Private Bodyguard

by Tyler Anne Snell

  Darling let out a whistle. Rebel Nash was a Mulligan transplant who was the embodiment of unwavering determination and absolute stubbornness. If anyone was going to break the story with Nigel’s name in it, Rebel would be the one to do it.

  “From the little I know about her,” Darling explained to the out-of-towner Oliver, “Rebel values the truth more than the consequences of losing Mulligan’s hero. Which, I have to say, I like about her right now.”

  Oliver smiled. “Just what everyone needs, another you in a different profession.”

  Derrick laughed and Darling picked up her glass. “I’m going to take that as a compliment, thank you.”

  “I knew you would,” Oliver replied with a smirk.

  The food arrived shortly after, and their conversation all but died. Well, the one in which Darling was included. Derrick and Oliver went back and forth, sharing their war stories about law enforcement and personal protection before switching gears to sports. Darling watched her exes with interest as she sipped away her drink.

  When Derrick was tense, it was hard for him to ease up. Finding the humor in a case, if only for a brief stretch, was a task in itself. Darling knew that emotionally, it was hard for him to get out of his head long enough to enjoy his surroundings.

  Oliver, on the other hand, knew when to laugh and did it with no issues. He was lighthearted but could slip into a more serious tone when needed. She watched as he laughed and slowly began to remember all of the sweet moments they’d had together. Sure, age had changed Oliver—he was more confident and there was no denying he had more muscles beneath his shirt—but Darling still could see the boy she’d once loved.

  Darling let out a laugh at the thought. Both men paused their conversation but didn’t comment. She ordered another drink and thought back on the case.

  “What about the ledger?” she asked suddenly. She’d interrupted the men, but Derrick knew what she was talking about.

  “We didn’t think about looking until this morning,” he said with obvious disapproval. Whether it was of himself or the other deputies, she didn’t know. “When we went back, someone had torn out the last three pages. We grabbed it for prints, but nothing so far.”

  Darling brought up the pictures on her phone and slid it over to Derrick. “I took these yesterday, after I found the body.” Derrick’s eyes went wide. “I swear I would already have given it to you had I remembered,” she hurried on. “But with everything that has happened, it slipped my mind.” The real reason being the mysterious letters. It had knocked her off her game, along with the amber-eyed man sitting next to her.

  “You took a picture of the check-ins from the night Jane Doe checked in?” Derrick wanted clarification, but with his free hand he was already waving over the waitress.

  “Yes. I wanted to use it as evidence against Nigel that he was having an affair. At the time, I didn’t realize Jane Doe would stay a Jane Doe.”

  “Check, please,” Derrick called to the waitress. “And you haven’t searched these names yet?”

  Darling shook her head. “I didn’t even think about them until just now.”

  “Send me this picture. I’m going to go back to the station and run them.”

  Darling took her phone and did as the deputy said.

  “I’ll take care of the food,” Oliver chimed in. “You go ahead and get outta here.”

  Derrick might have reconsidered had he not been given a new lead, but instead he just left.

  “Looks like my snooping comes in handy sometimes, huh?” Darling said after she’d sent the picture. Oliver laughed and gave the waitress his card when she came back. “You don’t have to pay for me,” Darling added.

  “Consider it a reward for your snooping.”

  “I’ll finish my drink to that.”

  And she did just that.

  Oliver not only paid for dinner but also extended his gallantry to offering Darling a ride home. They settled into his rental, each pushing through the cold of outside, before Oliver started the engine and its heater.

  “I have to say, Mulligan keeps on surprising me,” Oliver said.

  “Do you mean Mulligan or its murder mystery?”

  “Both,” he admitted.

  “I still can’t believe that no one can tell us who Jane Doe is,” Darling dove in. Her lips were a little loose and her body was a little warm, and not from the heater.

  “Yeah, you would have thought that the cops would have found a witness by now. Even someone who had seen her at least driving through town.” Oliver clapped his hands together. It made Darling jump. “On the way in from the airport, I only passed one gas station,” he said, eyes bright. “I’m assuming that on the other side of town there’s a gas station leading into Mulligan?”

  Darling thought for a moment, then nodded.

  “So there’s a chance she might have stopped at either one of these gas stations, depending on which direction she was coming in from? We even checked with cab companies and car rental agencies since we still can’t locate the car she went to the hotel in.”

  “That’s a slim chance, but yes.”

  “Why don’t we go check it out, then?” He started the car, suddenly energized. “A slight chance is better than anything you have right now.”

  He was right about that. Even if Derrick was able to identify her, getting video of Jane Doe could make all the difference in the case.

  “Okay, so let’s assume she did drive in but not from the city side.”

  “Why not?” Oliver asked. He had his hand on the gearshift, ready for direction.

  “If she was already in the city, why would Nigel and Jane Doe drive out here to Mulligan to meet? I’m sure there are plenty of places they could have done it there,” she reasoned.

  That was all Oliver needed. He backed out of his parking spot.

  Once again, they were a team.

