Lounge Singers and Liars in Las Vegas
A.R. Winters
Lounge Singers and Liars in Las Vegas
Copyright 2019 by A. R. Winters
www.arwinters.com
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental.
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
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Untitled
Sneak Peak: A Berry Deadly Welcome
Chapter Two
Chapter 1
“Over there!”
Ian stretched out his arm and pointed, and I followed the direction of his finger with my eyes.
Over there, indeed.
The old woman was trying to blend into the background among the other gamblers playing the slot machines. She managed to find a man who looked to be in his forties—who was almost as wide as two slot machines put together—and slunk behind him.
I looked away quickly, pretending not to have seen her.
“It’s her, isn’t it?” Ian hoarse-whispered.
“Why are you whispering?” I said, keeping my voice low. “There’s no way she can hear us.”
She was all the way on the other side of the room, and our voices couldn’t travel that far. Not to mention, the noise in the casino was loud enough to drown out our voices even if we’d been yelling. The chimes from the slot machines, laughter from gamblers, and the occasional whoop from an excited group of players rung out into the air, creating a happy party atmosphere.
The noise, combined with the bright casino lights and the complete lack of windows, made it easy to forget that it was almost midday on a Tuesday.
Ian jerked his head toward the old woman. “But it is her. I was right! I’m winning!”
I gave Ian a puzzled look. “Winning at what?”
He returned my look with puzzlement of his own. “Huh?”
“How’re you winning?”
“Umm—it’s just what the cool kids say these days. That they’re winning. I suppose I’m winning at life. Or maybe at catching old women.”
“We haven’t caught her yet,” I reminded him. “And we’re not really out to ‘catch’ her, just have a few words.”
We’d been following Gladys Hartley for the better part of an hour now. It had been a lucky break spotting her in the casino, but as soon as I’d tried to get closer to talk to her, she disappeared.
Susan Hartley, my client, was Gladys Hartley’s daughter. The photo Susan had given me depicted a woman in her late eighties, with a long, wrinkled face and sparse curly white hair. In person, Gladys looked to be somewhat taller than me and walked with a slight stoop.
“She likes to wear loose dresses and sensible black shoes,” Susan had told me. “Sometimes she wears tracksuits. She goes to the slot machines every now and then, and she’s on reasonably good terms with her neighbors. I just need you to make sure she’s okay.”
Susan lived in Maine, but she hadn’t wanted to make the trip down to Vegas—so it was my job to have a short chat with Gladys and tell her to call her daughter. But every time I got near her, Gladys managed to give me the slip and end up on the other side of the casino floor.
“I’m sure we’ll catch her now,” Ian said, ignoring that we did not in fact need to catch her. “She’s old—she won’t be able to outrun us. In fact, we can split up. I can head toward her from that side, and you come at her the other.”
“Splitting up does sound like a good idea,” I agreed. “Maybe she’s shy and doesn’t want to talk to two people at once. I told you I should’ve been going after her alone.”
“But I’m your partner,” Ian said. “It’s my job to help you.”
That was a blatant lie.
Ian was definitely not my partner.
He was more like the annoying younger brother I never knew I didn’t need, but once he’d discovered I was a private investigator, he was determined to help me out.
Ian didn’t have a job of his own, thanks to his trust fund, so he had ample time to help—which I’ll admit, did prove to be useful at times. And with his eternal optimism and eager positivity toward life, Ian was hard to dislike.
His shock of curly red hair, generous freckles, and wide eyes made him look younger than he was, and that came in handy when talking to suspects, who tended to dismiss him as being young and immature. Although the “immature” part of their impression wasn’t unfounded, since Ian liked to ask strange questions and air semi-offensive opinions.
“Anyway,” I said, “I can’t miss her this time.”
“I can’t believe she didn’t open her door when we knocked,” Ian whined. “We stood out there in the hot sun for about an hour.”
“It was more like ten minutes,” I said. “Maybe she was in the bathroom and didn’t hear us.”
“Or maybe she fell asleep,” Ian said. “Sometimes you fall asleep just like that. One minute, you’re looking out the window, the next, you’re fast asleep.”
I took a deep breath. “I’m not charging enough for this to be a long, drawn-out job. I’m going to say hello, tell her to call Susan, and then we’re going home.”
“Home?” Ian said. “But we’re at the Tremonte Casino. We should at least hang around a bit. Maybe hit up the buffet. It’s almost lunchtime, and I’m sure I could dig up a two-for-one coupon. Hey, maybe we’ll even run into Jack!”
I winced involuntarily. “I don’t actually want to run into Jack.” Does anyone ever really want to run into their ex?
