High Stakes and Hazelnut Cupcakes in Las Vegas: A Lighthearted Tiffany Black Mystery (Tiffany Black Mysteries Book 10)

by A. R. Winters

  “The cops told us you were home the night April was killed.”

  Adrian nodded. “That’s true. I was by myself, in my apartment, and unfortunately, I can’t prove I was there. But really, I was. I liked April—I had no reason to want to hurt her.”

  “And did you know who might’ve wanted to hurt her? Did she have any enemies?”

  Adrian shook his head. “No. She was a nice person.”

  “And there’s absolutely nobody who saw you that night? Maybe you made a phone call, or ran into a neighbor?”

  Adrian shook his head again. “The police already asked me, but I was basically home alone all night, not calling anyone or running into anyone. Anyway, I thought they suspected Richard of killing her?”

  I shrugged. “It’s hard to know what really happened. Did you ever meet Richard?”

  Adrian shook his head. “No, I just know what I heard about him from April.”

  “And what did you hear?”

  Adrian shrugged and turned his attention for a moment to the chocolate milkshake that he was making. When he’d finished blending together the ice cream, milk and chocolate syrup, he turned to us again. “Not much. April said he was okay, but not the love of her life.”

  “Did she say anything else? Did they fight, have any disagreements?”

  Adrian shook his head. “No, not that she mentioned.”

  “And what about other men?”

  Adrian shook his head again. “The police told me she must’ve been seeing other men, but she never mentioned anything to me.”

  “Did you know she had an ex-boyfriend, Vince, who followed her to Las Vegas?”

  Adrian nodded. “Yeah, she mentioned she talked to him once in a while. I suspected she’d see him every now and then; it can be hard to get over some exes.”

  “Did she ever talk about Vince?”

  Adrian shook his head. “Just that he’d call her sometimes. I’m not the jealous type, so I didn’t ask if they had anything going on.”

  “Did she seem worried about him?”

  “No, they seemed to be on reasonably good terms.”

  I nodded. “Did you know Ruby? Her roommate?”

  “Never met her, but April mentioned her once in a while. They were the best of friends, and April’d say how lucky she was to have such a wonderful roommate.”

  On a whim, I said, “Did April ever mention Serena Dove? Richard’s housekeeper?”

  Adrian looked at me in confusion. “No, I’ve never heard that name before. Should I have?”

  “I guess not,” I said, slightly disappointed. “Of course, it seems like April didn’t talk to you about too many things.”

  Adrian shrugged. “I never thought she had much to talk about. She seemed to have such a normal life—other than the fact that she was dating Richard, of course. She was a regular girl, who’d just moved here.”

  I pressed my lips together and nodded. “Maybe you’re right. But maybe we’re missing something else.”

  Chapter 8

  “A nice, juicy steak,” said Ian. “Or maybe even some lasagna. Perfect pasta—or how about a cheesy sandwich?”

  I groaned. We’d been talking to the staff for what felt like forever, and my stomach was definitely rumbling. Hearing Ian list all the delicious dinners we could take a break to eat wasn’t helping.

  “Fine,” I said. “I don’t think we’ll learn anything new from the staff, and we can’t work on empty stomachs. We might as well eat, and then go over to the nightclub to talk to Vince.”

  Ian beamed, and we settled down to a delicious dinner of steak and fries (for Ian) and pasta marinara (for me), followed by two slices of dark, chewy chocolate cake.

  A while later, at eight thirty, we pulled up in front of the Deadly Disco, and as I’d expected, the place looked deserted.

  Deadly Disco was housed in a corner building and looked like a block of granite from the outside. No windows, no features of any kind—just a door, and a small neon sign boasting the name of the establishment. Ian and I had been here before, investigating the death of one of its former owners, and the place brought back memories of my previous case.

  There was a velvet rope barring the main entrance, and a bored-looking bouncer—obviously Vince—was guarding it.

