Hearts in Vegas (Harlequin Superromance)

by Colleen Collins - Hearts in Vegas (Harlequin Superromance)

  She hadn’t thought about those investigators in a few days, but hearing they wouldn’t be nearby, she felt a trickle of cold panic realizing how isolated she’d be in that Russian Confections office.

  He frowned. “You’re upset.”

  She tried to flatten her face, make it a blank canvas, then thought, Why pretend I’m not upset? This situation needs to be corrected.

  “Right now,” she said quietly, “I’m treated reasonably well at the office, but if Dmitri were to suspect anything...well, that scares me.”

  Charlie spread his hands helplessly. “I didn’t mean to leave you high and dry, Frances. Maybe I can pull McKenzie off his case early....”

  “Please, not McKenzie. He graduated from college, what, six months ago? I need an experienced investigator. Someone who can help me sift through details, be there when I call....”

  Braxton.

  No, Charlie wouldn’t go for this. He despised private investigators. She remembered his words at their brunch. Most of those shamuses will do anything for a buck, including break the law.

  On the other hand, they were under a time crunch, no one else was available, and despite what Charlie claimed, he was leaving her high and dry.

  “I have an idea.” She paused. “What about hiring Braxton as a—”

  “Braxton,” he muttered. “Did you tell him you’re working undercover?”

  “Of course not.”

  A white lie, but Vanderbilt didn’t like its investigators revealing their identities while undercover except under extraordinary circumstances—and she doubted that Charlie would think these qualified.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “what about hiring him to—”

  “No.”

  “Charlie, please, hear me out.”

  “I’m not bringing some Vegas private dick into a Vanderbilt case.”

  “But he’s knowledgeable about the Russian community, which is a big plus.”

  “Does he speak Russian?”

  “Yes,” she said, recalling his understanding some things Dmitri had said the other day.

  “Fluent?”

  “I don’t know. But another point in his favor is that Dmitri already trusts him, so it’s not like we’re bringing in as an unknown.”

  “But I thought he didn’t want Braxton in the offices. How can he help you if he can’t get inside?”

  She never thought she’d view Ulyana as an asset, but she did now. “For starters, the Russian receptionist has the hots for Braxton and would open the door for him while she’s there. If possible, I could also let him in, which would irritate Dmitri but at least he knows and trusts Braxton. If I were to let a total stranger in, Dmitri would implode.”

  He thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know....”

  “We’re under an insanely tight time constraint, Charlie. Braxton’s not just our best option, but our only one. If Vanderbilt was willing to put two additional full-time employees on this case, seems they’d be happy to pay a lot less to an investigative consultant.”

  “Investigative consultant.” He smirked. “They’re private dicks, Frances. Most being ex-cops who quit or were fired, which says it all right there. By the way, I did a Google search on Braxton...need I say more?”

  A loud burst of giggling distracted her. At a nearby table, a red-haired teenage boy fed a maple bar to a girl who managed to giggle and nibble at the same time. Frances had a fleeting ache to run away with Braxton, away from their problems and worries, just be the two of them doing something silly and fun....

  She looked back at Charlie, entering the ring for the next round.

  “If you looked him up on Google,” she said, “you must have also read that he worked closely with the Vegas police last summer in a sting that brought down a Russian mobster and that the D.A. has tapped Braxton to be his star witness at the trial next month.”

  “So you’re saying he’s reformed.”

  “It’s possible people can be, you know. You’ve acknowledged my rehabilitation yourself in reports to the court.” She paused. “Anyway, I could use his help on this case.”

  “What kind of help?”

  “Field investigations.”

  Braxton had already helped her this morning when they went to Bally’s, but Charlie wouldn’t like hearing she’d already involved him on case work, so she’d keep that one to herself.

  “For example,” she said, “there’s an abandoned but supposedly still functional private airstrip I’m interested in checking out. It’s near the Russian office, which makes me think Dmitri might be planning to use it for his great escape after the heist. The location of the airstrip isn’t exact—somewhere on acres of uninhabited desert—so I’d like Braxton to accompany me.”

  He frowned. “But if you find evidence of Dmitri stealing coins, he’ll be in jail instead of making a great escape.”

  A roundabout way of saying he didn’t want to bring Braxton on board, but he hadn’t said no this time. Plus, Charlie had brought up something she’d been thinking about ever since visiting Bally’s.

  “There might be other evidence that could put Dmitri in jail,” she said. “Unrelated to the coins, but it could lead us to them. Like you said, criminals behind bars can get chatty, thinking the more they tell, the less their sentence might be.”

  From the glint in his eyes, she knew she’d sparked his interest.

  “Do you know about something else?”

  She thought about Uly hanging out at Bally’s on Thursday afternoons. Where else was she hanging out on her other afternoons off? Was she conducting business for Dmitri? That bartender Ross said maybe she was just a bettin’ girl, but Frances would bet otherwise.

