Swift Edge (26 page)

He looked unsure, but his friend called again, and Trevor said, “Okay. Well, send me an invitation.”

Before he could skate away, I said, “You told Kendall that you thought Dmitri was splitting with Dara. What made you think that?”

He gestured to the rink. “They’re not here, are they?” His tone was flip, but a watchful look came into his eyes.

“No,” I conceded. I played to his vanity. “Come on, Trevor. You’re smart enough to pick up on things that other people would overlook. What do you know?”

Glancing sideways to make sure no one was within hearing distance, he leaned close enough that I felt his breath on my ear and smelled the damp sweat on his skin. I fought the urge to pull back as he whispered, “Let’s just say I overheard him making reservations to the Cayman Islands. One-way reservations—and it’s not like there’s a lot of ice-skating in the Caymans, you know?” With a wink, he spun and skated hard toward the other side of the rink before I could ask if he’d managed to overhear a departure date.

I pondered Trevor’s claim as I climbed back to concourse level. I figured “overheard” was Trevor-speak for “eavesdropped on.” I had no trouble envisioning the jealous Trevor listening in on Dmitri’s conversations and figured he was right about Dmitri making plane reservations. However, a trip to the Caymans might merely be a vacation, not a permanent move. Maybe the ticket was one-way because Dmitri didn’t know how long he wanted to stay. It was wishful thinking on Trevor’s part, I decided, that made him assume Dmitri was abandoning competitive skating for a surf-and-sun lifestyle in the Caribbean.

I focused my mind on Roger Nutt and Dellert House’s party. He could have caught Dmitri stealing credit card data during the party and forced him to help deliver the identity packets. With any luck, Gigi might be able to find out more on her date this evening.

*   *   *

“You want me to do what?” Gigi’s waxed and tinted brows rose toward her hairline, and she fanned herself vigorously.

“Wear a wire,” I repeated patiently. Well, sort of patiently.

“You mean like the Mafia informers wear to trap the don into confessing to murder? Or undercover cops wear for a drug deal? The kind the bad guys always find and rip off, right before shooting the poor cop?” Her blue eyes widened.

“That’s movies,” I said dismissively. “Not real life.”

We were sitting in Gigi’s swanky living room, a symphony of cream fabric, pale blue leather, velvet drapes, and exotic wood floors. Clearly a decorator’s work since there were no heart-shaped throw pillows or puppy-printed curtains or glass swan bowls filled with M&M’s. A layer of dust coated the silk flower arrangements and filmed the gilt-framed mirror over the hearth. Looming in a corner, a treadmill struck an out-of-place note, and I wondered if Gigi was working out.

“I can’t.” She shook her head, fanning her beigey-blond hair across her cheeks. “It wouldn’t be right. Besides, I wouldn’t know what to say or do, or how to act.”

“Act normal,” I said. “Say you’re having a party and ask if he can recommend a caterer.”

“But I always use the Food Designers,” Gigi said. “Or, I did before Les left. Now I can’t afford—”

“Pretend.”

“You mean lie?”

I sighed. Gigi was going to be seriously handicapped as an investigator if she couldn’t get over her hangup about lying. It was one of the PI’s most useful tools, I’d found. As were its relatives: misleading, prevaricating, fibbing, and creative manipulation of the truth. “Don’t think of it as lying,” I said. Before she could object, I added, “Remember, we’re talking about someone who has killed at least once, beaten up an old lady, and shot at yours truly.”

“Not Roger,” Gigi said, setting her mouth in a mulish line.

“Maybe he didn’t do it himself,” I said, “but you’ve got to admit there’s a pretty solid circumstantial case against him.” I took her through the evidence again. “All you have to do is wear this pin.” I pulled out the crystal-encrusted pin, the remnant of a joint operation with an agency that shall remain nameless where I’d spent a tense evening in a bar chatting up an arms dealer, wearing the pin and the shortest, tightest dress I’d ever had on.

“Ooh, pretty,” Gigi said, touching one of the green crystals with a finger. “Where’s the wire?”

“It’s wireless.”

“Then why’s it called a wire?”

I ignored the question. “It’s state of the art. Digital. It’ll record your conversation, and we can download it later. With any luck we’ll get Nutt on tape saying something that Montgomery can use to get a search warrant.”

“I’ll flub it up,” Gigi objected.

