Shadow Of Pretense (Margot Harris 2)

“Jimmie and Mick develop Apps too?” Margot asked.

Tommy laughed. “Nah, they’re just my loser friends from high school. What fun is it to have a bunch of money if you don’t have friends to hang out with while you spend it?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Mal replied, “I’ve never had a shitload or even a bunch of money.”

“Yeah? Well, I recommend it highly.”

Tommy found some paper and drew a map.

“Can you maybe put the last three or four places you remember as well?”

Tommy shrugged. “I guess so, but I’m not sure what good it will do.”

Margot reached in her purse and palmed on the c-notes Randy’s mom paid her with. “It’d be nice if you kept this to yourself.”

“You just heard me tell your partner I have a shitload of money and you’re offering me a hundred bucks?”

“A hundred bucks is a hundred bucks,” Margot told him.

“It beats the alternative,” Mal added.

Tommy took the money.

“I’m going to need a description of the motor home, too,” Margot told him. “Everything you can tell me.”

“You ask a lot.”

“I know. If you have a picture of Terry, that’d be helpful as well.”

“Sure, but one more favor. Promise not to bring my name up.”

“You worried about blowback from your own brother?”

“Like I said, he’s got issues.”

Chapter 8

Tommy was right: the last place Terry parked his motor home certainly was off the grid. He’d been parked behind an abandoned gas station east of the city. The second stop was actually a decent property that belonged to a friend out in the mountains. The third one Tommy was aware of was a Walmart parking lot.

Margot cruised the parking lot checking out some of the RVs taking advantage of Walmart’s policy of letting people use their parking lot. None of the motor homes were Tommy’s. Margot circled the parking lot and then parked where they had a good view of the back corner of the lot where the RV’s were allowed to park.

“What are we doing?” Mal asked.

“I thought we’d sit and watch awhile.”

“In case Terry comes back?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you really think he goes to the same place twice?” Mal asked. “If I were him, I’d be halfway up the coast or even halfway across the country.”

Margot shrugged. “He could be, but looking at the three places Tommy told us, all of them within a twenty-mile radius, I doubt it. He’s moving around, but he’s not straying from his home base.”

“Or he never left and Tommy’s sending us on a tour of low rent East County. He lied to us once.”

“Always a possibility. Assuming he’s telling the truth, Terry will be back to one of these spots.”

“Yeah, I can see it, but he might have ten of these places mapped out. He might come back to this Walmart, but it might be months. We can only cover two places and I don’t think your client is going to pay us to sit behind a broken-down gas station for a couple of months.”