A Quarter for a Kiss (19 page)

“So Eli Gold got shot, huh?” she said, shaking her head. “Tough break. He was a nice guy.”

“He’s still alive,” I said. “But just barely.”

“Yeah, I know. After I hung up with you, I called his wife in Florida to verify things. She said you’re on the case.”

“What can you tell us?” I asked.

“Not a lot,” she said. “If I were you, I’d pack up my bags and go home.”

I was having a little trouble reading the situation. I wasn’t sure if she was threatening us or warning us.

“Why do you say that?” Tom asked gently, obviously giving the woman the benefit of the doubt.

“I don’t know what Eli was getting into here, but it is some nasty can of worms. If I could do things over, I would’ve turned down his business the minute he walked through my door.”

“Why don’t you tell us about that?” I said.

She wheeled her chair back a bit, rested her elbows on the arms, and brought her fingertips together at her mouth. She seemed torn between leveling with us and calling her man over to get her out of there.

“About a month ago,” she said finally, “Eli came into my office. He asked me what it would cost for me to evaluate someone’s home security system and give him a full report. Not the kind of work I usually like, but the electric bill was due. Life in paradise doesn’t come cheap, you know.”

“You took the case,” Tom said.

“Don’t think I didn’t check him out first,” she said, pointing a finger at us. “I wasn’t about to hand some thief a blueprint for breaking and entering. But from what I could see, he was a legitimate PI working a case. I didn’t know what that case was about, but he seemed earnest. It wasn’t any big deal for me to make a few calls. I know all the security companies around here because we refer people out.”

“You called your contacts.”

“Yeah,” she said, rubbing the space between her eyes. “A girlfriend of mine works for Island Protection Systems. IPS. She looked up the house address for me on her computer, and it turns out it was one of theirs. She printed out the work order and faxed me a copy. I wrote things up on a report of my own and gave that to Eli. End of story. An easy couple hundred dollars.”

Things were quiet for a moment. There was so much more here she wasn’t saying.

“Did you tell Eli where he might be able to buy a few handy tools?” I asked. “Like, surveillance stuff?”

She hesitated and then shrugged.

“I told him about a guy in San Juan I’ve used from time to time. I don’t know what Eli was buying, but this fellow has a nice selection.”

Tom and I shared a glance. A nice selection indeed.

“So what did you think of the security report your friend faxed you?” Tom asked. “That was a pretty significant list of security protections for one house.”

“Tell me about it,” she replied. “IPS does a lot of business in the islands, mostly corporate security. But I haven’t ever seen a house that protected.”

“What do you think that’s about?”

She laughed, a loud, sharp bark.

“It’s
about
none of our business,” she said. “None of our business. Whatever’s going on there.”

I cleared my throat, leaning forward.

“When Eli left the island, he seemed to feel he was in some danger,” I said. “In his notes, it sounds like you warned him they might be onto him.”

She nodded, her features grave.

“My friend at IPS, the one who faxed me the work order? She got fired.”

“Because she sent you details about the security of that house?”

“Yeah. Somehow, someone found out what she’d done. Her boss said if she’d tell them who had been inquiring about the house, she wouldn’t lose her job. She gave them my name and they fired her anyway.”

“Wow.”

Chris exhaled loudly.

“Soon as she called and told me, I contacted Eli and said I was sorry but that my little investigation for him hadn’t gone unnoticed. He didn’t sound surprised. He just said don’t worry about it; he would try to get at it from some other angle. I thought that was the end of it.”

“What happened?” Tom asked.

“Last Thursday, some men came to see me. One of them brought along a baseball bat.”

Tom and I gasped.

“They wanted to know who hired me to run that report. I wouldn’t tell them, so they busted in my kneecaps.”

I felt a surge of nausea.

“Then what happened?”

“When they started in on my face, I told them what they wanted to know. I gave it up—Eli’s name, phone, address. The whole thing. I felt really bad, but I thought they were gonna kill me. I would’ve called and warned him they were coming, but I was in and out of consciousness for two days myself. I just got out of the hospital yesterday.”

“What did the police do?”

“Not much. They had me go through mug shots, but I didn’t spot them.” She gestured toward the man by the car. “My brother got his hands on some company photos from IPS, but they weren’t in there, either. We hired a sketch artist at our own expense, but that’s about all we have. Just some drawings of two thugs who are somehow connected to an estate on St. John that’s closed up tighter than Fort Knox.”

“Did you bring the sketches with you tonight?” Tom asked.

She called out to her brother, saying she needed the pictures.

He opened the car door, reached inside, and brought out two photocopies of the drawings. He handed them to Chris, who gave them to Tom.

“The only reason I came here tonight,” she said, “is to give you these drawings and ask you to keep your eyes open. If you spot these two characters in the course of your investigation, I want to know about it. Names, addresses, anything you can give me. Nobody messes me up like this and gets away with it.”

Tom studied their faces and then handed the pictures to me. They were both Caucasian, looked to be in their mid-fifties, and ugly.

“So what will the cops do now?” I asked.

She shrugged.

“Probably nothing. I’ve run into trouble like this before. They know I’m a PI. Comes with the territory.”

I sat back, my heart pounding.

“No it doesn’t, Chris,” I said. “I’m a PI, and I’ve never, ever been injured like this.”

She looked at me, an ugly grin on her face.

“You’re a
corporate
investigator,” she said scornfully. “Things can get a lot nastier down here in the trenches.”

Tom put his hands on his knees and exhaled slowly. I knew he was agitated, and some of it had to do with concern for my safety.

“So how can you help us?” he asked finally.

She shook her head and then looked up at her brother. He bent over her chair and disengaged the brakes.

