Laugh or Death (Lexi Graves Mysteries Book 6) (5 page)

I jumped again as I turned around, only to find Solomon filling the doorway. "Nothing in the bedroom," he said, "and I mean nothing. No clothes in the wardrobe. No cosmetics on the dresser or in the bathroom. Not even a toothbrush."

I waved a hand at the kitchen. "Here too. Even the fridge is empty. It's like she was never here." I squeezed past Solomon, which, to be fair, was not awful — not at all — and approached Joelle. "Can you tell me what's missing?" I asked her.

Joelle shook her head. "Where is Nancy?"

"That's what we're trying to find out. Look around, tell me what's missing."

Joelle stepped into the living room and made a show of lifting her chin a
s she slowly scanned the room. After her eyes reached mine again, she shrugged. "Nothing."

"Nothing? Nothing at all?"

"Not that I can see."

"When was the last time you were in here?" Solomon asked from behind me.

"Last Thursday. Nancy left her book downstairs in our kitchenette behind the parlor so I brought it upstairs. I was only inside for a minute, and I wasn't really looking, but I don't see anything missing."

"No photos? No personal items?"

"No, she didn't have any photos. I remember that. She said she wasn't fussy about having stuff. I guess she was a minimalist."

"What about clothes?"

"Sure, she had clothes," sniffed Joelle, frowning again, "but I always saw her in uniform except for a few occasions."

Solomon persisted, "What did she wear when she wasn't in uniform?"

"Jeans, t-shirts. Nothing fancy. Kind of boring, actually."

"Where from?" I asked.

"I don't get why you're asking me this stuff," Joelle said, ignoring my question. I looked back to Solomon, seeking an indication of what to do next. He inclined his head towards the bedroom, but I was pretty sure what crossed my mind didn't cross his. I ignored Joelle's question and headed for the bedroom, looking around as Joelle repeated her question to Solomon. Solomon was right; there was nothing here. The duvet and pillows were stacked in a pile in the middle of the double bed and the closet door was closed. I opened it. A few hangers remained on the rod, but no clothes. Nothing in the drawers either. I opened the laundry hamper lid, but it was empty.

The bathroom was off the bedroom and I stepped inside. It was tiny. Just a shower cubicle, toilet and sink with a sliding mirrored cupboard mounted above it. The bathroom smelled of cleaning products too
, and once more, was devoid of anything that suggested someone lived there.

I stepped back into the bedroom, just in time to hear Solomon thank
ing Joelle for her time and asking her to call if Nancy turned up.

"You don't think she will?" asked Joelle.

"I think she's gone," said Solomon.

"But why?"

"That's what we need to work out. If you speak to her, give her my number and tell her to call. She's not in any trouble. We just need to know she's okay."

I followed Solomon out, leaving a confused and worried Joelle to lock up. "Did you get anything else out of her?" I asked.

"She's pretty clueless. I asked her a few things about Nancy's life and her demeanor, and either she doesn't pay attention, or Nancy is very good at revealing as few details as possible."

"Maybe they just aren't that close
of friends," I said. "I could barely tell you a thing about Fletcher's life. Actually, I think he's a robot. I think he plugs in overnight to recharge."

"Point taken." Solomon's car bleeped open and he reached for the door, opening it for me,
and shutting it as I settled into my seat.

"What I don't get is why she just disappeared," I said as we followed traffic in the direction of the agency. "She hasn't done anything wrong."

"That we know about."

"And I don't get why she's using her full name. Do you think she's remembering stuff?"

"I'm not entirely convinced she ever had amnesia."

"Really?" I gave a disappointed pout. "Then why not go home? I know she didn't have a job, but she had Leo. He's obviously nuts about her."

"Dig deeper into her background," said Solomon as we pulled into the parking lot. "Find out everything you can about her. If she's okay, there's a reason she's not going home."

"I'd like to look into her most recent history," I countered. "I want to know what she's been doing in Montgomery the past four months."

"I'd like to know where she was for the two missing months since leaving her hometown and ending up here."

