Crime Always Pays Read Online Free Page B

Beamer.'
              'But no Rossi. No money.'
              'No money and about two pints of, they're guessing, the elusive Rossi.'
              'If it was Anna,' Doyle said, wondering why Ted hadn't mentioned the van, 'she had her reasons. Rossi, breaking her in, took her eye out with a fork.'
              Sparks thought about that, then shrugged and forked home some more cake. 'So what're you doing to do with your time off? You need to stick around for the investigation?'
              'Nope.'
              'Then take a holiday. Pack a thong, get some sun on that lily-white ass. Where's Niko these days – Barcelona? Cannes?'
              'Don't even go there,' Doyle said.
              ' You're  the one won't go there. I was you, had a guy calling me up, "Hey, come on over to Venice for some fun, we'll party, no strings," guess where I'd be? The Tardis, seeing if I couldn't be in like five different places at the same time, getting five different tans.'
              'You have no idea,' Doyle said, 'how bad his breath stinks.'
              'So pretend you're a hooker, you don't do kissies. Listen, the main reason I brought it up? I've time coming. I'm due twelve days.'
              'Oh yeah?'
              'Plus I ran a check on one Madge Dolan.'
              'You ever use that computer for official police work?'
              'I'm police, I'm official. Anyway, the last time Madge used her credit card? Sunday, over the internet. Booking a cruise out of Athens that starts Friday night,eight o'clock.'
    'It can get sunny,' Doyle said slowly, 'in Athens. She booked in on her own?'
              'According to the cruise people, no.'
              'They're the ones who'd know,' Doyle said. 'So who?'
              'Promise to tell me about Madge and Rossi?'
              'Christ, Sparks …'
              'Karen King.'
              'No Ray Brogan?'
              'No Ray. No Raymond, Raphael, Rainier, Reynaldo, Raymundo … You find out his real name yet?'
              'It's a work in progress. So she books a cruise on Sunday …'
              'And gets herself snatched Monday. Maybe she's psychic, huh? Had herself a premonition.'
              'Could be. When's she flying out?'
              'Thursday evening, six o'clock. Except here's the thing. It's for two flights to Denver.'
              'Denver?'
              'Denver Colorado, via New York. Plus there's payments to a place called Piste of Mind.'
              'The ski shop?'
              'You know it?'
              'It's where Ted picked up his stuff, gloves and shit, that time he went on the stag weekend.' Doyle cocked her head. 'What d'you think, she's laying down a false trail?'
              'Looks like it. But which is which?'
              'With no flight to Athens, you'd be thinking Denver.'
              'She look much like a skier to you?'
              'I'm thinking a cruise'd be more her style.'
              'Me too.'
              'Mainly,' Doyle said, 'because you want some sun on your ass.'
              'True. But hey, you're there for Friday night when the cruise leaves, she's not on it? Just hop a flight for Denver.'
    Doyle drank off the last of her latte, cold now, tasteless. 'You tell the boys any of this?'
    Sparks shrugged. 'Since when has it been an actual crime,' she said, 'to book a cruise?'
     
     
     
     
     
    Melody
     
    'Be with you in a sec,' Melody said, looking up from the computer. She glanced over the guy's shoulder at the clock on the back wall above the rack of Far East / Australasia brochures, its red LCD showing temperatures in all the time-zones, still 28 degrees in Marrakech and nearly ten o'clock there, give or take.
    Then focused on the guy, hulking and slope-shouldered, the untidy