Flicking his eyes away from me, he shrugged. “The whole precinct knew. With so many people involved in the overall case, it was pretty big news.”
“But how did you know I was at the scene?” I pressed.
“Why are you thinking about this all of a sudden? You’re all healed up, and the situation is well behind us.”
If it had been Ryder I was talking to, I’d be calling him a damn dirty liar and probably a plethora of other, not as pleasant names. I’d call out Pete as well. Stafford should have been no different.
I said quietly, “I know Ryder called to tell you.”
He stared at me for a moment. “I guess that means you talked to him.”
Not quite the response I was expecting. “I did.”
“When?”
Ooh. I suddenly realized I was making a fuss out of him not telling me something when I was just as guilty of not telling him about my two epic arguments with Ryder. I could omit with the best of them, but an issue I had where Stafford was concerned was that for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to tell him anything but the truth when he asked me a direct question.
“Last night and Saturday night. Both were unpleasant conversations.”
“I’ve heard an ‘unpleasant conversation’ between the two of you could put a war to shame.”
“Right. That’s pretty accurate.”
He held my gaze. “I wish you’d told me.”
“I didn’t tell you because…I thought it might upset you and cause trouble for the two of you at work. I’m sorry.”
Placing his hand on my shoulder, he said, “It’s okay. But you know you can come to me with anything, right?”
I nodded.
Stafford paused and blew out a breath. “And now you probably want to know why I kept my little nugget of information to myself.”
“I do.”
He got up and walked toward the window that looked out over the small parking lot behind Java Jive. “The truth? I wanted Hamilton out of your life completely. I had a front row seat to watch him break your heart, and I’d had enough.”
He sounded exactly like Pete.
Turning back to me, he said, “I know it wasn’t my decision to make, and I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be manipulative or controlling, Juliet. I was simply being selfish.” A blush coloring his face and neck, he came over and kneeled down in front of me and took my hands. “I did what I did because I wanted to be with you. Can you forgive me?”
I smiled at him, touched by his no-excuses admission. It took some balls to tell someone you were wrong, say you’re sorry, and ask for forgiveness. I had considerable trouble with that sometimes, myself.
“Of course I forgive you, John.”
Relief washing over his face, he enveloped me in a tight hug. “Well, we got through our first fight.”
He thought this was a fight? Yep, he was definitely not acquainted with Redheaded She-Devil.
Chapter 10
After having a quiet dinner with Stafford and helping with the tail end of the dinner rush, I holed up in the office with Pete to dig into the Leonidas case. Maya had got me a spot as a wedding-attire model so I could work together with Pete at the expo, which meant my cover was taken care of. I scrounged the Internet for juicy information about Leonidas employees and the business itself. Pete plugged Maya’s recorder into the laptop he’d brought from home and settled down to watch the video from earlier today.
“Check it, Jules. I was right about that receptionist and her boobs,” he said, turning the laptop so I could see it.
Sure enough, the woman who had offered to comfort Shane in his time of need was totally using her breasts to do her talking for her. In fact, they were dangerously close to spilling out all over her desk.
“Gross. Thanks for sharing, Pete,” I said, turning back to my work. “Hey, did you know that a certain badly behaved country artist you dislike blasted Leonidas on social media for throwing a shitty album release party and is now suing them for his money back?”
“That dumbass Brock Flint? Yeah, I think I heard something about that at work a couple of weeks ago. It didn’t register that it was the same event company, though. I think he also fired his publicist for recommending them.”
“Hmm. I wonder if they didn’t hand out drugs that night like Hadley insinuated they sometimes do. Maybe if they had, it would have been a better party.”
Pete threw me a “don’t go there” look but didn’t say anything.
“The owner’s son, Xander Leonidas, filed for personal bankruptcy six months ago.”
“Does he work there?” Pete asked absently, his attention on the video.
“Yeah, he’s a VP.”
“How do you manage to achieve personal bankruptcy on a VP’s salary?”
I shrugged. “You run up a crap ton more debt than you make, I guess.”
“Jules, come look at this.”
I went over and sat next to him on the couch. He had the video paused on a photo, which was in Shane’s hands like he’d been looking at it. The photo was of Josie and a guy and girl around her age. They were all dressed up and smiling, their arms around one another. The girls were looking at the camera, but the guy had his attention directed at Josie.
“I wonder why Shane picked this particular photo,” I said.
“It’s a great shot of Josie. It may have caught his eye.”
“Or maybe he wanted us to see it. The guy in it seems to be ogling Josie. Watch the rest of the video and see if he picks up anything else. When you’re done, call Shane and go over it all.”
He turned to me with a rather pouty expression. “I thought I was in charge of video investigation, bossypants.”
I smiled. “Sorry. You do whatever it was you were going to.” I stood up, and on my way back to the desk, I added, “And then talk to Shane about it.”
Not one to be outdone, Pete began scratching his cheek purposely with his middle finger. Chuckling, I got back to work.
