Blue Smoke and Murder sk-4

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “I’m in the Eureka Hotel, outside Mesquite, Nevada, in the casino. I figured it was safest here. Lots of guards.”

  “Excellent choice. Do you have a room?”

  “Yes.”

  “Number, please.”

  Jill hesitated.

  Dwayne waited for her to realize the obvious-if she didn’t trust St. Kilda Consulting, why was she calling?

  “Four-three-five,” she said.

  “Ask a guard to escort you to your room. Make sure the drapes are shut before he leaves. Lock the door, both dead bolt and chain. Joe Faroe will call you within fifteen minutes.”

  “Wait. I’m okay, just scared and mad. No need to wake him up. I’ll just-”

  “Get escorted to your room,” Dwayne cut in firmly. His ruby signet ring glowed against his chocolate skin as he keyed instructions into the computer. “Fifteen minutes, Ms. Breck. If your room phone doesn’t answer, Faroe will”-have a shit-fit-“be very concerned.”

  Silence.

  “Ms. Breck? Are you all right?”

  She made a tight sound that could have been a laugh. “Yes. I’m just not used to taking orders.”

  Dwayne almost chuckled. From what he was reading about her on the screen, he wasn’t surprised. “Sorry. Let me make that a request. Please go to your-”

  “I’m on my way to the elevator,” she cut in.

  “With a guard?”

  “A bellman. I waved a ten and he appeared.”

  Not used to following orders, either, Dwayne thought. Should make life interesting for whichever operative is assigned to her.

  A name came up on the screen. Zach Balfour was the op who was closest to Mesquite, Nevada. On vacation.

  Not anymore, Dwayne thought.

  He punched in Zach’s number on line 4.

  “I’ll hold until you’re safe in your room,” Dwayne said to Jill.

  “Really, there’s no need for that. I feel foolish enough as it is.”

  “Better to feel foolish than be hurt.”

  “The bellman is really big,” Jill said. “And I’m going to lose you in the elevator.”

  “Take the stairs.”

  “You sound like Joe Faroe.”

  “I’m much better looking,” Dwayne assured her.

  She laughed.

  Steele finished debriefing the operative and glanced over at the man who was his administrative assistant and right hand. Joe Faroe was his left. Grace Faroe was his alter ego in the field.

  Dwayne gestured with his head toward Steele’s desk and kept typing, transferring information into Joe Faroe’s priority file, copy to Steele, while Jill and an increasingly breathless bellman climbed stairs to her fourth-floor room.

  Line 4 dropped Dwayne into Zach’s voice mail. Dwayne paused in his typing long enough to punch in the override code.

  Jill’s breathing didn’t change during the climb. Dwayne heard a door opening, then closing, and the sound of a bolt going home, followed by the rattle of a chain.

  “All safe and tight,” Jill said into the phone.

  “Stay there, please, until a St. Kilda operative knocks on your door. Don’t open for anyone else, including room service, maids, hotel security personnel-”

  “Or Santa and his busy elves,” Jill cut in. “I get it. I’ll wait for St. Kilda.”

  “We’ll call and tell you which operator to expect.”

  When Dwayne switched his headset over to line 4, Steele said, “And?”

  “The river guide who saved Lane’s life just called. Someone gave her a screw-off-or-die note.”

  “Interesting. Where is she?”

  “Mesquite, Nevada. Eureka Hotel casino when she called, now locked and bolted into her room, same hotel. Zach Balfour is our closest bullet catcher.”

  Steele’s light, clear eyes absorbed information from his screen. Zach was St. Kilda’s valued utility infielder and a man whose instinct for when an op was going south was legendary.

  “Unhappy ex?” Steele asked, skimming Jill’s file.

  “She didn’t say.”

  “Call Faroe.”

  “Just put in his number, line two. Zach Balfour hasn’t picked up his-there you are, Zach. It’s Dwayne. You’ve got a code two waiting in Mesquite, Nevada, Eureka Hotel, 435, Jillian Breck, death threat. You’ll know more when we do. Move it.”

  Dwayne hung up in the middle of Zach’s rant about bimbos and bullet catching.

  14

  SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

  SEPTEMBER 13

  11:28 P.M.

