Four

A monsoon had drenched Phoenix. The granite bench had water puddled on it, but I didn’t care. I sat down anyway. From the look of the dark clouds shouldering for room above the cemetery, the rain wasn’t done for today. The air had become unseasonably cool.

“Oh, Harry—” I’d held back crying out of frustration after talking with Becca, but I didn’t need to hide my feelings here. I gazed at his headstone and poured out my heart. “Kitten was angry with me for not calling right away. Everything with her is an emergency. But it isn’t. I know what one is…”

I let that night eighteen months ago flash in my mind. The doctor had declared it a heart attack. All I knew was that Harry had died in his office with his hand in mine while Jace pumped his chest. The paramedics shocked his heart three times but never got it started again. That was an emergency—not money for new shoes.

“And she brought up selling the house again. She’s eighteen, Harry, and frustrated she can’t get to her trust fund like her brother and sister have. But I can’t sell our home, not for new shoes.”

I wiped the tears from my cheeks and took several deep breaths, getting control of my emotions while I spent the next few minutes telling him about our new case in detail. It helped me think things through—see angles I might’ve missed. Then I told him about my wound. “I’m not hurt—much. Jace nearly…” I had to stop.

“Harry, Jace is treating me like an intern again. He’s questioning me on everything.” I played with the edge of my handbag and thought over the past year. “I wonder if he feels guilty that you died. But he tried—he tried so hard to save you—” And I let the tears flow again.

~*~

I kept a makeup kit in my desk drawer. I needed it today, and on most days when I made that trip to the cemetery. I rarely got back to the office with my mascara intact, and today I needed to look my best before I tried to reach the first person on the list of suspects: Lemon Beauchamp.

Not only was Lemon a contestant, but she’d also brought His Royal Highness Prince Dante in as the bachelor to give his country a tourism boost. And she had certainly achieved her goal. I even wanted to go there.

Too bad Lemon had been basically blackmailed into appearing on the show after three contestants were forced off before filming ever started. If she hadn’t stepped in, the show would’ve had to cancel shooting.

Taylor gave me Lemon’s private cellphone number. I freaked out on the inside while keeping a cool exterior as I input her name and number in my iPhone. If the first phone conversation went well, then I’d FaceTime with her to do a more thorough interview. I liked to see with whom I was talking, to see their reactions to questions. Rarely do people lie without showing some sign, like their eyes turning away, or blinking rapidly while thinking of an answer.

I felt oddly nervous as I called up Lemon’s number. In a way, I felt like I was going to speak to an old friend. I spent an hour with her through…I forgot how many episodes of Marry Me. I’d cheered for her. My heart raced in sympathy when she caught Rafael kissing Genesis thinking—believing with her whole heart it had been Dante. Clearly, she'd had no idea that the twins had double-teamed the contestants.

Taylor had lied to her and the other contestants all for the sake of better ratings. The consummate anger Lemon displayed before storming out of the mansion might’ve led her to do something regrettable—like hiring someone to drive a truck into Taylor, or shoot at her. I wanted to see Lemon’s face when I asked her about the incidents.

“Hello? Who is this?”

I smiled, remembering the sweet voice with the slightly southern accent, very reminiscent of Taylor’s. “Hello, my name is Maxine Larabee, and I’m a private investigator working for Taylor Hodges. I need—”

I heard three subtle beeps indicating our line had been disconnected. I checked my phone. It had three bars of reception plus plenty of charge. I called up her number again to see if she answered. It went to voicemail. “I don’t think she likes Taylor very much.” The likelihood of her being my suspect gelled a little bit, but without some proof, it still wobbled too much. I really needed to rule her out, so I wrote her a text.

<<Are you the one who tried to kill Taylor last night?”>>

I sent it and waited. I knew the text wasn’t nearly long enough to give her any real information, but it might pique her interest some. When my phone rang, Lemon’s name came up with her number. I touched the green icon and said, “Hello, Lemon.”

“If you’re thinkin’ I might’ve done somethin’ as despicable as that, then you’re barkin’ up the wrong tree, Miss Larabee,” Lemon said, tartly.

“Call me Max. May I speak to you on FaceTime?”

