I Have a Secret (A Sloane Monroe Novel, Book Three) (16 page)

The woman finished with the boy and turned to me.  “So, what’s it gonna be?”

I handed her the book.  “Nothing.”

“That’s what I thought,” she said.

“Don’t act like you
know
me based on the way I’m dressed or because I came in here thinking I could get somewhere being polite.   Today isn’t the first time I’ve considered getting inked, and it isn’t my first trip to a tattoo shop either.  Three years ago, my sister died, and I’ve considered celebrating her memory in a variety of ways, but I won’t rush it on a dare.”  I started for the door.  “Thanks for your time, Buttercup.”

“Wait.”

I turned.  The expression on her face had softened. 

“What was your sister’s name?” she said.

“Gabrielle.”

She frowned.  “What happened, if you don’t mind my askin’?”

I did, but given the circumstances, I didn’t see how it mattered.  “She was killed.”

“Accident?”

I shook my head.  “Murdered.” 

She raised a brow.  “They catch whoever did it?”

I smiled.  “I did, yes.”

She stepped back.  “What do you mean,
you
did?  You a cop?”

“Private investigator.”

She shook her head and looked back at me with a new level of respect.  “Well, isn’t that…huh.” 

She stood still for several seconds and then pointed to a framed photo on the wall.  “My brother, Lee.  He died about five years back.  Gang shooting in Bakersfield.  That’s where I’m from.”

I stared at the man in the photo, all the while thinking it wasn’t hard to see how he got in that kind of trouble.  But family was family no matter what path a person chose.  “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me too.”  She leaned over and rested her elbows on the counter.  “So look—about the tat, forget it.  Let’s start again.  My name is Elise, but everyone calls me Liz.  And if you still wanna talk, I’ll answer your questions.”

I followed her to a back room.  Once the door was shut behind us she said, “Go for it.”

“Did Rusty ever tattoo Candice Flaherty?”

Liz called Candice a four-letter word that made me cringe every time I heard it. 

“He didn’t, I did.  And if you look close enough, you might be able to see the word tramp etched in the center of it.”

It was the perfect lead-in to my next question.  “Did Candice and Rusty ever…”

Liz shrugged.  “Rusty wasn’t the type to keep it in his pants, if you know what I mean.”

“And that didn’t bother you?” I said.

“He was a mean son of a bitch, but a loveable one.”

“Despite his affairs?”

She leaned back against the wall.  “Why you so interested in Candice, anyway?”

“All the men who are dead seem to know her in one way or another.”

“Small town.  Some days it feels like we’re all connected.”

“What about Heather Masterson?” I said.  “Did Rusty know her?”

She looked up and repeated the name to herself.  “Don’t think so.”

“Did he ever mention Doug or Nate?”

“Not Doug—I never really knew him.  Wasn’t he the banker guy who died on the cruise ship?”

I nodded.  “Rusty played poker with Nate, right?”

She nodded.  “Every week.”

“Who else?  Were there ever any women around?”

She rolled her eyes.  “Nate didn’t consider it a party unless there was plenty of ass at his place.”

“Do you know who specifically?”

She shook her head.  “All I cared about was when Rusty was with me, he was with me.  I didn’t worry about whether he was cheatin’ or who he was cheatin’ with.  At the end of the day, he always came home.”

“Did Rusty ever mention the other guys to you—what they talked about—anything?”

“Not really, I didn’t ask.”

Dead end.  Again.

She bent one of her knees and braced her foot against the wall.  “You know what—

I think Rusty did mention him to me once.”

“Who?”

“Doug.”

“When?”

“One night several years back Rusty got drunk—I’m talkin’ couldn’t-tie-his-own-shoelaces kind of drunk.  He didn’t like alcohol, and never had it much.  Always made him real mean.  So that night, it hit him hard.  Anyway, he started spouting off about how his buddies all got it on with some girl back in high school at a party.”

“What girl—Candice?”

She shrugged.  “I dunno, he never said her name.  The only reason I remember at all is because you mentioned Doug.”

“Are you saying he was there?”

“According to Rusty he was.”

“You’re sure he said Doug?”

She nodded.

I was shocked.  Doug was turning out to be everything I thought he wasn’t.

“Did he ever mention it again after that night?”

She shook her head.   “But he told me the names of the other guys: Nate, Doug and Jesse.”

“As in police officer, Jesse?”

She smiled.  “That’s the one.”

The lights at Jesse’s house were off when Lucio and I arrived.  I knocked on the door, first by tapping on it and then hard enough for his neighbors to hear, but it never opened.  I assumed he was still on duty and decided to go back to the hotel and try again later.  

When we got out of the car, I turned to Lucio.  “You have a room here, I take it?”

He grinned.  “Right next to yours.”

We neared the door and Lucio pointed at the window.  “You leave those on?”

I looked over.  A dull light filtered through the sheer curtains inside the room.   I shook my head and drew my weapon.  Lucio, already two steps ahead of me, shielded my body with his arm. 

“Let me go first.”

“I’m a big girl,” I said.  “We can go in together.”

The aggravated look on his face stopped me from arguing further.  A figure inside my room walked by the curtain and the light went out.

“Get down,” Lucio whispered. 

“Don’t you need to get down, too?” I said.

Lucio sighed like he didn’t know how much longer he could put up with me.  We knelt and waited.  Nothing happened.  There was no movement of any kind; just a faint glow from what I assumed was a flashlight.  The thought of someone rifling through my things again entered my mind and didn’t exit.

