Crash and Burn (3 page)

The girls didn’t leave, even with the unwanted fondling. It was a recipe for disaster.

Scarlet got up and walked over to where Isaac was pouring a pair of drafts. “You can only help those who help themselves.”

“Shut up,” he said. Then he glanced at her as if he wanted to say something else, but didn’t. He put the drinks on a tray and Heather, the lone cocktail waitress who worked Fridays and weekends, came over to pick it up. Scarlet caught her eye, and she nodded. Good, they had an understanding. Heather would give her the heads-up if things got out of hand.

And it was early—only seven on Friday night. All she wanted was to finish her pizza, have another beer, and watch a movie. Was that too much to ask? She’d certainly earned it after walking in on Cavanaugh that afternoon. She went back to her stool and kept an eye on Isaac, who was keeping his eye on the college group.

Jim Douglas walked in fourteen minutes after his call and looked around for her. She didn’t motion to him, wanting to assess him before he put on an act. He was tall, over six feet, blond, and attractive—if you liked the too-perfect, clean-cut, chiseled-jaw type. Not really Scarlet’s thing—she preferred men who were a bit rough around the edges. Even her ex Matt, who was a top-notch, up-and-coming prosecutor, had a tat under his impeccably tailored suits. Jim oozed stereotypical So-Cal hot men, definitely a fit with Wendy’s model-good looks.

He saw her watching him at the end of the bar and walked over. Diego’s wasn’t a dive bar—not on the tourist-driven peninsula—but it wasn’t a trendy hangout for Orange County’s gorgeous people.

“I thought you might’ve left.”

“Five minutes and ticking,” she said. She grabbed her water bottle and motioned for him to follow her to a table along the wall. She pushed the empty mugs aside. Almost immediately, Heather came over and cleared them, giving the table a quick wipe.

“Can I get you anything?” She spoke to Scarlet, but glanced at Jim.

“No,” Scarlet said. “Just a quick meeting.”

Heather left and Jim sat across from her. Scarlet kept quiet. She could ask questions, but there was something about this situation—from the minute she saw the accident—that rubbed her wrong.

It didn’t take Jim long to talk. “Wendy is crazy.”

“So you said.”

“The cops didn’t believe me. I could tell because they kept asking me the same question over and over.
She
followed me from work. I pulled over to turn around, to go back because I knew she was following me home. I’ve had to move
twice
so Wendy wouldn’t find me.”

Scarlet pulled a small notebook and pen from her back pocket. “Jim Douglas, correct?” she said as she wrote.

“Yes.”

“Where do you work?”

“I teach high school math. At IV Prep.”

Ouch. That cost parents upwards of thirty thousand a year, more than many colleges. “And you left work today at what time?”

“A little after four.”

“When did you notice her following you?”

“I was on the bridge and she pulled up next to me. I swear, I thought she was going to run me right off the road. I pulled ahead, didn’t know what to do, and she got stuck at a light. So I decided to turn around and head back to the school. But I couldn’t turn around, too many cars, and then she stopped in front of me and immediately backed into me. No one stopped—someone had to have seen it, but no one stopped until you did. I’d hoped you’d seen her—”

“What did the CHP say?”

“They just took our statements, but they’re not doing anything.”

“File a restraining order—”

“She already filed one against
me
and I’ve never done anything to her. I’ve been
too
nice.”

Warning signs blinked in her head. “Go back. Tell me everything.” She was going to regret this.

Jim swallowed. “Can I—get a beer?”

“Are you twenty-one?” she said sarcastically. He obviously was, but he grated on her.

“Yes, of course—” He stopped. “Look, I know what you think.”

“I doubt it.” Scarlet motioned for Heather to bring her and Jim two drafts. When the waitress left, Jim took a healthy swig. Scarlet sipped, assessing him over the rim of her mug. She couldn’t figure out what game he might be playing, but she was still suspicious. Then again, she was suspicious of most everyone.

“I started teaching at IV six years ago,” he said. “I was twenty-three, right out of college.
Nothing
happened between Wendy and me when she was a student—”

“Stop. I don’t want to know anything else. I’m not taking this case.” What was it with men? Were they all idiots? All guided by their equipment below the belt?

