Dangerous Comforts (The Ruby Danger Series Book 3)

by Rickie Blair

  “Excuse me?”

  “Didn’t you see those pictures? Why do you think I showed them to you?” Her voice rose. “Didn’t you see what Luca can do?”

  “I don’t understand. Are you saying Ruby—”

  “—could be in danger? Yes, that’s what I’m saying.” Ana crossed her arms and leaned against the wall.

  Hari’s heart twisted in his chest.

  “How would Luca know about Ruby?”

  “How do you think? By following you.”

  “Nobody’s following me.”

  “How do you know? Can you spot a tail?”

  He stood up and ran a fist across his mouth.

  “I’m a fraud investigator, not a private eye.”

  “You’re a fraud investigator who’s looking for Dragos Luca. He’s a psychopath. There’s no telling what he might do.”

  Hari paced across the room, trying to think. Why hadn’t he listened to his inner voice back in London when he had wanted to turn this job down? Had he been that easy to lure? Did it only take a private jet, and a penthouse suite, and an expensive watch or two to entice him?

  “Bloody hell,” he said, shaking his head.

  Ana shrugged off her shoulder bag and plopped it on the bed. She pulled out the spare Glock and two cartridges and handed them over. Hari took them without comment, loaded the Glock and placed it on the nightstand with the spare magazine.

  Ana put a hand on her hip.

  “Are you going to tell her?”

  “Tell her what?”

  “That she’s in danger. So she’ll go back to Los Angeles.”

  “You don’t know Ruby. She never backs down. If I tell her Luca is dangerous, it will just make her more determined.”

  “She’s a fool, then.”

  “No, she’s not. She’s brave and a little … impulsive.”

  “Then you’ll have to lie to her.”

  “I can’t.”

  With a loud sigh, Ana crouched on the floor and placed a hand on his thigh.

  “Hari, listen to me. I know what I’m talking about. Send your plucky heroine back to Los Angeles. In fact, you should go with her.”

  “I can’t do that. I signed on to investigate a fraud and I’m going to finish it. There are millions of names on Luca’s website, and that means millions of potential victims. There’s a lot more at stake here than just Watson’s casino.”

  Ana squeezed his thigh.

  “Hari—”

  He brushed her hand away. Ana stood up with her hands out.

  “You’re right. It’s not my business. But if I were you, I’d take another look at those pictures before I made up my mind.” She dropped the envelope of crime scene photos on the bed. “Jayden and I are going out for a late lunch. Get some rest. It’s going to be a busy night.” She walked out.

  Hari flicked the envelope onto the floor with a grimace, flopped back, and reached for the buttons by the bed to close the blackout curtains and turn off the lights. He was asleep within seconds. Ruby swirled through his dreams, along with the butchered victims in the photos, the scrolling data on the online auction site, the headless body in Zeke Turner’s apartment, even the relentless trickle of water in the storm drain.

  He awoke drenched in sweat from a nightmare in which Ruby pulled her dress off over her head to reveal a sword piercing her chest. Hari swung his legs over the side of the bed and cradled his head in his hands, his heart pounding. Whatever the consequences, he couldn’t put her at risk.

  * * *

  Ruby awoke with a start in her silent room. She glanced at the bedside clock, shocked. Had she really slept that long? She stretched and smiled as memories flooded over her. No wonder she was tired. She sat up, reaching for her phone to send a text.

  whr r u?

  Then she stood up, stretched again and yawned, and pulled open the curtains. The Strip blazed against a darkening sky, promising an eventful night. Her black dress lay crumpled and forlorn on the floor so she tossed it over the nearest chair just as her phone beeped.

  in my room.

  dinner? Ruby texted. She pulled a red silk shift from its hangar and held it up before the mirror. Perfect. Elegant, yet easy to remove. Grinning, she draped it over the bed. Her phone beeped again.

  i don’t think so, thanks.

  What did that mean? She tapped in another text.

  rn’t u hungry?

  She threw her mud-encrusted sandals into the trash and pulled out another pair with a rueful chuckle. This weekend had been hell on her wardrobe. In the bathroom, she showered, ran a brush through her hair, and added eyeliner and earrings. Then she walked back into the bedroom to check her phone. No reply. She tugged the red dress over her head and reached for her phone again. Still no reply.