“I don’t have anything to say to you at all—”

“So you aren’t holding a grudge against Taylor for lying to you about Prince Rafael being on Marry Me along with your fiancé?”

“That dog don’t hunt,” Lemon said. “I’m a lady. My mama taught me better manners than to accuse someone without proof. Why don’t you talk to that Brittany, the ex-contestant who stole my Donna Karan New York red blazer—”

“Amore mio, did you not just accuse another without proof?”

Goosebumps sprinted down my skin at the sound of Prince Dante’s creamy voice. He must’ve been listening with his face next to Lemon’s. Or maybe she had it on speakerphone. I had a list of all the contestants, including the three who never actually made it on the show, so I knew who she was talking about.

“Why would you believe Brittany would be angry with Taylor?”

“Are you recording this?” Lemon asked suddenly.

I hadn’t turned that on yet. “Why would—”

“I’m sorry, but this conversation’s over.”

Three subtle beeps later and, sure enough, our phone call ended. Lemon had hung up—again.

“Well, okay.” Taylor had given me the addresses for all the contestants. Brittany Hollingsworth lived in El Cajon, a few miles east of San Diego. It was a solid six-hour drive from Phoenix. I wanted to pay her a visit and not give her any warning I was coming, but I’d have to wait until Jace got back with the company plane.

Until then, I wanted to meet up with Gem, and maybe ask Christie a question or two. I also need to update Philip Cantrell, Jangles' store manager who’d hired us to find the missing merchandise. While Bullet and Pierce hadn’t actually found the missing boxes—or had proof who was stealing them, they did have a solid lead. It was my job to keep Philip informed on how we were doing.

It was nearing noon, and I was hungry enough to grab a leftover tuna sandwich from my little fridge, along with a diet Dew before heading out of my office.

“I’m going to update Philip, and then I’ll be back after I swing by Gem’s,” I told Willow, who was opening up her bag lunch. She always ate at her desk, unless we went out together.

“I’ll be here,” Willow said, taking a plastic container of salad out of the bag.

I looked at my sandwich and thought I should eat better. Every fast food place offered salads. I dropped the old sandwich in the trashcan next to Willow’s desk and left.

Since my car was out of commission until I got the glass replaced, I was driving Harry’s Grand Cherokee, which I’d parked in back of the building. Finding an open space was fortunate. I wanted to vary where I parked, mostly because I still had that paranoid feeling going on—enough that I drove around the block twice, looking for a dark sedan following me.

By the time I merged onto the freeway, I realized I forgot to get that salad. With the lunch hour heavy traffic, taking an exit just for food didn’t seem worth the effort.

It took another twenty-five minutes to reach the Desert Sky Mall off North Seventy-fifth Avenue, and park in the back of the store. Philip’s office was in the rear of the building, and it was easier going through the warehouse—which at the moment had a semi-truck backed into the loading bay with boxes being offloaded.

I didn’t immediately get out of the Cherokee. Watching the driver place each box on a conveyor belt grabbed my full interest. What were the chances that a delivery from Seattle was in that truck?

Since I didn’t have a description of Bullet’s two suspects, I couldn’t know for sure one or both of them weren’t there waiting for a box to land. But if a box had been delivered, how long would it sit unnoticed? Bullet didn’t have an explanation as to when they disappeared after they’d been checked in.

I got out and headed for the ramp next to the loading bay. If anyone asked me what I was doing there, my explanation was solid. Philip would even back me up—that I was there to see him—which was true. The truck driver kept glancing over at me as I walked. Again I felt the need to blend in, and wearing a business suit and high heels made me stand out.

Once inside, I ducked around the corner from the only two men moving boxes. One was using that handheld scanning device that Bullet described to check them in before the other man rolled it down a long metal-wheeled conveyor belt that ran the full length of the warehouse.

I ducked behind the boxes when they weren’t looking and started examining the packing labels. The light got dimmer the farther I went inside. My iPhone’s flashlight came in handy. So did the recording app, which I turned on next.

