Limbo (28 page)

Dash shrugged. He could feel Joy staring at him, her interest like twin lasers burning into the back of his head. ‘It was the least I could do.’

‘Still,’ Eve sighed, ‘I wish Ginny’d had a cop looking out for her too.’

Dash nodded noncommittally. ‘Mmm.’ Ginny’s problem was that she’d had a cop looking out for her. The wrong kind of cop. But he wasn’t going to tell Eve that. There were some things it was better off that she didn’t know.

‘Anyway…’ Eve rose, her gaze telling him that she knew he was shutting her down. ‘Just let me know if something comes up and you can’t make it tonight.’

‘Yep. Will do.’

Eve glanced at Joy. ‘It was nice seeing you again.’

She gave one of her serious smiles. ‘Likewise.’

Eve headed for the door but turned around at the last minute. ‘Oh. Stan was telling me that you volunteered to organise some kind of a choir down at the Good Shepherd?’

‘I think shanghaied is a better word for it,’ Joy said ruefully.

‘Yes,’ Joy smiled. ‘He does have a way of bending people to his will. I was talking to him yesterday for ten minutes and now I’m baking six dozen muffins for his soup kitchen every Sunday morning.’

Joy nodded. ‘The man’s wasted on Jesus. He should start a cult.’

Eve laughed. ‘Some of the girls I know that work the strip could be interested. There’s one girl, Jasmine, sings like an angel.’ She shook her head. ‘Such a waste. I reckon she’d really benefit from something like that. Would she be welcome?’

Joy shook her head. ‘Absolutely. If she can sing she’s welcome. There’s an audition on Friday night.’

‘Great,’ Eve smiled. ‘I’ll see if I can get her along.’

Then, much to Dash’s relief, she waved her fingers at them and disappeared out the door. Dash swivelled in his chair until he was facing Joy.

She looked at him speculatively but he was done with the small talk. Her eyes were brimming with curiosity but he didn’t have any desire to sit here and play forty questions with Joy. His desires ran to other types of play.

‘The parole offices will be open by now. Shall we get going?’

He stood and brushed past her, heading to the lounge because some errant cell in the back of his brain was urging him to reach for her and drag her down onto his lap, and he didn’t trust that little bastard — not for one solitary second.

‘I’ll just grab my jacket.’

Joy watched him go all brisk and businesslike and tried not to think about —
or yearn for
— the man who hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her breasts twelve hours ago.

Brisk and businesslike — good. Last night — bad.

Dash swept past her again, shrugging into a worn old leather jacket. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.

‘Aye aye captain,’ Joy muttered to herself as she saluted behind his back.

It wasn’t until they were underway in Dash’s ancient Volvo that Joy even bothered to converse with him. ‘I take it good old Baz didn’t come through then?’

His knuckled whitened around the steering wheel. ‘You take it right.’

‘Okay, so where are we off to?’

‘I know someone in community corrections. Going to see if we can track down Gerry and Joel today and maybe get a lead on Ron.’

‘And then we’re going to follow them, right?’

‘Hopefully straight to their houses, yes. That’s the plan.’

‘So this is kind of like a…stakeout?’

He rolled his eyes at her. ‘No. It’s not a stakeout. It’s just surveillance so we can find out where they live for now.’

‘Okay, fine.’

Fine with the non-stakeout, as well as the ignore-it-and-it’ll-go-away approach he was clearly adopting about last night. They’d both admitted it wasn’t a wise move so what was the point in rehashing it again?

The fact that her sleep had been interrupted by a series of really freaking hot dreams that the toyfriend had
not
been able to take the edge off was enough evidence to suggest any kind of discussion about them and sex was best kept off-limits.

Time to forget about it, Joy. Time to get your head in the case.

‘Did you check on the getaway car thing?’ she asked, grabbing the first thing she could think of to fill up the ever-burgeoning silence.

‘Yep. Spent a fair bit of time last night going back over those police reports I managed to get my hands on.’ From that Joy gathered he hadn’t been able to sleep much either. ‘There were several cars parked around the perimeter of the shops when they did a canvas of the area. Their number plates were taken down and run but nothing turned up.’

‘So none of them could be the getaway car?’

‘Well it was at least six hours after Hailey had been at the Night Owl before the cops started to regard it as a potential crime scene so they had plenty of time to come back and collect the car. Or it
could
have been one of the ones run by the cops. Wouldn’t be the first time bogus plates have been used in this sort of situation.’

