by Jillian Neal
“Yeah. I think her name is Edith. I thought she was just drunk.”
“She was tipsy but not drunk enough to have done that to her eyes. Edith said something about Vicky giving her two pills. Made me curious how often they share pills. Like I said, I have precious little proof of anything. Then, it hit me.”
“What hit you?” she scooted closer.
“I love you my little impatient princess,” I teased her.
“Would you just tell me what hit you before I do?”
“You’re adorable when you threaten me,” I continued to buy myself more time.
“Griff!”
“Fine. When Edith was pinching all of our asses, she wasn’t just indulging in sexual harassment.”
“What was she doing then?”
“She was making grabs at our wallets.”
“Are you sure?” she gasped. “We were all standing there. If she’d stolen one of your wallets, everyone would have seen her.”
“Hence the pills. Whatever meds Victoria is handing out, Edith took too much. As fucking nuts as they all are I’m betting she doesn’t go around acting quite that insane on a regular basis.”
“Oh my…fuck.” She slumped back against the sofa. Defeat seemed to settle on her cruelly, and I couldn’t stand it.
“I don’t want you to blame yourself for any of this,” I gestured back toward the three-ring circus in the ballroom. “And I know you’re going to.”
“Griff, someone tried to steal your wallet, and someone else is killing off her husbands. This is a major clusterfuck and it is my fault we’re involved in it.”
“Stop it,” I summoned my best soothing tone and guided her into my arms. “None of this is your fault. If I can catch these broads, doing whatever it is they’re doing, they’ll be exchanging their sequins for orange jumpsuits. I think that plum wine guy is in on it.”
“Did you hear what he said when we were leaving? He said they owed him a check.”
“I know. I’m just not sure if they owe him a check for pedaling wine at this thing or if they offered to split the money from the credit cards I’m betting he skimmed tonight.”
“Why would they have hired someone to serve wine at an event hosted by another organization? Obviously, he knew he was skimming credit card numbers.”
“Agreed but never get set on one outcome or one bad guy. Every possibility must remain in our sites if we’re going to figure all of this out. I don’t like to state things with any certainty until I know for sure.”
25
Hannah
Of course that’s what he would say. He knew what he was doing. Bracing my elbows on my knees, I let my head fall into my hands to keep from looking at him. All of my stupid scheming trying to give us a real chance and a vacation, and he was going to spend it catching criminals.
Why couldn’t one of my stupid plans ever work out? The realization of everything he’d explained sank through me like I’d submerged myself in icy water. Chill bumps charged down my bare arms. “If that awful woman kills men, what about you? What if she tries to…hurt you?” I had no idea why he was so worried about me. She didn’t kill women. “And what about those other guys?”
“I’m not sure that’s what she does. And we’ll all be fine, sweetheart. She would only want to kill any of us if she stood to profit from it. I haven’t signed over any life insurance policies lately. She chose most of us because we were among the highest ranking soldiers at the auction. Theoretically, we have the most money. Higher credit card limits. Shit like that. Not sure why they chose Watson. He’s only a lieutenant. He can’t be making that much.”
“Except that his family is the Watson family of Wally Watson Chicken Company. They’re in all of the grocery stores. They have those commercials with the people dressed up as a mother chicken, and a dad chicken, and then chickadees, only the chickadees are actually taller than the mom and dad. They sing and cluck around about how chickens from the Watsons are the tastiest. I bet they make tons of money.” I recounted what the anesthesiologist had told me about Mike when we chatted.
“You are fucking brilliant.” Griff grinned.
“That girl that thinks he’s cute told me that. I didn’t come up with it on my own or anything. The commercial is cringe-y, but clearly someone in that family has enough sense to run a national chicken supply company.”
“Doesn’t matter who told you. At least it makes sense. Maybe brain power skips a generation in his family or something, but if they make a shit ton of money in chicken why did he join up?”
“According to the Bethany, his father makes all of them serve before they can start drawing from the vast family accounts.”
