Xtreme

by Ruby Laska

  Worry for her was never far from his mind, but on this particular afternoon, he was reviewing a report about a team of robbers posing as women online, luring wealthy gentlemen to meet them in person, only to find themselves relieved of their valuables and in several cases, their cars. Stone was cross checking the victims’ statements when his phone rang: his private number, the one he never used for work, the one his wife used to call him to tell him that she and the girls missed him and couldn’t wait for him to come home.

  “Everson?” The voice was faintly accented, deep and calm.

  “Who the hell is this?”

  “I’ll only say this once, so I suggest you pay careful attention. Roy Huber is using the alias Derek Elsworth and living in Las Vegas. His residence is apartment number two in the Desert Flower complex at East Fremont and Cannon. He is employed as a clerk at the Stop-n-Save gas station at 3341 Cannon. Please repeat this information back to me.”

  Stone, who had begun scribbling furiously as soon as the caller mentioned Huber’s name, had been well trained in stalling techniques. The call was coming from an unregistered phone, but if he could keep the caller on the phone a little longer, they might be able to triangulate his location from cell phone towers. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I didn’t catch everything you said. This connection isn’t very good. If you could just call me back on my office number—”

  “I will hang up in fifteen seconds whether or not you stay on the line, so I suggest you repeat the information now.”

  Whoever the caller was, he was claiming to have found Chelsea Ryder’s stepfather. Stone would know soon enough whether he was telling the truth. For now, he wasn’t going to risk this chance by trying to trace the call, even though he had a sinking feeling he was talking to Ricardo de Santos.

  He repeated everything he’d copied down, enunciating carefully and spelling out the address. When he finished, there was a click: the caller had hung up.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Several days into what Chelsea had come to think of as her own private adventure in babysitting, Mr. Smith finally grudgingly allowed her to see her phone, but only after she promised she would only use the new one he gave her to call or text. As she expected, there was a series of increasingly frustrated texts from her friend Jade Bliss:

  Where the fuck have you been? Same place same time tomorrow. More info for u

  She knew it was from Jade not because of the number—she’d never seen it before, and Jade kept a steady rotation of burner phones—but because she couldn’t imagine anyone else offering her information. Chelsea wasn’t the sort to acquire a lot of friends to begin with—her work and habits precluded that—and since meeting Ricardo, she’d made even less of an effort to socialize. When she wasn’t with him, she was thinking about him; when she wasn’t thinking about him, she was dreaming about him.

  But she had gone to Jade when her romantic obsession turned out to have a dark side. Jade, a former art forger who Chelsea knew slightly before she went to jail, had emerged a reformed woman and taken up private investigation. Which made her the perfect person to find out the truth about Ricardo: who he really was and what he really did.

  At first, Chelsea had thought nothing odd about being introduced to Ricardo by a friend who was also a professional colleague. Meredith Tipton, a fellow gallery owner and Chelsea’s mentor, told her that Ricardo was an international art authenticator, working with private clients to trace and prove the provenance of works of art, as well as determining whether they were original or forged.

  Early in their courtship, Ricardo had given her a small painting done by her father Marcus Ryder, a famed neo-expressionist artist who had tragically lost his life in an auto accident when Chelsea was only six years old. Chelsea, who was determined to amass as much of her father’s work as possible and use her gallery to bring attention to it, had been thrilled by the gift—thrilled enough to ignore the nagging internal voice asking how he had come to possess such a valuable piece that was not on the art scene radar.

  More recently, Ricardo’s comings and goings—which he never explained, other than to hint that he traveled on private jets to meetings in other countries—had coincided disturbingly with crimes in the art and drug trades. FBI agent Stone Everson had contacted her as a personal favor to warn her of the agency’s interest in Ricardo, implying he was wanted for crimes of a serious—and violent—nature.

  Chelsea was torn between loyalty to two men: Stone, who had been in charge of the investigation into her abusive stepfather who was never found, and Ricardo, who she simply could not believe was evil.