  Chapter Ten

  The clock read nine fifteen when Oliver cut the engine in the parking lot of Zippy’s Pump & Pour. Its two pumps were positioned in what they hoped was the front security camera’s range.

  “Okay, that’s Connor-something,” Darling said, pointing through the windshield to the clerk inside.

  “Looks young. How do you know him?”

  “Just from getting my gas here on occasion.” She gave him a quick wink that made him wonder if she was feeling her two drinks yet. “They’re the only place in town that carries the candy bars I really like.”

  “Do you think he’ll let us see the security footage?”

  Darling bit her lip as she thought. Oliver couldn’t deny it stirred up some feeling within him. He readjusted in his seat.

  “Maybe,” she answered. “I don’t know enough about him to make that call yet. We’re going to have to find out.”

  Oliver nodded and they entered the station. It was small, and Connor was undeniably bored. When they walked to the counter, he stood from his stool and smiled.

  “Hey, hey,” he greeted them. His eyes slid over them, stalling on Darling. “Whoa! You’re the private eye.”

  Darling’s cheeks tinted red, but Oliver didn’t know if that was another aftereffect of brandy or surprise at Connor’s obvious admiration.

  “Private investigator, but yes,” she said with a smile. “That’s me.”

  “Awesome! I was telling my buddy the other day I wouldn’t mind doing what you do,” Connor said, excitement only mounting. “You wouldn’t happen to be hiring right now, would you?” He lowered his voice and leaned closer. Oliver and Darling leaned in, too. “Because working here kind of sucks.”

  Oliver couldn’t help but chuckle.

  “We aren’t actually hiring at the moment,” Darling said. Connor looked supremely disappointed. “But you might be able to help us now if you’re not too busy.
”

  Connor’s disappointment was short-lived. He smiled, and it was downright mischievous.

  “I’ll do anything you want!”

  Darling cut a quick smile to Oliver. “Well, great!”

  Oliver wondered how the private investigator was going to approach the topic at hand. If he was a betting man he would have put his money on the honeypotting approach. Being sweet to lower the boy’s defenses, getting information with a nice tone and even nicer words. Or would she try to trick him into giving up what they needed to know? He leaned against the counter and watched with interest.

  “Were you working here two nights ago, by chance?” Darling asked.

  “Oh, yeah, I’ve worked night shift for the last week and a half.” Connor lowered his voice. “My boss is out of town ‘on business,’ but I think that’s a load of crap.” He made finger quotes to show what he must have thought was a lie.

  The private investigator took a beat before responding, no doubt noting the employee had some obvious disdain for his employer. “That’s gotta be a drag.” She let her body droop a bit as she said it. Oliver realized it was because she wanted Connor to feel as if they were on the same page as him. It was an approach somewhere between honey-potting and straightforward. She wanted to be relatable.

  “I told him I’ll quit if he keeps me closing every single night. I mean, I can do it once and a while, but I have a life, you know?” Oliver nodded in unison with Darling. A different thrill than the one he’d felt in the car filled him as he realized they were in secret cahoots, working together toward the same goal without any friction from their past breaking in. He wondered if she felt it, too. They had always made a good team.

  “I don’t blame you,” he said to show his empathy further. Conner nodded again, giving them both a look that clearly said he liked them. Darling must have realized it, too. She straightened slightly. She was going in for the kill.

  “Well, the thing is, two nights ago, a woman might have stopped here.” She paused and pulled out her phone. She scrolled to one of the pictures she’d been given of Jane Doe and Nigel. “This woman. Do you remember her, by chance?”

  Connor squinted at the phone’s screen for a few seconds before snapping his fingers.

  “The redhead, yeah! She was here.” Oliver and Darling shared a look. They had gotten supremely lucky. “She didn’t come in, but I remember her getting gas.” He winked at Darling. “I don’t forget a pretty face, especially a new one in town.”

  “Do you remember if anyone was with her? In the car?”

  “No, she was alone,” he answered, brow wrinkled as he thought. “Why? Is she in some kind of trouble? Is she a criminal?”

  Darling raised her hands and laughed. “No, no, she’s—” Oliver could tell she was looking for the right thing to say.

  “We’re worried about her, is all,” he interjected. “She came to town for a visit but hasn’t checked in for a few days, and we thought she might have stopped by here.”

  “She isn’t from around here, so we’re really worried,” Darling added. “You said she didn’t come in, but that camera outside would have seen her, right?”

  Connor was emphatic as he answered. “Oh yeah! You two want to see it? We still have tapes from a week ago.” He lowered his voice again. “I may have fallen behind on changing them out, but, hey, it’s not like I get paid out the yin yang to keep up with it all.” Oliver raised his eyebrow at Darling as Connor ushered the two of them to the back room. Oliver couldn’t tell if he was being so lax with security because he seemed to dislike his current boss or if he was trying to show off for the woman he wanted to be his new boss. Either way, after throwing around several VHS tapes, the clerk popped in the right one and hit Play.

