Page 55 of Skin Game
Good grifters don’t brag. They take the money and move on.
“If I learn anything worthwhile, I’ll fill you in,” Gabe promised.
“See that you do, young man. Keep me updated and let Shay know if the situation changes. I need to get back to my bingo card.”
Young man. Gabe snorted. He had to admit that he enjoyed Claribel’s roguish outlook on life.
“Enjoy fleecing your friends!”
There was dead air for a moment and then Shay was back. “Do you need one of us to come down to Heartstone and throw our weight around for any reason?” he asked.
Fuck no. The last thing Gabe needed was Shay and Claribel showing up and sticking their noses into whatever was going on. He was fond of Claribel, but from afar. Absence makes the heart grow fonder or something like that.
“Jesus Christ, no. I’ve got enough people minding my business. Not to sound ungrateful or anything.”
Shay laughed. “I don’t know, I might agree with Claribel on this one. You’ve been on your own for too long, it’s time you let family give you a hand. Heartstone is just a hop and a skip these days.”
Gabe’s phone beeped, letting him know someone else was calling. Glancing at the screen, he saw it was Elton.
“I gotta go, there’s someone pinging me.”
“Sure there is. We’ll talk later.”
Did Shay practice sounding ominous in the mirror on a daily basis? Filing that thought away for later, Gabe quickly pressed Accept.
“Elton, what’s up?”
“Calling to let you know I asked around at the boat shed yesterday.”
“And? Did you learn anything new? Did any of the old codgers think they might have known a Holly Pritchard?”
“No,” Elton said. “No one remembered the name. I could go back with a copy of the page from her yearbook with her picture and show it around.”
That wasn’t a bad idea at all, except Gabe hadn’t told Elton that the mystery girl had been found dead, although Althea had likely said something to him.
Instead, Gabe asked, “Did you ever hear about an art robbery? Summer of seventy-eight, an art gallery in Westfort was robbed and several paintings went missing.”
“No, but we didn’t have the internet following us around back in those days, recording everything sunrise to sunset. And like I said a while back, Heartstone and Westfort don’t feel as geographically separated now as they did back then. Do you think Heidi had something to do with the robbery?”
“Honestly, I haven’t found much information on it, just the one article. There’s no smoking gun proving she was involved, but it seems odd. However, the employee who was quoted in the paper was a Carla Pritchard, which only adds to my suspicions. Maybe a sister, an aunt, her mother? I’ll need to head back to County Records now that I have another name.”
“Pritchard again? The only Pritchard I know of is Denny, and it’s been so long since I’ve seen him that I’d almost forgotten about him. He’s older than me and lives up The Valley, ornery old mountain man.”
Gabe mulled this information over for a moment, adding it towhat little he knew and trying to come up with a plausible connection.
When the plausible fails, turn to the implausible, Chance.
“Did you hear that a body was found?” Gabe asked, changing the subject to something even more grim.
“Yep. Police scanner,” Elton reminded him.
Ah yes, he would have learned about the body from his scanner, Althea didn’t have to tell him.
Yes, because everyone but Gabe, and perhaps Casey, had a scanner and knew just about every emergency or infraction before Gabe did. Most likely, Caseydidhave one; Gabe had never had a reason to ask him about it.
“Right. Did you also hear that it’s an as yet unidentified young woman?”
“Yep, that too. Why?”