“Why don’t you go get dressed and I’ll drive you back to the office to pick up Irena’s Mustang.”

The prospect of driving the silver Mustang perked Gigi up, and she went upstairs to don her dress without further comment. She came down half an hour later, wearing a ruffled pink satin and tulle confection that made me think some ballet company must be missing its Sugar Plum Fairy costume, and an armful of sparkly bracelets. She was way overdressed for José Muldoon’s, but I didn’t say anything. I helped place the pin on her dress.

“I thought the shoes would match the pin,” she said, sticking out one plump calf so I could admire the mint green high-heeled peep-toe pump.

“Can you walk on those?” I asked. “In snow?”

She gave me a pitying look. “Of course.”

I’d never been one to suffer frostbitten toes for the sake of fashion, but Gigi clearly thought it was worth it. As we reached the airy foyer of her house I looked around, realizing I hadn’t seen or heard either of her kids since I’d arrived an hour earlier. “Where are the kids?”

“Dexter’s out with friends”—her expression said she didn’t much like them—“and Kendall’s in her room sulking. I haven’t seen her since we got back with Irena. She got miffed when Irena said she was too young for Dmitri—which, of course, she
is,
besides the fact that Dmitri’s gay.” She sighed. “I don’t know how to break it to her.”

“Say, ‘Dmitri’s gay,’” I suggested.

She gave me a look that said I didn’t understand the difficulties of communicating with teenagers, grabbed a full-length fur coat from the closet, and opened the door to a blast of wintry air.

30

This isn’t so hard,
Gigi thought an hour later, spooning up the tasty chicken tortilla soup she’d ordered as an appetizer. Roger didn’t seem to suspect he was being recorded as he chatted about a Broncos game he’d been to over the weekend.

“Did I tell you you look lovely this evening?” Roger asked, dabbing at his mouth with a napkin. “Pink suits you.”

Gigi beamed. It had been a long time since anyone—a man—had told her she looked nice. Not since Les. Well, not Les, either, she thought, not for several years. Had the pin microphone picked up the compliment? Maybe she should be sitting beside Roger instead of across the table from him. “You know,” she said, rising, “it’s a little drafty in this spot.” She resettled herself on Roger’s right, then realized the pin was above her right breast, farthest away from Roger. Should she move again? No, that would look suspicious. Maybe if she sort of turned toward him. She shifted in her chair, and her foot brushed his under the table. Oh, no! Now he would think she was coming on to him.

Roger smiled. “I met your partner today. Did she tell you? I can see what you mean about her.”

At the thought of Charlie listening to the recording later, Gigi gasped and turned it into a cough.

“Are you okay?” Roger asked, pounding her back.

“Um-hm,” she murmured, gulping some water.

“Did you find anything interesting in Nate Wong’s effects, anything to help you locate him? Charlie told me about his brother being Kungfu and that he was really in town to search for Nate.” He broke off a piece of bread and buttered it.

Roger sounded genuinely concerned about Nate, Gigi thought, but maybe he was just trying to find out if they knew anything that incriminated him. “I don’t think there was anything too useful,” she said. “I was working a different case today.”

“Tell me about being a private investigator,” Roger said, smiling warmly. “What attracted you to that kind of work? You don’t seem the type, if you’ll pardon me for saying so.”

Gigi was tired of hearing that. “What type? The smart type?”

Roger drew back, brows raised. “No, not at all. Sorry. I meant the snoopy type, the type that enjoys pawing through people’s secrets.”

“Is that what you think we do?” Gigi asked.

“Isn’t it?”

She shook her head.

“Educate me.”

Roger seemed genuinely interested, so Gigi told him about Les’s departure with Heather-Anne and the need for her to find work since he’d taken all their money with him. Through the salad and halfway into her main course, Gigi chattered about her first couple of disastrous cases, the drudgery of serving summonses, and how good she was getting at investigating via the computer. “Mostly, I do background checks for employers—stuff like that,” she said. “Routine.”

“I can tell you like it,” Roger said, a slight smile denting his cheeks, “and I’m sure you’re good at it because you’re so easy to talk to.”

“Am I?” Gigi felt herself flushing. The way the pendant light reflected off Roger’s smooth head was really kind of sexy. She’d never found bald men particularly attractive before, but there was something about that expanse of skin … With a guilty start, she realized they were almost up to dessert and she hadn’t managed to work in a single reference to Czarina Catering or fake IDs or anything.

