Page 32 of Bad Mother

Sienna made a face, conceding the point. Even after Gavin had pointed it out, she’d sort of dismissed the misspelling as nothing morethan that, but when Kat put it the way she had, Sienna tended to agree. “So what do you think it could mean?”

Kat tapped a finger on her chin. “Remove thee. Or... noe. Noe? Does the wordnoemean anything to you?”

Sienna picked up her phone and opened a search engine, then looked up the word as it related to Reno. Apparently, it was a first name, and there were quite a few of them. “There’s a Noe Investments,” Sienna said, looking up at Kat. “But that’s about it.”

“That’s not the name of the bank that owns the property on Allegra, is it?”

“No.”

“Hmm.” Kat looked back down at the highlights, her eyes moving between the two. “So the most recent two notes were both found in the same location. So maybe we should consider that the clues found in each of them are meant to go together.”

“Makes sense,” Sienna said. “If they are in fact clues.”

Kat nodded. “Deuces wild,” she said, tapping the paper where Sienna had written the term next to Gavin’s highlight, the phrase that had been left out, whether intentionally or not. “What if you useno eas an instruction?”

Sienna took a moment to consider that.Deuces wild, noe. Soducs wildif you removed bothe’s. Orducesordeucswild if you only removed one.“That doesn’t make any sense either.” She picked up her phone to do a search onducs,duces, anddeucsnonetheless. “Ducesis a Latin term,” she said, reading the web page she’d clicked on. “Duces tecumis a type of subpoena.” She read the basic definition of the term, because even though she was in law enforcement, she couldn’t remember exactly what it meant. But as far as she could tell, there was no relevance to this particular case. She clicked back to the original search page and scrolled down. A moment later, her eyes widened, and she looked up at Kat. “There’s a business called Duces Wild—noe—downtown.”

Kat’s expression mirrored what she was sure hers looked like. “Are you serious? What kind of business?”

Sienna clicked on the link and quickly scanned the limited copy of what was a pretty pitiful website. “It’s a music store that sells records.”

Kat’s face screwed up. “I didn’t think there were shops that sold records anymore.”

Sienna shrugged. “I thought it was mostly an online item, too, but I guess not.”

Sienna clicked on another page. “The guy who owns it is named Duces Reynolds, hence the Duces Wild name, and he...” She scrolled down the page. “He DJs on the side.”

Kat signaled the server, and she came over, delivering their check. “We could go talk to him. I’m not sure exactly what to ask, but maybe he has something for us like that fan club president did. Wouldn’t that be something?”

They paid the bill and were out the door a few minutes later, soon exiting the parking lot in Kat’s work vehicle.

Duces Wild was solidly wedged between a bar and what appeared—from the multitude of chains, whips, and leather-bikini-clad mannequins in the window—to be an adult sex shop named the Back Door Emporium.

The vinyl shop was small and windowless, but the lights were bright, and it seemed clean and well organized. At their arrival, a man featuring a black pompadour à la seventies Elvis came out a door at the opposite side of the store. “Hey, my ladies. How may I serve?”

“Duces Reynolds?” Kat asked, unclipping her badge and holding it up. “Detectives Kozlov and Walker.”

He looked briefly confused, and there was no recognition at their names in his expression, his hand outstretched as he approached. “Detectives? Is there a problem?”

“No. No problem. We’re following a lead on a case. It might be off base, but we figured it couldn’t hurt to stop by and find out if anything noteworthy has happened in your shop in the last couple weeks? Any unusual customer? Problem?”

He shook his head. “No, nothing out of the ordinary. I get a fair amount of traffic in here. You might be surprised, considering it’s pretty dead today. But actually, I mostly use the space to store my DJ equipment”—he gestured toward the door he’d just come through, a space that Sienna had assumed was storage, perhaps an office—“and to have a place to meet clients, that sort of thing. Vinyl is my passion, though, so I collect them and sell the ones I have extras of or don’t want.” He pointed to the rows of bins behind them, and Sienna turned and glanced over the upright albums, which appeared to be organized alphabetically, with large letters written on the fronts of the bins.

“Okay, well, thank you for your time.”

“Do you have a record player?” he asked.

“My parents do,” Kat said. “A little too scratchy for me.” She wrinkled her nose.

But Duces chuckled, obviously unoffended. “Nah, that’s the whole charm,” he said. “Feel free to look around, see if there’s something your folks might want for Christmas.”

“Sure. Thanks.” Kat handed him her card. “If you have any reason to call,” she said.

He looked down at it and nodded, and at the sound of a phone ringing, he headed to the checkout counter and answered the call. “Duces Wild. Duces speaking.”

She leaned in to Sienna. “Listening to old records feels like sandpaper on my brain.” She made a dramatic expression, squeezing one eye shut tight and lifting the other.

Sienna snickered. “Sandpaper on the brain. Lovely visual.”

---