Date with the Devil (Crimson Romance)

by Jessica Starre

  “I’m going to have to work on a project to do it.”

  Rosemary abandoned the yogurt and reached for the joint. She fired it up and said, “Damn. Thought you were done with all that, sweetie. I still wake up with screaming nightmares.”

  “Why should you wake up screaming?” Victoria asked, reasonably enough. “No one ever hurt you.”

  “Sympathy,” Rosemary said. “I’m an intuitive, hon. Feels like it’s happening to me.” She took a deep drag, then stubbed the joint out again and said, “There’s a man?”

  “You are psychic.”

  “Always a man when your life goes to hell,” Rosemary said, shifting to a more comfortable position, leaning back as if she were settling in to hear a good story. “Is this that rat bastard you used to go around with?” she asked happily. She could be happy, she had her get-out-of-jail-free card.

  “That’s the one.”

  “Go on.”

  “When I expressed my reluctance to become involved — ”

  “Ah,” Rosemary said. “He explained how I’ve been breaking the law.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And since you do have some family feeling, I don’t care what anyone says, you don’t want to see me sent down.”

  “Yup.”

  Rosemary nodded once, blew out a breath she’d been holding, as if there’d been any question of what Victoria would do. “So what’s your plan?”

  Victoria shrugged. “The usual. Do what I have to. Try to avoid federal charges.”

  There was another long moment as Rosemary contemplated her. Then she reached for the joint again and fired it up.

  Chapter 3

  That afternoon, Victoria met Michael at Zen Zero on Mass Street. Mass as in Massachusetts Street, not as in the Sunday morning church service. She saw his lips quirked but he refrained from commenting on the restaurant’s name or its menu.

  They took advantage of the warm spring sun by sitting at one of the cast iron tables set out on the sidewalk. He shrugged out of his leather jacket, hanging it on the back of his chair, then rolled up his shirt sleeves to reveal muscular forearms. Unlike Victoria’s, his muscles didn’t come from punching a heavy bag. She’d never been able to convince him to learn to punch anything. Someday he’d get in a jam where the nine wasn’t going to help him, and then what was he going to do? Rely on his good looks and charm?

  She ordered a tofu stir fry while Michael drank whiskey. He invited her to join him but she was sticking with iced tea. The last time she drank whiskey with him, she ended up with a dragon tattooed across her back. A big dragon. It must have hurt a lot.

  As she sipped her iced tea and fished the good bits out of her meal, Michael inhaled deeply as if the smell of exhaust fumes invigorated him. Perhaps it did. Maybe the Seventh Circle of Hell smelled like Mass Street on a busy day.

  “So what’s the story, Mephistopheles?” she asked, feeling disagreeable. Their first run-in had gone a lot like this one, him trying to seduce her into something she wasn’t sure she wanted to do.

  “You ever heard of the treasure of Constantinople?” he asked, his voice mild, his face lifted to the breeze, his long legs stretched out in front of him.

  “I ought to shoot you right here,” she said.

  “I’m wearing body armor.”

  “You are not.”

  He unbuttoned his shirt, flashed the Kevlar.

  “Why?”

  “I get shot during half the projects I do with you.” Which was a falsehood. It was no more than ten percent. “So do you remember?”

  “Sure,” she said, her jaw aching from the effort of matching his calm, easy tone. “Byzantine princess, sacred objects, convent near Istanbul. Lost sometime during the fifteenth century.”

  “We have a solid reason to believe that the collection eventually made its way into the hands of an Eastern Orthodox church in Manhattan.”

  “Uh huh,” she said. He couldn’t possibly think she was going to — she made herself take a deep, centering breath. Calm and easy. That was the only way to handle him. Well, a stake through the heart might also work, but there were too many witnesses to try that. Plus she didn’t have a stake.

  “We don’t think they knew what they had,” he explained. “They never realized the collection was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Millions.” The devil’s sapphire eyes glittered. His voice caressed the word millions. He didn’t care about the millions. When had he ever cared about money? He was trying to seduce her. It wasn’t going to be that easy. She had already lived through him once, like the plague.

  She gave him her blandest look, like she was practically bored senseless and only listening to him out of common courtesy. He would do anything if he thought it needed to be done, and he would use anyone if he thought it would serve his purpose and he could get away with it.

  “A couple weeks ago, thieves raided the church shortly before the first Sunday service,” the devil continued. “At the time, the priest and some of his helpers were in the sacristy. There’s a safe there where the ritual objects are kept.”

  “Uh huh,” she said. Calm and easy. Never let him see you flinch.

  “The intruders shot and killed the witnesses.”

  “Jesus,” she said, sitting up, then realized she had let him see her flinch. “Who were they?”

  “The priest, a twelve-year-old altar boy, and the boy’s mother, a member of the Altar Society.”

  “So was this premeditated murder or burglary gone bad?”

  Michael took a sip of his drink and gazed at a knot of people walking down the sidewalk. A Jack Russell terrier on a plaid leash paused and barked imperatively at Michael before scurrying along after its owner, probably trying to warn them all that they were in the presence of an evil genius. Michael ignored the dog and watched one woman as she made her way to New Hampshire Street.

