Locked, Loaded, & Lying

by Sarah Andre

  “Actually, we’re not concerned about the stealing part. We’re wondering why you killed her.”

  Both brothers jerked, and Leo gasped. She ignored them, focusing on reading Reeves. Most people had a tell when they lied. She’d mastered hers to survive childhood and knew exactly what to look for.

  He scrutinized her, his pale-blue eyes hooded and lust-filled. The same panic she felt with Vannini flooded through her, but on the other hand, the sucker just revealed a very common tell: distract rather than answer.

  “Well, now. Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” he drawled in that scraping voice. “You fucking Lock and Load too, or do I have a shot?”

  “Shut it,” Lock snarled and tried to step in front of her. She nudged him away.

  “I don’t date killers,” she answered calmly, even though she felt far from it. “We know you lied to Tiffany about your job. We know she dumped you. And we know you’ve gone through two messy divorces because of your anger issues. It’s not hard to connect the dots. You had a motive.”

  He sneered, but his face turned crimson, making those icy eyes stand out sharply. “The bitch dumped me two weeks before she died. That’s a long time to wait to kill her, don’t you think?”

  “Not if she was out of the country the whole last week. Which she was.”

  “How in the hell would I know that?”

  “Because you followed every status update and Tweet she posted, MMADude.”

  Surprise flashed across his face before he masked it with a scowl. “So what? It was two dates. I was over her.”

  “Then why’d you still stalk her on social networks? Why videotape her fight with Lock?”

  He glanced away, only for a nanosecond, but it was another tell. Most people couldn’t maintain eye contact while inventing a lie. He shifted his weight and lifted a shoulder.

  “All right. I still hoped we had a chance,” he answered belligerently. “That afternoon she Twittered where she was and how much she hated him, so I hustled over to the bar. But she ignored me.”

  “She was drunk.”

  “She knew I was there.”

  “How?”

  “I bought her a drink. Had it sent over with my compliments. Would I do that if I intended to kill her?”

  Leo’s breath hitched, and Jordan paused, glancing over at him. He frowned in a fathomless way at his brother. It was clear Lock didn’t understand the look either by his faint shrug and puzzled brows.

  Leo turned to Reeves. “You put a roofie in her drink.”

  “Prove it.”

  “My brother drank that glass—you even filmed it.” His voice trembled. “That’s the only way you could get her to have sex with you.”

  “No, little guy. I mean prove there was a roofie in her drink.”

  Leo swiveled back to Lock. An entire conversation seemed to unfold in the brothers’ gazes. “Because,” he answered softly, “my brother would never drink so much that he’d black out. You drugged him.”

  Reeves threw back his head and roared with laughter. The thick, purple veins in his muscular neck bulged with the force of his mirth. He rubbed his nose. “Black out,” he snorted. “That’s rich.”

  It was the first time he’d uncrossed his arms since they’d arrived. Under the threatening phrase I Shoot People was a silkscreen of a camera. Jordan felt a tiny flicker of relief.

  “What’s rich,” she said sharply, “is we now have proof you tried to drug Tiffany.”

  “That wasn’t my drink. I sent over a Slippery Nipple.”

  She struggled to keep the disgust off her face. “Then who sent the Cosmo?”

  He ignored her, turning to Lock, his expression flat. “I’m not gonna be the one to save you from prison, asswipe. Now get outta my house.”

  Leo immediately stepped toward the door, but Jordan grabbed his sleeve. They had to get more information. She glanced around the stark kitchen thinking furiously. Her gaze landed on a bunch of photographs pasted on his refrigerator. Stalling for time she limped over, paying no attention to Lock murmuring her name or Reeves roughly clearing his throat.

  The pictures were all landscapes. Really beautiful landscapes. The startling greens of Aspen in summer, a group of blue-gray mountains devouring a sunset, a meadow of purple wildflowers juxtaposed with a rotted wooden fence in the forefront.

  She took the wildflower one off the refrigerator to study the talented composition. Reeves snatched it away and slapped it back in its spot.

  Her shoulders fell in disappointment. “You’re right-handed.”

