Beverly Long - Power Play

There’d been couples holding hands. And groups of young women, one in particular caught his eyes because they were all dressed in white, except one who wore all black with a white sash across her chest that said Bride. They’d been laughing like loons and he’d easily dismissed them.

It was the young men who got and caught his attention. Especially those who were loud and obnoxious and seemed to think that everybody on the strip was interested in how many four-letter words they knew. It reminded him of the drunk and his friends, of the terror he’d seen on Kellie’s face when he’d pulled the idiot off her.

So instead of going home, he’d taken up a post where he could see into the lobby of Lavender’s building to know if the drunk came back in through the rear entrance, and close enough to the front door to be able to put out a sharp elbow to his throat if he or his cronies chose that option.

When he’d seen Kellie coming down the wide staircase at the end of her shift, his intention had been to step aside, to never let her know that he was there. She’d passed within three feet of him but he was good at blending into the background when he needed to.

He’d been home free.

And then he’d seen her wrap her arms around herself, clearly cold. And she’d looked very alone.

And his pulse had been racing. Just at the sight of her.

He’d caught her before she crossed. And once he’d approached and offered his coat, he hadn’t wanted the evening to end.

He was intrigued by Kellie McGarry.

And he’d pushed, maybe a little too hard, at getting her to eat with him. When she’d agreed, he’d been happy and thought the three hours of guard duty well worth it. And...he knew it sounded crazy, but he’d been confident, when he walked into the small restaurant and heard the Billy Joel song with its foundation in Beethoven, that it was fate.

He’d thought for a minute that she was going to refuse his invitation to dance. But then she’d stepped into his arms, and he’d gotten a lungful of her scent, and pretty much been toast after that. She was gorgeous, obviously smart, given her educational accomplishments, hardworking and fun to be with. A great date.

He’d thought it had been going well until she’d suddenly pushed back from the table. Had seemed to think it was perfectly reasonable that he’d let her wander back to her car alone, in the wee hours of the morning.

The walk to the garage had been awkward. He’d had questions burning his tongue but he’d kept his thoughts to himself, at least until they got to her car. And then he’d just had to ask. He rarely got embarrassed but it had been pretty damn uncomfortable to stumble around the idea that Anthony had put Trey on some kind of sexual-hero pedestal. She’d made light of it but still he’d wondered. Nobody wanted to think they were just more of the same. But it would have been super weird if he’d tried to convince Kellie of that last night, after less than an hour in her company.

So he’d backed off. Had thought about asking her to wait, to give him time to get his truck so he could follow her home, but decided there was another way. After all, he had her address. He’d watched her pull out of the garage, and then hustled to his vehicle. But by the time he’d reached it and got under way, he knew he was at least ten minutes behind her.

He’d followed his GPS to her apartment building, verified that her car was in the carport and then driven home. Less than an hour later, his alarm had screeched and he’d been back on the road, headed for the job site.

All that added up to him being officially an idiot for not making tracks now, as his partner Royce Morgan would say, to his house, shoveling some food in and falling into bed for about ten hours.

Instead, he was headed into Vegas on a Saturday night. Traffic was heavy and parking was nonexistent. He finally pulled into a lot, gave the attendant the required twenty and an extra ten to park his truck close, and walked the two blocks to Lavender’s entrance. He went up the stairs and straight into the bar.

Hagney was the only one serving up drinks. It was early yet, and he figured more staff came on later in the evening. There were four cocktail servers. None of them were Kellie. He took a stool.

Hagney slid a napkin his direction. “This must be your new favorite place,” he said, acknowledging that he recognized Trey from the night before.

“Thought of something I needed to tell Kellie,” Trey lied.

“She’s not working tonight.”

Trey studied the man’s face. Something wasn’t right. “I thought she worked every Friday and Saturday night.”

“Well, she was a no-call, no-show tonight, which puts her in enough hot water that she’s going to be lucky to keep this job.”

Hagney was acting as if he couldn’t care less, which totally didn’t jive with the interactions between Kellie and Hagney that he’d witnessed the previous night. “Does she frequently no-call, no-show?” Trey asked.

Hagney shrugged. He looked at the napkin. “You want a drink or not?”

No, he wanted answers, but it didn’t look as if any were forthcoming. He pulled a business card from his pocket. “Take this. If you think of anything that might be helpful, I’d really appreciate a call.”

Hagney’s only response was to slip the card into his shirt pocket. Trey was out of the bar and back to his truck. The attendant looked at him as if he was a crazy man to have paid thirty bucks to park for five minutes. He didn’t care.

He didn’t for one minute think Kellie was the type of employee that was a no-call, no-show problem. She worked two jobs. She’d gotten a damn doctorate in geosciences. On her own dime. Next to the word responsible in the dictionary was her picture.

He pulled out his phone, found his contacts where he entered the number Anthony had provided and clicked on it. It went directly to voice mail. “This is Trey Riker. I stopped in at Lavender and you weren’t there. Call me, please.”

He called the number again. To voice mail again. He did not leave a second message. He pulled out of the lot. The drive that had taken fourteen minutes last night took almost twice that now. By the time he arrived at the two-story brick apartment building, he had imagined several different horrible scenarios.

He parked on the street and verified that her old gray Toyota was still in its parking place. Then he went in the front door and took the elevator to the second floor. He knocked on her door. No answer. He turned the knob. Locked. No problem—nothing that couldn’t be handled with a credit card. He was prepared for the bolt lock to also be engaged but it wasn’t.

He opened the door and caught his breath.

The apartment was trashed. Furniture upended, books and other items dumped from the five-shelf bookcase. The drawers of the entertainment center had been ripped out, the contents emptied onto the floor, and holes punched through the cheap bottoms.

Terribly afraid of what he was going to find, he moved through the apartment. It was a one bedroom, one bath. The bedroom was in a similar state, with the mattress and box spring tossed around and slashed and everything pulled from the closet. But there was no Kellie. Not on the bed, under the bed or in the closet.

She was gone. What the hell did that mean?

He was going to have to call Anthony. The man deserved to know what had happened. Then the police.

His cell rang, a number he didn’t recognize. “Riker,” he answered.

“This is Hagney, from Lavender. I’ve thought about what you said and I might know a little something.”

He was going to take a chance. “Did you know that her apartment was trashed?”

The man sighed, loudly. “No, but she suspected that someone was there.”