Vegas Stripped (Raven McShane Mysteries Book 2)

by Stephanie Caffrey

  We blew through a red light, and I began praying that a cop saw us, but it wasn't to be.

  "Why are you working with Jerry Conn?" I asked.

  Andrew flashed a thin smile in the rearview mirror. "I'm not very complicated, Raven."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Think about it. The guy sold out a Vegas ballroom three hundred shows a year. For thirty-some years."

  "And?"

  He sighed. "The man has money, and he's willing to share it in order to get what he wants."

  So that was it. Nothing more interesting than money. It didn't matter much at that point, but everything was starting to fall into place. The common link among Ethan, Conn, and Mayfield had to be Bob Weber. He was the one who had set everything up with Mayfield from the outset to try to pay off his debts. He was in charge of booking acts at the Copa. And that's when it really hit me. Jerry Conn wasn't ready to retire. He had told me so himself when we met for drinks. He must have figured that no one else would hire him, so his only way onstage would be to get his old job back. And that meant getting rid of Mickey Mayfield. It also meant keeping Ethan behind bars and turning the screws on Bob Weber. It still seemed a little risky, even if Conn was desperate. To kill for a job like that. Another light bulb went on inside my head.

  "So who told him about the threat?"

  Andrew frowned. "What threat?"

  "Conn must have known that Ethan had threatened Mayfield. I assume he got it from Bob Weber."

  Andrew shrugged and focused on the traffic. If Conn knew about Ethan's threat, I figured, there was a built-in patsy for the crime—Ethan. Having a fall guy made committing the crime that much easier for Conn to pull off. And it just so happened that the fall guy was the only real competition for the job he wanted to get back. With Mayfield dead and Ethan in prison, it would be easy to hire Conn back. It really wasn't a bad plan. Conn had the motive, and Ethan's big mouth created the opportunity.

  We must have travelled ten miles by now, and I was becoming eager to get this over with. After another near miss through an intersection, we began slowing down and turned left into a large parking lot. I couldn't read any signage from the backseat, but it looked like a public storage facility.

  We drove through row after row of identical garages until Andrew eased the van into a spot in the last row near a concrete wall with a barbed wire fence on top of it. He checked all of his mirrors before getting out.

  The door slid open with an ominous thud, and I blinked at the intensity of the sunlight now streaming into the back of the van. Andrew was pointing a handgun at me now rather than the sawed-off, and he waved me out of the van. Without the use of my hands it was awkward getting out of the van, and I missed a step and fell onto the scalding black pavement. He looked down at me and chuckled. It was the second time the bastard had laughed at me after I'd fallen.

  With the little pride I had left, I wriggled to try to get up on my own, but without my hands to push off the pavement, I was stuck down there while Andrew looked down his nose at me and smirked. He finally grabbed me under my left arm and yanked me upward with alarming strength.

  "Let's go," he said, giving me a little shove toward the storage garage. I looked around for help, but the lot was empty, and we were hidden from street view. I stood in front of the closed garage while he fumbled with his keys behind me. "Stand over there," he said, pulling me three paces to the right.

  Andrew stuck the key in the lock and heaved the big steel door open. With a loud clatter it gave way and eased slowly upward. Without any interior light, it was impossible to see what fate lay inside for me. I wriggled my arms behind me in one last vain attempt to break the plastic tie, but the tie was holding firm.

  When my eyes adjusted, they took in what looked to be a completely normal-looking storage locker, about the size of a one-car garage. There were no evil-looking chains, sharp metal implements, or Hannibal Lecter getups, just some old boxes, a motorcycle, and a bunch of shelves holding suitcases and some electronics I couldn't identify. Andrew pointed the gun at me, urging me inside. I considered trying to flee, knowing that he'd eventually have to just shoot me. That would probably be a preferable fate, but my survival instinct forced me into the garage. He pointed me toward the rear and pulled on the door, bringing it down with a foreboding, metallic clank.

  "You must be scared," he said matter-of-factly.

