This investigation is getting very personal

P.I.-in-training Valerie LeRoy is dying to get into the field. So when a client asks her to spy on someone, the thrill of her own case is too tempting to refuse. Instead of a cheating fiancée, however, Val’s actually checking out P.I. Drake Morgan! Worse, she ends up working with the guy.

Their differing opinions on techniques—and the instant attraction—make the sparks fly. It’s almost impossible to focus on their arson investigation. As the hunt for the truth intensifies and their passion rivals the triple-digit temperature, she and Drake learn why Las Vegas is the city that never sleeps.…

The scrape of bar-stool legs against the floor interrupted Drake’s thoughts

In the mirror behind the bar, he observed a young woman sitting next to him. Even in this dim lighting, her hair gleamed like metal. Dye job or a wig. She wore so much eye makeup he couldn’t tell the color of her eyes.

His gaze dropped to her top—what little there was of it. A flicker of heat leaped in his chest as he caught the outline of her breasts straining the red, white and blue material.

She looked like a Fourth of July celebration about to pop.

“Like my top?” she asked in a Southern drawl.

He picked up her signals more clearly than if she’d banged a gong in his ear. Just because he picked them up didn’t mean he had to respond. Nope. He’d mind his own business and ignore her.

“It goes with my skirt,” she continued as though it were a two-way conversation.

He knew better than to look, but it was like telling Bambi to stay out of the forest. The skirt was thigh high and red. Below it, shapely legs in fishnet stockings ended in a pair of black stiletto heels with some kind of symbol on the side.

“It’s a fleur de lis,” she explained, pointing at her shoe with a frosty-pink fingernail, “for my boys, the Saints.” She grinned so wide, he saw she had a slightly crooked front tooth, which almost gave her a sweet, naive quality.

Clunk.

He looked stupidly at his phone lying on the floor and wondered when he’d let go.

Dear Reader,

I had so much fun writing Sleepless in Las Vegas, which follows up on the story of Val LeRoy, the best friend of Cammie Copello, the heroine in The Next Right Thing (Mills & Boon Superromance, March 2013).

I relate to Val, who has her heart set on being a private investigator. Nearly ten years ago, I had that same goal, and like Val, I had only a general idea what P.I.’s did when I started my internship. It’s one thing to watch Jessica Fletcher, the female sleuth in the old TV series Murder, She Wrote, or Nora Charles, the other half of the Nick and Nora private-eye team in The Thin Man film series. But it’s a whole other reality when you’re working a case undercover, trying to blend into your surroundings, hoping you don’t blow it! An experience Val and I share, by the way.

One reason I so enjoy writing for the Harlequin Superromance line is that the stories, like life, thrive on romance, family and love. The hero in this story, Las Vegas private investigator Drake Morgan, has given up on finding love, but Val hasn’t…for the most part, anyway. Although they share a passion for their profession, they seem to have nothing in common in their personal worlds. Their story is about two very different people, a case of opposites attracting, who struggle with giving and receiving, contentment and heartbreak. What they gradually learn is their hearts have more in common than they realize.

I love to hear from readers, so I invite you to drop by my website, colleencollinsbooks.com, and let me know how you liked Val and Drake’s story!

Happy reading,

Colleen Collins

Sleepless in Las Vegas

Colleen Collins

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Colleen Collins has written several dozen novels and two nonfiction books. She has also written articles for various writing organizations, including the Private Eye Writers of America and Romance Writers of America, and for periodicals such as USA TODAY and PI Magazine. Similar to the P.I.-intern Val LeRoy in Sleepless in Las Vegas, Colleen began her P.I. career being mentored by a man who drove her crazy at times—and vice versa—but they’re still together over a decade later.

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Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

THE PHONE RANG, giving Val LeRoy a start. If it rang more than once or twice a day at Diamond Investigations, maybe she’d get used to its high-pitched jangle.

She swallowed the last bite of her lunchtime tuna-with-chutney sandwich while checking the caller ID. No name, but a 219 area code. She had been trying to memorize different area codes—after all, a phone was a private investigator’s most powerful tool. She wasn’t a P.I. yet, but when the day came, she wanted to be a knowledge bank in stilettos.

This incoming call was from...Michigan? No, Indiana. As she reached for the receiver, she noticed a glob of papaya chutney on her fingers.

Another jangling ring.

She didn’t want to sticky up the phone with her gooey fingers, but Jayne Diamond, her boss, insisted Val always answer using the handset, never putting the phone on speaker, to maintain the confidentiality of conversations. Rules, rules, rules. That woman had more than a reform school. Val had to remind herself constantly that being mentored by one of the best investigators in Las Vegas was worth all the restrictions.

Keeping in mind the confidentiality of the call, she glanced through the picture window next to the agency’s front door, which offered a view of their business parking lot and the sidewalk beyond. Their office was a renovated corner bungalow on a street with other similar bungalows. Not a high-traffic area. Although they sometimes had walk-ins, nobody was headed toward the agency on foot, and the only car in the lot was Jayne’s shiny Mazda Miata.

She glanced at Jayne’s office door. Closed.

Val rapped the speaker button with her knuckle.

“Diamond Investigations,” she answered softly, plucking a tissue from the box on her desk.

“Uh, are you a private investigator?” The man’s voice was low, hesitant.

“Yes.” Technically an apprentice, but Jayne didn’t want her saying that to potential clients. So Val could answer yes to such a question, but the truth was she’d done little else other than screen calls these first few months of her internship.

“I...think my wife’s...having an affair.”

Have mercy, a brokenhearted tale was on its way. She wiped her fingers with the tissue. “I’m sorry to hear that. What’s your name, sir?”

“George. My wife’s name is...Sandy.” He cleared his throat. “She started acting different about four months ago...in April, around our anniversary...doing things like walking into the other room to answer her cell, losing weight, buying new clothes. I suppose I coulda justified some of that, but when she started working later and later...”

Val watched a bright orange angelfish dart around rocks in the aquarium against the far wall, guessing what was coming next—Sandy was traveling to Las Vegas for A, a business trip; B, to visit family; C, to see old friends....

“Anyhoo...” He blew out a puff of breath. “Sandy is flying to Las Vegas later next week—on Friday, August sixteen—for a reunion...some kind of hookup with her cheerleader buddies from high school...”

Or another kind of hookup.

“And...” His voice grew thin. “I was wondering if...”

A P.I. could follow Sandy while she’s in Sin City.

“You could follow her?”

“We offer such services,” she affirmed. Val couldn’t wait for the day when she could just say yes and take on a case. But for now, she only passed on callers’ information to Jayne, who would make the final decision.

“I know the hotel my wife will be at...she mentioned renting a Dodge Charger...”

Ever since meeting her best pal, Cammie, a real-life P.I., a year ago, and hearing her stories about sitting on stakeouts, digging through trash to find evidence, interviewing witnesses to crimes, Val wanted nothing more than to be a private eye, too. But first, she needed to earn a Nevada license, which required logging ten thousand hours of investigative experience. After that, the plan had been for Val to become a student Watson to Cammie’s Sherlock in their own kick-ass, all-girl Las Vegas agency.

Val had to make adjustments to the plan when Cammie found true love and moved to Denver, but she hadn’t given up.

Jayne’s door creaked open, followed by the tap-tap of her sensible heels across the hardwood floor.

Which stopped abruptly at Val’s desk.

“...I could describe what clothes she’ll be bringing, jewelry, too, although...” George sniffed loudly. “I guess she might not be wearing her wedding ring...”

Val looked up at her boss, a trim sixtysomething with cut-glass cheekbones and gray-blue eyes that always seemed to carry within them a withering understanding of the human condition.

Jayne shot one of those withering looks at the phone, back to Val.

Who shrugged apologetically. She could almost hear another “you can’t always do things your way” lecture.

“I had that ring made special for her...” George stifled a sob.

Jayne mouthed a silent “no” while plucking a ballpoint pen from the breast pocket of her linen blazer, the same bloodless color as her short, bobbed hair. The blazer used to fit her better before she started losing weight recently.

Jayne jotted something on a notepad on the desk and held it up for Val to read: no infidelity cases.

Val nodded, waiting for George to calm down.

“Unfortunately,” she said gently, “we’re currently not accepting infidelity cases.”

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, during which the hum of the aquarium pump filled the room, Val added, “Let me give you the number of another P.I. who might be able to help you.”

After looking up the information on her computer, she gave him the number and ended the call.

Then she rolled her gaze up to Jayne’s.

“You cannot always do things your way,” the older woman began, arching a pale eyebrow. “Although I admire your strength of will and creativity—” she glanced at Val’s purple-streaked black hair, which today she’d knotted into a loose chignon “—you have a habit of forgetting that investigations are not always about autonomy. Often you must work closely with people. Even if you disagree with them or believe you have a more advantageous idea, it would behoove you to treat others’ suggestions with respect.”

Sometimes she wondered why Jayne always made it sound as though Val were interacting unbehoovingly with some nameless third party and not Jayne herself. But then, her boss had a way of distancing herself, as though she was always observing the world rather than living in it.

“Yes, indeed,” Val agreed, “I knew better than to put that call on speaker. Although, if you don’t mind my adding a side note, nobody was in the room with me, so it wasn’t like I was broadcasting the poor man’s broken heart to strangers.”

A look that might pass for amusement flittered across the older woman’s face. “Sometimes I wonder if we should post my rules alongside your side notes.”

The older woman reminded Val of the English actress Helen Mirren—formidable, sophisticated, articulate. But whereas the actress had played her share of industrial-strength women in the movies, Jayne was the real deal. In a Las Vegas Sun interview three months ago, a reporter had referred to her as “one of the best sleuths in Sin City,” and that “a new P.I. earning Jayne’s Diamond Grade designation is like a restaurant earning a Michelin star rating.”

After reading that Sun article, there was only one P.I. Val wanted to be her mentor—Jayne Diamond.

Who now stood in front of her, lips pursed in thought. “What else is on your mind?”

“Well, these landline phones are—” older than dirt “—quite antiquated. Plus, cradling a jumbo-size receiver under my chin while taking notes, looking up information on the computer and talking is like juggling pancakes—hard to keep a grip on everything. It would make so much more sense if we used cell phones.”

“Cell phones have speakers, too. The point is not landline versus mobile, it is about confidentiality.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Jayne.”

“Yes, Jayne.”

“Also...” She smiled, but it looked more like a grimace. “I’ve reached the conclusion that Diamond Investigations needs to reduce the number of cases it accepts. Starting today, we no longer accept infidelity cases, except if they are part of an investigation that we are already conducting for a law firm.”

“But...I thought infidelity investigations were steady business for a P.I. agency. Although, of course, we don’t accept honey traps.”

When she realized she wanted to be a private eye, Val started religiously watching the reality TV show Honey Catchers to learn about the business. It featured hot-looking private eyes, male and female, whom people hired to set “honey traps” to test their lovers’ fidelity. The P.I., dressed in some sexy outfit rigged with a covert camera, would “accidentally” run into the lover, usually at a bar, and strike up a conversation. Eventually, the P.I. asked for a phone number, a date or even got a little frisky on the spot.

Afterward, the P.I. would show the video to the client. Honey Catchers never showed lovers turning down phone numbers or sexual advances. Which made for a lot of high drama at the end of the shows as the cheated upon confronted the cheater.

“Infidelity investigations can be lucrative, certainly, but we have never conducted honey traps.”