  “I have a hunch about something,” she admitted, “but nothing concrete.”

  Charlie gave her an assessing look. “Keep your priorities straight, but if you learn something that backs up that hunch, let me know. Now, tell me about this airstrip.”

  “Don’t know much about it yet, just that it exists on property owned by an elderly gentleman who now lives in another state. Apparently he cowboyed this landing strip on his own, literally flew below the radar, so McCarren never detected it.”

  “How’d you learn about it?”

  Better to slide into the truth sideways, cloud the fact Braxton had first told her. Otherwise, Charlie would wonder why Brax mentioned it out of the blue.

  “Dmitri has a thing for James Bond, and while he was looking out his window at something in the distance, he started talking about a dramatic escape Bond once made by airplane from some secret airstrip. I mentioned this to Braxton...as he was walking me to my car...and he told me about a small abandoned airstrip near the warehouse.... When I looked out Dmitri’s office window today, I saw it.”

  “How did Braxton know about it?”

  “Seems his dad and the guy were friends.”

  He nodded slowly. “Check out this airstrip, give me a report.”

  “I’ll need Braxton’s help finding it.”

  Another round of quiet.

  “I’m not happy about this,” Charlie finally said, staring hard at her. “But under these circumstances, bringing Braxton in makes sense. But I’ll have to hard-sell him to management, since I can’t hide his past from them. But...I’ll explain why he’s our best option right now and that he will never work an investigative task alone but always in tandem with you. Which makes you responsible for his actions, Frances.”

  “Thank you, Char�
��”

  “It bears repeating,” he said, his expression darkening, “that you will be responsible for his actions. If he slips up, it’s on you.”

  She knew exactly what he was saying—if Braxton messed up, Vanderbilt would terminate her employment, which meant the court would revoke her suspended sentence.

  Apprehension prickled her skin at the thought of serving out her sentence in prison. But she trusted Braxton, believed without a doubt he’d work hard and smart on this case with her. Minor slipups happened all the time in investigations, but she could easily smooth those over, and no one would be the wiser.

  Charlie was talking major snafus, and she’d ensure none happened by anticipating potential problems ahead of time and working them herself.

  “I understand what you’re saying, Charlie. You can reach Braxton at—”

  “Morgan LeRoy Detective Agency,” he said, as though the name itself disgusted him.

  Which almost made her laugh. That and the childish pout on her boss’s face, like a prep-school boy forced to make nice with some dirty hooligan. Poor Charlie. Soiling his lofty standards by associating with a private dick.

  “I need something to lift my spirits,” he grumped. “Maybe I’ll try a vegan doughnut.”

  “You won’t regret it, Charlie.”

  “The doughnut or the shamus?”

  “Both.”

  She’d make sure this worked, no matter what it took.

  Because failure was not an option.

  * * *

  AT SIX ON Tuesday evening, after a bumpy ride in the dark across several acres of barren desert, Braxton braked his rented Jeep Cherokee in front of a wide strip of concrete, which had an otherworldly glow in the headlights.

  “There it is,” he said to Frances, “Grover’s old airstrip. The last of the renegade runways.”

  The gloomy skies and winds of the past few days had finally dispersed, leaving a clear night sky dotted with stars.

  “How wide is it?” she asked.

  “Probably sixty feet. Pretty narrow for an airstrip. I was going to kill the engine, but I won’t if you still want the heater running....”

  “Please, turn it off.”

  After Braxton escorted her to her car after work, she’d rushed home and changed into jeans, a turtleneck and her down jacket for their investigation tonight. Perfect attire for the chilly outdoors, but bordering on a sweat lodge inside a well-heated vehicle, so she’d peeled her jacket off on the twenty-minute ride over and tossed it into the backseat.

  He turned off the ignition. Except for the distant hum of traffic from Interstate 15, it was eerily quiet.

  “Should’ve told me you were uncomfortable,” Braxton said. “I would have turned off your heated seat.”

  Heated seat. She felt a rush of warmth fill her cheeks. Couldn’t seem to escape being overheated in one way or another tonight.

  “Your car seat,” he elaborated.

  “I know what you meant.”

  “Didn’t want you to think I was flirting with you or anything. I’m playing by the rules. Not exactly what I’ve been known for in the past, so this is an exercise in character building. For me, I mean.”

  Frances wasn’t sure how to respond, so she decided not to. Talking about denying their sexual chemistry was like being on a diet and talking about not eating chocolate truffles.

  It was probably good that the vehicle’s interior was so dark she couldn’t see the play of emotions in Braxton’s gray eyes. Or that way he had of quirking an eyebrow, which always made her want to laugh. Or the sexy, teasing curve of his lips when he smiled. Or that brown leather bomber jacket he’d worn tonight, giving him an edgy, motorcycle-gang look that could make a nun kick out a church window.

