Dangerous Bond (Jamie Bond Mysteries Book 4) (3 page)

We were only there for a couple of minutes when the front door opened and Roger stepped out. He wore light-colored slacks, a blue shirt, and brown loafers. He headed to the shiny white brand-new BMW and peeled out of the driveway straight toward us.

I didn't have time to get out of the way, so we all slunk down in our seats. The sound of the metal gate sliding and then his engine filled my ears. Surely he'd wonder why a car was parked outside his property. Our luck, he'd pull to the side, get out, examine our car, and find us folded into human pretzels. How would we explain that?

No
, a little voice in my head shouted.
Think positive.
That was right.
Okay, visualize him not being suspicious and just driving off.
Unfortunately, I was about as good at visualization as I was about being Zen, and my stomach grumbled, and my mind wandered to the Hoagies sandwich from earlier.

Caleigh peeked up over the seats and said, "He's getting away."

This snapped me out of my delicious daydream of mayo and lettuce. I straightened up, and Sam threw the car into drive and took off.

He hopped onto the 55 going west toward Costa Mesa, and ended up pulling into the South Coast Plaza Mall parking garage. We watched him back into a parking space in the south parking structure.

We parked a row away and quickly got out to follow, but his steps were quicker than ours, and we lost him after he rushed inside. The clicking of our heels was masked by a concentrated sound of voices. It was more than typical mall chatter. A small crowd was gathered in front of a store several yards down. Was Roger there?

We hurried over and quickly recognized the trademark yellow-and-green logo of Hoagies. Next to it was a banner that read
Grand Opening
. Of course.

Caleigh and Sam moved toward the left of the crowd, while I took a spot near the back, right where I could see the front of the store. Roger stood behind a long, yellow ceremony ribbon that had been strung across the store's opening. To his left was a short, pale man wearing a gray suit and a big cheesy smile. He held an oversized pair of scissors and was looking at Roger like a kid looks at Superman. Clearly Roger was Hoagies royalty.

Off to the King of Sandwiches' right, two African American men stood. Not smiling. If sandwich shops had bouncers, I'd say that's what these two were. The taller guy was not only broad shouldered but thick around the middle. He wore black jeans, black high-top sneakers with neon-colored laces, a long-sleeve red T-shirt, and a black puffy vest. Dark sunglasses covered his eyes, and a gold cross dangled mid-chest.

The man beside him appeared vastly different in a black suit and silver tie. He too wore dark sunglasses, but instead of flashy neckwear, a thick gold link bracelet wrapped around his left wrist, with a wide-faced gold watch. I wasn't well versed in men's jewelry, but they looked expensive.

Something about the pair raised my internal radar, along with the hairs on the back of my neck. Roger's bodyguards? I hadn't noticed the two men leaving the house with him, but maybe they were his public protection?

The portly man with the big scissors, who I gathered to be the store's manager, went on to announce the new opening, and then he handed the scissors over to Roger.

Roger flashed the crowd a big grin. "I now officially declare this Hoagies franchise open for business. Let the deliciousness begin!" Then Roger cut the ribbon.

A small round of applause circled. Sam and Caleigh joined in, blending in easily with the lunch groupies.

After a few minutes of talking, the scissor man handed Roger a wrapped sandwich and waved the crowd in. Roger turned and said something to the two guys in gold behind him. The taller of the pair nodded, and they followed him back in the direction we had come.

I waited a beat before signaling Sam and Caleigh to follow him. At a safe distance, pretending to window-shop (which wasn't very difficult because the window-shopping was good here!), we followed him back to the parking garage. Not once did he turn around.

Once we got to the parking garage, the two shady-looking guys split off from Roger, heading left while he headed right. As curious as I was about the two guys, Roger was our only objective here. We followed him just far enough to see him get into his BMW before we got back into Sam's car as well.

Twenty minutes later we tracked him to his dry cleaners, where he picked up several items that looked like suits. Then he stopped at the post office and walked inside holding a single envelope. Next, he was on to the barber for a trim. We knew this because Caleigh peeked inside, pretending to be lost. She "played blonde" very well.

