She was right about that for sure. He had already surprised me even in the short time I'd known him. I tilted my head to the side, considering her words. Before I could plumb her for a little more information on her co-worker, Richard came back in through the back door, empty handed.
“I closed the box back up and put it in the shade. Maybe Peter can get something off of it later.”
“Lab tests or something?” I asked, worried about extra charges. The cost of protection was less than I'd expected, that was certain, but still more than I could comfortably afford on what I was bringing in from this place. Especially not with my partner being dead. “Because, I don't know, I don't want to sound like a penny-pincher but-”
He began to shake his head, but stopped and just shrugged. “Kind of. But don't worry, it'll be rolled into the fee we've already quoted. Promise. No extra charges.”
I nodded and gave him a quick, tight smile before heading back into my office. The smell was still potent, hanging in the air like a bad memory from childhood trauma—something you'd forgotten about, but was still with you for the rest of your days. I shivered again as I stopped in the doorway.
“Airing it out might help,” Richard suggested from behind me.
“Yeah, probably.” I went around behind my desk and pulled up the blinds to open the windows.
Richard came into the office behind me, his presence filling the room even though I couldn't see him. “Reconsidered our suggestion about the safe house?”
I sighed as I pulled up the second double-hung window. No, I hadn't, not until he mentioned it. This was all happening so fast. I just shook my head and stuck my head out the window, not saying a word, as I took a giant whiff of fresh mountain air.
“You should. This is the kind of escalation Peter and I were worried about. This Wyatt guy, if he wasn't serious before, I think he's definitely making it clear that he is.”
“Think it'll get worse?” I asked.
“I don't know. But I can guarantee it's not going to get better.”
That definitely wasn't what I wanted to hear. I closed my eyes and took another deep breath.
“Not until you either give him what he wants or we catch him.”
“Do you really think it's him?”
“I don't know, but he's our main suspect right now.”
I pulled my head back inside and turned around to face him, leaning back against the window. “Are we any closer to finding out for sure, though?”
He frowned and shook his head. “Well, it's been less than a day, but I think the fax is honestly our biggest lead. If it came from a physical place, we can go in and check it out. Faxes aren't exactly common anymore, so it's more difficult to cover up.”
I nodded as he spoke. “Until then, we just sit and wait?”
He nodded back. “Preferably at the safe house.”
I sighed and threw my head back. “Dead horse, Richard.”
“Only because I'm still trying to convince you.”
Backing away from the window-sill and spinning my chair around, I took a seat at my desk. My body sagged, the weight of the world crashing down on my shoulders. Things like this didn't happen to me. They never had before. Sure, I'd struggled through parts of my life, been knocked down and kicked around, but, like Grandpa said, what defined you wasn't whether you got shoved to the ground. It was whether you got back up again. This, though, just seemed like I wasn't going to get back up.
“I just feel like if I go to the safe house, I'm giving into this guy and letting him win. Does that make sense to you?”
He shrugged. “Emotionally? Sure.” He paused, looking around. “Tactically, though? No way. If someone hits you when you're at low ground, you don't just curl up and take it, Jessica. You try to get to the high ground and regroup. And your home is your low ground.”
Logically, what he said made sense. But this wasn't about logic for me. This was about the way I felt, and I knew it. I just couldn't give into it. I shook my head. “We'll figure it out from here.”
He grunted. “Fine. You're the client, after all. We'll figure it out from here.”
The bell over the front door began to clang back and forth.
I groaned. “Who is it? Please say it's a paying customer.”
Richard leaned back and looked out into the gallery. “Doesn't look like one.”
“Who does it look like?”
Lacy appeared beside her co-worker. “Your new partner,” she whispered. “Mr. Wyatt Axelrod.”
Chapter Fourteen - Richard
Wyatt's hair was greased back from his darkly tanned face and he wore a tight black t-shirt under a thick leather biker vest, all covered in patches and insignia. Across the back was a big, emblazoned Jolly Roger printed onto the leather, with the heraldry patch of S&B MC CO across the top. He was a big guy, but not the biggest I'd seen. Probably in his mid-thirties, he had maybe ten or fifteen pounds on me, but it looked like was carrying a little beer weight around the gut. Probably from lazy living and hard drinking. I could take him, and I knew it.
My eyes narrowed as I watched him look around the gallery, his hands stuffed in his pockets like he was just another unassuming customer, a tourist who'd come riding into town.
Jessica's eyes widened in surprise. “Are you certain?”
“Oh, yeah,” Lacy replied as she stepped into the office. “Plenty of mugshots online. Definitely him, no doubt about it.”
Jessica glanced past my co-worker and looked at me. “What do you think?”
My hands unconsciously balled into fists at my side, and I was off before I could consider all my options, or either of the women could stop me. “Think I'm gonna meet your new partner.”
“Richard!” Jessica hissed as I walked away from the office. “Richard, wait!”
“Jessica,” Lacy said as I stomped down the hall, towards the gallery, “don't. Let him talk to him first. It’s his job, remember?”
“Good morning,” I called in the cheeriest voice I could muster. It probably sounded more menacing than I intended, though, seeing as how I was speaking through clenched teeth. I'd never been great at customer service. “Anything I can help you find today?”
