by Terra Little
“I’m supposed to be working, remember? Which reminds me, I was dead serious about the question I asked.”
“Oh, okay, well, then I have to ask you again—are you out of your mind?”
“Not at all. All I need you to do is quietly look into Broderick’s sister’s disappearance. Her maiden name is Brandy Cannon. I’ll text you the rest of the information that I have on her shortly.”
“I thought you said you were going on hiatus after you were done with this case?”
“I was. I mean, I am. Technically, this isn’t really a new case. It’s more like payback,” Elise explained as she stared up at the skylights and watched the wind whip through the trees overhead. “Broderick Cannon might be great in bed but outside of it, he needs to be taken down a few pegs. I bet him that I could find his missing sister before he does.”
“What? Isn’t he in Albuquerque right now, looking for her?”
“Yes, but—”
“The man owns one of the country’s top security firms, Elise. If he hasn’t been able to find his sister, what makes you think you’ll be able to? What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking about how he somehow got it into that inflated head of his that all I do every day is chase down cheating husbands and shop for shoes. As if Carrington Consulting is a joke. I think I just wanted to shut him up.”
“Well, he’s kind of right about the shoe shopping part, but—”
“Really, Olivia?”
“Yes, really. Anyway, who cares what he thinks? The only real difference between what he does and what we do is that he’s free to shout his accomplishments from the rooftops and we aren’t. But we knew that would be the case when we started the firm, and, until now, neither of us has ever had a problem with it. What’s changed?”
“Nothing’s changed. You’re right,” Elise admitted, though it cost her dearly. “I wasn’t thinking. I know I shouldn’t care what he thinks, but he’s just so damn smug that it makes me crazy.”
Broderick’s automatic assumption that she was some spoiled, airheaded, wanna-be private investigator stung, and it couldn’t have been further from the truth. Her service record, both as a police officer and as a marshal, was impeccable, and, contrary to what he seemed to think, her decision to resign from the first had nothing to do with the dress code restrictions. She was good at her job because God knew she’d taken enough flack from men who thought the same way that Broderick did for the right to do it. And while, ultimately, she hadn’t been content to make a career out of it, she’d spent more than enough time secretly eyeing her captain’s office and mentally rearranging the furniture to her liking, up to that point. Then she had arrested a woman named Gloria Williamson and everything, including the way she looked at the law, changed.
“So what?” Olivia challenged, breaking into Elise’s thoughts. “Look, I’m all for you having great sex, because God knows you need it. But don’t forget for one second who you’re sleeping with. Broderick Cannon is hot, I’ll give you that, but I don’t need someone with his level of security clearance poking around in my professional affairs, and neither do you, my friend.”
“It doesn’t have to get that intense. It’s not like we’re dealing with the IRS.”
“Yeah, well, if given the choice, I’d much rather have the IRS snooping around than Broderick Cannon. Think about it, Elise.”
The fact that Olivia, of all people, had to talk her out of doing something reckless went against everything that Elise stood for, both as an intellectual and as a feminist. It also spoke volumes about the current state of her personal affairs. When had she become one of those women who lost the ability to think clearly because of good sex?
“I will,” she promised, sort of meaning it.
“Good. In the meantime, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to put out a few feelers and see if anything comes up.”
“I knew you loved me,” Elise said, grinning from ear to ear.
“Oh, shut up. You owe me big-time for this.”
“No, I don’t. You’re the reason I’m here in the first place, remember?”
“Hmmm” was the only sound Olivia made before the line went dead.
Gloria Williamson didn’t cross Elise’s mind again until lunchtime, when she was at the food court in the local mall, eating a Mexican lunch and people watching from a tiny table in a corner by the exit doors. Once or twice while she ate, her gaze landed on a woman whom she’d never seen before but who, because of some small gesture or facial expression, reminded her of Gloria and the thousands, maybe millions, of other women out there just like her. Quiet, soft-spoken women who tried not to draw attention to themselves and who apologized profusely whenever they did; women who, for whatever reason, tied themselves to destructive partners and then resigned themselves to their fates, suffering in silence. Once you knew what to look for, they were easy to spot and they were everywhere, hiding in plain sight, many of them masters of disguise.
Like Gloria Williamson.
The first time they had encountered each other outside the battered women’s shelter where Elise had volunteered throughout high school and beyond, and where Gloria had been a resident on more than one occasion during that time, was at a department-wide Christmas party during Elise’s second and last year as a police officer. They recognized each other immediately, their gazes meeting and locking for one alarming second and then darting away in different directions, hers nervous and Elise’s stunned.
Over the years, she had frequently run into women on the street who’d been to the shelter, and she’d always pretended not to see them—the doctor who’d taken out her tonsils when she was sixteen, one of the science teachers from her high school, one of her mother’s closest friends, the mother of one of hers and Olivia’s closest girlfriends...the list was endless. But encountering Gloria was different because, as it turned out, she was the police commissioner’s wife.
After that night, the next time Elise saw Gloria was on the evening news.
