Finders Keepers

by Shirl Henke

  “Yeah,” he muttered, sliding her jeans over the curve of her hips with deft hands. “Only this time, Sammie baby, no cuffs.”

  Hadn’t she wondered how it would be if he could use those wonderful big hands? Now she was finding out. He’d read her mind! Reality was even better than imagination. She unzipped his fly and shoved his slacks to the floor. They kicked their pants away and began moving slowly toward the bathroom door, kissing and caressing eagerly.

  “This doesn’t look like it came from Leather and Lace,” he whispered hoarsely as he slipped his fingers into a tiny triangle of silk that served as her panties.

  She wasn’t coherent enough to tell him she ordered sexy underwear on the Internet at discount prices. “Didn’t,” came out in a breathless murmur as she yanked his briefs off while one of his large hands cupped her. Oh, heaven! She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

  He had intended to make it into the shower, but when she jumped on him like a hungry lioness on a wildebeest, he lost his balance and they tumbled backward onto the queen-size bed. This time he was determined to come out on top.

  When he slid her panties down, Sam had not the slightest interest in protesting. In fact, feeling the pressure of his erection only added to her excitement. She let him roll her under him, then guided him home as if they’d been made to do this together…always.

  Amazing how much easier this is without my hands cuffed behind my back…. That was Matt’s last coherent thought for quite a while.

  Only after the earth, moon and all the stars erupted, spinning her wildly into bliss, did Sam even try to think.

  She thought about the shower.

  As he pressed her into the mattress, she held him tightly, her arms and legs locked around him in a grip tighter than any Leather and Lace straitjacket. When she could finally breathe enough to speak, she whispered, “We’re kinda sweaty, you think?” She could feel the rumble of his chuckle as he rolled off her.

  Matt pulled her up with him. “Yeah, we are. Let’s see what we can do about it, hmm.”

  He was really good with a bar of soap, too. A woman could get used to this kind of lovemaking. Downright habit-forming, Sam thought as they climbed back into the rumpled bed, leaving a trail of damp towels and scattered clothes decorating the small room. He was much bigger than her but she fit perfectly spooned with her back to that wonderful broad chest. He nuzzled her neck and fell instantly to sleep.

  Once again Sam Ballanger lay awake, feeling guilty. He wasn’t her patient anymore, but she had deceived him and knew he’d be angry about it. How angry? She wasn’t sure. But that was the only thing she was sure of as a thought haunted her: He’s out of your league. In the Ivy League. With a fat trust fund.

  But no matter how hard she tried to convince herself that they had no future together, she couldn’t give up on the idea that a poor kid from south Boston just might make the cut. Uncle Dec always said the Ballangers were fighters. Sam intended to fight as hard as she could for every minute she could have with Matthew Granger.

  Chapter 11

  They awakened just after daylight to the screech of the semi shifting into second gear. Sam had briefly noted the cab when they’d arrived, an inferior rig to her uncle’s, parked just down from them on the big lot. Matt planted a quick kiss on her neck, then rolled to the edge of the bed and sat up, running his fingers through his hair.

  “God, I need coffee,” he muttered.

  “Well, good morning to you, too,” she said, pulling the sheet up to her shoulder as she propped her head up on her hand, laying on her side. Not exactly romantic.

  But then he turned around and gave her a grin that melted her heart like butter in a microwave. “Sorry, it’s just that I hate mornings. And that grinding racket outside is about as soothing as a dentist’s drill.”

  “He’s in fifth gear now. Transmission needs an overhaul,” she said as the sound of the semi rumbled by and melded into rush hour traffic.

  Matt gave her a quizzical look. “How the hell could you tell that?” Lord, she looked adorable, tousled and as all-American as a cheerleader. Quite a switch from the “trained health-care professional” who’d abducted him at gunpoint twice.

  “My uncle Declan is an over-the-road trucker. I used to spell him on long trips back when I was in high school and college. But I guess you guys on Beacon Hill wouldn’t know about anything bigger than a Beamer,” she added defensively.

