Who Glares Wins (Lexi Graves Mysteries)

by Camilla Chafer

  "It's definitely special for a date night," said Lily. "Kinda pricey. You should try Francisco's, great Italian, half the price."

  "Really? I'll mention that to my husband. Thanks."

  "No problem."

  "Hey, I know you." Meg peered at Lily. "You work at Paradise?"

  Lily smiled, pleased as punch at being recognized. "Yeah, I work the door there sometimes. Say hi next time you come by."

  Meg nodded and grinned as she tossed her shiny, bobbed hair. "I will. I didn't know Marissa had such cool friends."

  "You said Marissa was getting dropped off. Do you remember what the car looked like?" I asked, steering the conversation back to its purpose.

  She thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. "It was black and really nice." She leaned in and lowered her voice. "Not really Frederickstown, ya know? It might have been a Lexus."

  "And what about the driver? Did you see who it was?"

  "A man, I think. White. I wasn't really looking, sorry."

  "No problem. You've been a big help." I gave the woman my card and asked her to call us if she saw Marissa, or if her husband remembered anything about the car, and she said she would.

  "So, this Marissa had a mystery man?" asked Lily. "Maybe he did something nasty and that's why she left?"

  "I think our mystery man might be my boss at the hotel. It fits with what the sous chef told me. I can find out what car he drives tomorrow."

  "Was she having an affair with him?"

  "I don't know yet. It's possible. Or maybe he liked her more than she liked him. Or maybe she just wanted the job really bad." I thought about Edward. He didn't seem like a sleaze to me, though there was a sizeable age gap between Marissa and him, but not one large enough to make me cringe inside and wonder how the will was written.

  We tried 3A next and the man who answered the door was a H U N K. He wore baggy, workout shorts, cut off at the knee, and a sleeveless top that showed off bulging biceps and impressive pecs. For a moment, we just stood still and beheld him.

  "Hello," said Lily, her eyelashes fluttering.

  "Hi." He grinned back down at her, oblivious to me.

  I rolled my eyes, coughed politely, and repeated my patter. He introduced himself as Nick, and said he'd lived in the building for a year.

  "Yeah, we're friends. She's cool. We dated a couple of times, but there wasn't that kind of chemistry." He stared down at Lily and she sighed audibly.

  "There's gotta be chemistry." Lily leaned against the doorjamb and wound a lock of hair around her fingers.

  "And passion," added Nick, flicking his eyebrows at her.

  "We're worried about her," I chipped in before Lily ended up inside with the hunk and the door was shut in my face. "She hasn't been seen in a while."

  Nick wrenched his eyes away from Lily to me, with visible effort. "We had coffee about a month ago, no, five weeks, I think. She'd just gotten a new job and she was really pleased. Said she was back on track."

  "Do you know what she meant by that?"

  "I think she'd been struggling with money, but she didn't say that in so many words. She was real private like that."

  "Did she mention if she had any problems at her new job?"

  "No, not that I recall. She seemed really happy about it."

  "Okay. Can you give me a call if you hear from her?" I gave the Hunk my card.

  "Maybe I should get your number too," said Nick to Lily.

  "Okay." She giggled, producing a pen and writing her number on the back of my card as she handed it back to him. Nick produced a card from his pocket and passed it to her. I didn’t get one, but I resisted the urge to pout.

  "Cool," he said, shutting the door, but not before giving Lily another head to toe look.

  "He's so cute," Lily said, as I rolled my eyes far enough backwards to glimpse my brain.

  We knocked on 3B, and had a similar conversation with another man, who was about half the hotness of 3A, which made the conversation go a lot faster. We left the building with the knowledge that Marissa had been seen twice during the weekend of her disappearance, and hadn't given any indication that she wasn't coming back.

  "She must have left Sunday afternoon or evening if Mrs. Maloney saw her late morning," I said to Lily as we rounded the corner of the building and stepped into the lot. "She didn't show up for work Monday."

  "You're really good at this," said Lily.

  "It's just talking to people. You really helped with 3A."

  "He was hot. He helped with his hotness."