—
A little over an hour later, I had learned much more than I wanted to about the staff at Leonidas. Yikes. These people were partyers in and out of work. Their social media pages were plastered with cringeworthy pictures, but none of them were damning in a murdery sense. If I were a possible future employer, though, I would have seen their nonsense as career suicide. I always check new hires’ social media accounts for red flags like drunken photos, Facebook fights, Twitter wars, and verbal abuse. It really helps weed out the idiots.
Pete had been out in the front of the house helping set up for open mic night. He came in the office and said, “I’m calling Shane. Want to listen in?”
“Sure,” I replied, rubbing my eyes and going over to plop down next to him on the couch.
Pete held out his phone between us.
“Hello?” Shane’s voice said.
Pete said, “Hey, Shane, did you get the screen shots I texted you?”
“Yeah. In the photo, the other two people in it were Hadley, who was the girl I talked to today, and a guy named Rex, who works with them.”
“Did Rex have a thing for Josie?” I asked.
“Nope. He’s gay.”
Hmm. That blew my possible theory about Rex having some kind of unrequited love for Josie that led him to want to hurt her. Maybe that particular photo looked strange simply because Rex wasn’t ready for his close-up.
Pete said, “How about the screen shot of that suit harassing the blonde as you were leaving?”
Shane replied, “That’s Xander Leonidas, VP of the party side. People seem to either love him or hate him.”
“What’s his deal?” Pete asked.
“He’s a sleazebag. If he decides you’re the flavor of the month and you say no, there’s hell to pay. Not that he hears the word ‘no’ very often, but when he does, it gets ugly.”
“Does he fire the girls or something?” I asked.
Shane said, “No, he finds other ways of making them miserable. The time Josie turned him dow
n, he double-booked parties for her and took her assistant away.”
I nodded thoughtfully. “So his punishment is disguised as poor business decisions and mismanagement.”
“Pretty much.”
“Do you know if he ever got physically abusive with any of the girls?”
“Not that I’m aware. Josie didn’t talk about him too much.”
Pete said, “That’s it from my end. Anything else, Jules?”
“No, I’m good for now. Thanks, Shane.”
Shane said, “Later.”
When Pete ended the call, I said, “I think we should find a reason to meet this Xander guy on Saturday.”
“Why? So you can honey-pot him and try to coax out all of his secrets?”
“Basically. It doesn’t sound like it’ll be too hard to lead a horndog like him around by the nose for a while.”
He frowned. “I don’t know, Jules. This guy sounds like bad news.”
“And I know what I’m doing. Besides, what’s he going to do when I ultimately say no to him? Make me model two wedding dresses at once?”
Pete grumbled something and got up to pace the floor.
Completely changing the subject, I said, “By the way, you know you can’t tell Brooke about any of this, right? I don’t ever tell Stafford the particulars of my cases—unless of course my cover gets blown and I have to in order to avoid being arrested.”
“Why are you bringing that up? I know that,” he snapped, not breaking his stride.
I got up and put my hands on his arms to stop him. “Is this getting a little too real for you?”
He sighed. “How did you guess?”
Smiling, I replied, “How about if I promise not to go off alone with Leonidas, okay? I’ll let you be in charge of my personal safety.”
“I’d like that idea if I didn’t think you were patronizing me.”
“Fine, you got me. How about if we promise to look out for each other and not do anything stupid?”
“That’s better.”
—
I headed home to take a quick shower and change, then met Maya at her office to ride over to Wonder-Gen. When we pulled up outside the aging warehouse in the seen-better-days neighborhood, Maya let out a low whistle.
“Lovely, isn’t it?” she said.
Absently tapping my finger on my phone case, I scoped out the loading dock area, which was heavily littered with garbage and rusting metal scraps. “I’m assuming the cleaning job doesn’t include outside the building.” I hoped it was nicer inside than out, considering we were going to have to at least pretend to clean the place.
She studied me for a moment. “Did you get some rest so you don’t fall asleep on the job?”
“No. I had another epic fight with Ryder yesterday, so I worried about that all night instead.”
“You two.”
“He started it.”
Maya glanced at my still tapping finger. “Personal issues aside, you seem a bit nervous.”
I always got crazy nervous before playing an undercover part. “This is my first undercover as a real PI.”
“So bloody what? When I first knew you, we did an undercover mission, and you were fine. What’s different now?”
I sighed. “Now I have more to lose if I screw up.”
“You’re not going to screw up. I trained you, and I wouldn’t have brought you if I thought you’d be a liability. Now put on your big girl knickers and let’s go. We have less than six hours to get this done, so there’s no time for buggering around.”
There was nothing quite like a no-nonsense pep talk from Maya in her clipped British tone. I got my ass in gear and followed her to the front door. An older man, scrawny, balding, and maybe mid-fifties, met us at the door. He reminded me of my dad.
“Are you Lola and Brandi?” he asked, giving us a ridiculously obvious wink as he ushered us inside.
“Yes,” Maya replied.
He shook hands with both of us. “I’m Thomas Gentry. Let’s talk in my office.”
As we followed him down the hall, I murmured, “Lola and Brandi, seriously? What was our last job, stripping?”
She gave my ponytail a tug. “I thought you’d appreciate that I didn’t name you Ginger.”
The inside of Wonder-Gen Fabricators was like most any other office building. Although fairly old, it was decently maintained and seemed clean enough. Maybe this fake job wouldn’t be too gross.
