“No. Whoever it was took off just minutes after the shooting here happened. We’re figuring the two were in contact.” He paused, his eyes focused on the table instead of her. “Petrovich showed up minutes later, apparently going ape shit when you weren’t there. He didn’t leave until the ‘police’ showed up and suggested he go home.”
A surge of guilt, regret and concern shot through Bobbi. Nikolai had called over a dozen times, leaving both frantic voice mails and text messages. She had to finally call him back and tell him she was staying at a friend’s for the night and ask him not to bother her again. He had sounded relieved that she was okay, and asked her repeatedly to be careful.
Something had spooked him, had made him chase after her after the apparent argument with his agent. Bobbi shook off the chill, remembering her one meeting with the man, remembering the sense of danger she picked up from him, remembering Nikolai’s very real fear.
“We now believe that you’ve been targeted for some reason.” Denny looked at her, his eyes cold and flat. She raised one eyebrow at him but said nothing, knowing her sarcasm would be inappropriate.
But better sarcasm than shaking fear.
“Someone will be following you, closely, at all times, until we can identify and eliminate the threat. I’d be happier if we just pulled you completely, but Howard doesn’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Neither do I. Whoever is behind this is using me to get to Nikolai. Why, I don’t know, because he’s already being bled dry. But if using me draws them out, then I’m all for it.”
“Unless you end up dead. Bobbi, you’re not trained for this.”
She grabbed her bag and rental car keys from the table and stood, refusing to have this conversation with him again. Denny grabbed her arm and sighed, then released his hold. “Fine. I won’t say it again. But I want you armed at all times. And I mean armed—no more throwing your gun into that bag. It’s not going to do you any good in there. No arguments. That’s my condition for letting this continue.”
“Fine.” It was easy to agree now that she wouldn’t be so close to Nikolai. And if she was honest with herself, it would make her feel just a little safer. “Have you found out anything else about Jacobs or Toomey or the orphanage?”
“No, not yet.” Denny stood, stopping mere inches from her, his face expressionless. “You still think he’s completely innocent?”
“Yeah, I do. Now, if there’s nothing else, I’m going home. It’s been a long day.”
Denny walked her to the door, then offered her a weak smile. “And just think, it’s only Monday.”
She ignored his lame attempt at humor and walked out, her mind sorting through everything that had happened so far, oddly grateful for the distraction that had pulled her focus away from Nikolai, even if just for a little bit.
**
Bobbi fanned through the sheets of paper on her desk, finally finding the one she needed, and placed it next to her re-written notes. Her eyes glanced from the printed sheet to her notepad and back, and she scribbled a few notations on the graph, her pulse racing in excitement.
She found it. Or at least, enough to be sure. She made a few more notations, then jammed the memory stick into her computer and quickly called up the files she needed. With a few clicks of the mouse, she highlighted sections and pasted them into a second file, overlaying data until the patterns became obvious.
“Bingo,” she muttered.
“You are excited about something?”
The voice behind her made her jump, and she turned quickly enough to scatter the papers on her desk. She motioned for Nikolai to stay back as she scrambled to pick everything up then shoved the pile into a folder before turning back to face him. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you coming.”
He shrugged but made no move to enter her office. Part of her was grateful, because his size would have overwhelmed the small space. His presence was already overwhelming her and she felt herself trying to shrink away from him, trying to put more distance between them…more distance between her and temptation.
Bobbi shifted in her chair, the silence in the room unsettling. Nikolai glanced at her only briefly, then dropped his gaze to the floor. He was still dressed for practice, had obviously gone out of his way to look for her before going to the locker room to change.
Bobbi glanced at her watch, then let her eyes drift back to Nikolai, her heart squeezing at the sight of him. He looked uncertain and miserable, much how she felt. And having him standing there in the doorway was only making her feel worse.
“I, um, still have some stuff to do…” She motioned lamely to the desk behind her, not knowing what else to say, only knowing that the longer he stood there, the harder it was for her not to go to him.
He finally looked up at her, his expression serious, forlorn as he twirled the stick in his hand, absently tapping the blade against the floor. He shifted his weight from one skate to the other, then shook his head. “I only wanted to say I was sorry. I did not mean whatever it was that upset you.”
He nodded then turned away, shuffling down the hall in his odd off-ice gait. Bobbi clenched her hands together and closed her eyes, forcing herself to stay seated, to not run after him. Minutes passed by before she trusted herself enough to stay in the office.
She sat back and closed her eyes, allowing herself one more minute of despair, allowing herself to admit she had fallen in love with Nikolai Petrovich, allowing herself to grieve for something that should have never happened in the first place, for something that could have never been regardless.
Bobbi ran her hand across her eyes and took a deep breath, then reached for her phone to call Denny.
**
The coffee shop was busy, crowded with business professionals and tourists alike, a loud hum of conversation filling the small place with a din that nearly made normal conversation impossible.
Denny flipped through the file she had given him, lines of concentration and disbelief creasing his forehead. He shuffled the papers, looking between two sheets, and shook his head.
“You’re sure about this?”
