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

by Lucey Phillips

  “The only love interest I know of is James. Quinn said she didn’t find anything interesting on him,” I said. “I guess I never thought of him because he was the first one to point out that the wiring on that hot tub had been tampered with. Plus, you know, he doesn’t seem like the type.”

  “Doesn’t seem like the type? You know better than that. You can never tell what someone is like behind closed doors,” Colin said.

  “I didn’t mean it like that—I mean, I don’t know, I just don’t get the creeper vibe from him.”

  We looked around for different entrances and for cameras. There were two stairwells but only one set of security cameras, which was by the elevators. It looked like it would be very simple for someone to enter and exit from the stairway, and take the pictures on their phone, without raising suspicions or being visible on the camera.

  “I’m sure Jacob will get the recording,” I muttered, looking up at the small dark plastic dome attached to the ceiling by the elevators. “Let’s go. This was a waste of time.”

  Colin looked at his watch while he followed me onto the elevator.

  “I thought we could go see Marilla’s place, maybe Anne’s. But if you want to get back, that’s fine with me,” I said.

  Colin shrugged, “Nah, I think I’d like to check it out—spend a little time away from the strip. Maybe I can get some good photos, you know?”

  We took a bus to Marilla’s neighborhood, a place with run-down bars, motels and apartment buildings. It was getting later in the morning, and while Colin and I walked toward the address Quinn had given me, we didn’t talk to each other. It was too hot.

  Finally, we came to a cul-de-sac of townhouses. The homes looked like they would have been cute when they were first built. But now, the colorful siding was sun-bleached. Dusty toys, lawn furniture, and trash bags were piled around front doors. And most homes had at least one boarded-up or duct-taped window.

  Colin and I looked at each other. I had a creepy sense that more than one resident of this little community was looking out their windows at us—two people who clearly weren’t regulars here.

  I nodded toward number seventeen.

  The area was barren of any living thing or decoration, a potted plant or wreath or flag, that might indicate someone actually enjoyed living here. The blacktop parking lot was bleached to a sandy gray color and so badly cracked that it crunched under our feet like gravel.

  “He lives way over here? In a place like this?” I whispered to Colin.

  I didn’t know how much Dream Myst paid its trainers, but surely Marilla could afford something nicer than this.

  Colin leaned close to my ear and whispered, “Yeah, because people who live in places like this mind their own business. They don’t ask questions.”

  The parking lot was packed with older model sedans, pickups, and minivans—most of which had some sort of body defect, either scratches or dents or mismatched replacement parts or paint faded beyond recognition. One vehicle, however, stood out. It was a shiny, huge, white SUV with black tinted windows and shiny black wheels. It was the only car in the lot with California plates, and it was parked in front of number seventeen.

  I tilted my head toward that car and looked at Colin. We were getting close to Marilla’s door now. Colin’s face became pale.

  “We need to go,” he whispered. “I don’t like this situation.”

  I’d never seen that expression on his face—or heard him act this decisively. So I responded with a simple, quiet “Okay.”

  If we kept walking in the same direction, we would make a circle around the cul-de-sac and be back at the entrance. Colin quickened his pace. I had to jog a step to keep up with him. Next, as we started to pass the doorway of number seventeen, I glanced around for anything that might be a clue. But the exterior of the townhouse revealed nothing.

  The window shades were all closed. There was a vague cigarette smoke and hot trash can odor that wafted through the entire area—not just in front of Marilla’s home.

  The metal creak of a car door opening tore my attention away from the townhouses and back to the parking lot—back to the big white SUV.

  Marcos Marilla was stepping out of the passenger side of the vehicle. He gave me a grin that revealed what looked like too many teeth. His eyes narrowed in my direction. The SUV began to back away slowly. I tried to see who was driving, but the tinted windows, combined with the glare from the sun, obscured my view.

  “Well, good morning,” Marilla bellowed in an Italian accent. “I know you.”

  Colin stepped close to my side.

