“Yeah, why is that?”
I shook my head. “I just can’t, Gil.”
“It has to do with your new secret client, right?”
I shoved a giant piece of brownie into my mouth and muttered in the affirmative incoherently. No way could I ever be quoted for that.
“Mmmhmmm. Say, though, does your new client know the latest about what’s going on with Maks?”
I set down the rest of the brownie I was preparing to shove into my mouth. “I don’t know,” I said, blinking. “I mean, I assume so. But maybe I should text him?”
“Ah ha!” Gilley said, getting up to point at me. “I knew it!”
“Dammit!” I swore, something I so rarely do. “Gilley, you need to chill!”
Gilley fell theatrically onto the couch. “Relax,” he said. “Who would I tell? And what could I tell them? Only my suspicions, really.”
I let go of my tense posture and walked over to the couch, where I sank down onto it too. “I just don’t want you overly involved. This is tricky and dangerous business, and even I feel like I’m now caught in this web of lies and deceit.”
“So, maybe text your client and let him know what’s happened,” Gil said.
I nodded and got up to retrieve my phone. Scrolling down the messages, I found the one from Sam and sent him a text that simply said: Do you know about our friend?
Within fifteen seconds I received the reply. Yes.
Nothing beyond that, just yes, and that was incredibly dissatisfying, but I figured it was all Sam was going to say on the subject.
“He knows,” I told Gil.
“What’d he have to say about it?”
“Nothing. As in, literally nothing.”
“So we’re locked out of the information?”
“It looks that way—” At that moment there was a soft knock on the door. I smiled at Gil. “That’ll be Maks,” I said. “I’m sure he’s come to explain.”
I walked to the door, stopping by the mirror next to it to check my smile for brownie (all clear), and pulled on the handle with relish. “I’m so glad to see you!” I said, but came up short.
Standing in front of me wasn’t Maks, but Shepherd. He looked truly taken aback by my statement. “Why?” he asked curtly.
Gilley came to stand next to me. “Ah, Detective!” he said. “So good of you to drop by. Cat’s happy you’re here to save her from having to polish off the rest of the brownies I made. Won’t you come in?”
Shepherd looked from me to Gilley and back again, as if he didn’t quite know what to do with the invitation. I stood back from the door and made a sweeping motion. “Yes, please come in, Steve. The brownies are still warm and gooey.”
Shepherd wiped his feet on the doormat and entered Chez Kitty. He looked around as if expecting the decor to be different than the last time he’d seen it, but nothing about Chez Kitty had been changed.
Meanwhile, Gilley and I both hustled to the kitchen to get the detective a plate of brownies and some milk. My hand was shaking slightly as I poured his beverage, and my mind was racing to come up with a theory about why he was here. I couldn’t think of a single reason other than he wanted to arrest me for perjury, but then, why hadn’t he already done that?
I then had to consider that maybe he was drawing it out simply to torture me for fibbing about spending the night with Maks.
We all sat down at the table, and Shepherd shrugged out of his coat. Gilley placed the brownie and milk in front of him, then we both eyed Shepherd expectantly.
“I can’t eat if you’re gonna stare at me like that,” he said.
“Sorry,” I said. “It’s just, we’re both a little surprised to see you.”
Pausing the hand that held the brownie that’d been about to enter his mouth, Shepherd turned his head to the door, then he made a snorting sound. “Of course,” he said. “You were expecting your boyfriend to show up.”
I tugged at the collar of my sweater. “Not at all,” I said. “I knew it was you.”
Shepherd lifted the brownie a little in my direction before taking a big bite. “Sure you did.”
“So what brings you by, Detective?” Gilley asked before the tension got too intense.
“Well . . .” Shepherd said, wiping his hands on a napkin as he chewed, but then he paused to say, “Ohmigod, that’s good.”
Gilley puffed his chest out. “I put a little peanut butter in the batter instead of nuts.”
Shepherd nodded. “Anyway, like I was saying, I’m here because I wanted to ask Catherine . . . off the record, why she lied.”