  Grace picked up Faroe’s phone, saw who it was, and switched on the scrambler before putting the phone on speaker. “Grace, here. Joe’s busy driving.”

  “How bad can traffic be at this time of night?” Steele asked, his voice crisp.

  “It’s not the traffic, it’s the fact that she’s having the baby!” Faroe said loudly. “Lane, how long since the last contraction?”

  “Two minutes, twenty-eight seconds.” Lane’s voice was tight, deep. Like Faroe’s. “How you doing, Mom?”

  “Will you both shut up?” Grace asked pleasantly. “I can’t hear the ambassador. And slow down unless you want a police escort.”

  Steele’s surprisingly warm laughter came from the speaker. “I take it all is under control, Judge?”

  “Yes, but you couldn’t tell by talking to my men. My doctor is on the way in to the hospital, the staff is ready, and apparently so is the baby. What do you need?”

  “Jillian Breck just called for Joe.”

  “What?” Lane said. “Is she all right? Is she hurt? Does-”

  “Belt up, Lane,” Faroe said. He knew his son had a crush on Jill-what healthy young man wouldn’t?-but that wasn’t the point. “Where is she?”

  “Mesquite, Nevada. Eureka Hotel. Room 435. Safe enough for the moment. She’s had a death threat.”

  “Craptastic,” Faroe said, checking the intersection again as he accelerated through a yellow-going-red light. The Mercedes SUV gave a happy roar. “Never rains but it bloody pours.”

  Grace started to say something, then shut up as her abdomen clamped down back to front, hard and long, pushing the baby closer to the moment of birth.

  “Time,” she said to Lane between her teeth.

  “Oh, god,” Lane said, his voice thinning. “They’re coming too close!”

  Grace felt the same way herself. This baby was in one big hurry. She knew that for most women a second baby came faster than the first, but with a sixteen-year-gap between pregnancies, she hadn’t expected the rule to apply to her.

  “Zach Balfour is our closest free operative,” Steele said. “Until we know the exact nature of the threat, we’re going with an intelligent bullet catcher.”

  Faroe grunted. “Good. I like Zach’s style. But the last time I talked to him, he was packing for a vacation. He change his mind?”

  “No, I did. He was about forty miles from Mesquite, Nevada, heading south in the morning. Now he’s heading north.”

  “Works for me.”

  “I doubt if it worked for him,” Steele said dryly, “but he’s on the way to Ms. Breck just the same.”

  Faroe almost smiled. “Did you get him out of bed?”

  “He’s recovering from babysitting DeeDee Breitling.”

  “Jesus. Give him double pay. Whatever. Just get him to Jill fast.”

  “I’ve seen the man drive,” Steele said. “He’ll be there fast.”

  Faroe slowed for another red light, scanned the intersection, gunned through it without stopping, and turned hard right. “We’re almost at the emergency entrance to the hospital. Give me Jill’s hotel phone. I’ll call while they’re checking Grace in.”

  “I could call her and-” Lane began.

  “Time contractions!” Faroe and Grace said together.

  Steele said Jill’s number in a loud, precise voice.

  “How long was that contraction?” Faroe asked, never looking away from the hospital rushing toward him.

  �
�Not-done-yet,” she said in a strained voice.

  “Bloody hell,” Steele said. “I’ll talk to Jillian myself.”

  “No,” Faroe said, leaning on the SUV’s horn, summoning the emergency staff as he braked gently to a stop by the wide glass doors. “I owe her. This op is on me.”

  “It’s on St. Kilda. I have plans for Lane,” Steele shot back. “Now, just for the novelty of the experience, be reasonable. Grace needs you more than-”

  “I can talk to Jill and tell Grace to push at the same time,” Faroe cut in.

  “You do and you’ll need a surgeon to remove the phone from your ass,” she shot back.

  Steele almost laughed out loud.

  Faroe did. “That’s the delicate little flower I know and love. And here comes the med team. I’ll call Jill.”

  He hung up, looked at Lane and the people hurrying close, and said, “Help your mother and answer their questions while I talk to Jill.”

  “Will do.”

  Faroe didn’t answer. He was already punching in Jill’s hotel number.

