Here Comes Trouble

by Donna Kauffman

  She took a deep, shuddering breath. “This is all…a lot.” She gently disengaged her elbows from his grip. “I—I need to call Thad. And my insurance company, I guess.” She blew out a breath, then turned away from him and went to the phone.

  Standing by and watching was possibly one of the hardest things he did, but she knew the story now, and how she wanted to handle things, both with Thad and between them, was up to her. Not that he didn’t plan on having any influence, but she’d been happy here, going along with her plans for the future. And yes, the lack of snow had put those dreams at risk, but somehow he knew she’d have found a way, even if he’d never shown up.

  He turned and looked out the rear window, looking at the shredded quilts in the rapidly fading daylight. Goddammit. If anything had happened to her…

  He paced the room, half listening to her talk to the deputy, then her insurance rep, his anger building, his patience growing thinner by the second. He tried Dan’s room at the resort, planning on having him meet him in the lobby before tracking Maksimov down. Dan was the only other person in town he could trust and it wouldn’t hurt to have backup. Or witnesses.

  As soon as Thad arrived and Brett gave his statement, he told Thad to please stick by Kirby, that he had some business to attend to at the resort that couldn’t wait.

  Both Thad and Kirby protested, but he was already out the door and on his bike before they could stop him.

  Before the night was over, it was all going to be over.

  Brett parked his bike right in front of the hotel and headed inside to the registration desk. “Hi, Bobby,” he said to the young man behind the counter. He knew most of the desk staff by now. “Listen, I need to find out where—” He stopped when there was a tap on his shoulder. He turned, half expecting it to be Maks confronting him. He wouldn’t put anything past him at this point. But it wasn’t Maks, or anyone he’d seen before.

  “Mr. Hennessey, sir? If I might have a word with you?” The man was massive. Tall, dark skinned, shoulders wider than most doorways. He gave big a whole new meaning. He opened his jacket to show his security badge. “Privately, please?”

  Brett stepped away from the desk, but said nothing.

  “Sir,” Mr. Big began, “With all due respect, I am supposed to alert you to the fact that we’ve placed hotel security out front of Mr. Maksimov’s villa. He’s not to be disturbed until someone from the sheriff’s department arrives to talk to him.”

  “Okay,” Brett said. Chalk one up for the small town deputy. “I’ll just head up to my room, then.”

  “I’ll escort you,” he said cordially enough, but the way he instantly flanked Brett’s steps made it clear he wasn’t going to be dissuaded.

  “Fine.”

  They rode up the elevator in silence, with Big standing in front, closest to the doors. Brett was fine with letting him play the shield. The doors slid open to reveal an empty hallway. Big stepped out and gestured for Brett to precede him. They both walked over to the door leading to his suite. Brett opted not to knock for Dan. Better to keep him out of this as much as possible until Brett figured out exactly what was going on. He slid his card out, but the security guard already ziplined his out from his jacket and swiped it through the locking mechanism.

  The tumblers dropped, and Brett pushed the handle down and went in. He started to turn to thank the security guard for the escort, intending to close the door between them, but suddenly the guard planted one beefy palm on Brett’s shoulder and shoved him straight to the floor. Do not pass go, face on carpet.

  Brett immediately started to scramble, thinking maybe this was all some kind of elaborate setup by Maks. He’d never have guessed they’d go that route, but what the hell did he know at this point? Except there were no stakes high enough for them to be taking this kind of risk. There had to be cameras in the hallway getting at least some of this, as the door hadn’t shut yet. None of this made any fucking sense.

  But he barely got his hands beneath him to shove himself up, when he was stomped right back down again, with either a foot or a hand, he had no idea. But when he heard the gun clear the holster, he renewed his efforts. “Don’t move,” Big ordered. “Stay right here.”

  Then he released him, stepped over him, and moved farther into the apartment, gun drawn and held steady in front of him, like a cop would breaking into an apartment where he thinks there might be trouble.

  Dan.

  Should he call out? Warn him? Or would Brett just be drawing attention to his presence?

  Well, one thing he wasn’t going to do was stay prone on the floor. But just as he got to his feet, he heard Big yell, “Call nine one one!”

