One to Keep

by Lexi Blake

  Caleb Burke had his hands on his lean hips, looking down at Jen like a drill sergeant with a new recruit.

  Jen turned to Callie. “Tell me Nell and Henry are still in one piece.”

  Callie waved off the concern. “He used paint guns. It was fine. Henry was surprisingly mouthy for a dead guy. The big problem was that Mel was late, and Caleb used green paint.”

  There was no question in her mind where this story was going. “Aliens have green blood.”

  “Yup. Mel freaked out. Guess you weren’t so prepared for that, were you, Doc?” Callie asked with a smile.

  Caleb had the good grace to look slightly apologetic. “It wasn’t bad. I took out Mel with a tranq gun. I’ve got a couple stashed around town. He was perfectly fine. Now, let’s get on with it. If you’ll take off your clothes, we can get started.”

  Jen took a small step back because the man didn’t look like he was joking. “Excuse me?”

  “Stef brought in the doc to give you a physical,” Callie explained. “He’s worried someone broke you in prison. He’s got a shrink coming in next week to help you with the trauma.”

  Had Stef lost his damn mind? “I was only in jail for a day. I didn’t even get moved to actual prison. It was city lockup. What does he think happened to me?”

  Caleb coughed a little, his eyes avoiding hers suddenly. “Well, any number of things can happen to an incarcerated person. Dehydration, injuries due to violent acts, staph infections.” He leaned in, his voice going low. “Sexual injuries. You don’t have to be afraid or embarrassed. I’ve seen it all.”

  “OMG, I was in lockup for twenty-four hours in the Dallas County Jail, not lost in some war-torn tropical jungle. I’m fine. They gave me water. I didn’t even have time to acquire a girlfriend. Tell Stef to stuff it.” She turned to Callie. “I am hungry, though. They tried to give me bologna.”

  Callie shuddered as she grabbed their coats. “We should go to Stella’s for lunch, then.”

  “Hey, I have a job to do here.” Caleb got between her and the door.

  Callie patted his chest. “I wouldn’t, Caleb, sweetie. She’s like Rachel.”

  Caleb paled slightly and backed down. “Okay, then. Um, well, if you need anything or, you know, start to remember stuff like torture, call me. You know, post-traumatic stress can hit you when you least expect it.”

  “He’s insane,” Jen stated as they walked out the door.

  Callie pointed toward the snowmobiles on the lawn. “You expected different? He was the best we could get. He’s a damn fine surgeon, and he’s feeling his way as a general practitioner. He used to work at a big hospital in Chicago, but something happened and, well, let’s just say Caleb knows where of he speaks when he talks about post-traumatic stress disorder. You should see him get together with Mel. Caleb is sure Mel is repressing trauma that happened while in the military, and Mel is certain Caleb’s been probed.”

  “Nice,” she said, hopping on the back of the snowmobile.

  “They’ve gotten to be really good friends.” Callie gunned the engine and headed toward Stella’s.

  Chapter Six

  “What the hell do you mean he’s dead?” Stef heard himself shouting, but he couldn’t help it.

  “Generally dead means ceasing to exist,” the security expert said over the line. “Let me tell you, that is the case here. Dude lost most of his blood. I don’t think that’s coming out of the carpet. Your girl is going to lose her deposit, if you know what I mean.”

  “I don’t care about that. What happened?” He took a deep breath to quell his rising panic.

  Finn Taylor’s voice was perfectly smooth over the speaker. “The police were called out to Ms. Waters’ complex when the movers Stef sent got there to finish cleaning out her apartment. The police entered and found a Caucasian male aged thirty-five with his throat slit from ear to ear in the living room.”

  “I got there in time to see the body,” Taggart said with what felt like glee. “One of the detectives who worked the case used to be in my unit. He gave me a heads-up. Dude was almost decapitated.”

  “Detective Brighton remembered Renard from the day before and recognized Jennifer’s name,” Finn explained. “The receptionist at the art gallery made the official identification. Jean Claude Renard is dead.”

  Stef felt his stomach churn. This was trouble. It had started out as bad trouble, but this was much worse than he expected.

