by Ruby Laska
“So,” Chelsea said, crossing her arms and ignoring the cup of machine coffee that Stone had insisted on buying for her, “why am I here?”
If it had seemed to her that Stone was being evasive, his next move confirmed it. He picked up a little container of paper clips and began playing with them, avoiding her gaze.
“Well, the thing is…you’ve come up on the radar recently in an entirely different context.”
“Not…Roy?”
“No. And I, uh…let me just say that I volunteered to talk to you. As a courtesy, I guess you might say.”
A warning bell went off in Chelsea’s brain. “Go on.”
Stone scratched the back of his neck and glanced up at her. “Are you aware that the Bureau’s got an Art Crime Team here in Los Angeles?”
“Yes,” Chelsea said carefully. “Only peripherally; I’ve never had any direct contact with them. I believe they work with other national and international agencies to track stolen art.”
“That’s right. I’m not involved—hell, what I know about art is pretty much what you see right here.” He pointed to his daughters’ drawings, and Chelsea couldn’t help but smile. “But recently your name came up in one of their investigations. I’ve got a friend over there, actually—Marco Vega, we were at Quantico together. Marco asked me if I’d talk to you before they did anything in an official capacity.”
The uncomfortable feeling in Chelsea’s gut grew stronger. Maybe this had nothing to do with Ricardo, however. It could be any of her clients or buyers. She kept her face neutral.
“Wow, I can’t imagine…is one of the artists I represent involved in something they are investigating?”
Now Stone did make eye contact. His gaze was steady and concerned. “Listen, Chelsea, before we go any further I want to remind you that I’m on your side. Always have been. I think of you…well, kind of like a little sister. And if you’ve gotten yourself into something here, some sort of trouble, I will do anything I can to help. But you’ve got to be honest with me, okay?”
Chelsea’s heart sped up. This was sounding bad. All her fears about Ricardo, the Russians, the threat on her life, coalesced into an ache behind her eyes.
Could she make that promise? Stone was among the only people in the world she trusted. He’d tried hard to help her. He’d always been honest with her. He’d made good on his promise, all those years ago, not to let her case fall through the cracks. For that, she would always be grateful.
And Ricardo—what about him? Despite the heat between them, could she really believe that he cared for her? Had he given her any reason to trust him?
The wise thing would be to show all her cards, to tell Stone whatever he wanted to know. She didn’t owe Ricardo anything. If he was involved in criminal pursuits, wouldn’t she want to know?
“I—I’ll try.”
It wasn’t the answer he wanted, obviously. Stone frowned and reached for a file folder. “Does the name Ricardo de Santos mean anything to you?”
“I know him,” Chelsea said carefully, hiding her dismay.
Stone nodded. “Good. That was the right answer. Let me show you something.”
He opened the folder and pushed it across the desk. On top of a stack of photographs was an image of her and Ricardo the night they met, at her friend Meredith Tipton’s gallery opening. She was seated at a table in animated conversation with Ricardo, a glass of champagne in front of her.
Memories of that first meeting flooded her mind with sensory details: the intoxicating scent he had worn, the bubbles in the champagne, the live music in the background. She turned the photo over and looked at the next one.
Chelsea and Ricardo emerging from a party at a luxurious downtown hotel. The blue dress she was wearing had been a gift from Ricardo. Even in the grainy photograph it was clear that it fit her perfectly. His hand on her arm, his head bent close as he whispered in her ear, would be hard to interpret as anything but what it was: two lovers engaged in a dance of intimacy.
The last photograph was not of her. Ricardo was getting out of a sleek sedan with tinted windows. Two men stood on the sidewalk in front of him. They wore heavy coats and hats pulled low.
“That last one was taken just last week, in St. Petersburg. Were you aware that Ricardo had traveled there?”
Chelsea shook her head. “We’re not—it isn’t that kind of relationship,” she said, stumbling over her words.
“Maybe that’s a good place to start. Just what is the nature of your relationship?”
How could she tell him the things they’d done, or even more incredibly, the things they hadn’t? That she had been more intimate with someone who wouldn’t even give her a phone number than with anyone else in her life? Chelsea’s face warmed as she mentally reviewed the few occasions that she had been with Ricardo. Each time, with the exception of the night they met, they had crossed lines that Chelsea never would have imagined crossing.
She would never tell Stone that. But she also wasn’t about to admit that Ricardo was on her mind all day, every day, even during the long weeks of his absence when she had no way to know if she meant anything to him at all.
“He’s a hookup,” she said, trying to keep her tone light. “We’ve spent a few nights together. It’s not really a big deal, I don’t even have his phone number.”
Stone’s frown deepened. “How do you contact him?”
“I…don’t. He calls when he’s in town. If it’s convenient, we get together.” Now she was edging toward half-truths. The last time she saw him, he had been summoned by Alexander and Boris, who had risked their own safety to protect her.
Was she endangering them too by talking to Stone?
“You’re telling me you don’t have a phone number, an address, email…nothing?”
“Yes.”
Stone ran a hand through his close-cropped hair. “This—this isn’t exactly what I was hoping to hear.”
