LITMIR.BIZ

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lab results aren’t even in yet. That’s how sure they are.”

      Rick’s jaw clenched so tightly he could hear a click in his ears. “How sure they are? How could they be sure of anything at this point? Maybe it’s how anxious they are to be rid of this case. Did you ever think to ask yourself why, Mimi? Did it even occur to you that something else might be going on here?”

      Mimi sighed. “I know cover-up is a buzz phrase these days, but it’s a little early for that, don’t you think? I was at the crime scene, and it sure as hell looked like a murder-suicide to me.”

      That’s what Rick had been waiting to hear from her, but he didn’t want to look too eager. Better to continue his rant a little longer. “And isn’t that convenient for everyone concerned. They’re not even going to bother with the lab reports? Either that came down from above, which raises more questions, or these guys are lazy.”

      Mimi shrugged, as if to say probably both. She peered at Rick. “If it were me, I’d write it off as a coincidence. Do you think it might be your history, not to mention animosity, toward the department that’s causing you to look for conspiracies where there are none?”

      “My history is exactly why I can’t write it off.” With that, he changed the subject. “Take another look at that card. Do you recognize the name?”

      “Lane Chandler?” She shook her head. “Should I?”

      “We booked her for prostitution when she was a juvenile living on the streets—fifteen years old, to be exact. She was calling herself Lane Chandler, but her real name was Lucy Cox.”

      Mimi rolled back in her chair, stunned. She stared at the card. “Holy shit, this is the kid that set off the firestorm. You might still be working in vice if not for her. Me, too, for that matter.”

      “I never shed a tear about leaving vice. The point is, Lane Chandler has a criminal past, even if she was a juvenile at the time—and we need to know what she’s been doing since. Does she have an adult record, anything at all? I’d love to know how she ended up with clients like the CEO of TopCo and a hot commodity like Simon Shan.”

      “She represents Simon Shan?”

      Mimi’s eyes widened. Apparently Shan was a hot commodity. Rick didn’t keep up with celebrity gossip, but he’d seen enough of it on Gotcha.com to know that Lane’s service had become a lightning rod. The coincidence of so many clients in trouble at one company had not slipped Seth Black’s attention, either. Of the bunch, Shan had been cited as the one with the most to lose.

      That was before Ned Talbert died under gruesome circumstances, but Ned wasn’t mentioned as a client of TPC, which meant the list had probably been made up before he joined—and Black had noticed the pattern even before Ned’s death.

      Rick added some more names. “U.S. congressman Burton Carr and Priscilla Brandt, who’s hawking a book about manners. It’s quite a list.”

      “Ms. Pris?” Mimi seemed impressed. “Still, the case is all but closed, and they’re not going to open it up again because Ned joined a concierge service whose clients are having a string of bad luck. So, what do you think is going on?”

      “I don’t know, but I sure as hell wish I’d listened to what Ned was trying to tell me.”

      She scribbled down a note on her desk blotter, which was unlikely ever to be found again, given all the doodling already there. “Maybe I could do some checking on Lane Chandler or Lucy Cox, just for old time’s sake and because I’m kind of curious myself. Not that I owe you any favors. Because I sure as hell don’t.”

      “Thanks,” he said, deadpan. Better not to let her know that he was breathing easier. He lingered, wondering how to segue to his next concern.

      She ripped open a bag of chips, about to wedge a few too many into her open mouth, when she realized he was still intent on something—her. “What? You hungry?”

      “I was just wondering about the evidence from the crime scene. No big deal, but I left a package over at Ned’s. I thought one of the techs might have picked it up.”

      “Rick, you’re not really asking me to mess with the evidence, are you? Tell me you’re not.”

      He shrugged, tilting just enough to grab a couple chips from her bag. He was taking a chance by tying himself with the package, but what the hell. Getting caught with his hand in a fifteen-year-old cookie jar was the least of his worries these days, especially with his gut telling him the package had been lifted before the police ever got there. Mimi might be able to confirm that for him.

      “You could tell me if it’s there, couldn’t you?” he coaxed. “It’s an old brown bubble pack, eight by eleven, unmarked but pretty beaten up. I’d like to have it back when the investigation’s over.”

      “What’s inside?”

      “Personal stuff,” he said, wondering if he could still blush. “It’s a little embarrassing.”

      She heaved a sigh and picked up her sandwich, poking a bubble of red jelly back between soggy crusts. “Don’t push it, Rick.”

      He nodded. “Right, I’ll leave you to your lunch.” He had a feeling she would check. Yeah, definitely, Mimi was going to check. It was that Peeping Tom thing. Whether she’d tell him was another question.

      10

      Rumor had it that the King of Rumors was agoraphobic. Seth Black of Gotcha.com had been outed as housebound by rival gossip Web sites. That’s what had given Rick the idea of staking out the man’s surprisingly modest apartment in the Hollywood Hills area. Either online gossip didn’t pay well—which wasn’t likely since the gossip sites were now scooping the mainstream media and forcing the big guys to go to them for entertainment news—or Black was a frugal man. Possibly he was too housebound to relocate. Regardless, he’d broken Ned’s murder-suicide story hours before the mainstream press had, and Rick was curious how the thirty-two-year-old agoraphobic got his information.

      Rick bowed his head for a moment and dug his fingers into the aching muscles of his temples. He could feel the fatigue of his nonstop day. He’d been parked down the street from Black’s place for going on two hours, but so far he’d seen no one except a telephone repairman, who got no answer when he knocked on the door of Black’s ground-floor apartment. Rick had tried Black’s number before he drove over, but the phone went right to voice mail. He was beginning to wonder if Black was home, and if this surveillance idea was a good one.

      That morning, after Rick had the epiphany about Lane Chandler, he’d tracked down the address of Jenny Shu, Ned’s housekeeper, and he’d gone over to pay her a visit. It didn’t surprise Rick to find Jenny upset, but he hadn’t expected a complete collapse. She’d been with Ned for years and Rick knew her well, so of course, he’d knelt down to hug the tiny Asian woman, and of course, they’d cried. Her sobs had ripped right through him, and Rick, who had been stoic until now, broke. Grief had washed through him until he shook, and Jenny had tried her best to comfort him. Maybe it was as simple as seeing someone else who knew and loved Ned.

      Rick was sure his meeting with Jenny was a large part of what had exhausted him so completely. When they’d regained their composure, she’d patted his face and told him how sorry she was. She invited him in for tea, but he’d known he couldn’t take her up on that. Reminiscing about Ned would have killed him. The pain she’d already touched into had almost killed him. He did manage to ask her about the package, but she’d seen nothing that matched his description, and he was satisfied with that. He couldn’t ask her about what she’d witnessed when she arrived at the scene. Neither one of them could have handled that conversation. Maybe another time. Maybe.

      After that, Rick had gone home to eat and get some rest. Good intentions, but somehow he’d found himself at the computer for another look at Seth Black’s site. That’s where he’d discovered that Black, with the help of Jack the Giant Killer, was routinely scooping not only the mainstream press, but all the other online

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