Missed Connections Read online

  The anxiety grew as the private car joined the line of its fellows outside the performing arts center. I considered telling the driver to forget about it, to take me home, but Kyle Fisher’s stupid face flashed in my mind. He was here, inside, and he was going to die tonight. When the driver opened my door, I stepped out, thanked him with a generous tip, and joined the crowd heading up the steps and into the arts center.

  “Name?” said the woman at the door, hardly glancing up from her tablet as she digitally checked guests off one by one.

  “Amelia Benson.”

  She scrolled through the list and tapped on a checkmark. “Welcome to your night at the ballet, Ms. Benson. Enjoy.”

  I walked right in. The crowd was so thick and colorful that no one would ever spot me. On the downside, that meant locating Kyle Fisher would be just as challenging. Lucky for me, his ticket was electronic. Earlier, I’d accessed it through his email and gotten his seat assignment for the ballet. Then I’d shifted some seats around and positioned myself three rows behind him, close enough to keep an eye on him during the performance.

  It was a long night. The pre-show appetizers and cocktails dragged on and on. I kept to the edge of the room, nursing one glass of champagne for a solid two hours, and hunted for my target. There was no sign of him among the masses. Paranoid, I used my phone to consult the guest list. Kyle Fisher had checked in at the door. He was here somewhere, in the very same room.

  “I love your dress!”

  I found myself face to face with a woman around my age. She hung off the arm of her date, a man in an Armani suit who looked bored despite the fact the ballet hadn’t begun yet. I looked behind me to make sure the woman wasn’t addressing someone over my shoulder.

  “Who, me?” I asked, gesturing to myself with the champagne glass.

  She giggled. “Yes, silly. Oh my gosh, turn around, would you?” She piloted me in a circle and gasped when she saw the gown’s daring low back. “Wow, I wish I could pull off something like that.”

  Her own gown was gorgeous but modest with long lace sleeves. I tried to think of something that a normal person might say in this situation and went with, “You could.”

  The woman shook her head. “No, no, no. I’m not that audacious.”

  I beckoned her forward as if to share a secret, and she leaned off of her date’s arm to catch my reply. “Audacity is learned. Be bold. Make a statement. Wear what you like.” I withdrew from our bubble of supposed secrecy. “After all, life is short. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve just spotted my husband across the room, and he appears to have fallen into too interesting of a conversation with one of the pretty ladies serving hors d’oeuvres. I must demand his attention at once.” I disappeared into the crowd, leaving the woman behind with a confident gleam in her eye.

  The short exchange loosened me up.. The wig and makeup were doing their job. No one suspected Veronica Bauer walked amongst them. At long last, a bell chimed to indicate everyone should take their seats for the show. I followed the crowd into the theater, sat down, and waited. Three rows ahead, Kyle Fisher’s seat and the one next to it remained empty. I fidgeted, clutching the program for the ballet between sweaty fists. I stood and sat multiple times to allow other guests to find their seats in my row. After the fourth or fifth time, Kyle Fisher was suddenly there in his own seat, his arm around the shoulders of the woman next to him. He faced her, and I caught sight of his profile for the first time. Shaved head. Sharp, pointed nose. Thin lips that whispered against his date’s ears. My stomach flipped over as she laughed at something he said and kissed his thin lips. She gave herself to him voluntarily now, but would the sentiment hold firm later?

  The lights dimmed. The director lifted his baton. The music started. The dancers took the stage. I did not take my eyes off of Kyle Fisher for an hour and a half. Near intermission, he whispered in his date’s ear and got out of his seat, ducking low as he escaped his row. I clenched the armrests, knuckles white, head turning slowly to clock his movement. I’d give him a ten-second head start, so it didn’t look like I was following him when I got up.

  Ten, nine, eight—

  I shifted in my seat. The holster around my thigh, which held the one and only knife I’d brought with me, pinched my skin.

  Seven, six, five—

  The music crescendoed. The ballerinas pranced across the stage.

