Who Glares Wins (Lexi Graves Mysteries) (5 page)

"No. He wants everyone to do everything.
I mean, not just specialize in one thing.
"

"What about the dangerous stuff?"
Maddox asked, his voice light
,
though I spotted the hesitancy. My fingers traced the small wound
on his shoulder
whe
re
he’d taken a bullet. I had a matching one. He didn’t want me in
any
danger.

"I don't know. Maybe,
"
I said, keeping my voice light too.
I ac
tually hadn't thought about it
in depth. I couldn't see how Montgomery could get dangerous. Our only serial killer in recent decades was behind bars. How bad could Montgomery be? I'd lived here my whole life and violent crime
wasn't high up on the crime-dar here.

"I don't like the idea of him putting you in danger." Maddox's finger traced
the small scar on my upper arm. For a moment
,
both our fingertips touched the spots on our bodies that entwined us to one place, one time, forever.

"I'm not going to sack off jobs because they might get a little dangerous," I said
, running my hand down his arm
. "Besides, a missing person doesn't sound dangerous."

"I don't want to come over as the ov
er-
protective boyfriend, and I'm not telling you what to do, not at all, but I worry about you working for Solomon."

"Why?" I said, but my brain was saying
“H
e said the
“
b
”
word!
”
A word that still sent a thrilling ripple through me.
It wasn't something we'd
ever
come out and
announced
, even though
,
as far as I was concerned
,
the dating was exclusive.
Asking him if he w
ere
my boyfriend
just
seemed immature
.
After
he definitely seemed like my boyfriend, approximately two and a half months ago, it was too late to ask anyway.

"Solomon is tough as. I suspect he's been involved in dodgy shit
all
his life. I've asked around quietly, but no one knows anything about him.
Not even my FBI contacts.
"

"So he's private." I shrugged
as I raised my head from his chest to look at him
. "Tell you what, I'll let you know if I get worried about anything
,
and you can do the cool boyfriend rescue thing, okay?"

"Deal," said Maddox. "And you can tell him, if you ever get hurt working for him, he won't make it alive to county lockup."

"I seem to think my brothers said something similar about
you
once."

"Excellent.” Maddox raised his brows and grinned devilishly. “
Help."

"Maddox!"

"What? I'm making friends with
your brothers.
Our
baseball team
plays
Garrett's next week and I saw Daniel and Jord in O'Grady's
.
T
hey
both
said hello without pretending their hands were guns and
making like they were going
to pop me."

"Sounds like progress," I said.

"So you'll come to the game?"

"I'll even cheer you on." But
I planned to
sit in the neutral seats and cheer my brothers too. And
take
Lily. And my sisters-in-law. Safety in numbers
if there was any question about loyalty cheering
.

"Want to go out afterwards?"

"You bet."

"What do you want to do now?" Maddox's
other
hand slipped under the blanket
and I shivered in a very pleasant way as he ran it down my side
.

"Go to bed," I said.

"Tired?"

"You wish."

"Round three it is."

~

I woke a half hour later than intended and found Maddox's side of the bed empty. With a groan, I shuffled out of the blissfully warm covers,
and
showered in his attached bathroom
. I
wonder
ed
if it was bad etiquette not to ask first,
although
it
had
n
ever bothered him
before. Then I
dressed in the clothes I'd brought with me: smart pants, a top with a couple of buttons at the
neck
, and black heels
. I was
pleased with my foresight. Yesterday's clothes could
be
store
d
in
the VW’s
trunk while I went to work and no one would be any the wiser.

When I went into the kitchen, Maddox was
sitting
at the small table we'd violated the night before, eating cereal. He looked up and a slow smile spread across his face.

"Morning. What time do you have to be in?" he asked.

"Flexi-
time. Whenever I like
,
so long as I make the afternoon meeting," I told him as I leaned down to kiss him
. I had
a fleeting image of being flat on my back on the table pop into my head. I kissed him again and reached for the cereal before I got
more
ideas.

"Me too," he said. "Want to go back to bed?"

"I thought I wore you out?"

"I'm in training," he said
, a wicked gleam flashing in his eyes
. "You won't know what's hit you in a month."

I laughed and poured a bowl, sitting in the empty chair
. I was
thinking it was nice to get up with someone, eat breakfast with
him
and already be looking forward to seeing
him
before I'd even left. I wouldn't categorize myself as a
must-be-in-a
-
relationship person or a die
-
hard single, but I liked this. It felt right.
It was warm and comfortable. Humping like bunnies worked for me too.

