Date with the Devil (Crimson Romance)

by Jessica Starre

  “I thought you might be bored by now,” was what he did say.

  Chapter 4

  Back at home, while Michael was off roaming the streets with impunity, Victoria looked at the envelope he had given her, turning it over in her hands. She’d made a deal with the devil. Hadn’t she learned anything from prior experience?

  She tore open the envelope. The first pages were copies of an NYPD report, detailing the initial investigation into the theft and murders. The packet included a preliminary case report filed by the FBI’s lead investigator, Alexis Randall, before she was killed and her partner gravely injured in the accident Michael had alluded to.

  Victoria hooked a kitchen chair with her foot and pulled it over, sitting down. Michael hadn’t wanted to talk about the lead investigator or the accident. Maybe he thought the accident wasn’t an accident but no one else agreed with him. Or maybe he knew something about the lead investigator that he wasn’t sharing. That fit. He always knew a great deal more than he should and a great deal more than he shared.

  Elbows propped on the kitchen table, she read the reports carefully. Essentially, the three dead had been shot multiple times at close range with a small caliber handgun. No ballistics report was attached. Neither was the medical examiner’s report. But presumably the victims had died of massive trauma relating to the gunshot wounds.

  The complaint form contained a list of items that had been stolen: a pair of gold chalices, a crozier head, a censer, an altar cross. So far, so good. She figured the chrismatory was for the anointing oil. But what the hell was a chassé? Gemellion? Coffret? Pyx? Looking at the police officer’s labored spelling, she sensed he didn’t have a clue either. Tabernacle, she could figure that out. How the hell would you haul a tabernacle out of a church without anyone noticing? A bible, she knew what that was.

  Reading further, she saw that the priest’s housekeeper had located the inventory in the household safe, which was how the responding officer had known how to spell the word “gemellion.” According to the report, none of the other items Victoria would have considered equally appealing had been taken — not the week’s offerings in cash and checks, not the modern sterling silver altar pieces used on ordinary Sundays. Just the Byzantine pieces — the “antique collection” as the report put it. Like a collector might want.

  Which was why the devil had thought of Vlad, rumored to have the finest collection of art west of the Metropolitan Museum. In fact, it was said that more of his collection was authentic. It was also the organized crime connection Michael had also alluded to: Vlad ran a Russian family and wouldn’t balk at sending a group of stone killers to steal a collection of priceless artifacts from a church.

  She folded the papers up and brought them to the back bedroom that served as an office of sorts. File under “D” for “devil”? She dropped the papers on her desk. The very thought of stealing something from Vlad made her break out in a cold sweat.

  But. Maybe she could do it differently this time. Maybe she could get in, grab the goods, and — here was the key — get out again. Maybe she could score from Vlad this time. Maybe she could do it, this time.

  The devil tempted different people in different ways.

  • • •

  What if she didn’t take the bait? What if she did the sensible thing and told him to go back to hell? She never used to do the sensible thing but people changed.

  He eased the little rental Ford to a stop. The cemetery was on the eastern edge of town, acres of oak and pine and low green bushes, cold stone benches, hard gray headstones, a garden full of ghosts. The sexton came out to meet him and looked up the plot, and gave him a little map with the location circled, in pencil, as if it might be temporary.

  Victoria probably would have preferred a cremation, scattering the ashes on the wind, shouting curses at him as she did so. The death of her daughter was one of the many things she blamed him for. Their daughter.

  But it was Rosemary who had buried Jasmine, and planted violets on the grave, and Rosemary had known they would need a touchstone, all of them, and she had made sure to have one. So she had paid the undertaker and picked out the tiny casket and, Christ, it still didn’t bear thinking about. He had always thought there would be more time.

  Did Victoria really think he would ever do anything to hurt Rosemary? That she did was bitter in his mouth. Even after all this time, he pushed Victoria. Did she believe the best of him or the worst? Maybe someday he would learn to stop testing her.

  He got out of the car, stretching his long legs as he took the path the sexton had shown him. He found the gravesite and realized he’d practically crushed the daffodils in his hand. He put them down in the dirt and wished he had something to say. He stared at the stone for a little while, and thought about Rosemary telling him what had happened. It was a drunk driver, and they wouldn’t let Tory out to say goodbye. No one had ever asked, Where were you? Not even Rosemary.

  The stone showed the years of Jasmine’s life, so few. And yet it had always seemed like there would be time enough for everything.

  Chapter 5

  Michael was in her kitchen toasting a bagel when Victoria stumbled out of bed the next morning. It was Monday. It felt like Monday. His presence did not improve the day. At least he was fully clothed. Sometimes she used to come into the kitchen in the morning and he’d be fresh from the shower, all hard gleaming muscle —

  And black betraying heart.

  She didn’t bother asking how he’d gotten in or why he thought it was okay to come in like he owned the place. She snagged the bagel as it popped out of the toaster and took a bite. He made no comment, just sliced another bagel and dropped it in the toaster.

  “So what’s next?”

