Fatal Games
Lee Anne Jones
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
About the Author
Other Books By Lee Anne Jones
One
Death is never pretty.
Mike McQuade stared into the bright turquoise waters of the El Cortez swimming pool and would have chuckled, would have shaken his head ruefully and shrugged his shoulders at the absurdity of his situation. Would have, except for the body in front of him—a single, jagged stab wound straight through the heart. The air around him smelled of copper and chlorine and condemnation.
Using his foot, he carefully rolled her over onto her back. The tiled floor around her was wet, but she was bone dry. He was careful not to disturb any of the fine details that had been staged so carefully or the blood pooled around her chest. He already knew what he’d see, already knew exactly the face that would stare back at him, already regretted his decision, his actions.
Still, when her face came into view, her kohl-rimmed, glassy blue eyes locked on him—forever shocked, forever damning. They reminded him of another set of eyes, just as dazed and accusing, just as familiar, just as dead. That one had been his fault too. Another check for his should-have-seen-it-coming column. Another mark against him.
A sound echoed from somewhere in the distance and Mike glanced up quick before refocusing his attention back to the woman. He didn’t have much time. Someone would discover this gruesome scene soon enough, and he wanted to make sure he was long gone by then. But first he wanted to retain as much detail about her as possible. It would help him later.
My redemption rests in those details.
She was dressed in 1940s finery, her dark hair had been meticulously wound into Victory rolls, and her lips were painted bright red. The woman looked like she belonged on a Vargas calendar or a Hollywood noir film set. Her outfit had been planned down to the last detail—crimson polka-dot calf-length cocktail dress with a sweetheart neckline to accentuate her curves, fishnet hose with the seams up the back and black, high-heeled Mary Janes. Even the black feather barrette decorating her elaborate coiffure was all done to perfection and all designed to send a message.
A message Mike had seen before.
After all, he’d created it.
He glanced at the cryptic text still highlighting the screen of his disposable cell phone, the words a jumble of 1940s slang—Dumb Dora Framed a Fall. Oops. She’s All Wet Now—then back to the corpse once more. Even distorted by death, her pretty face still had him recalling happier times, times before he’d become the privacy-hoarding hermit he was today.
Voices echoed down the quiet hall leading toward the pool, and Mike knew his quiet interlude had ended. Wouldn’t be long now until this place swarmed with cops and investigators and the press.
God, the press.
Always hounding him, always chasing him. Never satisfied, never truthful.
After one final nod to the woman sprawled poolside, Mike pushed to his feet and hurried over to a trash can along the far wall near the exit, his shoulders hunched and his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his hoodie. His hard-won privacy was far too precious to risk it all now, no matter how tempting.
Nothing more I can do here.
He repeated the phrase over and over in his head, like maybe if he said it enough he’d actually believe it someday. Not now. Not really. But someday. If he was lucky.
Once he performed a factory reset on the phone to erase his information, Mike wiped it down to remove any traceable fingerprints. All those crazy fans and hackers who stalked him day and night would have a field day if they saw him now. One more reason he used disposable phones. New number, new identity, new chance to escape the ghosts that haunted him. At least for those few brief days before it was time to switch again.
Before tossing the device into the trash, he performed one last service for the woman. One last noble act in a string of actions that had been anything but chivalrous. He dialed 9-1-1 then dumped the phone in the garbage and slipped out the shadowed side exit just as two female hotel employees walked in.
Their horrified screams chased him into the darkness outside.
Two
Laura Rockford leaned sideways to peer past the traffic backed up down Sixth Street. Of course, on the one day she treated herself to a coffee on the way to see her big brother there would be an accident holding everything up. Blake was such a stickler about promptness, he’d never let her tardiness slide. She exhaled and flopped back into the driver’s seat of her five-year-old Impala. Seemed she was always running one step behind these days—in work and in life.
The guy behind her honked, and without thinking Laura leaned out the window and flashed him the bird. Her siblings were always telling her she was too rash, too get-up-in-someone’s-grill. Still, it was a skill that served her well as a reporter, and she didn’t have any intention of changing her personality any time soon.
She took a long sip of her coffee and watched as two squad cars, sirens wailing and lights blazing, swerved around the corner about half a block ahead and parked on the sidewalk outside the historic El Cortez Hotel.
Finally, something interesting.
Instincts on high alert, Laura nosed her car out of the line of traffic and into a parking spot along the curb then grabbed her messenger bag and coffee and popped open the door. She’d been on the hunt for the next big story, the one that might finally break her into the bigtime, since she’d taken the staff reporter job at the Las Vegas Chronicle newspaper. It was the area’s most widely read and prestigious paper, but with her straight out of journalism school and with few bylines to her name, her editor stuck Laura with all the fluff—pieces on casino openings and local celebrities having babies or buying houses.
She wanted real stories, real hard-hitting news.
A chance to prove I’m more than my family thinks I can be.
