Who Glares Wins (Lexi Graves Mysteries) (39 page)

"Keep your phone on. I'll check in with you later." Then Maddox strode away. No kiss, no kind words, no boyfriend-friendliness, just pure cop. I looked after him for one wistful moment
,
then I went outside and did something else that would probably piss him off. I called Solomon.

"I need your help," I told him. "It's kind of a road trip."

"Overnight?"

"No!" I
gasped and
hung up a
s I
hurried over to my car,
deciding it was probably safer to go by myself. The VW was
parked exactly where I left it
. Reaching it, I
sighed. The front driver's side tire was completely deflated. On closer inspection, it looked like someone had hammered a nail into it. Well, at least my car trouble excuse would hold up, even if it seemed like another nasty message aimed at me.

I
dialed
Solomon again.

"Changed your mind?" he asked.

"No. Someone stuck a nail in my tire. Can you pick me up?"

"Can't you change it?"

"I have many talents.
Tire-changing
isn't one of them."

Solomon was quiet, no doubt thinking of my many talents. "Where are you?" he asked at last.

"The hotel. Rear lot. I'm the grumpy one in the black suit."

"Skirt?"

"Yes."

"Heels?"

"What's with you?"

"I'll be there in ten." Solomon hung up
,
and exactly ten minutes later
,
his SUV turned into the lot. He pulled over next to me and I climbed in. "Lot
ta
police out front," he said.

"
Nice shirt.
One of the employees was killed last night." I expl
ained about arranging to meet Greg
and getting hit over the head, waking up to see the corpse's eyes across from mine
,
and how I'd jumped from the balcony.

Solomon absorbed that quietly. The first thing he said was, "You should have called me."

"I panicked."

"Don't panic."

"Easy for you to say. You weren't clubbed by a murderer and left either for dead or to be arrested."

He paused, letting that sink in, his chest rising and falling slowly like he was working hard not to get mad. "I've been in worse situations," he said, eventually.

I didn't doubt it.

"I haven't. That was the worst
."

"Anyone else know about this?"

"Just Lily," I admitted.

"I hate to say this, but you've been made. You aren't going back there alone."

I thought about that. The pissy messag
e. The tire. Being
left
unconscious
to be found by the cops. Yeah, I'd been made
,
alright. "You don't say," I
replied
, a touch to
o
snippily
,
but Solomon let me off. Or didn't choose to answer. Same difference.

On the plus side, no more office work for me. Except, I
was
start
ing
to like the people. And the cookies Amanda kept leaving
for
me. Perhaps I could visit?
I was sure they would be grateful
,
once Sylvia was put away.
I could see Sylvia keen to step up and take over Edward’s job after saving the day so many times but when
I tried to imagine Sylvia with a gun in her hand
I couldn’t picture it
.

"I'm not putting you in the way of danger." Solomon reached around me
;
and for a moment
,
I thought he was going to kiss me
.
I held very, very still, then he buckled me in and put the car in drive. "Where are we going?"

"To get Marissa Widmore."

He frowned, trying to place the name. "The missing person case you wanted?"

"Yes. She was also Edwards Killjoy's last assistant when she disappeared."

"Interesting. He didn't mention that."

"Probably didn't think it was important."

"You think she's part of this?"

"I think she got mixed up in something she couldn't handle. Now we need to get her. If I'm right
,
she's the only person who can tie the saboteur to the crimes.
I’ve been looking for her. I did it in my own time.
"

Solomon considered that
before nodding
.
"You know where she is?"

"I know where I would go if I w
ere
she
and I was frightened."

"Good enough for me. Put the address in the navigation." Solomon pressed a couple of buttons on the screen built into the dashboard and I entered the address
I’d gotten from Elisabeth when I called her earlier, telling her I wanted to check out any places Marissa had been to that she might
feel
some connection to. I declined Elisabeth's offer to check it out
herself
, insisting it was better that I went and I’d call her again soon.

My sister had given me the idea when she told me that if she w
ere
scared and alone, she wouldn't go to someplace
where
she would feel even more alone. Instead, she would go somewhere that felt familiar and safe.

Marissa had vacationed at Elisabeth's family's lake house several times in recent years
,
and knew it would be empty. She’d told Edward how much she loved it there. She
knew
no one was due out
t
here until the next summer
;
and it was isolated enough that she could keep track of any comings and goings.
To
everyone else, it would just look as if she’d vanished.

The Sat Nav
gave us a time of one hour
,
fifteen minutes. I hoped it wouldn't be a two
-
and
-
a
-
half hour wasted round trip. "And now you tell me everything."

Yay.