  "He looked like a model. The bodybuilding kind."

  "Do you think he'll call me?" She grabbed my arm. “Do you think he could bench-press me?”

  "Sure to the first and maybe to the second." I hoped he would call. Lily hadn't mentioned Jord in a while, which was good news. Nick could keep her mind off my brother.

  "Where to next?"

  "Marissa's friends."

  "Do we get to play good cop, bad cop?"

  "We're not cops," I pointed out.

  "But what if one of them is hiding something? Like maybe she’s a secret serial killer and killed Marissa."

  "It's unlikely. Plus, what if she decides to kill us?"

  "I didn't think of that. Okay, we'll play it cool."

  "Works for me."

  I made a few notes on my cell phone, recording when Marissa was last seen and my general impression of the witnesses. 1A was a busybody, and I thought she would have noticed a commotion. 1B was an enigma. One half of 2B didn't seem worried about what she saw at all, and neither was 3A. 3B was on chatty terms with Marissa, but hadn't noticed anything untoward either, which led me to the conclusion that Marissa had either left of her own free will, or was abducted somewhere later, possibly from Fenway Plaza where she ditched her car.

  It would help if I could track down where she was Sunday and now I had a timeframe that made it easier. Lucas would be the best person to ask at the office about tracking a person's or a car's whereabouts, but he might suspect it wasn't anything to do with the case I was supposed to be working on, and potentially tell Solomon. I resolved to update Garrett instead when he returned my call.

  Our visits to Marissa's friends didn't garner much information. After ten minutes chatting to one, a Lisa Hawthorne, I found that she knew about the job at the hotel, but not a man. Like Elisabeth, she claimed adamantly that Marissa wouldn't leave without telling her. She was also certain Marissa didn't have any travel plans.

  The second, Ally Fields, didn't answer her door. I called her cell phone and left a message, asking her to call me back. Since I was already there, I slipped my card under her front door too.

  "Where to for dinner?" I asked, as we retreated to my car. Night was settling in, my stomach wanted food and I was ready to call it.

  "We're not far from O'Grady's," Lily said. "And I love their burgers."

  "O'Grady burgers it is." I pointed the car towards Montgomery's favorite police hang-out and found a parking spot out front.

  The most beneficial thing about having nineteen serving cops in the family was that I never had to wait to get served in O'Grady's.

  "You think Maddox will come in tonight?" asked Lily, sliding into a booth at the back. I followed, waving to a barman I recognized as being friendly with Daniel.

  "I don't know. Maybe. He left too early this morning for me to ask."

  "Ahh. So that's why the light fixture in my bedroom shook all night."

  Heat radiated into my cheeks and my hands shot to my face. "It didn't!"

  "No, it didn't. But sheesh, the look on your face!" Lily grabbed the menu and ran her finger down it. "I don't know why I'm doing this. I know what I'm having. I'm getting a burger, fries, and a beer."

  "Me, too." I looked over the menu. "And a side of onion rings."

  "Yum. Onion breath."

  "You're having some too."

  "Cool."

  Just like garlic bread, we lived by the rule that if two people ate onion rings, it
canceled out the scent. Obviously. Besides, Maddox and I hadn’t made any plans. Even if we had, onion breath probably topped corpse-in-dumpster scent, if his day had gone badly.

  I held up the menu, waving it at a waitress, who came over and promptly took our order, returning a few minutes later with the drinks. Under the table, I eased off my shoes and leaned down to rub the aching balls of my feet. I loved heels, but I was getting used to wearing sneakers and boots, and my feet were out of practice. I cursed each and every man in Solomon’s office for their ability to equate cute heels with stupidity, and how it was ruining my wardrobe choices.

  "Is Maddox proud that you're such a cool detective?" Lily asked.

  I frowned and had to really think about it. "He's worried, which I get. He's glad I'm working at the hotel because he thinks it's safer."

  "He does know what you're doing at the hotel? Lexi? Lex!” Lily gasped and her mouth dropped open. She gave me a cross little shake of her head. “You didn't tell him!"

