White Hot

Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

ON MY WAY to find my laptop, I took a short detour via the head of Blackwood’s information systems department, who hid out in a cave on the third floor filled with enough technology to give Best Buy a wet dream. My friend and colleague, Mack Cain, leaned back in her chair as she watched a series of incomprehensible waffle scroll up one of her three screens.

The other two displayed a recipe for pot roast and a special offer on manicures at a local spa respectively.

I peered down at the manicure ad. “I like those little stars. Do you think they’d suit me?”

I held up my current colour scheme—black with tiny skulls painted on them in lime green.

Mack looked at my nails then back at her screen. “The stars are kind of cheerful. Are they really you?”

“Thanks. It’s good to know you see me as an all-around bringer of happiness and light.”

“Why are you here?”

“Can you look up some information on a murder for me?”

“Exactly my point.”

Fair enough, murder was a little on the dark side.

“But can you help?”

She groaned and minimised the recipe. “What murder?”

“That pot roast didn’t look so good, anyway.”

“I know. But Luke’s invited some friends over, and I need to feed them.”

“Just call Bradley. He’ll sort it out.”

Bradley was Emmy’s assistant. If you needed something found, decorated, bought, or organised, he was your man.

“I suppose. I just had the vague idea that I could make up for the spaghetti bolognese disaster.”

A month or so ago, Mack had decided to try hacking into a foreign government server while boiling spaghetti sauce. She’d done slightly better than anticipated with her attempts to c***k the firewall, but the resulting visit from the fire department wasn’t something any of us would let her forget in a hurry.

“If you’re going to burn things again, give me some warning. I’ll come with my camera.”

Or perhaps I’d try it myself. I liked a man in uniform. Or even men—I wasn’t fussy.

“I didn’t exactly plan it the first time.”

“Well, maybe you should. All good Girl Scouts should be prepared. We could make an evening of it—dress up fancy, a few appetisers, cocktails, and a visit from hot firemen.”

“Will you ever stop thinking with your loins?”

“Why would I want to? So many men, so little time.”

I put as much conviction as I could into that statement, but even to my own ears, it sounded hollow. A couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have had to consider my answer, not for a millisecond. But that was then, and this was now.

While my two best friends lived in marital bliss, Emmy with Mr. Tall, Dark, and Psycho and Mack with a man who spoke computer better than English, I still maintained my hard-won reputation as a party girl. But the truth was, I’d started to crave what they had. Not the big wedding, the flashy ring, or the joint dinner invitations, but the companionship. I could finally admit that it might be nice to come home to the same d**k at the end of each day as long its owner knew what to do with it.

But how the hell did I go about doing that?

The only manhunts I got involved in featured guns and an arrest at the end, and some days, I barely had enough time to eat. What was I supposed to do? Go speed dating? I snorted at the thought, and Mack gave me a funny look.

What could I say about myself?

My name’s Dan. I’ll answer to “Dirty,” though. What do I do for a living? Well, I’m a private investigator. Yes, I drink too much; no, I don’t have a goofy sidekick; and yes, I do enjoy my job. Hobbies, you say? I quite like shooting. At targets, people, whatever. Do I have any special achievements? I’ve tried every position in the Kama Sutra, most of them at least twice, and I once rode a motorcycle at a hundred miles an hour while blindfolded for a dare.

Yeah, I’d get crossed off people’s lists pretty quickly.

Dating through work was a no-go for me, despite Emmy and Mack having met their soulmates that way. The prospect of morning-after awkwardness in the office made me cringe. And I’d never get involved with a lawyer again. Last year, I’d even tried internet dating, but after accidentally meeting a man who turned out to have an unhealthy interest in children, getting him arrested, and having to testify against him in court, I got Mack to block that app from my phone in case I ever got tempted to swipe right again.

Unfortunately, Mack and her terrible cooking skills looked like my best shot for meeting a man at the moment, but before she could go home and burn things, I needed her to find me some information.

“Emmy’s decided she feels sorry for a trio of street kids, whose good buddy, the Ghost, has landed up in prison. Apparently, we need to take a look at the crime he’s been accused of committing.”

Mack did a double take when I mentioned the Ghost.

“Do you mean that DJ?”

I nodded.

“But I thought that was cut and dried? I mean, they found the murder weapon in his car, covered in his fingerprints. And didn’t he confess?”

A groan escaped as my damned soul protested over Emmy’s revenge. “I know all that. And if you think you can talk some sense into our beloved leader, be my guest.”

“I’ll get started, then. What do you need?”

She knew she had two hopes of changing Emmy’s mind. None and zero.

“I’m gonna need everything. It’s probably a waste of time, but I have to at least go through the motions.”

“Do you want me to check not entirely legal sources as well?”

“I need all the help I can get.”

