Destroyed by a Dangerous Man

by Cleo Peitsche

  He looked a little worried as he walked over to the chair. His naked body was magnificent, shadows and light playing over his sculpted perfection.

  “I did, but I set it so that only emergency calls can come through.”

  4

  To his credit, Corbin immediately handed over the phone. He didn’t even check to see who it was.

  The Stroop Finders main number was flashing on the screen.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s Erin.” She was our ever-cheerful receptionist. “Sorry to bother you on your vacation, but you’re coming back in a couple of days, right? So it’s not really an imposition?”

  Finally, someone who got it. I wished we could afford to give her a raise.

  “Not an imposition at all. What’s wrong?” My gaze tracked Corbin as he wheeled a champagne cart into the bedroom. He sat on the bed beside me, and his stubbly cheek brushed against the back of my hand as he leaned close to listen.

  “I just got a phone call from your friend Veronica. It’s about the Critter Chomp bar. She said you’re taking their case?”

  Well, Jimmy’s enthusiasm and speed were impressive.

  “Yeah, we’re going to help them out. Assuming it makes sense.” I couldn’t help being disappointed that it wasn’t something more exciting, like a big bounty showing up in our neck of the woods. Though if that happened, I would have had to sneak onto a plane and get back immediately, and Corbin would not have been amused.

  “All right. But Veronica said she’s been trying to call you because someone brought the bear back, but it was hacked to pieces and covered in blood.”

  I tried to visualize that and failed. “Did this just happen?”

  “This morning, but Jimmy doesn’t know. Anyway, I told Veronica that’s not the kind of work we do. Is it?”

  “Call the police,” Corbin said loudly.

  “Is that Corbin I hear?” she gushed. Even though she was in a relationship with one of our bounty hunters, she always flirted with Corbin when she could.

  “Yes,” he said. “And I’m in bed with my woman, so tell the manager or whoever to call the police.” He gently pulled the phone out of my hand and hung up.

  “Excellent way to take orders.”

  “The case you first presented involved resolving a silly prank.” He jerked his head at my phone, which was flashing with missed calls. “Destruction and blood? That’s a threat. You’re not taking the case. End of story.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He locked the phone inside the safe. “We’ve got a few more days here. You promised not to do any work, and for once, I’m holding you to that.”

  I could have argued with him, but it wouldn’t have done any good. He was right—I had promised.

  In the end, that’s what it came down to. A promise to the man I loved.

  “What are we doing tomorrow?” I asked, resigned.

  “A special tour of the riding school and stables. We’ll have lunch with the director.”

  “When the hell did you set that up?”

  He leaned over and picked up the room phone. “Right now.”

  Several long days later, we took a private charter back home.

  I allowed myself one drink at the beginning of the flight; if I got buzzed, I wouldn’t be able to work when we arrived.

  The second we landed, I demanded my phone back.

  Corbin handed it over and watched me with an amused expression. “Aren’t you going to look out the window? Seems like last week’s snowfall has completely melted. Didn’t you miss the mountains? Are you listening? Baby, there’s a naked guy running across the tarmac.”

  “Six missed calls and three times as many texts. My email inbox is flooded. I hope you’re happy.”

  “I am.” He touched my cheek. “Thank you, Audrey. I know it wasn’t always easy for you.”

  “Thank you,” I murmured, looking up at him. “I enjoyed myself. And I was listening. Naked mountains and a melted guy, right?”

  “Close enough.” His expression became contemplative. “Maybe four weeks was too long. You were fine the first two weeks.”

  “Yeah.” I considered that. “Yeah. That’s progress. I wouldn’t have lasted that long on a remote beach, though.”

  “I know.” Corbin’s smile shattered my heart. This man had done so much for me. He put up with so much.

  He stood and allowed me to exit the plane first—damn, it was cold outside—and as we waited for our car to approach, he draped a possessive arm around my shoulders.

  I even put my phone away. At least, until the bags were loaded.

