The Sex On Beach Book Club (18 page)

Wes stood up and paced to the door leading to the deck. “Christ. I should have found those pricks myself. And why would some woman hire them to beat up Michelle?”

Holly could feel his agitation. His regret. His love for his sister. “Because even then, this woman knew who you were and your weak spots. She figured Michelle getting knocked around would get you to back off the case.” But how did she do this without Wes knowing the woman? She had to be somewhere on the fringes of his life. It was so frustrating.

George nodded his head. “It's done more than you think.”

Wes stalked back to the table and stared down at them. “Who is she?”

“That's what we have to figure out,” Holly said. She looked at her notes. “It could have been your baseball player's wife. She might have been so angry that you let her husband die that she decided to get revenge.”

Wes shook his head. “She wanted me to testify, Holly. It was her husband who died.”

Holly met his gaze. “Grief isn't always rational. What we have to do is find the connection between a woman in your book club and the woman in your life three years ago.”

“Wouldn't I recognize her? I would recognize Lacey, Conrad's wife. I'm sure of it.”

She nodded and made some notes. “Okay. Who else stood to benefit by scaring you off from testifying against Bart Gaines? Bart, obviously, so what woman would he get to hire thugs to beat up Michelle?” Looking up from her notepad, she said, “Was he married?”

Wes nodded. “He was married. I don't remember if I ever saw her. I wasn't in court except when I testified. Her name was…” He frowned and looked down into his coffee. “Ashley. She was some kind of executive and always working.”

“What did she do? Can you remember?”

Wes shook his head. “No.”

“Would Bart have known much about you and told his wife, Ashley?”

Wes considered that. “We didn't hang out in the same social circles. He was a sort of employee. We sent our players to him for training. So I might have talked about a player's conditioning and progress with him, or discussed a strategy to get more power behind a homerun hit…” He stopped talking as he realized what he'd said. He was obviously thinking that steroids had been part of the power behind Conrad's homeruns. Then he seemed to push it aside. “But I wouldn't have told him personal stuff.”

She nodded. “It could be anyone, but we have to start somewhere.”

George said, “I'm in the process of trying to track down the two thugs who beat up Michelle. Just because they didn't tell the police who hired them doesn't mean they don't know or have some clue.”

Wes opened his mouth, his green eyes burning with anger.

Holly cut him off. “No, you're not going after those two. Let George handle it. You and I need to talk.”

He looked between her and George.

George shrugged. “She's bossy but she's also right.”

Holly sighed. “Look, Wes, I think there are two keys to this mess. One is Cullen's missing computer. Whatever is on it might be worth killing for. Second is your sister. I think she may have a missing piece of the puzzle. Maybe she knew Cullen somehow, or she'll recognize photos of Helene, Nora, or Maggie from somewhere. But that magazine left in the car points to a connection with Michelle.

Wes turned to stare at her. “No.”

She bit back her annoyance. “We'll keep her safe. I'll track her down and make up a story to get her to talk to me. I'll see what she can remember, show her some pictures. Maybe she even has an idea who hired the thugs to beat her up.” She stopped talking, looking at her laptop and thinking of Cullen's. And what George had said. She looked at him. “Did you say that the reporter who called Tiffany wanted some kind of permission from Michelle?”

George nodded. “A ‘release' was the word Tiffany used. Tiffany didn't like that idea at all. She seemed genuinely concerned about not causing Michelle any more grief, but she also didn't want the old scandal brought up again and somehow tainting her life with her new husband.”

She looked at Wes. “We need to talk to Michelle. Maybe this woman has been in contact with her. Trust me to keep her safe, and to not tell her you're alive until you're ready.”

His face hardened and he glared at her. “No. She's safer thinking I'm dead. No one can use her to get to me. If you can't live with the terms, you're fired.”

She was infuriated at his stubbornness. Slamming her laptop closed, she said, “The killer left that magazine in your car as a threat. They know who you are, who Michelle is, and the underlying message is that she's not hard to find. The question is, do you want the killer to find her before we do?”

