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  Red Roses in Las Vegas

  By

  A. R. Winters

  Red Roses in Las Vegas

  Copyright 2014 by A. R. Winters

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental.

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  Red Roses in Las Vegas (A Tiffany Black Mystery)

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  Tiffany Black is sick of the dangers that come with being a PI. She’s about to throw in the towel, when events force her to investigate one last case…

  Nanna is a sweet, lovely old lady – at least, that’s what she’d like you to believe. Too bad the cops investigating Adam Bitzer’s death don’t buy it for a second. And worse, they think she’s the one responsible for Adam’s death…

  Chapter One

  The building was dark.

  It was three stories high and wide enough to look short. From the street, we could see a couple of lights blinking out at us; goody-two-shoes employees burning the midnight oil.

  When we pulled into the large, barren car park, there were only six other cars there. Jack had chosen to drive one of his low-profile vehicles today, a sparklingly clean late model Honda, instead of his usual red Ferrari. Opposite the car park, on the other side of Sunset Road, the vast, empty expanse of land belonging to McCarran Airport stretched out into darkness.

  I wondered if anyone could see us from the planes that rose and sank so close to us. But of course they couldn’t – we couldn’t even be seen from the road, thanks to our all-black outfits. Beyond the airport, the Strip glittered in the distance, bright and tiny, like an over-priced miniature model sold at a gift shop.

  I caught up with Jack at the door. It was motion-sensitive and constructed from sparklingly clean glass. When I glanced down, I saw the large, flat pebble he’d dropped onto the floor earlier, in between the two sliding doors.

  “They lock automatically after 6pm,” Jack had told me.

  But not tonight. Tonight, our pebble held the doors an inch apart. The gap was small enough to go unnoticed, but large enough for Jack to insert a long, thick extension of wire and push a button on the other side of the doors.

  I glanced around. There was nobody else in the car park, and Jack had told me that the security camera facing the door was a decoy. Nobody would know we’d been here. The glass doors slid open, and we stepped inside.

  A burst of lights came on. I blinked and looked around, my heart beating furiously. Nobody. Stupid motion-sensitive lights.

  I took a deep breath, and watched Jack slip on a pair of thin, surgical gloves – all the better to prevent fingerprints. He handed me a pair, and I pulled them on as we headed wordlessly towards the elevator.

  “There won’t be anyone at the Verdant Wealth Solution offices,” Jack had told me, and I trusted him. The midnight-oil burners probably worked in different offices, on different levels of the building.

  Jack and I had met under strange circumstances a few weeks back, and now we were on our first official date. I glanced sideways at him as we made our way towards the elevators. My heart was beating furiously because we were breaking into a building; but even if we’d been on a “regular” date, I’d have been almost as flustered and nervous as I was now.

  Jack was impossibly handsome, with his short, dark hair and emerald eyes, and his suave charm made him pretty irresistible. He was a local entrepreneur who owned shares in a couple of casinos and a few other businesses, but unlike most businessmen, he had an unusual hobby.

  A few days back, he’d admitted to me that he had pretty cool burglary skills, and I’d insisted he teach me something. He’d given me a lock-picking set, and shown me how to open locked doors and drawers, but I’d insisted he show me how to get into a locked building.

  So here we were, breaking into the offices of Verdant Wealth Solutions.

  The elevator made its way up, the air inside tinged with the hint of stale coffee. My heart hammered away like crazy, and my hands felt ice-cold. When we stepped out into the hallway, the motion-sensitive lights came on, one by one, preceding and following us as we walked.

  We finally reached the door– more sliding glass held open by another flat white pebble. As Jack did his trick with the wire, I peered inside. The lights were all off in the VWS office, but the hallway lights allowed me to make out a small, posh-looking reception area, with a fancy sign on the wall behind the receptionist’s desk. I pictured the receptionist working there during the day – a snobbish blonde, refusing to grant the undesirables access to the inner offices.

  The glass doors slid open; Jack put the wire away and pulled a tiny flashlight out of his pocket. There weren’t any motion-sensitive lights in here, so Jack pointed the flashlight around, showing me the empty office.

  We walked around slowly, the tiny point of light coupling with the slivers of street lighting that slid past the closed blinds. There was an open-plan work area before us, the desks empty at this hour, the carpet a stiff, commercial grey. The office was T-shaped, and the open-plan area was the short, stubby base of the T.

  The loud hum of a commercial vacuum cleaner emanated from the floor above us. I glanced at Jack, and wondered why he chose to go out with me. Jack could date just about anyone, and for some reason he’d picked me. He looked as calm and cool as ever, as he peered at someone’s stapler and then at the framed cat photo on someone else’s desk.

  He looked up at me, and one corner of his mouth went up. “This is the most boring burglary ever,” he whispered. “Any idea what souvenir you want?”

  My eyes darted around, and I breathed in a deep, steadying breath. This place was eerie, but I was glad I’d come. Despite the loud thudding in my chest, I’d never felt more alive.

  “Let’s explore some more,” I whispered back.

  I wasn’t really here for the souvenirs. I’d been curious about how to break into a place, but burglary wasn’t on my list of possible future careers.