Wyatt spun and looked at me, his eyes bleary and red-rimmed as they took my measure. I took just one look and knew nine o'clock in the morning wasn't his usual time to be up and about.
“Yeah,” he said in a low growl, “was looking for the owner.”
Rage boiled up inside me, like a tea kettle set on a high burner. I was half-expecting steam to come pouring out my nose any second now, the way I felt.
“Oh?” I asked, as peppy as I could manage, which meant I growled back at about the same intensity. “Do you have an interest in one of our pieces?”
“A few of them,” he sneered as he walked around me. “Is Jessica Long around or not? I don't wanna deal with one of her lackeys.”
I immediately followed him, careful not to let him catch me with my back turned. “She's indisposed at the moment. I'll be more than happy to help you, though.”
“Indisposed, huh?” he asked, his eyes flickering towards the back. “But she's here, then?”
“Not dealing with any customers at the moment, I'm afraid.”
“Ain't a customer. Assuming you know Blake Axelrod,” he said, taking a step forward, trying to intimidate me. I could smell the alcohol on his breath from the night before, the way it came out of his pores. “Knew, rather. I'm his nephew, inherited the business. Guess that makes me your boss.”
I snorted. Not in a million years, buddy. My hands clenched tighter at my sides, my knuckles popping. “Indisposed,” I growled again, taking a step towards him.
We stood there, our faces inches from one another, a silent grudge match on who would cave first.
He didn't back down.
I couldn't back down.
He growled, I growled right back. My arms were just itching for him to swing first. Let him make the first move, let him be the one to throw
a punch so I could throw him out the door like the piece of trash I just knew he was.
I didn't even think about why I was reacting this way. I'd never gotten this protective of any of my clients, not even ones that were just as pretty as Jessica. There was just something else going on, something I couldn't see. My mind was too clouded in anger at the thought of this man touching a hair on her head for me to even register anything else, though.
“Wyatt?” Jessica asked from the mouth of the hallway that led down to her office. She held her chin high, kept her shoulders back. She looked like she was ready to stare down the devil himself. “Wyatt Axelrod?”
Wyatt kept that same sneer on his face as he stepped back from my face, his look dismissive as he turned towards Jessica.
“Jessica Long?” he said, his voice still tinted with that growl of his, but closer to a more genteel tone. “The executor, Case, told me he'd been by yesterday, but I wanted to come by and meet you in person. Any chance we could talk in your office?” He glanced back at me, that sneer still on his lips. “Or somewhere else that's private?”
I growled again at his words, but Wyatt only glanced in my direction. He didn't step away or even turn his head to look at me. This guy was confident and tough. He seemed like he'd do whatever he needed to get what he thought was owed to him.
“Of course,” Jessica said, her voice having more steel than a high-rise. “My office is right this way, if you'd follow me.”
Wyatt nodded and followed after her. He spared a glance back over his shoulder at me, a cruel look in his eyes that told me he was going to take my job for not showing him the respect he thought he deserved.
Joke was on him, though. I didn't even work there.
As Wyatt followed after Jessica, Lacy came out past them, her gaze down and away so she didn't have to make eye contact with the new co-owner of the Curious Turtle. Wyatt, though, let his eyes stray up and down her body like she was a piece of meat.
“Woah,” she whispered as she came up to me, and Wyatt and Jessica disappeared into the small office, the door shutting tightly. “That guy's intense.”
I didn't like her being alone in there with him, especially if he was our main suspect. But what harm could he do with us out here as witnesses? After all, if this was about a business deal, about her giving up her partnership, it wouldn't make sense for him to do something in public like this.
“Yeah,” I growled. “Anything else you found out about him?”
“Just a little,” she said. “Know that vest of his?”
I grunted.
“He's a member of the Skull and Bones MC.”
“Skull and Bones, huh? I heard of them. Outlaw bikers, right?”
“Think Hell's Angels, but through Colorado and New Mexico, and down into the Texas Panhandle. They have a pretty lucrative run coming up from the border, and pushing it through to the other states, even up into Canada with their partners. Drug running, guns, prostitutes. You name it, they're trafficking it.”
“Sounds like some bad dudes. What about Wyatt? Where does he fit in?”
“Him? Not sure. Going to need some more research.”
Research or not, I did not like the looks of him.
Chapter Fifteen - Jessica
My hand was shaking as I took hold of the doorknob and pulled my office door closed. The door was thin and made of wood, but it might as well have been the lid of a coffin as it sealed me inside with this man who had potentially been tormenting me for weeks.
“I'm glad you came by,” I said to his back with a shudder.
“Yeah,” he grunted. “Reckoned I should come by and see the place I co-own. Seemed proper given the circumstances.”
“Please, take a seat.” I walked past him and took my seat behind the desk. “I was sorry to hear about Blake's passing. It was so sudden, I hardly knew how to react. Were you two close?”
He nodded, a sneer on his lips as he sat in one of the chairs opposite me. “Not particularly, no. He was my mom's brother. Real piece of work, that one. He was just kind of the rich uncle, far as I was concerned, even if he did make all his money in bikes.”