  Shit. He palmed his cell out of his pocket as he ran through the suite into the bedroom where Big was standing. Over a prone body. Brett’s fingers faltered on the dial pad as his heart squeezed into a tight fist. Until he got a look at the whole body and realized it wasn’t Dan. Thank God. But…

  Big was already on his ear piece, notifying the front desk that there was a guest in trouble and needing immediate medical assistance, then he was on the floor, checking the man’s pulse.

  “Don’t move him,” Brett cautioned. “You don’t know where he’s—” He stopped because he’d moved around the room enough to see the prone figure from another angle. One that provided him with a look at his face. And the pool of blood extending out from under his head.

  It was Maksimov.

  “Dan!” he immediately shouted. He spared a glance at Big, who looked up at him and shook his head, indicating there was no pulse.

  Holy—“Dan?” he shouted again, and tore through the suite to the other bedroom. Empty. No one in either bathroom. He checked behind the kitchen counter, out on the balcony. Even, God forbid, down below the balcony. Nothing.

  “Will you step back inside, Mr. Hennessey. We need for you to remain calm until the sheriff’s department arrives. They’re going to want to speak with you.”

  “Me? I didn’t—you were with me when we opened the door.” And thank God for that, he realized now. This was not going to look good, not after the way he tore out of the inn. And where the hell was Dan?

  “We don’t know anything yet. What, when, why. Just stay put. Sir,” he added, remaining respectful but clearly not willing to have any discussion about the matter.

  Brett didn’t argue. Instead he pulled his phone out again and hit the speed dial for Dan. “Come on,” he muttered.

  “Sir—”

  “I’m trying to find out where the gentleman is who was staying here with me, okay? Given what we found, we might want to know that. I want to know that. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I’m not going to sit here and do nothing.” He dialed again, but it went straight to voice mail. He dialed the inn, then hung up before Kirby could answer. She didn’t need to be any more freaked out than she already was. Hell, she was probably already packing his things for him and putting them by the front door as it was. Goddammit. They go up in the hills for a few hours and the whole world goes crazy.

  Medical staff from the resort showed up a few minutes later, followed by the town paramedics. They were in the bedroom, doing…whatever the hell they could with Maks.

  Brett paced the living room like a caged animal, alternately trying to dial Dan and spending the rest of the time trying to calm down enough to figure out what in the hell was going on.

  Thad showed up and Brett was across the room in a blink.

  “What’s going on? What have you learned?”

  “Where’s Maksimov?”

  “In the bedroom, they’re…working on him.” Brett didn’t mention that he didn’t think they’d have much success with that. Thad would figure out the rest shortly. “Where’s Kirby?”

  “Back at the inn. She wanted to come, but I told her to stay put.”

  “You left her there alone?”

  “She’s fine,” he said, clearly on the job now as there was no kissing up to the local celebrity in his tone. “She’ll be
safe there, out of the way.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about. I can’t find Dan, I don’t know who the hell did—”

  “Who’s Dan?” They were pushed aside as what looked like the entire police force of Pennydash rushed into the room, immediately asking Thad questions, with some heading straight to the bedroom.

  There was a strong sense of foreboding that crawled over Brett in that moment. Something very, very wrong was going on here, and there was only one person unaccounted for. And Kirby was all by herself in the inn. “I’ve gotta go,” he said. Not that anyone was listening to him.

  Brett ducked around Thad, who broke off what he was saying to one of the younger officers and snagged him by the arm. “Where are you going? You need to stay right here until we can get a full state—”

  “Ask Mr. Big, the security guy in there. He knows as much as I do. I have to go make sure Kirby is all right.”

  “I told you—”

  “I’m not a flight risk. I’m not going anywhere.” And he’d never been so certain of that in his life as he was now. The sheer terror he’d felt when he’d thought anything might happen to her—He pulled his arm free and made a move through the door. “You know where to find me when you’re done here.” He didn’t wait to hear anything else, but hit the stairs and started running.

