Royal Flush (25 page)

Carlos considered it. "You're saying he wasn't going to tell her his real name, because she already knows her sister is dating a Henry John Kent."

"Exactly. He tells her he's Kent Smith, or whatever, and since she's never actually
met
Melanie's husband, she assumes the guy who shows up at the funeral is the real husband. No one would have any reason to doubt it."

He nodded. "And then Kent can go right on seeing her, and probably bilking money out of her too."

Carlos' beer arrived, and, uncharacteristically, I declined the waitress's offer to get me a second glass of tequila. My brain's wheels were spinning too fast, but I didn't want to put on the brakes just yet. It was finally starting to fall together. Melanie was a skeptic. After all, she'd hired me to investigate her own husband. So, as far as Kent was concerned, she wasn't playing nicely with his plan to get at her money. My guess was that he'd married her solely to get access to her family fortune, but when his efforts were met with Melanie's resistance, he found another way into the family through Caroline. At that point, Melanie was an impediment, someone who needed to be gotten rid of. It was quite a juggling act. Regardless, to me it smelled like motive to kill.

"So she's coming to town tomorrow, according to this email," I said. "She's a lot more gushy than Melanie. She's even using the L word."

"She's in love with that dude?"

I nodded. "And some of these emails have pictures attached." I had scrolled through a few more from last month. Caroline wasn't shy about sharing pictures of her privates over email, another thing I couldn't understand about the younger generation. Didn't they know that nothing on the internet is ever truly private?

Carlos bolted upright in his chair. "Hand it over."

I frowned. "No way. They're compromising. You work at a strip club, for God's sake. Do you need to look at porn too?"

He considered it for a second. "Yes. Yes, I do."

I shut the phone off and put it in my bag, which elicited a pouty face from Carlos. "Grow up. Anyway, we have to warn Caroline about this guy."

He perked up. "Is she hot? I'll do it."

I sighed and looked up at the stars for guidance, but all I saw was neon. "According to her email, she's flying in at 10:20 tomorrow morning, and she wants him to pick her up because she made a spa appointment at 11:30."

"Some life," Carlos mused.

"Well it's not all peaches and cream," I said. "She
wanted
a two o'clock, but the only one they had available was 11:30. She was bitching about that in the email to Kent."

"Oh, the
horror
. I
never
get a treatment before noon," Carlos said, using a lispy, lilting voice. "It's
unheard
of."

I giggled. He could be funny when he wanted to be. But usually he was just whiny. "So I'm thinking, I'll go hang out in the spa and try to catch her there."

"Shocking," he said. "
You
? In a
spa
?"

"I know, I know, it's hard to imagine. But that's why I earn the big bucks." I looked down at my nails and cringed. "Plus, I can kill two birds with one stone while I'm there."

Carlos leaned back in his chair, having reduced about six avocados worth of guacamole to a dark green smear at the bottom of the bowl. "Whatever," he said. "But just so you know, men aren't looking at your nails."

"The smart ones are," I answered. I looked up and made eye contact with the waitress, who brought our check immediately.

"You're not even going to reach for it?" I asked.

Carlos spread his hands and smiled. "This is business, right? This is a working dinner, and you're the boss."

"So I pay, that's how it goes?"

He nodded. "That's how it goes."

I shook my head. "You're lucky you have…" And then I trailed off, thinking better of it. I was about to compliment his impressive biceps muscles, but I thought better of it. He was liable to take even the mildest compliment as some kind of invitation to ramp up his efforts to hit on me.

"Yes?" he asked.

"Never mind."

Carlos was standing up to go.

"You can leave the tip," I said. Before he could protest, I walked out, right onto the Strip.

He rushed after me. "You should let me walk you home," he said, panting.

"I'll be fine," I said, smiling. I blew him a kiss and headed south, back to my apartment.