He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Wendy’s from a very wealthy family. She went to three different colleges and either got expelled or left. When she was nineteen, we got together—it was stupid, I know. But then, she went back East for college, and I didn’t think about her. Then she moved back home a few years later and we ran into each other again and… well, she was
twenty-two
. We dated for a few months, and I thought it would work, but she got possessive and she’s high strung and moody. She threw my high school basketball trophy out my apartment window! Cost me six hundred dollars to replace it. Then suddenly
I’m
served with a restraining order. But
she’s
the one who’s been following
me.
But I didn’t want to do anything about it because, well—” He stopped. “But I think she’s going to kill me.”

“Has she threatened you?” Scarlet suspected he was leaving something important out of this conversation.

“Hitting my car isn’t enough? Following me from work? Sitting outside my apartment all night long?”

“I suggest getting a restraining order against Wendy. There’re thousands of mutual restraining orders on the books. Stay away from her—she stays away from you. Eventually she’ll find someone else to obsess over.” Nine times out of ten, Scarlet was right. “She thrives on her ability to make you react—even in a negative way. It’s twisted, but I’d seen it a hundred times when I was a cop.”

“Can’t you make her stop?”

“I’m a private investigator. There’s nothing I can do.”

“Can’t you follow her? Watch her follow me? See what she does? What if she finds out where I live? I’ve had to move
twice,
Ms. Moreno. I’m thinking I need to leave southern California for good. Quit my job.” He paused. “I’m scared of her.”

Scarlet almost felt bad for the guy.
Almost.

“Look, if she shows up this weekend, call the police. They’ll persuade her to stop. When you get the restraining order, if she violates it, call the police. Go invest in a good security system with a video cam. Put it in tonight if you think she knows where you live. Stay with a friend. But—” She sighed. She was going to regret this. “You won’t be able to get the order until Monday. If you see her again this weekend, call me. I can’t promise anything, and if you call and I come out, you pay my hourly fee.”

Krista was going to shoot her. She was supposed to get all clients to sign a contract. Especially after that time last year when she spent nearly a week helping a friend and didn’t end up getting a dime. But paperwork was the bane of her existence, and she figured she wouldn’t hear from Jim Douglas again.

Jim didn’t look happy with her answer, but he nodded. He wrote on the back of a napkin. “Here are all my numbers. And my address. I’ll do what you said. What do I owe you?”

“For a fifteen minute consult? Nothing. Go. Be careful. Don’t do anything stupid.”

She watched him leave, then brought the empty glasses to the bar. Her seat was taken, so she walked behind the bar and dumped the mugs into the sink. Isaac was mixing drinks and said, “Client?”

“Hopefully not,” she said. “Has a stalker ex-girlfriend. I told him to get a restraining order.”

Isaac snorted. “In my experience, guys rarely get restraining orders.”

“In my experience, guys can be idiots.”

She grabbed another slice of pizza and a bottle of beer and said, “The rest of the pizza is yours, Isaac. Stay frosty.”

Scarlet walked through the swinging door marked
authorized personnel only
and maneuvered through the narrow hall. There were two small rooms off the hall, Diego’s office and the larger stock room, which also had a door to the alley. The old staircase to her apartment was dark and curved steeply up to a small landing. She unlocked her door, then shut it with her foot.

The noise from the bar was a dull throb with an undercurrent of lively pop rock. If she were tired enough, she could easily fall to sleep to the comfortable rhythms of drinking and fun; tonight, though beat, she was still tense from the day. Her studio consisted of a small kitchen against the back wall and two doors on the right—they led to the closet and the closet-sized bathroom. The living area was covered with indoor-outdoor carpet and boasted a couch (courtesy of Krista—an extra from her grandmother’s estate), a bed and a decent television. She did most of her non-field work at the over-sized kitchen table and she would’ve been perfectly happy working out of her apartment. But Krista was right—clients tended to think better of private investigators who actually had a real office with desks and a water cooler and doors that offered privacy.

She took her beer and pizza with her onto her deck and sat back on the hammock. She caught the final dip of the sun and the tension of the day disappeared with it. She didn’t care what her tiny apartment looked like; she could easily live here out here forever. She’d even arranged her television so she could pivot it to watch baseball from her deck.

