to its high-pitched jangle.
She swallowed the last bite of her lunchtime tuna-with-chutney sandwich while checking the caller ID. No name, but a 219 area code. She had been trying to memorize different area codes—after all, a phone was a private investigator’s most powerful tool. She wasn’t a P.I. yet, but when the day came, she wanted to be a knowledge bank in stilettos.
This incoming call was from...Michigan? No, Indiana. As she reached for the receiver, she noticed a glob of papaya chutney on her fingers.
Another jangling ring.
She didn’t want to sticky up the phone with her gooey fingers, but Jayne Diamond, her boss, insisted Val always answer using the handset, never putting the phone on speaker, to maintain the confidentiality of conversations. Rules, rules, rules. That woman had more than a reform school. Val had to remind herself constantly that being mentored by one of the best investigators in Las Vegas was worth all the restrictions.
Keeping in mind the confidentiality of the call, she glanced through the picture window next to the agency’s front door, which offered a view of their business parking lot and the sidewalk beyond. Their office was a renovated corner bungalow on a street with other similar bungalows. Not a high-traffic area. Although they sometimes had walk-ins, nobody was headed toward the agency on foot, and the only car in the lot was Jayne’s shiny Mazda Miata.
She glanced at Jayne’s office door. Closed.
Val rapped the speaker button with her knuckle.
“Diamond Investigations,” she answered softly, plucking a tissue from the box on her desk.
“Uh, are you a private investigator?” The man’s voice was low, hesitant.
“Yes.” Technically an apprentice, but Jayne didn’t want her saying that to potential clients. So Val could answer yes to such a question, but the truth was she’d done little else other than screen calls these first few months of her internship.
“I...think my wife’s...having an affair.”
Have mercy, a brokenhearted tale was on its way. She wiped her fingers with the tissue. “I’m sorry to hear that. What’s your name, sir?”
“George. My wife’s name is...Sandy.” He cleared his throat. “She started acting different about four months ago...in April, around our anniversary...doing things like walking into the other room to answer her cell, losing weight, buying new clothes. I suppose I coulda justified some of that, but when she started working later and later...”
Val watched a bright orange angelfish dart around rocks in the aquarium against the far wall, guessing what was coming next—Sandy was traveling to Las Vegas for A, a business trip; B, to visit family; C, to see old friends....
“Anyhoo...” He blew out a puff of breath. “Sandy is flying to Las Vegas later next week—on Friday, August sixteen—for a reunion...some kind of hookup with her cheerleader buddies from high school...”
Or another kind of hookup.
“And...” His voice grew thin. “I was wondering if...”
A P.I. could follow Sandy while she’s in Sin City.
“You could follow her?”
“We offer such services,” she affirmed. Val couldn’t wait for the day when she could just say yes and take on a case. But for now, she only passed on callers’ information to Jayne, who would make the final decision.
“I know the hotel my wife will be at...she mentioned renting a Dodge Charger...”
Ever since meeting her best pal, Cammie, a real-life P.I., a year ago, and hearing her stories about sitting on stakeouts, digging through trash to find evidence, interviewing witnesses to crimes, Val wanted nothing more than to be a private eye, too. But first, she needed to earn a Nevada license, which required logging ten thousand hours of investigative experience. After that, the plan had been for Val to become a student Watson to Cammie’s Sherlock in their own kick-ass, all-girl Las Vegas agency.
Val had to make adjustments to the plan when Cammie found true love and moved to Denver, but she hadn’t given up.
Jayne’s door creaked open, followed by the tap-tap of her sensible heels across the hardwood floor.
Which stopped abruptly at Val’s desk.
“...I could describe what clothes she’ll be bringing, jewelry, too, although...” George sniffed loudly. “I guess she might not be wearing her wedding ring...”
Val looked up at her boss, a trim sixtysomething with cut-glass cheekbones and gray-blue eyes that always seemed to carry within them a withering understanding of the human condition.
Jayne shot one of those withering looks at the phone, back to Val.
Who shrugged apologetically. She could almost hear another “you can’t always do things your way” lecture.
“I had that ring made special for her...” George stifled a sob.
Jayne mouthed a silent “no” while plucking a ballpoint pen from the breast pocket of her linen blazer, the same bloodless color as her short, bobbed hair. The blazer used to fit her better before she started losing weight recently.
Jayne jotted something on a notepad on the desk and held it up for Val to read: no infidelity cases.
Val nodded, waiting for George to calm down.
“Unfortunately,” she said gently, “we’re currently not accepting infidelity cases.”
After a moment of uncomfortable silence, during which the hum of the aquarium pump filled the room, Val added, “Let me give you the number of another P.I. who might be able to help you.”
After looking up the information on her computer, she gave him the number and ended the call.
Then she rolled her gaze up to Jayne’s.
“You cannot always do things your way,” the older woman began, arching a pale eyebrow. “Although I admire your strength of will and creativity—” she glanced at Val’s purple-streaked black hair, which today she’d knotted into a loose chignon “—you have a habit of forgetting that investigations are not always about autonomy. Often you must work closely with people. Even if you disagree with them or believe you have a more advantageous idea, it would behoove you to treat others’ suggestions with respect.”
Sometimes she wondered why Jayne always made it sound as though Val were interacting unbehoovingly with some nameless third party and not Jayne herself. But then, her boss had a way of distancing herself, as though she was always observing the world rather than living in it.
“Yes, indeed,” Val agreed, “I knew better than to put that call on speaker. Although, if you don’t mind my adding a side note, nobody was in the room with me, so it wasn’t like I was broadcasting the poor man’s broken heart to strangers.”
A look that might pass for amusement flittered across the older woman’s face. “Sometimes I wonder if we should post my rules alongside your side notes.”
The older woman reminded Val of
