Lost in Las Vegas

by Kristen Painter

  “We’re going to do our best.” Sin smiled, but the expression was tight and thin and meant for reassurance that he clearly didn’t feel.

  I leaned in. “And you’ll be the first one we call the moment we have news.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Oh, wait. Sin, did you ask your dad about the cameras?”

  “No, that slipped my mind.” He looked at his father. “Dad, can you get the security cam footage from the lobby for the time when Mom would have come out of the booth?”

  “I can, but I don’t think they’ll help. The lobby is dark at that point of the production, otherwise the light would tip off the audience when she opens the doors to come back in. Besides that, those cameras only show the exterior lobby doors. Not the doors into the main theater.”

  That wasn’t going to help, but I couldn’t let it go. “Even so, maybe they picked up something?”

  “I’ll get them,” Anson said.

  “Thanks, Dad.” Sin clapped his father on the shoulder, then put his hand on my lower back as we walked toward the door. He spoke as soon as we were outside. “I’m worried about him. If something happens to my mom, it will kill him.”

  I obviously didn’t know Anson as well as Sin did, but I was feeling the same way. “It seems like whoever did this definitely could have meant to disrupt the show. That really makes Lou look bad.”

  “I think so too. I say we start with him.”

  I looked at the addresses Birdie had given me. “He lives in a place called Sierra Vista. Do you know it?”

  Sin sighed. “That’s not going to make visiting Lou very easy. That’s another high-end neighborhood with security.”

  “We’ll just get Birdie to find a gate code again like we did for Tony.”

  “Won’t work. Sierra Vista has a guard shack. You have to give your name, then they call the person you’re going to see. If Lou doesn’t want to see us, and why would he at this hour, then we don’t get in.”

  I tipped my head and gave him a sweet smile. “Have you ever known a thing like that to keep me out?”

  He laughed softly. “No. But this isn’t just a guard gate. Sierra Vista has a wall around the entire neighborhood.”

  I gave him a look. “Get the RV keys and just trust me.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sinclair

  Life with Jayne was never boring, that much was for sure. I drove the coach to Sierra Vista, not sure what she wanted me to do next, but then, she didn’t seem exactly sure either. I pulled into the parking lot of a drugstore about a block away from the turn into Lou’s neighborhood. “Where do you want me to go now? We’re basically there.”

  Spider, who was curled up on her lap, yawned. “Spider go somewhere?”

  “No, Spider,” she told him. “You and Sugar have to stay here.”

  “Mkay.” He went back to sleep.

  “Sin, can you drive around the outside? Around the wall, I mean. Not too fast, though.” She was looking at GPS on her phone. “I kind of get the idea of where Lou lives in the neighborhood. I just need to get my bearings.”

  “Sure.” I headed out again, starting my low-speed tour of Sierra Vista’s border wall.

  “Oh! Pull in here.”

  “Babe, there is no ‘pull in.’ This is desert.”

  She looked up. “Hmm. Well, we have good tires. Get closer to that wall.”

  Her plan suddenly became clear. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “For you to climb on top of the RV and then jump down onto the other side of the wall. How are you going to get back?”

  Her intensely blank stare told me all I needed to know. “How do you know that’s what I’m planning?”

  “Because I know you.” I shook my head. “You’ll get stuck in there.”

  She wrinkled her nose at me. “I figured we’d both go.”

  “Okay, so we’d both get stuck. That’s not any better. Plus the RV would just be sitting here with Sugar and Spider in it.”

  She gave me a stern look. “Your mom could be in there.”

  “Lou wouldn’t keep her at his house any more than Tony would.”

  “Then he won’t be home, and we can look for clues. Come on. We can probably just jump the wall.”

  “You can. I don’t have the extra strength and speed that winter elves do.”

  She frowned. “I forgot about that. Well, I’m not going in there without you.”