“I know...it’s just that I don’t see the harm in accepting those cases as long as we keep them legal...” Something in Jayne’s face—exhaustion? Distress?—gave Val pause. “We don’t need to do a mentoring session right now if you’re tired.”

Jayne eased into one of the high-back wooden guest chairs that faced Val’s desk. Through the window blinds, hazy sunlight striped the side of her face, highlighting fine lines around her mouth and eyes. “These moments always count, dear.”

She couldn’t think of a single time that Jayne had uttered an endearment, for Val or anyone else.

“Legal,” Jayne repeated. She reflected on that for a moment. “Some agencies seem to believe that inducing the behavior a P.I. should be attempting to objectively document is acceptable. It is not. If a law enforcement officer behaved in such a manner, it would be called entrapment.”

“On some reality cop shows, I’ve seen female cops dress like hookers and lure men, who are then arrested for soliciting prostitution.”

“But those men, when they withdraw their billfolds to pay, exhibit prior predispositions. Honey traps are not telling of the subject’s predisposition. A lawyer could easily attack such frivolous evidence in court.”

As Jayne pushed a wisp of hair off her forehead, Val noticed her hand shook slightly. But she knew not to ask questions because Jayne didn’t like to talk about herself.

Val had learned that well in June, the first time she walked into Diamond Investigations. She had barely shut the door before Jayne made it clear that Val had already broken a rule—clearly stated on the agency website—that people seeking internships were to mail their résumés, not show up in person. Besides, she had curtly added, she was on her way out.

When she swung her purse over her shoulder, the bag knocked a figurine off a side table. Val dived, catching it before it smashed into pieces on the floor.

As she’d stared at the miniature crystal figure—two birds perched side by side on a watering bowl—she swore she felt something faint, like a light passing through her. Although maybe what she experienced had more to do with the tender, yet sad, look on her future boss’s face. For a moment, she and Jayne had shared concern and relief that the crystal birds hadn’t hit the floor and shattered.

After Jayne gently placed the figurine on the top shelf of the bookcase—where it remained to this day—she asked Val why she wanted to be a private investigator. She had answered that she worked well alone, liked solving puzzles and wanted to help people.

Jayne had actually laughed. “If you can accept that this business is often driven by greed, revenge and self-preservation,” she said, “you will be better off. Shall we start your internship next Monday?”

And here they were, two months later, having yet another of their question-and-answer sessions.

Jayne stood, picked up her purse. “I will be gone the remainder of the afternoon.” After a moment of deliberation, she added, “I have changed my mind. For the time being, we are not accepting any new cases until I finalize some...cases I’m working on. Are you still commuting by bus?”

“Yes.” Ever since the brakes and fuel pump went south on Val’s fifteen-year-old Toyota, she had been relying on mass transit. “Mornings are okay, but after five those buses are slower than a bread wagon with biscuit wheels.”

Jayne blinked. “I have never heard that expression.”

“Means they’re slow.”

That pained smile again. “Feel free to close at four. See you tomorrow.”

She watched the older woman leave, not believing that line about finalizing other cases. When Val first started here, the agency carried ten to twelve cases, easy. Currently there were three open cases, two of which were on hold while lawyers decided whether to go to trial. The third involved pulling court records, which took an hour or two. If anything, the agency needed more cases.

No, Jayne was hiding something. From the recent tiredness in her face and the weight loss, Val wondered what her boss was going through. A death in the family? A financial setback?

She glanced at the crystal figurine. This small object had always seemed too fragile in an office furnished with a heavy wooden desk, bookcases, a grandfather clock and scuffed hardwood floors. The birds obviously held deep meaning. Shame Jayne didn’t take it home with her, both for its safekeeping and her own comfort.

Val looked at the picture of her nanny on the corner of the desk. Her grandmother—smiling, her white hair freshly curled, wearing her favorite blue dress—stood in front of her tiny antiques shop, Back in Time Antiques, on Chartres Street in the French Quarter. When Val was growing up, she had commuted with Nanny to the shop from their house in the Ninth Ward, the only home Val had ever known before Katrina.

She had brought the photo to work maybe for the same reason Jayne kept the figurine here. Some objects carried too many memories to keep at home, where your mind could easily wander to the past, to what was lost and never found again.

* * *

THE GRANDFATHER CLOCK chimed four o’clock. As the last metallic note faded, the front door opened and a woman walked in, her perfume smelling faintly like strawberries.

She wore a red halter dress, cut too low, and matching lipstick. Her chestnut hair hung sleek with straight-cut bangs that hovered over almond-shaped eyes. Most walk-ins looked embarrassed, nervous or dubious, but this woman looked determined or surprised, which could just be the unfavorable effect of those overarched Cruella eyebrows.

Without a word, she sat in one of the guest chairs and crossed her slim legs. Val took note of strappy Badgley Mischka sandals, which she guessed were the real deal based on the monster-size bling on the woman’s ring finger.

“My name Marta,” she said, rolling the r in her name. “My fiancé, I think he cheats. I want you to find out.”

Val tried to place the thick accent. Romanian? “I’m sorry,” she said, “but we’re currently not accepting any new cases.”

Under a veil of thick black lashes, a pair of hazel eyes coolly assessed Val. After a beat, she reached into her purse and extracted a wad of bills bound with a rubber band.

“I pay thousand dollars.” Which sounded like I pay zouzand dolarz. She set it on the edge of the desk.

“I’m sorry, but—”

“Tonight,” Marta interrupted, “I know where he goes. I give address, you see if he cheats.”

This woman did not want to take no for an answer.

Val recalled the name of the P.I. she’d looked up earlier. “Bert Warner, just a few blocks away, handles infidelity cases. I can get you his number—”

“No man investigator. Want you to dress up, see if he flirts with you.”

“Sorry, that’s a honey trap, and we never do those.” She was being good reciting the party line, but dang, this kind of work could be profitable.

“Honey trap,” Marta repeated slowly, then smiled, as though liking how the word tasted. She pulled out another wad of bills and set it on the desk. “Two thousand.”

This is how it would be someday when Val ran her own agency. A client would walk in, discuss their problem and Val could say yes, I’ll take your case. And she’d do one helluva good job, too.

She stared at the two grand, cash.

What was so wrong with honey traps anyway? Jayne talked about lawyers attacking the evidence, but wasn’t that what lawyers did in courtrooms for any type of case? Didn’t mean honey trapping was illegal. Cops did it, other P.I.s did it.

Jayne was also an older woman. Obviously she couldn’t conduct a honey trap herself. But Val was young, could pull it off. She had learned a lot watching all those hours of Honey Catchers.

No. She had to stop thinking this way. She had to abide by agency policy. Rules were rules. Even if she disagreed with some of them.

She stared at the wads of bills. Two grand, cash.

Enough to cover a new fuel pump, brakes, with plenty left over to toss into the kitty for the day when she moved out of her cousin’s place into her own.

Marta leaned forward, emotion shining in her eyes. “I come to United States from Russia. I clean houses, make better my English. Now I work in dress store, want to have own business someday. Did not want to fall in love, but...” She shrugged. “He ask me to marry. I say yes, then I hear about other women...” Her chin trembled.

Val nudged the tissue box toward her. “Maybe,” she said gently, “you should talk to him. Tell him what others have told you.”

Marta took a tissue, dabbed the corner of her eye. “Da. Yes. I do. He say no, people lie.” A tear spilled down her cheek. “I must know. Please. Help me.”

Boy, oh, boy, could Val relate to starting over. After Katrina, starting over became the story of her life. After a short stay in the Superdome, Val had relocated to Houston, where FEMA paid her rent for a studio apartment while she looked for work. Maybe if she had felt connected to the city, or at least known somebody, it might have worked out. But there were days she hadn’t even been able to get out of bed, much less tackle job hunting. When she moved to Las Vegas, at least she had family, but it was still tough learning her way around a new city, finding a job, making friends.

If she had also been forced to learn a new culture and language, she would have lost her marbles.

“I’m sorry. It must have been very difficult.”

“I don’t want person...persons...to know I hire private eye.” Marta leaned forward and whispered, “Only you and me to know.”

Val blew out a pent-up breath. It’d be sweet to drive her air-conditioned car again. No more walking in summer triple-digit heat, fighting for seats on crowded buses. She stared at the money. The beauty of cash was nobody could trace it, and this being a one-time gig...she felt a stab of guilt at what she was thinking, but...Jayne would never know.

Besides, one day Val would own her own agency, and maybe she would accept the occasional honey-trap case. This was her chance to gain experience, something she’d never get while interning with Jayne.

“Just you and me to ever know,” Marta repeated.

Val glanced at the photo of Nanny. By the time she was fifteen, she and her grandmother had swapped their parent-child roles. Val grew accustomed to making decisions for the two of them, often on the fly. Sometimes it was like walking into mist—she might not be sure what her next step would be, but she would learn. Over time, when faced with a choice, she discovered she gained more by forging ahead than standing, undecided, at the crossroads.

She picked up a pen, shoving aside her niggling conscience. “I need to get some information, like where he’s going tonight, the type of car he drives...”

* * *

AT NINE O’CLOCK that night, Drake Morgan stepped from the air-conditioned strip club, Topaz, into the outdoor sauna called summer. In his thirty-two years born and raised in Las Vegas, he’d never grown accustomed to these mind-frying temps. But then, there was a lot he’d never been able to accept.

Like why his brother Brax—the manager of Topaz—kept associating with known criminals. Drake had checked the corporate papers for Topaz and discovered the club was owned by a corporation named Dusha, the same corporate entity that owned Braxton’s luxury condo. Drake ran the word Dusha through an online translator and learned it meant “soul” in Russian.

Yeah, real soulful. His brother was tight with the Russian mob.

Tugging off his suit jacket, he looked past the stream of traffic on Las Vegas Boulevard at Dino’s Lounge, a watering hole his dad had frequented. Back before lines got drawn and doors were closed, Drake and Braxton would join him there to watch a game, shoot some pool. He and his brother had been tight then. Thick as thieves, their dad would say.

Today, the third anniversary of their old man’s death, Drake had thought a lot about things his father used to say. Sometimes he had to dig deep in his memories, because his dad hadn’t been comfortable expressing himself. Oh, he liked to kid around, jaw about some news item or what sports figure had hit a milestone, but when it came to divulging how he felt about something, or even saying a simple “I love you,” he had struggled with the words.

On his deathbed, he had asked for three promises from Drake. The first was for Drake to stop gambling. He had, that very day. The second was for Drake to learn how to swim—he had carried the name “Aqua Man” since high school after jumping into a pool to save a bikini-clad damsel in distress. She’d gotten out fine on her own. Took two lifeguards to haul Drake out of the water.

Just like his dad to throw humor into life’s darker situations. Aqua Man took a few swimming lessons.

The third promise was to take care of his grandmother, his mother and especially his brother. His mom and Grams were easy, his brother was a pain in the ass. Drake had asked Brax to dump his gangster chums and build his own business, but he’d refused. Seemed to think being under the thumb of that no-good scum Yuri Glazkov was the path to success.

Yuri, what a slick bastard. Brax had done things for him that should have put him behind bars, but Yuri’s high-profile lawyers made sure the charges against Braxton didn’t stick. It sickened Drake that his brother thought he was better than the law.

If he had his way, he’d do what their mother had done—close the door on Brax—but he had made that promise to their father.

So here he was tonight, hunting down his brother to check up on him, try to talk sense to him again about living his own, law-abiding life.

