“And you know that, how?” Grant said.
After Paul set the pen down, he steepled his fingers. “Richelle heard Kylie tell Josh. Richelle and Josh obediently arrived together. They mingled in the main club for most of the party. You do know I’ve provided the video of the club room, correct?”
“Yes,” Grant said. “We have the footage of the video in the club room and the guest elevator.”
“But no surveillance of the hallway to the VIP suites,” Roxie said.
“Wasn’t ready yet.” Paul shrugged. “That wing was recently renovated.”
“So Josh and Richelle were pretending to be dates at the party…” Grant said.
Paul nodded. “Kylie was upset that he was playing along with the stunt, posing as Richelle’s interest. She cornered him at the bar and bitched at him for goofing off with Richelle when he was going to be a daddy.”
“How’d Josh handle that?” Grant jotted some scribbles on his notepad. So far, Paul’s account rang true to what was on the video.
Paul shrugged. “I wasn’t there personally. I only know it was before Richelle met me in the hall. She humored me with their antics on our way up here. Check the videos. I’m sure one of the angles had to have caught Kylie’s confrontation at the bar. Again, I remind you, I provided all the pertinent surveillance footage to the police.”
All of it to the police? Pertinent footage, meaning he didn’t tape his tryst with Richelle? He could only wonder for the sake of Richelle’s alibi. “No chance there’s an undocumented camera in any of the suites?”
The sly smile Paul gave him was twisted, but truthful. “I do have my limits.”
Roxie held a hand up. “Still not convinced. Baby, no baby, pretend date, or not. You just said you slept with Richelle. You obviously loathe Josh. Why shouldn’t I assume you axed him—”
“Enough!” Grant slipped his glasses off before he stuffed papers into his briefcase. “We’re not here to concern ourselves with your assumptions. He couldn’t have killed Josh because he was already in his car a mile away.”
Paul stood as Grant did, both men leaving Roxie fumbling to gather her purse and bag.
“I was leaving for a second honeymoon with my wife.” Paul gave as an explanation. “My chauffeur can vouch for me if you’d really like to know, Miss Malone.”
A crystal-clear point of evidence that Grant had already gleaned from reading Paul’s police interrogation. Backed up by the chauffer’s statement and the garage surveillance footage.
“Unnecessary, Paul. I apologize for her lack of censorship.” Grant offered his hand to Paul and tossed a stern stare at Roxie.
She pursed her lips.
Ah. Silence. Finally.
“If you need anything at all, feel free to come back at your convenience.” Paul held his hand out for Roxie’s. He kissed the back of it. “Miss Malone, you sure do keep it entertaining.”
She tilted her head to the side in what seemed like a confused acknowledgement. As politely as he could, Grant steered her from Paul’s office suite and toward the elevator to the exit.
Once they were ensconced in the privacy of the elevator, he loosened his tie and growled. “What part…what precise part of ‘not interfering’ did you misunderstand?”
She studied her toes. The rich, red tresses that had escaped her messy topknot curtained her face.
“You do not outright ask someone if they’ve committed murder. You do not interrupt my conversation with witnesses. You do not spout off with your own ramblings. Nor do you offer opinions on the possibility of discomfort during sexual intercourse on office furniture. Paul Minor is a filthy rich and powerful man in this city. Where do you even get the nerve to badger him with such questions?”
Her shoulders shook with what seemed like sobs. Oh hell. Fucking hell. Crying?
She looked up and wiped her eyes. “Oh, come on. That red thing? No one could get off on that. And he’s so short, he’d need a step-stool to even get up there.”
Her lips pressed together for a second before she busted out with laughter again. She started to snort with giggles.
Unwittingly, he felt his lips tip up in a smile. Her laughter was overwhelmingly infectious in the cramped elevator car. And it really had been an absurd comment for her to make in the middle of what should have been a solemn business discussion.
