Nick held out his hand. “Thank you, Oliver.”
The man hesitated. “If we could speak out here a second?”
Nick didn’t budge. “Do you bring a check or not?”
“Nick—”
“Check or not? Simple question.”
“Quint said no.”
Nick’s eyes simmered. “Does my brother understand that this is a piece of evidence in an investigation that he himself needs to keep quiet? That if this piece of evidence gets into the wrong hands, we’ll have cops breathing down our necks and a PR tsunami?”
Oliver wasn’t rolling over. “Quint said you need to come talk to him first.”
Nick started shaking his head, his jaw clenched. Oliver looked concerned, but didn’t say anything. Nick pulled out his wallet and handed me four crisp hundreds.
He shoved his chair back. “There. See if you can at least make a down payment. Can you find your way back out? I have to go yell at my brother now.”
I stood too. “Absolutely.”
Trey returned my call just as I reached the car. “I got your message,” he said. “Did you say something about a giant cactus?”
I pulled out my keys. “The quick and dirty is this: can you buy a ridiculously expensive piece of ridiculous art and maybe or maybe not get reimbursed for it? Because if you can’t, your missing bullet may be headed to Burning Man, where who knows—”
“Yes. I can.”
“Cool. I just texted you the contact info.”
Across the parking lot, I saw a female figure marching toward my car fast and angry, fists pumping like a really aggressive fitness walker. Addison. Her black hair swished as she pushed her sleeves up, and even from a distance, I could see the fury in her eyes.
I unlocked the door but didn’t get inside. “Uh oh. Enraged fiancée headed my way.”
“What’s happened?”
“Stay on the line and find out.”
I slipped the phone into my back pocket as Addison came around my car. “What in the hell did you say to him?” she said. “His pulse rate is through the roof.”
“I suspect that has more to do with Quint than me.”
Addison didn’t seem to hear me. “You need to back the hell off. I know how your type operates, and I won’t have it.”
My type? I pushed up my sleeves too. “Listen. I am in no way putting the moves on Nick Talbot. I have zero interest. But you, you interest me a lot.”
She looked startled. “What?”
“Oh yes, you are definitely a person of interest. Let’s start with—”
My phone vibrated through my jeans. Insistently. I didn’t have to look to know who was texting me. I closed my mouth and took a deep breath. Don’t say anything, I told myself. Do not mention her and Diego’s actual relationship. Do not bring up that she lied about her whereabouts the night of Nick’s attempted shooting. Do not explain that if those lab results show he was indeed overdosed, and that if we really do pull a bullet from that cactus, then she was going to be our prime suspect.
I yanked open the car door. “Never mind.”
She glared. “Upset him again and you’re fired.”
I got in the car. “Guess what, Buttercup? You didn’t hire me, so you can’t fire me.”
“No. But I can make Nick do it.”
“Probably. And then when the next shooter doesn’t miss, you can explain to the prosecutor why ditching the people trying to protect him seemed like a great idea.”
At the word “shooter,” her cheeks flared crimson, and her eyes flashed behind the glasses. I thought for a second she was going to come at me, and some part of me went liquid and bright at the prospect.
Addison pulled out her radio. “Security. We have a situation in the front parking lot. Make sure the woman in the red hillbilly car leaves the property this instant.”
And then she stomped back toward the production offices. I reached for the seatbelt, put the phone to my ear just as two security guys appeared, Addison pointing helpfully in my direction.
“Are you okay?” Trey said.
“I’m fine. But Addison’s showing her true colors.”
“Indeed.”
I pulled out of the lot, tossed the security guys a little wave. “Thanks for the text.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I was about to start running down the list of every piece of evidence we had on her just to watch her implode with fury.”
“I guessed as much. That would have been counterproductive at this time.”
The security guys watched me leave. Traffic was heavy, dusk falling. The sky had gone gunmetal gray, low cloud cover trapping the day’s heat close to the ground.
“About the cactus,” I said.
“I took care of it.”
“You did?”
“Yes. I’ll explain later tonight. Right now I have to go.”
At the other end of the line, I heard traffic noise. Not Phoenix noises.
“Where are you?”
“Chastain Park. I’m attempting some reconnaissance.”
“Is this more training?”
“No.” A pause. “Would you like to join me?”
“Sure. Reconnaissance sounds fun.” I pulled onto the highway. “You’re not claiming this is your turn at date night, are you? Because if there’s no making out, it’s not date night. And reconnaissance does not sound conducive to making out.”
“It’s not. Will you come anyway?”
I thought about that. I did love stake-outs. There was something about the darkness and the hush, two people in a car, the danger and subterfuge.
“Who are we surveilling?”
“Not a who, a what. The Talbot estate. I’ll text you the coordinates.”
“I thought you said you were in the park?”
“I am. I’ll explain when you get here.”
And then he hung up.
Chapter Thirty-one
By the time I got to Chastain Park, the last smear of sunset was dying at the horizon. The coordinates Trey had dropped me put his location east of the Talbot home, across Powers Ferry at the edge of the park trail. I checked my phone again. Supposedly I was standing right beside him, but he was nowhere in sight.
I pushed down a ripple of panic and thumbed him a quick