  Four, three, two—

  I lifted myself from my seat. That’s when I saw her. The gorgeous, dark-haired woman in the devil-blue dress with the thigh-high slit, standing next to the closest exit of the theater. She was petite, somehow short in four-inch heels. And she was staring right at me.

  One.

  Chapter Ten - Sheila

  I clocked the woman in the red dress as soon as she walked into the arts center. She was familiar, though I was sure I’d never seen her dark hair or elegant features before in Simone City. She arrived alone, unusual for a social event like this one, and kept to the outskirts of the room. While everyone else got drunk on refills at the open bar, she kept one glass of champagne with her for the entire first half of the evening. I was so focused on her that, at one point, Payne elbowed me in the ribs.

  “You’re supposed to be keeping an eye out for the killer’s potential targets,” he said. “Not checking out the competition.”

  Much to Captain Dumas’s chagrin, I hadn’t dropped my hunch about the killer’s involvement with Bauer Tech. Over the last week, I’d narrowed down the hundreds of names on the charity gala guest list from twelve years ago to a group of twenty, excluding Phillip Beatnik, James Honey, and Karl Murphy. These were the men who were closest to Wallace Bauer, personally or financially. If my hunch was correct, they were also the ones with the highest probability of getting knifed by Simone City’s new assassin. Every one of them was in attendance at the ballet tonight. I wasn’t sure if the killer was bold enough to pick one of them off at such a public event, but I also didn’t want to take any risks. Since keeping an eye on twenty men within a crowd of two thousand wasn’t something I could do on my own—I could barely see above the heads in the crowd—I brought Payne along as backup.

  Payne shoved a glass of wine into my hand. “Here. Stop fidgeting. We’re supposed to be blending in, remember?”

  I accepted the glass and took a sip, wincing at the sweetness of the wine. It was a Moscato or a Riesling, something far too akin to fruit juice for my taste. Payne, in contrast, chugged his and set the empty glass on the tray of a passing server.

  “Man, can you imagine going to events like this on the regular?” He watched a woman in a racy black gown. “I’d friggin’ die.”

  “Not used to the tux, huh?” I asked him, standing on my toes to get another glance around the room. One of the guys on my list, a man whose bottled black hair didn’t match the color of his gray mustache, stood by the server’s entrance. Each time a server emerged with a fresh plate of hors d’oeuvres, he picked several off the tray before the poor girl could make the rounds. I nudged Payne. “There’s Rene Rogers. He was on the board of directors at Bauer Tech. He’s sitting in row F, seat 36.”

  Payne studied Rogers. “He’s acting like he’s third-world level of starved. You think his wife feeds him? Oh, look—that’s what’s-his-face, isn’t it?”

  I craned my neck, but it was no good. Payne rolled his eyes and surreptitiously lifted me at the waist. Across the room, another potential target checked his coat. “Carlton Cohen,” I said as Payne set me down again. “Row D, seat 25. One of Bauer Tech’s shareholders.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Payne said. “He holds a hefty portion of Halco Industries, right?”

  “Did you actually read the notes I gave you?”

  He shrugged, snagged a crab roll from a passing server, and popped it in his mouth. “You asked me to help out with the case,” he mumbled around the food. “That’s what I’m doing. I am a good cop, you know.”

  “You’re usually so busy dicking around that I forget sometimes. Especially la
tely.”

  “Sorry.”

  It was the best apology I was going to get out of him. Hopefully, this was the end of his ridiculous grudge against me for winning the detective position over him. I pointed to another man. “Clifford Burton. Row H, seat 43.”

  “Did you memorize their ticket stubs?”

  “And a map of the concert hall,” I said. “Once we get in there, I want to have eyes on all twenty of these guys. It’s good to be prepared.”

  “Speaking of prepared.” Payne’s eyes raked the full length of my body, from my elaborate braid to my black stilettos. “I didn’t know you owned a dress like that. Hell, I didn’t know you owned a dress at all.”

  “Don’t judge a woman by her preference for pants,” I said. “Besides, I bought this off the sale rack at the mall yesterday, so don’t get too excited.”

