Mindful of his cover story, Dominic waved the bartender over and ordered the whiskey with a rueful shrug—I know, but what else am I gonna do?
Ephron was more amenable once he’d downed the shot. “Couple of months ago, I got word of a new player in town looking to put together a team with real skill, not hoodlums they could pull off the street. Straightforward adult K&R, the kind you don’t usually see in the States.”
“How’d you hear about it?”
“Same as usual. Word of mouth—you know how it is. Everyone in the business knows which guys are up for a side job here and there. All a client has to do is whisper in the right ear, and the news spreads itself.”
“But you didn’t sign on.”
“Thought about it. The job seemed simple enough, the pay was good, and the client was promising no wet work, no real damage to the targets at all.” Ephron gave a dark, bitter laugh. “You see how that turned out. But anyway, when I found out some of the marks were going to be women, I gave it a pass.”
“Even though the client said the victims wouldn’t be harmed?” Dominic asked.
“You can never guarantee that. Job like this, something’s bound to go wrong eventually. And look how bad this one went off the rails. I mean, cutting people’s eyes out? What kind of fucked-up shit is that?”
“Where do they hold the victims while they’re waiting for the ransom?”
Ephron looked at him incredulously. “You think anyone would tell me that before I’d joined up?”
“I think you know more than you’re saying. Guys like you . . . they talk.” Dominic slipped his cell phone out of his pocket and set it on the bar. “But then again, maybe I’m just not that bright. Maybe I should have a detective look into this.”
“All right, man, Christ.” Ephron took several long, thirsty gulps of his beer, then scrubbed the back of his hand over his mouth. “Look, all I know is they’ve got themselves a hidey-hole somewhere northwest of the city, out in the desert. Kind of place you’d never find if you didn’t already know where it was.”
Dominic had been afraid of that. The Las Vegas area was, after all, a valley—surrounded on all sides by vast expanses of desert and mountain. Even with a general idea of the direction to search in, finding a hidden bolt-hole out in all that wilderness was a daunting prospect.
“You’d think a woman would know better than to put another woman in a situation like that, out in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of strange men,” said Ephron.
Dominic blinked, his spine stiffening. “What are you saying? The client was a woman?”
“That’s what I heard. Never spoke to her myself.”
Leaning forward, Dominic pushed Ephron’s beer closer. “Keep talking.”
“This isn’t looking great,” Dominic said to Rebel, who was sitting on the passenger side of his truck.
Unfazed by his pessimism, she wriggled happily from side to side, gazing at him with bright eyes.
“I know.” Smiling, he reached out to ruffle her ears. “Just like old times, huh?”
She huffed and butted her head against his hand.
The major artery that led northwest out of the Valley was 95. Dominic had driven just beyond the limits of urban civilization and then pulled his truck off the side of the desert highway, using his mobile hotspot to scan satellite imagery of the area on his laptop.
The view was disheartening. Past the Vegas suburbs, there were only a few sparsely populated settlements scattered through huge swathes of absolute nothingness for miles upon miles in every direction. A handful of access roads branched off 95 here and there, but anyone in a vehicle with off-road capabilities could drive straight off the highway, through the desert, and into the mountains beyond. This was a perfect place to go to ground.
Making matters worse, it was already dark, and there were no streetlights on this part of the highway. Dominic couldn’t see beyond the gleam of his own headlights—not that there was much to see besides sand, sand, and more sand.
Maybe he should call it a day. He could come back tomorrow morning, and in the meantime, he could head over to the casino. Though the only cash he had on hand was the money Royce had given him for expenses, he could easily double or triple that at a poker table. He’d keep the profit, and Royce would never know the difference . . .
Rebel’s tongue swept messily along the side of his face. He jumped, fumbling his laptop, and gently nudged her away. Nausea swooped through him when he saw the clock on the dashboard; over ten minutes had passed without him noticing.
Christ, had he really been fantasizing about gambling with a client’s money?
“I’m fine,” he said. “I have it under control.”