"I'm probably working late tonight," Maddox told me as he got up and rinsed out his bowl. "What are you doing over the weekend?"

"Lunch with my parents on Sunday
,
and babysitting for Garrett in the evening. Other than that, nothing."

"You want to do something Saturday?"

"Sure."

"There's a concert in the park. A last hurrah for summer."

"Sounds nice."

"I'll call you and let you know the details."

I left with Maddox and he walked me to my car, kissing me again
. He
whisper
ed
something dirty about flexi-
time that made me blush before he retreated around the side of the building to retrieve his car from the residents' lot.

Fifteen
minutes later
,
I pulled into the lot of the Solomon
A
gency, still trying to wipe the smile off my face.

N
either Flaherty
n
or Delgado were in yet, though Fletcher was
obviously
engrossed
with
something on his laptop screen
.
I used the time to power up my laptop
. The reports
were
back on
the financial information I'd requested. It made for quick reading. Both women had good credit histories. They paid their bills on time and didn't live beyond their means. Both had credit card
s
; Elisabeth's balance was zero, Marissa owed two hundred and fifteen dollars. There was nothing suspicious in the way of random large deposits
,
or sudden loans
or withdrawals. I printed the reports
out, add
ing
the pages to the file
,
and made a note that Marissa's car was in the impound lot.
That detail caused me concern. Why hadn’t she claimed it?

Solomon strolled in with Delgado twenty minutes before the meeting. Flaherty arrived just as we were going into the side room, next to Solomon's office
,
and
Lucas
was
on my heels
. This room was set up much like the interview rooms downstairs
,
but was reserved solely for staff use
,
and we'd all grabbed our favorite spots.

By the time I joined Solomon's team, he'd already hired four others, all men.
Matt Flaherty and Tony Delgado
appeared to have
a hardness about them
. Although
I wouldn't like to run into either in a dark alleyway, now I'd got
ten
to know them, I liked them
.
Lucas Givens
is, like me, ten years younger than
the
y
. He's a geek
,
disguised as a cutie pie with ruffled blond hair that stands every which way and blue eyes that would make a
Siberian Husky
jealous. There wasn't a computer system he couldn't hack, a phone he couldn't bug
,
or
a paper trail he couldn't trace. Lucas also made great coffee
, something I learned as he tutored me on the software that I would come to rely on
. The jury was out on
Steve
Fletcher. He flicked a look at me and then away, his body turning towards Sol
omon. Great. He didn't like me. I wanted to know why. Lucas liked me. The other two tolerated me. Was it simply that I was a woman in a boys’ game? Once again, that thought made me bristle.

Solomon included, they each brought a case to the table. Solomon's wasn't up for scrutiny. On the cases he laid out,
if
he said jump
,
we jumped. He often disappeared and I figured he was working on other stuff he didn't tell me about
;
but he didn't invite me to ask
,
so I didn't.
He indicated Flaherty to go first.

Flaherty's was a fraud case that looked interesting
,
but more a police matter than ours so
, after a moment of thought,
Solomon told him to
kick
it
back to the client.
Lucas
brought a case of a man who thought his son was into drugs and wanted evidence. It was a simple case of surveillance. More interesting, the father was a prominent local lawyer and he wanted discretion. I saw a flash of interest in Solomon's eyes
as he nodded approval
.
An in with a law office would be useful and
Solomon was
still
reputation
-
building.

The third case, Delgado's, we also took. It was petty theft
,
but the owner of the restaurant owned thirteen other establishments. Again, Solomon
saw opportunity for more contacts beyond solving what appeared to be a straightforward case
.

Fletcher's was an unsolved murder of a young man
whose
girlfriend wanted someone to
reopen
. She was getting married soon and he still weighed heavily on her mind
;
plus
,
some new information had come to light in the form of a letter
. Solomon gave Fletcher the nod
and told him to team up with Flaherty
.

"Let's hear it," Solomon said, turning his gaze to me.

I opened my case file with Elisabeth's form, the financial details
,
and my note on the car. "It's a missing person," I told them. "She's twenty-eight. Lived alone. Job uncertain."

"How missing?" Solomon wanted to know.

"Two weeks."

"The police?"

"Informed. The
y
weren't interested at first, then
,
after Elisabeth did
some pressing, they
performed
some cursory checks on her place. Didn't find anything
,
but the friend said someone had
already
been through the place."

"The friend's the one who came in? Not the parents? Boyfriend?"