  By then, Corbin was on the phone, too, talking to his lawyers from the sound of it.

  Goodbye, guilt. Hello, sweet work.

  I dialed Rob first. “You’re a traitor.”

  “Hey, sis.” His smug grin made it through the phone. “Come to the office. You can yell at me after we talk about Critter Chomp. Dad is pissed. Be glad you missed it.”

  I groaned. Of course he was pissed. “He didn’t have to take the job.”

  “Yes, he did. We’ll talk about it when you get here.”

  Corbin was kind enough to have the driver drop me off first.

  “Rob can give me a ride home later,” I told him as I slid into the frigid late-November afternoon. Clinking sounds seeped from my backpack full of souvenirs.

  “Try not to overdo it,” he said. “Jet lag will knock you off your feet.”

  “Good thing I’m back in sneakers.”

  I started to walk toward the door but then turned to watch as the chauffeured vehicle pulled away.

  Well, damn. I missed Corbin already.

  For four weeks, we’d been together almost nonstop. I was used to him, to his scent, to his large body never being more than an arm’s length away.

  Enough of that. I’d see him in a few hours.

  My gaze ran over the parking lot, taking stock of who was in.

  Dad’s car wasn’t there. Excellent.

  I turned around and almost collided with Martin. He stopped so abruptly that the end of his long black ponytail swung to the side, like a whip.

  “Whoa-hoa,” he said, bringing up his hands, one of which was gripping his black motorcycle jacket. “You’re back. How was your trip?”

  “Nice.”

  He nodded. “You look relaxed. Rested.”

  I was pretty sure that was just something people said, but I nodded.

  When I reached the office, Erin presented me with a lollipop. “Welcome home!” she said, her pixieish face beaming. She leaned in. “Martin bought me a bag of those this morning. Don’t tell him I gave you one.”

  “It’s our secret.” I dipped into the backpack and pulled out a little music box.

  “Thanks! Rob’s in his office.”

  His door was closed, so I headed to my office.

  It felt weird to be back.

  A stack of mail was waiting for me, but not the Critter Chomp file, which I’d been expecting to find. I snatched up the mail, then doubled back to see my brother.

  “Come in,” he said when I knocked. He looked up and gave me the biggest smile I’d seen on him since we were kids. His straight red hair was in need of a cut. He wasn’t wearing his glasses; apparently the contact lenses were a permanent change. During my month away, I’d forgotten.

  “You came home!” he said. “I was starting to think that Corbin had tempted you away from us. That’s his goal, you know. To turn you into a kept woman, put you on a pedestal, and worship you.”

  “Don’t be so sure about that.” I crossed the room and plopped into the chair across from his desk. Three lollipops sat in the coffee mug that he used as a pen holder. “Erin only gave me one lollipop.”

  “Don’t look in my trash.”

  Leaning over, I spied two discarded wrappers at the bottom of his wastebasket. “Not cool,” I said.

  “You haven’t been around. I’m the favorite Stroop now.”

  I glared, and Rob cracked up. “Yo
u should see your face,” he said. “Don’t be mad. Martin gave them to me.”

  “Oh, fantastic. Because he didn’t give me any.”

  Rob thought that was hilarious. I rolled my eyes, propped my feet on his desk, and started shuffling through my mail. Anything important had probably gotten routed to my dad or my brother, and it only took a few seconds to go through it.

  “If I put my feet up on your desk, you’d start World War Three,” Rob said.

  “True.” I leaned back in the chair. “Ok, so hit me with the bad news.”

  “Well, Dad’s last checkup didn’t go great. He’s fine, but apparently his cholesterol is a little high. Martha’s got him on a styrofoam diet.”

  “Is he in a bad mood?”

  “Take a guess. Monthly income is down again. I think… You look really good, by the way.”

  I eyed my brother suspiciously. “Continue.”

  “You look… refreshed.” His gaze darted over my face. “Did you get a skin peel or something?”