Drake had another reason, a personal one, to quiz his brother. Yuri, recently back in Vegas after an extended stay in Russia, was up to something. Drake could smell it. He wanted facts about the thug’s life, the kind his brother could supply, because he had a score to settle.

But so far, all Drake had gotten was the runaround from his brother’s employees at the strip club.

Have no idea where Brax is at, man.

Mr. Morgan is unavailable. If you would like to leave your name and number, I’ll be sure he gets the message.

Yuri? Never heard of ’im.

Tossing his jacket over his shoulder, Drake glanced across the street at the green neon sign. Last Neighborhood Bar in Las Vegas. Lots of businesses had closed during the recession, but Dino’s Lounge had stayed open, just as it had for five decades.

He decided to walk over, leave his pickup parked in its secluded spot. Later, he would head back to Topaz, and if he didn’t find his brother’s car in the lot, he’d do the question routine again. Try different employees, see if one of them might get hit with a pang of conscience and tell the truth. He’d help that pang along with a bill or two.

Because in a town like Vegas, everything had a price. Especially an honest answer.

* * *

VAL SAT IN the rental car, a Honda Civic, in the Topaz lot, watching the guy standing outside the strip club. He fit the description Marta had given her earlier: a little over six foot. Buzz cut. Wearing a suit. Before he removed the jacket, the gray two-button number had looked like something Don Draper might have worn on that TV series Mad Men. From the way this guy walked—carrying himself like he owned his space and some of everybody else’s, too—he had more than his share of mettle.

Marta said his name was Drake, but didn’t want to divulge his last name. Even after Val recited the confidentiality spiel she’d heard Jayne give to new clients, Marta refused. Said she had her pride. No last names. Besides, couldn’t Val do the honey trap without knowing that?

Val had agreed, partially because she wasn’t sure what else to do...and then there was the money.

Drake headed toward the street.

Time to report in. Val reached for her cell phone and punched in a number.

“What news?” Marta answered. No hello. “I am anxious.”

Join the club, Val felt like saying. Wearing this skimpy outfit and blond wig, which she had used at her last job as a card-dealing Christina Aguilera look-alike, and sitting on her first surveillance in a rough Vegas neighborhood outside a strip joint, was nerve-racking.

But she couldn’t let on she was tense. Had to act cool, knowledgeable, as though this were her hundredth surveillance gig. After all, Marta thought she’d hired a professional, not an amateur.

“He left Topaz,” Val said, “and he’s walking toward Las Vegas Boulevard.”

“Where he park?”

“At Baker’s Service, one street over.” A guy in a retro suit driving a ’79 Ford pickup didn’t fit Marta’s sleek designer style. Val guessed they were one of those opposites-attract relationships.

“Baker’s,” Marta repeated.

“It’s an appliance store.”

After she observed him walking into Topaz, Val had circled the block and found the pickup parked in front of the store. The business was closed, its lot dark, and he’d taken the extra precaution to position it behind some palm trees.

After parking a short way down the block, she had walked back to the truck, a faded brown-and-gold two-tone with rusted chrome strips, and pointed her miniature flashlight into the bed, where she spied a toolbox, tarp, several chew toys and a small doggie bed. Next, she perched herself on the metal step below the driver’s door—not easy in high heels—and pointed the light at the front seat. A closed notebook and coffee-stained foam cup were on the ripped vinyl seat. A video camera lay on the floorboard.

“How long he at club?” Marta asked.

“Forty minutes. Now he’s crossing the street...there’s only one bar over there, so that must be where he’s going.”

“You go to this bar.”

Val looked at her outfit. The skimpy top and skirt could pass for a sexy summertime outfit, but fishnet stockings? They had seemed like a great addition when she thought she’d be conducting a honey trap outside a strip club, but they’d look sleazy, over the top, in a regular bar.

Even Vegas had its limits, didn’t it?

Screw it. Sitting at the crossroads would get her nowhere. “I’ll go.”

She reminded herself that this was Sin City, the unconventional capital of the world. On a scale of one to ten on the weird scale, fishnet stockings were probably a five.

She slipped the cell into the pocket of her skirt and turned the ignition.

CHAPTER TWO

DRAKE SNAGGED A stool at the bar. Behind the lighted displays of bottles, the smudged wall mirror reflected hazy red pool table lights and the words Dino’s: Getting Vegas Drunk Since 1962 in large white letters on a back wall.

His old man had groused when they had first painted that sign. “Makes the place sound like a bunch of blottos.” By then in his seventies, he hung out most afternoons at Dino’s with a group of fellow retirees who called themselves the Falstaff Boys, in honor of the “late, great” beer. But after the painting of the sign, they changed their name to “the Blottos.”

“Well, look what the Mojave winds blew in.” Sally, a thirtyish female bartender, stood behind the bar wiping dry a glass. She had small blue eyes set in a narrow face that could use some sun. She and Drake had a history that made him a bit uncomfortable.

The muscles in her arms flexed as she reached to set the glass in the overhead rack. Her black T-shirt crept up, exposing a faded tattoo on her side, a skull adorned with a crown of roses. She’d once told Drake it was from her Deadhead youth, but now that she was clean and sober she no longer listened to jam-band hogwash.

“Hasn’t been too windy lately,” Drake said.

“Yeah, just hot. Monsoon season is late this year. City could use a downpour or three. Fortunately, the air conditioner in this place is built like a tank.” She tossed the towel over her shoulder. “Bud?”

He nodded, wondering when she’d cut her hair. These short, spiky styles on women confused him. He liked long hair on women. Long and straight, the simpler the better.

“Hey, Aqua Man.”

He turned, recognized a buddy from high school. Still slim, but his face showed wear. He wore a gray shirt with “Easterman’s Plumbing” on a pocket.

“Hey, Jackson,” Drake said, “how’s it going?”

“Got divorced.” He shrugged. “You?”

“Never been married.”

“Smart. How’s your brother?”

“Fine.”

“Married?”

“No.”

“Smart.” Jackson nodded. “Well, take it easy.”

As he left the bar, Sally slid a bottle toward Drake. “Poor guy. Just got divorced.”

“Figured it was still fresh. Thanks, Sally.” He took a swig. The frothy chill soothed his mood a bit.

“Work keeping you busy?” She focused intently on washing another glass.

“Some.”

“See Viva Las Arepas moved?”

The Venezuelan fast-food place had operated out of the kiosk in Dino’s parking lot for several years. When he’d walked past, the place had been dark, its windows boarded, although a few stools remained outside. “Thought it had closed.”

“No, moved to a bigger place in that strip mall down the street. Mr. Arellano’s been driving a shiny new Hyundai, so they must be doing good.”

“They survived.”

“Yeah. Recession didn’t kick their butt. Didn’t kick Dino’s, either.”

He raised his beer. “To Dino’s.”

She picked up her tip glass and clinked it against his bottle. As he took a sip, she pointed to the framed photo over the cash register. “Some TV producer was in here the other day, saw the photo. Told her it was Dino and Benny.”

“Benedict.” Drake bristled at his father’s nickname being tossed around by people who didn’t know him.

“Kristin calls him Benny.”

“Good friends, Benny. Everybody else, Benedict.”

“Anyway, this TV producer was here ’cause they’re thinking of filming a reality TV show at Dino’s.” She read his look. “I know, just what this place needs—more reality. Speaking of which, didja hear the story about one of our regulars...”

Her voice floated over his head as he stared at the faded color photo. Taken in ’85, when Dino still had most of his hair. He stood next to a pool table with Drake’s dad, their arms slung around each other’s shoulders, the two of them grinning at the camera. Guys from different generations, but they had a lot in common. Family men who believed in working hard and watching out for the little guy. Both veterans—Dino in World War II, his father in ’Nam—although neither had talked about those days.

Drake had followed the family tradition and joined the military, a career he’d thought would be for life, until 2006, when he’d returned home to help with his dad, who had been diagnosed with ALS. He worked in hotel security for a few years before opening his own one-man P.I. agency.

“...to this day, the wife still doesn’t believe the girl accidentally fell asleep on her husband’s car hood.” Sally pulled in a long breath. “Now that would’ve made a good reality TV show.”

He nodded as though he had been listening.

She offered a small, tight smile. “Good to see you again. Summer must bring in a lot of cases, huh?”

“The usual.” He paused. “Sorry I didn’t call.”

With a nod, she turned her attention to washing.

After a few moments of awkward silence, filled with the pinging of video games and murmured conversations, she straightened and said, “That was a dumb stunt I pulled.”

“No, Sally—”

“Yeah, it was. I mean, how juvenile can a lady get to write her phone number inside a matchbook and hand it to a guy, claiming he dropped it. I mean, a bartender pulling that old trick.”

When she had passed him that matchbook, he had been busy texting a client, had paid little attention. Hadn’t known the phone number was inside until days later, when he’d pulled the matchbook from his pocket. After running a reverse on the number and learning it was Sally’s, he’d been surprised. Both at her feelings about him, and that he hadn’t read the signals.

He blamed his surprise on being preoccupied with other issues. Had a lot of those weighing on his mind these days.

“No need to apologize. I was actually flattered.”

One pencil-thin eyebrow arched. “Yeah?”

“Really. It’s just...I’m not...”

“S’okay. No explanation necessary.” She tugged the towel off her shoulder and began rubbing the same glass she’d just finished drying. Realizing it, she stopped and smiled a little sheepishly. “Gee, hard to guess I’m nervous.”

“Glass still had a spot on it.”

She smiled, a real one this time. “Friends?”

“Friends.”

She placed the glass in the overhead rack. “How’s that brother of yours?”

“Wish I knew.” He took another swig.

She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “He gets a lot of business at Topaz. Nights when I close, that lot over there is packed. Limos lined up with tourists from all over the Strip. Guess that’s why you’re here tonight. Looking for him.”

He nodded.

That’s how they’d met eight months ago, when he’d wandered into Dino’s one night for a beer. He’d learned she had recently been laid off from her floor supervisor job at the Riviera Casino, none too thrilled with her new job slinging drinks.

Because he had asked so many questions about the strip club across the street, it had only seemed fair to explain why. Otherwise, he didn’t like to talk about Braxton.

“For a while, I didn’t see that yellow Porsche of his,” Sally continued, glancing at a young couple entering the bar, “but lately it’s been parked in that same spot near Topaz’s front entrance.”

“What time?”

“Sometimes when I first get to work, around seven. More often when I close.”

“About three a.m.?”

She nodded. “Sometimes four.”

“Ever see a black four-door Mercedes?”

She thought for a moment. “Yeah, in the past week. Don’t remember seeing it before that.” The couple sat at the far end of the bar. “Gotta go. Customers.”

Taking another swig, he weighed this new piece of information. He’d been tracking Yuri’s black Mercedes for a little over a month now, whenever he had some down time. Had videotaped several hours of Yuri’s comings and goings, hoping to capture clues of any illegal projects in the works, but so far, nothing pointed to anything. Had some footage of Yuri unloading tables at a warehouse, but he owned the tables and the warehouse, so nothing strange there.

Based on past experience, he wondered if Yuri might be planning a heist. He was good at those, just like the one he had set up years ago that had cost Drake his career, his reputation and a fiancée who’d grown skittish. Couldn’t blame her. Hard to lean on someone who’s standing in quicksand.

If he thought about it too long, he could still get pissed that his brother had played a role in that heist. Of course, Brax had said that he’d had no choice, that Yuri had threatened his life. Afterward, he had promised, over and over, he would have nothing more to do with the Russian.

They obviously placed different values on their promises.

