“I take it the emerald didn’t do the job?” she asked.
“Nope. It turns out poor Anastasia was poisoned, so there wasn’t anything that could have been done for her. She died anyway, and what little sanity Ivan had left died with her. His reign of bat shit insanity started shortly thereafter, and accounts say Ivan wanted to have the emerald ground to dust, but the Romanov family had a clearer head and put the emerald away with the rest of the family jewels until Anastasia’s grandnephew, Mikhail, took over the Tsardom.”
“Huh,” Kate said, shaking her head. “Anyway, after the sale was completed and DeLuce gave the approval to transport the gems, a courier was dispatched with the package to the United States with plans to hand them over to DeLuce here in Savannah.”
“I didn’t realize DeLuce was from Savannah,” I interrupted.
“He’s an implant,” she said with a shrug. “Said California drove him crazy and he likes to make the celebrities come to him as some sort of power trip. He’s known for his eccentric behavior, and for being a bit dramatic. His shop is only a few blocks from here. Very exclusive and expensive.”
“I take it DeLuce and the courier never met up?”
“Bingo,” Kate said. “The courier didn’t show up. Turns out he’d been shot point blank in the face and shoved in a waste barrel for a couple of days, so he was unable to attend the meeting. Then DeLuce calls Russia and gives them some of his temper because his gems didn’t show up and he’s out half a million dollars. Russia’s pissed because they say the emerald was never supposed to be in the package in the first place and the courier never should have left the country to deliver it.”
“So it’s a complete clusterfuck is what you’re saying.”
“Oh, yeah. The FBI is involved because this is considered international gem theft. Also because the jewels that had been in the briefcase attached to the courier’s arm were removed—along with the arm—and because the body was moved across state lines into Savannah. The Savannah police are involved because they discovered the body at the docks. And we’re involved because Christian DeLuce has hired us to find his gems and get them back to him before someone from Russia can get here and whisk the emerald back across the ocean.”
“And I’m here again, why?” I asked. This sounded so out of my league I didn’t even know where to start.
“Because you work for me and the FBI told me to find someone they could use that didn’t look like a cop. The FBI also wanted someone young and female for what they have in mind. And no, I don’t know why,” she said just as I was opening my mouth to ask. “I’m sure Agent Savage will tell us why during the meeting.”
“Agent Savage? Seriously?”
“That coming from someone with the last name Holmes,” Kate said.
“Touché, my friend. Very good.” I stood up and grabbed my purse. I had a little over two hours until the meeting. It was enough time to grab a quick shower and start looking for another place to live. “I’ll be back in time for the meeting.”
“Where are you going?”
“To look for apartments. I can’t survive through another night of Vince porn. I’m pretty sure I won’t even be able to look my mom in the eye again until after Christmas. I’ve been traumatized.”
“How are you going to afford an apartment?”
By the way she asked, I could tell she’d already heard the news about my recent unemployment.
“Who told you?” I asked. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I still live in Whiskey Bayou,” she said, which was explanation enough. “I found out the minute I pulled into my driveway last night. Mr. Lester stopped watering his roses long enough to hightail it to my car before I even got the door open. I thought he was going to break his neck, all bony arms and legs, his gardening hat flying off and the hose soaking the bottom of his trousers.”
“Hmmm,” I said for lack of anything better.
Mr. Lester’s wife was on the school board, so he’d probably been one of the first to know. Part of me was hoping his roses died sometime soon. The other part still felt sorry for him for having to be married to Mrs. Lester. She had a full mustache and a goiter on her neck the size of a cantaloupe.
“And I didn’t say anything because I kept expecting to get a distraught phone call sometime during the night and it never happened. Then when I saw you this morning, I started to wonder if you’d even heard the news.”
“Oh, I heard the news,” I said, thinking of Rosemarie.
Kate was right. I should have called her and told her about the problem, but as soon as I’d made the decision to get my private detective’s license, I stopped worrying about the unemployment issue. It had all been settled in my mind. And maybe I wanted to avoid talking to Kate for a while until I figured out how to tell her about my decision.
“Well, you’re certainly taking it well,” she said, narrowing her eyes at me. “You want to fill me in on what’s going on?”
I started to edge toward the door, hitching my purse higher on my shoulder in case I had to get ready to run.
“I thought of a plan,” I said, opening the door a crack.
“Why do I get the feeling I’m going to hate this plan?”
“Oh, you’ll totally hate it. At least at first. But I think if you give it a chance it might grow on you.”
She was shaking her head at me. Her ability to assess the situation was already giving her a clue what I had in mind.
“No way, Addison. You need to think this through. I cannot have you running around half-cocked on the streets with my agency’s reputation at stake.”
“That’s the thing,” I said. “If I get my private detective’s license, I’ll be running through the streets full-cocked. I’ll know all the rules and strategies that you guys use, and I’ll be able to close cases on my own instead of turning over information I collect for another agent to take credit for. How much do you pay your agents?”
“Thirty percent of the contracted fee,” she said hollowly.
“See, that’s great,” I said even more determined. “I’ve seen some of your invoices. You’re damned expensive. And I can get my permit to carry concealed so you won’t have to worry about my safety anymore. You’re always saying how you need more agents.”
