The Weekend Wife

by Toni Blake

  Then she turned to look at Max, who gave her a short, unexpected hug that quickened her pulse even as it reassured her. She’d done plenty of unusual work since joining the ranks as a P.I., but she’d never done anything like this before; she’d never done anything that made her feel as if she were in this deep.

  Her only comfort was being in it with him. Despite her fears, she was glad she hadn’t waited in the car—she would have gone crazy not knowing what was happening to him inside.

  He took her hand back in his as they moved along the enormous outer wall of the building, thankfully barricaded by piles of crates and rows of steel drums. She studied the place as they made their way. It didn’t look like the office of some grand jewelry thieving ring. It looked like a normal warehouse, dim of light and stacked with slatted wooden containers, the word Fragile stamped on their sides. Above her loomed aging rafters—from some hung bare lightbulbs dangling at the end of old wires.

  Yet Carlo had come in here. What did it mean?

  “Shipping,” she suddenly whispered.

  “What?” Max asked, just as soft.

  “Carlo said he worked in shipping.” She motioned to a stack of crates. “Maybe this is a legitimate business and he just works here.”

  Yet her companion looked skeptical. “I don’t think so. He high-tailed it here too fast. And besides, I just have a funny feeling—call it a P.I.’s sixth sense—that we’re extremely close to some answers.”

  Over the last few years, Kimberly had developed that same P.I.’s sense herself, and despite her suggestion, she agreed with him. In the distance, she still heard faint voices that reignited her fears, reminding her that they were in real danger from more people than just Carlo.

  “What now?” she asked, voice still low.

  “Now we investigate a little.”

  It sounded impossibly dangerous. “How?”

  Max pointed to a nearby crate on the floor. It appeared neatly—and recently—packed, the top still open. “Let’s see what these guys ship.”

  He silently reached inside and pulled out a heavy glass pitcher made of creamy white ceramic, the inside stuffed with wads of newspaper that would keep it from breaking in transit. Setting it aside, he dug through the straw in the crate, uncovering more of the same. But when he started to return the first pitcher to its place, they both heard the slight jiggle in the bottom of it.

  Their gazes met briefly before Max reached inside, pulling out the newspaper. When he uncrumpled it, Kimberly fought to hold in her gasp—a ruby-studded necklace lay nestled within the newsprint.

  “They must smuggle the stuff out in these things,” Max whispered, “using the glassware as a front.”

  “What do we do with it?” she asked, her eyes still glued to the shimmering rubies.

  Max hesitated, then stuffed both the newspaper and the necklace back inside the pitcher. “We leave it where we found it, for now. I’m not done investigating yet.”

  “But isn’t this enough to take to the pol—”

  He lifted two fingers to her lips, gently quieting her, eyes wide with warning—and she immediately understood why.

  “Beautiful stuff, isn’t it?” The voice belonged to Carlo.

  Kimberly froze in dread, her chest going as tight as a rubber band—before realizing he wasn’t talking to them.

  He stood just beyond the crates they now crouched behind, speaking with another man. She raised up just enough to see several diamond necklaces dangling from the fingers of a paunchy, older guy next to him.

  “Sure is,” the paunchy man said. “The boss is gonna love it.”

  Carlo laughed. “Now you know the boss doesn’t have an eye for this stuff—it’s all just sparkly, shiny money to him.”

  The other man lowered his gravelly voice. “So, how’d you do this weekend?”

  “Eh, not so well,” Carlo said on a sigh. “Guy caught me messing with his wife and I had to split. And you know the boss’s golden rule—never let anybody see you take it. Couldn’t swing that this time, so I came away empty-handed.”

  Paunchy Man shook his head. “The boss ain’t gonna like that, Coletti. Your little habit of playin’ around with rich wives cost you a heist.”

  Carlo gave an arrogant shrug. “It’s the first time I’ve ever messed up. The boss shouldn’t have any complaints about me.”

  “So,” Paunchy said, a toothy grin spreading across his face, “how was the woman?”

