Sunset Beach(110)

Drue sipped from her water glass, trying to choke back the nausea.

“I think you’re right about it being an impulse killing,” she told Hernandez. “Byars was a perv and a predator, until things got out of hand. After he realized what he’d done, he had to act fast.”

“Which is when he called his girlfriend, Neesa,” Hernandez said.

“I think Byars ordered her to come to that room and climb up onto the balcony. Once she was inside, he had her clean up the room. They loaded the body into the laundry cart, Neesa shoved all those dreads up under Jazmin’s cap, and off she went.”

“With best friends like that, who needs enemies?” Drue said bleakly.

“He probably planned to move the body off the hotel property, but he didn’t get the chance, because there was some kind of screwup, and Lutrisha found it. In the meantime, by the time our officers responded to the Gulf Vista, the murder scene had been cleaned up,” Hernandez said.

Brice put out his hand and gently closed the cover of the laptop. He looked at Drue. “You say you’ve got a copy of this video?”

“On a flash drive. In my purse, at home,” Drue said.

“What’s your next step?” he asked Hernandez. “You’ll reopen the case, right?”

“It was never closed,” the detective said. “My next step is to go home, crawl in bed and get a couple hours of sleep. Then I’ll try and sweet-talk my husband into skipping golf so he can take Dez to that baseball tournament. Then, I guess I’ll go pay a visit to Neesa Vincent.”

“I want to come too,” Drue said.

“No way. You’re not a cop. You’re not even a lawyer.”

“But I know where she lives, and you don’t,” Drue pointed out. “And Neesa likes me. You think she’ll really talk to a cop? In fact, I’ve got an idea. A great idea, of how we can get her to talk.”

Rae Hernandez pushed herself up from the booth and grabbed her laptop. She fixed Brice Campbell with a malevolent stare.

“She’s your kid, all right.”





51


“No,” Brice said. “Out of the question. At the very least, if you’re right, this woman aided and abetted a brutal murder.”

“Oh, hell no,” Rae Hernandez said.

The three of them were standing in the parking lot of the Waffle House on Gulf Boulevard, clustered around the hood of Hernandez’s Honda Odyssey.

“I hate to agree with your father, but that’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard of. Neesa Vincent is a wild card,” Hernandez said.

“Which is why it makes sense to at least give it a try,” Drue urged. “Rae, I honestly think this could work. The night I met her, we clicked. She approached me, not the other way around. And if this doesn’t work, you can still do it your way.”

“Come on, Rae. Admit it. You never would have figured any of this out without me. I found Neesa and got her to admit to her connection with Byars. You owe me that much. You owe Jazmin.”

“No! I absolutely forbid it.” Brice slapped the hood of the minivan with his open palm.

“Easy there, Perry Mason,” Hernandez said. “Watch the paint job.”

“Dad?” Drue spoke up. “No offense, but I’m thirty-six years old. I don’t need a signed permission slip for this field trip.”

She turned pleading eyes toward Hernandez. “I’ll call her later this morning, after we’ve both gotten some sleep.”

“I don’t know,” Hernandez said uneasily. “Let me think about it. There’s no rush, right?”

“We don’t know that,” Drue said. “I mean, right now, Brian Shelnutt probably has no idea why a woman named Drucilla Campbell was skulking around that room at the Gulf Vista earlier tonight. But if we wait, he might put it all together and realize why I was trying to get into that particular room. We don’t know if he’s involved in Jazmin’s murder or not.”

Hernandez ran her hands through her dark hair, still shaking her head, but Drue knew the detective knew she had a point.

“Okay,” Hernandez said finally. “But there’s gonna be ground rules. And you’re gonna do exactly as I say, or the whole thing is off. Understand?”

“Perfectly,” Drue agreed.

Brice glared at Hernandez as she got into the minivan. “You better have a backup plan to your backup plan, Hernandez.”



* * *



It was surprisingly easy to convince Neesa Vincent to make a hair-color house call, especially after Drue proved amenable to Neesa’s unconventional pricing system.

“Ooh yeah, I remember you,” Neesa said, when Drue mentioned how they’d met. “You’re the girl I met at Mister B’s, with the good hair texture. But now, listen, Saturdays are my busy day. Where’d you say you live?”

“Sunset Beach,” Drue said.

“That’s right, you did tell me that,” Neesa said. “Okay, I think I can move some appointments around, but if I come all the way out there, on short notice, on a Saturday, I’mma have to charge you my surge price.”

“That’s fine,” Drue said. “Just how much is your surge price?”

“Three hundred,” Neesa said promptly. “You know, because that’s a lot of chemicals to take you from ebony to ivory. And just so you know, I don’t take checks or cards. Cash only, okay?”