I sucked in a breath and stared at Shepherd. “What makes you think I lied?”
Shepherd took another bite of the brownie. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing I can prove. It’s just that you told the same story Maks did, in general. His story gave lots of details while your story was super vague. The facts match, but the story doesn’t feel like the truth to me.”
“I’ve given you my sworn statement,” I said quietly.
“And I’ve told you I’m here off the record.”
“Like I should believe that,” I scoffed. “You’ll remember that you once pulled me down to the station in handcuffs over a broken punch bowl.”
“A broken punch bowl and twenty witnesses that all saw and heard you threaten a murder victim.”
“Still, that was a flimsy arrest and you know it.”
Shepherd sighed and stared at the table. Then he lifted his gaze to mine and I was able to see my friend behind the cop façade. “Catherine,” he said gently. “Come on. Talk to me.”
I glanced at Gilley and he shrugged. “I think he’s telling the truth, Cat. I think you can talk to him off the record here.”
“Fine,” I said, relieved to tell Steve the truth and undo some of the hurt I’d no doubt caused him. “Maks and I parted at the bar, but I told you differently only because I know Maks didn’t kill Jason Sutton.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because I believe I know who did.”
Shepherd did a double take. “Come again?”
“I think it was a hit. A professional hit.” I wanted Shepherd to get the hint of what I was implying.
“Of course it was a professional hit,” he said, surprising me.
“Wait, so you know about Jason Sutton and his connection to Boris Basayev?”
“Of course I know about Jason Sutton and his connection to Boris Basayev!” Shepherd yelled. “Why do you think I arrested Boris’s right-hand man?!”
“Hey, hey, hey!” Gilley said in a singsong voice, like a teacher out on the playground when the little kids start yelling at each other. “Let’s use our inside voices, please.”
Shepherd glared hard at Gilley.
Gil sank down in his chair a bit. “Or, you know, never mind.”
I was frowning at Shepherd, who then turned that hard glare on me. “Maks isn’t who you think he is,” I said.
“Oh?” he snapped. “So, he isn’t the guy who buys an assassin dinner right after she’s shot up a coffee shop and me in the process? Or the guy seen all over town entertaining known Chechen mafia members? Or the guy who was seen by six witnesses, roughing up Jason Sutton yesterday in the parking lot of the gallery? Or the guy whose car was seen speeding away from the lagoon where Sutton was found this morning, shot through the head, neck, and torso?”
Gilley curled his lip in distaste. “Wow. Someone really wanted him to die.”
“No, Gilley,” Shepherd said softly. “Not someone. Maks Grinkov.”
“But why?” I said. “Why would Maks want to kill Jason Sutton?”
“I don’t know, Catherine, maybe he’s the new hit man for Basayev, or maybe Sutton sold him a crappy painting, or maybe just because it was a Thursday and Grinkov felt like murdering someone new this week. Who knows and who cares? The point is that I had that bastard dead to rights until you came in and screwed me. And because I had him dead to rights, I knew that I could eventually get him to flip on
Basayev and maybe, just maybe get him to tell me the truth about why Lenny was murdered.”
“Steve, I—”
“Save it!” he barked, shoving back violently from the table and getting to his feet. Wadding up his napkin, he threw it onto his empty plate. “Thanks for the brownie, Gilley. I’ll see myself out.”
Shepherd grabbed his coat and moved to the door while Gilley and I stared with wide eyes both at each other and Shepherd’s retreating form. Neither of us called out to him, because neither of us quite knew what to say. A moment later, Shepherd was through the door, slamming it hard on his way out.
“Well,” Gilley said into the stunned silence that followed. “That escalated quickly.”
* * *
I wandered back over to Chez Cat right around eleven, feeling mentally beaten and frustrated. I’d texted Maks a simple inquiry about how he was doing, and he’d not texted back. And even though it’d only been a few hours, it really bothered me that he hadn’t reached out to even say thank you, or that he was okay but exhausted, or swamped, or whatever the hell he actually was.