While the press was busy speculating on the hows and whys of Gloria’s foiled murder-for-hire plot against her husband—Was she mentally ill? A black widow? Had there been some kind of secret love triangle going on that had spiraled out of control?—Elise took the news of the woman’s ensuing fifteen-year prison sentence personally, like a blow to the gut. So much so that she quietly submitted her resignation a few months later and never looked back.
Did she regret it? No. Had walking away from a career in law enforcement and eventually starting her own investigations firm been as much of a step down from practicing law in a court of blind justice, as Broderick seemed to think it was? Absolutely not. Just thinking about the absurdity of that notion made Elise’s blood boil all over again. Not being able to straighten him out about his ridiculous misconceptions was turning out to be a major exercise in self-control.
You know the rules, Elise, a little voice in the back of her mind piped up.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she grumbled under her breath. “I know the rules.” By the time she finished at the spa and made her way back to the hotel, she’d gone over them a hundred times in her head.
“I’m sorry, miss, did you say something?”
She looked up from digging around in her tote and ran right into the front desk clerk’s quixotic, blue-eyed gaze. The teen—her name tag identified her as Jessica—was wondering if Elise was a fruit cake, but trying to be polite about it. Elise recognized the look instantly and couldn’t help smiling. She’d probably been walking around, talking to herself for hours, a sure sign that she was seriously sleep deprived. “I was just wondering if there were any messages for me while I was out,” she said. “Carrington. Room 430.”
“Just a moment, let me check, Miss Carrington.” Jessica stepped away and was back a moment later. “No messages.”
“Thank you.” As if on cue, Elise’s cell v
ibrated in her pocket. She took it out and read the text that had just come through as she made her way to the elevator. It was from Broderick.
Possible that I may need to be here a little longer than I anticipated. A couple of hours or so, at the most. Worst-case scenario, we meet at the frat house. Call you later with more details or if something else changes. Questions? Call me. In the mood for phone sex? Call me. Otherwise, get some rest.
Elise stepped onto the elevator and texted back: Will check out the frat house. Then rest.
Be safe, he replied.
You, too.
Back in her suite, Elise set up the mobile workstation on the desktop and logged in to the interface on Broderick’s laptop. She checked up on Meagan and Danforth as she stripped down to her camisole and panties, and then, satisfied that everyone was exactly where they were supposed to be, toggled to another screen. A few seconds later, she sat down at the desk and went on a virtual tour of the frat house’s interior and its grounds.
Afterward, she spent some time on her iPad, finishing up the notes for her last case and electronically submitting them to Carrington Consulting’s online database. Then she climbed into bed, snuggled into the covers and set the alarm on her cell.
Chapter 9
Broderick approached the basement door of the Nu Theta frat house and tapped softly on the glass at after ten o’clock that night. A few seconds later, the knob turned from the inside and the door cracked. He pushed it open wide enough to slip inside and closed it at his back, quickly scanning the dim, mostly empty space beyond them over Elise’s head before lowering his questioning gaze to hers. “How’d you get in here?”
She shrugged. “I picked the lock. How else?”
Except for the narrow glow from a single lamp that was sitting on a table at the far end of the basement, it was dark. A floor above them, rock music was blasting and bass was thumping, the bump and drag of overhead foot traffic was constant, and it sounded like everyone was talking at once and competing with one another to be heard over the music. But the air in the basement was still with inactivity. A beat-up washer and dryer was set up close to the steps leading to the main level, and that was apparently as far as anyone ever bothered to venture. The rest of the space was bare and dusty with neglect.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, tugging off his gloves and pushing them into the pockets of his down-filled vest. “The interview lasted a little longer than I expected and then, since I was already in the air, I stopped off at my place in Arizona to change clothes and pack more suitable clothes. Then I dropped by Cannon Corp headquarters for a briefing on a new case that I’ve been asked to take on after I’m finished here. Oh, and somewhere in there, I remembered to eat something before I passed out. Does anyone else know you’re here?”
“Not that I know of. The backyard was clear when I picked the lock at the back gate and came in, and I disarmed the alarm system before picking the lock on the basement door, which—” she threw up her hands and quickly added when Broderick’s eyebrows shot up “—I plan to fix before we leave, so calm down. What was I supposed to do, ring the doorbell? Besides, I’ve only been here a few minutes myself, and, judging from the questionable breeze that keeps wafting down here through the vents, I don’t think anyone up there really cares about what’s happening down here.”
“Great. So Meagan is up there right now, doing God knows what, while my partner is down here, hiding in the basement and getting contact buzzed every few seconds. This just keeps getting better and better,” Broderick joked as he took out his cell phone and followed her deeper into the basement.
“You’re kidding, right? They’re not even smoking the good stuff, so the most I have right now is a budding headache. Who are you calling, the police?”
“No, I’m texting Danforth to let him know that I’m here now and I expect him to make an appearance.” He glanced up from the phone and did a double take, noticing her all-black getup for the first time and grinning to keep from pouncing on her.