  Another rope ran parallel to the building, all the better to control long lines, but this one was rather optimistic, since there was not a soul in line. Perhaps it got busier later in the night, when the party was just getting started.

  Ian had looked Vince up on his smartphone as we’d driven over, but hadn’t found anything of interest; his social media profiles had all been set to private. I wished I could’ve done a proper background check using my PI database before I talked to him, but that would have to wait.

  Vince eyed us warily as we approached the door. Ian and I were both dressed rather dowdily, and I could see that Vince wouldn’t want us to enter Deadly Disco, even though the dance floor was most likely empty at this hour.

  “Vincent Arcuri?” I said as we walked up to him.

  Vince looked at us in surprise, raising one eyebrow. He was a muscular young man with a shaved head, thick eyebrows, and dark eyes. He was dressed in his bouncer’s uniform of a black shirt and black pants, and he crossed his arms defensively at the question. “Do I know you?”

  “I’m Tiffany Black, this is my partner, Ian. We’re investigators looking into April Wilkins’s death.”

  Vince shook his head. “I’m not supposed to be talking now, on the job.”

  “And it’s clearly super busy,” said Ian sarcastically.

  Vince shot him an annoyed glance and stood rooted to the spot like an angry tree. “I’m not supposed to be fraternizing on the job. My boss won’t like it.”

  “I’ve worked for your boss before,” I said. “We’re good friends. Why don’t you call him and tell them that Tiffany Black’s here to talk to you, and ask if you can spare a few minutes?”

  Vince looked at me hesitantly. On the one hand, he didn’t want to get into trouble at work, but on the other hand, he didn’t want to bother his boss with inane questions.

  “Ah—okay,” he said finally, rolling his eyes. “Let’s talk for a few minutes. But if anyone shows up, I need to be all business.”

  “What’s ‘all business’?” said Ian.

  Vince shrugged. “You know, being a tough bouncer. I can’t let everyone in. The place’s got a reputation.”

  “Even when the place is empty?”

  “If I let everyone in, word would get around. We can’t have badly dressed people, or too many single guys, going in.”

  “How long have you been a bouncer?” I said.

  “Since I moved to Vegas,” said Vince. “I was in college before that, the same as April. But you probably already know that.”

  The information was something I had missed earlier, but I decided not to admit that. “You and April knew each other well.”

  Vince nodded. “We had almost all the same classes, and we were together for two years. I was in love with her, and I’d have done anything to keep her.”

  “Including killing her?” said Ian.

  Vince scowled at him. “Of course not! I loved April, and I’d never hurt her. Besides, I was here all night, the day April died. I’m on the video cameras and everything.”

  I looked at Ian and nodded. That’s what Ryan had told me, that Vince had an infallible alibi.

  We’d have to check the alibi and watch the videos, but I sensed that Vince was telling the truth, especially since the cops had already verified and watched the videos.

  “Tell me about April,” I said. “You seem to have known her the longest out of everyone here in Vegas.”

  Vince nodded. “Yeah, I did. She was nuts, and I was nuts about her.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean, she was nuts?”

  Vince shrugged. “She was perfectly normal in most ways. But every now and then, she’d do something completely impulsive. Like when she dropped out
of college and moved to Vegas—she decided she needed to have a break, figure things out. I mean, any normal person would try to stay in college, and even if they dropped out, they wouldn’t move all the way to Vegas.”

  “But her brother lives here,” I reminded Vince.

  Vince made a facial shrug. “That’s one way of looking at it, but April was always doing impulsive things. Nice things, but once in a while she would decide to do something silly. Like the time she dropped out of a class because she thought it wasn’t useful, when she could’ve just stuck it out and gotten the credits.”

  “No one else mentioned April’s impulsiveness to us,” I said.

  “That’s because they didn’t know her well enough. A few small impulsive things, like buying shoes on a whim, is fine. But April made big life decisions all of a sudden. Like when she broke up with me and wanted to explore her options.”

