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  Dead Flowers

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  Copyright © 2013 LJLA, LLC

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-9888235-0-1

  Cover design – Shawn Gross Photography

  Edited by – Charlotte Herscher

  eBook formatting – The Eyes for Editing

  Dead Flowers

  I fucking hated Valentine’s Day.

  Hated it.

  With the hatred of a thousand fiery suns kind of hatred.

  “Yes, Julie, I know. You’ve been bitching about it for the last three days. Give it a rest.”

  I glanced across the conference table at my PI partner in crime, Kevin Wells.

  “What?” His handsome face wore a mocking expression. “No, I’m not a mind reader. You’re muttering. But in your case, it’s not really muttering, since I can understand every snarky word.”

  “So you’re a fan of Valentine’s Day? You’re picking out a mushy card, a box of chocolates, a bunch of flowers, and a teddy bear... for who exactly?”

  “No one, and I’m damn happy not to be dropping a bundle on one day without the guarantee I’ll get laid. Beings you’re in lurve and all, I imagine you’re planning to don fetish wear for Martinez for Valentine’s Day.”

  I gave him a droll stare. “Really, Kev? Fetish wear?”

  “I thought all bikers were into latex, leather and chains, and kinky stuff. I expect Martinez is the type of man to demand you put it on and parade around for his pleasure.”

  “Demand? That’d be the first and last time. I’d kick his ass.”

  “Sure. And then you’d kiss it.”

  My blood pressure spiked when he made kissing noises. “What the fuck is wrong with you today?”

  Kevin grinned. “I love yanking your chain. Especially the one Martinez used to attach the ball around your ankle. I’m surprised it doesn’t trip you up more often.”

  I threw the stapler at him.

  He ducked, laughed, then hightailed it out to the main room when the doorbell dinged.

  My whole beef with Valentine’s Day, at least this year, was that we, at Wells/Collins Investigations, had spent the last month working on cases to verify infidelity. Following the suspect-ees, hoping to catch them in trysts. The worst ones? When the cheaters were bold enough to meet their no-tell lover in their own homes. For me, it was enough to tarnish the aspect of everlasting love. It made me loathe a day devoted to celebrating lovers.

  Wasn’t like Martinez and I had discussed V-day. Not even in the hope-you-aren’t-expecting-an-engagement-ring type of joking around. Martinez and I had been living together for almost a year. The blush wasn’t entirely off the rose, but the petals had started to droop, especially since the first of the year. He’d been distant, which I chalked up to Hombres problems, not anything going wrong between us.

  Or had I just gotten complacent?

  I knew better than to ask why Martinez always left the room when his private cell phone rang. Secrecy was part of the gig being involved with Tony Martinez, the international president of the Hombres motorcycle club. Part of me was happy he kept me in the dark about his shady business dealings. But another part of me wondered if that mentality made me as much an idiot as the clients who hired us, hopeful the suspicions about their lover’s indiscretions were wrong. After all Tony and I had gone through to be together, he wouldn’t be stepping out on me now... would he?

  It especially bugged me, that in the last two months, more often than not, he still crashed at Bare Assets, the strip club he owned, or Fat Bob’s, the biker bar he owned, rather than driving home.

  Home. Even after eight months, it sounded strange. The place still felt like I was living in a hotel. We’d done nothing to it to make it ours besides combining our various crappy personal belongings.

  After I’d sold my house in Bear Butte County, he’d found a duplex to suit our needs. The house is located out of town, past the airport, and situated on a hill. Which means we have a great view of the front side of the Black Hills of South Dakota and the backside of the Badlands. We’re surrounded by ag land, so no one can show up on our doorstep and get to El Presidente without tipping off his security team.

  “Julie? We have a visitor.”

  I looked up as Kevin entered the conference room with a smartly dressed brunette. The woman, I guessed in her late-fifties, pointedly stepped over the stapler on the floor, offering her gloved hand and a brittle smile. “Marcia Bueller.”

