Assignment Vegas: The Case of the Athlete's Assassin: Jae Lovejoy Cozy Mystery Two (Jae Lovejoy Cozy Mysteries Book 2)

by Lucey Phillips

  “I guess for touring cast and crew to have a chance to work on a residency show is a big deal, right?” I asked.

  I was thinking about James, wondering if he was from Vivant, and hoping McKenna hadn’t gotten herself mixed up with someone who is into drugs.

  “Yeah. I’m not saying they’re all dealing the PEDs. I just know they came over together,” Quinn said. “Could just be incidental. The others don’t seem to have any criminal records.”

  Before we said goodbye, I thanked Quinn and asked her to email me what she’d found—especially the list of Dream Myst cast and crew who had been with Vivant.

  | Four

  Colin had already ordered my coffee—an Americano with one cream, one Splenda—when I met him at a breakfast cafe in Currents. While I knew my eyes were still puffy from sleeping, and I could barely muster a half smile, Colin looked awake and refreshed as always.

  “Your punctuality is disturbing,” I said after I’d grumbled a thank you and taken the warm coffee mug in my hands.

  He smirked. “Late night at the spa?”

  I shook my head. “Quinn called me with some dirt on the crew of Dream Myst. Then I stayed up too late looking online for anything I could find about those people.”

  “Anything to do with McKenna?” Colin asked.

  “No, but there was one guy who was busted for being involved with performance enhancing drugs in Europe. He’s a physical therapist here now. And he worked with McKenna’s ex-boyfriend.”

  Taking a sip of coffee, Colin raised an eyebrow as he looked at me over his mug.

  A waitress brought our plates of fruit-filled crepes—strawberries for me, blueberries for Colin. I almost started drooling.

  While we ate, I explained to him everything Quinn had told me. Then I told him about my time at the spa with McKenna, outlining everything she’d shared with me about James, Anne, and Ryan.

  “So the makeup artist ex-girlfriend basically broke them up on purpose?” Colin asked.

  “That’s what it looks like. It was all an elaborate parent-to-parent guilt trip.”

  “And this morning she’s taking you with her to see Mike in the hospital?” Colin asked, his eyes narrowed in disbelief.

  “I know, it’s kind of weird,” I said. “But it seems like her mom is really her only friend. And her mom doesn’t want her going to that hospital. I’m not sure McKenna is used to doing much by herself.”

  “I guess the whole point is to spend as much time with her as you can,” he said with a shrug. “You’ll get a good story that way.”

  “What are you doing this morning?”

  He unleashed a broad smile. “Walking the strip with my camera. It’s going to be awesome.”

  I started grinning too. His smile was contagious. And I knew how easy it would be for Colin to spend hours by himself, capturing the stunning images this city had to offer, through his own lens.

  “There’s an old friend of mine who’s coming in to town tonight,” Colin said. “His brother is getting married here. It’s going to be a small wedding, but, anyway, I’m invited and I thought you might want to come with me?”

  I immediately shoved a bite of crepe in my mouth to hide my surprised smile. I wondered if this was supposed to be a date. Ever since Denver, since we’d survived being held at gunpoint together, something was different between Colin and I.

  Being together just felt easier, and maybe a little exciting. Did that mean there was a romantic spark?

  Finally, I composed myself and replied. “That sounds really fun. I don’t know if I have anything to wear. It sounds kind of fancy…”

  I stopped myself and shook my head before I rambled any further.

  “I’ll figure it out,” I said with a smile. Ok, maybe I wasn’t composed after all.

  “It’ll be fun,” he said. “Not that fancy, I don’t think. The only guests are close friends and family.”

  I thought I saw a little glint in his eyes. Maybe it was hope or excitement. Maybe it was relief at not having to go to a friend’s wedding date-less. Or maybe it was just my imagination.

  After we finished eating, Colin walked me to the lobby, where contemporary glass sculptures and chandeliers in every shade of blue hung from the ceiling. We said goodbye and I watched him walk toward the sidewalk. Colin’s camera bag was over his shoulder. His gaze was intense, deliberately scanning the streetscape as it gleamed in the morning light.