  His gaze lingered at the top of my thigh, where the silky blue fabric split to showcase my smooth tan skin. “Totally not excited. Okay, maybe a little excited.”

  He reached out to touch, but I smacked his hand away. “I’m your superior, Payne. We work together. Don’t forget that.”

  He cleaned up well too, but his sleek black tux, smoldering eyes, and perfectly coiffed hair did nothing for me. For fuck’s sake, he was still Wyatt Payne. He pouted, drained a second glass of wine, and gobbled another crab roll.

  “Tell me again why we have to pretend to be on a date?” he said, whining as if he hadn’t held my hand on the way in and kept close to my side ever since.

  “Because we’re not technically supposed to be here.”

  “Dumas didn’t clear this?”

  “That depends on your definition of ‘clear.’”

  “Arden!”

  I shushed him as other guests turned in our direction. “Can you not blow our cover? If anyone finds out that the cops are on the lookout for a murderer here, this whole place will go up in chaos. And then who will save the kids with cancer?”

  “Everyone’s already paid for their tickets, Sheila.”

  “Still, keep your mouth shut.”

  He leaned over to compensate for our height difference and said, “If I get fired for this, I’m taking you down with me.”

  “Relax, Payne. No one’s getting fired.”

  “You know Dumas only gave you the promotion because he wants to see you fail.”

  Apparently, I was wrong. Payne was still nursing his bruised ego. “What are you talking about?”

  “Didn’t he tell you?” His voice had that sneering laugh to it that I hated, the one that implied he was hiding his own insecurities from himself and everyone around him. “You and I got the same score on the detective’s test. He could have hired either one of us, but you were so eager that he was determined to put you in your place. He knows you can’t do this. You won’t solve the Switchblade case, and you won’t solve any others either.”

  “I wish everyone would stop calling this the Switchblade case since the killer clearly isn’t using a fucking switchblade.”

  “What?”

  “The causes of death on the three victims weren’t stab wounds or slashes,” I said. “They were rips. The killer used a curved, serrated knife, not a fucking switchblade.”

  Payne watched me with a stunned expression. “That wasn’t in your notes.”

  “And it wasn’t in Dumas’s either,” I said. “Or Kaminsky’s, or Sutton’s, or Gadsden’s, or anyone else’s, but the fucking morgue attendant knew and no one except me bothered to ask him any further questions about it.” I took a deep breath, stifling the tantrum that threatened to erupt. Blowing up at Payne wouldn’t help at all. It would give him more ammunition. Proving him wrong, demolishing his argument, was more satisfying. “I was the one who figured out that all three men were connected to Bauer Tech somehow, so do me a favor, Payne, and shut the fuck up.”

  My profanity, however hushed, was beginning to gather attention. The ballet guests looked around for the source of the foul language, but when their eyes landed on me, dainty and delicate in blue, they couldn’t match the offensive words to the sweet face. I smiled at each of them in turn, and they returned to their own business. Payne was too stupefied to taunt me further. Overhead, a bell rang.

  “Let’s go,” I said, looping my hand around Payne’s elbow. “It’s almost time.”

  We followed the crowd into the concert hall, but when Payne tried to lead me to our seats, I jerked him back.

  “What?” he said.

  “We’re not sitting down.”

  “Why the fuck not?”

  “Because I can’t see everyone from a seat.” I tugged Payne against the wall near the door to let everyone else flow by us. The concert hall was built to angle downward toward the stage. We were at the center of the room, where I had a visual on almost every seat. The mezzanine overhead would keep us in shadow during the show, so it was unlikely that anyone would notice we were standing there. One by one, I pointed out the men on my list. “Cohen, Burton, Rogers, Holloway—”

  “I can’t believe we’re not sitting down,” Payne grumbled, crossing his arms as he leaned against the wall.

  “This is a stakeout, Payne. Not a date.”

  The guests gradually took their seats. As they did so, I spotted the woman in the red dress again. She sat a few rows from where I stood, her gaze trained on something in front of her. I traced her line of sight and found—

  “Kyle Fisher.”

