“Her dad? You know the story—at the office twelve-hour days, flying around the country, never there for her recitals, or plays, or anything like that. Bought her everything she wanted, though. You don’t think he had something to do with it, do you?”
“You never know. A lot of times in cases like this it’s the parents or the spouse or something—crimes of passion and all.”
“You really know a lot about this kind of stuff.”
“I do my homework.”
“Well, I’d say her mom caused more problems than her dad.”
“Why’s that?”
“Her mom’s what you might call the nervous type. A real pill popper.”
“Her mom, huh?” I had a hard time picturing her as a suspect. She didn’t look like she could get the lid off a jar of pickles—or a jar of caviar—much less do bodily harm to someone.
“Well, what about that Rowan Adams guy?” Audrey asked. “Didn’t he and Ashton break up a month or so ago?”
“Something like that,” he replied. “But Rowan wouldn’t be involved. I mean, he’s a douche, but he’s still my friend from way back. No, a lot of girls break up with Rowan. He’s used to it.”
That was interesting. She broke up with him. Despite Nash’s opinion, that sounded like a pretty good motive to me.
“Hold on,” Nash said. His turn was up at the pool table. He made one shot and missed one. When he came back, Randy asked him if there was anything to drink around the place, and Nash said they had Vietnamese soda. “It’s weird, but it’s good.”
“Get a couple for me and Audrey,” I told Randy, and he’s like, “Give me some money.”
When Randy left, Nash goes, “What’s that thing on your buddy’s upper lip?”
“He thinks it’s a mustache,” I explained.
“Yeah?” Nash raised an eyebrow. “Well, he’s wrong.”
I had to laugh. It was good to share an inside joke with Nash, even if it was at Randy’s expense. Or maybe because it was at Randy’s expense.
“So anyway,” Nash said, “to tell you the truth, I wasn’t really thinking about someone getting violent with Ashton. You know, killing her or something. I was figuring more along the lines of kidnapping. Something she could come back from safe and sound.”
“But nobody ever said anything about a ransom,” Audrey pointed out.
“There’s still time.”
“That’s true,” I said. “I wonder who might want to kidnap her.”
Nash thought about that for a moment and even looked like he might have an idea, but if he did, he wasn’t sharing anything specific. “Who knows? Anyone who wants a bundle of money the easy way, I guess. You haven’t heard of any real hard evidence that something violent might have happened to her, have you?”
I wanted to mention that blue running shoes didn’t just take themselves off, but he looked too genuinely worried, so I said, “No, I haven’t heard anything like that. Just have to take all the scenarios into consideration, you know? You’re probably right. A ransom note will probably show up, and she’ll get back home just fine.”
“I hope so.”
“But there’s one other thing I was wondering about,” I said.
“What’s up with this Gangland deal? You know anything about that?”
“Gangland? Where did you hear about that?”
“Oh, I hear things. That’s part of my job.”
“Hey, Nash,” his buddy Holt called from the other side of the pool table. “It’s your turn.”
“Already?” Nash stepped over and eyed the remaining balls, then proceeded to run the table.
“Oh yeah,” he roared. “Yeah, baby, yeah, baby.”
I looked around to see if his celebration pissed off the regulars, but no one seemed to care. Huy and Tommy only shook their heads and took out their wallets. I couldn’t see how much money they paid off on the bet, but it wasn’t small change.
“You give us a chance to get some of that money back, right, Nash?” Tommy asked.
Nash slapped him on the back. “You know it.”
I was finishing off my Vietnamese lemon drink when he came back over. It wasn’t bad.
“So, you want to know about Gangland?” he asked. “I’ll do better than tell you about it. I’ll show it to you.”
CHAPTER 14
According to Nash, it wouldn’t take us fifteen minutes—depending on the traffic lights—to get where we were going. “There’s one rule,” he said.
“You can’t write about this in your paper.”
“You mean nothing about it?”
“Well, I don’t care if you mention something vague like that you went to a party, but you can’t say where it is or even mention the word Gangland.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s special. It won’t be special if everyone knows about it. Besides, it doesn’t have anything to do with Ashton.”
“Okay, sure,” I told him. “I guess that’s fair.” And I really did figure it was fair—as long as he was telling the truth about the connection, or lack thereof, to Ashton Browning.
We rode in his Lexus SUV along with Holt while Audrey and Randy followed us. And I wouldn’t be lying to say this vehicle was ripped. Black inside and out. Leather seats. A console that looked like it belonged in a flying saucer. I was like, Who needs a ’69 Mustang? I’m a Lexus man now.