Even Rebel didn’t look convinced. He wiped her saliva off his jaw, then slapped both of his cheeks a few times for good measure and forced himself to concentrate.
The mercenaries would have a range of basic needs: shelter, food and water, electricity, gasoline, weapons. It would have been no problem to stockpile months’ worth of provisions and weapons at the safe house the client had provided. As for electricity, the surviving victims had each reported hearing a generator during their captivity, all the better to keep the safe house off the public power grid.
Gasoline, though—that was a different story. They’d need a ton, not only for the multiple large vehicles they’d been driving in and out of the city, but to fuel their generator. It wouldn’t be practical to stash that much gasoline in advance.
That being said, they wouldn’t risk stopping at gas stations in the Valley, especially after Buckner’s homicide had blown everything up. But there weren’t any gas stations along 95 until the small town of Indian Springs over half an hour away. Except . . .
He zoomed in on the map. About eight miles from the northwest edge of the Valley were lands owned by the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe to which Jasmine’s mother belonged, and that included the Paiute Golf Resort where Jasmine and Carlos were getting married in May.
Dominic had visited the site with them a couple of times, so he knew that right off the resort’s exit from 95 was a tiny Chevron station attached to the Snow Mountain Smoke Shop. It was discreet, out of the way—and most significantly, under the jurisdiction of the Tribal Police and not the LVMPD.
Worth a shot. He snapped his laptop shut, set it aside, and pulled back onto the highway.
Unlike the surrounding roads, Snow Mountain was well-lit, from the neon Chevron sign advertising gas prices to the blazing lights of the shop itself. There were only two pumps, both unoccupied, but a few cars were parked in front of the store.
He backed his truck into a spot near the door, then transferred Rebel to the bed so they could keep an eye on each other through the large windows. “Stay,” he said, and kissed the tip of her nose before heading inside.
The shop was neat and bright, packed wall-to-wall with colorful displays of cigars, cigarettes, and smokeless tobacco. An earthy scent with a sweet underlying note hung in the air, and he inhaled deeply. Though he’d never been a smoker, he did enjoy the smell of real tobacco.
Several people were browsing the racks, but Dominic’s attention landed immediately on a man across the store, talking to a clerk with his back to Dominic. A very familiar man with curly black hair and an ass that wouldn’t quit.
Dominic couldn’t help the grin that broke free. Of course Levi had beaten him here.
He didn’t have much time to appreciate the moment, because Levi turned to see why the door had opened, just as Dominic would have himself. It was a casual glance thrown over the shoulder, but the second Levi clocked Dominic, his eyes widened and he did a full one-eighty.
“How?” was all Levi said.
Dominic strolled over, pretending a nonchalance he was nowhere near feeling. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
Levi’s nostrils flared.
“You know you’re outside your jurisdiction, right?”
“I’m aware of jurisdictional protocol, thank you,” Levi sa
id frostily. “That doesn’t mean I can’t ask this young woman if she’s seen vehicles matching descriptions of the kidnappers’ SUVs come through here recently.”
“I told you, I haven’t seen anything,” said the clerk, who was definitely Paiute herself. She was eyeing Levi with open distaste that bordered on hostility. Levi did tend to rub people the wrong way even when he was trying to be nice, but Dominic doubted there was anything Levi could have said or done to improve this encounter.
He took Levi’s elbow. “Can I talk to you outside, please?”
Levi’s expression went flat, his eyes like gray stone. “Get your hand off me,” he said, each word measured and deliberate.
Dominic released him at once and took a step back for safety’s sake. Levi smoothed out his suit jacket, fussily tugging his cuffs into place.
“You want to talk? Fine. Let’s talk.” Levi strode out of the shop without another glance for Dominic or the clerk.
“You a cop too?” she asked Dominic.
“Shit, no.”
“Good. Last thing we need is more white cops from the city coming out here, getting in our business.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Dominic.
