3 Swift Run (6 page)

“We’ve got a new case,” she told Dan, scraping up the last remnant of syrup with her
fork. “The bimbo Gigi’s husband ran off with wants our help locating him.”

“What?” Dan’s head came up, and his blue eyes fixed on her face. “Run that by me again?”

Charlie told him about Heather-Anne Pawlusik’s descent on Swift Investigations and
her unexpected request. “Gigi’s got a lead on him; she’s in Aspen now trying to track
him down. I expected to hear from her last night, but you know Gigi.”

“She didn’t call?” A line appeared between Dan’s brows.

“She probably got busy or forgot her phone.” Charlie wasn’t concerned; Gigi would
be in touch when she had something to report or when she wanted guidance on how to
proceed. Probably she hadn’t seen Les yet.

“What are you going to do?”

“Track down some phone numbers from Les’s cell phone bill and do a background check
on our client. I didn’t meet her, but I don’t quite like the way she just turned up
to hire Gigi.”

“I thought you liked any client with a bank balance on the plus side,” Dan mocked
gently.

“Usually,” Charlie said, “but this cuts pretty close to home for Gigi, and I want
to make sure we don’t get blindsided.”

“Always thinking ahead.” Dan picked up their plates and deposited them in the sink.

“I try.”

*   *   *

After Dan left, Charlie finished clearing up their breakfast, filled the bird feeders
in her yard, did her physical therapy exercises, and took a Motrin to cut the persistent
ache in her gluteus maximus. Reaching for Les’s phone bill, which Gigi had left when
she swapped her Hummer for Charlie’s Subaru, she started to log on to her computer
but stopped. There was no reason, she thought, why she couldn’t go into the office.
She could drive the short distance without bothering her wound, and the place would
be empty with Gigi in Aspen. She hadn’t been planning on returning to work until the
following week, but who knew what business they might lose if the office went unmanned
for a couple of days?

Excited by the prospect, Charlie swapped her sweats for corduroys with a bit of stretch,
threw a blazer over her white turtleneck, and headed out the front door. Momentarily
dismayed to see Gigi’s Hummer sitting where her Subaru ought to be, she returned to
the house for the right set of keys, gritted her teeth, and climbed into the taller
vehicle, regretting the stretch through her ass. Settled in the seat, she felt like
she was driving an M1A1 tank. She drove cautiously at first, slowing through the curve
that passed a string of hotels, then picking up speed as she turned onto Woodmen Road.
The massive vehicle handled like a snowplow, and Charlie could practically hear the
gasoline evaporating from the tank, but at least she’d be the victor in any traffic
accident involving anything smaller than a semi.

Parking in front of Swift Investigations five minutes later, Charlie unlocked the
door and took a deep breath. It felt like coming home. It felt like the old days,
before Gigi descended on her. No coffee smell from the coffeemaker Gigi had insisted
on, no tinkling of Yanni or the pan flute guy from Gigi’s CD player, no need to make
conversation or explain what she was doing. Heaven! Beelining for the minifridge tucked
behind her desk, Charlie liberated a Pepsi and took a celebratory swig. She sat behind
her desk and smoothed a hand over the calendar blotter.

After a few moments of reveling in the feeling of being back at work, and alone, Charlie
busied herself with the background checks for Danner and Lansky; she’d found the folders
on Gigi’s desk. Reports drafted, she began to dig into Heather-Anne Pawlusik’s background.
Sitting for too long made her ass ache, so she set the computer keyboard atop the
file cabinet and typed standing up. Forty-five minutes later, she paused for another
Pepsi, hoping the caffeine would help her make sense of what she’d found.

Heather-Anne’s history in Colorado Springs seemed clear enough: She’d rented an apartment
on the northeast side and broken the lease about a year before she ran off with Les,
worked as a personal trainer for the Y and Gold’s Gym, had an overdrawn Ent checking
account, had been involved in a traffic accident a year ago, and paid utilities and
cable bills mostly on time. She wasn’t registered to vote and didn’t seem to belong
to any civic or professional organizations.

Trouble was, when Charlie tried to find out something about their client’s earlier
life, including records of her birth, education, and former employment, she ran into
a brick wall. Apparently, Heather-Anne Pawlusik hadn’t existed before showing up in
Colorado.