“I thought you guys were friends now.” Ian looked at me, blinking cluelessly. “You’re dating Detective Ryan, and Jack’s—well, I’m sure he’s dating a supermodel or two.”
I sighed. “Let’s not talk about Ryan or Jack,” I said firmly. My love life wasn’t going well, and I didn’t want to think about my ex’s love life. “I don’t want Jack to suspect I’m hanging around the casino he owns because I want to run into him. Let’s just talk to Gladys, and then we can go across the road to the Belmonte and hang out there.”
“It’s a deal!” Ian said. “But what’s going on with you and Ryan? I thought you were good.”
I stifled a groan. ‘Good’ was not how I’d describe my current relationship. “Tell you later. You go that way, I’ll go this way, and we’ll get this chat with Gladys over with.”
Susan had told me she called her mother, but Gladys hadn’t answered. Gladys had texted a few hours later and said her phone was acting up. After that, whenever Susan called, Gladys hadn’t answered.
Susan told me she was sure Gladys was fine and didn’t realize her phone was acting up, asking me to get in touch with her instead.
What had meant to be a simple
, one-hour-at-most job was taking much longer than I’d anticipated.
Ian and I split up, and I took a circuitous route toward Gladys.
She seemed to be staring intently at a slot machine another elderly woman was playing, but as I walked toward her, she walked the other way.
I picked up my pace.
Gladys picked up her pace too.
I broke into a trot.
Gladys broke into a trot too.
“What the—where’s Ian?” I muttered to myself, finally abandoning all pretense and giving chase.
Craning my neck around, I finally spotted Ian. He was gesturing his hands and speaking wildly, but his path was blocked by two burly black-clad security men. I groaned inwardly. So much for my “partner.”
With Ian out of commission, it was essential I not lose sight of Gladys. So when she slipped through a door marked “Staff,” I didn’t hesitate before speeding up a bit more and barging through the door.
The door opened into a long hallway. Two waitresses in black-and-white uniforms were walking toward me, and another man in a black suit was walking away from me. I spotted Gladys making a swift turn through another door.
I didn’t waste time hurrying over to the door and slipping in.
The room I found myself in turned out to be a massive empty kitchen. Why was it empty, I wondered vaguely, as I watched Gladys break out into a full-on run.
The kitchen was probably connected to one of the dinner-only restaurants, I decided, which is why it wasn’t in use yet. Maybe the fancy seafood place, Entrecote. Their meals were divine—fresh-shucked oysters, grilled calamari, pan-seared Atlantic salmon—and their desserts were pretty good too. With a pang, I realized I was hungry.
“Hey!” I yelled out loudly. “Gladys! I just want to talk to you.” She paused for a moment and turned around, glancing at me from across the empty kitchen. “Your daughter, S—”
Without letting me finish, Gladys spun around and took off again.
“Doggonit!” I groaned. I could do without this unnecessary workout. What I really needed was a nice lunch.
Without any pesky security guys watching me, there was no reason to be circumspect. I picked up my pace, racing around a large stainless steel counter in the middle of the room.
Gladys was almost at the door on the other end of the kitchen, and I could tell she intended to race out that way. I couldn’t see any shortcuts to it; the kitchen seemed like a minefield of things that I could break or bump into. There were three stainless steel countertops in the middle, with various pots, pans, and utensils hanging overhead. Large industrial-size ovens and dishwashers lined the sides of the room.
The place smelled clean, as though the staff were instructed to wipe down as they went, and to do a thorough cleaning before they left for the night.
I was halfway to the door as Gladys grabbed the handle and twisted it.
“Wait!” I called out.
But she didn’t wait. She slipped out to the other side, and I raced past a burning-hot oven to get to the door.
Hang on. Why was an oven in this empty kitchen hot? Had someone left it on by mistake?
I didn’t mean to stop. I didn’t mean to care about hot ovens in empty kitchens, but something made me pause and look through the oven’s transparent glass door.
Oh no.
Was I—could I be hallucinating? Had the stress of having to go for an unexpected run made me a bit loopy? Maybe this was my body’s way of telling me that cardio was not my friend.
But no, that couldn’t be. I peered closer through the oven’s door—and I was right. I wasn’t hallucinating.
There was a man inside the hot oven.
I felt light-headed for a moment, and the scream left my throat unbidden. I took a deep breath. And then another.
Calm down, I told myself. There’s a man in the oven, but the kitchen’s empty, which means… I didn’t know what it meant. But perhaps the man hadn’t been in the oven for very long. Men shouldn’t be inside ovens, right?
