The Cain Casey Series

Chapter Forty-One

“She didn’t fire you?” Dallas asked, wiping the sides of her eyes after laughing so hard she’d teared up.

“Are you kidding? If I’d known how well spilling beer on her would turn out for me, I’d have dumped a pitcher on her head the minute she walked through the door,” Emma said, kissing the pout off Cain’s mouth. Remi took out the leather carrier she kept her cigars in and offered one to Cain. “If you must, then head outside, you two.” Emma pointed to the back door.

They had finished dinner over an hour ago, but Cain hadn’t had the heart to break up Emma’s plans for after-dinner drinks in an effort to get to know both Remi and Dallas better. Emma had made acquaintances in New Orleans, but they weren’t trusted friends. Aside from Cain, Emma didn’t confide in anyone but Mattie, but she was in Wisconsin.

Cain thought that’s why she was trying so hard to bring Dallas and Remi together. Though Mattie was Emma’s best friend, she would never know what it was like to be married to someone like Cain. Their world was totally foreign to the wife of a dairy farmer, but Dallas, if it worked out, would be a true confidante.

“Before you tell me what, tell me how,” Remi said. They stopped at the pool, but Cain took her into the empty pool house. “It can’t be that bad, can it?”

Cain glanced around the place her inner circle of guards had made their own. “I want to make sure if you react to what I’m going to tell you, you don’t embarrass Dallas. If you do, that’ll stay between me and you.”

“How do you know what you found out is right?”

Cain put her hand on Remi’s shoulders. “Listen to me. Ramon followed the money, but that’s not what drives this girl. We needed the key to unlock her past, and I found it.”

The cigar in Remi’s hand hung loosely in her fingers as she fell into a chair. “What was it?”

“Her name,” Cain said. She pulled another seat closer and patted Remi’s knee. “Katie Moores of Sparta, Tennessee, and she hasn’t had an easy life.”

“Katie?”

“I don’t have the why yet, but Katie ran away with her little sister, Sue Lee, and ended up in Los Angeles. After she got there, she was too young and didn’t have any experience to make a living that would support two people.”

“She has a sister?”

“Kristen Montgomery, who’s a college student up North. Dallas has done a good job of keeping her away from her job and out of the limelight.”

“How did you find all this?”

Cain told her about Nathan and how he’d helped Dallas with the identity she’d used to build her new life. “If you couldn’t find her, then I figured there were only a few ways she could’ve managed an identity that’s stood up this long. I started with the best and lucked out.”

“How’d she afford that?” Remi asked, sounding as if the answer was something she needed to hear but dreaded at the same time. “Something like that isn’t cheap.”

“You have to meet Nathan Mosley. He made a deal with her, and she kept her end of the bargain. Otherwise he would have sold her out. The new identity holds up only if Nathan keeps a client’s secret.”

“What’s going to stop him now?”

Cain laughed as she headed to the bar. “My reputation is good for something, and Nathan seems to genuinely like her.”

“After you get to know Dallas you’ll understand why,” Remi said. She accepted the glass Cain handed her. “And I imagine what you’ve told me so far is just the fluff of this story.”

“You should’ve asked yourself how a girl you can’t find ended up on the screen. Where’d she get her start?” Cain raised her glass and encouraged Remi to take a drink. “Nathan didn’t know the whole story, but he knew enough to give me a place to start. Sweet China was the name she used in a short stint in the porn industry.”

“What?” Remi screamed.

“Think about the position she was in, and imagine what drove her to have to do that. She took what she learned in that life and created one she could live out with a lot more dignity. What’s wrong with that?”

“I’m not knocking her, but why in the hell did she think she needed to hide that? These days, she probably could’ve gotten bigger roles if people had known that’s where she started.”

Remi’s rage was hard to miss, and Cain gave her a few minutes to calm down. “While I can see where she wouldn’t be proud of that period of her life, I think she needed Nathan for another reason. To find that answer we need to go back a little further. This had to have begun in Sparta.”

“Where in the hell does Bob fit into all of this?”

“From what Nathan told me, he was there from the beginning, but only Dallas can tell us what that beginning was. I assume Bob knows every secret she wanted to bury. But I don’t think he knows about Dallas’s sister.” The cigar Remi had been holding was now in two pieces on the floor. “And we’re going to work together to make sure it stays that way.”

“How do we discover the rest?” Remi asked, pressing her fingers to the sides of her head.

“I’m going to have Muriel locate someone I can talk to.”

“If you do, this will be in the tabloids by tomorrow afternoon.”

Cain shook her head, pulled out a twenty, and handed it to Remi. “There’s more than one way to keep someone quiet.” She held up the bill.

“You can offer money to anyone, but if the story’s good enough, someone’s offer will be that much better.”

“Remi, if I give you this bill and tell you something, you probably wouldn’t tell anyone if I ask you not to, right?”

“You know it.”

“But how could I guarantee that you wouldn’t, legally, that is?”

“If I’m your attorney you could give me the money as a retainer,” Remi said, shaking her head and laughing.

“Don’t worry. I hit you with a lot tonight, and eventually you’d have figured that one out on your own. I’m going to hire a local attorney to do the digging for me. If the attorney-client privilege doesn’t convince him to keep quiet, my threat to rip out his tongue with a fingernail clipper might do the trick.”

Remi stood up and held out her hand. “Thanks, I owe you.”

“You owe me nothing.” Cain shook her hand and started for the door. “Does this change how you feel about her?”

“Not in the way you think. I’ve held back because I was wary of her, but now she’s exactly what I hoped she’d be. If I’m lucky she needs me in her life just a little.”

“I saw how she kept her eyes on you all through dinner. You don’t have a thing to worry about.”