“I know how Coop comes across, but there’s a lot more to him than what anyone sees. I’ve known him for a long time. He saved my life once, and he’s saved the lives of people I care about. No matter how crass he seems, no one will try harder to find Shelby’s killer than he will.”
Except me.
Hank pulled the truck around the front of the hotel, shifting into park while Cade got out and headed inside.
Bonnie pulled me in for a hug. “I feel better leaving knowing you’re looking out for our family’s interests.”
“I’ll do everything I can.”
She smiled and walked through the revolving door, patting Cade on her way out. He approached me, pressing his lips against mine.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I dunno. Not really. I feel bad about all this, about leavin’ you.”
“You’re not leaving me. You don’t have a choice.”
“It doesn’t feel right though. Seems like I should be takin’ you back with me.”
“I have to stay. I have to find the man who killed Shelby.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I’ll be all right. Try not to worry.”
He stepped back, resting his hands on my shoulders. “I’ll always worry. Be careful. Don’t do anything crazy. Promise me. I can’t lose you too.”
“I’ll be fine, Cade. I promise.”
CHAPTER 15
The man stood across from Bonnie and Hank’s hotel, watching everyone say goodbye. From the looks of things, Cade appeared to be returning to Wyoming, and Sloane would stay behind.
Good.
It would be much easier for him to divide and conquer this way.
He took one last drag on his cigarette and flicked it to the ground, stubbing it out with the bottom of his shoe. He thought about leaving, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from Cade and Sloane, holding hands, standing together beside the truck for one last embrace. The embrace was long. Too long. It made the man uncomfortable.
Get on with it already.
Leave.
Viewing such tenderness between two people turned his stomach, like a virus had entered his body and quickly spread.
Anger.
Slow, festering anger.
His heart beating faster and faster.
He reached out, clutching a tree for support, inhaling and then exhaling and then inhaling again.
Focus.
Remember what you’re here for and why.
You’re in control.
It’s all going according to plan.
Cade gripped the handle of the door, but then leaned back to Sloane, whispering something in her ear. For a moment it looked like she might cry, but she didn’t.
Seeing the display of emotion between them was almost like witnessing two lovers on a movie screen, a magical connection that seemed too unrealistic to be real. For a fleeting moment the man was reminded of a time in his own life when he too had been in love. A time so long ago, he strained to remember it.
Over the years he’d been with plenty of women. A few of them he’d even cared for on a marginal, detached level. The rest served a single purpose—a warm body on a cold, lonely night. He had only ever felt real love for a woman once, and that woman had been his wife, and when he lost her, he lost everything.
CHAPTER 16
A flashy red mustang was parked in the driveway when I returned to Maddie’s. I found her in the kitchen, leaning over a newspaper, her hair pinned up in two buns on the side of her head like she was a blond Princess Leia.
“Hey,” she said. “Come here. I need to talk to you.”
“You’re not working today?”
Maddie folded the newspaper in half and tossed it into the trash. “I took some time off to help you, if you’ll let me. After everything that’s happened, I feel like I need to do something, especially since Cade seems irritated with me.”
“He didn’t mean what he said last night.”
“Oh, I know.”
I walked over to the trashcan and looked inside, seeing a piece of a headline above a photo of Shelby’s face. It read: Innocence Lost. The Secret Life of a Female Escort. I reached down and fished the paper out.
Maddie placed a hand on my wrist. “Don’t read it. Not now. It can wait.”
“It’s okay. I want to know what they said.”
I wriggled my hand free of her grasp and unfolded the paper. The press had discovered Shelby’s secret life, although it was unclear how. The article loosely attributed her death to the business she was in, even though it was obviously speculation. There was no actual proof.
“It could be worse,” Maddie said. “They don’t know the name of the agency, how long she worked there, or how many men were involved.”
“Who do you think talked? Paul? There’s no way Coop leaked it. He despises the press just as much as I do.”
She shrugged. “Who knows? My guess is someone was paid for information, maybe a coworker of Shelby’s.”
“Whose car is parked outside?”
“Umm ... it’s ... ahh ... well, that’s what I was trying to talk to you about when you walked in here. You’ve been so busy, and he was on vacation, and now he’s back, and—”
“Now who’s back?”
“You know how Coop told you his detective was out of town? Well, he’s in the living room, waiting to talk to you.”
I stared at her for a moment, wondering why she was being so cryptic.
“You’re making me nervous,” I whispered. “Do I know him?”
She nodded.
No matter how bad he was, he wouldn’t top Coop.
“Just tell me who it is.”
I heard footsteps, someone walking toward the kitchen. Whoever the mystery man was, I was about to find out.
“Been a while, Sloane,” he said.
I didn’t even need to turn. I recognized the voice. Leaning against a wall by the kitchen’s entrance was Nick Calhoun, a former Park City detective and my former boyfriend.
“Nick. What are you doing here?”