  “And you couldn’t let her do that.”

  Vince shook his head. “No. I followed her here, of course, but I wasn’t as quick as April. I made sure I had a place lined up to stay, and I waited to give two weeks’ notice at the place I worked back East. By the time I came out here, April had already met Moneybags. I guess she thought maybe he was her way of growing up, and look where that got her.”

  “Had you ever met Richard?”

  “No, but I heard April talk about him. She thought he wasn’t all that good looking and he was kind of boring, but she kept saying theirs was a grown-up relationship. I thought what we had was grown-up enough.”

  Ian said, “I don’t think it’s particularly grown-up to follow her here and keep chasing her while she’d moved on with her life.”

  “She didn’t mind,” said Vince. “We’d get together once in a while. And I always knew she’d end up running back to me. I just wanted her to know I wasn’t angry with her, and I’d always be here for her.”

  “I guess you really were in love with her,” said Ian.

  Vince nodded. “She was the nicest, sweetest person. I can’t believe someone did this to her.”

  “You moved to Vegas for her,” I said. “What are you going to do now?”

  Vince spread his hands out wide. “I don’t know. I suppose I should go back and re-enroll in college, finish my degree. But I don’t want to leave. I can’t leave, not knowing what happened to April.”

  I nodded. Vince was clearly quite crazy about April, and under normal circumstances he would’ve been our top suspect. But the video of him working at the club all night ruled out his guilt. And unlike Richard, Vince didn’t have the money or the ability to pay someone to kill April.

  “Did you know her roommate, Ruby?” I said.

  Vince shook his head. “Never met her, but April spoke about her all the time. They were like best friends already—they clicked as soon as they met. I was happy April found someone so nice to share an apartment with.”

  “And what about Adrian? The barista at the café where she worked?”

  Vince shook his head. “April never told me about him, but the cops said that they’d been together.”

  “You don’t sound too surprised,” I said.

  Vince shrugged. “April was here to sow her wild oats, and she did what she needed to do. I didn’t like it, but I’d wait for her to come back.”

  “What about any other men?”

  “April didn’t talk to me about anyone else,” said Vince. “The only people she talked about were Richard and Ruby; she didn’t have other friends here.”

  “Any enemies?”

  “She was too sweet to have enemies,” said Vince.

  Ian and I exchanged a glance. We seemed to have hit a dead end when it came to information about April.

  We asked him a few more questions: had April behaved strangely in any way before her death, could Vince remember anything that might’ve worried her? But the answers to both the questions were negative, and after a brief chat about how he liked working at Deadly Disco, Ian and I headed inside to check out the surveillance footage.

  We stepped in through the wide nightclub doors, past an empty-looking coat check, and onto the dance floor. A bright multicolored disco ball cast quick shimmers of light on the nearly empty dance floor. The place smelled of secondhand cigarette smoke, spilled drinks, sweat, and too much perfume.

  R&B hits pumped through the air, and I could make out a DJ sitting in one corner, mixing the tunes. There were a handful of singles on the dance floor—eager tourists or hired models, I guessed. A long, low bench ran along one wall, and there were two empty VIP booths off to one side.

  On the far end of the dance floor was the bar. A mirror ran along the wall behind the bar, reflecting the dance floor and its lights, and a middle-aged man stood chatting with the bartender.

  A passageway on the right veered off to one side, clearly leading to the restrooms, but Ian and I headed over to a small door marked “Staff Only.” Before anyone could stop us, we’d slipped through to the other side, into a narrow, brightly lit passageway.

  We blinked a few times to get used to the bright fluorescent light in the passageway, and I was vaguely aware that we could no longer smell the cloying nightclub scents, nor hear the loud music.

  Ian and I were familiar with this area, and we strode past the employees’ restroom and break areas and knocked on an unmarked door.

  “Come in,” called out a familiar voice, and when we entered, David Wesloff blinked at us in surprise.

