“They’re going with it belonged to her dealer, that this is like some John Belushi case of a dealer shooting someone up and it just being too much and she died. Perrone is saying she had a drug problem. He even produced a letter from some doctor friend of his saying he treated her privately for drug abuse.”
“But her arms were clear. You saw them.”
“I didn’t say this doesn’t stink to high heaven like a bad fish, Jack. I’m just saying what the party line is.”
“And Destiny?”
“Perrone’s saying he wants her found privately. He says he knows where she is and it’s a family matter until he says otherwise.”
“And you?” I turned to look into his eyes, amazed in the sunlight at how clear and gray they were.
He clenched his jaw and glanced away. “She was your friend. I’m going to get to the bottom of it. But that doesn’t mean I want you snooping around.”
“Well, you better get to the bottom of it quickly because I’m not going to park myself out here like a sitting duck. Did you know Benny Bonita paid us a visit last night with a few of his posse?”
“What’d that asshole want?”
“Something that Crystal ‘took’ from him.”
“What?”
“I have no idea.”
“Did you check her suitcases?”
I looked at him. “That must be why you’re the detective and I try to get men to punch each other’s lights out for a living. Come on.”
I jogged toward the house, and Rob tagged along behind me. Quietly, we let ourselves into the house and moved down the hall to the office. I didn’t want Destiny to see us going through her mother’s belongings. Deacon had hidden her luggage in a locked closet. All of them were Louis Vuitton suitcases that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe.
On top of the first suitcase was a huge makeup bag. I started with that, going through each cosmetic—and there were a lot of them. I opened each compact, each jar of wrinkle cream, each tube of cleanser, everything. I smelled each one, thinking maybe they concealed drugs. All the cosmetics and skin products were from La Prairie—one of the most expensive cosmetic companies in the world. But nothing else.
“Damn!” I looked at Rob.
“Keep searching.”
We went through suitcase after suitcase, each piece of clothing.
“Feel along the hems,” Rob told me. “In case she sewed something into the lining of a skirt or a pair of pants.”
“Like what?”
“Like a safety deposit box key or the key to a locker. I don’t think she’d really be so dumb as to have whatever it is on her.”
After an hour of careful fingering of her clothes, we came up with nothing. Now that the suitcases were empty, Rob and I began moving our hands along the seams, feeling the bottoms, looking for any indication there was a secret hiding spot.
“Nothing,” I said disgustedly. I looked around at the floor where all her flashy-trashy Vegas clothes lay—sequins and tight low-ride jeans, stiletto Jimmy Choos. Suddenly, I felt tears overtaking my eyes. “This is all that’s left of a life, Rob. This and Destiny.”
He reached out to rub my shoulders. “Baby, she touched a lot of lives. And that’s always going to be with you and Deacon and Big Jimmy.”
“Yeah.” I wiped at my face. “And when I find out who killed her, his life isn’t going to be worth shit.”
“Jack…” Rob’s voice was warning and measured.
“Like you said. This whole thing stinks like rotten fish. And I’m not going to let her die without a word, just swept under Tony Perrone’s carpet.”
“Did I ever tell you that you scare me sometimes?”
“You tell me that all the time.”
“Yeah, but this time, Jack, I really mean it.”
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