Before I knew what I was doing, I had run back to the stainless steel countertop I’d just passed, the one with all the paraphernalia on top. I found what I was looking for: a pair of large oven mitts.
Grabbing the heavy oven door with both hands, I pulled it open. A blast of heat shot out.
I took a deep breath and reached forward. The man was crumpled up, his skin a strange shade of red. I couldn’t look at his face; I couldn’t think too much about how he got in here.
He looked oddly still. Even as I tried to push away all conscious thought, my mind registered the fact that he didn’t seem to be breathing.
I grabbed hold of his arm and pulled with all my might, dragging the man out.
Chapter 2
The next few hours went by in a blur.
After I got the man out, I considered giving him CPR, but his body was stiff, the joints hard to move as I pulled him out of the oven, and his eyes vacant and unseeing. I checked his pulse just to be sure, and then I dialed 911.
The cops showed up within a few seconds, and among them was Detective Elwood.
Elwood was a perpetually grumpy, plump-around-the-middle balding man with whom I’d had a few run-ins in the past. While we started out hating each other, with time (and the help of some delicious cupcakes) we’d grown to develop a grudging respect.
Elwood nodded at me while the paramedics did their work and let the crime scene techs take over. An officer pulled me over to the side and took my statement, and after jotting things down into his notepad, he told me I was free to go.
I looked toward the man I’d pulled out of the oven one last time. He was a large man, wearing what seemed to a woman’s frilly pink dressing gown. His feet were shoeless. His skin was reddish and his thinning hair a light brown.
I glanced from the man to Elwood, and the detective caught my eye and shook his head.
He came over for a quick word before I left.
“CSI say he’s been dead for a long time—before he was even put into that oven,” Elwood said. “Don’t blame yourself.”
“Why should I blame myself?” I tried not to sound defensive, even as I wondered if I could’ve saved the man by being in the kitchen a few minutes earlier.
“What were you doing in the kitchen anyway?”
I repeated what I’d told the officer, that I’d been chasing an old woman.
Elwood chuckled. “You’re pretty out of shape if you let an eighty-year-old beat you in a race.”
I rolled my eyes and refrained from telling him that he was a pot calling the kettle black. I assumed me commenting on his lack of shape wouldn’t earn me any brownie points.
“Anyway,” I said. “I guess I’ll head out and look for Ian.”
Elwood nodded sharply. “Don’t go thinking you want to solve this murder. Just because you’re bored with Ryan away…”
“I’m not bored,” I said quickly, suddenly protective about Ryan’s leaving. “I’ve got plenty to do.”
Elwood looked at me steadily. Finally, he lowered his voice and said, “I’m sorry about Ryan. He was a good kid.”
A lump rose up in my throat. “Was?”
“I mean is,” Elwood said quickly. “You know what I mean.”
I sighed. “You haven’t heard any news about him?”
Elwood shook his head. “And no news is good news when you’re undercover.”
“I guess that’s the best I can hope for.” I tried not to let the bitterness seep into my voice, but I couldn’t help it.
Detective Ryan and I had been dating for over a year now. It had been an easy relationship from the start. I’d enjoyed spending time with him, and I thought he’d felt the same way about me.
Sure, we’d hit a bumpy patch on the road when we were stuck investigating the same case, and Ryan decided to be a bit protective about my tendencies to chase after psycho killers. But we’d sorted that out, and he’d decided to accept who I was. Now it was my turn to accept who he was.
And apparently, he was a man who left his girlfriend to go on a dangerous undercover mission.
How could I protest and ask him not to risk his life, when I’d told him to stop being protective of me?
So of course he had to go.
Not knowing where he was, how he was, whether his mission was safe or not—that had become part of my life now. All I could be sure of was that he was alive.
I had no way of knowing when his mission would end. It could be three months or three years, or so I’d been told.
I wasn’t sure about what my relationship was—and what it had been. Were the last few months before Ryan left all a lie? Was our whole relationship based on a foundation of sand? I couldn’t believe that to be true.
Still, the last person I wanted to lay my soul bare in front of was Detective Elwood.
So it was almost a relief when Elwood said, “I’m sure Ryan’s having the time of his life on that mission. It sure was a coup for him to get it.”
I swallowed again and forced my lips into a smile. “Of course. I’m so proud of him. Now I’d better go find Ian before he gets into any more trouble…”
Chapter 3
Three days later, Ian and I showed up at my parents’ house for lunch.
My mother opened the door to my knock, and she didn’t seem surprised to see Ian tagging along with me.
“I’m glad you came, Ian,” she said, offering him a hug and a peck on the cheek. “You know I worry about you, living in Vegas with no family nearby and living off fast food. That’s no way to eat.”
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