  Nate sat back in his chair, crossing one booted foot over his knee. He looked every inch the lawman he was. “Do the police have any idea what Renard was doing in Jennifer’s apartment? We locked up after we left. Did he have a key?”

  God, he didn’t want to think about that fucker having a key to her apartment and what that would mean. Had she turned to him? Had he been kind to her in the beginning and she’d found solace in his bed?

  It was a good thing he was dead because Stef was thinking about killing him again. Decapitation was too kind for that fucker.

  “He didn’t have a key. Someone kicked that door in,” Taggart said. “And I’m not so sure the crime didn’t have two scenes. Renard was fucked up but the only blood in the apartment seems to have come from the death incident. As beat to hell as this guy was, there should have been blood splatter.”

  There was a sigh over the line. “I agree with Big Tag, but we need to wait until we get the full police report. This crime is so fresh I have little information about it. The only reason I know what I know is my partner’s extremely good relationship with the chief of police.”

  Stef snorted. That was a delicate way of putting it. Julian Lodge probably had more dirt on the chief of police than he could imagine. Owning Dallas’s most exclusive sex club put Lodge in a position of power. None of which would help Jen if Stef himself couldn’t keep her safe.

  “Do the police know the time of death?” Zane sat in the office with Stef and Nate, their previous fight forgotten after Stef had promised to keep his lips far from Callie. Though the big guy annoyed Stef on occasion, he was a close friend. Despite his current profession of bar owner, Stef knew he’d been a damn good cop at one point in time.

  There was the sound of papers shuffling before Taggart came back on line. “Yes, they estimate that Renard was killed at approximately ten o’clock this morning.”

  Stef didn’t like that timing. “So as our plane was taking off for Colorado, Renard was getting offed by someone.”

  There was a new voice added to the crowd. “The wounds, were there any hesitation marks?”

  Stef looked up to see Caleb Burke in the doorway. The former trauma surgeon was staring at the speaker as though it was a person he was talking to.

  “Um, I don’t know. Give me a second.” Taylor’s side of the conversation was put on hold.

  “You think it’s a pro?” Zane asked, looking at the doc.

  Caleb’s head jerked slightly in the affirmative. Stef was getting used to the doctor’s somewhat odd mannerisms. He was an excellent doctor, if a bit too thorough for some of his patients’ tastes.

  “What makes you think that?” Stef asked, dreading the answer. Somewhere in the back of his mind he’d been praying this was all a huge mistake. He’d hoped that Renard had damaged the painting and was too much of a coward to own up to it. It wouldn’t be the first time a wealthy man set up one of his employees to take the fall. Stef could solve that problem. He would throw money at McKay-Taggart until they dug up enough crap on Renard to get him to back his ass down. This was something different.

  “It takes a lot of strength to slit a throat,” Caleb said, his voice hard and distant. “It’s not like cutting a piece of cake. There’s skin and muscle and sinew. To do it right and kill instantly, you have to cut to the bone. It takes power and practice to really learn how to slit a throat.”

  “Whoever is talking is absolutely right,” Taggart assured them. “This wasn’t someone who got lucky and hit his jugular. Whoever did this knew what they were doing and has likely done it before.
”

  “So we’re not talking about some random robber or an angry girlfriend?” Stef asked.

  Nate shook his head. “Nope. The doc and Taggart are right. Whoever did this wanted it to be quiet and quick. He knew there wasn’t anyone in the apartment, and he wasn’t worried about someone walking in. Shit, our prints are all over the place. You’ll need to come with me. Logan can print you. Mine are in the database. They’ll need to eliminate us.”

  There was a little hiss as the speaker came back on. “Okay, I talked to the officer in charge. There’s good news and there’s bad news.”

  “Give me the bad news.” He was a “glass is half empty” kind of guy.

  “The police searched Renard’s apartment and didn’t find the painting,” Finn explained. “They also didn’t find it at Jennifer’s house when they executed the search warrant yesterday.”

  Well, that was too much to hope for. “And the good?”

