Bootscootin' and Cozy Cash Mysteries Boxed Set (Books 1-6)

by Scott, D. D.

  “You don’t look like you slept well,” he said, an uncertainty and sweet innocence flavoring his normally strong-as-an-ox voice.

  Watching his expression continue to fade into a little boy so hoping for approval and acceptance, I quickly decided I’d beat him and his apnea machine if it was the last thing I conquered.

  “I hope my machine isn’t going to bother you,” he shook his head and suddenly took extra interest in the kiwi he was preparing to slip into the blender.

  “No worries, RG. I’ll adjust. I think it’s more jet lag than your machine,” I said, lying my ass off and never thinking for a minute that that wasn’t the right approach.

  I watched as he took a stoic and deep breath, swearing I saw a quiver descend his sexy, bare-naked chest.

  Waking up to that chest was worth the mask imprint on my face. And what I wouldn’t give to be back in bed, cuddled-up with my cheek on that fine slab of muscle.

  Our first night sleeping together had consisted of each of us damn near falling off our sides of the bed. And I sure know, from my side, it wasn’t ‘cause the chemistry wasn’t there and we were thus trying to stay as far away from each other as possible.

  Hell, if truth be told, part of the reason I hadn’t slept was because every damn nerve-ending in me was firing red hot, take-me-now.

  I wondered if it had been the same for him. But before I could think of a way to say something like that, my prince had delivered my first shot of homemade Naked Juice.

  Wishing he was as naked as my juice, I ravished the shot of wholesome goodness, not taking my eyes off him or his goods.

  “Drink up, Plum Puddin’,” he said, seeming pleased I hadn’t wasted time being dainty with my shot glass.

  He took my glass and refilled it straight from the blender’s decanter.

  “We’ve got a big day today. And speaking of which, I’ve got something for you,” he said, bringing a small, elegantly wrapped box to the table and setting it right in the middle of my plate.

  Yeah. The sleep apnea was suddenly sooo not a big deal. I mean c’mon. What girl wouldn’t sleep with a vacuum cleaner if that meant, fresh Naked Juice, made by a half-naked stud, bearing gifts?

  I unwrapped the gorgeous, sparkling silver bow, unable to keep my delight from peeping out from a smile that I could feel growing wider as I peeked inside the lavender tissue filling the small and velvety purple box.

  “Oh my goodness, Roman,” I said, then gasped a bit, forcing air back into my vocal chords. “This is breathtaking.”

  “I thought you’d like it,” he said, sitting down next to me at the table.

  “Like it? I luuuvvv it. But why? Why the gift?”

  He’d given me a platinum and diamond brooch that had to be worth the price of a small home in L.A. And not even small homes were cheap in Tinsel Town.

  Shaped into a magnificent fleur de lis, which was still being cussed and discussed as to whether it represented a lily or iris, and whether or not it had anything to do with the fabulous stories surrounding the Holy Grail, one of my favorite mysteries in life, the piece was simply way beyond stunning.

  Roman swallowed then took my hands in his.

  “This brooch belonged to my great, great grandmother. And now it’s yours,” he said, a sincerity and urgency to his tone I’d never heard.

  As unsettled as I was by this rare artifact and unnerved more that he’d given it to me, it was the quiet strength and determination in his message that had me on the edge of my breakfast seat.

  “But again, Roman. Why? Why are you giving this family heirloom to me? And why now?”

  “This brooch has always brought my family luck and safety. Someday, perhaps, I’ll tell you the stories. But for now, I must ask you to wear this, from now on, at all times. Please don’t question me. Just do as I say. You’ve got to trust me on this,” he said, removing his hands from the tops of mine then taking the brooch out of the box and pinning it, ever so gently, to my pajama top.

  A wee bit over-the-top for pajamas. But I liked over-the-top. So all was good there. But what wasn’t good was Roman’s request for me to trust him.

  “How am I supposed to trust you, RG, when I know hardly nothing about you? Other than you seem to have the connections of a prince whose Vienna city-flat we’re now inhabiting and operating from. And now the jewels to go along with the throne?” I asked while I ran my fingers over the full cuts of brilliant gems now marking my chest, right over my heart.

