Playboy's Secret Wife novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The Missing Record

Lucas wanted to send four lawyers to Las Vegas.

I said I'd rather send one claims adjuster.

"They bill by the hour," I said.

"I bill by the answer."

He looked at the petition on the white couch, and then at me, in last night's gown with my hair down.

"You'll need me there."

"I'll need you in the car," I said.

"Outside the building, with the engine running."

"That's the whole job."

"I'm a very good driver," he said gravely.

"You're a terrible one."

"I'm a very good passenger, then."

By noon we were on a plane, and by three I was standing in a long beige hallway in the Clark County marriage bureau, holding my certificate.

Lucas was parked at the curb with his sunglasses on.

The woman behind the counter took my paper, typed for a while, and shook her head.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. We have no license issued to that name on that date."

"Is that a no license, or a no record?"

She blinked.

"Is there a difference?"

"In my line of work there's a canyon."

I looked at her screen, upside down, and at the thick green ledger on the shelf behind her.

Every license that night had a number, and the numbers ran in a row.

"Could I see the book for the third?" I said.

"We don't give out the books."

"I'm not asking to take it."

"I'm asking you to turn to the page and tell me if the numbers skip."

She didn't want to.

A man behind her, near the copier, kept very still, and that was the first thing I noticed about him.

He was forty-five or so, in a short-sleeved shirt, and he had a new watch.

It was a heavy steel one, much too big for the cuff, and he kept turning it on his wrist.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Playboy's Secret Wife from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.