I got out of bed hunched over, feeling like I’d been run over by a Mack truck. She weighs only a hundred thirty pounds to my two thirty, so my being a god might’ve been a slight exaggeration.
Breakfast was a five-egg omelet for me, a three-egg omelet for her, both of them loaded with three kinds of cheese and—sautéed in coconut oil—red and orange sliced peppers, diced ham, mushrooms, spinach, and pine nuts.
We sat at her dining table with a view of grass, trumpet vines, lavender, and a good-sized maple tree in her backyard. On the table was a championship belt buckle and a first-prize check for fifteen thousand dollars, of which Uncle Sam would want roughly four thousand for having been such a big help with her training. If she forgot, the IRS would make sure the transfer of funds took place in a timely fashion because the IRS is such a helpful organization, pretty much like your favorite aunt.
I held her hand and said, “I can see you naked on a bike in the streets of San Fran,” which was a terrific opening line, designed to get me back upstairs within the hour.
She smiled, looked me in the eye. “Pretty weird, huh?”
“Sure, but I can still see you on that bike, having the time of your life. You and Holiday.”
“You mean Sarah?”
“Nope. Holiday. That’s her name when she’s feeling her oats.”
Jeri looked down at her orange juice then back up. “So what’s my name when I’m like that?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen you like that. I mean, in public, which is where the difference lies.”
She looked out the window. “I’ll think about it. If you come up with something fun, let me know.”
“Will do. So, now that we’ve got two critical hungers out of the way—”
“For now.”
“For now, yes, though I might have to run you back upstairs as soon as this food settles—just, you know, to top things off. But there’s something I think you should know about Reinhart and Sarah’s sister, Allie.”
She stared at me. “The way you said Reinhart and Allie . . .”
Sharp.
“There might be a connection.”
She tilted her head, waiting for more. So I laid it out, the phone call from Allie when Holiday and I were in the Green Room, the Mercedes SUV at Gerlach with a young girl in the passenger seat and a thirty-something woman driving, the package shipped from Bend, old Fred Meyer checking out girls with binoculars and the SUV stopping at the drop box, a young, pretty girl that looked a lot like Allie getting out, putting a package in the same box Reinhart’s hand was left in, an older woman driving that SUV.
“Jesus, Mort.”
“Yeah. I oughta wear a cape.”
“Not that. What I mean is, what a pile of coincidences.”
“It’s a pile, all right.”
“The girl got out, put the package in that box, so it’s not like she was being held prisoner or anything.” Jeri stood up. “C’mon.”
“Where to?”
“Computer.”
I guessed our new bed was going to be put on hold for a few. Jeri had that PI look, the kind of focus I’d seen on Sarah’s face when she was studying and everything else was put on a back burner.
Jeri turned on her computer.
“What’re you lookin’ for, honey bun?” I asked, trying to show interest since I’m a PI in training as well as a love object.
The honey bun thing didn’t faze her, didn’t slow her down, so this was serious. “A green Mercedes SUV?” she said. “That deputy said it wasn’t a year old. A G550, right? He would know. There can’t be a lot of those around.”
She got into the DMV database, typed in the information, and sat there staring at the screen.
“How long does this usually take?” I asked.
“Depends.”
Which meant it was one of those experience things. This was what that ten thousand hours of training was supposed to hone to a razor edge. I sat on a hard wooden chair and stared at the screen with her, honing that razor.
A list appeared on the computer monitor. Jeri hit keys and the list reordered itself. “Registered owners,” she said, peering at it. She read off several names: “Eikelberger, Harris, Newcomb, Odermann, Quist, Roberts, Shaw, Szupello, Williams. Did you run across any of those names in Gerlach or Bend with Holiday? Any of them look familiar?”
“Nope.”
“Me either.” She sat there looking at the screen, lips pursed.
“Dead end?”
“You kiddin’? We’re just getting started.”
Well, hell, I didn’t have a thousand hours of training yet. This was going to take a while. My education, that is.
Jeri concentrated on the screen. “Whatcha doing?” I asked.
“Looking at addresses.”
She read them off. “Any of them mean anything to you?”
“Nope.” It was Nevada DMV, so the list was from all over the state. Over half were from Las Vegas, which figured.
Jeri pursed her lips. “Okay. Now, we have to dig deeper. Maybe none of these are that SUV, but we don’t know. If it was from out of state, especially California, then we’re probably screwed. Okay, next up are legal owners, lien holders, which, since that Mercedes was almost new, might mostly be banks, credit unions, Mercedes corporation financing.”
Which they were, with a few exceptions. But none of that felt like it was getting us any closer to who was driving that SUV.
Jeri leaned back, frowning.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Now . . . I guess I’ve got to pull out the big gun.”
“Now you’re talkin’.”
She smiled at me. “You don’t have any idea what the big gun is, do you?”
I looked down at myself. “Hell, yes. What do you think we were—?”
“Oh, jeez. Holiday really wound you up, didn’t she?”
“Not so you’d notice. Well, maybe a little.”
“Not just maybe. I’ll have to meet her in person. We can do something about your gun later, but right now, the big gun is Ma