More than I think I can be.
She checked her appearance in her rearview mirror—same hazel eyes, same wavy, wild brown hair, same old ordinary face staring back—then smoothed a hand down her jeans-covered thighs and got out of the car. In her plain white T-shirt and sneakers, she looked just like another tourist, exactly what she needed to blend in, to go unseen.
Determined, she pushed through the gawkers surrounding the crime scene and ducked under the yellow tape while the officer in charge of crowd control was otherwise occupied with a group of tourists angling for selfies. It had rained sometime the night before, and the warm desert air was unusually humid. Puddles dotted the pavement, and the smell of damp permeated the air around her. She made it as far as windows overlooking the indoor pool before she spied two uniformed officers heading her way. Crap. With only a few seconds to make this visit count, Laura pulled out her cell phone to videotape the scene inside—a body lying poolside, a woman wearing what appeared to be vintage clothing. Blood pooled near her chest, and one of her hands was outstretched toward Laura as if begging her to solve the mystery.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” one of the approaching officers said. �
�The public’s not allowed to be in here.”
“I’m not the public.” Laura eased her phone back into her pocket before the officers thought to confiscate it. “I’m a reporter for the Chronicle. Is Detective Atkins here?”
“No, he isn’t. And even if he was, he warned us about you,” the second officer said.
“Me?” Laura placed an insincere hand over her chest.
“Yeah, you. You’re Blake’s little sister. And even worse, the press.” Each officer took an arm, and together they escorted her back toward the taped-off perimeter. Officer number two held up the tape and gestured with his hand for her to sidle underneath it. “Come back here again, Miss Rockford, we’ll arrest you for trespassing. Detective Atkins’s orders.”
“What about my First Amendment rights?” She squared her shoulders and met their gazes directly. She’d been raised with alpha men galore and never backed down from a fight. It took a hell of a lot more than some puffed-up male bravado to scare her off.
“What about ’em?” Officer number one snickered then walked away with his partner. “Have a nice day.”
“Can you tell me anything about the victim?” she yelled after them. “The crime scene? Anything?”
They just kept on walking, with not even a glance back in her direction.
Dammit. Laura weaved her way through the crowd back to her Impala. At least she’d managed to get some footage of the scene. Maybe there might be a lead in there somewhere. She’d ask Blake about it when…
Oh, crap.
A glance at her watch showed she was now almost forty-five minutes late for her meeting. Blake would have a cow, if he hadn’t shit an entire herd already.
At least the traffic jam had cleared by the time she headed the few blocks north to the Rockford Security offices. Five minutes later, she walked into the lobby and waved to the receptionist with one hand, her coffee clutched in the other, as she headed toward her oldest brother’s digs. As CEO of the family business, he had the largest office in the place—stark and modern, everything contemporary and cool and just a smidge intimidating. Not unlike the man himself. According to her friends, he looked like a swoon-worthy quarterback, with his dark hair and steely eyes, but to her he was just Big Bro.
Blake wasn’t in his office when she arrived, so Laura went in anyway and made herself at home, pulling out her phone to check the footage she’d shot at the El Cortez. With any luck, there might be something usable. Except there wasn’t. Her degree from the University of Las Vegas was in journalism, not cinematography, obviously. Every panoramic shot of the poolside scene shook and was out of focus. Good thing she excelled at the written word, because she sucked at the visual side of things.
“About time you showed up,” Blake said, coming up behind her. He closed the door behind him, then leaned down to kiss her on the cheek. “Some of us do have schedules to keep.”
“I have schedules, too. Mine are just more flexible. One of the perks of the job.”
He raised a disparaging brow at her, giving her his infamous glare. The Hurt, everyone had nicknamed it. She wasn’t ruffled. Blake might talk a good game, might look one too, but underneath his tough-guy exterior, her big brother was nothing but a marshmallow.
He sighed and squinted over her shoulder. “What are you watching? Looks like a ticket to seasickness.”
“Funny.” She glanced sideways at him. “I stopped by a crime scene on my way here. That’s why I was late. Over at the El Cortez. Appears a female was murdered near their pool. I can’t figure out why she’s dressed in vintage clothing, though.”
“I can.” Blake straightened and walked around to take a seat behind his desk. “It’s a game.”
“Game, huh? What kind of game?” Laura clicked off the phone and stared at him. “Sickos R Us?”
“No. A video game. Local guy designed it and made a killing. No pun intended.” He grinned. “It’s called Vegas Noir, I think. First game his company made. Tech empire called M Cubed, office downtown.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Anyway, I met the guy a couple of years ago, at the release party for Vegas Noir. I was still a detective on the force at the time. He seemed nice enough, in that weird geeky gamer sort of way.”
“Huh.” She slid her phone back into her trusty messenger bag—the thing never left her side—and instead pulled out the notebook and pen she always carried in the side pocket for quick access. After flipping to a new blank page, she started taking notes. “So this guy lives here in town? This game creator?”
