Armed and Fabulous (Lexi Graves Mysteries) (15 page)

Garrett
raised his eyebrows. "I don't know him too well myself, just in passing, but word is he's a workaholic. Nice guy, though. Doesn't take any shit. Gives respect where it's due."

That was all I needed to know. Just that he existed. That it wasn't some weird ill-fitting part of the puzzle and the whole taskforce thing wasn't some elaborate joke, or the real fraud enterprise.

"Thanks. Listen, there's something else, but I don't want you to tell Mom or Dad."

"Go on."

"I want to get a gun permit." It
just
occurred to me today
when I saw Adam and Solomon’s weapons drawn as they searched my place
. I couldn't rely on my lamp
for a
weapon to scare people away
—u
nless through laughter
—
and, truth was, I couldn't close my eyes without seeing the blood seeping from the hole between Dean's eyes. I was scared, and I had
ample
reason to be.

"What for?" asked
Garrett
.

I shrugged nonchalantly. "Just thought it would be interesting to shoot again. Maybe put in some hours at the range."

"If Mom gets another cop in the family, she'll never hear the end of it."

"No
chance
of that."

Garrett
took
his
last couple
of
puffs and stubbed the cigarette out with his foot. He turned to me. "You sure that's all you want a gun for?"

"Yep," I said, plastering a smile on my face. "That's it."

"If you're in any kind of trouble, you can tell me. A man, or whatever."
Garrett
gulped, looking uncomfortable. He gave me the guy talk occasionally when I was a teen,
about
not trusting
them and the best way to kick them in the balls if they got too frisky
. He never
quite unders
tood
that I pretty much only h
ad one thing on my mind then
. It was possible I was worse than the boys
!
"
I can cuff 'em and lose the key,
"
he offered.

I figured that might come in useful one day. "Thanks,
Garrett
, but it's nothing like that," I said. "Raincheck?" It was about a murderer, and there was no way I was going to tell my brother that.

"You bet. Come down
to
the
station
this week and I'll go through the forms with you. I can take you out to the range too. You used to be a good shot. You'll pick it up again."

"Thanks."

~

"Sorry the evening was such a bust." I placed the bag of leftovers on the backseat of Lily's Mini and slammed the door.

"No, it was great, Lex. You know I love coming here."

"Even though you had to listen to baby talk all night?"

"I now know more about babies than I ever learned at school
,
so it's been educational." Bless Lily, she always looked on the positive side of things even after listening to Serena's hideous
ly
endless
narratives
of her friends
’
ghastly birth stories, which sounded like
“
Alien
”
versus
“
Predator
”
mashed up with a Disney ending. "
Alt
hough I might not have sex for a while," Lily finished thoughtfully
. S
he skittered around to the passenger side, leaving me to wedge myself into the driver's side
.
I had skipped the wine and Lily had helped herself to my dad's whiskey
upon
hearing the bre
e
ch birth story.

After adjusting the seat, and the mirrors, I pulled out,
and
both of us wav
ed
to Mom and Dad, a
s I
aimed for
home
, my mind full of Adam Maddox and the hidden room downtown stuffed with the taskforce's equipment.

I hadn't heard from Maddox
, as he’d told me to call him,
all night, even though I obsessively checked my phone. I thought about calling him, or sending a message
(
or seven
)
, but super cool
undercover operatives
just didn't do that, did they? I even watched the news with Dad just in case Martin Dean's murder popped up
,
but there was nothing, not even an accident report or a faked suicide. Maybe the body just hadn't been found yet and no one knew where the murderers had taken him?
Maddox
and I
were the only ones who
had seen Dean dead, and overheard the murderers
’
plan
to move his body, but
unfortunately,
they hadn't left any
GPS
maps with a big arrow pointing to the dumpsite. For all I knew, Dean could be swimming with the fishes. Clichés aside, his death would have to be
announced
soon. I didn't know much about Dean's personal life, but I figured someone must
be
miss
ing
him.

Even my brothers didn't have any police gossip when I gently prodded them. According to them
,
murder was currently
unheard of
in Montgomery and even though I knew different
ly
, I didn't press any further
, just
in case they got suspicious
and I blabbed everything
.

This was
my one shot at proving myself
,
and
that I was
much more
than just a temp.

Chapter Five

When we got home,
I didn't see anyone watching over
our building
, but I slept a little better knowing Maddox had someone spot checking my apartment, if not simply observing. After a restless night, filled with nightmares of the murderers opening the c
los
et doors and finding us, I was determined to take the snooping business seriously. The joint taskforce seemed to have nothing, as far as they
said
, and I had no doubt that they'd picked
Green Hand Insurance
apart as soon as Maddox placed his call
;
but I wanted to look over the scene of the crime too.

Dominic
, Dean’s assistant,
di
dn't
budge
all morning, giving me plenty of time to think about my next move.
I knew
I needed to get inside Dean's office and take a look around. Even though I wracked my brain, I couldn't work out what was so interesting in the
reports I’d written
.
If, however,
I could find out what Dean had been doing in the hours leading up to his death, I might
find a
clue.

As soon as I saw Dominic
move
away from his desk, I picked up a stack of papers and made my way to Dean's office.