Joy looked out the window, feeling her usual pessimistic outlook grow a little gloomier. For the first time since she’d asked Dash for help she was starting to think that maybe they wouldn’t be able to solve this. That she might not be able to fulfil her promise to Hailey. That Isabella Richardson would never be found.

Were they even barking up the right goddamn tree?

It was enough to put a dampener on any lingering heat the muscles at her core had been harbouring.

Ten minutes later they arrived outside a building that looked very much like Eve’s. Rectangular, blockish, bare cement, no windows. Not even the bright winter sunshine valiantly trying to sparkle off the odd glint in the dull grey surface could make it look like anything other than it was — government building circa 1970. For a decade that had given the world bell-bottom trousers and lava lamps the architecture for official buildings had been completely uninspired.

‘What’s the name of the guy we’re seeing here?’ Joy asked Dash as he turned off the engine. She might as well go in a little prepared.

‘
Jean
Winslow. Twenty-seven years in corrective services. Tough as old boots. Doesn’t take any shit from anybody. She’s the head of the central office at the moment and she probably knows or knows of every crim in the state. But she —’

‘Owes you a favour?’

He grinned at her and a little spurt of relief ran into Joy’s system. Trying to find a way back to before they’d made out on his couch was the best way to get past it. ‘I was going to say likes me.’

‘Even after the…corruption stuff.’

He laughed. ‘I think that just made me even more endearing to her. Jean never did trust cleanskins.’

Joy didn’t know what to think about that as she followed Dash into the boring building. Unfortunately the inside was as depressing as the outside. She’d hoped it would be an improvement but she feared it was actually worse. It looked more Soviet block circa 1950.

Dash smiled at the woman behind the reception desk. She was in her thirties with a wedding ring and a don’t-mess-with-me scowl that seemed right at home in this building. But she smiled at Dash, giving him a very appreciative once over.

‘Can I help you?’

Dash leaned on the desk. ‘Jean around?’ he asked.

‘Well that all depends. You got an appointment?’

He grinned again and leaned in a little closer as he pulled a business card out of his wallet. ‘Nope. But she’ll see me.’

‘I bet she will,’ the woman murmured, flicking her gaze at the card then picking up the phone and dialling as her eyes returned to study his face, a small smile on her mouth.

‘There’s a Dashiell Dent here to see you?’ Joy watched as the woman laughed at whatever was being said at the other end. ‘I’ll buzz him in.’

She replaced the phone. ‘Entre vouz,’ she said, smiling and gesturing to the door opposite that defied the rest of the tired ambience of the building by sliding open with a sleek modern swish. ‘I believe you know the way?’

He nodded. ‘Thanks.’ And then he grinned again.

Joy nodded her thanks too but the woman had already turned back to her work and her scowl so she followed Dash through the door and through a maze of corridors and clusters of open-plan desks to a small office right at the back.

A woman with short, spiky, steely-grey hair looked up over the top of a pair of wire-rimmed bifocals and smiled at him. She stood at her desk, which was covered in stacks of charts, and reached her hand across to Dash.

‘Dash Dent,’ she murmured. ‘It’s been a while.’

‘Jean,’ he smiled, his voice warm as they shook hands, and Joy could sense the genuine affection between the two.

‘Who’s this?’ she asked, tilting her chin at Joy.

‘This is Joy,’ he said. ‘I’m…she’s a friend. We’re working on something together.’

Jean nodded and extended her hand again. ‘Nice to meet you.’

That was when Joy noticed how tall Jean was. She hadn’t really noticed when Jean and Dash had exchanged greetings but she sure as hell noticed it now as Jean’s large hand swallowed Joy’s up and she towered over her.

The older woman was positively Amazonian, her handshake almost eye-wincingly strong, and Joy realised the granny glasses were deceptive. Jean was a total bad ass. In fact if someone had asked Joy to guess what role Jean filled within correctional services after that handshake she would have said prison guard.

‘Let me guess,’ Jean said, folding her arms, her gaze locking with Dash’s. ‘You’ve come to ask me confidential information that if I tell you could get me not only sacked but arrested.’

Joy did wince this time at the sudden steel in Jean’s voice. It held just the right echo of clinking keys and the clang of metal doors. But Dash just grinned. ‘Pretty much.’

‘You think I’m gonna risk becoming someone’s prison bitch for you?’

