“To take care of the family. To stop gambling. Hasn’t always been easy trying to watch out for Braxton, but never gambling again is rock solid. Keeps me whole.” He listened for a moment. “Hear that?”
Faint strains of music played. A man warbled a tune.
“The Four Franks again,” Val said.
As they watched the flickering candle, they listened to a man sing about stealing a love song from the birds to express his feelings to a woman.
Drake thought how, not so long ago, he’d fought the first signs of his vulnerability to Val. But his fate had been sealed at the first barrage of fire. There was no way he could have withstood the bombardment.
“Dollar for your thoughts?” Val asked.
“Sometimes,” Drake murmured, tugging her closer, “surrender is unavoidable.”
* * *
BY LATE MORNING the following day, the storms had broken and the sun was shining again. After Drake dropped Val off at her Toyota, she headed home, showered, put on her makeup and changed into a light gray halter dress.
By one that afternoon, she was back at Diamond Investigations, where she and Drake reviewed the video footage they had taken at the Sinatra suite, burned it onto a CD and wrote their investigation report. Next, they compiled a set of bogus documents that detailed asset resources for five of Jayne’s wealthy, and very fake, clients.
Afterward, Val called Suzanne Doyle and left a message that she’d drop off the report and CD later in the day. Her second call was to Yuri, informing him she had the documents he requested. He said he’d be by around four. After she hung up, she looked up at the surveillance camera.
“It’s on.”
* * *
AT QUARTER TO four, the agency phone jangled. For a change, the irritating ring didn’t give Val a start.
“Diamond Investigations,” she answered.
“This is Jayne.”
“Jayne…how are you?”
“Holding my own.” Pause. “A former client dropped by the agency this morning, said the front door was locked, no lights on inside. Is everything all right?”
She didn’t sound as tired as the last time they spoke, which was a good sign. Nevertheless, Val decided to not share everything that was going on, just to keep it simple. The last thing her boss needed right now was more stress and worry.
“I came in late after working an all-night surveillance with Drake.”
“Sounds like you two are getting along.”
“Yes.”
“Excellent.” Pause. “I also called to tell you that…” Her voice softened. “You remind me of myself when I was younger. Ambitious, eager, a risk taker. I have counseled you many times that you cannot always do things your way, but I wanted you to know before…” She paused. “Wanted you to know,” she repeated, her voice turning solemn, “if you trust your choice, even if others disagree, taking a risk is sometimes the only way to win.”
* * *
CLOSE TO FOUR, Val’s cell phone rang. Yuri’s number displayed on the caller ID.
She took a calming breath. “Hello?”
“I am outside, parked at the curb. Bring papers to me.”
“I thought you would come inside,” she said pleasantly.
“I like outside.”
Just as Drake had guessed, Yuri did not want to conduct business inside the agency.
“I’ll be right there,” she said, looking at the surveillance camera.
She picked up the manila envelope on her desk, filled with the phony documents she and Drake had prepared, slipped on her sunglasses and headed outside.
As she approached the Mercedes, the tinted driver’s window rolled down.
“Hello, Yuri,” she said in her best cheerful voice, stopping at the side of the car.
He wore an embroidered blue short-sleeve shirt, the corner of a white handkerchief sticking out of the pocket, and slacks. Vadim sat in the passenger seat, wearing another leisure suit, typing on an iPad. The car was running, air-conditioning on high, and the radio played.
He accepted the envelope. Saying something in Russian, he handed it to Vadim, who nodded.
Yuri turned back to Val, giving her a smile that reminded her of a lizard. When he reached down, she froze, wondering if he had a gun. Instead, he handed her a bottle of Russian vodka.
“Kahrs.”
“Kahrs,” she said, forcing a smile.
The tinted window rolled back up.
Moments later, she sat at her desk. “Everything went as planned,” she said to the surveillance camera.
She pulled off her sunglasses and removed one of its temple arms with the built-in video-recording device. “Except I couldn’t record the conversation because not only did he keep the air conditioner running the whole time, he played music on the radio.”
The connecting door clicked open. She heard Hearsay’s skittering claws and Drake’s footsteps heading down the hall. A moment later, he stood next to her desk. She had the fleeting thought that a man dressed in jeans and a simple white T-shirt didn’t have a right to look so good.
Hearsay curled up at her feet and slipped his nose beneath a foreleg.
“All that work for nothing,” she murmured.
Drake gave a half shrug. “Next time, we’ll try something different.”
“Like?”
“We’ll brainstorm options.”
“Want to do that now?”
“No,” he said, his brow creasing with worry. He opened his arms. “C’mere.”
She stood, sank into his embrace, her heart thudding, steeling herself for bad news. Was he going to say last night was a mistake?
“I pulled some records,” he said gently, stroking her back, “your biological mother…died twelve years ago, a few years after she left New Orleans. Seems she had been sick for a long time.” He hugged her tight. “I’m sorry, Val.”
It was as though someone turned a valve and her life force leaked out of her. She felt hollow, and in a strange way, lonelier than she’d ever been. Even after losing her nanny. For all the times she’d told herself she felt nothing for the woman who’d abandoned her as a child, the news saddened her.