Bobbi sipped her coffee, watching the crowd around them. “I don’t need to be. The reports tie it up very neatly. There’s no doubt about it—Toomey is your connection between Petrovich, Jacobs, and TBL. But that’s it. There’s no other connection, nobody else involved.”
Every spare minute of the last few days had been spent hacking into different accounts and records, spreadsheets, electronic transactions, emails…if it could be accessed through a computer, she had found it, gotten into it, and analyzed it.
The distraction kept her other thoughts at bay, kept her from throwing paranoid glances over her shoulder, kept her from returning the long looks Nikolai gave her if she was anywhere near him. The distraction kept her from being near him more than absolutely necessary—which was still too much.
“You’ve got one connection at least, and you’ve got the back-up you need to make it and prove it. What I still don’t have is the why. What’s behind the extortion? What hold could they possibly have over him to make him quietly go along with all of this?”
Denny slipped the file into a business case and sat back in his chair. To anyone watching, he would seem just like any other suit in the place, ostensibly taking a quick break from work but not completely managing to let go all the way. He lifted his cup to his lips and sipped, his gaze cool and calculating as he watched her over the plastic rim. He set the cup down on the table then reached into his jacket and pulled out a small envelope. He placed it on the table between them.
Bobbi stared at the slash of white against the table top and felt a sting of anxiety shoot through her. Her grip tightened on the cup. “What’s that?”
“Your ‘why’.”
Bobbi tore her gaze away from the envelope and looked at Denny, searching his eyes for some hint, some indication, some sign to let her know that she shouldn’t be feeling this numbing anxiety. His return gaze was cool, distant and completely b
lank.
She reached out and gingerly slid the envelope toward her, hoping that Denny couldn’t see the tremor in her hand when she picked it up. Barely breathing, she slid one finger under the flap and released the seal, then reached in and pulled out several pictures.
All of them were of the same boy, about 10 years old, with huge blue eyes and a shy smile. They had obviously been taken in Russia—Bobbi recognized several Moscow landmarks in the background. Her heart raced and she no longer tried to hide her shaking hands as she stared at the last picture.
A stunningly beautiful woman with dark eyes had a protective arm wrapped around the young boy, a haunted expression on her face as she appeared to look off in the distance, past the anonymous photographer. Bobbi flipped through the pictures one last time then placed them back in the envelope and pushed it back to the middle of the table. She raised her eyes to Denny, waiting.
He took a sip of his coffee and nodded to the envelope. “Katerina and Dmitri Petrovich. Dmitri was ‘kidnapped’ eight years ago and placed into the care of the Ruskov Orphanage. His release was contingent on his father—Nikolai Petrovich—signing with TBL. The release is conditional, based on yearly renewals and fees. If Petrovich fails to agree to the terms, Dmitri is turned back over to the orphanage.”
Bobbi curled her fists in her lap, her jaw clenched with such force her teeth nearly shattered. Forget the horror of having your son’s life threatened on a daily basis—she couldn’t even imagine that kind of hell, knew that any parent would do whatever it took to stop it. No, that horror was bad enough.
It was the other pieces that were slowly falling into place that made her want to run away.
She looked at Denny, at his nonchalant posture as he sat there, smug and certain. The cool distance in his voice as he calmly explained the ‘why’. And she knew, without a doubt, that he wasn’t merely reciting facts he had only recently learned.
“You son of a bitch. You knew. This whole time, you knew.” Her voice was shaking with controlled fury, and she wanted nothing more than to reach across the table and choke him with her bare hands, to squeeze the life from him breath by breath. “Why? Why the elaborate game? Why drag me into it?”
“We haven’t been able to make a concrete connection in eight years. Suspicion and guesswork, but nothing concrete. And we couldn’t get anyone to talk. Not one single word. Extortion of Russian hockey players is nothing new, but nobody talks about it. I needed someone on the inside who could get close, who would know what to look for without having too many details.”
Chills ran through Bobbi as Denny continued explaining, his voice detached as he calmly drank his coffee and watched her.
“I suspected Toomey was involved but I wasn’t sure. When the personal assistant position became available, it was a perfect opportunity, and you were the perfect choice.”
“I was your patsy.”
A frown crossed his face as he shook his head. “No. You went in and accomplished in two months what we haven’t been able to do in eight years. You got close to Petrovich, you made the connection. Thanks to you, we almost have enough to get these guys.”
She didn’t miss his use of the word ‘almost’, and she felt despair mix with her rage. “Almost?”
“I didn’t expect you to set up house with a married man, but it makes what we need so much easier.” Denny continued to study her, something very much resembling a smirk of disapproval and judgment in the depths of his eyes.
Bobbi looked away, down at the envelope on the table between them. Setting up house with a married man. Nikolai was married. He had a son. He had a wife in Russia.
And for a short time, he had a mistress here in the US. Her. And he had claimed to love her. In Russian, of course, not knowing she understood. Is that how he rationalized it?
She pushed the ugly reality away, knowing she couldn’t focus on that now, knowing she couldn’t afford any distractions. Not now.
“What do you need?”
