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Sierra wondered if Ace’s use of his first name was meant to remind the sergeant the two were somehow related and not just random strangers.
Scowling, Spencer proved he was a cop first, saying, “Tell it to your lawyer, Ace. You’ve forfeited your right to ask for any favors, or for any other visitors until you’re processed into jail.”
“You’re seriously still doing this?” Ace demanded. “Come on, you know this is a setup, that it couldn’t have been me in either of those videos.”
“Then why’d you run, man? And how’d the weapon used in your father’s shooting get inside your condo?”
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p; “Why don’t you ask your so-called witness? I’m sure that Destiny Jones—as if I’d go babbling secrets to some bank teller I barely know—” Ace’s gaze flicked toward Sierra, connecting for a moment before returning to Spencer “—could lead you in the right direction.”
Catching Ace’s drift, Sierra nodded, reminded of the witness’s name and her position.
“That’s something else we’re going to need to talk about,” said Spencer, his frown deepening as his gaze bored into Ace’s. “What’s happened to Ms. Jones, because she hasn’t been seen in weeks. And the one person who stood to profit from her disappearance took off and went into hiding right around the time of her last sighting...”
“You’re not suggesting,” Ace began, the color draining from his bruised face, “that I would—that I know anything about what might’ve happened to her? Because if that’s the case, Sergeant, I’m going to need my attorney present before I say another word.”
As Spencer escorted Sierra to the elevator, she said, “You can’t honestly believe that Ace would harm this witness, do you? I’ve only known him for a couple of days, and it’s obvious to me that he’s no killer.”
“And yet you’ve told me yourself he was involved in the death of that goon we found in the brush.”
After waiting for a woman wearing a set of scrubs and a stethoscope to pass by, Sierra whispered furiously, “That happened during a struggle for a weapon. The man meant to kill us. And you should have seen how upset Ace was about it afterward, going on about how he’d never shot anyone before.”
“And you believed him?”
“Pretty clearly, don’t you think?” she asked, her cheeks burning at the thought of the eyeful she and Ace had given him when he’d first walked into the room.
Once they arrived at the elevator, Spencer reached for the down button but hesitated before looking at her, his serious expression giving gravity to his boyish face. “You need to understand something, Ms. Madden. I may be a shirttail relation from a poorer branch of the family, but that doesn’t mean I’m looking to take down the former CEO of Colton Oil. I’m here to find the truth, that’s all, as well as justice for any and all victims.”
With a nod that indicated that he considered their conversation over, he firmly pushed the elevator button and gestured for her to step inside when the door to the empty car arrived.
Sierra pressed the button to hold the elevator without breaking eye contact. “All that’s great, but I’m here to prove to you,” she said, “that Ace Colton’s not a perpetrator, just one more of those victims—and I plan to start by finding this so-called witness you seem to have misplaced.”
* * *
Sierra walked along downtown’s main drag the next morning, acknowledging that she had screwed up big-time announcing her next move to the straight-arrow Sergeant Spencer Colton. Already, he had made it clear that he didn’t believe that nice women ended up trailed by Las Vegas gangsters. Or maybe he was more annoyed by the way she’d broken his stupid no-contact directive before telling him she was hell-bent on undermining his case against Ace Colton.
Though she’d liked to imagine the sergeant had meant what he had told her about wanting to find the real truth, he’d clearly put the word out among his fellow cops that she wasn’t to be trusted. Or at least, she couldn’t get a thing out of the officers she’d attempted to chat up after happening upon them yesterday, one on his meal break at Bubba’s Diner and two others making separate stops at a coffee house called Java Jane’s.
She held out hope the bank might offer her an untainted source of information today. Stepping inside the lobby, she approached a matronly looking teller who walked her through the process of depositing Selina’s cashier’s check and even chatted a bit about the woman’s plans for an upcoming vacation with her grown children.
“Speaking of family,” Sierra ventured. “I happen to know that Destiny Jones’s is very eager to have her home this Thanksgiving. Would you have heard anything from her lately? I promised I’d pass along whatever I—”
The friendliness in the teller’s brown eyes was instantly extinguished, replaced by a look of glazed panic as she quickly shook her head. “I can’t—I can’t talk about that with you. Personnel matters here are...strictly confidential.”
Her breathing quick and noisy, her gaze darted about as she looked to her fellow tellers for help.
Afraid that at any moment some nervous Nellie might hit the silent alarm, leaving her with a lot of explaining to do when the police came, Sierra raised her palms and peered at the woman’s name tag. “It’s all right, Ms.—Ms. Harding. Jane. I’m not trying to get anybody into trouble. I’d just like to help Destiny’s family. They’re very worried, and I thought that maybe you might’ve heard—”
“I said no,” she repeated, this time loudly enough that the words echoed across the marble-floored lobby.
From his spot two stations over, a younger male teller scratched his nose and cut Sierra a meaningful look from his own station. But before she could do anything about it, the bank’s manager clicked over in her high heels and escorted Sierra out with such firm insistence that she quickly found herself on the doorstep.
“Wowza,” she murmured to herself of her brusque ejection. Did Spencer somehow get to her, too, or is that woman hiding something instead? Something she doesn’t want me to know about her bank and the missing Destiny Jones?
Her instincts insisting it was the latter, Sierra headed out to where she’d parked her car, pausing in front of a shop undergoing renovations, where she raised her eyebrows to see a photo in the window featuring the magnetic gaze of a middle-aged blonde woman. Below it hung a hand-lettered sign profusely thanking Micheline Anderson and the Affirmation Alliance Group for their help with earthquake recovery efforts.
“Hmm,” Sierra murmured, wondering how such generosity fit in with the less savory rumors she’d heard about the center the woman had established outside of town.