  I shrugged, unable to speak. My eyes were darting around the room trying to find an edge, but there wasn't any. The tiny room had been baking in the sun all day, and with no ventilation it was like standing inside a giant oven. I was gasping for breath and drenched with sweat, and I wondered momentarily how my body still had any moisture left in it. The dim light bulb hanging above us cast long shadows on Andrew, who was on the opposite end of the room digging around in one of the boxes. With my arms tied painfully behind me, there wasn't anything to do but wait.

  "This doesn't have to hurt," he said softly. "The first one is a strong sedative, heroin based." He held up a large syringe. Behind him I could see at least two other needles and a bottle of clear liquid.

  My heart was pumping on overdrive, and for a moment the sedative sounded like a great option, an escape from everything, especially the stifling, choking heat of that locker. I couldn't believe it had come down to this.

  "How long have you been planning this?" I asked, my voice husky and dry.

  He thought for a second. "We figured you wouldn't be a problem, but then you started talking to Jerry. This was always an option for someone…like you." He said you with obvious distaste.

  In order to pull off his overdose trick, he obviously needed to keep me alive—probably so the drugs circulated in my system. The fact that he didn't want to shoot me was really the only leverage I had on him. He advanced toward me, his left hand holding the gun and the right hand holding the syringe. As he got within a few feet, I squirmed away into the other corner, next to a shelf.

  Andrew sighed. "I told you, this won't hurt unless you make it hurt." There was nothing but malice in his expression.

  As I leaned back against the shelf, I felt my wrists move easily against each other, both slick with sweat. What had been impossible in the van now seemed a remote possibility: the sweat had lubricated my arms and hands so much that I began trying to ease them out of the zip tie.

  But Andrew was there, syringe in hand. He held the gun up to my temple and bared his teeth.

  "Just—" I stammered, "just give me one minute. I need to say one last Hail Mary."

  He cocked his neck and looked disgustedly up at the ceiling. In that instant, in one fluid motion, I contorted my wrists and eased my right hand out of the zip tie and reached up to grab the gun holding his hand. A deafening shot rang out, the explosion caroming around the tiny locker. I tried to bring my knee up into his groin, but he had moved back. His reflexes were excellent, probably the result of all the training he had been bragging about.

  He came at me again, but I wheeled out of the way and stood in the middle of the locker directly beneath the light. Like an enraged bull, he kept charging me, his face and clothes drenched in sweat. He came at my left flank, but I managed to sidestep him and take only a glancing blow. He stood there panting, watching me. What was he waiting for? Had he run out of steam? But then I felt it—a dull pain on the back of my neck. And when my mind started dancing in all directions, that's when I knew he'd managed to stab me with the needle.

  I knew I couldn't just wait there to drop like a stone, so I turned and charged him. Catching him off guard, I put all my force into grabbing his gun hand, and with a backward jab of my elbow into his groin, I wrested it out of his hands, which were slippery with sweat. But I was going dark, and fast. I wheeled on him with the gun and pulled the trigger. He screamed—that much I knew—and I shot at him again, his body now just the hazy suggestion of a figure.

  I slumped down, trying to maintain enough strength to get myself to the door and open it. The last remnants of my con
sciousness knew that to succumb in that furnace-like storage locker would make a fast end of me. I clutched at the door but lacked the strength to hoist it up. I began coughing—dry, hacking coughs—and then, inexplicably, the door began moving upward. Light began creeping in under the door, and as I backed away from it, I stumbled and fell into a slump. When the door was fully open, I saw an unfamiliar man silhouetted against the sunlight. A second black van had pulled up next to Andrew's.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  At the edge of consciousness, I found myself squinting into the sunlight at a large, well-built man who was surveying the room with a serious expression. Was this Andrew's backup?

  "Help," I whispered.

  The man frowned. "What happened?"

  My vision was swirling around, making it difficult to focus. "That guy tried to kill me. He stabbed me with a needle of something, and now I feel sick. Do you have some water?"

  He nodded curtly. The man turned around and went back to the van, sliding the door open halfway. I heard him say "You were right" to whomever was inside. His tone was grave.