Drake rolled the bottle between his palms, wishing Brax’s deceit was the only problem weighing on him. When he had dropped by his mom’s house this afternoon, he and his grandmother had talked about his dad, which led to stories of the family, which led to the family heirloom ring—a constellation of diamonds representing family marriages going back a hundred and fifty years. The ring was gone, and Grams missed it more than she liked to admit.

Drake blamed himself. It had been only a few weeks ago that Grams had finally told him the whole story of what had happened in 2009 when Drake’s gambling debts had gotten him into trouble with a loan shark. Until then, he’d thought his dad had pulled money from a trust to help pay off the obligation—he’d had no idea the ring had been collateral.

In 2009, he had been a secret gambler, burying himself in debts. Desperate, he had borrowed money from Yuri. By the time the Russian had tacked on his extortionist interest rates, Drake’s debt was hitting fifty grand. His father—who’d never said how he learned about Drake’s troubles, although Drake guessed that Brax had told him—had insisted on helping. Said he could pay Yuri twenty grand, and a family friend could loan Drake the rest. His only condition was that he and Drake would keep Yuri’s name between them. Your mother’s heart has already been broken by Braxton’s dealings with that Russian.

Since then, Drake had paid off the thirty grand to his dad’s friend. He’d made payments to his dad, too, who’d secretly had his wife deposit every penny into a savings account in Drake’s name. A few weeks ago, when Drake made the final payment to his mom, he’d been shocked when she handed over the savings account. His dad had asked his mom to do this, in memory of Benny, upon Drake’s final payment. By honoring his debt, he’d earned it.

But his satisfaction had soured after Grams confided that she, his mom and his dad had given the ring to pay that twenty grand.

As soon as Drake had found out, he had gone to Yuri with the intention of buying back the family ring. The Russian had refused to take his money. Said Drake owed him even more in interest.

It shamed Drake that he’d caused his family to lose a cherished piece of their history. He would get the ring from Yuri, no matter what it took. That score had to be settled.

Picking up his smartphone, he tapped the alarm app and set it for two a.m., which would give him time to get to Topaz by three. If Brax’s Porsche was there, he would go inside. But if he found Yuri’s Benz at Topaz, he would wait and follow the Russian to wherever he went next. Sooner or later, he’d find some dirt on Yuri. With leverage, he could bargain for the ring.

The scrape of stool legs against the floor interrupted his thoughts.

In the mirror behind the bar, he observed a young woman taking the seat next to him. Even in this dim lighting, her hair gleamed like metal. Dye job or a wig. She wore so much eye makeup he couldn’t tell if her eyes were brown, black or gray.

His gaze dropped to her top, two triangles of material that sheathed round, pert breasts. A flicker of heat leaped in his chest as he caught the outline of taut nipples, one straining a triangle decorated with white stars on blue, the other overworking a triangle with red-and-white stripes.

She looked like a Fourth of July celebration about to pop.

“Like my top?” she asked in a southern drawl.

With Sally, he’d been rusty at interpreting female signals, but he picked up this woman’s more clearly than if she’d banged a gong in his ear. Just the kind of wake-up call to get outside of his funk, get back to the present.

“It goes with my skirt,” she continued as though it was a two-way conversation.

He knew better than to look, but it was like telling Bambi to stay out of the forest. The skirt was thigh high and red. Below it, shapely legs in fishnet stockings ended in a pair of black stiletto heels with some kind of symbol on the side.

“It’s a fleur-de-lis,” she explained, pointing down at her shoe with a frosty-pink fingernail, “for my boys, the Saints.”

Took him a moment. “The New Orleans Saints?”

“Who dat!” She grinned so wide, he saw she had a slightly crooked front tooth, which almost gave her a sweet, naive quality.

The operative word being almost. Sweet, naive types didn’t wear fishnet stockings, stiletto heels and small, tight triangles into dive bars.

Clunk.

He looked stupidly at his phone lying on the floor.

“I’ll get it,” she said cheerfully.

“No—”

But she’d already scooted off her stool, a mass of red, fleshy curves and stars and stripes...and it was all he could to sit there and stare.

She straightened slowly, a funny look on her face.

He held out his hand for the phone.

But she didn’t return it. Instead, she shifted closer, so close he could see that her eyes were brown. A rich, warm color, like melting caramel. He inhaled a slow breath, caught her scent. Fresh and soapy, as though she’d just stepped out of a shower. Surprising. These girls usually poured on the perfume.

“I’m getting a pulsation,” she whispered.

Took him a moment to realize it was an incoming call. “I don’t like ringtones,” he said. “Keep it on vibrate. Give it to me.”

“It’s not a call. It’s a pulsation...” She waggled her fingers in the air. “From out there.”

“Through my phone.”

She nodded. “I’m getting a message.”

Message. He glanced at her outfit. Was she a stripper from Brax’s club? Someone sent over to deliver a message to him?

“From Braxton?”

“Who?”

“Yuri?”

“I...don’t know a Yuri.”

This was starting to feel like another damn twenty questions and no answers from one of Brax’s employees.

“Are you going to tell me?” he snapped.

“I think it’s from...your father.”

Drake felt numb, frozen. Couldn’t move, couldn’t think. Finally, something inside thawed enough for him to speak.

“Impossible.” His heart banged so hard and fast, his chest ached.

But she was off someplace else. She swiveled slowly on her stool, her head tipped as though listening to a faraway tune.

“He says he loves you very much.” She smiled at Drake.

Enough! As though jolted to life by an electric prod, he bolted upright and blew out a lungful of air.

“Give me the damn phone.” He snatched it from her hand. He didn’t need this. Not from some whacked, high-woo-woo messenger. Was this Yuri’s idea of a sick joke?

Those big brown eyes implored him. “I didn’t mean to—”

“How much?”

“How much what?”

“How much money did they give you to play this game?”

For a girl who liked to talk, her silence was a message in itself. She was holding something back, but what? He no longer thought she worked as a stripper at Topaz—Brax liked his girls to wear sleek outfits, not castoffs from a Yankee Doodle Dandy parade. Plus, Brax liked to do his own talking. He would never send someone, especially this someone, to do it for him.

Yuri, on the other hand, was crafty, pathologically so, but immature. Maybe the Russian got the itch to dig at Drake, throw him off, so he’d hired this girl, maybe minutes before she walked in here, with hasty instructions to play on his father’s death. Maybe she was hard up for money, feared the thug or both.

“Why don’t you stick to what you’re good at.” He gave her a scathing once-over. “Although anybody who has to advertise to that extent probably isn’t all that good. Who hired your sorry ass?”

She opened her slick red lips to say something, but nothing came out.

Sally appeared, pushed a coaster toward his neighbor. “What can I get ya?”

Miss Who Dat swerved her stricken gaze to the bartender. “I, uh...”

He set down his bottle, hard, on the bar. “Order something. We have some talking to do.”

“Cherry cola?” she asked in a wispy voice.

Sally gave him a what’s-up look. He flashed her a mind-your-business one back.

“Maraschino juice in a cola okay?” Sally asked.

“F’sure. Thank you, ma’am.”

“Sally. And you’re?”

“Uh...” Her gaze darted across the bar. “Remy.”

“Nice to meet you, Remy.” She pointed to Drake’s bottle. “Another?”

He shook his head as an old Sinatra tune, “Luck Be a Lady,” started playing in the background.

Remy tapped her fingers on the bar. “I like this song.”

“Fine. Who put you up to this?”

She gave him a blank look. “Nobody.”

“Sticking to that story, eh?”

The way she lowered her thick black lashes, then raised them slowly, made him think of a theater curtain. He wondered what show he would see next.

“Like I told you,” she said, oozing earnestness, “I don’t know a Brassell or Yuri.”

“Braxton.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” He’d pulled that same stunt a hundred times. Mispronouncing a name to pretend he didn’t know the person. Playing dumb when you actually knew everything about the person, from the city where they were born to their cat’s name.

She acted like some kind of psychic nut, but he got the sense she was a lot sharper than she let on. No way was he going to get information from her. Not the truthful variety anyway.

“What you claim to have heard could not have been my father because...” He paused, swallowed an ache he’d been fighting all day. “He’s dead.”

There was a stupefied look on her face. Then she keeled forward and hugged him. “Oh, mercy!” she murmured, her voice breaking. “I had no idea.”

He set down the phone, trying to ignore the curious looks of others at the bar. Placing his hands on her trembling shoulders, he peeled her off him.

Her eyes glistened with emotion. Her chin quivered. What an actress.

“You knew.”

She sucked in a loud, indignant breath. “That he’s de— passed? No, of course, I didn’t know—how would I have? Even if I did know, I wouldn’t have shared what I heard...or sensed maybe is more like it, because to tell you the truth, I’m not all that sure I have the gift...but even if I was sure, I would never have said something like that without believing it offered some comfort.”

He frowned. “What?”

She waved her hands in the air. “Never mind.” She paused. “What are you pointing at?”

“That photo over the register. My dad was the original owner’s best friend, and a lifetime member of the Blottos who still hang out here most afternoons. If somebody wanted to learn facts about my father, all they’d have to do was buy one of those regulars a drink.”

“I don’t know any facts.” She looked at the photo. “He must be the gentleman on the right. The other one is too old.”

He said nothing.

After several beats, she said quietly, “You’re right. Those pulsations likely were your phone on vibrate. Sometimes I think I’m picking up on vibes, but...” She gave a one-shouldered shrug. “My nanny, though, she had the gift.”

“I don’t care if there’s a radio frequency scanner embedded in your skull, you have no right pretending to know Benedict Morgan.”

His brother had his issues, but Brax would never stoop so low as to fabricate a story involving their father. This evening was getting weirder by the minute. Time to go home, grab some shut-eye before his three a.m. return to Topaz.

He stood, retrieved his wallet from his pocket.

“Please, sir,” she whispered, “it was just a...funny coincidence.”

He turned away as he leafed through the money in his billfold. At least with his back to her, she’d get the hint their exchange was over.

“You got me wrong,” she continued.

So much for that theory.

“I sat next to you because I liked you. I walked in here and I thought, ‘Wow, that’s one good-looking guy. Sharp dresser, too.’ Maybe we could talk, get to know each other, but then your phone dropped...”

He turned so abruptly she jumped. “Let’s end this nonsense now,” he said in a low rumble. “You claim nobody sent you, fine. You call that...other part...a funny coincidence, okay. I halfway believe you because nobody in their right mind would hire a flake to put some mental muscle on me. But you can’t fool me about the rest of your performance. I’m not buying, sister, so sell it elsewhere.”

“Sell?” She actually looked affronted. “You think I’m...a hooker?”

“I’m giving you two pieces of advice. That ingénue act might work on out-of-towners who’ve never been to the big city, but don’t test-drive it on the locals, baby. And the next time somebody asks your name, don’t pick one off a bottle, Remy.” He snorted a laugh. “I suppose your last name’s Martin.”

Another guilty look. “F’true, you got me there. But you’re wrong about the rest. I’m not selling anything.”

“Right,” he muttered, “and I’m Mickey Mouse.”

Sally appeared, set the cola in front of the girl.

He tugged loose a five and handed it to Sally. “Keep the change.”

“Going home?” She slipped the bill into the tip jar.

He nodded. “Time to take my dog for a walk.”

“Don’t be a stranger.” She pulled out her cell phone and headed down the bar.

He didn’t look at “Remy” as he plucked his jacket off the high back of the stool. Folding it over his arm, he headed to the door as the music swelled and Frank warbled a long, long note that faded to nothing.