"I'd like a social life
, but it doesn't look like I'm getting one until this case is over."

Solomon laughed as he slid the SUV next to my VW. "I would offer to take you to dinner tonight
, but I'm going to stake out Leo instead."

"That man has no idea how lucky he is, and also
, it's not the worst excuse for skipping out on dinner with me. Plus, I'm plenty fabulous with a microwave meal and the TV remote."

Solomon
gave me a long, lingering, lip-reddening kiss, that had me sighing. "Oh baby, you really need to get out more."

I batted him playfully on the chest and climbed out
of the car, walking upstairs with him hand-in-hand. "I plan on getting out in the sunshine when I win our bet."

"You won't win
, but there will still be sunshine."

I narrowed my eyes. "I'm going to win. Right after I figure out what the hell is going on with Nancy Grant."

"The sooner you admit defeat, the sooner we can pick up some brochures at the travel agency."

"I already picked some up and I will never admit defeat." I gave Solomon one last kiss as we reached the top of the stairs. "Never!"

"You have the best spirit." Solomon smiled, squeezing my hand as he continued up the stairs, leaving me to my research.

Several fruitless hours later
, I was on the couch, a microwave meal on my lap, and the TV remote in my hand. With some people, after an hour of Googling, you can find out everything about their lives. However, others, like Nancy Grant, seemed to live entirely off the grid. With nothing to find in her previous life, I soon switched to noting ideas about her current one. Learning what she'd done for the past four months was just as hard. Nancy had no online footprint, and I wondered if that was by coincidence or design.

Finally, I had to concede defeat
, but since Solomon had already departed for his surveillance, I happily escaped from the office without having to admit drawing a blank.

Now at home, I slurped the last of my noodles and focused on my notepad where I
wrote,
What do I know about Nancy Grant?
Underneath, I made a few notes: she knew her name, could hold down a job, had a few possessions, left in a hurry, but not before sanitizing her entire apartment, and had lived and worked in Montgomery for four months. The people who met her seemed to think she was okay.

It wasn't a lot
, but it was a start, I decided as the TV show I'd been waiting for sounded its opening credits. I set my bowl on the coffee table and my notepad next to it, then curled my feet under me. I watched as the hero, currently on the run from an unknown, but highly dangerous enemy, moved around his apartment, suddenly alerted to a deadly presence outside. As I watched the bad guys closing in, the hero stuffed a few things into a bag, and disappeared into a secret tunnel, escaping mere moments before he could be captured.

"That's it!" I yelled at the screen, bolting upright. "That's what Nancy did." I grabbed my cell phone and tapped a text message to Solomon.
Nancy had a go bag,
I texted.

A moment later
, I got back,
"Why?"

"Good question, John," I muttered, pursing my lips as I thought.
She expected to run,
I tapped.

"I'm winning this bet,"
replied Solomon.

I stuck my tongue out at the screen, but instead of replying
, I called my oldest brother, Garrett. He picked up just as I thought the line would ring out. "Hey, sis," he said, sounding like he was breathing hard.

"What're you doing?"

"Running."

"Exercising? Good for you!"

"Chasing a suspect. It's exercise with incentive." There was a thud, a grunt, and some more thudding sounds before Garrett came back on the line. "I won," he said. "Me, one. Dumbass here, nil. Cuff him."

"Why the hell would you answer the phone if you're chasing a
suspect?"

"I checked caller ID first. I thought maybe you were calling out of the goodness of your heart to offer to babysit. Sam is preparing booby traps for you."

"Should have told me that after I offered. Now I have to decline," I said smugly. I tried to conceal any trace of fear at the thought of my nephew's imaginative booby traps. The kid was getting harder and harder to outsmart. At least, babysitting Victoria would be relatively safe. Probably.

"Damn it!"

"But I do have a question. How does someone disappear without a trace?"

"Disappear?"

"You know, go off the grid. Leave their lives and start afresh?"

Garrett paused. "Did you piss Solomon off?"