His entire body froze to a rigid statue of anger. “No. Stay away from Michelle. I don't want you near her.”

Holly felt that deep in her chest. He didn't trust her. He didn't think she, the blue collar daughter of a cop and an ex-cop herself, was good enough, or that she had the integrity to keep her word. She shoved her gun in her purse, stood up, and said in an offhand tone, “You're the client. I'm going to my office and work the other angles.”

H
olly traced Lacey Nader to Washington D.C. where she had been testifying before Congress on steroid abuse.

Leaning back in her office chair, she stretched her neck and tried to think it out. It seemed that Conrad Nader's wife had directed her grief and anger from his steroid-related death into a positive place. She doubted Lacey Nader was behind Cullen's murder.

No, she thought, the killer was someone else. She just had to keep digging to figure it out. Since Wes had barred her from tracking down his sister, she had to go at it from other angles. And that was what she was doing—working.

Not thinking about Wes or about his reaction to her suggestion. He said he trusted her. Except with his sister, obviously. The sound of her office door opening yanked her from her thoughts.

“Got as much as I could on Gaines.” Joe strode up to her desk. “He was murdered twenty months into his prison sentence. His parents live in Michigan, and he has a brother there, too. One sister has married and moved to Chicago.”

She had called Joe and asked him to talk to any contacts he had in the prison system. “What about the wife?”

Joe sat in a chair facing her desk. “Ashley Gaines. They married in 1997. She was a headhunter with Plum Positions Recruiting from 1993 until just over a year ago when her husband was murdered. She took an early retirement and moved to Riverside, California, where she's living in an apartment.”

“Riverside?” That struck Holly. “Why Riverside?”

Joe lifted one hand, palm up. “Don't know. She lives quietly from what I can tell.”

“Did you talk to the firm? Do they hear from her?”

“I called and talked to human resources. She said that as far as she knows, Ashley doesn't ever go back to visit old friends or anything like that. She said she left on good terms.”

“How old is she?” Something bothered her. Okay, several things bothered her. Wes Brockman, for instance, and the fact that he didn't trust her.

Okay, what
really
bothered her was that she cared that Wes didn't trust her. Why the hell did she care? He was the client, and she'd do the job.

“AP, are you listening?”

She blinked. “Sorry, thinking about the case. What did you say?”

Joe fixed his blue gaze on her. “I said that Ashley is thirty-five years old. I got a picture from her last driver's license.” He shoved a photo on her desk.

Holly looked down. The woman in the photo looked past forty. She had brown eyes, brown hair, and a small chin. Not unattractive, but no-nonsense plain. She didn't look like any of the women from the book club. Not close enough anyway. It looked like another dead end.

Frustrated, she said, “Thanks, but it's not one of the women I'm looking at for the murder.” She frowned as one of the things bothering her materialized in her brain. “She retired at thirty-five? How did she do that? How can she afford to live?”

“She kept paying the insurance policy she had on her husband. When he died in prison, she got the money.”

“So what's she doing now? Playing golf?” Holly studied the picture but no more answers popped. Finally, she pushed it toward the stack of papers on the case and sighed.

Joe sat back. “How'd your date go last night? Seth said you were dressed to kill, but when you came in, you were in a mood to kill.”

“It wasn't a date.” Damn big-mouthed Seth. He knew it wasn't a date. “And I was in a mood to kill from standing on high heels for hours. You want to try it?”

Joe rolled up from the chair, then came around and sat on the desk. “Why is this case getting to you? Is it because you're sleeping with Brockman?”

It had probably been a new record. A whole five minutes before she had the urge to kill her brother. “Every case gets to me. And who I sleep with is none of your business.”

He leaned down, his blue eyes cold. “It is when the bastard is hurting you.”

Hurting her? That was ridiculous. She had to care to get hurt and she didn't care. Her anger was professional in nature because Brockman was putting roadblocks in the way of getting the job done. Irritated, she said to her brother, “Get out of my face.”

