A little night-time breaking and entering at that P.I.’s office—a grimy office in a not very prosperous part of town—was definitely going to be step number one.
* * * *
Brody Carp walked from The Cache to the opened back door of his limo, pausing only long enough to slip the doorman a folded twenty, a courtesy for allowing him in.
Eddie, Brody’s right-hand man, got into the back seat from the other side. Fred, his driver, pulled into traffic. Both men in the back seat remained silent, which was only to be expected. Brody liked a few moments to think, and what he was thinking right at the moment wasn’t anything good—for Vance.
“Impressions?” he asked.
“Dougie was so scared he nearly pissed his pants. I don’t think he’s quite sane, boss. Also, he lied.”
“That’s what I thought, too. He lied.” Brody could have almost recited Vance’s thoughts back there during their impromptu meeting. He was thinking that it was none of Brody’s business, the matter of the inheritance from his great-aunt. He was thinking they had a deal and payment day hadn’t yet arrived.
In Vance’s rarified world, Brody supposed all those things were true.
But they all weren’t living in Vance’s rarefied world. They were living in Brody’s world. A world where Brody decided what would be.
“Does that bozo actually think that he just has to pay you what he owes and that’s the end of things?”
“Apparently.” Brody turned to look at Eddie. They both smiled.
“The man’s a fool,” Eddie said.
“A delusional fool and, as you noted, not completely sane,” Brody said. Their business would be done when Brody said it was done. And if there was a sizeable inheritance to be had, Brody could see no reason whatsoever why the recipient of those mega dollars shouldn’t be him.
But first, he needed to know what was what. Fortunately, he had a means of doing just that. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. He dialed a number from memory. His call was answered on the third ring.
Brody heard the melodious voice and smiled. “Hey, Brenda, it’s me. I need a favor, babe.” He listened then chuckled. “It has been a long time. It just so happens I could use some fun. Tonight?” He nodded his head. Then looked over at Eddie. “No, I’m pretty sure Eddie would be up for that, too.”
Beside him, Eddie grinned like a hyena.
“I’ll send the car for you. In the meantime, I have a question. I’m really hoping you’ll have an answer.”
He told the woman on the other end of the call what he needed. When she told him that she could get him his answer if he’d hold for a moment, he was impressed.
The line was silent for barely two minutes. Brenda came back on the line, talking for more than two minutes, and gave him his answer. He didn’t bother to take notes, of course. He had total recall, one of the many gifts he’d been born with.
“Thank you, baby. We’ll see you tonight.”
He ended the call and looked at Eddie.
“That gleam in your eye tells me you’re hot on the trail, boss.”
“Yes, I am.” Brody made one more call, this time to a man who’d received a call not that long ago.
“Hey, Bobby, it’s Brody. You mentioned that some other PI was on the trail of the heiress Vance was chasing. Did you get a name?” He listened for a moment then nodded. “All right, then. No, don’t contact Vance, and if he calls you again and offers to rehire you, tell him to go to hell.”
Brody tucked his phone away. “Apparently, Vance was expecting a very big payday, thanks to his great-aunt’s death. But the woman changed her will in the last couple of months before she died. Vance only got a half mil, and the bulk of the estate—conservatively estimated to be between five and eight mil—has been left to some granddaughter no one knew existed.”
“Where’s this granddaughter?”
“Now there’s a question. Apparently, the lawyer has hired his own PI to look into that very thing. Some broad.”
“Five to eight million—that could be what you’re waiting for, couldn’t it?”
Brody didn’t have to ask Eddie what he meant. He was getting too old to run all these scams. He’d been thinking, lately, that all he really needed was one good pay day. Just one. Then he could take himself off somewhere that had never heard of Brody Carp. Hell, with that kind of money, he could buy the two of them a couple of new identities—and a nice estate in the tropics.
“What we’ve been waiting for. Yeah, that could be it. Vance is out of funds. I can’t see him looking for this heiress on his own. It’s not in his skillset. The lawyer has an investigator on the case, but according to Bobby, she’s been on the case since before the old woman croaked.”
“We can find her. You and me, we can find that heiress.”
“I do believe we could, if we really applied ourselves.” Brody nodded. “We’ll have ourselves a nice evening with Brenda. Then tomorrow, we’ll handpick a couple of guys for our team and go after this Marissa Jayne Featherstone.”
“No one can make plans the way you do, boss. No one.”
Brody knew it. That was the secret to his longevity in a business that chewed up most men after a decade.
Chapter Twelve
Parker considered himself a man of integrity, and he took pride in the knowledge that he always worked hard. He generally enjoyed summer, mostly because it wasn’t winter. Texas in summer was a heck of a lot hotter than Montana. What continued to surprise him, though, was the amount of humidity.
For some reason, he’d always pictured Texas as hot, dry, and dusty. Hot with breath-stealing humidity was going to take some getting used to. Still, he
