Date with the Devil (Crimson Romance)

by Jessica Starre

  “I wish I had a woman like you to look after me,” Andrew said.

  “No you do not,” she said. “Go, go, go.”

  The cabbie stopped at Zirov’s office building. She had barely shut the door before he tore off down the street. She shouldered the backpack as an unmarked sedan pulled to the curb. Gerard got out. “What are you doing here?” he asked, slamming the door shut.

  “What do you think I’m doing here?”

  “You can’t charge up to Zirov’s office. You’ll get him killed.”

  “How stupid do you think I am?”

  “You have a plan?”

  “I have a plan.”

  “Is it a good plan?”

  “We’ll find out, won’t we?”

  And then Andrew was there, climbing out of a BMW, a golf bag slung over his shoulder.

  “That building across the street,” she told him. “Roof is level with Zirov’s office. Someone put a garden up there so we have a little cover.”

  She turned to Gerard. “Get us up there.”

  A pause.

  “I am in a really bad mood, Gerard,” she said, and she unholstered the Beretta.

  “Jesus,” Gerard said. Then he led the way across the street, flashing his shield to the doorman, herding them into the elevator.

  Up on the roof, she swung her backpack off her shoulder and tucked the Beretta in the small of her back. She unsnapped the backpack and pulled out the crossbow, a modified bolt and the nylon filament line. She hooked the line to the bolt, hefted the crossbow and marked her target through the scope. Then she reconsidered and turned to Gerard.

  “You know how to shoot?”

  “Of course.”

  “If I have to use the rifle, I’m going to need to get across fast afterwards. You hear me fire, you get this line across, okay? Your target is just above the window frame.”

  “Got it.”

  “And you loop the line around your waist, got it? And you hold the line. We’ve got nothing stationary on this side that I trust to secure it.” The potted plants weighed no more than fifty or sixty pounds. Gerard was a lot bigger than that.

  “Okay.”

  “Do not drop the line, Gerard.”

  “I won’t,” he said, sounding a lot like Michael as he said it.

  She grabbed one of the clubs out of Andrew’s golf bag and pulled the knitted cover off. She’d been hoping for a Beretta sniper, or even a Remington bolt action. But Andrew had brought a Dragunov, fresh from the Russian military.

  “Do I look like the goddamned infantry?” she snapped. It probably had military load, which was going to screw up her accuracy.

  “She is always like this when he is in trouble,” Andrew explained to Gerard.

  He’d brought the ten-round detachable box magazine, which she slapped into place. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. Andrew was uncovering his own rifle. He wouldn’t shoot until she told him to or until she was dead. She hoisted the rifle to her shoulder, peered through the scope. Adjusted for distance, for the mild breeze, for the slight downward angle. There. Gregory Zirov was at his desk. Bodyguard at the table.

  Her heart stopped when she saw Michael on the opposite side of the room.

  “He’s still alive,” she whispered, but who knew for how long that would be true.

  Michael said something to Zirov. Laughter.

  “Go for the body,” Andrew said, watching the action through the scope of his rifle. “You don’t know how many MOA to adjust for.”

  “I know,” she said.

  I know.

  Gerard had said that, too.

  He’s gonna get killed.

  I know.

  Which meant Michael had called Gerard for backup.

  She didn’t move. She didn’t flinch. She watched Michael and Zirov through the scope.

  Michael was springing a trap, but it wasn’t for her. It was for the FBI agent who had set them up seven years ago.

  If Michael had called Gerard to back him up, what was Gerard doing on the roof with Victoria?

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gerard move. He set the crossbow aside. She squeezed the trigger. Zirov’s window exploded in a shower of glass.

  She dropped the rifle, rolled over, snagging the Beretta from the small of her back as she went, and shot Gerard in the head just as the bullet from his Sig slapped the roof by her ear.

  “What the fuck!” Andrew screamed, dancing away from her.

