Hearts in Vegas (Harlequin Superromance)

by Colleen Collins - Hearts in Vegas (Harlequin Superromance)

  She texted him back.

  11:30?

  She paused, not sure where to suggest they meet. She didn’t “do lunch” with her Vanderbilt coworkers, except for occasional meetings with Charlie at restaurants, and she didn’t want to suggest any of those places. Her best choice was to meet Braxton at Morgan-LeRoy. They could figure out where they wanted to go from there.

  She finished her text message.

  11:30? Meet you at M-L?

  She hit the send button, feeling a little tingle at the thought of seeing him as she slipped her phone into her jacket pocket. Then she stood in front of the Russian Confections door and took in a deep, life-affirming breath before entering.

  Her last breath of fresh air as the waiting room was already hazy with cigarette smoke. Ulyana sat at the metal-tile desk, puffing away, observing Frances as she walked inside. Today she wore her usual business attire. Another sparkly plunging-neckline top, a red one that barely restrained her breasts. As Ulyana was sitting down, Frances didn’t know what else she was wearing, but guessed it to be a pair of skintight pants—shiny or lizard print—and stiletto heels.

  To top off the office look, Uly’s chestnut hair had been back-combed over her head, from where it tumbled down the side of her face and spilled over her shoulder onto her chest, the curly ends shellacked into place with hairspray.

  “You late,” she said, her eyes narrowing into two thick lines of black eyeliner.

  Frances didn’t expect everybody she met to like her, but she’d never encountered someone who expressed such instant venom toward her. She could chalk it up to jealousy over Braxton, but Ulyana’s intense dislike had started before he’d even entered the picture.

  Some things were too complicated, or crazy, to waste brain matter on.

  “The door was locked,” Frances said, as though that was news.

  “Door, really?” Uly took another puff on her cigarette, feigning a look of incredulity. “Maybe Dima or Oleg lock when they go.”

  “This morning?”

  “Yes,” she said on the exhale, smoke seeping out with the word.

  “Where’d they go?”

  She shrugged. “Have thing for you,” she said, setting her lighted cigarette on a white ashtray, a cursive gold B visible underneath several cigarette butts stained with Uly’s berry-red lipstick. The B looked familiar, but Frances couldn’t place it.

  Uly retrieved a letter-size white envelope from a stack of papers held down by a rock paperweight and handed it to her. “From Dima.”

  Frances was written in blue ink on the front of the envelope. She’d never seen Dmitri’s handwriting before, and it surprised her he wrote in such a tight, small script instead of big and bold, the way he was.

  Frances turned the envelope over. It had already been opened, rather hastily, she guessed, as the flap had a small rip.

  “Did you open this?” she asked Uly.

  “No.” The receptionist took another drag off her cigarette.

  “What time are they expected back?”

  Uly shrugged again. “Dima say use his office. It open.”

  A moment later, Frances opened Dmitri’s door and stepped inside, catching a healthy whiff of his cherry-leather cologne that permeated the room. As she started to close the door, Uly spoke loudly.

  “Nyet. It stay open!”

  “Door, really?” Frances said while closing it, letting it shut with a loud thunk. She pushed the lock button on the knob.

  Turning, she looked around the room, her gaze settling on the far window. Crossing to it, she looked in the direction where Braxton said the airstrip lay. It had to be in that small, undeveloped square of land. She scanned the patch of greenish-brown, settling on a faint, grayish line—that had to be it.

  She sat down at the large oval table, wondering how Dmitri had learned about that abandoned airstrip as she pulled a piece of paper from the envelope.

  On it was a two-column printed table. In the left column were two-digit numbers, and in the right column were two-and three-digit numbers. Below it was a handwritten message: “What’s your number?”

  Her number? What was that supposed to mean?

  Something that mattered to Dmitri, obviously, although why he made it into some kind of riddle escaped her.

  She looked at the torn envelope again. She suspected Uly had opened it, but maybe Oleg had. Or maybe Dmitri had sealed it, then reopened it to add his handwritten message.

  She flipped the envelope over, looked at his compact handwriting. A handwriting analyst she’d worked with on several investigations had evaluated a similar cramped style of writing in a case, identifying the writer to be someone who was intensely focused and handled pressure well...all of which turned out to be true.

  So it appeared Dmitri was intensely focused on her answering this riddle...but if she didn’t, at least she could count on him handling the pressure of her failure.

  If he was even the one who wrote this note.

  * * *

  AT 11:30, BRAXTON, sitting at his desk, experienced a sense of déjà vu as he watched Frances stroll through the front door of Morgan-LeRoy. The last time she’d come here, she’d been the mysterious blonde visiting the private eye’s office. Seemed like a lifetime ago, and yet it had only been a week.

  And in those seven days, Frances had changed.

  If he’d had to sum her up in a word that first day, it would’ve been strict. Like a librarian who’d shush you for even thinking too loudly. Tailored gray pantsuit, tight bun she was passing off as a hairstyle. Not so strict she didn’t radiate sex appeal, but a guy had to think outside the box to pick up on it.