With Mack on the case, I headed back to the conference room to deal with Emerson and her three little stooges. An hour later, I’d learned that the Ghost was “the s**t” and “a lyrical genius, yeah.” Fan-f*****g-tastic. None of that would help unless he planned to rap his way out of prison. But the kids were growing on me, I’ll admit that. When they got up and started beatboxing, they were a lot better than I thought they’d be, and the smallest boy, Race, came alive. He strutted up and down, singing words more suited to Emmy’s potty mouth than a ten-year-old child’s, even though he hadn’t spoken for the entire day. Perhaps the Ghost wasn’t such a bad judge of ability after all.

Two hours later, after Emmy’s assistant, Sloane, had been dispatched to McDonald’s and we were all stuffed full of junk food, Mack finally turned up with a stack of paper and a memory stick full of documents.

“You want a french fry?” I offered. “They’re a little cold.”

“Or you could have this…” Emmy held out the toy from her Happy Meal. “Uh, I don’t know what it is. Disney?”

Mack rolled her eyes. “I’ve been working my ass off hacking for the last two hours, and this is what you’ve been doing?”

Perhaps we should have wiped the game of hangman off the whiteboard.

“No, we’ve been doing other things. Like interviewing the boys.”

I waved my hand in their direction then looked over at them. They were staring open-mouthed at Mack.

Okay, so her bright red hair and legs that went up to her armpits were kind of striking, but the boys would need to learn to put their tongues away if they wanted to impress the ladies.

Mack gave us a look that said yeah, right. “I’ve found out a few things, but the boys aren’t going to want to see this.”

“It won’t bother us. Nothin’ does,” Trick said.

Emmy pulled rank, saving me the trouble. “Look, we’ve agreed to help, but we have to do this our way. There are some things we’re not going to show you. Not because we think you can’t take them, but because life is hard enough. We don’t want to make living it even more difficult.”

“What about you? You’re gonna see.”

“We’ll deal with it. You shouldn’t have to.”

And we would. We’d each developed our own coping mechanism over the years. Mack went into a quiet room and sobbed her heart out. She tried to hide her tears, but we both knew she did it. Emmy unloaded on her husband, and if he wasn’t around, she sleepwalked instead. Or in her case, sleep hit, shot, and stabbed. Believe me, we all breathed a sigh of relief when Black was home.

Me? I found the nearest prime specimen of meat and lost myself in him. Or was it the other way around? Either way, the mind-numbing pleasure gave me what I needed.

“So what do we do?” Trick asked. “We just want to help.”

“You’ve already helped by believing in the Ghost at a time when most people have turned their backs. I’m sure he’ll be grateful for that.”

“That’s it? We just leave?”

“Do you have somewhere to go to tonight?”

“Yeah, Race goes to his foster parents’ and Vine comes home with me. His mom don’t care. She’s mostly passed out, anyway.”

Emmy slid a notepad over to him. “Write your contact details down, and we’ll give you a call when we’ve looked into things.”

Trick wrote out a number, his handwriting an untidy scrawl I could barely decipher. Emmy flipped it around and read it back to him, just to be on the safe side.

He nodded. “It’s Vine’s phone, but the battery’s dodgy. Mine got jacked.”

“By who?”

“Some kid.”

“With a knife,” Vine added helpfully.

Emmy shoved her chair back, her mouth a hard line. “Excuse me a minute.”

The kids looked at each other, fidgeting. “What did I say?” Trick asked. “I didn’t mean to piss her off.”

I managed to refrain from rolling my eyes. “Nothing. She’s angry that someone threatened you with a knife. Did you tell the cops?”

I had to ask even though I knew the answer. After all, I’d been in that situation as a kid, and I’d kept my mouth firmly shut. Snitching only made things worse.

“Nuh uh. They won’t do nothin’.”

As I suspected. “Any idea who it was?”

Three heads shook. “It was dark.”

“If anything like that happens again, you come to us, okay?”

Emmy marched back in with three Samsungs, still in their boxes. As she broke a phone most weeks, she tended to buy them in bulk.

“Here. One each. Keep them charged, and keep away from assholes with knives, yes?” Next, she handed out business cards, hers and mine. “And make sure our numbers are programmed in.”

As the boys filed out, hugging the boxes to their chests like they were gold freaking bars, I leaned back in my seat and blew out a long breath.

“Why us?” I groaned after the door had closed behind them.

“Because when they googled for private investigators, Blackwood was near the beginning of the alphabet. Apparently, Adams and Abraham didn’t answer the phone.”

“When this is over, I’m starting my own firm. Zulu Investigations. We’ll only be taking cases where the client passes the credit check.”

Emmy smirked at me. “As long as you don’t put your rates up, I might throw a few bones your way.”

That time my boot did connect, and she gave me an evil look before throwing her toy at my head.

“All you need is a pram,” I said, referring to one of her favourite British sayings.

“Can we focus on the job?” Mack pleaded. “I’ve got two of Luke’s associates and their wives coming for dinner, and I don’t even know what I’m going to cook yet.”

