“What is that?”
“You know, you see it on TV all the time. Those rich men who have fancy parties with scantily clad women. I’m sure that had something to do with it. I prefer not to know all the details. Billy tries to be flashy, to remain the big fish in a small pond. He’s created almost a club-feel, invitation-only party.”
I shoved my hip against the counter. “Zane, I need to go to one of those parties.”
He started chopping again. “I can’t help you there, Joey. I’m not going to put you in that position. No way.”
Great. Now he was sounding like Jackson. If there was one thing I could always count on, it was that Zane wasn’t like Jackson.
Except, now he was.
“Zane, someone at one of those parties might know where Cora is.”
“So tell the police. Let them handle it.”
“The people at those parties aren’t going to tell the police anything. You and I both know it.”
He finally put down his knife and pressed his palms into the counter as he stared at me, full attention engaged. “And how are you planning on finding out? They’ll tell a celebrity instead?”
“I haven’t thought it through. Maybe.”
He remained stoic a minute before shaking his head again. “I can’t do it.”
My stubbornness kicked into gear like a race car headed toward the finish line in the Indy 500. “Fine. I’ll find a way to do it myself then.”
No man was an island.
It was a good thing I was a woman.
Chapter Nine
Trying to find Cora made me feel fulfilled, like I was doing something useful. There was a lot to be said for that. I couldn’t make it up to Lexi Pennington, but maybe I could make a difference to Cora. I knew that with every minute that passed, the likelihood of finding her diminished . . . just like with my dad.
That was why I went to Willie Wahoo’s. It wasn’t my favorite place, even though they did have a decent vegan menu. The bar and grill was trouble. Jackson had told me that before. Bar fights and all kinds of other illegal activities occurred there.
Despite that, I parked and strode inside, making a beeline for the bar. That was where Billy, also known as Mr. Clean because of his resemblance to the character of the same name, was standing, talking to someone and drying a glass.
He did a double take when he saw me.
He was like a tiger watching in the distance. He’d never done anything to directly put me on guard, but I couldn’t help but think he looked at me as if I were prey.
“If it isn’t Joey Darling. What brings you in here? You going to blow everyone away with some karaoke again? Maybe do a number from Saturday Night Fever this time?”
Billy had wrangled Zane and me—well, Zane hadn’t needed to be convinced—to sing karaoke before he’d give us answers about a former case.
I shook my head and leaned against the bar, trying to look all casual-like. “I have a proposal for you.”
“Is it an indecent one?”
“You’re indecent.” Great comeback, Joey. If you’re a ten-year-old.
He raised his eyebrows and continued to dry glasses. “Okay.”
“So I’m trying to make some money between my acting gigs. Back in LA I used to do some endorsement deals with local clubs and hot spots. I hear you’re the person to talk to about doing that in this area.”
“Did you?” His voice remained even and steady, not giving a clue to what he was thinking.
“I want to go to one of your parties.”
“And do what?”
I shrugged, tapping into my acting skills now. This wasn’t me. I didn’t want to be a party girl. I’d made mistakes in the past, but I was a good girl. “I want to make a paid appearance.”
He smirked. “What kind of parties do you think I have?”
“The fun kind.” Lame, Joey. Lame.
He let out a chuckle. “Yeah, they’re fun.”
“Listen, I’m not talking anything inappropriate—or indecent. I just thought it could be fun if I made an appearance and gave some autographs.”
“Because that’s what we do at my parties? Stalk celebrities?”
I put a hand on my hip. “What do you do, Billy? Why don’t you tell me?”
He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “Things that could make you blush.”
To my dismay, I blushed. “Okay then. Offer rescinded. Thanks for the talk.”
I started to walk away, when Billy called me back.
“Wait, Joey.”
I paused, unsure what I hoped for. A change of mind? The opportunity to walk away before I got in trouble? The relief of being able to claim I’d tried, but it hadn’t worked out?
“I might have something for you,” he started. “Maybe for the first part of the party anyway. You know, maybe you could make an appearance. I could slip you some money for showing up. We’ll need a contract.”
I raised my chin, remembering my cover was that I needed money. “How much money?”
“A couple grand. How’s that sound?”
“It sounds mighty cheap, but since you’re a new kid on the block in this department, I suppose it will do. It might make some of my debt collectors happy. When’s the party?”
“Tomorrow. Are you available?”
“I’ll make myself available.”
“Great. Give me your number. I’ll text you the details. Oh, and we have a confidentiality clause. You leak word of this to anyone, and there will be confidential consequences that you don’t want to face.”
I swallowed hard. I didn’t like the sound of that. Not one bit.
But it was too late to back out now.
I was antsier than a bear in a beehive the next morning.
I couldn’t pull this off.
I shouldn’t even try.
To make it worse, business was slow at Beach Combers. Zane was working. Jackson was working. Or maybe not talking to me. I wasn’t sure.
Phoebe wasn’t at work at Oh Buoy. Rutherford wasn’t answering the phone even.
So I did the only thing I could think of. I slipped into the back of Beach Combers and jumped on the computer to do research.