She looked like a much sexier version of Catwoman, in her snug-fitting black corduroy jeans, matching sweater and stiletto boots. Her sandy-brown hair was swept back from her face and tamed into a glossy cap of liquid brass that brushed the collar of her fur-trimmed, black leather jacket. Together with her dramatic eye makeup and bold red lipstick, the outfit gave her a dangerous edge that was incredibly appealing, especially since, underneath all of the gloss and sex appeal, she wasn’t really a cat at all, but more like a kitten.
She saw him staring and became suspicious. “What’s wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“No reason,” he lied and took his eyes back to his cell to finish texting. He pressed Send, tucked the phone back in his pocket and took slow steps in her direction. “It’s just... You look great and you smell even better. I was just wondering if—”
“Oh, no you don’t,” Elise warned, taking a step backward. “Don’t try to distract me right now, Broderick. I’ve been waiting all day to hear—” He reached out and hooked a finger into the waistband of her jeans, using the leverage to bring both her and her stiletto boots skipping toward him. She landed against his chest with a soft oomph of surprise.
“Why do you smell so damn good?” he dipped his head and whispered in her ear. His nose rode the slope of her neck lightly, inhaling deeply. “You smell like you taste...incredible.” Groaning in appreciation, he slipped his arms around her waist, pulled her in even closer and pressed a soft kiss to the spot just behind her ear. “Did you miss me?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she said, pushing against his chest. Rearing back in the circle of his arms, she caught his eyes. “Stop trying to distract me. What happened at the interview? Did you find out anything helpful?”
“Not in the least.” He hesitated for a second, then thought, what the hell. It never hurt to get a second professional opinion. “Let me show you something anyway.” Motioning for her to move closer to the lamp’s glow with him, he released her and took a thin stack of snapshots out of an inside pocket. He walked up behind her near the lamp, handed them to her and looked at the images with her over her shoulder. “This is the woman I met with today,” he said, pointing out the woman in question. “Her name is Lynn Collins, and, according to her, the last time she saw Brandy was about a year ago, when they both lived in the same apartment building in downtown Albuquerque. If that’s true, then Brandy was calling herself Sabrina Dreyfus at the time, and she looked like this.” He touched a finger to one of two other women in the snapshot and waited for Elise’s reaction.
“This woman looks nothing like the pictures of your sister that you showed me this morning.” As if there was a possibility that she was seeing things and needed to double-check herself, she moved even closer to the lamp and leaned in. Just as he’d done earlier, she studied the woman in question intently, no doubt mentally comparing her short, spiky black hairdo to Brandy’s shoulder-length brown hair; the prominent gap between her front teeth to Brandy’s braces-perfect smile; and the extra twenty pounds that sat on the woman’s frame to Brandy’s boyishly thin frame. After several seconds of careful deliberation, she shuffled through the stack, studying each of the three additional snapshots just as intently. “I’m not seeing it. How could this Lynn Collins person have seriously thought there was a connection when, clearly, there is none?”
“I wondered the same thing,” Broderick said, taking one last snapshot from his pocket and handing it over. “Then she showed me this.”
Elise took the picture and stared at it, the expression on her face speaking volumes.
“You see it, too?”
“Yes,” she finally admitted, flicking a startled glance up at him. “There’s a little more of a resemblance in this shot. Around the mouth, I think...and the eyes. It’s...” She kept staring. “I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I feel like there’s something I’m m
issing.” Turning to face him, she gave him back the pictures and leaned back against the table behind her. “What are you going to do now?”
“Doing nothing at all makes the most sense. The chances of this woman and my sister being one and the same are virtually nonexistent. Supposedly, everyone has a twin out there somewhere. Obviously this Lynn Collins woman met what she thought was Brandy’s twin. She was so convinced that I almost hated to tell her she was mistaken. Then I thought about the time I was wasting there, while you were here, alone, and I wanted to strangle her.”
Elise blushed to the roots of her hair. “Thank you... I think. But the situation still sucks.”
“Yeah, it does,” he agreed, appreciating her. “My only consolation was the look on her face when she realized that she wouldn’t be getting the reward money.”
“Reward money?” Elise asked, perking up visibly. “Wait just a second. How much reward money are we talking about?”
“A hundred grand at last count.” Broderick’s gaze lowered to her red lips and lingered. “Not that you have a snowball’s chance in hell of collecting it yourself. You can certainly dream, but I do believe pigs will fly first.”
Her tone was soft and thoughtful sounding when she said, “You know...it’s going to be so much fun remembering you said that when I’m putting your precious Batmobile on the auction block.”
“So you keep saying.”
“We’ll see,” she said brightly, dimpling adorably. “But don’t worry your pretty little head about that right now. You’ve suffered enough disappointment for one day. If it makes you feel any better, I was lying before, when I said I didn’t miss you. I did...a little...sort of.”
He moved closer and loomed over her. “Oooh, that does make me feel better.”
