To Coach a Killer

by Victoria Laurie

  Gilley pursed his lips like he’d known it all along, and made a trotting motion with his fingers before pointing toward the stairs. “You know the drill. If one of us buys something fabulous away from the supervision of the other, then a runway walk is mandatory.”

  I sighed again. “Can I at least have some tea and a meringue first?”

  “Of course,” Gilley said. “I wouldn’t want you to get chocolate on the outfit you’ll be wearing on your hot date with Maks.”

  I stared at Gilley. “You think it’s a date?”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “That’s not the impression I had. I thought he just wanted to talk to me about where he’s been the past few months.”

  Gilley shook his head a little. “Ah, you heteros and your flirty mischief. You should all take a page out of our bible. We’re direct about our passions. It’s what makes us the superior sex.”

  “Orientation,” I corrected.

  “That too,” he agreed.

  I poured us each a cup of tea and spooned a little sugar into mine. “You really think we’re going on a date?” I asked him again.

  “You really think you’re not?”

  “I can’t be sure, but now I’m glad I have a new outfit to wear. Truthfully, I bought it thinking that, if Shepherd ever asked me out again, I’d wear it then.”

  Gilley made a face. “That man is a lost cause. I mean, he’s clearly into you, but he’s wandering around town obsessed with his ex-wife. It’s pathetic.”

  “He’s obsessed with her murder, Gilley. Not her.”

  Gil shrugged. “Tomato-tamurder. What’s the damn difference? He’s still obsessed.”

  I frowned. The truth was, Shepherd had been completely focused on trying to hunt down leads to not just the woman who’d killed his wife, but any evidence leading to a motive.

  Lenny—Shepherd’s ex-wife—was a Realtor, and one day while hosting an open house in an upscale area of town, she’d been shot point blank and killed instantly. Thanks to a murder case that Gilley and I had helped solve a few months earlier, we now knew who’d pulled the trigger but we didn’t know the motive.

  In fact, the biggest outstanding question remaining in Lenny Shepherd’s murder case, besides where her assassin was hiding, was the fact that said assassin, better known as the Angel of Death, had seemingly killed Lenny for no good reason. Just a random act of unspeakable violence, and it was the random part that Shepherd didn’t believe.

  Truthfully, neither did I.

  I decided to change the subject. “Did you make contact with Willem?”

  “I did,” Gilley said. “He and Heath are speaking at one o’clock tomorrow.”

  “Good. I’ll be anxious to hear what Heath has to say about Willem.”

  Gilley handed me a plate of two of his creations. “That boy is definitely cursed.”

  “It might be all in his head,” I said. “Today could have been a coincidence, you know.”

  Gil crossed his arms stubbornly and looked at me like I was slow on the uptake.

  Not wanting to argue, I bit into the beautiful little confection and moaned. The meringues were light, delicate, and full of flavor. “Oh, my God, Gil. These are heaven!”

  Gilley sipped demurely at his tea. “Chef Alvario doesn’t give out grades, but I think he’d give these an A all the same.”

  “Is your class tonight?”

  “It is. We’re all bringing in our final projects.”

  “Well, these are the clear winner,” I said, polishing off the meringue. It was then that I noticed the time and jumped off the bar stool. “I need to get ready,” I said. “Maks is going to be here at seven.”

  I started to take my teacup and remaining cookie with me toward the stairs, but then I remembered that I had several packages to take up with me. Standing indecisive for a moment, I was relieved when Gilley came to my rescue. “Shoo,” he said, wiping his hands on a towel and waving at me to be on my way. “I’ll follow behind you and grab whatever loot you can’t manage to get up the stairs.”

  With Gilley’s help we got all the bags up the stairs and set them down next to the bed. Gilley then began to exit the room and called over his shoulder, “I’ll be back up in a while to check on you and take a look at this hot little number you bought today.” Pausing at the door, he added, “For now, enjoy your shower, and don’t forget to shave your legs. After all, nobody wants to cuddle up next to a cactus.”

  With that he left me to consider what that might mean.