When she returned to the car with a big grin, she pointed down the street. Across from the barber and several stores down was a Hoagies.

They sure were everywhere once you noticed them.

Without a word, I dug into my wallet for a twenty, handed it to Sam and said, "Small, turkey, Roger's style. It's on me."

Neither of them had to be told twice. They scrambled off to get our food like kids in a candy store. I kept my eye on the barber, but they returned before Roger emerged. I managed one yumified bite before Roger came out, with a slightly shorter do, and we were back on the road. We ended up where we'd started—in front of his mini-mansion.

He parked in his garage and went inside, leaving the garage door open. Other than his car, it was empty. Bristol Claremont must've been out. Not only was their property quiet, but the street we were parked on was also. No cars passing by, no people outside walking their dogs. Other than a black SUV parked up the road, it appeared most residents weren't home.

I turned my attention back to the Claremont estate. I hated being this far away from a subject, but at least my dinner was as perfect as I remembered. There was something about the mayonnaise mixed with the tomatoes and olives that really took the deliciousness over the edge. Who knew mayo could be so magical?

"This turkey is amazing," Caleigh said around a bite.

Sam nodded in agreement. "They should have a drive-through window. It would be great for stakeouts."

Caleigh widened her eyes. "Oh my gosh, yes." She paused. "You don't think I could lose a couple of pounds eating this stuff?"

"Roger did," Sam said around a hunk of turkey and cheese.

"Best. Diet. Ever," Caleigh responded, diving in for another large bite

It didn't take long for the sandwiches to disappear and for us to get antsy. Sam yawned, Caleigh studied her manicure, which was a pretty pale pink, and I tapped my hand against the dashboard, strumming out some beat stuck in my head. I silently cursed ad makers who used old songs in their commercials.

"This is boring," Caleigh finally announced.

"This is tedious," Sam agreed.

"This isn't that bad," I said, trying to maintain some positive outlook.

Caleigh and Sam both stared at me.

"What?"

"Since when do you enjoy stakeouts where nothing is happening?" Sam asked, shooting me a look full of attitude.

"I'm just trying to reduce my stress by focusing on the positive. I'm being Zen."

Caleigh glanced up to Sam and raised her perfectly arched brows.

Sam leaned toward me and used her mom voice. "James Bond, snap out of it. You are not a positive person."

I bit the inside of my cheek to stop from laughing at her tone. "Hey. I can be."

They both gave me
you're crazy
looks.

Sam patted my shoulder. "You are cynical and sarcastic. You don't look at rainbows and puppies and think the world's okay, because it's not. It's dark and cruel, and we just have to survive."

Now it was time for Caleigh and I to exchange concerned glances about Sam.

She must have caught them, because she quickly amended, "So maybe it's not
all
cruel. There are bright spots and beauty and joy and stuff. But the point is we love you the way you are. There's no need to change."

While I appreciated her sentiment, I still got the impression that something was going on with Sam. Was it my imagination, or was she more tightly wound than normal?

"How about we turn in for the day?" Caleigh suggested, and rotated her ankles. "These shoes are pinching my toes." Encased around her slender feet were black pumps with extremely pointed toes.

I nodded to Sam, who grabbed the key dangling from the ignition. "Sure thing. There isn't much else to see here anyway."

Suddenly a loud sound shot through the still evening, causing each of us to flinch.

Caleigh slid down into her seat. We looked to one another. Holy crap. There was no mistaking that.

It was a gunshot.

I opened my purse, grabbed my Glock, and hightailed it out of the car. Luckily, the gate wasn't fastened. I ran past the round shrubs to the front door. I pressed down on the handle. It was unlocked. I glanced over my shoulder. Sam and Caleigh were right behind me, with their weapons drawn as well.

With my arms extended, gun aiming straight ahead, I pushed the door open with my shoulder. We stood in a two-story foyer. My gaze was focused on danger and didn't take in the surroundings. There was time for that later.

