Booker Brothers Detective Agency Box Set Page 4

  “Your purse was a cylinder,” I said, using my hands to mime the shape in mid-air. “A long tube, like this. It would have easily held the painting, if you rolled up the canvas and stuffed it in.”

  Portia stared at me, frozen faced, for a long moment before speaking. “Well, well,” she said, turning to my boss. “The young one is a lot smarter than she looks.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I think.”

  Portia leaned back against her chair and crossed her arms. She didn’t look at all ashamed to be caught and exposed as an art thief. If anything, she looked gleeful.

  Lucky said, “Level with us, Portia. What do you want out of this game?” The couch he and I were sharing shifted with a squeak as Lucky leaned forward in anticipation. His perennial grin looked almost maniacal. “Tell me what you want, and we can both get something out of this situation.”

  “How so?” Portia kept her arms crossed, but she also leaned forward. Her strings of pearls lifted away from her bony clavicle.

  Lucky shrugged. “If your goal is to stir up some trouble, we could work together for maximum effect.”

  His words hit me like a splash of icy cucumber water. Was he actually conspiring with our chief suspect?

  She nodded for him to keep talking.

  “My brothers and I could drag out this investigation for weeks,” Lucky said. “That would give us a chance to pad the billable hours.”

  His words hit me like more waves of cold water. My heart sunk. My suspicion had unfortunately been immediately confirmed. Lucky wanted to bilk Mr. Leo Fitz out of money. Lucky Booker might have been a skilled investigator, but he wasn’t a good one. Not when it came to morals.

  Portia listened with gleeful anticipation as Lucky elaborated.

  “After a few weeks, my assistant and I can discover the painting somewhere,” he said. “How about...” He looked up at the shimmering water reflections dancing across the high ceiling. “How about we miraculously locate the painting at a thrift store?”

  Portia clapped her hands. “An original Hannah Otto, at a thrift store! Brilliant. I love it.”

  “I would, of course, cut you in on the profits,” Lucky said.

  “No need,” she replied. “Leo’s suffering is all the payment I need.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  She smiled maliciously. “The girls are going to die when they hear about this.”

  “The girls?”

  She waved a hand. “Never mind about them. Do you have a particular thrift store in mind?” Her gaze fell down to his tropical shirt. “Perhaps the one where you do your wardrobe shopping?”

  Lucky sucked in air between his teeth, pretending to be offended. “Ouch.” He waved a finger at her. “You are a very naughty girl, Portia.”

  “Meow.” She pretended to be a cat licking her front paw.

  My head was swimming. I felt like I might float up out of my body. Was I dreaming, or were Lucky and Portia actually flirting while conspiring to defraud her ex? I shouldn’t be here, I thought. This isn’t the job for me. This isn’t the life for me.

  They paid no attention to me as they talked about LA’s secondhand stores and pawn shops. The whole excruciating time, I felt like a coiled spring that was getting tighter and tighter. Any minute, I might break.

  I couldn’t sit by and listen to my new boss conspire with a criminal to defraud a client. Wouldn’t that make me a criminal, too? I wasn’t a Goody Two Shoes, but I had my limits.

  What I needed was to talk to someone sensible. Someone who I could count on for wisdom.

  Susan. Her name came to me from the recesses of my mind like a bright orange life preserver. I could always count on Susan for sage advice. And, best of all, she was only a phone call away.

  Just thinking about Susan made me feel like I could breathe again.

  “Pardon me,” I said, interrupting the conspirators.

  They both stared at me like I’d grown horns.

  I smiled sweetly. “May I use your bathroom?”

  “Mine? Use whichever one you’d like, dear.” She waved me toward the hallway, then returned to talking strategy with Lucky.

  CHAPTER 5

  I made my way down the penthouse’s all-white hallway. There were multiple doors, all closed and unmarked. I opened one door at random and peered inside. The room had a white, marble-tiled floor and matching bathroom fixtures. First try!

  Once inside the bathroom, I locked the door and went to the sink. Despite the chilly, Antarctica air-conditioning in the penthouse, I was sweating. First day nervousness. Plus, witnessing my new boss break umpteen detective rules.