  “No, you’re not.” I thought for a second. “What if we set up a meeting with him?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Sure. I could tell him exactly who I am and then spin a story that I don’t think my parents’ current management is doing the best job for them and I want to see what he could bring to the table.”

  “That’s genius. He’d definitely go for that. I think. Unless he’d see it as a conflict of interest, what with already representing Tony.”

  “It’s a possibility. But even if that was going to be his response, I don’t think he could stop himself from taking the meeting. Just to see what he could learn.”

  Jayne’s phone rang. She looked at the screen. Birdie’s picture was on it. Jayne answered. “Hi, Birdie. What did you find out?”

  She listened, nodding. “Interesting. Hang on. Let me put you on speaker.” She tapped the screen and held the phone out. “Go ahead.”

  “Okay,” Birdie started. “Carrie Caruthers is quite the wily one with a bit of a past. Aka Cora Bright, aka Krissy Lawton, but her real name is Carolyn Hernandez, and she’s had some troubles.”

  “Such as?” I asked.

  “She’s got a police record that includes charges for bad checks, fraud, and failure to appear on a shoplifting charge. Believe it or not, she did six months in a New Mexico women’s correctional facility.”

  “Wow,” I said. “And Tony hired her knowing all that.”

  “He might not have,” Birdie said. “All of that information was under her other name.”

  “I think he knew something,” I added. “When we overheard his conversation with her, he brought up the point that he’d taken a chance on her.”

  “Or,” Jayne said, “he might have just meant she didn’t have previous magician’s assistant experience.”

  Birdie spoke again. “Well, I can tell you this much. She legally changed her name to Carrie Caruthers a year before she started working for Tony. Unless he paid someone to dig into her past, her record wouldn’t have come up with an ordinary background check.”

  My brows went up. “This certainly makes her seem like a possible suspect.”

  Jayne nodded. “We need to look at her more closely. Birdie, any chance you took a peek at her finances?”

  “I did. Nothing exciting. She makes more as a magician’s assistant than I would have thought. Oh, and she did spend a couple hundred bucks at a home and garden center recently.”

  I looked at Jayne, eyes wide. She looked back at me with the same expression. I shook my head. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “Yeah,” Jayne said. “I’m picturing shovels, tarps, rope, duct tape. We need to visit her house immediately. Lou can wait.”

  I nodded in full agreement. “Thanks, Birdie. Keep digging.”

  “Will do.” She hung up.

  I grabbed my phone, pulling up my map app. “Babe, give me Carrie’s address.”

  She read it off to me, and I plugged it into the GPS.

  Thankfully, it wasn’t too far away. She lived in the kind of neighborhood I expected. Not fancy but not exactly middle class either. No guard, no gate. Unfortunately, the RV was a little conspicuous. I parked a few streets away, and we used the cover of night to walk into the neighborhood unnoticed.

  At least I hoped we were unnoticed. I looked around for security cameras but didn’t see any. Didn’t mean I hadn’t missed them.

  Carrie’s house took us about a ten-minute walk. It was a typical Vegas two-story cookie-cutter starter mansion. Actually, ma
nsion was a bit of a stretch. It was a nice house, but it wasn’t exactly a palatial estate. Still, probably more house than one person needed.

  The house was dark, which wasn’t what I’d expected either. After all, she’d just come from Tony’s and had been very upset. I thought maybe she’d be sitting around moping with some ice cream or something like that. Maybe a glass of wine. Maybe a whole bottle.

  But the lights were off, and the house was quiet. I looked at Jayne. “You think she’s asleep?”

  Her brows arched. “I can certainly slip inside and find out.”

  Thanks to her uncle being Santa Claus, Jayne had the ability to squeeze through very small spaces. Like under doors. Or through a cracked window. Actually, it didn’t even need to be cracked open. Just so long as air could get through, so could she. The Saint Nick or Santa slide, she called it. That ability was how he got down chimneys and into houses that didn’t have chimneys.

