Hard Tide

2. Ari

CHAPTER 2

ARI

“Do you want fries and onion rings with that?” I asked.

“Sure do, darlin’. How’s about givin’ me your number too?”

Uh, no. And not only because the guy smelled like an ashtray and hadn’t brushed his teeth this decade, but because the pale dent on his finger said he usually wore a wedding ring. And since my only two cases in the past eight weeks had both involved cheating spouses, I had no desire to add to Las Vegas’s infidelity problem. Not to mention the fact that I’d sworn off men forever.

“Sorry, I’m already taken.” When he leaned in closer, I resisted the urge to tell him what I really thought. Last week when I’d done precisely that to a man, the asshole had thrown a ketchup dispenser at me, and then I’d gotten a lecture from my boss on how the customer was always right. “Cheese and bacon on your burger?”

“Nobody needs to know.”

What was it with these pricks? Had Clark Public Utilities started putting something in the water? Smile, Ari. You need the tips.

“About the cheese and bacon? No, sir. I’ll keep very quiet regarding that.”

I backed away before he could make any more inappropriate suggestions and glanced at the clock above the jukebox. Seven p.m. Five hours until my shift ended, and approximately five minutes before I lost the will to live.

But at least I had a job. It paid minimum wage, but I usually doubled that in tips, and I’d picked up a few regulars who always sat in my section. If I managed to steer clear of lecherous slimeballs, I might even make enough to pay for Haven’s field trip next week. Oh, who was I kidding—she’d go to the petting zoo with the rest of the class even if I had to walk to work for a month instead of taking the bus. The exercise was good for my health. And at least my new boss let me take home all the leftovers I could eat.

I had to stay positive.

But sometimes, in the early hours of the morning when Haven was asleep, I’d shed a quiet tear for what I’d lost and what I’d never had. When I was my daughter’s age, I’d longed to be an actress, a famous one with all the wealth and sparkles that came along with the job. After I’d played the wicked queen in a school production of Snow White at the grand old age of twelve, Nana had taken me to an audition at one of the big hotels on the Strip to get a head start on my dream, but in reality, I’d been given an early lesson in disappointment. I’d never told a soul, but I overheard the casting lady telling her assistant that I was “too chubby for the main role, not chubby enough to play the sidekick,” and after I finished crying, I’d decided that Hollywood wasn’t for me.

Teenage Ari had gone on a diet, then tempered her ambitions to getting a college degree and a job in one of those glass-and-steel offices with the fancy coffee machine and a ping-pong table in the break area. Guess what? I hadn’t managed that either.

I’d come close, though. At eighteen, I’d been enrolled in community college and studying business administration when I’d had the misfortune to meet Maxwell Suker. Nana had still been working then, we’d had a small but nice apartment in Lone Mountain, and on the weekends, I used to go rollerblading and hang out with my friends.

Then the condom broke.

Pregnancy had been terrifying, and as my bump began to show, my friends distanced themselves. But no matter what happened, I’d vowed to love my baby, planned or not. Not like my mother had done with me. I’d been an inconvenience, a burden, at least until she dropped me off with my grandparents for the day and never came back.

Three years ago, I’d grown curious and tracked her down. Did she feel guilty for abandoning me? Had she found herself in an impossible situation and felt unable to cope? Far from it. Our brief conversation still came back to haunt me every time I had a black moment.

“Yes?” she’d asked when she opened the door of her Florida condo. The place was tidy, modern, and mortgaged to the hilt.

I’d waited a moment for recognition to dawn, but there was nothing.

“Whatever you’re selling, we don’t want any.”

“It’s me, Arizona. Your daughter?”

She’d looked me up and down. “Oh. I see you finally lost the puppy fat.”

Puppy fat? Yes, I’d been overweight as a child, but was that really all she had to say?

“Grandma enrolled me in ballet lessons. And I ran track in high school.”

“That’ll be your father’s genes.” Her lip curled in distaste. “He was a runner.”

She wasn’t lying—when Morty had grudgingly helped me to track down the man named on my birth certificate, we’d found him in the Washington State Penitentiary, serving forty-six years for drug trafficking and attempted murder. Fortunately, the undercover DEA agent he’d shot had survived. Thirty cops had chased Jackson Danner on foot through the backstreets of Seattle for almost half an hour before a police dog grabbed him by the ankle.

A runner.

No wonder Nana had never wanted to talk about him.

“Well, I guess you had that much in common,” I told my mom.

She glanced at her watch. “Did you want something in particular? I don’t have any money to give you.”

