Red Roses in Las Vegas (4 page)

The next morning, I was sleeping off my late shift when my phone rang.

“Tiffany,” said Nanna, sounding serious, “I need your help.”

The sleepiness slid off me immediately. My eyes opened wider, and I pushed myself up into a sitting position. “What’s going on?”

I’d come home to my tiny, off-Strip condo just a few hours ago, and had fallen asleep within minutes. But now I was bright-eyed and alert as I listened to Nanna.

She said, “They arrested me yesterday evening, after you left. But Rupert let my lawyer come along and bail me out immediately.”

I let it sink in for a minute. “They arrested you?”

“Yes, they think I killed Adam Bitzer.”

“That’s crazy!” Nanna was silent on the other end of the line, and I said, “Why would they think that?”

“I don’t know.”

“And you’re out on bail now?”

“Yes, my lawyer bailed me out straight away. But he might not be able to do that, next time.”

Her voice sounded small and far away, and I said, “There won’t be a next time.” My voice sounded harsher than I’d intended, so I took a deep breath. “Why?”

“Rupert said he was really sorry, but I’m the chief suspect. No alibi, motive, and apparently anyone can get a gun. They searched the house.”

“Did they find anything?”

“No, but your mother’s been vacuuming since the moment they left.”

I smiled for a moment.

Nanna continued. “My lawyer says to plead self-defense.”

“He sounds like an idiot.”

“No. He says they’ve got no other suspects, that’s why I’m it.”

I believed that. I expected Rupert – Elwood – would be too scared of his aunt to arrest Nanna otherwise.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I told Nanna. “Maybe I’ll stop by the house later.”

We hung up, and I looked down at my phone. I needed to think, and I needed food. I helped myself to a breakfast cupcake and coffee, but the mists in my brain refused to clear out. I took a long shower, cleaned out my bathroom, and thought about doing laundry, but none of those things helped me figure out what to do. I needed to talk to someone, I decided, and was just about to head downstairs when there was a knock on the door.

“What’re you doing here?” I stared out at Nanna, and then glanced at Stone, who was standing beside her.

“Is this any way to greet your nanna?” she asked, pushing her way past me and entering the condo. She made a big show of wrinkling her nose and said, “Peuh! No wonder you don’t invite us over!”

“I was just about to vacuum,” I said, glancing around. The place wasn’t really mess – sure, there was some junk piled up on the coffee table, and I could see some of my dark brown hairs standing out against the lighter carpet, waiting to be sucked up by the vacuum, but by my standards it was pretty decent. “Come in,” I said to Stone, and indicated the sofa. “What’re you two doing together?”

I glanced from Nanna to Stone suspiciously. They’re not the most usual of couples – Nanna is short, thin and wrinkled, with sweet blue eyes and thinning white hair; Stone is an ex-Special Forces guy, with a tall, muscular physique and dark brooding eyes. Nanna was wearing a paisley-print dress, and Stone was wearing his constant uniform of crisp white shirt, dark jeans, and freakishly shiny black dress shoes.

Stone’s dark eyes twinkled with amusement as he sat down on the couch, and I felt my eyebrows start to knit together. The two them being together couldn’t possibly be a good thing. Stone hardly ever shows any emotions, and that look of amusement was extremely suspect: Nanna had probably just been telling him embarrassing stories about me.

“Why are you both here?” I repeated, glancing from Stone to Nanna and back again. “Has she been telling you stuff about me? Don’t believe anything she says when I’m not there.”

“Tiffany!” said Nanna. “What kind of talk is that, about your own nanna, when I’m standing right here? Are you calling me a liar?”

“Hmm.” I looked at her suspiciously. I wouldn’t put much beyond her.

“Of course we weren’t talking about you,” Nanna said, winking broadly at Stone.

A hint of a smile was emerging on Stone’s face, making the corners of his mouth twitch, and I groaned. “What’re you doing here, anyway?” I asked Nanna.

“Things at your parents’ were getting a bit uncomfortable,” she said. “Your mother keeps crying and talking about me going to jail for the rest of my life and people who threaten financial advisors. She’s all doom and gloom. And, on top of that, we’re getting all these ‘concerned’ phone calls from her friends, and I don’t need to talk to them. I’m going to stay here tonight.”

I looked at Stone. The smile hadn’t quite appeared on his face, but he still looked amused. I glanced down and noticed, for the first time, the massive duffel bag by his feet.

“Is that yours?” I asked Nanna, and she nodded.

“I brought along my laptop, because I know yours takes two hours to start up.”

I started to protest, but then I stopped. She was right.

“You gave her a lift?” I asked Stone, who nodded. “I hope it wasn’t too much trouble?”

“I was in the area,” he said lightly. I didn’t quite believe him, but it was nice to see him again.