  Matt threw up his hands, scooting back on the bed beside her. “As a matter of fact, when I was in the army I had a pal named Rizzo who could make a ten-year-old junker purr like a Porsche. I learned how to change the oil in my Crown Vic.”

  “You oughta, with a dipstick that size,” she quipped, trying for a lighter tone. No sense wearing her heart on her sleeve—if she had a sleeve instead of lying there naked beneath one thin sheet.

  He yanked it back and lay beside her, pulling her into his arms. “Then I should check your oil, you think?”

  She wasn’t thinking at all when she replied, “Yeah. Oh, yeah!”

  That was when their wake-up call came, a sharp ugly series of brrings from the phone on the laminated nightstand beside the bed. Matt smothered an oath and knocked it from its cradle, then returned to what he’d been doing.

  “They’ll hear us,” she murmured.

  “Those things are automated,” he said. “Nobody there.”

  But the spell was broken. All the past night’s insecurities and guilt nagged at her. “We really have to hit the road for Miami, Matt.”

  Thinking of Tess and Steve, he sighed in resignation. “Much as it pains me to admit it, Samantha, darling, you’re right.”

  As if to reinforce his resolve, his cell beeped. He rolled off the bed and searched in the dim light trickling from behind the drawn blinds until he found his pants and fished the cell from the clip on the belt. “Granger,” he said.

  “I’m sorry to call so early in the morning, Mr. Granger,” Jenny said nervously.

  Matt recognized her voice immediately. “Where’s Tess? Steve? Is anything wrong?”

  “We’re on the beach at—”

  “Don’t tell me your location,” he interrupted quickly before the idiot woman could blurt out information that might get the whole family killed. “Just tell me what’s happened,” he added quickly in what he hoped was a soothing tone.

  “Oh, yes, I forgot. This might not be a safe call. I read that in one of—”

  “What’s happened to your sister?” he asked, barely masking his impatience.

  “Steve ran away—early this morning…”

  Sergeant William Patowski was not having a good day. Not even ten in the morning and all hell had broken loose. “Pat” had red hair going gray, what was left of it, a slight paunch tugging at world-weary shoulders and a cynical face with pale blue ice chips for eyes. The homicide detective slammed the door of his dark blue Chevy and walked toward a cluster of green-striped white Miami-Dade police cars parked in front of a small marina on North Bayshore Drive just east of Biscayne Shores Park.

  The sky was clearing after an early morning drizzle common in south Florida. A brisk breeze whipped his ketchup-stained tie away from the rumpled suit jacket he never buttoned. He’d eaten a rushed breakfast in a diner at dawn after pulling an all-nighter, something his ex-wife had never gotten used to. The uniforms were holding back civilian gawkers and a couple of TV news cameramen across the street—for the moment.

  “We got two floaters, Sarge,” an old officer named Arnold said the way most guys might announce they’d fished a quarter out of a crack in the sidewalk.

  “ID?” Pat asked, knowing already that they were Russian Mafia, but which side?

  “Two of Pribluda’s guys. Our Mikhail’s being a very naughty boy these days. Must be real pissed the Brighton Beach crowd offed his kid.”

  “How’d they die?” Pat asked.

  “M.E. just got here. Nothing official but we saw what was left of them. Pretty ugly.”

>   “Ain’t it always with a mob turf war,” Pat said impatiently, knowing an officer with Arnold’s experience could describe the M.O. as accurately if not as technically as an M.E.

  “Back of their heads blown off, close range, but not before some real creative snipping with a bolt cutter. ‘Ace is the place’ as the helpful hardware salesman says. Oh, their kneecaps were worked over real good, too, and—”

  “That’s enough,” Pat interrupted him. “Mikhail’s sending a message to New York to get out of his territory.”

  “You think Pribluda’ll pull out?”

  “You believe in the tooth fairy?” the sergeant countered. Then he saw Special Agent Inez Gomez striding across the street toward them. At least this time he’d beaten her to the scene. That was something. “Who found the bodies?” he asked Arnold.

  “Guy down there on the Sea Ray. Cleaning up his boat when he looks over the side and sees one of the poor suckers bobbing under the pier. Just as he’s dialing 911 the second stiff washes out and he really freaks. Took the operator a few minutes to calm him down, figure what the hell was going on.”