“You know,” she said, “I’ve been thinking about having a party. You don’t have a catering company that you like, do you?”

A line appeared between his brows. “I thought you just told me money was tight since your husband left?”

“Oh, yes, right! I mean, the party would be for the business, for Swift Investigations.” She talked faster, forgetting to breathe. “To see if we can’t attract new clients.”

“Oh.” Roger nodded as if that made sense, and Gigi took a deep breath. Stupid! Why had she let Charlie talk her into this? “We do an annual fund-raiser for Dellert House,” Roger said, “and that’s always catered. The caterer we used to use went under a couple years back, and this past year we had a new company. The service was good, but I thought the food was only so-so. Soggy cheesecake.”

“I hate that! What’s their name?”

He gave her a puzzled look.

“So I don’t call them by accident, I mean.”

“Something Russian,” he said. “Started with a C. I’m sorry, but our director of development arranges that sort of thing, not me.”

This was getting her absolutely nowhere, Gigi thought. A change of topics was in order. “You know, I think Charlie said she found Nate Wong’s military
ID
card in the stuff he left at Dellert House. Doesn’t that seem strange to you, that someone would leave their
identification
behind? What can he be using for
ID
? I mean, like for when he wants to buy some beer or cash a check?”

A sad look drifted over Roger’s face. “Many of the men who stay with us are anxious to leave their former selves behind,” he said. “It’s not uncommon.”

The server came by to take their dessert order, and Gigi dithered between a flan and fried ice cream. Finally opting for the flan, she asked, “Do they just make up a new name? Like a pen name?”

Snorting a half-laugh, Roger said, “I don’t think it’s that easy.”

He added something else, but Gigi didn’t hear it because a mariachi combo had launched into a Spanish song only feet away from their table. Would the microphone pick up anything with the guitars so close? Gigi scooted her chair nearer to Roger’s. “Sorry,” she said, making sure her right breast was pointed at him, “I didn’t catch that.”

“I said that generating fake IDs is big business, or so I hear. A good driver’s license is not something the average runaway can whip up with a copier and a laminating machine.”

“Do you have someone you recommend?”

“It’s not like a catering company, Gigi; it’s illegal.” Roger stared at her, distrust settling over his features. “What is this about?”

“About? Nothing! I mean, it’s very interesting. Who hasn’t wanted to re-create themselves at some point in their lives, start over as a new person?” The thought had tremendous appeal, she realized as she said it. No debt to pay down, no surly teenagers to cope with, no broken marriage to haunt her. What name would she choose? Amanda? Juliana? She’d always wanted a frillier name than Georgia Maude. Why did her mother’s best friend have to be named Maude?

“A tabula rasa, as it were?” Roger asked, looking intrigued by the idea and less suspicious. “What would you do differently?”

What
wouldn’t
she do differently, Gigi thought, wondering what a tabula rasa was. “How did you end up running Dellert House?” she asked.

A reminiscent look settled on Roger’s features. “I drifted into the nonprofit world by accident,” he said. “I have degrees in social work and civil engineering—”

“You must be smart,” Gigi said, thinking of her own beauty school certificate.

“—and I started out working as an engineer for the state. Highways.” He made a face. “That proved less than fulfilling, so after my divorce I—”

“You’re divorced?”

“Yes. Is that okay?” He gave her a quizzical look.

“Of course! I mean, I’m divorced, too. Isn’t everybody?”

“I hope not everybody,” Roger laughed.

Gigi blushed and scooped up another bit of flan, savoring the texture and flavors on her tongue. The mariachis finally moved on, and the quiet was a relief.

“I got a job as a probation officer, but I was still working for the state, and it felt too stifling.”

Gigi started. A probation officer! Hadn’t Charlie mentioned that whoever was involved with the fake ID manufacturing probably had an in with a prison or a halfway house so he could meet people who wanted new identities?

Oblivious to Gigi’s sudden distress, Roger continued, “So then I got involved with an organization called Greccio here in town. They’re a nonprofit that provides housing for low-income families. I worked there for six years as a leasing agent, and when the director job came open at Dellert House, their board contacted me about the position. I applied, they hired me, and here we are, five years later. I finally feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, like you with the PI business, I bet.” Scraping his fork across his plate, he licked the last of the peach goo from it.