Private Investigations Page 7

  “They’re not the FBI.”

  “Okay, then, those guys to us.”

  “Then?”

  He blinked at her. “Then what?”

  “What happens after that?”

  His gaze swept over her, dark suggestion in his eyes. “Do you want to hear what I hope will happen or what I think will happen?”

  Her nipples tightened against the soft cotton of her T-shirt. “The, um, second.”

  He shrugged and looked at the road. “You call the shots from there. I’m not sure you know a lot about what you’re doing, but I can say I know zip about being a private investigator. So I’ll get us the safe place to stay, and you’ll tell me how I can help you from there.”

  “Okay.”

  “Fine.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Do you always have to get in the last word?”

  Ripley stared at him, realizing that’s exactly what she had been doing. A behavior that used to be completely out of character for her. For as long as she could remember, she had been more likely to nod and acquiesce than risk rocking the boat. It had begun with her parents, whom she had yearned to please, then continued with every other person she met, be it through work or in her personal relationships. It was…liberating, somehow, to feel the competitive fire kindling in her belly, making her want to question and challenge everything, consequences be damned.

  She grinned at Joe. “Always.”

  “HERE.”

  Joe sat back in the diner booth, staring at the cell phone Ripley held out to him. At her request, they’d chosen a diner near enough to the pawnshop to watch people go in and out and far enough away that if the three stooges returned, they’d be safe. Right after they’d placed their orders, Ripley had told him she had an errand to run and disappeared through the door. He’d thought she was going to go to the pawnshop, but she’d headed in the other direction.

  She tried to hand him a scratched and dented wireless phone he wasn’t sure he wanted to touch.

  “What’s this?”

  “A cell phone.”

  “I can see that.” He took it, and she slid in the booth across from him. The waitress popped up with their orders.

  “Oh, good. I’m starved,” Ripley said, licking her lips as her barbecued beef sandwich and fries were put in front of her. Joe made a face at his bland-looking chicken salad.

  “Whose is it?” He waved the cell phone to catch her attention, which was focused on her meal.

  She took a bite of her sandwich, her tongue dipping out to lick a dot of sauce from the corner of her mouth. An average, everyday movement that had everything but an average, everyday effect on him. She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess it’s mine now.”

  He ordered himself to stop staring at her.

  “I bought it from one of those guys on the corner.” She stabbed her thumb over her shoulder. “So it’s my guess it’s hot.”

  “Hot. As in stolen?”

  She smiled. “Yep. I thought that if our new friends were tracing your calls, this would cause them a little pain.”

  Pain. Why was Joe getting the feeling he was the only one who was going to be experiencing any pain when this was all over?

  “And if they’re tapping the phone on the other end?” he asked.

  She slowed her chewing then swallowed. “That’s the line I’m talking about. What did you think I meant? Your cell phone?” She shook her head. “Just be careful what you say. I bought the phone so they’d have trouble tracking you back to where you are now.”

  He stared at the receiver then cautiously punched out the number for his office in Minneapolis. Gloria answered on the first ring. If she was concerned or curious about his suggestion that she make hotel arrangements under a different name and have all charges billed to her personal account—for which he promised to reimburse her double—she didn’t let on.

  It was when he asked her to cancel his afternoon, in fact, cancel everything involved with Shoes Plus, that she went silent.

  “Pardon me?” she asked after a few moments.

  Joe rubbed his face, his salad not looking all that appealing, while Ripley’s meal appeared far more appetizing. Of course, Ripley devouring her BBQ was most enticing of all. “Tell them I came down with a bug.”

  Ripley wrinkled her nose. “Original.”

  “Gloria, scratch that. Tell them I have a family emergency and had to return to Minneapolis on the first flight out.” A roll of Ripley’s eyes. “No, no. Make my apologies and pass on that I fell from the second-floor balcony at my hotel and am on the mend.”

  That got a smile of approval from Ripley, a smile that made his stomach tighten. He pushed his salad away.

  “Joe?” Gloria asked, clearly confused.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s just that, well, in the five years I’ve worked for you, you’ve never canceled an appointment.”

  Joe frowned. Could that possibly be true? What about when he’d come down with the flu last winter? Or when his aunt had died a few months before that? He absently rubbed the back of his neck. He realized that neither occasion had caused him to cancel anything related to work. He’d merely worked around the incidents.

  Incidents. Is that what his personal life boiled down to? A series of incidents to work around?

  He grimaced and said to Gloria, “Well, then, don’t you think it’s past time I started?”

  A soft laugh filtered over the line. “I think it’s long past time. But far be it from me to tell you that.”

  Joe was surprised at his secretary.

  They spoke for a couple more minutes, then he disconnected the line. Ripley held out her hand palm up. Joe placed the hot cell phone into it, wondering how long bacteria could survive on plastic.

  “What are you going to do with it now?”

  “Throw it out.”

  Joe stared at her, then his food, and forced himself to pick up his fork. Then he changed his mind and waved the waitress over. “Take this back and give me what she’s having.”

  “You’re still going to have to pay for this.”

  “Big deal.” He leaned forward, ignoring the waitress as he considered Ripley. “So tell me about this missing person.”

