Sleepless in Las Vegas (16 page)

“A fake owl, then. Lots of people have those.”

She thought about that for a moment, then nodded. “What about the front porch?”

“I could put it in a…door object.”

She frowned. “What kind of door object?”

“One of those…” He made a circling gesture. “Leaf things.”

“A wreath?”

“Yeah, a wreath.”

“It’s August. Why would I want a Christmas decoration on my door?”

“A welcome sign, then.”

“What I’ve always wanted,” she grumbled, “a picture-taking welcome sign. Isn’t that an oxymoron?”

She sounded put off, but he could tell she was considering it. His comment about Grams driving in the dark postmartini—even at three ounces—had gotten to her. “If Dad were here, he’d say ‘Dorothy, I’m not askin’ ya to give up a kidney.’”

Her features softened. “My Benny,” she murmured. “Musta heard that line a thousand times.”

She turned away, but not before he caught the quiver in her chin. His mother had always been a formidable person, the one people turned to with their problems, but she hadn’t dealt well with her husband’s passing. Maybe they hadn’t always seen eye to eye, and neither backed down from a good argument, but they’d loved each other deeply, fiercely.

In that last year of his dad’s illness, she had turned the couch around so it faced the living room window. They would sit there for hours, listening to his favorite jazz albums, especially Tony Bennett and Sarah Vaughan, holding hands while gazing at the desert willow.

She walked to that window now and frowned at the bright afternoon. “I’m not ready to lose Mom,” she whispered. As she turned to Drake, the sunlight sparked off one of her large gold loop earrings. “Or you.” Her eyes turned moist. “That fire…”

“Ma—”

“I know you said it was caused by a gas burner you accidentally left on, and I wanted to go along with that story because…well, you wanted me to, but I read an article in the paper this morning. Quoted a neighbor who said she heard an explosion, and when she looked out her window, the east side of your house was on fire.” She pursed her lips. “Your kitchen is on the west side.”

He inhaled a breath, let it out. If he had learned anything in life, it was that when the gig’s up, don’t pretend otherwise. Especially when faced with logic and facts and a mother’s love.

“The fire started in my office.”

“Arson,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

Somewhere in the rear of the house, he heard the faint beep of his grandmother’s electric wheelchair starting up.

“It’s the private-investigations work, isn’t it? This person didn’t like something you found out.”

“Something like that.”

“You and your father…”

She had never liked their lines of work. Didn’t understand why they didn’t sell tires or paint houses or anything that didn’t involve dealing with bad people doing bad things.

“Son, I know you can’t stay here because Maxine would terrorize that sweet dog of yours.” She choked back a laugh. “Sometimes that crazy cat terrorizes me, too, but Maxine adores your grandmother.” Turning serious, her eyes searched his face. “You also don’t want…whoever set that fire…to follow you here.”

He didn’t respond. Didn’t need to. She knew how his mind worked.

“Which I think is nonsense.” She turned to the wall mirror and checked her face. “Remember the old Gorman house two doors down?”

“Mrs. Gorman always looked tired.”

“You’d be, too, if you had five kids. Anyway, the house sold to a police officer and his wife. Nobody wants to mess with people who have cops for neighbors.”

The news offered some relief.

Her eyes met his in the mirror. “Go ahead and put the camera in a welcome sign. Or a basket of dried flowers. Just no Christmas ornaments.” She fluttered her fingers over her hair. “It won’t be so bad. I’m tired of dealing with those college kids hawking overpriced wares to work their way through school.”

“Hate to break this to you, but they might not be students.”

“I’ve thought about that,” she muttered, adjusting an earring. “And put up that camera owl with a view of the sidewalk,” she added. “I need to keep an eye on your grandmother. She thinks she’s the race car driver Danica Patrick.”

“That new chair goes up to twelve miles an hour.”

She turned to him. “Mother told me five.”

“Actually, it can go sixteen.” Glenda rolled into the living room in her electric wheelchair, Maxine curled in her lap. She pressed the joystick and came to a stop. “But I never go over ten.”