Dash laughed. ‘I don’t think there’s any risk of you being anyone’s bitch, ever, Jean.’

Jean didn’t laugh, not even a twitch of her lips. She just regarded them both for a long moment then nodded for them to sit. ‘Fine. But only because of those dimples.’

Joy wasn’t exactly sure where
to
sit. Both chairs opposite Jean were covered in charts. In fact charts were stacked on all available surfaces — from the top of the filing cabinet to the crazy leaning-tower-of-Pisa piles on the floor.

It looked like Stan’s office. Except Joy suspected there wasn’t a lot of forgiveness or redemption going on inside the walls of a parole office. Jean didn’t look like she dished out Hail Marys.

‘Just shift them to the ground,’ Jean said, waving her hands at the piles.

Dash did as he was told and Joy followed suit. ‘You look…’ he placed the stack of charts that was occupying his chair on the ground and sat, ‘…busy.’

‘Always.’

He grabbed the second stack from Joy’s arms and settled them on his lap as she sat. ‘I thought they computerised these things?’

‘They are in the metropolitan areas but it hasn’t been rolled out across all the regions so we deal with both still. What’ve you got?’

Joy blinked. Clearly Jean didn’t like to beat around the proverbial bush.

‘Three names I was hoping you could help me with.’

‘Shoot.’

‘Gerry Cardwell, Ronald Stewart and Joel Chancellor.’

‘Okay. Why do you want to know?’

‘For a case.’

Jean folded her arms. ‘What case?’

Joy could sense Dash’s hesitation but he ploughed on anyway. ‘We’re looking into the Hailey Richardson abduction.’

Jean look from Dash to Joy then back to Dash again. She whistled. ‘Really?’

‘Yup.’

‘Do I want to know?’

‘Nope.’

‘You don’t think it’s the husband?’

‘Nope.’

‘It usually is.’

He nodded. ‘Yep.’

‘But you think stick-up guys are somehow involved with an abduction?’

Stick-up guys? So Jean obviously knew them.

‘I don’t know,’ Dash said. ‘Maybe. If you can give me a place to start looking for them I can find out.’

‘Sounds like you’re reaching there.’

Dash gave a single nod. ‘I am.’

‘You run this past Baz?’

‘Yep.’

‘What does he say?’

‘That I’m reaching.’

Jean sized him up for a few more beats than said, ‘Alright then, that’s good enough for me.’

It didn’t sound like Jean had a very high opinion of Dash’s ex-partner.

As Jean clicked the mouse, Joy noticed a small potted cactus near her elbow on the far side of the computer, squashed between the wall and an encroaching stack of charts. It seemed appropriate somehow for Jean’s personality. A lot of prickles and a tough hide.

‘I know Gerry and Joel,’ she said as she tapped at the keyboard. ‘I’ve not heard of Ronald Stewart.’

‘He’s from just over the border.’

‘Well that would explain it,’ she muttered, adjusting her glasses. ‘Joel went back to Wacol a few months ago. Can’t remember the exact date, hang on…’ She read something on the screen they couldn’t see. ‘Yep, back in March.’

He frowned. ‘For armed robbery?’

Joy frowned too at the dead end. Why had Dash’s cop friend included Joel in the mix if he was back in jail?

‘No. Stealing prescription pads and fraud,’ Jean said.

‘And Gerry?’

She looked up at them over her glasses again. ‘Yeah, he’s around. Behaving himself as far as anyone can tell, got a full-time job. But then he’s still on weekly visits so he’s probably just biding his time.’

Jean’s voice was dispassionate. Matter of fact. She’d obviously been in the system too long to have any optimism left.

‘And this is your lucky day,’ she said as she clicked the mouse a few times, ‘because he has an appointment with his parole officer in an hour and a half, over south side.’

Dash grinned. ‘Excellent. Thank you. Really appreciate it.’

‘Yeah well, as long as you know I will deny having ever had this conversation with you if anyone ever asks. And you know they’re going to believe me over you, right?’

Dash didn’t seem the least bit perturbed by her statement, which was delivered with steely resolve. He just smiled goofily again. ‘Yes ma’am.’

Jean rolled her eyes. ‘Cut the ma’am crap, Dent. You know that shit doesn’t work on me.’

Joy wondered why on earth not. She may not be Dash’s type — whatever the hell that was — but she still had a pulse, right? And Dash’s dimples had been working overtime.