  “There’s something big I don’t know about you. And to be honest, I don’t know if it’s good or bad. I suspect a combination of both. But for right now, unbeknownst to my head as to why, my heart does trust you,” I said, while even then, after saying the words, my brain was cracking me one with his air hose.

  “I can promise you, Zoey, that your heart will always be safe with me. That you can trust,” he said, the determination in his tone now the fierce, protective bravado I was used to and now comforted once again by.

  “I can promise you, Roman Bellesconi, that I will find out who you are, underneath the U.S. Marshal badge that I’m now even more convinced is just another one of your covers.”

  There. I’d said it. No more beating around the proverbial bushes.

  “Fair enough. Just wear the brooch. That’s all I’m asking of you for now,” he said, an irreverence in his voice that I found rather disconcerting.

  But fine. Have it his way. The brooch will be on. And so will my super-sleuthing as to who is this guy…my make believe boyfriend.

  Chapter Nine

  Super-sleuthing your make believe boyfriend’s past is one thing. Super-sleuthing a subsidiary of Austria’s largest banking group, home to the Russian mob’s money, is another beast entirely.

  Going from a newly, cheap-minted badge carrying P.I. to chasing the mafia—let alone the Russian mafia—was not exactly what I had in mind when I attended P.I. School. But being as I appeared to have a knack for finding bodies, and somehow those bodies linked straight to the mob, apparently that was my new destiny.

  Not that I didn’t suspect several of my Hollywood clientele had mob connections. Hell, Tinsel Town could be ruled by Corleone types for all I knew. Not many legit businesses had the kind of cash those people tossed around like Monopoly money.

  And that kind of thinking reminded me I needed to finish perusing my Guns & Ammo magazine. I had my eye on a Glock 17 Generation 4. And since those pistols offered “No Bells. No Whistles. Just Perfection,” per their ads, and were made right here in Austria, it might be fairly easy to get my hands on one.

  But pistol bells and whistles aside, and with my Bellesconi Brooch in place on the lapel of my latest Chanel suit, me and my fave Thug Guard Roman—who’d I’d decided to call TG for Thug Guard instead of RG—were busy digging for pay dirt in what was once the conference room of Bank MediKohn, the bank founded by Sonja Medici right when Bernie McCall’s Ponzi-scheme took a European and Russian Royalty twist.

  Coincidence?

  TG and I certainly didn’t think so. And we were bankin’ on proving it.

  I laughed at my own joke, figuring none of the other stuffed shirts in the room would think it was very fun at all.

  I watched TG while he sifted through the thousands of documents now spread-out in front of us on the conference room table, another piece of furniture that made most royalty look like peasants from the fiefdoms they used to rule.

  The lifestyle lived by the people in McCall’s Cozy Cash worlds was unfathomable. Even coming from a career in Tinsel Town styling and design, my clients were poor compared to Bernie’s associates and accomplices.

  Rumor had it, Sonja founded this bank in 1994 then incorporated it in 2003, making herself the president and majority stakeholder. She held seventy-five percent and sold the other twenty-five percent to Bank Austria. Which we had now discovered the documentation to prove.

  But, and here’s where the Cozy Cash Op picked up some steam, news had hit in early 2009 that Bank MediKohn lost somet
hing in the realm of three billion dollars—yes billion—with funds Sonja had personally run through McCall, prompting the Austrian government to appoint a supervisor to run this once private bank.

  Why the need for a government supervisor?

  Well…if I was in anyway affiliated with this bank, which was funded by the Russian oligarchs and mob, I’d want government protection too!

  Evidently, Sonja and her family took the McCall fall-out very, very seriously. Hell, she, her husband and the rest of their family and associates had basically disappeared, taking approximately forty million in McCall kickbacks with them.

  So that’s what me and my TG had to do…follow the cash funnels of the billions of dollars these mobsters had lost.

  Staring at the reams and reams of paper piled not just on the eloquent table, but surrounding us on all the gorgeous patterns of the Persian carpets at our feet, I knew we had our work beyond cut out for us and now hi-lighted all to hell too.