I woke up early on Saturday morning.
Too
early. After tossing and turning and flailing around under my sheets, fighting the fact that I was awake for the day, I resigned myself to being up at 7:25 and made myself coffee and eggs. Apart from dancing at the club that night, the only other thing on my agenda was to meet up with Caroline Weston at the spa around 11:30. I stretched myself out like a lioness and then held a yoga pose while gazing out my window. The coffee hadn't kicked in yet, so my brain was still functioning at zombie level when I heard an unusual "bing" sound.

It had come from Kent's phone, which was down to the dregs of its battery life. It turned out that he'd received about a dozen emails overnight, most of which were from people I didn't know and seemed to be about some kind of private joke. The one that dinged was from Caroline. Her flight was on time, and she was excited about seeing him.

I hit the gym but gave up after a half hour. My heart just wasn't in it. After a trip to the grocery store and some well-earned lounge time on my balcony, it was time to hit the spa. Many of the casino spas were fantastic—world class, even—but of course they catered to hotel guests who were willing to pay for their overpriced services. Caroline had wisely made an appointment at Jade House, a spot known to locals as being on par with the Canyon Ranches of the world but at half the cost.

A half a mile off the Strip, Jade House was Asian-themed but staffed, as far as I could tell, exclusively by white and Latino masseuses, hair stylists, and nail techs. I got there fifteen minutes before Caroline's appointment was to begin, and told the receptionist I was meeting a friend. Killing time was easy in any halfway decent spa waiting room, which this one called a "relaxation room." First, there was the ubiquitous menu of services, which listed everything from a basic pedicure to the ninety-minute full-body massage, which you could follow up by being wrapped in Atlantic kale. I had never ventured beyond the basics, but I figured it was only a matter of time before I would be signing up for an anti-aging "neck and décolletage" treatment or an "ageless oxygen boost" complete with "vitamin infusions" and an unexplained "revitalizing" ritual. Like a fancy restaurant, the menu listed the prices in words rather than numbers, as if that softened the blow.

The music piping through the speakers was relaxing, but something was nagging at me. When I checked my phone to get the time, it dawned on me. If I had Kent's phone, he might not have gotten the email from Caroline that asked him to pick her up at the airport. In my own life, I checked email on my laptop and on the iPad, but I knew that some in the younger crowd relied exclusively on their smartphones to communicate with the outside world. As the minutes ticked by, I began thinking Caroline might miss her spa appointment.

She didn't. At 11:33 she marched through the door, a spindly tower of salmon-colored yoga gear topped by a model's face and blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. Acting as if she owned the place, which she probably
could
, she approached the receptionist and informed her that she was ready for her treatments. The receptionist flashed a thin smile and told her to take a seat. Caroline found a chair a couple seats away from me.

How to approach such a delicate matter? It's hard enough to talk to a complete stranger, but when the punch line is that your boyfriend was married to your recently deceased sister, and oh, by the way, he might also have
killed
her, it was never going to be anything but awkward.

I steeled myself and cleared my throat. "Excuse me, you're Caroline, right?"

She looked up from her magazine, a confused expression passing over her face. "Um, yes? I don't think I know you, though. I'm sorry." Her tone was polite, yet cagey.

We made eye contact for a few more seconds. I had hoped she'd remember me from our brief talk last week, but she was the kind of socialite who probably met hundreds of people a month. And I wasn't one of the stand-outs.

"Raven McShane," I said, scooting over to sit next to her. "Your sister hired me to—"

"The detective? Right, now I remember." Her face lit up with a glowing smile. "What a coincidence! Don't you just
love
this place?"

I smiled, but inside I was cringing at the unfortunate business I was about to bring up. "Uh, actually, I met you here on purpose."

I let the statement sink in—then I continued. "You see, in looking into your sister's death, I've found out some information."

Her eyes were searching me, confused but eager to hear more. "Yes?" was all she managed to get out.

"Well, let me ask you a quick question first. You're here to see your boyfriend, right? What's his name?"

She frowned, ever so slightly, probably wondering how I knew so much about her plans. But she played along. "His name is Kent. Kent Montgomery. Why?"

I nodded, solemnly. "Actually, his name is Henry John Kent. The same Henry John Kent who was married to your sister."