  Gomez was an attractive woman, tall with smooth olive skin and a deceptively inviting smile that never reached her cop’s eyes. Before she got halfway across the street, one of the reporters slipped under the barrier and stuck a microphone in her face. Pat smiled inwardly. Let her handle it. She was good at damage control. He only hoped none of the reporters put these killings together with two others yesterday—or Alexi Renkov’s explosive demise.

  Last night there had been another murder near one of Renkov’s strip joints in South Beach and another that afternoon in the Grove. Both victims had been part of the defunct Nikolai Benko’s organization. Neither murder was in Pat’s jurisdiction but he was cooperating with the Beach and Miami PDs. And the FBI. What nobody down here wanted was for the CIA to become involved. Or Mikhail Renkov would never spend a day in jail.

  The turf war between Renkov and Pribluda would soon make national headlines—the very thing he and Gomez were trying desperately to prevent before they made their case. Then he’d get to collar Mikhail and the Bureau could bust up the two competing Russian mobs with operations ranging from Miami to New York. But none of that would happen unless they moved fast.

  He waited as Special Agent Gomez smoothly ditched the newshounds and approached him, nodding a curt good morning. “You look like hell, Sergeant. Sleep in that suit?”

  “I wish. Didn’t get to sleep at all.” He filled her in on last night’s killings, then asked, “Anything on the wires yet?”

  “Renkov’s playing real coy. Like he knows he’s being bugged. Or, he’s just smart and never talks on a phone. Pribluda’s boys in Little Odessa aren’t quite so clever. We just found out last night that they have a mole here in Miami, buried deep in Renkov’s organization.”

  Patowksi whistled. “Who?”

  “Don’t know that yet, but whoever it is just spilled Renkov’s CIA connection to Pribluda. The Brighton Beach crowd isn’t exactly pleased about a fellow countryman reporting illegal nuke sales to the Company.”

  “Cuts into their business,” Pat said with a grunt.

  “Big-time,” she replied. “That’s why the Company covers for Mikhail, the SOB.”

  “If we can nab that mole, we’ll be able to squeeze info on both mobs from him.”

  Gomez changed the subject abruptly. She did that a lot. Pissed Pat off. “Your ex-cop friend still have that nosy reporter on ice?”

  “She’s handling him okay,” he said, hoping like hell it was true.

  “She find out if he knows where Tess Renkov is hiding? We could learn a lot from her, I’d bet anything on it.”

  “So would I, but from what Sam’s told me, the widow and her son have gone into hiding. Not even Granger knows where they are now, but he’s in contact with her by cell.”

  “Tell her to get me some numbers. We can track the calls and pinpoint her location.”

  There were days when you were the dog and days when you were the hydrant. Right then Patowski felt like a dirty red hydrant with its paint peeling off…which made Gomez the dog. He smiled inwardly at that slight comfort as they walked down the pier to the M.E., who was kneeling beside the bloody remains of two bodies. Pat wondered if they’d wasted a lot of time and trouble bringing Sam Ballanger in on this. The last case she worked with him had nearly cost him his pension. It had gotten her dismissed from the force.

  He muttered beneath his breath, “Now she’s a hotshot P.I. The only one who’ll come out ahead on this gig, dammit.”

  “Tess is looking for Steve now,” Jenny said now that Matt had calmed her down enough so she was quasi-coherent. “We just discovered he was missing when the girls got up. He always plays with them and they couldn’t find him anyplace. He must’ve slipped away in the middle of the night or near dawn.”

  Matt’s gut clenched. “Were there any signs of a struggle—like someone kidnapped him?”

  “No. We have a small cottage. He was in the same bedroom with his mother, sleeping on a rollaway. He even packed a few things, you know, his favorite T-shirt, a pocketknife his dad gave him, stuff like that, sort of like he’d been planning to run away, then he must have taken off during the night after everyone else was asleep. He’s been acting kind of strange—upset, you know, ever since he listened to the TV news the day we got here.”

