2 Double Dip by Gretchen Archer Read Free Book Online Page A

time at the Bellissimo, I’ve never seen No Hair wear the same tie twice.
    “She what?” I asked. “Out of all those people, she won?”
    “Jewell Maffini won the Mystery Shopper grand prize. Twenty-five thousand in cash.” No Hair didn’t seem happy for her. “And you missed it.” Or with me.
    I opened my mouth to defend myself but he stopped me by holding up a huge paw. “I’m pushing the pause button on her,” he said, “until we find her .”
    He slapped a picture of Peyton Reynolds in the middle of the round, glass-topped conference table. We all took a seat, and Fantasy added a file containing our painfully thin background report. No Hair looked at me. “Don’t say it.”
    I zipped my lips.
    “What’d you get out of Bianca?” No Hair asked.
    “Brace yourselves.”
    Fantasy grabbed the edges of the table with both hands.
    “Bianca thinks Mr. Sanders is having an affair with Peyton. And that’s what all the shooting was about.”
    After five minutes of total stunned silence as they contemplated the improbable possibility, No Hair cleared his throat. “What else?”
    “Nothing else,” I said. “She wasn’t in the mood to talk.” Not that I had been in the mood to listen.
    “Make your calls,” No Hair said. “Cancel whatever you have going. Inform your loved ones. We’re staying on this until we find this girl.” He slid the assistant’s photograph closer to us. “My best guess is that she ran,” No Hair tapped the picture, “because there’s nothing up there other than her fingerprints. Not a shred of evidence that she took a bullet.” He leaned back in his chair. “So she ran. You two figure out where, why, and how the cameras missed it. Get back up there with Bianca.” (He lobbed that one at me.) “Get her to tell you exactly what happened, and find that seventh round.”
    “Is he?” I asked.
    “Is who what, Davis?”
    “Is Mr. Sanders having an affair with the assistant?”
    No Hair took a deep noisy breath. “That’s none of our business.”
    And that was our cue to scoot. Fantasy and I began gathering our things, minding our own bee’s wax, making a run for it, when No Hair stopped us. “One more thing.”
    I hate it when No Hair says those words.
    “Davis.”
    I hate it when he says that word, too.
    “Is it true Thatch caught you?”
    Fantasy dropped her purse and her jaw. “ No !”
    I dropped back into my chair. “It really wasn’t that big a deal.”
    “ Matthew Thatcher?” Fantasy asked. “Mr. Microphone?”
    “I don’t know that he caught me so much as he was holding me when I came to.”
    “Whatever,” Fantasy said. “What’d he smell like?”
    I turned to No Hair. “How do you even know about that?”
    “First,” he shook a finger, “I know everything, and don’t forget it. Second, he called.”
    “You?”
    “He called Richard,” No Hair said. “It got routed to me.”
    “Why would he call Mr. Sanders?” I asked. “To tell him someone fainted at the slot tournament?”
    “No,” No Hair said, “he called because he couldn’t find the someone who’d fainted at the slot tournament.”
    “Why was he looking for me?”
    “I don’t know, Davis.” No Hair laced his big fingers across his barrel chest and tipped his chair back. “Why would he be looking for you?”
    “Mr. Microphone is a notorious boy-slut,” Fantasy said. “He likes you, Davis! He wants to play doctor with you!”
    “Oh, poo.” I could feel my face turning red.
    “That is why he called.”
    What?
    “He looked you up.”
    “How and why,” I asked, “did he look me up?”
    “He called your room to check on you,” No Hair kept going, “then called here because there wasn’t a marketing portfolio set up on you, which he found odd.” He took a beady-eyed swat at Fantasy, who was in charge of base-covering when it came to aliases.
    “How and why,” I asked, “does he have computer clearance for marketing portfolios?”
    “I found it odd, too,” he spoke