  The bullet she’d sent into Zirov’s office should have planted itself harmlessly in the wall. If it had planted itself harmfully in Michael’s ass, she wouldn’t be one bit sorry.

  • • •

  “I didn’t know it was Gerard,” Michael said, not for the first time. Victoria had calmed down a little but not very much. Gerard had been taken away by whoever handled dead FBI agents in the city. Zirov had been hauled off for questioning by minions belonging to Michael’s boss, and said boss had already issued a threatening statement in Michael’s direction about talking later. Andrew had disappeared before such a thing could happen to him. Victoria was wishing she’d had the foresight to disappear, too. But no, she’d hung around to be grilled by cops and feds, one of whom had confiscated her weaponry, which meant she couldn’t shoot Michael at the moment. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t punch him.

  “Bullshit,” she said succinctly. It sounded good so she said it again: “Bullshit. You set me up. You used me as bait.” She’d known he was up to something. Just not this.

  “Yes, I know I did,” he said. “You would never have come willingly just because I showed up at your door and asked for help. Look, I had no idea who was in on it. Was it our liaison in Customs? Was it my boss? I even thought it might be Alexis for a while. I had no clue. I had to let you do your thing while I watched what happened. I couldn’t let you be part of catching them, I had to have you out there stirring up shit like you always do, never worrying about how you look to people. The minute I told you there was a sell-out in the Bureau, you were going to stop doing what I needed you to do. Even if I told you not to. You really suck at following orders.”

  She couldn’t argue with that. If she’d known they were springing a trap to catch the agent who had set them up all those years ago, there wouldn’t have been anything Michael could do to contain her. It still irked her that she hadn’t figured out what had happened without having to be told.

  “So when Alexis was killed, you had the genius idea that — what? That I was perfect bait because how could the guy who’d set us up before resist doing it again?”

  “Exactly.” He smiled at her like she should congratulate his cleverness.

  “Yeah, you’re brilliant. What made you suspect you hadn’t gotten all the bastards?”

  “Alexis was smart as hell. She and I weren’t good together as spouses but we weren’t bad as partners. She suspected that I hadn’t nailed the person who screwed you and me over. Or, rather, she thought I hadn’t nailed all of the people. Enough suspicious shit happened that she was sure someone inside the Bureau was selling information.”

  “Like Athens.”

  “Right. Most of the jewelry was gone before you could recover it, but you got nailed. Everyone assumed you got all the jewelry, so no one looked for it, right? Some agent got a nice chunk of change on the black market for it.”

  “All right. So Alexis was killed and you had to do something. You couldn’t let them get away with it. Very touching. Why didn’t you suspect Gerard?”

  “Because whoever was in on it must have killed Alexis, and Gerard was her lover.”

  Wow. She regarded him. “Your life sounds like a daytime television drama,” she said. She could imagine how it went. Michael discovering the lover and confronting his wife; Alexis saying he was still wai
ting for someone else to come home. Victoria shook her head. “You’ll notice I don’t have things like that going on in my life. I have a very sensible life.”

  He slanted her a look.

  “But we still don’t know where the treasure is.”

  “No,” he said. “We don’t.”

  Chapter 23

  On the first day of July, Victoria locked up the dojang and climbed into the Volvo. She looked out at the building in front of her, and she should have been pleased.

  My life sucks. It pissed her off. She’d been home for weeks now. Running the school, trying to tell Rosemary that no matter how closely she looked, Vlad was not going to suddenly develop a good side.

  She started up the Volvo and drove east along Fifteenth Street. The houses got older and the trees taller as she went. She turned onto the access road and followed the drive around the curve, every inch of the landscape as familiar to her as breathing.

  She parked on the verge and climbed out. The sun pressed down like the hand of God. July in Kansas, and it must be over a hundred degrees, even in the shade of the towering oaks.

