Lethal People: A Donovan Creed Crime Novel (23 page)

“And you couldn’t catch her? Skinny little girl like that?”

“Runs like Callie,” he said.

“No one runs like Callie,” I said. “But I get the picture.”

Quinn said, “Last time I saw her, she was passing a Krispy Kreme Donut shop. Then I heard the blast and ran back.”

“What was that, two blocks? You call that a run?”

“Hey, you’re my size, two blocks is an Olympic event.”

“So Coop the driver followed the beeps, and we’ve got the address where she stopped,” I said, patting myself on the back for placing the tracking device in her purse.

“Might take us a while to get there,” Quinn said.

He was right. In fact, it took an hour to get the car and another twenty minutes to fight the tra
ffi
c. Finally, after what seemed like forever, we spotted the miniscule split-level ranch with the peeling yellow paint on Vista Creek Drive to which Coop had tracked Jenine. Coop had parked his car a block away from the house, so we had our driver park a block beyond that. Then we signaled Coop and waited for him to return the signal. He didn’t, which meant either he was sleeping or …

He was dead. We knew it the minute we saw the bullet hole in the driver’s window. Coop had been shot from the blind side, just behind his left ear. His head hung down, his chin resting on his sternum. His blood was everywhere. Quinn opened the driver’s side door and lifted Coop’s head.

“What’s that in the bullet hole?” he asked.

I hated putting my face that close to poor Coop’s, but Quinn was right; there was something protruding from the bullet hole. It turned out to be the tracking device I had placed in Jenine’s purse.

Quinn backed out of the car, stretched to his full height, and looked at the house. “Any guess what we’ll find in there?”

“Jenine’s body,” I said.

Quinn gestured toward Coop and said, “Good thing our limo driver didn’t see this. Might have spooked him.”

“Ya think?” I said.

“I think you picked up that expression from the new girl, Kathleen.”

“I think you’re right.”

CHAPTER 28

W
e entered the house and quickly found two bodies wrapped in thick plastic. Both were attractive young women, one being Jenine. The other girl seemed vaguely familiar. She could have been anyone, but with two bedrooms in the house, my money was on her being Jenine’s roommate.

What we couldn’t find in the house was anything else.

No furniture, dishes, pots, pans, or silverware. No mops, brooms, cleaning supplies, paper cups, toilet paper. No computers, printers, phones, photographs, or paper of any kind. It was mindboggling. To rid an entire house of so much evidence in such a short period of time—even a small house like Jenine’s—would require a large, experienced crew. These guys were consummate pros. One or more hit men had killed three people while a full crew of crime scene cleaners waited in the wings.

In the refrigerator, there were two unopened bottles of water.

“For us?” asked Quinn.

“Apparently,” I said.

Quinn started to reach for one. “You think they’re poisoned?”

“I do.”

“What do we do now?” Quinn asked. “Talk to the neighbors?”

I didn’t think so. Surely someone spotted the dead driver before we did. They’d have called the cops. Fortunately for us, most of the police were either at the hotel or heading there. Whoever they could spare to check on our dead driver was probably on their way but likely stuck in tra
ffi
c. Still, I figured we didn’t have much time.

“You got a laptop in your luggage?” I asked.

“I do.”

“Let’s get out of here and drive somewhere we can get Wi-Fi.”

“What about the water?” Quinn asked. “Should we leave them for the cops?”

“There won’t be any prints on them. On the other hand, some rookie’s liable to get killed drinking one.” We opened them and poured the water down the sink and took the bottles with us to the car.

When we got to Starbucks, Quinn remained with the driver and I took his cell phone and laptop inside. My first objective was to access the Web site where I’d discovered Jenine’s ad. I remembered seeing lots of girls on the site, and hopefully some were local. If so, I intended to contact them and see if they knew Jenine. Best case scenario, someone might give me a lead to follow.

There were two locals on the site, Star and Paige. Star wouldn’t be talking, since I recognized her as the other dead girl in Jenine’s house.

I called Paige and got her answering service. I left a message to return my call as soon as possible. Then I left the co
ff
ee shop and climbed into the front seat and waited. I looked at Quinn and tried not to smile. Times like these—his huge form crammed into the back seat, knees bent, head bowed, shoulders hunched—made me realize the e
ff
ort it took just to be him. He was so large he could barely fi t in the back seat of the town car.

“You did a good job at the hotel today,” I said. “Probably saved a half-dozen people.”

Quinn shrugged. “I was on the clock.”

