By the time she hit the bottom step, a strong hand grasped her under the elbow.
She looked up into Jesse’s eyes. Those damned, devastating eyes. “I’m fine.”
“You’re limping.”
“I’ve been limping for three days. I’ve managed so far.”
“Don’t be stupid,” he said in a low tone.
Jillian’s back went straight as a telephone pole. “I would extend the same advice, although in your case it doesn’t seem to be a behavioral choice.”
He narrowed his eyes, but then tilted his head toward Mr. Pratt’s house. “You really want to do this in front of an audience? He’s watching out the window.”
Of course he was. Mrs. Franklin probably was, too. “Fine,” she said and accepted his support going down the steps and then back up. When they reached her front door, he let go.
Jillian drew in a deep breath, but not from exertion. She’d been essentially holding hers so that she didn’t have to smell him, all soapy clean and male.
“I was afraid you were going to pass out,” he murmured, and she jerked her head up to meet his gaze. A smile lurked around the corners of his mouth, but quickly faded. “Are you okay?”
It was the same question he’d asked her in the interrogation room, in almost the same tone. And while she was tempted to give him the same smart aleck reply, she found that she lacked the energy to hold onto her anger.
“Mostly,” she said, opting for honesty instead of a platitude. “It’s hard to sleep. Not that being awake is much easier, but…”
She could tell that he understood what she meant. Problems always seemed to double in size when you lay awake in bed at night.
“Brian said you won’t take anything. Not even the prescribed medication.”
She shook her head. “I want to feel like I’m in control of at least one thing right now.”
He glanced away, and then back. “I’m sorry.”
She thought that he was talking about more than her difficulty sleeping. About the fact that he’d lied about his occupation, and then added insult to injury by formally questioning her.
About the whole damn situation.
“Me, too.” Not that she thought she was at fault here, but she was still sorry. Sorry that they hadn’t met under better circumstances, perhaps.
Brian cleared his throat, and Jillian realized that he’d joined them on the porch. “You should go inside,” he said.
Jesse nodded, and then looked back down at Jillian. “There are some things we need to discuss.”
Jillian considered leading him into the parlor, as it conveyed a sort of formality that was probably appropriate under the circumstances – and helped keep the professional distance that he was so determined to maintain. Not that she could blame him.
However, the den was more comfortable, and quite frankly she was more concerned with her own comfort than his professional distance at the moment. Spending several nights in a jail cell would do that, she guessed.
She waved her hand around, indicating that he could sit wherever he liked, and then lowered herself onto the deep leather sofa. She lifted her leg, stretching it out beside her.
When she glanced up, Jesse was watching her with a frown. “What did the doctor say about your knee?”
“That it will probably be stiff and sore for a while. He was right.”
“Do you have a brace?”
“Why do you think I’m wearing these sexy loose pajama pants?”
“It might be a good idea to try heat to relieve the stiffness.”
“Is that medical advice or a pick up line? Sorry,” she said when he gave her a look. “Jail altered me. I’m no longer able to control my inner smartass.”
He stared at her for several more moments before glancing around in a clear bid to change the subject. “Looks like you got the place straightened back up.”
She lost a bit of her sass. “Brian and Katie and Davis had everything back in place by the time I got… out. I wouldn’t have known they’d trashed the place if things in my studio hadn’t been arranged in a way that let me know someone else had handled them. Plus, the bastards broke open my safe to search it for drugs. Thank God they didn’t destroy or take the memory sticks from the wedding. I would have been ruined professionally.” She glanced up. “By the way, I had an email from the mother of the bride.”
“I had no choice but to ask her to confirm that she’d given you the cash as a tip.”
Jillian sighed. “I know. And luckily she’s a lovely woman who’s not prone to leaping to conclusions, so unless I fail to deliver her daughter’s photos, I doubt she’ll post horrible reviews about me on Yelp.” She glanced at Jesse. “I want you to know that I appreciate your tact. And the fact that you also didn’t leap to conclusions.”
“Like I said, that’s something I try to avoid until I have evidence that bears out my conclusion. In this case, the evidence bears out the fact that LSD was present in the mint you consumed. There were traces on the wrapper.”
Jillian sat up. “So that’s proof that I was drugged.”
“Not precisely,” Jesse said. “It’s proof that there was LSD in a mint which you, by your own admission, consumed voluntarily.”
“But I didn’t know –”
Jesse held up a hand to forestall her outraged protest. “I know. That’s your story. And luckily for you, we were able to talk to the waiter who offered you the champagne. When he said he had his eye on you that night, he apparently meant it. He saw the man who came over to talk to you, saw most of that exchange.”
Jillian digested that. “So the nice man with the wife whom he didn’t want to know he’d been drinking… drugged me? Why? How? That bowl of mints was sitting on the table. Anyone could have picked one up and eaten it.”
“According to the staff at the Gingerbread House, those mints were not part of the wedding package. They didn’t place them there.”
“So he drugged the mints, placed the bowl there and then offered me one in the hope that I would eat one? What if I’d refused?”
Jesse shrugged. “Maybe he waits for another opportunity.”