Drake stepped outside, and the heat hit him like a blast furnace. He wondered when he’d last taken a breath that didn’t smell like exhaust and warm asphalt.

Looking up at the night sky, he picked out the Big Dipper. When he was a kid, the skies had been cleaner, the stars brighter. But like everything else in life, things changed.

He was tired of change. It demanded too much and left too little. Never understood why people liked to say “embrace change,” as though it was fun, like wrapping your arms around the waist of some hot babe on a Harley, the two of you streaking toward some exhilarating destination. Change was more like sitting in the back of a taxi with some hard-nosed cabbie who drove recklessly, padded the fare and dumped you at the wrong address.

That was the problem with being a practical man. You knew life was no easy ride.

Sometimes, though, he envied the dreamers of the world, wondered what it was like to hope. To believe without the benefit of physical evidence. Staring at the stars again, he wished he could trust that something lay beyond life’s closed door, because he sure as hell couldn’t find the answers here.

He walked across the parking lot to the darkened kiosk, brushed off the seat of an abandoned stool and laid his jacket neatly over it. Rolling up a shirt sleeve, he watched the traffic along Las Vegas Boulevard. Cars, trucks and those life-changing taxis streamed past, filling the night with scraps of laughter, music and the occasional horn blast.

He scanned Topaz’s parking lot. No yellow Porsche parked in its regular spot. No black Mercedes, either, but it could be parked in a section not visible from here. He’d walk through the lot on his way to his truck, see what was there.

Fighting a yawn, he rolled up his other sleeve. He felt drained. Time to close the lid on today’s troubles, go home, walk his dog, then get some rest.

Click click click.

“Hello, sir?” called out a too-familiar female voice.

So much for closing that lid.

CHAPTER THREE

VAL SLOWED HER steps as she approached the darkened kiosk. The overhang cast a deep shadow around the building, making it difficult to see what or who was there, but from Dino’s window she had seen Drake stop somewhere around here.

“Hello, you there?” She squinted into the gloom.

“If I told you I wasn’t, would you go away?”

She huffed a breath. “Good thing that bad mood of yours isn’t luggage or it’d be too heavy to carry.”

“You came out here to tell me that?”

“No. You forgot your phone.” She thrust out her hand, more than ready to give it up. Whatever pulsations she had felt, or thought she felt, were gone.

“You want me to come to you?”

“Mercy, must everything be an issue?” Silence. “Yes, I want you to come to me.”

“Why? Afraid I’ll bite?”

“Yes. But I have to warn you, I bite back.”

She swiped a bead of sweat off her hairline. This damn wig was too tight, too hot. And these fishnet stockings made her legs itch something fierce. They never bothered her when she’d worn them at her old job, but that was indoors with plenty of air-conditioning, not outside where temps were pushing a hundred. Honestly, she could almost feel the steam rising from the pavement, even at this time of night.

She debated whether to set the damn phone on the ground and leave, but she didn’t want to fail at this. F’sure, she’d told Marta there were no guarantees to the honey trap, but what if Drake, her fiancé, told her about the weird hooker who claimed she felt pulsations through his phone, channeled his father, then stalked him into the parking lot? Hardly the techniques of a seasoned, knowledgeable private eye.

Marta would demand back every cent of the retainer.

Val would not let that happen. She had to suck it up, figure out how to salvage this mess. She and Grumpy were here now, alone. Which meant she had one more chance to sweeten the honey trap.

“You’re right, I’m a girl for sale.” Technically, she sold her investigator services, so that was true. “But I played the wrong man. You’re too smart, too hip to fall for this silly costume and come-on. I apologize.”

Her vision had adjusted enough to the shadows so that she could see his dark silhouette. He leaned against the building, and from the angle of his head, he was watching her. She remembered that gaze at the bar. The faint lines that fanned from the corners of his eyes, their smoky color. How they shone with intensity, as though he was on the verge of asking a question or in the process of formulating one. But when he angered, their color darkened to a flat, dull shade like gunmetal.

She wondered what color they were right now.

“Let’s call a truce, okay? I’ll bring your phone to you, then you can thank me.”

He didn’t respond. She had probably taken him by surprise with her no-harm-no-foul attitude. Or maybe he was mulling over her ability to actually tell the truth. That man sure spent a lot of time in his head.

She walked almost to the edge of the shadow and stopped. “I’d walk to you, but it’s not so easy to see in there, and I’d hate to fumble and drop the phone while handing it over. Of course, it might survive bouncing on the ground a few times, and you wouldn’t need to replace it, so—”

“Stay put.”

He stepped forward. Hazy moonlight slanted across his face, not enough to clearly see his features, but enough to see the pronounced line of his jaw, the bulk of his shoulders. He reached out with both hands and wrapped them around hers.

“Do you still feel those pulsations?” he asked, his voice husky, and unless she had lost her sense of hearing, more than a little suggestive.

“No,” she whispered. His hands were big and warm, triggering pulsations that had nothing to do with the phone. In the space of a heartbeat, the edginess between them had shifted, intensified, from a mental struggle to a physical one.

“Nothing at all?”

He tightened his hold, stroking his thumb in a light, lingering path on the back of her hand. Sensations sparked within her.

“Of course I feel something,” she managed to say around her heart thundering in her throat. “I’m flesh and blood, aren’t I?”

A throaty chuckle. “I like it when you’re honest. One moment, let me put the phone away.”

She realized she was holding her hands in midair, suspended where he’d abandoned them, as though they had no purpose other than waiting for his touch. “Don’t leave me hanging.”

He captured them again. With a squeeze, he drew her closer, then placed her palms flat against his chest. Through his shirt, she felt his heart pumping, its beat steady and strong. That’s how he is. Steady, strong, focused.

Raising one hand, he kissed her index finger before drawing it into his mouth. She shuddered a release of breath as he suckled it. Maybe she should admit she wasn’t really a hooker.

Slowly, his mouth released its hold on her finger and moved to her wrist, which he kissed and nuzzled.

Or maybe not.

“Do you like that?” he whispered.

“Ye—” The rest of the word ended in a small, ragged moan as his talented mouth and tongue tickled, nibbled and kissed the inside of her arm.

“What’s your real name?” His voice, rough and low, reverberated through her.

“V-val.”

These were just caresses, and some wicked attention from his mouth, yet her insides were rocking and rolling as though they were buck naked in bed. She stifled a building moan and told herself to chill, gain some ground. She was acting as if she hadn’t been touched by a man in years.

Well, she hadn’t. Two years, if she didn’t count that backseat fumble in Houston. A realization that was as depressing as it was embarrassing.

But when he lightly trailed the pad of his thumb across her bottom lip, then dragged it leisurely down her neck, his touch both deliciously coarse and gentle, the only thought she had was more, more...

“Why the wig, Val?”

“Hmm?”

“The wig. It’s obvious you’re wearing one. Why?”

She mentally fought her way through the haze of arousal. “Does it...look bad?”

As soon as she asked, she regretted it. Made her sound pathetically insecure about her looks, which was so far from the truth. If anything, she had been pathetically insecure about how she’d prepared for her job tonight.

“It looks—” he fingered a lock “—like strands of moonlight. Gives you an unearthly, dreamy quality.”

For a man who bottled up his words, he sure knew how to pour them on sweet and thick at the right moment.

“I always wear it with this outfit.” Also true.

“Interesting outfit to wear to Dino’s. Who hired you, Val?”

“Nobody.”

“Was it Yuri? You can tell me.”

“Nobody.”

Interesting, too, how he’d deftly manipulated this encounter so he was now in control. He’d plied her with his mouth and touch, worked her with compliments until her reserve dissolved, and she was ready to divulge whatever he wanted to know.

This man had taken over her honey trap!

Oh, no. Two thousand dollars, and the small but significant fact that her self-esteem needed her to succeed at her first P.I. gig, were at stake.

Time for the queen bee to regain her territory.

She had a job to do. Maybe she’d flitted here and there, floundered a little in her flight, but she would land this job, and do it right. This was her career, her future. Val Louvinia LeRoy would prove she had what it took to be a professional private eye.

“I wore an interesting outfit,” she said, sliding her arms around his waist, “in the hope I’d meet an interesting man.” You drone, me queen, sugar.

She nuzzled her face against his shirt, taking in its clean, crisp scent. Finding a gap between buttons, she slipped her tongue inside, touching the mat of hair on his chest. She probed a little farther and licked the slick, wiry strands, filling her mouth with the tangy, salty taste of his sweat. Closing her eyes, she sensed the warmth rising from his body, imagined what it’d be like to slowly undress him, piece by piece, unveiling his strong, powerful, male body...

Adrenaline surged through her veins. Ah, she felt alive, lost in the sensations. She could stay like this forever, indulging in slow, erotic play, teasing and prolonging the sweet torture until...

With great effort, she shoved down the fantasy.

There would never be an until, only these moments now. Of course she knew that, yet something inside of her splintered, the shards slicing, hurting.

“Val?” His voice was gruff, yet tender.

“Sorry.” She opened her eyes. “Got lost in my thoughts.”

“Anything I should know?”

Staring into his face, she cupped his cheek with her hand, half wishing they were indoors so she could read the look in his eyes. Those brooding, wary eyes, always watchful, always vigilant.

“You need to lighten up more.” The words spilled out before she’d thought them through.

“Are we back to my carrying bags?”

“Actually, it was luggage.”

“And my bad mood fitting into it.”

“Actually, I said it was a good thing your bad mood wasn’t luggage because—”

“It’d be too heavy to carry.”

Listening to his amused chuckle, she smiled. Didn’t completely ease the pain she felt inside, but it was good to share a moment of playfulness.

“How about I lighten up more now,” he said, his voice dropping to a rugged register that sent a thrill skittering up her spine.

“Let me help...”

Pressing closer, she wrapped her arms around his neck. Molding herself against him, she let him feel the length of her body against his, close and tight, from her breasts to her thighs. Emitting a throaty purr, she opened herself to him and gently thrust her pelvis against his. Then once more—giving him an unmistakable confirmation of her body signals.

She felt him hardening against her.

He lowered his head. “That’s not what I call light.”

Leaning back her head, she parted her lips, shuddering her pleasure as he nuzzled her neck, his big hands kneading her bottom. She felt the change in him, the tensing of his muscles, his labored breaths. Kissing was no longer a game. She was playing with fire, and she wanted to be scorched, consumed.

She pulled his head down to her, closer, closer, until she felt his breath warming her lips.

“Give me some sugar,” she whispered.

With a low, guttural groan, his mouth barely touched hers—

A trumpet blasted a riff.

“Wha—?” He jerked back his head.

She blinked, steadying herself as a clarinet wailed, a snare drum tapped.

Drake looked around. “That sounds like...a Dixieland band.”

“It is.”

“‘When the Saints Go Marching In?’”

“Right again. It’s my ringtone.” She reached into her pocket and glanced at the caller ID. Someone from home was calling. Had to be one of her cousins, probably worried as it was late and they didn’t like her taking buses at night. She hadn’t had a chance to tell them that she was driving a rental for the next few days, or that her car would be fixed soon, thanks to the money from this honey-trap gig.

Now wasn’t the time to talk, though. She turned off the phone and stuffed it into her pocket.

“Let me guess,” Drake said, his voice taut, “that was Hubby.”

She barked a small laugh. Couldn’t help it. Of all the secrets he’d accused her of, she hadn’t expected that one. “Girls like me don’t have husbands. You got a wife? Or a girlfriend? A fiancée?”

