AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Tess walked into the conference room, her expression twisted in a scowl. “Endicott,” she said, dropping her laptop on the table. “Why is Miriam Endicott involved in our case?”
It took me a second, then I realized that Tess had enhanced the photos I took yesterday of the two men and their vehicle driving away from Logan Monroe’s rental.
“I thought it was Frank Sanchez on the mountain,” I said. “Couldn’t be sure.”
“The other guy is Andy Drake,” Tess said. “Also a licensed PI. Know him?”
I shook my head. Frank and I have had a few run-ins over the years when our cases collided, and once we’d even worked together when Miriam Endicott hired me for a project. I didn’t really have an opinion of Frank. He was competent, straightforward, and we had never talked about anything other than business.
“What were they up to?” I wondered.
Miriam Endicott had run her late husband’s private security business for the past ten years. When my mom was a prosecutor, she’d often butted heads with Roger Endicott who had made it his life’s work to embarrass her department as well as Phoenix PD whenever possible. His lack of ethics was legendary, but when he withheld information from the court, his license was suspended for a year.
Miriam was as bad as her dead husband in many ways, but she had a few redeeming qualities—namely, she was the mother of Charlie Endicott, a man I once loved. I went through a rough patch after leaving the Army. Returning home, I no longer felt like I belonged and didn’t really know what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Then he walked into the bar I was tending and wham. I don’t believe in love at first sight, but this was damn close. He was exactly what I needed to get my head on straight.
Charlie was truly one of the best guys I’d ever known. The first guy I genuinely loved—the kind of love that made me start to think that maybe I wanted to get married. That maybe there was one right person for everyone, and for me it was Charlie Endicott.
Then I lost him to the first girl he’d ever loved. Poetic, I suppose, if I weren’t the odd-girl out.
Miriam sometimes tossed me cases. Not because she liked me. She did it because Miriam resented Mom opening up Angelhart Investigations, which was in direct competition to Endicott’s own Trident Security Group. She also knew that my mom and I had a falling out. Miriam enjoyed twisting the knife in Mom’s back. I ignored their rivalry. Miriam paid well and on time, that’s all I cared about.
“So they were hired to watch the house?” Jack asked.
“Looks that way,” Tess said. “Who hired them and why?”
“Million-dollar question.” I finished my donut and drank more coffee.
Mom walked in. “I’m sorry I’m late,” she said. “Jack filled me in on what happened yesterday.”
Tess told her about Endicott’s men watching the house, then said, “Nate’s watching White’s condo, but she hasn’t been home.”
Nate Lorenzo worked part-time for Angelhart. Former military, edgy, and probably suffering from PTSD. He grew up in our neighborhood so I had known him practically my entire life, though we didn’t go to the same schools. I hadn’t seen him for years after he enlisted in the Navy—mostly to get away from his parents, I thought.
Mom looked at her watch. “If she doesn’t show up at work this morning, we’ll need to assume she’s on the run. Ideas about where she’d go? Our background check didn’t yield any family, but she grew up in Florida, right?”
“Yes,” Tess said, “and we put out feelers there when we first got the case, but so far zilch. Her emergency contact at work is her next-door neighbor. He’s a pilot and hasn’t been home in the last six days.”
“Can I get a copy of her background?” I asked.
Silence around the table. I suppressed a flash of anger, and added, “If we’re going to work together, I need to know what you know.”
Mom looked at me, hesitated as if she didn’t know how to talk to me. I didn’t make it easy and took another donut, though I didn’t really want it. Finally, Mom asked, “Of course. Tess will send you everything we have. You wrapped up the adultery investigation?”
“The wife wants me to follow him for a couple more days.”
“Do you think he’s romantically involved with White?”
“Nope, but if she wants to pay for my time, who am I to stop her? He’s going to be at the Beverly’s tonight at six thirty, and I said I’d check things out. The interesting thing is, it doesn’t seem he told her about passing out or meeting White.”
“Theories?”
I was uncomfortable in a collaborative role. For nearly eight years I’d been a one-woman shop. Margo Angelhart, Private Investigator. No one to answer to, no one to bounce ideas off. I didn’t know if I wanted a partner—or partners—in this or any other investigation.
“When Tess and I spoke with Monroe yesterday,” Jack said, “he was evasive on details, but said that Jennifer had interned for him and they’d kept in touch. He claimed he gave her the rental for a few days, agreed to meet her there to discuss something confidential, but claimed he didn’t know what it was about. I didn’t believe him.”
“So even with all the cloak-and-dagger bullshit,” I said, “someone else knew they were meeting there. That person drugged or poisoned them. I didn’t know where Monroe was going until I followed him. But you knew because you accessed White’s email.”
“Company email,” Tess clarified. “We had permission.”
