Maybe they’re even secrets about his business dealings in the here and now, but you can’t blame him for that. Look at who he represents! The guy probably has to look over his shoulder every single day.”

  The words were thought-provoking. “Yes. He does have to look over his shoulder,” Ellie muttered, “because Kari Jo Mounds is always looking for the next best thing. Her ticket straight to the top without all of the stops in between.”

  “Huh?” Duke frowned. “You lost me.”

  But Ellie wasn’t sure that mattered much. She’d lost Duke, but she had just gained a lot of perspective. DJ Aston Ryan had supposedly been going to help Kari Jo get a new manager and a new contract. Who had a reason to resent that possibility and an even bigger reason to stop it?

  “Adam Cathcart passes his acts onto another manager when they’ve outgrown this town,” Ellie murmured. “He was going to pass Kari Jo to someone else at the end of this six-month contract she has with the Star and Harvey Lightman.”

  “Lightman?” Duke growled. “That man is a bastard!”

  “No. He isn’t,” Ellie argued very quietly. “He’s a businessman who believes very strongly in the bottom line and minimal risk. You can hardly blame the guy. I’m sure it doesn’t make him popular, but it makes him rich and to most people like Lightman, rich is more important than popular. You can buy popular.”

  But Duke had just added another person to Ellie’s list. “Harvey Lightman had a reason to want Kari Jo to stay in Branson and keep selling tickets to his shows. Kari Jo’s mother was going to be cut out of the contract altogether if her daughter made a new deal. And of course, you had Adam Cathcart who would stand to lose at least a little bit if Kari Jo left him before he had a chance to pass her on.”

  “Wait.” Duke looked confused. “Pass her on? To where? Can they do that? Do they get paid?”

  “I would imagine there is a flat rate finder’s fee,” Ellie mused, “but I don’t know how much it would be. I have trouble believing it’s much. On the flipside, I think it will be a relief to Adam to get rid of Kari Jo. She’s so damned high maintenance! Can you even imagine?”

  “No.” Duke took a breath to say something else, but the office door finally opened to allow Detective Sellers and Sergeant Caprico into Rock Wolf Investigations. Duke curled his lip in disdain. “Would you look at that. They finally decided to pay us a visit.”

  The immediate warning look from the direction of Titus’s desk was almost comical. It was no secret around Rock Wolf Investigations about how Duke Dunbar felt about the Branson Police Department. Not only had Duke had a few recent tangles with these two officers in particular, but Sergeant Caprico had once been engaged to Duke’s sweetheart, Olivia Houghton. The commonality did not engender a whole lot of pleasant feelings in either direction.

  “Oh, look who it is,” Sergeant Caprico said with no small amount of insolent arrogance. “The replacement.”

  Sellers turned and gave Caprico a warning look. “None of that, Mathias. Not today.”

  Ellie shared a glance with Titus. That was an interesting development. Sellers usually goaded Caprico into doing and saying even stupider things than the younger sergeant could come up with on his own. Apparently, that was not the order of business this morning.

  Sellers turned and focused on Titus. “You said you and your agents had information about the murder that took place last night at the Pioneer. So?”

  “And you’re the one they put on the case?” Titus did not bother to hide the doubt in his tone and Ellie had to bite her lip to keep from chuckling as a red flush began at Sellers’s collar and started to creep up his neck, past his jaw, and right onto his cheeks. “I mean no insult. It just seems a little odd that you guys were handling pickpockets a few weeks ago and now you’re investigating a murder.”

  Sellers gave Titus a level, unflinching stare. “I could say the same about your outfit.”

  “Fair enough,” Titus grunted. “Except we’re not investigating murder. I had a team,” Titus did not look in either Caroline or Ellie’s direction when he said it, “at the Pioneer last night following a lead that happened to involve your deceased. That’s why I called. We felt it would only be fair to let you know we were there last night in the club and our agents were probably some of the last people to talk to your deceased.”

  The expression on Sellers’s face made Ellie want to slap a hand against her forehead. “Is that right?” the idiotic detective mused in a stage-worthy voice filled with dramatic flair. “You must be referring to the two young women who were reported by other club patrons to be arguing with the DJ at some point during the evening.”

  Caprico immediately turned to Duke Dunbar. “Two young women. Interesting. I had no idea you could look so convincing in a dress, but I suppose it’s just your true nature leaking out.”

  Duke started to get out of his seat, but then Titus snapped his fingers and Duke sank back down into his seat again. Titus narrowed his gaze at Caprico. “I would advise you not to bait my agent, Sergeant. We all know he can wipe the floor with you. I suggest you not give him a good reason.”

  “Though my sergeant’s choice of words was inappropriate,” Sellers said, pushing the words out from between clenched teeth, “his reasoning was sound. Where did you come up with another woman?”

  This time it was Caroline who looked offended. “Um, hello? I’m a regular patron at that club anyway. And we weren’t arguing with Aston Ryan. You don’t argue with the DJ. It’s just not done.”

  “Fine.” Sellers sounded flat, like he really didn’t care about the details anyway. “Then who was the third young woman who came on the scene.”

  “Our client,” Ellie said. She gazed steadily at Sellers and hoped she made him feel uncomfortable. “Our client was casually involved in an on-again, off-again relationship with Aston Ryan. But that has nothing to do with
your case. She didn’t kill him. She was with us for the rest of the night. Aston Ryan was alive when we left the club. None of us threatened him. And we had no reason to go back to try to kill him. That would have been counterproductive to our case.”

  “Which is what?” Sellers pressed. He looked irritated. “You don’t get to decide if I need to interview a potential suspect or not, Ms. Pierce.”

  Ellie glanced at Titus. There really wasn’t a reason not to tell the police what the case was. After all, they had sent Adam Cathcart to Rock Wolf Investigations in the first place. Titus gave a barely perceptible nod and Ellie went for it.

  “It’s kind of funny really,” Ellie began with no small amount of snark. “This is yet another case your department didn’t care to look into. Adam Cathcart went to see you about his client, Kari Jo Mounds, getting threatening letters, and you sent him here.”

  Sellers’s face shut down. Ellie had never seen anything quite like it. At least not on the arrogant, pig-headed detective who thought he pretty much knew everything that happened in the county. What did that mean? Did he know more than he was willing to let on? Or was he so flabbergasted by the crossover of their cases once again that he was at a bit of a loss as to how to untangle things?

  Of course, while his superior officer was silent, Caprico could not resist making his own inquiries. “And you say that Kari Jo Mounds left with you last night and was somehow observed all night long? That seems a bit strange, even for a big up and coming country star.” Caprico did not wait for a response, just kept right on running. “What if we believe Kari Jo returned to the club after you left her at home and murdered her lover in a fit of jealous rage just after last call?”

  “First of all, who said she was jealous?” Ellie fired back. “I never said that. Obviously, someone already told you that.”

  “That’s what the argument was about,” Caprico informed Ellie. “Don’t try to lie about it. It was overheard.”