  Chapter 20

  By the time Brett got to the inn, his heart was lodged in his throat. The bad sensation in his gut had only gotten stronger the closer to home he’d gotten. And still nothing from Dan.

  He almost laid the bike on its side in his hurry to get up the hill, park, and get inside the house. There were lights on and everything looked perfectly peaceful, like any other evening, from the outside. But then, his hotel room had appeared normal, too.

  He ran through the front door and immediately checked himself, made himself slow down. With everything else she’d been through today, Kirby didn’t need him racing into whatever room she was in looking like an out-of-control wild man. Though that’s exactly how he felt.

  He blew out a heavy breath, trying to get a grip on himself, but before he could call out to her, he heard voices. Coming from…the kitchen? Whatever calm he might have found deserted him completely as he headed through the foyer to the dining room, barely clipping the foyer furniture and dining room table, only to come to an immediate halt when he finally hit the kitchen and saw who Kirby was talking to.

  “Dan?”

  His friend was sitting at one end of the middle butcher block counter on a stool. Kirby was at the opposite end, also sitting. But after a quick, life-affirming glance at Kirby, who appeared fine, his gaze went right back to Dan, who looked anything but. If someone had used his face for a punching bag the night before, they’d gone on to take out considerable frustration on the rest of his body today, if the torn shirt, bloody stain on one shoulder, and half-swollen, ravaged face was anything to go by.

  “What the hell?”

  “Brett, my man,” he said, trying to smile, then wincing when it pulled at skin that couldn’t handle any more movement at the moment. He seemed…not drunk, exactly. High?

  Brett couldn’t tell. “What the hell happened?”

  “You’ve been to the hotel?”

  “Yes. Police are there, paramedics.”

  Kirby’s eyes widened, though her gaze would go to him, then right back to Dan. She had looked calm enough when he’d come in, but now that he’d had a moment to focus, he realized…she might appear to be okay, but she was terrified. Her hands were knotted together on the kitchen counter and the set of her shoulders was rigid. He started to walk over to her.

  “Let’s just stay where you are. For now,” Dan said.

  He glanced from Kirby to Dan again. “I don’t underst—”

  Then Dan lifted the hand that was in his lap behind the counter…revealing the gun he was holding.

  “Jesus, Dan. Man, what the hell is going on here? This is not a good idea. Where did you get the—”

  “Well, I thought it would be a good idea to keep Maks from beating the hell out of me with it, before he decided to shoot me. It was self-defense.”

  “Why was Maks beating you?”

  “Do I really have to spell that out for you?”

  Brett had no idea what was going on, but walking into the middle of this was like walking into the middle of a nightmare that made no sense, and he couldn’t slow his brain down enough to grasp it. “Listen, we’ll make this work out. If it was self-defense, then that’s what it was. But you need to put the gun down. This isn’t going to help. But I can. Let me help you, let—”

  Dan erupted in a painful gurgle of laughter. “Right, right. Let you help me. What the hell do you think I’ve been trying to get you to fucking do?” He waved the gun at that last part, making Kirby shift back on her stool as it swung past her direction.

  Brett immediately put his hands out. “Okay, okay. I know we can figure this out, but Dan, you have to put the gun down to make that work.”

  “No point in that now. Can’t you see that? You saw Maks, right? You know?”

  It was all too surreal. Maks’s body in his hotel room, Dan sitting in Kirby’s kitchen waving a gun about. Like he’d left Pennydash earlier today with Kirby and found the answer to all his dreams, only to come back home to some kind of alternate universe nightmare. “I saw Maks,” he said, trying like hell not to picture that in his head. He needed to keep his wits about him, and at the moment, that was going to take immeasurable focus. “What happened? Start at the beginning.” Maybe if he could get Dan talking in some kind of rational form, he could figure their way out of this and no one else would get hurt.

  “Put it together, man,” Dan said, agitated. “All the shit that went down back home? Me here, Maks here? Come on, you’re the college degreed rocket scientist here.”

  Brett just stared at his friend. Or the man who used to be his friend. He didn’t recognize the man seated in front of him now. It was like he was talking to a complete stranger. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  The room was chilly, and not just because Dan was sitting there, half unhinged, terrifying both him and Kirby, albeit for different reasons. Then he realized the back door to the porch was open, letting in the chill night air. Was that how he’d gotten in?