  “Julie Collins.” I studied her for a moment. “Bueller. As in the Bueller Law Office down the hall from us?”

  “One and the same. My husband, Glen Bueller, owns the firm. I know he hasn’t utilized your investigative services, despite the convenience.”

  Kevin and I exchanged a look. Glen Bueller had leased the small office space six months ago. It’d seemed odd that the lawyer, who looked maybe five years shy of retirement, had left a large prestigious firm to hang out his own legal shingle at the twilight of his career.

  “Why don’t you tell us what problem we’ll be assisting you with?” Kevin said.

  Gotta love my smooth partner and his optimism.

  A long minute passed before she offered, “It’s a... personal matter.”

  Kevin’s attention remained rapt. Mine wandered. I hated how some clients dragged out the drama. Wouldn’t make the case more interesting to me. Nothing piqued my interest like cash on the barrelhead.

  “Two years ago, Glen took on a junior associate. A young woman, fresh out of law school, who’d spent a year clerking for Judge Raba in seventh circuit district court. When my husband relinquished his partnership last year, Meghan opted to join him in his solo practice.”

  I’d seen this Meghan woman. A tall, stacked, gorgeous redhead who could’ve moonlighted as the main attraction at Martinez’ strip club. “Didn’t you object to him hiring her?”

  Marcia shook her head. “I encouraged him to hire her since Meghan is the daughter of my sorority sister, Patrice. I expected it’d be a mentor relationship. Then he had a career crisis and resigned from Hall, Nelsen, and Burns to start his own practice. He didn’t consult me in that decision.”

  “It’s caused issues between you?”

  “Yes, not that I ever expressed my displeasure to him. I soldiered on, being the dutiful wife as I have for the last thirty-five years. But now...” Marcia glanced at her gloved hands, folded on the conference table. “Now I’m afraid they’re having an affair.”

  “What makes you believe that?” Kevin asked.

  “Little things. The familiar way she touches him. The avidness of his eyes following her every move. The last minute business trips. The fact that when he’s home, he’s not... really there. He’s distracted.”

  Don’t compare this situation to yours with Martinez.

  Annoyed by my own comparison, I asked, “When did you first suspect this was going on?”

  Marcia lifted her chin, glared at me for my impertinent question and then addressed Kevin. “I need to know exactly what’s going on. Irrefutable proof. I assume you can be discreet?”

  “Absolutely.”

>   “Then I’d like to hire you.”

  “Consider it done.” Kevin leveled her with a trust me I’m a professional smile. “Hang tight for a second and I’ll get the paperwork.”

  I sensed Marcia didn’t want to be alone with me because I’d already figured out she’d known about her husband’s slap and tickle with his associate a lot longer than she wanted to admit.

  So what’d happened all of a sudden that she could open the blind eye she’d turned toward the affair? Despite my usual tendency to blurt out the first thing that popped into my head, this time, I kept my mouth shut and put the business ahead of my curiosity.

  I fired up a smoke and leaned back in my chair.

  Marcia wrinkled her nose. “There are no smoking laws in this city.”

  “Would you like me to open a window?” Right. It was ten degrees below zero outside.

  “I’m sure the building owners wouldn’t approve of your... habit.”

  “Moot point since Kevin now owns the building.” Technically Kevin, Jimmer and I owned it. Jimmer needed a legitimate tax write off, and I needed to invest the paltry sum from the sale of my house since Martinez had paid for ours. And luckily, my buddy Kevin oozed the charm that’d convinced the ninety-something spitfire Verna Doren to sell to us two months ago. I exhaled. Smiled. Waited.

  “You and Kevin are partners?”

  So damn hard not to snipe back that Kevin and I weren’t partners like her husband and Meghan were partners. “Yes. Kevin started the business, but I bought in after I quit working at the Bear Butte County Sheriff’s Office a few years ago.”