  “Totally hot,” Carlo said. “And totally crazy about me.”

  “How far did you get before you got caught?”

  Carlo smiled. “All the way,” he lied. “And even without any jewelry, it was well worth the effort.”

  The two men snickered and, next to her, Max went tense—so she instinctively squeezed his hand to calm him. He squeezed hers back, sending a small, warm charge of energy melting through her bones even in the midst of danger.

  After chatting a minute more, the two men went their separates ways, leaving that part of the warehouse blessedly quiet again.

  “What now?” Kimberly asked Max.

  “We keep investigating.”

  “What else are we looking for? We already found some stolen jewelry. Isn’t that enough?”

  Yet Max sent her a reproachful glance. “Even if you and I know what we’ve seen is stolen, we still don’t have hard, cold proof. And I’ve come too far on this to leave anything to chance. But the door’s right over there if you want to head back to the car.” He pointed.

  And she reminded herself: Stay tough. Be the P.I. you know you can be. Do what it takes to solve this case and bring these crooks down once and for all.

  “I’m ready,” she said staunchly beside him.

  “Ready for what?”

  “Ready to investigate. Ready to do whatever it takes to send these guys to jail.”

  He just blinked and looked at her, brows lifting.

  “Don’t look so shocked, Tate,” she said. “It doesn’t become you.” Then she studied their surroundings. “Now, I’m thinking that door over there leads to an office of some kind. See the desk and filing cabinet through the glass? I don’t think anyone’s in there and it might be a good place to locate some paperwork that could be used as evidence, or for keeping stolen property before it’s packed up and smuggled out. What do you think?”

  A slow grin spread across his handsome face, and if she wasn’t mistaken, she’d just impressed her boss. “I think you’re right, Brandt.”

  Still holding hands, they cautiously made their way to the door she’d indicated—and after peeking around a barricade of steel drums, Max motioned her forward. She scurried silently to the door and turned the knob, her heart beating frantically, then slipped inside. He followed.

  Together they began rifling through paperwork—she handling the cluttered beat-up old desk, he digging in the files. She wasn’t even sure what she was looking for, so she only hoped she’d recognize it when she saw it.

  And it wasn’t long before Max stood at her side, silently pointing to a rumpled bill of lading clutched in his fist—and she saw the skewed numbers instantly. Someone had paid Dormer and Sons for fifty vases with over half a million dollars!

  “Not all the invoices are like this,” he whispered hurriedly. “Some of their business must be legit. The rest they must run through their system like this, pushing it off as extremely expensive glassware.”

  Their eyes met in triumph, then he folded the piece of paper and crammed it in his pocket, obviously ready to go to the police.

  But then it occurred to Kimberly to wonder… “Crooks make out invoices for their stolen goods?”

  Max shrugged. “I guess crooks need a way to track their profits just like anybody else, especially in an operation as big as this one appears to be. And laundering money makes an excessive amount of it a lot less noticeable. Now let’s get out of here,” he whispered.

  They were making their way toward the office door when Max stumbled over a metal waste can, sendi
ng it toppling with a crash that echoed up from the concrete floor.

  Going still as statues, their eyes shot to the tipped-over can before raising to each other. The noise had been too loud. And the timing couldn’t have been worse—Kimberly could faintly detect voices coming from outside the office just beyond their view.

  “Great stuff, Reggie,” a deep-voiced man said. “Good work, as usual.”

  “Thanks, boss.” It sounded like the paunchy man again.

  “Boss, I just heard something.” This voice, however, clearly belonged to Carlo.

  And before she and Max could even move, the office door burst open, the three men looking in.

  “Shit,” Max said.

  “You’re about waist deep in it,” Carlo replied.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Carlo stood before them with the paunchy man, Reggie, as well as an older guy who Max took to be the boss. The old man’s craggy face spoke of age combined with experience—he was clearly a gangster, through and through.

  “Who the hell are these people, Carlo?” he asked gruffly.

