Smoke and Mirrors - Hollywood Knights One (11 page)

“Good luck,” she told me.

“Thank you. And thank you again for your help. I’ll
let you know what happens, if I can.”

She nodded once more, and then I left.

At the office, I pulled up a couple of the databases
I used in my investigations. Primary searches using Sarah’s
information didn’t turn up anything, which was a little strange. I
dug deeper and deeper, and what I found confused the hell out of
me…until a little light went on in my head: Sarah Matthews didn’t
exist. She was a phantasm. An illusion. Smoke and mirrors.

I sat back in my chair, my mind whirling. Everything
made sense now. But where did it leave me?

“Lost,” I said aloud and sighed.

I grabbed my phone and thumbed through the pictures
I’d taken of Sarah’s file, wondering if there was any truth
anywhere in it. Her work history? Her high school? A lot of
prospective employers wouldn’t check too closely into those things.
Maybe there was a nugget of truth hidden beneath the lies. Sorting
through it all was my next logical step.

I made a list of Sarah’s former employers and
verified their phone numbers. I also made a note of the high school
she had listed and found a phone number for them. The calls would
have to wait for morning. There was nothing more I could do for the
night, so I shut down the computer, locked up the office, and
headed home to sleep.

Chapter Twenty-Three

There are a lot of groovy employment laws in the
U.S. that are designed to protect people from getting screwed over
by former employers who might happen to be holding a grudge for one
reason or another. For the most part, those laws are a very good
thing. But when you’re an investigator and you’re trying to get
former employers to talk to you, those same laws become one hell of
a nuisance.

I struck out completely with most of the employers
and references that Sarah had listed on her application. Some had
no working number, but the ones I did reach seemed reluctant to
tell me much of anything beyond the fact that they didn’t have any
record of a Sarah Matthews ever working for their companies. A nice
lady at one of the businesses was kind enough to point me toward
the woman who had managed the store when Sarah supposedly worked
there but had since moved on. I tried to call the woman, Carla, at
work, but she had the day off. The man I spoke to promised to have
her get in touch with me, but I knew I’d be calling again.

Despite Paul’s desire to keep the authorities out of
the Sarah situation, I needed my favorite sounding board. I called
my buddy Erica at the FBI

“I have a hypothetical situation for you,” I told
her.

“Hypothetical,” she repeated. “Right.”

I knew she didn’t believe me, but it didn’t matter.
I told her what I’d found.

“Sounds like you found yourself an identity thief,”
she said.

“Hypothetically.”

“Hypothetically.”

We were both quiet for a minute and then Erica said,
“You should probably turn this over to me, Jen.”

“Turn over what?” I asked, feigning innocence.

“Jen.” She sighed. “Give me the hypothetical fake
social and I’ll see if it hypothetically matches anything. If it
does, then this is a federal case.”

“Fair enough.”

I gave her the pertinent information and then we
shot the breeze for a little bit, catching up on some of the things
we hadn’t shared in emails or on the social networks.

“You’re living with Seth?” she asked. “Is that a
good idea?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Because you’ve had a thing for him since you were
in high school, that’s why.”

“That was a long time ago,” I told her, but I
couldn’t help remembering the night he’d taken his flirting a
little too far— and how I had half wanted him to take it even
farther. I sighed and then added, “He’s never home. It’s fine.”

I could hear the grin in Erica’s voice when she
asked, “But what happens when he’s not touring?”

“Then I’ll find a bodyguard gig on the other side of
the world somewhere. It’ll be fine.”

Erica laughed. Then she said, “Hold on.” I heard
muffled voices and when she came back on the line she said, “Gotta
go. Call me soon?”

“Soon. Promise.”

We hung up and I leaned back in my office chair,
tilting it so that I was more or less looking at the ceiling. Paul
wouldn’t be happy if his ex-squeeze ended up in the penitentiary,
but I knew better than to try to pull one over on the FBI in
general and Erica in particular. If it turned out that the social
on Sarah’s paperwork belonged to someone else, this was going to be
out of my hands. But if it wasn’t, I still had a missing person to
find.