  Kevin returned with the contract. I listened while he explained the terms. Marcia signed on the dotted line and they left to take care of payment. Cash I assumed.

  I ground out my smoke and wandered to the window, looking at the street below. Dirty snow was piled waist high against the stone façade. A Dumpster in the alley overflowed with cardboard. The dim sunlight was fading fast, tipping us into night. I’d be glad to put this day behind me and go home.

  Would Martinez be there tonight? Or would I get another terse phone call telling me not to wait up? I brooded until Kevin returned.

  “Jules? You okay?”

  “Yeah.” I faced him. “Just ready to be done with these cases today.”

  Kevin slid into his seat. “Speaking of cases... what have we got on Natalie Brunson, besides her husband’s suspicion that she’s getting it on with their son’s math tutor?”

  “Photos.” I shoved the pictures at him. “They meet every other day in the morning.”

  “Think math whiz college kid has calculated how much each bang is worth?”

  “Crude, even for you, Kev. Besides”—I tapped my fingers on the pictures—“I don’t know how damning these are.”

  “What’s the time between shots?” Kevin asked.

  “Forty-five minutes. After the meeting, they lingered on the doorstep, as much as one can linger when it’s three degrees below zero out. They didn’t touch at all, which could be an indication they’re doing the nasty. Or it could be... they’re simply an employer/employee chatting about the kid’s performance, not how the tutor performs in bed.”

  Kevin squinted at me. Then he bent down and peeked under the table.

  “Did you lose your pen or something?”

  He raised his head. “I see you. I hear your voice, but the excuses you’re offering would never come out of my cynical partner’s mouth. Never.”

  “Good one, Shecky.”

  “Seriously, you’ve been all these assholes are fucking cheaters and now you’re changing your tune? Because she’s a woman and women don’t cheat?”

  “No. And fuck off for assuming I’m gender biased when it comes to cheating. When I saw them on the steps, it wasn’t lovers saying goodbye. It was more like... when you walk a friend out the front door and your conversation lingers.”

  “Does that happen when your BFF, Kim, and her new bundle of joy comes over to the place you share with Martinez?”

  I shuffled the pictures, a little pissy he’d touched on another sore subject between me and Martinez. The “no visitors” rule. “Kim doesn’t visit me. Guns, goons and babies don’t mix. Even if she did visit, one of Martinez’ bodyguards would warn her off with a shotgun.”

  “How can you live like that?”

  “I’m used to it.” The threats to Martinez had lessened in the last year, but hadn’t disappeared completely. So a rotating security detail of seven club members protected us 24/7, two guys for two days at a time. Martinez and I occupy one side of the duplex and his security team the other. A door connects the two separate spaces. A door, which is never locked from our side. That main door has to be 100% accessible 100% of the time for Martinez’ protection.

  “You put up with a lot of shit to live with him, Jules. You know that, right?”

  I shrugged. “My other choice is not to live with him at all.” That I couldn’t handle. “As far as Natalie Brunson... I’ll need another day. Three hours remain on the husband’s initial payment anyway.”

  Kevin made a disgruntled sigh. “Immediately after you’re done tomorrow, do the wrap-up report so I can call him.”

  “Happy fucking Valentine’s Day.” I gathered the pictures and dropped them in the manila envelope. “You’re handling Marcia Bueller’s case?”

  “Yes. But I felt guilty taking her money. I already know Meghan is frequently in old man Bueller briefs—not just the legal ones.”

  “How?”

  His cool green-eyed stare tightened my midsection. “Paper-thin walls. I’ve heard them going at it on numerous occasions when I’ve worked late. I saw them playing grab ass in the hallway just last week.”

  My fist hit the conference table. “Why didn’t you just tell Marcia that?”

  “She wants tangible proof of her suspicions, so we’ll give it to her.” He sighed again. “Looks like I’m on stakeout duty tonight. Marcia said Glen planned to work late and told her not to wait up.”