Totally ignoring her demand, he added, “Jodi and Kelly said Brockman came over this morning to cook you breakfast. This guy has it bad for you.”

She moved fast and shoved Joe hard in the chest. It caught him by surprise and knocked him off her desk. He landed on his ass on the floor. She looked down at him. “Stay out of my business.”

In a fluid, easy motion, Joe stood up. And smiled. “You do like Brockman.” He advanced on her.

Holly resisted the urge to get up and put her chair between them. “Are you on crack?”

He put his hands on the arms of her chair and leaned down to her face. “Have you told him the truth?”

She tilted her head back, refusing to show any emotion. “What truth?”

His gaze was hard. “That you can't have children. That truth.”

The cold words splashed through her defenses and caught her breath in her chest. She had to answer him, make him understand that she didn't care. Didn't care what Brockman knew. She wasn't ever going to be that vulnerable again. “No. Neither of us are interested in a long-term relationship.”

Pity touched his gaze. “Holly, if he cares…”

She hated this, hated that her brothers kept trying to protect her. There was nothing to protect her from. It was over and done. “He doesn't care. It was just sex. You and Seth walked in on sex. Big fucking deal. I have work to do. Either do the job I'm paying you for or get out.”

He didn't move. “A man who loves you won't walk away for this. Do you understand that?”

Who the hell was he kidding? Brad had claimed to love her and he'd walked away. She'd barely been out of surgery when…She clenched her hands in her lap and willed the memory to recede. In her best level voice, she said, “Yeah, sure. Got it. Can we get back to work?”

Joe sighed and stood up. “Stubborn.”

Relieved that he backed off, she turned her attention to work. “What about Nora Jacobson's ex-husband? What did you find out about him?”

Joe looked down. “Worked for a CPA firm. The firm did work for Brockman's company, but her husband was never connected to that. He was caught embezzling and arrested at work. You already know the rest—Nora changed her and her son's last name back to her maiden name and moved to Goleta to escape the press and attention. In Los Angeles, her hobby was baking and cake decorating. She turned her hobby into a business in Goleta.”

Holly turned to her desk and drummed her fingers. “That's the first connection to Wes I've found, but it's thin. Are you sure that her husband never did any work for the sports agency?”

Joe shook his head. “I'm sure. I talked to receptionist at the firm, though, and she let it slip that there was a rumor that the guy liked gambling on sports teams.”

A shiver of excitement rolled through her. “That could be the connection. Maybe Nora blames Wes for her husband's gambling?”

Joe said, “Could be. Who can tell with women?”

 

An hour later, Holly walked in the door of her condo. Tanya, Jodi, and Kelly were spread out around her living room, each with an iPod and yellow pads. It looked like Tanya had enlisted help to get through all the O'Man's podcasts.

“Holly, hi.” Tanya pulled her ear pieces out. “We were just finishing up. Ummm…” She looked around at the two girls then back to Holly. “Kelly and Jodi are helping me.”

“So I see.” She set her purse and files down on her desk. She wasn't sure she liked the girls hearing the garbage Cullen spewed out as the O'Man, but she really couldn't stop them. They were both over eighteen, plus it was on the Internet for anyone to listen to. “What do you have for me?”

Tanya brought her yellow pad over to the desk. “I listened to the first four podcasts:
Anti-Princess, Invisible Woman, Wonder Woman, and Barbie Babe.
It's just like we suspected—Anti-Princess is Helene. This one isn't as icky with sexual details. It's more a…I don't know…profile. Cullen says she wants to have the same power as men in the world. She's tough, acts like she has balls, might even be a cop or someone in authority. But in the end, she's not a man, can't have the same power as men in a man's world, so she's forced to use men to get things done, and being the woman behind the man. But when the men she chooses fail her, she's reduced to writing a book about a powerful man. To seduce her, act like you're the man who will help her gain power and get what she wants, and she'll put out.”