  Her chewing slowed, giving him little to concentrate on but her mouth until she finally swallowed. He found himself swallowing right along with her. An empty action that made him feel even more drawn to the woman across from him.

  “There’s not much to tell, really.” She dunked one of her French fries first into BBQ sauce then into ketchup. “Her sister called me the day before yesterday and set up an appointment.” She smiled. “I’d just placed my ad in the paper, and she was my first call. Well, technically she was my second, but the first doesn’t count because I didn’t take the case.”

  “What was it?”

  “A man wanted someone to set up his wife with.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  She sighed and waved the French fry. “He suspected she was having an affair…with another woman. He wanted to hire me to play bait. Contingent on his getting a good look at me first, to see if I made the grade.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  She popped the French fry into her mouth. “Nope.” She wiped her hand on her napkin. “Anyway, the second call was from Clarise, Nicole Bennett’s sister. She’d asked to come to my office, but since my office is my apartment until I can afford to rent space, I proposed we meet at her house. She’d said something about her husband not knowing about this, and we settled on a coffee place.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. “She gave me a picture, gave me Nicole’s most recent address and said that during a recent visit Nicole had stolen a few objects from her.”

  “What did she steal?”

  “Silverware—and jewelry, too, though the silver is all she’s sold so far. Yes, I know, I was surprised, too. I mean what kind of world is it when you can’t trust your own sister, right? Anyway, she told me that, unfortunately, Nicole has always
had sticky fingers and that Clarise wasn’t so concerned about the stolen objects, she just wanted to make sure her sister was all right.”

  The waitress delivered his plate, and Joe rubbed his hands together, then dug in.

  “I went to Nicole’s apartment, but it really wasn’t an apartment at all—more like a nightly or weekly room rental. And it hadn’t looked like she had been there long.”

  “Drugs?”

  “That’s what I asked. But the sister told me she’d never known Nicole to take drugs. And the people I questioned in the building said she’d been quiet and never looked stoned, so…” She shrugged.

  Joe considered her around a mouth full of some of the best-tasting beef he’d had in a long time. Probably because it was the only beef he’d had in a long time. “How did you manage to track her here?” he asked.

  “That’s what Nelson would call a fluke. He says if you’re lucky they happen more often than not, but that you can’t count on them.”

  “Who’s Nelson?”

  Was it him, or had her cheeks just reddened? “That doesn’t matter.” She waved his question off. “I did the usual. You know, checked the airport, the train station, the car rental places—she didn’t have her own car—and came up with a big fat zero. It wasn’t until I was at the airport and accidentally ran into an airline attendant not averse to a little cash falling into her hand that I hit pay dirt.” Her smile was brilliant. “She recognized a picture I have of Nicole and told me she sold her a ticket to Memphis and personally saw her get on the plane for here the night before.

  “So I came here, found the hotel she was staying at and checked into the same room she’d vacated—though I didn’t find anything useful in it. Either housekeeping had already cleared all clues, or more likely, given the clean state of the room in St. Louis, Nicole had cleared it herself. Then I started pounding the pavement. The pawnshop—” she jabbed her thumb in that direction “—was my third stop when I got into town.”

  Joe watched as a taxi pulled up in front of the pawnshop in question. A dark-haired woman got out, paid the driver through the front window, then walked toward the establishment, a brown bag in her right hand.

  “You got a picture of the woman?” he asked.

  Ripley nodded, then fished a copy out of the file lying next to her on the table.

  Joe glanced at it, then the woman walking into the pawnshop. “Don’t look now, but your girl just arrived.”

  THIS IS BETTER THAN SEX.

  Ripley’s mind paused as she raced through the diner door, her heart beating a million miles a minute. Well, okay, maybe it was just as good as sex, at least the type she was used to having. But she couldn’t really think about that now because she was busy closing in on her first missing person.

  She should have signed up for this a long time ago, she thought, even if she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe her luck. Could Joe have been mistaken? Could the woman going into the pawnshop have just looked like Nicole Bennett? After all, a good hundred feet separated the diner from the shop. Maybe he hadn’t gotten a good look.

  Or…

  Or else he was toying with her. She’d bolted from the table so quickly, she hadn’t stopped to consider that option. She glanced behind her to find Joe being tackled by the waitress, likely to pay their bill, and was relieved. She’d have gone into murder mode had she found him still sitting in the booth grinning at her.

  The sound of her feet against the pavement. The feel of her hair flying behind her. The burning of her lungs, which revealed how little exercise she usually got. All of it combined to make her feel…well, pretty damn good.

  Near the pawnshop, she slowed, her hand clutching her side. She really needed to get into shape. As inconspicuously as possible, she poked her head around and peered through the grimy glass, then pulled back. She smiled so wide, her face hurt. Definitely one very wily, sticky-fingered Nicole Bennett.

  She’d been given strict instructions on what she was to do when she tracked down Nicole. Namely follow her to find out where she was staying, then contact her sister in St. Louis.

  She frowned. But the last time she’d tried calling Nicole’s sister, she’d received a recording telling her the line had been disconnected.

  She briefly closed her eyes. So what did she do?

