Secured by the SEAL

by Carol Ericson

  A chill raced down her arms. If having a connection to Leanna could get you murdered, what would Sergei do to Leanna’s sister?

  The doors had opened, and patrons began filling the tables that bordered the stage. Britt’s heart jumped every time she caught sight of a tall man with dark hair, but Alexei hadn’t appeared with the first wave of customers.

  At the bar on a drink run, Britt stationed herself next to Shannon, the waitress filling in for Jessie. “Did you talk to Jessie? Is she sick?”

  “I didn’t talk to her.” Shannon rapped her knuckles on the mahogany of the bar. “Hey, Stepan. This margarita is supposed to be blended, not on the rocks. Redo.”

  Without a word, Stepan snatched the drink from the tray.

  Shannon rolled her eyes. “He’s no Jerome, is he?”

  “That was so terrible. I still can’t believe he was killed in that awful way.” Britt busied herself by arranging the drinks on her tray. “D-do you think that’s why Jessie took the night off?”

  “I didn’t think they were that close. Jerome kind of kept to himself.”

  Snapping fingers appeared between their faces, and Britt jerked back, almost stumbling against Sergei right behind her.

  “No talking about Jerome. Didn’t you hear me? We take up collection, but this is happy place for happy people.”

  “We weren’t talking in front of the customers. Chill.” Shannon hoisted her tray of drinks and pushed past Sergei.

  Sergei glanced at Stepan, pointed to his own eye and then made his fingers into a gun, pointing it at Shannon’s back.

  When he caught Britt looking at him, Sergei raised one shoulder. “She’s a pain, that one. Don’t ever be a pain, Barbie Doll.”

  “Hey, I’m just here to do my job.” She grabbed her own drink tray. “By the way, how did Jessie do at her audition last night?”

  Sergei splayed his fingers in the air and tipped his hand back and forth. “My socks still on.”

  Britt allowed herself a tight smile before escaping from his presence. Maybe Sergei told Jessie she wasn’t good enough to be a dancer and Jessie left in a snit.

  When Britt dropped her first order, she glanced toward the door and locked eyes with Alexei. She let out a breath. He was still alone. Was he hoping to make more contacts tonight? Did those contacts include Sergei?

  Of course, Alexei didn’t take a seat in her section. It made it that much harder to talk to him casually. Maybe he wanted her to stay away.

  She needed to tell him about Sergei’s response to Jerome’s murder and that Jessie hadn’t shown up for work, but maybe he didn’t want to hear about all that. He hadn’t come out here to investigate the Belkins’ sex-trafficking operation. Her drama must be keeping him from his true purpose. Maybe Alexei was right and she should just go back to Charlotte.

  If in the course of doing his job Alexei found Leanna, he’d tell her. He might even go out of his way a little to discover Leanna’s whereabouts. She needed to let him do his job.

  Alexei had sat at a table close enough to her own station that she had an excuse to make contact. Squeezing past his table, she knocked over his drink.

  “I’m so sorry.” She crouched next to the table, mopping the spill with some cocktail napkins. “Did you see the tip jar for Jerome on the bar?”

  “No. That’s big of him.”

  “Sergei doesn’t want us talking about Jerome in this happiest of places on earth.”

  “I’ll bet he doesn’t. Anything else unusual tonight?”

  “Jessie, one of the waitresses, auditioned for a place on the stage last night and she didn’t come into work today.”

  “Was she close to Jerome?”

  “I don’t think so.” She dropped a wad of soggy napkins on her tray. “One of the other women said Jerome hadn’t been close to anyone...except Leanna, although nobody seemed aware of their relationship. How do you think Sergei knew about it?”

  “We don’t know if that’s why he offed Jerome. It could be something else, like why Jerome was sneaking around here after hours. I cleaned one tape, but what if there were others and Sergei got an eyeful of Jerome on one of his nighttime visits to the club? We don’t know what Jerome was doing here.”