He left the shop to find Levi standing by the bed of his truck, petting an ecstatic Rebel. “I didn’t overstep,” Levi said before Dominic could get a word out. “At least, not as far as I’m aware. I know I’m not the most diplomatic person in the world, but I’d never—”
Dominic held up a hand. “I believe you. But you couldn’t have thought this was going to turn out well, Levi. What reason does anyone around here have to trust a white police officer?”
“I know.” Levi’s posture lost some of its rigidity. “I know. I should have gone straight to the Tribal Police. I just— I honestly didn’t think the employees would mind answering a few basic questions.”
“They probably wouldn’t have, if you hadn’t introduced yourself as a detective with the LVMPD. Which I’m assuming is what you did.”
“Of course. What else would I say?”
“Literally anything but that!”
Levi rolled his eyes.
“And now that I’ve been seen with you, nobody will tell me anything either,” Dominic said. “What brought you out here, anyway?”
“One of Martine’s CIs tipped us off to deals on black market medical supplies going down on Paiute land without the tribe’s knowledge—obviously the kidnappers’ way of creating messy jurisdictional issues to obstruct the investigation. Buckner’s body was dumped on the northwest edge of the suburbs, and the routes we’ve traced using old surveillance footage all lead northwest out of the city, so their base of operations must be in the general area. I saw there was a gas station out here, and I figured it was the best bet for where they’ve been refueling.”
Medical supplies. Dominic hadn’t even considered that angle.
Levi looked him up and down, blinking as if seeing him for the first time. “What are you wearing? You look like rough trade.”
Dominic hadn’t bothered to change out of his beat-up leather-and-denim outfit when he’d swung by his apartment to pick up Rebel and his laptop. “I had to blend in at a certain bar.”
“What bar?” Levi folded his arms and arched his eyebrows expectantly. “How’d you know to come here? Fair’s fair.”
He had a point, so Dominic broke down his meeting with Ephron, ending with Ephron’s revelation that the person who’d hired the mercenaries was a woman.
“A woman?” Levi repeated.
“Yeah. The only name Ephron had was Bennett.”
“It’s Juliette,” Levi said, waving a hand when Dominic started to protest. “Come on, Dominic. This has inside job written all over it. Juliette could easily gain access to Royce’s files. Maybe she’s behind the whole thing, or maybe they’re conspiring together. She could even be manipulating him into it. Carolyn Royce seemed convinced this was too unlike her husband.” Rubbing his jaw, he added, “We should do a background check on Juliette. She could be some kind of grifter.”
Dominic’s heart swelled at Levi’s off-hand use of the word we, so it took his brain a second to catch up. “Hold on. You talked to my client’s wife?”
“Of course. He’s my primary suspect.”
“Levi—”
“I’m not going to ignore the person with the greatest means and opportunity to commit the crime just because he’s your client.”
Dominic threw his hands in the air. “Why would Royce hire a PI if he were behind the kidnappings? Or choose a victim whose policy he would know had lapsed?”
“So you’d make the exact arguments you’re making now,” said Levi.
“You need nerves of steel to hire someone to investigate your own crimes to make yourself look innocent,” Dominic said. “Royce has nerves of pudding. He’s a hot mess, and he’s getting worse every day. He doesn’t have the spine to pull this off.”
“That lends more weight to the theory that Juliette is involved.” Levi’s gaze suddenly sharpened. “By the way, you never mentioned which security contractor Ephron works for.”
Dominic clenched his jaw, knowing exactly where this was headed. “Delgado & Vincent.”
“Uh-huh. Out of curiosity, who are some of their major clients?”
“They’re an international firm. They have a lot of clients.”
“Including Kensington Insurance Group?” Levi asked, all faux-sweetness.
Yes, as a matter of fact. Delgado & Vincent was KIG’s go-to contractor when they needed to provide private security for clients or employees, a fact which only made Royce look guiltier.
When Dominic didn’t answer, Levi let out a nasty laugh. Dominic was tempted to smack that smug little smirk off his face—or better yet, drag him into the truck and fuck the attitude out of him altogether.
