Three

“Stay still, Taylor.” I doubted she could move. She had her hands clutched over her head, her fingers tangled in her hair like they would protect her from the chaos around us. Frankly, I wanted to get down on the floor with her and hide until I could call Jace to come get us, but I had to answer to the police first.

The officer didn’t immediately get out. I assumed he was running my license plate or waiting for backup to arrive—or both. A brief minute later the cruiser’s door opened.

Tiny bits of safety glass littered the dashboard. I’d felt some splash against my face and neck when the bullets shot through, and I assume Taylor had been sprinkled with them, too. I started to run my fingers over my cheeks to see if I was bleeding, but a hurtful twinge in my right arm kept me from doing it. I must’ve pulled a muscle getting Taylor to the floor.

As I expected, I could make out the officer coming to the car with his gun drawn but not lifted. I rolled down the window to make it easier for him to see inside, in the spirit of cooperation, like Jace had taught me.

“Max, are you alright?” the officer asked.

I knew that voice. His baritone words, warm and silky, were always on the verge of laughter. It was hardly forgettable, especially when it sounded like he was going to laugh at me.

“Yes, Charlie. I’m fine.” I let out a slow breath, settling my nerves.

“Who’s that woman on the passenger floorboard?”

Taylor whined, and I looked at Charlie. “She’s a new client. I made her get down there when some Adam Henry decided he wanted to use my car for target practice.”

Charlie holstered his gun and leaned closer, gazing in at Taylor. The spotlight hitting the review mirror illuminated the interior. “Anyone hurt?”

Taylor shook her head, and I brushed small pieces of glass off my skirt. “I’m okay, but my insurance agent isn’t going to believe this.”

Charlie laughed. “Why not? It wouldn’t be the first time for a private detective to piss off the wrong person.”

“Max, may I get up now?” Taylor asked quietly.

“No. You stay down until I know that blasted car isn’t around.”

“I called it in to dispatch, Max. I have my squad looking for that dark blue sedan.”

“Charlie, why did you stop me and not him?” I didn’t try to hide the irritation in my voice.

He tapped the edge of my door. “Get out. Let’s talk.” The laughter was gone. A serious tone pushed aside any hint of humor it had contained a moment ago.

“Taylor, you stay there until I tell you it’s safe, okay?” I didn’t move until she nodded. Charlie opened my door and I followed him to the back of his car, out of the spotlight. I knew in my head the car that chased us probably wasn’t sitting in the parking lot, but I couldn’t help the goosebumps that formed down my arms and up the back of my neck. That paranoid feeling bloomed again like a stubborn field of moonflowers.

“Why didn’t you go after the guy who shot at me?” I demanded to know.

Charlie held up his hands. “Hold on there, Max. I didn’t know you’d been shot at until I had my spotlight on you. All I saw was a white-over-sky blue Impala fly by. As far as I can tell, you are the only one who drives a car like that in all of the valley.” He stepped closer. “I wanted to see if you were okay and to tell you to slow down.”

He took out a small flashlight from his shirt pocket and shined it on my face. “Are you sure you’re all right? You have a little glass in your hair.”

“It’s just bits. It’ll brush out.”

I stretched my shoulders back, feeling a sharp twinge in my right shoulder again. I wanted to go home so badly. “I’m mad, Charlie. I don’t like being shot at. And I don’t like having a client shot at.”

He took a quick look at my car. “Was she the target—or were you?”

I shrugged. “Our open cases aren’t worth killing for.” I then pictured Taylor stuffed on the floorboard. “And I don’t know enough about this new case to give you a solid answer.”

“I, uh, I read that Councilman Caplin’s case is coming to trial in a couple of months. Could this have anything to do with Andover?”

“I don’t see how. All the files on Howard Andover Construction were turned over to the district attorney, and Caplin’s attorneys, as well. All the evidence is so tight Andover should’ve suffocated two years ago.” Charlie frowned. He didn’t look convinced.

“I’ll follow you home—at a discreet distance—to make sure that sedan doesn’t show up again. Just don’t drive your car again until you get a new windshield.”

Charlie took my elbow and turned me toward my car. His hold blasted a pain through my shoulder. I grabbed my upper arm where it hurt the most, and gasped loudly.

He released me and whipped up the small flashlight once more. He shone the beam on my right shoulder. “What the hell is this?”

