by Jessie Lane
Looking back over her shoulder, she saw that it was Gage. Worried that her sister might be trying to sneak attack her, Chloe looked around to see if she could see Elena, but didn’t see her at all. However, Gage was still standing there, staring at her.
Surprised that he seemed to be there to talk to her, Chloe’s eyebrows rose as she hesitantly asked, “Yes?”
Gage cleared his throat again, as if he was nervous. Chloe didn’t believe that for a minute. Or, at least she didn’t until he uttered the one sentence she had never expected to hear from him in a million years.
“I need your help.”
Never one to miss an opportunity, Chloe gave him brutal honesty. “Yes, you do, starting with that shirt. It doesn’t match those pants at all. And we’re not even going to talk about those horrendous boots you wear. I get that they’re supposed to be all special tactical schmactical for your super-secret spy group projects and stuff, but they are the ugliest things I’ve ever seen. I think you should go for more Bond and less Bourne Identity.”
When Gage growled in a menacing tone, Chloe decided to stop while she was ahead.
“That’s not what I meant, smartass.”
Confused again, but playing it off, she propped a hip against the counter, and then popped an ice cube in her mouth to melt while she waited for him to say something. It didn’t take him too long to spit it out.
“I need your help with Lulu’s case.”
Chloe had a feeling this conversation was about to get extremely interesting. If only the tiger knew that she had already taken Lulu on as one of her “Chloe cases.” She wasn’t about to share that information with the man, though. Instead, she played nonchalant by asking, “And why would you think I can help you?”
Gage put his hands on the counter between them and leaned forward. “Your sisters may underestimate you, but I’ve figured you out. You’re not the airhead you want everyone to think you are, are you, Chloe?”
Feeling the need to yank his metaphorical tail, she played with him a bit. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I like high-end clothes, designer shoes, and occasionally a rich man. I don’t worry about much else.”
“Bullshit.” He squinted at her. “You’re not the only one who likes to collect information. It’s come to my attention that you were the one who discovered Adam McPhee’s bar so that Elena could track me down.”
Interested in what else he knew about her, Chloe set her cup down, swallowed the small piece of ice in her mouth, and then mimicked his stance with her hands on the counter, leaning forward. “I got lucky with that information, that’s all.”
“Bullshit again,” he growled. “I also know that you go through your aunts’ files and read anything you can get your hands on.”
The hair on the back of Chloe’s neck stood up. How in the hell could he know that?
The question must have been written all over her face, because he answered it with, “Your aunts and I talk.” He grinned. “Let’s just say that they’re impressed with your motivation to gain knowledge.”
Lifting a hand, she waved her finger in the air in front of him. “Nope, nope, nope. All that knowledge shit is for Delta and her research. You want to know the truth since you think you know me, anyway, Gage? I like dirt. I want to know about the skeletons in your closet.” Cocking a seductive eyebrow at him, she murmured in her best phone sex operator voice, “Or, maybe it’s the secrets you hide underneath your bed?”
When Gage turned bright red, it took everything Chloe had not to laugh at him. It wouldn’t surprise her one bit if Gage and her sister had sex toys. Her sister was a total freak, in more ways than one.
Just then, Gage gave her a shrewd look. “That’s exactly why I need your help. You’re good at getting dirt on people. I need you to get the dirt on Anthony Romano.”
“Who’s he and why?” she continued to pay stupid.
“He’s Marissa Holden’s lover. As you know, he’s who I think killed Andrew Holden, since I know my sister didn’t.”
“And what makes you think I can do this?”
He held up his fingers. “Two reasons. One, I don’t think there’s an unmated man alive who won’t fall at your feet. And two, you’re one of the best players I’ve ever met.”
Suddenly, she was just as disappointed in her would-be brother-in-law as she had been in Kent.
“So, you think I’m a whore?” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m not for hire.”
Gage was shaking his head before she got the words out. “Not how I meant that, and if you’d get off your high horse, you’d know that. I mean, you’re one of the smoothest operators I’ve ever met. You’ve all but knocked Kent on his ass and danced circles around any obstacle you come up against. You’re a hell of a lot smarter than you let anyone think you are. You’d be the ultimate undercover operator for this. And, most importantly … I trust you.”
“Now, why would you go and do something silly like that?”
Gage stood back up to his full height and looked over his shoulder. When I followed his eyes, I saw Elena coming. That was when I heard him say, “Because you know what it’s like to have a sister you would do anything for.”
~~~
Kent
Two hours ago, Kent had gone to his desk at the police station and printed background checks on both Marissa Holden and Anthony Romano. Then he had stepped into Captain Nelson’s office and requested time off from work. His captain hadn’t been too happy about the request, but he also hadn’t denied it for one simple reason: Kent never took time off.
Now Kent was sitting down the street with a perfect view of Anthony Romano’s townhouse. Staking out the suspect’s place of living, he hoped to get something, anything, that might lead Kent to some evidence that Romano was guilty of killing his lover’s husband.
