LITMIR.BIZ

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works for an insurance agent, answering the phone.” Aubrey was glad to refocus her energies on her own problems.

      “Why don’t we pay this agent a visit? We can probably catch him before he goes home for the day. He might be able to tell us if Patti’s had any strange visitors at work, or phone calls. She might have even confided the problem to him, asked him to advance her salary or something.”

      “It’s worth a shot, though I doubt she would confide anything in him. She thinks he’s a jerk.”

      They arrived at the Greg Holmes Insurance Agency at five minutes to five. It was a small, one-agent operation, affiliated with one of the less prestigious national firms. The office was a bit run-down, but Beau couldn’t exactly criticize the man for his decorating taste, given where he worked.

      A plump young woman with a discreet tattoo on her wrist looked as if she were about to leave. She stood behind her desk, putting a yellow camp shirt on over her sleeveless blouse. Her skirt was a bit too short for office wear. In fact, with her brassy bleach job and eye makeup à la Tammy Faye, she could have hung out with Jodie and Erin and looked right at home.

      “Can I help you?” she asked, not particularly friendly.

      “I’m a friend of Patti Clarendon,” Beau said.

      “She’s not here. She lit out of here this morning, no explanation, stuck me with answering the phone when I could be out making calls. Hey, are you cops or something?”

      “I’m Patti’s cousin,” Aubrey said. “We’re roommates. I’m a little bit worried about her.”

      Beau silently applauded her. She seemed to know just the right tone to strike with this slightly hostile young woman.

      “You’re Summer, right?” Aubrey continued. “Patti talks about you all the time. She says you’re really good at handling people when they come in all upset.”

      That earned a slight smile from Summer. “People get real wacko sometimes. Usually it’s because they’re embarrassed they’ve wrecked their car.”

      Beau found a chair and picked up a magazine. Aubrey was handling Summer just fine. He’d let her keep going.

      “When Patti left this morning, she didn’t give you any indication of what was wrong?”

      “She got a phone call. She’s not supposed to take personal calls, but she’s got that phone glued to her ear all day. Anyway, after this call, she said she had to go and she’d be gone the rest of the day. Oh, wait, I remember now. She said something about her kid being sick or something, and she had to pick her up from the baby-sitter.”

      “I thought you said she didn’t give an explanation,” Beau couldn’t help asking.

      “I forgot, okay? I got better things to do than keep track of Patti’s soap-opera life.”

      “Why do you think her life’s a soap opera?” Aubrey asked.

      “What, are you kidding? You live with her. She’s got that gross-out ex-husband, Charlie—I think he’s a serial killer in training—and she works in a topless bar and she bangs her boss.” Summer covered her mouth. “Oops, I’m not supposed to know that. But if that isn’t a soap opera, what is?”

      Beau tensed as Aubrey’s eyes got bigger with every word Summer spoke. Come on, babe, don’t blow it now. Summer was spilling her guts to a perfect stranger. Aubrey really did have a knack for this. But she was going to blow it if she freaked out now.

      To her credit, Aubrey managed a smile. “I guess my cousin is a bit colorful. But she’s not as tough as she pretends. She’s in trouble, but I don’t want to call the cops if I don’t have to.”

      At the mention of cops, Summer’s expression closed up. “Hey, I don’t know anything. But you might ask Greg. He knows Patti better than I do. Way better, if you catch my meaning.”

      The girl was as subtle as an army boot.

      “I gotta go. Greg’s in his office,” she said, nodding to a closed door. “He’s got a client with him, and he doesn’t like to be interrupted. But he has to come out eventually.”

      Without any further ado, Summer pulled her purse out of a drawer and left.

      Aubrey sank into the only other chair in the waiting room. “She was sleeping with her boss?” she said in a low voice, sounding appalled.

      “I take it you didn’t know that.”

      “Surely Patti would have told me if she had a new boyfriend. Anyway, she thinks Greg is a jerk. And what was that garbage about a topless bar?”

      “Some of the waitresses at Kink go topless. Or almost.”

      “But she doesn’t work there anymore.”

      “Does she spend all her evenings at home?”

      Aubrey said nothing for a few moments. “I wonder what else she hasn’t told me.”

      Beau stood up and moved behind the desk Summer had just abandoned. “I’m gonna see if Patti left anything helpful in her desk. This is where she usually works, right?”

      “Beau!” Aubrey sounded panicky. “You can’t just search her desk. What if Greg Holmes comes out here and catches you?”

      Beau already had the desk drawer open. “He’ll yell. Big deal.”

      The desk drawer held the usual office supplies—pens and pencils, stamps, rubber bands, paper clips. There were a couple of snapshots of a baby, which Beau assumed was Sara. He tucked these in his pocket. Might be useful later.

      The file drawer held an array of untidy hanging folders. None of the labels sounded promising. They seemed to contain client policies. A drawer on the other side of the desk held more personal items. Beau examined and set aside a box of tissue, a bottle of antacid tablets, a couple of alternative rock CDs—and a brown envelope. He pulled out the paper inside.

      “What is it?” Aubrey asked nervously.

      “Looks like a copy of the document Patti’s boyfriend signed, giving up his parental rights. Was she having trouble with him?”

      “Not recently. Besides, that voice on the phone didn’t sound like Charlie, although…I guess he could have been disguising it. The voice was kind of hoarse and whispery.”

      The murmured voices inside the office got louder, and the doorknob rattled. Beau quickly closed the drawer and scooted out from behind the desk. He pretended to study a picture on the wall of a clown when Greg Holmes’s office door opened.

      “I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know,” said the older of the two men who emerged from the inner office. He wore a suit—cheap and ill-fitting—and sported a determined five-o’clock shadow. His thinning hair was styled in a comb-over.

      He vigorously pumped the hand of the other man, who was younger and kind of punk-looking, with ratty clothes and a scraggly beard.

      The older man, whom Beau assumed was Greg Holmes, stopped suddenly. “Who are you?” he asked in a startled voice, his beady eyes focusing on Beau.

      “Summer told us we could wait here,” Beau said affably.

      The punk looked a little nervous. He made for the exit, as if he didn’t want to prolong any conversation with strangers.

      “Summer knows better than to let customers sit in here unattended,” he muttered angrily. Beau thought he was rather inhospitable for an insurance agent. For all Holmes knew, they could be in the market for millions of dollars’ worth of life insurance.

      “I’m Patti’s cousin, Aubrey Schuyler,” Aubrey said with a smile, extending her hand. “She’s told me so much about you, Mr. Holmes.”

      Holmes softened a bit. Who could blame him? When Aubrey turned those liquid green eyes on a man, he couldn’t help

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