“For Nikolai Petrovich to make a formal complaint. No trial, no testimony, no publicity. Just a complaint. We have Katerina and Dmitri in custody already. If he files a complaint, we bring them here and make sure the extortion ends.”
“Wait. You have them? Where? When?”
“They’ve been in protective custody for a week now.”
“You damned self-serving son-of-a—”
“Easy Bobbi. You’re close to making a scene.”
She lowered herself into the chair, her breathing as harsh as if she had just run a marathon. “You’re no better than those doing the extortion.” Denny lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. Of course he wouldn’t care. Not if it meant reaching his goal. The ends justified the means. It had always been that way with him.
She was a fool for forgetting that.
“Will you do it?”
Bobbi stared down at the envelope, the image of huge blue eyes fresh in her memory. The boy’s eyes. Nikolai’s eyes.
Clenching her jaw, she stood, not caring that the chair almost toppled with the force she used to push it back. She leaned across the table, her face inches from Denny’s, her fury clear in her burning eyes.
“Yeah, I’ll do it. But after that…after that, don’t ever come near me again. I’m done.” She turned and started walking away when she heard his cool voice call after her. She stopped but didn’t face him, could sense his presence behind her and knew he had stood and walked after her.
“That’s fine but I think I should warn you—you still need to watch your back until this is over.”
She froze at how casually he reminded her of the supposed threat, then tossed him a curt wave over her shoulder and walked out.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Numbness, pain, or anger.
Bobbi wasn’t sure which was better. Her emotions had been through a hellacious roller-coaster ride of all three in the past twenty-four hours, and she was still trapped on what seemed to be a never-ending ride of misery.
For now, the anger was front-and-center. Anger at Denny for his games and for his callous disregard when it came to using people to reach an end. Anger at herself for once again falling into the trap of believing him.
Anger at Nikolai. No, not just anger. Anger, hurt, betrayal. Fury. She was still having a hard time believing that she had so completely fallen for his lies. That he had lied so thoroughly and convincingly to her. He was married. With a son.
How could he be married and have said all those things to her? How could she have let herself believe him? How could she have let herself fall in love with him?
No. She was not in love with him. It had been a heavy infatuation combined with off-the-charts lust but it was not love. She wouldn’t let it be.
God, how could she have been so stupid?
Then again, it wasn’t like she was the best judge of character. Just look at her marriage with Denny, at her failure to see beneath the surface.
“Dammit.” Bobbi ran her hands through her hair and over her face, desperate to just put everything out of her mind. Right now, she wanted the numbness. She didn’t want to feel anything, not when she had to meet Nikolai in less than five minutes to accompany him to his interview.
Accompany. Even that was a joke, this whole façade of acting as his personal assistant. For how much longer?
Until she could talk to him, convince him to make a formal complaint. And she had no idea how to do it, especially since they hadn’t said more than a few words to each other over the last several days. If only it could be as simple as walking up and talking to him, asking him, convincing him.
Who was she kidding? She didn’t even want to see him.
Nikolai was married.
Bobbi blew out a deep breath and grabbed her bag, made sure her gun was secure in her shoulder holster, and walked out of her closet office. The interview was going to be held here at the practice rink, just off the ice. Why it couldn’t have been scheduled after Sunday night’s game—the Banners last game of the season—s
he didn’t know.
Bobbi pushed through the swinging doors into the rink, nearly running into George Toomey. Her steps faltered and she side-stepped to avoid hitting him, a chill going through her as he stopped to look at her.
“Ms. Reeves, good afternoon. I see that things are all set for the interview, excellent work.” He shifted his weight and her eyes dropped to the briefcase in his hand, then drifted upward to his face. His expression was open, almost jovial.
Genuine? Or an act?
It didn’t matter because Bobbi didn’t trust him, knew him for what he really was. An extortionist, a thief. Possibly a kidnapper. Worse? Not that she’d been able to discover so far, but that didn’t mean anything.
She pasted a smile on her face and nodded, not letting her real thoughts and feelings come through. He couldn’t suspect anything, no matter what. Not until she got Nikolai to cooperate.
“Yup, all set. I was just heading out there myself.” She nodded in the direction of the ice, her eyes never leaving his face. He smiled again then stepped past her, disappearing through the doors. It wasn’t until she was completely certain he was gone that she turned and walked toward the ice, toward Nikolai and his interview.
Any hope that this would be a pleasantly well-attended event, with plenty of onlookers, was quickly dashed when Bobbi stepped up to the boards. The practice had ended long enough ago that the other players were gone, that all the well-wishers and autograph seekers had left. Besides herself, there were only three other people in the rink: Nikolai, a leggy red-headed reporter, and a photographer. The reporter was shamelessly flirting with Nikolai, standing close enough to give him a full view if he chose to look down at her low-cut blouse. For some reason, he chose not to, instead standing stiffly against the boards, his attention focused on the stick in his hands.
She must have made some sound because he turned toward her, and her heart jumped at the quick smile that appeared in his eyes when he saw her. Appeared, then quickly died when she did nothing more than give him a curt nod.
Game Over (The Baltimore Banners Book 2) Page 15