I stood back up.  “This is ridiculous.  I’m done with people thinking they can invade my privacy.  I’m going in.”

Lucio pulled me back.  “Hold on there, Sloane.  We gotta think this through.”

I shrugged out of his death grip and faced him.  “We’ve waited long enough.  Let’s do this.”

He looked at me like I was an untamed cat who’d just been sprung from a cage.  And I felt like one.

“Boss said you had a little of that uh, OCD, I think they call it.”

“He what!”

What else had Giovanni said about me?  

“All right,” Lucio said, “we’ll go in.  I go first, you follow.”  He held a finger up to stop me from saying anything else.  “Not a word.  We do this my way or not at all.”

We approached the door and Lucio touched the handle.  “It’s unlocked.” 

He nudged it open, stuck his gun out in front of him, and went in.  I followed.  The living area was dark except for a faint glimmer of light radiating from the bedroom.  We walked eight short steps until we were both standing in front of the door.  It was only open a crack, but I could make out the image of a person sitting on the edge of the bed.  It looked like a man.  

Lucio pointed the gun at the man’s back and said, “Get up.”

But the man didn’t move. 

“You deaf, pal?  I said get up,” Lucio said—again.  “Don’t make me ask a third time.”  

“Put the gun down,” the man said. 

Lucio lowered his weapon and flipped the light switch on.   

“Sorry, Boss, I didn’t think you’d be back until tomorrow.”

He looked at Lucio and then at me.  “My business was finished so I returned early.”

“What were you doing in here with the lights off?” I said.

He smiled.  “Waiting.”

“For me?”

As much as I wanted him to say yes, the expression on his face said something different. 

“What’s wrong?” I said.

Giovanni got up. “Follow me.”

The three of us walked into the living room.  Giovanni opened the desk drawer and pulled out two items: A note and a scalpel.  

“Leave, or you’ll be next…” I read aloud.

“The note was stuck to the door when I got here,” Giovanni said.  

“Again?” I said.  “I’m running out of places to stay in this town.”

“It wasn’t on the outside of the door.”

I swallowed—hard.  “It was on the inside?”

Giovanni nodded. 

“Someone was in my room?” I said.

“And they wanted you to know it,” Giovanni said.  

I crossed the room and sat on the sofa. 

“Do you know what this is?” Giovanni said picking up the scalpel.

But my eyes were focused on Lucio.  In the midst of our conversation, he’d disengaged himself and was running from room to room yanking the curtains closed.  Since it was a hotel, there were only three.  When the task was finished, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed a number.  A few seconds later two more men entered the room. 

“Wait a minute,” I said.  “I thought you were the only member of the
crew
who was here?”

Before anyone had the chance to answer, there was a knock at the door.  I stood up, all four men looked at me like they couldn’t imagine what I was thinking.  In a roomful of male testosterone used to getting their way, I wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the door.  

Giovanni looked at Lucio and nodded.  Lucio pushed all two hundred seventy-five pounds of himself off the chair and approached the door.  The other two guys positioned themselves close by while Giovanni walked over and stood by me.  I felt like I was in a hostage situation.  

Instead of looking out the peephole, Lucio spoke.  “Who’s there?”

A female voice on the other side said, “Is this Sloane’s room?”

Lucio said, “Who’s askin’?”

“Rosalind Ward—Doug’s mother.  Is this her room or not?”

“It’s all right,” I said.  “I know her.”

Lucio opened the door.

Rosalind stepped in, glanced around the room and frowned.  “I’m not sure what’s going on here, but I need to speak with Ms. Monroe.”

No one moved.  Rosalind rolled her eyes and tried again.  “Privately, if you don’t mind.”

The men looked at Giovanni and he flicked two fingers.  They left, he stayed. 

“And you,” Rosalind said, looking at Giovanni, “you’ll be leaving too, I assume?”

He stood up, walked over, and placed his hand on her shoulder.  “I will not.”

Rosalind looked at me like I needed to provide her with an explanation. 

I smiled.  “He ahh…will not.  So if you have something to say, Rosalind…”

“All right then, I will.  I’d like you to leave town,” she said. 

“Why?”

“It doesn’t matter.  I can take care of Doug’s wife myself.  We don’t need your help, so there’s no reason for you to stay.”

“Trista’s a much stronger woman than she realizes.  She’s doing a fine job on her own,” I said.

Rosalind looked at me with a glimmer of hope.

“So you’ll do it then—you’ll leave?”

“Why are you so anxious to get me out of here?”

She pressed her pants down with her hand like she was trying to get the wrinkles out.  “I don’t get anxious.  My family has been through enough.  I’d convinced Alexa to take a leave from school, and she was all set until you interfered.”

“You want me to leave because I talked to Alexa?  Or is there something more?”

Her nose wrinkled.  “I don’t know what you’re suggesting, but I don’t care for it.”

Giovanni, who was now standing by the desk, grabbed the note and held it out in front of Rosalind.  “Do you wish Sloane to leave bad enough you would threaten her?”

Rosalind snatched the paper from his hand and looked it over.  “I didn’t have anything to do with this—where did you get it?”

“Seems you’re not the only one uncomfortable with my presence,” I said.

She waved the note in the air.  “All the more reason you should leave.”

I stood up and placed my hands on my hips.  “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I haven’t even made it worth your while yet.”

I laughed.  “Not everyone can be bought with money.”