  I wasn’t sure if it made him dizzy the same way it did Jayne, but it usually took her a few moments for her head to stop spinning once she’d done.

  Despite that downside, it was pretty handy, I had to say. But handy or not, I didn’t like the idea of putting my wife in danger. Just because the house was dark didn’t mean the house was empty. “I don’t like you going in there if someone’s home.”

  Jayne shrugged. “What other choice do we have? Besides, I have magic. Which I won’t even need because I can take Carrie. She’s a twig with fake boobs.”

  My wife had such a way with words. “How about we take a walk around the house first? See what we can see? Then maybe you go in from the back so I don’t have to stand here on the sidewalk looking like I’m waiting for someone in the middle of the night in a neighborhood I don’t live in.”

  “It’s too bad we don’t have a dog. No one would question you if you had a dog on a leash.”

  “Yeah, it’s also too bad cats don’t work that way. Although this is Vegas, and weird stuff usually gets overlooked.”

  “Should we go get Spider? He would totally walk on a leash if we asked him to. And promised him treats.”

  He’d probably bark if there were treats involved. “Not now. Come on, let’s have a look at the rest of the house.”

  We walked around the side. There were parallel grooves in the grass and dirt.

  Jayne pointed at them, keeping her voice down. “Something heavy has been carted through here recently.”

  I nodded. “Definitely. What, though? They’re too narrow to be car tires.”

  “Maybe a wheelbarrow? Or one of those dolly things.”

  “Wheelbarrow.” I didn’t add what else I was thinking, about how a wheelbarrow would make carting a body easier.

  We followed the lines all the way to the backyard, where it became clear a major remodeling job was underway. Bags of mulch and stones, a variety of potted plants, larger ornamental stones, and a pile of split timbers that would probably be used for outlining paths all waited to be put to use.

  “I guess we know what she spent her money on at the home and garden store.”

  Jayne nodded. “I’m kind of glad. Better than finding out she’s burying a body.” She looked at the house. “I still think I need to get in there.”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t think Carrie is responsible. I would like to know for sure, though.” My phone vibrated. I pulled it out and checked the screen. “Forget that. My dad just got a ransom note.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jayne

  Sin drove faster than was probably wise, but I didn’t say a thing. We both wanted to get back as quickly as possible. A ransom note was a big deal. I was so glad Birdie was there. She would know what to do as far as keeping the note safe and clean for things like fingerprints and any other evidence that might be collected.

  If Anson ever decided to get the police involved. Otherwise, I wasn’t sure fingerprints mattered. Unless Birdie could pull them. She probably could. There wasn’t much Birdie couldn’t do when it came to this kind of stuff.

  We finally got back to Sin’s parents’ house and went inside. Anson, Birdie, and Jack were all in the kitchen standing around the table. The note was front and center. It looked like a standard sheet of nice letterhead, except the part that would have had the business name and address printed on it had been ripped off, leaving a jagged line across the top of the paper.

  I peered between Jack and Birdie to read it. The words were scribbled in loopy handwriting, the ink smeared and messy like it had been done in haste.

  Your wife is fine. She’ll be returned soon.

  I blinked and reread it. “What kind of a ransom note is that? They don’t want money? They don’t want anything? Just to take Lila and then return her?”

  Sin shook his head. “Makes no sense to me either.”

  “Birdie, have you ever seen anything like this before?” I asked. “I know Nocturne Falls doesn’t have a lot of kidnappings, but what’s your take on it? And is there any chance you can get fingerprints off it?”

  “My take is that whoever did this has a very different motive than your standard kidnapper. I mean, obviously. They haven’t asked for anything. Which means they’re getting what they want via different means. As for the fingerprints, no go. I already checked. Whoever sent this wore gloves.”

  Sin looked as unhappy as his father. “What does taking my mother get them? What does it get anyone?”

  I glanced at Anson, his handsome face lined with worry. There was only one answer I could think of. “It gets…the show stopped.”