  Chapter 3

  An hour later I exited my closet and brought my arms slowly up over my head in a “Ta-da!” fashion.

  Gilley, clad in the tiara I wore on my wedding day, and a very expensive faux mink stole, clapped wildly from his perch on one of my wing chairs. “Gorgeous!”

  I lowered my hands and looked at him demurely. “I loved this suit the moment I saw it. It feels amazing.”

  “And it fits you like a glove.”

  I ran my hand along one of the sleeves, delighting in the feel of velvet fabric against my fingertips. The black Versace suit was a spectacular find. I’m petite by nature, only a hint above five foot one, but in this slim-fitting number I looked taller, my legs longer, and the flared pant bottoms gave my walk a sassy kick.

  Under the blazer I wore a black silk shirt—Gilley’s recommendation as I’d wanted to go white—open at the neck to the third button down, which I was still a little unsure about, but every time I tried to button it Gilley would shout, “NO!” so I let it be.

  Moving to the mirror on the far wall, I admired myself. I looked good for an old broad with two tween sons.

  “Dahling,” Gilley said as he too stared at my reflection. “In that outfit you’re like liquid sex. Temptation personified . . . sinfully delicious!” He then giggled and giggled like a young man tickled by dirty thoughts.

  I giggled too. “What should I wear for jewelry?” I asked him.

  Gilley pressed a finger to his lips. “We’d need something long, that can dip in and out of the décolletage.”

  “I think I have just the thing!”

  I hurried back to my closet and pushed on one of the shelves, which rose in the air revealing a wall safe. I spent the next few moments turning the dial to the right, then the left, then right again.

  “I didn’t know you had a wall safe,” Gilley said from right behind me.

  I jumped. I hadn’t realized he’d come into the closet. “Of course I have a wall safe,” I said, opening the safe door.

  “Whatcha hiding in there?” he asked.

  I sighed, rooting around for the particular piece of jewelry to go with my outfit. “Valuables.”

  “Aren’t you worried you’ll get robbed with all that in there?”

  I turned to look at him. “Who would know, besides you and me?”

  Gil shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe the guy who installed it?”

  I waved the thought away. “It was installed by a very reputable company. Besides, no one but me knows the combination.”

  “I bet it’s the twins’ birthday.”

  “It’s not the twins’ birthday,” I said, adding a mental note to change the safe’s combination to something other than the twins’ birthday. “Ah, here it is!”

  Extracting a long gold chain with a teardrop aquamarine stone dangling from it, I draped the necklace around my neck and smiled gamely at Gilley. “What do you think?”

  “Whoa. How many carats is that?”

  “A smidge under thirty,” I said, bouncing my brows. I’d bought it many years ago when I’d been vacationing in Brazil. “And there’s a ring in here that could go with it!”

  I dug back inside the safe and found the ring made of a thick gold band and a gleaming blue gemstone in the middle. Donning both, I put my hands on my hips and shimmied a little.

  Gilley clapped his hands. “Perfection!”

  “You think?”

  “Honey, if I wasn’t married, even I’d be tempted.”

  Gil a
nd I looked at each other and laughed uproariously. He sobered first. “Ah well, it was worth saying.”

  I giggled anew. “I appreciate the compliment. But do I really want to be this tempting?”

  Gilley put his chin in his hand to consider me. “Why wouldn’t you?”

  “Well, I haven’t seen Maks in about four months. And he’s mixed up in this whole mafia mess with Greta the Angel of Death. I’m just wondering suddenly if it’s wise to have accepted his invitation out.”

  “Your sister vouched for him, though, right?”

  I nodded. My sister, Abby, had some sort of history with Maks that she absolutely refused to speak about. She would only tell me that it involved some top secret government business and that at one point during that escapade, Maks had saved her life and the life of her husband. Heady stuff to believe, no doubt, but Abby wouldn’t lie about something like that and so I took it as a fairly powerful recommendation for Maks’s character. “Abby says I can trust him.”

  “Well, then I think you owe it to him to hear him out.”

  Just then the doorbell rang.