“So far, this shipment seems to be from the Pacific Northwest,” I whispered loud enough for my phone to capture but hopefully not enough for the men to hear. I touched a box. “Here’s one from Portland, Oregon, and another, so we’re in the general area.” I moved down the line, keeping low. “Here’s a couple from Tacoma.”

I kept looking at a dozen or more boxes before I struck gold. “Oh, here’s one from Harmony’s Touch in Seattle. Bingo!” Maybe I should call Bullet and let him know.

It wasn’t a huge box. The packing invoice was taped to the outside in a clear plastic packet. Using my fingernail, I made a slit down the side big enough to get the paper out. “The box is supposed to contain twenty-four ‘I’m Hot’ T-shirts in small medium and large, plus ten tan canvas messenger bags with the same saying. Huh! Not very original.”

I desperately wanted to see if the inside matched the packing invoice. “I’m going to open the box.”

It would take more than a manicured nail to cut through the shipping tape holding the flaps closed. I carried a Swiss Army Knife for occasions like this. Well, not specifically like this one, but as I slid the small blade along the edge of the box, I knew I’d never complain about the added weight in my bag again. When I opened the flaps, I found neatly folded T-shirts. “Dagumit!”

Lia was concerned about receiving all the merchandise. Could the boxes be disappearing because Harmony’s Touch were habitually shorting shipments and they had someone on the receiving end to cover it up? That would be easy to deduce.

I folded the blade before placing it back in my purse, and started lifting out the T-shirts, but there were only six laying on top of small boxes. “Crimany,” I muttered. “iPhones.” I took out one of the boxes so my light could shine on it. “No, it has Chinese lettering—no English at all.” I sucked in a fast breath. “It’s a knockoff—they’re smuggling knockoffs from Seattle, a port city.”

And then I had a most brilliant idea. Bullet didn’t have any leads as to where the boxes were being taken, and I had a wonderful app that can track my phone—anywhere. After I took a picture of the inside filled with knockoffs, and of the outside label, I sent the photos to my Cloud file for safekeeping. I checked my phone’s settings before tucking it discreetly inside the big box.

“What are you doing?”

I jumped at the sound of a man’s angry voice. Walking up on me at a rapid pace were two men, neither were the ones unloading the truck. I didn’t have the time to replace the T-shirts before I turned and ran, still clutching the fake iPhone.

I didn’t get far before strong arms encircled me.

“Let me go,” I screamed, as I struggled and kicked my high heel into his shin. “Help! Help me!”

“Give me that!”

He could clearly see the white iPhone box in my hand, but I had a strong grip, and he wasn’t going to get it out without—he slammed me down to the concrete floor—hurting my right shoulder. Still, I wouldn’t release my evidence even as he knelt over me. When he curled his hand into a fist and lifted it, I flinched and held my arms up in front of my face.

The blow didn’t come. I opened my eyes and saw Bullet standing behind him, holding his wrist and keeping him from striking me. In the next moment, the man’s free hand swung at Bullet. I crawled out from under their legs while they fought. It didn’t last long before I heard the pounding of running shoes echoing away from me.

“Come on, Max.” Bullet grabbed my elbow and lifted me to my feet. “We gotta get going.”

He meant it. Without letting me go, he had us moving toward the loading dock the same way the man had run. When we went past the box I’d opened, it was missing, but the T-shirts were still there.

“All right…” Bullet said. He dropped my arm when his phone dinged. I kept up with him as he answered. “Yeah?” We stopped at the edge of the bay. The semi-truck was gone. “Are you tailing them?” He nodded at me, smiling. “Good man! We’ll be right behind you. Keep your phone open, Pierce man.” Bullet touched his speakerphone icon and dropped it in his shirt pocket before he jumped off the 4-foot dock and took off running.

I couldn’t do that in heels and a tight skirt. I plopped down on my bottom, hung my legs over the side and scooted. When my hips reached the edge, I rolled over. I needed to use my arms to muscle my way down or I risked breaking an ankle.

“I gotcha, Max,” Bullet said, grabbing my waist and lifting me to the ground.

“Max? Our boss is with you?” Pierce asked through the speakerphone.

“I can hear you, Pierce,” I told him, running alongside Bullet, who pointed at his car with a key fob, making it twitter and the lights flash.

