“Computer based training,” she told me.
Really? That's what it stood for?
“Very good,” I declared.
I gave her a chocolate kiss, took one for myself, and moved along.
I moseyed through the aisles thinking it better to take a lap through the storeâjust to get the lay of the place, of courseâbefore I selected another employee to quiz. I ate two more kisses along the way.
Taylor jumped out from behind the cosmetics counter.
“OMG! You've got your own apron!” she exclaimed. “It's got your initial and everything!”
I looked down at the H on my chest.
“Is everybody getting one?” Taylor asked.
“Yes,” I said. “And it will have your own initial on it.”
“SC!”
Now I definitely needed another chocolate kissâmake that two.
A woman popped up from behind the jewelry counter.
“Haley,” she called. “The Cirque du Soleil show at the Mirage is terrific.”
“Good to know,” I said.
Jeez, everybody was so friendly today.
I headed down the main aisle and spotted Cliff in men's wear. I shoved in two more kisses.
“Hey, Dana,” he said, and ambled over. He leaned his head back and shook out his long wavy hair. “Listen, could you, you know, uh, like give me a ride home from work? The police haven't found my car yet.”
“You're kidding.”
Honestly, I figured that whoever had stolen the thing would have brought it back by now.
“No, man, like I don't know if they're even trying,” Cliff said.
“Imagine that.”
Maya had called earlier and cancelled our trip to Macy'sâsome problem at homeâso I didn't have anything definite planned. I doubted Ty would fly in again, and Jack was long gone.
“Sure, Cliff,” I said. “I'll meet you out front after work.”
By the time I punched out, I'd finished off the entire bag of Hershey's kisses and asked a total of two training questions. Really, every trainer has their own style and that's mine.
Â
Cliff waited outside the store. He got into my car and gave me directions to his house. We headed north on the 515, then exited on Charleston and turned onto Arden.
This was definitely not Stephanie Holden's neighborhood.
The houses here were older and in need of repair. Windows and doors were barred. Weeds sprung up among the rocks in front yards. Trash and old junkers cluttered the sides of the houses. The Stratosphere Tower loomed in the distance.
“Here's my place,” Cliff said, pointing.
I pulled up to the curb in front of a house that hadn't seen a new coat of paint since it was new, apparently.
“You own a house?” I asked.
“Well, you know, technically it's my grandma's,” he said. “But I help her take care of it.”
I eyed the house, then Cliff.
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I've got my own room in the garage. Want to come inside?”
I had no desire to spend the evening on a threadbare futon, watching
X-Files
Season Five wearing a tinfoil hat.
“Some other time,” I said.
Cliff made no move to get out of the car. For a minute, I worried that he'd forgotten where we were.
“Want to go see something cool?” he asked.
“No thanks.”
“I'm not supposed to tell anybody, but hey, you being Dana and all, you can see it,” Cliff said.
“No, really, that's okay.”
“Eric and Dwayneâthose dudes took somebody to see it,” Cliff said. “Like, hey man, they said they didn't, but, hey man, I know they did.”
“Does this have something to do with the aliens?” I asked.
“Wow, dude, you're one smart chick,” he declared.
“Are they still at the Rio?” I asked.
“No way,” Cliff said. “We staked out that place for hours. Eric sat in the buffet eating for, wow, like all night or something.”
“You didn't get to eat?” I asked.
“Dwayne and me, we kept watch out back, you know, like where they bring in the food,” he said. “We hid behind the Dumpsters. Like, wow, dude, they've got some huge Dumpsters at the casinos. But that's okay, because we've got ways of checking out everything.”
I don't know why, but I asked, “What sort of ways?”
“Our field investigation kits,” Cliff said.
“Oh, yes, your ufology field kits. How could I have forgotten those?”
“We've got cool stuff. Binoculars, night-vision goggles, flashlights. We've got, like, little cameras on wires that can look around corners. Real spy equipment and everything.”
“That does sound cool,” I said.
“Damn straight it's cool,” Cliff said. He pointed to the house. “You want to come inside and see it?”
“Another day,” I told him.
“Okay, sure,” Cliff said. He gazed out the window for a minute, then turned to me again. “Hey, do you want to go see them?”
Hadn't we just been over this?
“I don't think so, Cliff. I don't want to catch alien cooties or anything,” I said.
“We've got special spray.”
Guess I should have figured that.
“I got this buddy, his name is Ronnie,” Cliff said. He frowned. “No wait. His name is Donnie. Yeah, it's Donnie.”
“Let me guess, he's a ufologist, too?”
“Donnie's the guy who broke the whole thing open, man,” Cliff told me. “It was all Ronnie's doing.”
“You mean Donnie?”
“Wow, dude, he drives a truck for a grocery warehouse.”
