Date with the Devil (Crimson Romance)

by Jessica Starre

  With two fingers, Gerard extracted a business card from the case and held it out to her. “In case you need assistance,” he said. If she got in a jam, would it be Gerard she thought of calling? Well, hell, a woman never knew. She took the card and gave him a nod as he left.

  “He’s the kind of guy you turn out to be best buddies with, isn’t he?” she said, once the door had swung shut behind him.

  “Let’s get out of here, Victoria,” Michael said.

  She couldn’t think of any good reason to stay. That was the only reason she followed him out the door.

  Chapter 13

  The next morning, Victoria wasn’t expecting Gregory Zirov to be in his office — after all, his girlfriend had just been murdered and most people would at least pause for a moment of grief after something like that. She simply intended to do some reconnoitering, see if she could find a fact. Maybe she would even recognize it if she encountered one. So she was surprised when Zirov’s attractive young executive assistant indicated that he was in his office, hard at work, like nothing had happened. The assistant asked if Victoria had an appointment but didn’t seem too alarmed when she admitted she did not.

  With a gracious smile in her direction, the assistant — Marjorie Harris, according to the discreet brass-and-wood nameplate on her desk — excused herself to walk down the hall to tell Zirov that a visitor wanted to see him, and probably to describe what kind of potential client Victoria appeared to be. Otherwise, Marjorie would have just picked up the phone. While she was gone, Victoria stole a couple of her business cards from the holder on the desk, tucking them into her pocket. She might be able to put them to good use someday.

  The assistant returned a few moments later. “Mr. Zirov will be free in a moment,” she chirped. Then she seated herself, turned back to her computer and tapped at the keys for a while. After Victoria had cooled her heels for about fifteen minutes, the phone on the assistant’s desk buzzed. Marjorie picked it up and cooed, “Yes, sir. Right away.” She abandoned the computer to usher Victoria down the densely carpeted hall into Zirov’s understated but elegantly appointed office.

  “Vickie Fairfax,” the assistant said, introducing Victoria in soft tones before withdrawing and shutting the door quietly behind her. A tall, muscular man sat at the desk, looking through a folder. The light bounced off his completely bald head. He was young enough that Victoria suspected he shaved it. At the small round table in the corner, a stocky dark-haired man wearing a suit read a newspaper. She spotted the shoulder rig when he leaned forward to fold the newspaper up and toss it on the table. Zirov was either rich enough or awful enough to require a bodyguard. Possibly he was both.

  An expanse of windows across from her revealed a dizzying view. She lived on the prairie, which meant she never ascended more than two or three stories above ground level. On the roof of the building directly across the street, someone had started a garden with potted plants and trees, creating the illusion of greenspace.

  As she waited for the great man to deign to acknowledge her presence, she turned her attention to his office. On the wall behind his desk hung a collection of icons. They looked old, but without examining them more closely, she couldn’t say. She wondered if he was a collector like Vlad. That would explain a lot. Maybe everything.

  Finally Zirov set aside the folder of papers he’d been reading and said politely, “It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Fairfax.” Now the light bounced off his glasses, making it difficult to see his eyes. He didn’t offer his hand or rise from his desk. He didn’t gesture for her to take a seat. He had a slightly puzzled expression on his face, as if he wasn’t quite sure why she was standing there. Apparently not a lot of walk-in traffic bothered him.

  “I was … I knew Nadine,” she said. Nothing about the man gave her any indication that there was a good way to play this.

  “Nadine?” he repeated, as if whatever he might have been expecting to hear from her, that was not it.

  “Yes. I’m very sorry. I know you were close.”

  “Close?” he repeated.

  “Weren’t you?”

  “No,” he said shortly, and offered no further explanation.

  “I thought you were her boyfriend,” she said. He didn’t respond to that. Okay, technically she hadn’t asked a question. But still. Gregory Zirov was lying about his relationship with Nadine. Wanting to distance himself from her? Not surprising that an attorney would try that approach, especially if he thought it could get muddy. I know nothing, I barely even knew her, I couldn’t have had anything to do with her brutal murder. That would be the approach. But what could she do about Zirov at the moment? Nothing.

  The silence stretched between them. She could feel the bodyguard’s attention on her, his dark eyes narrowing as he focused on her. Zirov didn’t ask any of the obvious questions: who was she, what was she doing here, what did she want?

  Well, what did she want?

  “Thank you for your time,” she said, and left the office.

  • • •

  Victoria was off somewhere, probably punching Gregory Zirov. She hadn’t told Michael her plans. She was playing it close to her vest, which made sense, considering what she thought of him.

  And if he dwelled on that, he was going to piss himself off. She used to think he was some goddamned hero. She never said it, but he knew, and when everything had gone so badly wrong, it never occurred to her that her hero had made a fucking mistake, and that might explain everything.

  No. She had to believe he sold her out, betrayed her, crossed the line. Because she couldn’t see he might be like a real man and screw it up. A hero never did a thing like that. But a hero could fall from grace, turn out to be a villain, misleading everyone in the audience all along.

  Great. Now he wanted to punch something.

