Skin and Blond (Blond Noir Mysteries Book 1)

by V. J. Chambers

  “No way.” Rose puffed on her cigarette, shaking her head. “Man, this is awful. I can’t believe she’s missing. You think she was, like, kidnapped or something, don’t you?”

  “I’m trying to keep an open mind and explore all the possibilities,” I said. “What makes you think that’s what happened? Was it unlike Madison to shirk her responsibility?”

  “Gosh, I have no idea. I mean, she usually showed up for work. But it wasn’t like she loved it here or anything. No one loves it here. I mean, we’re probably all about five seconds away from quitting. Sometimes I think that if one more person complains to me about something that I have no control over, I’m just going to snap. Like lose my shit for real, you know?”

  I nodded, even though I wasn’t entirely sure what she meant. But it was a crap job. Everyone worked crap jobs at some point. I got that. “Did Madison have any enemies that you know of?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I mean, she and the boss didn’t really get along, but who gets along with the boss, anyway, right?”

  “The boss?”

  “Yeah, the manager here. His name’s Brian, and he’s a total douche bag. Don’t tell him I said that.” She laughed and smoke came out her nose. “Anyway, I don’t know what happened, but I think Madison said he was going to make her take a drug test or something, and she was pretty pissed about it.”

  “A drug test? Did Madison take drugs?”

  “I have no idea. Maybe. It’s not hard to get stuff around here. I mean, you know that there’s all that ecstasy coming out of that lab that’s somewhere out in the woods north of here, right?”

  There were definitely a lot of drugs in Renmawr, but there was no hard evidence of this ecstasy lab, even though everyone talked about it. Personally, I tended to think of it as an urban legend. I blamed the drugs on the presence of the Irish mob. Most ecstasy was made out of the country anyway. It wasn’t like crystal meth, in which the ingredients were ubiquitous enough for people to be making it in trailers all over the country.

  “You think she did ecstasy?”

  “If she did, it wasn’t at work,” said Rose. “Rolling while waitressing is not fun or easy. No, most people around here who are doing anything are snorting a little coke now and then. It’s apparently a lifesaver if you have to work a double. Not that I’d know, because I don’t touch that stuff. But anyway, if Brian finds out anyone’s got drugs on the premises, he’s not pleased. You basically lose your job over it.”

  “But Madison didn’t lose her job.”

  “No, so she either wasn’t doing drugs, or Brian hadn’t been able to prove it. Anyway, there was friction there.”

  “Is Brian here right now?”

  “No, he’s not. Um, he’s around most of the time, but not today. You should check back, I guess.”

  Great. Another trip to the restaurant. Just what I wanted to do.

  Rose dropped her cigarette and stepped on it. “Listen, I really can’t keep talking. My break’s basically over.”

  “That’s all right,” I said. “I appreciate what you’ve told me.”

  She started to walk back inside. “You think maybe she’s dead?” Her voice was quiet.

  I followed her. “I don’t know enough yet to think anything.”

  “I wish I could help more. I didn’t really know her outside of work. I was friendly with her, but we weren’t close.”

  “Well, if you think of anything else…” I handed her one of my cards. “My number’s there.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh sure.” She pocketed the card.

  We were back at the back door to the restaurant, and she pushed open the door to go back inside, but then turned back to me. “Hey, you know what?”

  “What?”

  “You should talk to Yasmine.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “She works here too, and she and Madison hung out together. Like outside of work sometimes. She might know more about what was going on.”

  “Is Yasmine here?”

  “No, she works morning shifts mostly.”

  Morning shifts? I sighed. Great, just great. When the hell was I going to manage to drag myself out of bed to come down to Renmawr and question a waitress? But I forced myself to smile. “Thanks. That really helps. I appreciate it.”

  Rose smiled. “I hope she’s okay. Really, I do.”

  “So do I,” I said. But that was sort of a lie. I wanted this to be a big, juicy murder case, if I was honest. It had been a long time since I’d had anything worthwhile to do.

  * * *

  “Look, I could go to talk to Yasmine in the morning,” said Brigit. “I don’t live that far away from the mall.”

  “You don’t work in the mornings,” I said. “I specifically hired you to work in the afternoon, in this office.”

  She pouted.

  I yanked a chair over from the waiting area so that I could sit down opposite her desk. “Level with me, here, Brigit. Why’d you really want this job?”

  She busied herself with the computer screen. “I told you. I just want something to help pay the bills.”

  “Then you should be happy sitting here and answering the phone.”

  “The phone doesn’t ring very often.”

  “Exactly. What that means is that I’m paying you to surf the Internet most of the time.”

  She swung back around to look at me, sighing. “Okay, okay. I guess that I really admire you, because you started your own business, and you’ve made it successful. I tried to start my own business. I painted until my fingers cramped up. I worked really hard. I had tons of inventory. But it didn’t matter, because no one wanted to buy it. So, I just feel like a failure. But here… you’re a success.”

  I snorted and got out of the chair. “I’m not a success, Brigit.”

  “I think you are.”