  How many times had they played a scene like this? The morning after, the memory of heat and pleasure beneath the conversation, the intimacy of his sapphire gaze taking her breath away. Then he’d lean across the distance between them and kiss her hard and they’d forget about food.

  Only this was not the morning after anything she wanted to think about. Michael touched her elbow and handed her a mug of coffee, his fingers glancing against hers, impersonal.

  No. Nothing he did was impersonal.

  He stood close, ignoring the bagel popping up in the toaster. When he had a goal, nothing diverted his attention from achieving it. He smelled good, soap and shaving cream, fabric softener —

  She almost dropped the mug. Good God, when had fabric softener become sexy? She gritted her teeth. She needed to focus on the project. Worry about the project and getting murdered by Vlad in a messy and dramatic way.

  “I was thinking about that housekeeper,” she said, remembering the documents he’d given her. “Nadine Grossman. She found the inventory in the household safe. I want to find out what else she knows about the collection — and the crime. She knew the priest and probably a lot of the parishioners.”

  “I have no official standing on this case,” he reminded her. “If I use my shield, I’ll be out on my ass before you can say ‘official misconduct.’”

  She gave him a long measuring look. He’d always been the one to close a case at any cost, so why was he gun-shy now? Still, if all he was objecting to was using his shield, she could figure out a way to work the project. He just had to be willing to go along with some lies. She took a sip of coffee — hot as hell, not surprising — and studied him. His blue eyes were innocent, guileless. She didn’t think the lies would pose much of an ethical dilemma for him.

  “I can solve that problem,” she said, scooting past him to head into the second bedroom where she kept her desk and filing cabinet. In the back of the lower left desk drawer, she unearthed a stack of fairly crisp business cards emblazoned with the name and logo of an established insurance company.

  “Are these for real?” he asked. He took a card from her and turned it over in his han
ds. “Did you actually work for an insurance company once?”

  “As if,” she said, snatching the card back from him. “Good, though, aren’t they? I have a couple of blank policies around here, too.” She turned to rummage in the file cabinet.

  “I doubt the church had a separate insurance policy on the collection,” he said, still lounging on the desk, like a succubus sent to tempt mortal women to stray from the path of righteousness. What was a male succubus called?

  “How is this going to work?” he asked. “An insurance company would have demanded an appraisal before insuring the collection. They’d have learned the truth about the treasure a long time ago. The inventory the housekeeper found was put together for the church records, not insurance purposes. You go in claiming to have a check for the stolen pieces, you’ll get tossed on your ass.”

  Incubus. That was the word she was looking for. And if she recalled correctly, incubi didn’t actually seduce their victims, just harassed them to the edge of insanity.

  “You through ranting?” she asked, coming up with the manila envelope she’d excavated from the file cabinet. Michael actually looked worried, like she’d forgotten anything she ever knew. Her glance fell to his mouth, his completely ordinary mouth, but dear God the things it could do —

  She tore her gaze away from him and brandished the envelope. “I am not totally without intelligence. I’m not here about the collection. I’m here about the life insurance. Or rather, I’m about to be there.” She smiled.

  “You look about fifteen years younger than you did when I walked through the door,” he said quietly before he slithered off the desk and straightened, tall and lean and deadly. He took a step closer to her. She inhaled sharply, which was a mistake because then she caught his intoxicating scent. Fabric softener, she reminded herself, trying hard to find her inner snark. You’re getting hot over fabric softener. Her inner snark whimpered once and surrendered. He smelled so good, warm and clean and wholesome, all the things he was not. The heat rose from his body, threatening to spill over and ignite a blaze. Walk away, her little voice of self-preservation cried out from a very long way away.

  Heat sparked on her skin as his breath feathered across her neck and her body stirred, waking, alert now, need and hunger moving restlessly in her belly, not languid but sudden and urgent. He wasn’t exactly looking her in the eye when he spoke.

  “What now?” he whispered.

  “I want to talk to the housekeeper,” she said, her voice loud and carrying in the quiet. She knew damned well that wasn’t what he was asking. “I want to see the church,” she added, knowing the details weren’t important but saying them anyway, to fill the silence with impersonal words, dispel the heat, suppress the want the way she was so good at doing. “I need to get a sense of the setup. I want to leave for New York today.” She would be damned if she let him know how unsteady he made her.

  “I was wondering when you were going to spring into action,” he drawled and though he didn’t move or take a step back, she felt his withdrawal and for one heart-stopping, disoriented moment, she regretted it.

  “You want me to come with you?” he asked. His blue eyes glittered with untold secrets. He was too real and too warm and standing too close.

  She stepped back. Walking away from trouble was a perfectly valid self-defense strategy, a thing she taught her students every single day. Too bad she hadn’t done it five minutes sooner, before he’d reminded her how hungry she was, how long since a man had touched her, had tumbled her on a bed —

  “I don’t care,” she said, her voice inappropriately breathless, considering the question.

  “You may need backup,” he said. She raised an eyebrow and looked at him for a moment. He wasn’t exactly breathless but he certainly didn’t sound like himself. Tentative, leaving it up to her. He’d always kept her on a short lease so he could contain the blowback. Something had changed. Did she want to know what it was?