  15

  EUREKA HOTEL

  SEPTEMBER 14

  12:17 A.M.

  Zach Balfour knocked smartly on the door of 435, then stepped back so that he was clearly visible in the room door’s peephole. Not that a view of his four-day stubble would be reassuring, but he didn’t give a damn. He was supposed to be on vacation, not catching imaginary bullets for another bimbo.

  “Who is it?” asked a woman.

  The voice was low, slightly husky without being at all breathless.

  At least she doesn’t sound like a squirrel on speed, he told himself. That’s worth something.

  “Zach Balfour, St. Kilda Consulting.”

  “Slide your card under the door.”

  It wasn’t a request.

  His dark eyebrows climbed, but Zach dug out a St. Kilda card and pushed it as far as he could under the hotel room door.

  A few moments later, the bolt clicked, the chain rattled, and the door opened.

  “Come in,” Jill said.

  Zach didn’t wait for a second invitation. He stepped into the room and watched while Jillian Breck closed, bolted, and chained the door again.

  The room was pretty much what he expected. Against the far wall there was a double bed sporting a rumpled spread and a belly bag stuffed like a sausage. A small, butt-sprung couch that likely pulled out into another bed faced the TV. Neither clean nor dirty, the room was just a place to stash stuff between casino raids.

  Jillian Breck wasn’t what he’d expected. She wore jeans, a Ray Troll T-shirt, and beat-up river sandals. She had unpolished fingernails, minimal if any makeup, hair a casual auburn cap, nice breasts, trim butt, and a body that was both fit and unmistakably female.

  Pale green eyes, steady and clear.

  Real green, too, not contacts like the unadorable DeeDee.

  Slowly Zach began to feel less homicidal toward St. Kilda Consulting. He held out his hand and said, “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Breck.”

  “Jill.”

  Her handshake was brief, surprisingly strong, with ridges of callus that came from rowing rafts down unruly rivers.

  “Call me Zach. Have you had any more trouble since you first called St. Kilda?”

  She blinked. “Well, that’s blunt.”

  “Saves time.”

  She tilted her head and looked up, then down the long, lean man who stood in front of her. She’d worked with enough men on the river not to underestimate the power in his rangy body and wide shoulders, or the penetrating intelligence of his whiskey-colored eyes. A crop of black stubble did nothing to soften the hard planes of his face. He had equally black hair that was too rough to be well groomed, and too clean to be a collar-length gesture of contempt aimed at the civilized world. His clothes looked like he’d slept in them after a long day of hiking. Maybe several days.

  “You’re not what I expected,” she said.

  “No tuxedo, pistol, and martini, shaken not stirred?”

  Her laugh was as real as the color of her eyes. “Sorry, I’m very new to this.”

  “Don’t feel bad. Damn few people are used to death threats.”

  Her laughter vanished. Tight, pale lines appeared around the mouth that had been a soft, deep rose.

  Nice going, Zach told himself with a sigh. Turn the client into a net of twanging nerves with a few badly chosen words.

  DeeDee had never noticed.

  Could be why he spent a lot of the time working with intel, not clients.

  “My social skills need polish,” he said. “Let’s start all over again. Hi, I’m Zach. Joe Faroe wanted to come in my place but his wife is having a baby as we speak.”

  “Really?” Jill grinned. “I’ll bet Lane is so excited he’s bouncing in place. Not many boys his age would be, but he’s really looking forward to having a crumb-crusher in the house.”

  Zach’s smile surprised her as much as his beat-up hiking boots, dirty jeans, and clean hands.

  “I hope he gets a brother,” he said.

  One of Jill’s dark brown eyebrows rose. “You don’t like women?”

  “I have four sisters, all older than me by at least eight years. My dad died in a stock car race when I was twelve. I couldn’t wait to live in an estrogen-free zone.”

  Jill smiled slightly. “I was raised by women in a militantly testosterone-free zone.”

  “Should be interesting.”

  “What?”

  “The next few days.”

  Her smiled faded. “That’s one way of putting it.”

  “Like I said, my social skills need some work. So why don’t you do the talking? Tell me about everything that led up to my knock on your hotel room door.”

