Cold Reign by R.W. Ringwald II (best novels for beginners txt) 📖

Caulder took one final drag off of his last cigarette, and dropped it. He crushed it as he walked up to the courthouse. He wasn't the one on trial, nor was he in the jury. He was here for Camilla, his late friend Hank's daughter; she had asked him to sit in on the trial of one of her friends' dad.
He pulled his shades off, and hung them from his pocket. His Honey colored hair got in the way of his eyes without his sunglasses. Several of the people watched as he walked by, his calm demeanor, and his bluejeans, and pocketed White T seemed out of place here, but he could care less, he was the last one in as the court came into session.
He spotted Camilla in the second row, her beautiful blond hair was hard to miss in a place like this. He took a seat beside her. She was talking to her friend, and it took a moment for her to notice he was there. She turned, her eyes almost as tearful as the redhead next to her.
“Uncle Caulder,” she hugged him. “This is Tanya, her dad is on trial for robbery, but he was with her mom that night. But she died in that pileup on Fourteenth.”
“Sorry to hear about that,” he said, watching as the judge entered, they all stood, and the trial began.
He watched as the called the first witness, a teller at the bank, she was shaky as she answered the question. There was some evidence brought forth, one being blood samples from a gunshot wound one of the robbers sustained, as well a tape of the whole event, a. He watched it intently, to the very end.
“Tanya,” he whispered quietly. “How long has your father had that limp?”
“What limp,” she asked.
Exactly.
They recessed for a day after two more witnesses. Caulder caught the defense on the way out. He was trying to keep everything in his arms as Caulder caught up to him. “Hey, Mister Olathe.”
He turned, and looked him over once. “Can I help you?”
“They say they have him, dead to rights. But they have DNA evidence, that's wrong.”
“What's this all about?”
“Take a long look at the last twenty seconds of the video,” he whispered. “ Ask yourself why he doesn't have a limp right about now.”
“Who are you?”
“I'm ex-detective Caulder Reign.”
“May I ask why it's ex-detective?”
“I was way too thorough...” He lied, because he quit after Hank had died.
Olathe looked slightly confused. “Does that make you a Private Investigator now?”
“Of sorts,” he said. He did have his own building, and a secretary. “We handle small things, finding people, locating victims, escaped criminals.”
Camilla caught up to him, and Tanya looked slightly comatose behind her. He looked back to Mr. Olathe. “I'll let you review the facts, call me if you need me,” he handed him his card.
“Definitely,” he said, and ran off.
He turned and looked at Camilla. “Girls, you look like you need some food, let's go.”
He led them down the steps. Sacred City, Arizona was a hot place this time of year, which was all year. He wasn't from here, he just wound up here after a few bad choices. He had only found one place to find a good meal in town, an uptown diner named after the city.
He pulled into a space next to the Diner. And led them into the diner, which smelled like biscuits and gravy. “Why are we here,” Tanya asked, looking at the floor.
“A good lunch will make you feel better,” he didn't really believe that, but maybe what he had to ask her, and what he had to tell her would help.
He sat them in his usual corner booth. Leah, a brunette waitress in her mid-forties walked up to him, she held a tray with a coffee cup on it, and the pot in her other hand. She noticed the girls, both distraught. “Another case, Caulder?”
“Of course, Leah,” he said, waving a twenty dollar bill. “Bring them some pie, will you?”
“Cherry if you have it,” Tanya squeaked.
“Sure thing, hon,” she said, and walked away.
Caulder looked at Tanya for a moment. She repeatedly looked up, and then back down to the table. “Tanya, tell me, does your father have a brother?”
“Not that he ever told me,” she said. “We only ever met my aunt, and that was only twice.”
He pulled out his small, red notebook. “So, was your aunt your father's twin?”
Tanya thought for a moment. “No, she was nearly eight years older, I believe.”
Leah returned with the pie, for the girls, and a small chocolate milk for him. “Thanks,” he said, nodding and handing her the twenty. “That will be it for now, tell Richie I would like to talk to him in a bit.”
“'Kay, love,” she said, swinging her hips as she walked away.
“Did you meet his mother, or has she passed on?”
Tanya shook her head, finishing the bit in her mouth.“No, but she lives upstate, we never see her either.”
“Was she at the trial?”
“No, she's in a retirement home,” Tanya said, pulling out her phone. “But I do have the number.”
“Please,” Caulder said. “I need as much information as I can get.
“It's ringing. Hello, this is Tanya Birch, may I please talk to my grandmother,” She said, and waited as they connected her. “Hi Grammy. No, the trial isn't over yet, but there's a man here who needs to talk to you, to see if he can get daddy off of the charges.”
She handed the phone to Caulder. “Ma'am, my name is Caulder Reign, I just have a couple questions for you, regarding your sons.”
