Lucky Ride (The Lucky O'Toole Vegas Adventure Series Book 8)

by Deborah Coonts

  What was it about that rope I was missing?

  The knot.

  I knew that knot.

  My call caught Romeo in a bad mood, not that that was unusual.

  “Tell me you have something, anything,” he said without even a lame attempt at the niceties.

  If he was going to read from my playbook, I probably needed to clean up my act, rewrite a few rules. I could get away with bad social skills. A cop, not so much.

  “Toby Sinclair meant to kill someone…okay, overstating…he meant to scare someone. It could’ve been Trevor Turnbull. And Dora Bates cut a wide swath.” I told him what I’d pieced together from Darrin Cole.

  A bunch of shuffling came over the line as he shifted his phone so he could take notes.

  “And the knot found on both ropes is also the one used to tie the halter rope at the Beckhams’ stall.”

  “Who tied it?” Romeo’s voice sharpened.

  “Beckham would be a logical choice.”

  “Or his daughter. Or even the vet. I’ll keep working on it and see if I can get an answer. And I’m following a lead on a prison rodeo in Hunstville, Texas. It’s a long shot. The last rodeo was sometime in the 90’s—a weak attempt to revive it. It had officially closed in the 80’s.”

  “Where’d you stumble across that connection?”

  “Your buddy, Detective Reynolds has a bit of a sharing problem. You might want to watch your back.”

  Romeo let out a huff. “He’s already got one knife in. I feel like the bull staring down a skilled matador.”

  There was something going on with the kid. I knew it! “You need to share. I can help you.”

  “That’s what I’ve been told, but not now. When all of this is over.”

  “Okay.”

  “So, what do you think about what we know so far?”

  After I’d wound down, Romeo didn’t say anything for a bit. “That’s great about Sinclair, but a good defense attorney would rip it to shreds. Besides the DA would probably never go for it in the first place unless you used whatever amazing thing you have against him, which is truly awesome but really wouldn’t be a good idea.”

  “Holy cow.”

  “I know, verbal regurgitation. I’m all better now.”

  “Who knew it was that easy? Could you keep him on charges of reckless endangerment? He let that bull loose into an arena full of people.”

  “We don’t have anyone willing to say he did it. No proof means I gotta let him go. But it would be nice to keep him out of the general population until we narrow in on a suspect. I can run it past the DA. That may be good for an extra twenty-four hours or so, unless you use your stroke with Lovato.”

  Daniel Lovato was our DA and he owed me big time. “No, I don’t want to squander my stroke with him on something like this. Toby Sinclair has a serious anger issue—he needs a shrink, not a date in court. But I really don’t think he intended to kill anyone.”

  “Until we have more, I’m with you.” Romeo had seen enough in his rapid rise to detective to know when to double down and when to let it ride.

  “I’m still trying to unravel the whole knot thing to see if we have anything there. Remote at this point.” Not a pun, but, in the dim light holding back the darkness, clever helped me cope.

  Romeo gave an exaggerated sigh. He knew why, he just didn’t appreciate it.

  “What? Not even a groan? Damn.” I pulled myself together for his benefit. “Anything else? What did the coroner say about Dora Bates?”

  “Suffocation, but he won’t know whether by the tape or whether by drugs until he runs the tox screen. He’s pushing it and Turnbull’s as well. Hopes to have the results tomorrow morning.”

  “So quick?”

  “He’s limiting the request to the barbiturates.”

  “Got it. What about time of death?”

  “He said he’d try and narrow it down by the morning as well—something about it not being an exact science even though all of us non-professionals took it as gospel.”

  That so sounded like the coroner. “Okay, I’ll check with him in the morning. Anything else?”

  “You mean besides the fact we are no closer to finding who is really is at fault in the deaths of Trevor Turnbull and Dora Bates and whether the two are connected or just a happy coincidence?”

  “Sarcasm, Grasshopper, and in someone so young.” I knew he wouldn’t appreciate it, but I couldn’t resist. “The rodeo connects them.”

