The Case of the Sin City Sister (24 page)

Finally, she got up, went to the bathroom, and poured a glass of water, and then walked over to the window. She pulled open the curtains and gazed out at the lights and the cars parked below her in the hotel lot. There was not much going on. A taxi waited at the front entrance. His lights were off, and sitting as he was under the lighted awning, she could see the driver slumped in his seat, looking as if he was trying to take a nap.

A few cars passed on the road in front of the place. She could hear sirens in the background but could see no indication of any activity around the hotel. She discovered that if she looked as far to
the left as she could, pressing her forehead against the window and focusing very hard, she could just see the Strip with its blinking lights and hustling, bustling traffic. She pulled away.

She almost wished they were closer to all the action. Staying at the hotel Daniel had chosen kept her from being able to walk to the Rio or to Caesar’s and perhaps find ways to make better use of the long night hours. At the very least, she could look for Clara again and learn more tips about gambling or about Vegas nightlife. She could people-watch or maybe find a chapel. Something other than just standing at a tall window that overlooked a parking lot. She looked again and noticed a dark sedan sitting under a light, two men sitting inside. They looked like the two men she and Daniel had noticed in the bar. She wondered about them, why they might be sitting in the car in the middle of the night, but then realized that people visiting this city kept very different hours. She told herself it meant nothing and headed back to bed.

She thought about the day, Pauline’s attack, going through Dorisanne’s things, finding the address book, sitting at the hospital. It had been long and emotionally draining, and she still had found no sign of her sister, no clues about where she had gone or why. Eve sat down on the bed and closed her eyes.
There has to be something in all of these conversations, all of this searching
, she thought,
that can give me some idea as to where Dorisanne has gone
. She thought about Pauline’s outburst, the obvious fear she had for Dorisanne. She thought about Misti explaining how Dorisanne had been fired, how the bartender was also gone, and even the manager, which she didn’t think was related, but still interesting. And once again she thought about the address book.

She found it sitting on the nightstand and she picked it up, leaned back against the pillows, and flipped through the pages, this time studying every name, every address, just to see if something jumped out at her, if something might offer a clue about her sister’s activities or whereabouts.
The Captain would tell me to look closer
, she thought.

“There’s always something to be missed. Read everything slowly and more than once,” she said out loud, remembering her father’s instructions when they were going over the files regarding the missing miner’s case.

She took in a breath and started searching from the beginning. The first page had her name and the address at the apartment where they had been twice.
So she’s had this book only since she’s been married and living in the complex with Robbie
, Eve thought. That would make this book and its recordings at least six years old. There was a little heart drawn by her last name, something Eve remembered that Dorisanne had done since she was a child, and a small Rio sticker placed in the upper right-hand corner. She studied the heart, ran her fingers over the drawing, and then turned the page.

There were names of four people and one business that started with an A, all listed under that letter: Claire Anderson, Dwight Aldridge, Dr. Adelman, Annie, and Applebee’s. There were phone numbers and a couple of addresses. These were all local, and none of them had lines drawn through them.

She moved to the B’s. John Beadles, BestBuy, Nancy Beech, Baker’s Dozen, Betty Lou, and some place listed as Busybody. There were lines through a couple of these, Nancy Beech and John
Beadles. The businesses were not marked. There was an address without a name, some place in Sparks, Nevada. Eve thought she had seen this town name before, but she wasn’t sure she knew where it was. She kept looking, and that was when she noticed there was just the letter
B
, listed within the group, under the Busybody listing but a few lines above the Sparks address, and beside it was a local Las Vegas number.

Nothing any more exciting in the C’s or D’s. Then Eve looked at the E’s. There was her name and information, plus Every Woman’s Shoes, Tom Ely, and somebody named Esther. She moved to the next letter,
F
: Foxy Mama’s, Dolores Fulbright, a few more. And then, just like what she had seen under the letter
B
, there was a letter
F
, and a number that had a different area code, one Eve didn’t recognize.

She kept searching, through G, H, and then she turned the page to the I’s. There were only a couple of listings. Indigo’s—Eve had no idea what that could be; Philip Isley, a guy Eve remembered from Madrid, an old boyfriend of Dorisanne’s, she thought, and then wondered why she would still be in contact with a high school sweetheart; and then there was another listing like the ones she had seen under the two other letters. It, too, was just the one letter, an
I
. There was no person’s name or establishment. Just that, one letter
I
and another number with a different area code.

She flipped through the pages: J, K, L, M, N, several pages of people and places, some Eve recognized and some she did not. Then O, P, Q, R, which included lots of Rio numbers, the lounge, human resources, management, security, and then there were the other letters and listings. She quickly found the W’s once more,
with Mr. Marcus Winters, the name on the credit card receipt, the one name and number she wanted to call but knew she had to wait until a decent hour.

X, Y, and Z had a few names but nothing that seemed interesting. On the last page there was a group of numbers, Eve thought, that she should probably study and try to decipher, but nothing that offered any clues right now. There was another address without a name attached, some business or residence in Reno. And then the last page, the inside cover, had another sticker, this one from a carwash place somewhere in town.

She closed the book, leaned back against the pillows, and thought about the addresses and listings. Doctors, stores, friends, restaurants, bars, work, there was certainly nothing significant about any of them. Eve probably had a similar list herself in her little black book that she had started keeping at the private detective office. Names and numbers of clients and business offices that they had contacted over the past year—an address book from the Divine Private Detective Agency would look very similar to a cocktail waitress’s address book in Las Vegas.