  I ran some cold water and splashed my cheeks with both hands.

  Like the rest of the penthouse, the bathroom was entirely white. It was also gigantic, bigger than some apartments I’d lived in. There was a luxurious bathtub, gleaming counters, and two sinks. There was even a bidet. People didn’t put bathtubs and bidets in powder rooms, which meant I must have barged my way into Portia Fitz’s personal washroom. Oops. So much for finding the guest powder room on my first try.

  I dried my face and sat on the edge of the tub, grateful for the cool surface under my butt. The tub was enameled iron, not scratched-up fiberglass like the one in my apartment.

  The sound of Lucky’s laughter floated into the bathroom. He was having a wonderful time, scheming with Portia. They were cut from the same cloth. What was I supposed to do? Shut my mouth and play along?

  I pulled my phone from my purse and made a call to someone I knew would give me a fresh perspective.

  A cheery voice rang out on the other side of the call. “Sunshine Temporary Placement Agency, this is Susan Mater speaking. How may I help you today?”

  The sound of Susan’s voice made my shoulders settle down two inches.

  “Susan, it’s Kacey. I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’m cut out for this job at the detective agency.”

  “Kacey!” She sounded genuinely happy to be hearing from me. “Oh, honey. First day jitters happen to everyone. I’m sure you’re doing a wonderful job. You’re a smart, talented, capable young woman. You can do anything you set your mind to. Anything at all!”

  A pep talk. I should have expected as much. Susan was a delightful woman with whom I’d struck up an unlikely phone friendship. She was almost twice my age, forty-two, and had three children, all boys. We’d never met in person, yet I knew as much about her as I did about friends I’d grown up with. Last month, she’d admitted it wasn’t company policy to do daily checkups on temps. She called because she enjoyed our chats about our favorite movies and the cute actors we had crushes on. “With my house full of guys, I don’t get much girl talk,” she’d said through giggles. “Plus, I can live out my actress fantasies through you.” I’d told her the whole point of getting a permanent placement was to put the actress dream on ice, but she’d placed me at the detective agency with the assurance I wouldn’t have to stick it out for long before my big acting break came along.

  She took in a deep breath to continue her pep talk, but I cut her off.

  “This job just isn’t for me,” I said. “The problem is...” Lucky Booker. He’s a bad boy with a good face. Like our favorite bad boy actors. He’s trouble! But I didn’t say any of that. I didn’t want to speak ill of my employer and be labeled a complainer. “Okay, maybe the problem is me,” I said resignedly.

  “I sense there’s more to the story, Kacey. A lot more. This isn’t like you to give up so easily.”

  I sidestepped her invitation to gossip and stuck to the point. “Susan, what about those other jobs we talked about last week? I’m changing my mind about a permanent placement. Temporary is great.”

  “I knew it,” she said with gusto. “You’re too good an actress to give up already!”

  “You got me,” I lied. “I’ve decided to keep my acting options open. Now, can you switch me to a temp job? Right away this week would be great since I can’t exactly act my way out of paying rent.”

&nb
sp; There was the rat-a-tat sound of rapid keystrokes. “Oopsy daisy,” Susan reported back. “Those jobs I told you about before have all been snapped up. There’s not much else available.”

  “Not much?” Desperation made my voice rise to a squeak. “But there is something?”

  More keystrokes, then an ominous hmmm.

  “What?” I asked. “I’m not picky, Susan. You know that.”

  “There is one place that’s hiring... but...” More keystrokes. “Oopsy daisy! I’m surprised my boss took this one. This is the sort of thing we usually don’t touch with a ten-foot pole.”

  “Is it unethical? Illegal? Immoral?” Would I be jumping from the frying pan into the fire?

  “There’s a house cleaning company that’s expanding in Los Angeles right now. Rapid growth. They do residential cleaning services, and they’re doing a ton of promotion. They offer a free house cleaning to get clients hooked. By the looks of their hiring quota, business is going extremely well. Gangbusters.”