She spread her pile of papers out on the table and slotted the memory stick into the data port in the centre console. The crest of the Virginia State Police appeared on the giant screen that took up most of one wall of the conference room. Yes, Mack had been busy. I drank in the details as she scrolled through the police report, describing with all the passion of a drive-thru operator the car crash, the discovery of the body, and the Ghost’s subsequent arrest. She had to remain detached. We all did, or we’d never get out of bed in the mornings.

“And here’s the Ghost, otherwise known as Ethan White.”

Mack brought his mug shot up on the screen, and I guessed him to be around my age. I’d just turned thirty-one, or twenty-nine, seeing as I’d decided to start counting backwards from my thirtieth birthday. White’s skin didn’t match his name. It was a warm brown with golden undertones, and his black hair was cropped closely to his head. He could have been a model if not for the sour expression on his face and his bloodshot eyes. The long cut bisecting his goatee didn’t help either.

“This was him two days ago, right after his arrest,” Mack said, pointing out the obvious. “And this is how we normally see him.”

A new photo flashed up. This time, the Ghost was unidentifiable, his face hidden behind a sculpted white mask that faded into the shadows of a hoodie as he stood on stage behind a DJ deck.

“Looks as if he’s a little shy,” I commented.

“He’s famed for his secrecy. One of the most recognisable faces in music, yet nobody knew what he looked like. I couldn’t find a single picture of his face other than those mug shots.”

“I’m not surprised,” Emmy said. “He hated having his picture taken. The music project the kids spoke about used to be based at the Step-Up Center, same place as the Blackwood Foundation’s mentoring workshops. The mayor turned up for a photo op a couple of years back, and I ended up hiding in a storeroom with White until the press disappeared. Of course, I didn’t realise who he was at the time.”

“Did you talk?”

“Only about our projects. He was preparing to move his kids to a bigger place a few blocks over. Cheaper rent, better acoustics, but needed some repairs, apparently.”

“Well, at least we know why he’s called the Ghost.”

I leaned forward, squinting at his mask. What was it made from? Plastic? Rubber? Whatever it was, it was kind of creepy.

Another click and the picture of White disappeared, replaced with a morgue shot of his victim. Her blonde hair hung in tails around her shoulders, matted with blood, and a thin red line trailed across one cheek. Someone had made an effort to clean her face up, and the cut looked almost as if someone had drawn it on with a sharpie.

“Any photos of the crime scene?” I asked.

“They’re not on the system yet. I guess they’re in no hurry seeing as they caught White red-handed. Literally.”

An ugly vision of bloodstained hands floated through my mind. That poor girl. Nobody deserved to die like that.

“Stabbed,” Mack said. “Forty-seven times, according to the pathologist.”

“Someone was angry. Who called the police?”

The news channels had been heavy on speculation and light on facts.

Mack brought up a picture of the car wreck. White had driven off a steep embankment, and his black Ford Mustang rested nose-first against a sturdy pine tree, its hood squashed back into the cabin. The doors hung open, and the emergency crews had peeled the roof back like a sardine can.

“White’s car was found in a ravine with him unconscious at the wheel. A woman out walking her dog saw it and called 911. The accident happened on a quiet road, and the vehicle was hidden from others passing above. By the time White got to the hospital and the cops got to his house, the coroner believed the girl had been dead for almost a day.”

“Long time for somebody to be unconscious,” I said.

“He didn’t wake up for another two days, at which point they read him his rights. By then, someone had already put two and two together about his showbiz persona and leaked it.”

“Who was the girl?” Emmy asked.

Mack glanced down at her notes. “Christina Walker. A junior at the University of Richmond.”

“Do we know how they met?”

“According to the interviews, White doesn’t remember meeting her at all. The police traced them both to a club called Liquid earlier in the evening.”

Emmy made a face. “Ah, one of my competitors.” Among her other investments, she owned Black’s, a high-end chain of clubs that included Richmond’s premier nightspot. “Liquid’s door policy’s known to be lax, and the owner’s a greasy bastard. Just wear something tight when you talk to him, and once he stops drooling, he’ll give you whatever you want.”

“Noted,” I said. “What else do the police have?”

Mack took over again. “When the cops found the car, it took another two hours to cut White free and get him out of the ravine. With the damage to the front end, it wasn’t until they brought the car up that they noticed the knife in the passenger footwell, and by then, they’d already found the dead girl.”

Four-letter words rattled around in my head, interspersed with others like guilty, evil, and monster. But Emmy laced her fingers together, elbows on the table, and leaned her chin on her hands as she watched me.

I sighed. “So, where do we start?”

Emmy glanced at her watch, not the Tag Heuer one of her ex-boyfriends had bought for her birthday last December, and not the million-dollar white gold Richard Mille Tourbillon her husband gave her for Christmas a week later in a not-so-subtle “f**k off” to the competition. No, this was a cheap-looking digital, and I’d bet what was left of my Porsche Boxster that it had a very, very loud alarm.

“I’ve got a meeting in five minutes.” She was already walking off. “See you later.”

“Bitch.”

The sound of laughter followed her along the hallway.