  “And a million other people.” He ticked them off. “We have the vengeful father, the angry former bull rider, the clown who may or may not have intended to let the bull rider get gored, the vet with access to the murder weapon, a kid on the run with access as well, and a dead guy in her recent past. Anyone else?”

  “You’re a real buzzkill. Not to mention you’re starting to sound like Agatha Christie.”

  “If you’re trying for an insult, you’re falling short.”

  “Yes, falling short seems to be part of my current reality. It’s getting old.”

  “Ah, well, even the gods fell to earth.” He sounded completely unsympathetic.

  “You’re not helping.” I wallowed in self-pity for a few seconds and decided it was beneath me.

  “Are you going to tell me how the meeting with your mother went? I assume not too bad as you’re still walking around a free woman.”

  My mother and my father. How to explain?

  “No.”

  As I stepped through the door of my office, I called Dane, dispensing with the pleasantries when he answered. “You and the girl still at the hospital?”

  “She’s curled up in the chair fast asleep.”

  “Tie her down until I get there. And the doc?”

  “Holding his own. The girl in trouble?” A hint of protectiveness crept into his voice. Dane loved riding to the rescue—probably the sign of an overblown hero complex, but I couldn’t even figure out my own shortcomings, so I probably should leave his well enough alone.

  “Up to her eyeballs and going under fast. I’m serious, don’t let her out of your sight. I’m swinging through the office, then will be on my way. And don’t be surprised if one of her fellow competitors shows up.” The odds were great that one, if not two, would come looking for her.

  The moment I walked in the door, my old office wrapped around me like a hug. My excuse for stopping was that someone might have called, or Security might have an insight, something we could use in the investigation. A long shot, but I needed reorienting in the normal, the familiar, of my world.

  Breathing deep, I followed the aroma of fresh coffee around the divider to our small break room. My hand shook as I poured myself a mug. Don Francisco’s Vanilla Nut—the nectar of the gods. The night was young and I needed a caffeine hit.

  “Put some Bailey’s in mine,” Miss P said as she rounded the corner to join me in the tiny space.

  “You’re still here?”

  She gave me a look. “Please, it’s New Year’s. We’re all here, and will be until tomorrow.”

  I knew that. Not that it made me feel good, but long hours were part of the big salaries…oh, wait…

  “That poor woman,” Miss P said, snapping me out of an endless mental loop of frustration. “I’ll never forget that. Please tell me it will fade over time.”

  “Fade? No. But the memories do get filed away and aren’t quite so present.” I didn’t tell her that sometimes, in a moment of weakness, they could ambush me and be as horrifying as the day they happened.

  “At least you’re honest. When I signed up for this job, I didn’t realize death would be a part of it.”

  “Just one of the perks.” I eyed her, then added a splash more Bailey’s. “Doesn’t the alcohol just negate the caffeine?”

  “Not helping.” With her mug of steaming nerve tonic in hand, she took the chair behind her old desk. In keeping with old habits that had yet to die, I settled myself in the chair opposite the desk with my back to the window that overlooked the
lobby floor. Leaning back, I waited for the hit of adrenaline. My brain knew the glass would keep me from falling, but my eyes didn’t get the memo; they never learned.

  Today, no jolt of fight-or-flight joy juice. Not good. I was counting on some high octane to get through the day.

  With a sigh, I stretched my legs in front of me, crossing them at the ankles. Settled, I took a first, tentative sip of my caffeine-delivery vehicle of choice. The warmth traced a path all the way to my stomach where it melted into a pool of comfort.

  “Fuck you, nasty bitch!”

  That caught me mid-swallow, and some coffee squirted out my nose.

  I’d forgotten about the bird.

  While I’d been fixated on my java jolt, Miss P had uncovered his cage.

  I dabbed at the coffee drops on my slacks—a dark blue, they’d hide my slovenliness well. “Pretty late in the day to be unleashing Newton.” A multicolored Macaw with a foul mouth and a checkered past, Newton was my bird—at least that’s how he saw it. Out of the vast sea of more appreciative humans, I had been the one he chose. I liked that, in a masochistic sort of way.