  She tapped in, i’m coming up. we can get room service.

  After one last look in the mirror, she headed down the hall.

  As the elevator rose, her heart began to pound and she grabbed the railing. The elevator shuddered to a halt before the doors opened on the penthouse floor. Ruby stared at the massive floral arrangement on the table opposite the elevator, memorizing every bloom while her legs refused to move. Was this really a good idea? The doors hissed shut.

  Taking a deep breath, she jabbed the open button. The doors parted again and she stepped out. As she smoothed her dress while walking down the hall on shaky legs, an image flashed before her of the expression on Hari’s face when he realized Leta was gone forever. She halted. Was he ready to move on? And for that matter, was she? What happened to her resolve never to get involved again?

  This was a mistake. They were moving too fast.

  Pivoting, she walked back up the hall to the elevator. After several yards, she halted again.

  I’m here for as long as you want me.

  Oh, my God, had she actually said that? Yes, she had. She pivoted again and started for the Andromeda Suite.

  Then you’ll be here a very long time.

  She halted yet again. How long was that, exactly? A lifetime? Or a day? She pressed a hand against her chest while walking to the Andromeda suite, then paused at the door. Last chance to turn back.

  She knocked.

  Hari opened the door. Once she saw his face, her heart soared and her doubts were forgotten. She stepped past him and into the suite, turning to place her hands on his chest.

  He backed away, frowning.

  Her heart fell back to earth with a thud and for a few seconds she couldn’t breathe. She took a step back, her legs shaky again.

  “I thought you might want dinner,” she said haltingly.

  “No, thanks, I have other plans.”

  “I thought—”

  “You thought what?” Hari asked, seeming annoyed.

  Her mouth went slack and her hand lay limp by her side, refusing to open the door. Heat flushed through her body and her heart roared back to life as blood pounded in her ears.

  “What are you playing at?” she demanded.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t do that. We’ve known each other too long. If you’re not interested in pursuing this, tell me to leave and I’ll go back to Los Angeles and you can do whatever the hell you want.” She shook with anger.

  Hari grimaced, his arms hanging at his sides.

  “It’s not like that. You should go back to Los Angeles, but not because … not because…” He took a deep breath. “Ruby—”

  The bedroom door opened.

  “Hola,” Ana said, approaching with her hand outstretched, “Ruby, isn’t it?” Ana’s hair was rumpled and by the way her silk robe clung to every curve, it was obvious she was naked underneath.

  Ruby’s feet turned to lead as she gawked at Ana.

  Ana lowered her unshaken hand and stepped next to Hari.

  “I sent your dinner jacket out to be cleaned, darling, but it’s back now. I laid it out on the bed.” Rising on tiptoe she kissed his cheek, slid an arm around his waist, and faced Ruby.

  Ruby tore her ey
es from Ana to stare at Hari with her mouth open.

  Hari pulled Ana’s hand from his waist and pushed her away. He took a step forward.

  “Ruby, listen—” His voice cracked.

  “You son of a bitch.” She turned without waiting for his reaction, slammed the door behind her and marched down the hall. In the elevator, she stabbed the button for her own floor and waited, breathing raggedly, while the car started down with a slight lurch. When the doors opened on her floor, she took one step, paused, and then jabbed the button for the casino floor. The hell with Hari Bhatt. Like she needed him to be happy. She glared at the mirrored wall in the lobby opposite until the doors closed again.

  I’m here for as long as you want me? That was a limited time offer, you son of a bitch. She pulled out her phone to text Felicity.

  Change of plans. Meet me downstairs. Starship Lounge. asap.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  As the elevator door opened, Ruby rummaged through her handbag for her sunglasses and pushed them onto her face with jittery hands. She walked across the casino with her head down, zigzagging between the beeping and flashing slot machines, hoping no one would recognize her. In the Starship Lounge she slid onto a bar stool and placed her phone on the counter before flashing a weak smile at Tony, the bartender.