  “I’d better get moving or the others are going to wonder why I’m polishing this table.”

  “I don’t want you leaving here alone tonight. Tell me where you’re parked, and I’ll follow you home on my bike.”

  “I’m in the alley, but two businesses down from this one.”

  “Any trouble getting your car today?”

  “Nope. I paid the tow yard, and they released my car.”

  “Okay. Be careful tonight, but I’m right here if you need me.”

  Britt finished the remainder of her shift with her heart in a warm bubble. She owed it to Alexei to get out of his way. He’d become preoccupied with protecting her, and although she had no complaints, he had his own job to do. He’d joined a couple of other men at their table, so she hoped he was making headway in his own investigation.

  At the end of the night without even looking at Alexei’s table, she knew he’d left. The room almost felt colder, her protective shell a flimsy thing.

  Sergei and Irina had called it quits almost an hour ago and Stepan was shouting orders and ogling the dancers at the same time.

  To escape the tyrant, Britt joined the dancers as they streamed into the changing room. She deserved to duck out early. What could they do, fire her? She would quit before that happened.

  The purses crammed on the bench inside the dressing room must’ve reached critical mass, as several of them had fallen onto the floor, including hers.

  Britt dropped to her knees and started shoveling items back into her purse—wallet, phone. Her breath hitched when she realized anyone could’ve gone through her things, but she kept her driver’s license under the seat in her car, and she’d password-protected her phone, even though Alexei had been worried about the pictures on it.

  Opening her purse wide, she bounced it a few times to redistribute the items. She bit her bottom lip, plunged her hand into her purse and rooted to the bottom of it. The receipt from the tow yard must’ve fallen out.

  She tilted her head sideways and peered under the bench. She pinched one receipt between her fingertips, but it was too small to be the tow receipt, and it belonged to someone else.

  She sat back on her heels, scanning the floor for the receipt. Then it hit her.

  The receipt indicated the address where her car was parked when it had been towed. If the wrong person saw that, he’d know she’d been in the area where Jerome had been murdered.

  She flattened her body against the carpeted floor for a better look under the bench.

  “What are you doing down there?”

  Britt twisted her head to the side, meeting one of the dancers’ heavily lined eyes. “My purse fell off the bench, and I’m missing something.”

  “Money?”

  “A receipt.”

  She shrugged and waved her fingers at the bags shoved against each other helter-skelter. “Maybe in someone else’s purse. You should look.”

  Britt didn’t want to bring any more attention to the receipt than she already had with the dancer, Gypsy, so she poked around in a few purses but didn’t see her receipt in any of them.

  “Find it?” Gypsy hitched her own purse over her shoulder.

  “No. Maybe someone threw it away.”

  “Was it important?”

  “Not really.”

  Gypsy swept out of the room and knocked the purse on the end of the bench to the floor. Britt sighed. Management needed to find a better place for purses, or maybe they did it on purpose to search their employees’ bags.

  She gathered the spilled contents of the purse and started shoveling the items back inside. A drawing on the back
of a business card caught her eye, and she dragged it close with her finger for a better look.

  She caught her breath and shot a quick glance over her shoulder at the two dancers talking in front of the mirror. She traced her finger over the snake wrapped around the letter B—the tattoo Tatyana had on her forearm—the sign of the Belkins.

  She flipped the card over. The name and address of a tattoo parlor in Hollywood occupied the other side. Britt slipped the card in the pocket of her skirt.

  If someone had taken her receipt, she could play the same game.

  She placed the purse back on the bench. She’d find something else to do in the changing room and wait for the owner. She pulled out her phone and pretended to scroll through texts, but she didn’t have to wait long.

  One of the women chatting by the mirror pulled her blouse over her head. “I see you tomorrow night, Tracy.”

  She snagged the purse on the end and exited the dressing room with a wave to Britt.

  Britt tucked her phone back into her purse. “Pretty girl. What’s her name, Tracy? I still don’t have everyone’s name down.”