“Yeah.” Blake sat forward, his expression shifting from indulgent to annoyed. “But that’s not why you made this appointment with me today, Sis. Why are you here? Not that I don’t like seeing you more often than the family dinners.”
She glanced over at the large ficus in the corner, her present to her brother upon his grand opening and the only color in the otherwise neutral room. “Bertha’s still going strong.”
“She’s a staple around here, an inaugural member of the team. Can’t have Rockford Security without Bertha.” He sat back again and clasped his hands over his lean stomach. “Now tell me the truth. No more bullshit or evading. You are here. Why?”
Laura sighed. No matter how old she got, Blake still had that ability to make her feel five again. “I came to see if you might have any interesting leads about some of your cases.” She twiddled the notebook in her fingers. “Now, I guess fate just dropped this into my lap, and, unless my journalistic instincts are way off, this is gonna be a murder worth a front-page story.” She gave him a coy smile and a wink. Of course, this might turn out to be nothing, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to this story than a simple drowning. Both her interest and her instincts were piqued, which was rare.
“How do you know what happened at the El Cortez was a murder?” Blake narrowed his gaze at her, his index fingers tapping against his bottom lip. He reminded her of one of her favorite stodgy old professors back in college. The guy had covered World War II and Vietnam and ate undergrads for breakfast. Everyone except for Laura.
“Who dresses up like a 1940s pin-up gal to end themselves?” So obviously not a suicide. “What’s this guy’s name? The one you met at the party who owns this tech company.”
“Mike McQuade. Why?”
“Bet he’d love knowing someone’s using his games to stage murders.”
“No one wants to know that.” Blake frowned. “Please tell me you won’t stalk this poor man. And for heaven’s sake, stay out of his penthouse.”
“No promises. He’s a public figure, by virtue of his business. If someone’s using his games for nefarious purposes, then the world deserves to know.”
Blake snorted. “Nefarious purposes? Break out the thesaurus much?”
Laura stuck her tongue out at him and continued to write. “What’s Mike McQuade look like?” Blake opened his mouth to answer, but she held up a hand to stop him, a mental picture developing. “Wait. You said weird, geeky gamer. I’m imagining Coke-bottle glasses and high-water pants. Maybe a pocket protector thrown in for good measure?”
“Nah. The guy was nice and normal looking, I guess.” He wrinkled his nose. “I don’t spend a lot of time considering other guys’ appearances, unless they’re suspects.”
“Give me a general vibe. From what you remember.”
“Promise me you will not hound this guy, Sis.”
“I’ll only do what’s necessary to get to the truth, how about that?”
He gave her an incredulous look then sighed. “Fine. A couple inches shorter than me, dark hair, lean build. That’s all I know.”
“And he lives where, did you say?”
“I didn’t.” Blake smiled, all even white teeth and tight-lipped confidence. “Nice try, though.”
“Thanks.” Laura tossed her long, russet-colored hair over her shoulder, basking in her brother’s praise. “Do you know where I can find this Mr. McQuade? Just to ask him a few innocent questions.”
/> “I doubt you’ve ever made the acquaintance of an innocent question.”
She grinned. “C’mon, Blake. Give a girl a bone here. Where does he live? If he’s into technology, he’s probably doing pretty well. Queensridge? Seven Hills, maybe?”
“Nah.” Blake squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “If my memory serves, the party was at his residence. The penthouse suite of those fancy condos at the north end of the Strip.”
“Turnberry Place?”
“Yeah. That’s it.”
“Great.” Laura flipped her notebook closed and stood. “Well, I guess I’m off, then.”
“Hey.” Blake pushed to his feet as well and came around the desk to join her. “You want to grab some lunch or something? Dino and I were supposed to go, but something came up with Jan’s tour schedule and he can’t make it.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Big Bro.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Maybe some other time.”
Laura took off toward the door then smiled at him over her shoulder. “Today, I’ve got some snooping to do.”
* * *
An hour later, after another stop at the 1020 Café for fresh brew and bribes, Laura headed into police headquarters. The gals stationed behind the reception desk in the large, brightly lit lobby knew her and waved her inside.
She spotted her quarry near the back of the room, his attention diverted by his computer screen. Perfect. Laura made her way through the crowded precinct room toward the cubicle of one Detective Troy Atkins, Homicide Division.
“Howdy.” She plunked a fresh double espresso and a big, fat brownie down in front of him. “Long time no see.”
“Well, if it isn’t my favorite nosy reporter.” Troy swiveled his chair to face her and grinned. Most women she knew went wild for his cover-model good looks—tawny, sun-streaked brown hair, chiseled jaw, green-gold eyes that seemed to glow when he smiled. Good thing Laura wasn’t most women, or she’d melt into a puddle of goo at the sexy little grin he was giving her now. “What can I do for you, Laura?”
Fatal Games (The Rockford Security Series Book 2) Page 1