  “I can clean houses, Susan. I’ve done worse. When can I start?”

  She answered hesitantly. “You could check in tomorrow for training and, uh, uniform fitting.” More keyboard typing, then a gasp. “Oh, dear. It’s worse than I thought. Never mind about this one. I’ll find something better for you. Stick it out with the detective agency for the rest of the week, and I’ll see what I can do for Monday.”

  Five days of being Lucky Booker’s sidekick? By Friday we’d probably be robbing banks.

  “What’s wrong with the cleaning company?” I asked.

  “You have to wear a French maid uniform.”

  “So?” I’d worn uniforms for jobs before. Every fast food place had a uniform.

  “There’s a photo on file. Oh, Kacey, it looks like something... like something a filthy mistress would wear!” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “It makes the Hooters uniform look tasteful and conservative.”

  “Gotcha,” I said, shuddering as the idea made my skin crawl. Maybe the cleaning company was a legitimate one with a creative marketing strategy, but more likely it was the sort of place that preyed on all the hopeful young women who flocked to LA with big dreams of stardom. The sort of place everyone back home warned me about.

  “I wish I could help you more,” Susan said. “Can you stick it out a few more days with this job? What’s wrong, anyway?”

  “You tell me if something’s wrong,” I said, then I told her all about my first day. Getting grilled by Tippy Booker. Taking notes in the meeting and speaking up only to embarrass myself. Then being treated like Lucky’s partner in crime.

  Susan chuckled. “And you thought detective work would be all about helping people and getting justice.”

  “I’m so naive.” I sighed into the phone. “I’m such a cliché, aren’t I?”

  “You’re just young,” she said. “To be perfectly honest, your day sounds a heck of a lot more fun than a whole week of what I do. Mondays are the worst. Before you called, I was building a rubber ball out of elastic bands.”

  “Again? What happened to Bouncey?” I’d heard about her first rubber ball, and the name she gave it.

  “It’s time Bouncey got a girlfriend.”

  I feigned interest, and Susan talked about her plans for a new ball made entirely of red rubber bands to go with Bouncey, the blue ball. I listened and stared at the bathroom door. A sense of calm washed over me. My morning had been tough, but at least I hadn’t been bored into building toys out of office supplies and giving them names.

  After a moment, I said, “It’s been good to hear your voice, Susan.”

  She exhaled audibly. “Yes. I suppose we should both get back to our jobs. You know what? If it’s so bad there, I can authorize you to go home right now. You’ll still get paid for the full day.”

  “No need,” I said, swinging my arm to get some bravado in my voice. “I can do this. It’s just first day jitters.”

  “That’s my girl,” she said.

  We said our goodbyes, then I refreshed my makeup and got ready to face my boss again.

  I yanked open the door. To my utter bafflement, the door didn’t lead to the hallway. This wasn’t the door I’d come in through. This one led to a closet full of clothes. The bathroom had two identical doors, and I had gotten them mixed up.

  Like the bathroom, the closet was spacious and gleaming white, except for the clothes, which were mostly black. The closet looked like a magazine advertisement for luxurious storage systems. Some of the white cabinets had glass doors protecting red-carpet-worthy gowns. Hidden lighting strips cast a soft glow on everything, making countless sequins sparkle. At the center of the room was a jewelry display case, all glass and mirrors, reflecting a seemingly infinite sea of gemstones and gold. The only splash of color was a red, velvet-covered settee, perfect for a dainty lady to recline on with a glass of champagne

  I didn’t dare enter the closet, but my eyes took it all in greedily. Portia had not one, but two towering cases full of purses. My greedy eyes stopped with a start on one purse in particular. It was a long cylinder, like a quiver for arrows. The one she’d used to smuggle the painting!

  Something took hold of me. Call it curiosity, or, better yet, call it a renewed commitment to my job as a junior investigator. I stepped into the closet, walked past the gleaming jewelry and the red fainting couch, and grabbed the purse. Was the painting we’d been hired to find still inside?

