Dangerous Allies (The Ruby Danger Series Book 1)

by Rickie Blair

“Show. Me. The. Money.” Roaring with laughter, he looked at Dimitri. “Is good joke, no?”

  Bogdan smirked, but Dimitri only scowled.

  Antony’s heart pounded as he glanced at the approaching light on the water. So close. He had been so close. He closed his eyes for a moment and then reached for the phone in Viktor’s hand, trying to smile.

  “See—” His voice cracked and he tried again. “See, that’s the bank icon,” he pointed at the screen, “and if I open it, I can access my account. Simple.” He tapped on the screen and held the phone up to Viktor. “See? That’s my account. Now I have to—”

  Antony lowered the phone, tapped some more, and peered at the screen.

  “No, that’s not—”

  He tapped again and then shook the phone. He stared at it, his stomach sinking.

  “That’s not … right.” He rechecked the numbers and tapped again. “No, no. That’s not … right.” Staring at the phone, he sank to his knees. “It’s gone.” He stared at the phone, unable to take it in. How could it be gone?

  “Give me that.” Viktor snatched the phone and bent over the screen, handing his gun to Bogdan.

  Antony jumped to his feet and lunged for the phone.

  “It must be a mistake. I have to call the bank.”

  Viktor shoved Antony away.

  “Look at this,” he said, gesturing to Bogdan.

  Bogdan pushed the m-16 around behind his back. Glancing briefly at Dimitri, he leaned over the phone with Viktor’s gun in his lowered hand. Antony grabbed for the phone again and Bogdan shoved him aside, scowling.

  Dimitri gestured at the blood streaming from his nose, tilted his head and pointed at his pocket, where a handkerchief poked out. Bogdan glanced up at him and nodded curtly, then returned his gaze to the phone, holding Antony back with his other hand.

  Dimitri tugged at the handkerchief. It was tangled around his wallet so he used both hands to wrench it free.

  By the time Antony heard the shot and jerked his head around, Dimitri had hit the ground and rolled out of the way, a wallet-sized pistol in his hand.

  Bogdan fell, screaming, to the ground and the handgun flew from his grip. He clutched his stomach with one hand, blood welling between his fingers. With his other arm, he tried to reach behind his back for the rifle.

  Dimitri strolled over, bending to pick up Viktor’s handgun on the way. Smirking, he stopped in front of Bogdan and shot him in the face. Then he walked over to Viktor.

  Scowling, Viktor spat on the ground between them.

  “You were always a problem. Always a fuckup.”

  Dimitri shot him in the head.

  Antony sank to the ground with his mouth open, staring at their bodies, unable to speak or even breathe.

  Dimitri turned to face him, the gun in his hand.

  Antony scuttled backward, his chest heaving.

  Dimitri opened his coat and shoved Viktor’s gun under his belt.

  “You can get up now,” he said. “Is over.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Under the dock, the women stared at each other. Ruby pressed her hands against her face to stop her teeth from chattering and shook her head at Mila.

  “Don’t move,” Ruby whispered. Creeping to the side of the dock, she peered over the edge.

  Dimitri collected the weapons and dropped them in a heap near Viktor’s car. Antony slumped on the ground with his head in his hands.

  “Get up,” Dimitri barked. “Help me.”

  Antony shuffled to his feet. After they had dragged the bodies behind the nearest shrubs, Dimitri turned to look at him.

  “Where is the money?”

  Antony straightened his glasses with a trembling hand.

  “I told you. It’s … gone.”

  “Gone? This is not possible. You showed it to me. It was there.”

  “I know. I don’t understand.” Antony shook his head. “My bank account shows a withdrawal. As if someone moved it. Or took it.” Scanning the ground, he found the phone in the grass where Viktor had dropped it. He tapped the screen and held it up to Dimitri, who looked at it and scowled.

  “How can they do this? They need the password, no?”

  “Well.” Antony looked at the lake. “Well, your wife took the box after she shot Ruby. And the password was in it.”