Again, I went over the little information I had,
making sure I hadn’t missed anything that might steer me in the
right direction. I hadn’t. That done, I returned a couple of phone
calls to prospective clients and lined up another easy but
time-consuming gig. The man wanted to know who his wife was
schtupping. Surveillance gigs suck, but the money’s good, and it
would give me something to do while I tried to sort out the puzzle
that was Sarah Matthews.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The next day, I met with the guy who wanted me to
catch his wife doing the hokey-pokey. Mr. Haverty was a
good-looking guy and he seemed nice enough. I wasn’t sure why his
wife would want to cheat on him, to be honest, but that didn’t
matter so much. My job wasn’t to pass judgment; it was to find
facts.

Mr. Haverty gave me a couple of photos of his wife,
the license number of her car, their home address, her work address
and schedule, and my retainer. Since it was only mid-morning, I
started my surveillance as soon as he left, hurrying over to Mrs.
Haverty’s office to watch where she went on her lunch hour.

Mrs. Haverty left with three other women at
lunchtime. I followed them to a trendy café and watched from across
the street while they ate salads and drank gourmet mineral water.
Then I followed them back to the office. Several hours later, I
trailed Mrs. Haverty home, waiting down the street until I watched
her walk inside. Mr. Haverty’s car was in the garage, so there was
no point in my hanging around. If she went anywhere later in the
evening, he would text me and let me know.

Starving and bleary-eyed, I wandered into Seth’s
house. Twenty minutes later, after I’d scrounged food and changed
into pajamas, I curled up on the sofa with my phone to see if
anyone interesting had called and to keep an eye out for texts from
Mr. Haverty.

“Well, fuck!” I said as I listened to my voice mail
messages.

Carla had called, and I had missed it. On the off
chance that she might be working late, I called her back.

“Denning’s, this is Carla,” a brisk voice
answered.

“Carla, this is Jenny Marshall.”

“The investigator,” she said at once. “What can I do
for you Ms. Marshall?”

I explained that I was looking for a missing person
who had claimed to work for her at her old job.

“I don’t remember any Sarah, and I’m very good with
names,” she told me.

“How are you with faces?” I asked. “If I were to
email you a photograph, would you remember her face? If she ever
worked for you, I mean.”

“I believe I would.”

She gave me her work email address and I sent her
the photo from my phone. Gotta love technology.

“I remember her,” she said as soon as she opened the
email, “but her name isn’t Sarah.”

“Are you sure?”

She laughed. “I’m certain. You don’t forget a girl
named ‘Layla’.”

“Layla?”

“Layla Sparks. She told me her parents named her
after the song.”

I felt a chill run down my spine. “Did she tell you
anything else about her family?”

“She didn’t talk to me much about anything other
than work. I was her boss, after all. But I know she was friendly
with a couple of the other girls.”

After a little arm-twisting, Carla gave me the names
of two women who had worked with Layla/Sarah. She didn’t have
contact information for them, but she had received a couple of
calls from businesses about them—pre-employment reference
checks.

“I’m not going to be much help with Gina. I can’t
remember who called me about her. It’s just been too long. But I do
know that Marie applied with Carlyle and Carlyle. I worked for them
once, and I put in a good word for her. She’s probably working
there now.”

I thanked Carla profusely before we hung up. I
finally had leads to track down. And maybe, just maybe, I was a few
steps closer to finding the woman calling herself Sarah
Matthews.

Chapter Twenty-Five

My initial searches for Layla Sparks turned up a
whole lot of nothing, so after I trailed Mrs. Haverty to her office
the next morning, I multi-tasked.

First, I called Carlyle and Carlyle. Sarah’s former
co-worker, Marie, had indeed landed a job with them. Once I
explained the situation to the receptionist, she promised to have
Marie call me. Within half an hour, Marie called back, and we made
plans to meet in San Diego the next day. I wasn’t sure where that
would leave the Haverty case, but I’d deal with that when the time
came.

Again I followed Mrs. Haverty and her coworkers when
they left for lunch. Again, they did nothing interesting and
returned directly to work from the restaurant they’d chosen. I took
a minute to grab a bottle of water and use the facilities at a
nearby service station and then went back to waiting.