  “Oh, hi! I’m glad I caught you!” I said. The pitch of my voice rose to a shrill squeak.

  “You’re the magazine writer who’s been hanging around McKenna Johnson. I saw you backstage a couple times,” Marilla said.

  I smiled and stuck out my hand to shake his. “Yeah. I’m Jae Lovejoy. This is Colin Bloom.”

  Marilla ignored my hand as he brushed past me toward his front door.

  “I was hoping to interview you for my story—I heard you used to hang out with McKenna sometimes?”

  “Not really,” he said. “I know her ex-boyfriend, that’s all. How did you get this address?” he asked.

  “Um…” I opened my messenger bag and pretended to rifle through it so I could avoid eye contact and think of something to say. “I think maybe the Currents PR department gave it to me?”

  “They don’t have this address. I use a P.O. box.”

  “Maybe I saw it online somewhere,” I said.

  “I doubt it,” Marilla said, a bitter tone to his voice. Then he stepped inside his townhouse and slammed the door.

  “Come on,” Colin said. “Let’s go.”

  “I guess he doesn’t want to be in my story?” I said.

  Colin rolled his eyes and laughed. “Shocking. And I was so sure he was going to invite us in to interview him and drink lemonade.”

  He nudged me with his elbow and I laughed too. “Good cover story though.”

  “You think he bought it?” I asked.

  “Absolutely not.”

  I didn’t think so either.

  | Fourteen

  Poppy didn’t have half of McKenna’s athletic grace, but she did bring something special to the role of butterfly of sleep when she played the star aerialist in Dream Myst.

  Colin and I were watching an afternoon dress rehearsal of the show. It was a chance for understudies to rotate in to some of the roles so they could keep their skills sharp and stage-ready if they were called upon.

  Poppy played the role skillfully. She executed all the athletic moves with precision and what looked like perfect timing. She didn’t have McKenna’s grand presence, but she brought a fresh energy, an excitement to the part.

  As we sat in the front row of the empty theater, I looked at Colin to gauge his reaction to Poppy’s performance. I couldn’t read him, though. He looked like he was concentrating, but not swept away.

  I wouldn’t expect a dress rehearsal to have a curtain call, but this one did. It made sense. There were so many complicated set and lighting mechanics, not to mention that half the performers had to swim to the stage and pose on it as it rose out of the water.

  When it was time to hold hands and bow, most of the performers did it halfheartedly, as there was no audience and no cheering. But not Poppy. She was breathless from her last, huge dive into the water, and she was wearing a brilliant smile.

  When it was over, Colin and I made our way backstage slowly, assuming it would take Poppy some time to do her cool down routine, shower, and get dressed. But when we got to the group dressing area, she was already wearing her work uniform—the polo shirt, khaki pants, and name tag.

  Poppy’s hair was pulled into a neat bun. Her face was pink and shiny—scrubbed clean of the stage makeup and still flushed from the physical effort of performing.

  “That was fast,” I said, smiling. It would be a nice change to do an interview with someone who wasn’t as anxi
ous and complicated as McKenna—someone I could talk to without worrying I might say the wrong thing, or scare her off.

  “Yeah, I don’t like being late to the concierge desk—if that happens I’m running like crazy all night just to get caught up,” she said.

  “I loved the show,” I said. “You were awesome.”

  Poppy grinned and thanked me.

  Colin took a few pictures of Poppy, wearing her plain work uniform, contrasted against the vividly colored backstage dressing room where elaborate costumes and props seemed to hang from and cover nearly every surface, except for the rows of mirrored vanities.

  I knew they would turn out amazing. And a story about an up-and-coming performer who also keeps a regular job would provide a great balance to McKenna’s life story.

  McKenna never experienced working a regular job. She’s a woman who, from early childhood, has been treated differently—whether that treatment was in her best interest or not.

  Colin left when he was done, and Poppy and I started walking toward the concierge desk. We decided it would be too difficult to have both Colin and I following Poppy around. Besides, we might be in and out of guests’ rooms and other places Colin wasn’t allowed to photograph.