"No!"

"Oh, thank God. I would hate to
be called on to defend your honor."

"I'll defend my own honor, thanks, but about disappearing..."

"Well, if you really want to disappear, you have to be super careful not to leave a paper trail. No bank records, all cash payments, maybe a fake ID. It's hard. It takes a lot of money if you want to maintain a standard of living... and not eat out of dumpsters."

"So you couldn't do it for free
, or for very little money?"

"Sure you could. People bum food or dumpster
-dive all the time, and live on the streets, taking jobs for cash and no questions. It's not a good life. It's not a life that promises longevity either. Hunger and cold can force people to make bad choices."

"Thanks, Garrett, I appreciate the help."

"No problem. About that baby..."

I hung up before he could ask
. I liked to hold out my babysitting favors for actual favors, and answering a few simple questions didn't count as such. Instead, I picked up the remote, unpaused the TV show and grabbed my notepad. Under
What do I know about Nancy Grant?
I wrote three words:
Money? ID? Why?

Nancy Grant must have had money to run.
And she must have had ID to keep moving. The real question was, why? Why didn't she want me to find her? And, more importantly, why didn't she want Leo to find her?

Chapter Five

The following morning, despite being armed with the new theory that Nancy prepared a go bag, enabling her to run at a moment's notice, I was still stumped as to why. So Lily and I were now parked outside Pretty Paws and Nancy's apartment to find out why.

"Do you think she'll come back?" Lily asked. She wore a baseball cap and shades
with her jacket zipped up to her neck. She couldn't have looked any more suspicious.

"I doubt it."

"So why are we here again? And should I get coffee if it’s going to be a while?"

"We're here to see what happens next," I told her. "Maybe someone will try and call her apartment and we
might follow them somewhere. Or maybe one of her Pretty Paws colleagues will get a call and go somewhere to meet her."

"So we track them, we find her?"

"Pretty much."

"Why couldn't you track someone
a little more social?" Lily asked. "Why couldn't you stalk someone who frequents my bar? Then I could make money while you make money."

"Your bar isn't even open!"

"It will be later! Do you want coffee?"

"I want coffee," I
admitted, waiting for Lily’s furtive look to the right, then to the left, before exiting the car. She scurried along the sidewalk and darted into the nearby Starbucks. I sighed. If she hadn't blown our cover already, she probably would on the way back. On the plus side, my plan wasn't exactly airtight, but I was pretty sure I wouldn't uncover a thing during this surveillance stint. However, the coffee would make up for it. Much as it grated on me, I had to admit Lily had a point about Nancy's social life. I hadn't learned a great deal about her since my investigation started, but I had a strong suspicion that was because there wasn't much to find out. Nancy wasn't a wild social butterfly. She didn't have a close network of friends or family to stake out or pump for information. She didn't have any hobbies or habits that I discovered, barring the occasional lunches at the diner. As far as I could guess, Nancy didn't do much at all. She worked and kept a neat apartment with a few personal items, only the barest necessities that she could pack up in a hurry before fleeing, and that was it.

The car door opened and Lily slid inside, immediately
handing me the steaming paper cup. "Any sign?" she asked.

"None. Of anyone."

"Maybe I should go inside Pretty Paws, pretending I have a pet, and pump them for information?"

"Maybe not," I countered.

Lily lowered her sunglasses and frowned. "Don't I look like a pet owner?"

"You kind of look crazy right now."

"You said no wigs or hats! What do you want from me?"

I laughed and pointed to her baseball cap.

"It's a cap, not a hat," Lily sulked. "You just don't get the benefits of a disguise."

"Remember when we had to dress up as a pony?"

"Yeah, look at all the information we got then! Maybe we should..."

"No!" I cut in. "No, absolutely no dressing as ponies again! Pretty Paws would see right through that."

"We could just lie in a corner. No one would notice us."

I fixed Lily with my
are you serious?
face and she blinked. "I remember when you were fun," she said, blowing into her coffee before taking a sip. "I remember when you were a risk-taker."