  Taggart sighed over the line. “That is good news. Though not for me. I was going to squeeze Talbot for bodyguard services. I need to get Adam out of Texas. He’s annoying the shit out of me. According to this report, it looks like Renard was involved with some industrious people from Colombia.”

  Caleb’s hands slapped together. “That would explain it. Those Colombians like their guns, but they know how to slit a throat.”

  Stef found himself looking to Nate and Zane for confirmation. They both nodded in agreement.

  “That’s excellent news,” Nate said.

  Zane sat back. “Takes a load off my mind.”

  The other three men seemed satisfied by the news that Jen was involved with someone who had a Colombian drug lord after him. “And this is good why?”

  There was a deep chuckle from the Dallas end of the phone and then Taggart was speaking. “Because it means it’s over, Talbot. The police here are theorizing that Renard stole the painting himself to pay for his coke habit. They found a kilo in his apartment. Apparently, his supplier thought he was scamming and took care of the situation. The police believe that he tried to convince them Ms. Waters had the painting, and they killed him when they couldn’t find it. That painting is probably on its way to Bogotá as we speak.”

  “This is a good thing,” Finn assured him.

  Stef felt an enormous weight lift off his shoulders. “And the charges against her?”

  “Well, I might have a solution to that as well,” Finn said smoothly. “Renard was never the one who pressed charges. He convinced the owner of the painting that Jennifer had taken it. Given the evidence he managed to manufacture, it isn’t any wonder the owner believed him. I happen to know this couple, and they are big collectors of contemporary art. I think a simple explanation, a donation to the college where they endow a chair, and a Talbot original might go a long way to getting them to drop the charges. I think the charges will be dropped anyway, but this would speed up the process.”

  “Done.” He didn’t hesitate for a second. The faster he got Jennifer out of this mess, the faster they could move on with their lives. “Set up the deal. Let me know when it’s done.”

  After a moment of wrap-up, Stef shut the connection down. He breathed a huge sigh of relief. She was safe. The charges would be dropped.

  There wasn’t any reason she shouldn’t go back to Dallas.

  The rolling sensation in his gut was back.

  “Poor guy. He’s got it bad,” Zane said to his partner, a smirk on his face.

  Caleb looked between the two men. “Stef has a thing for the brunette? Is that why he wanted me to give her the full treatment?”

  They were worse than gossipy old women. “I asked you to check out Jennifer because she’s been through a traumatic experience. She was in prison, for god’s sake.”

  Nate snickered. “Yep, he’s got it bad.”

  Stef chose to ignore him. “Is she all right? I know you couldn’t have gotten the blood tests back yet, but does she seem to be okay?”

  “Oh, she wouldn’t let me touch her. I think she’s fine.” Caleb leaned against the wall, a frown on his face.

  “I don’t pay you to think. I pay you to know.”

  Caleb shook his head. “Yeah, you don’t pay me all that much, anyway. Look, the girl didn’t want to get examined. She wanted some lunch. It’s a good sign that she has a healthy appetite. I wouldn’t worry about it. If she starts showing signs of stress, give me a call.”

  He shook it off. He had to pick his battles. At least she was safe under his roof. Though not for long if she found out she wasn’t under investigation. “Gentlemen, I hope you can keep this conversation between the four of us. Nothing has been settled yet. Until the charges are dropped, Jennifer is still technically under my custody.”

  “He’s afraid she’ll bolt,” Zane said.

  He wished he’d punched the asshole harder. “Are you going to keep quiet or not?”

  “Sure,” the big guy replied. “It would make Callie sad if she left. I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

  “I’ll be quiet as the grave,” Nate offered.

  They all looked back at the doctor. “I don’t care enough to say anything.”

  “Excellent.” The day was looking up. She was here. She was safe. He had to figure out what the hell that meant, but he had time to do it now. Of course, Jen wasn’t his only problem. His second problem walked through the door. His father wore a worried expression, his hands full of objects Stef immediately recognized. Yeah, he’d hoped to avoid that.