  “If this falls apart because you failed to supply a critical piece of information —”

  “You know everything you need to know.”

  “Sure,” she said. Someday he was going to get her killed. Wasn’t that why she’d walked away when Jasmine was born? She turned away from him and picked up the phone to make flight reservations.

  Taking action made her feel better, stronger, less susceptible to blue eyes and fabric softener. Ignoring the devil, she went into her bedroom and got dressed, throwing a bag together to take to New York. Then she called Grandmaster Lee, and asked him to take over teaching. After he had extracted the promise of an obscene amount of money for his services, she left a message for Rosemary, telling her where she was going. Then she headed into the garage with her bag, Michael sauntering after her. He climbed into the passenger side as she stowed her bag in the trunk. She came around to the driver’s side and paused a moment before opening the door. They were started now. There was no getting off until they were through.

  Let’s ride, she thought. Michael always managed to get exactly what he wanted.

  • • •

  Victoria’s seatmate was a pimply teenager wearing headphones turned up so loudly even Michael — three rows back — could hear Beyonce perfectly. She had a book open in her lap — probably some instruction manual on how to kick people — but he could see from the tightness of her jaw that she was annoyed by the seatmate. Not everyone appreciated Beyonce. It might in fact require the possession of a Y chromosome to fully appreciate her.

  Once the captain turned off the “fasten seatbelts” sign, Michael made his move. Victoria might pretend she didn’t want to have anything to do with him, but he planned to stick close. Ten years ago, he’d known her well enough to predict everything she would do — down to her leaving him — but he wasn’t stupid enough to think that people didn’t change, especially when given ample incentive to do so.

  Unfortunately, instead of this uncertainty annoying him, it turned him on. Would she kill him or kiss him? Stay tuned.

  She became aware of his presence — he could tell by the stiffening of her shoulders — but didn’t comment when he reached across and tapped the adolescent on the arm. The adolescent flinched, then stared up at him. After a moment of assessment, the kid made the wise choice and slipped his headphones off. Beyonce blared into the cabin.

  “What?” the kid said but not as belligerently as he might have. Michael had a quelling effect on people.

  “This is my friend,” he said, gesturing at Victoria although she was shaking her head no. “Would you mind if we switched seats?” He motioned toward his own seat several rows back. His seat partner was an attractive young woman ensconced with her own set of headphones, a copy of Glamour magazine across her knees.

  The adolescent grinned, said, “Yo,” grabbed his carry-on from under the seat, and moved down the aisle. He tapped the girl on the shoulder and said something to her, probably rolling his eyes at the behavior of adults, pretending he wasn’t getting a hard-on at the thought of sitting next to her for the full flight. The girl moved her knees so he could get by. Ah. The start of a beautiful relationship. Maybe no one would get shot in theirs.

  Michael took the now-empty seat next to Victoria and buckled himself in.

  “Smooth,” she said, opening Martial Arts of Ancient Korea again.

  “I have a little something going on,” he agreed. She studiously ignored him, which was one of her more annoying characteristics. After a moment, he put his hand out and covered the page she was reading. He had annoying characteristics, too, and owned them fully.

  “That is so rude,” she sighed. “Typical male. Entitled to do whatever he wants, even when the woman involved has clearly expressed no interest in him.”

  “Precisely the problem with male privilege,” he said. He had suffered through many interminable explications of her feminist theories, hoping he’d get lai
d if he listened carefully enough. It had worked more often than not. Enough so that whenever he heard phrases like “subvert the dominant paradigm,” he started getting hot for some action.

  “May I talk with you for a minute?” he asked.

  “You’re supposed to ask that first, before you become annoying,” she said. “Then, when I say no, you’re supposed to shut up. But that’s not going to happen, is it?”

  “In a more perfect world,” he said.

  “Fine,” she sighed, giving up and putting the book away in her bag. Score. Well, not score, but he was always pleased when he successfully achieved his goals. “What do you want?”

  “I’ve been thinking about the project,” he said. She gave him a level look that reminded him how much she disliked discussing projects. She never figured out a theory and tried to fit the facts to it. She found the facts and put them together. Unimaginative but effective. Something like a pit bull.

  But that didn’t stop him. “You know the basic situation. Why do you think they needed three people dead?”

  The level look didn’t change. “I have no idea,” she said.

  “Guess.” He knew he was being obnoxious, but he wanted her to start caring about the case. She had to start caring about the case if they were going to get anywhere.

  “Maybe the thieves were surprised,” she suggested. She was being patronizing, another of her annoying habits, but he didn’t let that stop him.

  “They couldn’t have been surprised,” he said. Her attention drifted back to her carry-on bag and the book in it. “Look,” he said and was rewarded when she did. “We have to assume they knew there was a fortune in Byzantine treasure in the safe.”

  “That’s a nonsequitur,” she said impatiently. “They couldn’t have been surprised by the priest because they knew about the collection?”

  “If they knew about the collection — which not very many people did — then they must have had an inside source or have watched the routine enough to know where to find the collection.”