“So I gather.”
“Ricardo de Santos is a very complicated person, Chelsea. What do you know of his dealings?”
Now she was getting closer to having to make a choice: protect him, at the cost of her own honesty? Chelsea decided to say as little as possible without raising Stone’s suspicions. “Very little. He was introduced to me as an authenticator. He knows his art, based on the few conversations we’ve had on the subject. But the truth is that we don’t spend a lot of time talking.”
Her words had the effect she hoped for—Stone blushed and looked chagrined. He really was like an older brother; though his work brought him into contact with people who did unspeakable things, he became uncomfortable when it was her own personal life they were discussing. He’d tried, in his own way, to give her guidance when she was a teen. It was no surprise he was such a good father.
“All right,” he said. “It’s not my business, and I’m not asking for intimate details here. But Marco and his team have been building a case for several months now that seems to have de Santos right at the center of it. The more evidence we gather, the more serious it looks for him. In fact, they don’t need a whole lot more to charge him.”
“With what?”
“May I remind you that we are speaking under the strictest confidentiality?”
Chelsea winced. She was used to telling Stone everything; she’d had to be painfully honest with him years ago, when the victim advocate and the departmental psychiatrist had joined him to try to coax out the details of Roy’s abuse.
But now everything seemed to have changed.
“You know what, maybe it would be better if I just talked to this guy Marco.”
Stone sighed. “I’m on your side here, Chelsea. They’ve got enough to detain you as an accessory if they wanted to. I convinced Marco to let me talk to you first.”
“Well, thanks, I guess. But I’d just tell him what I’m trying to tell you—I barely know Ricardo, and I definitely don’t know anything about what he does when he’s not with me. I got the impression his clients are in a differ
ent league than mine, anyway. I mean, come on, Stone, you know where my gallery is. I’m not exactly jetting around Europe the way you’re telling me that he does.”
Stone didn’t look convinced. “Look, Chelsea, I can’t tell you any of the details but this isn’t just a few stolen paintings. People are getting killed when they get in Ricardo’s way. We think he’s behind a recent execution-style murder in Peru.”
Chelsea’s stomach dropped, but she tried to keep her gaze impassive. “I don’t know anything about—”
“There was a bombing in Lisbon last year in which three people died. One of those people was a janitorial worker who was planning to go to her granddaughter’s birthday party after work.”
An innocent. God, what had she gotten into? Could Ricardo really be responsible for such a thing?
Could one man be both cold-blooded killer and the hot, passionate lover who had given her such intense pleasure? Who seemed to anticipate her needs before she was even aware of them?
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” she said honestly. “But I can’t believe it’s Ricardo’s fault.”
Stone’s eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry to hear that. I would point out that we are in a far better position to make that judgment—but I know how stubborn you are, Chelsea.”
“I’m not trying to be. It’s just—you scare me half to death and drag me in here and tell me I’m dating a murderer. It’s a lot to take in.”
“I see that, and I wish I could give you time to catch up, to do some soul searching about who you really want in your life. But there’s been some indication that things are coming to a head, and de Santos is reported to be getting ready to make his next move.”
“Are you planning to keep me here? Arrest me?”
“Not today,” Stone said. “This was just a friendly conversation. But Chelsea, if you walk out of here, the clock on your grace period runs out. Marco didn’t even want to give me this chance to talk to you. If I have to go back and tell him I couldn’t get anything out of you, all bets are off. They could pick you up tomorrow.”
Not if they can’t find me, Chelsea thought—and then she chastised herself. The Russians had found her without effort. Ricardo had found her only hours after she was threatened. The FBI had photographs of her when she had no idea she was being observed.
“How did you find me tonight, anyway?”
Stone raised an eyebrow. “Seriously, Chelsea? You were staying at Rufus’s. It was the second place we looked. We’ve had a guy outside since last night.”
She’d been stupid enough to leave a trail of crumbs leading directly back to herself. What made her think she could evade them now?
“And if I agreed to cooperate with you, to help you find Ricardo, what would happen then?”
“You say the word and I have someone in here in five minutes to get a wire on you. We go over your story and we find him, we take you there and you have the conversation that the Art Crime Team needs you to have.”
There wasn’t anywhere on her body for a wire to go that Ricardo hadn’t explored. “That isn’t…practical.”
“Or if you don’t want the wire, we can hook you up with a device that I guarantee he will never find. It can go in your purse—it has a range of twenty yards, even in an indoor setting. Walls are no problem.”
She was grateful that Stone was dancing around his point, but he was clear nonetheless: if she cooperated, even if she took off all her clothes they could still track what she and Ricardo were saying.
“I—I’m not ready to do that. I guess you’ll be tailing me, then?”
Stone shrugged. “Not my call. The minute you leave, I’m out, and it’s Marco’s case. But yeah, if I was in his shoes, I’d get my best guys on you.” He gave her a small smile. “But then again, I know firsthand how smart you are. You’re the only witness ever to give me the slip in an ice cream parlor.”