  We turned left at the corner and took two steps down the hallway that formed the top of the T, before we realized what we were seeing and froze.

  Chapter Two

  Bright, yellow light was glowing below a closed door, spilling from the crack underneath, and I was sure I heard muffled voices.

  Jack grabbed my elbow and pulled me close against the wall. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. We stood there, silent, trying not to move. Our fingers interlaced and at his touch, a jolt of electricity shot up my arm. The residue of a feminine perfume lingered near this wall, sickly sweet. Jack and I breathed steadily, our chests moving up and down in tandem.

  We waited, looking for some sign of another person’s presence. The loud hum of the vacuum cleaner was all I could hear. I could feel the tension in Jack’s fingers, and I tried to stay calm. Maybe there was nobody in the room, maybe some careless employee had forgotten to turn off their light before going home. And maybe they liked to close their door when they left.

  I frowned, trying to convince myself, and then we heard a sharp crash, like glass shattering.

  I tried to squeeze myself into nothingness against the wall. My first burglary, and I’d get caught.

  The vacuuming stopped abruptly. The silence throbbed, and I watched the tiny sliver of light, holding my breath and half-expecting someone to open the door, any moment now. A few silent seconds passed, and then we heard the distinctive, low murmur of two voices. They were having some kind of serious conversation, and I felt a sharp tug on my hand.

  I looked at Jack just as he st
epped to the left and back, and then I felt myself dragged into the empty room with him.

  Jack swiped his flashlight around the room quickly, and I made out a large desk placed near the opposite wall. There was an ergonomic swivel chair between the desk and the wall behind it. Jack pulled me behind him as we stepped past the desk quickly, and then he pushed the ergonomic chair aside. We crouched down behind the desk, and Jack switched off the flashlight.

  I tried to steady my hands, tried not to think about getting arrested for a silly, unnecessary crime.

  Beside me, Jack seemed calm and steady, and I reached out and placed my fingertips on his arm. I could feel his body heat through the thin cotton of his shirt, and he turned to face me. Even in the darkness, I knew that his eyes were glimmering emerald.

  “Don’t worry,” he whispered, and I nodded, not trusting my voice.

  We seemed to have been sitting there in the dark for a long time, and I began to strain my ears, wondering what the people in the brightly-lit room were discussing. There were only two people, I decided, judging from their voices. Both of them spoke softly, and I couldn’t tell whether they were male or female.

  After a while, one of them raised his voice. “I’m not giving it to you,” he said, “And like hell you’ll tell me what to do.”

  I couldn’t hear the other person’s response, but the man who wasn’t “giving it” lowered his voice again. What was “it?” And then I heard the same voice, raised once again, but this time sounding panicked.

  “Are you nuts?” he said. “Put that thing away.”

  I couldn’t hear the response his partner made. It was a low, muffled hum of conversation, but once again the panicked man said, “No. It’s mine. I’ll choose what to do with it.”

  His partner said something, and for a few seconds, the silence throbbed loudly. And then, out of nowhere, a blaring alarm sounded. My eyes widened and I felt the iciness travel down through my body.

  “The cops’ll be coming,” I hissed to Jack. “I know that alarm.”

  “Put that away,” the man in the other room said, sounding slightly less panicked now.

  I froze as I heard gunshots ring out - once, twice - and then there were muffled noises, followed by the sound of heavy footsteps running away. I heard the glass door open and slide shut, and I closed my eyes and leaned weakly against the table.

  “Come on,” Jack said, grabbing my arm and pulling me upright. “We need to see what happened.”

  I wanted to faint. I wanted to wake up and see that this was just a bad dream. I wanted to be anywhere but here, but Jack was still there, dragging me with him.

  “We’ll get life sentences,” I managed to croak out. “Breaking and entering. And possibly killing someone, too.”

  “My friend Clark is the CEO of Verdant Wealth,” Jack said. “He gave me the keys.”

  We were in the tiny corridor now, and I stopped and stared at Jack.

  In the dim light, he looked tall and responsible and he turned back and said, “What? I wasn’t going to take you with me and not have a good excuse, just in case something went wrong.”

  And now something had gone wrong, but still. What a cheat. I frowned, and stepped into the brightly-lit room.

  The room was slightly larger than the one Jack and I had hidden in, and bright overhead lights coupled with my nerves to make everything seem sharp and dangerous. Like the previous room, this one also had a large desk, with a chair behind it and a couple of chairs in front of it, but it also had a bookshelf and a bit more empty space.

  There were letter size papers spread out on the floor, and behind the desk, I saw the body of a man lying on the ground. A few quick steps forward, and I was kneeling down beside him. His dark eyes were squinting in pain, and his forehead was beaded with sweat. He was slightly overweight, his face round and his head balding. His white shirt had dark bloodstains around the stomach area and he groaned softly.

  “Who did this?” I asked, but he just groaned again.

  I glanced up at Jack. He was speaking into his phone, his body stiff and his eyes somber. “Yes,” he was saying, “I need to report a gunshot victim.”