  "Uh, no. Solomon said not to tell anyone."

  "You told me!"

  "You're not a cop. Besides, you're helping me."

  Lily grinned. "I am, aren't I?"

  "Yep."

  "I love this investigating stuff. So, what does Maddox think you're doing?"

  "Temping," I mumbled, taking a sip. "And I might have implied that I wasn't working for Solomon on a regular basis anymore."

  "And he was pleased? I thought he would like you being a private detective. It's like police work, right?"

  "Investigator," I corrected. "And he was supportive, sort of. I think he worries because I’m inexperienced. It's not so much like police work though. I don't have a cop badge, I don't carry my gun, and I can’t arrest anyone."

  Lily latched onto the man bit rather than have me ruin her illusions about the PI business. "That's sweet. He worries about you."

  "It is nice." My heart warmed up, although it could have been the effect of the beer.

  "So what's he so worried about? Solomon isn't worried."

  I wondered if Solomon might think I was expendable; and if I got shot while on a case, he would think it was my own fault, and simply hire someone else. "He isn't worried at all. He wouldn't put me on a job if I weren't ready. Maddox just thinks I'm in it for the excitement after all that stuff at the insurance firm." Strictly speaking, that wasn’t untrue. It had been exciting. And scary. And cool. Most of all, I was enjoying it.

  "It is exciting!"

  "It isn't." I leaned back and waited while the waitress placed napkin-wrapped silverware on the table. There was something very familiar about her, but I couldn't place her face. She was new though. She made sure we were good for drinks and told us our food would be a few more minutes. "Mostly it's dull," I continued when she moved to the next table. "I read a lot of paperwork and I talk to people most of the time. I don't get shot at, or into car chases, and I don't have a life of glam, international travel."

  "It's like working the nightclubs," said Lily. "No glam there either. Sometimes I have to wear stupid costumes and deal with abusive jerkwads."

  "Why do you do it?"

  "I'm good at it."

  "Me too."

  "Someday I'm going to own my own club," said Lily unexpectedly. "I have a business degree. I have some money. I know what people want."

  "You should do that. You'd be brilliant."

  "Do you think?" Lily beamed.

  "Absolutely. You're wasted on the door."

  "I've been looking at properties."

  "Why didn't you tell me any of this?"

  "You've been busy, and it only occurred to me after you got shot. What if the end was just around the corner, and I never got to do what I really wanted to do?" She heaved a breath and started to play with the beer mats.

  "It wasn't like I was going to die!" My arm had healed nicely since, but I still had a scar to mark the spot. I hadn't yet decided whether that bugged me or not.

  "I know that now, but it just ate at me, and I decided to start seriously looking into it. My parents say they'll invest, and I have a meeting with the bank next week."

  "This is so exciting." We sat back again as the waitress delivered our food: thick, juicy burgers, hot off the griddle, finely cut fries, and a bowl of onion rings, the batter thick and fresh.

  "I'm sure I know you," I said to her, "but you're new?"

  "You look familiar too," said the waitress as she leaned in. She allowed me a good look at her face while she moved the menus into their plastic stands. In an instant, it hit me. The first and last time I saw Ruby was at a club called Flames when Maddox and I were trailing a suspect. That night ended really badly, but Ruby had helped us.

  "Flames," I said. "You were a waitress there."

  "Yeah, it closed down. I don't remember you, though."

  "I was there that night a woman got shot. Tanya Henderson. Went by the name of Tallulah."

  Ruby tapped her pen on her notepad and stared intensely at me. "I remember you now," she said. "Stuck out like a sore thumb. You were with that cute guy."

  "That's me."

  "And I was working the door that night," said Lily. "I remember you too. I’m Lily. This is Lexi Graves."

  Ruby nodded enthusiastically as she introduced herself. "Ruby Kalouza. You wore that rockin' dress. Cool. Well, enjoy your meal. If I find any bodies, I’ll let you know," she quipped as she walked off.

  "Small world," I said as Ruby moved off to the next table.