“I thought you were overseas or something?”

“Job ended early. Got back this morning.”

I looked at him doubtfully. That was the most I’ve ever heard of him talk about work. I don’t know much beyond that
Stone runs a security company. I don’t want to know, either – for all I know, he might be a government-contracted hitman. He certainly knows the right people for that job, and he looks like one, too. Not that I’ve met a government-contracted hitman before, it’s just that I assume they’d be like Stone – strong, silent and potentially deadly.

Nanna was rifling through my fridge. “This is terrible. There’s nothing in here, how can you live like this?”

I shrugged. Takeout, McDonalds, and casino food, mainly. Supplemented by my friend Glenn’s cupcakes.

“I’m going to go shopping,” Nanna declared. “You need some decent food. You can’t just survive on peanut butter and pickles.”

“Sure I can. You mean
you
can’t.”

Nanna frowned at me and was about to say something, when I interrupted. “What’re you doing going through my fridge, anyway? Don’t you have better things to worry about?” She gave me a blank look, and I spoke slowly. “Like being accused of murder?”

Nanna laughed. “Of course not. I’m not worried about that. Now that I know you’re on the case, I can sleep easy. You’ll find out who did it, lickety-spit, and then I can go back to my poker playing.”

I sat down on the chair opposite my sofa and put my head in my heads. “I can’t believe this. Do you not understand how serious this is?”

“Pshaw,” said Nanna. “I didn’t do it, so why should I worry? I know you’re a really good PI and you’ll find the real murderer in no time.”

I looked up at her in despair. Nanna stared back at me sweetly, her good-natured face full of hope and faith. It worried me just how much she believed in me, so I looked at Stone instead. He was looking at me seriously now, and he seemed to understand how I felt.

“I’m not that good,” I said to Nanna. “What if I fail?”

“You won’t fail,” she said. “And besides, even if you do, I’ll go on trial, and then the jury’ll see what a sweet little old lady I am, and they’ll let me off.”

“The cops didn’t think you were a sweet little old lady.”

Nanna made a derisive noise. “Cops. What do they know? Not much, let me tell you. Besides, you won’t fail. You’ll find the real murderer, like you’ve always done.”

“Right. Like in the two whole cases I’ve solved before.” Nanna started to look a little worried, and I sighed. I didn’t like it when she was complacent and rummaging through my food, but I hated it when she was worried. So I said, “Never mind. I’ll find out who did it. You can relax. You won’t go on trial because someone else will.”

“That’s my girl!” said Nanna. “I knew I could count on you.”

I looked at Stone and thought I caught a glimmer of sympathy in his dark, piercing eyes.

“What’re your plans for right now?” he said.

I was about to answer him when my phone rang. 

“Emily,” I said, answering the phone in a rush of relief. “I was just going to call you.”

“I thought so,” she said. “I heard about your nanna.”

“Are you at work?”

“Nope, I have today off.”

Emily Sinclair is one of my closest friends in Vegas. We’ve known each other since before I started training to be a PI, and now that I am a PI, she’s supportive of my career, despite the fact that she’s an LVMPD detective.

“Oh, good.” I paused. “How’ve you been?”

“The usual. Busy.”

“Are you seeing anyone?” I asked.

“Nope, but I heard you went out with Jack.”

“Who told you?”

“Elwood.”

“Right.”

“Heard it didn’t go so well,” she said.

“Yeah. I guess you could say that.”

There was an awkward pause, as I tried to figure out how to ask Emily about the investigation, but she was the one to plunge in first.

“I heard about your nanna being arrested,” she said, “But you know I can’t talk about an open case. It’s not my case, anyway.”

“I know,” I said. “I understand. But is there anything at all that you can tell me?”

There was a pause and then Emily said, “It doesn’t look good. She’s got motive, means and opportunity.”

“Motive. I get that, even though they’re totally not understanding what Nanna meant when she talked to that guy. Adam Bitzer. But means?”

“Anyone can fire a gun. Ballistics can’t match the trace with anything in our system, and we’re assuming it’s an unregistered weapon that was disposed of later.”

I sighed. Not being able to match a weapon against Nanna should’ve been a positive, but at this stage it was more like a neutral. “But what about getting into the building?”

“Adam buzzed someone in a couple of minutes before his death.”

“And you think it was Nanna.”

“It was someone he knew and wasn’t scared of.”

“Hang on, aren’t you saying he was scared of Nanna?”

“You know what I mean. Not physically scared.”

“Right. And that brings us to opportunity.”

“Exactly.”

I frowned and thought over her words. What she’d just told me wasn’t much help, but still. At least now I knew where we stood. It was a start. “Thanks for telling me all this,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”

“That’s ok. Besides, the press’ll probably grab hold of this information pretty soon anyway, so… as long as you don’t snitch to anyone, we should be ok.”