Gentry closed the door, and the three of us sat down in his office. He cleared his throat. “Sorry for the odd introduction out there. I didn’t want anyone to overhear me calling you by your real names. Maya and Juliet, is it?”
“Yes, sir,” Maya answered. “Let’s get down to business. Tell us what we need to know in order to maneuver in here and do some investigating without seeming suspicious.”
“The head of our cleaning crew is Laura Farmer. She’s quite a stickler. If you can get on her good side early, she shouldn’t give you too much grief. I know there have been some goings-on late at night by the loading dock, but I have no way of predicting when it’s going to happen. If you can, you might try to peek out there every once in a while.” He handed Maya a ring full of keys. “These should get you anywhere you need to go.”
I asked, “Do you think any of the cleaning staff has seen something go on?”
He shrugged. “If they have, no one has said anything to me. Then again, who talks to their boss?”
My staff did—maybe too much at times.
Already on to the next item on her mental checklist, Maya said, “At some point we need to peruse your accounting files to see if we can trace the cash injections. Can we do that sometime tonight, maybe while we’re pretending to clean your office?”
Gentry typed for a moment on his computer keyboard. “There. I temporarily changed my password to ‘Lola’ so you can get in anytime.” He turned the monitor to face us and pointed at a couple of icons on the screen. “These two programs should give you what you need.”
“Excellent,” she replied. “Now introduce us to your cleaning crew like we’re simply a couple of temps, and we’ll get to work.”
He led us out of his office and down another hallway. Two women were standing inside a large closet, collecting cleaning supplies and placing them into several buckets and carts.
“Laura, these are the two new members of your team, Lola and Brandi,” Gentry said to a scowling middle-aged woman.
Laura looked Maya and me up and down, then snipped to Gentry, “Now I understand why you suddenly felt the need to fire Steve and replace him with two people. Are they friends of your pretty new secretary?”
Damn. This woman had issues.
Gentry didn’t let her jabs bother him. “Oh, Laura, play nice. They’ll only be with us until we can find a replacement for Steve, and they both come highly recommended from the staffing agency.”
She only responded with a haughty, “Hmm.”
Gentry said, “Well, I’ll let you all get to work. Good night.” He disappeared down the hall, and we were on our own with the Wicked Witch.
Laura nodded to the young girl standing next to her. “That’s Su-Lin. She pretends not to know English, but don’t let her fool you.” She lowered her voice, but not enough for Su-Lin to not hear her. “She’s an illegal.”
Su-Lin, twentysomething and a little rough around the edges, flipped Laura off behind her back, proving the point that she probably did in fact know enough English to get by.
It took all I had not to burst out laughing. I thought food service employees were bad sometimes, but these ladies seemed to have just as many quirks. At least I wasn’t the one in charge.
Laura shoved a bucket full of toilet cleaning supplies at me. “Bambi, you’re on potty duty.”
Shit. Literally. “It’s Brandi.”
Staring back at me, she said, “I don’t care.” She kicked a wheeled mop bucket toward Maya, which sloshed soapy water onto her pants legs as it banged into her shins. “You. You
’re mopping floors. Now get to work.”
Grumbling, Maya followed me down the hall in search of the restrooms. “That cow. How she treats her staff is deplorable.”
Little did Laura know, but Maya could break her arm ten different ways in the blink of an eye. I didn’t know where she’d learned her hand-to-hand combat and self-defense skills, but it wasn’t at the franchise karate dojo down the street. I certainly knew better than to mess with her.
We stashed our cleaning supplies in the nearest restroom and took off toward the metal shop at the rear of the building. It was a ghost town, luckily for us, so we could feel free to snoop around using the mini flashlights we’d hidden in our pockets. With tools scattered everywhere and spare parts crammed in every empty space, it was impossible to even try to find anything there. We went on to the indoor receiving area of the loading dock. It was much cleaner than the metal shop and outside loading dock, completely empty and seemingly swept earlier in the day, judging from the undisturbed brush marks on the dusty floor.
Maya said, “Since this place is largely running on cash and Gentry says there’s activity out here late at night, I’m assuming Wonderlich is dealing in some sort of stolen or illegal goods. He’s using this place to load and unload the cargo and make the money exchanges instead of some dark alley somewhere. The dock is only visible from a couple of the houses across the road, and the other businesses around probably wouldn’t bat an eye at late-night deliveries. I think we may be spinning our wheels trying to find any contraband here if we don’t even know what to look for.”
I walked about the room, shining my light all around the concrete floor and block walls. “Agreed. I’d love to get a camera in this place, but there’s nowhere to hide one. There’s not even a smoke detector or an exit sign in here.”
“Probably by design. If I were trafficking something illegal in and out of here, I’d make sure there was nowhere someone else—like the partner I’m screwing—could put a hidden camera. So I guess what we need to do first is get on that computer and try to trace the cash Wonderlich has been feeding into this place.”
We crept carefully down the hallway back to Gentry’s office and locked ourselves inside. Leaving the lights off, Maya settled at the computer, and I stood next to her, watching over her shoulder.
Brew or Die Page 8
