Double Whammy (A Davis Way Crime Caper) (32 page)

“How do you know she didn’t do it, Daddy?”

“Meredith!” I yelled.

I came out of the shower, which I’d taken behind closed doors for a nice change, wearing my own red hair—thank you, Miss Clairol—and ran smack dab into Bradley Cole.

He stared at me for a long moment, getting his first good look at the real me, and then said, “My robe’s a little big on you, Red.”

Thirty minutes later, I was stretched out on the carpet alarmingly close to Bradley, who was in a nearby chair. I had a real pillow under my head, a real blanket covering me, my real-live father just a hug away, and all that after having a real meal. To top it off, I had a real good wine buzz going.

We let Daddy have the bed. Even though it was barely eight o’clock, the strain of his first big outing since the surgery had taken its toll, and he’d need to get a good night’s sleep before the drive back to Pine Apple.

“I get the sofa,” Meredith smirked at me.

“I don’t care if I sleep on the bathroom floor,” I said, so relieved to not be tucking myself into a cold cot behind steel bars.

We all looked to Bradley. It was, after all, his home. “I’ll go to work and get a room.”

“Are you sure?” I asked him as my head found the pillow again.

I don’t remember a thing after that, a snatch of conversation, or even saying goodnight to my father. I did nothing but sleep dreamlessly until the fire alarm went off.

I jolted upright, not having any idea where I was, what the noise was, or what the flashing red light in the darkness meant until I heard a strange voice repeating my name from the intercom by the door. “Last call, Way.”

“Get up, Davis.” Meredith was somewhere near in the dark, and she was in no better mood than she’d been in earlier. “Answer the damn box.”

“You do it! You’re the one with the ankle bracelet on.”

A throw pillow caught me in the side of the head.

I raced across the room for my Harrison County Penal System courtesy call.

Afterward, Meredith already fast asleep again, I drank in my free, dark, and quiet surroundings, which made me want a drink of water. I tiptoed to the kitchen, still hugging my blanket, so grateful for the luxury of drinking water close by. Bathrooms with doors. Socks. Food. Bradley’s clothes to sleep in again. At the sink, I slipped the window up an inch to breathe the uncarcerated air.

It was a bright, clear, beautiful night. I could see fourteen billion stars. I turned, wrapping the blanket tighter, and quietly stepped out onto the lanai, because I wanted a whole lot more of the free air, and I wanted to see the moon’s promise twinkling across the water.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” the dark wicker lanai sofa asked.

I barely heard him.

I turned slowly. “Are you not
freezing
?”

“I could use another blanket,” he said.

“I just happen to have one.”

I heard him scoot, making room for me.

“I thought you were going to the hotel.”

“Changed my mind.”

“My father’s two feet away.”

“Then be quiet,” Bradley Cole said.

TWENTY-THREE

The trail I found led to Las Vegas, so we headed there the next morning on a Gulfstream V with the words “Grand Palace Casino” splashed across both sides, nose to tail.

“Let me get this straight.” Meredith was fit to be tied. “I sit here and answer the prison box while you go to Vegas on his private plane.”

“It’s not his, it’s his company’s. And it’s not
that
private, Meredith. There are two pilots and a chick who serves cocktails. Right, Bradley?”

Bradley agreed. “But we get the cabin to ourselves.”

My father’s eyebrows shot up.

“Lovely.” Meredith’s mouth was one thin line. Her eyes were slits. When her hands balled up into fists, I took a giant step back. “You kids have fun while I just sit here.” Meredith, tapping a foot, gave me the stink eye, then turned it on Bradley, then Daddy, and then me again.

“Keep the blonde wig close by in case they show up to arrest me,” I said.

“And what do I do then, Davis? Go to prison for you? A foot too tall and in a blonde wig?”

“If it gets to that,” I suggested, “make sure they put you in solitary. There’s a really nice girl there.”

“Oh. For. God’s. Sake.”

“Mother and Riley will be here soon, Meredith!” I called out to my retreating sister.

“Yeah, Davis?” She spun. “Well, you’d better scoot.”

I turned to Bradley. “Do you have a brother?”

“I think if I did, you’d already know. Why?”

“She needs a boyfriend.”