  “No.”

  “Hm. You should go on vacation more often.”

  “Did Corbin tell you to say that?”

  Rob grinned. “Maybe.”

  Even as I shook my head in despair, I was laughing. I was glad that Corbin got along so well with my brother, but he really was shameless.

  “So, about Critter Chomp?”

  Rob’s grin disappeared. “I was giving you all the other stuff so you would understand that Dad’s reaction is out of proportion. He was already in a bad mood.”

  “Oh god. It’s that bad?”

  “You’re still not a licensed private investigator. Martin is, but Dad doesn’t want to take his ‘best bounty hunter’ off the job.”

  All my post-vacation happiness began circling the drain. Martin was a relatively new hire, whereas I’d been working full-time for Stroop Finders since I was eighteen, and I’d worked nonstop. Yes, Martin had more experience; he was older than me and had been doing the job longer.

  “If you’re trying to annoy me—”

  “Since when have I needed to try? Just letting you know what Dad said.” Rob never took Dad’s behavior personally. “You said we didn’t have to take the job, so why did you get Corbin to put his weight behind it—”

  “What?” I swung my feet down and slid to the edge of my chair. “Corbin Lagos? Or another Corbin.”

  “Yeah. He asked us to take it.”

  “Excuse me, but he’s not even an employee.”

  Rob’s raised eyebrow said it all.

  Stroop Finders was in serious debt to Corbin, and because of that, he got more respect from Dad than I ever had. I anxiously crossed my legs.

  “Ok. So, obviously Corbin never tells me shit. Where’s the file, anyway?”

  “In Dad’s office.”

  I groaned. “So he’s going to hold it hostage, give me a lecture before handing it over.”

  “Funny thing,” Rob said. “Not this time. You see, Dad ran the numbers and decided that we can only dedicate another day to this.”

  “But…” A concrete lump blocked my throat, and my stomach was trying to push my half-digested lunch past it. “But I just got here, and it’s my case!”

  “Also… He’s working it.”

  I laughed hesitantly. Our father was semi-retired, and he had zero interest in the private investigation stuff. “You had me going for a second there.”

  “Sorry, Audrey. Dad is working the case. He’s your partner on this.”

  5

  Coming in to the office and getting bad news was one of the unfortunate constants in my life, and this wasn’t anywhere close to the worst I’d heard in the last six months.

  However, it freaked me out more than all the other stuff put together.

  Dad had softened up quite a bit since his health scare, but that was like saying a hurricane weakened when it hit land; it could still level everything in its path.

  Nothing I ever did was good enough for him. Generally, I avoided the problem by steering clear of him at work.

  We were too alike. Everyone noticed it: Rob, our mom, Dad’s new wife. His flaws were the same as my flaws. That was to say, bossy, stubborn…

  And all the other things I didn’t like to think about.

  Well, there was one benefit to the short deadline: less time to endure Dad breathing down my neck and criticizing. “I had no idea your habits were so bad. We’ll need to remedy that. Now, write a report!”

  He loved his fucking reports.

  Since Dad wasn’t around, I went into his office and helped myself to the Critter Chomp file.

  Dad had repurposed one of the standard bounty hunter file setups. Inside the folder was a sheet of paper with the contact lists.

  Good. That would save me quite a bit of time.

  He’d also conducted a few phone interviews. Dad was meticulous with his notes. He not only recorded the date and time, but where he was.

  I’d never understood why. Habit, maybe. But at least this time it gave me some useful information.

  He’d done everything over the phone. Excellent.

  That meant I could likely scrounge up additional info by making a trip to Critter Chomp myself.

  Rather than take the file with me and risk annoying Dad, I asked Erin to photocopy its contents and return the original to Dad’s office. While she was taking care of that, I made a quick call to Jimmy, who was one of the contacts.

  “Welcome home,” he said. “Thank you again for taking this case. The whole incident is bumming out the staff.”