  When she turned left and disappeared from view, he spoke. “The NYPD thought the murders might fit an organized crime pattern. They wanted our database so they called us in,” he said. “What the NYPD didn’t know was that we believe someone brought an object from the collection — it was a candlestick — to an art appraiser a few weeks before the collection was stolen and the three witnesses murdered. The appraiser recognized it as being an authentic Byzantine-era piece, possibly part of the treasure of Constantinople. The appraiser told the man who brought it in for appraisal what he thought it was and how valuable he believed it to be.” Michael paused and gave Victoria a pointed look, as if she ought to be taking notes. Maybe there would be a quiz later.

  “I follow so far,” she said. It hadn’t gotten complicated yet. No doubt it would. Projects involving Michael always did. “Go on.”

  “The man who brought the candlestick for appraisal didn’t want to sell the piece and wouldn’t admit that it belonged to a larger collection.”

  “The appraiser notified the FBI,” she guessed. The man, the appraiser. Didn’t these people have names? Probably not until she’d sold her soul and sealed the pact in blood. Then Michael might be more forthcoming.

  Or not.

  “Right. The appraiser assumed that the piece had been stolen. The name the man gave the appraiser turned out to be fake. We haven’t been able to run him down yet. Then the murders happened.”

  Happened.

  Victoria refrained from rolling her eyes. Accidents happened. Murder, not so much. But then Michael was fond of careful language, neutral language, giving the appearance of being a detached, politically sensitive animal. Victoria had once believed a passionate creature lived beneath the surface, a man not cold and calculating, but she had been wrong. And unlikely to make that mistake again.

  He was waiting for her to respond. She tried to figure out what she was supposed to say. He helped her out. “So we put two and two together —
”

  “Ah. A Byzantine piece brought in for appraisal and a collection of artifacts stolen from an Eastern Orthodox church. Therefore, the man who had the candlestick appraised may know something about the crime.”

  “Right. No one affiliated with the church admits to bringing the piece in for appraisal. We’ve shown the appraiser photos of the most likely suspects, but he wasn’t able to positively identify anyone.” As he spoke, he watched a gaggle of co-eds seat themselves at a nearby table. One of them noticed his attention and gave a little wiggle.

  “Dammit,” Victoria snapped. “Will you look at me when we’re talking?”

  His sapphire eyes met hers. An electric shock thrilled through her body at the touch of his gaze, intense and intimate and compelling. She could see the shadow of sadness that lurked behind his eyes. Good. Fine. She hoped whatever had put the sadness there had hurt him hard and kept him up nights.

  “Anything else I can get you?” the waiter chirped over her right shoulder, presenting her with another iced tea and whisking the old glass out of sight. She started as if he’d slapped her. The world had a way of dissolving around her when Michael looked directly into her eyes. She should have remembered how it was. Just him and her and nothing else. Somehow she could never look away.

  No, wait. She could look away. It was a choice. Everything was a choice. She did not believe in fate or destiny or karma. Or soul mates or true love. She could look away. In fact, she did so, looking right at the waiter. She said steadily, “No, we’re fine.” The waiter nodded and left them.

  “Proceed,” she said to Michael, doing her very best not to meet his eyes.

  “Three days after the FBI got involved, the lead investigator was killed,” he said. “In an accident.” He spoke in an uninflected voice as if he didn’t want her to guess what he thought about it.

  An accident. Well, accidents happened.

  Michael picked up his drink and started looking at people on the sidewalk again. She wondered what the lead investigator had been to him, and what she would see on his face if he turned to look her in the eye.

  “I took some time off,” he said. Casual. Like he had ever taken a vacation before.

  “Uh huh,” she said. Time off. He meant the case had been assigned to someone else and he fully intended to meddle. Probably he’d been warned off. He wouldn’t have come around after all this time if the project were easy. “So where does that leave you?”

  “That leaves me — here,” he said. “We may have to resort to unofficial methods to resolve the situation.”

  We.

  Resolve the situation.

  Well, he was still a piece of work.

  “You mean I’m going to do all the breaking and entering,” she said. “My fee doesn’t go down just because I’m helping the law.”

  “It never has,” he said. Then, as if to make up for the sting of his words, he covered her hand with his, his touch warm and gentle. Alarmed, she pulled her hand away. Whatever they’d had between them, it had been white hot and urgent and there had never been much room for kindness and gentleness.

  He seemed unperturbed by her action. He took another sip of his drink and watched the people for a while. Then he said, “I think Vladimir Mezarites is involved.”

  She set her glass down a lot harder than she intended, and tea sloshed over the side. What the hell was he thinking, springing it on her like that? She wasn’t going to be much use to him if she keeled over from heart failure.

  She steadied herself, then said, her voice squeaking a little more than she liked, “Vlad the Impaler?” Like he might mean someone else. Like she might have misheard him.

  Everyone in the business knew Vlad. Her own encounter with him had resulted in one of her few failures to get what she’d come for and she’d just been thankful to escape. Vlad didn’t necessarily kill all the people who crossed him. Sometimes he just left them squeamish.

