The Next Right Thing (Harlequin Superromance) (10 page)

Cammie welcomed the opportunity to escape. She needed to breathe, regroup, imagine the Nuggets jersey.

But when she brought the maître d’ over, Marc sat alone at the table.

“The other couple had to leave unexpectedly,” Marc explained to the maître d’, “but Delilah left her card, asked if you’d please call her tomorrow.” Marc handed it to him.

“Certainly.” The maître d’ accepted it with a small bow. “Shall I have your dishes wrapped up to take home?”

“Please.” Marc looked at Cammie. “You can take theirs home with you.”

“Okay.” She watched the maître d’ walk away. “Why did they leave?”

“Delilah left her wallet at the chapel the other day, wanted to pick it up before the place closed.”

“I thought Vegas chapels stayed open 24/7.”

He shrugged. “Never been in one, have no idea. Told them I’d be happy to give you a ride home. Just need to drop by the hotel first and check on Emily. She said she heard noises in the hallway and that she’s afraid. The room door’s locked and bolted—no way someone can get in—but I called hotel security and insisted they get up there ASAP. They’ll stay with her until I arrive.” He punched a number into the cell. “Told her I’d call back, see how she’s doing.”

“Okay.”

Cammie looked at the empty seats across from her. She didn’t believe a word of that lost-wallet story.

CHAPTER SEVEN

A
LITTLE
AFTER
NINE
O
’
CLOCK
, Marc and Cammie walked into his hotel room on the twentieth floor at the Aria, a luxury glass-and-steel high-rise on the strip. After passing through a foyer, they entered a spacious, modernistic living room with a wall-to-wall view of the twinkling lights of the strip. Trying not to look agog at the plush digs, Cammie set her purse and the doggie bag filled with garlic bread and Marc’s pasta dish on the granite counter of a mini-kitchenette.

In Denver, she’d been inside Marc’s house once, a high-end Tudor in Denver’s fashionable Belcaro neighborhood, and it had the same kind of pricey charm as this room, although his home was much larger, of course. She remembered at the time thinking how empty the house felt, despite its expensive furniture and stylish decor.

In spite of the spacious design, hostility sucked all the air out of this living room. Emily and a female security guard sat at opposite ends of the long sofa. Both of them looked puffed up and pissed off.

“Mr. Hamilton?” the guard asked, standing. She adjusted the walkie-talkie on her belt.

“Yes.” He looked at Emily. “You all right, honey?”

“I’m fine.” Her face was freshly scrubbed and a scrunchie held back her mane of reddish-blond hair. She wore a nightshirt decorated with the words
Heal Our Planet.

She cast a look at the guard. “I told her she could leave, but she insisted on staying.”

Dressed in a black Acme Security uniform, the security guard was physically fit with shiny black hair knotted at the base of her neck. She fixed her obsidian eyes on Marc. “You asked me to stay, sir, so I did.” Her voice was cool, professional, but Cammie detected an underlying thanks-for-making-me-babysit-your-spoiled-brat tone.

“Thank you for complying with my request.” He checked her name tag. “Iona, did you happen to see anyone suspicious in the hallway?”

“No, sir. Your daughter said somebody kept knocking and trying to use their room key, which, unfortunately, happens at least a dozen times a day. Usually, it’s drunks who’ve forgotten their room number, or somebody gets off the elevator on the wrong floor and goes to a room they think is theirs. However, I asked security to check any surveillances tapes of this floor.”

“They witnessed a person trying to get into the room?”

“Cameras didn’t show the area directly outside your room, sir, but there was an elderly lady trying to use her room key on several other doors. We believe that is the person who was at your door, as well.”

Emily gave her an incredulous look. “You could’ve told
me
that.”

“When I tried,” Iona said tightly, her gaze never leaving Marc’s face, “you asked me to not interrupt your call with your father.”

Cammie swore a look of pride flickered across Marc’s face. “My fault,” he said, serious again, “as I’m the one who insisted my daughter stay on the phone with me.”

Which they had. The entire drive from the restaurant to the hotel. Cammie hadn’t minded because it meant she and Marc weren’t discussing whether or not she’d accept his job offer. She still didn’t know what to do. Although she’d always prided herself on being a quick decision maker, lately her thoughts felt muddled and burdened, as though a fog had settled in on her life. She hoped that somewhere on the other side of that gray mass lay the answers to a lot of questions.

Marc pulled out his wallet, extracted two bills and handed them to the guard. “Thank you, Iona.”

The guard rolled her shoulders. “You don’t need to—”

“Please.” He smiled. “You helped above and beyond your duties. Do you have children?”

“A little girl.”

Cammie glanced at Iona’s hand. No ring. Single mom, working night shift as a security job. Had to be difficult.