  “And you must have a PhD.”

  His bulging t-shirt was inches from her nose.

  “You’re very talented,” she said sincerely to the chiseled, silk-screened camera.

  He grunted and jerked his head toward the backdoor. Leo was already there, his hand on the knob. She limped slowly in that direction, aggravated that she couldn’t figure out how to get Reeves to cooperate. He’d been in the bar. He’d been so obsessed with Tiffany he was filming her and anyone who came into contact with her. He’d have seen exactly who sent that drink over.

  Wait a minute! She swiveled back.

  He blinked, incredulous. “What part of ‘get the fuck out of here’ don’t you understand?”

  “Come on, Jordan,” Leo urged, panic threading his voice.

  “It’s just that we found this website,” she said casually, quivering in fear and exhilaration. “TheHottestBabeonEarth.com. Ever heard of it?”

  He brushed a palm over his mouth impatiently. “No.”

  Another tell. Her heart soared. “It’s filled with pictures of Tiffany,” she explained slowly. “Taken by a Nikon D300, which is a badass camera.”

  Reeves got in her face. “So?” he barked.

  His aggressive nearness gave her another dreadful flashback of Vannini, but she didn’t move a muscle. “One set of pictures was taken from inside her courtyard. Up a tree. They’re pretty obscene. And illegal.”

  “Would you just get the hell out before I call the cops?”

  “So my boss,” she continued as if he hadn’t uttered a peep, “who’s a very talented PI by the way, is zeroing in on the webmaster’s MAC address. I’m expecting a call with the name and address any second.”

  Reeves’ pale eyes bugged out in his beet-red face. “And I should give a fuck because…?”

  She shrugged, gesturing to his shirt and the refrigerator. “You’re talented with a camera. You’re a security guard at her condo complex and could easily find a way into her courtyard. Most of the uploads occurred at a Starbucks early in the morning, right about the time you get off work, I bet. I’ll also bet if you did call the cops, they’d find a Nikon D300 and a computer file with all those pictures somewhere in here.”

  “You sick fuck.” Lock charged in full-kill mode with Leo wrapped around his waist, digging in his heels.

  “Bring it,” Reeves growled, raising his fists.

  “Wait a minute,” she snapped, and they actually paused in bewilderment. She faced Reeves again and took a deep breath. “I hope you burn in hell for violating her privacy and dignity. I have half a mind to call the cops right this second, but you have something I need.”

  He sneered and grabbed his crotch, but she kept her gaze on those frightening eyes.

  “If you answer one question, we’ll leave and won’t go to the police.” I’ll just notify Carlotta anonymously and let her handle it.

  He shifted his weight, his mouth a brutal line of fury. “What?”

  “Who sent over that last cocktail? The one you filmed Lock drinking.”

  He stared down at her, his scowl filled with martial arts menace, and she stared right back, just like all those times with her father. Hoping to God she projected fearlessness. A full minute passed, and it seemed like ten.

  Reeves exhaled. “It was that other skier,” he said rudely.

  “Wolf?” I knew it!

  “No, the Italian dick. He hovered in the back of the bar watching her too.
”

  “You saw him bring the drink over?”

  He shook his head. “He was talking to some chick.” His hand passed over his mouth again. It wasn’t just some chick; it was someone he recognized. “They both looked at the drink she held, she put something in it and then gave it to Tiffany. End of story.”

  “Who was the chick?”

  Silence.

  “A waitress?”

  “Your one question was over four questions ago.”

  Jordan’s teeth clicked together. They were so close! “Describe one thing about her,” she begged. “I promise you’ll never hear from us again.”

  He studied them leisurely, like he was deciding whether to answer or dropkick them into next Tuesday.

  Jordan tried to swallow, but her mouth was dust dry.

  Finally his lips twisted. “Messy, blond hair.” He eyed Lock. “Sure hope I didn’t just save you from getting life.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “Vannini did it,” Jordan proclaimed. “And his alibi, Jennifer Johnson, has messy blond hair. He drugged the drink, and she brought it over. Then she went out and crouched down in his car to wait for him.”