When I pulled my hand away, it was smeared with bright red blood. My stomach twisted and my knees nearly buckled.

“Max, you’ve been shot!”

~*~

Not only did I oversleep, but I’d had nightmares about being trapped in a room the size of a closet with a dozen psychotic bees dancing the mamba on my shoulder. I woke feeling like I’d been stung a dozen times, too. Before Charlie had escorted us home, he insisted that the paramedics treat the two-inch flesh wound while he took an official report. I didn’t have Taylor settled into her room until three a.m., and by then I was barely conscious.

I couldn’t remember the last time I got into work after ten. Technically, I was working from home for the last hour or so. I had Taylor sign a standard contract agreeing to our usual fee with a substantial retainer already electronically transferred. But I also spent time getting as much information out of her as I could, which wasn’t much. She didn’t think she had an enemy worth mentioning.

After watching her show, I figured she might’ve made a couple of women angry, but had it gone to a level high enough for murder? Shooting through my car might’ve been another way to intimidate her, and my being hit might’ve been an accident—although I wasn’t counting on it.

“Good morning, Max,” Willow said sweetly as I came into the reception room. While I’d put my hair up in a French twist again, Willow always wore her long, honey blonde hair down. Her loose, floor-length skirts and flowing shirts in pastel colors conveyed a sense of calmness that I sometimes envied.

“Good morning, Willow.”

A moment later, Jace came out of his office looking perturbed. The scowl on his face seemed a little over the top just because I was late. He must’ve found something bad on his assignment at Gem’s.

“Jace. How are you?” He didn’t get to answer before Lia, our twenty-two-year-old intern assigned to his case, came out of the office she and her twin brother, Pierce, our other intern, shared. She was smiling and practically dancing.

“Max! I’m so glad you're here. I have news on Gem’s case,” she said. “Are we having our meeting now?” Hmm, so Jace did have something to talk about. Why didn’t he seem happy to have solved a case?

“Yes. Are Bullet and your brother here?”

“They pulled a swing shift last night. Pierce said they’d be in by noon, if that’s doable.”

I headed for my office. I had no room to complain about sleeping in after working late. “That’s not a problem.”

Jace opened my door, but he headed off the intern with a lift of his muscular arm. “Give us a minute alone, Lia.”

I glanced at Jace’s unhappy face before sliding in between him and the doorframe. I hoped that the trouble wasn’t with Lia. We really needed her skills, and she seemed like such a good fit over the past few weeks. She’d graduated from Arizona State University in June with a bachelor degree in business. Lia was the perfect choice for scouring Gem’s books to see what was crooked and who made it that way. I had a business degree, which was why Harry originally hired me, but I’d hoped to eventually become one of his investigators. Instead, he’d hired Bullet and married me. It took another three years before he let me do a small surveillance job for the company.

I set my handbag on my desk and turned around to face Jace, ready to defend my newest employee. But Jace surprised me. He'd come to a stop right behind me, closer than he normally stood. My heart jumped at his nearness.

“Are you all right?” he asked. His voice took on a tender tone. I wasn’t sure what he meant.

Was he worried that he was standing too close? That he'd breached that bubble of personal space each of us normally required? Or did his question have a whole different meaning? Maybe if he took a step back it might become more understandable, and then I wouldn’t think about how a subtle, musky, woodsy fragrance drifted off his body, and that the stubble of dark beard looked like he’d forgotten to shave again.

“Charlie Wilson called me this morning,” he told me.

Now my heart thumped hard for a different reason. I hadn’t planned on announcing my injury to anyone. I’d even worn a long sleeve jacket and matching skirt to cover my bandage instead of a short sleeve casual shirt and slacks like Jace and Bullet usually wore.

Jace lifted his hand and nearly touched my arm exactly where the wound was. I slid sideways, putting more room between us. “He shouldn’t have done that.”

“No, you should've when you first got the call from your new client.” Jace closed the distance. “I could’ve been here in fifteen minutes.”

“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of a new client,” I told him as I moved behind my desk and sat down. I lifted the laptop’s lid, but watched Jace walk to the window. That horrible sensation of being pulled over the edge momentarily came back.

“Charlie said your car was shot up. If he hadn’t pulled up behind you…” When Jace didn’t finish, I didn’t let him hang.