That was why she thought I’d come? Money? I took in our surroundings—the manicured grounds, the shimmering pool, the polished floor and chandelier in the hallway behind her—and realised how much importance my mother placed on material things. Then there was her appearance. The designer clothes, the expensive haircut, the face covered in make-up despite the fact she was at home. None of it could be cheap to maintain, and all of it took precedence over her own flesh and blood.

So I walked away.

“No, I don’t want anything in particular,” I called over my shoulder. “I hope you have the life you deserve.”

She’d shouted after me, but I hadn’t stopped. Visiting had been a mistake, and one I wouldn’t repeat.

At least my father had shown remorse for his wrongdoings, according to the trial transcript, anyway. My mom would choke on an apology. Secretly, I thought there’d been a mix-up at the hospital when she was born—how else could a lady as sweet as Nana have ended up with such a cold-hearted b***h for a daughter?

That was one mystery I’d never solve.

In the kitchen at the Big Bite Diner, the cook took a long pull on his beer and held out a hand for Mr. Tooth Decay’s order. I handed the slip over just as my phone rang. Unknown number. Where was the boss? He hated us taking personal calls, but when I checked over my shoulder, he was behind the counter, flirting with a bottle blonde who probably charged by the hour. No other customers were waiting to be served.

“How long for the food?” I asked.

“Five minutes.”

The cook wouldn’t tell tales—he was a man of few words—so I slipped into the staff bathroom and locked the door. I was due a break anyway.

“Ari Danner speaking.”

Please, don’t let it be the landlord. The rent was only two days late, and I’d have enough cash to pay it by tomorrow.

“Are you the detective?” The caller was a woman, middle-aged at a guess. Local accent. She tried to hide the exhaustion in her voice, but there was a hint of raggedness around the edges. “Somebody passed me your flyer.”

Could this be a client? I’d almost given up hope.

“Yes! I mean, that’s me.”

“It says you do undercover work.”

“I do.”

“We’d be interested in making an appointment to meet with you.”

“We?”

“My boss.”

“And who’s your boss?”

“Is this level of detail really necessary?”

Tired, but pushy. A harried executive assistant with a degree of seniority?

“A name? Yes, it is.”

“He told me to keep everything confidential.”

“I can’t meet with him if I don’t know who he is.”

“I’ll give you the address.”

“What’s the meeting about?”

“He’ll explain that when he sees you. Can you make nine a.m. tomorrow?”

She spoke with a prim entitlement that said she was used to getting her own way. Or, at least, her boss’s. Who was he? With an address, I could find out, but I still wanted her to tell me. One of Morty Coulson’s many snippets of wisdom echoed in my head. If you let a client push you around at the beginning, they’ll push you to the edge of your sanity.

“I can make nine thirty.” After I’d taken Haven to school. “But I’m gonna need a name first.”

Silence.

Silence that stretched for so long that I worried I’d gone too far and she’d hung up.

But finally, she spoke.

“Digby Rennick.” She read out an address downtown, repeating it twice as I scribbled on my order pad. “Nine thirty. I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

“Okay, I’ll be there.”

Digby Rennick? Unusual name. It only took me a minute to find his profile online, featured on several business websites. Digby St. John Rennick was a math genius who graduated from Harvard at the age of nineteen. He’d shot to fame after he collected a million bucks for solving a hideously complex mathematical problem called Baxter’s Last Theorem, and then he’d gone on to start the world’s fastest-growing gambling empire. Based in Las Vegas with a second office in Antigua, AnyBet LV, Inc. ran online gambling sites in those jurisdictions where it was legal, plus a network of sports betting lounges across the United States.

An old video showed teenage Rennick in college, bumbling his way through an acceptance speech after he won a mathematics award. Now, it seemed, he eschewed public appearances in favour of carefully staged magazine interviews and the occasional photoshoot.

Hammering from outside made the bathroom door shake.

“Ari, what’re you doing in there?” my boss yelled. “Better not be drugs.”

Shit. I quickly flushed the toilet. “Just coming.”

He was waiting with a scowl when I hurried into the kitchen. Had his girlfriend gone off with a client?

“I pay you to wait tables, not to wipe your ass. The guy at table four wants more coffee.”

“Sorry.”

“And some kid dropped a milkshake on the floor.”

Terrific. “I’ll clear that up right away.”

“And smile, Ari. Nobody likes a sourpuss.”

Even the worst undercover job in the world was better than cleaning sticky milkshake off a grimy floor. The last time I’d been down there on my hands and knees, I’d found a dead cockroach under the table, and I swear a mouse ran across the kitchen counter last week.

Whatever Rennick wanted me to do tomorrow, I’d do it.