  Brett contemplated heading over to close the door, which meant he either had to circle around behind Kirby, which was the long route, but that would give him a chance to block her at least momentarily from Dan’s site range. Maybe give her a chance to duck down and escape the kitchen. Or circle around behind Dan. Maybe disarm him. Somehow.

  Brett looked at the back door. Then he caught Kirby’s gaze from the corner of her eye, trying to somehow mentally signal to her what he wanted to do so she could get herself out of harm’s way once he made his move. But all he got from her was an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

  He looked back at Dan. “Are you saying that what happened tonight—here with the laundry out back, and with Maks at the resort, has something to do with what was happening out in Vegas?”

  “Give the man a gold star,” Dan said, his clearly barely controlled anger turning snide and even uglier.

  Then the pieces tumbled into place. “Wait—”

  Dan turned to Kirby and waved the gun in her direction as well, making Brett’s heart stop completely. “Now he’s getting it,” Dan smirked nastily. He swung his gaze and the gun back to Brett. “All that damn time, and never once did you figure it might not be all about you for a goddamn change.”

  Brett was only half hearing his snidely delivered commentary; his brain was spinning, almost out of control as every piece of the puzzle finally shifted to make the right picture. “They weren’t coming after me. Maks and Rudov. They were coming after…”

  “Me,” Dan supplied. “I was this close to making the money back. While you were playing. Even after you quit, I thought I had it. We were a team, man. A team. It was all going to be okay; I just had to hold them of
f a while longer. Then you go and fucking leave and I have no chance to recoup my losses.”

  “Gambling debts? That’s what this is about? Since when did you—”

  “The business was in trouble, Brett. Dad didn’t exactly stick around to help with the transition, you know? And you. Just when I think I’m good to go, you working the circuit, you up and quit.”

  “Wait, you…bet on me? On the events?” He thought about what Maks had said, about overhearing Dan trying to get some game action while at the bar.

  Dan shrugged, seemingly unashamed by his actions, belligerent almost. “Sometimes I bet against you, too. I could always kind of tell when you were hitting burnout stage, figured my chances were better going with number two then.”

  “I offered to help, you could have come to me.”

  Dan lifted the gun from his lap. “How many times do I have to pound it into your thick skull? I am not your pet charity project! So I bet on you playing, so what? First it was just kind of for fun, but then I won a little. And when things got tight with the business, I’d bet more. And not just on your events. I got in deeper with the company, and deeper with the casino. So…they kind of came after me. To collect. I promised them when you came on board, they’d get their money back with interest.”

  “So why did they vandalize your property? And Vanetta, Dan, how could you let them put her and her life’s work in jeopardy like that? I would have paid them off for you; we’d have hashed it out later. I mean, Jesus, Dan, how could you not do some—”

  “I was doing something!” he roared. Dan shoved off his stool, sending it skidding backward, where it fell through the screen door. “I was earning the money back, Brett. Earning it back.”

  From the corner of Brett’s eye, he saw Kirby’s gaze stray again and again to the rear open door. It was really cold now. Maybe she was signaling him to do what he’d been thinking about earlier. But what if he was wrong? He couldn’t risk it, risk her.

  “I needed one more game, one more, dammit,” Dan shouted, his beaten face contorted with pain and rage and tears. “Then you up and fucking quit. All these years I tell you to leave the damn sport, come work with me. It would have been good. No trouble. I’d have been clean. The business would have been strong. But no. No. So I get in the game, and get deeper, then you fucking leave? But it’s all good, I tell Rudov. I’ll recoup the money with you working for me full-time now. But that wasn’t fast enough for Rudov. So they sent Maks around to persuade me to come up with the money. I didn’t know what else to do. The only sure thing was you playing again, one more time. I could have worked that angle. I thought you’d go back. They all go back. But no, not you! I told him to lean on you, get you to play again. Just once. But…but it got out of hand, and Maks got impatient. Then you left, and…and I was losing work with you gone.”