“Dash Ormond,” she said.
“You know, I’ve never been in your office before,” he said, looking around as though he hadn’t just cased the place while she was sleeping. “It’s cute.”
She went into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee and one for him, which she set in front of him.
“You’ve never been here before because you’re where I send the jobs I don’t want,” she said, coolly.
“Oh, now let’s play nice,” he said. “We’re not rivals. We’re… contemporaries.”
“Then shouldn’t we be writing each other letters and discussing the philosophy of private investigation?”
“I’d love to. Though I fear mine would be a short letter. You see, my philosophy is simple: Get paid.”
She sat down behind the reception desk and took a sip of the coffee. She didn’t entirely dislike Dash. He had a good reputation, though he was perhaps willing to go a little further than Simone. He usually specialized in “retrieval,” which meant finding out who had stolen something and getting it back. Those sorts of clients had reasons for not going to the police, and Simone usually didn’t deal with them. She had heard rumors about Dash—that he could torture you, smiling the whole time, until you told him where you’d hidden whatever it was he was looking for—but he had always been polite to her, and she to him, and she didn’t know if the rumors were true. He was hard to read. There had been several cases of his that ended in dead bodies—whether he or his employer was responsible, Simone never knew.
Sometimes, if they found themselves staking out the same hotel bar, they’d send each other drinks. He had magnetism, there was no denying that. Even here in her office, the way he crossed his legs had a distinctly sensual elegance: part wild animal, part fine tailoring. He was a good flirt, too, but Simone was smart enough to never let it go further than that.
“What can I do for you, Dash?”
“You can help me find Linnea St. Michel.”
Simone took another long sip of coffee to cover the frown she was trying to hide, then tried to force a disdainful smile.
“Don’t know where she is, Dash. Sorry. But feel free to finish the coffee.”
“Aw, don’t be like that, Simone. We can help each other out. My client wants something from Ms. St. Michel. You, I assume, want to get paid. We find her together, we both get what we want. It’s a beautiful thing.”
“Who’s your client?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
“What do they want with Linnea?”
He shrugged slowly. “C’mon, Red, make a handsome man happy.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Fair enough. But think quick. I’ll be looking for her myself, and if I find her without you, then it’ll be you coming to my office. And I don’t wear pajamas.”
“What do you wear?”
He smiled and eased out of the chair.
“Nothing, of course.”
“I thought you were trying to discourage me.”
She raised her eyebrow and sipped her coffee, keeping her eyes on his. He grinned.
“Your teasing wounds my heart,” he said, and tapped himself on the chest. He took a card from his inside pocket and laid it on the desk in front of her. “In case you’ve lost my number. Call anytime. Day or night. I’ll be looking forward to hearing your voice.”
“I’ll bet.”
He winked, plucking his fedora from the coatrack and donning it, left the office, hands in his pockets, probably aware that he looked like a dancer doing it. She thought she could hear him whistling down the hallway. Simone let herself smile a bit more before heading into her office. She sat down at her touchdesk, booted it up, and looked at the photo again. Danny had sent over a few more during the night: Caroline and The Blonde smiling, Caroline and The Blonde laughing, Caroline handing The Blonde a small envelope, which she put in her purse without opening. Simone pulled up Danny’s message from last night and wrote back, “Where was this photo taken?”
She knew she was stuck in this now. Even if Dash hadn’t shown up, she had to find out what was going on. One of her few friends was involved, and someone was dead. That meant Caroline could be the next victim. Or, said the tiny voice in the back of her mind, a killer. Maybe. Maybe Caroline and The Blonde’s meeting had nothing to do with anything. But she had to know. And she couldn’t ask Caroline, because if she lied, it would be like being out at sea without a piece of driftwood to float on. Until she drowned. Until Caroline pushed her under.
People lied, people cheated, people were never what they seemed, never simple, and rarely good. These were things her father had taught her every day. Why had she forgotten when it came to Caroline?
The response came back almost immediately, since Danny was always hooked to his messaging: “Outside the Four Seasons. I was going through the security camera footage from a pho shop across the bridge to check if a certain someone met a certain someone else there, and I stumbled on your girl. I zoomed in for you and cleaned it up. But this is great, right? Now you can just ask Caroline who she is.”
Simone smiled at his innocence.
“No,” she wrote back, “I can’t. And neither can you. I need to find out what her involvement with all this is before I confront her with anything. If she’s part of this in some way, I have to figure out exactly how. Otherwise, it could be a trap. She might want to use me to find my client or some other reason. So don’t you dare mention to her that we’ve seen this photo. I’m serious.”
Another response came back a moment later: “Anyone ever tell you you have trust issues?”
Simone lit a cigarette. She wouldn’t be responding. But now she felt fairly sure that The Blonde was staying at the Four Seasons and, more importantly, that she was meeting people there. Maybe clients? Was Caroline a client? Anika had said she was selling something—peddling bullshit. But what would Anika, Caroline, and Henry all be in the market for? And why would that lead to Henry’s death? He didn’t have whatever The Blonde was selling—not if she was still going around selling it.
Simone clenched her jaw and looked at the photos again, willing them to stop making her body feel creaking and slimy. Willing their significance away. She knew the staff of the Four Seasons well enough to know they were hard to crack. Their only security cameras were in the lobby, and she still didn’t know The Blonde’s name, so the best she could do would be to go to the front desk, present a photo, and ask what room she was in. And Simone knew that she would be shut down right then and asked to leave, and that The Blonde would be warned. Better to be less direct until she was desperate. She would stake the Four Seasons out and, if she was lucky, The Blonde would show up and maybe meet with someone. Then Simone could start getting some information.
She stubbed out what was left of her cigarette, then showered and dressed, bought a newspage and a fresh pack of cigarettes on her way to the Four Seasons, and settled in. There was a café on a small boat just down the bridge from the hotel, so she sat there, and ordered a coffee. She read the news first swipe to last. She used the dicta feature on her earpiece to send out a few messages and listened to others—an automated job offer from a corporate espionage company, Henry St. Michel’s finances from Danny, and then, curiously, a message from Pastor Sorenson: “Dear Miss Pierce, I have the papers I would like your client to sign. If you could stop by in person on Sunday night to retrieve them, without your client, I would be most appreciative.”
Interesting. Simone blew smoke out of her mouth and sipped from her third coffee. deCostas didn’t really need to sign any release forms—he’d already dropped his marble. But Sorenson had said without her client. He wanted something.