by B A Trimmer
“Having you for a girlfriend is going to be expensive,” he said with a laugh. “I think I’m going to have to resign myself to that.”
“Thanks,” I said. “You’ve pulled us out of a jam. I’ll make it up to you.”
“Really? Well, I can think of one or two ways. Perhaps later tonight?”
“You’re so naughty,” I said with a grin. I knew a blush was spreading across my face.
“Don’t you know it.”
~~~~
Fifteen minutes later, a man in a Tropical Paradise valet uniform pushed a cart, loaded with equipment, into the ballroom. Kristy and I hurried over to meet with him.
“Thank you so much for agreeing to do this,” Kristy said as she held out her hand and handed him a card.
“No problem,” he said as they shook, and he handed her a card of his own. “I’m Rafael Torres, but I go by DJ Chronos. What happened to your music tonight?”
“There was a weird miscommunication,” Kristy said. “And I suddenly didn’t have a DJ.”
“Good thing I still had my equipment in the van from last night,” he said. He then looked a little embarrassed. “Um, the only thing is, I’m still set up for a Mexican Christmas party. I don’t have a lot of traditional wedding reception music with me.”
“No problem,” Kristy said as she held up a thumb-drive memory stick. It’s got every song the bride requested. Play whatever you want off of this. As long as you get in the Chicken Dance, the Cha Cha Slide, and the Hokey Pokey, we’ll be okay.”
“Eeewww, seriously?” he said with a laugh. “In that case, maybe I’d better introduce myself as DJ Rafael. I don’t want word getting out that DJ Chronos was playing the Hokey Pokey.”
Rafael pushed his cart to the stage to set up. Now that the crisis was over, Kristy seemed to deflate.
“I hope this is the only problem we’re going to have,” she said. “I don’t know if I can handle another crisis tonight.”
“Does everything else look okay?” I asked.
“So far. I usually don’t have any problems with the catering or the facilities over here. Unfortunately, it seems like I have a bigger problem than simply being disorganized. It’s pretty obvious someone is actively trying to sabotage me.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” I said. “If someone’s emailing your vendors and canceling events at the last minute, we could have a serious problem. As soon as you get home tonight, make sure to change the passwords for all of your accounts.”
“At least I know it’s not me. All this time, I was starting to wonder if I was losing my mind.”
~~~~
As the reception was winding down, Kristy walked over to me. “Well,” she said. “Other than the DJ, everything went okay tonight.”
“Did the bride ever say anything about the last-minute switch?”
“No, at least not to me. Of course, the fact that she started doing tequila shots as soon as she walked in the door might have had something to do with it.”
We both looked over to one of the tables, where a very drunk bride was being attended to by several women wearing matching bubblegum-colored taffeta dresses.
“I hope changing the passwords on my accounts will help stop the problems,” Kristy said.
“It will probably help,” I said. “But I don’t think it’ll stop them. We still need to find out who’s sabotaging your events. Until we do that, the issues will likely continue.”
~~~~
When I woke up the following morning, I realized I was at Max’s house. I also noticed I wasn’t alone in the bed.
“Good Morning,” Max said as he wrapped his arm around me. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas yourself,” I groaned out as I flopped over on his chest. “What time is it? It feels late.”
“It’s almost nine. It’s been a while since I’ve slept in this late.”
“Wow, me too. We should get up.”
“Is there anything you need to do today?” he asked.
“Um, not really. There aren’t any weddings today, and nothing will be going on with my other assignment.”
“Why don’t we stay in bed?” he asked as he kissed my forehead. “We don’t need to get up until you get hungry.”
“I’ll probably need coffee before food. But staying in bed with you all day sounds like a wonderful way to spend Christmas.”
~~~~
I woke up early Monday morning at Max’s. After we had a lovely breakfast, I drove back to my place to get ready for the day. Before I went up, I checked the parking lot and the hallways for bad guys, but nobody seemed to be around.
Since it was the day after Christmas, most people had the day off, and traffic was light. As I drove to the office, I took a few quiet moments to think about my assignments.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t one of the days that Michael Palmer was scheduled to have the day off. I wasn’t even sure he’d be seeing the blonde anymore, now that I’d blown their operation.
On the other hand, Kristy didn’t have another wedding until the next day. So far, I wasn’t any closer to finding out who was sabotaging her events.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized I had nothing.
~~~~
“How was Christmas?” Sophie asked as I walked up to reception. “Did you spend the entire weekend with Max?”
“Yes, except for the wedding on Christmas Eve. He also had to go up to the Blue Palms for a couple of hours yesterday morning. They had a problem. Apparently, someone poured red dye into one of the main pools.”
“That sounds festive.”
“True, but Max wasn’t amused. They had to drain the pool, have a bunch of people out to clean it, and then had to fill it again.”
“Doesn’t he have a staff to take care of things like that?”
“It was the manager of the hotel who called to notify him. But Max wanted to take a look for himself. He grumbled all day about the overtime.”
