A Dark Mind by T. R. Ragan Page B

business card from her pocket and handed it to Hayley.
    “Magnus Vitalis, a handyman,” Hayley read aloud.
    “He gave me his card and told me he’d be happy to give me a private tour of any of the homes I might be interested in.”
    “Do you think he knew you were watching them?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “So what have you learned about Danielle’s fiancé so far?”
    “Not much.”
    “Other than the dead bodies being delivered in garbage bags,” Hayley reminded her.
    “Povo moved to Las Vegas when he was eighteen,” Jessica said, ignoring the sarcastic comment. “He went to culinary school, but he never graduated. Now he’s a foreman. He makes a couple hundred thousand dollars a year.”
    “That sounds high to me, you know, for a construction foreman. It would make sense if this was some crazy-ass twenty-story building, but it’s not.”
    “Povo is clean. He’s never even gotten a speeding ticket.”
    “What else?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “You’ve been working on the case for a while now, right? What else do you have?”
    Jessica frowned. “This isn’t my only case. I can’t afford a hundred dollars a month to have portable Wi-Fi or whatever it takes to bring my computer with me and have Internet capabilities. I certainly can’t afford to drive to and from the office with the costof gas what it is right now. And Lizzy doesn’t have the money to fly me to Vegas on the weekends to see what he’s up to.”
    “You can’t just sit in the car all day. You need to get social and start talking to people. Do
something. Anything.
”
    “I’m working my ass off,” Jessica said.
    “But you’re not getting anywhere, are you? You’re working for a private investigator. You can’t wait for everyone to hold your hand and tell you what to do.”
    “You don’t have to get so snippy,” Jessica said.
    Hayley picked up her Kindle and started reading where she had left off.
    “I guess jail time didn’t change your disposition any.”
    Hayley ignored her and kept reading.
    “That was uncalled for,” Jessica said. “I’m sorry. Was it bad in there?”
    “It was a fucking tea party.”
    “Oh.”
    Hayley sighed. She didn’t want to take her frustrations out on Jessica, so she set the Kindle aside once again and said, “Listen, Jessica. Lizzy wouldn’t have given you the job if she didn’t think you could handle it. Focus. Try to think outside the box and do what you were hired to do.”
    Jessica seemed more apprehensive than usual, and that’s when Hayley realized she was seriously concerned. “Nobody’s going to kidnap you or shoot you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
    “How do you know? What if those bags were actually filled with dead bodies?”
    “What are the odds?” Hayley asked. “Use your instincts, Jessica. If something feels wrong to you, then something is probably very wrong; it’s how the universe works. The people who don’tlisten to their instincts are the ones who end up in trouble…or worse.”
    Granite Bay
    Friday, May 11, 2012
    No matter how hard Lizzy worked on not allowing her thoughts to get the best of her, it was as if a dark sense of foreboding continuously floated close overhead. She’d talked to her therapist about it on many occasions, but the darkness was something she still needed to work on.
    The navigator told Lizzy in its robotic voice to make a right onto East Roseville Parkway and then another right after that. A private security guard greeted and allowed her through the decorative iron gates after she told him Stacey Whitmore was expecting her. Lizzy drove to the front of a sprawling mansion at the top of the hill and shut off the engine. As she made her way to the front entry, she admired the healthy green palm trees surrounding the property.
    Stacey opened the door, thanked her for coming, and ushered her inside before Lizzy had a chance to rap her knuckles against the solid oak door.
    The house was enormous. They passed by a large