“None of the above.”

His lie bothered her, even though she’d been expecting as much. She was glad the night shadowed her features, because confusion and hurt were probably stamped all over her face.

The door to Dino’s swung open, and the faint strains of a Coldplay song wafted onto the street. Traffic cruised down Las Vegas Boulevard with its mix of honking horns and screeching tires. The air simmered with the never ending, relentless heat.

Everything was the same as it had been when she first got here, but she had changed, irreversibly so. Until the past few minutes, she had not realized that, deep within her, she had put up a wall that protected something fragile, yet potentially devastating. Now it had been freed, and she could never put it back.

“I need to go now,” she said, fighting to keep her voice even.

“Where are you parked?”

“There.” She pointed in the general direction of the Honda rental, thirty or so feet away.

“I’ll watch, make sure you get into your car okay.”

She didn’t trust herself to speak anymore. With a wave, she walked away.

As her heels clicked across the lot, Jayne’s words drifted through her mind. Diamond Investigations never did honey traps because “inducing the behavior” to “objectively document” was unacceptable. Just like Jayne to couch it in clinical, detached terms.

Val could add an important side note to her boss’s rule. Honey traps were especially unacceptable because people whose hearts had been numbed might unexpectedly wake up and realize what had been missing in their lives—an impassioned connection, a sense of belonging or maybe just a person’s touch. When that happened, inducements became deterrents, and all objectivity was lost. The game became real.

She reached her car and turned.

He stood where she had left him. A dark, lonely form, vigilantly watching, protecting.

* * *

A SHORT WHILE later Val sat at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and East Charleston. She still felt wobbly about what had happened in Dino’s parking lot. And embarrassed by telling him about the pulsations. At the time, she would have sworn they were dead-on real. She winced at her choice of words. Well, whatever, she should have kept the bulletin to herself.

Her nanny was the one who really had the “soul’s eye,” as she called it. Through it, she said she experienced impressions—images, feelings, voices—in the part of her brain where dreams lay, which resonated from objects imbued with memories of their owners’ lives, anything from significant events to people they had loved. Although some people called her gift psychometry, Nanny called it “measuring people’s spirits.”

When Val was thirteen, she’d thought she was picking up on objects’ impressions, too. Sometimes when she touched one of the antiques in their shop, especially ones with metal or stones, her fingers would tingle slightly. Immediately following that, an image or emotion would pass through her mind. Never heard a voice, though, like Nanny did. Not until tonight.

Looking back, she couldn’t honestly say she really saw or felt those things. Sometimes she wondered if it had just been a way to be closer to her nanny, the two of them sharing something special. Hindsight could sure give a person twenty-twenty vision.

But still, what happened earlier in the bar had seemed like an impression. She had definitely heard an older man’s voice when she held Drake’s phone, but thinking back, she remembered an older couple sitting at a table behind them, and Val had overheard him expressing his love for his lady friend. And those pulsations from the phone? No-brainer. The phone was on vibrate.

A horn honked, jerking Val out of her reverie. Sheepishly, she realized the light had turned green.

Another honk.

“Hold your britches, bubba,” she muttered, stepping on the gas and turning down Charleston Boulevard.

Time to call Marta with a final update. After a quick check to verify no cops were around—Nevada might have legalized prostitution and gambling, but drivers could get hefty fines for handheld cell phones—she punched in Marta’s number.

“It done?” No hello.

“Yes.”

“Where is he?”

“I left him in the parking lot at Dino’s.”

“When?”

“Ten, fifteen minutes ago.”

“So that be...quarter to ten.”

“Sounds about right.”

“He go inside Dino’s? Or to Topaz?”

Who cares where he went afterward? “I don’t know,” she said absently. “Listen, Marta, I have something to tell you.”

This next part was going to be tough for her client to hear, even if she had been anticipating it.

“The honey trap,” she said gently, “confirmed your intuitions, Marta.”

Silence. No tears. No rants. Just...silence. Poor girl. Probably numb with hurt.

“What is this intoshuns?” Marta snapped.

Her tone took Val by surprise. “Intuitions...uh, they’re your suspicions. Inklings. Doubts.”

“Too many words. I ask for information, not words.”

Like one wasn’t the other. “He kissed me.” Well, almost, but close enough. “He cheats. So don’t marry the man.” So much for the sensitive approach.

After a beat, Marta muttered. “He like that.”

He like that. What was that supposed to mean? He likes fooling around with women he doesn’t know?

Val felt an ugly zap of the green monster.

Oh, no. She refused to get jealous over the guy. This had been a job, one she had been paid well to do. Didn’t matter what he liked or didn’t like, he was a notch in Val’s investigative career belt, nothing more.

“I’ll send you a report when I get home,” she said tightly.

“No report. This between you and me.”

“Fine.” Like she wanted to rehash all the smarmy details anyway.

“I want you go back to bar.”

“When pigs fly.”

“What?”

“I fulfilled the job request, Marta. The work is done. Completed. Finis.”

“So many words again.”

“Then let me give you just one. No. I am not going back to that bar.”

“Please, Val,” she said, her mood shifting from cold to needy. “I must know if he still there.”

“What does it matter? He kissed me!” Kinda. “That’s what you wanted to know!”

“Yes, kiss. Good. Still...must know if he—”

“Call the bar and ask.”

“No. Want you to—”

“Call his cell, then.”

“I don’t have— Why not you go? It your job! Val, please—”

“Job is over. Terminated. Wrapped up.” She tried to think of even more words, but those would do. “Goodbye.”

She ended the call and tossed the phone onto the seat next to her, then frowned. Why hadn’t Marta cared about that kiss?

Hardly the reaction of a woman whose heart had been broken. She had been teary talking about her suspected philandering fiancé in the office this afternoon, but the only thing Marta seemed upset about tonight—besides Val’s vocabulary—was her not going back to check on Drake’s whereabouts.

Something else bothered Val about that conversation. Couldn’t put her finger on it...something Marta had said. Or didn’t finish saying. When Val told her to call Drake’s cell, she had said something like I don’t have...

She didn’t have what?

The nerve to call him?

The time to make such a call?

Val’s stomach growled. Spying one of her favorite fast-food pit stops, Aloha Kitchen, she decided to pull over. Time to put the crazy case behind her. Maybe she didn’t understand the conclusion, maybe she never would, but some things were best left in the shadows.

* * *

DRAKE DROVE HIS pickup along Las Vegas Boulevard. Warm breezes rushed through his open driver’s window, almost drying the sweat on his skin. Far off, a siren wailed, peppered with a variety of horn blasts. Ambulance and a fire engine? Maybe a police unit or two thrown in for good measure.

At a red light, he glanced at his phone, which he always set on his thigh when he drove, and checked the time. A few minutes after ten. He’d be home in twenty minutes, fifteen if traffic picked up. He’d piled plenty of food into Hearsay’s bowl, so his dog wouldn’t be hungry. After a short walk around the block, Drake would be in bed by eleven. If he was lucky and fell asleep right away, he’d get three hours before his early-morning surveillance.

Hadn’t been that lucky lately, though. At least he put his insomnia to good use. Was halfway through Michael Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer, which made him wish he had someone to drive him around while he caught up on his paperwork and made calls. Not a partner, just a grunt with a driver’s license.

He hadn’t seen Brax’s Porsche or Yuri’s Benz when he’d walked through the Topaz lot, not a big surprise as Sally said she typically saw the cars in the wee hours. He hadn’t been in the mood to go inside Topaz. Same shift, same nonanswers. Nothing like wasting time trying to convince people to talk who didn’t want to talk.

He passed Bonanza Gifts, its parking-lot-wide marquee advertising itself to be the world’s largest gift shop. More like the world’s largest tacky emporium, but it had been one of his favorite hangouts as a kid.

He remembered a long-ago birthday gift, a dice clock, he’d bought for his dad there. Each hour had glued-on dice, their dots representing that number. “Snake eyes” for two o’clock, “little Joe” for four, “six five, no jive” for eleven. Over his mom’s protests, his dad had proudly hung it in the living room, over the TV. After a while, he and his dad started telling time by dice slang. “Billy’s coming over at Nina from Pasadena” meant Billy would arrive at nine. “He wants you to call at puppy paws” meant call him at ten.

Years later, after the old man died, Drake asked for the clock, but his mom refused, playing on dice slang by answering, “Six five, no jive.”

His dad would have gotten a kick out of that.

He blinked at the streams of red lights ahead, swallowed feelings he didn’t want to recognize.

Damn it to hell. He wished he had never met Val, if that was even her name. Wished he’d never heard about those damn pulsations. Like his dad would send such a message through a total stranger, especially one dressed as though she shopped at Army Surplus for Hookers.

Whatever her scheme, he was one up on it. When she pulled out her cell, he’d memorized the caller ID. He’d run it through some proprietary databases and by the time his head hit the pillow he’d know more about Miss Who Dat than her own mama ever did.

The phone vibrated against his thigh. He checked the caller ID. Las Vegas area code, but he didn’t recognize the number. Without moving the phone, he punched Answer, then Speaker.

“Morgan Investigations,” he answered, raising his voice to be heard.

“Drake Morgan?” A woman’s voice.

“Yes.”

“Sir, I’m a dispatcher, Clark County emergency call center, and are you the Drake Morgan who resides at...”

As the dispatcher recited his address, the hairs bristled on the back of his neck. “That’s correct.”

“I don’t want to alarm you, but I need to advise that your home is being worked on by several Clark County fire units—”

“Are you saying...my house is on fire?”

“Yes, sir—”

Adrenaline jacked his pulse. “I’m on my way.”

“The firefighters are doing their best, and what they need most is for you to remain calm when you arrive—”

“My dog is inside!”

“Anyone else?”

“No.” He gripped the wheel with shaking hands. “My dog likes to sleep under the kitchen table!”

Spring Mountain Road, the main artery to his street, was ahead. As he shifted to check traffic, the phone slipped and clattered onto the floorboard.

“Look under the kitchen table!” he yelled, flipping the turn signal. “I’m on my way there!”

Pumping the horn, he shot through an opening in traffic, straight through to the far lane. A horn blasted. He jerked the wheel left, barely missing an Audi wagon, before he wrestled a turn onto Spring Mountain.

“Check the kitchen,” he shouted again, jamming his foot on the gas pedal, “under the table!”

* * *

TEN OR SO minutes later—although it felt like hours, a lifetime—he slammed the pickup to a stop across the street from his house, his stomach lurching as he saw the gray-white smoke billowing to the sky, its core pulsing orange and red. Monstrous flames shot twenty, thirty feet from the roof. The wooden structure resembled an oversize pile of kindling.

Jumping out, he jogged across the street and around one of several fire trucks. Three or four police officers stood on the periphery of the property, keeping neighbors at bay. Several firefighters handled a hose, pointing its gushing stream of water at the flames. Others worked another hose, aimed at the roof of the neighboring house.

He headed up the driveway.

“Hey, buddy, you can’t go in there!”

“Chuck, stop that guy!”

A firefighter, his mask pulled off his face, blocked Drake’s path.

“My dog’s in there, damn it!” He tried to shove past, eyeing the crackling flames that licked at the side of the house. His office.

“Stop!” A second firefighter, his face gleaming with sweat, grabbed Drake’s arm. “Calm down or I’ll call those cops over to drag your butt to jail.”

The heat radiating off the fire was intense. Sucking in a breath that tasted like soot, Drake glanced at the name on the firefighter’s helmet. “Captain Dietrich, I’m Drake Morgan and I live here. My dog’s inside.”