The moment she met his gaze, he melted. How long had it been since he’d enjoyed a bout of spontaneous humor? Too guarded to allow her to see that she lightened him up, he shook his head. “How would you know about appropriate furniture for intercourse? Thought you said you hadn’t had sex in years…excepting your fertile one-night stand, of course.”
She coughed as she strangled a fading laugh. Her blush distracted him even further. For instance, right here against the wall would do. Or on the floor. Front seat of my car. You bent over the hood—
“Touché.” She followed him out the elevator.
“Legal Eagle, leaving so soon?” Vince called out as they neared their posts.
“Aw, Red,” Arnie cajoled. “Don’t take off.”
“See you later, guys.” Grant walked in a fast stride to his car.
Once they were seated, Roxie sighed and returned the errant strands of red back to topknot. “Grant, I’m not a people person. I told you that my first day.”
“I can be an introvert as well,” he said. He started the car and drove for the exit. “But that was completely uncalled for. Unprofessional. Crass.”
“Crass? He sat there and smugly said he’d effed a woman’s brains out in his office. That’s crass. My last job was treating UTIs on horses and working on a farm. I’ll admit I’m out of your rich-man league. But he puts his pants on the same as we do. I’m not going to be a silent mime at your side. I may not have gone to law school, but I’m perfectly capable of contributing to big boys’ discussions.”
“And what exactly do you think you contributed back there?” He glanced at her.
“I raised the suspicion that he could have killed Josh.”
He rolled his eyes. “No. Paul is not a suspect.”
“He hated him.”
“Half the world hated Josh. He wasn’t a likeable man. Paul isn’t a suspect because he was, in fact, already in his car a mile away at the time Josh was shot.”
Roxie crossed her arms. “So? He’s the owner. He could have had his henchman do it.”
“Unlikely. As much as you might wish to play along in these big boys’ discussions, keep a lid on it. There was only a select set of people in that wing at the time Josh was killed. Just as the APD operated in their investigation, we will see those individuals as the suspects.”
“Who? All the other guests, their personnel, and the Velocity employees?” She ticked them off with her fingers.
“Almost.” He exhaled slowly as they waited at a red light. “Josh’s death was pre-mediated. And gruesome. A random employee wouldn’t have had the motive. Nor does this feel like a crime that someone would have hired out. Too personal.”
“Then who are we looking at?”
“I’m looking at Kylie, Jaydon, Dave, and Wayne. The VIP guests that night.”
She shot her attention from her phone to him. “Four people? According to the keypad logs, there were probably thirty others who were in that wing. Staff, for starters.”
“Those are the people you’re going to be checking out for me.”
Chapter Twelve
For the next week, Roxie did check out the insignificant people who were in the VIP wing where Josh was murdered. Grant refused to consider them truly worthless in the case, because as Roxie soon learned, he was nothing if not meticulous.
Roxie knew what it meant to be a workaholic. She’d sacrificed a social life while in vet school. She’d scrimped on necessities to make sure she had all her books and supplies. For those five and a half years she had been a candidate for the Veterinary Medicine program, she’d invested every ounce of her energy, stamina, and concentration on becomin
g a doctor of veterinary medicine.
As the discovery period developed, Grant often stayed up until who knew how late, poring over the police reports and papers of the investigation. Sometimes still awake and groggy-eyed at his desk when she arrived in the morning. The fact he practically lived in his office was telling enough. He tended to miss meals and rely on coffee—no, Dirty Chais—for nutritional substance.
Because he was so aloof and worked in a loner mentality, she couldn’t gauge his motivations for toiling away tirelessly in his office. Perhaps he was just a damn good lawyer and loved to sink his teeth into a solid puzzle of a case. Prior to his personal leave, staff assumed he’d be made partner, after all. Maybe he really was a loyal friend to Ben and wanted to clear his name. There was a chance he was driven by competition and revenge, desiring to win the case as the ultimate score on his ex.
