Zombie Cash Run in Las Vegas: A Lighthearted Tiffany Black Mystery (Tiffany Black Mysteries Book 12)

by A. R. Winters

  I forced myself to look away from Dave's intense, dark eyes. There was something about the man that rubbed me the wrong way–I supposed you had to be pushy and fake in Hollywood, but I didn't like it when someone tried to be fake and pushy toward me. I had no intention of joining a reality TV show, and I didn't like people who thought I was easy to manipulate. But this wasn't about me–I was here to support Ian, and that's what I would do.

  "Thanks," I forced myself to say, trying to sound less annoyed than I felt. "I will give it some thought."

  "Great!" said Dave. He sounded as though he believed me, but something told me that he didn't. He was probably used to people who turned him down politely, and I got the feeling that over the next few days, he would keep trying to convince me to join the show. But today, he turned his attention to Ian instead.

  "So, Ian," he said, with just as much enthusiasm as when he'd been trying to persuade me to join the show. "It's super exciting that you've agreed to join Zombie Cash Run. I'm really looking forward to getting the show started!"

  Ian was a pretty enthusiastic person, but Dave's pseudo-enthusiasm made Ian's natural energy seem downright lethargic. And even Ian, who was a naïve, trusting person, seemed to be a bit taken aback by Dave's fake friendliness.

  Perhaps it was the fact that Dave had tried to convince me to join the show that made Ian feel like he was a less important cast member, but either way, his eyes didn't have that same eager sparkle. Instead, Ian said politely, "I'm happy to be joining the show too. Unlike my friend Tiffany, I actually like taking part in reality TV shows. I was really thrilled when you got in touch with me."

  "That's great to hear," Dave said, "I know you'll do well on the show."

  "Who are the other contestants who are going to be on the show?" said Ian.

  Dave’s smile shrank by a fraction, and he rubbed one cheek with his hand. "I'm not supposed to be talking about details of the show beforehand," he admitted, "and I'd love to tell you everything there is to know, but I'd probably get in trouble for it. Be accused of cheating, or something like that–there are all kinds of scandals these days."

  "Oh," Ian said. "Of course, I understand. I wouldn't want you to do anything that could get you into trouble."

  Dave’s smile broadened again. "Excellent! So you understand my predicament. I just wanted to get to know you before the show started. Tell me, what do you spend your time doing?"

  That was a good question.

  When he'd been in college, Ian had invested in a start-up founded by a couple of his friends. The start-up took off, had an IPO, and Ian cashed out his shares and became a multimillionaire overnight. He dropped out of college, but his parents persuaded him to put all his money in a trust fund controlled by them and a lawyer–and they were pretty strict about the controls.

  Ian was given a small allowance each month, just enough to live off without doing any real work. In a way, it was a good thing that Ian's parents had put his money in a trust fund–without those constraints, Ian was immature enough to have spent all his money already. He was a pushover, and he always thought the best of people and tried to help out however much he could.

  Ever since cashing out of the company and dropping out of college, Ian had been looking for something "meaningful" to do with his life. He blew through various hobbies, but these days, he spent a lot of time helping me out with my cases, mixed in with occasional video game-playing and TV–watching binges.

  “I help Tiffany with her cases,” Ian said. “We’ve had quite a few exciting things that we needed to look into recently.”

  “I’d love to hear all about it,” Dave said.

  He leaned forward, resting his chin on his hands, and stared at Ian intently, as though he was fascinated by the idea of being private investigators.

  I expected Ian to blab out all our secrets, and was prepared to jump in and remind him about the confidentiality clauses we signed for our clients. But instead of talking at length about our work, Ian shifted in his seat uncomfortably. “Oh, we always sign confidentiality agreements when we take on any work,” he said. “Even though we’ve closed the cases, I’m not sure our clients would want us talking about them.”

  “Oh, that’s completely understandable, and I think it’s so loyal of you to protect your clients like that. What do you do when you’re not busy solving cases?”