I circled toward the back of the house and entered the kitchen. Sunlight spilled into the room, making it super bright. I blinked several times adjusting to it and then inched further into the room, where I circled the long center island and sucked in a breath.

Roger was lying on the floor, unmoving. A deep red hole sat in the center of his chest, and it was quickly spreading across his pale-blue shirt. I ran to him and pressed two fingers to the vein in Roger's neck. When I couldn't find a pulse, I looked up and shook my head.

Damn. Our mark was dead.

It didn't take long for the estate to be crawling with emergency vehicles and personnel. Sam pointed out that if Roger had been poor and living in a different neighborhood, we'd probably still be waiting. Sadly, she was right. I wasn't sure I'd ever seen so many emergency responders in one place.

The police had ushered us outside to an area beside the front door while they'd checked the house and dealt with the body. The house and land were vacant, which meant the shooter had come and gone through a back entrance. But as far as I could see before the cops ordered us out of the kitchen, the backyard looked fenced in.

A man who'd identified himself to us as Detective Myers placed a stick of gum into his mouth and immediately began popping it. I flinched a couple of times at the loud sound.

He rubbed his protruding stomach and popped some more. "Sorry. I'm trying to not snack in the middle of the day, and the gum helps. Doc says something about an oral fixation."

"I know exactly what you mean," Caleigh said with a gleam in her eyes. I doubted they were referring to the same fixation though. "You should eat at Hoagies. They have great sandwiches, and it's how Mr. Claremont lost all his weight."

The detective leaned closer. "I saw pictures of him before. He was my size, maybe a bit bigger. Do you think I should try that? Do you think it would work for me?"

Caleigh widened her baby blues. "Totally. And the sandwiches are super yum."

Sam wasn't paying us much attention. She seemed lost in her own world, staring down at her pointy black boots.

I was about to ask her if she was okay, when I spotted a black SUV pull through the gates. I sucked in a breath. I knew that SUV. It was Aiden Prince's. Since when did he show up to murder investigations? Normally the DA's office would assign an assistant to a case, but the ADA would wait until the police came to him. Then it hit me. He was here because of Roger's celebrity status. The district attorney must want this wrapped up quickly.

Instantly butterflies swarmed my belly, and I wished I had time to check out my hair and makeup, but I'd left my purse in the car. I was grateful my gut had told me to wear the blue wrap dress though.

Aiden walked directly to us, cutting Caleigh and the detective's diet conversation short.

"Good evening, everyone," Aiden said with a curt nod, but his gaze lingered solely on me. It was intense but totally unreadable as to whether it said
I still blame you for my suspension
or
dang, you look hot in that dress
. My new positive self hoped for the latter, but my realistic self suspected the former. Aiden lived life by the rules. He would never drink on the clock, he'd never run personal errands on the government's time, and he'd never flirt over a dead body.

Before I had a chance to say anything in response, he and the detective stepped inside the house. The detective glanced back at us and said, "Please stay here. I'll be right back."

And then we were left standing there. Waiting.

Normally I wouldn't have minded. Stakeouts made a person develop patience. But I had quite a few questions of my own that needed answering, and staring at the round shrubs wasn't going to cut it. I took a few deep breaths, trying to be Zen-ish.

I saw Caleigh's and Sam's heads turn toward me from the corner of my eye. They didn't comment on my meditation sounds as I inhaled through my nose and exhaled through my mouth. Several more seconds later I started to get dizzy. Maybe I was doing it too fast. I returned my breathing to normal just as the detective came back.

He lumbered through the doorway again, then turned to us. "Now, where were we?" he asked.

Caleigh answered, "Talking about ham and cheese versus turkey and avocado."

The detective smiled at her as if wishing that really was all he had to talk about. "Maybe we should go over exactly what you all were doing here when you found Mr. Claremont's body?"

"Uh…" While we'd been 100 percent within our rights to stake out Roger's place, I wasn't totally comfortable spilling all until I'd had a chance to talk to my client.