“I—” That was all Dominic got out before Rebel barked twice, short and sharp, her conditioned warning for an approaching stranger.
Dominic and Levi both frowned as they looked around the parking lot. No new cars had pulled in, and nobody had emerged from the smoke shop. Even if they had, Rebel didn’t bark at ordinary comings and goings. Her “stranger danger” warning, as Dominic called it, was only used when the approaching person posed a potential threat.
Rebel hopped up to put her front feet on the side of the truck bed, staring into the desert beyond the lot. She went through her bark sequence three more times, her entire body stiff from nose to tail.
In one fluid, simultaneous movement, Dominic and Levi drew their guns and turned to face the same direction. It was pitch-black past the range of the shop’s lights, the glow of the moon and stars mere pinpricks in an all-encompassing darkness. The edge of the earth could be fifty feet away and they’d have no idea.
“I can’t see anything,” Dominic said. “You?”
Levi shook his head, then pulled a flashlight out of his pocket and held it in a two-handed grip with his gun. Dominic’s own flashlight was in the truck, but he was able to use his cell phone for the same purpose.
Rebel barked again, the sound more anxious this time. She dropped to all fours and paced the truck bed in a circle, whining in the back of her throat.
Trusting his gut, Dominic opened the back of the bed and said, “Go.”
Rebel took off like a shot, racing out of the parking lot and into the desert. Dominic and Levi followed.
Levi was the faster runner, outstripping Dominic from the start, but even he couldn’t run as fast as he normally would. In the dark, the uneven, scrub-dotted sand threatened a twisted ankle with every stride.
Then Dominic saw it—a human shape, barely visible in the combined glow of his and Levi’s flashlights, staggering through the desert in their direction. The person fell to their knees and collapsed flat on their face just as Rebel reached them.
The closer he got, the better Dominic could see. Rebel pushed the person onto their back and licked their face, trying to rouse them, until Levi dropped to his ow
n knees beside the body and felt for the neck. Dominic reached the group a few seconds later, panting and holding his cell phone at an angle that gave Levi more light. Her job done, Rebel backed away.
Levi holstered his gun, then put both hands back on the woman’s neck—because it was a woman, dressed in a torn, wrinkled sheath dress that was soaked in sweat and smeared all over with sand.
“She’s alive,” Levi said.
Dominic tilted his phone, shining it over her face. He and Levi both gasped.
The woman’s face was raw and blistered with a vicious sunburn, her cheeks sunken, her lips white and cracked. But she was still recognizable as Christelle Perrot.
Perrot’s eyes popped open, and she flailed half-upright with a panicked shriek. Levi caught her, holding her still. Her wide, pleading gaze darted between Levi and Dominic as she let out a sob.
“Aidez-moi,” she said, her voice a dry croak. “God, please help me.”
Levi paced the family waiting room on the ward at Centennial Hills Hospital where Perrot had been admitted, treading the same path on the linoleum floor over and over. He was nauseous with fatigue while at the same time too keyed up to sit down. Hours after he and Dominic had found Perrot, he had no idea what condition she was in, though he had a uniformed officer posted outside her room for her protection.
He whipped around when the waiting room door opened, then relaxed when he saw Dominic. In these early predawn hours, they were the only people in the room.
“Anything yet?” Dominic asked.
Levi shook his head. After the paramedics had carted Perrot off, he and Dominic had gone their separate ways—Levi following the ambulance to the hospital, Dominic taking Rebel to stay with Carlos and Jasmine. But Levi had been updating him by text ever since.
Dominic was carrying a paper-wrapped sandwich and a foam tray with two coffee cups. He handed one of the cups to Levi before settling at a round table whose laminate surface was dinged and scratched from years of heavy use.
“Thanks,” Levi said. He sipped the coffee, finding it exactly the way he liked it—a strong dark roast with a couple shots of espresso.
One-Eyed Royals Page 13
