Buried Leads (A Headlines in High Heels Mystery) (17 page)

“I love you, too,” I said, shutting my computer down and closing the lid. “I’ll be there for Christmas, which will be here before you know it. How many holiday weddings are there this year?”

“Three. And if you’re really coming, I won’t book any more.” Her voice brightened considerably.

“Put it on the calendar.” I smiled . “I’ll be there with bells on my Manolos.”

I hung up and shoved my computer and charger into my bag, my gurgling stomach reminding me that I hadn’t had time for lunch once again.

I ducked into the deli across the street. I ordered a turkey and smoked cheddar panini with tomato mustard on sourdough and carried it to a corner table when it was ready, crunching homemade potato chips that were perfectly seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic, and something else I could never place.

I watched Anderson Cooper as I ate, surprised to see a Virginia map flash up on the wall behind him a few minutes into his show.

It took the captions a minute to catch up.

“The new state tax, combined with a federal tax hike that has strong support in the house, would make the capital of the nation’s tobacco industry the most expensive place in America to buy cigarettes.”

I froze with a chip halfway to my mouth.

“They’ll reverse their operation in Virginia.” Kyle.

“No matter what they do with taxes.” Lucinda Eckersly.

“Fake the tax stamps.” Kyle.

“There are people in this who won’t give a damn if I say to leave you alone.” Joey.

What if Grayson wasn’t just selling his vote (or, his friends’ votes, as the case may be)? Could the dead lobbyist have been expendable because the senator had known the vote wasn’t going to go his way, seen his hooker money slipping away, and decided to sell something else? Like stamp designs?

I looked out the window.

It was getting dark outside.

Suddenly focused on something much more important, I wolfed down my sandwich and ran out the door, wondering how many years I could spend in prison for breaking into Ted Grayson’s house.

14.

Detective work

I spent the entire ten-minute drive home making a mental list of the reasons my plan was a) insane, b) unlikely to work, and c) very likely to get me arrested. The fact that Charlie would have a tickertape parade and crack a bottle of champagne with that story was my most compelling reason for going home and sinking into a hot bath, but my inner Lois screamed that Eckersly had, in fact, broken into Grayson’s study. Whatever he’d been looking for was likely still there, according to Joyce.

And according to the police and the campaign, the family had been in D.C. since the break-in.

My transmission squealed a protest when I threw the car into park in my driveway before it had stopped moving forward. I snagged the first-aid kit from under my seat, grabbed the latex gloves, and jumped out, unsure what to do next. Darcy yapped from the other side of the kitchen door, scratching at the wood when I didn’t go inside right away. I’d blocked the doggie door and left her inside with puppy mats on the floor, which she disliked, because I was afraid to have her outside without me after the warning I’d gotten.

The nice thing about the Fan was that tiny cottages like mine sat side-by-side with million-dollar antebellum homes like Grayson’s. It wasn’t a terribly long walk, and I’d skipped the gym that morning. I glanced down at my pink Jimmy Choos, the peep toes cute, but impractical.

I scurried into the house, letting Darcy out for just long enough to do her business and catching a glare when I called her inside.

“Sorry, girl. We’ll play later,” I said, stooping to scratch her ears.

I changed into black yoga pants and a black tee, slipping my feet into soft-soled leather flats and hurrying back outside before I could chicken out. Stuffing the gloves into my pocket, I turned toward the cracked old sidewalk and started walking.

The sun had officially disappeared, the chill that settled over the bricks of Monument Avenue with the late September evening air making me wish I’d grabbed a sweater. I shoved my hands into my pockets and ducked my head against the breeze, walking faster.

By the time I reached the drive alley that ran behind the Grayson home, I’d worked out a plan. Since the house faced a busy street, and the police had the front yard lit up like Rockefeller Center, I turned up the drive. Katherine Grayson seemed like the kind of detail-focused woman who’d have one of those stone plates with the family crest on it at the entrance to her driveway, even though it was behind the house.

I dug out my tiny pink flashlight, pointing it at each fence opening as I passed, and was beginning to wonder if I’d guessed wrong when the beam bounced off a polished marble plaque bearing the house number and the senator’s name. Bingo.