Jeez, I really hoped they drug tested before they let Donnieâor Ronnieâon the highway with that big truck.
“That's how he found out,” Cliff said. “He's like, you know, driving for a grocery place.”
“Yes, I got that part,” I said. “So the aliens are at the grocery warehouse where he works?”
“No way, man,” Cliff said. “Want to see where they are?”
At this point, I was confused and completely worn down.
Where was my best friend at a time like this? Where was my hot private detective friend? And my official boyfriend?
Nobody was here. It was just Cliff and me.
“Sure,” I said. “Let's go see the aliens.”
“Cool, man,” Cliff declared.
I started the car and he directed me onto the freeway again, then north onto Highway 95.
“They've been here a long time,” Cliff said. “Like decades or something. They're the gray ones. Gray aliens. Eric says they probably got stranded here. They can't get home or something. Like, maybe, they're trying to make some fuel so they can get away.”
“I'm pretty sure I saw this in a movie,” I said.
“Yeah. Good cover, huh?” Cliff said.
We continued north. I'd never been to this part of Vegas before and expected to find nothing but a barren expanse of desert. I was wrong. Stores, shops, restaurants, apartments, and office buildings lined both sides of the freeway. Greenery was limited to palm trees and patches of sagebrush, which was typical. Rocky, windswept mountains rose in the distance.
Then, as if someone had drawn a line in the desert, all signs of civilization abruptly ended. I realized that, yes, someone had actually done that as we passed a sign indicating we were now on the Paiute Indian Reservation. Open desert dotted with Joshua trees and more sagebrush stretched for miles to the base of the mountains.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Creech Air Force Base,” Cliff said.
“There's an air force base on an Indian reservation?” I asked.
“The base is on the other side of the reservation,” Cliff said. “Nobody can get into that place. They've got guards with guns. If anybody tries to break in, look out. You're dead. There are sensors all over the desert and surveillance cameras that see everything.”
“Then how do you know aliens are there?” I asked.
“Like I told you. Donnie drives a delivery truck for a grocery warehouse. He's been on the base. There's a man-camp about twenty miles in. Everything is like that, way back off of the road so nobody can see it. He brings foodâcrazy stuff.”
“What, exactly, is crazy food?”
“Fish eyes, squid, octopus, frogânot the legs, the whole frog,” Cliff said.
Yeah, okay, that was odd.
“There's a whole colony of aliens. The government keeps them there, takes care of them, gives them food, a place to live. And in exchange, we get their technology.”
I could have been at Macy's free giveaway right now.
“They must not like staying there all the time,” Cliff said, “because they come to Vegas.”
Or even bitchy-beauty-queen-spa-week.
“They escape,” Cliff said. “They come to Vegas and hang out in abandoned buildings.”
Maybe hitting a hot club with a hotter-than-hot private detective.
“They like to eat at the buffets,” Cliff said.
Or doing the mattress mambo with my official boyfriend.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You're telling me that aliens are walking the streets of Vegas?”
“Mostly at night,” Cliff said. “Come on, you've seen some of the characters on The Strip at night. Do they all look human to you?”
I couldn't argue with that.
“So if you ever see anybody really odd looking, or see anything weird happening at night, it's probably aliens,” Cliff said. “Call me. I'll come right over.”
I'd fought it for days. I'd refused to believe. I'd convinced myself that it couldn't be true. But it was.
“If I see an alien, you'll be the first one I call,” I assured him.
Yeah, I was cursed, all right.
Oh, crap.
C
HAPTER
17
I
spent a forgettable day at Holt's. I filled the mind-numbing hours unpacking and stocking enough bed sheets to drape the Eiffel Towerâin a multitude of colors and patterns sure to horrify the high-fashion Frenchâand occupied my mind thinking about Courtney's boyfriendâthe one before Tonyâwhom Stephanie had told me about.
Who was he? Why had nobody mentioned him before? Where did he fit into her life? And, of course, the biggest question of allâcould he have murdered Courtney?
Danielle could give me some answers, if I could reach her. I only had her cell phone number and she hadn't returned my calls, so I figured I could get some contact info for her from the place where they made their accessory line.
I left the store on a mission
The Eastern Industrial Complex had been easy enough to findâthanks to a mocha frappuccino, the Internet, Tony Hubbard's general directions, and the facility owner's lack of imagination in naming the businessâon Eastern Avenue, not far from Warm Springs Road.
I swung into the complex and drove slowly through the facility. It housed businesses such as stereo shops, custom car parts, print shops, most anything requiring a work space/office combo that didn't need a flashy storefront. Each unit consisted of an office attached to a workroom with a rollup garage door.
I'd never gotten the name of Courtney and Danielle's fashion accessory line and, thanks to Courtney's nonexistent business sense, had not seen it on the Internet, so I drove the U-shaped complex hoping I'd spot it. I didn't.