  She went to the place and sat down next to Jasmine, brushing a blown leaf off the stone. The violets still rioted over the mound, encroaching on other graves. She drew her knees up to her chin and said, “I shouldn’t have told your daddy that I had to make a choice.”

  The words echoed in the quiet air. A hot wind stirred up dust from the road and she closed her eyes until it passed.

  “I was wrong. I should have let him try to change. Maybe he could have.”

  The sun was hot and her t-shirt was soaked under the arms already. She took a deep breath. This was even harder than she’d thought it would be.

  “I promised I would never do the work again,” she said. “I broke that promise, Jasmine. I shouldn’t have made it in the first place. I was wrong about that, too.”

  She laid her cheek on her knees and listened to the scurry of a squirrel in the branches above her. “I want him to come back home, baby. But I don’t know how to do it.”

  The wind sighed in the trees. She lifted her face to the sun. And then it came to her, and she began to smile.

  Chapter 24

  On the last day of July, she was at the dojang, finishing class, when he materialized in the back of the room. She wrapped the lesson up and bowed the class out.

  “Why, Mephistopheles,” she said, walking into her office. “To what do I owe this honor?”

  “I figured it out just a step late,” Michael said, following her. He leaned against the doorjamb, all easy grace.

  She searched his face for a sign. Then she said, cautiously, “What exactly did you figure out?”

  Then he laughed. Warm and genuine and sincere. It took her breath away. “I’m sure I didn’t detect all of your felonies,” he said. “What I meant was I figured out what happened. The sequence of events. It all started when Gregory Zirov found out about the collection and with Nadine’s assistance, took the candlestick in for appraisal. He arranged for Kevin to trade the Baroque collection for the Byzantine collection at the church so the theft wouldn’t be noticed immediately. Here’s where it went wrong. Kevin did exactly what he was supposed to do. He did exchange the Baroque pieces for the Byzantine. But the appraiser tipped off the FBI, and the source at the FBI — Gerard — tipped off Vlad. Vlad put it together. Byzantine collection, Eastern Orthodox church, bam. He sent someone in, who killed the priest, Elene, and her son, and discovered that the treasure in the safe wasn’t Byzantine after all, but Baroque. So the hired gun — or guns — left it there. Why take something that could someday link Vlad to the murders if it wasn’t what he wanted?”

  He looked at her.

  “With you so far,” she said. She was ahead of him so far, but let him talk.

  “Then Kevin stumbled on to the bodies and he panicked, afraid the switch would be revealed and he’d take the blame for the murders. So Kevin carted the Baroque pieces away and hid them. He and Zirov agreed to stonewall the investigation into the murders so as not to get accused of them. They didn’t know anything about anything.” He stopped, considered for a moment. She gave him a faint smile and he went on.

  “But Gerard’s got a mess. All these murders and Vlad is pissed because there’s no treasure after all. If someone works it out, Gerard’s in the shit. So Nadine has to go, the small-time enforcer has to go, and the appraiser has to go. We’ve got the ballistics back, by the way. I think I was supposed to get shot in a desperate attempt to avoid justice and Gerard was going to plant the Sig on me. It’s the kind I carry. Anyway. That means Zirov had the Byzantine collection after all. But where did he keep it?”

  “Did you look?” she asked, curious.

  “Not me personally. But yes, after — well, let’s call it the rooftop affair — after that the Bureau searched his home and office. They didn’t find anything.”

  “Huh,” she said.

  “So where was it?” he asked. “I’m not going to demand it back.”

  “That’s for damned sure,” she said. “That’ll learn you to set me up.”

  “I wasn’t setting you up,” he said. She could see he was working on the spin. “I was merely relying on you, the way I always have, to back me up on a complicated play.”

  “Bullshit,” she said. But she smiled. Maybe it was true. “Anyway. You missed a step. I mean, you’re mostly right. But you missed a piece.”

  Michael frowned. “Where?” he demanded.