  “You want to find out if he did it?” she asked, rubbing the scar on her arm in an automatic reflex. The crudely carved “V” was Vlad’s mark. The devil had seen it once after her encounter. But they’d been preoccupied with other matters then, like how fast they could get their clothes off, and they’d never discussed it. To most people who saw it, it was just a scar, of which she had more than one. Not all of them on the outside.

  Vlad.

  No wonder Michael needed her help.

  “And then?” she asked and there was no squeak in her voice this time. Rock-steady and solid. She was a pro. This was just another problem to be taken care of. Another situation to be resolved.

  “I want him for the murders. And the congregation would like their sacred vessels back.”

  She noticed how he said nothing about returning the treasure of Constantinople to its rightful home in Turkey.

  “If I steal the artifacts back, won’t that make it harder to prosecute the case?” she asked.

  Michael was silent.

  “Uh huh,” she said. He had no intention of prosecuting a case. He just meant to close it to his satisfaction. She wondered what, exactly, he owed the lead investigator and why he thought it necessary to interfere in an active investigation assigned to other agents. Maybe he’d made someone a promise. She’d made promises, too. The trouble with promises was keeping them.

  Rosemary would say karma had brought him around again so they could end it. Not that Victoria believed in karma. But she believed in ending things.

  “You’re the only one I know who can do this,” he said, and it sounded like an appeal. Almost as if he’d said please. He reached into the pocket of his leather jacket, then tossed an envelope on the table between them. She looked at the envelope. It would contain information about the crime. If she picked up the envelope, she was in. She gave the envelope the hard stare. If only she’d been a little faster on the draw this morning.

  She picked up the envelope, a little surprised it didn’t sizzle against her fingers. Lighter than she expected. But she’d done plenty of work starting with minimal information, especially if she wasn’t picky about how she obtained more. She looked over at Michael. We’re the good guys, he’d once said. She hadn’t been so sure that was true then. She was sure it wasn’t now.

  “You mean I’m the only one you can pressure into it,” she said. She dropped the envelope onto the tabletop. How could he come here and coerce her into doing this and act like nothing had changed? As if he had never done what he had done to her? And all the years and emptiness since didn’t matter? The anger tore free and she had to bite down so she wouldn’t gasp from the white-hot emotion. Her fingers curled into fists. She wanted to hit something. Someone.

  “I can pressure plenty of people,” he said, and undoubtedly that was true. “You’re the best I ever worked with.”

  The best I ever worked with?

  “Thank you,” she said steadily. “Ever need a letter of reference, now I know who to call.”

  • • •

  I can pressure plenty of people. Michael winced at the sound of his own words. Way to make an argument and win over a subcontractor. He avoided meeting Victoria’s eyes. Maybe if he thought of her as “the subcontractor” the way she thought of him as “the devil” they could get through this without any of the useless emotional bludgeoning their partnership had always been notorious for.

  He waited for the sarcastic comment she was sure to make — when did she not? — and he wondered what she’d do if he interrupted the process by leaning over the wrought iron table and kissing her. Not that he intended to. No, he valued his life more highly than that. Lot of water under that bridge. Plenty of other women between then and now. Good women, interesting, not like her because he insisted on sane women now. He reminded himself that it was a good thing they no longer had a — well, whatever the hell it had been. Is it mine? he’d asked the day Victoria
told him she was pregnant. The moment he asked he knew he shouldn’t have. That was the beginning of the end.

  Well, no. The beginning had been the beginning of the end. Running across her during an undercover assignment in Miami and instead of arresting her, having the stupid, stupid idea that a woman of her talents would come in handy.

  And oh yeah she had many talents. Talents he refused to think about because this time he was going to keep his head. Get what he came for, get out without losing his goddamned mind. It was a plan. A good plan.

  “Ever need a letter of reference, now I know who to call.” Bingo. Sarcastic comment incoming. That was an excellent line for her to walk out on but she didn’t, because she was hooked.

  He hadn’t lost his touch.

  He smiled, and she looked like she wanted to punch him, but that was nothing new, that was familiar, and so he relaxed a little.

  The envelope lay on the table between them, and Victoria kept glaring at it, though she’d already taken it from him. They both knew it was hers though it might look like it was up for grabs.

  She was the most complicated woman he had ever had the misfortune of meeting. The last thing he had ever wanted in his life was a complicated woman. She wasn’t even that good-looking. She was small and wiry and mean as hell most of the time. She could punch harder than he could and shoot more accurately, and that ought to cool him off, but no, it made him hot, which went to show how perverted he was.

  “We’ve established why me,” Victoria said, though her tone suggested she didn’t believe anything he said but when had she ever. “But why now?”

  That was an excellent question. He understood how it differed from “Why me?” The answer was, because this is the first time since Athens that I can use you in a way that will be useful to me, though it might in fact get one of us killed. He did not intend to share that answer. He might be wearing body armor but she wasn’t above using armor-piercing rounds. Or shooting him in the head.