  I wouldn’t look at her. “This isn’t what I wanted for myself when I was your age. I had a successful career as a police detective. And then…” Damn it, hadn’t I decided that I didn’t want her to know about this stuff? On the other hand, who was I kidding? She wouldn’t have to dig too far into the past to find the newspaper articles about my dismissal from the force.

  “Then what?” she said. “Because I think being a private detective is way better than working for the police. You get to set your own schedule and pick your own cases. That’s what I want. I want to be free… follow my own path.”

  I turned back around. “If you want to follow your own path, why do you want to do my job?”

  “Well…” She bit her lip. “I guess I was thinking that I could learn the ropes from you, and then maybe someday, I could branch out on my own.”

  “So, you want me to teach you how to be my competition?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” she said. “I just thought… Your life seems so awesome.”

  I could only shake my head. “You have no idea, Brigit.”

  “Sorry,” she muttered. “I guess it was stupid.”

  “Being a private eye doesn’t mean you’re free,” I said. “It’s not like that at all. You need your clients to pay your rent, to eat. So, you have to keep them happy. It’s like the opposite of being free.”

  She wrinkled up her nose. “Well, I guess so, but—”

  The door to the outer office opened, and Colin Pugliano came in.

  My heart stopped when I saw him. Not because I was happy that he was here or anything, because I wasn’t. My whole body reacted in revulsion. Colin was the embodiment of my own secret shame. He represented everything that was wrong with me. Seeing him was like being plunged into a dark pool of misery. I struggled to breathe.

  “I figured it out,” he said, striding across the room towards me. “You kicked me out last night because I was still married to Rhonda, didn’t you?”

  I looked at Brigit, feeling terrified. I didn’t want her to witness this, but I also didn’t really want to be alone with Colin either. I just wanted him to go away, so I drew myself up. “If you d
on’t have business to discuss with me, then you really shouldn’t be in my office.”

  “You’re not that kind of woman, and you wanted me to know that. Well, you’ll be glad to know that it’s over between me and her. I made Rhonda pack her bags and leave today. We’re separated, and I’m filing for divorce. So, you don’t have to worry—”

  “Not here,” I said. “This is my place of business, and I won’t discuss matters of this nature here.”

  “But Ivy, that makes a difference, doesn’t it?”

  I took him by the shoulder and led him out. I pulled the door closed after us, and we stood in the hallway.

  “Don’t come here ever again.” I was shaking all over, furious.

  “Well, then, where do I see you?”

  “You don’t. I don’t know how to make this clearer to you. What happened between us was a mistake, and it’s over.”

  “Come on, don’t say that.”

  “Please go.” I pointed down the hallway in the direction of the exit.

  “This is because I barged into where you work, right? I’m sorry about that, but I needed to see you. I can’t get you out of my head. I keep thinking about you. The things you did with your—”

  “Stop.” I couldn’t believe this. How dare he come back here and remind me of what had happened? I was trying so hard to never think of it ever again, and he was making that nearly impossible.

  “If you won’t see me here, then meet me tonight.”

  “Colin, I don’t want to—”

  “At the Outback,” he said. “Meet me there around seven, and we’ll have dinner. It’ll be a proper date. We can start things out right between us.”

  “I don’t want to start things,” I said.

  He leaned in and kissed me.

  I shoved him away. “Get out.”

  “Tonight,” he said. “I’ll see you tonight.” He gave me a long, lingering look, and then he did walk down the hallway, leaving me alone.

  I leaned against the door, sucking in slow breaths, trying to calm my pounding heart. What the hell had I gotten myself into? Why couldn’t I make Colin understand that I wasn’t interested in him? Why was he insisting on the idea that we had some kind of romantic connection?

  Well, hopefully after I stood him up tonight, he’d get the message.

  I let out a shaky breath and got myself together before going back inside.

  Brigit was standing right next to the door, her eyes wide. “Wasn’t that the guy that was here last night? He was a client, right?”

  “Don’t, Brigit,” I said.

  “Is he like, stalking you or something?”

  I strode back to the inner office. I couldn’t talk to her about this.

  But she just followed me. “You don’t have something going with him, do you?”

  I rounded on her. “Is this your business?”

  She backed off. “I guess not.”

  I started to shut myself in the inner office, but I paused at the last minute. “My life is the complete opposite of awesome, you understand?”

  She nodded slowly.

  I pulled the door closed.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Did you find something?” Mr. Webb’s voice on the phone was apprehensive but eager. “Do you know where she is? Do you know what happened to her?”

  “I’m afraid not,” I said. “I haven’t gotten that far.” I was hiding in the inner office, because after what had transpired in front of Brigit, I couldn’t bear to face her. Since I couldn’t stand thinking about Colin Pugliano either, I had decided to try to talk to Madison’s brother about some of the things that I’d learned today.

  “Well, what is it?”

  “I wondered if you had any knowledge of Madison using drugs,” I said.

  “What? Drugs?” He was appalled. “Absolutely not. Madison wouldn’t do something like that. Why would you say something so horrible?”

  “I was speaking to a co-worker of hers today.”

  “And that co-worker said that Madison was on drugs? Because you can’t trust those waitresses, you know. The kinds of girls who work in restaurants, well, half of them are barely better than prostitutes.”