  Lock sped down Route 82, thoughts running wild at Reeves’s revelation. Vannini. That familiar simmer of hate for his nemesis now amped up to a limb-shaking need to maim the fucker.

  “We’ve got to figure out what secret Tiffany knew. It’s our only way to prove all this.” Jordan dug her phone out and dialed. Asked for a room number. “He’s not answering,” she said, tapping end. She began flipping through her legal pad looking for something.

  “Why would he bother drugging her if his intent was to kill?” Leo asked.

  “Maybe it wasn’t his intent. With a roofie in her, he’d have manipulated her to do something. But when Lock swigged the cocktail, maybe Vannini went for Plan B.”

  “Kill her because of a secret?”

  Leo’s persistent doubt nagged at Lock. It had to be Vannini. Because the only other murderer left in play was him—drugged, enraged with jealousy, and unable to remember. “If the secret was Vannini’s doping,” he said curtly, “he had a motive. His life is the ski circuit and the fame that goes with it.” Just like mine used to be.

  Leo raised his palms. “Then it goes back to: why the roofie? That’s generally used to have sex with the victim, and she was having an affair with him.”

  Jordan bit her lip. “Vannini said they weren’t. What if he was telling the truth?”

  Then why would Tiff lie to me?

  She turned to Leo. “Why did you change your mind about the roofie angle?”

  “I looked at that thug, and it wasn’t a big leap. Then the timing. A date-rape drug begins working in twenty minutes, but takes a couple of hours to fully absorb. If Lock drank the Cosmo at eight, he’d be completely out of it by ten, long after they were back in the condo. Long after the arguing. Anyone could’ve walked in there and killed her in front of him, and he wouldn’t remember.”

  She sat so close her shiver went up the right side of Lock’s body.

  “Besides,” Leo continued, “I’ve had a couple of days to think about this. When Lock told us that he sat on her bed feeling woozy and confused… Those are classic side effects of mixing that drug with alcohol. I’ve seen my brother stinking drunk, and those symptoms aren’t his problems.”

  The air was charged with Leo’s anticipation of verbal combat, but Lock let the moment go by. He deserved it, anyway. But he picked right up on Jordan sensing some kind of conflict by the way her brows knit in frustration. Oddly, she stayed quiet.

  Leo broke the silence. “What do we do now?”

  Jordan tapped a name on her pad. “Ask the girl with the messy blond hair. Jennifer works at the Hawthorne Café on Main Street.”

  She Googled something on her phone, called asking how much longer “they” were open and was “Jennifer Johnson working this evening?”

  “Great,” she said excitedly. “We’ll be right there.”

  Twenty minutes later, Lock sat beside Jordan in the end booth of Hawthorne’s. His back faced the nearly empty place, and he fidgeted with his cap and scarf. Next to him Jordan craned her neck, trying to find Vannini’s alibi.

  “Here she comes,” she whispered excitedly.

  Out of the corner of his eye someone stopped by their table, and he scratched the side of his face to hide his profile.

  “Why, if it isn’t Lock Roane,” she said excitedly, and his eyes closed in resignation. He’d managed five furtive minutes walking from the car through the crowded pedestrians on Main without being recognized, just for this.

  “It’s me, Prissy.”

  He glanced up. The bunching in his shoulders eased as he recognized the waitress. She was one of the team groupies. A girl who slept with any of them without hesitation. And sporting boobs that size? She didn’t get turned down often. Not him though. He couldn’t get past the stiff, frizzy blond hair that looked and moved like she wore a helmet.

  “You’re Jennifer,” Jordan corrected. “Jennifer Johnson.”

  “Well, yes. But I go by my middle name, Priscilla.” She smiled and flapped her hands excitedly. The motion sent a vague scent of marijuana their way. “It’s like, so great to see you, Lock.”

  Jordan pointed to herself in agitation.

  “I was the one interviewing Roberto this afternoon, remember? You slammed the door in my face?”

  “Oh.” Prissy laughed, and yeah, he definitely remembered that shrill, obnoxious laugh until Jordan’s words caught up with his exhausted brain.

