Whiskey, You're The Devil: An Addison Holmes Mystery (Addison Holmes Mysteries Book 4) (17 page)

Pirate Pete moved out of our way and as one we trooped up the gangplank and onto the ship.

“Addison, you know I’ve always been very open and honest with you girls about sex,” my mom said. “I didn’t want you growing up uncomfortable with your bodies or that anything shared between a man and a woman in the bedroom was somehow wrong, because that’s how I was raised.

“Lord, your grandmother couldn’t even say the word sex without whispering it and turning five shades of red. But as comfortable as I’ve tried to make the subject over the years, I’ve got to tell you, the idea of going to work with my daughter to watch her shoot porn is a little weird. I think that’s where I have to draw the line.”

“It’s good that you know what your limits are,” I said. “I wasn’t sure you had any.”

We followed Savage up two sets of narrow steps. There were signs taped to the walls with arrows pointing in the direction of the different taping areas. I was actually rather surprised at the quality. I was expecting lots of red velvet and body fluids dripping from every available surface. It mostly just looked like a cruise ship, minus the free soft serve machines. And boy, could I use one of those at the moment.

One of the wood paneled side doors opened and a woman came out dressed in a thin silk robe. It was obvious she wasn’t wearing anything underneath it, and I had to give Savage credit for keeping his eyes on her face and not wondering south.

I didn’t have the same compunction in holding back. I looked her over from head to toe and then some. Her breasts defied gravity and she was so thin I could see her ribs through the robe. Bottle bleached hair couldn’t hide the dark roots and mascara was smudged under her cornflower blue eyes. I wanted to give her a moist towelette and offer her a cheeseburger.

Savage sent her a devastating grin, but she didn’t seem all that impressed. After seeing that Discovery Channel special I could understand it. One of the porn stars said it got to the point that if she even saw a man heading in her direction she’d start running the other way. Apparently sex could get old. Which seemed like a bummer because it was one of my favorite pastime activities.

“Can you tell me where Travis Elias is?” Savage asked. “I need to check in with him.”

She shrugged and looked at Savage with bored eyes. “He’s catching up on business in the office on the top deck. You filming today, sugar?”

“So it seems. Got the call this morning from Lance Mayhew. I can’t believe he can keep focused on the business like that after what happened to his wife.”

She shrugged again and her robe slipped off one shoulder. “That’s Lance for you. Nothing gets in the way of business. Especially not his wife’s death. They hated each other anyway, so it’s not like it’s a big loss to him. I’m Pepper, by the way. Are you shooting the Walk the Plank scene? Cause that one is mine. I can show you around if you’d like.”

“That’d be great after I see Travis.”

Pepper was showing a little more interest in Savage now, and I felt my hackles rise. I had no idea why. It’s not like Savage was going to run off with an anorexic porn star. And even if he did it wouldn’t be any of my business because Savage and I weren’t in a relationship. And we weren’t going to be in a relationship.

“I heard Lance is going to inherit a fat stack of cash. Must be nice.”

Pepper laughed and reached into her robe pocket, pulling out a bottle of water and unscrewing the top. “Isn’t that just the luck that those who don’t deserve it are the ones who end up with the windfall. I had to work with Lance a couple of times on a movie, and let me tell you there’s not an actress talented enough in the world to make it look like he’s getting you off. I spent most of my time making grocery lists and deciding whether or not I wanted to take some classes at the community college.

“Priscilla was the real brains of that operation.” She took a long drink of water and never let her gaze leave Savage’s. “She’s what all of us aim to be. But doing it how she did made her plenty of enemies. Lets just say none of us were real surprised to hear she was dead.”

“It’s a rough business,” Savage said, just as casually.

I sure learned one thing during that conversation. Savage was an excellent liar. To the point that it kind of made me a little distrustful of him. How many times had he lied to me before and I’d never picked up on it?

“It takes balls to blackmail your way to freedom.” Pepper finally looked at me and raised a penciled brow.

I was focusing on keeping my face free of surprise about the blackmail thing. It was starting to look like that cable special on porn stars had all been a big crock of shit.

“Are you the new girl?” she asked.

