easy things.
Trey buttoned his jacket. “What will you do now?”
“Wait for you in the suite. My stint as girl detective is over for the night. Find me when you’re done?”
He took his eyes of the horizon for the first time. They were tired, but steady. Dark, like the coming night. “I’ll find you.”
***
I walked back to the main resort, shoes in hand. I’d left Trey at attention on the deck, his only concession to comfort a fresh bottle of Pellegrino. I could hear the party still going on by the swimming pool and could see the aura of the lights, bright and contained like a football stadium. It held no appeal anymore, none whatsoever.
I plodded on in the dark. I’d just hit the main property when I saw a figure duck behind one of the columns along the front entrance.
Jake!
I threw down my shoes and Gabriella’s purse and drew my own weapon. It was more baffling in the dark than I would have predicted, but I got it in hand quickly. Was I willing to use it? Or was it just a cold metal bluff?
The figure slid from the shadows into a pool of light. And then I saw the chestnut tumble of curls.
Not Jake.
Steve Simpson.
I pointed the gun right at him. “You!”
He spun around and threw his hands in the air. “For crissakes, put that away!”
“Why aren’t you in the van?”
“I’m getting a cup of coffee.”
“Bullshit! You’ve got a coffeemaker in there, I saw it!”
He put his hands down. “Fine. You caught me. I’m running away. Happy now?”
I kept the gun on him. “Running from what?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, fucked-up shit is happening, and I’m not talking about Trey’s usual weirdness or Charley passing out or that crazy French chick.”
“You’re the one who let the crazy French chick in!”
“So what? I quit. A little wire tapping is one thing, but people are getting killed, and I don’t want to be next.”
“Why do you think you might be?”
“Because I know stuff.” He folded his arms. “And so do you. Which means I’d keep that gun ready to go if I were you. But not aimed at me, okay?”
I watched him in the light at the edge of the darkness, the groomed safety of the hedges behind him. He held the key to the whole mess, I knew he did, and if I didn’t think of a way to get it out of him, he’d vanish into the night, and the Parade of Almost Truth and Sorta Justice would keep marching on.
“You know,” I said, “if you know something and don’t tell anyone, that makes you accessory after the fact. All I have to do is get out my cell phone and bam—you’re a fugitive from justice.”
“Get real. The cops don’t care about the truth.”
“I know one who does.”
He hesitated. I waited, ready to fire if he made one wrong move. Then I noticed the bulge in his shirt pocket.
“You smoke?”
“Yeah?”
I lowered the gun, took my finger off the trigger. “Come on, I know someplace out of the way. You tell me what you know, I’ll tell you what I know. Maybe we can work something out.”
***
I took him down to the lake edge, far enough away from the party that we could have some privacy, but close enough that I could scream and be heard easily. Excellent girl detective behavior.
“We’d had Eliza under surveillance for about six months,” he began, “ever since she showed up in Atlanta. I didn’t ask why. That’s part of the job, you know—do what you’re told and don’t ask questions—and frankly, I didn’t give a shit.”
We were in the boathouse, which was deserted except for a few party yachts bobbing in the water. Aside from the distant drone of the party and the slap slap of waves against wood, it was silent.
“Anyway, Landon made sure that the camera outside her apartment was functional from the get-go, and that we had our own copies of the footage. He had me reviewing those—when she left, who came over, how long they stayed. Nothing exciting. And then he asked me to put in the phone tap.”
“Those are illegal.”
“Yeah. But Landon said he had APD authorization.”
“And you believed that?”
He blew out a stream of smoke. “Nope. But I didn’t argue. I figured if it blew up, I had deniability and could throw the shit back uphill. We didn’t get anything interesting, though. Eliza was loose, but she wasn’t creepy. Jake Whitaker, now, that’s a different story.”
“Let me guess—he