  “Mila?” Frowning, Dimitri looked out at the lake. “But how—?” He swore in Russian and ran to the end of the dock, looked over the edge, and scanned the water on either side.

  Under the dock, Ruby shoved Mila toward the Fairlane parked behind the storage huts.

  “Run,” she hissed.

  Mila clambered up the rocky incline, through the shrubs, and across the driveway.

  Ruby followed, a few yards behind. As she scrambled up the bank, Dimitri jumped off the dock onto the rocks. Within seconds he had caught up to her. He grabbed her arm and swung her around. When he saw her face he swore loudly in Russian.

  “Suka blyad!” His upper lip curled. “You bitch.”

  * * *

  Ruby shivered violently as frigid water dripped from her matted hair and trailed down her neck and shoulders. The concrete dock had scraped her knees raw. Someone was talking, but she couldn’t make out the words. She tried to focus on the voice.

  “… you are stupid, Antony. Not only is your wife alive, but I think she took your money. I think we should make her give it back.”

  Ruby tried to talk, but her mouth wouldn’t open. She tried again.

  “I can’t,” she whispered.

  “I can’t hear you,” the voice replied. Dimitri’s voice.

  Ruby’s chest tightened and she struggled to answer.

  “I can’t … I can’t get it back. I put it into accounts that belong to other people. I don’t know their passwords. I’m sorry.” She looked up and her pulse raced at the sight of the gun in his hand.

  Antony gave them both a bewildered stare.

  “What the hell is happening here?” He looked at the rapidly approaching light, and then down at the phone in his hand. He turned his gaze to Ruby.

  “What have you done?” Antony raised his voice. “What the hell is happening here?”

  She ignored him and focused on Dimitri.

  “Please, Dimitri. I can get the money back. I need time, that’s all.”

  “You’re lying.” He raised the gun.

  “Whoa,” Antony said, his arms flailing. “Is that necessary? Can’t we get on the boat and leave Ruby here?”

  Dimitri swiveled to Antony and pointed the gun at him.

  Antony held up both hands and backed away.

  Ruby closed her eyes. Her heart pounded so loudly that it drowned out the waves slapping against the dock.

  “Please, Dimitri. You don’t have to do this.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Don’t do this.”

  Dimitri chuckled. “I am sorry, truly. But I have no choice.” He leveled the gun and his finger moved on the trigger Ruby screamed at the sound of the shot.

  Seconds later, she opened her eyes and watched, mesmerized, as Dimitri slumped to his knees before her with a vacant look on his face. The gun slipped from his hand and he fell over, blood bubbling from his mouth.

  Behind him, Mila held a pistol in her outstretched arm. She lowered it and smiled at Ruby.

  “We women have to stick together, right?” Mila said.

  Ruby stared at her, unable to speak.

  A searchlight flooded the dock and the women winced against the sudden glare. On the approaching boat, a man raised a megaphone to his mouth.

  “Lower your weapons,” he boomed. “This is the police.”

  Mila placed the gun on the ground and raised her hands in the air.

  Antony moaned and sank to his knees.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  As the wind whipped off the lake and flashing lights lit up the dock, Ruby and Mila shivered and tightened the blankets around their shoulders. They sat in an ambulance, their legs dangling off its back edge, and talk
ed to Pete Osler while white-suited forensic teams unloaded gear from police vans.

  Pete looked grim.

  “You two had a narrow escape.” Shaking his head, he pointed a finger at Ruby. “What were you thinking, taking on the vor v zakonye by yourself?”

  “It wasn’t like that,” she said for the umpteenth time. “Anyway, you were here, weren’t you? Saving our asses?” Ruby grinned and raised her eyebrows.

  “I’m only here because you didn’t show up tonight as promised, and because the police put a trace on your cellphone while you were at the station. Which I’m sure you figured out.”

  “Good idea, by the way.”

  “Don’t try to curry favor with me, Ruby Delaney. It’s a miracle you’re not both dead. I still think there’s more going on here than you’re admitting to. The Toronto police say your husband’s telling a garbled tale about missing millions.”

  Ruby exchanged glances with Mila, then tilted her head at Pete and tried to look earnest.

