number,” I said, scribbling on a scrap of paper I found in my pocket. “I’ll do my best, I promise.
She examined my face. “I guess you will.” She jabbed her chin toward the building. “I gotta get back in there.”
“Can I ask you one more question?”
“What?”
“This Bulldog person. What’s his real name?”
She told me. I started to write it on my hand, then hesitated..
“Could you spell that middle part?”
***
Rico called as I made my way back to the lobby. “Got your phone number—it’s a payphone on Cheshire Bridge Road. Looks like it’s next door to a strip club.”
No surprise there—that area was nothing but naked dancing and sex toy emporiums. “Another question—how hard would it be for a civilian to get juvie info?”
“You mean stuff that’s been sealed? Depends. You got a Social?”
“No.”
“Then it gets trickier, but I’ll try. What’s the name?”
I told him.
“Spell that middle part,” he said.
Chapter 19
Trey looked up from his paperwork at my knock. I sat in his client chair, facing him, my tote bag in my lap. I realized I was clutching it like a life preserver and released my grip. Trey waited, politely.
“You wanted to see me,” he finally said.
“Yes.”
He waited some more. This was the part where I gave up the goods and threw the whole mess in his lap—the phone call at midnight, the target on my car, the grave in the cemetery, the sister in the courtyard—and let him sort it out. It was what he did. His resumé said so.
So why wasn’t it coming out of my mouth? I trusted him, didn’t I? I’d said as much to Garrity last night. But then I’d gone snooping, and then I’d found that article, the thing that Garrity wasn’t telling me…
Trey was patient. He picked up a pen and held it poised over a blank yellow pad. The office was silent.
I clutched my bag tighter. “There’s something—”
A knock interrupted me. A woman stood in the doorway, arms folded. “Tai Randolph,” she said. “They told me you were here.”
I turned to face her. She was tall and rectangular, like the prow of a dragon ship, an effect intensified by ice-gray eyes and a platinum chignon. Her voice reverberated deep and womanly, and she wore a black pantsuit cut like one of Trey’s. Her nails were a flamboyant extravagance, however, as pink as frozen raspberries.
Trey stood. “Marisa. I wasn’t expecting you until later.”
So this was my mysterious benefactor. Up close, she was all artifice—the porcelain skin the result of an expert make-up job, the hair a shimmering monotone, the eye color too perfect to be anything but contacts.
She gestured my way with a manila folder. “Your brother has mentioned that you were interested in a job here, as one of our research assistants.”
I noticed my name typed on the label. My dossier, I guessed. “Eric’s sweet. But I’ve got a job.”
“The gun shop, yes. He mentioned that. We were hoping you would change your mind.”
She tossed the folder in Trey’s inbox, and he promptly filed it in one of his meticulous drawers. Probably under T for Trouble. Cross-indexed under P for Problem.
“Eric is a fine employee,” she continued. “We’re very happy to have him here at Phoenix.”
“Eric is something else, that’s for sure.”
She smiled without showing her teeth. “I hope he has a long and successful career with us. I really do.”
I didn’t miss the implication. Apparently the only thing standing in my brother’s way was me, which meant that for his sake, I’d better behave.
She turned to Trey. “I need to see you when you’re done.”
“Certainly.”
“With a full report.”
“Of course.”
She put a hand on his shoulder, casually, like a friend might. His expression didn’t soften. They were bookends, these two, equally civilized, equally dangerous. Marisa might sport a French manicure, but she could kill too, without breaking a nail or smearing her lipstick. For all I knew, she was the one sticking threatening notes on my car—it would suit her purposes if I stayed still and scared.
She retracted her hand. “Tell me, Tai, what brings you here this afternoon?”
“I came to pick up my car.”
“Trey was helping you with that?”
“No, he…” I took a deep breath. “I just wanted to thank him, for last night. It’s been a rough couple of days.”
“I can only imagine.” She said it with a shake of her head. “Please let Trey know if there’s anything else we can do for you. He knows to keep me informed.”
She said this with a meaningful look Trey’s way, and then