  So she had turned to Jade for help, asking her to investigate the truth about her lover.

  Chelsea was determined to meet Jade, even though she wasn’t naïve enough to think Smith would allow her to go alone.

  Ten minutes before three o’clock, she told her assistant Naomi that she was going out for a latte. Then she slipped on her sunglasses and strode out of the building and down the street, breathing a sigh of relief as she did every time she went outside and was not immediately attacked, shot, or kidnapped.

  She’d made it barely a block when Smith materialized at her side.

  “Where are we going?” he asked politely.

  “We aren’t going anywhere. I am meeting a friend for a quick cup of coffee. Please, please, could you make yourself scarce?” She used the lie she had come up with for the occasion: “Her boyfriend broke up with her and she could really use a friend.”

  “I’ll be nearby,” Smith promised and veered off, blending into the crowd of pedestrians on the busy shop-lined street, quickly disappearing from view.

  Chelsea reached the bistro and spotted Jade sitting at her favorite table by the window. Her pale blond hair was piled on her head and secured with a black ribbon, and she was wearing a vintage sailor-collar dress, her tattoos peeping out from the puffed sleeves. On her feet were boots not unlike Chelsea’s own motorcycle boots, though polished to a shine and tied with glitter-studded laces.

  “Okay, first thing,” Chelsea said, sliding into the chair, “Ricardo’s guy followed me here and—”

  “Already saw him,” Jade said calmly, sipping from her chocolate ice cream soda. “He came in and looked the place over and now he’s across the street in the bank. He’s good. But luckily, I am too.”

  “I doubt he’ll give me much time. I told him I was comforting you after a bad breakup.”

  “Seriously?” Jade rolled her eyes. “If I ever have a bad breakup, I won’t be the one who needs comfort.”

  Chelsea smiled. Behind her friend’s bravado and tough exterior was a surprisingly caring heart. Even prison hadn’t been able to extinguish her kindness. “Okay, I’m ready.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  Chelsea was taken aback. “Of course I’m sure. I’m paying you to tell me about Ricardo de Santos—why wouldn’t I be?”

  Jade frowned. “I don’t think you’re going to like what I have to say.”

  Chelsea’s uneasiness deepened. “I’ll worry about that. Come on, please just give me the truth.”

  “Okay. Well, the FBI Art Crimes Division has been looking into him for most of this year. It looks like the official investigation was launched in January when he was tied to the theft of two Picasso sketches from a private home in Paris.”

  “When you say ‘tied,’” Chelsea started. “I mean, if he was hired to authenticate the pieces, isn’t it possible that he wasn’t the one who actually stole the pieces?”

  “They have him on camera a week later, handing off the two pieces to a known Chechen drug trafficker in St. Petersburg, Russia. The only reason that they didn’t arrest him then is that they wanted to make a better case—they suspect him in half a dozen such thefts. When he goes down, he’s going to go down hard.”

  Chelsea took a breath, not meeting her friend’s eyes. It wasn’t what she wanted to hear; it was becoming increasingly difficult to avoid the unpleasant truth that her lover was a thief.
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  “They also have connected him to several murders. The most recent one was only six days ago. A member of the Russian mafia was found shot to death in a vacant school yard here in Los Angeles. They like de Santos for it.”

  “Jade,” Chelsea spoke in low tones, even though there was no way that Smith, wherever he was, could hear her. “I know how this is going to sound, but…what if I told you that that guy killed one of Ricardo’s best friends?”

  Jade pursed her pink-glossed lips. “Are you fucking kidding me? So you knew he did it?”

  “Well, I—I guess so.” Chelsea blushed deep red, realizing how she must sound. “Look, he wouldn’t have done it if the guy hadn’t threatened to kill me.” At least, she didn’t think so. “He was trying to protect me.”

  “Was he trying to protect you in March when two Peruvian drug dealers had their hands blown off at a drop-off point outside Lima?” Jade demanded. “Was he trying to protect you in St. Petersburg last month when his victim endured hours of torture?”