“I know. Heard it from dispatch.” He looked over his shoulder and yelled, “I said, step on it!” Turning to Drake, he continued, “Sorry, but I can’t have you doing something stupid like trying to go inside. We got enough on our hands fighting the fire, looking for the dog. Can’t be trying to save you, too.”

“I won’t fight you.” Drake swiped at his brow. “My dog—”

“Two guys made an attempt to go inside, but I had to pull them back after a wall collapsed.”

His heart jammed in his throat. “Where?”

Dietrich jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “East side of house. Looked like an office. According to neighbors, that’s where the house first exploded in flames. Did you store flammable chemicals, other petroleum distillates, there or anywhere else?”

“Absolutely not.” A small relief sifted through Drake’s fear. The office was the farthest from the kitchen. “I think my dog is in the kitchen.”

“Where is it?”

“Back northwest corner.”

Dietrich stared at the front door, smoke swirling out the opening.

“It’s a clear shot,” Drake said, “thirty feet diagonal, from the door. Table is against the west wall. Hearsay—that’s his name—likes to lie under it.”

Dietrich pointed at Chuck. “Got that? Back northwest corner? Look under kitchen table for the dog. You and Ross are going in.”

Chuck pulled up his mask as Dietrich strode to a truck, gesturing and talking to several firefighters.

Drake watched Chuck and Ross, air tanks strapped to their backs, enter and disappear into the smoke.

“Hang in there, buddy,” he said under his breath, “they’re almost there.”

When the mutt—who looked to be part whippet, part retriever—showed up at Drake’s house a year ago, he’d ignored it, figuring it would meander back home. Instead it hung out in his yard like a lonesome guy in a bar who had nowhere to go after last call.

The next day, he’d grudgingly put out a bowl of water, some leftover meat loaf. It was cool enough in April that he didn’t worry about the mutt hanging around outside, figuring he’d soon go back to wherever he belonged.

Within the week, Drake was lugging home dog food. Mutt sniffed it, turned away. Wanted meat loaf.

Drake’s gut clenched as a front window exploded, glass shattering. Gray smoke streamed out the window, curling furiously over the roof as flames lashed through the opening.

He tried to still his thoughts, told himself that the worst of the fire was in his bedroom and office, was traveling only now into the living room...hadn’t yet reached the kitchen.

“Mr. Morgan?”

He turned. An elderly woman, who he vaguely recalled lived several houses down, stood hunched in her chenille robe.

“I’m so sorry.” In the flickering light of the fire, her milky blue eyes brimmed with emotion. She clutched his hand and squeezed it. “Oh, your sweet little dog...”

He couldn’t deal with this.

Clamping his mouth shut, he looked at the fiery hell, grinding his teeth until his jaw ached, willing God or whoever was in charge to hear him out. Take it all. Destroy everything I own. But please, spare one small heart...

In the doorway, a form materialized in the whirling smoke. A firefighter emerged, cradling a limp form in his arms.

CHAPTER FOUR

AS THE FIREFIGHTER laid the limp dog onto a cleared area of the yard, Dietrich ran over, carrying an oxygen tank.

Drake stumbled forward and dropped to his knees next to Hearsay. The dog lay on his side, unmoving, eyes closed.

Tugging off his own mask, Chuck knelt across from Drake. Dietrich, positioned at the dog’s head, strapped a small plastic mask over the dog’s muzzle.

Dietrich jabbed his chin at Chuck. “Turn it up.”

Chuck adjusted the nozzle on the tank, then pressed two fingers against the dog’s throat. He held it there, a studious look on his sweat-slicked face, before giving his head a small shake.

The two firefighters exchanged a look.

Which Drake caught. His insides constricted into a tight ball of hurt and rage.

He refused to believe it.

Not his dog. Not Hearsay.

He would find the bastard who did this, make him pay. After Drake was through with him, he would wish he had died a slow, agonizing death in this fire instead.

The crackling of the flames, movements of people and machinery, even the fierce heat shrank into the background as Drake stroked Hearsay, still soft and warm, willing his life force to not seep away.

Please. Spare him.

“Come on, buddy,” he whispered, his voice strained, “you can make it.”

Dietrich, his face grim, peered intently into the dog’s face.

Chuck lightly shook the dog’s shoulder. “Stay with us, boy.”

Drake ran his hand down the dog’s side, stopping when his fingers grazed stiff, charred hair.

“Looks to be only the fur,” Dietrich said, “nothing deeper. Bigger problem is how much smoke this little guy took in.” He lightly brushed some soot from Hearsay’s nostrils.

“I heard whimpering as I approached the kitchen,” Chuck said. “He hasn’t been out long.”

Drake leaned closer. “Stay,” he whispered hoarsely, every fiber of his being commanding it to be so. He swiped at the tears coursing down his face, not giving a damn who saw. “I need you, buddy.”

A crackling crash. On the west side of the house, flames blew out the shattered kitchen window.

“Got a pulse,” Chuck said.

Drake stared at the dog’s chest, catching an almost imperceptible movement. “He’s breathing!”

The men stared at another rise and fall of the chest...and another...

“Keep at it, boy,” Dietrich coached, “you’re almost there.”

Three grown men on their knees cried and whooped as Hearsay’s eyelids fluttered opened.

Dietrich grinned at the dog, his teeth white in a face streaked with soot. “You’re one tough bastard, Hearsay.”

Blinking, the dog looked around, his gaze settling on Drake.

In that moment, he met God.

“Welcome back, buddy,” he murmured.

After a few minutes, Chuck slipped the oxygen mask over the dog’s head. “There’s an all-night emergency vet hospital near here—”

“I know where it is.” Drake stroked Hearsay’s head.

“Take him there right now, have him checked over. He’s alert, breathing on his own, but the little guy took in a lot of smoke. He’s gonna need medicine to prevent lung issues later.”

“I will.” He looked over at Dietrich, who had moved away and was yammering orders to several firefighters. “I never got to thank him.”

“Captain lost his own dog a few months ago,” Chuck said. “Saving yours helped him, you know? Helped all of us. It’s an honor to save a life.” He put his hands underneath the dog. “Let’s get him up.”

Together, they lifted the dog.

Cradling Hearsay in his arms, Drake walked down the driveway. As he passed through clusters of neighbors, people touched his back, murmured words of encouragement. He held Hearsay close, knowing there were difficult, frustrating days ahead, but at the moment, nothing mattered but the life in his arms.

At the pickup, he opened the passenger door. Cuddling Hearsay close in one arm, he lifted the jacket lying neatly on the seat with his free hand. Then paused. The vinyl seating was old, ripped. A jacket would provide some cushioning.

Carefully, he laid Hearsay on the jacket, which still carried lingering scents of his dad’s Old Spice cologne and love of cigars. His old man would have approved. He liked the material things like anybody else, but nothing—not even a jacket that had cost him a month’s pay—was more important than family.

“Mr. Morgan?”

He double-checked to make sure Hearsay was comfortable, then turned. A streetlight highlighted a stocky man dressed in pants and a sports shirt.

“I’m Tony Cordova, arson investigator for this district.”

Drake guessed his raspy voice was from years of smoking, inhaling smoke or both.

“Like to ask you some questions,” Tony said.

“Later.” He carefully closed the passenger door, which shut with a solid click. “Need to take my dog to the vet hospital.”

“Saw the firefighters bring him around. Glad the tyke’s okay.” He followed Drake as he walked to the driver’s door. “You’re a private investigator, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Then you understand the importance of my asking questions right now.”

“I understand.” He yanked open the door. With any crime, the faster you gathered data, the faster you were on the trail. “But as I said, I’m on my way to the hospital.”

“Was anyone else in your house when you left tonight?”

“I already told dispatch there was no one.”

“Did you accidentally leave the stove on? Any faulty electrical apparatus that you were aware of?”

Drake climbed in, slammed the door and glared at him through the open window. “Tony—that’s your name, right?—I promise to cooperate with your investigation, but now is not the time.” He held out his hand. “Give me your card, I’ll call you.”

Tony handed over a card. “Are you aware of anyone who might wish to harm you?”

“No.”

After checking Hearsay one more time, he shoved the key into the ignition. As Drake drove off, he heard Tony yell something about calling tomorrow.

Heading down the road, he called the vet hospital and made arrangements for Hearsay’s emergency care. Afterward, one hand resting on his dog, reassured by the steady rise and fall of his pet’s chest, he thought about the lie he had told to the arson investigator. No, he didn’t know anyone who wished to harm him.

It wasn’t so much that Yuri wanted to harm him—more like he wanted to leave his calling card, a violent, fiery one meant to intimidate. Which told him the Russian knew Drake had been tailing him.

How? He had taken extra care to park his pickup in secluded areas, always used covert and long-range cameras. In the nearly six years he’d been a P.I., only once had he been caught surveilling someone, but not because he got sloppy. In that case, his client, during a phone call yelling match with his almost ex-wife, had informed her he’d hired a P.I. to surveil her that very day. After that, Drake had never shared his investigation schedule with clients.

No, Yuri must have heard from one of the employees at Topaz that Drake was sniffing around the club, asking too many questions. If Yuri had nothing to hide, he wouldn’t have cared.

But his savage reaction showed the depth of his paranoia. He was afraid Drake might have documented something incriminating. Something the police would find of interest.

Drake had a good idea what had happened tonight. Before setting the fire, Yuri, and probably one or two of his boys, had ransacked the office, snatching cameras, the laptop, recorders. Hearsay, hackles bristling, had barked at the intruders. But it hadn’t taken long for the dog’s street smarts to kick in, sense that retreat meant survival, so he’d withdrawn to his spot under the kitchen table.

The men hadn’t bothered with the dog after that—they had work to do.

Yuri and his stupid cretins. No concept that images could be saved in places other than physical devices. Idiots probably thought “the cloud” was something in the sky, not a remote storage option.

After gathering equipment, they’d drenched his office in gasoline. Considering how rapidly the fire spread through that part of the house, they must have also splashed gasoline down the hall and into the bedroom, too. Then torched the place.

With the dog still inside.

His fingers dug into the steering wheel. That son of a bitch would pay dearly for what he did tonight. And Drake would do it personally, not hand over the meting of justice to some arson investigator.

Sure, he could have leaked Yuri’s name to Tony Cordova, who would have tracked the bastard down tonight for an interview. The Russian would have had an alibi, of course, along with a string of witnesses who’d back up his story. Plus, with Drake siccing government dogs on him, Yuri would go into hiding, and Drake’s personal investigation would grind to a halt. Any hopes of digging for more dirt, or ever getting back the ring, would be crushed.

Then there was Brax.

His brother felt above the law, but arson? He wasn’t that dirty. But if Drake offered up Yuri to arson investigators, trails could lead to his brother. And if they didn’t, Yuri would ensure sure they did.

A form materialized in Drake’s mind. That woman. Who Dat. Had she been a player in this arson? Paid to keep Drake busy, give Yuri and his goons time to do their job? His gut said yes. Just like the Mississippi River that ran through her city of New Orleans, she was twisting, swift and treacherous.

She had never been to Dino’s, a dive bar in a lousy neighborhood, yet she showed up tonight, out of the blue. Made a straight line for him, too, and even after he’d shunned her, she didn’t budge. Stayed perched on that stool like some kind of tufted bird of prey, waiting for an opportunity to sink in her talons.

He’d walked out of that bar knowing she was trouble, but had given in to the night, the heat.