In time, we would learn that local hospital personnel labored for days to service the injured, and many of the bodies they received were charred beyond identification. The initial death toll was one hundred and eleven, but within a week the final count turned north of a buck fifty.

The phone rang, and I answered it.

“This is Paige,” she said.

“You sound gorgeous,” I said.

She laughed. “Maybe we should stick to the phone then, just in case.”

“Not a chance. I’ve already seen your picture.”

“Ah,” she said. “So what did you have in mind?”

“I was hoping we could meet for a cup of co
ff
ee, maybe chat awhile, get to know each other. If we’re compatible, we can take it from there.”

“My standard donation is five hundred dollars an hour.”

“I’ll double that if you can get here within the hour.”

“Don’t be o
ff
ended,” she said, “but are you a
ffi
liated in any way with law enforcement?”

“I’m not. Are you?”

She laughed. “No, but I played a sexy meter maid in a high school play a few years back.”

“That might be fun to reenact some time,” I said, trying to guess where she might be heading with the comment. I wondered if her other clients sounded this retarded.

“I still have the costume, so maybe we can talk about it when I get there,” she purred. “You’re fun; I can tell. Where would you like to meet, and how will I recognize you when I get there?”

I told her and hung up. Then I told Quinn that Paige thought I sounded fun. He rolled his eyes.

Paige was plenty cute, but she didn’t look like an aspiring actress. She didn’t look like a hooker, either. What she looked like was a soccer mom, which, as it turned out, she was. I slipped her the envelope, and she palmed it and placed it in her purse. She excused herself and went to the restroom. When she got back, she said, “That’s way more than we agreed on. Did you want to book more time?”

“Not really,” I said. “I just wanted you to know I’m sincere.”

We talked about our kids and our divorces. She talked about how di
ff
erent grade school had become since she was a kid. “When I was in school, if I wanted to do something after school, I had to ride there on my bike,” she said. “Or I didn’t participate. My kids have it easy. They’d never believe it, but I actually used to be somebody. These days I’m a glorified taxi driver.”

“Well, I’ve probably got ten years on you,” I said. “But one thing that was di
ff
erent for me: my schools never had any moms like you!”

She winked. “Maybe they did and you didn’t know.”

I let that interesting thought fl oat around in my head a minute, but the only mom I could remember clearly from grade school was Mrs. Carmodie, Eddie’s mom—Eddie being the kid with the cherry bombs. What I remembered most about Mrs. Carmodie was she had a double-decker butt. While normal butts curve like the letter C, Mrs. Carmodie’s butt got halfway through the C, then extended several inches in a straight line like some sort of shelf before finishing the curve. The shelf on her butt was wide enough to hold two cans of soda. Yet try as I might, I couldn’t envision Eddie’s mom turning tricks during the day while we were in school.

The half hour flew by, and after we finished our co
ff
ees, I walked Paige to her car. Her silver Honda Accord had sixteen-inch Michelin tires with bolt-patterned alloy rims. She noticed the limo parked beside her.

“I wonder whose car that is,” she said. “You think it’s someone famous?”

“It’s mine, actually.”

“No way!”

“Want to peek inside?”

She did, and when she did, Quinn grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her onto the seat. I followed her in and pulled the door shut behind me. Paige was breathing rapidly, and her heart was probably beating as fast as a frightened rabbit, but she knew better than to scream.

“Where’s the driver?” I asked.

“When you went in, I told him to take a walk and come back in an hour.”

That left us a half hour to find out what Paige knew. Turns out, we only needed five minutes to learn something that hit me like a left hook to the liver.

CHAPTER 29

“
A
ll of us had to share details about our customers with a man named Grasso,” Paige said.

“By ‘all of us’ you mean?”

“The local girls, the ones they consider hot.”

“Jenine would obviously qualify.”

“Yes. She’s one of the faves.”

“What can you tell me about Grasso?”

“Not too much. He works for a major gangster. I don’t want to say who.”

I peeled o
ff
another grand and placed it in her hand. She looked into my eyes. “You didn’t get this from me.”

“Of course.”

She whispered, “Joseph DeMeo.” Then she said, “Please, mister, keep me out of this. I’ve got kids.”

“I will,” I said, “but you’ve got to find another line of work. You’re not safe doing this. We won’t repeat anything you told us, but DeMeo knows you’re friends with Jenine and Star, and they’re gone now. You’ve got to get your kids and get the hell out of town. DeMeo won’t leave any loose ends. Do you understand?”