Page 75 of The Wedding Party

I pull into a parking spot and kill the engine. Since my house was my splurge and is now a hefty monthly expense, my economic little Jeep is rather simplistic compared to his fancy car. I exit the vehicle and meet him at the hood. “How’s it going?” he asks.

“It’s always better when I’m working, which is exactly why you shouldn’t have placed me on leave.”

“You’re very confrontational, considering I’m your boss,” he teases.

“You should have considered the risk of such empowerment when you got me naked.”

“Hmm,” he says. “Point made.” He glances at his watch. “The team’s twenty minutes out. I assume you want to go in first and talk to the Phoenixes before we swarm the building.” It’s not a question. He knows how I operate, because it’s generally how he operates.

As for the swarm, he’s not exaggerating. The FBI tends to handle warrants in an excessive way. It’s just how they operate, and to some extent, we’re all just part of a machine working at high levels of expertise. “That’s the plan.”

“You want a sidekick?”

“I think a one-on-one chat right now works best. Anything you’ve dug up on them that I need to know?”

“Hazel went back a good twenty years and discovered Mike Phoenix was accused of stealing his technology from a friend in college. Said friend raised a stink that lasted about twenty minutes before he got paid off, and the scandal was basically wiped off the internet. If Carrie knows, that could be a reason they want to silence her.”

“Maybe,” I say. “That somehow feels too obvious. I think there’s more to whatever is going on with her and the Phoenixes.”

“Hazel’s still working her magic. More soon.”

“And Brody? Anything new on him?”

“So far, everything he’s said seems to check out. His father really is a politician and is still married to his mother. As for Brody himself, he’s a big high roller in Vegas, likes the stock market and his investments, but there’s nothing that looks shady.”

I take that in but can’t quite accept it as enough. The bottom line is that the idea of Brody being involved in Oliver’s death really snagged me on the ride home, and I can’t seem to let it go. Maybe the one-night fling with Carrie was more than one night. “I need to know if Brody and Carrie were having an active affair,” I say. “The knife wounds on Oliver were made by a woman, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t help Carrie kill Oliver. And there is a cut on Carrie’s belly that seems to support the idea that someone else might have been in the room.”

“I can’t get you Brody’s phone records, but we should have Carrie’s and Oliver’s hit my desk tomorrow morning.”

“The sooner the better,” I say, motioning toward the door. “I’m going in.”

He hands me the warrant. “Don’t go Eddie Castle on them and beat anyone with a baseball bat.”

I scowl at the bad joke. Aiden and my father are a whole other thing I try not to deal with. Eddie Castle and Aiden King in the same room is an explosion of bad Castle and King jokes mixed with too much testosterone. And that gets ridiculous.

For now, I suspect it’s the Phoenixes who are about to explode. On me. And if Natalie, their dear daughter, is here, here’s to hoping she doesn’t try to beat my head on the ground. Or better yet, here’s to hoping she doesn’t have a baseball bat. Because no, I’m not my father, but I don’t fight like a girl, either. He made sure of it.

As if I’m writing my own story, I reach the main door, open it, and enter, and before I ever make it to the security desk, Natalie Phoenix is standing in front of me, confrontation in her eyes.

Chapter Sixty-Six

“What are you doing here, Agent Castle, at our offices?” Natalie demands as a bulky dark-haired security guard steps to her side.

She’s in red today. A red dress. Red lipstick. Red eyes. The color of her outfit isn’t to celebrate life but disguise misery. Pain radiates from her, sincere pain, but guilt can also equal pain. She will gain money and power with Oliver gone. Forensics says the killer was a woman. I can’t rule her out, not yet. I hand her the warrant. “Look at that and then let’s go somewhere private and chat,” I suggest.

“It’s a warrant, right?” she asks without looking at the document in her hand. “Why are you searching our offices instead of her house?”

I’m not a coy person. I know she means Carrie, and I don’t ask her to explain. “We’re doing that now, but motive matters for a conviction. I need to find out what was going on with your brother that got him killed.”

“You didn’t need a warrant. We would have helped.” She eyes the security guard. “Jack, can you keep the staff out and allow the police in?”

“Of course, Ms. Phoenix,” he replies, stepping around me.

Once he’s gone, she says, “My parents are actually here right now. We were talking through my new role and just . . . you know, the funeral. There are a few things I convinced them just to tell you.”

My interest is officially piqued.

She turns and starts walking. I follow her to the elevator we use to travel to the twenty-fifth floor. On the ride up, she glances over at me and seems to want to say something but presses her lips together. This is a different side of Natalie, a tamer version, and I’m curious about the source.