Meredith, it would seem, had something else to say, because she was only in the kitchen for thirty seconds before she stomped back in to the living room. “You know what, Davis? This is about Eddie.”

“Now, Meredith,” our father interrupted.

“It’s always about Eddie,” Meredith stabbed a finger my way. “You and Eddie.”

I took a deep breath. “Meredith,” I said calmly. “It’s not. If I don’t find Bianca Sanders, I go back to jail. It has nothing to do with him.”

Meredith hmmmph’d.

She stomped out again, and I mouthed
boyfriend
to Bradley.

Bradley’s eyes smiled.

“Sweet Pea?”

Daddy was in the middle of the sofa, my research in mountains everywhere: on the coffee table in front of him, on the cushions to his left and right, and in the floor at his feet. He looked so good, so whole. If I could ignore the pharmaceutical sampler platter he inhaled every few hours, or the way he favored his left leg, or that his right hand absentmindedly explored what had to be the raging scar beneath his cardigan sweater, I wouldn’t know what he’d been through.

“What’s the connection between the secretary, Natalie, and the deceased, Paul Bergman?”

“The connection?” I scratched at the long, brunette wig I was sporting. “None that I know of. Other than she’s missing. And he
was
missing. Why?”

Daddy looked up. “They have a lot of history,” he said. “Too much.”

Bradley and I looked at each other. I’m sure we were thinking the same thing: Any minute, poor Natalie’s body was going to turn up and poor me would be the number one suspect. Who in hell was
shooting
everyone?

“We’d better hurry,” Bradley hefted our bags.

*    *    *

“Gorgeous plane,” I said.

“Yeah,” he replied, “gamblers, you know? Only the best for the whales.”

“Right.” I fidgeted. I let two long seconds elapse. “Do you fly in it often?”

“Not often enough.”

We admired the roomy cabin, outfitted like a luxury den with sofas, mahogany side tables, and swiveling leather recliners.

“So just every once in a while?” I asked.

“A lot here lately.”

I bobbed my head. Smiled.

“And this same run, too,” he added. “Biloxi, Vegas.”

I smiled.

“Vegas, Biloxi.” His voice trailed off.

I smiled.

“How about something to drink, Davis?”

“I’m good.” I looked out the window at retreating Biloxi. “Thanks, though.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Nice weather, huh?” I asked.

“Really mild for this time of year.”

Three seconds crawled by.

“Your sister,” he said. “She’s a little irritated.”

“Boy, I’ll say.” I tried to laugh, but it came out sideways.

We were naked over all of Louisiana and Texas.

We woke as the landing gear ground from below the leather recliner we were asleep in.

*    *    *

“This can’t be right.” We were in a Grand Palace limo.

Bradley was zipping. “Davis, there’s not one single thing right about this.”

“I wasn’t speaking to issues of attorneys and clients and privileges,” I said. “I meant this far from town. Why would they be here?” I asked, eyeing the wig stuffed in my purse that I would soon have to don. “Why wouldn’t they be in Vegas at one of the Casimiro’s casinos?”

“We don’t know that Bianca and Eddie are here,” Bradley said. “We only know that a Bellissimo credit card was swiped here.”

We’d asked the driver to take us to Wild Bill’s, a place neither of us had even heard of, closed the privacy screen, and I’m not sure what all happened next. Now we were forty miles west of Las Vegas proper near the California line, in Primm, Nevada.

Bradley picked up a phone to talk to the driver half a block away. This thing was the size of a school bus, and we’d covered every inch of it.

“We’re going to need to find a restaurant or a strip mall to park behind.” He looked out the window as he talked to the driver. “We’re a little too conspicuous.”

Bradley listened.

“Right. Wild Bill’s. But don’t pull up to the door.”

We hiked through tall weeds across an empty lot, zigzagged across four lanes of traffic, then traded natural light and breathable air for casino clamor, stale smoke, and plus-sized waitresses, all on the elderly side, all wearing very skimpy uniforms.

“Wow,” I said. “This place needs an image consultant.”

Our hands were still hooked by pinkie fingers.

“Let’s look around,” Bradley suggested. “See what brought them here.”

The casino floor wasn’t all that big, and the appeal of this particular destination didn’t take long to find.

“I’ll be damned,” I said.

“What?”

“Look.” My arm shot out to point to the bank of Double Whammy Deuces Wild hundred-dollar progressives.