  But looking at her today, the word that came to Braxton’s mind was soft, although sweet thing fit the bill, too. Even though that was two words.

  She wore light tan slacks and a matching jacket that combined with her blond hair made her look like a stick of walking butterscotch. She still went for the bun look, but this one was so relaxed at the nape of her neck, it looked as if it might shed its inhibitions any moment.

  “Hi, you,” she said, sitting in the guest chair in front his desk.

  Her low-throttled voice reverberated through him like heated sonic waves. She’d put on a darker lipstick, this one a reddish-pink that reminded him of ripe strawberries. More eye liner, too, and a bronze shadow that emphasized the sparkling amethyst of her eyes.

  “Hi back,” he murmured. “You look pretty.”

  She smiled her pleasure at the compliment. “Not so bad yourself. Like your shirt.”

  “Oh, this old thing?” He adjusted the sleeve of his navy-striped French-cuff dress shirt. “Ulyana treat you any better the rest of the morning?”

  “Only saw her again as I was leaving, and she made it clear she wasn’t happy that I had shut Dmitri’s office door. But then, she’s not happy with me in general. I don’t get that girl.”

  “Think she’s Dmitri’s girlfriend?”

  “From what I’ve seen, they never flirt, and they squabble in Russian all the time, which makes me wonder if they even like each other all that much.”

  “When I was there, seemed all she did was smoke and shop online.”

  “She also guards the bathroom keys.... Oh, I just realized something!” She gave her head a disbelieving shake. “Today I saw an ornate gold B at the bottom of her ashtray. It looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it.”

  “The old Bally’s logo?”


  “That’s it! And you know what else? I saw a rock paperweight on her desk that I’d never seen before...but now I realize it’s the exact color and shape as the Rocky’s Deli menus. I saw one that night when I was at the sports-book bar with your mom.”

  Braxton mulled this over for a moment. “We both know how paranoid Dima is. I’m starting to think he has me checking up on Yuri because Dima doesn’t want him near something he’s protecting.”

  “Something to do with the heist?”

  “My gut feeling is no. For the most part, those activities are contained within the Russian Confections office.”

  He stood, plucked his jacket off the back of his chair. “I know where we’re going to lunch.”

  “Bally’s?”

  “You’re a mind reader.”

  In the background, a door shut with a thud, followed by heavy footsteps down the hallway. A moment later, Drake entered the room. Seeing Frances, he stopped and glowered at her, the muscles in his jaw clenching.

  “Hi, Drake,” she said softly.

  Drake turned his attention to his brother. “I’m heading out to interview the manager at that trucking company about a recent hijacking. Be back around three.”

  A prickling started at the top of Braxton’s scalp. Fighting to keep his voice even, he said, “Frances said hello to you.”

  “It’s all right,” she murmured.

  “No, it’s not,” he said, locking eyes with his brother.

  “You start a fight in here, bro,” Drake said, his voice a dark rumble, “and you’re fired.”

  Braxton laughed. “I’m a consultant! You can’t fire me.”

  Which he realized made no sense, but he’d said it, so he was sticking to it.

  “I’ll meet you outside,” Frances said softly.

  Braxton watched as she headed to the front door, her heels clicking across the floor. When the door shut behind her, he turned back to Drake.

  “I told you to treat her with respect,” he said.

  “And I told you she’s going to drag you down.”

  “Because she’s made mistakes in her past? So did I! Does that mean I’ll drag down any woman I get involved with?”

  “Her crime,” Drake said, his scowl deepening, “makes yours look like child’s play. She got a ten-year felony conviction—you got a slap on the hand. She’s bad news. If you’re smart, you’ll cut her out of your life. If you don’t, your family will start cutting you out. It’s inevitable, bro.”

  Without another word, Drake headed back down the hallway. Seconds later, the adjoining door banged shut.

  Braxton stood there, his anger dissolving into a gut-deep ache at the thought of losing his family again. But they wouldn’t cut him out. Drake was overreacting to Braxton’s past, that was all. Yet he’d thrown down the gauntlet, voiced the threat.

  Frances...or his family?

  He hated his brother for making him even entertain that thought.

  Thirty minutes later, Braxton and Frances walked into the sports-book bar at Bally’s. A silver-haired bartender set a drink in front of a customer who was intently watching a horse race on an overhead screen.

  “Well, if it ain’t Mister Party-Hearty Chex Mix!” the bartender called out.

  “Hey, Ross,” Braxton said, walking up and shaking his hand. “Good to see you again.”

  “I remember this lovely lady,” Ross said, referring to Frances. “House chardonnay. You came in with Benny’s best gal, Dot.”

  “Yes,” she said, “nice to see you again.”

  “Your dad, Benny,” Ross said to Braxton. “They broke the mold with that guy, I tell ya. Courage and a sense of humor is all you need to get by in life. I musta repeated that sayin’ of your dad’s a thousand times to customers.”

  As Ross and Braxton caught up for a few minutes, Frances wandered over to a TV screen, wondering if courage and a sense of humor were guidelines for dealing with Drake’s intense dislike of her seeing Braxton. Courage to face Drake’s loathing, and adopting a sense of humor the next time he dissed her?