7

When I woke up, my eyes were gummy, my head hurt, and my mouth felt like I’d been
eating cotton balls. I wasn’t sure where I was or why I felt so stiff. Forcing my
eyes open, I found myself staring at a black doggy snout at eye level. “Oh!” I wriggled
backward until the sofa back stopped me, watching the large nostrils work, before
I recognized Knievel. His brown eyes were fixed on me hopefully, and his stubby tail
wagged. Cherry and Moss’s. Les. Last night.

“You’re looking a little friendlier this morning,” I said, reaching out a hand to
pat his head.

He danced back a few steps, trotted halfway toward the door, then looked over his
shoulder at me. I recognized the routine: It’s just what Nolan does when he needs
to do his chores. I sat up, and the plaid afghan over me slipped to my lap, reminding
me I was naked. “Just a minute,” I told an impatient Knievel, wondering where Les
had gotten to. Memories of the night before brought a smile to my face. I’d forgotten
how sweet he could be when he wanted to, and he certainly remembered how to push my
buttons.

“Grrr-rowr.” Knievel scratched impatiently at the door.

I found my bra under the coffee table and put it on. My panties had disappeared—hadn’t
we made love the first time in the kitchen?—so I pulled up my leggings, shrugged into
my sweater, and padded barefoot to the door. The floor was cold. When I opened the
door, a blade of sunlight magnified by brilliant snow cut into my aching eyeballs,
and Knievel shot out before I could worry about whether or not he’d run off. He was
a black blur against the snow, and a flock of small birds twittered upward as he charged
toward them, barking. He disappeared into a row of evergreens, and I hoped he knew
better than to run into the street. “Knievel?”

He didn’t come back, even though I held the door open for another two minutes until
my freezing feet and hands forced me to close it. He’d scratch when he wanted back
in. I visited the powder room, wishing I had a toothbrush, and then wandered toward
the kitchen, looking for Les and a bottle of aspirin.

“Les?” The kitchen was cold and deserted. The iron stove had gone out. My brow puckered,
and I searched the ground floor, not finding any sign of Les in the formal dining
room, the theater room, or the gated wine cellar with its cute little bistro table
and chairs where Cherry and Moss and Les and I had played spades until the wee hours
one night while drinking wine nonstop so I woke up feeling a lot like I did right
now. Les must be sleeping upstairs. I climbed the stairs, my cold feet grateful for
the plush carpet.

“Les?” I called again. No answer. My tummy began to hurt. Where could he be? I poked
my head into the beautifully decorated guest rooms to the right of the landing. The
tropics-themed decor in one room beckoned me in, and I wondered where Cherry had gotten
the cute little monkey sculptures on the dresser. I was running my hand over the bamboo-patterned
duvet when my headache reminded me I hadn’t found any aspirin yet. Les wasn’t in the
master bedroom, either, but I found some painkillers in the medicine cabinet and swallowed
them, feeling guilty about invading Moss and Cherry’s room and stealing their aspirin.

Tiptoeing down the hall the other way, I found an office, a room full of exercise
equipment and mirrors that reflected my ash blond hair sticking out stiffly—oh, my
heavens—and another bedroom with attached bath. A damp towel was crumpled on the floor
of the bathroom, but there was no razor or deodorant on the sink. I picked up the
towel, folded it, and laid it over the towel bar. Les had showered this morning, and
then …

I moped toward the large window that overlooked the front yard and leaned my forehead
against the cold pane. It felt good. I looked down, hoping to spot Les or Knievel
or I didn’t know what. Nothing moved except a magpie gliding from the tippy top of
a spruce tree to the snowy lawn. He landed in one of Knievel’s paw prints and pecked
at something. Then the bird hopped toward the driveway, where car tracks made ugly
ruts in the snow. It took me a moment to realize. Tears pricked at my eyelids. Those
tracks hadn’t been there last night when I came up the driveway. Someone had driven
out … and the only someone around here besides me was Les.

I ran back downstairs, as if it were still possible to keep Les from leaving—again—and
stopped in the foyer. Not thinking it through, I opened the hall closet beside the
front door, planning to grab a coat. An alarm panel met my startled gaze, a red light
on it blinking angrily. Uh-oh. I knew what that meant because we had a similar security
system at home; at least, we’d had one until I discontinued the service because I
couldn’t afford the monthly fees. Forgetting about the coat and Les, I opened the
front door a crack and peered out to see an Aspen Police Department car charging up
the driveway, lights flashing.