Just when I thought I might die of boredom, my cell
rang.

“Hey, Lori,” I answered.

“Where are you? I’m at Seth’s, and you’re not
there.”

“I’m in Rancho, hon. What’s wrong?”

I heard Lori take a deep breath and let it out
slowly. “It’s kind of a geographic thing,” she said.

“Had to be there, huh?”

“Pretty much.” There was silence for a minute, and
then she said, “Actually, no. It’s just something you need to see.
I’ll send it to your phone.”

“Okay.” Just then, Mrs. Haverty stepped through the
front doors of her building. “Shit. I gotta go. I’ll call you
later.”

I ended the call and tossed the phone into the
passenger seat then strapped myself in and prepared to follow Mrs.
Haverty. I expected her to turn toward the parking garage across
the street, where she’d left her car that morning. Instead, she
moved to the curb and climbed into a car that was waiting there. I
grabbed a pen from my console and scrawled the license plate number
on my arm. Then I followed the car.

We drove out of Rancho Cucamonga and into one of the
neighboring ‘burbs. First, we took a scenic tour of a whole bunch
of nothing, and then we meandered into a nice, quiet, neighborhood
that boasted a mix of commercial and residential property.

The car turned into a parking lot, forcing me to
either keep driving or give myself away. I kept driving, crossing
the intersection so I could pull into a parking lot across the
street. I slammed my car into park and reached for my camera.
Through the zoom lens, I watched Mrs. Haverty climb out of the
passenger seat. A woman about her same age got out from behind the
steering wheel. Together then crossed the smallish parking lot and
went through the front doors of a nondescript building.

Still looking through the zoom, I made a quick scan
of the property. When I found the small sign with the business’s
name, I barked out a surprised laugh. The mystery had just
deepened, and I had no choice but to go into the building to find
out more.

Stashing the camera, I zipped back across the street
and parked a short ways away from the car I had followed. Steeling
myself, I strode across the lot and through the front doors of the
SB Fertility Clinic.

I stepped inside just in time to see Mrs. Haverty
signing in at the front window. Once she’d done that, exchanging
small talk with the nurse behind the window like they were old
friends, she crossed the waiting room to sit beside the woman who’d
driven her to the clinic.

I plopped down in an armchair and pulled out my
phone. When the nurse asked if she could help me, I told her I was
meeting a friend there, for moral support, and that I was a little
early. She didn’t look like she believed me, but she left me alone.
Stretching my legs out in front of me, I settled in to wait— and
listen. I hoped that one of the ladies in the waiting room would
confirm my suspicions so I could call Mr. Haverty and go home for a
well-deserved nap. I figured fiddling with my phone would look more
natural than just sitting there staring at nothing, so I pulled it
out and set to.

Until that moment, I’d forgotten all about Lori and
her distress. She’d sent me a website link, and when I opened that
link, I no longer had to wonder what had upset her: the link was to
one of Tangled Web’s social network pages and showed a seemingly
blissful Seth snuggled up with the tiny, raven-haired merch girl.
The blurb, written by one of his band mates, suggested that things
were getting serious between the two of them.

“Poor kid,” I muttered to myself. I knew how much it
had to sting that Seth was settling down with a twenty-something
after he’d told Lori she was too young for him to date. Hell, him
settling down with a twenty-something stung me, just on general
principle. It did make me feel a little better about my cougaristic
experience with Parker, though.

A few minutes later, I overheard what I needed from
the two ladies in the waiting room. Relieved not only to have the
case solved but to be able to get the hell out of that clinic, I
pretended to get a call and hurried outside to contact my
client.

“You wife isn’t having an affair,” I told him.
“She’s having a baby— or trying to.”

He’d been right about her hiding something, just
wrong about what. She’d decided to go behind his back to try
fertility treatments after their repeated attempts to start a
family had failed. The effect of the drugs on her hormones
explained her erratic moods and unpredictable sex drive, her
appointments explained why she wasn’t always where she said she
would be, and the fact that she had gone behind his back to get the
treatments explained her guilt.