Let Sleeping Dogs Lie Read Online Free PDF Page B

wear them with Kmart shirts. Or ties. Or twenty-dollar watches." Instead of smug, Belle looked concerned. She pushed away her plate and fingered the stem of the martini glass. "How bad is business?"
     
     
"Flat." Jack smiled. "And about an hour from an uptick with Abramson's retainer."
     
     
"For what? A slip-and-fall? Workman's comp case?"
     
     
Both were a P.I.'s bread and butter. Insurers and attorneys hired investigators to expose phony personal-injury claims and employees pocketing compensation pay for job-related accidents. It was astonishing and pretty sad how often paid leaves for, say, a ruptured disc inspired a claimant's urge to reshingle his house.
     
     
Jack said, "Abramson mentioned taking a hit from a string of residential burglaries." He stifled an impulse to check the time. Belle, of course, wasn't wearing a watch. "So, how's life treating you?"
     
     
Meaning, Carleton better be treating her well, or Jack would cheerfully break him in half. Too cheerfully, he admitted, but protectiveness fueled it, not jealousy.
     
     
"Just between us, I'm a teensy bit bored. Nothing a baby wouldn't fix, if my ovaries would cooperate."
     
     
Belle signaled the server for the tab, then pointed at her plate, requesting a go box for it. "You have no idea how many times I prayed to my crotch to get with it when my period was a little late. Now I'm hollering up there, 'Swim, boys. Swim. '"
     
     
Jack was supposed to laugh. He said, "I didn't think you wanted kids." Pride bit off, With me.
     
     
"Woman's prerogative. One baby would be okay. Wonderful, actually." Belle drained her glass and blew out a breath. "Carleton isn't the paternal type, but I'll be damned if Abdullah Whatthefuckever will be our sole heir."
     
     
"Abdu—oh. The dog."
     
     
"How dare you call a champion afghan hound a dog. The old biddies at Westminster would have your head. So would the harem he's servicing in Florida." Belle autographed the credit card chit. "That hairball on stilts is higher maintenance than I am."
     
     
Jack chuckled. "That's saying somethin', kid."
     
     
Motion outside the window caught his eye. Vaguely attuned to Belle's continued slander against man's best friend, Jack leaned over the table, expanding his view of the restaurant's parking lot.
     
     
The lunch crowd had pretty well winnowed to vacationers as logy as over-the-road truckers who were seventeen hours into a ten-hour day. Jack's Taurus was baking in the mid-July sun. Belle's café-au-lait Mercedes coupe was parked a half-dozen rows east and farther from the restaurant's entrance.
     
     
Here and there, customers prolonged goodbyes, nodding and talking over the roofs of their vehicles. No familiar faces among them—no white-and-Bondo-colored subcompacts in the vicinity.
     
     
Still scanning the lot, Jack said, "You haven't noticed anybody, um, hanging around outside your house lately, have you? A strange car cruising by, anything like that?"
     
     
When Belle didn't answer, he looked at her. "Hey, no cause for the big eyes. Just curious, that's all."
     
     
Belle extracted a pair of sunglasses from her bag and slipped them on. Swiveling in her chair, she said, "I knew you were in trouble. What is it this time? Another pissed-off husband swinging single? Somebody pink-slipped after your background check?"
     
     
"I'm not in trouble."
     
     
She pulled down the shades an inch and peered over the frames.
     
     
"I'm not," Jack insisted, then groaned. "There's this mope—twenty-something, big as an upright freezer. He tagged me for a job, I turned him down, gave him some excellent career counseling and sent him on his way."
     
     
Belle's stare narrowed, but remained as steady as twin-beam halogens. Her fingers waggled, Keep going.
     
     
Jack peeled back his suit coat sleeve for a look at his watch. If he didn't haul asphalt in three minutes, he'd be late for the appointment with Gerry Abramson. "The kid thought he'd impress me with my own