Lulu Ivanov was running out of time, and Kent was determined the innocent tigress wouldn’t pay for a crime that his instincts screamed she hadn’t committed. And he liked listening to those instincts because they had done a pretty damn good job of keeping him alive as a police officer.
He had been sitting in his car, waiting for a sign from his suspect for about three hours when he finally emerged. Kent didn’t know if Marissa was living with Romano, but she was coming out of his place now, hand in hand with the shifter and one hand held low over a small, burgeoning baby bump. It seemed Lulu Ivanov’s tip that Marissa Holden was pregnant was true. Now the question was: who was the father?
He took out his cell phone and took pictures of the couple as they walked down the sidewalk toward a green Jeep. Then Kent watched as Romano helped Marissa into the vehicle, bending in to buckle her seatbelt before giving her a kiss. Then he closed her door. Kent took pictures of all of it.
For a man who was suspected of murder, Romano was awfully fucking gentlemanly when it came to his lover. Of course, if Romano thought Marissa was his mate, one might argue he would be more than happy to kill her demon mate to have her all to himself.
After Romano got into the vehicle and started to back out of his parking spot, Kent slid down in his seat so he wouldn’t be seen as they drove by him a minute later. He debated leaving to get some lunch, but something told him to stay. And it was a damn good thing he did, or he might have missed what happened next.
Approximately forty-five minutes after Romano and the former Mrs. Holden left the townhouse, a black sedan pulled up and backed into Romano’s parking space. Kent tried to see who was in the car, but the windows were tinted black. Seconds later, a man wearing khaki pants; a non-descript blue, button-up loose shirt; a dark blue baseball cap slung low on his head; and oversized sunglasses got out of the car with a good-sized box in his hands that was wrapped up as a gift. The only thing that Kent could tell about the man as he walked to Romano’s front door was that he was Caucasian and possibly had brown hair with an approximate build of five-foot-nine and a slender build.
Taking his phone out, Kent brought up the video function and started to record
the suspicious man. He watched curiously as the man set the box on Romano’s front doorstep then quickly walked back to his car, getting in then hightailing it out of the parking lot as if he were afraid someone might see him.
Kent made sure to slide low in his seat again as the man drove by, but then turned his phone and camera so that it would catch the car’s backend and possibly the license plate.
Kent then quickly debated following the car to see where it went, but when he looked back, it was already out of sight and he had no idea which way it had turned at the four-stop intersection leading out of the community. Instead, he waited a few minutes, watching the box on the doorstep, wondering why the man had acted so questionable, racing off after he had dropped the box off … Unless there was something in the box that he didn’t want anyone to see and associate him with?
Kent’s gut was churning, and his instincts were screaming that he needed to see what was in that box, so he cautiously got out of his car and slowly walked up to Romano’s doorstep. Kent had no idea how long Romano and Marissa would be gone, so he needed to be quick without being careless. There was no telling what was in that box.
Once he reached the doorstep and the medium-sized box that was wrapped in baby-themed wrapping paper, Kent bent low to see if he could hear anything coming from inside, like ticking. He didn’t exactly want to open the damn thing if it was a bomb.
What he heard next made him think it wasn’t a bomb. It was something a bit more confusing.
There was movement inside the box, as if something alive was in it.
What the ever-loving hell could make that noise?
A shiver went down his spine, and the hair stood up on the back of his neck. No toy made noises like that. There were random subtle scraps and thumps.
Standing back up, Kent looked around the small front yard of the townhouse for something he could lift the lid with while keeping some distance between himself and the box. He found a small limb that had fallen off a tree a couple of yards over and jogged to go get it. He didn’t want to spend a lot of time out here, possibly attracting neighbor’s attention.
After picking up the limb, he jogged back over to Romano’s doorstep and carefully, oh so slowly, placed the end of the limb under the edge of the box’s lid and started to lift it off.
He hadn’t lifted it far when whatever was inside helped push the lid off, and then hissed at him.
Snakes. There were fucking coral snakes in the baby box.
As they slithered around and over top each other, Kent quickly counted four of them, and then noticed a flash of something silver in the center, in the midst of them—a baby rattle. Whoever had placed this box here had known who and what Marissa and Romano were.
The silver rattle was probably a warning about Marissa’s offspring being a shifter baby.
The snakes’ deadly bite wouldn’t kill them, but it would make them deathly sick for days. More than one bite to Marissa could even possibly cause her to lose the baby.
Kent jumped into action when one of the snaked started to slither its way toward the edge of the box. He couldn’t let these highly venomous snakes get out and bite some poor unsuspecting human; it could kill them.
Giving a quick look at his surroundings, Kent noted there was no one around. Then he brought his concentration back to the box.
Pulling electrical energy from the lines around him, he forced a high voltage of electricity through the limb that was now touching the baby’s rattle and watched as the snakes sizzled and trembled from being electrocuted. After he had shocked them for about two minutes and they started to smoke from the charge hitting them, Kent pulled his power back and walked over to the yard to let it dissipate into the ground beneath his feet. Then he walked back over to the box that now stank of burnt animal, put the lid back on it, and took it back to his car.