“How was the new French roast coffee? Did he like it?”
“We had the first one today.”
“And?”
“It was okay. Honestly, they all taste pretty much alike to me. But Max went on about it, so he was either being polite, or he really liked it.”
“Or maybe both? What did he give you?”
I pulled my hair back so she could see my ears.
“Damn,” she said. “Diamond earrings? Are the ones on the sides rubies?”
I nodded. “Max knows about the jewelry I already have. He said I needed something to complete the set.”
“Jeez, that’ll do it. Hey, did you hear the latest on Doctor Sloppy Seconds?”
“No, we didn’t have the TV on all weekend.”
“You bad girl,” Sophie said with a smile. “Anyway, it was in the paper this morning and I was talking with Lenny about it. They just released the initial autopsy results of that Doctor Elmaghrabi guy.”
“Okay, what did they find?”
“Apparently, it wasn’t exactly a suicide. His skull had been bashed in before he was tossed off the bridge. From what I read, he was still alive when he hit the water but drowned immediately after.”
“Do they have any suspects?”
“The newspaper article didn’t list any. It was mostly about the curse of Scottsdale General.”
“How can a hospital have a curse? Besides, if he was murdered, it’s hardly due to a curse.”
“Hey, after everything you went through with the Seven Sisters, you should be the last person to not believe in curses.”
“Fine, but it still doesn’t make any sense.”
“What are you going to do about the Palmer assignment?” Sophie asked. “I don’t think they’re going to use the townhouse anymore, now that you’ve blown their cover.”
I slowly shook my head. “All I can do is follow the doctor around. Hopefully, he’ll still see the blonde. I only hope they don’t start going to random hotels. I could get videos of them going in and out of the
room, but you know how pissy Lenny gets when that’s all I can come up with.”
“He’s pretty specific about that. He wants naked bodies in high definition.”
“I suppose it gets our clients better settlements, but still.”
“Yeah,” Sophie said with a laugh, “I know what you mean. By the way, I was thinking about your old car.”
“What? You’ve come up with some new place you want me to abandon it?”
“No. I’ve been thinking about what you said about keeping that POS for surveillance and stuff.”
“And?”
“And, I think it’s a great idea. A Miata isn’t exactly subtle for surveillance. Although, I’m glad you got the white one. I know you’d first thought about getting a red one, and that would have been even worse.”
“Why am I expecting a but?”
“But I’m thinking your old car is becoming a little too distinctive for surveillance. With the red Bungie cord holding down your trunk and the mirror that’s only sort of held on with duct tape, it sticks out like a minister at a strip club.”
“Actually, I was thinking the same thing. As soon as I can find a couple of hundred extra in the budget, I’ll start to get those things fixed. Oh, I talked with Max about that Viktor guy.”
“What did he say?”
“He doesn’t think the government knows Viktor’s actual name. I have a new alias for you to punch into the secret software.”
“You just love having me do searches on radicals and extremists, don’t you? Well, if you come in tomorrow and I’ve disappeared, you’ll know what happened. The government will have me stashed in some sort of black ops interrogation facility out in Nevada.”
“I think you worry too much.”
“The white van is out there again today, and I’m running searches on terrorists like they’re my best friends. But okay, fine, whatever. What’s the new name?”
“Snow Ghost. He lived in Ukraine, or Georgia, or maybe Russia, somewhere in that part of the world. I know he was active like twelve to fifteen years ago.”
“Are you sure you don’t mean Space Ghost? I used to love watching that show.”
I gave her my best annoyed look.
“Jeez, what’s with the look. I’d think you’d be happy I run all these names for you.”
“Of course, I appreciate it. I’ll tell you what. You type the request in, and I’ll buy you lunch the next time we go out.”
“Fair enough,” she said. “It’s a deal.”
Lenny opened his office door and came out to reception. He didn’t look any better than he did before Christmas.
“Where are you on the Jessica Palmer assignment?” he grumbled at me. “You left me a message about being kidnapped again. What happened this time?”
“On Friday afternoon, I was in the townhouse. Since the blonde hadn’t shown up for her last two appointments, I wanted to see if I could learn anything. Three guys followed me into the place and grabbed me. They took me to some sort of scrap metal business south of Curry Road.”
“Jeez, Laura,” Lenny said, sounding annoyed. “You’ve got to be more careful. It seems like you get abducted almost every month by someone.”
“It’s not like I try to get kidnapped.”
“Well, you look okay,” Lenny said as he looked me up and down. “Do I want to know the details of how you got out of that? We aren’t going to have the police over here asking about a lot of dead bodies, are we?”
“No, we won’t have the police over here,” I fumed. “And yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for asking.” I know I sounded a little pissy, but once again, I was amazed and somewhat hurt at Lenny’s total lack of empathy.
“Good,” he said, still completely unaware I was upset. “So, where are you on getting the video of Michael Palmer?”
“At the moment, I’m not anywhere. The people running things at the townhouse saw me when I planted my spy cameras. I’m pretty sure they’ve closed up shop and changed locations.”
