Vegas Stripped (Raven McShane Mysteries Book 2)

by Stephanie Caffrey

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  What critics are saying about

  Stephanie Caffrey's books:

  "A great, breezy, fun read. Reminded me of Evanovich and Parker. Lots of sex and booze which is so Vegas."

  —Chucktown Reader

  "This is possibly the best first book of any series I have read. I am always looking for new authors and series, and this one is a true masterpiece. I can hardly wait for the next book."

  —Mystery Lover

  "This was such a refreshing, honest and out of the ordinary detective story. I think it was a cracking read and highly recommend it."

  —Top 500 Amazon Reviewer (UK site)

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BOOKS BY STEPHANIE CAFFREY

  SNEAK PEEK

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  VEGAS STRIPPED

  by

  STEPHANIE CAFFREY

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  Copyright © 2014 by Stephanie Caffrey

  Cover design by Janet Holmes

  Gemma Halliday Publishing

  http://www.gemmahallidaypublishing.com

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  It was 10:44 on an already-sweltering August morning, and as luck would have it, the air-conditioning in my condo was on the fritz. Again. While the geniuses in my building tried to figure out what was wrong, I'd gone downtown to get my bikini wax and then, with equal enthusiasm, drove a few blocks to the ratty new office I had recently opened. It stood on the third floor of a dingy beige brick building on the kind of block a real estate agent might describe as "transitional." A human being with even marginal eyesight might use the term "sketchy" instead. I had a single room in a very blah suite of what was supposed to be four offices, but the only other renter was Mike Madsen, the guy supervising-slash-mentoring me during my first year working as a private detective. Mike was a bizarre but intriguing mix of male beauty and social awkwardness—a studly dork I admitted to having a little thing for. Although we'd had a little fun working a case together in San Diego, since then he's reembraced his Mormon sobriety and retreated into his shell, viewing me more as an annoying curiosity than as a person of interest.

  From the office's previous occupant, who had probably hanged himself, I had inherited a metal desk and some spare furniture. My ancient Dell laptop—it was so old that the number keys had Roman numerals on them—served as the room's only link with the outside world. It was a dive, and the steel chair was giving me back spasms, but for all its faults the place did have air-conditioning. All it needed to complete the effect was a bottle of vodka hidden in the desk, an ashtray with a smoldering cigarette, and a cheap sign on the door: Raven McShane, Private Detective. It was all part of a half-assed plan I'd concocted in an effort to clean my life up. You see, for the last dozen years I'd worked as a stripper at Cougar's, the top club in Las Vegas. Unlike a lot of my fellow dancers, I'd managed to stay out of too much trouble, but I had long grown tired of demeaning myself for a bunch of half-soused pigs. Until now the money had been too good to pass up, and I rationalized it further by funneling many of the proceeds to my niece's expensive cancer treatments. But with her on the mend, and my highest-earning days behind me, it was time to develop some semblance of a normal life. Working for myself seemed to be the only option.

  Given how my day had begun, it would be a fair statement to say that I was not in the mood for visitors. When the knock came at my door, I bared my teeth and prepared to snarl.

  "Raven?" It was the voice of an angel. I glanced up to face my visitor. Immediately, the angry tension that had been coursing through me melted away.

  "Yes," I coughed, standing up. "How can I help you?"

  The angelic man-boy came in and surveyed the bleak, uninviting room, his skepticism not too far from the surface. He had jet-black hair, blue eyes, killer eyebrows, and cheekbones people would give up their firstborn to have. He looked like a twenty-two year-old Elvis, although I didn't think that was the only reason he seemed vaguely familiar. I gestured to a chair, and we both sat down.

  "My name is Ethan Longoria. I'm not sure if you've—"

  "I have. You're at the Copa?" My brain had finally kicked in. Ethan was a not-quite-A-list lounge singer, but his mug was plastered on dozens of billboards and buses around town. I wanted to tell him that my face (and much more of me) had also been on billboards one day and to enjoy it while it lasted.

  "Right." He smiled, seeming pleased that I had recognized him. "Actually, that's why I'm here. You have a minute?"

  I swiveled back to my computer and logged myself out of the online poker game I'd been playing. I motioned him to proceed.

  "You want the long version or the short version?"

  "You have a nice voice," I said, "so go ahead and take your sweet time."

  He smiled. "Okay. The big news recently was that Jerry Conn finally retired," he began. "You might have seen that in—"

  "Yeah," I blurted out. I had a bad habit of interrupting people. "I read that a couple weeks ago. I loved his voice. He was there forever, right?"

