Scottsdale Heat: a romantic light-hearted murder mystery (Laura Black Mysteries Book 1) (19 page)

“Did you get the license?”

“Sorry, I was sorta preoccupied at the time.”

Reno arched one eyebrow. “That’s not much to go on, but I’ll hand the information over to our squad leader and to the detective handling Alexander’s case. Maybe they can put something together.”

~~~~

We sipped coffee for another 20 minutes, watching the sun drop below the horizon. There were several clouds in the western sky and they had turned a bright yellow.

“It looks like a nice sunset tonight,” Reno said. “Let’s go for a walk. I know a good spot.”

He stood up and tossed a ten on the table. We walked off the patio, around the pool, and onto a path running down to the golf course. About fifty yards from the hotel building, a side path branched off from the main path. This path led to a secluded bench facing west. It was empty and Reno walked me to it.

Although Reno didn’t sit very close to me, he was right about the sunset. It was beautiful. We watched as the clouds turned a brilliant orange and then to a dull cherry red.

We talked a little at first and then watched the darkening sky for almost ten minutes without speaking.

As it got darker, small lights along the path turned on, as did thousands in the trees throughout the resort.

“I love the lights here,” I said. “It gives everything such a soft glow.”

“
Yeah, you always looked better in the dark.”

“Reno, you’re such a jerk.”

Reno looked at me. “I’ve missed you.”

My heart jumped in my chest. Once again, I broke out in the smile.
Damn him.

“Oh yeah? So now you miss me? What do you want to do about it?” I asked and leaned over to him. “You got any ideas? Like maybe you want to kiss me?”

“Listen, cream-puff, I don’t need you to give me any ideas.”

“Cream-puff? I’m nobody’s cream-puff.”

“Sure you are,” he said. “You’re crusty on the outside but all tasty and soft underneath, a cream-puff.”

“I’m not crusty and I’m not soft,” I said in a tone I hoped sounded both tough and angry. As I said it, I saw him smiling at me and I didn’t feel tough. I
was
soft. I wanted to be held, and kissed, and touched. I desperately wanted to be touched all over.

Reno must have read my thoughts. He bent over and kissed me. It was the lightest of kisses, our lips barely touched, but I felt the kiss down to the tips of my fingers. It was like a starter’s pistol firing to wake my entire body up.

He kissed me again. His mouth was slightly parted and I felt his tongue flick against my lips. If the first kiss had been a pistol shot, then this one was a cannon blast. My heart sped up and I felt my face get hot. His hands slid around my waist and pulled my body to his. I reached up and grabbed his face, holding it against mine. I found my body responding to each new kiss. It was getting hard to breathe and I was again starting to tingle all over.

As we kissed, he lightly ran his hand up and down the inside of my thigh. The feeling was maddening and I knew I couldn’t stand it any longer. I pulled away from him, gave him my sweetest smile, and looked into his eyes.

“I want you Reno.”

“I know I’m going to regret this, but I want you too,” Reno said, giving me another soft kiss.

“You won’t regret this,” I said, kissing him back.

“Oh, I probably will. God help me.” Reno moaned.

Yes! The time has come.

“Do you want to go to my place or yours?” I heard myself ask.

“I can’t. I have to be back up here in an hour,” Reno said. That’s hardly enough time to drive down to my place and come back. Your place is even farther.”

My heart sank.

It’s always something.

“My car in the parking lot?” I asked.

As I looked at him, I saw he was smiling and giving me
that
look.

“You want it bad, huh? Why don’t we just get a room here?” he said. “We could get a good start now.” He leaned over and softly kissed me. “And then, after I’m done with my shift, we could stay up and watch the sunrise from the balcony in the room. They say room service here serves a great breakfast.”

I got a flashback to my dream about Reno and me making love here at the Princess.

“You aren’t wearing your red silk boxers, by any chance, are you?” I asked.

He smiled, but didn’t say anything.

Oh God!

My heart pounded harder. I could feel my body tighten at the thought that Reno and I would soon be together. I leaned over to kiss him again.

My cell phone rang.

There was an uncomfortable moment while we both pretended it wasn’t ringing. I ignored the phone and after half a minute it switched over to voice mail.

We stood up. Reno put his arm around my waist. I snuggled against him as we walked toward the main lobby and the reception desk.

My cell phone rang again. I ignored it again. Reno looked at me.

“You should either answer it and get rid of them or just turn it off.”

I pulled the phone out of my bag to shut it off. As I was about to hit the power-off button, I saw it was Danica.

“Hold on one second” I said as I opened the phone. “Danica might have some word on Alex.”

“Danica?” I said as I put the phone to my ear.

From the phone came the unmistakable sound of a woman in the depths of hysteria.

“Danica? What’s wrong?”

She wasn’t speaking words, merely making loud moaning sounds.

“Danica?”

Now there was sobbing and crying mixed in with the loud moaning sounds.

“Danica? Where are you?”

“
I’m . . . at . . . home
,” came the answer between deep sobs.

“Don’t move,” I said. “I’ll be there in 20 minutes.”

Shit.

I closed the phone and looked up at Reno. I expected him to be pissed.

“Go,” he said. “It sounds like she needs you. If it’s anything big, call me right away. I’ll have a car there in five minutes.”

“But, our night?” I asked.

“There’ll be another night.”

I hugged him, then turned and ran out to my car.

~~~~

I sped down Hayden to Danica’s house. I had crazy thoughts of Alex lying dead in Danica’s living room. I pulled into her driveway and I knew something was very wrong.