The wheelchair nearly swallowed her diminutive figure, adorned in one of her numerous caftans, this one a silky purple-orange-paisley number that could glow under a black light. Her hair, an unruly puff of white she’d “given up taming” years ago, sat on her head like a cloud. Her slim face, the color of parchment, was tinted with pink on her cheeks and bright crimson on her lips. The latter a protest against an online women’s magazine that recently admonished women “of a certain age” for wearing red lipstick.

Her jade-green eyes sparkled with interest. “Those surveillance cameras you two are talking about. Can I get a feed on my smartphone? They must have apps for that.”

“You were eavesdropping,” he teased.

She smiled sweetly. “I happen to live in this house, so if you don’t want your conversations to be overheard, I suggest
you
step outside.”

Speaking of smartphones, he had heard his beep earlier, alerting him he had a text message. He didn’t want to interrupt his mom and Grams asking questions about the fire, so he hadn’t checked it.

“One moment,” he said, pulling out his phone. He opened the message.

Found the cig. Now you owe me two.

He gave his head a slow, admiring shake. Val had done it. Found the needle in the rubbish stack. He was relieved and pleased, but most of all damn grateful for Val’s get-it-done attitude.

It felt as if they’d crossed a barrier, cleared the way to work better together.

“Drake?” his grandmother asked.

He refocused his attention on her face, crinkled with thought. “This person who set the fire…I’m wondering if it might be Yuri.”

Drake stared at her, stupidly wondering how she put that together.

“The Yuri,” his mother said, her voice rising, “who called here?”

His grandmother nodded. “I think he’s also the one Benny gave the ring to. Is that right, Drake?”

He and his dad had never revealed Yuri’s name, had only referred to him as a loan shark, but obviously he had underestimated his grandmother’s ability to sleuth things out. Danica Patrick, meet Sherlock Holmes.

The gig was up.

“Yes,” he answered. “How did you know?”

She pawed in a pink saddlebag draped over a chair arm and extracted a tissue. “The night Benny called the taxi—to deliver the money to the loan shark—I heard him say he was going to Tverskaya Russian restaurant. Didn’t think of it much since then…but when Yuri called the other day, he had a Russian accent, and only an idiot wouldn’t have connected those dots.” She blew her nose.

With a craggy meow, Maxine jumped off her lap and bustled toward the kitchen, her claws scrabbling when she hit the linoleum.

“Is this true?” his mother asked, turning to Drake. “Was Yuri the loan shark?”

“Yes.”

Her eyes flared. “Why am I the last to know?”

“Hey,” he said, wagging a finger at the women, “the two of you have fibbed for years, not telling me you used the ring to pay the debt.”

“You and Benny fibbed, too,” the elderly woman retorted, stuffing the tissue into the bag. “Your mother and I had a right to know Yuri’s name.”

The three of them were quiet for a moment, their gazes darting from one to the other.

The silence was finally broken with an indignant huff from his mother. “Everybody keeping secrets! Hard to believe we’re a family!”

“No, dear,” his grandmother said gently, “it’s not about keeping secrets…it’s about wanting to protect the ones we love.”

“From the truth?” Dorothy snapped.

Glenda tilted her head and looked at her daughter as though she were still a petulant child. “No, dear,” she finally said, “from being hurt.”

From the kitchen came another demanding, scratchy meow.

“Now there’s a family member who never keeps a secret,” Grams said. “If she feels it, thinks it or wants it, it’s shared with the world.” She touched the joystick and the electric wheelchair beeped to life. “Drake, sweetheart, one more question. Did Yuri burn your place because you asked for the ring back?”

“No.”

“Didn’t make sense to me, either.” She drove toward the kitchen, then stopped, pressed a button and the chair pivoted. “He views you as a threat, though.”

He debated answering, but decided if he was in this deep, it would be harder to dig his way out than come clean. “Yes.”

“Because…?” She stared at him intently, her eyes shading a darker green.

“I’ve been surveilling him.”

“Good Lord,” his mother murmured.

“Does this have to do with the ring?” Grams asked.

“Partially.” He could tell by the look on his grandmother’s face that she wasn’t going to accept that as an answer. “I want dirt on him, the kind that will put him behind bars.”

After a beat, the elderly woman raised her fists and gave them a shake. “Go get ‘im, tiger.”

His mother snorted in disgust. “I can’t believe you’re encouraging him.”