“Didn’t think I’d care,” she whispered hoarsely, “but I do. How selfish of me to not think there were other reasons she stayed away…what did she die of? No, I’m not ready to hear. Did she…have a husband?”
“It appears there was a boyfriend.”
“He was with her when she…?”
“Don’t know.”
“Now I’m nobody’s child,” she murmured.
He tightened his arms around her, cradling her head against his chest. “Maybe I’m rushing things, but you’ll always have my family. You’ll always have me.”
She listened to his heartbeat, breathed in his familiar scent, remembering how last night after they’d made love she had felt refuge in their embrace. At this moment, she sensed something more profound in his arms.
The promise of a future.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
AFTER LOCKING THE front door to Diamond Investigations, Val joined Drake in his back office. He was tossing the pink ball to Hearsay, who would catch it in his mouth, then stand there and stare at Drake as though to say, “Now what?”
“You’re supposed to return it to me!” Drake gave Val an exasperated look. “I’m the one fetching it back from him every time. Obviously I’m failing as a dog trainer.”
Val smiled. “Or maybe he’s training you.”
“C’mon, buddy,” Drake said, heading to his office door, “you’ve trained me enough for today.
He opened the door and Hearsay trotted outside, then stopped. Dropping the ball, he began barking loudly.
“Buddy,” Drake said, stepping outside with Val, “what’s up?”
They froze.
Yuri leaned against the pickup truck, pressing a folded white handkerchief on his shiny forehead. The black Mercedes blocked the parking space entrance, the sun glinting off its tinted windows.
Hearsay growled.
Yuri glanced at him. “Hello, missing link. I remember Marta say dog at Diamond Investigations. I call her few minutes ago, ask to describe. Funny,” he said, mocking great surprise, “it look exactly like dog I see at Drake’s house! So Vadim and I visit Diamond Investigations, look around…and look where I find Drake’s pickup.”
“What do you want, Yuri?” Drake asked.
He pulled a sparkling diamond ring out of his pocket. “Very pretty family ring, Drake. Worth zouzands.”
“I offered you twenty,” Drake said calmly, holding tightly onto Val’s hand.
“With interest, thirty.”
“I don’t have thirty.”
Yuri shrugged, dropped the ring back into his pocket. “I have other deal for twenty thousand. Protection money for your girlfriend. Would be shame for pretty intern to get hurt.”
“Don’t threaten her,” Drake snarled.
“Or what?”
“I’ll kill you.”
Yuri laughed. “For that, protection now cost twenty-five thousand. Tonight I host private party at Mandalay Bay wave pool. Bring money there, eight o’clock.”
He started to walk away, stopped and turned. “One more thing. If you not show up with money at eight, Val no longer under protection.”
As the Mercedes drove away, Val said, “Let’s call the police.”
Drake expelled a sharp breath, hating himself for bringing this danger into Val’s life. “Police can’t do anything. There’s no evidence of his threat, just our word against his.”
She gave him a wary look. “You can’t give in to his demands, you know that, right?”
“This is between me and Yuri.”
“Bull. I’m involved, too.” She searched his face, her expression growing grim. “You’re going to cash out the twenty thousand in your savings account, and somehow tag on another five, aren’t you?”
What he really wanted to do was show up at Mandalay Bay, beat Yuri to a pulp and stuff him on a flight back to his mother country. But Yuri had friends, like Vadim, who’d only pick up where Yuri left off. So, yes, Drake’s real plan was to cash out his savings and figure out how to get the rest, but he didn’t want to discuss it with her.
“Let’s go,” he said, swiping his brow. “It’s hot out here.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head vehemently, “let’s go back inside the office where it’s cool and call Tony. Maybe he has the rest of those DNA results by now, which you seem certain will point to Yuri, and you two can alert the authorities to arrest Yuri.”
His taut nerves snapped. “Drop it, Val, it’s none of your business.”
* * *
VAL STARED INTO Drake’s dark, foreboding eyes, not believing that this was happening. “This involves both of us, but it’s none of my business? We’re a team, remember? Partners. There has to be another way to handle Yuri!”
“I said drop it.”
She met his defiance with an unflinching gaze. “You’re retreating into your I’ll-handle-this-by-myself cave again. As though nobody has the right to stand with you. But I won’t let you do this alone. I love you, damn it.” She blinked back angry tears. “Let’s go away. Move to another state, another country, where Yuri can never find us.”
“That’s implausible and you know it. My family’s here. So is yours. As are our careers.”
She threw her hands up into the air. “Then I’ll move away. If I’m gone, there’s no need to pay protection money.”
He snorted something rude under his breath. “Be a refugee again? Haven’t you been exiled enough for one lifetime?”
The words cut deep. But more than the words, his harsh, cold tone. As though they’d never shared a single intimate moment, never opened their hearts to each other.
Giving a low whistle to Hearsay, he yanked the handle on the passenger side of his pickup. The door creaked as he swung it open. “C’mon, buddy, get inside.”
Hearsay scrambled into the truck, then sat on the seat, watching her as though saying, “You coming with us?”
Drake jerked his head, motioning for her to get inside the pickup.