  My lungs felt spacious like my chest was expanding, yet I couldn’t catch my breath. My head felt like a helium balloon that might float away.

  I yanked open the purse.

  No painting.

  Crushing disappointment brought me back to earth. My arms drooped from my shoulders. Even my head felt heavy.

  “No way,” I groaned under my breath.

  Not only was there no painting inside the purse, but there wasn’t even room for a painting. The purse had a false bottom, and the lower two-thirds were filled with something solid yet lightweight. Foam, probably. It made sense, now that I was looking inside the purse. Portia’s arms were skinny and long enough to reach the bottom, but it wouldn’t be very dignified to be rooting around for her lipstick at the bottom of such a long tube.

  Could she have removed the foam for the night of the party? I checked. It was glued in securely.

  I put the purse back on the shelf and stared at it.

  Something didn’t add up.

  If the purse couldn’t hold the painting, had Portia used a different method to smuggle out the painting?

  Had she even stolen it at all?

  I reviewed the exchange between Portia and Lucky. They say hindsight is twenty-twenty. I couldn’t recall every word spoken, but Portia hadn’t seemed to know about the painting until Lucky had spelled it all out for her.

  The airy feeling returned to my chest. I was onto something! Portia wasn’t playing a game on her ex. She was playing one on Lucky.

  But you can’t play a player. Lucky must have known she was playing him.

  In this new light, my boss’s actions weren’t so reprehensible after all.

  * * *

  I was bursting with excitement to tell him about my findings with the purse, but I had to wait until we were alone.

  It didn’t take long for him to conclude his scheming with Portia then for her to show us out of the penthouse.

  As soon as we were alone in the building’s hallway, I told him. Everything.

  His response was to grin and say, “You were snooping around in Portia’s closet? Wow. I had no idea you were so devious.”

  “Curious,” I said. “It was curiosity.”

  “Sure, it was,” he said knowingly.

  We’d reached the elevator, but rather than press the call button, he turned on his heel and marched back to Portia’s penthouse.

  He banged on the door and said, “Open up, Portia, you naughty girl!”

  She must not have gotten far, because she opened the door immediately.

 
“Did you forget something, Mr. Booker?”

  “Proof,” he said. “If you have Leo’s painting, prove it.”

  She clutched a hand to her chest and blinked rapidly. Some wrinkles broke free of the Botox and fillers. “I wouldn’t keep that hideous thing in my residence.”

  “Tell me something,” he said. “Did you damage the painting when you rolled it up and stuffed it in your purse?”

  She pressed her lips together tightly, then spat out, “Of course not. I was very careful.”

  “Hah!” Lucky thumbed in my direction. “You didn’t use your purse to smuggle anything. My assistant found it in your closet. That purse is full of foam. You didn’t steal the painting.”

  She leaned limply against the door frame. Tiredly, she said, “I didn’t take anything from Leo’s party.”

  “You only went along with what I said because you wanted to mess with your ex-husband,” Lucky said. “Why? Leo’s a good guy. He invited you to his party. Why would you want to mess with him?”

  “He’s a good guy, maybe, but he’s a lousy husband. The only thing he really cares about is that ridiculous dog, Fiona.” She rolled her eyes. “He should have married her.”

  Lucky nodded. “Maybe he should have.”

  Portia’s eyes unfocused. Dreamily, she said, “And I should have listened to Leo’s friend August and married him instead. Now, August, there’s a good man!”

  “We all make mistakes,” Lucky said.

  Portia didn’t say anything. Her maid or assistant appeared behind her, asking if everything was okay. Portia shooed the young woman away with a careless hand fling.

  “I’m feeling a bit annoyed with you, Portia,” Lucky said.

  She snapped to attention like a dog being summoned. “Oh?” She leaned toward him eagerly. “Annoyed, you say?”

  “That’s right. You did waste my time, but you can make it up to me by telling me who actually stole the painting.”

  She tipped her head back and let out an unladylike laugh. When she’d composed herself, she said to Lucky, “You could start by looking at all the other women Leo’s loved then tossed aside, but I should warn you, it’s a pretty long list!”