There were nine video poker machines in a recessed hall that led straight to the restrooms, exactly where everyone wants to gamble. The tops of the machines were littered with diluted drinks, balled-up napkins, and empty glasses-slash-ashtrays. The second machine from the left was dark and had yellow out-of-order tape in an X across the screen.

Just then, a heavily bearded man exited the men’s room, tugging on the dark blue jumpsuit he wore. His Wild Bill’s identification hung from around his neck. He was cut through the middle by a tool belt so heavy with hardware that he sounded like Christmas. Bradley stopped him.

“Excuse me.”

The guy turned. His eyes were so bloodshot they made mine hurt.

“When will this machine be repaired?” Bradley threw a thumb.

The guy snorted. “I just answered that same question.” He smoothed his moustache with a greasy thumb and index finger. “These things don’t get played twice a year,” he said, “and now two people asking.” A two-way radio hidden somewhere between the jackhammers on his belt squawked. “There’s a guy coming tomorrow. Says he is, anyway.” Without another word, he jangled off.

Bradley and I looked at each other.

“Let’s go snoop at the front desk,” I said.

“Good idea.”

Bradley slowly pushed a one-hundred dollar bill toward the desk clerk. “No,” he said, “I don’t need a room, but I could use your help.”

The woman smiled as she tucked the Ben in her vest pocket. “Whatcha need?”

“Just a little information about one of your guests.”

She perched her fingers over the keyboard in front of her.

“Bianca Sanders,” Bradley said.

Tap, tap, tap.

“I have a B. Sanders. Checked in Tuesday,” the woman said.

Three days ago, and it took a little mental computation on my part to get there. In the past forty-eight hours I’d been in jail, in court, a blonde, a redhead, reunited with my father, and my year-long dry spell had ended multiple times. If anyone asked me what time zone we were in, I’d probably say July.

After a long pause, Bradley asked, “And?”

“That’s all I know.” The clerk crossed her arms atop her flat chest and smiled.

Bradley pulled another hundred out of his wallet.

“And nothing,” the woman said, without looking at the screen again. “No room service, no restaurant charges, no mini bar, no movies, no phone fees, no casino play.”

“What room number?” Bradley asked.

The woman seemed to be weighing the pros and cons of violating such a universal rule of hotelery, and Bradley cracking leather again turned out to be in the pro column.

“Sixteen-sixty,” she said.

The housekeeper on the sixteenth floor, naturally, didn’t speak a word of English, but lucky for us, Bradley had a seemingly endless supply of hundred-dollar bills, and he spoke Spanish.

“Mandarin Chinese, too,” he smiled.

“Wow.” I was impressed. Of course I was impressed with Bradley Cole before I knew he spoke Swahili and Spanish. Hell, I was impressed with Bradley Cole before I met him. I was so impressed with him at the moment, I could barely walk.

He and the housekeeper had a little chat: enchilada, burrito, Si Senor, Feliz Navidad. The translation was that the room hadn’t been touched. Another hundred from Bradley’s wallet and then it was touched. By us.

“They’re not here.”

“How do you know?” Bradley asked.

“I just do,” I said. “No one’s been here.”

His head was in the closet. “Someone’s been here.”

I walked from the bathroom to the closet and looked in.

“I know that bag,” I said.

It was a teal-blue canvas duffel with caramel leather trim.

I used a tissue from the box in the bathroom to unzip it, revealing a neatly folded stack of women’s clothes, the perfume of which sent me staggering backwards. The bed caught me. It all fell so neatly into place it would have knocked me down had I not been there already.

“I see boots,” Bradley was poking through the bag.

“Brown leather boots.”

Bradley turned to me. “Yes.”

“Size six.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Do you want me to look?”

“You don’t need to.”

*    *    *

Bradley had a huge corporation behind him, and that meant a residential suite at the Grand Palace overlooking the Las Vegas Strip (pretty from afar, nasty up close).

“Nice.” I fell backwards into the middle of the bed for a second time in as many hours. “A far cry from Wild Bill’s.”

Bradley’s gaze went from me, stretched across the bed, to the phone, blinking red on the desk. Then back to me. Then back to the phone. “Those calls are probably from Biloxi,” he said, “and they’re probably about you.”