"I remember
a time when I didn't find dead bodies lying all over the place."

"Yeah, th
ose days did have their plus points. If we're really lucky, we might find one today. Are you sure Nancy wasn't dead in the apartment? She could have been hanging in the closet. People do that, you know."

I shuddered. "I checked the closet
and she wasn't in it. And I don't want to find her dead. I want to find her alive so I can ask her some questions and reunite her with her long lost love."

"That's so romantic," Lily sighed.

"I also want to win my dream vacation so we need to find Nancy," I said, pausing to look up at the apartment's windows, then down and around. Several security cameras were mounted on the storefronts. "She didn't leave via the front door as far as we know because no one saw her," I said, "but she could have slipped out on the rear fire escape."

"Yeah
? So?"

"So if there are cameras at the front of these premises, maybe there will be cameras at the back
too. We can at least find out which direction Nancy went. Maybe even see if someone was with her."

"Or if she was dragged out
, dead," added Lily, far too cheerfully.

"That too."

"Maybe rolled up in a rug."

"I didn't see any rugs in her apartment."

Lily gave me a very pointed look. "Exactly."

"Want to check out the back with me?"

"Then who's going to check out the front?"

"Your husband," I said, point
ing to Jord who was walking towards us, his partner beside him. It took me a moment to recognize him because I usually saw him either in casual clothes or a uniform. Since being promoted to the burglary squad, however, he began wearing slacks, a shirt and tie, and nice shoes. Both men both carried a sandwich roll in a paper bag. "When did he get all grown up?"

"I don't know," said Lily, hitting the electric window button and
rolling it down all the way. "But I think he must’ve been hiding it all this time."

Jord stooped at the window. "You look really suspicious," he said.

Lily turned and smirked at me. "Told you that you should have worn a disguise."

"Not Lexi, honey, you." Jord kissed her through the window and flipped the peak of her cap. "Still looking for your missing woman?"

"Yep, she lived right across there," I said, jabbing a finger toward Pretty Paws. "We're going to check out the back. Can you watch the front? Just for a few minutes?"

Jord frowned and glanced up at his partner. "I have a job!"

"Really?" I asked. "It looks like you're on lunch."

"Fine, we're on lunch. You have ten minutes. Go. Go!"

Lily and I didn't wait another second. We scrambled out of the car and jogged across the street. A few stores down from Pretty Paws was an alleyway leading to the back of the building. We jogged along it, turning left to the stretch of building that the pet parlor belonged to. I counted the rears of the stores, stopping below what I felt sure was Nancy's apartment. A fire escape snaked its way up, and the bottom portion was pulled down like someone recently exited on it without taking the time to push it back up again.

I stepped back
wards until I hit a wall, looking around for cameras. There were two, both pointing in opposite directions. One was attached to Pretty Paws. "Which way would you go?" I asked Lily.

She shrugged. "I'd get in my car," she said, pointing to a row of cars.

"Nancy doesn't drive."

"Then I guess I'd head for a bus stop
, or hail a cab."

"That's what I thought." I stepped forwards again, this time
, looking to my left and right. "That way is a dead end. She could leave this alley via the way we came in, or she could go that way," I said, pointing away from the way we entered.

"That way leads to a street with several buses
; plus, you were parked on the other side. If she didn't want to be seen, she'd go this way."

"Yeah, but I don't know exactly when she left. She could have waited for me to go and then exited via the front. We need th
ose security tapes. If we can figure out which way she exited and the direction she was headed, we might be able to figure out where she went."

"I'd love to watch those tapes with you, but I have to be at the bar in an hour to open up."

"No problem. I even believe that you truly want to watch them."

"I do, really, I do," said Lily, her face deadpan
serious.

"Let's split up. If you can get the bus routes, I'll get the security tapes and we can meet back at the car."

"Okay, but if someone kills me in this alley, you have to explain to Jord. Also, do you want to see if we can find her body first?"

"No!"

"Just..."