“Oh, God,” Kate said, her mouth opening and closing repeatedly.
“I mean, I know you still feel guilty about giving me that tranquilizer gun, but really, it wasn’t your fault. You were just trying to give me a way to protect myself, and I take complete responsibility for shooting Nick. You couldn’t have known he’d be at that motel with another woman, though in all honesty, you know me well enough to know that I’m not one to take that kind of treachery lightly. Not after what happened with Greg and Veronica.”
Greg Nelson had been my fiancé for a short time. Unfortunately, we’d had different ideas of what monogamy meant, and he’d left me at the altar to play hide the salami with Veronica Wade in our honeymoon limo. A few months later, he’d run out in front of my car during a downpour and he’d bounced off my windshield. It turned out I wasn’t the one to kill him—someone did that with poison—but that just goes to show you that karma is a bitch. I still had nightmares about running him down. No one deserved to die that way. Not even Greg.
I’d run out of positive things to say about why I should become a private detective, and Kate had fallen back in her chair once I’d mentioned the incident with the tranquilizer gun. She was reaching in the bottom drawer of her desk for the whiskey she kept there for the occasional medicinal purpose.
“Please, Kate. I’m desperate. I need the work, and the surveillance stuff is good for a side job, but it’s not enough to survive on every month. If I get my investigator’s license, I’ll be able to work full time and make more money. Please don’t say no. Just think about it for a while. I’m begging you. I promise, I’ll take it seriously and do the best job I can do. I won’t embarrass the agency.”
Her gray eyes were round in her f
ace with shock and she tossed back the amber liquid like water. When she was silent for a full minute, I took it as a sign that she needed a little bit of alone time and I escaped her office and closed the door behind me.
“That could have gone much worse,” I said to comfort myself. “Things can only go up from here.”
***
After I’d showered and taken another survey of the damage from the day before, I decided I wasn’t as bad off as I’d originally thought. My back muscles were sore from where I’d fallen and the cut on my leg looked like hell, but the sunburn had faded so I only looked slightly rosy instead of belonging in the fruits and vegetables section of the food pyramid.
I slathered on moisturizer and pulled my hair back in a loose ponytail, bothering with only minimal makeup since it would melt off by ten o’clock anyway. I dressed in a short khaki skirt and white stretchy top so I’d look respectable and like I could pay my bills when I talked to potential landlords, and I slicked on extra Burt’s Bees lip balm because I liked the taste of mango.
I took a cup of coffee to go and swiped the Residential section of the Savannah Times from Lucy’s desk while she was in a meeting with Kate. The outdoors felt like a sauna and I hurried over to the Volvo, thinking it might be a good idea to buy a couple of ice packs to put on the leather seats to keep my backside from melting.
I’d just bent in to put my coffee in the drink holder when a black pickup truck pulled in beside me. Nick slid out of the driver’s seat looking like no man had a right to. He was dressed for work—in a pair of neatly pressed khakis and a white button-down dress shirt. His tie was silvery-blue and his face was already stubbled, even though I could tell he’d shaved by the little nick in his chin. His gun was in a holster at his side and his badge was clipped to his belt.
I mentally girded my loins and tried to remember it was best if we took a break from each other to see if what was between us was real, but this sudden rash of appearances after we’d spent so much time apart was wreaking havoc on my common sense.
“Wow, twice in twenty-four hours,” I said as he made his way to my side. “Something must be going on. You’ve avoided me like the plague for weeks.”
“Well, you shot me in the ass. I was angry.” He held up his hands in defense when I opened my mouth to start the same argument we kept having. “I don’t want to fight. I’m willing to chalk it up to a misunderstanding and move on.”
“Big of you,” I said, arching a brow. “But that still doesn’t explain your sudden reappearance in my life.”
“There’s no sudden about it, babe. I’ve tried calling for weeks and you wouldn’t talk to me. I’ve been giving you the space you obviously wanted.” He smiled and moved closer so my back was pressed against the car. “And then I saw you naked in the shower and decided you’ve had enough space.”
Nick was right. I’d been the one putting distance between us. Not him. He’d tried to explain several times what I’d seen in that motel parking lot, but I hadn’t been ready to listen. The truth is, I’d put on a good face after Greg had left me at the altar for Veronica. I’d returned gifts with polite thank you notes and kept my head held high at school and around town, but that experience had pretty much destroyed me emotionally.
Not because Greg was the love of my life, but because I’d realized that he was the man I’d picked to spend the rest of my life with and he was untrustworthy, he lacked honor, and he’d never once made me feel like he was willing to make sacrifices for our relationship. That made me doubt myself.
Obviously, I couldn’t trust my own judgment when it came to finding someone I could give my heart to. And seeing Nick in that parking lot, no matter how innocent, had only driven that fact home. It wasn’t even until I was faced with the situation that I realized I hadn’t felt for Greg a fraction of what I felt for Nick. And that had made it hurt all the more.
So to protect myself, I’d distanced myself entirely from Nick, even though I still wanted him with an intensity that terrified me.
