A twig cracked behind me and I started to turn, thinking our raccoon buddy might have come back looking for handouts, when a voice said, “Put your hands up and turn around slowly.”
Danielle and I shot each other scared looks and raised our hands to ear level. We shuffled around to find ourselves facing an athletic-looking woman in a tight brown T-shirt, those camouflaged pants that the military wears, and high-top trainers. She had medium-length brown hair flecked with gray and the no-nonsense attitude of a prison warden or junior high teacher. She also had a gun, a very large pistol, pointed at me and Danielle.
“This is private property,” the woman said, her gaze flicking over us, summing us up. “What are you doing here?” Her voice was crisp, authoritative, and I wondered if she was a ranger.
“Not hunting,” I said, in case she thought we were shooting deer or turkeys out of season. Danielle gave me a funny look.
“I never thought you were,” the woman said drily, looking me up and down.
What-my lemon-and-lime tiered skirt and matching peasant blouse didn’t qualify as hunting togs? I narrowed my eyes at her. “This is my fiance’s cabin,” I said, not mentioning the ex part or the dead part. “What are
“Oh, good Lord.” She lowered the gun and I heard Danielle let out a deep breath. “You’re Graysin? Anastasia Graysin?”
“Stacy,” I said automatically. “Hey, wait, how do you know my name?”
“I’m an investigator,” she said. “I work for Phineas Drake.” The gun hand went behind her back and reappeared without the gun. She stepped toward me, hand outstretched. “Mary Pearce.”
I shook her hand, introduced Danielle, and asked, “Where’s your car?”
“On that gravel road, just past the turnoff for this place. I hiked up. I heard your car and stepped into the woods, thinking I’d see what you were up to.” Mary’s eyes scanned the clearing. “I can’t say I found much.”
“Did you cut the padlock?”
She shook her head. “Nope. It was like that when I got here. So was the window. That big coon gave me a scare, though, I can tell you. He huddled in a corner and growled at me the whole time I was in the cabin. Not that it took long to search it-there’s squat-all in there.”
“What were you looking for?”
“A lead on Victoria Bazan. Drake wants me to find her.”
“Do you have any identification?” Danielle asked suddenly.
With an amused smile, Mary pulled a business card and a driver’s license from one of the deep pockets on her camo pants. “Here.” She handed them to Danielle, who studied them and gave the license back with a nod, passing me the business card. It read PEARCE PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS and had the usual assortment of contact info.
“Have you got any leads on Victoria?” I asked.
Mary scratched at a mosquito bite on her arm. “Nothing definitive,” she hedged. “You?”
I shook my head. “I haven’t seen her since she ran off with my wallet Saturday night. Oh, if you’ll be talking to Mr. Drake sometime soon, you might mention that someone set a fire in my dance studio last night.”
“You think it was Victoria?”
The thought startled me. “It never crossed my mind.”
There didn’t seem to be much else to say, so I looked at Danielle and we moved toward the Volkswagen. “Want a lift back to your car?” I asked Mary.
She shook her head. “Nah. I might stick around here for a bit, see if anyone else shows up. Looks like the place has been busier than a costume store in October, so I might get lucky.”
“You’ll let me know if you find anything?”
“I’m sure Drake will be in touch.”
“Nice meeting you,” Danielle said as we got in the car and started off. Rather than make an eight-point turn in the small clearing, I drove around the cabin and headed back down the one-lane road. Mary Pearce stood in one spot and watched us, not moving until after we were out of sight.
“Do you think she was on the up-and-up?” Danielle asked.
“She must be. How else would she know my name and Victoria’s, not to mention Phineas Drake’s?”
“I guess you’re right.” Danielle settled back into her seat and occupied herself trying to pick up a radio station. “There was just something about her.”
“She was tough.”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe it was the gun.”
“Maybe it was her pointing it at us.”
We drove most of the rest of the way home in reflective silence. As we approached the outskirts of Alexandria, Danielle said, “I talked to Jonah.”
My gaze flitted from the road to my sister’s profile. It didn’t reveal anything. “Good for you. And…?”
“And he actually apologized.”
“Probably scared you were going to report him for sexual harassment.”
“No, he was really sorry. He said he kind of lost it when his wife left him and that he didn’t have a good excuse. He said it would never happen again.”
I wasn’t necessarily buying Jonah’s “I see the error of my ways” routine, but I only said, “As long as you feel comfortable at the office again.”
“I do,” Danielle said, fiddling with the radio tuner. Country music blared out.
“It probably wouldn’t hurt to have Coop pick you up from work one of these evenings and stage a makeout session on your desk or something.”
“Sta-ceee!” She thwapped me and I grinned.
Chapter 18
After dropping Danielle at home in the early afternoon so she could change and go into work, having made a miraculous recovery, I sat at a stoplight and drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. I should go home and see what progress the floor refinisher and the cleaners were making, but the idea had little appeal. I decided now was as good a time as any to have a heart-to-heart with Solange about her interest in the studio. Accordingly, I flipped a U-ey at the light, to the accompaniment of honking horns, and headed to Pentagon City, the upscale mall just up Route 1 from Old Town, where Solange worked part-time at a department store makeup counter. I hoped she wouldn’t be too busy to talk on a Tuesday afternoon.
I was in luck. When I got to the counter, Solange, wearing a pale pink smock and looking as disgustingly gorgeous as ever, was organizing makeup boxes in a bored way. She started when she saw me, then plastered a smile to her face. “Stacy! What are you doing here? Don’t you need to be scrubbing smoke stains off the studio’s walls or something? Such a shame!” Her sympathy was as fake as her smile.
“Cleaning service,” I said briefly. “We’ll be back in business late next week. And speaking of the business, where the hell do you get off trying to buy Rafe’s half of it from Tav?”
Solange leaned forward and indicated an older woman at a nearby cosmetics counter. “That’s my boss. I really can’t stand here and chitchat. If you want to have a conversation, it has to look like I’m selling you something. I could give you a makeover. Heaven knows you could use one. You look like you’ve been digging ditches.” She wrinkled her nose at my makeup-free face, tousled ponytail, and rumpled skirt.
“Oh, all right,” I said, hitching myself up onto the black and chrome stool she indicated.
“We’ll start with a cleansing routine,” she said a bit louder, for the benefit of her boss, I assumed. Nudging a countertop mirror out of the way with her elbow, she set out a variety of bottles, pots, compacts, and pencils.
“Let’s start with why you want to buy into the studio,” I said from the corner of my mouth as she swabbed my skin with a soaked cotton ball. The chill was refreshing.