“So you think this was target specific? That he wanted to drug me in particular? For what reason? Is he a sex offender or… who is he? How awful for Matt and Ashley, that one of their guests would do something so terrible. Did you arrest him?”
Jesse was quiet for several moments. “Are you finished yet?”
“Finished with what?”
“Asking questions that paint a nice, neat scenario in which the fact that you were likely drugged bears no relevance to the rest of this case.”
Jillian opened her mouth to protest again, and then realized that was exactly what she was doing. She slumped back against the sofa.
“Was he even a wedding guest?”
“Not that anyone recalls inviting, based on his description. Seems he slipped in, did his thing, slipped out, with no one the wiser.”
“Surely you can identify him somehow, though. Security cameras? Or fingerprints on the wrapper?”
“The only fingerprints on the wrapper were yours. And we’re working on it.”
Jillian glanced at the cold hearth, and suddenly longed for a fire. She pulled the throw on the back of the sofa over her shoulders. “I don’t understand,” she finally said. “A friend of Mike’s…”
Her voice trailed off and she looked up at Jesse. He leaned forward in his chair. “Jillian. I’ve spoken with Mike McGrath. I really don’t think he’s behind this.”
“You mean you went to…”
“The state penitentiary. Yeah. And while there’s certainly no love lost on his part for you, I don’t think he has the resources, the clout or even the brains to plot something this elaborate. Getting one of his buddies to pull you over, drop a dime bag in your car? Maybe. Getting someone to bust out the windows on your car? Maybe that, too.”
“You think that was part of… whatever this is?”
“Possibly. The timing
is certainly interesting. But my point is that this type of psychological warfare – the missing T-shirt, the squirrel in the basket, the drugged mint, messing around with your dolls so that you know someone was in this house – that takes planning and knowledge and a flair for the theatrical. And possibly a deep-seated grudge.”
She swallowed. “Against me.”
“Well, you do seem to be the epi-center.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I. Not yet. But I will. And Jillian.” He waited for her to meet his gaze. “I am going to ask you questions. Maybe tough questions. And I want honest answers. Is that understood?”
“You think I’ve been lying?”
“Not really. But I also don’t know that you’ve been as forthcoming as you could be.”
Jillian threw up her hands. “I don’t know what you want from me. I told you, and those detectives, and Agent Bristol, and Brian, everything that I know. Which, when it comes to drugs or men being murdered or why Detective Gannon had my Christmas lights at his house isn’t very much. I don’t know anything else, okay? I don’t have any answers. And I think that if you’re going to question me, I should call my lawyer.”
“We can do that,” Jesse agreed. “We can set this up formally, either at the Barracks or my office. If that’s what you want.”
Jillian’s shoulders slumped. The last thing she wanted was to go through that again. But she didn’t think it was smart to say anything else without talking to Ainsley.
She looked at Jesse. His expression was calm, stoic. But his eyes…
They reflected all of the turbulence that Jillian felt herself.
“I want to trust you.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “I want you to trust me, too. I want you to trust that I will do my damnedest to find out why this is happening and who’s behind it. To get justice for those who’ve been harmed. But if there’s something you want to tell me that you’re afraid I will use against you… call Ms. Tidwell. I don’t want to do anything to hurt you, Jillian. I’m going to be straight and admit that the thought causes me a lot of anguish. But I will also do my job. To the best of my abilities.”
Jillian believed him. And, if she were being completely honest with herself, admitted that she respected him even more for that integrity. If he’d told her that he would be willing to look the other way, just for her, it would have tarnished something. She’d had too many dealings with people in positions of trust who abused those positions.
It made her fall for Jesse a little bit more.
“What did you want to ask me?”
He looked at her, something warm and possibly triumphant in his eyes. And then he surprised her.
“Who’s Alexei?”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ALEXEI Markov, Jesse thought as he read through the file on his laptop, was a man whose life had gone from shit to golden and back to shit again. Raised in an orphanage until age five – when he’d reportedly begun to show an almost uncanny aptitude for the dance arts – he’d then been sent to live and train in what Jesse thought of as ballet boot camp. He’d risen through the ranks, earned a spot as a principal dancer in a major ballet company, toured Europe, receiving accolades wherever he went.
And then apparently he’d lost his head.
Burnout. Jesse had seen it happen to another superior athlete he’d known, a college friend whose parents had signed him up for swim lessons before he could walk, chauffeured him to five a.m. practices and meets that consumed his weekends, pushing him to be faster and stronger and better, all with an eye toward Olympic gold. Colleges scouted him, scholarships poured in, but his first season on the university swim team was dismal. He missed practice. He showed up hungover to meets. He basically no longer cared. His whole young life had been focused on a singular goal, without any real consideration as to whose goal it happened to be. He’d been pushed and prodded because he’d shown an aptitude. But aptitude didn’t always equal passion. And passion was perhaps the more important ingredient in long-term success.
Alexei Markov, it seemed, suffered the same plight as the guy Jesse’d known in college. He’d grown sick of feeling like his life was not his own. He missed performances. Copped an attitude. Acquired tattoos that appalled his employers and had to be covered with heavy stage makeup. Had brushes with the law for drinking and fighting, and – being considered something of a heartthrob – left a trail of broken female hearts behind.
