Read Online The Big Keep: A Lena Dane Mystery (Lena Dane Mysteries) by Melissa F. Olson - Free Book Online Page A

her my email address.
    “Hey, are you really a PI?” she asked before hanging up. She said ‘PI’ the way people do in movies, with that implication of sex and mystery and cigarette smoke curling up black and white walls.
    “Yep, I really am.”
    Her voice lowered a notch, sounding more like a cartoon squirrel instead of a cartoon mouse. “Is it really like in all the movies?”
    Well, let’s see, I’m married, knocked up, lying to my husband, and I wouldn’t know a femme fatale if she asked to borrow my lipstick.  
    “Oh, yeah,” I said dryly. “Just like the movies.”

    I spent the rest of the morning trying to track down Natalie Patton in Canada, without much luck. American private investigators have a pretty good network, but when you cross one of the borders all the rules change, and I didn’t have any contacts up north. From what I could tell Patton had moved to Vancouver initially, but she and her husband hadn’t purchased a home there or anywhere else I could find. I eventually ran out of ideas for websites and agencies to check. At 11:30 Bryce skipped into my office and perched uninvited on the empty green chair across from me, its twin once again demoted to padded file cabinet.
    “So? We didn’t really talk yesterday, how’s it going with the” – his voice dropped theatrically – “pregnancy? Did Toby flip out? Have you been to the doctor? Can I be the godmother?”
    Bryce is a psychology student, but apparently has very little insight into me. I actually found that kind of comforting. “Bryce, honey, I really don’t want to talk about it. It’s not that big of a deal.”
    He gave a little gasp. “Not that big of a deal? You’re with child , Lena! You’re a mommy!”
    I flipped a pencil at him, which he ducked easily. “I’m going to be a starving mommy, if you don’t go get me some lunch.”
    “Fine.” Bryce stood regally, glaring down at me. “Your subtle evasion tactics work once again. I get it.” He turned to flounce out.
    “Did you check in with Ruby today?” I asked before he made it through the doorway.  
    He turned around, hesitating. “Yeah. She’s doing okay, I think. I can never figure out if extra hours are good for her, because she has something to do, or bad for her, because she’s out in public more.” He shrugged. “But she’s gotten a lot better about telling me if it gets to be too much, so I figure as long as she seems okay...”
    I nodded. Ruby was twenty-two, fully an adult now, but she had been disfigured five years earlier, her face carved up by a psychopath. The scars had been bad, not to mention permanent. Ruby had suffered a mental breakdown shortly after the assault, and spent years addicted to painkillers. She finally seemed semi-stable now, piecing together some income with a part-time job cleaning hotel rooms and the surveillance work for me. You wouldn’t think someone with severe facial scarring would be good at blending in while they took photos, but Ruby had spent the last five years trying to be invisible in a crowd of people. Bryce and I had both been pleased and surprised when she turned out to be good at it...but we still worried.
    “Is she still having the nightmares?” I asked quietly.  
    “Actually, they’ve been getting better,” he said, face brightening. “So maybe that’s a sign that the overtime’s okay, right?” I nodded hopefully, understanding how desperately Bryce wanted Ruby to get better. After all, we were the two people in the world who felt responsible for her.  
    Early that afternoon Jennifer Wu emailed me a list of three boutique agencies in LA that she thought Natalie Patton might have worked with. She also included a postscript that I should call her if I was ever interested in pitching a true-crime autobiography, and I snorted, imagining the titles. What to Expect When You’re Detecting , that would have to be one of the nominees, right?
    The three agencies were called Venture, A.R. Talent, and