  “I play a lot of video games,” Ian said. “I’ve been playing a lot of those first-person shooters to prepare for this show.”

  Dave nodded his head seriously. “What a good idea. You would expect a zombie reality show to have some shooting going on. That’s very clever of you.”

  Ian brightened considerably, imagining himself getting through the first round of Zombie Cash Run because of his video game shooter skills.

  “And I like Star Trek,” Ian said. “Just science fiction in general. Which is why it’ll be so much fun to play on a zombie-based show.”

  Dave’s smile actually seemed sincere for a few seconds. “That’s great to hear. I think this new generation is really into science fiction and fantasy, and shows that cater to those ideas will do well. Tell me, do you like to go outdoors at all? Like, to the countryside?”

  Ian and I exchanged a glance. “You mean out into the desert?”

  Dave shook his head. “No, to farms and vineyards and the like? Have you ever milked a cow?”

  “Not really,” Ian said, looking a little mystified. “I think I visited a farm when I was younger, but I never milked any cows.”

  “I love farms,” Dave said. “Growing up, my grandparents lived on a farm.”

  He talked a bit about his grandparents’ farm, and how much he liked farming, and how, if he hadn’t gotten into Hollywood, he might have been a farmer himself.

  I couldn’t see him being a farmer, but I kept that thought to himself. To me, it looked to me like he’d always been a slick, slightly sleazy Hollywood executive. Of course, I knew it couldn’t have been the case–at some point, he must’ve had a shred of Ian’s naïveté, but that must’ve been stamped out pretty quickly by the harsh realities of Hollywood.

  Ian and Dave chatted a bit more, their topics of conversation shifting from farming to science fiction and fantasy to the other reality TV shows airing on TV right now.

  Finally, after what felt like ages, Dave stood up. “It’s been really fabulous meeting you two,” he said, his voice echoing with enthusiasm. “I can’t wait to see you again on set.”

  Chapter 3

  Ian was surprisingly silent as we drove away from the Riverbelle and toward my parents’ house in North Las Vegas.

  “Well,” I said, “that went well.”

  Ian let out a melodramatic sigh. “I suppose so.”

  He sounded like a petulant teenager, completely unlike his normal self. “What’s wrong?”

  Ian shook his head. “It’s just–Dave seemed kind of off.”

  I didn’t say anything, and focused on the road; after a pause, Ian went on. “I know most Hollywood people are like that–enthusiastic, and always trying to sell themselves. But Dave–I don’t know, there’s something else about him that I can’t put my finger on.”

  I was taken aback. Ian almost always liked people, even when there’s nothing to like about them. It was a new experience to hear him speak badly of someone.

  “I got that same feeling too,” I admitted. “There’s just something about him. Kind of like desperation mixed with cunning.”

  Ian nodded. “I think that’s it. Maybe we’ve just been PIs for too long? Maybe I’m becoming all cynical like you.”

  I laughed. “I don’t think so. I think there’s just something about Dave.”

  “And I didn’t like how he tried to persuade you to join the show,” Ian said.

  “I knew it! You don’t want to share any of the glory.”

  Ian knew I was joking, and he laughed. “It’s not that. If we were working on a team together, that would be fine. But I’ve watched a lot of these survival
shows recently, and what they do is, they pit the contestants against each other. They make you really hate each other–and I guess it would be great TV if friends became enemies.”

  I frowned. That idea hadn’t occurred to me. “So it’s not just my fabulous personality that Dave’s after.”

  “I think he also wanted to play up the bit about our being private investigators,” Ian went on hesitantly. “I’m not sure I feel comfortable about that.”

  “Me neither. Even though we’ve closed the cases, our clients deserve their privacy. Besides, I don’t want to talk about my work on TV.”

  “Neither do I,” Ian said quickly. “Though I think Dave isn’t as interested in me, since I’m just your assistant.”

  We’d reached my parents’ house by now, and as we got out of the car, I said, “Well, at least it’s a good thing that he invited you to be on the show. You wanted to be on a reality TV show again. You might as well make the most of it.”