“Oh,” I said, my heart thudding wildly in my chest.
“Yeah. We’ve wasted all this time, and we could have been doing this.”
He bent his head and kissed me softly, his lips rubbing hypnotically against mine until I realized I’d stopped breathing at some point. I put my hands against his chest and he leaned back to look at me while I gulped in air and tried to get my brain cells working. Nick was a pretty good kisser.
“I’m sorry I shot you in the ass,” I said. “It was a gut reaction.”
He smiled and took a step back. “I guess I should be flattered. You want me bad.”
“Conceited much?”
“Not really,” he said. “But I do find myself feeling rather possessive all of a sudden. I can understand where you were coming from. If I saw a man doing those things to you they’d never find all the pieces.”
“Geez.” I needed to get a grip. Possessiveness shouldn’t be a turn on.
“Now, as much as I’d like to keep kissing you on the street, if any of the guys happened to drive by they’d never let me hear the end of it.”
He looked down at the newspaper I’d crumpled in my hand and slowly unfurled my fingers until he could smooth it out.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“I’m apartment hunting. Living with my mother isn’t going to work for me anymore.”
Nick laughed and skimmed his knuckles just above the neckline of my shirt. “I heard a rumor going around at the station that Vince Walker is making time with your mom. That wouldn’t have anything to do with your sudden desire to move, would it?”
“Maybe.”
He leaned in close again and whispered, “It turns out I’ve got an empty side of the bed I’d be willing to let you rent for a reasonable rate.”
Spots danced in front of my eyes, and visions of the methods of payment Nick would demand flitted through my mind.
“I’m not sure I can afford your rent,” I finally managed to get out.
“That’s okay. I’m sure we could come up with some kind of deal that would be mutually satisfying to both of us.”
He paused a minute to kiss me, his tongue stroking mine in a way that told me Nick would be the type of man who left no stone unturned when it came to bedding a woman. He’d be a vaginal Magellan.
“Very satisfying,” he said, breaking the kiss.
His breathing was slow and measured, but I could see the pulse drumming in his throat. The blue of his eyes had darkened to the color of a stormy sky, and I could feel him hard and ready against me.
“I think I need to go now,” I said, backing into the open car door until I fell into the driver’s seat. I could barely remember my name, much less about my plan to find a new apartment. If I didn’t get out of here soon, I’d be renting Nick’s empty side of the bed after all.
“Chicken.”
“You bet.”
I started the car and pulled out of my parking space while Nick gave me a smile that had all my lady parts dusting off the cobwebs and primping in front of a mirror. It had been a while since I’d had a lover, and I hoped I could even remember what to do. Staying away from him would certainly keep me from a potentially embarrassing situation. Or maybe I could just get him drunk first. There was nothing quite as daunting as going to bed with someone for the first time. Not that I wasn’t willing to try.
CHAPTER FOUR
It turns out Savannah is an expensive place to live.
By the time I got back to the agency, I was glistening—because southern women don’t sweat—and I was wondering where all the decent slumlords were in the world, because it sure as hell wasn’t here.
I’d walked through some of the most hideous excuses for safe lodging I’d ever seen—which was saying a lot considering my previous apartment building—and the prices for rent were sky high. I’d also been propositioned twice and pinched on the ass by a man who had fur coats growing from his armpits and a piece of spinach stuck between his two front teeth.
At least I hoped it was spinach.
When I entered the front door of the agency, Lucy Kim stared at me as if she expected the plagues to follow me in, which in all fairness, I probably deserved. But to me, a little garbage stink wasn’t quite on par with being devoured by locusts.
“Morning, Lucy.”
Lucy never bothered with unnecessary conversation. She was the strong, silent type, and she jerked her thumb toward the door telling me to go on in to Kate’s office while she continued typing away on her computer.
“Always nice talking to you,” I said as I headed to the inner offices.
I stopped halfway down the hallway and felt the sudden urge to kick Jimmy Royal square in his baby maker. Jimmy was an ex-cop like Kate who’d only put in a few years on the force because he’d gotten tired of all the political bullshit and red tape. He was second in command here, and normally he was a decent guy. Except he lived to torment me. If we’d been in grade school I would’ve thought he had a crush on me, but he was happily married with a couple of kids, so I knew that wasn’t it.
Cops were a strange breed, with a sense of humor that took some getting used to. It’s why so many of them ended up divorced. They were kind of high maintenance on a personal level, but since I’d been around cops since the womb, I was used to the oddities.
“Jimmy Royal,” I yelled through his office door after I’d twisted the knob to find it locked. “You get out here and take this sign down.”
There was a chalkboard hanging on a nail just outside his door that said:
It’s been 0 days since Addison Holmes had an accident
Jimmy had been putting the board up since I’d started working for Kate, and I even got up to seventeen days once. The board was like a game for Jimmy, and we’d fallen into a pattern. He kept hanging it in different places all over the agency so there was a better chance for everyone to see it, I’d bitch about it as soon as I found where he’d hung it, and then he’d take it down and move it somewhere else.
Whiskey Sour (Romantic Mystery/Comedy) Book 2 (Addison Holmes Mysteries) Page 5