  “Welcome back,” he said, wiping the counter in front of her. “What can I get you? Same as yesterday?”

  Ruby nodded, grateful she didn’t have to speak. She didn’t trust her voice. Tony slid a bowl of spiced peanuts over before making her drink, but she pushed the bowl away.

  When he returned with her beverage, Ruby took a long swallow and replaced the glass on the counter. Then she leaned her elbows on the bar and rested her head on her folded hands. Tony made himself busy, wiping the counter, refilling the snack bowls, pouring drafts and mixing drinks and occasionally glancing in her direction. He made no attempt at conversation and she was grateful for that, too.

  Ruby studied the bottles on the shelves behind the bar. Vodka, gin, rum, Scotch, tequila, brandy. Liqueurs in colorful bottles. Taps for draft beer. A lone bottle of slivovitz. She had spent many hours slumped over bars like this, so the surroundings comforted her. Even the sight of a white bar towel thrown over the bartender’s shoulder comforted her. Where did those tiny little towels come from, anyway? Was there a tiny little towel factory somewhere? She sipped her drink.

  “There you are,” Felicity said, sliding onto the stool next to her. “I got your message. Hey, look at me.” Felicity pushed Ruby’s sunglasses up onto her forehead, stared into her eyes, and winced. “Ruby, what’s wrong?”

  Ruby tapped her sunglasses back down on her nose and shrugged, turning back to the bar.

  “Is it Hari?” Felicity asked.

  Ruby pulled a face, drained her drink and signaled the bartender.

  “I thought things were working out between you two,” Felicity said.

  “You thought wrong.”

  “What happened?”

  Ruby shrugged and ran a hand along the bar.

  “Same again?” Tony asked.

  “Please.” As he turned to walk away Ruby said, “Wait,” and held up two fingers. “Two cherries this time, Tony.”

  Sam strolled into the bar and sat on the stool on Ruby’s other side.

  “Hi, Sam,” she said without looking up from her empty glass. “Are we having a party?”

  “I was summoned. I obeyed.” Sam signaled the bartender. “Draft, please.” He leaned in. “So,” he whispered. “Are we mourning that bastard Hari Bhatt?”

  Ruby gave a snort of disgust.

  “Where did you leave the body?” Sam asked.

  Her lower lip quivered while she dug her nails into her palm to ward off the tears that stung the back of her eyes.

  Felicity put her arm around Ruby’s shoulder.

  “Hon, do you think you should be drinking right now? You know what can happen.”

  Tony placed a glass of amber liquid and ice in front of Ruby.

  “Diet ginger ale, two cherries. As ordered.”

  Ruby smiled sadly at Felicity.

  “So little faith.” She reached for the ginger ale. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t give Hari the satisfaction.” As soon as the words had left her mouth, she regretted them. Not just because Felicity was mouthing shut up to Sam, supposedly out of Ruby’s sightline, but because it wasn’t fair. In the weeks after Lily’s death, when Antony had been somewhere in Krygyzstan, unreachable, Hari had flown to Vancouver from New York to be with her. Ruby had more than one blurry memory of Hari holding her hair back while she threw up in an unfamiliar bathroom. She sighed. High maintenance. No wonder he didn’t want to have anything to do with her.

  “Do you want to talk about it, Ruby?” Felicity said.

  “About her, you mean?” She sipped her ginger ale.

  “Her?”

  “We saw her in the casino, remember?”

  “Whoa,” Sam said, “do you mean the babe you told me about in the red—?”

  Felicity glared at him. “Not helping, Sam.”

  “Sorry,” he winced. “I mean, some guys say they like that, but really—”

  “Still not helping.”

  Sam studied the pattern in the carpet.

  Felicity rubbed Ruby’s back. “We’ll leave first thing in the morning. In fact, we can get a flight back to L.A. tonight.”

  “Don’t be silly. We’re here, we should have dinner. We can go tomorrow. And besides, what about Millie? I promised she could see Tinks in the morning.”

  When Ruby’s phone beeped, she turned off the sound and flipped it over. The phone buzzed and throbbed against the counter, then fell silent.

  Felicity reached for it.