I hadn't exactly expected to see Danielle there, either, but it would have been nice since this was the only place I knew to look for her.
If anyone could give me info on Courtney's other boyfriend, it would be Danielle. This was just the kind of thing the two of them would have discussed. They were business partners and, naturally, friends. Maybe best friends. I hadn't found anyone in Vegas or Henderson yet who qualified as Courtney's BFF, so that left Danielle.
Stephanie flashed into my head. I supposed sheâand Courtneyâhad thought at one time they might be BFFs here. Their relationship had soured in no time, according to Stephanie.
The thought that Stephanie might have killed Courtney ran through my mind. If she hated Courtney even a fraction as much as she seemed to hate me, it was a possibility.
Stephanie never said how long it had been since they'd last spoken. Maybe it was the night Marcie messaged Courtney and told her I'd be at Holt's. Courtney could have called her, said she was going to the store to visit me, and asked Stephanie if she wanted to come along.
Maybe she'd snapped. Maybe she'd killed Courtney as she, apparently, wanted to kill every other girl on the planet whom she perceived had a better life than hers.
Yet I couldn't see Stephanie pulling it off. What would she do? Load up four kids in her mom-mobile, drive them to Holt's, leave them in the car while she ran in and killed Courtney? And then what? Hit the McDonald's drive-through for Happy Meals on the way home?
Not likely.
I'd called Danielle three times today, but I hadn't heard back from her, which seemed kind of odd. I mean, really, why wouldn't she answer her phone? Or return my messages? Best I could figure, she was busy with the funeral arrangements.
I pulled into a parking slot outside the rental office and got out. It was late, after five already, and not much was going on. Through the window of the office, I saw a woman seated at a desk, talking on a telephone. I let myself in. A little bell clanged.
The room was tiny, offering space for a desk, chair, small credenza, and a couple of book cases. Every flat surface was packed with teetering stacks of magazines, folders, and papers. A good dusting wouldn't have hurt anything.
The door to the adjoining workroom stood open a few inches. Inside, I glimpsed a corner of the room and a hodgepodge of ladders, paint cans, boards, desks, chairs, file cabinets.
The woman seated at the desk glanced up at me and covered the telephone receiver with her hand.
“We're closed,” she whispered.
The nameplate on her desk read,
ESTELLA BURNS
,
PROPERTY MANAGER
. I figured her for mid-sixties, maybe. She had a helmet of gray hair, oversized glasses, and was dressed in enough polyester to make Carol Brady jealous.
I guess she thought I'd leave. I didn't, of course. Instead, I attempted to look interested in a brochure detailing the amenities and benefits of renting a unit at Eastern Industrial ComplexâI wasn'tâand pretended not to listen to her phone conversationâI was, of course.
Estella hung up the phoneâpersonal call, dinner plansâand before she could ask me to leave, I introduced myself.
“I'm a friend of Courtney and Danielle's,” I added.
Yeah, okay, it was a bit of a stretch, but I thought the sympathy angle would soften her up a little.
“Did you bring the money?” she asked.
So much for sympathy.
“The rent money,” Estella said, none too pleasantly. “I told Danielle I needed itâyesterday.“
“The rent for their workroom?” I asked, just to be sure.
Estella pushed herself out of her chair. “Two months behind. Two months behind and coming up on three. And now that Courtney girl is dead. Tragedy. I told Danielle I was sorry. But
sorry
won't satisfy the property owners.”
I didn't know what to say to that. Luckily, Estella didn't seem to notice.
“She promised to get me the money.” Estella glared at me like I'd disappointed her, but not surprised her. “I guess you're not bringing it.”
“No,” I admitted.
Estella pursed her lips and picked up her handbagâa Coach knockoff I could have spotted from across the street.
“I waited on those girls to get me the rent money for way too long,” Estella said. “Always behind. Always with the excuses. Always some big story about a big business deal in the works. Then there's no business deal, then the deal's on again. Always with a different story from those two.”
Yeah, okay, I knew Courtney was dead and it wasn't right to think ill of her, but apparently she'd bungled their finances so badly they hadn't been able to pay their rent on time. And now Danielle was left to come up with the money somehow which, maybe, served her right for leaving the business in the hands of usually-kind-of-out-of-it Courtney.
“You tell Danielle she'd better get me that money. These owners, they don't fool around,” Estella said, waving her hand as if said owners were lurking in all four corners of the office.
“I haven't heard from Danielle,” I said, steering the conversation to the reason I'd come here in the first place. “Do you have a home address for her?”
“Courtney's apartment is at Bay Breeze. Warm Springs Road. That's all that's in the file,” Estella said, pulling a massive set of keys from her purse.
She opened the door and walked outside. I think she might have actually locked me inside the place if I hadn't hurried out after her.