  “I can’t believe you have to do a full work shift after that performance,” I said while we walked “Aren’t you tired?”

  “Later I will be, but now? No way,” Poppy said, smiling. “I think I’m flying high on adrenaline. Especially that dive at the end—what a rush.”

  “Is it hard to switch gears from that athletic stuff to doing a bunch of random customer service things?”

  She laughed. “You would think so, but no, not really. The other assistants get annoyed when I come in after rehearsal or a workout because I’m all pumped up and I’m really fast. Sometimes I run through all the jobs in my queue and then I don’t have anything to do, so I work on their things.”

  When we got to the concierge desk, Poppy logged in to a tablet, signed up for radio, and clipped it to her belt.

  Her first job was to find a jacket that a guest had forgotten at a roulette table and take it to his room. I followed her to an office, near one of the main casino floors, where lost items were kept in plastic bins. We started looking through the items that were collected the previous evening.

  There were the typical lost-and-found things: hats, jackets, and shopping bags. But there were some things that seemed like most normal people wouldn’t lose track of—prescription bottles and car keys, and even a bridal bouquet and an asthma inhaler.

  “Be careful—don’t stick your hands in any pockets,” Poppy said. “One guy I work with got pricked with an insulin needle that way. He had to go through months of blood tests.”

  “Wow, yikes,” I mumbled.

  I was thinking about how just this room—this collection of things people forget about when they’re distracted with gambling—could be an interesting story. I picked up a baby rattle and shook it. “Really?”

  Poppy nodded. “Yeah, plenty of people bring their kids here. The casino even has a babysitting service. I don’t get it, but whatever.”

  I pitched the rattle back into the bin. I could not imagine being responsible for a baby under any circumstances, but especially not in a place like this.

  We found the jacket and took it to the guest’s room. First, Poppy knocked, but there was no answer. Then she had the switchboard call the room. Again, no answer. Finally, she pulled a plastic card from her pocket and swept the lock.

  “Universal access,” she said, holding the door open for me and sliding the card back into her pocket.

  She hung the jacket on a hanger and typed something into her tablet before we left.

  Next stop was the parking garage. A guest—a high roller, evidently—had left a lucky charm keychain on the key ring he had given to the valet. We were supposed to get it and bring it to a cocktail waitress who would deliver it to the man, who was waiting at a craps table.

  I was quickly realizing this job was 99 percent walking.

  “Do you get a lot of weird requests like this?” I asked.

  Poppy waved her hand. “This isn’t weird. This is nothing.”

  “Really?”

  “Sometimes I’m retrieving strange packages … One guy insisted on the green slushy from 7-11. The casino offered to make him something similar, but he refused. It had to be from 7-11 and it had to be the color of money.”

  “Did it work? Did he win?”

  She shrugged. “No one wins. Sometimes people are up temporarily, but on the casino floor, no one really wins except the casino.”

  “So where’s your family live? What do they think of your job here?” I asked.

  We were stepping off an elevator that had taken us to the part of the garage that was below ground level.

  “We’re not close,” Poppy said, her walking pace speeding up. “I’m from Utah. I learned gymnastics and dancing there, but I haven’t been home in years.”

  We approached a large booth where a security guard was sitting. Poppy showed him something on her tablet, and he swiveled on his chair to open the cabinet behind him. While his back was turned, Poppy stood on her tiptoes to peek at the clip board on his desk. But when she noticed me watching her, she turned her attention to her tablet and began scrolling the image on the screen up and down.

  “I guess it’s this one?” the security guard asked, dangling the keys by a shiny, silver Mercedes emblem. He unhooked the Mercedes key chain and handed it to Poppy before swiveling around in his chair to put the keys away.

  Poppy called a cheerful “Thank you,” but he didn’t respond.

  “That guy sure was friendly,” I said when we were back on the elevator.