Danica was sitting on the front edge of the small front porch, her legs hanging over the sides. I got out of my car and walked up to her. She had a look on her face I’d seen before; the dazed and vacant look of a woman who has just been traumatized.

“Danica?” I asked, “Are you all right? What happened?”

She looked up at me. Her face was wet from tears. “My house, go in and see what someone did to my house. It’s terrible.”

I eased open the front door and slipped in. The house was trashed, just as Alex’s apartment had been, but on a much larger scale. The couch had actually been ripped in half. Jagged pieces of it were lying on either side of the living room. Chairs were gutted and overturned. Pictures were ripped off the walls and flung onto the floor. Everything that could be turned over was. Everything that could be ripped opened had a hole in it. Someone had been looking for something and they didn’t care about being restrained.

I reached into my bag and pulled out the Baby Glock. I’d learned my lesson from last time. Whoever trashed the house could still be there. I went from the living room to the kitchen, then to the garage, and then to the master bedroom. Each room was as bad as the last. Satisfied the house was now empty, I went outside, where Danica was still staring into space.

“How long have you been here?” I asked.

“About half an hour. I got home and found the house this way. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I should call the police. I had your card, so I called you.”

“Well, I doubt this was a random act,” I said. “Is anything missing?”

“That’s the strange thing,” Danica said, “I don’t think anything is. All of my jewelry is in a pile in the bedroom. The paintings are on the floor, but they’re still here. Some are worth over ten thousand dollars. The TV and stereo are broken, but they didn’t take them. Nothing seems to be missing.”

“You’d better call the police. It somehow ties in with whatever has happened to Alex. Besides, the insurance company will need a police report to get the paperwork started.”

~~~~

The police came, took pictures, and dusted for prints. Danica filled out a statement and some forms. An hour and a half after the police arrived, they packed up and left.

The police didn’t see a direct tie-in to Alex’s disappearance. Since nothing seemed to be missing they didn’t see it as anything other than kids or perhaps an angry former boyfriend. I still thought somehow it had to be linked to Alex. But why would someone ransack her house now? It’s been my experience that the timing of these things isn’t random. What were they looking for? Why didn’t they do it yesterday or the day before? Why not tomorrow for that matter? I just didn’t know enough to come up with the answers.

As I was going over the facts in my head, I looked over at Danica. She was staring at the mess that had been her living room, absent-mindedly petting her cat, which fortunately had escaped unharmed.

“Are you going to be OK?” I asked.

“I don’t want to stay here tonight,” Danica said. “My mom lives over in Sun City. I don’t work tomorrow. I think I’ll stay rest of the weekend with her. Maybe by Monday I’ll be ready to start cleaning up the mess.”

I told her I’d call her if I got any information on Alex.

~~~~

I drove back to my apartment and climbed up the three flights of stairs to my floor. I heard noises down the hallway so I eased the Baby Glock out of my purse. I carefully rounded the corner and saw Grandma Peckham standing in front of her door. She was holding two large bags of groceries and was trying to balance them with one hand, while trying to push the key into the lock with the other. I stashed the gun and took both bags from her. She then used her key to open the door.

“Thanks,” she said. “I hate to set the bags down, it hurts too much to bend over and pick them up again.”

We walked into her apartment and I sat the bags down on the counter.

“Thanks dear,” Grandma Peckham said. “Would you like a Diet Pepsi?”

“That sounds great,” I said. “It’s been a long day.”

“Really? What happened? You were being careful, weren’t you?”

I sighed and confessed.

“Two guys grabbed me this morning and handcuffed me to a bed. They apparently were brothers.”

“Oh? Brothers?” Grandma asked, a slight smile on her lips. “You know, I once had a boyfriend who had this brother. This was before I met Grandpa Peckham, of course. I was going to college in Cambridge at the time. There were both a couple of years older than me. One night we were all at my place having cocktails and before I knew it all three of us were in bed. I’d never done such a thing before but,
land sakes alive
, they were tigers between the sheets. They made me sore in places I didn’t even think could get sore.”

Grandma sighed then sat there for a moment, staring into space with a grin on her face. She shook her head as if to clear away a happy memory.

“If you don’t mind my prying?” Grandma asked. “How old were they?”

“One was in his mid-twenties, the other in his mid-thirties.”

“
Oh mercy!”
she said, fanning herself. “And they handcuffed you to a bed?”

“Well, yes, but it wasn’t like that,” I protested.

“Not that I’m saying there’s anything wrong with being handcuffed to a bed by two men,” Grandma said. “After all, at my age, I don’t know what’s considered kinky and what’s considered normal anymore. I mean, in my day, having a man use his tongue on a woman
down there,
” she whispered and pointed, “was considered kinky. In some parts of the country you could even get arrested for doing that. But, I read in
Cosmo
last month sex can’t be considered successful nowadays unless the man first makes the woman orgasm at least three times by doing that. Well,” she sighed, “if that’s the case I guess neither of us has been too successful lately.”

She rested her fingertips on my arm and leaned close to me.

“With the thin walls in this building,” she said. “I think we’d both know if the other was having any success or not.”

~~~~

I went back to my apartment, but after what had happened at Danica’s I didn’t feel like sitting home by myself. Plus, the thought Smith and Jones might come back for a second try was weighing on my mind.

Sophie had called earlier and said she was still on the hunt for a man. She and Gina would be going over to Maya Day and Nightclub, a great place across the street from Nexxus. Maybe that would be just the thing to take my mind off the assignment. Who knows? Maybe later on tonight I’d be able to hook up with Reno after all.