Finlay Donovan Is Killing It

by Elle Cosimano

  Nick opened one eye, a lazy grin carving a dimple in his cheek. “You never asked.”

  “What else have you figured out that you haven’t told me?”

  He opened his other eye and stretched, his arms reaching for the ceiling behind him. He laced his fingers behind his head, his knees bent slightly on either side of the steering wheel and his jacket hanging open around the gun holstered against his ribs. “I know Theresa’s client is a man named Feliks Zhirov. He’s very wealthy, very powerful, and very deep in organized crime. And, according to our guys in criminal intelligence, Feliks has Harris Mickler’s accounting firm on retainer.”

  A nervous laugh slipped out. “That’s probably a coincidence, right?”

  Nick drew on his cap, curling the bill over his eyes. “When it comes to the mob, there are very few coincidences. Unfortunately, the man’s made of Teflon. Nothing sticks. He should’ve been locked up a dozen times, but there isn’t a judge in the state with the balls to convict him. Even if we could, he has friends that can make almost anyone disappear … new name, new passport, and wipe them off the map as if they’d never existed. He’d skip bail, and we’d never see or hear the name Feliks Zhirov again.”

  “What does he want with Theresa?”

  “That’s what I plan to find out.” As if reading my face, he sighed and said, “Look, Finlay. I’m not trying to ruin Steven’s life, or even Theresa’s. If Feliks is involved in Mickler’s disappearance, then I’m guessing Theresa’s a victim in all this too somehow. I promise, we’ll figure it out. And you and your kids will be okay. I plan to keep the three of you as far out of the investigation as possible. Georgia made me swear to it.”

  “She did?”

  He winced. “She did.”

  Curiosity got the best of me. “What else did she say?”

  He looked out his window, a flush creeping over the back of his neck. “She said you had your heart broken pretty bad. And if I do anything to hurt you, first she’ll take my badge, and then she’ll break my face.”

  I shook my head, chuckling to myself. “Between my sister and my kid, you must think this is all just one big setup. I swear, none of this was a ploy to get you to ask me out.”

  “Would it be so terrible if it was?” He turned from the window, his eyes moving over me the same way they had last night on my porch. Only this time, his appraisal of me felt far less professional.

  My laughter died. A charged silence settled over us, prickly and hot. Nick was attractive and single. He was friends with my sister, which meant he had already passed the world’s most stringent background check. I was pretty sure he wanted to kiss me right now, and I was also pretty sure I’d like it.

  A bead of sweat trailed down the small of my back. I reached over the center console for the thermostat just as he reached for the radio. Our hands brushed. When I glanced up, our faces were close, the bill of his hat shadowing our faces. Neither one of us moved, and my heart beat a little faster as Nick laced our fingertips together.

  “I have a confession,” he said in a low voice that left me a little breathless. “This wasn’t all Georgia’s idea.” I didn’t pull away as the vinyl creaked and he leaned closer. My adrenaline spiked and the air felt thin. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this close to a man other than Steven.

  “Is this all right?” he asked, our foreheads touching under his cap. Nudging it loose.

  No, this was not all right. What I wanted right now was very, very wrong. Wrong for a million reasons. I nodded, dizzy, the inch of distance he was holding back testing every ounce of my self-control. Our noses brushed as a long black hood rolled past the window behind Nick’s head.

  I pulled back sharply. “That’s him,” I said. “That’s Feliks’s car.”

  Nick fell back against his headrest with a quiet swear. He closed his eyes, releasing a heavy sigh before raising his seat back.

  The Lincoln parked along the curb in front of Theresa’s office. Andrei opened Feliks’s door and followed him into the building.

  “Looks like they’ll be here for a while. Stay here for a minute. I’ll be right back.” Nick got out before I could ask him where he was going. He walked briskly toward the office, pausing when he dropped his keys behind Feliks’s sedan. I lost sight of him as he knelt to pick them up. A second later, he stood, slipping something into his pocket as he withdrew his phone. He pressed it to his ear, making a hurried call as he wandered back toward Ramón’s car.