“Coop called me and said there was a case he needed help on.”
“No, I mean, why are you here? Why would Coop call you about the case?”
“I work for him now.”
He worked for him?
I’d remembered Coop saying his detective would speak to me once he returned to town, but I would have never believed that person was Nick. In the past, they had always butted heads. I wondered what had changed.
“You’re his new detective? I didn’t think you two liked each other, at least you didn’t when I lived here.”
“We don’t always get along now either.”
“Then why did he choose you?”
“Coop’s an unconventional guy. He’s more interested in how good I am at what I do than what he thinks of me personally. I hear the victim on the case is your boyfriend’s daughter. Guess you broke things off with the suit?”
The “suit” he was referring to was another former boyfriend, Giovanni Luciana.
“A few years ago, yes.”
“And you ... live in Wyoming? Really?”
“For now. Why?”
“Huh. Never figured you’d end up there.”
Coop was familiar with my history with Nick, making me wonder if he sent him over to “handle me,” make sure I stayed out of the way.
“Just to be clear, I’m here until I find out what happened to Shelby,” I said. “Coop won’t stop me from investigating her murder, and neither will you.”
“I didn’t come here to stop you. Coop brought me up to speed about an hour ago, and I was hoping we could help each other out.”
“Why would you want to help me? In the past, you had a hard time with me being a private investigator.”
“It’s different now.”
“In what way?”
“For one, we’re not in a relationship anymore.”
I slipped onto one of the barstools at the counter, claspe
d my hands together. “You’re right. We’re not. And if you’re thinking this is some way for you to get back with me, it isn’t?”
“Sloane, listen. You don’t need to—”
“I mean it, Nick. Even if I were single, it wouldn’t change anything between us. We weren’t good for each other, and I don’t need you here now micromanaging my every move.”
“Are you finished? Can I talk?”
I shrugged. “If you must.”
He shook his head. “You know what? Forget it. I thought we could move past this and talk through the case like adults, but I don’t think we can. For whatever reason, you still have a chip on your shoulder.”
He spun around.
“I see you’re still the same arrogant, pushy man I knew before,” I said.
Walking away, he said, “And you’re still hard-headed and stubborn. I’m married, by the way. Happily. Going on a year now, so whatever notion you had in your head about what I’m really doing here, you’re wrong.”
CHAPTER 17
The following morning, I found Maddie meditating on a large, square ottoman in the center of her room. “When you’re finished, I’d like to see the crime scene and Shelby’s room.”
She opened her eyes, frowned. “You interrupted me, and it’s not like I can get back to my peaceful place now. I’m finished.”
I should have apologized, but I didn’t.
“I just want to get going today. I also need to find this Jesse Baldwin kid, and see what he has to say.”
“So we’re ignoring what happened with Nick last night?” Maddie asked. “You went to bed after he left and refused to talk to me about it. Now you need something, and suddenly everything is okay?”
“You should have told me Nick worked for Coop, and that he was married. I feel like an idiot.”
“I have no control over the things you say. It’s not my fault.”
“I wouldn’t have said what I did if I’d known.”
“I didn’t slight you on purpose. I’ve been preoccupied since Shelby died. We all have. And the last time I offered to give you an update on Nick’s life, you said you didn’t ever want to know anything about him again. I was trying to think of a subtle way to tell you. I just hadn’t come up with it yet. Kind of low priority, everything considered.”
Maddie lifted her chin, defiant.
I leaned against the wall. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s been a long few days. I feel like I’m losing it.”
She shrugged. “I get it. We’re all struggling.”
Everything was so heavy. We needed a change, something to lighten the mood, even if only for a moment.
“You want to hear something crazy?”
She smiled. “Always.”
“The other day when we found out about Shelby, you couldn’t get ahold of me because I was in the mountains with Cade. He was proposing.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, geez. Talk about bad timing. What did you say?”
“I didn’t get the chance to say anything. He asked, and before I could respond, Bonnie and Hank drove up.”
“So, tell me about the proposal. What did he do? How did he ask?”
I told her.
She raised a brow. “Did you have any idea he was going to pop the question before he did it?”
“I was putting some shirts away in his dresser drawer a few weeks ago and saw the box. I wasn’t sure when he planned to ask, but it was obvious what kind of box it was, and it hadn’t been there long.”
“I knew it! You’re the absolute worst when it comes to surprises.”
And yet my life had been filled with too many of them, and not often the good kind.
“At least I didn’t open the box,” I said. “Do you have any idea how much restraint it took to know it was there and not do anything about it?”
“It gave you time to think about your answer though. Do you want to marry him?”
It was a hard question to answer.
It depended on the day.
“I like the way things are now, but I can see us married. We’re good together. He gets me, and most men don’t. I have imagined our wedding, but Shelby was always there with us. It feels so different now, like it wouldn’t be the same without her. And he’s suffering. It will be some time before he recovers.”