  He prowled the street, hoping the anger would wash through him and leave. He couldn’t do what he needed to do if all he could think about was how angry he was.

  He glanced in both directions before crossing the intersection. He had a coffee date with Gianetta, Connie’s redheaded friend who had offered such comfort to him. The woman had slipped Michael her phone number and he fully intended to lead her on and get her to gossip some more. Malice revealed as much about the person suffering from it as it did the people it was about. Who knew what he would learn if he could get the woman to talk? They needed to get a wedge in somehow, preferably before everyone involved was murdered. Although that would at least solve one problem: last person standing would have to be it.

  • • •

  Victoria walked into the bar in the lobby of the Roosevelt, small and lithe, nothing outstanding about her, and still the hair stood up on the back of his neck.

  Michael hooked an elbow over the back of his chair as if seeing her wasn’t like getting punched in the gut. She took the chair across from him, the waiter fluttering over to push it in and place the napkin in her lap.

  She ordered a bottle of wine immediately and Michael smiled. She had her tells, and that one meant she wasn’t sure if she’d done something stupid and if she had, how stupid it had been, and was hoping a glass of wine would help her quit obsessing over it.

  He didn’t say anything until after the waiter had poured the first glass of wine. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes briefly, then looked at him and said, “I’ll show you mine.”

  “If I show you mine?” he guessed. He shifted in his chair. She looked a little disheveled, a little sweaty, and she could have taken three minutes to brush her hair before coming to lunch, but he found her as insanely attractive as ever and he was not going to let her know it even if he had to shove this fork in his dick to cool it off.

  “Had a talk with Gianetta.”

  She grinned. “Oh, this is gonna be good,” she crowed. “Spill.”

  “I told her you didn’t understand me,” he sa
id. “Which she took as permission to stick her tongue down her throat.”

  Victoria laughed out loud. “At least one of us had a pleasant time.”

  He slanted her a look. “When she let me up for air, I explained that I suspected you were cheating on me.”

  “And?”

  “And she told me her sad tale. She was sleeping with the priest.”

  “Was anybody not sleeping with the priest?” Victoria wondered, taking a sip of wine.

  “And she was upset when she found out there were others. She told him that he had to stop but he broke it off with her instead.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Well, Gianetta is insane,” he said. “So you can’t really blame him.”

  “And?”

  “When they were first sleeping together, he told her he had a fantasy of selling the church silver and starting over again somewhere. She assumed he meant she’d be coming along.”

  “Huh,” she said. “Eastern Orthodox priests can get married, can’t they? Why would he have to go away and start over somewhere else?”

  “I guess I’d have to say if you’re violating the morality you teach every Sunday, contemplating stealing the church treasure, and planning to run off somewhere, you’re not happy in your work.”

  “Hmm,” she said. “Did she seem like the kind of person who would kill the priest in revenge for dumping her? She seemed pissed about him. If rumor is correct and he was sleeping with Elene, maybe Gianetta was jealous enough to want to kill them both.”

  “She doesn’t seem capable of the kind of planning that would have to be done. Sure, she could have shot them but she’s not the kind of person who would then steal the treasure as a blind. And she’d leave evidence behind because ultimately she’d want people to know that she’d felt driven to do it.”

  Victoria nodded. “That’s what I thought.” Of course, that didn’t meant they were correct in their assumptions. They’d both been wrong before. She’d been wrong when she’d walked out on him —

  “What about you?” he asked. “You learn anything new?”

  “I’m trying to figure out how Zirov connects,” she said. “And I can’t quite figure it. He claims he and Nadine weren’t seeing each other. But Gerard says they were.”

  “Gerard’s been wrong before. So has the FBI. So has the NYPD. So has everyone.” Meaning, so have you.

  “Sure,” she said.

  “Of course, even if he’s not guilty of anything, he may be trying to downplay the connection because he doesn’t want to get involved.” Michael shrugged. “Lot of that going around.”

  “Or maybe Zirov murdered the priest in revenge for the affair the priest was having with Nadine, then killed her, too,” Victoria said. Naturally.

  “You know, I’m starting to see why this was never going to work for us.”

  “I’m just telling you what I know is true.”

  “Yeah,” he said, and abruptly leaned across the table to kiss her hard and deep and hot.

  Then he sat back down, a little harder than he expected, and gulped her wine. “What about that?” he said, disagreeable, not romantic. “That’s true, too.” He slapped the wineglass back down on the table. Should have gone with sticking the fork in his dick.

  “I don’t know what the hell that is,” Victoria said.

  Her cell phone buzzed. Proof that there was a God and He pitied Michael enough to intervene.

  • • •

  Victoria pulled the buzzing phone out of her purse, her hands shaking. She didn’t dare look at Michael. What the hell was that? The phone buzzed again, insistently. She wasn’t familiar with the caller’s number, but she snapped open the phone and answered anyway. When she started working on a project, she never knew what she was going to shake loose, so she didn’t have the luxury of screening her calls.

  “Ms. Edwards,” purred a silky soft voice she knew unfortunately well. Her stomach lurched. The blood probably drained out of her face, because Michael was alarmed enough at her reaction to sit up straight.