  “Wait a minute. That means you…?”

  “Yeah. I’m his alibi. I thought you knew.”

  He sat there thunderstruck. “You slept with Vannini?”

  She smiled coyly. “Well, we didn’t sleep…”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jordan shudder. Prissy’s surprise announcement took a backseat as his pulse soared. He grabbed Jordan’s sleeve.

  “Just what exactly happened up there?” So help me God, if Vannini had forced himself on her…But she’d said no. Why would she lie?

  His thoughts withered under her frosty expression.

  “Not quite the right time, Roane,” she said, yanking the sleeve out of his grip and turning back to Prissy. “Would you be willing to answer some questions now that you know I’m Lock’s friend?”

  “But you’re from Sports Illustrated.”

  “I’m a freelance reporter.”

  “Well…I am on the job.” They all looked around. The café was now empty. “What I mean is, I’m still technically working.” Her casual shrug was a female-to-female fuck you if ever Lock had seen one, and he slung an arm around Jordan’s slender shoulders before she decided to claw the girl’s face.

  “Come on, Prissy,” he coaxed. “Just answer a few questions.”

  She pursed her thin lips and eyed his arm around Jordan. He waited, motionless, hearing his own thumping heartbeat. Why would she have passed a drugged drink to Tiff?

  “Well okay,” she said. “For you.” Her light green eyes were glassy, flirty, and a little off focus. She was seriously high, and hopefully Jordan could get over her animosity and take advantage of how few bong hits it took to turn Prissy into a gabfest queen.

  “Can we hurry this up?” Leo mumbled. “We’re never going to find a place to sleep tonight.”

  “You can stay with me, Lock.” Prissy giggled. “I don’t have room for anyone else though.”

  He felt Jordan’s shoulders stiffen and glanced over, reveling at the sight of her fuming away. Could she actually be jealous? Of him hooking up with Prissy? He almost laughed aloud.

  They ordered coffee and a basket of muffins, and Prissy, promising to join them while they ate, disappeared into the kitchen.

  “If we head back within the hour we’ll be home before midnight,” Leo said hopefully.

  “It depends on what’s on Jordan’s agenda,” he said, beginning to feel pretty shitty about the way he’d treat
ed her all afternoon. Her shudder at the thought of Vannini having sex with Prissy was a game changer. Obviously Vannini had put the moves on, and for some reason she was covering the asshole’s assault by letting him think the worst of her. Why? He picked up his water glass. “What do you want to do, Jo?”

  Her soft smile almost made him choke on the sip. “Once we talk to Prissy, I’d like to meet with Wolf.”

  He was about to tell her to give it a rest, but hell, she was doing all this for him. Wolf would get a kick out of being a suspect, even though Vannini was a shoo-in.

  “Then we’re staying,” he declared. “I’m friends with the general managers at The Little Nell and St. Regis. Although they may hang up on me now.”

  “It’s Friday night during spring break,” his brother murmured.

  “They always have a room tucked away in case a surprise Hollywood star arrives. And both are discreet when it comes to any media sniffing around. It can’t hurt to call.”

  He borrowed Leo’s phone and began leaving messages until the food arrived, and Prissy took off her apron.

  She slid in beside Leo, who tried not to glance at that perky rack jutting halfway across the table. Lock grinned. Yeah, Prissy might not have an attractive face, but she sure wasn’t turned down often.

  He stuffed a muffin in his mouth as Jordan flipped to a fresh page and pressed her little recorder button. Prissy had no idea what she was in for, and it was kind of fun not being the bug under the microscope for once. Lock kept his arm around Jordan’s shoulders, reveling in their contact and the imminent shark feeding ahead.

  “Are you going to see Roberto this evening?” Jordan asked, and although her tone was professional, he could tell by the way her body stayed stiff that she hadn’t thawed to Prissy’s giggly charms.

  “He kind of left it up in the air. But probably.”

  “When did you speak to him?”

  “Just now. I called him from the kitchen.” She grinned at Lock. “He was furious when I told him I was talking to you. I had to lie and tell him you just left.”