I knew as sure as I knew my shoe size (nine US, forty European) there was no one inside, but I was nervous. I stood there, warring with myself over the insanity of this idea. Breaking into the private home of a United States senator was very different than anything else I’d ever done in the name of research—even the things that had bent the law. I shushed the little voice that detailed what could happen to me if I got caught.

Just when I’d resolved to go in, a crash came from my left and I jumped nearly out of my skin. Claws on pavement, then aluminum. A raccoon, probably. I gulped a steadying breath and stepped toward the house.

“Don’t do that, Miss Clarke.” The smooth voice was in front of me, and in the still darkness of the alley it carried easily. I scanned the fence line around Grayson’s house, but Joey was better than me at keeping hidden. To be fair, he’d had more practice.

He stepped out of the shadows at the foot of the drive, debonair as ever in a charcoal suit and wingtips that glinted even in the moonlight.

“Go home. Stay out of this. This guy is so much bigger than you know.”

I strode across the alley, arching an eyebrow when he laid a restraining hand on my arm.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked. “And cut the bullshit about trying to protect me, because I don’t buy it. You’re either protecting yourself, or your buddy Grayson, or the both of you.”

“I was in town and came by to check on you. Hoping you’d taken my advice. I had a bad feeling when you took off on foot, and I was right. Tell me something: when have I ever steered you wrong?” He let go of my arm, the place where his fingers had rested tingling in the cool air, and I stared into his brown eyes. He didn’t look like he was lying. His gaze was so intense I had to drop it after a minute when my stomach flipped like I’d gotten a side of jumping beans with my panini. Damn him and his gorgeous jawline. Why did he have to be a crook?

“It’s not that easy,” I began.

“Sure it is,” he said, his voice soft and deep at the same time. “I can’t recall ever having given you a personal reason to distrust me. I care about you. Maybe more than I’d like. Certainly more than is convenient with the sky falling around your boy here, and you refusing to listen to reason.”

His eyelids dropped a fraction of an inch and he reached for my arm again. I stepped backward.

“I can’t,” I whispered. “Kyle’s got an innocent man going up on a murder charge, and you know it as well as I do. I’m going to find out what the hell’s going on here. Grayson’s up to his Hermes necktie in hookers and bribes, and he may not have killed that lobbyist, but there’s something in that house that’s going to get me closer to figuring out who did. Someone else wanted it badly enough to break in, but I don’t think they got it. I’m going to find it. So unless you want to share what you know, get out of my way.”

He stared silently for a long minute. I drew myself up to my full height, nearly six feet even without stilettos, and stuck out my chin for good measure.

“Do you even know how to pick a lock?” he sighed.

“I’ll figure it out,” I said.

“You’ll set off the alarm and get yourself arrested. Come on.”

He crossed the backyard in a dozen strides, keeping to the shadows seemingly by second nature, and stopped in front of a door I wouldn’t have even noticed on the far right corner of the house.

I managed to keep up without my heels to unsteady me on the emerald turf. Joey pulled a thin scrap of metal from his wallet and what looked like a tiny screwdriver with a funny curved end on it from inside his jacket.

He cut his dark eyes at me as he worked the tool around, first in the deadbolt and then in the button lock on the handle. When the second one clicked loose I gave an involuntary gasp of awe.

“My undesirable skill set suddenly isn’t so undesirable, is it?” He flashed a tight grin.

I didn’t answer, trying not to breathe too deep, every fiber of my being acutely aware that he was very close, and he smelled unbelievably good. Cologne, yes, but something else, too. Not aftershave, or hair gel, I didn’t think. I couldn’t place it, but it was downright magical, and making it damned near impossible to concentrate on anything else. There was nothing undesirable about Joey, no matter how hard I tried to remind myself there should be.

A tiny click pulled my focus away from the hollow alongside his Adam’s apple. Whatever he’d been doing now allowed him to open the door enough for us to slip through.

“No siren?” I asked.

“Magnets,” he said. “Most of the security systems in these places were installed in the eighties, and not many of them have been updated. There’s a magnet in the doorframe that tells the alarm system the door is closed. As long as the connection isn’t broken, ADT will never know we’re here.”

The little piece of metal was stuck to the inside of the doorframe about halfway between the lock and the top.

“I’ll be damned,” I whispered, filing that away as very useful information I hoped I’d never need again.