  I gasped. “What time is it?”

  “Ten to,” Gilley said.

  “Ack! He’s early!”

  I rushed around the room for a moment gathering up my clutch and tossing in the bright red lipstick I’d chosen to wear that evening. Hurrying down the stairs with Gilley in tow, I got to the front door and took a breath before opening it. “You’re early—”

  “I’m early?” Shepherd said. And then he stepped back and took me in. “Whoa. Catherine, you look . . .”

  “Sinfully delicious?” Gilley asked, peeking over my shoulder.

  I swatted at Gilley and recovered myself. “Detective! I . . . I wasn’t expecting you.”

  Shepherd looked me up and down again. “Obviously.”

  Playing at the collar of my silk blouse, suddenly very aware of how open it was, I said, “What can I do for you?”

  Shepherd adopted a crooked smile and took a long time to answer. The longer he took, the redder my face got. “I . . . uh . . . I wanted to talk to you about a new development.”

  “What kind of development?” I asked.

  The driveway behind Shepherd lit up with approaching headlights. Shepherd turned and I felt my back stiffen as a pearl-white Maserati Gran Turismo pulled up alongside Shepherd’s Buick sedan.

  No one said a word as the engine cut, the door opened, and out of the car came Maks, dressed in a charcoal-gray suit, white silk dress shirt, bourbon-colored pocket square, and ruby cuff links. Pausing outside the car to shoot the cuffs, he regarded the car next to his and then his gaze took in the scene at my front door.

  His expression, upon seeing me and Shepherd, was mixed, I thought, but he didn’t give a whole lot away as he approached us. As he did so I felt my pulse quicken, both in anticipation and maybe a little dread.

  “Good evening, Catherine,” he said warmly before addressing Shepherd with an abruptly icier tone. “Detective.”

  “Grinkov,” Shepherd said, his voice hard. “I heard you were back in town.”

  “Who tattled?” Maks asked, adopting a bemused smile.

  It was immediately clear to me that these two men didn’t care for one another. And I doubted that I was the only reason why. Something more than simple jealousy was coursing between them, although I had no doubt that the two of them finding the other at my front door hadn’t exactly been a welcome surprise.

  “A little birdie told me,” Shepherd said.

  “Ah,” said Maks, now standing next to Shepherd on my front porch. “You’re not here to arrest my date again, are you?”

  I bit my lip. My last night out with Maks had ended in a total disaster, no thanks to Shepherd, but that was back when the detective and I weren’t exactly on good terms.

  A lot had changed since that night four and a half months before.

  “No, I won’t be arresting her this time,” Shepherd said with a not-so-subtle warning. “You two have a terrific evening, though.”

  Shepherd then glanced at me with a tight smile. For a moment, something flashed in his eyes . . . something like hurt, but it was gone before I was certain I’d seen it. Then, he pivoted on his heel and walked casually to his car.

  We watched as he got in, turned the engine over, and backed out of my driveway. He was gone before I even had a chance to ask him more about the development he’d come here to talk to me about.

  “Oh, my,” Gilley said. I realized he’d been standing behind me the whole time. “That was intense!”

  “The detective isn’t still harassing you, is he?” Maks asked me.

  “No,” I said quickly. “Not at all. We’re on good terms, actually.”

  Maks’s brow rose in surprise. “Oh?”

  I felt another blush touch my cheeks and tried to cover that by rubbing my arms. “You know it’s quite chilly out here. Maks, would you like to come in?”

  Maks bowed slightly and offered me his arm. “Or, we could get in my car and get on with our evening. We have lots to talk about. Apparently.”

  “Ruh, roh,” Gilley whispered in my ear.

  I pushed up the wattage of my smile and took Maks’s arm. “Perfect,” I said.

  He walked me to the passenger side door and paused after opening it for me. “You look incredible, by the way.”

  “Thank you,” I said, so pleased that he’d noticed.

  As we backed out of the drive, I waved to Gilley, who then fiddled with his phone. A moment later my own phone pinged, and a text from Gilley indicated that he wouldn’t wait up, but he’d have breakfast ready for me at Chez Kitty the next morning.