After I did that research, I composed some new tweets and sent them to the police chief for approval.
I checked the upcoming buzz for Family Secrets.
I looked at Zane’s blog post on the Goat Man. One million hits and counting.
I clicked Play and watched the video a minute. I had to admit, it was good. He’d done a great job editing it to look like The Blair Witch Project. And the two of us looked like we were having a great time together.
That was because we were. We always had a good time together.
Unless he pretended to be Jackson. And then all the warm fuzzies quickly went away.
I had room for only one Jackson in my life.
At the last minute, I typed Lexi Pennington into the search engine. Lexi’s picture filled the page, and my heart sagged.
Lexi had been nineteen when she died. She’d been pretty enough to make it big with her bright-blue eyes, auburn hair, and wide smile. But she’d been desperate. That desperation had led her to do unwise things.
She’d been so hopeful that day she’d cornered me at the coffee shop. She’d gushed about how much she admired me. She’d begged me to help her.
I’d been with Eric. He’d been impatient and ready to leave.
I’d tried to encourage her, to let her know it wasn’t easy to catch a break. She’d asked for my number, but I hadn’t given it to her. And then Eric had pulled me away.
Later, Lexi had tried to contact me through Facebook. The truth had been that I had only so many hours in my days, and I’d felt stretched so thin. I was approached for advice like that often. It wasn’t humanly possible to respond to it all.
But if I had responded, how might things be different? Would Lexi be alive?
Guilt pounded at me.
I sighed and closed the computer. All of this
was only accomplishing one thing: it was distracting me from the task at hand.
Tonight I was going to swim with sharks. And I hoped to come out alive in the end.
Chapter Ten
So I was nervous—more nervous than I thought I would be—before heading to one of Billy’s wild parties.
What exactly would I be walking into?
Even worse, I didn’t have Zane or Jackson at my side, watching my back. I usually had at least one of them with me, either adventurously willingly or begrudgingly out of obligation.
But Zane had been busy all day today showing a client some houses for sale in the area, all the way from Corolla at the northern end of the Outer Banks, down to Hatteras at the southern end. And Jackson . . . well, of course I couldn’t tell him what I was doing. He would have probably handcuffed me to my oven door in order to keep me away.
Maybe it was better this way. At least no one could try to stop me. I knew this had bad idea written all over it, but I had to do it. It was my chance to figure out if these parties had something to do with Cora’s disappearance. I needed to hook the bad guy and reel him in.
As promised, Billy had texted me the details of the soiree. I had to be at a huge oceanfront home at nine. And I had to wear a little black dress. My role would be to make people feel welcome.
Whatever that meant.
I pinched the skin between my eyes as I drove down Beach Road. Did I even want to find out? I wasn’t sure. But I wasn’t backing out now.
As always, I checked out a few episodes of Relentless before I left home. Raven always had some good tips to apply to these kinds of situations. Keep the upper hand. Don’t get cornered. Never turn your back on a crowd.
I shoved down my nerves as I pulled into the driveway. There were already probably ten other cars at the house. Nice cars. Foreign cars. Luxury cars. Almost every window blazed with light, and I could hear music before I even opened my door.
I’d always hated these kinds of parties.
If my dad knew I was going to something like this . . . he would have a fit. He’d warned me against hanging out with people like this. You become like the people you hang around. If you lie down with dogs, you’ll wake up with fleas. Birds of a feather flock together.
But I was going to do this anyway.
I walked toward the front door, pulling a gauzy shawl over my shoulders. It was too cold out here to wear just a little black dress with spaghetti straps. Besides, being instructed on how to dress made me feel like a piece of meat. Which was probably what Billy thought I was, because he was that kind of guy.
As soon as I knocked, a man I didn’t know, who’d obviously been drinking too much, answered. Not only did he smell like alcohol, but he had a beer in his hand. His words slurred. And all his inhibitions seemed to be gone. Already.
The man had ruddy skin, orange-blond hair, and he wore too much gold jewelry. The look screamed, “I’ve got money. Pay attention to me!”
“Well, hello there.” He wasn’t looking at my eyes as a dopey grin splayed across his lips. “Come on in, beautiful.”
I flashed a smile, wishing I felt at ease. But I didn’t. “I guess I’m at the right place.”
“I’d say you are.” The jerk’s eyes were still not on mine. “I’m Siegfried, by the way.”
“Do you tame tigers?”
“Depends if you want to be a tiger.” His eyes twinkled suggestively.
I needed to change the subject, and pronto. “I’m Joey.”
He took my hand and kissed it, his lips wet and sloppy. “Pleasure to meet you, Joey.”
I pulled away and drew my shawl closer as I stepped inside. “I’m here to see Billy.”
“That’s too bad,” he muttered before yelling, “Billy! You’ve got someone here to see you!”
A moment later, Billy appeared at the door, also holding a bottle in his hands. He gave me a cold nod. “Joey. Come on in.”
I followed after him.
Music assaulted my ears. Was this just a frat party for men who didn’t want to outgrow their immaturity? Who wanted to feel like the Outer Banks had an elite club for the single and wealthy?
