Hearts in Vegas (Harlequin Superromance) (11 page)

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-Russian Confections

She looked around. No surveillance cameras. She pulled out her smartphone and snapped a picture of the sign. Slipping the phone back into her jacket pocket, she glanced at the far end of the hallway, wondering if one of those offices might soon house her watchdog Vanderbilt investigators.

The waiting room area was heated, almost to the point of suffocation, and starkly furnished. Several folding chairs, a metal-tile reception desk, a tall plastic plant whose green leaves shone eerily under the fluorescent lights. The other doors—two to her left, one on her right—were closed, just as they’d been before.

Frances unzipped her jacket as she headed to the reception desk where Oleg had sat last Thursday. Today, a twentysomething woman was in his spot, her long, straight chestnut hair pulled into a side ponytail that cascaded down the front of her low-cut black sequined top. She took in Frances with heavily made-up almond-shaped eyes, a lit cigarette between her fingers. Her nails were dramatically long and red.

“Good morning,” Frances said. “Oleg is expecting me.”

“Oh? He not say to me,” she said in a thick Russian accent. Eyeing Frances’s hair, she took a long drag on her cigarette.

“Perhaps he forgot. Please let him know Frances is here.”

“You need comb?” she asked on a release of smoke.

“No.” Later she’d find a moment to go to the ladies’ room and try to wrestle her hair into submission.

After setting her burning cigarette in the ashtray, the receptionist began tapping on her phone’s keypad.

Frances took the opportunity to check out the girl’s desk. A tablet computer with a shopping site on its screen, a makeup bag, a few ballpoint pens, an ashtray filled with cigarette butts, most with the girl’s dark red lipstick imprint. The ones without lipstick were a darker, stubbier brand.

“He here soon,” the girl said, her gaze gravitating again to Frances’s hair.

“Is there a ladies’ room?”

She frowned. “Ladez...?”

“Bathroom?”

The girl shrugged, took another puff.

Frances picked the most comfortable-looking folding chair and sat.

Twenty minutes later, the door on the right opened. Oleg, wearing a wrinkled blue-and-black-checked shirt, jeans and the same scuffed sneakers he’d worn the last time, walked up to her and extended his hand, giving her a tight-lipped smile.

“Hello, Frances.”

He smelled like cigarette smoke and pancakes, and stood so close, she could see a tiny, ragged white scar above his eyebrow.

She turned her head slightly, so her right cheek was out of his line of vision, remembering something she had read. Russians were comfortable with a foot of personal space when talking to others, while Americans liked at least three feet. So he felt perfectly relaxed standing this close, while she felt uneasy. But when in Rome...

The girl said something in Russian. Oleg nodded.

“You want to meet more ladies?” he asked Frances.

Took her a moment. “No, I asked where the bathroom is.”

“In hallway. Key behind desk.”

He said something in Russian to the girl, who held up a key, attached by a jingling chain to a small red box of chocolates, which Frances hoped was empty.

“Ladez,” she said.

“I’ll borrow it later.” She wondered if the girl understood. “No ladez,” she added.

Oleg gestured for Frances to enter the office, and she walked inside, her stomach clenching, nervous at what lay ahead.

Unlike the bare-bones waiting area, this room was large and inviting. Several floor lamps gave the room a soft glow. An oval cherrywood table ringed with matching chairs sat on a scarlet Persian rug. The only items on the table were a laptop, cell phone, pad of paper, which she guessed were Oleg’s. A portable bar with a tufted-leather facade sat in the far corner, littered with an assortment of vodka bottles.

Natural light spilled into the room through a large window in the far wall, although the view wasn’t that great—a mostly empty parking lot rimmed by desert, which Vegas lore claimed was pockmarked by shallow graves left by mobsters and hit men. Unfortunately, that wasn’t just legend. In a housing development recently built in the desert, several home owners had discovered human bones buried on their property.

“Dima here soon,” he said, closing the door.

Dima or Dmitri Romanov, the mystery man. She’d spent hours digging for details about that Russian and Oleg over the weekend, from internet searches to database queries. After finding next to nil, she decided Oleg must have erased electronic footprints leading toward them or away from them. Handy having a computer whiz like that around.