  “What was it—the part about his mother being wanted for questioning in his father’s death?”

  “No, it was when Lori Barrington—you know that really smart newscaster from Miami, the one everybody says had plastic surgery?—well anyway, she tried to interview that bimbo wife of Mikhail’s about the death of her stepson.”

  “And Steve reacted badly to Nancy Renkov?” Matt said, trying to focus Jenny. A hopeless task.

  “We didn’t even know he was watching. Thought he was out on the beach playing with Mellie and Tiff. This place has—”

  “Did he hear about his mother being wanted or just the part about Nancy?” Matt asked, clenching the cell almost tight enough to crush it.

  “We didn’t see, but I don’t think he heard what the police sergeant, Patterson or some Polish name like that, said about Tess. She had already explained the reasons we were hiding to him and he seemed to take it okay. He knows his mother would never kill anybody, even a rat like Alexi. But we caught him watching the TV from the doorway because he gasped when Nancy shoved her way past the news crew. Some of Mikhail’s nasty entourage were with her and she was really rude.”

  Sam listened in as best she could while the flaky woman explained about the runaway boy. How close would a kid be to his grandfather’s trophy wife, a woman the same age as his own mother? It didn’t make sense to Sam. She’d make book Nancykins never asked Steve to call her grandma. The boy probably didn’t even like old Mikhail all that much. She scribbled her thoughts on the motel notepad for Matt to read as he quizzed Jenny.

  Matt’s mind raced as he tried to figure a way to find Steve before his grandfather got his grubby hands on the innocent boy…or something worse happened. “We’ll have to come back,” he started to say when a loud commotion from the other end of the line cut him off.

  Sam could hear Mellie and Tiff squealing Steve’s name. “Tess must’ve found him,” she said with great relief. The thought of a missing child always gave her nightmares. She’d seen too much since the days when she was a cop.

  After a moment’s pandemonium on the other end of the line, Tess came on, her voice obviously tight with stress. “Yes, Matt, Steve’s here with me. I found him hiding in a deserted shack about a mile down the beach. We’re in a pretty isolated area, so I was lucky….”

  Matt signed off after a moment. “She’s got to get the boy calmed down and then she’ll call us back. She knows something she doesn’t want to talk about in front of her sister or the kids.”

  “Then he’s okay?”

  “Seems so, but I didn’t like what she hinted at.”

/>   “You mean he knows something ugly about Grandpa and his sweetie of a wife?”

  Matt nodded. “Mikhail picked her out of one of his strip clubs. Nancy Lee Dobson, formerly of Twin Pines, Oklahoma. She was working as one of his high-priced call girls, on special assignment to the boss whenever he wanted her. Somehow, she got the tough old Ruskie to marry her. I’ve been trying to dig up a reason he’d do it, but so far, bobkes.”

  “How long since his first wife died?”

  Matt laughed without humor. “About six years ago, back in Russia. He left her behind and took Alexi to America when he defected. Sent her a pittance to live on. Probably starved to death.”

  “You are thorough,” Sam said, impressed with his investigative skills. Reporters and cops had to do much of the same kind of legwork.

  He studied her as he gathered up scattered clothes and dressed. “I vote we catch a quick bite while we’re waiting for Tess to call back. Then we have to make some big decisions.”

  “We passed a McDonald’s back a few blocks. I could go for a couple of Egg McMuffins.”

  Tess’s call came just as they approached the drive-through. Sam placed their orders while Matt spoke on the cell. By the time she’d driven past the order window, paid and deposited the hot food on the console between them, he was done and he looked grim.

  “So, what gives? Is Steve okay?”

  “He’s physically all right, but he saw something pretty ugly. That’s why he ran away.”

  All thoughts of food deserted her as she pulled away from the drive-through. “Talk to me, Matt. What happened to set the kid off?”

  “Steve used to spend afternoons now and then at his grandfather’s place in Aventura,” Matt explained while Sam pulled into an empty parking space on the lot and fished out the two tall coffees, handing one to him.

  “Pretty fancy digs. Crime pays,” she said. The small municipality was one of the most exclusive places to live in south Florida.