No, Jayne was hiding something. From the recent tiredness in her face and the weight loss, Val wondered what her boss was going through. A death in the family? A financial setback?
She glanced at the crystal figurine. This small object had always seemed too fragile in an office furnished with a heavy wooden desk, bookcases, a grandfather clock and scuffed hardwood floors. The birds obviously held deep meaning. Shame Jayne didn’t take it home with her, both for its safekeeping and her own comfort.
Val looked at the picture of her nanny on the corner of the desk. Her grandmother—smiling, her white hair freshly curled, wearing her favorite blue dress—stood in front of her tiny antiques shop, Back in Time Antiques, on Chartres Street in the French Quarter. When Val was growing up, she had commuted with Nanny to the shop from their house in the Ninth Ward, the only home Val had ever known before Katrina.
She had brought the photo to work maybe for the same reason Jayne kept the figurine here. Some objects carried too many memories to keep at home, where your mind could easily wander to the past, to what was lost and never found again.
* * *
THE GRANDFATHER CLOCK chimed four o’clock. As the last metallic note faded, the front door opened and a woman walked in, her perfume smelling faintly like strawberries.
She wore a red halter dress, cut too low, and matching lipstick. Her chestnut hair hung sleek with straight-cut bangs that hovered over almond-shaped eyes. Most walk-ins looked embarrassed, nervous or dubious, but this woman looked determined or surprised, which could just be the unfavorable effect of those overarched Cruella eyebrows.
Without a word, she sat in one of the guest chairs and crossed her slim legs. Val took note of strappy Badgley Mischka sandals, which she guessed were the real deal based on the monster-size bling on the woman’s ring finger.
“My name Marta,” she said, rolling the r in her name. “My fiancé, I think he cheats. I want you to find out.”
Val tried to place the thick accent. Romanian? “I’m sorry,” she said, “but we’re currently not accepting any new cases.”
Under a veil of thick black lashes, a pair of hazel eyes coolly assessed Val. After a beat, she reached into her purse and extracted a wad of bills bound with a rubber band.
“I pay thousand dollars.” Which sounded like I pay zouzand dolarz. She set it on the edge of the desk.
“I’m sorry, but—”
“Tonight,” Marta interrupted, “I know where he goes. I give address, you see if he cheats.”
This woman did not want to take no for an answer.
Val recalled the name of the P.I. she’d looked up earlier. “Bert Warner, just a few blocks away, handles infidelity cases. I can get you his number—”
“No man investigator. Want you to dress up, see if he flirts with you.”
“Sorry, that’s a honey trap, and we never do those.” She was being good reciting the party line, but dang, this kind of work could be profitable.
“Honey trap,” Marta repeated slowly, then smiled, as though liking how the word tasted. She pulled out another wad of bills and set it on the desk. “Two thousand.”
This is how it would be someday when Val ran her own agency. A client would walk in, discuss their problem and Val could say yes, I’ll take your case. And she’d do one helluva good job, too.
She stared at the two grand, cash.
What was so wrong with honey traps anyway? Jayne talked about lawyers attacking the evidence, but wasn’t that what lawyers did in courtrooms for any type of case? Didn’t mean honey trapping was illegal. Cops did it, other P.I.s did it.
Jayne was also an older woman. Obviously she couldn’t conduct a honey trap herself. But Val was young, could pull it off. She had learned a lot watching all those hours of Honey Catchers.
No. She had to stop thinking this way. She had to abide by agency policy. Rules were rules. Even if she disagreed with some of them.
She stared at the wads of bills. Two grand, cash.
Enough to cover a new fuel pump, brakes, with plenty left over to toss into the kitty for the day when she moved out of her cousin’s place into her own.
Marta leaned forward, emotion shining in her eyes. “I come to United States from Russia. I clean houses, make better my English. Now I work in dress store, want to have own business someday. Did not want to fall in love, but...” She shrugged. “He ask me to marry. I say yes, then I hear about other women...” Her chin trembled.
Val nudged the tissue box toward her. “Maybe,” she said gently, “you should talk to him. Tell him what others have told you.”
Marta took a tissue, dabbed the corner of her eye. “Da. Yes. I do. He say no, people lie.” A tear spilled down her cheek. “I must know. Please. Help me.”
Boy, oh, boy, could Val relate to starting over. After Katrina, starting over became the story of her life. After a short stay in the Superdome, Val had relocated to Houston, where FEMA paid her rent for a studio apartment while she looked for work. Maybe if she had felt connected to the city, or at least known somebody, it might have worked out. But there were days she hadn’t even been able to get out of bed, much less tackle job hunting. When she moved to Las Vegas, at least she had family, but it was still tough learning her way around a new city, finding a job, making friends.
If she had also been forced to learn a new culture and language, she would have lost her marbles.
“I’m sorry. It must have been very difficult.”
“I don’t want person...persons...to know I hire private eye.” Marta leaned forward and whispered, “Only you and me to know.”
Val blew out a pent-up breath. It’d be sweet to drive her air-conditioned car again. No more walking in summer triple-digit heat, fighting for seats on crowded buses. She stared at the money. The beauty of cash was nobody could trace it, and this being a one-time gig...she felt a stab of guilt at what she was thinking, but...Jayne would never know.
Besides, one day Val would own her own agency, and maybe she would accept the occasional honey-trap case. This was her chance to gain experience, something she’d never get while interning with Jayne.
“Just you and me to ever know,” Marta repeated.
Val glanced at the photo of Nanny. By the time she was fifteen, she and her grandmother had swapped their parent-child roles. Val grew accustomed to making decisions for the two of them, often on the fly. Sometimes it was like walking into mist—she might not be sure what her next step would be, but she would learn. Over time, when faced with a choice, she discovered she gained more by forging ahead than standing, undecided, at the crossroads.
She picked up a pen, shoving aside her niggling conscience. “I need to get some information, like where he’s going tonight, the type of car he drives...”
* * *
AT NINE O’CLOCK that night, Drake Morgan stepped from the air-conditioned strip club, Topaz, into the outdoor sauna called