  “That’s Mila. She’s from some little village in the Ukraine. They come out here with stars in their eyes, hoping to make it in Hollywood, and they wind up in joints like this.” Tracy dragged a tissue across her mouth to wipe off the bright red lipstick. “Or worse.”

  “Worse?”

  Tracy put a finger to her pale pink lips. “How about you? Do you have aspirations to be a dancer, or are you happy slinging drinks?”

  “I’m a waitress, and that’s okay with me. I just stumbled on this place because the club was hiring, and Irina told me there was an opportunity to make a little extra money working parties for Sergei’s family.”

  “The Tattle-Tale always has openings—high turnover. I’m leaving myself pretty soon.”

  “Why?”

  “Moving to Vegas with my boyfriend. He’s a dealer, and as soon as he gets a job at one of the casinos out there, I’m gone.”

  “Seems to be an epidemic of that.”

  “What?” Tracy brushed past Britt to claim her own purse.

  Britt lowered her voice. “Women leaving the Tattle-Tale to take off with their boyfriends. Jessie told me another waitress left to go off with her boyfriend.”

  Tracy dipped her head and dug through her bag, pulling out her keychain. She swung it around her finger. “I didn’t hear that. Gotta go.”

  Britt looked around the empty dressing room. How many people suspected something was off at the Tattle-Tale? Tracy seemed anxious to be on her way once she’d mentioned the other waitress leaving with her boyfriend. Or had she imagined that?

  Another bunch of women bustled into the room, chattering. Stepan must’ve corralled them into cleaning up, and Britt didn’t want to be caught by Stepan.

  She exchanged a few words with some of the women, who were complaining about Stepan, and then slipped into the hallway and out the back door. She’d kept Alexei waiting long enough.

  “Hello, Barbie.”

  Britt jumped, hugging her purse to her chest. She let out a breath when she saw Calvin pushing his cart. “How are you doing, Calvin?”

  “Brilliant.”

  “You need a few bucks?”

  Calvin muttered to himself and shuffled past her.

  Britt dug a couple of bills out of her tip money and tucked them into the pocket of Calvin’s tattered jacket as she walked by. “Just in case.”

  She strode to her car, holding the remote in front of her to unlock it. Several of the bars on this stretch of the boulevard had back doors, and most of the parking in the alley was reserved for the employees of these businesses, so Britt had more company than just Calvin. And Alexei had to be watching from somewhere on his bike.

  When she slipped onto the front seat and started her engine, she detected a single headlight at a distance behind her. She wanted to let him know about her missing receipt and about the tattoo-parlor card, but he hadn’t given her his cell number. Hadn’t wanted his number on her phone, but they had to have a better way of contacting each other than fevered conversations at the Tattle-Tale.

  She turned out of the alley onto the street and joined the light traffic. Although there were quite a few bars in this area, all closing at 2:00 a.m., this stretch of road in Hollywood didn’t compare to the glut of clubs and bars on that piece of real estate on the Sunset Strip where Jerome had been murdered. Still, she felt safe with Alexei on her tail.

  She figured he knew her address, but she signaled at every turn anyway until she turned onto her street lined with apartment buildings.

  She parked at the curb a few buildings down from her own. At least she had the right permit to park on this street.

  To her surprise, Alexei pulled up on his bike behind her.

  As she got out of the car, he cut his engine. Putting her hand on her hip, she said, “Aren’t you afraid to be seen here?”

  He lifted the helmet from his head. “There’s nobody around. Nobody followed you. Everything okay?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What happened?”

  “I—I lost the receipt for my car.”

  He swung his leg over his bike. “The tow yard?”

  “Yeah, the receipt that shows where I was parked last night—right in the vicinity where Jerome was attacked.”

  “You lost it at the club?” He ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up on end even more than the helmet did.

  “I don’t know if lost is the right word. The purses in the dressing room had fallen over. I noticed the receipt was gone when I was putting my stuff back in my bag.”