He clenched his teeth. And for those few hot, heady minutes, his home had been destroyed. Hearsay nearly killed.

Just as Yuri would pay for what he had done tonight, so would she.

By morning, he would know her name, age, address, where she hung out, where she worked. And he would pay her a visit.

The kind of visit a person remembered for the rest of her life.

* * *

AT TEN-FORTY, Val walked through the door of her second cousins’ Char and Del Jackson’s home, carrying a paper bag from Aloha Kitchen.

Their home was a hodgepodge of secondhand furniture, along with some everyday objects Char, with Del’s handyman help, had remade into furnishings. Stacked crates had become a bookcase in the living room, and a polished wooden wire spool now served as a small table on the patio. Val’s favorite was an old trunk they had recycled into a wine rack. “It’s not about what God took away,” Char liked to say, “but what we do with what’s left.”

To Val, that said everything about their being survivors of Katrina. Char and Del had visited her and Nanny, Del’s cousin, several times when Val was a child, but they had lost touch over the years. Right before Katrina, they had moved to Gulfport, Mississippi, an area also ravaged during the storm, during which they’d lost their home along with Del’s job as a truck driver.

Six years and a relocation later, they owned the Gumbo Stop, which they’d grown from a concession trailer to a store that offered creole cuisine in boil-in-a-bag portions. After locating Val, they’d asked her to come to Las Vegas to live with them and their daughter, twenty-one-year-old Jasmyn.

Who was curled up on the couch in her pink capri pajamas, patterned with the word Paris in a flowery script along with miniature Eiffel Towers. She called them her Je rêve—French for “I dream”—jammies because her overriding desire was to live in Paris. Her parents accepted their daughter’s dream to live in the romantic city, but weren’t so thrilled about her wanting to work there as a burlesque dancer.

Jasmyn had years of training as a dancer. At ten she’d won a regional tap competition, followed by several summers working in the chorus for regional musicals. The past few years, she had been teaching tap and ballet to kids at the Dance-a-Rama Studio.

As a counteroffer to the burlesque-dancer-in-Paris dream, Char and Del offered Jasmyn full tuition to Le Cordon Bleu, which they called “a virtual Parisian experience,” which just happened to have a college in Las Vegas. Instead of struggling as a dancer, they argued, a prestigious culinary arts degree opened doors to a lifetime career as a chef.

Jasmyn’s interest in the idea was about as peaked as a collapsed soufflé.

“Hey, baby,” Jasmyn called out in her soft, lazy drawl. She twittered her fingers in greeting, her eyes glued to the black-and-white movie on the TV screen.

“Weren’t you watching that show last night?”

“I bought the DVD because this movie, Double Indemnity, defined film noir. Those old-time movie stars Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck are hawt, cuz.”

Sometimes they called each other cuz, although in the two years since Val had moved in here, she’d come to feel more like a sister to Jasmyn. Or what she assumed a sister would be like. They sometimes argued, sometimes irritated each other, but they were also each other’s sounding board and confidante.

Jasmyn played with a curl of her long raven hair. “Cuz, I’m thinkin’ of dyeing my hair platinum, the brassy but trashy color of Barbara Stanwyck’s pageboy wig.”

Val glanced at the screen. “Looks better than my brassy but trashy wig.”

Jasmyn’s gaze landed on Val’s hair, where it paused for a moment before darting down Val’s outfit, then quickly up. “Whoa, sugar, laissez les bons temps rouler!”

It was French for “let the good times roll,” a popular saying heard all the time in New Orleans.

“Actually, this wasn’t worn for fun.” She set the bag on the coffee table. “I worked my first investigation tonight.”

“Investigation?” Jasmyn punched a button on the remote. The room instantly grew quiet, the movie frozen on an image of Fred MacMurray looking at Barbara Stanwyck’s leg. “Isn’t that outfit the one you wore at that casino where you dealt blackjack and lip-synched Christina Aguilera’s songs?”

Val plopped down on the couch. “Has nothing to do with her, though. I dressed like this to...” Her heart and mind felt all jumbled up with everything that had happened tonight. She wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. “Hungry? I picked up some to-go from Aloha Kitchen.”

After shooting Val a knowing look, Jasmyn gestured at the bag. “I love them funny little rolls. You get some of them?”

“Lumpia Shanghai. Got extra just for you.” She handed her a few of the mini egg rolls stuffed with ground pork, carrots and onions on a napkin.

They ate in silence for a while. The air conditioner chugged quietly in the background. On the TV screen, Fred continued to stare at Barbara’s ankle. The way he looked at her—startled and hungry—reminded Val of the look on Drake’s face when she showed him the fleur-de-lis on her heels.

Like she cared. It was over. Dead. Gone.

She gestured to the screen with an egg roll. “What’s Fred looking at?”

“Her anklet. It’s a big deal in the movie.”

Chewing, Val made a keep-going gesture.

“The anklet is a symbol that represents sexual fascination.” Jasmyn grinned. “Read that in some film critic’s review on the internet. In my own words, that little gold anklet sends a signal as big and bright as a lighthouse beacon. It flashes ‘I’m a bad girl looking for trouble.’ Women who wore them were thought to be loose.”

Val wiped her fingers on a napkin. “This movie was made when?”

“Nineteen forty-four.”

“You just turned twenty-one, what, three months ago? And you know all about anklets worn nearly seventy years ago?”

Jasmyn gave a casual shrug. “It’s my thing, the forties and fifties.”

“Your noir thing.”

“More like my neonoir thing. Digging the old styles, but updating them, too.” She waggled a magenta fingernail at the screen. “Like that anklet she’s wearing. I’d wear one with peep-toe pumps, capri pants, a slim cardigan and Dita Von Teese’s bad-red lipstick, Devil.”

“You love that Dita Von Teese with her skintight dresses and corsets and elbow-length gloves.”

“She’s an artist, a burlesque queen.”

“I see you haven’t thought about this much.”

“I celebrate my life through my style, what can I say? I know you understand ’cause you go a little retro yourself, cuz.”

Val had a thing for simple, vintage black dresses. When she was a kid, she’d loathed reach-me-down—secondhand—clothes, and had sworn that when she grew up she’d always buy off-the-rack. But when that day came, she hated how stiff and scratchy new clothes felt against her skin. Missed the softness of reach-me-downs, so she’d started shopping at secondhand and vintage stores.

“Y’know,” Jasmyn said, “with your black-purple hair, pale skin and those hot-cute little black dresses you wear, you’d make a great noir chick.”

“I’m still not even sure what noir means.”

“It refers to the type of movies being made back in the forties and fifties. Dark and bleak with people who had no morality or sense of purpose.”

“Sounds like a badly lit casino in Vegas.”

“F’sure!” Jasmyn peeled off a throaty laugh. “That anklet is famous, by the way,” she continued, looking at the screen. “Right about here, Fred says ‘That’s a honey of an anklet you’re wearing’ and that term—honey of an anklet—is now one of the classic lines in film noir.” She paused, frowning. “Val, what’s wrong?”

“That word. Honey.” She picked up some wadded napkins and put them into the bag. “Tonight I did what in the P.I. trade is called a honey trap. Which is where a P.I. entices some guy to see if he’s unfaithful, which is a bunch of crock because enticing isn’t investigating.” Wouldn’t Jayne be proud to know Val finally understood? And sorely disappointed if she knew how Val reached that understanding.

“From the looks of you, cuz, you overshot enticing by a city block.”

“Thanks.”

“Just sayin’.”

“Got it.”

Jasmyn was thoughtful for a moment. “I thought your boss wasn’t going to let you do any investigations for four more months.”

“Jayne doesn’t know I did it.” Val felt ashamed to have repaid her boss’s trust with such insubordination.

“Dawlin’,” Jasmyn said gently, “what happened?”

“After she left work early, this new case walked in, and...you know my bullheaded streak.” She gave a halfhearted shrug. “Although that’s hardly an excuse for my misbehavin’. I’m feeling mighty bad that I took a case that I had no right to take because I wanted fast cash.”

“How much fast cash?”

“Two grand.”

Jasmyn emitted a low whistle. “That’s fast, all right. Now you can get your car fixed.”

“Already in the shop. I’m driving a rental until it’s ready.”

“You bad, bullheaded girl, you. Mama will be glad to know you got wheels.” She gave Val a knowing look. “Speaking of mamas, now that you’re a private eye in training, have you looked for yours?”

Val felt a stab of guilt. “No.”

During Katrina, when she and Nanny had been stuck on the roof of their building, her grandmother confessed she had lied about Val’s parents dying in a car crash when Val was two years old. Nanny’s daughter, Val’s mother, had survived, but left soon after that. “She was born Agnes Monte Hickory LeRoy, after your great-grandmother Agnes Lowell and great-grandfather Elias Monte Hickory, but if she’s remarried, her last name’s prob’ly different. Promise me, dear girl, you’ll try to find her, make my wrong right.”

Val made that promise.

But since then, she had not tried to find the mother who had abandoned her. Not once.

“Truth be told, Jaz, I can’t work up the desire to meet a stranger who gave birth to me, then abandoned me.”

Jasmyn nodded. “Everythin’ in its own time.”

Left up to Val, that time would never come. But she felt wretched breaking her word to Nanny.

“Wow, two thousand!” Jasmyn exclaimed, bringing the conversation back around. “Except for the sneaky part, of course, but who am I to talk? I’m the one sneaking around taking burlesque classes.”

For the past five months, Jasmyn had been taking private burlesque dancing lessons from Dottie “the Body” Osborne, a former headliner at the Pink Pussycats in Hollywood, a famous burlesque club where the dancers plied their G-string gimmicks in the 1970s. Val, sworn to secrecy about Jasmyn’s clandestine studies, knew if Del and Char ever learned about this, their daughter would be grounded until she was forty.

“The problem with secrets is that they can blow up in your face,” Val murmured. “I need to tell Jayne.”

“No, cuz, bad idea! Don’t blow this internship by gettin’ all confessional. Look at the money you made in one night! Plus you tackled your first case and probably learned a lot in the process.”

“No,” Val said solemnly, gathering the rest of the trash, “I learned investigations are about using the mind to solve puzzles, not playing body games.”

“Hey,” Jasmyn said, “enough with our heavy noir talk. Let’s dish about something fun. I think I got my burlesque name. Ready? Ruby Stevens!”

“Definitely sounds like a burlesque name.”

“It was Barbara Stanwyck’s real name. But they wouldn’t let her use it because—guess what?—it sounded like a burlesque dancer! Y’know how burlesque dancers gotta have a gimmick? I’ll be Ruby Stevens, and I’ll always wear a shiny gold anklet to go with my brassy and phony blond hair. Like your wig, only curlier.”

After a beat, Val said, “You know I love ya, right Jaz? Word to the wise. One of these days, you’re gonna need to have a sit-down with your mama and be up front about those burlesque lessons. Doing that gives both of you dignity.”

She wasn’t just talking to her cousin. She was talking to herself, too.

Because at that moment, Val knew she was going to be up front with Jayne tomorrow morning and tell her what she had done. Nanny used to say that secrets destroyed relationships, and she was right. If Jayne threatened to end her internship, well, Val would give her one hell of a side note on why she should stay.

After she and Jaz said their good-nights, Val dumped the trash in the kitchen and headed to her room, reflecting on all kinds of things, from blond wigs to honey traps to young women who needed to keep their word.

Just because a hurricane had wiped out Val’s world didn’t mean it had also taken her self-worth.

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