  But my TG was no longer the Walker-style, Texas Ranger I’d boarded a plane with in Music City, USA. Once we’d landed in Vienna, he’d traded-in his muscle-cut Wranglers, western shirts and cowboy hat for the silk-suits of a Bond. Yeah, as in 007 James Bond, complete with his own driver, and a hotel suite not just fit for a King but actually belonging to the future Royal Highness of England.

  He was the dark Italian hotness of a Pierce Brosnan Bond—or wait, isn’t Pierce Scottish—whatever, they’re both dark and have a huge hotness factor in my book. But, he had the new, Daniel Craig Bond tough guy, big guns bravado too.

  No Walker, Texas Ranger would know these worlds and be as comfortable as Roman was working and moving among its inhabitants. No, my guy, my TG, had gone total Bond. Any second now I expected his driver Raulf to actually be our “Q” and pull-up in that sweet little Bond Blue Bimmer.

  Ooooooo…did that mean I was now officially a Bond Girl? Oh yeah. I could get used to that. Move over Stephanie Plum. Make room for a Rachel Zoe-esque Bond Girl.

  I could totally kill someone with my heels or one of my huge ass, designer bags. I could probably also choke ‘em with my vintage, couture beaded necklaces and baubles. Or yeah. Poke their eyes out with the pin part of my Bellesconi Brooch.

  “You in there, Witherspoon?”

  I heard Roman’s deep-throated whisper before I felt him gently knocking on the side of my head.

  “Huh? What? Oh, sorry. Deep in thought,” I said, feeling heat flush my neck on its way to hitting home on my cheeks.

  “Probably safe to assume I don’t need to know those thoughts either,” Roman said, lifting his eyebrows in that “yeah, you heard me” way I found rather irresistible, although I would not be sharing that opinion with him anytime soon.

  Damn. I really needed to focus on my current mission, and not be all whooped up about future roles and “From Russia With Love” adventures.

  “I’m onto something big here,” he said, still speaking so softly I could hardly hear him. “But we’ve got to get out of here and fast.”

  “What? Why?”

  For some reason, I could now feel the hair on my arms making an obscene show as it lifted straight up, probably bumped into action by the goose bumps chilling me to the bone.

  “DO NOT, and I repeat DO NOT look up, but we’ve got company that is anything but friendly now joining us in this conference room.”

  Like you don’t automatically look up when someone tells you not to. You mine as well just scream at yourself to “Look Now!”.

  I kept my head down, but peered over the rim of my glasses, thinking the pin curls I’d painstakingly made this morning would casually cover my sneak peek.

  “Fuck Us!”

  “I said keep your head and eyes down, dammit,” Roman said jamming his Mont Blanc into the side of my thigh for extra emphasis.

  “I thought Ludwig was dead?! I mean I saw him! Dead. Completely, totally dead in the Range Rover parked next to me at Jiffy Mart.”

  I figured my thigh was probably smarting from being stabbed with TG’s fancy pen, but damn if I could feel a thing.

  “Ludwig is dead. That’s his twin brother Lowell,” Roman said, with a grin on his face.

  I mean it! The bastard was almost laughing at me! What the hell was up with that?! Call me a spoiled sport. I don’t really give a rat’s ass. But this was sooo not funny!

  “I need you to excuse yourself and ask to use the restroom,” Roman said while moving sheets of paper between us as if we were talking about the documents. “Just get to the restroom on this floor, and I’ll meet you there.”

  “Then what?”

  “We’re going to get out of here…and fast,” he said, moving more papers around at strange angles.

  “But what about these documents? Don’t we need to take them with us?”

  “No. I got that covered too. Just do as I say. Now. Ask to use the restroom. Now, Witherspoon. Now.”

  Okay. Apparently question and answer time was over.

  “Excuse me, Fellas,” I asked, only glancing at Lowell briefly before rushing past his beady-black, and perhaps I was imagining it, but leering eyes to focus on the rather sweet and naive quant of a fellow representing the Austrian Banking License Division, “but I’m afraid I need to take a restroom break. Can someone please tell me where I can find a ladies room?”

  After listening to Sweet-and-Naïve Quant Fellow’s directions, I got up and forced my near-jelly-filled legs to go there. Swearing every step I advanced that (a) Lowell was on my tail and (b) he’d easily catch me ‘cause I was about to collapse in a heap on the gorgeous marble floors leading to the ladies room.