“Too warm,” he said, scowling at her jacket.

She’d also read that Russians felt it their personal duty to offer advice, especially on matters of health.

“Thank you.” She slipped off the jacket and draped it over the back of a chair.

He stared at her jacket as if it were an uninvited creature before meeting her gaze. “Drink?”

She thought he meant coffee, but as he was heading to the corner bar, she realized he meant alcohol. Probably vodka.

Shots for breakfast?

Lately, people kept wanting to tip the bottle early in the day. Not her thing, but she didn’t want to look rude by refusing. Plus, as she ambled toward the bar, she could check out what was on his laptop screen.

“Sure.”

She’d eaten breakfast, so at least she wouldn’t be drinking on an empty stomach. And she’d keep it to one shot, no more.

Meandering toward the corner bar, she looked out the window at a commercial plane angling into the clouds. She’d forgotten how close they were to McCarran International Airport. Ten miles?

When Oleg leaned behind the bar, she glanced at his laptop screen.

Pictures of people’s faces. Six—no, eight. Mostly men, a few women. Smiling, but in a staged way, not natural. Backgrounds were all a uniform color.

Driver’s license photos?

“Hey,” Oleg called out, “you snoop on me?”

Her pulse jammed in her throat. Keeping her face still, she turned, giving him a look that said she had every right to check what was on the screen.

“Who are these people?” Not a question. A demand.

He paused, a bottle of vodka in his hand, his eyes locked on hers.

She could hear herself breathing, ragged in-and-outs of air that seemed louder than the distant, low roar of planes taking flight from McCarran.

With a slight shrug, he looked away. “Employees at Palazzo,” he muttered, pouring the vodka into a shot glass.

People she might run into during the heist.

He slid a drink toward her. These shot glasses had to be double the size she was used to.

He held up his glass.
“Naz dyroovnia!”

They clinked glasses, downed their drinks.

When he started to pour her another shot, she waved it off. “Work,” she rasped, followed by a cough. She blinked back the sting in her eyes.

He chuckled under his breath.
“Amerikantxy.”

Didn’t need an interpreter to know that word. And from the chiding, teasing tone, she got the gist.
Weak-assed American can’t handle a second shot.

After another small cough, she whispered hoarsely,
“Dusha-dusha.” Soul to soul
.

Something else she’d read. For Russians, sharing a drink was about forging a bond. Connecting soul to soul. She had practiced the pronunciation of the toast—
dusha-dusha
—figuring she’d need to know it at some point, although she hadn’t expected that to be first thing Monday morning.

Oleg gave her an approving nod, poured himself another shot.

“What?” boomed a loud voice. “Drinking without me?”

Dima stood in the open doorway, grinning. He wasn’t tall, not more than five-nine, yet had a large, commanding presence. He wore a long black overcoat, unbuttoned, which offered a view of neatly pressed slacks and a purple dress shirt.

Oleg said something in Russian that included the words
dusha-dusha,
at which point he gestured at her.

“Ah,” Dmitri said, nodding enthusiastically, “our Frances is one of us!” Taking off his coat, he bellowed something in Russian out the open door.

The receptionist yelled something back.

With a boisterous laugh, he hung his coat on a wall hook, then slammed the door shut. Striding across the room, his burned-cherry-and-leather cologne filled the room. More Russian chatter to Oleg, who laughed and splashed more vodka into a fresh shot glass.

Passing Frances, Dmitri paused. “What did you think of Braxton Morgan?”

The question took her by surprise.
Boyish
,
goofy, handsome, cocky, intelligent.
But she didn’t say any of those and simply answered, “Expressive.”

“Expressive.” He looked up at the ceiling as he pondered the term. “Interesting.” He met Frances’s gaze. “What did he do to earn that?”

“He—”
behaves like a crushed-out thirteen-year-old boy
“—reveals his emotions too readily.”

“You think he’s bad at his job?”

Just as she’d detected before in the limo, Dmitri had a very faint British accent in his excellent English.

“Wasn’t what I expected from a security consultant.”

“Not what you expected,” he murmured, as though tasting the words. “So you think his being
expressive
impairs his ability?”