  “I—I don’t know anything about those. But listen, Jade, I really don’t think…” What was she supposed to say: that she didn’t think Ricardo was a bad man? That he’d merely gotten caught up in violence to protect those he loved? That he could never have done the twisted things Jade was describing?

  “You’ve gotten yourself in way over your head,” Jade said in a slightly softer tone, shaking her head. “I’ve known some pretty fucked-up people in jail, and trust me, you have to be both very smart and completely without a conscience to pull off everything they say he’s done. Please, promise me you’ll get away from him.”

  Chelsea was silent for a long moment, remembering the time she had spent with her lover, the dark but irresistible lure of the passion between them. How could she give that up? How could she ever face the possibility that she would never again touch him, never again serve him, never again submit to him?

  “There isn’t anyone else like him,” she said miserably.

  “You have to know how crazy that sounds. He’s using you, Chelsea.”

  “He’s…not.” But how could she be sure? He had never said he loved her—even after reminding her that he owned her. He had never promised to stay with her, even after he told her she was bound to him.

  The fact was, he was using her. He used her for his pleasure, doling out pain and sensation in exquisite measure, finding the intersection of their twin needs and taking it higher, harder, further, seeking the hidden potential inside of her for ever-more-intense submission.

  He was an addiction, possibly a curse. She couldn’t imagine giving him up.

  “Look, if you’re so sure he’s innocent, why not cooperate with the FBI?” Jade said. “I’ve looked into this agent, Marco Vega, who’s in charge of the de Santos case. He’s good, and he’s not a cowboy. They’ve put enough time into this case, they aren’t going to rush in just because you corroborate some of their facts. If he’s clean, your boyfriend will be cleared, and then you can be with him for good, without the threat of arrest hanging over his head.”

  “It’s…complicated,” Chelsea said.

  Jade frowned. “I know what’s going on. You’re bargaining with yourself. You’ve told yourself that you can handle the gray areas. You’ve talked yourself into believing that the thefts were virtually victimless crimes, and you refuse to believe he was involved in those other murders.”

  Chelsea opened her mouth but couldn’t come up with anything to say. It was true: the private collections from which the pieces had been taken belonged to some of the world’s wealthiest men. They could well afford the losses.

  “But the men de Santos killed wouldn’t agree,” Jade finished in a hard tone.

  “Pardon me,” a voice said above them. Chelsea looked up to find Mr. Smith waiting, a bag of dry cleaning slung over his arm. “So sorry to intrude, Ms. Ryder, Ms. Bliss, but I’ve got your things.”

  Chelsea met Jade’s startled gaze. How had Smith discovered who she was? “All right,” she said in a resigned voice. “It was great seeing you, Jade.”

  “Think about what I said,” Jade muttered, as she got up from the table.

  #

  Chelsea spent the rest of the day trying to throw herself into her work, showing art to potential clients and finalizing plans for an upcoming show. But by closing time, when Mr. Smith came to the door for her, she was still shaken.

  She said nothing as he escorted her to a red minivan that looked like it had seen better days. Every day he picked her up in a different car. While Chelsea knew he was only following Ricardo’s instructions to keep her safe, she had quickly grown weary of their routine. The apartment where they were staying was hardly luxurious, but it wasn’t the thin walls and noise and cooking smells generated by the other tenants that bothered her, rather her total lack of privacy. Though Mr. Smith was happy to go out for anything she wanted, he had been very clear that the security system he had installed would alert him immediately if she tried to leave.

  For your own protection, he was fond of saying, which frustrated her almost as much as Ricardo’s complete lack of communication.

  “Listen, Smith…” Chelsea had dispensed with the “mister” after the first day. Smith refused to tell her his first name but didn’t seem to mind the abbreviated moniker. “I don’t appreciate you investigating my friends.”

  “Once I determine they really are your friends, I’ll be happy to stay out of the way,” Smith said mildly. His gaze was glued to the rear- and side-view mirrors, making sure they weren’t being followed.