  “I may have misled Antony a teeny bit. Was that wrong?”

  “I’ll leave that up to the SEC.”

  “Pete, there is one thing I’d like to know. When I was arrested—”

  “You were never under arrest,” he said drily.

  “When I was detained,” she said, pulling a face, “how did the police find me? It wasn’t Hari at all, was it?”

  “Nope.”

  “So, how …” She studied his face and then brightened. “It was my other phone. That’s how the police found me. I knew I should have thrown it away.”

  “If you say so.” His lips twitched.

  “Oh, come on, Pete. Tell me how you did it.”

  “Nope. Sorry.”

  A paramedic leaned over them from inside the ambulance.

  “Are these two good to go?” he asked Pete.

  “Absolutely. Try to take them someplace where they won’t get into any more trouble.”

  Throwing off her blanket, Ruby hopped off the ambulance and flung her arms around Pete’s neck.

  “Thanks for everything,” she whispered.

  He patted her back. “Get out of here.”

  Ruby stepped onto the ambulance and turned to face Pete.

  “Give my best to Jillian.” She winked. “And tell those grandkids I know how they feel.”

  The attendant closed the ambulance doors, and they pulled away.

  Epilogue

  TWO WEEKS LATER

  Ruby switched the tray of three coffees to her left hand and pushed the up button. When the elevator door opened, she stepped aside to make room for an orderly pushing a gurney. On the third floor she walked to a reception area marked ward 3b, rounded the corner and stopped outside a private room.

  A police officer stood at the door.

  “Hi, Jack,” Ruby said, handing him a coffee. “How’s business?”

  “Slow,” he said, “very slow.”

  “Well, in your line of work that’s good, right?”

  He grinned, lifting the coffee to his lips, and gestured at the door.

  “Go on in. He’s awake.”

  She pushed the door open and let it swing closed behind her. The room was in shadows except for a pool of light over a hospital bed, where a man sat, reading a newspaper. An iv drip trailed from his arm.

  Ruby sighed and shook her head.

  “The Wall Street Journal? Seriously? Is that the only thing you can find to read?” She placed a coffee on the night table beside the bed and sat in the armchair next to it with the last of the coffees in her hand. She took a sip, her eyes crinkling over the rim of the cup.

  Hari looked over at her and smiled.

  “What should I be reading? Variety?” He reached for the coffee on the nightstand and winced. Ruby picked it up and put it in his hand.

  “Here, fumble-fingers.”

  He took a sip, closed his eyes, and swallowed. “I never thought I’d see the day when I’d take my coffee double-double. But it’s growing on me.”

  “You need the extra calories, what with the convalescing and all. As for what you should read, what did you do with my business proposal?” Ruby glanced around the room.

  “I read it.”

  “And?”

  “The two of us in business together? As fraud investigators? Tracking white-collar criminals? It’s a little far-fetched, Ruby.” He lowered his arm, balancing the paper cup on the bedspread.

  “Why? You’re a genius with numbers, remember? And I’d make a good front man. I mean woman. Front woman.” Ruby took his coffee cup, placed it on the table, and pulled a face. “It’s not as if you’ll be working on Wall Street once Antony’s trial is over.”

  “What you mean is that no one will trust me after I’ve agreed to be a star witness for the prosecution.” Grinning, he added, “Was that wrong?”

  “Oh, shut up,” she said.

  Hari’s grin faded as he folded the newspaper, laid it on the bed, and looked at her intently.

  Ruby bit her lip. She knew that look. He was about to say something she wouldn’t like. Something that started with ‘but.’

  “But fraud can be a dangerous business, Ruby. At least the way you operate. If you hadn’t called 9-1-1 when you did, I would have bled out on that garage floor. And if you hadn’t drawn Dimitri away, he would have come back and finished the job.” Hari looked down at the folded newspaper and shook his head. “I don’t want you to be in that kind of danger ever again.”

  “I was running away, not trying to distract Dimitri.” Her stomach clenched. “Although, if I’d had any idea you weren’t—” She winced and looked away.