  With my apartment being uninhabitable, the owner’s suite just barely, and Jean-Charles’s house a curse-free zone due to the residency of his five-year-old son, Christophe, the office was Newton’s new home. Each day he voiced his decided lack of appreciation—not that he was any less potty-mouthed when he was happy, but he did seem to relish the words a bit more these days.

  Someone had told me that birds choose their humans and attach for life, which made me feel guilty. Just once, couldn’t I have a guilt-free relationship? Guilt got me to my feet and I stuffed some apple slices through the bars of his cage. “I’m sorry, big guy.”

  “Asshole!” He gave me his best word with enthusiasm, making me laugh.

  I’d come to think of it as more of an endearment. Justifying, most likely, but it worked. This time, when I plopped back down in my chair, with the caffeine coursing through my system, I took a look around, absorbing my old office.

  It looked the same. I narrowed my eyes at Miss P. “Why are all your things out here? As head of the department, your place is now in my old office, not out here in the outer office.”

  “I like it better here.”

  Relishing the comfort, I knew what she meant.

  “Your office is your office,” she said. “Always will be.”

  I leaned forward and traced the name I’d had stenciled on the corner of her desk: Jeremy Whitlock. That had been when they’d just started dating and I shepherded Miss P through a serious case of waning confidence. Jeremy used to wander in all the time and park a butt cheek on that corner, so I reserved it for him. “Who says?”

  “We took a vote, and, since there are only three of us and two have voted the same way, your vote is irrelevant.”

  “My vote carries more weight.” I glanced down at my thighs with less than the full complement of self-love pop-psychology pundits screamed we all needed. My thighs were not deserving. Once, I’d made the mistake of looking at them with Miss P’s reading glasses on. Double magnification spiked my blood pressure and took years off my life. Even now, I wasn’t sure I’d fully recovered.

  “No, one person, one vote, it’s the rule of the land.” Miss P rattled that off as if she made the rules.

  “You’re lucky I’m too tired to put up a fight.” Truth of it was, I really wanted my professional life to be as it was, at least a couple of days a week.

  “Brandy and I decided you need to split your time.” Miss P sounded as if she was reading my mind.

  We’d known each other a long time, which bothered me a bit—familiarity breeding contempt and all of that. Maybe I should decamp to my new office to give everyone a break. The child in me revisited logic, preferring to go with emotion.

  Pretty much my normal level of functioning.

  As if on cue, Brandy, the youngest and most beautiful of my team, burst through the door radiating youthful enthusiasm, saving me from arguing against my self-interest simply for the sake of being disagreeable—one of my many faults. Give me a losing cause, and I’ll pick up the sword.

  The bird gave a piercing wolf whistle. “Pretty girl. Pretty girl.” One look at my young assistant, and the bird had fallen hard.

  A bit of a blow at the time, his lack of loyalty had whittled my ego down to size, at least where fowl were concerned—which, come to think of it, covered most of the two-legged Y-chromosome set. An upside to a bad bird—I’d finally found one.

  Brandy handled the adulation with casual confidence. Of course, with her stripper’s body, wide eyes, and a Julia Robert’s grin, she attracted a lot of attention—most of it unwanted. And, with a black belt in some sort of Far Eastern Maiming and Mutilation Secret Self-Defense discipline, she was far from helpless. The sort of unexpected thing I loved.

  Brandy gave me a megawatt smile. “Thank you for bringing Romeo back in one piece.” Yes, the two of them were an item—one of those odd couplings that created magic.

  I took pride in their happiness and not a tiny bit of responsibility, even though misplaced—I’d made the intro; they’d made the choice. Thankfully, Romeo hadn’t told her how close I’d come to losing him in China, so my invisible cloak of invincibility still masked my incompetence. I could live with that, but increasingly I felt like I was wearing the emperor’s new clothes.

  “Your detective didn’t need any help from me. In fact, he was key—I had no idea he had such capacity for theft.”