  "Just about. It was long overdue. Anyway, that created an opening. A huge opening, the kind of thing that comes around only a few times in a lifetime. The job was mine. My agent said it was a done deal, and everyone was calling to congratulate me and buying me cigars and Cristal. I'd been grinding away doing matinee shows and fill-ins for three years, and now it was my turn. I was actually shopping for a new Ferrari when I got the call telling me the job was goin
g to Mickey Mayfield."

  "Ouch," I murmured. Mayfield was a foul-mouthed prop comedian who'd never quite made the big time. I'd never seen him, but I knew one of his shticks involved pretending to wet his pants onstage. A real class act.

  "Yeah, exactly. That was about a month ago. There's just no way he's better than me. I've proven I can draw crowds—big crowds. I have two CDs out. I finished third on American Idol, for god's sake. And this clown gets the job?"

  I tried to look sympathetic. "That sucks, Ethan. I'm sure something will turn up, though. You're destined to be a—"

  He slammed his right fist into his left palm in a surprising flash of anger. "No, don't say shit like that. That's what everyone tells me, but it's not true. Talent can only take you so far. You need an in. You need some kind of angle working for you, or things will not happen. I'm only twenty-five, but I've been here long enough to know that." His fiery intensity seemed a mismatch for his appearance.

  "I suppose that's true to some extent," I said, "but life's a marathon, not a sprint. Something good will come your way." From my mouth, it seemed like a whopper. I was a thirty-something wannabe ex-stripper sitting in a swivel chair held together by duct tape, and I was running out of platitudes. How was I supposed to help this guy?

  "Maybe. But I want to be proactive. I can't sleep at night thinking about what Mickey must have done to get this job. Who he had to sleep with, or who he had dirt on. There had to be something, because it's not talent. He's not even selling out the theater! They've got his tickets going for half price at the discount ticket stands every day."

  "So is that it? You think I can figure out what his angle was?"

  "Exactly. I want to learn from the experience so it doesn't happen again. Because it sucks getting passed over like this."

  I leaned back in my chair to consider Ethan's proposal. Snooping around B-list celebrities would be interesting, and working for a heartthrob like Ethan could have its perks, too. But it was definitely an odd request. While my brain was busy mulling things over, my hormones seized control of my mouth.

  "Okay," I said. "I'll help you. But can I ask—how did you find me?"

  "Actually, I did a little snooping of my own. You were in the paper a while ago for that murder case. I looked you up online, and your address here popped up." His face reddened ever so slightly. "Oh, and I saw you onstage a few nights ago. You're very, uh, talented. Why—are you trying to keep a low profile or something?"

  "No, it's just that I never use this ratty little office. I'm only camping out here to kill time while they fix the air-conditioning in my condo. I guess you got lucky."

  "Plus," he said, "you're an entertainer like me. You understand what it's like to be out there, to be exposed like that."

  "Oh, I'm exposed all right."

  He smiled, and our eyes locked for an instant. Ethan leaned to the side and pulled two business cards out of his pocket. "See what you can find. This is my contact info, and this one's my manager. He handles my money, so you'll want to be nice to him. The important thing is that I cannot be involved in this at all. If it gets out that I'm doing this, it would not be good for my career."

  I nodded. Ethan was ambitious as hell, I thought, but that was probably a common trait in people who reached the top. "All right. I'll be in touch."

  We stood up and shook hands. As he stepped through the door, he turned to face me.

  "One more thing. I'm not on the market. I already have a girlfriend, so…"

  "Ah," I squealed, a stupid smile crossing my face. "That's great!"

  He winked at me and disappeared.

  I found myself standing in front of my desk, my face flushed by a mixture of embarrassment and anger. Had I been drooling? Ethan was certainly a good-looking guy, and something of a celebrity, but I hadn't been flirty. Maybe he was just so used to women throwing themselves at him that it was part of his standard operating procedure. Even if it was, it was a total jerk move to say something like that. What a diva!

  "Mike!" I yelled.

  Mike Madsen shuffled over, doing his best to pretend that he hadn't been eavesdropping. "I thought you said you wanted to be left alone this morning."

  "Do you know who that was?"

  "Yeah, it was that kid who sings at that place."

  "His name's Ethan Longoria."

  "And what did young Ethan want?"

  I thought I detected a hint of jealousy. Mike had been a private investigator for about a decade, but in the last couple months I'd managed to land some plum cases and interesting clients while he was stuck spinning his wheels hunting down insurance cheats and low-level fraudsters. We were still feeling each other out. Under Nevada law, Mike was supposed to be supervising me during my first year as a private investigator, but mainly he spent his time fending off my advances and ignoring my fashion advice.