“He will recover though.”
Yes, but he’d never be the same.
“For now the proposal is on hold.” I held out a hand, helping Maddie to her feet. “Let’s check out the guesthouse.”
“If Coop finds out we’re over there, he’ll—”
“It’s not like we’re trespassing. It’s your guesthouse on your property. And since when have you cared about what Coop thinks?”
“It’s different this time. It’s Shelby. I don’t want him to do to you what he did to Cade. I can’t help but feel he’s watching your every move.”
I assumed as much, which was why he’d sent Nick, his mini minion.
“If I’m going to find answers, I have to poke around the same way I would if I was working any other case. I can’t worry about how it will affect Coop.”
Or how it would affect me.
She unwrapped a stick of gum and popped it into her mouth. “You’re right. I’m in.”
A few minutes later, we walked through Maddie’s back yard, ducking beneath strips of police tape on the guesthouse porch like we were going for a gold medal in a limbo contest. Maddie inserted her key into the door, and I followed her inside. We stood in silence at first, taking it all in, the heaviness of the loss leaving me gutted. Pain and suffering were familiar, parts of my life that had made me tough, but sometimes I didn’t want to be tough anymore.
“They took a lot of her personal things into evidence,” Maddie said. “Not sure what you’re looking for or what’s left to find.”
“There’s only one thing I’m interested in.”
I glanced at a small, white, wooden table. I didn’t see what I was looking for, which alarmed me. “I gave Shelby a plant several months ago when I visited. A succulent. She used to keep it on the center of the table, and now it’s gone. Police wouldn’t care about a plant, right? I suppose they could have moved it. Any idea where it is?”
“Shelby bought a few floating shelves for her bedroom wall recently, and it seems like I saw a plant or two there.”
Maddie was right. I found the succulent resting on the middle shelf of her bedroom wall. I lifted it up, handed the base piece to Maddie, and returned the plant to the shelf.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “Why give me this?”
I reached out my hand, and she handed the base back to me. “You’ll see.”
The six-inch-square base consisted of two pieces, a top and bottom that sealed shut when twisted, making it look like one single piece. I unscrewed it, pulling the two segments apart.
Maddie stared in disbelief. “You’re kidding me. I don’t believe it.”
“I gave this to her when she moved, to keep her money in or anything she wanted to hide or keep private.”
“She was living with me though, not a college dorm. She didn’t need to worry about anyone stealing her stuff.”
The tone of Maddie’s voice made me feel like I’d offended her.
“It had nothing to do with you, Maddie. I knew she would have friends over, and if she left the wrong things sitting around, they might have been too enticing not to take.”
“Well, are you going to show me what’s in there, or what?”
I lifted the lid, set it on the bed, and held the base in my hand. Maddie reached in, grabbing a money clip fastened over a stack of folded hundred-dollar bills. She counted it out. Two thousand dollars. “Wow. That’s a nice chunk of cash for a girl her age.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more money stashed somewhere else too.”
Maddie clipped the money back together, set it to the side, and reached for a stack of black business cards. The cards were simple, and contained
only two pieces of information—Shelby’s first name and a phone number.
I looked at the number. “It’s not her number.”
“Let’s call it and see what happens.”
“No, don’t. Not yet.”
“Why not? I can lower my voice enough to pass as a guy.”
She proceeded to give me a less-than-impressive demonstration of a male voice, and I nixed the idea again.
She dropped the cards back into the box and frowned. “I hate this! I hate knowing I was clueless about what she was doing with her life. I should have spent more time with her. Cade was right, ya know? You two left her in my care, and I was off doing my own thing all the time. I should have paid more attention.”
“She was old enough to make her own decisions, and she did. We were all in the dark. Shelby chose this life. I keep asking myself why, but I’ll probably never know the answer. She had a loving family, a father who was always there for her, and a good life. It’s not like she needed attention from these guys, and she wasn’t broke either. Cade provided her with more than enough money to live on while she was here.”
“I don’t think it has anything to do with Cade,” Maddie said. “But what about Wendy? She wasn’t the best mother. Actually, she wasn’t a mother at all. Do you think Shelby felt abandoned?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. The last time Shelby saw Wendy was a couple years ago. It was rocky at first, but they parted on okay terms, probably better terms than they had ever been on before.”
I grabbed the last item in the plant base, a folded piece of paper with a photo printed on it.
“Hey,” Maddie said. “Is this the same photo you told me about, the one Elise showed you at her house?”
“Yeah, it is.”
It seemed Shelby was the one who had left the photo on Elise’s car after all. I flipped it over, inspecting the words written on the back. The verbiage was similar, but a few of the words had been scratched out.
“It looks like she printed this one, wrote on it, and then didn’t like what she said and decided to print out another one and change the wording,” I said.
“Why would she keep the copy though? Why not throw it out?”
Gone Daddy Gone (Sloane Monroe Book 7) Page 7