  "But a better dressed one," said Lily. We both shuddered at the memory of Flames' dress code. Less was more there. Literally. "Back to boyfriend. When are you going to tell him about your duplicitous lifestyle?"

  "It's not duplicitous." I bit into my burger and chewed sullenly. "Okay, it is a bit, but I'm not lying."

  "You are," said Lily, not looking at me as she salted her fries.

  "Fine. It is a bit lying."

  "And he's going to be really cross when you tell him you're working a case."

  "I haven't told my family either."

  Lily sang, "Everyone's gonna be mad at you."

  "It's not like they tell me everything. Maddox doesn't tell me anything about his cases. My brothers don't tell me what they're working on. It's none of their business."

  "If you say so."

  "I do."

  Lily chomped on some fries. "Maybe when this job is over, you could just say temping definitely isn't for you, and you're going back to the agency."

  "I did just tell them things were quiet at the agency. I didn't say I left forever."

  "Perfect." Lily chomped a few more fries. "But Maddox is still going to be pissed."

  I decided not to think about it.

  We stayed for another drink, then I drove us home, grimacing at the time blinking on the dashboard. I still had my notes to write up for both the hotel case and Marissa's, and I needed a shower. I cried off a nightcap and went upstairs to do my duty.

  My answering machine blinked as I entered the cold apartment and I paused to hit “play.” There was a message from my mother, asking how I was getting on with “you know what,” and reminding me that family dinner was now tomorrow night and I should bring Lily. I deleted it because I was getting on with it, and not talking about it, per Serena's request. Then I reached for my cell phone to text Lily about family dinner.

  My cell phone had messages too, which I hadn't noticed as the ringer had been switched off all day. There was a text message from Lucas to call him back, and a “wink” face from Maddox, that must have arrived shortly after we left Marissa’s. My answering service had a message from Garrett, saying that he had Marissa's case file and that there wasn't much in it, but if I could give him a reason to re-activate it, he would make sure it was re-opened. No messages from Solomon, which was good because I still didn't have anything to tell him. I sent him a text message, saying there was no news yet, feeling guilty that I'd now skipped two update calls in a row. He didn't call back, so I had to assume he didn't mind.
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  I finished my notes, showered and went to bed. My head was filled with sabotage and missing people and puzzles with missing pieces.

  Chapter Nine

  Interviewing suspects was starting to get old. It was no use. As soon as any of the employees knew I was Edward Killjoy's new assistant, they shut down. I could understand why. For all they knew, I might be feeding information back to him that would go into their personnel reports. Of course, I was feeding information back to him, but as far as I knew, Solomon was charging a small fortune to do it. At least, I hoped it was a small fortune; I had a percentage at stake.

  I checked the hallway was clear, Louisa obviously on the phone as her voice sounded in a one-sided conversation, and walked the few paces to Edward's office. His door was open and he too was on the phone as he waved me in. I entered quietly, shut the door and waited.

  "Sorry about that," he said after hanging up. "What can I do for you?"

  "I want you to have a go at me."

  Killjoy raised his eyebrows. "Pardon?"

  "I want you to have a go at me publicly. I want you to be a total ass."

  "Why?"

  "None of your employees will open up as long as they think we're chummy. I want you to be a complete asshole so someone will sympathize with me. I want to gain their trust."

  "And you think this will do it?"

  "It will when I burst into tears and run out of the room."

  Edward leaned back in his chair, but looked far from relaxed. "I've never chewed an employee out publicly before. Wouldn't that be out of character?"

  "You don't have to scream at me. Just call me a stupid woman or something. Be stressed out and rude. I'll be emotional and weak." I mimed rubbing my eyes and pulling a face.

  "What kind of stuff shall I say?"

  "Just pick on me for silly things. Say you don't know why you hired me. Say I'm getting everything wrong, and I'm too dumb to be your assistant."

  "Okay," Edward said slowly. "What if someone says something to me... like Louisa?"

  "Just say you snapped because you're stressed out over everything that’s going on. Everyone will believe that. Say you'll apologize. Then I'll be aloof and sniveling for a couple of days, okay?"