  My mother welcomed us inside, and when we got to the den, we saw that almost everyone was already there—my parents, Nanna and her husband Wes, Wes’s brother, my downstairs neighbor Glenn and Glenn’s girlfriend, Karma, were all sitting around drinking lemonade and chatting about Nanna’s recent visit to Illinois.

  Glenn was a retired baker, who still love to bake yummy things in his spare time, and Karma was an aging hippie who favored long flowy skirts and had hip-length graying hair. Wes had family back in Illinois, and Nanna and he split their time between Vegas and Illinois. Turns out, during their visit, there’d been a harvest festival in the small town where Wes and Nanna lived, and Nanna regaled us with tales of the corn maze, petting zoo, and delicious food stalls. We chatted for a few minutes, and then my boyfriend, Detective Ryan Dimitriou, showed up.

  Ryan and I have been dating for a few months now, and though I initially kept the relationship a secret from my parents–my mother has a tendency to get over-enthusiastic about my relationships occasionally–he’s been to family meals a couple of times now. But my mother still looked surprised to see him for some reason, and after a few minutes, I decided to follow her into the kitchen and ask what was going on.

  “I wasn’t surprised to see him,” Mom said defensively, when I asked her why she’d looked shaken. “You did say he’d be coming.”

  “Then why do you sound so surprised that he’s here?”

  My mother was carrying a dish of roasted potatoes, and I was carrying a big bowl of Greek salad. We placed our bowls on the dining table, and then my mother turned to face me with a small sigh.

  “Your relationships never seem to last very long,” she admitted. “And you’ve told us that you and Ryan have been seeing each other for a few months now. I just figured… What with him being a detective and you being a private investigator, maybe you’d butt heads sometimes.”

  I rolled my eyes. “What does his being a detective have to do with anything?”

  “I don’t know, he seems like a nice young man and everything, but have you two ever worked together on cases?”

  I shook my head. “Not yet. Most of the open cases I’ve been on were handled by Elwood.”

  Detective Elwood was a short, chubby man with a perpetual scowl—but ever since Ian and I started giving him freshly-baked cupcakes, he’s been reasonably co-operative whenever we’ve needed his help.

  My mother sighed again. “And what happens if you both work on the same case?”

  “That’s not going to happen,” I scoffed. “I don’t usually work on cases that are still open, and most of my jobs are minor things, doing background checks on people, that kind of thing.”

  My mother pursed her lips. “Well, I hope you’re right, and that you don’t end up working on the same case. But Vegas is a small town, and you’re bound to run into each other at work sometime or the other.”

  “And so, what if we do? I’m sure we’ll be able to work well together.”

  My mother laughed. “Most men don’t like to work with their wife or girlfriend.”

  “That might have been true in your day, but things are different now. There are lots of couples who work together, some of them run businesses together, or work in the same office.”

  My mother shook her head, and I followed her back into the kitchen. “That might be true, but remember–if you’re working on the same case that the police are, it’s a race to solve it first. If it’s Ryan’s case, he won’t like you beating him to the punch.”

  “That’s not true.”

  But my protest sounded feeble even to my own ears, and I hoped that Ryan and I would never work together on the same case. Maybe my mother was right, and working on the same thing was inevitable–instead, I ought to have been hoping that we would work well together, and somehow join forces.

  Lunch was delicious, with Turkish-style roasted lamb with mint yogurt, roasted potatoes, roasted veggies, and a side salad just for good measure. I knew there was chocolate lava cake in the oven, and Glenn had baked and brought along some delicious looking lemon bars. We all settled in eagerly at the table; my mother sat on my right, and Ian sat on my other side.

  "So, Ian," Nanna said, as she munched on potatoes, "Tiff told me you were going to visit the producer of this show before you came over–how'd that go?"

  "Not too well," Ian admitted morosely. "He seems kind of weird."

  "I'm sure it doesn't matter if he's a bit odd," my mother said, trying to cheer him up. "As long as you do well on the show, it’ll all be fine. Have you been preparing?"