  Chelsea rolled her eyes. “Tell Ricardo I’m getting pretty sick of this.”

  “You may tell him yourself shortly.”

  Only then did Chelsea realize that they were taking a route south of the city, not the usual circuitous route back to the apartment. Her heart took off at a gallop. “Are you saying he’s here in town?”

  “I’m taking you to him now.”

  “Any chance you’ll tell me where he’s been?”

  “I’m sure he’ll tell you if you need to know.”

  Chelsea sat back in the comfortable captain’s chair in the center of the minivan. All of the cars in which Smith drove her had tinted windows, and she had given up any notion of sitting up front with him.

  After a dizzying series of turns, doubling back, and narrow one-way streets in unfamiliar, run-down neighborhoods, Smith pulled up in front of a low-slung brick building with a single blinking neon beer sign in a blacked-out window.

  “Here?” Chelsea stared at the trash blowing along the street and an old man stumbling across the parking lot with a brown bag in his hand. “Are you kidding?”

  “I’ll accompany you inside.”

  “What, to make sure I don’t get lost?” Chelsea opened the car door. Despite the snarky tone she was using, her heart was pounding at the prospect of a rendezvous with Ricardo.

  Instead of answering, Smith gave her a mocking little bow before opening the door to the bar. The smell of stale beer and unwashed bodies drifted from the darkened interior. Smith went ahead of her, motioning to her to wait, but in a moment he was back.

  “Until next time,” he said, with no apparent irony. “Oh, and…this is for you.”

  In his hand was a package wrapped in brown paper that Chelsea could swear he wasn’t holding before. “What’s this?”

  No answer…naturally. Chelsea took a breath and walked into the bar, letting the door close behind her. There were a dozen customers, all men, and a single bartender, a woman covered with tattoos from the neck down, her outrageous curves packed into a tight mini-dress.

  Ricardo was nowhere to be seen.

  After standing there feeling stupid for a moment, Chelsea made her way to a free barstool. “What can I get you, doll?” the bartender asked, apparently unsurprised to see her there.

  “Uh…club soda?”

  The bartender raised one drawn-on eyebrow in a contemptuous sneer.

  “And a negroni,” Chelsea added hasti
ly, naming the first cocktail to come to mind, the same cocktail Ricardo had been drinking on their first night together.

  While the bartender mixed her drink, she tore the paper off the package. Inside, wrapped in tissue, was a garment made of black satin, and a familiar card. Ricardo de Santos’s name was engraved deeply in the thick ecru paper, and on the back—scrawled in a familiar hand—was a note:

  Put this on now

  She set the package on the bar, irritated. How dare he? Only a few hours ago, she had been sitting with Jade actually defending him to her. She tried to force herself to believe that under that stubbornly private exterior was a man who, if not a saint, was at least not a monster.

  But this was proof of his arrogance, his self-centered demands. Their games, when played in private, were intoxicating—Chelsea would grant him that. But here, in this tawdry bar that smelled like the inside of a gym locker, the luster wore off of her memories of their time together. Indeed…as the waitress slid her drink across the bar and she took a first sip, some of the things that they had done together began to seem…reckless. Twisted. Perverted.

  Ricardo was, “Very smart and completely without a conscience,” Jade had speculated. Jade, who only wanted the best for her, who wanted—like Stone—to protect her. What had Chelsea been thinking, taking risks like this? Jade had been right—if, by some stretch of the imagination, Ricardo were actually innocent of the worst of what the FBI had accused him off, there would be time later for her to see him. For now, she would be crazy not to proceed with care.

  Actually, she could do more than that. The package in her hand was proof that Smith had encountered Ricardo in this bar, so he couldn’t be far away. He was probably watching her from some dark corner or hidden partition. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of searching for him. Instead, she’d have a little more of the drink, then call Stone. Even Smith wouldn’t be able to stop her if Stone came to pick her up.