Hence the title of the Associated Press article included in the file: The Bad Boy of Ballet.
It was one of the few articles in English, and mostly glamorized his rise and fall. Other press clippings had been translated from Russian, and by the photos and gossip indicated that the bad boy of ballet had fallen in with even worse company, becoming bosom buddies with a man named Nikolai Igorevich, whose father Vitaly was reportedly a key figure in Russian organized crime.
Bingo. The puzzle was beginning to take shape. Looking at the dates, descriptions of criminal activity and the notations from Interpol claiming that Igorevich had dropped off their radar around two years ago, it was simply too much coincidence to believe that he – or a faction of his organization – wasn’t now operating in Savannah.
Jesse examined a photo of the younger Igorevich and Markov together at some charity event for the arts that the father held annually, part of his cover as a legitimate businessman and patron of the arts. One of the items they’d auctioned off was a pair of Markov’s ballet shoes.
With that thought in mind, Jesse navigated to the information he had on Vitaly Igorevich. Aside from ballet, the man was also a patron of the theater, taking a particular interest because he had fancied himself an actor in his younger years. Assuming he’d discovered that crime was a hell of a lot more lucrative, he’d changed careers but never quite gotten over the bug.
The theatrical element, as Jesse’d come to think of the crime scenes he’d investigated, began to make a bit more sense.
Jesse frowned, returning to the photo of the other two men and zooming in on the image. Something about Markov seemed familiar. And he didn’t think it was because he’d seen the man’s photo somewhere before, despite the fact that Markov was something of a minor celebrity. Jesse didn’t exactly follow ballet.
Pushing that aside as something to consider later, Jesse continued through the file. Markov’s behavior continued to deteriorate until he quit the ballet, although there was some dispute as to who quit whom. Rumors circulated that he’d been fired, that he was in rehab, in a psych ward, in jail, though there was no record of any of those things. He did, however, go to ground somewhere out of the public eye.
Less than a month later, he was killed in a fiery car crash – reportedly the result of a combination of high rates of speed and intoxication. The dancing world mourned.
Perhaps more relevant to Jesse’s case, two days before Markov’s car crash, Nikolai Igorevich had been shot to death in a law enforcement sting.
A noise outside had Jesse looking up. A light mist fell, creating a cocoon effect, but he knew the usual sounds of the dock. The water lapping against the hull, the start of a motor, the shriek of seagulls, the occasional muffled footsteps as other boaters came and went. But Jesse was docked in the last slot, so people rarely walked down this far.
He sat the laptop aside, pulled off his glasses and listened.
Footsteps on the dock. Stopping beside his boat.
Easing his feet to the floor, Jesse walked barefoot out of the cabin, past the head, toward the door. He’d left a nightlight shining in the galley, but rejected the urge to turn it off as he passed. It might alert whoever was out there that he’d heard them.
The face of the man who’d bumped into him on River Street flashed into his head, followed by another image of what had been left of Losevsky. Not to mention Gannon’s dead, bulging eyes.
Jesse didn’t kid himself about the nature of the organization he was investigating – particularly after reading about some of the cri
mes attributed to Igorevich. Crimes very similar in their horrific nature to what had been done to Miron Losevsky. He also acknowledged the reality that if they felt he was getting too close, they wouldn’t hesitate to take action. Kill him, take his boat out to sea, dump his body overboard. Neat and clean.
Or maybe they’d want to leave a splashier message – no pun intended – since dramatic displays seemed to be their style.
The boat swayed a little, indicating that someone had boarded. Holding his service weapon at the ready, Jesse put his back to the wall beside the door.
The pounding surprised him. Assassins didn’t tend to knock.
Curious more than alarmed now, it nonetheless took Jesse another moment to get his physiological fight response under control.
“Jesse?”
Jesse froze when he recognized the voice. Then cursed under his breath. Making sure the safety was on, Jesse stuck his sidearm in the back of his waistband and covered it with his shirt.
He unlocked the cabin door.
Jillian stood there, shivering in the cold night air, moonlight bouncing off her fair skin and hair – slightly damp from the walk down the dock – so that she looked like a mermaid or a siren having just emerged from the deep.
The description was apt, he considered. Because he was pretty sure she was about to lure him into doing something stupid.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
She stiffened. “I need to talk to you.”
He should send her on her way. Or better yet, call Brian and have him pick her up – maybe lock her in her room while he was at it. Or put her in a damn safe house.
Instead, Jesse pulled her inside and closed the door. He didn’t bother to hide his frustration. “Where’s Brian?”
“He was watching TV when I left. Why?”
“Why?” Jesse rubbed his hand down his face in lieu of throttling her. “Why? Maybe because he’s supposed to be watching you?”
Jillian’s expression turned mutinous. “And he’s been watching me for three days. But I’m not a child, or a dog. Nor am I stupid, so don’t even suggest that I’m not aware that I seem to be a… a target of some sort. I don’t understand it, but I acknowledge it. However, I might be able to understand it if you would tell me what the hell is going on!”
The Southern Comfort Prequel Trilogy Box Set Page 21