  Ian grinned, and nodded energetically, his enthusiasm back again. "I've been watching lots of those old survival reality shows, and I've been playing all these first-person shooter games. I tried reading up a bit on military history and strategy, but that was kinda boring–and I don't think they'll have us form troops and battle each other and all that. It’ll probably just be a group of zombies trying to attack us, and we’ll have to shoot them down."

  "That sounds too simple to me," Ryan said. "I'm sure there's other things you need to do to survive a zombie attack?"

  Ian scrunched his brow. "I've been reading up about that a bit. Apparently, there are these groups of people called ‘Preppers’ who prepare themselves for emergencies. I suppose you could think that a zombie attack is sort of an emergency."

  "I've got a friend who’s a prepper," Wes said. "He reckons that we could be hit with a serious blizzard, given the way global warming’s going–we could be snowed in inside our houses, without power or running water for days on end."

  "So what does he do to prepare for that?"

  Wes shrugged. "He's got lots of equipment, and all kinds of dried food and stockpiled drinking water. He talks about building an underground bunker kind-of-thing, but I think that's a bit too expensive to implement."

  "It doesn't sound like they could stick you in a house with no food or running water for ten days, just for a TV show," I said. "But maybe they could take away some other things that we take for granted."

  Ian nodded. "Sure, but I'm not sure how I can prepare for that."

  "Maybe they could put you in a farm without modern utilities, kind of like how the Amish live," Karma said.

  A bolt of remembrance struck me. "Wasn’t Dave talking about how he loved living on his grandparents’ farm when he was younger?"

  Ian gaped at me. "D’you think he was trying to give me some kind of hint?"

  I shrugged. "He seemed kind of odd, but there’s a chance he might just have been trying to give you a hint—he did bring up that farm a bit randomly.”

  "But why would he give me a hint? He’s already told us that he can't talk about the show because it would be unethical and he could get into trouble for it."

  "If he was just talking about how much he liked living on his grandparents’ farm, that can't actually be thought of as a hint," Glenn reminded us. "And maybe he didn't really mean to give you a direct hint. Maybe it's something that just came out."

  I shook my head. "No, the more I think a
bout it, the more I think he really was trying to give Ian a hint. Why would he want Ian to go through to the next round?"

  "Maybe he likes me," Ian said. "Maybe he thinks I’m full of personality and zing and I'll bring in more viewers to the show."

  I stifled a laugh. Ian definitely was full of personality and zing–just not the way he thought. "Well, let's assume that for some reason, he does want you to go through to the next round, and that he was trying to give you a hint. What exactly did he say about his grandparents’ farm?"

  "Just that he liked visiting, and that he would’ve been a farmer if he hadn't gotten into Hollywood. I think he asked me if I ever milked a cow–or at least, he said something about a cow."

  "How do you milk a cow?" I mused out loud.

  "You need to have good vibes," Karma said. "You can't milk a cow if you're giving off bad vibes."

  "Good vibes, got it," said Ian brightly, as though he was trying his best to believe her. "How do I give off good vibes?"

  "You have to think kind, loving thoughts toward the cow," said Karma.

  Ian drew his eyebrows together, and he was clearly trying to think of how to have kind, loving thoughts toward a cow. His thoughts were probably running along the same vein as mine–cows were delicious, and milk wasn't bad. I especially liked milk for baking cupcakes and desert. If I needed to give off kind, loving vibes toward a cow, I'd probably think of all the delicious chocolate cupcakes I could eat because cows produced milk.

  "You have to be confident," Ryan said. "Animals can sense fear.”

  Ian looked shocked. "But cows are huge! It's normal to be scared of them."

  Ryan shook his head. "You can't show any fear. If you show fear, they're more likely to kick you. You've got to be firm, and you've got to show them who's boss. It’s just like dealing with your common criminal."

  Ian was silent for a few seconds, and when he spoke, he sounded slightly lost. “So I’ve got to think of it as a common criminal. While giving off kind, loving vibes toward it.”