This conversation was starting to feel like a trek through a minefield. One verbal misstep, and she might detonate an issue that could blow up in her face.

“Merely my observations,” she said, “which could be wrong—”

“Russians are expressive, Frances,” he said, cutting her off as he strolled across the floor with a theatrical flourish. “Hardly a sign of weakness, although I can see why you would view it as such, being so—” his gaze traveled slowly down, back up her body “—closed-off yourself.”

She felt a jab of irritation. He’d asked her evaluation of Braxton, then used it to judge
her
behavior.

“Security consultants are like jewel thieves,” she said, refusing to be cowed. “Their successes hinge on remaining calm, controlled, professional. Emotions in a jewel thief can undermine a heist. For a security consultant, they can inflame an incident. Expressiveness, therefore, is
not
a beneficial trait.”

Dmitri cocked an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything as he continued walking to the bar. After embracing Oleg and kissing him on both cheeks, the two began chatting amiably in their native tongue.

She crossed to the window, watched another plane descend through the clouds. She guessed Dmitri’s non-response meant she’d won that round, but why were they arguing about Braxton’s ability to begin with?

Didn’t matter. This conversation gave her an opportunity to learn more about his relationship to Dmitri. In her research, she’d learned a few more interesting facts about Braxton. Past problems with the law, linked to his ties to a Russian thug named Yuri Glazkov. Considering Braxton was a star witness for the state at Yuri’s trial next month, the D.A. had probably offered him immunity, or reductions in other charges, if he cooperated.

When a criminal went from the dark to the light side of the law, a journey she well understood, a smart criminal
stayed
in the light. Going back and forth, which Braxton appeared to be doing, only invited trouble from both sides.

“Oleg,” Dima bellowed, “time to get back to work! I must talk to my Frances now.”

As Oleg took his seat at the table and began typing at the keyboard, Dmitri walked up to Frances, crowding her. She instinctively dipped her head, although it wasn’t necessary. The waterproof silicone gel and camouflage makeup made her scar vanish. But as skin cells naturally sloughed off throughout the day, so did the makeup and gel, although her scar didn’t become noticeable for twelve hours, sometimes less.

“Sorry I gave you a bad time,” he murmured, his breath smelling of vodka and coffee.

“No problem.”

“I might be tough on you at times,” he said gently, pulling out a chair next to Oleg, who was engrossed with something on his computer screen, “because this is a major heist, and you’re my star. Please, sit.”

She did.

“There will be many things we’ll be studying and practicing over the next few weeks,” he said casually as he took the seat next to her, “reviewing the blueprints of the Palazzo, the setup of the jewelry exhibit, the hotel’s security team, possible off-duty Vegas officers who might be working security, and so on....” He made a rolling motion with his hand. “I have a forger who will interview you over the internet, then create documents that identify you as an antique-jewelry collector. There is also a safecracker I have worked with before who will train you in opening digital locks, although this is purely a backup measure, as surveillance photos reveal the jewelry cases on this exhibit have metal locks.”

Oleg said something in Russian, and Dmitri nodded.

“Oleg has already forwarded images of those locks to a key forger, who is making keys even as we speak. As you can see, you will be very busy these next few weeks.” He smiled. “Plus, I’m hiring a part-time bodyguard for you.”

Bodyguard?
This was a surprise twist, one she didn’t like at all. Someone hovering nearby, overhearing everything she said, could too easily compromise her undercover work.

Dmitri draped his arm across the back of her chair. She felt claustrophobic sandwiched between him and Oleg, plus the older Russian’s sense-stunning cologne didn’t help.

“He will not know you are a jewel thief,” he murmured, “but will think you are my vice president of sales.”

“This isn’t a good idea.”

He cocked that eyebrow again. “Why not?”

“Russian Confections looks like a small start-up company operating on a shoestring budget. Shoestring means it is operating on very little money—”

“I’m familiar with a lot of American slang,” he snapped, “which I learned from watching your silly sitcoms. If I wish to know the meaning of a term, I shall ask.”

This new piece of information gave her pause. The coins were stolen from a New York event two years ago. She wondered if she could place him in that region at that time.