“Your son, my grandson,” Grams said, “has a background in military intelligence, hotel security and private investigations. He knows what he’s doing.”

She blew him a kiss, then pressed a button. The chair pivoted toward the kitchen. “Don’t forget the app, sweetheart.”

“Will do.”

She disappeared into the other room. “And by the way,” she called out, “it maxes out at seventeen miles an hour.”

“She’s incorrigible,” Drake murmured.

“Probably maxes out at twenty,” his mother muttered.

“I can hear you!” Grams called out.

Drake and his mother shared a smile. It was better like this, the three of them grumping and teasing each other, rather than earlier when the women had sat so quietly, their faces etched with apprehension as he answered their questions about the fire.

“I’m hurt, you know,” his mother said. “I like to be the tower of strength, the one in the know.”

“And you are, Ma. Problem is, in this family, everybody’s a tower.”

Barely suppressing a smile, she held out her hand. “Let your mother walk you to the door, the way we did when you were little.”

That’s how she’d sent him and Braxton off to school every morning when they were kids. She’d stand in the center of the living room, holding both hands out to her sides. Brax would take one, Drake the other, and the three of them would walk to the door.

As he took her hand, he could feel the missing person. From the shadow that flitted across his mother’s face, he knew she felt it, too.

“Want to come over tomorrow night to set up the cameras?” she asked.

“Sounds good.”

“Six o’clock. I’m making meat loaf for dinner.” She gave him a sideways look. “Is there really an app for your grandmother’s smartphone?”

“Several, actually, that will let her view the feeds.” He gave his head a shake. “She’s like a teenager with her whiz-bang gadgets.”

“It’s brought the world to her. Books, movies, friends. Doesn’t make her feel stuck in a chair. Did you know she has almost seven hundred followers on Twipper?”

“Twitter.”

“Ha!” They reached the door and stopped. “Guess you can tell I’m not an adventurer in the electronic frontier.” She gazed into her son’s face. “Nice of that woman to offer her office. Do you have it to yourself?”

“There’s…an intern.”

“Must be tough with the owner getting ill. Is the intern managing the business by himself?”

He was a
she,
but Drake decided to skip that part. “For the most part.”

“Bring him, too.”

He’d caused Val to lose her sandwich earlier, and she’d passed on his invitation to lunch. And after being a heroine and finding Yuri’s cigarette, at the very least he owed her a nice meal.

But bringing her to dinner at his mother’s house? That could be a recipe for disaster.

After his engagement to Liz ended, his mother and Grams took it hard. Not because they’d liked her. His mother thought Liz was shallow, and his grandmother didn’t give a reason, just said she preferred spending time with Maxine. What upset them was that Liz had walked out on him when he was at the lowest point in his life.

He had brought home one woman since then. An event planner, Laura, whom he’d met while working a case. His mother and Grams went all mama bear and grilled the poor girl as if it was a witness interview, not a family dinner. Soon after, Laura gave him the it’s-not-you-it’s-me speech, which was okay because he was ready to give it, too, so their parting had been a relief for both of them.

He just wasn’t up for another mama bear encounter. Although there was also the remote chance they might like Val, he wasn’t up for that, either. The women in his family were strong-willed and determined—the last thing he needed was that kind of rabid energy channeled into matchmaking.

Which meant either way he couldn’t win.

“He, uh, probably has plans.”

“Oh. Married?”

“No.”

“From around here?”

“New Orleans.”

“Now you
must
bring him! You know how your grandmother loves to talk about that trip she took to the French Quarter. It would make her night. Plus he would probably appreciate a home-cooked meal.”

“He likes to cook, so that’s not an issue.”

“Just like…

He caught a glint of hurt in her eyes. He hadn’t wanted to bring up Brax, even accidentally. Although his mom refused to talk about her other son, her ache was never far from the surface. Grams didn’t like acting as though Braxton didn’t exist, talked about him freely when she and Drake were alone, but also understood her daughter’s tough-love decision. As she told Drake, “She loves her son, but can’t condone the criminal.”

“Bring that intern anyway,” his mom continued. “Everybody loves a night off from cooking.” She smiled. “Plus he’s never tasted Dorothy Morgan’s world-famous meat loaf.”