“What? Are you saying you’re back to square one? That’s freaking great.”
“I’m not any happier about it than you are.”
“Alright, you’re going to need to start over. Go park yourself at the hospital and follow Doctor Palmer. If he keeps the same schedule, he should meet with her again tomorrow afternoon, but we can’t count on the timing for that.”
“That’s assuming they’re still going to have the blonde meet with the men. Now that their operation has been found out, they might pull the plug on it.”
Lenny shook his head. “They must have some reason they’re using her to have sex with all of the men. Assuming that reason still holds, they’ll probably want the activity to continue. As long as the men themselves don’t know about the cameras, the organizers probably won’t tell them anything about why they’re making the switch in locations.”
“I’ve also been thinking about Doctor Elmaghrabi,” I said.
“Sophie told me about that. What about him?”
“They’re saying he was murdered. I think we might have some information the police would want.”
“Oh, really?” Lenny asked, sounding doubtful. “And what information would that be?”
“Well, I had a video of him with the blonde last week. Something big’s going on, and it’s tied up with the activities at the townhouse. The murder probably also has something to do with the people who took me. I’m sure everything’s connected.”
“But you no longer have the video?”
“No, it didn’t seem relevant at the time and I deleted it.”
“You now see why we have that policy,” Lenny said as he gave me a knowing nod. “Keeping stuff like that can only cause us problems.”
“But shouldn’t I go to the police and let them know what I saw?”
“And tell them what? You had a video of the murdered guy in bed with a pretty woman from the previous week?”
“Well, yes.”
“Was he there under coercion or threat?”
“It didn’t appear so.”
“This woman. Do you know who she is?”
“Not yet.”
“And she’s since disappeared?”
“We haven’t seen her since Thursday morning.”
“Do you have any direct evidence that the woman was involved in a plot to murder him?”
“Um, not exactly, but it all seems completely suspicious.”
“The detectives will want to know how you got the video. They’ll also want to know why you were taking pictures of the murder victim having intimate relations with the blonde in the first place.”
“What we’re doing is legitimate.”
“That’s true. But our first duty is to the client. I don’t want to have her name associated with a murder investigation.”
“But shouldn’t we at least tell the police about what we know?”
“Why? Do you think they’re going to thank you? What do you think they’re going to say when you tell them you destroyed the evidence? All you can tell them is what you remember seeing on a video. You only looked at it once and I imagine you didn’t take the time to carefully watch the entire encounter.”
“No, it was over two hours long.”
“So, you really don’t even know what was on the video you erased.”
“Not the whole thing.”
“Look,” Lenny said. “I know you want to do a good deed and help save the world. But a first-year law student would chew you up if you tried to go on the stand with that.”
“But the murder?” I asked.
“We don’t have any idea what’s been going on at the townhouse, and really, I don’t care. We’re not the police and it’s not our place to get in the middle of a murder investigation. Get the evidence of Doctor Palmer being unfaithful and get out. That’s all I want.”
Lenny turned to go back to his office, and the phone in my back pocket started to buzz. I pulled it out and saw it was the Scottsdale Barrington. I went into the main conferen
ce room to take the phone call.
Hopefully, this isn’t another problem.
“Hi,” the woman said. “This is Maggie Simms. I’m the scheduler over at the Barrington.”
“Of course,” I said. “What can I do for you?”
“I’ve been concerned about what happened to Kristy’s wedding last week. I spent most of yesterday afternoon trying to piece together what happened. I was thinking she probably made the change to the serving time through an email. I told you I keep all of the emails in a separate folder for each wedding, but I didn’t have a record of the change.”
“I remember. You seem very organized.”
“Well, not organized enough. I went back through my records and found the email. It was in a folder for a different wedding. This one occurred exactly one year earlier. I keep track of my folders by date, and I put it in the right date, but the wrong year.”
“That’s actually good news,” I said. “Someone also sent an email to the DJ at Kristy’s wedding last Saturday night at the Tropical Paradise. The email said the wedding was canceled, so she took off for California.”
“Oh no,” Maggie said. “Were you able to find another DJ on such short notice?”
“We got lucky on that one and found someone willing to play for us. Kristy’s changed the passwords to her accounts. We’re hoping this will make the problems go away.”
“I hope you’re right. But honestly, that may only force the person to become more devious. There are all sorts of ways to sabotage a wedding.”
Chapter Ten
I disconnected with Maggie and went back to Sophie’s desk.
“I keep hitting dead ends on the blackmail ring,” I said. “I was thinking, maybe I should approach it from a different angle.”
“How so?” she asked.
“When the creeps had me in their torture chamber, a woman came in. She seemed to be in charge of the operation. I’m sure I’ve seen her somewhere before.”
“Any idea where? Is she from the Black Death?”
“I don’t think so. It was from somewhere more recent.”
“Do you think she’s another doctor? Everyone we’ve dealt with so far is on the senior staff at Scottsdale General.”