  “There’s barely a line between virtue and vice.” She gave me a knowing look, her smile drifting away.

  “Sounds like something I’d say, not that it makes me proud or anything.”

  “Has he talked to you?” She lowered her voice, bringing me into her life, her concern for Romeo.

  Yes, someone had Romeo’s nuts in a vise.

  “When this is over, he said.”

  She recovered a hint of her smile. “Good. You do know we learned that fine-line thing from you, right?”

  I started to argue, but Miss P stopped me short. “We both did.”

  “I don’t even want to know what else I’ve passed along when I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “Fresh coffee?” Brandy asked Miss P, who nodded.

  Brandy stepped over my legs, following the aroma as I had done. “You’ve heard about our vote, then?” Her voice filtered from behind the partition. “It shouldn’t be a problem for you to move back into your old office since you never moved out.” She cradled the mug in both hands when she reappeared. “Sort of Freudian, don’t you think?”

  “More of a failure to launch sort of thing, if you ask me. I just can’t seem to leave home.”

  Both she and Miss P seemed fine with it, so I guess I could grant them their wish. “Miss P, will you ask Jeremy to do something for me?”

  The Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock, her much younger husband and Vegas’s primo PI, was my go-to guy when in a pinch and needing someone who wouldn’t mind sticking a toe across the line.

  “Sure.”

  “Will you have him run the names of everyone on the suspect list through the prison database for the penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas?”

  “Can you narrow it down?”

  “The names, no. The time frame, yes. Start in the early 80’s.” She accepted that and got on the phone.

  The door flew open, banging off its stops. Amazingly, I didn’t spill a drop of my coffee—I must be dead.

  Flash skidded to a stop, saving herself from face-planting over my legs.

  “You could’ve moved,” she pretended to grouse.

  “And spoil the fun?” I took a sip of coffee, resisting the sigh of contentment as I eyed her.

  Today was neon orange, yellow, and lime green day. Normally, Flash wore one-size-fits-all Spandex, but today she had on a pair of high-waisted bell-bottoms and platform shoes. The personification of bad taste and disheveled excitement.

  “Phone Peter Max, the 70’s is lookin
g for that outfit.”

  She fluffed at her wild red curls, then straightened her short jacket—I was pretty sure if she turned around, Elvis would stare back at me. “Haven’t you heard? What’s old is new again.”

  I eyed her over the top of my mug as I breathed in the aroma. “There’s hope for us all.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  “Don’t you want to know why I’m here? You’re one hell of a hard woman to find, by the way.”

  “That’s bull—you called Jerry and he told you. Security knows everything.”

  At Flash’s crestfallen look, Miss P stifled a smile.

  “But, all kidding aside, I’m really happy to see you. I know you wouldn’t come in person unless you wanted to gloat, so I know it’s going to be good.”

  “Good,” she scoffed. “Please, I do good in my sleep.”

  That was a hanging curve ball waiting for me to hit it out of the park, but I didn’t need to say it for her to hear it. All I had to do was raise an eyebrow.

  “Cute.” She waggled her phone at me. “But, if I were you, I’d make nice. You’re going to want to see this.”

  I pulled my feet underneath me and bolted upright. “YouTube?” This time I did spill my coffee. Miss P handed me a tissue and I dabbed at the spots on my pants—thankfully, the dark blue had been a perfect color choice today. “Anything interesting?” I motioned for my staff to gather around as Flash pulled the chair next to mine around to face me.

  She perched on the edge. Miss P leaned over her, with Brandy kneeling to get a closer view.

  “I broke several laws to get these.” She glanced up from her phone. “Had to pay for a couple of them, so that’ll show up on my expense account.”

  “Cheaper than bail.” Unable to hide my excitement, I moved closer. “Have you looked at all the footage?”

  “Yeah, I got three videos. One was a bit fuzzy; the other two were decent. Three different angles, which is good. A video guy I know edited them together to give us a pretty good pano.” She glanced around the group for a moment of drama building. “You guys ready?”

  “Flash!” I gave her the satisfaction of my impatience.