I got out and opened the back for Clyde.
“Let’s see if we can right some wrongs, partner.”
Clyde’s tail fanned the air, and he looked up into my face as if to say, Damn straight.
When I walked into Top-A, the front room was empty. Maybe it was Candy’s day off. I made my way to Kaylee’s office. The door was open, and when I rapped on the jamb, she looked up with wide eyes and a mouth rounded with surprise.
“Oh!” she said as Clyde and I walked in. “I thought the door was locked.”
“Good to see you, too, Kaylee.” I took my old chair across the desk from her. “Nice sweater set. Pink today.”
“Um.” Her ponytail swished. “Thank you?”
I leaned forward and parked my forearms on my thighs. “So, Kaylee. Did you get a chance to talk to your boss about letting me look at those names?”
She blinked. “Names?”
“Names. And phone numbers. For whoever cleaned Mr. Asher’s home. Remember that?”
“Oh.” More blinking. “I forgot.”
“It’s okay.” I placed a piece of paper on her desk. “I have a search warrant now.”
She frowned, picked up the warrant. Studied it. After a moment she dropped the paper as if someone had just informed her it had cooties. Her chest heaved with her sigh.
“Fine,” she said.
She went to work on the computer. In three easy minutes she had the name of the woman who had cleaned Noah’s home. If I didn’t have better things to do, I would have found a reason to slap handcuffs on her and haul her down to the station. Technically, her earlier refusal had been legal. But maybe I could get her for pissing off an officer of the law.
There were more than a dozen dates of service for Noah’s home, November through February. And the same cleaner each time. Aminta Valle.
Excitement fizzed in my blood.
“I need whatever information you have for Miss Valle,” I told Kaylee.
Kaylee went back to typing. After a few seconds, she gave me a shrug no one would mistake for apologetic. “She’s been purged.”
My throat threatened to close at Kaylee’s word choice. “Purged, as in . . . ?”
“Deleted from the system. She must have chosen to end her relationship with Top-A. Or perhaps she was fired. I can’t tell because she’s been—”
“Purged. Let’s move on to your customer database.” I was operating purely on instinct now. “I need to see the files for some of your other clients. I’ll write them down.”
I grabbed a notepad on Kaylee’s desk and made a list.
DASHIELL DONOVAN
RIVERO MARTINEZ
TODD ASHER
RILEY LYNCH
MARKEY BYRON
“Fine.” More typing. “Nothing for Dashiell Donovan.”
Disappointment smacked. I’d been sure I’d found the common thread.
“Or Rivero Martinez. Or Todd Asher.” She rolled her eyes at me. “Keep going?”
“If you would.”
More typing. Then: “Riley Lynch and Markey Byron are customers. What do you want to know?”
Everything. I kept my expression neutral. “Who cleaned their homes?”
“Looks like . . . hmm.” Even more typing, faster now. Apparently, we were clear of what Kaylee considered dangerous territory. “Looks like it’s Erica Flores. Both men have a long-standing request for her. Erica is one of our best team members.”
“So you do allow your customers to request a specific cleaner.”
She swiveled toward me and sniffed. “It’s only because Mr. Lynch and Mr. Byron are friends of Kurt’s.”
Now the excitement popped in my veins like champagne bubbles. “Kaylee, do you know about the Superior Gentlemen?”
“You mean Kurt’s friends?”
“Yes. Kurt’s friends. Is Markey one of them?”
A crease appeared in her smooth forehead, but she nodded.
“And Riley Lynch.”
“Yes.”
Markey was one of the Superior Gentlemen. I’d had the little shit in my hands and let him go.
I kept my voice level. “What other Top-A customers are friends of Kurt’s?”
The crease deepened, and she shook her head. “Just Markey and Riley. And I guess Noah was, too. But all our other customers are businesses.”
Which left Craze as our mystery man. “I need to talk to Kurt. Call him, and tell him to get down here.”
Her chin came up. Defiant. “Kurt’s on vacation. Kona. That’s in Hawaii.”
An uneasy prickling started in my gut. It didn’t feel like the morning’s doughnut. I sat up. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re positive.”
“I’m a very positive person.”
I couldn’t argue. Everything in the office decor reinforced the idea. Stay positive!
Kaylee’s chin rose even higher until she had to look down her nose to make eye contact. “I drove him to the airport myself.”
“Must be true, then. Kaylee, are you familiar with what it means to make false statements to a detective?”
The flawless skin of her forehead wrinkled. “You mean lying?”
“Exactly.”
“But I haven’t!”
“Maybe your memory just slipped a little.” I pulled out the photo of the Superior Gentlemen and set it on her desk. “I showed you a photo the last time I was here. Now I want you to look at it again. And this time I want you to look very, very closely. Do you see anyone you recognize?”
There was a shadow in Kaylee’s eyes now as she gaped at me. Probably thinking that orange wouldn’t go with her skin tone.
“Don’t look at me,” I said. “Look at the picture.”
She complied, bending her head so that her ponytail swung around and covered one eye. When she looked up again, her cheeks sported a vivid shade of pink that clashed with the sweater set.
“Kurt,” she whispered.
“Kurt who?”
“Kurt Inger.”
“Can you please point to Kurt in the photo?”
Up came a manicured finger. Kaylee pointed to our unidentified Superior Gentleman. I allowed myself a small smile. Now we had Noah Asher, Riley Lynch, and Kurt Inger. Perhaps Markey was the photographer. Or maybe he simply hadn’t been there that night.
But we had our Superior Gentlemen.
Only Craze remained a mystery.
And the missing Todd Asher. Whom I was beginning to worry about.
“Just to be sure,” I said. “You’re pointing to the man in the middle, the