  His father held up a plastic item. “Stefan, I went out to inspect the guesthouse. It’s not drafty at all, but there is a problem. What on earth have you gotten yourself into? I don’t know what half these things are. Are you aware that you have a large cross attached to the wall out there? What are all those hooks for?”

  He felt his head start to pound.

  His father dropped the plethora of sex toys he held in his hands onto the desk. “Is this some strange art thing?” He picked up a large plastic plug. “It’s not your best work, son.”

  “Sir, that’s an anal plug,” the doctor in the room offered in the same no-nonsense tone he used to explain chicken pox to worried mothers. “It’s a sex toy, and a rather large one. You might want to start with something a little smaller. And you should make sure you have plenty of lubricant on hand before you use that.”

  His father went white. Nate and Zane laughed like loons.

  Stef let his head hit the desk and prayed the room would open up and swallow him whole.

  * * * *

  “So, are you fellas here for the Winter Festival?”

  Alexei looked at the innkeeper. He was a balding, middle-aged man who wore a small badge that proclaimed him to be named Gene. He seemed to be the owner of the Bliss Movie Motel. It was on the outskirts of a sleepy little mountain town. What he’d seen so far was lovely. Still, he wasn’t here to take in the scenery. He was here to get the painting and then use it to get close to Pushkin. Then he would most likely be dead. No, he shouldn’t waste his time on scenery no matter how lovely it was.

  Ivan shoved an elbow in his side and spoke to him in Russian. “He called this winter. That is amusing.”

  Gene smiled at them, his face completely open. “Wow. Now that is cool. Where are you fellas from? You gotta tell me.” He pointed to a globe behind the desk. It was covered in pushpins. “See, I have this globe so I can keep track of all the places the people who stay with us come from. It’s a small world, when you think about it.”

  Ivan snorted. Alexei knew he would see this Gene’s globe as childish. And yet Alexei found himself staring at it. The world represented as something he could spin around, play with, learn from. All of those brightly colored pins represented another person who had come to this town from far-off places. Places he would never see.

  And his brother hadn’t seen them either, would never see them because Pushkin killed him. That was what mattered.

  “We are be coming from Belarus,” he heard himself saying.

>   “That is neat. I love hearing different accents,” Gene commented as he pulled out a purple pin and stuck it in Belarus. “We don’t get many people from your part of the world. What’s it like there?”

  “It stink of fish,” Ivan said, giving Alexei a dirty stare. Ivan hated Belarus. It was precisely why Alexei had chosen it.

  “Oh. Well that’s nice if you like fish.” Gene looked from man to man, his eyes narrowing as though he was finally understanding something was off.

  Alexei couldn’t have that happen. He gave the man a broad smile. “Forgive my brother. He is, how you say, a pooper on parties. We are happy to be in this country. So beautiful.” He leaned in and gestured back toward Ivan the Sour. “His last girlfriend leave him for fisherman. He has the women’s troubles. You must to forgive him.”

  Ivan growled behind him but played along.

  Gene was back to smiling. He laughed loudly. “I understand that, but, son, it’s woman trouble. He’s got woman trouble. The other way makes it sound likes he’s menstruating.”

  Alexei nodded, though he had no idea what menstruating meant. He would have to look it up. If it meant Ivan was difficult and cranky, then it was a proper word to describe him. “So what is this Winter Festival?”

  Gene slid a pair of keys across the table. “Oh, it’s one of the best times of the year. It’s a week of skiing and snowboarding, and there’s a supper at the end of the week and a drawing with all kinds of stuff you can win. The Rep Theater is doing a revue with singing. It’s a lot of fun. It’s why you’re darn lucky I had a room left. Things fill up quick around this time of year. Here’s a schedule of events. Don’t miss the ice sculpting. We have a guy who carves these gorgeous sculptures with a chain saw. And he’s real careful, too. After he lost his pinky last year, he’s much more careful.”

  “This sounds fun.” It sounded like an excellent cover. With all the citizens of the town mixing with a bunch of tourists, they wouldn’t stand out. Perhaps he could get what he needed without killing the girl. The last thing he wanted was more blood on his hands.