  Anson looked up and nodded. “And if they keep her long enough, it gets us in breach of contract. That’s all I can think of.”

  Jack made a soft, disgruntled noise. “Anyone who considers themselves your rival benefits from that, and you already gave us his name.”

  “But,” Sin started, “we went to Tony’s. He genuinely didn’t seem like he knew about my mom going missing when Lou brought it up.”

  Anson’s worry turned into anger. “Son, he’s a showman. Like I am. If he did this, why would he let Lou know? I realize they’ve been together a long time, but this is a major crime we’re talking about. If he told Lou, Lou would have no choice but to turn him in or become an accessory.”

  Sin crossed his arms. “Then you think Tony could have done it?”

  “I do now.”

  I touched his arm lightly. “Any chance there are some rubber gloves lying around? I know Birdie looked for fingerprints, but I still feel like we shouldn’t touch it in case the police end up getting involved.”

  “My mom has lots of gloves.” He went to the sink, opened the cabinet below and took out a box of latex gloves. “She tries to protect her skin as much as possible considering…you know.”

  “Right.” I grabbed a pair from the box and snapped them on, then picked up the note by the edges of the paper and held it to the light.

  “Just so you know,” Birdie said, “I didn’t let anyone else touch it either, except for Anson, who’d already opened the envelope. Just in case, like you said, it ends up going to the police as evidence.”

  “Sorry about that,” Anson said. “I should have been more careful.”

  “No big deal,” I said. “How did the note arrive?”

  “Messenger,” Anson answered. “He said Fed Ex to get through the gate, but he wasn’t. No truck, no uniform.” He leaned in a little. “What are you looking for?”

  “Watermarks. Or anything else, really, that might tell us where this paper came from.”

  “Don’t you think the top part being ripped off is a clue?”

  “Actually…” I squinted, trying to see better. There was something else on the paper where the tear was. “Anyone have a pair of reading glasses I could use? Just a simple pair of magnifiers?”

  Jack nudged me, holding a pair out. “Here you go.”

  “What did you find?” Sin asked.

  “Not sure.” Pinching the paper between two fingers, I got the readers on. I lo
oked closer at the torn area. “There’s the tiniest bit of black here. There must have been something printed on the top of this paper, which was why it was torn off. So it couldn’t be identified.”

  Anson’s eyes narrowed. “Will you hold that up to the light again?”

  I did as he asked.

  He took a long, hard look. “I’ll be right back.” He disappeared.

  When he came back, he was holding another sheet of paper that looked very similar. Except this one was whole and had a short letter typed on it.

  “Have a look at this.” He held the new sheet of paper up next to the ransom note. Even with the typing, it was easy enough to see that the watermarks matched. Both sheets were the same brand of stationery. The real difference, however, was his piece of paper hadn’t had the top torn off and you could plainly see the letterhead.

  The intact piece had come from the Crystal Palace casino.

  I put the note back on the table. “Birdie, you’ve got to research this and find out if anyone else uses the same brand of stationery the Crystal Palace does.”

  She nodded. “I will, but you know this just makes it look even more like Tony or Lou is involved in this.”

  “I agree.”

  “I’ll kill them both,” Anson muttered. “How dare they put my wife in jeopardy?”

  I put my hands up. “Okay, hang on. We’re just speculating right now. No one should be killing anybody. I know you’re beyond angry, Anson—we all are—but we need Lila home safe with you, not visiting you in jail.”

  “She’s right, Dad,” Sin said. “In fact, I know a way you can help us. I was going to make up a reason to go see Lou, but you could do it for us. He’d see you in a heartbeat.”

  Anson took a breath. “You think that would help?”

  “Sure,” Birdie said. “I don’t care how cool a customer this guy thinks he is. He’s bound to act strangely if the husband of the woman he kidnapped suddenly pays him a visit. Do you know the guy well enough to tell if he’s behaving nervously or in some weird way?”

  “I think so. We’ve interacted socially enough times.”