Her eyes got big. "That can't be," she whispered. "I met her husband at the funeral. You saw him there yourself. He's a bigger guy, darker hair."

"That wasn't Henry John Kent," I said. "His real name is Thomas Dyson. He's a friend of Kent's, from the same secondary school in England. Dyson's a small-time con artist. And unfortunately, Kent is a big-time con artist."

She was about to speak when the spa therapist called her name. Caroline looked up at her and held her index finger aloft, asking for a minute. "This is all too much right now," she said, her lip quivering. "I have to go. But do you have proof of any of this? I think we need to talk some more."

"I agree," I said. I fumbled around in my purse and handed her my business card. "Give me a call. But be careful. The reason I'm telling you all of this is to protect you, not to hurt you. Understand?"

She nodded silently. Her mind was a thousand miles away as she stood up. She headed into the spa like a woman going to the gallows. I felt bad for ruining her spa treatments, whatever they were, but the information was too important to keep to myself.

The receptionist gave me a funny look as I headed out, having not partaken of any of the spa's smorgasbord of treatment offerings. Being used to funny looks, it didn't bother me. What bothered me was what was waiting for me outside. Parked right next to my Audi was a late model white Range Rover, which I had to assume was Kent's car. I knew he would have dropped Caroline off at the spa, but I wasn't expecting him to hang around while she was inside, which could easily be two hours.

But where was he? I looked around the neighborhood. There was a gas station, a Wendy's, a small motel called Hennessey's High-Ball Hotel, and right next door was a small liquor store, whose signs bragged about thirty-packs of Michelob offered at only $18.99, a thought that produced an involuntary shudder in me. I wasn't about to go hunting around for Kent, since at best that would be an awkward rendezvous. He probably wouldn't buy the idea that it was purely coincidence that I was at the same spa as Caroline, and he might wonder how I knew she'd be there. And if he connected me to his missing cell phone, it could be a heap of trouble. A vague sense of uneasiness began creeping over me, motivating me to stop standing around and to get in my car. I started it up and got myself out of there. Mission accomplished, kind of.

I had done my duty and warned Caroline. She could take or leave the information as she saw fit, but I expected she'd want to know more. A lot more. The story I had told her was like something out of a soap opera, and if I were her I wouldn't believe it without some proof.

Back at my apartment, I still felt a sense of uneasiness. My contacts at the LAPD had gone dark, so I didn't know whom else I should report my findings to. Carlos had agreed with my analysis, which I thought was self-evident: the fact that a husband has been dating his wife's sister, unbeknownst to both of them, is a highly suspicious little nugget of information, particularly when the wife ends up dead only a few months into their marriage. Does it automatically mean he's a murderer? No. But it's a piece of the puzzle no one in law enforcement had looked at.

I forced myself to try to take a nap that afternoon, expecting my body to fight it as it usually did, but I found my consciousness willingly drifting off into a peaceful slumber, a refreshingly simpler world where everyone told the truth and no one overdosed on heroin. It was a world where instead of being a soon-to-be-washed-up stripper, I was a highly respected actress married to Johnny Depp. When I awoke after almost an hour, I resolved to stop thinking about Melanie anymore. I had gone above and beyond what her retainer had required, and I'd even put myself at risk by unearthing the little scheme Jojia had going on with Charles, and, I assumed, Kent as well.

I surfed the web for a while and checked the
Las Vegas
Review-Journal's
website, a twice-daily habit. There wasn't anything interesting in the headlines, but in the running tab of local news there was a short blurb under the heading,
Woman, 23, Held on Fraud and ID Theft Charges
.

When I clicked on the story, the photo jumped out at me. Jojia. My heart began to pound a little more aggressively, sending adrenaline all throughout my body. The story was short, and without much detail, but the gist of it was that an anonymous source had tipped police that she was stealing people's IDs and opening accounts in their names, netting hundreds of thousands of dollars. She was being held on a twenty-thousand-dollar bail, which the article writer observed was very high for a property crime.