Only I had a feeling there was much more going on here right now than youthful fantasies. I just had to figure out what. Drugs? Quite possibly. Gambling? Another strong possibility.
As I walked through the house, I took note of everything around me, starting with how spacious this place was. It was beautiful and open and modern. A deejay played music in the background. Disco lights flashed. People danced.
Everyone I passed screamed wealth and affluence, from their clothes to the way they kept themselves. This was a different clientele than Willie Wahoo’s. If I had to guess, these people valued their privacy and liked to be among people considered their equals. There were mostly men here, but I also spotted a few women. Two were dressed as mermaids, one as an Egyptian princess, and another as a scantily clad cowgirl.
I stored those facts away.
“Back here,” Billy barked.
With a little more than a touch of hesitation, I followed him down a hallway and into a dimly lit bedroom. He picked up a paper and a pen and thrust them into my hands.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“A contract saying you agree to stay for two hours, to mingle and act as a hostess, and that I’ll pay you two thousand dollars, as per our agreement.”
My stomach clenched. After I signed this, there was no backing out. But this was what I needed to do to find out answers.
I licked my lips, signed on the dotted line, and handed everything back to Billy. “Here you go.”
“Now get out there and make me proud,” Billy grumbled. “Don’t make me regret this.”
My limbs trembled ever so slightly as I stepped back into the hallway. A catchy tune by Rihanna blared, and I already felt a headache coming on.
I needed to get a better feel for this place before jumping into full acting mode. As I wandered through the living room, I noted that most of the party was outside. It was cold, but three outdoor heaters blasted warm air.
This whole thing felt slimy.
I should have never agreed to come here. What had I been thinking? But it was too late to leave now.
“Okay, your job is to mingle,” Billy told me, coming up behind me, his breath hot on my ear. “Make everyone feel special.”
I stared out at the crowd of mostly men.
“Define ‘feel special.’” I didn’t like the sound of that.
Billy smiled for the first time. “You’ll figure it out. You do a good job, and I’ll have that check waiting for you.”
No way would I actually take cash for being here, no matter how much it could come in handy. If I did that, it might make me some kind of accessory to sleaziness. I was undercover. End of story.
I was an actress. I could do this.
I turned toward the crowd and unleashed the extrovert in me. “Who wants to have a good time?”
Several people cheered back.
“Then let’s get this party started!”
So far I’d established that most of the people here were indeed wealthy and liked to talk about themselves. A lot. I’d met developers. Yacht builders. Restaurateurs. People who didn’t seem to want to mix with the hoi polloi.
What I hadn’t discovered was a motivation for someone to murder Cora.
I took a breather from dancing for long enough to grab some seltzer water from the bartender. Then I stood back, trying to form a game plan. Before I could, a man approached me.
“Aren’t you Joey Darling?” He swirled the glass of hard liquor in his hand.
He was tall with dark-blond hair parted sharply on the side and heavily gelled. He wore a silky-looking black V-neck with a casual gray blazer. Something about the tautness of his face made me wonder if he’d had a facelift, even though I’d only guess him to be in his forties.
I nodded at his question. “The one and only.”
“You’ve gone from bein
g on TV to doing this?” He chuckled, and in that one little reaction, I recognized what he was doing: trying to put me in my place. Put me down. Make me feel small.
This man reminded me of Eric. Maybe it was his demeanor. Maybe the way he styled his hair with a harsh part and lots of gel. Maybe the way he put others down in order to make himself feel bigger and better.
I pushed aside my feelings. “Billy wanted to surprise everyone with an appearance by me. Don’t worry—I’m being paid a pretty penny.”
The man chuckled. “Now that sounds like Billy.”
I settled against the wall, where I had a good view of everyone. Though the party had seemed to start on the deck, people had gravitated inside as a sharp wind stirred. The great room was crowded and loud, and the flashing lights were giving me a headache. Plus, it was hard to talk over the pulsating tunes of Chris Brown’s club remix.
“I didn’t catch your name,” I said.
“Rupert.”
“Do you know Billy well, Rupert?”
He shrugged, making it clear he had no loyalty to the party’s host. “We hang in the same circles.”
I raised my glass. “And what do you do in those circles?”
“Party. Why do you ask?” His voice decidedly changed from flirty to menacing.
“Researching a role. Of course.” That was always my excuse. Research. And most of the time it worked. I really wanted to walk away from this conversation right now, but I couldn’t. Guys like this were the kind who could give me clues about what happened to Cora. I had to stick this out for a little longer.
He nodded slowly. “Makes sense, I guess. The fast crowd in a slow town.”
“Precisely. I’m trying to get a vibe on this kind of scene. It’s so different from LA.”
“It doesn’t have to be different. What? Aren’t we rich enough for you?” He raised his glass and took a sip.
“I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure out how you’re all rich and why you’re all partying in secret like this.”
His gaze darkened. “There’s something about the girls Billy likes to bring here. They’re too curious.”
My pulse spiked before pounding with a dull throb in my ears. “What do you mean?”
Safety in Blunders (The Worst Detective Ever Book 3) Page 8