She inhaled. “What about them?”
That was what he needed. “You do have two, then, ma'am?”
“Yes, but I haven't seen Aaron for almost twenty years,” she said, he head her whimpering. “How did you know that I had two?”
“They were twins, am I right,” he asked, trying not to sound forceful.
She gasped. “Yes, but how, I haven't told anyone.”
“There's some DNA evidence in the case, it points to your son, but it's the wrong one, isn't it?”
“Yes, they were identical,” she said. “But, as I said before, I haven't seen him in two decades.”
“Thank you for your help ma'am,” He said, handing the phone back to Tanya, who spoke to her grandmother for a few moments, and then hung up.
Tanya seemed better than she did before. “Thank you, mister Reign.”
“Are you staying with Camilla?”
“Yes,” she said, finishing off the pie.
“I'll take you back in a few minutes, just let me talk to the cook,” he said, looking over to the counter, Richie was waiting in his white apron next to the end. Reign stood, and walked to the counter.
“Hey, man, it's been a while.”
“You still have your contacts,” Reign said, sliding a twenty to him. “There's a little bit of help I need.”
“Tell me what I should be looking for,” Richie said his Hispanic blood thick in his accent.
“There was a robbery a few months back, the suspect is on trial,” he said, looking down. “Only thing is, I know it isn't him that did it, it was his twin.”
“So what do you need from me?”
“I need to know if any of the local 'talent' got rich in a hurry, or if anyone ended up with a limp after a job went sour,” Reign said, surveying the place once. “See if any of the big bosses had a hand in anything.”
“I'll keep an eye out, man, but no guarantees, as usual.”
“You never let me down,” Reign said. “Just don't get yourself killed.”
“I'm way too careful for that.”
“If you were careful, you wouldn't have needed my help,” he said, patting Richie's shoulder, and walking back to the table. “Come on girls, we need to get you back home, I have a lot to do.”

He dropped them off in front of Camilla's house, waved goodbye to Janet, who held her four year old, Ren, at her side. She looked at him like she wanted to talk.
Instead, he continued on to his office. Reign's Investigative Practices were stenciled in large print, black letters over the door. It was a small, corner office on Ivy and Ninth.
Delilah, his secretary, was waiting inside. He had hired her during his first real case, she had black hair, tied up, and supple white skin. She knew she had an amazing body, and she flaunted it in the outfits she wore.
Today she wore a white blouse with one of the buttons missing, showing a bit of cleavage. “Sorry about the shirt, Caulder, the button popped off.”
“Does that explain the split in the skirt,” he asked, taking the folder she handed him.
“No, that's just me, showing off my legs,” she said, walking to her desk.
“Of course it is,” he said. “I thought we talked about this.”
She laughed sarcastically. “Oh, no, you talked, I listened, and then said no.”
He looked over the folder, it was one of the first jobs he had done as a P.I. An arson case where some girl from downtown ended up going to prison. He held the pardon in his hands, she would be off of the hook for the arson, but not for the evading arrest. She should be off the hook for the whole affair, seeing how she was wrongly accused, but the beating she gave a guard might affect that.
He closed the file, put it on the edge of his desk, and turned his computer on. He was looking for any trace of Aaron Birch in the last two decades. He had gone through years of nothing from Nineteen eighty-six, until he popped up, back in Sacred City, the cops picked him up for Grand Theft Auto.
He spent a few years in the prison, until he fell off of the grid, just about the time of the robbery, he couldn't even find an address. He took a break, walked up front, to find Delilah doing her nails. “any calls?”
“Just your mom, wondering if you had a wife yet,” she said, giggling. “She thought we might be having relations and thought it best to hang up.”
“Mom,” he scoffed.
She pulled herself onto her desk seductively. “Do you want to have relations, mister Reign?”
He looked at her sternly.
“Fine, you don't know what you're missing,” she said, sliding back into her chair. “And I looked forward to meeting her.”
He got a cup of coffee, and sat on the edge of her desk for a moment.
She poked him in the back. “Are you doing your thing?”
“Um-hm,” he closed his eyes and thought hard for a moment. “Now I get it.”
“Get what?”
“Where he went, he took a different name, probably the john doe from the scene,” Reign said, looking back at the tape in his mind. “They kept their I.D. stuff elsewhere, and after they got away, he went to the hospital, and was forgotten about.”
Delilah sighed. “This case hard?”
“No harder than the Springer affair.”
“Oh, so easy for you, harder for everyone else.”
“Sure,” he said, sitting the coffee down, and heading for the door. “Usual time, Delilah, you don't get paid overtime.”
“What a shame,” she said, returning to her nails.
The door to the tiny office shut hard behind him. She looked at the