“We’re going to do some reconnaissance tomorrow night during dinner. I’ll catch the cock sock knitter and her cohorts, and we’ll have our week. It’s just a thing.”
“Don’t give me your ‘it’s just a thing’ thing. You and Smith say that before you have to go do something ridiculously dangerous, and I’m already about to throw up.” Still trying to think through a haze of panic in my head, I suddenly realized what he’d just said. “Wait. You said we’re going to do some reconnaissance. You’re actually going to let me help you do this?” This wasn’t exactly how’d I wanted to spend a week in Vegas, but at least we’d be together.
“Of course. I need some help. How good are you at CQB?” He laughed, but he’d clearly forgotten who my father was. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe despite every disastrous thing that had happened I was still wearing him down.
I cocked my left eyebrow. “Funny. But I’m actually quite accomplished at close quarters battles. I can clear a room like any good soldier.”
“Damn, baby, you are the most perfect woman in the world.”
I rolled my eyes. “So, that’s why that Watson guy said you were going to be late to dinner.”
“I swear that guy’s got diarrhea of the mouth and constipation of the ideas. I’m gonna end up duct taping him in a closet so he can’t fuck up this mission.”
A mission. Yep. That’s what this was going to become. Not a vacation. Not a rekindling of a lifetime love. Not a recognition that we were meant to be and that my family ultimately wanted both of us to be happy. It was just a mission. If I clenched my jaw any harder, my teeth were going to disintegrate so I unhinged my mouth. “You still haven’t explained the chair or why you covered my mouth.”
“Right. Sorry. The chair is me being insanely overprotective of you. I covered your mouth because they’re looking for personal information. If you tell them how old you are, they have the year you were born at the very least. With a birthday and a credit card from you, they could do some serious damage. It wouldn’t take many internet searches to find out all about my baby. She’s famous in case you haven’t noticed.”
“I am not famous.” I shook my head. “I’m just a designer.”
“A designer who’s been in a dozen design magazines recently including Forbes. I don’t even want them to know your name if we can help it.”
“But…” Something about my whole exchange with the women had been weird. I knew it, but until he’d said that, it hadn’t occurred to me. “They already knew my name. Victoria kept referring to me as Ms. Hagen, but I’ve never met her before. I wasn’t introduced at the auction.”
His jaw tensed right along with my chest. But it wasn’t until he popped the knuckles on his right hand that I started to panic. “I had a feeling they might know who you are. I will keep you safe I just need you to be extremely careful about what you say and who you say it to.”
“I can do that.” I reviewed everything I’d said to the three witches that night. “She said I must be a Pisces because I’m too sweet for my own good.”
“Did you tell them your sign?” This time it wasn’t the even tone of his voice or the way he bit at the side of his mouth that sucker punched me. It was the panic in his eyes.
“No. Edith interrupted me and knocked her cigarette ashes in my champagne glass. Even V
ictoria looked at her like she was disgusted.”
Griff scowled and shook his head. “Bet she wasn’t disgusted about the ashes. Bet she was furious she never got an answer out of you. A birth month and then year would’ve been like handing over a Platinum card, but good old Edith and her pills foiled her plan.”
I grinned at his expression. I could adapt and still accomplish all of my goals. I had to. “Okay, I’ll play Daphne to your Fred, but when we catch them I totally get to say ‘You would’ve gotten away with it if it weren’t for my big badass Beret.’ Deal?”
That did it. All of his hardened edges softened with his laughter. “You got it, baby doll. Now, if you’re sure you don’t want to stay here instead, let’s get you to my suite. I still have plans for you tonight, Daphne.”
“Ooh, you could use that super manly orange ascot to tie me up.” I giggled mostly for purposes of making him believe I wasn’t completely freaked out.
“You are aware you’re killing me, right?”
“You look perfectly healthy to me, Sergeant.”
“Yeah, keep calling me that and I won’t survive until morning. Now, come on. Let’s get you moved into my suite.”