  Clasping her hands tightly in her lap, she forced air into her lungs. Should’ve stuck with thinking about truffles.

  “After you went back to work this afternoon, I came out here to check the airstrip while there was still light,” Braxton said. “Didn’t see any fresh tire marks, and farther down the strip there’s brush growing up through some cracks in the concrete, so I’m guessing it hasn’t been used in a while.” He paused. “Drake and I were teenagers when we visited Grover with our dad. Kind of sad seeing his old house boarded up—it’s a quarter mile or so to the north. And the hangar is totally gone. I mean, not even a stick of wood where it used to be, like it vanished into thin air.”

  His comment struck a chord with her.

  “Lately,” she said, “I’ve sometimes thought how people work so hard to gain things. Money. Cars. Houses. When really, life is about letting go, hopefully gracefully, of everything.”

  “Are we doing deep thoughts now?”

  “Don’t make me slug you.”

  “Yeah, wouldn’t want to do that. You could probably take me mano-a-mano.”

  She laughed softly. “Why do I put up with you?”

  “There must be some reason, because according to Charlie Eden, you highly recommended me to be your investigator underling.”

  On the drive over here, they’d discussed Charlie’s call to Braxton earlier today in which he’d offered him a consulting contract. Braxton said their conversation had been “stilted” but professional. Frances took that to mean her boss had been on his best behavior, which was a good sign.

  “Did he really say underling?” she asked.

  “No, I added that part. He said you would be the lead investigator on this case, and I was to work in tandem with you, never alone. Which is stated in the contract he emailed to me, as well. Three times.”

  “He’s worried about you taking on something solo, messing up the case.”

  “I would never do that, Frances,” Braxton said, his tone serious. “Like I said before, I want to help you.”

  She looked out into the night, irked that Charlie had put the requirement for their always working in tandem three times into the contract. Did he think Braxton was an idiot?

  Charlie thinks most people are idiots. Probably treated his exes like that, too. And they’re going to make him pay and pay for it.

  “Awfully quiet over there,” Braxton said gently. “Something wrong?”

  “Charlie,” she muttered. “He can be such a...” She blew out an exasperated breath.

  “Pompous asshole?”

  She smiled. “Yes. He made it clear today that should you slip up, it’s on me. He had his reasons, of course, but it’s more about keeping his reputation shiny at Vanderbilt. I told you he’ll be heading up a new division soon, right?”

  “Yeah, and that you’ll be his star investigator-manager.” He made a concerned noise. “What did he mean, it’s ‘on you’?”

  “I’m responsible if you mess something up. Which I know you’d never do, of course,” she added quickly.

  “I know that, Frances.” He paused. “Responsible as in...they’d fire you?”

  “Probably.”

  “But that could mean...prison.”

  She felt as though she’d swallowed ice cubes. “I have to admit, there was a minute or two after I first met Dmitri when I wondered if prison were preferable to working this case,” she said quietly. “But the thought of losing my freedom—losing the chance to be with you—terrifies me more than anything else.”

  “Baby,” he murmured, pulling her close.

  Sinking against him, she snuggled into his warmth, taking in his familiar masculine scent.

  She felt him shi
ft as a groan, guttural and needy, escaped his throat, shooting a thrill through her.

  His hands moved up to her face, cupping it and tilting it slightly so she looked up into his shadowed features. In the ambient glow from the headlights, she could almost make out his dark eyes and the shadow of his mouth, so close she could feel his breath on her face.

  “Sometimes I’ve imagined you to be like the night,” he murmured huskily, “mysterious, full of secrets. And then sometimes like the moon...beautiful, bright, alone. But you’re not alone. I’m here, and I will always be here.”

  She felt hypnotized by the roughened quality of his voice, the heat of his palm cradling her cheek, almost as if protecting the scar, shielding it for her. She closed her eyes, imagining how it would feel to let go, finally let go, never worry about probing stares, whispered comments...to really be his beautiful, bright moon.

  “But I promised you no frisky business,” he said in a strangled whisper, “and I will keep my word, even if it kills me. And that means not even a kiss. I’m being strong for both of us, Moon.”

  With a soft laugh, she reluctantly pulled away. Settling herself back in her seat, she gazed out at the airstrip. “Looking out Dmitri’s window today, I wouldn’t have been able to find this unless you’d told me where to look. Would anyone else have a better view?”

  “It’s visible while driving along a short section of Interstate 15, but without planes or a hangar, it doesn’t stand out as an airstrip.”

  She stared into the inky night, imaging Grover living alone on five acres of desert, playing hide-and-seek with the airport.

  “How’d Grover keep it secret? We’re, what, eight miles from McCarran? Wouldn’t air traffic control have noticed?”

  “Grover never called for takeoff or landing permission, so there was no reason they’d find out.”

  “What about radar?”

  “That doesn’t always detect small, light airplanes, especially if they’re flying at a low altitude.”