He didn’t mind, much, paring down when it came to his new life, but forget stripping down, as in going shirtless, which was what he’d heard guys did in these date auctions.
But it wasn’t an issue to be discussed in text messages. He needed to talk to Grams in person, offer a compromise, like his donating some money from his hefty retainer instead. Yeah, that might fix this problem.
He looked back up at Val and Drake. “Guys, mind if I take off early?”
Val did a double take. “You finally have a date, Brax?”
“Sorta.” More like a sit-down negotiation with one of the grandest old ladies who ever graced this planet.
“That didn’t come out right,” Val continued. “Sounded as if you can’t get a date when that’s so far from the truth. Why, with your stud looks, you could be courtin’ a different girl every night, so it’s just odd you’ve been livin’ like a monk for months now.”
“Honey,” Drake murmured, “you might be stepping over a line.”
She looked at her husband, all innocence. “Because I mentioned an obvious fact? Why, even Grams is worried about him! That’s why you—” She pursed her lips.
Braxton leaned back in his chair and checked out his brother, who was scratching his eyebrow. Which he always did when he was uncomfortable. Or guilty. “What’d you do, bro?”
“I, uh, paid the entry fee.”
“Entry fee,” he repeated, not liking where this was going. “To this brawn fest.”
“Magic Dream Date Auction, yes.”
Brax rocked forward on his chair, the front legs hitting the floor with a thud. “You think I can’t get a date?”
“Hey, Brax,” Val cut in, making a placating gesture, “it’s not like that, really. It’s just that ever since you moved in with Mama D and Grams, you stay home every night, get to bed by ten, never answer your former girlfriends’ calls. You seem, well, defeated, flat...nothin’ like my former bro-in-law.”
“I don’t stay home every night,” he muttered, wondering if it were Mom or Grams who’d snitched about his not returning those calls. Probably both.
“Right,” Drake said, “one evening you drove to a convenience store and bought a quart of milk.”
Brax blew out an exasperated breath. “I can’t believe this! I spend years being estranged from my family for hanging out with thugs, dating questionable women and skirting the Nevada criminal justice system, during which time Mom banned me from our childhood home. But now that I’m law-abiding, and yeah, okay, so I haven’t been involved with a woman for a while, but that’s my choice, by the way...” He gave both of them an and-you-better-believe-it look. “Where was I?”
“A law-abidin’ citizen,” prompted Val.
“Right. Now that I’m an upstanding citizen, my family can’t hear enough about my uneventful, boring life? I suppose Mom’s spilled that I still watch cartoons sometimes, too.” He jabbed an accusing finger at Val, then Drake. “Maybe it’s you people who need to get a life!”
“Brax,” Drake said, “don’t take it the wrong way.”
“What’s the right way? To joke about my do-nothing, go-nowhere, get-nothing life?”
“It’s all right, dawlin’,” Val said, drawing out the word dawlin’ like a slow pour of molasses. “It must be awful bein’ a former playboy. Like bein’ an ol’ James Bond sent out to pasture.”
As if he needed that mental picture. An old Bond bull with a bunch of over-the-hill Miss Moneypennies.
“Look,” he said, “I know you two mean well, but let’s put the brakes on the matchmaking, ’kay? That includes any blind dates, Craigslist ads, surprise walk-ins, you get the picture.”
Val frowned. “Surprise walk-ins?”
“Some hot blonde walks into the detective agency, needs to talk to a P.I. He falls for her story and her, and that’s when his real troubles start. It’s in every clichéd private-eye film.”
“F’true,” Val said, her eyes lighting up, “I recently saw Chinatown, and just like you said, the trouble started when a blonde walks into private eye Jake Gittes’s office.”
“I dunno,” Drake said. “You’ve been a monk so long, maybe you need a little blonde trouble.”
“Monk.” Braxton snorted. “Now you’re stepping over the line, bro.”
“Yeah?” Drake countered. “Well, since I’m already there, gotta ask...still watching Donald Duck cartoons?”
“I don’t need this.” Brax picked up his phone and stood. “I’m heading home to tell Grams that as much as I appreciate her—and your—concern to find me a date, I’d prefer not being auctioned off to the highest bidder.”
He started walking to the door.
“Good luck saying no to Grams, bro.”
“I never claimed to be a wise man,” he said over his shoulder. “Just a savvy, determined monk.”
CHAPTER TWO
CLOSE TO THREE, Frances cruised her rented Mercedes sports car past the Passage-of-Love drive-through wedding chapel, its tunnel bright with gaudy lights and gold-painted cherubs. In the lot next to it was a run-down duplex, where a scrawny girl in cutoff shorts and a T-shirt sat hunched on the porch steps, solemnly watching a couple ride a motorcycle into the chapel. To Frances, those two buildings summed up downtown Las Vegas—glitz, business and tough times.
At the end of the block, she pulled into Fortier’s lot and parked. After patting the inside pocket of her jacket to confirm the presence of the replica brooch, she exited the car.
The winds were picking up, but brooding clouds still hovered, as though unsure whether to take action or not. February forecasts were like crapshoots in Sin City—if the weather report called for fair skies, it might snow.
Heading toward the silver-tinted jewelry-store windows, she spied Enzo Fortier’s Bentley, one of the inheritances from his late father, Alain Fortier. Enzo’s siblings were angry their father had given the bulk of his estate, including the Bentley and jewelry store, to his youngest son, Enzo. The ongoing family drama, with its litigation, accusations of extortion, fraud and theft, had left Enzo distracted and vulnerable to criminals.
That was what she and Charlie believed, anyway. The person who stole the Lady Melbourne brooch had taken advantage of Enzo’s distraction to fence the pin. Not that Enzo was innocent—he had to know he was receiving stolen goods, but was probably too frightened to say no.
Whatever the situation, Charlie had tapped her for this case because she knew about Georgian jewelry. Being a woman didn’t hurt, either, he’d said, because Enzo had a roving eye.
So one reason Charlie had picked her for this case was because she was