  The man grabbed my hand tightly and I looked into his eyes again. They were dark and vacant, and his skin seemed to be unnaturally pale.

  “Roses,” he said, his voice seeming to come from far away.

  “What about roses?” His grip on my hand weakened, and I felt a sudden panic take hold of me. Where were the paramedics? “Who did this to you?”

  “Stupid red roses,” he said.

  His hand slipped off mine and his eyes stared straight ahead. I stared at him, wanting to shake him, wanting to wake him up. My eyes began to mist over, and then I heard footsteps running towards us. Loud voices said, “Hands behind your heads! Now!”

  I looked up and stared into the barrel of a gun.

  Chapter Three

  Jack and I let the two Rent-A-Cops cuff us and waited for the police to arrive. They entered the building at the same time as the paramedics, and the Rent-A-Cops, who’d been alerted by the loud alarm going off, explained the situation to the police and disappeared. Two women in white shirts and dark slacks felt for the man’s pulse, and spent five minutes trying to find his heartbeat before pronouncing him dead.

  I was slightly dazed as the cops uncuffed us and asked what we were doing here. They were two young men I didn’t know, but Jack made regular, large donations to the LVMPD Foundation, so both the cops knew who he was.

  “Insurance,” Jack had told me once, about the donations, and it seemed to have paid off now. The two rookie cops apologized for the Rent-A-Cops’ behavior, and treated Jack and I with a respect not normally reserved for civilians found at the scene of a crime.

  They questioned us politely, and Jack and I told them the same story: we were out on a date, Jack’s friend owned Verdant Wealth Solutions and had given him a key, and we’d come up to have a look around.

  We told them what we’d seen and heard, and I wiped away a few stray tears. More cops arrived on the scene, and someone led us away, saying something about “not disturbing the crime scene.”

  “You can leave now,” said one of the cops who’d been the first to arrive. “You can come into the station and make a statement tomorrow, but it’s getting late now and I know you folks’ll want to get home.”

  “Do you have any idea what he meant?” I asked them. “‘Stupid red roses?’”

  One of them, the one with dark brown hair and a mustache, shook his head. “Dying people say strange things. Most of them don’t make sense.”

  I couldn’t quite believe that a dying man would make an offhand comment about red roses. Surely they meant something. But it wasn’t up to me to investigate – if the police thought the red roses meant nothing, there wasn’t much I could do about it.

  Jack wrapped an arm around me and walked me out of the building. He dropped me off at my tiny condo, and walked me upstairs to my door. We’d been silent on the drive over, neither of us in the mood to talk.

  “I’m sorry,” Jack said as I unlocked my door.

  I shook my head slightly. “Not your fault.”

  Our eyes locked and neither of us moved. This wasn’t how I’d imagined the date ending. In my fantasy, we’d left the building successfully, and laughed about it over drinks or coffee. He’d walk me up to my condo, and then we’d share our first, exciting kiss.

  But instead, we looked at each other sadly. This had probably been the worst date in the history of bad dates, and I stepped inside and closed the door behind me.

  Chapter Four

  “Thanks for having me over,” Ian Ewanson was saying. “This food is amazing. I hope I’m not being too much trouble.”

  My mother smiled wearily and looked at me. “No, of course not,” she said. “We’re always happy to have a friend of Tiffany’s over.”

  Her voice was studiedly polite but I could see the exasperation in her eyes. Why me? she seemed to be saying. Why am I th
e one whose daughter brings over a pathetic male friend to our Saturday lunch instead of a nice boyfriend?

  The dining room, where we all sat around digging into mashed potatoes, gravy and roast chicken, seemed warmer than the air outside, but maybe that was just because of all the hot food we’d eaten. My parents had moved into this house soon after I’d graduated high school, and the walls were still builder-beige, with only a few floral and abstract prints to liven up the space. The bedrooms and the den seemed dark and heavy with hefty furniture and thick drapes, but the formal living areas, including the dining space we sat in, were decorated with lighter furniture and sheer, white drapes, and the spaces were largely empty, all the better for our occasional guests. My mother had shifted all our clutter to the den, including my dad’s collection of signed baseball prints and Nanna’s framed black-and-white family photographs.

  “Ian just broke up with his girlfriend,” I told my mother, answering her unasked question.

  “That’s tough,” Nanna said to Ian. “Love’s tough.”

  Nanna gave Nathan a meaningful look and I stared at my post-lunch coffee and stifled my groan. Nanna’s seventy-four, and Nathan is her twenty-something-year-old “boyfriend.” I’m not quite sure what’s going on between them, but my friend Stone thinks that Nathan’s just after some poker tips from Nanna, who happens to be a good player. I think that Nathan’s a bit of a con artist, with his blonde curls and big blue eyes, although I’m not yet sure what his con is.

  “Did I mention Nathan just got a job as a valet at The Treasury?” Nanna asked us.

  Only a thousand times, already. It’d be great having Nathan work in the same casino I did – not. Hopefully we wouldn’t work the same shifts, but I kept that thought to myself. Instead, I smiled politely and said, “I look forward to it. Just a fortnight before you start.”

  Ian said, “That’s so great! You’re so lucky to have a job!”