  “These are the two I just spent the weekend with.” Carlo looked Max squarely in the eye and shook his head, his voice deadly serious. “Maxxy boy, you made yourself a big mistake coming here. And bringing Kimberly?” He continued to shake his head. “Bad move, Max. Bad move.”

  Max didn’t reply. But Carlo’s words echoed in his heart—bringing Kimberly here had indeed been a monumentally bad move. And had he really managed to trip over a damn waste can? He sighed, worried and tired as hell—it didn’t matter now. What mattered was that they’d been caught.

  “I don’t know why you followed me, Max—if you were trying to play the big hero for your wife or what—but I can promise you this. You just got yourself in deeper trouble than you can even imagine.”

  “You know what to do, boys,” the boss said then—and as Carlo and Reggie started toward them, Max’s fight or flight instincts kicked in, and he knew this would probably require a little of both.

  “Run, babe!” he said.

  A few feet away, Kimberly picked up an old black telephone from the desk and flung it at Carlo, dinging him in the head and knocking him back a few steps. Meanwhile, Max found himself wrestling with Reggie, who—stronger than he looked—succeeded in knocking him backward onto the desk. But the position gave Max leverage and he managed to get to his feet even as he threw a right to Reggie’s gut, then a left to his eye.

  He saw his cell phone skitter across the floor amid the fight—just as he heard Kimberly’s voice. “Back here, Tate!”

  A quick glance over his shoulder revealed that she’d opened a door at the rear of the office, and if she was calling him toward it, it must be more than a closet. Reggie was recovering his balance now and Max just eluded his grasp, circling the desk and dashing through the door, which led back out into the warehouse through a pathway lined with steel drums.

  “Run, Brandt—I’ll catch up!” he yelled.

  It took a few precious seconds and all the strength Max possessed, but he managed to haul down one of the large 55-gallon drums to send it rolling toward his pursuers. And after a few more steps, he brought a crate crashing down, too, shattering a mountain of dishes in the path.

  Max’s heart beat a mile a minute by the time he found Kimberly huddled behind yet another row of wooden containers.

  “Don’t make a sound,” he warned her in a near-silent whisper.

  Every nerve in Kimberly’s body was tensed and ready for action. Daring to peek around the wall of crates that currently protected them, she spotted Carlo and the old boss man across the way. Now Carlo carried a gun.

  “Find them!” the boss exploded. “Now!”

  They hadn’t been seen yet, but this was definitely not a good enough hiding place. Obviously thinking the same thing, Max’s voice came in her ear in a barely discernible whisper. “As soon as the three of them get a little farther away, we make a run for it. Follow me.”

  She nodded.

  Fortunately, their pursuers went in the opposite direction, and a moment later, Max said, “Let’s go.” After which they scurried quietly from their hiding place, ducking between another row of boxes and crates, passing behind a forklift, hand in hand.

  That was when an announcement blared over unseen loudspeakers. “Attention. We have two trespassers on the premises. Find them and bring them to my office without delay!”

  The voice belonged to the boss and the announcement meant there were more than just the three men in the building with them. Maybe a lot more. Maybe with a lot more guns. Shit—this was bad.

  Max yanked her down the row of crates toward the other side of the warehouse until they reached the end of the aisle. When he cursed softly, she glanced up to see that more seedy-looking men had just appeared on the route ahead. A group of four stood conferring in a circle.

  And before she and Max could even think about backtracking, they were spotted. “Hey, you there!”

  At this, Max took off, dragging her frantically across the floor as she struggled to keep up. She had no idea where they were headed, and no other choice than to simply trust his instincts.

  “Hold it!”

  “Come back here!”

  The voices behind her were close, too close, as she tried to keep up with Max.

  “You can’t get away, Max!” That voice belonged to Carlo.

  And without warning, Max flung her aside and turned to face Carlo and his henchmen head on. “You want to make a bet!” He leapt behind a mountain of crates then and gave a mighty heave, sending them all falling before the encroaching men, blocking their path with a loud crash of splintering wood and breaking glass.