The way his eyes fell on me, seeming to measure me up the way a predator does when it has spotted its prey, I shivered. Maybe it was the fact that I'd thrown up less than ten or fifteen minutes earlier, but I had a sudden stomach-turning queasiness that seemed to make me need to run to the restroom all over again.
I cleared my throat. “Didn’t know him that well, then?”
“When I was younger,” Wyatt replied. “Took off on my own after school, though, didn't come back to the area till just a few years ago. Figured it was a nice enough place, might as well settle down.”
I nodded to his vest. “Good bike riding this time of year?”
He smiled, but there was no hint of kindness or joviality in it. “Yeah. Nice and sunny, no icy patches. Summer's good.”
I nodded again, making me feel like bobble-head at this point. “So, do you want to learn about the business? Would you like me to buy you out of it? Because, right now, funds are a little tight for that kind of thing."
“Listen,” he said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. “I wanna cut to the chase here, Jessica. Mind if I call you that? Jessica?”
I sat back in my chair and carefully folded my hands in my lap. “Cut to the chase?”
“Uncle Blake and I, we weren't exactly close, that much is true. But I feel like he saw a piece of himself in me, you know? I wasn't ever close to my mom or dad, either, but Uncle Blake was a little different. You understand that with your aunts and uncles? Your parents? That kind of kinship you feel even though you can't exactly put it into words?”
“In a sense. You just said you weren’t very close, though. Do you mean you’re interested in art, too?”
He smiled humorlessly, baring his teeth, and shook his head. “Not quite.”
“What then? His conservation work with the environment? That was important to Blake, too.”
“Don't get it, do you?” He laughed and shook his head, his eyes traveling up to the ceiling. “I'm talking about the business side of things, not the art part, or all that conservation shit he put on big shows for.”
“So, you're saying you want to be an entrepreneur like your uncle was?”
“Now you're getting close,” he said with a nod. “You see, I don't want a buyout, Jessica.” He paused for effect and looked at me.
I blinked at him, not sure if he wanted me to finish his thought for him or not. “You want to buy me out?” I asked after a moment. “You want my portion of the gallery?”
He snapped his fingers. “Bingo, lady. I want your piece of the pie on this bad boy here.”
I laughed, honestly kind of surprised even though I'd figured it was coming. “I thought you wanted to be like your uncle, though,” I said, shaking my head. “You know, successful. This was just something he enjoyed doing, because it gave back to the community with its artwork. He didn't make any money off this place. Oh, for Pete's sake, I've never made any money off this place other than managing to just keep a roof over my head. Why would you want it?”
Wyatt leaned back in his chair, bringing up his big, dirty biker boots as he crossed one leg over the other. “Oh, I think I can have it humming right along in no time.”
“Let me get this straight. You think you can come along and just, poof, turn it into a thriving money maker. Why? Because your uncle was talented at business?”
“Believe me, lady,” he said with a smile. “I got my ways. Don't believe me, I'll prove it to you. How much do you want for your part of the gallery, for your interest in it?”
I shook my head. “It's not for sale, Wyatt. Not now, not ever.”
“Come on,” he replied, “I could give you enough to start your own gallery all over. I promise. Be more than enough for you to be able to just pick up and move on, if you want, put down stakes in some other town and just start over.”
“Somewhere else,
huh?” I asked, eyes narrowing as my voice rose. “You think you can just run me out of my own gallery? Is that it?”
“Hey,” he said, “I just don't want to have this gallery eating up all your time, is all. You seem like a nice young lady, and I'd hate for you to be tied up business-like with a man like me.”
“Oh?” I asked, laughing humorlously. “Trying to do me a favor, then?”
“Trying to get you to take a hint, is all,” he said, his voice lower in frustration as he stood up and planted his hands on my desk. “Way I'm going to run this thing, I don't think you'll want any part in it.”
I recoiled at his words, at the veiled threat he'd just made. “How much are you willing to pay me, then, huh?”
“Two hundred grand, easy. More than five times what this whole place is worth, and more than you need to start over.”
“How much for you to just go away?” I shot back. “You want the same offer?”
He grinned, baring his teeth like a rabid dog. “Thought you said money was tight?”
I smiled tightly, my lip curling up one side. “I think I could come up with the money to get someone like you to go away.”
He raised his eyebrows, as he seemed to consider my words and their tone. Finally, he shook his head. “No deal. Either you take my money or we got problems here, lady. I like this business, and I like that it's been running for a while already.” Now he looked like he was two steps away from coming over the desk at me.
But, still, I wasn't going to be deterred. Not by this man, and not by any other. “Sorry,” I said, slowly rising from my chair, not breaking contact with him. “Looks like it's no deal, then. I like this business too, and the fact that I built it with my own two hands.”
Wyatt kept his eyes on mine and slammed his fists into the desk top again with a low growl.
I flinched, but just barely. “You take that attitude,” I said, “and I'm going to assume this is an adversarial partnership, Mr. Axelrod. I'll begin to act appropriately.”
He growled again as he went to stand. “Goddammit, bitch, why won't you just take the money and shove off?”
Frost Security: The Complete 5 Books Series Page 8