Back in Black (McGinnis Investigations #1) - Rhys Ford Page 0,23

be caught dead in bondage gear. I realized I still clung to the idea of Adele Brinkerhoff being the grandmotherly woman who’d perhaps once in a while walked on the wild side. Maybe I had it wrong. Maybe she was in fact a wild, lawless woman who every once in a while faked being a grandmother.

Her husband’s anguish was real, though. Arthur Brinkerhoff mourned his wife. I’d heard it in his voice, felt it down in my bones. She may have led him on a merry dance through their lives, but he was devoted to her and wanted to know who killed her.

“Then why leave the diamonds?” I had my own suspicions, but I wanted Stevens to confirm them. “They were loose and in her hand. She was found on the lawn of a house that was mothballed by its owners while they trotted around Europe. O’Byrne said there were housekeepers that came in every once in a while and a son that periodically dropped in to stay in an apartment over the garage. But there wasn’t any sign of a break-in there.”

“I don’t know the answer to that,” Stevens admitted. “The bigger question is why did somebody beat up her husband? Maybe they weren’t pulling off a job that night. Maybe those diamonds were part of a heist she already pulled and they were meeting there because they knew those properties were supposed to be empty.”

“There’s a lot of maybes floating around. It would also mean that whoever killed her knows that neighborhood.” The leather jumpsuit was perplexing, but it would’ve given her cover, blending her into the shadows of the overgrown garden bordering the house’s back lawn. “Still, why leave them?”

“Did anybody check to see if they were real?” He grinned at me, Cheshire-wicked and cunning. “Did the cops get an expert to look at them, or someone with a jeweler’s loupe and a little bit of knowledge about stones glanced at them a couple of times and called them good?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I can ask. Why?”

“Because that’s one of the most basic scams between thieves, especially ones that don’t trust each other,” Stevens replied. “They might have killed her because she was passing off bad merchandise, or maybe discussions just went sideways. Either way, there’s probably a bigger haul out there and her former partners are looking for it. If I were you, I would start with the old man. Find out who she was working with, and if he’s clueless, then buckle yourself down someplace safe, because if they were willing to kill her because she double-crossed them, they’re going to be more than happy to kill you because you’re getting in their way.”

Six

“DO YOU lead with your face into things?” Jae carefully plucked off one of the bandages, its ends soaked through after my shower. “When the shooting starts, do you say to yourself, ‘I am too pretty. Let me put my face right into where it can take the most damage’?”

The Band-Aid removal wasn’t painful, and I could have done it myself, but Jae liked playing nursemaid. It also gave him a chance to scold me. He’d already sighed when I informed him I lost yet another jacket to the case, and I’d given Ichi my shut-the-hell-up glare when he chimed in on Jae’s argument that I should drop the whole thing. Our predinner visit was mostly spent cataloging my injuries and me refilling my glass with Hibiki, wondering when I was going to get some food instead of the shit they were piling up on me.

In the end I had no idea what I’d eaten other than I thought it was some kind of fish battered in miso, and the buzz I’d gotten from the whiskey was light enough to be burned off by a hot shower. Jae wasn’t so easily shaken off.

“I went to ask a few questions, not end up in a shoot-out.” My defense was weak—even I could see that. I should have expected something to happen. Something always happens. “I called the hospital to see how Mr. Brinkerhoff was doing, and the nurse said I can drop by during visitors’ hours tomorrow morning to talk to him.”

“You’re probably going to have to take a number behind the police,” Jae reminded me. He had a sultry purr to his voice, a velvety thrum I adored, and despite him working stuck adhesive from my skin, my body was heating up under his touch. Since all I was wearing