Luckily, I was saved by the sound of tires and squeaky brakes. I turned to find a Channel 4 news van had just pulled up.

Detective Meyers sighed. That would definitely make his job harder, but he had to have expected them eventually, given Roger's celebrity.

"Miss Bond?" the detective prompted.

Dang. Maybe I wasn't
totally
saved.

"Well, we were…" I considered lying. I wasn't totally accustomed to sharing PI business with the cops. They weren't always approving of our methods, and I liked to keep them in the dark about slightly less than legal behavior. But we hadn't done anything wrong. This time. Just the same, that didn't mean I needed to blab all.

"We had come by and heard shots. The front door was unlocked. We went in and found Mr. Claremont in the kitchen. Then Sam, um, Ms. Cross, called 9-1-1."

The detective raised his brows in surprise. "Most people run away from gunfire, not to it."

Caleigh flashed a dazzling smile. "We're not most people."

Aiden appeared in the doorway. He leaned on the frame and smirked. "That's very true."

He'd been listening.

The detective pointed to each of us. "You're all licensed PIs?" When we nodded, he said, "Then your fingerprints are on file. We'll need them to eliminate them against the others we find."

Something niggled in my stomach. A part of me that still somehow feared becoming the prime suspect in another murder. But this time I had Caleigh and Sam as my alibi. Unless the police wanted to accuse the three of us as working a conspiracy, I was just being paranoid. I tried to take a deep breath, but this wasn't the place. Something in the way Aiden stared at me made me almost wish he'd look away. That was crazy though. I normally didn't mind his eyes on me.

I feared our first interaction since the shooting would be awkward, but I'd never imagined it would be over another dead body.

"And why were you here again?" Detective Meyer asked. "Are you all friends with the Claremonts?"

Sam and Caleigh looked to me. I was surprised Sam was even paying attention. Her unusual silence had made me forget she was with us for a moment.

"We were hired by Mrs. Claremont to find out if her husband was cheating on his diet," I finally said.

The detective patted his belly, and Aiden laughed. We all turned to him.

He raised a brow. "Sorry, that was insensitive. I just wasn't expecting that."

I knew how he felt, but I was more unnerved by his actions. Since when was he anything less than professional? His professionalism usually bordered on militarism.

"Continue, please," Aiden said.

"That's it. We were watching the house, and that's when we heard the shot."

"Did you see anyone enter or exit the house?" the detective asked.

We all shook our heads together.

"Anyone in the neighborhood?"

I shook my head, remembering how quiet it had been. "There was a black SUV parked down the street, but no one was in it."

"Did you see anyone inside the house, perhaps through a window?"

We thought about that. To be honest, I just remembered watching Caleigh and Sam inhale their Hoagies. It wasn't something I wanted to share, so I shook my head. "I didn't see anyone."

"How did the killer get out?" Caleigh asked.

"The back door was unlocked as well," Detective Meyers said.

"It's unlikely Mrs. Claremont left and didn't lock up behind her. But why wouldn't Mr. Claremont lock the front door when he came home?" I asked.

"He'd been out?" Aiden asked.

Oh yeah, I guess I hadn't mentioned that part. I told them about tailing Roger to the mall and the opening of a new Hoagies store.

Aiden gave me a momentary look of disapproval. There was the old by-the-book I knew.

"And he came back alone?" Meyers asked.

I nodded.

"Okay, ladies, if I have any more questions, I'll be in touch." He stepped back into the house, pushing past Aiden.

Sam and Caleigh looked to one another and then headed down the walkway to Sam's car.

I faced Aiden. He hadn't moved, still leaning in the doorframe, and he didn't look like he was going anywhere.

I paused, unsure whether I should say something or just go. I bit my lip. The longer I froze there, the more awkward it was becoming.

"So, how are you?" I asked, the words coming out stilted even to my own ears.