  "Young Ethan wanted the help of the best private detective in town, that's all."

  Mike deadpanned. "So how did he end up in your office?"

  "At least someone's coming to my office," I snipped.

  "You haven't told me what he wanted," he pressed.

  "Ethan's pissed about getting passed over for the big job over at the Copa. Did you know Jerry Conn retired?"

  "I thought he died ten years ago."

  "I guess that's why he decided to retire. Anyway, when Conn retired, Ethan was supposed to get the job. He was in line, paid his dues, that kind of thing. It has to be a seven-figure gig. But that didn't happen, and Ethan wants to know why."

  Mike seemed interested. "So who got the job? I'm not exactly up on this stuff."

  "Mickey Mayfield. He's a—"

  "Moron? He looks like a loser in all those ads. I can't believe they let him show his butt on all those billboards."

  "That's his face," I said, laughing.

  "Wow. So how did this Ethan guy settle on you? Did he say?"

  "He found me irresistibly attractive—that's how." I decided not to mention how Ethan had already preemptively dumped me. "Maybe if you got a boob job, you'd have more business," I suggested.

  Mike blushed. "So what's your plan?"

  "First, I'm going to get lunch. Then, I'm getting my nails done. After that, I'm having drinks. At some point a plan will emerge."

  "With you, I'm not so sure," he said. "You kind of make things up as you go along."

  He wasn't kidding. "Well, I'm not doing anything until I'm sure there's some money in this. I have to call his manager about that and set something up. After that happens, I can worry about a plan. You want to get lunch?"

  "I brought a salad," he said.

  I sighed and shooed him away. My mood had gone from bad to worse. In the space of five minutes, I'd managed to get myself preemptively snubbed by a heartthrob entertainer and stood up for lunch by an underemployed private detective. There was only one thing that could cheer me up. I got into my car and headed to the Heart Attack Grill, the place that openly bragged about the number of people who had died of coronary events while eating there (last count: three). Nothing could make me feel quite like its triple-bypass burger.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I'm not a math whiz, and I can't hit a baseball to save my life, but I can eat like nobody's business. We're talking professional level here, and the greasier the better. My night job as an exotic dancer burns off more than a thousand calories a shift, so I have the luxury of being able to pack the food away like a sumo wrestler without looking like one.

  Instead of waitresses and customers, the Heart Attack Grill has nurses and patients, and my nurse was an improbable redheaded Amazon of a woman named Angelica. She helped me slip on my hospital gown and then threatened to spank me if I failed to finish my triple-bypass burger. I'm sure more than a few "patients" in the restaurant would have paid good money to see that, but I horked down my burger and fries with room left over for a malted milkshake, which I took to go. From the restaurant I headed to my nail shop and had the manicurist paint my nails a shade of midnight blue with silve
r sparkles. Kiki, my stylist, said the color brought out the blue in my eyes and nicely complemented my dark hair. She barely raised an eyebrow when I told her it wasn't my hair or eyes that my customers were interested in. I headed home and relaxed in food-coma mode for a few hours and then got ready for drinks with my friend Cody.

  Cody Masterson was the sexiest felon in Las Vegas, and probably the universe. Of course, I was about the only person in town who knew he was a felon. He had been found not guilty on murder charges several years ago, but I'd recently found out that he'd beaten the rap by bribing one of the jurors sitting on his case—a big-time federal felony. It turned out that he was actually innocent of the murder charge, and since he'd been facing the death penalty, I decided I wasn't going to rat him out on the bribery charge. If I were in his shoes, I figured I might have tried the same thing. There was also the issue of his looks. In a previous life, he'd been the star of one of those male revue shows, and he still looked like the guy on the cover of a steamy romance novel. Once I satisfied myself that he wasn't actually a murderer, the two of us had become fast friends.

  Cody lived in a posh area of town in a mansion he used to share with his wife, who was now serving a life sentence for the murder she tried to pin on Cody. I wasn't sure if they were actually divorced or not yet, but that was just a minor detail. She was doing hard time, and in my book that meant Cody was available. There was only one teeny little problem with my new friend: he was gay. Cody greeted me at the door with a flute of bubbly.

  "I have to tell you who I met today," I blurted out.

  He ushered me into his kitchen, where we nestled into a large nook overlooking the backyard. Cody was wearing a loose-fitting tan tunic and white linen pants that showed off his perfect body.