  “What was that about?” I asked him as he ducked into his seat and shut the door.

  “Just checking a hunch,” he said, a little distracted.

  “Now what do we do?” Every part of me from the neck down hoped we’d pick up where we left off. The other part was pretty sure that would be a very bad idea.

  Nick’s eyes were glued to the office doors. “Now we wait.”

  A moment later, Andrei emerged and held open the door. Feliks came out, his palm on the small of Theresa’s back and a smile on his face. His hand strayed lower as she dipped inside his car.

  “See, I told you they’re sleeping together. Now that we know what Theresa was hiding, we can go, right?”

  Nick started the engine. He waited a beat before pulling into traffic a few car lengths behind them. He was quiet, his brow furrowed as he followed them west onto the interstate, away from the city. We tailed Feliks’s Lincoln for the better part of an hour, forced to hang back when they veered onto an exit ramp and the roads narrowed with the rural terrain. They made four stops in front of large farm tracts with FOR SALE signs posted on their fences. Each time, the Town Car slowed to a crawl, but Feliks never once got out. After the fourth drive-by, the Lincoln returned to the interstate, doubling back to the city the same way we’d come.

  “Looked like a pretty normal real estate meeting to me. Seems innocent enough.” I hoped Nick would agree and take me home.

  “Nothing Feliks Zhirov does is innocent. He’s shopping for land.”

  “So?” The plots they’d visited today were a lot like the ones Theresa had scratched out on her notepad. By the looks of it, he hadn’t liked these four options any better than the others.

  “So the question is, what does Feliks want the land for?” Nick shadowed the Lincoln’s movements, careful to stay a few car lengths behind as it moved toward the exit ramp. “Feliks’s outfit runs drugs, weapons, and human traffic. He buys a lot of buildings and warehouses to keep his inventory moving. All the land he scouted today is west of Dulles, within close proximity to the airport and two major interstates, but far enough from the city to stay under the radar. Good for flying merchandise in, and then trucking it out.”

  My stomach turned at the idea of my children’s soon-to-be stepmother sleeping with this man. “He sounds like a real winner.”

  “Believe me,” he said as the Lincoln circled into the real estate parking lot. “I’d love nothing more than to put Feliks Zhirov away for the rest of his life.”

  “Is that why we’re here?”

  Nick barked out a laugh. “I’d have a better chance of winning the lottery than landing Feliks Zhirov in prison. We’re here because every ounce of Zhirov’s business is dirty and dangerous. And if Theresa’s working for him in any capacity, then she’s already in over her head.” We watched Theresa get out of the car alone and disappear inside her office. Nick didn’t follow the Lincoln as it pulled out into traffic again.

  “Shouldn’t we be following him?”

  Nick gave a thoughtful shake of his head, his eyes glued to the door of the office. “We’ll learn a lot more following Theresa. I find it a little too convenient that she’s a person of interest in a murder investigation while she’s acting as Feliks’s agent.”

  “You mean a missing persons investigation,” I corrected him.

  “If it looks like shit and smells like shit, it’s probably shit,” he deadpanned. “We found Patricia Mickler’s Volvo at the bottom of the Occoquan Reservoir last night.”

  “Are you s
ure it was hers?” The car I’d seen in Patricia’s garage had been a Subaru.

  “Her personal effects were inside, and the VIN was a match.” I sank back, a queasy feeling stirring in my stomach. Nick shrugged. “Harris and his wife will eventually turn up. Bodies always do.”

  I rested my head against the cold glass. Harris’s body turning up was exactly what I was afraid of.

  Nick reached over, gently tugging the string of my hoodie. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay. I promise.” His hand slid over mine, his thumb tracing slow circles over my knuckle. This was wrong. I couldn’t get involved with Nick. It would only complicate things.

  “Nick,” I said, turning in my seat to face him. “About earlier. I think maybe…” My thought trailed as a flash of red caught my eye.

  Nick’s head started to turn, following the direction of my stare as Aimee came through the vestibule door in a bright red scarf with Theresa at her side. If Nick spotted Aimee and recognized her from Harris’s photos, this could all go very, very wrong.