I knew I wasn’t near hard enough to carry off the look of a seasoned porn star. I didn’t have enough cynicism. And my breasts weren’t quite at the right height. And my knees popped whenever I walked up the stairs and it probably wasn’t the best idea for me to spend a lot of hours on them.

“Yep,” I said. “Excited to get started.”

“That’ll fade fast enough. The money isn’t
that
good.”

I smiled and let my eyes go a little dumb, and I made sure to thicken my accent. “I brought my mom and a friend for support. Maybe you could show them to the green room while we meet with Travis?”

“Aren’t you a polite little thing. That’ll pass too. I’ve heard of a lot of fucked up things happening on these sets, but never have I seen anyone bring their mother along for a taping. That ain’t right, girl.”

My smile was more of a grimace and I nudged my mom when I saw her nodding in agreement out of the corner of my eye. Pepper led them both away and I shot Savage a look.

“Not bad, Holmes. You even managed to keep your face from forecasting everything you were thinking. It looks like all those P.I. classes have been paying off.”

I
hmmmed
and followed him up another set of narrow stairs to get to the top level of the riverboat. The wind was considerably stronger this high up and rain and sleet blew down the long narrow hallway and dampened our faces and clothes.

I could see Travis Elias working inside a glass enclosed room that had an old-timey looking helm and then more modern technology behind it that actually powered the riverboat when they took it out on the water. He sat at a wooden table with his laptop open and a cell phone pressed to his ear. It wasn’t difficult to tell that he was yelling at someone, but the soundproofing on the room was top notch.

Travis saw our movement and looked up from his computer screen, signaling for us to go ahead and come inside. Savage opened the door for me and I went in, unsure of how we were going to handle this from here on out. Because I knew no matter what lies we’d been telling, I wasn’t going to be anyone’s pirate wench this afternoon.

I didn’t notice the TV screens mounted in each corner of the room until Savage had come in behind me and effectively cut off all means of my escape. I made an inhuman sound in the back of my throat and wondered if there would ever be anything more awkward than this particular moment. And that was saying something, because I’d had a lot of awkward moments over the years.

Every one of the screens was showing the filming that was happening below decks.

It was like a car wreck. I couldn’t look away. But I also couldn’t look at Travis Elias either because I’m not comfortable watching porn with men I’ve never met before.

I could feel Savage’s chest shaking with laughter behind me and I elbowed him in the gut. This whole thing was his fault. Or maybe it was my fault because I’d had the bright idea to keep Rosemarie out of prison. But I felt better blaming him anyway. The only saving grace about the whole situation was that the sound was turned off. But the pirate orgy would be forever burned into my corneas.

“Sorry to keep you two waiting,” Travis said, hanging up his phone and tossing it on the table. “You the new talent?”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but no. I’m Agent Savage with the FBI. This is Addison Holmes.”

“Uh huh,” he said. “Nice act. But we’re shooting a period piece here. Can you say
Arrrgh
?” He did a double take when he looked at me and said, “You look kind of familiar. Have we met before?”

“No. Most definitely not.”

“It’ll come to me. I never forget a face. Well, take off your clothes and let me see what I have to work with.”

“I’m going to pass,” Savage said, moving his badge a little closer so Travis could inspect it. “We’d like to talk to you about the murder of Priscilla Loveshack.”

“You’re the Feds for real? That fucker Tim is supposed to be guarding the boat, and he just lets the FBI walk on and roam around. For fuck’s sake. He’s fired.”

“To be fair he does wear a patch,” I said. “Maybe it was just hard to tell when he looked at us. And I guess Agent Savage makes a pretty convincing porn star. Unemployment is pretty high around here. Maybe Tim should keep his job.”

Savage and Travis were both looking at me like I’d grown a second head, so I pressed my lips together and smiled.

“I remember where I’ve seen you now. You’re that bitch that busted Johnny Sakko a couple months back. I saw your picture in the paper.”

“Why don’t we talk about blackmail and Priscilla Loveshack instead of Johnny Sakko,” Savage said. “He’s doing a long stretch of time and isn’t worth the conversation.”