8

As Charlie puzzled over Heather-Anne’s unusual lack of history, the door opened, and
she looked up. Albertine entered, saying, “Gigi—” before noticing Charlie.

“Charlie!” She bustled forward, her coral and turquoise tunic top molding to a massive
bosom and full thighs. She enveloped Charlie in a huge hug. “I thought you weren’t
coming back until next week.”

“Gigi had to go to Aspen on business, so I thought I’d return a day or two early,”
Charlie said with a smile, cheered by Albertine’s greeting, the long fingernails painted
turquoise to match her top, and her brisk, no-nonsense demeanor.

“She’s chasing after that no-good ex-husband of hers, isn’t she?” Albertine asked.
“More fool she.”

“We’ve got a client,” Charlie said, slightly taken aback by Albertine’s disapproval,
“although I did tell Gigi I thought we should turn down the case.”

“Damn right, you should’ve.” Albertine shook her head, her towering pile of braids,
whorls, and curlicues tilting dangerously, despite enough shiny hair shellac to prevent
wispies in gale-force winds. “Gigi’s not really over that larcenous jackass, and I’d
hate to see him take advantage of her again. As for that skank he took up with … well!
If my Tyrone brought home someone like that, I’d take him by the ear and beat some
sense into him with a broom.”

Charlie laughed. She’d only met Albertine’s son once when he visited from New Orleans,
but he was a six-foot-three former LSU offensive lineman. Still, she didn’t doubt
Albertine could cow him into submission. “Gigi said she can handle it.”

“Hmph” was Albertine’s only response. She gave Charlie’s shoulders another squeeze,
then said, “I’m expecting a delivery of okra, so I’ve got to get back. Come on down
for a bowl of the best gumbo this side of the Big Easy later on.”

“Will do,” Charlie promised. Just the thought of Albertine’s rich gumbo made her stomach
growl.

Albertine had barely walked out the door when the phone rang. “Swift Investigations,”
Charlie answered.

“Oh, oh, Charlie! I tried you at home and you weren’t there and then I thought maybe,
just maybe, you’d gone into the office, and I’m so happy I caught you!”

“Calm down, Gigi.” Charlie struggled to make sense of her partner’s words through
the Georgia accent that got more pronounced whenever Gigi was agitated. “What’s wrong?”

A gulping sound came over the phone. “Well, there’s good news, bad news, and worse
news,” Gigi said, sniffling.

Charlie suppressed a growl. Gigi’s inability to relay information succinctly drove
her crazy. “Just cut to the chase.”

“The good news is that I found Les.”

“That’s great! So—”

“The bad news is that he’s gone again.”

“Well—”

Gigi drowned Charlie out with a wail. “And the worse news is that I’ve been arrested!”

By the time Charlie got Gigi calmed down enough to get a coherent story from her about
finding Les at her friends’ house, she’d made it halfway through a new Pepsi.

“So then I noticed the alarm had gone off—Les must’ve set it when he left and I set
it off when I let that evil Knievel out to do his chores—”

“There was a stuntman staying at the house? I thought he was dead.”

“What?” Gigi asked, sounding totally bewildered. “I’m not talking about a movie. This
is
real
.”

“You just said something about Evil Knievel shoveling the walk or something.”

“Knievel’s the
dog,
” Gigi said, sounding as testy as Charlie had ever heard her.

“Right.” Charlie knocked back the rest of her Pepsi, figuring she would need the caffeine
in her system to make it through the rest of the day.

“Anyway,” Gigi continued, “the police came and they accused me of breaking in and
of stealing things—you know I would never steal anything—and then they brought me
down to the police station and, oh, Charlie, I don’t know what to do.
Please
come up here and fix it!” Gigi ended on another wail.

Charlie couldn’t ignore Gigi’s plea. “Of course I’ll come. I just need to figure out
how I’ll get there since I can’t drive that far yet.” She cycled friends through her
head. Albertine had a restaurant to run and couldn’t spend the day jaunting off to
Aspen. Dan might be able to do it if he didn’t have any parish commitments. She thought
about Connor Montgomery, the Colorado Springs Police detective she had some sort of
relationship with. The confusing sort that occurred when one party was wary of involvement
due to memories of an adrenaline-junkie fighter-pilot ex-husband who had too much
in common with a certain gorgeous four-years-younger-than-her homicide detective whose
kisses lit her up like every star in the Milky Way compressed into a snow globe. Maybe
Montgomery wasn’t working—