“Think, Eve,” she said out loud. “There has to be something you’re missing.” She opened her eyes and shook her head. There was nothing. She put the book down, took a drink of water, and turned off the lamp beside her, deciding to try once again to go to sleep.

Reciting the familiar prayer might help: “Hail Mary, full—” But she stopped at that word, sat back up, turned on the light, and opened the address book once again. Something caused her to stop—something was there. Dorisanne was giving her a clue in that book, she knew it.

She reached for the pad and pen that had been placed on the nightstand and flipped the pages to the B’s. She wrote down the letter
B
and the phone number.

She turned the page and copied down the letter
F
and the number listed, and then she did the same with the other one-letter listing she had found: B F I. She shook her head.

“Dorisanne, you are one smart sister,” she said.

Eve found her cell phone and walked over to the window. She pulled back the curtain and stood waiting for just a minute before dialing the first number she had seen, the local one.

“It’s just too good to be true,” she said, and then she couldn’t help herself, she practically laughed out loud when she saw the man sitting on the passenger’s side in the dark sedan parked below her pull out his phone. She moved away from the window, letting the curtains fall together, and quickly ended the call as he said hello.

FORTY

Eve tapped lightly on Daniel’s door. She waited. She tapped again. “Daniel,” she whispered. “Daniel, are you awake?” She leaned into the door. She tapped once again. “Daniel . . .”

There was nothing.

She knocked a little louder this time. “Daniel,” she called out and then stopped, hoping she wasn’t disturbing the other guests on the floor.

She glanced at her watch. It was three in the morning. She stood at the door a bit longer, placed her ear to listen for any noises coming from inside. There was nothing.

She pulled out her phone and dialed the hotel and asked for his room. She heard the phone ring. Once, twice, three times, a fourth, he didn’t pick up.

“He’s not in there,” she said to herself and went back to her room.

Eve sat down on the edge of the bed to think.
Where could he be? And why did he leave without telling me?
She was disappointed
that she wouldn’t be able to tell him the news, explain to him who the two men were that he had seen in the bar. She wanted to be with him so that together they could try to figure out why Dorisanne might have FBI phone numbers in her address book and why the feds were following the two of them. She wanted Daniel with her because he might have some answers.

“Well,” she said to no one in particular, “I could try to go back to sleep, and we could just talk about this tomorrow.” She thought about the idea, realizing she was way too wide awake to try sleeping again.

“I could call him on his cell phone,” she said, still talking out loud to herself. She considered this. But then she thought,
Maybe he’s out in the parking lot watching those FBI agents, and a ringing phone might blow his cover
. She watched that scenario play out in her mind. She shook her head. “Not a good idea.” She dropped her elbows onto her knees.

“I could just go downstairs to see if he’s there.”

She decided this was her best idea, realizing that even if he wasn’t in the lobby, the night manager or some staff person might have remembered seeing him and would be able to give her some information about what time he had left and even might be able to tell her if he had mentioned where he was going.

She stood up, gathered her room key, her wallet, her phone, and, for some reason, Dorisanne’s address book, and headed out. When she got to the elevators, she looked out the window to check out the parking spot where the dark sedan with the two men following them had been parked earlier.

The car was gone. From where she was standing, she could also
see the spot where she remembered Daniel had parked earlier, an area of the lot that she couldn’t see from her room window. His car was missing as well. She felt her pulse quicken.

Daniel had driven somewhere, and these men, these men she now knew to be FBI agents who had some connection to Dorisanne, whose phone numbers were in her book, had followed him. She considered the idea that maybe Daniel had figured out who they were and had confronted them. Maybe they all went out for a cup of coffee, she decided. But somehow that didn’t make any sense. How would Daniel have known they were agents?

She waited for the elevator, and when it arrived at her floor she got in and pushed the button for the lobby. When she got to the first floor, she noticed that the other elevator was heading to the floor she had just come from and wondered if it could be Daniel returning from somewhere. She stopped, thinking she should make a quick call to his cell. She dialed his number but then decided once again against the idea.

She found her way to the lobby and discovered that it was the same night manager from the night before, the one who had called her a taxi when she went to Caesar’s.

“You keep late hours,” he said when she was near the front desk.

“As do you,” she responded.

He smiled. “Yep, but I get paid for mine,” he said, and then seemed to consider what he had said and cleared his throat.

Eve could see he was embarrassed for some reason but couldn’t understand what about his comment could make him blush.

“Do you need another taxi?” he asked, changing the tone of the conversation.

Eve thought about his question.
Do I?
she wondered.

“Do you remember the guy I came in with about ten o’clock this evening? The tall guy, dark, he drives a BMW?” She waited. “We checked in together a couple of nights ago.” She knew this man hadn’t registered them but hoped he might remember Daniel.

“Detective Hively,” he said, nodding. “Sure, I remember Daniel,” he added. “Nice guy, comes here a few times every year.”

Eve smiled, remembering that the staff did seem to know who Daniel was. “That’s him,” she responded. “Did you by any chance see him come by here tonight?”

The man didn’t answer right away. Eve thought it was a simple enough question and waited. She didn’t understand the hesitation. Either he had seen him or he hadn’t.