This was evidence he needed to hold on to while he tried to figure out who wanted to torture or possibly kill Marissa Holden and Anthony Romano. Did this have anything to do with the death of Andrew Holden?
The plot was getting deeper. Now all he could hope was that it didn’t get too deep before Lulu Ivanov drowned under the weight of the investigation.
Once Kent put the box of dead snakes in the back seat, a thought hit him. Julian Desouza had hinted at something when he had told Kent that Councilman Holden was a snake in the grass. Did this have any connection?
Pulling out his cell phone, Kent dialed Julian’s number and waited for the other man to pick up. When he did, it was an ominous greeting.
“Run into any snakes today, Kent?”
Poleaxed as to why the other man would say that, Kent questioned warily, “I did. How did you know?”
“You’d be surprised by the things I know.”
That set his teeth on edge and made him wonder if Julian was somehow behind this. “Did you have anything to do with the box of snakes I just found on Anthony Romano’s doorstep?”
“No.” The answer was short and to the point. Very much like the man himself.
“Then how would you know about it when it just happened and no one besides myself and the person who dropped off the box would know? Are you psychic or something?”
“Or something,” Julian answered then disconnected their call.
Kent had asked the question sarcastically, but now he had to wonder: was Julian psychic? Or was he somehow involved in what was going on?
Chapter
12
Chloe
“The red dress or the blue one?” Chloe stood in front of her closet, trying to decide what to wear on her undercover mission tonight.
It turned out that Anthony Romano worked on a casino gambling boat off shore. Could life get any sweeter than that? Men and gambling were her fortes, so this job was like a match made in heaven. She was already clad in her pair of lucky panties. Now she just had to pick out the perfect dress to make a statement.
She considered the blue dress for a moment since blue was a calming color that could represent honesty and trustworthiness. That might aid her in getting the man to let down his defenses and talk to her.
Or, she could wear her red dress. It was her favorite, and red was the color of power and passion, which meant Chloe never failed to turn heads when she wore it. The question was: was Anthony Romano faithful to Andrew Holden’s widow? If he was, then the red dress could very well be lost on him.
She was still standing there in her underwear when her cell phone rang. Walking over and picking it up, she took one look at the screen and cocked an eyebrow in interest. Kent. What in the world did he want now?
“Hello?”
“We need to talk, Amazon.”
“Sorry, I’m a little busy right now, getting ready to go out tonight. Laters!” Chloe hung up on the demon while he was saying something, not feeling one ounce of remorse.
She was still disappointed that he had fallen in line with the many other men who saw her as a trophy instead of a person. The thought made her reconsider the blue dress.
Maybe she didn’t want to turn every man’s head tonight after that phone call and reminder that all men saw her as was a sex symbol. Maybe, for once, she was just going to plain ol’ Veronica Mars this mystery and ferret the information out of her mark with her wiles alone. Of which she had plenty if people would actually stop and look closer at the real her and not the façade she put on, like her brother-in-law had.
She was just about to pull the blue dress out of her closet when her phone rang again. The man couldn’t possibly be that annoying, could he? A look at the call screen answered her question.
At that point, Chloe knew exactly what she had to do. There was only one thing a man like Kent was afraid of, and that was the mere thought of commitment.
“Yes, schnookums?” she answered in a sugary sweet voice.
It caused her caller to pause for a second before he finally asked, “Who are you going out with tonight?”
Was that a growl? She didn’t know demons could gr
owl like shifters. Interesting.
“Not who, darling; it’s where I’m going. And even if there was a who, what would it matter to you? You only want me for a night. Perhaps I’m looking for a man who wants me longer than that. Maybe I’m ready to settle down, sweetie pie.”
It’s amazing how I can lie like that, she thought to herself as the demon once again went quiet.
Chloe was looking to settle down about as much as she was looking to buy clothes off the rack at her local superstore, which was never. Not unless she could find a man who saw Chloe for who she was, inside and out. However, the demon didn’t know that, and that was what she was counting on to get rid of him and his crazy notions that she would spend a night with him.
“I don’t know what you’re up to here, Amazon, but I know it’s something,” he finally said.
She could hear the confusion in his voice and had to stop herself from laughing.
Looking at her clock, Chloe realized she was running out of time to get ready if she was going to make it to the gambling boat before it set sail. She needed to lay it on thick with the demon if she was going to get him to leave her alone.
“I’m sorry. What was that you just said? You’re infatuated with me and want to make me your demonic queen for eternity? Well, it’s awfully soon in our relationship, love muffin, but okay … if you insist.”
Another growl came over the line, and honestly, Chloe was surprised it wasn’t a dial tone instead. Usually by now, when she laid the love stuff down, men were running in the opposite direction as fast as their legs could take them.
“I don’t know what you’re up to, Chloe, but make no mistake, I will figure it out. Don’t toy with me too much, Amazon. You might not like the repercussions.”
Click.
This time, it was the demon who had hung up on her, and damn did she want to throw her phone at his head for it!
She just didn’t understand why the man got to her the way he did. It wasn’t quite like when someone just got on her nerves; that was simple to walk away from. The demon was different. He didn’t just get on her nerves; he got under her skin.