Whatever his reasons to slave away, slave away he did. Roxie couldn’t judge his motivations. She could only compare his commitment to his work to her own previous steadfast addiction to overachieving.
Going through the list of thirty-six employees, Roxie was loath to admit she was performing useless busywork. She researched each name registered on the security log at Velocity. Most of the keypad activations to the elevators were the club’s servers’. By cross-checking the entry times to the elevators and the records of orders from the kitchen and bar, much of what she found was that the employees delivered food and drinks.
That was it. No murder à la carte.
After five days of verifying the activity of the club and hotel staff, she could attest to every single item the guests ordered, and which servers presented the goods.
Cramming and studying texts of vertebrae diseases really wasn’t much different than submerging herself in dry, factual police reports. Not fun, but not impossible, either. She had a mechanical-memorizing brain.
By ten o’clock on that following Monday morning, she’d reviewed several pages of police notes from their interrogations.
“Anything?” Grant re-entered his office from his personal bathroom. He headed for his desk, cluttered with files and empty cups, while she remained on the floor, her back to the couch and her research on the coffee table.
She let her phone clunk to the table. “Well, I can tell you Kylie doesn’t like butter, margarine, or sour cream on her baked potato. That accounted for three different servers’ trips up to her room after she headed upstairs.”
With a flick of his hand, Grant tossed his phone to his desk. Leaning back, he rubbed his palms over his eyes. “Keep at it. I want to know exactly where something doesn’t add up.”
“Aye, Captain, but I’m starting to think there’s a chance all these employees really were just working there that night.”
He shrugged.
Right, no stone unturned. She simply yearned for something more substantial to do.
“When are we meeting Dave?” he asked.
“One o’clock. Finally. Might want to strangle that PA of his. I’m not a telemarketer. I’m not a solicitor. I didn’t deserve to be hung up on those first five calls.”
Grant snorted. “In this business, everybody’s time will seem more important than another’s.”
“Exactly why I’m not a people person.”
“What kind of a person are you?”
“I was supposed to be an animal person.”
“Aren’t humans just another mammal?”
“I’m beginning to wonder.” She slid her notepad closer to review her multiple, unsuccessful attempts to arrange interviews with the VIP guests Grant had his attention on. “Jaydon’s impossible. Wayne is next to impossible. Kylie’s too busy. Richelle can’t be found—though, she was banging Paul when Josh was shot, so she’s kinda a moot point. Dave has at least agreed to meeting up with you.”
“It’s not as though we’re empty-handed.” He picked up and dropped a sheaf of papers. “I’ve got the investigation documents to work with. What’s the deal with Jaydon?”
She shrugged. “Superstar basketball players can’t spare a single five minutes of their precious time?”
He stood up and arched, stretching his back. “Let’s see if we can get in on the element of surprise.” Twisting back to his chair, he grabbed his coat and nodded toward the door. “I can’t remember the last time I’ve left this building. We’ll stop at the arena before we get something to eat. No harm in trying.”
Roxie followed him out of his office. Normally he took off, striding impossibly fast on his longs legs. This time, she could easily outpace him. At the elevator, she pressed the button, and when the car came, he leaned against the wall of the car.
With just the two of them in the elevator, his fatigue seemed to swell in the tiny space. Her pity wouldn’t help him. And she doubted he’d welcome her nagging him to take a breather. Workaholism had no cure. Before she could think of something to say, he spoke.
“I’m actually surprised Dave is accommodating us.”
“On the premise that he’s a rich and important person who is naturally super-busy?”
Grant stood from the support of the wall. “Based on his physical expressions at Josh’s funeral, nearly fainting, he seemed to be very emotional about his client’s death. In the police reports, he appeared to be too grief-stricken to form coherent answers. I’d imagine he would be reluctant to broach the topic again and speak about Josh’s death with us on the first try.”
“How long had he been his manager?” Roxie walked at his side as they exited and went for his car in the underground garage.