  Okay. That was harsh. And untrue. “Your sister was a waitress.”

  “Well, not all of them,” he allowed. “But it’s not exactly a profession that attracts stable, goal-oriented people, if you know what I mean.”

  I wasn’t going to touch that. I happened to think that waitressing was a perfectly respectable profession, but I wasn’t going to get in an argument with Mr. Webb about it. He was paying me, not the other way around, so I could keep my mouth shut if he said ridiculous shit. But I was starting to realize that I didn’t really like him, and it was beyond my general discomfort with people in general. He was the kind of person I would avoid under normal circumstances. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the luxury of doing so now.

  I cleared my throat. “Well, to be fair, the co-worker wasn’t certain if Madison was using drugs. She only said that Madison’s boss was forcing her to take a drug test, and that Madison wasn’t happy about it.”

  “Well, of course she wasn’t happy. No one enjoys being accused of something they didn’t do.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I suppose that could account for it.”

  “Why would you even bring something like this up? It can’t have any bearing on what happened to her.”

  “On the contrary. If Madison’s mixed up in drugs, it puts her in a much more precarious situation. It might explain why she’s gone, for instance. Maybe she’s gone on a bender, and she was too drugged up to take any of her personal effects with her. Or maybe she owes money, and she’s been a victim of foul play for that reason.”

  “Oh,” said Mr. Webb. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

  Right. Why would he think anything reasonable? He was too busy being offended that I’d accuse his sister of being something other than perfect.

  The truth was that it was unlikely that a girl of Madison’s age could have made it this long in the area without at least trying some kind of illegal substance. There were a lot of drugs around here, and nearly every graduate of Keene College had experimented at least a little during his or her time in school.

  Of course, a little experimentation didn’t mean that Madison was a junkie or anything. Still, it was important to know one way or the other.

  “You know, I suppose I don’t really know what Madison got up to every second of every day,” said Mr. Webb, and he sounded a little annoyed by that fact, as if Madison’s personal life was his business. “So, I guess it’s possible she did occasionally… but she didn’t have a problem. I would have noticed if she was addicted to drugs. She and I were very close, you know. And if I’d had any inkling that she was doing something so destructive, I would have put a stop to it immediately.”

  “I’m not accusing either you or Madison of anything, sir,” I said. “I’m trying to help. I’m trying to find your sister.”

  “Of course you are.” He let out a noisy breath.

  I shied away from the phone’s receiver. It sounded like he was blowing into my ear. “While we’re on the subject of Madison, can you confirm to me that the day that you found her missing was Friday?”

  “What?” he said, sounding confused.

  “You came to see me on a Monday, and you insisted that you had been to her house on Friday, when you found her stripped bedsheets and the apartment in disarray.”

  “Did I?” he said.

  “Is that correct?”

  “If that’s what I said, then it’s correct.” He sounded annoyed. “Anyway, I suppose there was that girl she was spending time with.”

  “Girl?”

  “She still attended the college. She didn’t seem very old, but Madison said she was a friend. I saw them palling around several times. Occasionally, when I came over to the house, that girl would be there.”

  “Who was this girl? What was her name?”

  “I don’t rememb
er her name. All I really remember about her was that she always looked a little strung out. Just kind of spacey, if you know what I mean. She was always polite. She always smiled and shook my hand. But she simply seemed, well… I don’t know exactly what people on drugs are like, but that girl acted really strange. Maybe she was on drugs. Maybe she was giving them to Madison. I wouldn’t put it past her. I really didn’t like that girl.”

  “You weren’t fond of many of the people that Madison chose to spend time with, were you?” I’d noticed that Andrew didn’t much like Curtis—and maybe there was good reason for that, since he seemed kind of like a dick. But Andrew did seem heavily involved in Madison’s life and fairly judgmental of her choices. I personally didn’t have an older brother. Maybe that was just typically the way big brothers were.

  “I just wanted her to make good choices, that’s all. I worry about her.”

  Yeah, he worried about her. He also seemed to jump to the worst conclusions, thinking she was dead and all. Of course, she very well might be. “That’s understandable,” I said, more to mollify him than because I actually understood. “So, about this friend of Madison’s. You remember what she looked like?”

  “Uh… dark hair? Kind of spacey, like I said.”

  Great. That was totally helpful.

  * * *

  Despite not knowing much about this mystery friend of Madison’s, I decided to spend a little time on campus, showing around Madison’s picture and asking if anyone had seen her around with a dark-haired girl.

  I went by after leaving the office. In Keene, the college takes up about half of the town, and so it was easy to walk around campus and start up conversations with any of the students I saw.

  I struck out, though. There weren’t too many people out and about in the early evening, although there were some. None of the people I approached recognized Madison, and none of them knew anything about a spacey girl with dark hair, not that I really expected them to, not based on that description.

  I needed to get to bed early tonight so that I could be up in the morning and go back to Renmawr. I needed to talk to Yasmine at the restaurant and also try to catch Madison’s boss. The intelligent thing would be for me to go home right now, make myself some dinner, watch some TV, and then go to bed at a normal time, just like every other human being on earth.