She didn’t move. Hot breezes rustled through the leaves.
“Val.” He pointed at the front seat, “Get in.”
“I’m not your dog,” she said quietly.
The words had left her mouth before she’d realized it, but hearing them, it’s exactly how she felt. He was treating her as though she were something he owned, who obeyed his dictates. She accepted his being her mentor, her temporary boss, but out here, at this moment, they were acting out their personal relationship.
Was this how a future with him would be? Had she been so blinded by her feelings for him, or by her intent to have her career, that she lost sight of who they really were?
He studied her, scathingly. “I’m a better man than that, and you know it.”
“Maybe I don’t know it.”
A long silence drew out between them. She held herself in place, her insides roiling with fury and hurt. At the same time, a part of her wanted to coax him out of his mood, make him laugh at their silliness, admit how they needed to be a team and brainstorm a way out of this.
He slammed shut the passenger door and turned his body, the one that only last night had been pressed against hers, and strode around the pickup and got inside.
She watched as the engine growled to life and he backed out of the parking lot.
For a moment she just stood there, alone, thinking how quickly life could change. How people and homes and friends were there one moment, gone the next. How loved ones disappeared or died. The lesson for survivors was to learn how to redo their lives and hopefully find another welcoming home.
Fishing her keys from her pocket, she headed to Drake’s back office door. She’d do a last check of the offices, then head out to her car and go home, figure out what to do next.
She spied the ball, bright and pink in the sun, and remembered Jayne saying it had been her ritual to always buy one to welcome her dog back home. She walked over and picked it up, wondering if Drake had ever guessed Val had bought it, not Jayne.
Inside Drake’s office, she set the ball where Hearsay would see it the moment he bounded in the door.
* * *
AT SEVEN-THIRTY that night, Drake stood near the roulette table at the Mandalay Bay casino. He still wore his jeans and T-shirt, having spent the afternoon running around, calling people, trying to raise five grand. Eddie, who’d hit it big at the horse races, loaned him seven hundred, Li’l Bit donated a hundred and Braxton left an envelope with five hundred in it with a note: “I got your back.”
He’d called Tony, who didn’t answer. When it rolled over to voice mail, Drake left a message asking Tony to call him when he got the DNA test results.
He watched the players scatter their bets among the numbers and colors. He could sense their excitement as the dealer closed the bids and the ball clattered around and around until it lost momentum, falling into the winning slot.
Two of the players whooped loudly, raising their fists.
It was like old times, being surrounded by the smell of cigarettes, the bustling crowds and the beeps, whirs and clicks of slot machines. Like old times wrestling with the tangled feelings of excitement and despair before he gambled.
He also wrestled with the miserable, tortured feelings he’d had since leaving Val this afternoon. He hadn’t known how to defuse her anger. Hadn’t had the sense to keep his mouth shut. So he’d closed off and split.
He missed her. Missed that lax drawl, the way emotions paraded across her face, even missed those funny purple streaks in her hair. Her idea to uproot their lives wasn’t a solution—it was running away from a problem—but he hadn’t taken the time to discuss it with her. Truth was, he’d been scared for
her life, wanted to get moving, find the money, but in his urgency, he’d lost what mattered the most. Val.
Maybe he’d blown their relationship, but he wasn’t going to fail at protecting her. He peeled off six one-hundred-dollar bills, shoved his wallet back into his jeans pocket. He needed three thousand, seven hundred dollars more to make twenty-five thousand. He hoped the old man forgave him for what he was about to do.
As he stepped toward the roulette table, someone gripped his arm. He stopped, looked down at the small hand, up the slender arm to the face that haunted his every thought.
Val wore a simple black dress, her sleek hair framing her face. It was all he could do to stare into those glistening brown eyes, amazed how his heart pounded just at the sight of her.
“Don’t,” she said, choking on the word.
“Bets are closing,” called out the dealer.
He flinched. She held on.
“We can get through this,” she said, sliding her hand into her pocket. She pulled out a wad of bills, put them into his hand. “A thousand cash from Marta’s last visit, four hundred left over from her first.” She shrugged. “If I hadn’t bought that minifridge, nearly five.”
He smiled. Couldn’t help himself. “After what I raised, we have two thousand, three hundred to go.”
“We,” she repeated, her heart in her eyes, “that’s what this is about. The two of us. Let’s go to Yuri, together, negotiate how to pay the rest.”
“He doesn’t make deals,” Drake said coldly, “only enforces them.”
“Eighteen red,” called out the dealer at the roulette table.
“Yee-haw!” yelled a fiftysomething man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a cowboy hat. “I just made me a mortgage payment!”
Drake lifted her hand off his arm, held it for a moment.
“If you go to that table,” she said, her face hardening, “it’s really over. For good.”
He peered at her, so beautiful and strong, the ultimatum flashing in her eyes, but this was bigger than his problems. This was about saving her life. He released her hand.
“Maybe someday you’ll realize how much I loved you.”
He turned and headed to the gambling table.
* * *
ANGRY AND BROKEN, Val walked away, her legs carrying her as far as an empty seat in front of a slot machine before she let herself crumble.
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