  He returned with a bottle of water, and I pulled myself up halfway to take a few gulps. I had totally forgotten about Andrew, but when I swiveled around, I saw only a slumped, motionless body.

  The high-pitched sound of a hydraulic motor began emanating from inside the van, and when I turned back to look, I saw a large black platform lowering a man in a wheelchair to the ground. Philippe LaGarde. I had just killed his son.

  Even in my drug-induced haze, I began entertaining all the horrible things these men would do to me. I had no defenses left and just wanted to get it over with. LaGarde wheeled himself to the edge of the locker.

  "Sorry we're late," he said.

  I perked my head up at him questioningly.

  "We've been tracking Andrew. I wasn't exactly sure what he was up to, but I knew it wasn't any good. He went rogue. He turned off his cell phone, but you must have had yours on." He eyed my side pocket knowingly. "Good move. We were able to track you that way."

  I let out a heave of relief and coughed a few more times. LaGarde turned to the other man and told him to call 9-1-1.

  "They'll secure the scene here, and we'll take you to the hospital," he said.

  The other man picked me easily off the ground and placed me horizontally on the rear seat of the van, next to LaGarde's dog, Goliath. When LaGarde rejoined us, he swiveled around to face me.

  "Don't worry," he whispered.

  I was coming in and out of consciousness, trying to fix on LaGarde's face, a fine-boned face with a Gallic nose and sharp eyebrows. He looked nothing like his son, Andrew, I realized.

  "Andrew wasn't really your son, was he?" I whispered.

  LaGarde's eyes narrowed. "Now why would you say that?"

  I coughed again. "For one thing, he's lying there dead, and you don't seem to care one bit."

  He flashed a thin smile but kept mum.

  "It's Jerry Conn, isn't it?"

  The other man returned to the van and started it up. He stepped on it and sped out of the parking lot. When the air-conditioning kicked on, it felt like heaven.

  LaGarde looked at me very seriously and began talking to himself. "I'll be damned," he finally said. "She was friendly with him back in those days, and I knew she had dallied around after my accident. But I never dreamed it like that. She never told me."

  My eyelids were growing too heavy to prop up any longer, and I began drifting off into a heavy, gripping sleep. My last memory before I succumbed was of Goliath enthusiastically licking my ear.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  My first sensation was one of cool metal touching my skin—my wrist, to be exact. I could barely open my eyes, but I could sense my right wrist being held aloft by something hard and cold. It was grating into my skin, and I finally managed to sit up slightly and pry my eyes open.

  As I'd half expected, it was handcuffs. But the rest was a mystery. I was in a bed with a sheet over me and dim lighting. A police officer was slouched in a chair, nodding his head up and down in a deep slumber. I swiveled and saw that the clock read 4:20, which must have been 4:20 in the morning because it was still dark.

  As I came to, I became increasingly aware of the little blips and beeps of a hospital room, and it was then that everything came flashing back to me. Jerry Conn. Bob Weber. The storage locker with Andrew. LaGarde and his fat dog. Mike. Poor Mike. We were not exactly close, but he was a beautiful and good and decent man, and we were starting to hit it off. I closed my eyes again, but the slumber I had been enveloped in would not return. I let myself succumb to the grief that was washing over me.

  When I collected myself again, I lurched up in bed and gathered my sheets around me. "Hey," I hissed, and I banged on the aluminum guard rails of my bed for effect.

  The cop straightened up, blinked, and left the room without a word.

  "She's awake," I heard him say outside.

  The door opened and the light came on, forcing me to squint. A trim Hispanic man of about forty appeared in front of me.

  "Detective Andy Alvarez," he announced.

  "What's with the handcuffs?"

  "Ma'am, you're a material witness and a person of interest in multiple killings yesterday afternoon. Are you ready to talk, or—"

  "Can I get some water first?"

  He nodded and reappeared with a small cup. "They said not to overdo it. They've been pumping you full of saline solution all night."

  Alvarez sat down and got out his notebook. He began with some preliminary questions about my identity and business as a private investigator.