  I clamped a hand over my face. “Oh, crap! I think I’ve got something in my eye.”

  Nick whirled back to me, ducking closer to see as he gently pried my hand away. “You okay?”

  “I don’t know.” I squeezed one eye shut hard enough to make it water. I struggled to see past Nick’s head with the other as Theresa and Aimee dropped into Theresa’s car.

  “Here, let me look at it.” Nick took my face in his hand, delicately drawing down my lower lid with his thumb. My breath caught as he tipped up my chin. Our eyes locked and held. His thumb trailed down, caressing a tear from my cheek.

  “Better?” he asked quietly.

  “I think so,” I breathed.

  Nick’s eyes closed. He leaned in, closing the narrow gap between us. I might have forgotten about Theresa and Aimee altogether when his mouth grazed mine.

  This was nice. This was … so much better than good. Oh, hell.

  His tongue skimmed past my teeth. My fingers slid into his hair, and the seat-belt latch pressed into my hip as our bodies met over the console. He made a hungry sound deep in his throat, his fingers digging into the seams of my jeans before roaming under my sweatshirt and spreading across my back.

  Holy mother, it had been a long time since I’d made out in a car. I arched into him, shutting out the voice in my head that said I was going to regret this.

  His breath was ragged against my neck. “I want to take you in the back seat right this minute. But if I do, your sister’s going to shoot me.” He gave me a last lingering kiss that made my toes curl and left me panting. “Now,” he said as he nuzzled my ear, “what happened in the parking lot a minute ago that you didn’t want me to see?”

  I froze, feeling the curve of his smile against my jaw as he slowly pulled away. He didn’t look mad. Just surprised. And maybe a little impressed. “If you didn’t want me to follow her, you could have just said so.” He leaned back in his seat, gauging my chagrin through heavy-lidded eyes. “You may be a helluva storyteller, Finn, but you’re a terrible liar.”

  “How’d you know?”

  There was a hint of nostalgia in the thoughtful creases around his eyes. “Because I’ve been shot and cut and had the snot beat out of me, and I’d take any of those over a corneal abrasion any day.”

  “Don’t exaggerate.”

  He shook his head at my cynical look. “I’m dead serious. My first week out of the Academy, I blew my first traffic stop when some punk dumped his ashtray in my face. It hurt so bad, I couldn’t think straight. I stumbled across two lanes of moving traffic, desperate to get that shit out of my eyes. I was lucky I didn’t kill myself. I couldn’t see for a week.”

  I slumped back in my seat, feeling foolish. And irritable. He’d known all along there was nothing in my eye. “If you knew I was lying, why’d you kiss me?”

  “I was hoping it’d be worth it.”

  Blood rushed to my cheeks. It had been more than a year since I’d kissed anyone. More than ten since I’d kissed anyone other than Steven. I’d spent the last year doubting myself, wondering why my husband had left, contemplating the possibility that maybe he hadn’t left me for Theresa’s hair or body or money or clothes. Maybe he had just left me. “Was it?”

  Nick’s smile was wolfish. “Let’s just say I seriously considered letting your sister shoot me.” He scrubbed his hands over his face and adjusted his seat back. “I’ll take you back to South Riding. I’ve got to pick up my car and get something to the lab in Manassas before it closes.”

  I knew from listening to Georgia that “the lab” was the regional forensics lab. When Nick had stooped behind the Lincoln, he’d tucked something into his pocket as he’d reached for his phone.

  “You found something?”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  Whatever it was, it must have been important. “Want me to come with you?”

  His low laugh was husky, his grin slightly dangerous. “Right now, I want a whole lot of things. Which is why I think I’d better take you home.”

  I rested my head on the glass as he started the car, unsure if I was more curious about what he had hidden in his pocket or what would happen if I went along for the ride.

  CHAPTER 32

  Vero took one look at my hair and my clothes as I came through the door, folded her arms thoughtfully, and said, “You made out with him, didn’t you?”

  “I did not,” I whispered, darting a look into the family room, hoping Delia hadn’t overheard.