  Then his hand was back in hers and they were running, running, until they came to a large steel door. He yanked it open and she went instantly heartsick to find that it wasn’t an exit, but a large closet.

  “In here,” he said anyway.

  She rushed in and he followed, shutting the big door behind them, leaving them in the dark. Inside, they both stayed quiet and stood close as their breathing began to slow. She couldn’t help leaning into him, and he rested his back against the cinderblock wall and hugged her, warm and tight and long. No hug in her life had ever felt so comforting.

  Outside, footsteps finally faded and gradually she began to feel that they were safe, at least for right now. Her heartbeat slowed as she began to relax for the first time since they’d come into this building.

  And then Max’s strong hands began to move, slow and still ever-so-comforting, roaming her shoulders and back. It felt too good to her, and she let her fingers curl slightly into his shirt as sensation trickled to her breasts, and then to her panties below.

  But when he began to pull her closer, his caresses growing slightly deeper…when the only sound was that of their breath growing gently labored…Kimberly realized they were on the verge of descending into a desperate, slow-burning passion that could only escalate. As his touch skimmed deliciously over her hips and then higher, higher, his palms grazing the sides of her breasts, she came to her senses. “Max,” she whispered.

  “What?” he murmured, one hand stopping at the side of her breast, beginning to cup her there, his thumb stroking across her nipple, through her bra.

  The exquisite sensation made her back arch as the juncture between her thighs spasmed. “Wh-what are you doing?” It came out too breathy.

  His own voice sounded raspy, and sexy as hell. “Touching you.”

  Her response to him was impossible to push down—always had been, and that made protesting considerably harder, yet… “Max, are you crazy? Think about where we are. We’ve…we’ve got to figure out what to do.”

  With a slow, heavy sigh, he lowered his hand. “You’re right. Damn—I’m sorry, babe. I was…a little out of my mind.” He ran one hand back through his dark hair in the shadowy light that had gradually grown around them as her eyes adjusted.

  “It’s okay,” she said, palms still at
his chest. She could feel the beating of his heart “But we’ve gotta keep our heads here.”

  He nodded. And then they went silent—his grip suddenly tightening on her waist when voices could be heard again nearby.

  “Where the hell could they be? They didn’t just disappear into thin air.”

  “All the entrances are guarded, so they couldn’t have gotten out.”

  The voices faded to obscurity nearly as quickly as they’d been detected, but the words Kimberly and Max had heard were enough to tell them they’d have to stay where they were—for who knew how long.

  He released a heavy sigh and lifted a consoling hand to her cheek. “Looks like we may as well get comfortable, babe.”

  The closet was even larger than Max had realized—and was actually more of a storage room. Narrower at the front by the door, it widened in back, a compartment veering off to the left packed with boxes. He moved just enough of them so that he and Kimberly could barricade themselves behind them and be out of sight should anyone come in.

  Now they sat side by side, their backs against the wall. Everything around them was quiet—but Max could only assume the place was being searched from top to bottom. While he held out hope for escape, he didn’t feel great about their chances at this point.

  “I’m sorry, Kimberly,” he felt compelled to say.

  She turned to look at him through the shadowy air, the only light that which seeped under the door. “Sorry? For what?”

  “Sorry you’re in this mess with me. Sorry I didn’t make you stay outside. Sorry I kicked over that wastebasket.”

  “Let’s get something straight here, Max. I’m in this mess with you because it’s my job to be. I know you don’t have much faith in me professionally, but there’s nothing you could have done to make me wait for you outside.”

  There were things he wanted to say, things that lingered on the tip of his tongue and wanted to spill out. I’m glad it’s you I’m here with, babe. Good P.I., bad P.I., none of that matters now. I never allowed myself to miss you, but being with you these last two days have made me realize how much I did. But he only sighed instead, maybe still not quite ready to admit the truth to himself—and then he reached out to take her hand. “Kimberly, tell me about…the Carpenter case.”