  “I didn’t expect to see you guys here again,” he said, running a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair.

  “We’re here to look at some security tapes,” I said, quickly explaining Vince’s relationship with April.

  David nodded. “The cops’ve been through here, and they watched the tapes, too. I can pull them up for you—but I know what they found. Vince was standing in front of that door all night long.”

  I made a face and looked off to one side. “I know, I’ve heard that. But we still need to look, just to be safe.”

  “Of course,” said David. “I’ll get the tapes for you guys.”

  “We don’t both need to stay,” Ian said to me. “Why don’t you head home and get some sleep before your big job tomorrow, and I can stay back and watch the tapes.”

  I beamed at Ian. “Really? I’d appreciate that—I don’t want to be running around tomorrow on just a few hours’ sleep.”

  “That’s why we’re partners—we can split up if we need to. I’ll text you if anything jumps out at me.”

  “Thanks, Ian,” I said again before saying goodbye to David and heading back home.

  Tomorrow was a day I’d been looking forward to for a while—I’d finally learn about Stone’s past and get a chance to follow the man who’d had something to do with Stone’s disappearance.

  Chapter 9

  The next morning, I woke up before dawn.

  Ian had texted in the wee hours of the morning, letting me know that Vince had stayed at the nightclub all through the night of April’s murder; I mentally checked him off my list of suspects and focused my mind on the job ahead.

  I should have felt refreshed, but all I could feel was the jitters in my stomach, reminding me how big a deal this surveillance job was.

  I took a quick shower and dressed for the day ahead. I still didn’t know what exactly the job would entail, but I assumed it wouldn’t be anything too difficult.

  Stone’s mentor, Johnson, had told me that Eli Cohen was somehow responsible for Stone’s disappearance, but I didn’t know exactly how.

  I didn’t even know what had happened to Stone in Afghanistan—the CIA men I had spoken with told me that Stone had been responsible for the kidnapping of two Afghan women and that he’d betrayed his team and disappeared.

  That didn’t sound at all like the Stone I knew, and I refused to believe the story. However, when I asked Johnson and Stone for the truth, they refused to let me know, saying that I’d find out when the time was right. Hardly reassuring—but I chose to trust Stone
nonetheless.

  When Stone had told me about the need to tail Eli Cohen, he’d promised me that Johnson would tell me what had happened in Afghanistan as I waited at the airport for Eli’s flight to arrive.

  I couldn’t wait to finally find out the truth.

  I dressed hurriedly, slipping into jeans and a green tank top, and dashed into my living room, ready to make myself a quick breakfast of Nutella on toast, when I noticed a piece of paper that had been shoved under my door.

  I froze for a second.

  Every now and then, whenever I investigated a particularly dangerous case, a suspect or killer would leave me threatening messages under my door. So far, I didn’t think I’d turned up anything sinister in April’s case—so why was there a piece of paper waiting for me on my living room floor? I walked over, glancing around the room in case someone had managed to break in and was hiding in wait for me.

  “Don’t be silly,” I told myself. If someone had broken in, they’d already have attacked me by now.

  I bent down, picked up the paper, and unfolded it. It took me a split second to read the contents of the message, and immediately, I breathed a sigh of relief.

  It was from Ian.

  “I made a massive batch of hazelnut cupcakes,” the note said. “I know you’re busy with this Stone thing, but I’ll try to come around sometime during the day to give you some cupcakes. Good luck with everything!”

  I smiled to myself, crumpled up the paper, and tossed it into the trash. I hadn’t actually expected Ian to go ahead and bake hazelnut cupcakes after all, but if he really had baked them, I was certainly going to look forward to eating them.

  I devoured my hasty breakfast, wondering if I’d have time to stop by Ian’s place anytime today to grab a cupcake or two, and then I dashed out the door and sped over to McCarran airport.

  ***

  I called Johnson as soon as I parked, letting him know that I was there.