  Just what Martinez had said to me the last few nights. Any desire to go home evaporated. “I can stay and help.”

  Kevin’s gaze snapped to mine. “I thought you were antsy to leave and play kissy face with your man?”

  Given my mood, I’d most likely punch Martinez in the kisser if I saw him. “And miss a chance to hear the old guy and the young tart squeaking the legs on the conference table? I’ll stick around just to make Viagra jokes.”

  “Oh joy, my night will be complete.”

  “Want me to order pizza or Chinese for stakeout duty?”

  “Pizza. Veggie pizza. And get a salad with it.”

  Despite Kevin’s resolution to become Mr. Health Conscious since New Years, I knew he’d eat his fair share of the chocolate marshmallow dessert pizza I planned to wallow in, since tequila wasn’t an option while I was on duty.

  ~*~

  As far as stakeouts? Our agency hit a new record for efficiency. I was able to sneak into the Bueller Law Office and record the sounds of skin slapping, grunts, and shouts of ecstasy, after I convinced the pizza delivery guy to accidentally deliver the order to the wrong office. For an extra twenty bucks, he’d been more than happy to leave the door open a crack.

  Then Kevin had waited in a dark corner to snap photos with his super-duper, secret-spy camera of the pair swapping spit at the office doorway. Then Mr. Bueller took his cheating self down the back staircase while Meghan sashayed out the front door. Really. Who did they think they were fooling?

  Kevin sensed my melancholy and offered to buy me a drink at the brewpub down the street from our office, but I declined and headed to the parking lot.

  The digital thermometer in my pickup read the outside air temp as eighteen degrees. Below zero. As I waited for the engine to warm up, I smoked and considered my options. Pop in and visit Martinez unannounced? Just drive past Bare Assets and Fat Bob’s looking for one of Martinez’ four vehicles? No. That’d be creepy, girlfriend stalkerish. If he wanted me t
o know where he was, he’d tell me. I’d be damned if I’d call and check up on him.

  Or maybe he thinks you don’t give a shit.

  Wrong. He knew how I felt about him. I wasn’t the one who needed to prove those feelings hadn’t faded since we’d moved in together.

  The roads out of town were snow-packed and slippery. Ghostly white fingers skittered on the road in front of me, compelling in their haunting beauty. I slowed when I passed Black Hills Speedway and saw a car in the ditch. My Ford looked like a bucket of bolts on the outside, but the sucker got around like a mountain goat in the winter months. I ground out my second smoke right before I hit the turnoff to our place.

  No gate. No outwardly obvious security measures. But hidden cameras monitored the entire area. The half-mile long gravel road leading to the house looked like just another untended country driveway—one of hundreds scattered across western South Dakota. I pulled around back and parked in the garage.

  Buzz and Bucket were on duty. I punched the all clear code and let myself in.

  The living room remained in the same messy state as this morning. My half-empty coffee cup on the end table next to an overflowing ashtray. Magazines scattered everywhere. A psychedelic-colored fleece blanket hung off the easy chair. Slippers and socks kicked off here and there. Martinez hated clutter. If he’d been around, he would’ve picked it up. Petty, but I’d left it that way for that reason.

  I ditched my work clothes and slipped on my rattiest flannel pajamas. After fixing myself a bag of microwave popcorn, I snuggled into the leather couch and watched a Myth Busters marathon until sleep overtook me.

  Cold air violated my warm cocoon and I protested until a pair of strong arms scooped me up. Although I was only groggy, I feigned sleep. What delicious way would Tony awaken me? I was hoping for hot skin, hot kisses and hot man all over me. Thickly whispered Spanish phrases in my ear as he slammed his body into mine. I could almost taste his full lips. I could almost feel his heart thundering against my chest as we tried to outdo each other, tried to push the other to the pinnacle of pleasure first. I could almost feel those clever, rough-skinned hands caressing my skin. Soothing me in the aftermath of volatile sex that left me breathless and more in love and in tune with him than before.