One of the coolest things I’d learned by watching law enforcement and their interrogation techniques was that most people would hang themselves with their own rope if given the chance. Travis was no exception to that rule.

“Blackmail,” he said, huffing out a breath in disgust. “That fucking bitch. She thought she was so smart gathering information about all of us. And for the record, I did not know that girl was under eighteen. She wanted to be an actress. I was just giving her a chance to succeed. And there was Priscilla, taping the whole fucking thing. The right amount of money buys a lot of silence, so the girl wasn’t the problem. But Priscilla was determined to take me for every last penny I had until she’d gotten enough to retire from the business and open that damn shop of hers. Not like it was anything to write home about. Everybody buys their dildos online nowadays anyway.

“So she tapped out everyone she could get her nasty little claws into until she had enough money squirreled away to go out on her own. Luckily her husband isn’t the same caliber of asshole as she was, so he kept his fingers in the business that made them both stars. Some people have no loyalty. You know what I’m saying?”

*

I
T WASN’T A
bad afternoon’s work for finding out who really killed Priscilla Loveshack. If Detective Jacoby had done even a fraction of the work we had he’d probably already have the real killer in custody.

Savage drove to Nick’s house to pick up the dogs and we waited for several minutes for Rosemarie and the dogs to have a proper reunion.

“That’s just not right,” my mother said. “I’ve never understood people who let dogs lick them right in the mouth. All dogs do is lick their buttholes, other dog buttholes, or toilet water. You might as well eat a steaming pile of poop and call it a day.”

Savage smiled tightly and I pressed my finger to my twitching eyelid. We loaded the dogs in the back and then headed down to Whiskey Bayou to drop them both off at my mom’s house. Poor Vince.

“Thank you, Jesus,” I whispered after they’d left us with a flurry of goodbyes and hugs.

It was pitch dark outside, my temples were throbbing, and I needed a bottle of wine. Badly. I looked at Savage closely and figured he was probably feeling much the same way.

“I must have it bad,” Savage said. “I can’t imagine any other reason for the day that I just spent. And if I ever have to do it again I think I’ll just eat a bullet and be done with it. My eyes need bleach and my ears need cotton.”

“I have those days too. But you held up well. Especially when they started describing everything they’d seen on set and asked if you’d ever done any of that stuff. You have a talent for giving answers without actually saying anything.”

“I’m FBI, babe. That’s my specialty. Did you know your eye is twitching?”

“Yep. For almost three hours now. I’ve been timing it. The record is six, so I’m thinking now that there’s some distance it’ll go away.”

“Families are supposed to make you feel that way. There’s a reason I moved a thousand miles away.”

“I’ve been considering it. I’m thinking Hawaii. Or maybe Iceland. I’ve never been there before.”

We returned back to Nick’s in mostly comfortable silence. The lights were on in the house, and I was surprised to see Nick’s SUV parked in the driveway. It was the first night he’d been home at a regular time all week.

“It’s a cool house,” Savage said.

We could see straight through the windows from the front of the house to the backyard, where the pool lights illuminated the water and reflected off the icy drizzle as it fell. The front door opened and Nick came out to stand on the porch—barefoot and in nothing but jeans and a white undershirt—as if it weren’t freezing outside. He held a bottle of beer in his hand and his face was unreadable.

A prickle of unease went down my spine as he and Savage locked glances, and I hurried to gather my stuff.

“Thanks for the ride and the help,” I said, pushing open the car door. Icy wind hit me in the face and I scooted out of the truck as gracefully as my knee would allow. “I’d say it was fun and we should do it again, but I’m with you. I’d rather eat a bullet than go through that again. You’re a good sport, Savage. Even though your middle name is Earl.”

He grinned and grimaced at the same time. “I had no idea Rosemarie would guess it on the first try like that. Took me off guard.”

“She says she’s psychic.”

“You could add three letters to that word and it has a whole other meaning.”

I laughed and slammed the car door shut and Savage gave a two-finger salute before driving away. I was taking my time getting up to the porch, my limp more pronounced than it had been all day, and I hadn’t quite gotten the courage to look at Nick. But when I got to the porch it turned out I needn’t any courage after all. He’d already gone back inside and left me there alone.