Heather Webber - Digging Up Trouble

I’ve got something important to ask you.

I prayed he wasn’t going to propose.

I didn’t know how I was going to tell him no.

Eleven

“Why not marry him?” Ana asked as she drove I-75 south, toward the city.

I looked at her like she was crazy. Actually, she was crazy.

It wasn’t much of a stretch. “Maybe because I’m not divorced yet?”

“You will be in what? Two weeks?”

Eight days.

My stomach hurt.

“It’s too soon,” I said.

“Do you love him?”

Did I? I’d only known him five months. Did people fall in love in five months? “I don’t know.”

“I’d marry him. He’s hot.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“I don’t like the blonde on you, Nina. You look too . . . I don’t know.”

I peeked in the lighted visor mirror. “Kato Kaelin?”

She banged the steering wheel with her fist. “Yes!”

“Well, it’s only for one night.” I sighed. “Why are we even doing this?”

“Jean-Claude, that’s why.”

Oh yeah. Jean-Claude.

94

Heather Webber

“If he’s violating his probation, then I have to take action.”

Action as in sending Jean-Claude to lockup. A shame, because he only had two more months before he was a completely free man.

That made my stomach hurt too. Jean-Claude had become more than an employee to me. He was a friend.

And here I was helping to get him sent away.

But what if he’s doing something dangerous? my inner voice asked.

I thought about that for a second. If he was a gigolo, as I suspected, then he was definitely doing something illegal, but dangerous? I supposed it wasn’t the safest job.

And if he was stealing cars again?

Definitely dangerous. And illegal.

And not something I could condone.

I sighed. What was going on with him?

I wasn’t happy being part of this whole bounty hunter thing Ana had going on, but as his friend, I wanted to help Jean-Claude. It was just hard to figure out what kind of help he needed.

“So,” I asked, “where are we going exactly?”

“We’re going to do a little recon.” Ana whipped one of her long fake tresses over her shoulder.

“Recon?”

“A reconnaissance mission.”

I arched an eyebrow. “You’ve been reading too many Tom Clancy novels.”

“You know I only read sci-fi, but I did see some of those movies. Harrison Ford. Hubba hubba.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said, watching headlights zip by, heading north.

“What? You like Ben Affleck?”

“Not really. But I’d take him over Harrison Ford.”

Digging Up Trouble

95

Ana’s face scrunched in disgust. “You’ve obviously been sniffing too much manure.”

“Harrison Ford is old enough to be our grandfather!”

“That’s only because Nana married Grandpa ’Zo when she was thirteen.”

“So? Still old enough.”

She held firm. “He’s hot.”

“Ew!”

“I also had a crush on that Law & Order guy. The one who just died.”

I could picture his face but didn’t know the name. “You’re serious?”

“He was cute.”

I shook my head. “This could be the root of all your failed relationships.”

“Nah,” she said, changing lanes. “They’re cute, but not the marrying kind.”

“Who is the marrying kind?”

“Your Bobby.”

I groaned. This subject needed to veer off me ASAP.

“What happened with you and S?”

She fidgeted. “His name.”

“His name?”

“It’s Shakespeare!” Her voice rose. “I can’t date a guy named Shakespeare Larue!”

I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing.

“You better not be laughing!”

“Or?” A chuckle escaped.

“Argh!”

“He was a nice guy.”

“I know. It’s too bad.”

I shook my head. “Maybe you ought to give him a second chance.”

96

Heather Webber

She shrugged.

I took it to mean that she’d consider a second chance if she became desperate enough—which usually happened twice a week.

“Did you get any information from Harry von Barber? Is that what this recon mission is all about?”

“I called but he didn’t return it. I went to his apartment, but he wasn’t there.”

“Avoiding you?”

“Probably thinks I’m going to try to line him up another job with a crazy lady.”

“Ha. Ha.”

An eighteen wheeler rumbled past, shaking Ana’s little SUV. “I went to his apartment, but he wasn’t home. Luckily, his roommate, Flora, recognized the picture of Jean-Claude.”

I perked up. “Oh?”

“Saw him in the Blue Zone once.”

A glowing haze hovered over the city, the bright lights il-luminating the night sky. The highway split off to I-71 north, and narrowed as it approached the bridge spanning the Ohio River. On the other side sat Newport, Kentucky, where we were headed.

Over the past few years, Newport had grown into a family friendly area. Newport on the Levee was a booming spot along the river that boasted boutique shops, a movie theater, restaurants, a book store, an IMAX theater, the Newport Aquarium, and amazing views of downtown Cincinnati.

Along with the growth came the Blue Zone, an upscale adult entertainment area a few blocks south of the river. The Blue Zone was a single street catering to an adult’s every whim, from microbreweries to massage parlors, from fortune-tellers to a pricy sports bar where all the local pro players hung out after the game.

Digging Up Trouble

97

It was assumed that more could be attained at the massage parlors than a massage, and more than your palm could be read at the fortune-teller. I wondered if it was at one of these places that Jean-Claude worked.

“Did Flora say where she’d seen Jean-Claude?”

“He.”

“Hmm?”

Ana exited the highway. “Flora’s a he. I think. A very pretty he at that. I didn’t ask for proof.”

I turned in my seat to get a good look at her.

“Okay,” she said, “I asked, but she/he didn’t want to play show and tell.”

“Can we trust this information?”

“Why not? It’s all we’ve got.”

True enough.

She found a place to park in an overpriced lot near the river. We hoofed it three blocks to the Blue Zone. It was clear where the nickname had come from: All the neon signs along the street were blue, casting an eerie blue glow over everything.

“Where do we start?” I asked.

She handed me a picture of Jean-Claude. It was his mug shot, the one that looked nearly identical to Hugh Grant’s, which had been cropped to just see his face. “Flash that around, see what you come up with.”

We split up, and I crossed the street carrying a somewhat heavy load of guilt. Because I knew that if I found Jean-Claude first, I’d probably warn him off.

If Ana found out . . .

I didn’t even want to think about that. After all, she had a little bit of our Nana Ceceri’s temper in her too.

The first storefront I came to was a nightclub called Bump. I waited my turn in the long line to get in, a sore 98

Heather Webber

thumb in my jeans and white T-shirt. Everyone else was dressed tramp-style, in microminis and barely there tube tops. Even the men had dressed skimpy, in chest clinging T-shirts and hip-hugging sleek pants. Some of them had incredible bodies.

Hey, I’m human.

When I got to the ticket booth, I held up Jean-Claude’s picture. The girl, dressed head-to-toe in black—even black lipstick—motioned for me to talk to the big African-American bouncer guarding the door.

I moseyed over. “Hi.”