Killer Ambition - [60]

Bailey’s phone rang and she stepped away to take the call, leaving me alone with Graden. I had to admit I enjoyed having him involved in the case. I wondered if I’d be pushing it to ask him out for a bite tonight. Until Dorian processed her evidence, there wasn’t much else we could do. “Graden, do you have any plans for dinner tonight?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” he said. “I’m taking out a smokin’ hot prosecutor.”

Silver-tongued devil. He wasn’t that rusty.

36

I didn’t want to be too far from home or have too much to drink, just in case something broke and I had to jump, so Graden suggested we go to “our” place, the Pacific Dining Car. The host automatically took us back to our favorite booth in the Club Car. I’d worried a return to our old stomping grounds might be unsettling, but it actually felt good to be back in familiar surroundings together. Over Bloody Marys, I gave a more detailed report on our trip to New York, and then pondered Ian Powers’s possible connection to the case.

“It does make sense that Averly would deal to him,” I said. “It’s a lot safer to buy dope from a PA on the lot than it is to do business with someone outside.”

“But it seems like too much of a coincidence-Averly, who just happens to be Ian’s dealer-gets caught with Hayley’s iPad, buys that ticket to Paris in Brian’s name…”

“Yeah. But Ian’s only link to the murders is that screenplay. The one Russell supposedly stole from Brian’s father. So what’s Ian’s motive? Fear that Brian had proof that Russell stole Tommy’s screenplay?”

Graden shook his head. “So far, there isn’t any, right?”

“No. But the thing is, even if we assume there was, it makes no sense.” This had bugged me from the very start. “If Brian had proof, then why wouldn’t he just take it to a lawyer? Why mess around with a fake kidnapping?”

“And if he didn’t have real evidence, then why would Ian feel threatened? Especially after all these years?”

“Right.” I sighed.

“And, just to make your life a little more miserable, why would Brian have evidence when his father obviously didn’t?”

I shook my head, frustrated. “This case…the further in we get, the less it makes sense.”

But Graden and I getting back together was making more and more sense. When he brought me back to the room, our good-night kisses were more intense than ever-and it was that, as much as anything, that told me we hadn’t really started over at square one. We were picking up where we’d left off. Not only healed from the fight, but closer than ever. I made myself say good night before I said the opposite, and put myself to bed in a happy daze.

I woke up early, jangling with nervous energy. Every passing hour gave Jack Averly more opportunity to get his hands on a cell phone and warn his partner in crime. That meant, like it or not, we had to push it. I phoned Bailey.

“Graden already did it,” Bailey said. “Called Dorian at home at seven this morning.”

My knight in shining armor. “Did she tell him what they had so far?”

“She told him what kind of idiot he was and that she already knew it was a priority.”

“Then maybe she worked late last night.” I looked at my bedside clock. “It’s eight now. Want me to call, or should we just get over there?”

“Let’s call. It’s easier to take the blast from her on the phone than face-to-face.”

“You’d know.”

“Which is why you’re making the call,” Bailey said.

I reached Dorian on the first ring.

“Why am I not surprised? You know, if you clowns would leave me alone for thirty seconds, I’d move a lot faster.”

“So you don’t have anything yet?”

“I may have. Who’s got red hair?”

I sat up, eyes wide. I started to say the name, then stopped myself. I wanted to be sure before I answered. Quickly, I mentally reviewed the images of everyone we’d met in the past week. I was right. There was only one.

“Ian Powers.”

“Well, obviously I don’t have any exemplars, so I can’t say much more than that the hairs on the passenger seatback in Averly’s car may be consistent with his.”

This was huge. If it was Ian’s hair, and you added that to all the recent phone calls between him and Averly, we’d have the beginnings of a real connection between Ian, Averly, and the murders. I felt my pulse start to quicken. “Anything else?”

“Nothing in the apartment so far. But I found soil and plant debris on the undercarriage of his Mustang that looks a lot like what I found on Brian’s car. I’ve already sent it to Numan. He’ll have an answer for you pretty quick.”

“Did you get any prints inside the car?”

“A couple of partials on the interior passenger door handle. Might be good enough to give us a match if you get someone in handcuffs.”

But how to get Ian in handcuffs? A sample of his hair, if it matched, would do it, but I had no time to get all espionage-y about snatching one of his crimson locks without him knowing it. That meant I’d need to get a search warrant for his place. Did I have enough to justify one? It was a close call, and I knew judges would be nervous about granting a dicey warrant with someone like Powers, but I had no choice. I’d just have to push it and hope for the best.