Chelsea had been twenty; Stone had asked her to meet him to go over some surveillance photos. When Chelsea examined them and knew right away they weren’t of Roy, she had excused herself to go to the ladies’ room, then left through the back of the restaurant. She simply needed time to process the disappointment alone.
“I…never thanked you for letting me go,” Chelsea mumbled. “I know you could have come after me that day.”
“Wasn’t much point. I had the wrong guy. I let you down, Chelsea.”
She’d never seen it that way. But the next time he’d been in touch, they both pretended it hadn’t happened.
“Well…” she got to her feet, feeling the ache in her hip from the fall earlier. “I guess if you’re not officially detaining me, I’ll get going.”
Stone stood, too. “I can’t stop you,” he said, his regret clear. “I just wish you’d reconsider. Once you leave, I won’t be able to shield you from the investigation. This is serious, Chelsea, and you could end up getting dragged into things that could have really bad implications for you.”
“I appreciate that.” The words weren’t enough—but she couldn’t say more.
“No matter what, I just want the best for you.”
For a moment Chelsea hesitated, wishing she had the words to express both her gratitude to the man who had always tried to help her, and her conviction that Stone was wrong about Ricardo.
“I guess I’ll show myself out,” she said, aiming for levity. She knew she would be observed, that the two men who’d accompanied Stone tonight were nearby. If Marco Vega wasn’t already watching her from somewhere inside the Bureau’s maze of offices, she would guess he’d review her conversation with Stone soon.
“Not so fast,” Stone said. “Ling is going to take you home.”
“Not necessary, but—”
“Don’t argue.”
Chelsea shrugged. After her aborted run, she didn’t feel much like going home on foot anyway.
Ling materialized at the door, almost as though he had been standing outside listening. “Ready, Miss?”
“Well, thanks for everything, Stone,” Chelsea said.
“Chelsea…please, be safe. And let me know if you need me.”
“I will,” she said, meaning it, and strode toward the elevator with an air of confidence that masked the confusion she felt inside.
She had thought she was safe, and she wasn’t. She had thought she could trust the man who’d captivated her, and she couldn’t.
How was she going to know if she needed Stone—before it was too late?
#
“I’m staying at a friend’s,” she said when she got back into the van. In the passenger seat, this time. “Although I guess you already know that.”
“I have the address,” Ling said politely.
Chelsea rolled her eyes in the dark. Of course they knew about the Fairy Godfathers. It was actually a comfort; as long as they were staking out the salon and Rufus’s upstairs apartment, he wouldn’t be in any danger.
Ling wasn’t much of a chatter, for which Chelsea was grateful. They pulled up in front of the salon ten minutes later without any further conversation.
“Thanks for the ride,” Chelsea said, injecting false cheer into her voice.
She let herself into the building, then stood in the lobby watching through the cloudy pane of glass in the door as the van eased away from the curb and out into the night. Somewhere out there, people were watching her. The FBI had her in their sights. So far, she had managed to evade the thugs who’d written the threatening note. Or did they know where she was staying, too?
Something nagged at her brain as she tiptoed up to Rufus’s apartment and ran the water for a shower. If the FBI was so interested in her, what had stopped them from intercepting the man who’d left the threatening note? Why hadn’t they followed her to Alexander’s café? And when Ricardo arrived, why hadn’t they made a move then?
There were two possibilities, the way she saw it. Either they weren’t watching her around the clock—which made sense. She was nobody; she hadn’t done anything wrong except poss
ibly choose the wrong fuck buddy.
Or…they were watching her every move, and choosing their moment. Waiting to strike, when they had the evidence they needed to implicate Ricardo de Santos. And if she had guessed wrong, and he really was guilty, then she had sealed her fate as well as his. She’d be going to jail for helping a murderer.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
In the morning she had two texts from Jade, sent close to three in the morning—not surprising since Chelsea knew her friend often kept irregular hours.
Lots to talk about. Same place & time?
Followed fifteen minutes later by:
Shit Chels, be careful NO KIDDING
“Everything okay, Mei Mei?” Rufus called from the kitchen, where he was making Chelsea a smoothie for breakfast.
“Yes, great,” Chelsea lied. She dragged a comb through her hair and tugged on the same clothes she had worn the day before.
She couldn’t keep living like this. She had to return to her place soon if only to get clothes. She needed to get back to the gallery and catch up on work. And…eventually she was going to want to get laid. More to the point—she wanted to see Ricardo. Wanted the things he had done, wanted to feel the way he made her feel.
The two things weren’t really compatible, however. She could feel safe again if she cooperated with the FBI and let them handle Ricardo, effectively shutting him out of her life without even telling him. Or, she could give in to the temptation of being with him, and risk her safety, her job, her freedom, all for a few hours of the mind-bending pleasure he gave her…and the fantasy of something more.
“Thanks, Rufus,” she said as he handed her a glass of suspicious looking green puree. “Please don’t tell me what you put in here.”
“All good things! I promise!” Rufus said. “And, bonus, if you put a little on your face you might undo some of the damage your skincare regimen has done.”