“Which unit is theirs?” I asked.
“Number six,” she told me, locking the door. “Next time you talk to Danielle, tell her I need that money. She needs to borrow it, or get a loan. Tell her to pawn that big TV I saw in the back of her van. Tell her to do
something.
”
Estella headed toward a Cadillac parked near my car. I decided to check out unit six. I took a few steps and stopped.
Hang on a minute. What did she just say?
I hurried over to the Caddie. Estella was already in her car, ready to back out. She buzzed down the window.
“Did you say you saw a TV inside Danielle's van?” I asked.
“Darn right I did. One of those big flat screens,” she told me. “It's not right. If she can have one of those huge televisions, she can pay her rent. These girls . . . I swear.”
The window rose, Estella backed out of the parking lot and left.
Okay, that was weird. Danielle had a TV in the back of her van? When I'd seen her at Courtney's apartment and mentioned that the TV and stereo were gone, she'd kind of blown me off.
Of course, I hadn't seen the television Estella had mentioned, and she'd said nothing about a stereo. There was no way of knowing if it was the one missing from Courtney's apartment.
But it was one heck of a coincidence.
Tony certainly couldn't have hauled them off on his motorcycle. But maybe he'd had a friend with a truck who'd helped him out.
Danielle had that huge van. Had she taken the TV and stereo from the apartment and loaded them up only minutes before I'd gotten there? Was that why she'd seemed so nervous that day?
Or was that just another coincidence?
Of course, those items could have belonged to Danielle all along and she was just taking back what belonged to her. But if that was true, why would she say Tony had stolen them?
Another unpleasant thought stuck me.
What else might Danielle have taken from the apartmentâif she'd taken anything at all? Something more valuable? Something incriminating that the police should have seen?
Maybe Danielle was just trying to gather enough assets from Courtney to catch up on their bills. With Courtney dead, Danielle had no one to help clear their debts.
I headed deeper into the complex looking for unit number six. Shadows stretched across the driveway. The breeze picked up. Nobody was around.
I located unit six sandwiched between a print shop and a custom sign shop. The blinds on the office window were open. I cupped my hands against the glass and peered inside.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The place had been cleared out.
The door to the adjoining workroom stood open, allowing a full view inside. Nothing in there, either. Furniture-wise, at least.
Scattered across the floor, scraps and remnants of fabric in almost every color imaginable mingled with knots of thread and bits of thin pattern paper. I tried to get a feel for what Danielle's accessory line might have looked like if she'd had the financial resources to complete it, but seeing so many different colors, I wasn't sure Danielle herself knew what she'd wanted to do. Seemed she was experimenting with all kinds of pallets and hues.
Other than the debris left behind, absolutely nothing in the unit indicated that Danielle had designed a fashion accessory line here or that Courtney had screwed up the business end of it at every opportunity.
I headed back to my car, no closer to learning the identity of Courtney's previous boyfriend. Did Detective Dailey know about him? I wondered. Had they questioned him? Did they consider him a suspect?
Someone other than me would have been nice.
Inside my car, I slurped down the melted remains of a mocha frappuccino. The caffeine and chocolate combo jarred my brain, sending my thoughts scurrying in another direction.
Maybe the first boyfriend had been Mike Ivan. It was certainly a possibility that he and Courtney had been romantically involvedânothing to do with businessâand she'd just told Tony those things so he wouldn't be jealous of Mike trying to contact her. Tonyâconvicted felon that he wasâwould be the last guy I'd ever tell about a previous relationship.
The mocha frappuccino raced through my brain, waking cell after cell until my thoughts were sliding along quicker and smoother than a top zipper on a Betsey Johnson tote.
Jack had checked into Mike Ivan's background and assured me the guy was legit. I didn't doubt Jack or his info. But he'd only checked into Mike's businesses, not his personal life.
Not so long ago, I'd met a guy who operated in the Los Angeles Garment District. He knew the ins and outs of the placeâon both sides of the law.
If I called him, he'd give me the info on Mike Ivan in a nanosecond.
If I called him, he'd think I wanted him in my life.
If I called him, he might be right.
Yeah, okay, enough of those thoughts.
I started my car and pulled out onto Eastern Avenue heading toâwell, I didn't know where I was heading. For now, I just wanted to keep moving.
And get in touch with Danielle, of course.
She was probably the only person who knew what had been going on in Courtney's life. I needed to talk to her.
I dug my cell phone out of my purseâa fantastic Ferragamo satchelâand punched in her number again. Just like the three previous times I'd called her today, her voicemail picked up. I didn't bother leaving a message. If she wasn't able to respond to the first three, one more wouldn't matter.
As I drove past Sunset Road, my cell phone rang. I grabbed it, sure it was Danielle finally returning my calls. The I.D. screen read “Executive Travel.”