~

I had a lot of explaining to do
,
and Solomon was an excellent listener, rarely interrupting to ask a question. The SUV purred lightly as we picked up speed on the interstate, traveling south
,
away from Montgomery. Houses made way for industry, which in turn
,
made way for long swathes of green field
s
. My nerves fizzled with
electric
energy and I had a strong urge to cross my fingers.

"I'm not convinced she isn't dead in a ditch somewhere," said Solomon when he finished absorbing
what I told him
. He did
tak
e
interest in what I had to say about Marissa's relationship with Edward, and her sudden departure
from both the hotel and her regular life
.

I figured he was convinced enough
, or
we wouldn’t be nearing Lake Pearce.
"There were no signs
that
the saboteur was violent until last night."

"The stabbing?"

"Maddox said it was an argument that got out of hand. There's already been an arrest
,
so I don't think
that had
anything to do with the saboteur. The lights going out, yes, the stabbing, no. It was a coincidence that the two happened at the same time."

"I can work with that."

I twisted in my seat to look at him, surprised by how calmly he was taking all this. "You aren't going to yell at me?"

"No. Why would I?"

"Because I got made." Fletcher would probably rather die than get made. Flaherty had taken a bullet on the job
,
and Delgado would probably kill the first person to look at him in a
way he didn't like.
Lucas
would ruin the credit history of anyone who made him. And Solomon? Solomon was smooth.

"Shit happens," he said, simply.

"I got made," I said,
slumping
a little lower in my seat. So much for showing everyone that I was just as good as the
y
.

"Everyone gets made eventually," said Solomon. "This is your first big job. You'll look back on it and see where you went wrong
,
and you won't make that mistake again."

"Where did I go wrong?" I asked.

"The easiest thing to do is underestimate someone."

I had seriously underestimated someone
,
but who
m
? Amanda? Chef Fabien? Peter or Marta? Louisa? Sylvia
,
with her knack of being everywhere at just the right time?
How easily I’d written off the idea of her killing someone.

"The getting bashed thing worries me a little," continued Solomon, his face dark a
s
he breathed sharply
.
H
is posture
seemed
angry
,
b
ut his grip on the wheel
was
light. He lifted one hand and reached over, moving my hair slightly so he could glance at the receding bump.
"I won't put you in that position again."

It worried me a whole lot
,
but I didn't want to be pathetic about it. I had a bump on the head, but no serious harm done. I would live. And I would get better at my job. And I wouldn't avoid a job because it had the potential to get a little scary.

"I'll be fine," I assured him.

"Maybe you got made," pondered Solomon. "Maybe not. The saboteur might just think you were a nosy temp, like Marissa. Probably
trying to
scare you off when you asked questions that hit too close to home.
And
he or she
didn’t shoot you when they had the chance.
"

"She,
" I corrected, my decision made as I tried not to think about how close I’d come to being killed to
o
.
"She thought she could scare me off."

"Are you sure?"

"That it's Sylvia
?
Y
es. She fits best. She's got the means to get around the hotel without being noticed. She has access to all the systems. She's always on scene when something goes wrong." The
canceled
conferences, the fire, the power cut. She'd been on scene for all of them. I tried to recall where she was yesterday
,
but I couldn't remember seeing her. That didn't mean she hadn't been there, somewhere.

"What's her motive?"

"I'm not sure. The kitchen stuff could be getting
back
at Chef Fabien because of the broken engagement. Maybe she wants to get him fired?"

"And the rest of it?"

"To cover up the kitchen damage? Make it look like it was part of something bigger?"

"Lot of effort to go to."

"I know." I chewed my thumbnail.

"Would you go to that kind of effort to get rid of a guy who wronged you?"

I didn't hesitate. "No, I'd leave." I also had a history of running away to join the
A
rmy, but that didn't count because the man who wronged me hadn't been a colleague. He'd just been an asshole.

"Sylvia could do the same."

"But s
he didn't. She had opportunity
,
and she killed Greg Conlan when she thought he could identify her.”

We took the exit, heading away from the interstate and
down
roads that gradually become narrower, the countryside giving way to
woods. According to the onboard navigation
,
we would soon come out
o
nto a road that led to the houses dotted around the lake.

Solomon took the next left and we continued for about a half
-
mile, finally pulling up in front of a large house. A small blue car was parked outside. I checked the plates aga
inst the notes on my cell phone
.

"This i
s Ally Fields' car," I told him, my spirits lifting.

When we got out, I had everything crossed that we were about to hit pay dirt. As we passed by the car, Solomon pressed the back of his hand to the hood. "Cold," he said. "
You
knock.
I don’t want her to freak out if she sees me.
"