  Maybe it’d help her cope—and that was a big maybe—but it wouldn’t fix this problem.

  “Frances?” Braxton, smiling, waved her over to join him at the bar.

  She could hardly breathe for the way he looked at her, his warm smile dissolving her concerns and worries. Even from ten feet away, she swore she could feel his breath on her cheek, the heat of his hand cupping her face, the strength of his arms around her, protecting her.

  She gravitated toward him, wondering if she could ever break away.

  When she reached him, Braxton gave her an I’ve-got-a-secret look.

  “Guess what Russian receptionist Ross has seen around here every Thursday afternoon for the last month?” he asked her.

  “Like clockwork,” Ross added, “two on the dot.”

  “I suggest we sit at the bar and eat some Rocky’s Deli sandwiches,” Braxton said, pulling out a stool for Frances to sit on, “and chat with Ross.”

  After Ross handed their order for pastrami sandwiches off to one of the waitresses, he told them Ulyana sat in the same seat in the sports book every Thursday from two to three, sometimes three-thirty. A few guys would drop by and talk to her, but Ross never saw any money exchanged, nor did she leave with any of them, although she typed a lot on her cell phone.

  “Gotta be fair, though,” Ross said. “She might just be a nice girl who likes to bet the horses.”

  After their sandwiches arrived, Frances and Braxton ate in silence for a while. Occasionally there’d be a loud yell or clapping from the sports book.

  Frances shook some salt on her fries, set down the shaker. “Ulyana handed me an envelope from Dmitri this morning that had already been opened. Claimed she didn’t do it, but who knows. Anyway, let me show you what was in it.”

  She pulled the envelope from her purse and showed Braxton the cryptic assignment Dmitri had left for her.

  After looking at it for a while, he said, “All the numbers in the left column start with either zero or one. Those could be months.”

  “Good point.” She took a bite of fry.

  “Thank you. Let’s see...the numbers in the right column... I don’t know. There’s no pattern.” He met her gaze. “How could a bunch of different three-digit numbers apply to the heist?”

  “Whatever those numbers represent, he seems to think I have one, too.” She pointed to the handwritten message “What’s your number?” at the bottom of the page.

  “Let’s run a Google search on a month and its corresponding number,” Braxton suggested.

  She retrieved her smartphone. They tried June and 278.

  “Three years ago in June,” she said, reading the search results, “a man walked into the Peregrine Hotel in Cannes and stole fifty million dollars in jewels in two-hundred seventy-eight seconds.”

  “‘What’s your number?’ sounds like Dmitri wants you to estimate how many seconds it will take to accomplish this heist.”

  “First a riddle, now math,” she muttered, putting away her phone. “How’d I get so lucky to get an undercover job with homework assignments?”

  * * *

  AT TWO, FRANCES met Charlie at Ronald’s Donuts, a mom-and-pop business located in a strip mall off Spring Mountain Road. They sat in the back at one of the small Formica tables. The air smelled like coffee and cinnamon.

  A slim middle-aged man with clipped dark hair stood behind the glass counter filled wi
th trays of doughnuts and pastries. As customers entered, he’d greet them with a slight bow.

  “This place,” Charlie grumbled, “is a hole-in-the wall.”

  “It’s conveniently located,” Frances said, ripping off a piece off her apple fritter, “and I figured a safe spot to meet, as Dmitri and his associates probably don’t eat vegan doughnuts.”

  “Vegan doughnuts?” He snorted a laugh. “Isn’t that an oxymoron? At least this place is cheap.”

  His comment seemed so...un-Charlie. “Since when do you care about cheap?” She put the piece of fritter in her mouth, savoring its gooey sweetness.

  “Since my ex-wife took me to court to bump up her alimony and child support again. After quitting her personal-shopper job at Nordstrom because she doesn’t like the new spring line or some such nonsense, I’ve taken over mortgage payments on a vacation condo in Tahoe that’s in her name, car payments on her Lexus, plus I’m paying for a trip to Italy for her, my kids and a nanny for some bullshit ‘intensive language program.’”

  His sullen gaze turned inward, into what she guessed was more mental seething.

  She took another bite of her fritter, thinking about how her boss had always seemed like a guy who wallowed in money. Tossing a grand here or there the way others tossed pennies into water fountains when making wishes. Guess she got that wrong.

  He finally looked up from his reverie. “I’m sorry for that diatribe.”

  “I, uh, hope things work out.”

  She wiped her sticky fingers with a napkin, feeling uneasy hearing about his personal issues, especially as they made him so angry.

  Setting the napkin aside, she met his gaze, taken aback at the pleading look in his eyes, as if he sought some kind of understanding from her.

  “You wanted to meet because there’s something critical I need to know?” she asked, steering their conversation to business.

  “Yes, that’s right.” He pressed his fingertips together and affected a somber air. “Remember the two investigators I wanted to set up in that warehouse business office? Unfortunately, I’ve had to pull them onto another critical fraud case. I’m sorry.”