  “You can fast-forward as much as you want,” he said as a ding sounded from the front door. “There’s no sound—the boss is too cheap, ya know—but everything else works okay. I’ll be back!”

  “We seriously lucked out that the boss isn’t around,” Darling whispered, already hitting the fast-forward button. She kept her eye on the time stamp in the corner of the screen. “I think we also lucked out that our Jane Doe stopped here.

  “Good call, by the way. I hadn’t even thought about the possibility of her coming here.” Darling turned to give him a quick smile. It made his breath hitch for a split second. When they were younger, sometimes Darling would look at him and the world around him would slow. A candid moment from the woman that reminded him how beautiful she was in every way. It caught him off guard as he realized that all the time that had passed hadn’t changed that feeling.

  Her lips turned up, her cheeks rosy, her eyes unrelenting as they searched for the truth. Darling Smith was determined, and Oliver knew nothing would get in her way.

  “Just trying to get the town PI on my side,” he ribbed her.

  She turned her attention back to the television monitor with a laugh.

  They quieted as the footage’s time ticked by, leaned in and focused. The footage wasn’t in color and, at best, only a step up from unrecognizably grainy.

  Oliver pointed to the pump farthest from the security camera. Partially hidden by the pumps was a young woman exiting the driver’s side of a car. She disappeared behind the pump before reappearing to put the nozzle in her gas tank. Her hair was shoulder-length and wavy. Wearing dark pants and a light button-up blouse, she rubbed her hands together before walking to the trash can between her car and a van closer to the building. An older woman stood against it as she waited for her vehicle to fill up.

  “Is that her?” Oliver asked, still uncertain. Darling’s eyebrows drew together, her eyes squinting at the screen.

  The woman in question was all smiles as she caught the older woman’s eye. Her mouth began to move, but without sound, they couldn’t hope to decipher what the two were saying.

  “Yes,” Darling answered. “That’s our Jane Doe. Her smile is identical to the one in the pictures. Working on the assumption that the woman in those pictures is our Jane Doe. Which is what I’m doing.”

  Oliver continued to watch as Jane Doe held a conversation with the older woman at the neighboring pump. There was no denying she was happy about something, almost bouncing as she talked. The conversation didn’t last long. Both women finished their pumping and paused to say goodbye to each other before getting back into their respective vehicles. Jane Doe drove off first. Darling paused the tape as soon as the car was out of view.

  Oliver kept silent as she rewound the tape and they watched it for a second time. The van at the next pump and the angle of the security camera made the scene difficult to decipher. Only the driver’s side door and seat, and the back end of the car where the gas tank was could be seen around the van and pump. The color of Jane Doe’s car was dark, but aside from that, the black-and-white footage didn’t give anything away.

  “It’s clearly a four-door, and a smaller one at that. I’d say it’s an older model, too.” He scooted closer as if that could help him figure out what the model was. The new proximity didn’t help. “I’m not a car guy, so I can’t make this call. Pause it as she drives off.”

  Darling did as he said, but the picture was blurred. “They may have a security camera, but it sure isn’t that high-tech,” she muttered.

  “The boss is a lot of things, including cheap,” Connor said from the doorway. Darling jumped.

  “Sorry, we just need to figure out what kind of car this is.” She put her finger up to the blurred spot that was Jane Doe’s car. If Zippy’s had had a camera at the pumps, they would have been able to see the make and the license plate. But that wasn’t the case.

  “Ew, yeah, sorry about that.” He, too, squinted at the footage, as if that could suddenly make it clearer. “The farther away from the camera you are, the worse it comes across on the tapes.”

  “Do you remember an
ything about the car she was in?” Oliver asked.

  The question turned Connor’s cheeks red. “No,” he said with the shake of the head. “I wasn’t really focusing on anything else after I saw her.” There were no perverted or salacious undertones in his statement, just honest appreciation for the woman’s beauty. It earned a sincere smile from the private investigator.

  “Connor, would you mind if we borrowed this?” she asked. “I’d like to take a closer look at it.”

  The clerk shrugged but nodded. “You can keep it for all I care,” he said. “The boss man doesn’t ever look at them unless we’ve been robbed.”

  “Great! Well, if he does happen to find out and isn’t happy about it, tell him to give me a call. I’ll set him straight.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “This was surprisingly productive,” Darling said when they were back in the car.

  Oliver gave her a questioning look at her new level of excitement. He was betting she was definitely tipsy.

  “Because we know where she was the night before she was killed?” he asked.

  Darling laughed. “No,” she exclaimed with a grin. “Because for the first time, we have a witness who talked to Jane Doe.”

  * * *

  THREE OF THE FOUR names from the hotel ledger checked out. Derrick guessed the fourth was a fake. Darling could hear the stress in his voice as he said he would be tracking down the other three people to see if they saw anything at the time of check-in. Even though he was sure he had already questioned each the day the body was found. Darling had been hesitant to give their new information over to the deputy, but Oliver had urged her on. Plus, she supposed she owed it to the main investigator on the case.