“I can’t help you,” she said. “And I don’t want to hear from you again unless you can tell me who did this to me. I just…I thought it would be fair to come here and warn you. Whoever these people are, they’re not playing games.”

Twenty-One

Tom and I were silent on the ride back to St. John. After all of the events of the day, we were exhausted and confused and just a little bit terrified. I kept seeing Chris’s face, the mottled blue and purple around her swollen eyes.

Jodi was still up when we arrived home, sitting out on the deck with a group of four friends—two women and two men—playing cards and drinking what looked like margaritas.

“Join us!” she cried, sounding just a little bit drunk. She scooted her chair to one side and grinned at Tom and me.

We declined, saying it had been a long day and we were exhausted.

“Well, at least meet my guests,” she said, slurring her words just a bit. “Callie, Tom, this is my friend Sandy, the archaeologist I was telling you about.”

The woman politely stood and shook our hands. Attractive in an athletic, no nonsense sort of way, she didn’t seem as if she had been drinking.

“That’s Sandy’s little sister, Fawn,” Jodi added, “and this is Zach, and that’s Larry.”

Fawn gave us a little wave, and I realized that she was young, maybe 16. Zach, on the other hand, looked to be in his early thirties, and Larry was older still—in his late thirties or early forties. The two men made an interesting contrast. Zach was tall and model-handsome, while Larry was short and a little bit dumpy. Though he had a crooked nose and thinning hair, there was something familiar and engaging about his smile.

“Nice to meet you,” Larry said, standing also to shake our hands.

“Yes, very nice,” Zach added, sounding not at all as though he meant it.

They sat.

“Does everyone work with SPICE?” I asked.

“Zach volunteers there,” Sandy said, gesturing toward the good-looking fellow. “Larry’s been involved lately as an insurance appraiser, and Fawn’s just here for a visit.”

“My parents went to Greece for a month,” Fawn said, not looking happy about it. “They dumped me here on the way.”

“That’s not true,” Sandy corrected, putting a hand on her sister’s arm. “I asked if you could come. I knew you’d like the dig.”

“Whatever.”

“Fawn’s the designated driver tonight,” Jodi said.

“I’m seventeen,” she said, holding up a bottle of coke and rolling her eyes. “That makes me the designated driver every night.”

“You sure you won’t join us?” Larry asked us, and I had to wonder if he wasn’t hoping to add a few people to the mix who were a little closer to him in age.

“No, thanks,” I said. “We’re heading to bed. It was nice to meet you, though.”

“Goodnight,” said Sandy.

“Goodnight,” echoed Larry.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” cried Jodi, and then she and Fawn burst into giggles.

Tom walked me to my bedroom, stepped inside, and closed the door behind him. I knew I needed nothing more right now than for him to hold me. That he did, in the darkness of the bedroom, gripping me fiercely, pressing his hands tightly into my back. I held onto him as well, my face buried against his chest.

“If anything ever happened to you…” he whispered.

“Shhh,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

We held each other for a time and then reluctantly we parted.

“In the morning we’ll visit the police station,” I said, “and see what we can learn there. Tonight, let’s just try and get some sleep.”

He ran his hands through my hair, kissing me on the forehead.

“I wish I could stay in here with you,” he whispered. “I just want to hold you all night.”

I knew what he was saying. He wasn’t asking if he could, just stating what he wished. Truth be told, I wanted the same thing.

I kissed him goodnight, his lips warm and soft and gentle on mine.

“I love you,” I said. Then, because I loved him, I showed him the door.

Because he loved me, he took it.

I got ready for bed and then pulled out my little travel Bible before climbing under the covers. I needed to find something that would comfort my soul. After skimming around and flipping pages, I finally settled on Isaiah 41:10: “Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

I repeated the verse to myself until I had committed it to memory. Then I put the Bible on the nightstand and turned off the light. Finally, I drifted off to sleep, my mind filled with the comforting thought of God’s righteous right hand.

The next morning, I didn’t stir until almost 9:30. By the time I was up and showered, it was 10:15. I used the last of the shampoo in the bottle to wash my hair and then tossed it in the trash. I would either need to get to the store to buy some more, or borrow some from Jodi. I also needed to do laundry soon. A trip to St. John hadn’t exactly been in the plans when Tom and I left North Carolina.

Once I was dressed, I came out to find Jodi at the kitchen table, sipping coffee and looking hungover.

“Hey,” she said softly, squinting my way. “What’s up?”

“Nothing much,” I said. “But I feel like I was run over by a truck.”

I thought of Chris Fisher and her battered face, and I realized I shouldn’t even use an expression like that. If anyone felt as though they’d been hit by a truck, it was her.

There weren’t any eggs in the fridge, so I made a light breakfast of juice and toast and then joined Jodi at the table, listening as she talked about how good it was to be back in the islands, especially to be able to spend time with her old friend Sandy.

“We had a good, long talk about the charity yesterday, before the margaritas came out. She gave me the names and phone numbers of all of the board members, and she promised to round up the paperwork I asked for—the salary info, meeting minutes, stuff on fund-raisers, and audit reports for the last three years.”

“Jodi, it really sounds like you did your homework.”

“It was fun. She said it might take a few days to get everything together. In the meantime, she arranged for me to help out on the dig site. They’ve turned up all kinds of artifacts. Larry thinks it’s going to end up being a very significant dig.”

“He’s not an archaeologist, right?”

“No, he does something with insurance. I think he catalogs the artifacts or something.”

“Cool. How about Zach?”

“Believe it or not,” she said dreamily, “when he’s not volunteering at the site, he works as a masseuse at some of the big resorts on the island. Can you imagine, ordering a massage and
he
walks in the door? I would just
die
.”