“As soon as I saw we were being followed, I headed for the police department, just like you taught me.” I put my fingers over the track-pad to open up Taylor’s file, but my hand was shaking. I clenched it into a fist. “I’m not stupid, Jace. I wouldn’t have led that psycho back to my home.”

“Your home?” He strode straight to me. “Is that where you took your client? Is she there now—alone? Why would you do that?”

He made me feel like an intern again, uncertain and having to explain everything I did. I already went through that stage of my career with him. I thought he trusted me now. I stood up, coming face-to-face with him. “I don’t need your permission, Jace Atmore.”

“I didn’t say you did—” He turned away and moved to the window again. I wished he’d stop doing that. My insides were shaken up enough with our conversation. After a moment, he asked, “How did she contact you?”

That part wouldn’t have been discussed in our meeting. He was making me explain myself again. At least he was doing it in private. “She called me about twelve-fifteen—told me that her life was in danger and that she wanted to hire Larabee Investigations to find out who’s doing it. She also told me that we came recommended by Councilman Caplin. She took a taxi here.”

Jace’s jaw flexed as if he was biting down—hard. I could tell he was angry, probably with me—maybe at Taylor. “After midnight. Max, did you ever consider that the woman was lying to you? That she told you she was a friend with Caplin to get you alone—to hurt you out of retribution? Or worse, to abduct you?”

I felt my face heat with a blush. My heart was thudding again, out of anger. “Did Charlie tell you to say that?”

“Charlie and I happened to agree that Andover is a slimebag who wouldn’t be above using a woman as a hostage if he thought it would keep him from going to prison.”

I hadn’t thought about that. “I did a search on Taylor Hodges before I met with her.” I told him the steps I took before I went downstairs and unlocked the door. I then recounted everything Taylor told me about her week in Phoenix, and what leads she gave me to follow.

“That’s not much to go on,” Jace said, sounding calmer, and finally sitting in the chair closest to the door. It was his usual place when we had our morning meetings. I took a deep breath to slow my heart. This wasn’t the way I'd wanted the day to begin.

“I think if we use all our assets, we can work through this quickly.” I went to the door. When I opened it to get Lia, Bullet and Pierce were just coming in. They both looked the way I felt—done in.

Just like Jace, Bullet hadn’t shaved either. Of course, he hadn’t shaved since I’d known him. Blake Davenport sported a short, well-trimmed beard and mustache. He’d been given the nickname “Bullet” twenty years ago while in the Marines for his sharpshooting skills. At least that was what he told me. Whenever I asked about it, he’d glance over at Jace and a brief look would pass between them, but he’d tell me the same answer each time with a smile so white it seemed even brighter against his black skin. I didn’t believe him. I even went as far as to ask his wife, Akemi, and all she would do is tell me to ask Bullet, while smiling in the same kind of mischievous way as her husband.

“Let’s get this meeting started,” I said, waving them inside my office.

Lia’s smile never wavered, and she carried an iPad. Pierce came in behind her. They were fraternal twins, yet looked remarkably alike, with light blue eyes and blondish hair, and although Pierce had a few inches on Lia, she was six-foot tall wearing running shoes. Maybe I wouldn’t give up high heels. I’d be desperately short without the added three inches they gave me.

“Okay, Lia, you’re up.” I dropped into my chair and waited while she logged on to her iPad.

“I don’t know if Jace told you what we found yesterday…”

“I didn’t say anything, Lia,” Jace said. “I promised I’d let you do it.”

Her smile grew bigger as she stood up. “As you know, Jace and I have been working with Gem Hastings Designs. Gem’s bottom line has been sinking for the past six months, yet she’s been selling more jewelry than since she opened her shop. When she couldn’t figure it out, she called us, uh, called Max.

“So I spent a week going over Gem’s books.” Lia looked at me. “She buys a lot of gold and silver from different sources. But she also buys already prefabricated bases for her earrings and certain other jewelry so she can cut the time it takes to get to the finished product.”

She set her iPad down in front of me. “I worked up a spreadsheet to show all her ordering, everything from the precious gems down to rolls of toilet paper, to whom she places her orders, what she’s paid out, and what stock she actually received. And then we took inventory. Everything needs to balance.”

Lia opened the spreadsheet on her iPad. “I went back a year, when she didn’t have the problem, so I could have a baseline to work from. Six months ago Gem began ordering some of her prefab eighteen-karat gold products from a new supplier: Carriage House Jewelry. At first the orders were small, but over the past couple of months, they’ve doubled in size. During our inventory, we couldn’t find any products from Carriage House Jewelry. None.”