  “I’ll deal with it.” She took a look. “It’s not Hari. It’s somebody called Kingsley Greaves.” She handed over the phone and Ruby peered at the screen.

  “Oh. Good news, actually.” She tapped in a return text. “Millie’s bank manager found an apartment for her and Norris.”

  “Great. One less thing for you to worry about. Sam, can you pop over to the Calliope and get us a table?”

  Sam drained his draft, saluted and walked out. Felicity watched him go.

  “You two are getting on pretty well,” Ruby said.

  Felicity rubbed the back of her neck with a wry expression.

  “I might have been wrong about Sam.” She held up a hand to the bartender. “A martini, please, Tony. Extra dry.”

  Ruby’s phone beeped again, and this time she read the text.

  “Greaves wants my advice on the new apartment. He’s going to drop by here for a few minutes.” Ruby keyed in her reply. “Now, when he gets here, don’t mention that I’m staying in this hotel because I live here in Las Vegas. And my name is Juliana.”

  “Honestly, Ruby, it’s hard to keep up sometimes.”

  “Hmm-hmm. He’s nearby.”

  Less than five minutes later Kingsley Greaves walked in and spotted them at the bar. He walked up and stood next to Ruby with a puzzled expression.

  “Your hair—“

  “—is different, I know. I just had it done.” Good thing he hadn’t noticed her eyes.

  Greaves slid onto the stool that Sam had vacated.

  “So,” Ruby said, “the apartment? What’s it like?”

  “I haven’t actually seen it yet,” he said. “I was hoping Mrs. Havelock and her son could look at it to see if it meets their needs. The landlord is willing to show it to them tonight, but I don’t know where they’re staying so I couldn’t get in touch with them.”

  “Mrs. Havelock has a room, for now anyway, at the Day-Nite motel in Henderson. I left her there this afternoon.”

  “And her son is there too, I suppose?”

  “No, Norris refused to stay there. He’s still at that dreadful storm drain.”

  “And where is that, exactly?”

  Sam walked through the entrance and over to the bar.

  “No luck. We can�
�t get a table for at least an hour and a half.”

  “What?” Felicity picked up her handbag and slid off the bar stool. “I’m going over there to straighten this out. Wait here.”

  Sam sat on Felicity’s empty stool, gesturing at the bartender for another draft.

  “I’d better drink fast. Felicity will be back in ten minutes with the maître d’ in a headlock.”

  Ruby gave Sam a playful poke in the arm, then turned to Greaves.

  “Mr. Greaves, this is Sam Mitchell. Sam, this is Kingsley Greaves.”

  The bartender placed a clean coaster and a draft in front of Sam, who picked up the beer with a nod at Greaves. “Pleased to meet you.”

  Greaves nodded and turned to Ruby.

  “I don’t want to interrupt your evening, Miss Edwards. If you can tell me where to find Mrs. Havelock and her son, I’ll be on my way.”

  Sam immediately looked up.

  “Miss Edwards? Who is Miss—”

  Ruby gave Sam’s arm a warning squeeze.

  “I can, Mr. Greaves, but I don’t think you’ll be able to find them unless I go with you.”

  “It’s a shame I have so many meetings tomorrow. I wouldn’t want them to lose out on the apartment.”

  “It’s still early, why don’t we go now? Sam, can you tell Felicity that we’ve gone to see the apartment and I’ll be back later?”

  Sam gave her a questioning look.

  “Where is it you’re going, exactly?”

  “Just tell Felicity it’s the camp that I went to the other night. She’ll know.” Ruby slid off the stool and picked up her handbag.

  “Can’t you wait until she returns? She’ll only be a few minutes.”

  “The sooner we leave, the sooner I’ll be back.”

  Sam slid off the stool and grabbed her arm.

  “Ruby, stop for a minute and think this over. It’s after dark and that’s a bad place to be after—”

  “Sam, stop it. I’ll be fine.” Ruby pulled her arm away and followed Greaves to the exit.

  After several yards, he turned into a corridor that ended in a metal exit door. Outside, he opened the passenger door of an aging Buick and Ruby climbed in. As they pulled away, Greaves waved at a hotel security guard who held a walkie-talkie.