"Nancy isn't dead, I'm sure of it," I said.

"Glad you're sure about something in this case," said Lily, waving as she jogged away. A moment later, she was out of the alley, and all I could do was sigh. She wasn't wrong, of course. I wasn't sure about much in this perplexing case, but I had a few leads to work with now. At least, it was interesting enough to keep me occupied. I wondered how Solomon was getting on with Leo Chandler, and if he discovered anything interesting yet, or was deciding where to take me on vacation. I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of calling and asking. In fact, I resolved to be as easy breezy about this case as possible.

Walking around the front of the building, I stepped inside the small veterinary surgery
. The security camera was outside and I asked to speak to the manager. When he appeared, I explained who I was and asked if I could see his security tapes. Unfortunately, he was happy to reply that yes, the cameras did work before he went on to explain they were installed because of past issues with people who might have thought they stored drugs on the premises; and no, he wouldn't show them to me. When I argued my case with the most basic details, he appeared even more affronted.

"I know Nancy," he said, "she brings an animal in occasionally."

"Then you must want to help me find her," I said. "She could be in trouble."

"If she's in trouble, bring the police
and a warrant. She's a nice woman. I'm not helping you spy on her. You can show yourself out," he told me, pointing to the door with the kind of expression on his face that indicated he had nothing more to say.

I didn't have much more luck with Pretty Paws. Joelle was there again, tending the front desk, but she didn't look pleased to see me. "Nancy didn't come back," she began, without preamble. "I tried calling
her, but her phone is switched off. You must have scared her."

Before Lily and I beg
an our stakeout that morning, I already guessed Nancy wouldn't return. It was just too good to hope for, so Joelle's comments didn't surprise me. "Hard to scare someone before you've spoken to her," I pointed out, a little chagrined that the blame was being pinned on me. All I wanted was to speak to Nancy and find out what happened to her in the past few months, right before marking the case as solved.

"You managed it," huffed Joelle.

"Then help me make it right," I said, appealing to her soft side. "I noticed you have security cameras at the back of the building. I'd like to see your tapes."

"No," said Joelle.

I blinked. I didn't expect that. I thought she would be a bit more eager to help me find Nancy. "Is there any reason why not?" I asked, keeping my voice soft and not confrontational.

"I don't like that you scared Nancy off and I think you should leave her alone. Plus
, my customers are curious why a PI keeps coming here and that's bad for business."

"I really need to see the tapes.
They could help. Maybe Nancy was hurt and kidnapped," I said, hoping that might at least spur Joelle into action.

A flash of confusion passed across her face before she sniffed. "Yeah, right. If you want to see those tapes, send a police officer with a warrant."

"Okay," I said, wondering how many favors I would owe in return for a warrant, if I could even persuade one of my brothers to get one. As I left the parlor, I had to concede that was unlikely. MPD had no reason to request the tapes, and a judge had no reason to sign the warrant. Disheartened, I looked around for Lily, and saw her standing next to my VW with Jord. I waved and started to step off the sidewalk and cross the street when someone called my name.

"I thought it was you," said a man, smiling as I turned around.
Wearing jeans and a plain shirt, a newspaper tucked under his arm, he looked more than pleased to see me.

"Leo? Hi."

"Hi," Leo said, leaning in and kissing my cheek as I stood there awkwardly. I did not want to be rude and back away, but his friendly display was a bit much. When was the last time a client kissed me?

"I was just taking a walk around town," he said, answering my unspoken question. "What brings you to wherever we are? Hot lead?"

"Actually, yes," I said, deciding I might as well tell him the vaguest basics, while leaving out the more puzzling aspects I discovered. "I thought Nancy might have been caught on security cameras as she was sighted around here."

"Really?" Leo beamed, showing a perfect set of white teeth. Little creases around his eyes added to his handsomeness. "That's great news. I'm really glad you caught a break in the case. Do you think you can find her from the tapes?"

I shook my head and felt my heart sinking as his smile dropped. "I can't access the tapes. The stores won't cooperate."