"Hey,
Lexi,
" said Vincent Marciano, the company accountant, his head popping over
the
cubicle wall
as
I passed his desk. Vincent was about as far from an Italian
s
tallion as a man could get, but he
strove
to adopt the swagger and supreme self-confidence that he was every woman's
fantasy
. Unfortunately, that also
made him resistant to
subtle
brush-offs that f
ell short of screaming and
m
ace, but
since
he did co-sign my time
card,
I had to be nice.

"Hey," I said, holding up my papers, deflecting whatever silly comment he was about to make. Vincent was probably harmless and might even
have
be
en
sweet if he didn't try so hard, but he had an annoying habit of
always
getting in my way when I was in a hurry. I think he just wanted to talk to me. I hoped it wasn't because he had more than a friendly interest
,
because there was no way
that
was happening
.
I was taught never to be cruel
unless necessary
and I really didn’t want it to be necessary
. "Photocopying,
"
I said, flapping the papers.

"Waits for no man," Vincent finished, chuckling at his joke.

"You know it."

"Want to get coffee after work?" Vincent called after me.

"No can do," I said, glancing over my shoulder to give him an apologetic smile. "I'm meeting a friend after work." Instead of veering off to the photocopy room, I walked past Dominic's desk and
down
the
short hallway
,
as if I owned it. Th
en, with a backwards glance to check
that
no one was watching, I opened Dean's door and slid inside, shutting it softly behind me.

I placed the papers on the console by the door and darted forwards. My first stop was Dean's desk. I rifled through the neat stack of paperwork on the desk, noting that it was a smaller pile than two nights ago. None of my reports were in
the stack
, but there was a bunch of papers from accounts,
some memos from the call center
below us
,
and a few spreadsheets. I discounted them
all
after a quick
scan
and moved to the orderly line of Post-it notes that spanned the side of the desk,
adjacent
to Dean's phone. It was the usual
stuff
—
c
alls to return
,
q
uestions
from
Dominic regarding Dean's travel to a conference next week
, c
onfirmation of a dinner reservation
, a
credit card
bill
.
I sneaked a peek.
A two hundred and forty-six
dollar
balance
,
plus
a home address.
Nothing
stuck out as
being
out of place or unusual.
In fact, as I glanced down, there was no blood stain
where Dean la
y dead
either.

With a frown
,
I
returned
to the desk.
A selection of newspapers were folded across the
top portion
. National titles and the Montgomery Gazette, all new. I knew Dominic placed them there every day because
I had to
run out to get them a few times when he was too busy. I checked the diary printout that I knew came from Dean's Outlook
calendar
,
also
managed by Dominic. It also
had today’s
date and I guessed Dominic had updated it and left a printout just in case Dean came in. I wondered if Dominic was in the loop on Dean's
demise
.
I guessed not.

Next
,
I tried the drawers. The top two were locked so I was surprised when the third one
easily
slid open. There wasn't much inside. A couple of candy bars, a spare tie and one of those miniature Japanese sand gardens
,
complete with
a
tiny rake
,
that was supposed to help de-stress busy minds.

The door opened abruptly and I don't know who was more startled. Dominic
or I
.

"What are you doing in Mr
.
Dean's office?" he asked.

I bent to
ward
the files. "I made a mistake in my file and I wanted to get it before Mr
.
Dean saw," I lied. "It's the pie charts
,
you see. I put in the wrong numbers." I grabbed a file and held it up. "Here it is!" I plastered on a grin.

"Mr
.
Dean doesn't
allow
people in his office," said Dominic, crossly, his hands
braced
on his hips
.

"Yes, sorry. Won't happen again," I said, nudging the drawer closed with my leg as I
skirted
the desk. I crossed the floor quickly and grabbed my papers
from the small table
. "I'll be off," I said,
walking
back to my
cubicle
without a backward glance, hoping no one
besides me
could hear how fast my heart was beating.
Halfway there
,
I dropped the file
that
I
swiped
into a trash
basket
under someone else’s desk.

Maddox caught up with me after lunch (chicken mayo, courtesy of Bob),
and isolated
us into a meeting
room
. "I saw you
go into Dean's office," he said, folding his arms across his chest.
He didn’t look thrilled, but he didn’t look
too
upset either.

"I went to get some paperwork," I said. "And Dominic wasn't around."

He raised his eyebrows
at my lie
. "Our people went through it
already
. The files were gone when they
arrived
."

I groaned and dropped into a chair. "
I saw. None of the files on Dean’s desk
we
re mine. Dominic must have put new ones there.
You find out
what they
’
re
so interested in
yet
?
"

"No. Our techs said nothing stood out
when they pulled the files from your flash drive
and it's not like we can ask Dean."

"D
idn't you bug his phones?" I aske
d, a light
bulb popping
on
in my head.

"Sure, but he didn't use his personal cell phone, his Black
B
erry or the office phone, so we didn't pick anything up, only what I overheard.
The call he got that night went to a burn phone
that
he concealed. We traced it back, but it was made from a burner too.
"

"What about DNA?"

"Nothing. The killers wore gloves. They were
both
bald
,
so no ha
ir. They took the
gu
n with the
m and we don't have his body to do an autopsy
,
or run a ballistics report on the bullets. They were
extremely
careful."

My head shot up. "You don't know where his body is?"

"Not yet. We've searched his house, his garage. Nothing. Either he's been dumped somewhere or..."

"Or what?"

"Or they've still got him."

"Eugh!"

Maddox shrugged. "He'll turn up."