“Then do something nice for her,” Marc said.

After a pause, she accepted the money. “Enjoy the rest of your stay at the Aria, Mr. Hamilton.” She nodded to Cammie. “Mrs. Hamilton.”

“Oh, I’m not—”

But Security Guard Iona was already striding toward the door, ready to tackle her next assignment.

“Did you get to see any of your movie with your friends?” Marc asked gently, sitting next to Emily.

“Some, not all.” She shifted her gaze to Cammie. “You’re the private investigator who worked for my dad. I remember you.” She glanced at Cammie’s hair.

“But not the weird hairstyle, right?” Cammie laughed. “That’s okay. I hate it, too.”

“Didn’t say I hated it.”

“Then you must need glasses.”

Emily sputtered a laugh.

“My stepaunt-to-be insisted on giving me this hairstyle before dinner.” Cammie did a dramatic eye roll. “I look like Little Richard on a bad-hair day.”

Emily frowned. “Who’s Little Richard?”

“Well, if you don’t know who he is, you probably have no idea whose face this is.” Cammie gestured to the sparkling design on her top.

“It’s a guy in a hat.”

“Philip Marlowe, private eye, in a fedora.”

Emily stared at the design. “That’s totally intense. I love true-crime shows and detectives, but I don’t know who Philip Marlowe is.”

“He’s one of the fictional variety. People mistakenly refer to him as hard-boiled, but they’re wrong. It’s the world that’s hard-boiled, not Marlowe.”

“I...hope I didn’t offend you,” Emily said softly, “saying it’s intense.”

“No offense taken.” Cammie looked at her top. “I find it totally intense myself, in a good way.”

“Speaking of offending people,” Marc said gently, “I’m afraid you were a little chilly to Iona, who was only doing her job. If you’re going to talk power to the proletariat, you also have to walk it.”

“What does that mean?” Emily asked.

“It’s not enough to talk about the need to respect a worker’s democracy,” he answered, “you also need to show people, especially hard-working people, respect.”

“So you’re saying I should’ve been more respectful to Iona.”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t like my privacy being violated without my permission. She wouldn’t leave.”

“As long as you are in my custodial care, I define
privacy.
I think we’ve had this talk before.”

After heaving a weighty sigh, Emily stared out the window.

“Hungry?” Marc asked. “We brought leftovers. Garlic bread and a killer pasta.”

“Probably loaded with pesticides,” she mumbled.

Marc’s face seemed drawn and sad as he looked at his daughter, who continued to stare at the glittering lights of the strip. To some people, the display of neon and extravagant architecture was beautiful. To others, a garish display of commercialism. What you saw depended on your perspective, which was something Emily was still defining for herself.

Cammie decided to lighten the mood. “I read once that garlic is a natural antibiotic. Considering how much they put on that bread, it’s probably killed off any pesticides.”

She caught Emily’s reflection in the glass. The girl wasn’t staring at the lights, but watching Cammie.

“Are you going to find Gwen?” Emily asked.

Cammie did a double take. “I’m not sure what that has to do with garlic, but the answer is...I don’t know.”

“Why not?” Emily turned around.

“Yes, why not?” echoed Marc.

“We haven’t really had a chance to discuss it.” With both of them staring at her, she saw they shared the same vivid blue eyes. “Like the terms of the work, deadlines, expectations. I don’t want to commit to anything without weighing the pros and cons.”

“As Tolstoy said, ‘Man discovers truth by reason only,’” Emily said solemnly, “‘not by faith.’”

“I agree.” Cammie crossed to where she’d left the doggie bag. “All that talk about garlic bread got me hungry. Mind if I nuke some?”

Emily made a face. “Yuck.”

“I’ll take that to be a no. Marc?”

“Sure.”

As she fished in the bag, Cammie asked, “What else are you doing while in Vegas, Emily?” She extracted a cardboard box and set it in the microwave.

“Eating. I don’t believe in shopping for the sake of spending money, but it was cool today finding a store that sells organic and hemp clothing. I like this room, but whenever we go down to the lobby, there’s all these people drinking and putting money into machines.” She feigned a shudder. “They look like zombies or something.”

“If you think it’s gross here, you should visit the dive where I work.” Cammie punched a button on the microwave.

“Where’s that?”

“Shamrock Palace. Trust me, it sucks. I also volunteer at a center for teenage girls, which has its challenges, but it’s also more rewarding.”

“A center for teenager girls?” Emily asked.

“Actually, it’s more like a home for girls who are struggling with life issues.”

“Are they criminals?”