Her fifteen minutes of bliss, flipping through the stations and finishing her pizza, ended when the music downstairs abruptly cut off and she heard shouts. Dammit, a bar fight. Why did this always happen when Isaac was on duty? Sure, Scarlet kinda liked him and understood the problem of getting a job as an ex-con, but his temper was going to get Diego in trouble.

She ran downstairs and quickly assessed the situation. Heather was standing next to the jukebox—she’d pulled the plug, which was the signal for Scarlet to haul ass. Isaac was standing behind the bar, not moving a muscle, while one of the college boys from earlier was yelling at him. She glanced around—the others were gone.

Isaac hated bullies. He was protective of the women in the bar and on occasion he overreacted—or stuck his nose in other people’s domestic problems. While Scarlet did her best to avoid domestic situations that had been the bane of her existence on the job, Isaac seemed to thrive on helping damsels in distress.

It was going to get him tossed back in prison, or killed. Why Scarlet cared, she didn’t know.

Scarlet strode over to the bar while the jerk was shouting, “What, you going to try to kill me, too? One punch, I’ll call the cops and you’ll be back in prison so fast. You had
no right
—”

Scarlet didn’t have time to wonder how the jerk knew Isaac was an ex-con. She maneuvered between the on-lookers who were more excited than scared, and said, “Back off.”

The College Casanova was well over six feet tall and towered over her five foot seven stature. But height didn’t matter as much as attitude. He took one small step back, but it was enough for Scarlet to step between him and the bar. “You’re out of here,” she told Casanova.

“I’ll sue. Shut this place down. You’ll all be out of work. Maybe I’ll buy it myself, have a real fun spot.” He made a crude motion with his hands and Isaac jumped over the the bar.

If Scarlet hadn’t sidestepped so she stood between the two men, Isaac would have decked Casanova. “Go,” she ordered the kid, staring him in the eye.

Isaac was right at her back, but he stopped. She could feel his breath on her neck, hot and full of rage, the tension radiating off him so thick she suspected she wouldn’t be able to stop him if he really wanted to take down this guy.

“This isn’t over,” Casanova said.

Isaac said, “Never come back.”

“I’ll do whatever the fuck I want.”

Scarlet feared he’d push it, but Casanova left. She hadn’t noticed that two of his college buddies were also there. They’d stayed in the background, but now followed him out. The girls and other two guys weren’t around at all.

Isaac turned and walked down the hall to Diego’s office. Heather plugged back in the jukebox. And now Scarlet was stuck as bartender. How the hell did that happen?

She motioned Heather over. Heather said, “Remember those drink coasters you gave Diego a couple months ago? That test for date rape drugs?”

Heather didn’t have to finish. Scarlet could picture the scene. She said, “Isaac used them.”

Heather shook her head. “I did. I thought I saw that guy, the one yelling at Isaac, slip something into the brunette’s beer, and so I brought over a fresh round and tested the rest of her drink.
Then
I made the mistake of telling Isaac. He went over and told the girls they were being drugged. I should have told you instead. I just thought we should call the police, or cut them off or something.”

“Isaac told the girls?”

“Yeah. They stormed out with two of the guys. There were some words between them, but I couldn’t hear. And then that one just let loose on Isaac and Isaac cut him off. I pulled the jukebox when I saw it getting dicey.”

“You did good, Heather. Don’t worry about it.”

Within ten minutes, the bar was back to normal, and then Isaac returned. Scarlet finished ringing up a tab, then said, “Next time—”

“I know. Go.”

“No, you don’t. You may no longer be on parole, Isaac, but there are cops out there who think once a con, always a con. Diego took a risk hiring you.”

“I don’t need a lecture from an ex-cop,” Isaac said. Then he pushed it. “Don’t you even care that they planned to rape those girls?”

“I do, but—”

“But they deserve it? Because they’re stupid?”

“I didn’t say that—”

“I know how you think, Moreno. I had to do something.”

“You
don’t
know how I think, and you don’t know me, so back off.” When had this turned around to be about her? “Maybe if you’d called the cops, they could’ve searched the boys for drugs. There
are
ways to get the same result without resorting to fists. And maybe they would have been sitting tonight in jail rather than on the street looking for two more girls to drug.”