  The clang of a cowbell found her springing from the side of the building next door. She stared as Nicole Bennett came out of the pawnshop, minus one shopping bag and tucking money into the pocket of her jacket.

  “Freeze,” Ripley said.

  Freeze? Had she really just yelled freeze? Good Lord, she wasn’t a cop. She wasn’t even supposed to approach Nicole. Nicole wasn’t even supposed to know Ripley was following her.

  Her first case, and she’d already royally messed it up.

  Nicole’s gray eyes widened in surprise. Then she looked at Ripley’s hands, which were obviously minus a weapon, and took off running in the opposite direction.

  Ripley took off after her. She didn’t know what she was going to do once she caught up with her, but she was trusting she’d figure that one out when the time came.

  “Is that her?”

  Joe’s voice so close to her ear made Ripley scream. Then, before she could stop herself, she lost her running rhythm and started a headlong dive for the hard pavement. The only thing that stopped her from getting pavement burn was Joe’s fast thinking. He grabbed the back of her T-shirt, holding her suspended in midair. Ripley jerked her head up, watching as Nicole darted around the corner and out of sight.

  She awkwardly regained her footing, straightened her T-shirt, then stomped squarely on Joe’s foot. His resulting yeow only dented her disappointment.

  “What was that for?” he asked, hopping on one foot.

  “For making me lose my first missing person.”

  The only problem was that the person she was working for to find a missing person had also recently joined ranks with those already on the missing persons list. Which left her exactly…where?

  She glanced in the direction Nicole went, stepped that way, then stopped and started walking toward the diner. Only the instant she did, she spotted the dark sedan carrying the three bozos claiming to be with the FBI.

  Oh, boy.

  6

  RIPLEY KNOCKED briefly on the hotel room door, then reminded herself to stand squarely in front of the peephole. A moment later the door opened, and she stood staring at Joe, who was freshly showered, a towel slung low on his slender hips, his abs standing out in glorious relief. God, but he was magnificent. A true thing of beauty in all the confusion swirling around her.

  “Are you coming in or what?” he asked quietly, gripping her wrist then tugging her inside. He looked both ways down the hall, then closed the door.

  Ripley grimaced at him, hating that he could stop her dead in her tracks with very little effort. Actually, with no effort. He hadn’t done anything but stand there looking like dessert, and her brain completely zonked. All she’d been able to do was stand there gaping at him.

  She strode across the room to the king-size bed and flopped down on it, letting her duffel fall to the floor at her feet. Feet that ached from all the running she’d done in the past half hour—first after Nicole Bennett, then from the three goons hot on her trail for God only knew what reason.

  Thankfully, she had seen them before they saw her, giving her a good head start. And she’d taken complete advantage of it, ducking inside the antique shop next to the pawnshop and taking Joe with her. They’d pretended to be out-of-town browsers interested in the splotches of red and black paint that somebody called art, waiting until the three men sitting in the car moved on.

  After fifteen minutes they had. Then Joe had driven them to the hotel that would be their new digs. She’d insisted on getting out of the car at the corner so they wouldn’t be seen together any more than they had to be, gave him a chance to check in and get to the room, then called him using the hot cell phone she bought from the guys on the
street corner. Joe told her what room number, and here she was.

  She rubbed the skin between her brows, feeling the beginnings of a whopper of a headache coming on. “Are you sure no one can connect your name to the one on the room?”

  “Completely.”

  She blinked at him. He grinned.

  “You probably don’t want to hear this now, but you could probably run better if you had the right pair of shoes.”

  Ripley rolled her eyes to stare at the ceiling. “Oh, great, now he’s trying to sell me shoes.”

  He shrugged. “It’s what I do. So shoot me.”

  “Don’t tempt me,” she muttered under her breath.

  Actually, she was more in a mind to shoot herself. Freeze. She cringed, still unable to believe she’d yelled that when she’d spotted Nicole outside the pawnshop. The incident played out in her mind like every apprehension scene she’d seen in every television cop show she’d ever seen a rerun of. Who did she think she was, Police Woman? Or worse, Wonder Woman, with her invisible plane and golden lasso? While she was on the topic, why had Wonder Woman carried a lasso, anyway? Anyone who could pull off and pilot an invisible plane certainly deserved a weapon more potent than a wimpy lasso. She couldn’t remember why, and that irked her more.

  She flopped on the bed and groaned. Here she had probably just blown her first case, and she was thinking about a woman who wore a red-white-and-blue bustier.

  Maybe her mother was right. Maybe they would still take her back at her old job. If she offered them the money from the employee package she’d taken and crawled to them on hands and knees, maybe they’d hire her back, no questions asked. Of course, she supposed it didn’t help that she’d already spent the money in question, and that she’d said a few unkind words to her immediate supervisor on her last day. Her own rendition of take this job and shove it.

  No. Returning to her old job was definitely not an option.

  She felt hands on her feet. Hot, probing hands. She shot to a sitting position and gaped at Joe, who was crouched beside the bed. “What are you doing?” she whispered. It wasn’t supposed to be a whisper. But that’s what it ended up being as he took one of her sandals off and ran a fingertip along her overly sensitive arch.