I eased off of the couch and rededicated myself to the goals for this week. “Moving into your life was the whole reason for doing all of this, Griff. I’m sorry it went off the rails.”
A quick wince tensed his face when he stood. Reaching, I centered my right hand over his hip bone and rubbed. His eyes closed and a quick, relieved sigh escaped his mouth. But he only allowed himself the care for a split second before he took my hand in his own. “Let’s go.”
“I could do more of that in your suite.”
“I’m fine, baby. Let me take care of you.”
I trapped my irritated sigh behind my lips. Chunk by chunk, I reminded myself as I marched to the bathroom and threw makeup and curling irons into my toiletry bag.
My calves felt like cinderblocks after wearing those stupid heels all night, so I kicked them off and slipped my feet into the paint covered kicks I’d worn earlier. The suites were all on the same floor, so we weren’t going far.
Grinning at my change of footwear, Griff grabbed the heels and stowed them under his arm. He gripped the handles of all three of my suitcases and headed toward the door while I slung my handbag over my arm.
I winced when the corner of my sketchpad collided with my elbow the precise location that stupid wine guy had bumped into me. “Oh my God!” I gasped. “Wine guy!” My purse slipped off my shoulder as I dug into the pocket on the dress.
“What?” Griff had lifted the Henredon chair and was restoring it to its former location.
“He’s in on whatever they’re doing. They already knew my name. They must’ve told him to try to get me to buy a glass. When I didn’t, he kept running into me. I had my license and a credit card in the pocket of my dress. I didn’t want to bring a handbag. The pocket was the whole reason I bought this dress.” Frantically, I dug farther into the entirely empty pocket. My heart located a new residence somewhere near my throat. Finally, I turned the tiny pocket completely inside out. Nothing. “They’re not here. I have to call American Express. How do I get a new license? We have to call the police. They probably still have it on them.”
“Okay, deep breaths for me. When he bumped into you, nothing fell out of your pocket. Come on. Before we call the cops, we have to check something.” He flung open the door and marched out into the corridor.
26
Griff
There was an all too familiar tightening in my gut that served as a reminder that it had never lied to me. I knew before my boots had ever set down on the hot Vegas cement that there was going to be trouble. But I had been put on this earth to protect my baby, and dammit, that’s exactly what I was going to do.
Fred offered us a kind grin when we reached my room on the opposite end of the corridor. “I take it you’ll be moving in for the week, Ms. Hagen?”
“Uh…” Hannah had her hand stuck down her handbag. She was playing with that bag I’d managed to discreetly talk Smith into sending her from Brazil. I knew what she was doing, but to the unknowing eye it probably did look a little odd. “Yes,” she finally managed.
“Everything okay?” Fred asked.
“She can’t find her cell phone,” I explained as I eased by Fred and opened the door with my own keycard.
Whisking her inside, I dropped her suitcases in the entryway. My hip protested when I leaned forward and dug into the couch cushions.
“What are you doing?” She set the handbag down and turned on one of the lamps.
Breath rushed back into my lungs when my fingers brushed over the rounded corner of a card. I grabbed the Amex. Her license had fallen nearby. Breathing through the pain of standing, I held up the cards.
Clutching them in one hand, her other flew to her chest in relief. “I have never been so thankful for having rough sex with you, and I was pretty damned thankful after it happened.”
If she kept saying shit like that, I was likely to bend her over the arm of the sofa again. “Glad to have been of service, baby.”
“Should we lock our stuff up in the safe? If we go out, we can charge stuff to our rooms. We don’t have to carry around our wallets. That’s how all of the nicer hotels on The Strip work.”
“That’s good to know, but hotel safes are the easiest to break into, sweetness. But that gives me an idea. Do you have a compact thing? Something with powder or that stuff you put on your cheeks?”
Giving me that sweet grin that managed to both set me at ease and enliven me all at the same time, she dug back in her bag and produced a powder compact. “What are you going to do?”