But Aiden just smiled back, the corners of his mouth turning up in a slow, almost sensual movement. "Busy. A guy just got shot." He nodded back toward Roger's kitchen.

The causal way he was talking about the shooting unnerved me, and I cleared my throat. "Yeah, that's…terrible…" I trailed off. "I guess your suspension has been lifted?" I asked. Then immediately wished I hadn't. Why did I have to bring up the sorest subject I could?

But Aiden's smile didn't falter. "Yep. All clear."

"Uh, good. Nice. Glad to hear it." Okay, this was more painful than trying to chat up the cute guy in seventh period freshman English. "I, uh, should get back…" I pointed toward Caleigh and Sam over my shoulder, desperately looking for an out.

"Don't you want to know what they've found?" Aiden asked, nodding his head toward the house.

I paused. Aiden voluntarily sharing information with me? That was definitely not by-the-book.

"What did they find?" I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.

"A shell casing under a cabinet," he said.

"What type of weapon?" I asked and took several steps closer, just in case he decided to lower his voice. I didn't want to miss a syllable.

"Forty-five caliber."

That didn't narrow it down much. There were a lot of guns of that caliber, including my own.

"I'll be informing the wife soon," he said.

Unless she heard about Roger's death on her car radio before she returned home. That would not be the way I'd want to find out this horrible news. Especially not while driving. Was it possible she already knew though? Did Mrs. Claremont kill her husband? No, that didn't make sense, with everything I knew about her. She clearly loved this lifestyle. If Roger had saved a nice little nest egg, then she wouldn't have hired me to make sure he wasn't cheating on his diet. She needed him to stay thin and alive.

Unless… What if she'd gotten fed up or caught him nibbling on Hostess snacks in their football-field-sized master bathroom? (Yes, I'd peeked while waiting for the cops. Someone had to make certain the killer wasn't still in the house.) If she'd learned he was cheating with Ho Hos, maybe she snapped. There could be a hefty life insurance policy in play. I made a mental note to have Maya look into it.

Then it hit me like a ton of Twinkies.

It had been less than 24 hours, and I'd already lost our first and only celebrity client.

Damn.

*   *   *

Instead of heading back to the office or home, Caleigh, Sam, and I decided to go out for a drink to decompress.

The club Caleigh recommended took swank to a whole 'nother level. The walls were painted white, and full-length mirrors in geometric shapes hung in various places. The floor was black tile so shiny I could see my reflection. The bar spanned the entire length of the room, rimmed in neon lighting with a clear, Lucite top. The stools were silver and white, and the wall behind the bar was all mirror. The whole place looked like an art project, something that deserved to be in a museum. It had a nice, fresh vibe about it though. The music was loud, and the staff was dressed in skintight white leggings and sleeveless tops. Their laundry bill must've been outrageous. And there were just enough bodies drinking and gyrating at this time of day to make this place "happening."

We approached the bar and ordered three cosmopolitans.

Caleigh looked to her left and her right and then pouted. "There's no one to flirt with." If I de-stressed with a drink, Caleigh de-stressed by flirting.

I glanced around. She was right. Everyone here seemed to be a part of a couple. It had to be our timing.

"Sorry you had to see Roger like that," I said to Caleigh. While I knew she was tougher than she seemed, I also knew the sight of a dead body was enough to unnerve anyone. And I had the feeling Caleigh hadn't seen many.

"I'll get over it. Eventually," Caleigh said, taking a deep sip from her drink.

I nodded. "You will," I agreed, trying to keep up my positive attitude. "Vodka helps." I raised my glass with a grin.

She smiled at my joke, then glanced over to where Sam had been silently sitting, once again staring at the lack of spit shine on her boots. "What's up with her?" Caleigh asked. She sat between Sam and me, but she'd pushed her stool out a few inches so Sam and I didn't have to look around her to see one another. She was considerate that way.

I waited for Sam to notice Caleigh was referring to her, but Sam's thoughts were still someplace far, far away, and she didn't respond. I shrugged. "I don't know, but she's been like this all day."