Brass in Pocket by Jeff Mariotte Page A

afford anything better. Nick’s interpretation was that he just didn’t care about the trappings—the nice office, the presentable staff, the latest high-tech gadget or accounting system. Deke Freeson wanted to focus on the work, on solving his clients’ problems, and anything that didn’t contribute directly to that wasn’t important to him. Nick couldn’t fault that. He liked his work area more organized, but if he had chosen to be a private detective, he figured he’d be much the same way about an office—he wouldn’t care if it was impressive to clients, he would just want it to be functional so he could do the work.
    Urgency gnawed at him. Psychoanalyzing the dead man wasn’t his job. Finding the possibly live woman who was missing—that was his job now, and he had to give up trying to figure out Freeson and keep looking for Antoinette O’Brady. He rifled through the filing cabinets but couldn’t find any files with the name
O’Brady
on them, Antoinette or otherwise. He looked through the calendar entries, trying to find an entry that he could decipher as her name or initials. No luck.
    He went to the door, opened it. Camille was sitting on the floor, still studying the warrant as if it contained every fact she would ever need to know. “Ms. Blaise, can you come in here please?” he asked.
    She snapped her gum and nodded.
    She looked nineteen or twenty. Dark eyes popped out of her pale, skinny face, framed by limp,dark brown hair. She wore too much mascara, smudged by tears that might well have been the genuine article, and her lipstick was a bright red that made Nick think of Hollywood starlets from eras gone by. He didn’t know if the clothes she was wearing were typical work clothes or not, but her white cotton tank top was almost too loose to confine her small breasts, and her pants, clinging desperately to skinny hips, could have been torn off by a strong wind. When she moved, there was a liquid quality to her motion, as if she had been poured rather than grown.
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œI need some information about Deke.”
    â€œYeah?”
    No wonder she’s part time
, Nick thought.
If she worked full time she’d drive anyone crazy
. “I can’t really make heads or tails of his filing system.”
    â€œYou and me both.”
    â€œSo you didn’t do any of his filing?”
    â€œHe never wanted me to touch that stuff. Or his, you know, money stuff.”
    â€œYou mean like accounting?”
    â€œRight, that.”
    â€œWhat exactly did you do for him?”
    â€œExactly?” She held Nick’s gaze, but there was the slightest lowering of her eyelids. She probably thought it made her look sexy. Maybe it worked on some men.
    â€œOf a professional nature, I mean.”
    â€œOh, that.” She pressed a fingertip to the corner of her mouth, as if there was an on-off buttonhidden there. “I answered his phone. I handled his correspondence—you know, dumping his junk mail, prioritizing the important stuff. He was teaching me to use some of the online databases so I could help with public records searches and things like that. And if he needed a map or a book or something like that, I would get those for him.”
    Nick had to admit he was surprised by her answer. “What if I wanted to know what cases he was working on now? How could I find out?”
    â€œHe keeps his files in the cabinets, alphabetically. He’s good at that. Kept, whatever.”
    â€œIs there any chronological cross-reference? I couldn’t find the name I was looking for in there.”
    â€œWhat is it? Maybe I did a records search or something on it.”
    â€œAntoinette O’Brady.”
    She shook her head, causing her hair to flap into her face. “Nope. I’ve never heard of her.”
    â€œNot as someone associated with some other case?”
    â€œI just said no.”
    â€œOkay. How