  I found a bench and checked my phone. McKenna texted me she would be here soon. “Black town car,” she’d written.

  I looked out toward the area where vehicles can pull up to the entrance and doormen help guests into the resort. There, yellow taxis, black town cars, limos, and SUVs were everywhere. How would I ever find McKenna?

  I watched vehicles come and go. The doormen seemed to have Jeckyl/Hyde personas. One moment they were irritably directing cars and yelling at drivers, the next holding out their hands to help women out of the vehicles and patiently walking them to the doors.

  I saw plenty of town cars, but I never saw McKenna. Finally, a doorman approached me. He wore a navy uniform with the Currents logo embroidered on his hat and silver epaulettes on his shoulders.

  “Miss Lovejoy?” He asked with a stiff expression.

  I nodded and stood.

  “This way, please.”

  He led me to a black car and opened a door to the back seat. I peered inside to see McKenna glance up from her phone and smile at me. Then I thanked the doorman and climbed into the car.

  She gave me a mischievous smile.

  “Mom wanted to get brunch, but I told her I wanted to stay home and rest before rehearsal this afternoon,” she said.

  She was almost giddy. McKenna’s attitude seemed more like we were kids playing hooky on a school day than adults visiting a friend in the hospital. Maybe any break from her mother’s smothering felt like a liberation to McKenna.

  I returned the smile. “Thanks for bringing me along,” I said.

  I’d done plenty of hanging out with McKenna, but it was time to get some actual interviewing done if I wanted a decent story.

  “How come you have to have a rehearsal when you’re doing eight shows a week? I’d think everyone already knows their parts really well.

  McKenna smiled. “Tweaking. Adjusting, improving. There’s always something that can have better timing, smoother follow-through. It would drive me nuts, except I’ve been through two rounds of Olympic training.”

  “That was a lot harder?”

  She snorted. “Everyone says Russell, our director, is a perfectionist. But really, he’s a cupcake.”

  Her voice wry, she added, “Try getting screamed at by a Russian gymnastics coach for a decade or two—then you’ll see what a perfectionist really is.”

  “That sounds awful.”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes I’m like, you know, I didn’t have a childhood at all. I had a career instead. And maybe that is kind of sad. But I know I wanted it.

  “I wanted to be in the high profile meets, to travel the world, to win,” she said. “So it’s not fair when I say ‘I never got to be a little girl,’ because I wanted it.”

  “But you were a child. Children don’t know what’s best for them.”

  “If you’d see me then—seen me train, you wouldn’t have said ‘There’s a little girl who needs to be saved from herself.’”

  McKenna paused to rub her eyes. Then she said, “Afterwards—when I got too old to compete — then I definitely became someone who needed to be saved from herself.”

  I knew it was time to ask the million-dollar question. I had no intention of writing some lurid, gratuitous fallen star story. But I couldn’t ignore this chapter of McKenna’s life, either.

  “What happened with that, McKenna?” I asked. “How did the substance abuse problems start?”

  McKenna sighed and looked out the window beside her. I waited patiently for her to organize her thoughts.

  But she wouldn’t be answering me�
��not now anyway.

  Then there was a squeal from outside our car. McKenna’s face contorted in startled horror. Airbags burst out on all sides of us while an awful scraping boom exploded in my ears.

  I saw McKenna’s body bounce up and across the seat toward me. She curled up in a ball and I instinctively put my hands over my face.

  Our car was stopped. Horns and alarms blared. A man in a blue jumpsuit was frantically grabbing at my door. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I could see by the movement of his mouth that he was asking me, “Are you okay?”

  McKenna was leaning against me now. She wiped her eyes and rubbed her head. Past her, at eye level, I was looking at the engine of a large pickup truck.

  I am not a hugger. Even handshakes creep me out sometimes. But, at that moment, the only thing I knew to do was reach my arms out and wrap them around McKenna.

  “I’m okay. I’m okay,” McKenna said, her voice weak and a little gravelly. “Are you all right?”