And the look that Shepherd had given me as he’d stood up from the table at Chez Kitty . . . it’d be a long time before I’d be able to forget that look or forgive myself for invoking it.
I went through my evening ritual, getting ready for bed, but I didn’t know if I’d be able to sleep. Coming out of the bathroom, I stared at my big, beautiful bed, with its silk sheets, fluffy pillows, and inviting duvet, and all I wanted to do was head back over to Chez Kitty and curl up on the couch, because I simply didn’t want to be alone tonight.
But poor Gilley had been asleep on his feet when I’d left him, and I hated to disturb him yet again.
So I wandered downstairs to the bar and poured myself a glass of brandy. I felt like, if I could only take the edge off, I might be able to settle down.
As I was heading back upstairs, there was a soft knock on the door. Hope blossomed in my chest. Maybe Gilley couldn’t sleep either?
I hurried to the door and looked through the peephole, gasping when I saw who was standing on the other side. Turning the dead bolt and pulling open the door, I greeted Maks with a cool look. “Hello, stranger.”
Maks picked up on my barely veiled anger immediately. “I’m so sorry,” he began. “I couldn’t text you back.”
“Oh?” I said. “Tied up, were you?”
“May I come in?”
“It’s late, Maks.”
“Yes,” he replied, and said nothing more. He’d let me decide.
I inhaled deeply and let it out very slowly, trying to cool my own hurt feelings, and frustration at hurting someone close to me as well. When I felt a bit calmer, I simply stepped aside.
Maks came forward and lifted the brandy from my hand with gentle fingers. He took a sip, then placed it back in my hand and moved into my foyer.
I closed the door, locking it again, and turned to face him. When I did, my breath caught anew. There was the most incredibly delicious smoldering look on Maks’s face. Immediately I felt my pulse quicken and he closed the distance between us like a shot, enveloping me in an embrace that was both commanding and fluid. His lips descended on mine like molten metal, and I sank into the feel and the smell and the passion of his embrace with an ease that surprised me.
Our kiss was charged and hungry, and the connection was nearly primordial. Maks kissed me with a hungry passion and then he lifted me into his arms and carried me upstairs, where all thoughts of regret, or guilt, or common sense fled the stage and I was left willingly vulnerable and ready for the taking.
Chapter 11
Hours later I propped my elbow on the pillow, placed my head onto my palm and stared at Maks in the soft glow of the full moon streaming in from the window. It struck me in that moment that this was like something out of a movie, and everything about having him here next to me felt both comfortable and foreign at the same time.
Maks smiled at me and reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “What’s going on in that gorgeous head of yours?” he asked.
“I was thinking this is all a bit surreal,” I confessed.
Maks cocked his head. “It is?”
“Yes. I . . . you’re the only man I’ve . . . uh . . . entertained in my bedroom since my husband. And I was with him for nearly two decades.”
Maks chuckled. “If it’s any consolation, I was quite entertained.”
I felt my cheeks heat. “Saying, ‘had sex with’ just takes the romance out of it, you know?”
He nodded. “I do. But I can’t imagine anything taking the romance out of what just happened between us, Catherine.”
I fiddled with the bedsheet. “It was pretty great, wasn’t it?”
“It was fantastic.”
It was my turn to chuckle and then I sighed contentedly. “What brought you over here anyway? I mean, I’m sure you didn’t come by just to carry me upstairs and have your way with me . . . or did you?”
Maks rolled onto his back and stretched. “No, no. I didn’t come here expecting anything. But when you opened that door and I saw how beautiful you were in the glow of the moonlight and your robe . . . well . . . can you blame me?”
I reached out and traced his biceps with my index finger. He was gorgeously well defined and in incredible shape for a man in his midforties. “So why did you come here?”
“Well . . . I wanted to thank you, and I wanted to explain what happened.”