  “No problem.”

  “I was about to call your office. I’m off today, but Richard called a few minutes ago about some invoices, and he asked if there’s an update.”

  “Not yet. The notes said you believe Kelly Bortik stole your mascot?” I couldn’t bring myself to refer to the stuffed bear as Booze; it was too stupid of a name. “She was fired the day before it happened, correct?”

  “He. And, yes. He was a bar-back. His job was to run clean glasses to the bar, fetch cases of beer, and generally help out. I never worked any shifts with him, but from what I heard, he was especially lazy. Richard was picking up the slack.”

  “Is that normal? Picking up the slack?”

  “It’s hard to find good workers. When we fire someone, we end up doing all their work until a replacement is found.”

  Erin entered my office. She held up the photocopied papers. I pointed at the sofa beside my door, and she put them down and left.

  “Ok,” I said. “And he was only there for about six weeks?”

  “He was pretty pissed when Richard let him go. Hollering how it was a big mistake and we’d regret it. Someone had to threaten to call the cops to get him to leave.”

  To me, that sounded more like a guy who would throw a flaming barrel of oil through the window, not steal a mascot.

  Though the dismemberment and blood suggested it was pretty personal. But why show restraint at all? Most people calmed down over time.

  “The cops gave us back the ransom note,” Jimmy said.

  “What ransom note?”

  “For the bear.”

  My mind reeled. “This is the first I’m hearing about it.”

  “It said, ‘You know what I want.’”

  I eyed the files on the sofa. There was a ransom note, Kelly was a guy… What else had I missed during my quick scan?

  “Can you fax or email the note?”

  “I’m not at work,” Jimmy reminded me. “If you call the bar, someone there can do it.”

  “Ok. Sorry. I’m still getting up to speed.”

  “It’s no problem. Thank you for doing this.”

  I was about to hang up, but realized I’d forgotten to ask the most important question. “What kind of outcome are you hoping for? The bear has technically been returned. The police are responsible for catching whoever did it.”

  “The police couldn’t care less. I overheard some of them laughing about it. They think it’s funny. W
e want you to prove it was Kelly.”

  “Ah. So you want to press charges, maybe take him to court for damages?”

  “Forget that,” Jimmy said. “Booze was part of the family. You know we won him, right?”

  “Won him? For what?”

  “In a national contest for the best new mid-size bar in a small city,” Jimmy said, his voice infused with pride. “Booze was our good luck charm. Half the people here want to go after Kelly right away, make him pay. The others want proof first.”

  I bit back a groan.

  “We want revenge.”

  6

  I wasted ten minutes of my life trying to explain to Jimmy why revenge was a bad idea.

  After hanging up, I stared at the wall. My eyelids were getting heavy, and overall I wasn’t enjoying my welcome back to work.

  I tried to remember… Was today especially odious, or had I been deluding myself while I was in Europe?

  Maybe a little of both—this business with the mascot sucked more than a normal Thursday, but I’d also idealized my work at Stroop Finders. No wonder the first two weeks of vacation had been fun—I’d needed a break from all this.

  Something I was never going to admit to Corbin. Never ever.

  It was only about 5:00, but I was exhausted. There was the time difference, plus Corbin and I had been up late the night before, wandering around the city. Then I’d had to get up early to pack.

  I closed my door most of the way and picked up the papers Erin had photocopied, intending to relocate them to the floor. To my surprise, two more lollipops were underneath.

  Smiling, I cleared off the sofa and lay down for a short nap.

  When I woke up, it was hours later and fully dark out.

  Dark inside, too, because I hadn’t turned on any lights.

  Yawning, I sat up and looked at my phone. Corbin had tried to reach me fifteen minutes ago.

  It hadn’t made a sound. Apparently, when he’d restricted the incoming calls in Vienna, he hadn’t included himself on the emergency list.

  I removed all the restrictions and called him back.

  “Where are you?” he asked. “Rob said you’d left.”