  I pushed open the heavy, solid wood door of the restroom, almost afraid of what I’d find behind it.

  Roman said we were about to escape the building. Through what…the ladies room? How did he know what we had to work with in the ladies room? Besides plumbing, sinks and fixtures?

  Were we going to make some kinda bomb outta that stuff? You know, like they do in the movies. We’d go all MacGyver. Concoct some type of explosive device. Throw it out the door. Then vanish through the smoke, while running together, hand-in-hand, like a for-real TV-Land hero and heroine. To what theme song I wondered?

  I shut myself in the room, glad I wasn’t currently sharing it with anyone.

  Scanning the area, I saw nothing but one window, way too high-up to jump out of. Which was good with me. ‘Cause, I sooo did not do heights.

  Heading over to a lovely, violet-colored, Louis XIV era, velvet chaise lounge, I decided I’d just have a seat and wait for my prince to rescue me.

  I was too scared to concentrate enough to use the facilities for their intended purpose. And I certainly didn’t want to be going when Roman showed up to whisk me outta this mob-filled joint.

  I’d barely gotten my scared shitless ass onto the fancy, lavender lounge seat, when my prince waltzed in to rescue me. Well that was his plan. Although, the details of that plan I wasn’t so sure I wanted to hear.

  Without saying a word to me, he walked into the stall closest to the window, and before I could say anything, I saw pieces of block that once formed the outer wall of that particular stall, now lying on the floor.

  What the…?

  I went to the stall door just in time to see Roman pulling out what looked to be flying harnesses and tons of cable from the huge ass hole he’d now opened in the wall.

  “OMG! I’m right. You are sooo not just some U.S. Marshal, Roman Bellesconi. No way. Notta. I swear I hear James Bond music ringing in my head and filling my ears,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief.

  “Well, I hate to interrupt the performance there, Plum Puddin’, but I need you to suit-up so we can get the hell out of here.”

  “I ain’t goin’ out that window, if that’s what you’re thinkin’. Not a chance. In fact, speaking of Chance, I’ve seen that episode of Human Target where Chance and Ms. Pucci jump outta that bank’s window into whatever sea surrounded the place,” I said, struggling with my
wobbling knees to stay upright.

  Roman didn’t even look at me, walked to the window, climbed on top of the toilet which he’d pulled-up outta the floor, God only knew how, then placed below the window. In one swifter-than-swift motion, he’d hoisted me up onto the seat with him.

  He placed a bath towel over the window and somehow shattered the glass without making a sound.

  “Take a look, Witherspoon,” he said, sticking my head out the window. “Do you see any ocean or sea below us?”

  Hell no I didn’t see any sea or ocean. I saw nothin’ but miles of concrete sidewalk and asphalted alleyways.

  “No worries about that then, right?” He asked, that shitty ass grin of his punctuating his sarcasm with way too much hard-core, tough-guy sex appeal.

  I was having a difficult enough time with my fight-or-flight hormones, I didn’t need more interruptions from his pheromones too.

  “Besides, weren’t you once Wendy in a Peter Pan stage production. Let’s see…if my research serves me correctly, you actually flew across the stage in the same rigging used to fly Sandy Duncan, right? Rigging just like what I’ve now fastened you into nice and tight.”

  I looked down, totally amazed how he’d maneuvered my body into the harness without me even knowing.

  What the hell was wrong with me?!

  It was as if I was just going through the motions of life according to Roman and not feeling a thing!

  He kissed me on the nose, propelled us up the ladies’ room wall in a sheer second, if that, and said, “What was that line Tinker Bell had you say before you took flight?”

  “Faith and trust all you need is pixie dust”, I said so soft I could hardly hear my own tepid whisper.

  “Well, I’m out of pixie dust. But look at us, Plum Puddin’? We’re flyin…flyin’…flyin,” he said, his voice waning as we careened off the window ledge and down thirty-six stories.

  My body felt that same weightless exhilaration I’d felt every time I did the Wendy fly routine on that stage as a child. Except the idea of crashing into a set wall held a ton more appeal than the cement curb we were way too quickly descending upon.