  “So!” I said, putting away the phone. “How’re things?”

  Maks smiled but kept his eyes on the road. “Things are well. How’re things with you?”

  “Equally well.” There was a bit of an awkward silence that filled the car after that, but then I thought of something I could talk about. “I’d probably be better though if my ex-husband weren’t taking my sons to Aruba next week for spring break. I’ll miss knowing they’re just three hours away.”

  “Ah,” Maks said with a tisk of sympathy. “I know how difficult it is to be away from your children. Remind me again, how old are they?”

  “They’re fourteen going on thirty.”

  Maks chuckled. “Yes, all young men believe they’re much too old to be parented once they reach that age. Will they be gone long?”

  I sighed sadly. “Ten days. But they’ve promised to come home the following weekend so that I can pamper them and cook their favorite meals.”

  Maks turned to me. “Pizza?”

  I laughed. “No, would you believe beef Wellington?”

  “You know how to make beef Wellington?”

  “I do,” I said. “And it’s delicious.”

  “You should make that for me sometime.”

  I felt yet another blush touch my cheeks. “Should I now?”

  “I’m sorry, did that sound too demanding?”

  “No. I’d love to cook for you.”

  “Good,” Maks said.

  All of the sudden his gaze turned to the rearview mirror. “Uh oh,” he said.

  I craned my neck to look behind us. His rear window was lit up with red strobe lights. “Is that for us?”

  “Yes, I think so,” Maks said, already pulling over.

  An officer appeared at Maks’s window while he fidgeted to fish out his license. Lowering the window, Maks spoke politely to the officer, who was curt and unpleasant and asked him all sorts of questions about where we were headed and if he’d been drinking. Maks answered every question, but the officer seemed to want to escalate the matter. Opening Maks’s door, he told him to step out of the car. Maks complied. The officer continued to drill him about where he’d been, what he’d been doing, where he was going, and if he’d been drinking. Maks answered all of those questions politely but each time he did so, the officer’s voice just got angrier.

&nb
sp; He then took Maks to the back of the car and pointed the flashlight right in his face and sternly told him to walk forward along the white line in the road. Maks complied, but the officer wasn’t satisfied and he began taking him through all of the physical tests for determining if someone might be impaired.

  I couldn’t understand what Maks had done to set the patrol officer off; Maks hadn’t even been going that fast when we’d been pulled over, and he most certainly hadn’t been weaving or driving erratically.

  There was no reason for the third degree . . . unless . . .

  And then I angrily pulled out my cell phone and placed a call

  “Hello, Catherine,” Shepherd said easily. “I’m surprised to hear from you. I thought you’d be out on the town by now.”

  “You did this!” I snapped, knowing for certain he’d had a hand in interrupting our evening.

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about. Could you be a little more specific?”

  “You don’t know what I’m talking about? How about the fact that Maks is currently being grilled by a patrol officer and is also being threatened with a Breathalyzer test!”

  Shepherd let out a snicker but quickly tried to cover it. “A Breathalyzer test, huh? Wow. That’s thorough. Was Grinkov drinking before he showed up to take you out?”

  “Steve,” I said evenly, “you know very well he wasn’t. This was mean, even for you!”

  Shepherd cleared his throat but he didn’t offer anything else, not even an apology.

  And that just made me angrier. So I lit into him again. “This is the second time you’ve attempted to ruin a lovely night out for me, and I’m over your little games! When you want to grow up, you call me, okay? Until then, go take a long leap off a short pier, you . . . you . . . jackass!”

  I hung up angrily and waited with bated breath to see how far the patrol officer would escalate things, suddenly worried if my terse send-off to Shepherd would actually make things worse.

  And just when I thought for certain that Maks was likely to be arrested there was a garbled call on the officer’s shoulder mic and he abruptly stopped his lecture. Instead, the officer spoke a 10-4 into his mic, handed Maks back his license, then went back to his patrol car without issuing so much as a ticket.