  “Don’t try to deny it.” She tapped the side of her neck, jutting her chin toward mine. “The detective left a little evidence at the scene of the crime.” She wagged her eyebrows.

  “No!” My hand flew to my throat. I hadn’t had a hickey since high school. “I swear, I’ll kill him—”

  Vero doubled over, stifling a cackle. “See, I knew it. You should see your face right now!”

  I bundled up my sweatshirt and threw it at her.

  “Relax,” she said, choking back her laughter, “they’re napping.” She dragged me by the sleeve to the kitchen, shoved me into a chair at the table, and set a bag of Oreo cookies in front of me. “On a scale of one to ten, how was he?”

  I reached for a cookie. Vero yanked the bag away, holding my Oreos hostage. “Spill! I want to know everything.”

  I snatched it out of her hands. “He’s an eleven,” I mumbled, stuffing a cookie in my mouth.

  She leaned back in her chair and stole one for herself. “I knew it. I’ve always wanted to make out with a cop. I bet he was all fifty shades of assertive,” she said, fanning herself.

  “Not exactly.” Vero narrowed her eyes at me, as if she was rarely wrong about these kinds of things. “I sort of egged him on.”

  She smacked my arm, stifling a cackle.

  “I didn’t have any choice! I had to keep him from spotting Theresa and Aimee together, so I pretended I had something in my eye, and he leaned in to help me, and then one thing led to another—”

  Vero’s laughter died. Her mouth dropped open around her cookie. “Theresa and Aimee were together? What happened? Did he see them?”

  I shook my head. “Aimee showed up at Theresa’s office. It looked like they were going out to lunch or something. Nick didn’t see them leave. But there’s more,” I said, peeling another cookie from the package. It had definitely been a two-Oreo morning. “He already knew she’s been meeting with Feliks Zhirov.”

  “Shit,” she said. “That didn’t take long.”

  “He’s still convinced she was involved in Harris’s disappearance, only now he thinks Feliks was behind it. Not only that, but Nick went back to The Lush and talked to Julian. He showed Julian a photo of Theresa, and when Julian insisted it wasn’t the same woman he’d talked to, Nick suspected Julian was just covering for her. So now, on top of everything else, Julian knows I lied to him.”

  Vero winced. “It could be worse. You could have given him your real name. Then you’d really be in trouble.” She pushed
her glass of milk across the table, letting me drown a corner of my Oreo in it. “You think Nick will find anything that’ll lead the investigation back to you?”

  I sighed. “I don’t think so. There’s nothing connecting me to Feliks or his business.”

  Vero pushed the entire bag of cookies at me. “Nothing but Andrei Borovkov.”

  * * *

  That night, I sat in front of my computer watching the cursor blink. I’d revised a solid chunk of my manuscript to keep my secrets safe. I’d written the hot young lawyer out of my story and replaced him with a hotshot cop, and while the heroine and the cop had great chemistry on the page, the lawyer’s absence from my story felt wrong for reasons I couldn’t seem to shake. I missed the banter between them and his easy smile. I missed the way he seemed to see right through her—through her wig-scarf and her makeup and her borrowed dress—and even though she was a killer with a complicated backstory, he still seemed to like what he saw underneath.

  I nudged my phone closer and scrolled to Julian’s name, staring at his number. My finger hovered over the delete key. There were so many reasons I should press it. So many reasons I should have edited him out of my life days ago.

  Instead, I picked up my phone, slid to the floor beside my desk, and tapped his name on the screen. Hugging my knees, I listened as Julian’s phone rang, waiting for the telltale voice-mail beep. When he actually answered, I was too stunned to speak.

  The line was silent.

  “My name isn’t Theresa,” I confessed quietly. “And I’m not really in real estate.” I listened for any sign he was still there. “I’m not blond. And you were right, about all those other things you said about me at the bar. I didn’t belong there. The dress I was wearing wasn’t even mine.”

  I held my breath through a long pause, certain he’d hung up. I was just about to give up and disconnect when he asked, “Was any of it true?” There was no suggestion of blame in his tone. No expectation or demands.