  “See, that’s what I mean. You would have come back to save me and we’d both be dead.” He shook his head. “No, it’s not a good idea. Sorry.”

  She handed him his coffee and they sipped in silence for a while.

  “There is one thing I don’t understand,” Ruby said, tilting her head. “Why did the police say you were missing when you were here in intensive care the whole time? It’s darned upsetting to think someone you care about is dead when they’re not.”

  His eyebrows rose.

  “Is it really?”

  “Oh, stop. That was different.”

  “Right. Has your great-aunt forgiven you yet?”

  “Not yet, but she will. She loves me,” Ruby simpered. “Although Aunt Dot is pretty annoyed. I haven’t seen her this angry since Firefly was cancelled.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No, I’m not. She loved that show.”

  Hari rolled his eyes.

  “And the girls?”

  “I saw them last week, in Vancouver. And they’re coming to New York for the holidays. I can’t make up for the time I’ve missed with them, but I can start over.”

  Hari smiled and they locked eyes for a moment, then he looked away.

  “As for the police,” he said, “I wasn’t in any condition to ask them what they were thinking. But they’ve since told me they did it for my protection.” He reached for his coffee again and she handed it to him. “I’m not so sure.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think they wanted Antony to meet the blackmailers and hand over the money, so they could round them all up at the same time. And if Antony thought the mob had killed me—”

  “He’d be more amenable to handing over the dough. Thus making their job that much easier.”

  Hari nodded and sipped his coffee.

  “Of course,” he said gravely, “they didn’t realize Ruby Danger was on the job.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Where’s your partner in crime-busting, by the way?”

  “Mila and Sergei have gone back to Moscow. I saw them off yesterday. Mila’s been offered a position at her father’s old newspaper. Research, I think.”

  “And the blonde?

  “She’s an actor, as it turns out. She’ll probably play me in the biopic.”

  “There’s a biopic?” Hari said, handing her back his cof
fee.

  “Already in pre-production. My agent, Felicity, assured me she wouldn’t represent the blonde. But I told her I didn’t care and why shouldn’t she take her money?”

  “And do you? Care, I mean?”

  She tilted her head and looked at him for a moment. “You know something, Hari? I don’t think I do anymore. That stuff that used to worry me—the credits, the scripts, the tabloids—it doesn’t matter.” She took a sip of coffee and put both their cups on the night table. “It’s the work that counts.”

  “Does that mean you’ll do the play you’ve been offered?”

  “I don’t know. It’s stunt casting. They want me because I’m in the news and can put bums in seats.”

  “Not true. You’re a good actor. A great actor.”

  Ruby got up and walked to the window, where she watched an ambulance pull up to the hospital entrance. She drew a ragged breath.

  “What if I screw up again, Hari? What if I let everybody down?”

  “You won’t.”

  “I want to keep acting, if I can get work. But I need to do more. Antony ruined people’s lives, Hari.”

  “That isn’t your fault.”

  She walked back and sat on the edge of the bed.

  “I know, but there are other people out there like Antony. Lots of them.” She raised her eyebrows. “We would never be out of work.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. It’s not a good idea.”

  She nodded. “Whatever you say, Hari.”

  He gave her a suspicious look.

  “That was easy.”

  Ruby reached for her tote bag and pulled out a well-worn envelope.

  “Let’s change the subject. I have something I’ve been meaning to read to you. It’s a letter from Quentin, my brother-in-law. Would you like to hear it?”

  Hari clasped his hands over his stomach and nodded, giving her his full attention.

  Ruby had read it so many times she knew every word by heart, but she opened it, smoothed out the wrinkles, and read aloud.

  Dear Abigail.

  She smiled at Hari.

  Dear Abigail. I’m using your first name because I’ve been thinking about the old days and how much you meant to Lily and how much you mean to us now. I’ve been too wrapped up in the past to be the good father I should have been. If you hadn’t helped us, the girls’ money would be gone and I might be in jail. You put your life in danger for us. I can never repay you, but I will never forget. Lily would be so proud of you.