The Ranch She Left Behind (37 page)

Tossing his jacket over his shoulder, Drake glanced across the street at the green neon sign. Last Neighborhood Bar in Las Vegas. Lots of businesses had closed during the recession, but Dino’s Lounge had stayed open, just as it had for five decades.

He decided to walk over, leave his pickup parked in its secluded spot. Later, he would head back to Topaz, and if he didn’t find his brother’s car in the lot, he’d do the question routine again. Try different employees, see if one of them might get hit with a pang of conscience and tell the truth. He’d help that pang along with a bill or two.

Because in a town like Vegas, everything had a price. Especially an honest answer.

* * *

V
AL
SAT
IN
the rental car, a Honda Civic, in the Topaz lot, watching the guy standing outside the strip club. He fit the description Marta had given her earlier: a little over six foot. Buzz cut. Wearing a suit. Before he removed the jacket, the gray two-button number had looked like something Don Draper might have worn on that TV series
Mad Men.
From the way this guy walked—carrying himself like he owned his space and some of everybody else’s, too—he had more than his share of mettle.

Marta said his name was Drake, but didn’t want to divulge his last name. Even after Val recited the confidentiality spiel she’d heard Jayne give to new clients, Marta refused. Said she had her pride. No last names. Besides, couldn’t Val do the honey trap without knowing that?

Val had agreed, partially because she wasn’t sure what else to do…and then there was the money.

Drake headed toward the street.

Time to report in. Val reached for her cell phone and punched in a number.

“What news?” Marta answered. No hello. “I am anxious.”

Join the club,
Val felt like saying. Wearing this skimpy outfit and blond wig, which she had used at her last job as a card-dealing Christina Aguilera look-alike, and sitting on her first surveillance in a rough Vegas neighborhood outside a strip joint, was nerve-racking.

But she couldn’t let on she was tense. Had to act cool, knowledgeable, as though this were her hundredth surveillance gig. After all, Marta thought she’d hired a professional, not an amateur.

“He left Topaz,” Val said, “and he’s walking toward Las Vegas Boulevard.”

“Where he park?”

“At Baker’s Service, one street over.” A guy in a retro suit driving a ‘79 Ford pickup didn’t fit Marta’s sleek designer style. Val guessed they were one of those opposites-attract relationships.

“Baker’s,” Marta repeated.

“It’s an appliance store.”

After she observed him walking into Topaz, Val had circled the block and found the pickup parked in front of the store. The business was closed, its lot dark, and he’d taken the extra precaution to position it behind some palm trees.

After parking a short way down the block, she had walked back to the truck, a faded brown-and-gold two-tone with rusted chrome strips, and pointed her miniature flashlight into the bed, where she spied a toolbox, tarp, several chew toys and a small doggie bed. Next, she perched herself on the metal step below the driver’s door—not easy in high heels—and pointed the light at the front seat. A closed notebook and coffee-stained foam cup were on the ripped vinyl seat. A video camera lay on the floorboard.

“How long he at club?” Marta asked.

“Forty minutes. Now he’s crossing the street…there’s only one bar over there, so that must be where he’s going.”

“You go to this bar.”

Val looked at her outfit. The skimpy top and skirt could pass for a sexy summertime outfit, but fishnet stockings? They had seemed like a great addition when she thought she’d be conducting a honey trap outside a strip club, but they’d look sleazy, over the top, in a regular bar.

Even Vegas had its limits, didn’t it?

Screw it. Sitting at the crossroads would get her nowhere. “I’ll go.”

She reminded herself that this was Sin City, the unconventional capital of the world. On a scale of one to ten on the weird scale, fishnet stockings were probably a five.

She slipped the cell into the pocket of her skirt and turned the ignition.

Copyright (c) 2013 by Colleen Collins

ISBN-13: 9781460323243

THE RANCH SHE LEFT BEHIND

Copyright (c) 2013 by Kathleen O’Brien

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