  "Do I need a lawyer for this?" I interrupted him.

  "I don't think so, but it's up to you of course."

  "Fine. How much do you know?" I asked.

  He smiled softly. "We're here to talk about what you know, ma'am."

  "I guess I'll call my lawyer, then." I leaned back in the bed and closed my eyes, feigning sleep. I was eager to talk to him to find out what happened, but it wasn't going to be a one-way street.

  Detective Alvarez sighed. "Here's what we think we know. We think you got in the middle of a feud between Jerry Conn and Bob Weber. We believe Jerry Conn wanted his old job back, and he was putting the heat on Weber. And Conn hired Andrew LaGarde to help him."

  I nodded. "Did you know that Andrew LaGarde was Jerry Conn's son?"

  Alvarez looked up at me from his notes. He was taking me seriously for the first time. "How do you know that?"

  "Do a DNA test," I said. "I can't prove it, but they look alike. And it's really the only reason he would go to such lengths to help Conn. Andrew's hourly fee wasn't enough."

  Alvarez was scribbling furiously.

  "You want to take these handcuffs off now? I assume you've got a bunch of uniforms out there in the hall. It's not like I'm going to run away. I can barely even sit up straight."

  Alvarez looked uncertain about it, but he gave in and undid the cuffs. I massaged my right wrist, which, thanks to the handcuffs and the previous day's zip tie, looked like some kind of abstract art.

  "Here's the best part," I said. Alvarez looked up from his notes. "Jerry Conn killed Mickey Mayfield."

  He cocked his head sideways, uncomprehending.

  "Don't you see? That job was Conn's only reason for living, and it had been taken from him by some lowlife comedian. Once he heard that Ethan Longoria had threatened Mayfield's life, it was the opening he was looking for—a perfect fall guy. And Conn had a hard-assed son with military training and a major chip on his shoulder to help him make sure Ethan took the fall for it."

  "How do you mean?"

  Things were becoming clear in my head just seconds before I spoke. "I was working on another angle. You see, we had an idea that Ethan's mom had arranged the killing. She'd withdrawn a ton of cash from Ethan's account with the idea of paying her boyfriend, a guy named James Devine, to do the job. Andrew and I followed him to Chicago, and Andrew kept on him all the way to Germa
ny. Andrew claimed he found the gun, and that it had been recently fired. But he couldn't get it out of the airport, so it's lost. Supposedly."

  "A nice story," Alvarez said.

  "Yeah. If things went bad with Ethan, he was going to put the blame on this Devine guy. He'd even be the star witness who found the gun and money. A private detective with an impeccable military career."

  Alvarez seemed intrigued. "We'll check this out. Obviously we can't just take your word for it, of course."

  I nodded. "I know. Check the security tapes. It was the employee parking lot, so that would have made it easier for Conn to get in. See if he still had his employee badge. And maybe you'll even find the real gun." I hadn't noticed Conn on the tapes, but he could easily have been disguised. Even a baseball cap would have done the trick, since I'd been looking for Devine, not Conn.

  Alvarez looked up from his notes. "But why were Conn and Weber connected? I don't quite get it."

  "Conn knew that Weber was in trouble, and Weber still had the power to hire him back to sing at the Copa. I figure Conn knew Weber would have done just about anything to get some money to pay off his loan sharks, so Conn offered him a little bit of the contract."

  Alvarez seemed impressed, although he was taking everything with a grain of salt. "And what happened to this James Devine guy? You said he flew to Germany?"

  I nodded. "Your guess is as good as mine. He was hired to kill, but he never got the chance. Is that a crime?"

  "Conspiracy. We'll set something up with Interpol in Europe. Maybe he'll give us something on Ethan's mom."

  I filled Alvarez in on everything else I had dug up, including the underage girls working at the brothel in Pahrump. The words were spewing out of my mouth so fast that he had trouble keeping up in his notebook. When I finished, he thanked me and said he'd be in touch.

  A nurse had been waiting in the wings, and when Alvarez, left she came flitting into the room.