“Impress you, hopefully.” I gave her both a cocked eyebrow and a cocky smirk.
“Well, you are extremely impressive.”
“I live to serve, baby. Come with me. Let’s see about our safe. Might save us time tomorrow night. If the Demons Three are stealing credit cards they have to be storing them somewhere in their suite.”
She followed me into the bedroom closet. I flipped on the light and studied the safe. It was a standard Safelock with a keypad. If the average person knew how insanely easy these things were to open, they’d never leave anything worth more than dust in one. Hotel safes generally allowed the guests to set their own code. However, there was always a master code for the hotel staff that would work on all the safes in the building. Guests notoriously put stuff in the safe and then promptly forgot their own code meaning the staff had to help them get back in. And the previous codes were erased after each stay using the same master code to reset the safe.
To make sure the damn thing even worked in the first place, I set the safe with a one, two, three, four code. The safe opened. I slammed it shut and pressed lock.
Constantly aware of Hannah’s presence, I turned back and indulged my lips in a quick kiss on the soft skin of her cheek. She grinned. “Are you stalling, Sergeant? I thought you had skills,” she teased.
“Are you doubting my skills, honey? ’Cause if you are, that hurts. Not gonna lie.”
That giggle of hers could bring about world peace. “Never,” she assured me.
“Stand back and watch me work. Prepare to be amazed. I’ll take appreciation in the form of applause, your undying affection, and blow jobs.”
She waggled her eyebrows. “I can do all three.”
“Good. You ready?” I flipped open the compact, held it close to the keypad, and huffed enough breath to make a slight cloud of powder. Turning my face away quickly to keep my breaths from ruining the effect, I waited on the dust to settle. “Seriously?” I shook my head. Powdered fingerprints were on the four buttons of the code I’d just set and only one other number. “Makes me cranky when they make it this damn easy.”
Hannah shook her head at me. I hit the nine key four times and the fucking thing sprung open. Amateurs.
“Wow.”
Well, at least my baby was impressed. That w
as something. “Never put your shit in a hotel safe. They’re ridiculous.”
“Not everyone has your lock picking and safe cracking skills though.”
“Still. The safest place to keep things you don’t want stolen is on your person. You just have to keep your head about you. You know how many people probably get pick-pocketed here while they’re pointing up at the Eiffel Tower in awe standing on the viewing deck?”
She toed out of her sneakers and spun around. “Will you unzip me?”
“Anytime.” I jerked the zipper down.
Once again it hit the floor and then she spun back to stare me down. “Holy fuck, you’re beautiful.” My eyes drank her in. Her long blonde hair teased at the swells of her breasts, occasionally obscuring her soft pink nipples. Frustration mounted in my chest. Reaching, I ran my fingertips in the slight shadows under the swells of her tits, loving the way she shivered at my touch.
Her eyes were somehow eager and questioning at the same time. My fingers scraped lower on a downward trek across the soft plain of her abdomen and the bare rise of her mound. “So fucking gorgeous.”
When her tongue darted over her lips, my eyes locked there. She was the only drug I would ever require for survival. I ordered myself to slow it down. She wasn’t a fucking conquest despite the number of times that day I’d treated her as such. Cradling her face in my hand, I let my thumb tenderly memorize the swells of her lips before I allowed my tongue a taste.
Her long eyelashes made a slow blink as she studied me. “Is it bad if I don’t want to think about thieves and safes and everything else anymore?” she whispered.
“No, baby. The whole fucked up world will be out there tomorrow.” She needed to forget, needed to be rescued from the insanity of our situation. Search and rescue happened to be another one of my specialties. “Tonight, it can wait outside the damned door.”
That did it. She looped her arms over my shoulders as I drew her closer using the firm globes of her ass. The patience I was trying so fucking hard to possess went up in flames. I widened my stance and took her lips with a greedy claim. God, I needed this kiss to make promises I’d never be able to keep.