I slid through the doorway and felt him tense when I brushed against him, fighting to keep a smile off my lips. At least it wasn’t just me.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“What used to be the maid’s quarters,” he said. “Behind the kitchen, usually.”

I flicked my little flashlight back on and crept down the hallway into the house, cracking a big set of double doors on my left.

“Laundry room,” I said, the smell of Tide giving it away before I could make out the outline of the huge, front-loading washer and dryer alongside the sink on the opposite wall. White breadboard cabinets lined the perimeter of the room, three drying racks folded into the wall above the sink. “Damn. Martha Stewart’s laundry room.”

Two feet further and across the hall, I hit pay dirt.

“Study,” I whispered, peeking through the French doors. The heavy scent of good cigars and better scotch was probably as much a part of these walls as chemicals were a part of the photo cave at my office.

Joey waved a “ladies first” gesture and I ducked inside, completely unsure why I was whispering and tiptoeing, but doing it just the same.

“I’ll take the desk,” I said, reaching in my pocket for the latex gloves and offering him one. “Put this on and check in the cabinets.”

He pulled a pair of black leather driving gloves from inside his jacket and grinned. “Thanks, but I’ve done this before. What am I looking for?”

“You don’t know?” I raised an eyebrow.

“I’ll rephrase. What are you looking for?”

“Something that proves Grayson is dirty. I’ll know it when I see it,” I said.

“Good plan.” Joey chuckled and turned to the cabinet.

I opened drawers and flipped through files, closing them when I didn’t see anything promising.

In the very back of the second drawer, I spied a familiar name.

“Billings,” I breathed. I pulled the folder loose and opened it.

Spreadsheets full of six-digit numbers. Dollar amounts? I turned and laid them on the copier that was enclosed in the handsome cherry secretary behind the matching desk. A slip of thick paper fluttered from between the sheets and landed face down on the deep red and beige Oriental rug.

“What are you talking to yourself about over here?” Joey asked from directly behind my shoulder.

“A file on Billings,” I said, picking up the slip, which was printed with a pattern of little curlicue doodles and numbers. Was that what a tax stamp looked like? Not being a smoker myself, I had zero frame of reference, but it looked promising. “What is this?”

Joey yanked the chain on the desk lamp and studied the paper before he sighed and thrust it back at me.

“What you came here for,” he said. “Let’s go.”

I opened my mouth to object, pointing to the stack of documents. I froze when the floor started to vibrate.

“Garage door,” Joey said. “Do you trust me?”

He held my gaze for a very long second.

“More than a rational person would,” I said.

“Then move.”

I did, crossing to the door silently.

Through the open door I heard a woman giggling and a deep voice I couldn’t make out enough to recognize.

“He’s supposed to be in D.C.,” I whispered involuntarily. “Cheating weasel.”

“Who says he’s not in D.C.? He’s not the only one cheating,” Joey breathed in my ear, putting one hand on the small of my back and steering me through the dark hallway to the open door. He flipped the metal piece loose as he followed me out, since Mrs. Grayson and her friend had disarmed the alarm system. Turning the knob, Joey pulled the door shut silently, scanning the yard before he nodded an all clear and waved me off the patio.

I stuffed the gloves into my pocket and hurried toward the driveway, anxious to get home with the slip of paper and check Google for cigarette tax stamp pictures.

Two steps into the lawn, my foot clipped a buried sprinkler head and my ankle turned under me. I bit my lip hard, but managed to avoid yelping.

Joey’s arm shot around my waist before I could fall, and I gripped his shoulder and leaned into him, hobbling silently to the alley. I blinked away tears and cleared my throat, my searing ankle feeling twice as big as usual.

“Are you alright?”

“I don’t even have my good shoes on,” I said. “What kind of shit is that? I can run in stilettos, but in flats, not so much.”

“Look at it this way,” Joey said with a barely-suppressed chuckle. “You might have broken it in the heels. Hobble this way, and I’ll drive you home.”

After a few steps I made out the outline of his Lincoln, parked under a willow three houses down.

He helped me into the passenger seat and rounded the front of the car, sliding behind the wheel.

I bent forward and probed my ankle gingerly, sucking in a sharp breath. It was swollen, and very tender.

“Do you need to go to the ER again?” Joey asked, concern clear in his tone.