  A side-impact airbag had exploded against my right shoulder and neck. My shoulder ached and there was a tingling, burning sensation on my neck. I clenched my right hand into a fist and released it.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” I said, gingerly touching my neck with my left hand.

  The man in the blue jumpsuit had left and was now returning with a crowbar. His face was red. Sweat poured from his forehead and temples.

  Finally, he pried the door open and helped me, then McKenna, out of the car. The blaring horns and alarms had stopped, replaced by sirens screaming in the distance. McKenna stood beside me, rubbing her left shoulder.

  “The driver?” I asked her. “Where’s the driver?”

  “Still in there,” the man in the blue jumpsuit grunted, while he yanked on the front door with a crowbar.

  With a crack, then a squeak, the door swung open. A gray-haired man stepped out. He brushed bits of glass from his suit jacket with both hands. Blood seeped from a cut on his left cheekbone.

  “My, God,” he said. “That little black sports car—did you see it? He was flying up the wrong side of the road.”

  The driver turned to McKenna and me. “Are you girls ok?”

  McKenna didn’t answer him. She was typing on her phone.

  “We’re fine,” I said. I looked toward the pickup. The driver’s seat was empty. “What about the other driver?”

  “That’s me,” the man in the blue jumpsuit said. He shook his head, looking disgusted. “I was swerving to avoid that sports car.”

  “Me, too,” our driver said. “Thank God we’re all alive.”

  We were in the middle of a four-lane intersection, squinting and sweating under the desert sun, as cars slowly made their way around our wreck. A couple times people slowed, lowered their windows, and asked if we were okay.

  Soon, the police arrived and started talking with the drivers. They photographed the scene before tow trucks arrived to take away the pickup and the town car.

  While one officer was typing in the driver’s license and insurance information, McKenna leaned toward my ear and whispered, “We gotta get out of here. I don’t want to be on the news for this.”

  My stomach lurched a little. For McKenna, journalists were the bad guys. I was a journalist.

  I looked at her and nodded.

  “I texted my mom,” she said. “She’s flipping out. She’s going to meet us over there.”

  McKenna started walking toward a gas station on the corner.

  I jogged a couple steps to catch up. I wanted to go with McKenna, but I also wanted to hang around and talk to the police — to try and figure out what had happened.

  “You sure you don’t need an ambulance?” I asked, breathing hard from the heat and from forcing my short legs to keep up with the quick walking pace of the long-legged athlete beside me.

  “That wasn’t great for my shoulder, but I’m fine,” she said. “I just can’t be in the news again.”

  Her voice sounded shaky now.

  “It wasn’t your fault McKenna—you were just a passenger in the back seat.”

  She shook her head. “They’ll make it about me—they always do. Then there will be jokes…”

  After she reached her fingers under her sunglasses to wipe her eyes, McKenna folded her arms around her chest. It wasn’t defiant body language. Instead, it looked like she was trying to give herself a hug.

  There was a little sub shop inside the gas station. I helped McKenna find a seat at a booth, then I bought us a couple bottled waters.

  When I sat down, McKenna was typing on her phone again. She took her water and opened it without saying thank you.

  I looked out the window for Mariah. I was thinking about finding a cab to take me back to Currents, but I couldn’t leave McKenna here by herself. I really didn’t want to hang around for Mariah’s freak-out, though. Not only had McKenna defied Mariah’s wishes not to visit Mike, she had almost gotten hurt—or killed—in the process.

  “What kind of car does your mom drive?” I asked.

  “Land Rover. It’s white.”

  I scanned the parking lot. No white Land Rovers. I looked down at the table and spun my half-empty water bottle in my hand. I needed to tell McKenna what I was thinking, but I knew it might make her panic.

  “You know—this is twice in two days that you’ve been very, very close to a serious accident.”

  She drew her gaze up from her phone to meet my eyes.

  “I know,” she said quietly.

  Then McKenna shrugged and added, “You sound just like my mom.”

  “Something is wrong, McKenna. These things aren’t just coincidences.”