Tanya looked up from her notes. “That sounds just like Helene.” Looking back at her notes, she said, “Invisible Woman is Nora. She always blends in but secretly wants someone to notice her. To seduce her, treat her like she's the most noticeable woman in the room. Notice all the things everyone else misses—her eyes, her jewelry—find something special about her personality and comment on it. She won't be able to get naked fast enough.”

Holly had to fight a wave of pity for Nora. She had wanted to be invisible after all the negative attention when her husband was arrested and convicted of embezzling. She had even changed her name back to her maiden name. But she was still a woman with a woman's desire to be noticed. But what if Nora kept a low profile to stalk Wes? And Cullen threatened that? Either way…“Cullen was a real Prince Charming.”

Tanya sighed. “I guess I just wanted to be noticed, too. Sort of like Nora. Desperate Housewife is probably just like Invisible Woman but he didn't want to repeat the titles. I'm glad I didn't have to listen to what he said about me.” She turned to another sheet of paper on her tablet. “Wonder Woman is definitely Maggie. She acts like a super hero—the woman who can do it all without help. Tell her how amazing she is, bringing home the bacon, frying it up in the pan, and looking like Wonder Woman while doing it, and she'll spread her cape, and legs, for you.” Tanya looked up. “Cullen's words not mine.”

Holly sat on the edge of her desk. She thought of Maggie with her duel cell phones clipped to her belt in her office, and the walkie-talkie at the engagement party last night when she had them thrown out. It did sound like a description of Maggie on the surface. “And Bridget?”

Tanya thinned her mouth. “Barbie Babe looking for a rich sugar daddy. Act rich, throw money around, buy her a few trinkets, and she'll pay you in sex.” Tanya lifted her gaze to Holly. “Each podcast starts off with the ‘type' of woman, meaning the nickname like Barbie Babe. Then Cullen describes his actual experience, right through the sex, with one of those types. He describes why Barbie Babe is more likely to give head than the others because she knows she has to pay for her trinkets.”

“Too bad he's already dead,” Holly said. She needed a shower just listening to Tanya describe it.

“Wonder what Phil has given Bridget,” Tanya mused out loud. “One thing's for sure. I'm quitting my yoga class. I went there hoping to find some kind of mind-body peace. My yoga teacher dating my husband is not doing much for my mind-body peace.”

Holly stood up. “Getting your fair share of the divorce settlement will do a hell of a lot more for your peace than yoga. I'm going to call the lawyers next week and set up a meeting to see if they want to be reasonable or play hardball.” One of the reasons that Holly fought so hard for clients like Tanya was that she knew what it felt like to be so blindsided that you couldn't fight for yourself. Like when Brad dumped her. They'd had a deal: she'd put him through law school on her cop's salary. Then once he graduated and set up his law practice, she'd open her PI office, and he'd be one of her clients. As soon as Brad had his degree in his hand, and he'd discovered Holly wouldn't be bearing him any children, he'd walked.

But now she was a PI, and she would fight for her clients when they couldn't fight for themselves.

She realized Tanya was talking. “What if they fight us? Phil and the law firm?”

Holly smiled. “Then we'll fight back and win. The idiot went to a very public party with Bridget. What do you want to bet he's been seen in other public places with her? We'll win.”

Tanya nodded. “Okay. Thank you, Holly.”

She waved it off. She didn't need thanks. “Good job today. You did great. I'll let Jodi and Kelly catch me up on the other podcasts.”

“What about tomorrow? Do I go into the office?”

“I'm not sure if I'll be in the office or not. Why don't you call me in the morning about nine? We'll work something out.”

Tanya set her notes down on Holly's desk. She shifted back and forth on her feet. “Did I really help?”

“Yes, you really did. Wes will pay you for the time you worked today. And I'll have something for you to do tomorrow. After that, we'll see. Now go home and relax.”

Tanya surprised the hell out of Holly by hugging her. “Thank you.” Then she let go, picked up her purse, and said good-bye to Jodi and Kelly and left.