  He kicked the toe of his boot against the curb. “That’s not good. What about your name? Is your real name on the receipt?”

  “I am Barbie Jones here in LA. I have a driver’s license, car registration and apartment lease to prove that. The receipt is for Barbie Jones.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “How’d you manage that?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  “Okay, so the name on the receipt will check out, but the address where your car was parked is a problem—if someone didn’t just throw it away or one of the other women accidentally put it in her purse.”

  “I hope that’s the case, but there’s more.”

  “That new bartender?”

  “A piece of work, but it’s not him.” She drew the card from her pocket and handed it to Alexei.

  He held it up to the streetlight a few feet away. “What is it? It’s too dark out here—no moon.”

  “It’s a business card for a tattoo parlor.” She took her phone from her purse and flicked on the flashlight, holding it over the card pinched between his fingers. “Turn it over.”

  He whistled. “Who had this?”

  “One of the dancers—a girl named Mila.”

  “Russian?”

  “Ukrainian.”

  “I wonder if they’re sending her in for a tattoo.”

  “We need to stop her. She can’t know that’s the next step to joining their sex ring.”

  “Maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t. I’m keeping this.” The card disappeared into the pocket of his jacket. “I’m going to walk you up. This isn’t a great area.”

  “It’s the best I could do.” She crooked her finger. “This way.”

  She led Alexei up to the second floor via a set of stairs on the outside of the ’50s-style apartment building, a coat of stucco slapped on its sides, not too different from Leanna’s place, except these individual apartments created a horseshoe around a sad little courtyard with some droopy palm trees stationed in the four corners.

  Britt slid her key home in the dead bolt and then twisted it in the door-handle lock. She’d left a lamp on in the furnished living room, just like she always did.

  When sh
e stepped over the threshold, she tripped to a stop and covered her mouth. The lamp was the only thing the same as she’d left it.

  Chapter Seven

  Alexei widened his eyes. Britt Jansen was either a slob or someone had tossed her place, and by the way her shoulders were stiffening, Britt was no slob.

  He pulled his gun out of his pocket and touched her back with his other hand. She jumped.

  “Sorry.” Grabbing her sleeve, he dragged her back, behind him. “How many rooms?”

  “It’s an old-style bachelor. This room and a bathroom over there.” She pointed an unsteady finger at a door to the right.

  “I’m assuming you didn’t leave your place like this.”

  Her gaze darted to the weapon in his hand as she shook her head.

  “Stay here while I check out the bathroom. When I tell you it’s clear, close and lock the front door.”

  “And if it’s not clear?” She eyed the bathroom door.

  “Run like hell.”

  He crept toward the bathroom, although if the intruder were hiding in the shower, he would’ve heard them by now. No need for stealth—just firepower. Leading with his gun, Alexei kicked open the bathroom door. It shuddered and swung open on an empty room.

  He yelled over his shoulder. “Clear. Lock that door.”

  The front door slammed, and seconds later Britt joined him at the entrance to the bathroom, hovering over his shoulder, pinching his sleeve. “They know.”

  “Check to see if anything’s missing.” His pulse jumped and he jerked, banging his shoulder with hers. “The painting of Tatyana.”

  The color drained from her face. “I hid it.”

  “Where?”

  She took his hand, pulling him out of the bathroom behind her. “When I moved in, the landlady pointed out some loose floorboards by the window. Of course, she hasn’t fixed them yet and probably won’t.”

  She dropped to her knees in front of the window that looked out on the courtyard. She flicked back a worn area rug, and using her key, she jimmied the edge of one of the slats of wood.

  “Hang on.” He slid a knife from his pocket and flicked the blade. He inserted it along the crack between two of the floorboards and jiggled it. He pried up one of the boards and flipped it up, exposing a dark cavity beneath the floor. “Can you tell if it’s there without pulling up the whole floor?”