“Do you still have Jake’s red car in view?” Bullet asked.

I didn’t hear Pierce’s response. It’d been muffled as we got into Bullet’s gold Camaro. I didn’t ask him again before I took out my iPad mini from my bag with shaking hands and a painful shoulder. Following cheating husbands wasn’t nearly as exciting as chasing dangerous thieves.

Bullet burned his tires turning around, and headed toward the road encircling the shopping center. “Put your seatbelt on,” he told me. “Jace would have my hide if you got hurt.”

Jace would be mad at Bullet? Nonsense. With the iPad balancing on my knees, I pulled at the seatbelt, but each time I had it over my chest, Bullet would take a corner and the belt would lock up and I’d have to start over again. After the third time, I gave up and opened the iPhone-tracking app on my iPad.

“I lost him—” Pierce shouted. “I lost him!”

“Calm down, man. Which way are you heading?”

I told them, probably a little too loudly, “The target is driving east on West Indian School Road just past North Sixty-seventh Avenue.” My heart was racing as fast as the Camaro’s engine. I could feel a silly smile drying out my teeth, too.

“How do you know that?” Bullet asked as he switched lanes, going around a slower car.

“I hid my phone inside the box with the knockoff iPhones, and I’m watching it go up Indian School Road.”

Bullet laughed. “You bugged their stolen merch?”

“I swear, I didn’t know you and Pierce were doing a surveillance on it, or I would’ve kept clear.”

He laughed again. “Pierce, take it slower, but listen up for direction changes from Max.”

“Copy that—”

I couldn’t take a deep breath. I’d never been so excited before. Bullet’s fast driving and my using a tracking app made me feel involved and very much…alive. “Pierce, they just turned north on Sixty-third Avenue.”

“Yeah…okay…I saw them turn. I’ll keep several cars between us.”

I continued to watch the little icon of my phone travel up a map until it reached the next big intersection. “They hung a right on Camelback—in case you didn’t see them.”

“Yeah…” Pierce’s voice coolly replied. “Traffic is pretty heavy. And they aren’t acting like they know we’re following them.”

“That’s good,” Bullet told him. Or maybe he said it to calm me down. I took a slow breath, willing my heart to do the same.

“They crossed Fifty-ninth Avenue…Pierce, they’re turning north into that shopping center—they used the second entrance. Use the first entrance and they won’t see you.”

“Copy that. Where’re you two?” Pierce asked.

“We’re at Sixty-third,” Bullet told him. “Hang tight until we get there.”

The five minutes it took us to find Pierce felt like an hour, but in those few minutes my phone had stopped moving. We got out and had a meeting on what to do next.

“Bullet, just what were you going to do when you tracked them back to their—” I didn’t know what to call it, “their hideout?” It turned out to be a storefront in a building that housed several other honest businesses.

Bullet dipped his head and shoved his hands in his pockets, grinning. “Well, I didn’t think we’d get this far. And really, we weren’t being paid to breakup an international smuggling ring. Your client only wanted to know why his merchandise was disappearing. To stop it, all he has to do is quit ordering from Harmony’s Touch and his particular problem is solved.”

I sighed. “Well, I want my phone back. Call the police. I need official backup.”

A job was supposed to be fun, and Pierce certainly looked like he enjoyed doing his. Within ten minutes, we had half of the Glendale police force parked outside Phonetacular while Bullet, Pierce, six officers, including two shift supervisors, and I went inside.

When the clerk called to the manager in the back of the store, Bullet smiled his beautiful white teeth at the man who came out looking surprised. It was Jake, the punk who’d body slammed me to the warehouse floor.

I nodded at Pierce, who promptly dialed my phone. The old-fashioned bell tones rang mutedly, but were audible enough that Pierce and two officers were able to follow the sound and find the stolen box from Philip’s warehouse—with my phone still ringing inside.

“Max—we busted this case wide open,” Bullet said, enthusiastically grasping me by the upper arms. When I gasped from the pain of his hand on my wound, he let me loose and stared at my shoulder, and then at his bloody hand. “Damn, Max, what happened?”

My wound was bleeding again. It looked like I had some explaining to do.