“Since the beginning of his career. Josh was ‘discovered’ on American Idol. After he came in first place, he released his debut record and Dave immediately represented him—well, immediately after Josh and Kylie returned from a celebratory vacation in the Maldives.”
As they neared his car, he whistled. “Catch.” He tossed her his keys. “You drive. Dave hadn’t even formed his talent management company yet. Seems after Josh’s stardom developed, Dave created the business.”
Roxie slid into the car and adjusted the seat and mirrors. She caught Grant glancing at her as he buckled in.
He sighed. “You do have a driver’s license, correct?”
She rolled her eyes.
“You seem rather excited.”
With a turn of her wrist, she started his beast of a car and extracted her sunglasses from her bag. “I’m not allowed to appreciate a nice car?”
“Where is your car?”
“Not in my possession. I used an old truck at the farm whenever I needed one. They had plenty of leftovers they were too lazy to move to the scrapyards.” Roxie frowned as soon as the words came out of her mouth. Yeah, that doesn’t sound as destitute as heck. She cleared her throat. “Besides, I wouldn’t want a car in the city. No spare change to park in non-existent spaces. Traffic stinks. Insurance is expensive. The bus suits me fine.”
“How’s that work with your daughter?”
She risked a glance at him as she drove out of the garage. Even though she wasn’t a native to the city, she’d have to have been blind to miss where the arena was. “What do you mean?”
“How do you manage the safety procedures? The car seat and such on public transport.”
He’s interested in Lucy’s transportation? Or is this Bizarro World small talk?
“Well, when she’s with me, I usually have her in her carrier. I know she’s starting to hate being strapped in since she’s so mobile now, but keeping her on me is the safest and most convenient method. Her stroller folds very quickly.”
His silence bothered her. Too much info? Was that an adequate answer? Had an alien invaded his body and rendered him actually intrigued with her daughter?
Lia had emphasized from day one that he was the anti-family man. He judged the working mom. Since his outburst at the courthouse before they saw Ben, he hadn’t spoken a word about Lucy. Sometimes when she’d check her phone to see Sophia’s texted pictures of Lucy, Roxie would glance
up to catch Grant peering at her with a stoic face. Were his questions examples of further judgment?
“And when she’s not with you, she’s with your aunt?”
Roxie licked her lips. “Yes, kind of. Sophia feels like an aunt to me.”
“She’s not a relative?”
“Not by blood.” Unnerved and confused by his line of personal questioning, she steered the conversation back to the case. “So, Dave’s company only took off after he found Josh?”
Grant crossed his arms and closed his eyes as she drove. “I don’t think Dave would have even had a company if Josh hadn’t found him. Before he represented Josh, Dave was a customer service attendant at a hotel.”
“Really? Wonder why Josh wanted an inexperienced nobody to manage him.”
“They must have hit it off somehow. It appears that once Josh realized he was going somewhere on Idol, he officiated Dave as his go-to man. I doubt Dave ever intended to have such a career. It almost seemed as though Dave made Josh, and his success, his life. Dave’s never married, and he has no family. Josh was his sole client for many years. Only two years ago did he add another.”
Roxie had browsed some of the background info Grant had pulled up on Dave. “The rapper?”
“Yes. Jumio.” He slanted his head to nestle further into his seat, his eyes still closed. “Then last year he picked up Richelle.”
“Maybe Dave seemed emotional at the funeral because he was saying goodbye to his longest and closest client. And if he has no family, maybe he viewed Josh as more than a client.” The tabloid accounts of Josh’s funeral depicted Dave as a mourning man.
“Perhaps.”
She let silence take over for the rest of the ride to the arena. After she snagged what she considered to be a crappy parking spot a ways from the entrance, she unbuckled and reached over to wake Grant. With a jump, she shot back to her seat.
“Son of a bitch.” She put her hand to her chest. “I thought you were asleep.”
But no, he had woken. He sat relaxed in his seat, staring at her with a sexy smirk.
Resisting Redemption Page 10