  “You get a lot of that. It’s a big place and everyone is kind of worried about their own thing. If you’re not a guest, people don’t go out of their way to be warm and friendly.”

  “Sounds like kind of a miserable way to do work.”

  “I don’t care. All I care about is getting on stage. I did an off-strip show before this. The house only seated 100, and it was never full. But when we nailed it, and the audience appreciated it, there is no feeling like that in the world.” Poppy rested her palm over her sternum and took a deep breath.

  I made a mental note to check out her alibis during the car accident and the hot tub incident. Poppy definitely didn’t seem to have any violent or criminal tendencies, but she would benefit immensely if McKenna was injured. All of her dreams would come true.

  I followed Poppy to a server station on one of the table gaming floors. After a couple minutes, a woman with a Currents name tag reading “Michelle” pinned to her black satin sheath dress approached us.

  “Thanks, honey,” she said when Poppy handed her the Mercedes emblem.

  When she brushed past me, I caught a whiff of alcohol—Captain’s Rum. I’d know that scent anywhere. It was my mom’s drink of choice. Maybe someone had spilled their drink on Michelle, or maybe she’d had a couple herself, though that seemed unlikely.

  Poppy tapped on her tablet while we walked away from the servers station.

  “Looks like that’s it for now, want to get something to eat?” she asked.

  I agreed and immediately started thinking about getting a salad or a Panini. I expected Poppy to walk left—toward the nearest food court. Instead, she pushed open a “staff only” door and we walked down a tile hallway toward a pair of elevators.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  Poppy looked confused for a moment, then rolled her eyes. “Of course you’ve never been to the commissary—McKenna would never eat there,” she said, emphasizing the word “never.” “She might not know it exists, actually.”

  “McKenna does seem to eat take-out an awful lot,” I said.

  “Yeah—and her mom, too.”

  We walked onto the elevator where Poppy pushed the button for L2. I kept my gaze down when she mentioned Mariah. I didn’t fully understand Mariah’s distain
for Poppy and I hope Poppy hadn’t picked up on it—though Mariah seemed to make zero effort in hiding it.

  We left the elevator, crossed the hallway, and entered a giant food court and cafeteria. It was crowded with people wearing a variety of work clothes including black-tie waitstaff outfits, jumpsuits for maintenance employees, and business suits for the administration workers. It reminded me of a hospital cafeteria, with one exception: it smelled amazing.

  “You won’t believe the prices,” Poppy said. “They only charge us for the cost of the actual food,” she said, smiling.

  I got a turkey sandwich on multigrain bread and Poppy got a square of vegetable lasagna. She had to be starving after doing a full rehearsal of Dream Myst followed by running all over the casino for hours.

  After we checked out, I followed her into the seating area.

  “Oh look! It’s Anne!” Poppy said, her voice an excited squeal.

  We approached the pretty brunette, who was picking at an Asian chicken salad.

  “Hey Anne,” Poppy said, still squealing. “This is Jae. She’s writing an article about my concierge job. And about McKenna, of course,” Poppy said.

  For a moment, it looked like Anne was going to offer me a wry smile, but at the mention of McKenna’s name, she moved her lips into a tight line and looked back at her food.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” I said. “You’re a makeup artist?”

  “You heard about her? Anne is so good,” Poppy gushed nervously. Maybe she was embarrassed about Anne’s cold demeanor. Were these two actually friends? Maybe Anne was capable of congeniality, but the mention of McKenna had thrown her off.

  “Anne doesn’t just put the makeup on—she designed the faces for half of the animals, right? There’s the rabbits, the butterflies…”

  “Stop it, Poppy, I don’t want to be in the magazine article,” Anne said in her French accent. Then she looked directly at me. “I’m sorry. McKenna and I have never gotten on. Everyone knows, she just doesn’t like me. So I’m not going to push in on her little moment in the spotlight.”

  “I don’t think that’s it,” Poppy said. “Maybe she’s just a little threatened because of your history, you know, with James.” She’d dropped her voice to a whisper.