Lia swiped her fingers across the iPad, changing the page. “I then called Carriage House Jewelry and talked with the manager—they’re out of Chicago. After threatening them with a charge of fraud to get a court order for all their books, he finally agreed to give me a list of their employees if we handled it without the police. We have the names, addresses, phone numbers, and their current jobs descriptions.”

I grinned over at Jace. That took courage.

“We found that a junior bookkeeper at Carriage House was a roommate with Gem’s niece, Christie Shay, while she went to the University of Chicago last semester. Christie was hired on at Gems’ six months ago as an assistant buyer—and that is our connection. Money is being paid out to Carriage House but merchandise isn’t being sent. Over six months, it’s added up to thirteen thousand six hundred seventy-four dollars and fifteen cents.”

Lia tapped her iPad. “I’ve sent you my report outlining everything I’ve told you.” She stood up straight and took a deep breath, still with her enthusiastic smile solidly in place, but now she was looking at Jace.

Jace nodded, smiling at his intern before turning to look at me. While he was working the case with Lia, most of the work had to have been done by her alone. And she did it well. “I’ll fly up to Chicago and speak with the Carriage House’s manager and finish the case then.”

“I’d like to go with you,” Lia said.

“You can do that this morning,” I told him.

“What about our new case?” Jace asked.

“We gotta new case?” Bullet asked. “Very cool.”

I gave a brief outline of what I’d told Jace earlier. Lia, especially, was excited about having Taylor Hodges as a new client. She’d seen every season of Marry Me and was as obsessed as I was. I’d bring them in on the case as soon as they closed the ones they were working on—or sooner if necessary.

“Bullet, where are you in the case of the missing merchandise?” I asked as I searched on my laptop for the email Lia had just sent me.

“Our man, Pierce, and I got moved to the swing shift where our two suspects work—”

“Are they suspects?” Jace asked, leaning his elbows on his knees.

“Yeah, man, it looks that way. Their apps are as phony as a politician’s promise.” Bullet looked over at me. “Each box of merchandise is checked in using a hand scanner as they’re offloaded from the shipping trucks. Using the same devices, we scanned each empty box before they’re folded and tied up for recycling, and we found that all the missing packages were sent from the same company in Seattle: Harmony’s Touch. The ordering forms say they sell T-shirts, ball caps, canvas messenger bags and such.”

Lia jumped in with a question. “Have they delivered any of their merchandise?”

It was a reasonable question, considering what she’d been working on.

“Yeah, sure they have cutsie stuff hanging on racks in the store. Cheap looking crap, but it’s their boxes that end up disappearing here and there.”

“But you haven’t seen anyone actually take any boxes out of the warehouse?” I asked Bullet.

“No, not yet,” Pierce answered. “We’re working on it.”

I had no doubt they were—with enthusiasm. Pierce could’ve hired on with the Phoenix police, but instead he wanted to use his criminal justice degree the same way Harry had: private investigating. “Write an update for me, please.”

Bullet stood up, yawning, and doubling his hands into fists while stretching his elbows out as far as they could go. When he was through, he said, “You’ll have it in your inbox PDQ. I need some of Willow’s Columbian brew first to jump start my bod.”

“Okay, we have our assignments,” I said. Everyone filed out of the room. Well, almost everyone. Jace stood in the doorway staring at me. “Yes?”

“What’re you going to do today?”

I thought that was obvious. “Start on Taylor’s case.” Jace’s brows lowered, and his lips flattened. He disapproved, and it irked me. Why should I need his consent to do my job? I clicked on Becca’s email, the one I'd ignored last night. I should call her instead. “Have a good flight, Jace. Let me know how things go.”

Something that sounded like a low growl made me look up. Jace was gone. He had a job to finish, and I had one to start. I lifted my right shoulder, feeling a painful twinge as I did so. I hadn’t felt the shot at the time, or at least recognized it for what it was, but I’d come close to being killed last night.

The car that chased us wasn’t the same truck that had tried to run Taylor down yesterday. Were those bullets meant for me? I needed to talk to Harry in the worst way—to verbally work things through, like I usually did when I had problems. That would be my first stop—to discuss my case, and my life, with my deceased husband at his graveside.