“Some have had run-ins with the law,” Cammie admitted. “They’ve made poor choices, often the result of no support systems or families who haven’t encouraged them to do their best. These girls end up with bad attitudes about themselves and life. Not like you, Emily. You know better because people have taught you the difference between right and wrong. Or smart and foolish. Or polluting and living green.”

She paused, gave the young girl a thoughtful look. “I just had a thought. How about visiting Dignity House with me sometime? Your ideas would be a positive influence.”

Emily looked at her feet for a long moment. “I’m not really...all that good with people.”

Cammie exchanged a look with Marc, who gave a subtle shrug.

“Know what?” Cammie finally said. “Neither was I at your age. But restoring the earth is kinda like restoring people, don’t you think? Just hanging with these girls means your ideas might rub off on them and as Tolstoy said, ‘Plant an idea and it will grow.’”

The timer dinged.

“I’ve never read that one,” Emily murmured.

“He was green before his time, what can I say.” Cammie took the bread out of the microwave, set it on the coffee table and opened the cardboard flaps. Scents of butter and garlic infused the room. She crossed to the minifridge and opened it. “They stock diet colas in this place?”

“For like a million dollars each,” Emily answered. She looked shyly at Marc. “Okay with you if I go to Dignity House with Cammie?”

“Fine by me. I’ll even drop you off, save her the gas money.” He raised his voice. “Help yourself to any of those drinks, Cammie. You’re worth at least a million.”

Those last words, said so low and earnestly, vibrated up her spine. Leaned over the still-open fridge door, Cammie glanced at his face, glad to see his mood had lifted. Was he affected by her reaching out to his daughter? Their relationship seemed strained, but maybe that was the nature of parents and teenagers. Or the by-product of not seeing each other often. He probably welcomed a woman stepping in, helping bridge the gap.

“Thanks for your offer, but I’ll have tap water instead.”

Emily rose from the couch. “It’s been a long day. I’m going to bed.” On her way to the bedroom, she paused, fiddled with the sleeve of her nightshirt. “Cammie?”

“Yes?”

“Maybe before I leave Vegas, you’d like to watch a true-crime show with me?”

“Like
48 Hours?
”

“Sure, or one where real-life P.I.’s, like you, solve crimes. I saw a show last week where this older Florida P.I. guy found a family’s heirloom Bible. He must have been in his forties, but he rode a kick-ass Harley.”

“Sounds cool,” Cammie said. “So where’d this older kick-ass P.I. find the family Bible?”

Emily ambled to the bedroom. “In the—” she yawned “—remains of an alligator. G’night, everybody.”

“Good night, honey,” Marc said. “I love you.”

The bedroom door closed with a soft click.

* * *

M
ARC
LOOKED
AT
the closed door, wishing he understood what made his daughter tick. Sure, he got why she touted capitalistic exploitation and the organic movement—she was young, trying on her beliefs for size. Some might stay with her for the rest of her life, some might not fit in a year. When he was her age, he’d been passionate about Frank Zappa for president, which irritated his father no end. And although Marc wasn’t all that comfortable with Emily’s fondness for true-crime TV shows, obviously she got something out of them...including an introduction to the U.S. justice system.

But beyond her TV habits and her T-shirt slogans, he didn’t really know what mattered in his daughter’s world.

Didn’t know why she couldn’t say she loved him.

“In the remains of an alligator?” Cammie said in a stage whisper. “Whoa. I’m all into digging for clues, but I’d never go
that
deep.”

His mind caught up with Cammie’s comment. “Oh, you would,” he said gently. “When you’re hot on the trail of a case, Cammie, you’re unstoppable.”

“I draw the line at carcasses, though. Wouldn’t want to chip my manicure.” She caught him looking at her hands. “That was a joke.”

He sort of smiled. “It’s just that the rest of you looks...so put together...I figured you’d had your nails done, too.”

“You call
this
put together?” She gestured dramatically to herself as though he’d missed something obvious.

“I do,” he said quietly. “Obviously you don’t see yourself the way the rest of the world does.”

She eyed her reflection in the window. “Oh, I think I do.” She blew out a low whistle. “Jeez, I’m wearing so much makeup, I look prepped for a viewing at the mortuary. And this hair! Add two white zigzags, and I could pass for the Bride of Frankenstein—”

“That’s enough!” But he couldn’t suppress a laugh. “Your wicked sense of humor is intact, but let me give you a different perspective.” He looked at her hair. “Those beehive styles are back in vogue, you know. JLo wears them. Beyoncé. It’s a dramatic style, which probably makes you uncomfortable because you like to blend in.”

She looked surprised. “How do you know JLo and Beyoncé wear beehives?”

“The magazines in the waiting room at my office.”

“And how do you know I like to blend in?”

“Any good investigator has that talent. But you’re also uncomfortable being the center of attention.”