  “Everything?”

  “If it has to do with the reason your little SUV got slashed, yes. You can leave out the boyfriend trashing, giggling sleepovers, brutal labor stories, and choices in gear for your monthlies.”

  Jill stared at him for a long moment. “Whew. You really meant it, didn’t you? About the estrogen free.”

  “If I never again have to listen to a debate over the joys of pads versus tampons, it’s fine by me. You can leave out the my-cramps-are-worse-than-yours contest, too.”

  “In return, you won’t drool over big tits, pant over heart-shaped ass, and whine about not getting any. Deal?”

  Zach smiled slowly, then laughed. This one definitely wasn’t DeeDee. “Deal. Now tell me why you called St. Kilda Consulting instead of the cops.”

  “I trust Joe Faroe.”

  “And you don’t trust cops?”

  She shrugged. “Let’s just say I’m not real impressed by the sheriff of Canyon County, Arizona. And he’s even less impressed with me.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  Jill took a deep breath and told Zach about her great-aunt, the paintings, the gallery letter, the fire, the stiff-necked sheriff, and an art dealer called Blanchard from east Texas.

  Zach might look scruffy, but he listened with an intensity and intelligence that reminded her of Joe Faroe. He asked questions, she answered with what information she had, he asked more, and she got frustrated by her lack of answers for basic data on her relatives.

  “Hey, don’t feel bad,” he said. “Most people barely know their parents’ birth dates, much less the grandparents’ and grand-siblings’. I’m lucky to remember my sisters’ birthdays. As for my herd of nieces and nephews, forget it. Don’t worry, St. Kilda will fill in your family gaps. Beginning now.”

  Zach took out his cell phone, put it on speaker, and hit speed dial.

  “Research,” a woman’s voice said.

  “This is Zach Balfour. I need a run on an art dealer called Blanchard, male, may or may not be based in east Texas. A photo would be primo. I know that you probably won’t find zilch, but you may get lucky.”

  “Hey, Zach. It’s Shawna Singh. Steele told me to put you on the top of my list tonight. No guarantees about tomorrow, though.
”

  Zach whistled softly. “I appreciate whatever time you can spare. I do like working with the best. If I’d known you were back from maternity leave, I’d have asked for you by name.”

  “Keep that in mind when you start chewing on me for not getting something from nothing. You know how useless a search based on a single name will be.”

  Zach grunted.

  Jill smothered a laugh. She’d never met Shawna and already liked her.

  “Anything better than Blanchard for me to handle?” the researcher continued.

  “Modesty Breck,” Zach said. “Normal spelling. DOB June 1922, ’23, or ’24, maybe ’25, residence on Breck ranch outside of Blessing, Arizona. Sheriff Ned Purcell, Canyon County, Arizona. Justine née Breck, DOB…”

  Pulled between curiosity and a feeling of unease, Jill listened while Zach ordered up research on her family. She wanted to ask if it was really necessary to pry into the lives of the dead, but didn’t. She’d called for help, and she’d gotten it.

  Now she had to live with it or walk away and go it alone.

  Memories of the death threat, the trashed SUV, and the canvas rags jamming her belly pack along with her sat phone didn’t make being alone look attractive to Jill.

  Nature’s violence was one thing.

  Human violence was quite another.

  “Then look at Ford Hillhouse, Art of the Historic West, Park City, Utah,” Zach said. He knew a lot about Western art, but he’d been out of the art loop too long to take anything for granted. “Ramsey Worthington, Fine Western Arts, Snowbird, Utah. When I get more, you’ll get more.”

  Zach answered a few questions, disconnected, saw his battery wasn’t holding a charge worth a damn, and sighed. He doubted that any small Western towns sold the kind of goods he needed for his sleek sat/cell phone. He’d plug it in overnight and hope for the best.

  He looked at his watch. “Two choices-sleep here or go get the paintings.”

  “Nobody but my great-aunt knows that I use the homestead cabin, so the paintings should be safe there. My mail comes to a P.O. box in Blessing.”

  Since St. Kilda’s researchers hadn’t mentioned the cabin, and it hadn’t burned, Zach figured the art would be good overnight.