  “You know me,” the silky voice continued.

  She grunted. She wasn’t sure her voice would come out steady.

  “My sources tell me that you are tracking down a cache of Byzantine silver.”

  She didn’t say anything. A cache. Only Vlad would call it that. Vlad, who had sources everywhere and who was capable of putting facts together and reaching a conclusion. A priceless treasure had gone missing. She was the person you called to get a line on missing treasures. She started asking her sources about Vlad. Two and two. But what conclusion had he reached? Not necessarily four.

  She gripped the phone harder. “I’m very interested in these artifacts myself,” he said. “I think they would make a nice addition to my collection, don’t you?”

  “That would be stealing,” she said.

  “I thought you might see it that way. To ensure your cooperation, I took the liberty of securing something that belongs to you. An insurance policy, so to speak.”

  “Not my car!”

  “No, not your car.” Vlad sounded slightly taken aback. “Your sister, whom I expect you value at least as much as you do that Volvo.”

  Jesus, he knew she drove a Volvo. Also, he had grabbed Rosemary. This was not promising.

  “What do you want?”

  “Would you do me the honor of meeting me at my estate tomorrow morning?”

  “Your estate?” she said faintly. She had barely gotten out of there alive last time. She cleared her throat. “Yeah, sure, I can do that. Let’s say ten A.M.,” she added, asserting some control and authority.

  “Fine,” he said, tolerant amusement evident in his voice. “And do bring your companion with you. I find him quite entertaining.”

  After a while, she realized he’d hung up so she snapped her phone shut.

  “That was Vlad,” she told Michael, saying the name casually, as if doing so didn’t make her want to bite her tongue off. “He has Rosemary.”

  “Of course,” Michael said. “That’s just what we needed now.”

  Chapter 14

  Victoria zipped her jacket up, wishing she had moved to that South Sea island as she’d considered doing when she first thought Vlad might be involved in this project. It would have to be better than sitting here in the rain, listening to the devil hum along to Patsy Cline.

  The rain wasn’t the pleasant precipitation that reminds a person of spring flowers and how maybe the farmers would stop bitching about the drought for once. Instead it was a cold gray drizzle, accentuating the grimy streets and dirty buildings.

  Not improving matters was Michael trying to keep up with the scale changes in Crazy.

  The rain rained down. Or, actually, the drizzle drizzled down, collecting in opaque sheets on the windshield. She could feel the damp chill all the way to her bones. She huddled closer in her thin jacket. The chill didn’t come only from the climate.

  “Can’t we turn on the heater?” she whined.

  “I don’t want to attract attention.” According to his logic, idling the car would attract attention whereas just sitting in the car would not. Apparently this was the kind of tactics they learned at Quantico.

  “Look at the security,” he fretted. He’d wanted to reconnoiter before their meeting with Vlad although she didn’t know what intelligence he expected to glean from getting here half an hour early and watching the gates with a worried expression. “He’s acting like he’s afraid of something. But I’d like to see the person who could frighten Vladimir.”

  Meeting up with a person who could frighten Vlad would give her a heart attack. She didn’t admit that, though.

  “Ready?” he asked after a while.

  “No,” she said, but he started up the motor anyway.

  At the front
gate, a guard leaned through the car window Michael rolled down, sizing them up and listening as Michael explained about their appointment. The guard radioed to some inner sanctum, got the approval, then buzzed open the gate and nodded them through. A second guard, bigger and better armed, indicated a parking space in a lot tucked well away from the main house, then motioned them out of the car.

  A third guard joined the first two. They patted Victoria and Michael down but neither one of them was suicidal enough to carry on Vlad’s property. She didn’t have her shuriken or throwing knives, either. Hell, she wasn’t even wearing an underwire bra for fear of setting off a metal detector and not getting a chance to explain.

  When the guards were satisfied that they could kill the visitors long before the visitors could kill them, one of them produced a golf cart and they trundled up the driveway to the main entrance, guards hanging from the vehicle as if it were a trolley in San Francisco.

  As they drew nearer to the front door, the coldness in Victoria’s stomach spread throughout the rest of her body until she felt made of ice. If she shattered when it came time to move, Michael would be extremely disappointed in her.

  He had to give her a nudge after the cart rolled to a stop. She climbed out slowly, his hand warm on the small of her back. Just like always. Maybe she should just shoot herself, get it over with faster.

  The guard lounging near the front door had an AK-47 slung over his shoulder. The closer to the lair, the more serious the firepower. She wondered where they kept the surface-to-air missiles. Maybe in the family room.

  The door guard gave them a hostile yet indifferent glare — she wondered how long it had taken him to perfect that look in the mirror — then leaned over and rapped on the front door. Yet another guard opened the door from the inside, this one fixing them with a cold yard stare. She wanted to reassure them that she was sufficiently intimidated and they didn’t need to go to so much trouble to impress her. Michael was probably making a tactical analysis so that he could report back to his bosses what they’d encounter if they ever tried to take Vlad down. She was just trying not to whimper.