Emily had only met Nanna once or twice and,, although she was downplaying her help, I knew this kind of stuff could put a cop’s job on the line. Despite that, I pressed on.

“What about suspects?” I asked. “Surely there must be a better suspect than a sweet old lady like Nanna?”

“No. I’m afraid not. Adam had no real enemies, and there wasn’t anything much going on in his life.”

I sighed. “I guess that’s good to know. Thanks again.”

She brushed off my gratitude gruffly, and we decided to meet for drinks in a few days’ time. Under normal circumstances, I would’ve spent some time chatting about my date with Jack, but I just didn’t feel like talking about anything else right now, and Emily understood.

“Good luck with your investigation,” she said, as she hung up.

Right, I thought. My investigation. So far I’d learnt that Nanna was the chief suspect, there were no other real suspects, and Adam had no enemies. It didn’t look very promising, but I had to get to work and try to find something useful.

Stone and Nanna had been watching me during my entire conversation with Emily, and now both of them were staring at me impassively.

“I never had this conversation,” I told them, and they nodded. “It’s pretty serious, you know,” I added to Nanna.

“You sound just like your mother,” said Nanna. “She keeps saying stuff like, ‘This is what happens when you go around threatening people.’ How was I supposed to know that the loser was going to get himself offed?”

I looked at her doubtfully and said, “Best not to talk about the guy like that. And since when do you talk about people getting ‘offed?’”

“You learn things. That’s what you call it, right? My friend Steven used to work for the – ” she jerked her head sideways twice, “as an enforcer, until he had his first heart attack. Still has connections.”

“La, la, la.” I covered my ears with my hands. “I’m not hearing any of this. La, la, la.”

I closed my eyes and wondered just how long Nanna intended to stay at my place. At least the duffel bag wasn’t big – but then again, I’d heard of people who went travelling through Europe for months on end with just a tiny backpack. Maybe Nanna was like one of those people, and she could survive for eons at my place, with just a stiff old purse, some paisley-print dresses and a fast laptop.

There was a knock on the door and I sighed, knowing who it would be.

“Hey!” said Ian, when I opened the door. He peered around me and caught sight of Nanna and Stone. “Everyone’s here! Cool!”

He stepped inside and stood in front of the sofa.

Nanna closed the fridge and turned around. “Hello, Ian. It’s nice to see you again.”

“Thanks.” He beamed, and I rolled my eyes. Most people probably weren’t very happy to see Ian after the first few times.

Ian glanced at me. “I was wondering if you’d like to go out for lunch?” His enthusiasm waned a little and he glanced doubtfully back at Nanna. “Unless you brought food with you or something.”

“No,” said Nanna. “Lunch sounds like a wonderful idea. Tiffany’s got nothing in her fridge.”

She shot me a disapproving look and I smiled. “You’re welcome.”

“Great,” said Ian. “Where’re we going?”

“McDonald’s,” I said decisively. I could really do with a Quarter Pounder.

I was half-expecting Nanna to offer up a different, more grown-up choice, but to my surprise, she said, “That sounds lovely. I’ll stop at Albertson’s on the way home and pick up something for dinner.”

I felt a pang of guilt and said, “Actually, I’ve got a shift tonight, so my dinner’s covered.”

“Right,” said Nanna. “I’ll dine solo, then.” She looked at Ian. “Unless you’d like to join me?”

“Sure,” said Ian. “I’d love to.”

We all looked at Stone, but he shook his head slowly. “Sorry. I’ve got work tonight.”

“Oh.” Ian sounded a bit disappointed and turned to Nanna. “Do you have a grocery list for Albertson’s? Maybe I should get something for myself, too.”

“I’ll decide when we get there,” said Nanna. “Tiffany can help me choose.”

“Actually,” said Stone. “I was hoping Tiffany could come with me after lunch.”

I looked at him and groaned. “Do I have to? I don’t want to be late for my shift.”

“Bring your uniform,” he said. “I can drop you off at The Treasury and you can change there.”

I sighed. “But I never carry my gun. What’s the point of going to the gun range?”

“Practice,” said Stone. “You never know when you’ll need to shoot.”

“Hopefully never,” I said. I hated going to the range alone, so I should’ve been happy that Stone was dragging me along with him, but I just didn’t see the point. “How’re Nanna and Ian going to get back home?”

“I can drive,” Ian piped up. “My car’s just been washed and everything.”

I looked at him and sighed. Ian had a Ford Fusion and he hardly ever drove – which was a good thing, because he saved lives every day by not driving. I looked at Nanna and she said, “That sounds perfect!”

“Don’t drive too crazy,” I told Ian, and went to pack up my uniform before we all trooped out for a greasy, calorie-laden meal.