  She rolled her eyes. “That wreck was probably just a drunk driver or crazy kid with a new car. Don’t you think if someone wanted to hurt me with their car, they would, like, try to run me over or something a little more clever than tearing up the wrong side of the road in the middle of the day.”

  I looked down at my water, then back at McKenna. “I guess so.”

  “Besides, who would even know I was in that town car?”

  “That’s easy,” I said. “Someone could be following you, or tracking your phone or something. Do you do any of those Find My Friend apps?”

  Then I stopped myself. I wondered if McKenna was thinking the same thing I was—what friends?

  A white Land Rover pulled in and parked in front of the shop. Mariah was behind the wheel. She wore dark, oversized sunglasses.

  “Your mom’s here.”

  McKenna turned in time to see Mariah jump out of the car, stumble on the curb, and frantically run toward the door of the shop.

  “It’s okay. We’re fine,” McKenna said, waving in her mom’s direction.

  I braced myself for Mariah’s wrath. Her daughter had defied her and almost gotten killed. And I was the accomplice.

  Mariah slid into the booth beside McKenna. She reached over and hugged her daughter.

  “Girls! Thank God you’re all right!”

  After she was done hugging her daughter, Mariah reached both hands across the table and grabbed my hands, giving them a gentle squeeze. This surprised me. Suddenly my throat felt thick.

  “You okay, Jae?”

  I tilted my head down and nodded. I was pretty sure that, if I tried to talk, my voice would come out broken.

  “All right, then,” Mariah said as she stood. “Let’s get you girls home.”

  I wanted to say, “No thanks,” but I was pretty sure Mariah and McKenna would argue with me if I tried to stay there, at the gas station, by myself.

  So I followed along behind the pair as they walked side-by-side, Mariah resting a hand between her daughter’s shoulder blades.

  “I should take both of you to the hospital—just to get checked out. Those cars were really smashed up,” Mariah said after we’d gotten into the car.

  I opened my mouth to tell Mariah I’m fine, but before I could get the words out, McKenna began arguing with her mother.

  “Mom, no. I c
an’t—they’ll try to give me pain meds.”

  “You have the right to refuse, Kinney.” Mariah said. “You just tell the doctors ‘No.’ They’ll understand.”

  “It’s not like that, Mom. You don’t understand,” McKenna said.

  She folded her arms and slouched in her seat. Then she muttered, “This is exactly how people relapse.”

  “Okay, honey, okay,” Mariah said. She reached over and stroked McKenna’s arm. “You don’t have to go to the hospital. But at least let me call Dr. Mary. Let her take a look at you. Okay?”

  McKenna nodded without looking at her mom.

  I took my phone out of my bag and checked it: No calls, no texts. My first thought was to text Colin and tell him I was all right. But even if he’d been listening to the police scanner and heard about the wreck, he’d have no idea I was involved.

  Deciding I didn’t want to worry Colin or interrupt his morning, I texted Quinn instead.

  While I was typing, I noticed a burning sensation on my left elbow. Twisting my arm, I was able to see a line of dark red dried blood on my skin. Maybe a shard of glass had cut me during the accident and the numbing effects of adrenaline had kept me from noticing until now.

  While I dug in my bag for a tissue, I realized my hands were trembling. I needed to wipe off the blood before Mariah noticed and tried to drag me to the hospital, too.

  “Mom, I really want to see Mike. Can you take us?” McKenna asked.

  Mariah let out a heavy sigh and shook her head slowly.

  “Please?” McKenna’s voice was shrill now.

  “All right. But only for a few minutes.”

  McKenna twisted in her seat to face me.

  “That’s all right with you, Jae? You still want to go?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  McKenna wrinkled her nose. “You look pale,” she said. “Are you okay?”

  Mariah grabbed her rearview mirror and twisted it until I could see her sunglass-covered eyes.

  “Are you sure you didn’t get hurt, Jae?”

  “I’m sure,” I said, trying to sound confident. And I was sure—but I couldn’t figure out why I was suddenly feeling so queasy.