A small area of tension that I’d been carrying with me ever since I’d been pulled into Maks’s arrest eased. I’d been worried he’d try to avoid explaining things to me, and it was a great relief to hear that he wanted to set the record straight. “I’m listening,” I said.
Maks rolled onto his side and mirrored my posture. “I needed to be seen with you,” he said.
“You did?” What did that even mean?
“Yes,” Maks continued. “I’m very good at reading people, Catherine. Not nearly as well as your sister, but she’s in a league of her own—”
“True,” I said.
“But I’m still very, very good at picking up subtleties that other people miss. It makes me a very good poker player, and it’s the reason I’ve managed to remain alive even though I swim with the sharks, so to speak.”
“Okay,” I said. “So who was it that you needed to read?”
“Boris,” he said bluntly. “Basayev has been off lately. He’s a suspicious man by nature, and because of that, he’s very structured and habitual. He gets up at the same time every day. He eats the same thing for breakfast every single day, et cetera, et cetera, but lately, his routine has been off. Not by much, but enough to send a few of my alarm bells ringing.”
“You think he’s on to you.”
“I do. Which is why I needed to see you, to establish an alibi, not for the police, but for Basayev. I suspected that he’s been having me watched.”
I gulped. That was a terrifying prospect.
“So, he’s watching you and you needed me to be your alibi for Basayev’s people, which means that something took place after I left you at the bar, right?”
“Yes,” Maks said. “I needed to meet someone, and I couldn’t be seen with him.”
“Who?”
“I can’t tell you, and I’m sorry for that, but I can’t.”
“Is your mysterious meeting something that’s going on the next flash drive?”
“It is.”
“Did you have anything to do with Sutton’s murder?” I asked next. If Maks was putting some of his cards on the table, I thought I might as well ask him to play his cards faceup.
“No,” he said.
I studied him in the glow of the moonlight, waiting to feel or sense that he was lying.
“I swear,” he insisted.
“I believe you.”
Maks audibly sighed in relief. “Good. Your trust is important to me.”
“I trust you, Maks, but I also wish you’d be more revealing to me
. If I’m getting sucked into this, even tangentially, I deserve to know what you’re involved in.”
Maks seemed to consider that for a moment, and then he spoke so quietly I had to lean toward him a little just to hear him. “Jason was skimming the books,” he said. “I knew it because I had a source who revealed it to me, but I hadn’t told Boris about it, even though he suspected that’s what was going on. The day we saw you in the gallery, Boris tried to feel Jason out, get a sense of whether to trust him or not. I couldn’t get a read on if he believed Jason or not, but later I went back and confronted Jason, and told him to put the money back. He stuck to his guns and wouldn’t admit that he was skimming. We got into an argument over it in the parking lot, and Jason took a swing at me—”
“That cut above your eye,” I said, gently stroking the spot on Maks’s forehead.
“Yes,” he said, reaching up to take my hand and hold it in his own.
“What happened to Jason?”
“He got more than a cut above his eye.”
“Ouch.”
“That’s what he said.”
I let out a surprised laugh, but quickly stifled it. This was hardly a laughing matter. “Then what?”
“Then I left to meet you, we went to the bar, we had our drink, I gave you the flash drive, you left and I exited quietly out the back to meet my contact, but I didn’t take my car. I walked to where we’d agreed to meet. My source and I spoke, it was brief, but when I went back to retrieve my car, it was gone.”
“Gone?”
“Stolen.”
“Someone stole your car?” I gasped.
“Yes.”
“Wow. Did you report it?”
“I did. But not until the next morning.”
“Why?”
“Because I couldn’t take the chance that someone knew I’d walked out of the bar and around to the parking area only to leave my car there and walk somewhere else, then return an hour later and report my car being stolen.”
“Ahhh, there would’ve been a gap in the timeline.”
“Yes.”
“How did you get home?”
“Sam sent me an Uber.”
“How did Sam know you needed an Uber?”
“Boris’s people aren’t the only ones keeping tabs on me,” Maks said.
To Coach a Killer Page 17