  “Nadine started it all,” she said. “She wanted to hurt the priest but she also expected to come away with some cold hard cash. But when the murders happened, she wasn’t like Kevin and Zirov, stonewalling everyone. She came clean to Alexis. Nadine told what she knew and Alexis recovered the collection from her.”

  “Nadine Grossman knew Zirov from her previous job,” Michael said, following along. “He supplied the Baroque pieces and Kevin put them in the safe, then handed off the Byzantine pieces to Nadine. Zirov was going to pay off Kevin and Nadine for their help. But he relies on a trust fund to live, and he couldn’t get all the money he needed at one time.”

  “Right,” she said. “I figure he paid off Kevin first, then intended to give Nadine money for the pieces she had in her possession. Obviously she had no use for them, not being obsessed, and she wanted money, and she didn’t have a better option than Zirov, so there was very little risk of anyone getting double-crossed. It was just supposed to be this genteel arrangement, with the priest getting screwed, so to speak. But it wouldn’t have harmed him personally, in the end. So some things were stolen from his church? It might piss him off but it’s not like someone ran off with his wife or something.”

  “So Alexis recovered the treasure,” Michael said. “She must have said something to Gerard about her suspicions that someone was selling information. Of course she did. He panicked, told Vlad, Vlad killed her — or maybe Gerard did it himself — and the treasure she had gotten from Nadine disappeared.”

  “It didn’t actually disappear,” Victoria said. “It’s just that neither Gerard nor Vlad realized that she had it in her possession. It never occurred to them that she’d already recovered it.”

  “Don’t tell me.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “The treasure was at your house.”

  She wasn’t sure how he’d react to that. But he just smiled and said, “I’ll be damned.” Which was probably true.

  “I saw the notice that the national museum in Istanbul ‘discovered’ the lost Treasure of Constantinople in a store room,” he said. “You didn’t even keep a small finder’s fee for yourself?”

  “What would I do with a Byzantine icon and two silver chests?”

  Their eyes met. “Sabumnim,” he said, and bowed because they were in a dojang, then turned and walked away. Walked away. He hadn’t come all this distance
to walk away.

  She watched him, arms folded across her chest. Prince of lies, she thought. That was the standard line. But she knew that the ancient Gnostics believed that the devil was good, on the side of the humans. Lucifer, son of the morning. So which was he? Bearer of darkness, bringer of light?

  “I have this student,” she said, loudly enough for him to hear, loudly enough for him to stop with his hand on the door. “A preacher, you know? And he tells me, ‘the devil will always take you back.’ Is that true, Mephistopheles?”

  He glanced over his shoulder, his sapphire eyes dancing, his black hair falling across his face.

  “Is it?”

  And then he flashed that wicked, wicked smile.

  More From This Author

  (From Acts of Faith)

  It was the rosary bead that came to Emma’s mind when she took the wrinkled envelope her grandmother handed her, the rosary bead instead of the pretty Raphael Madonna or even the pickles.

  Paul was the one who discovered it. After spotting it, he waded through scores of tourists to find her so that he could show it to her, the way he’d shown her the tree frogs and the fledglings fallen from the nest, taking it upon himself to educate her in the things their grandparents and the public school never would.

  With the physical expression of enthusiasm so typical of him, he elbowed aside a woman in a red felt hat, shoved Emma toward the glass display case and crowed, “Look.”

  She looked. It was a sixteenth-century wooden rosary bead, carved with great patience and skill by some unknown Northern artist. It opened into halves and carved on each half was a scene from the life of Christ, each scene replete with dozens of tiny carved figures, less than half an inch tall, distinguished one from another by the expressions on their faces and the designs on their robes. Some had beards and some long curly hair and some great bushy eyebrows. It was a stunning feat of craftsmanship.

  Emma reached out, wanting to feel it in her hand. At the last possible moment, she stopped herself from touching the glass and setting off an alarm. She said, “I don’t think I would have bothered with ears.”