Page 24 of Dirty Liars

I waited while Jack called Dickie, wondering if he would answer. It was Saturday night, and Dickie was always busy on a Saturday night. Saturdays were reserved for throwing money around, womanizing, and drinking.

“Dickie, it’s Jack,” he said. “This is important. Call me back as soon as you can. I don’t care what you’re doing. It’s important.”

“Saturday night,” I said as soon as he hung up. “You’ll be lucky to hear from him by tomorrow afternoon.”

“Yeah, I know. But maybe he can give some insight to the unlucky couple. Doug, we’ve also got the hotel guest list to sift through. Let’s by chance see if any of our wedding guests match up to the hotel list. We can sift through the others later.”

“Donna and Edward Kelso,” Margot said. “They checked in Wednesday at The Mad King and have a checkout scheduled for Monday.”

“Anyone else?” Jack asked.

“No,” she said. “Just the Kelsos. It’s more than an hour drive from the wedding venue to The Mad King. Probabilities would not be high that multiple guests would choose that as their destination versus a hotel closer to the wedding venue.”

“I wonder why the Kelsos did,” I said.

“We’ll make sure to ask them,” Jack said. “We’ll talk to them tomorrow along with Theo’s parents. Margot, go ahead and start a search looking for common ground from both the hotel list and the wedding list. We can’t forget we could also be looking for a professional hit man, so do a search for single men traveling alone and only staying one night at the resort. Look for other common factors like the Greece connection or political ties.”

“These are extensive lists,” Margot said. “It’ll take time to acquire the data.”

“That’s fine,” Jack said. “We’ve also got the surveillance footage and the golf cart trackers to check. I’ll have Derby start going through the camera footage and see if anything sticks out. I’d like to do a deep dive into Chloe Vasilios. Let’s see if her fingerprints or DNA lead us anywhere else.”

We were interrupted by the buzzer signaling that someone was at the gate, and Jack checked the time. “It’s after nine o’clock. Did you order food?” he asked, looking at Doug.

“No,” Doug said. “But now that you mention it pizza sounds like a pretty good idea.”

Jack hit a button on his desk and the camera appeared on the whiteboard showing a view of a red Porsche at the gate.

“It’s Dickie,” Jack said, brows raised in surprise. And then he hit another button so the gate slid open, and Dickie could drive through. “Guess he got my message.”

It wasn’t long until the doorbell rang and Oscar and Jack went to open it, though only Oscar barked at the intrusion. I went back to my place on the couch and got comfortable, pulling one of the oversized throws on top of me.

“You got a dog,” Dickie said as he came into the office. His tone wasn’t complimentary, and he eyed Oscar suspiciously.

Dickie wasn’t really a dog person. He was dressed in crisp gray slacks and an expensive shirt, and Oscar was staring at him with what I could only assume was immediate dislike. And it looked like the feeling was mutual. Considering Oscar had more brains than a lot of people I knew, and he was adorable in a way that only the truly ugly could be, I didn’t see what the problem was on Dickie’s part.

“Meet Oscar,” Jack said. “Don’t be rude. He understands everything you’re saying.”

“Hey, Dickie,” I said. “How’s it going? Come to lose some money in poker?”

“Not if I’m playing you,” Dickie said good-naturedly. “Don’t get up. You look comfortable.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” I said, pulling my blanket up closer around my neck.

“So what’s going on?” Dickie asked. “What’s so important that you needed to talk to me?”

“You could’ve called,” Jack said. “I didn’t mean for you to drop everything and rush over here. I know you’re in high demand on Saturday nights.”

“Not really,” Dickie said, shrugging and walking around the room. “I’ve been taking a break. It’s always the same people and same conversations. Doesn’t matter if the party is in DC or New York or Palm Beach.”

I noticed that Doug had removed all the information from the whiteboards so they were blank.

“Everything okay?” Jack asked.

“I’ve just found myself at loose ends lately,” he said. “I was maybe thinking about getting married again.”

“That’s some news,” Jack said, brows raised in surprise.

“I didn’t realize you’d been seeing anyone seriously,” I said. “Jack’s mom is going to be pissed she missed that one.”

---