  “Who?” Payne said.

  I nodded toward the tall man with the shaved head. His seat was level with our position. “Right there. I originally crossed him off my list, but I’m having second thoughts.”

  “Why?”

  The lights dimmed, and the crowd hushed. I looked at the woman in the red dress, whose eyes had not left the back of Fisher’s head. “Just a guess.”

  An hour into the performance, Payne doubled over, clutching his stomach. “Oh, God,” he groaned. “Something I ate didn’t agree with me.”

  “Probably a combo of too much white wine and all of those crab rolls,” I said. He was turning green. I took a step back. “Payne, get out of here if you’re going to hurl.”

  He made a break for the exit, clapping a hand over his mouth. I slumped against the wall of the concert hall. These heels were not doing me any favors. The circulation in my toes had completely cut off, and we weren’t at intermission yet. For the next half hour, I switched from standing on one foot to the other. Payne didn’t return. Indisposed, I guessed.

  Right before intermission, Kyle Fisher stood. He wriggled out of his row, doing his best not to disrupt the other guests watching the ballet. He nodded politely to me as he ducked out of the theater. I smiled back. Then I looked at the woman in the red dress. She shifted, planted her palms on either armrest as if to lift herself from her seat as well, but when she looked at the door Fisher disappeared through, she found me instead. For a split second, we stared at each other, unblinking. Then the woman settled in her seat again, crossed one long leg over the other, and watched the rest of the performance. Her gaze never wavered from the stage.

  A few minutes later, when the lights went up for intermission, Fisher had not returned from his bathroom break. I slipped out of the concert hall before the rest of the crowd and waited for the woman in the red dress to exit. Most of the guests hastened to the restrooms or to the bar to refill their drinks, but when the woman emerged, she strode purposefully through the crowd and up the stairs to the mezzanine. I followed her at a safe distance.

  The woman beelined for the balcony on the second floor, where the arts center held fashion shows and other outdoor events during the warmer seasons. She never faltered or looked around. Several glass doors led to the balcony. She glanced through each one until she found what she was looking for. Several paces behind her, I steadied my gait and slipped behind a large stone bust to stay hidden. I peered through the glass door at my side for a glimpse of whatever the woman was staring at. Kyle Fisher stood on the balcony, smoking a ciga
rette.

  The woman hiked the train of her dress all the way up to her thigh and drew a knife—one with a curved, serrated blade—from a holster there. She twisted the handle of the balcony door, blade at the ready.

  “Hey!” I shouted, sprinting down the corridor and trying to free my shield from beneath my dress at the same time. “Freeze! Officer—Detective Sheila Arden. You’re under arrest!”

  She booked it. One second, she was halfway through the door to the balcony, and the next she was tearing down the corridor toward the emergency exit. How she ran that fast in heels, I had no idea. I kicked mine off and raced after her. The emergency exit led to a less extravagant set of stairs. The woman’s hurried footsteps echoed upward, and I caught a flash of her red dress whipping around the corner. I took the steps three at a time and leapt the last five to the bottom. There were two doors. I kicked open the one that led outside, but there was no hint of a woman in red fleeing across the well-lit streets of Juno, so I burst through the one that led into the main room of the arts center.

  It was full of ballet guests, waiting for intermission to end. The place was wall to wall with suits and dresses of every color. The woman had vanished, lost in the crowd.

  Chapter Eleven - Vee

  Careless. That’s what today’s mission was. That woman, the detective, was too close. I underestimated Simone City’s police force. From what the news reported, they had no leads on the murders around Juno, but if that were true, what was Detective Sheila Arden doing at the ballet? Coincidence, maybe, that she had turned up there, but there was a reason that she had been standing by the door of the concert hall rather than enjoying the performance from an actual seat. The biggest problem was that she’d seen me. We looked right at each other, and I’d stared for longer than I should have because there was something familiar about the shape of Sheila Arden’s face. Like I’d seen her before. I didn’t know any of Simone City’s detectives personally, not even the one who’d put my father in prison. By that time, I was already dead.