Hearts in Vegas (Harlequin Superromance) (21 page)

As he walked back inside the house, Braxton heard his mom’s laughter behind him, a happy sound like wind chimes, and smiled.

CHAPTER TEN

T
UESDAY
MORNING
, F
RANCES
arrived at Russian
Confections a few minutes after nine only to find that the door was locked.

She knocked. Knocked again. Pressed her ear to the door and
thought she heard footsteps inside, along with muffled voices. So people were
inside, but the door was locked?

She knocked again, harder this time.

At least she’d worn her beige quilted jacket today, over her
light camel wool Dolce & Gabbana jacket and pants, so she wasn’t freezing in
the hallway, but still...it was a pain in the butt to have to stand out here,
knocking and waiting, hoping somebody would let her in.

Somebody being Mistress Ulyana, the Gatekeeper. Unless Frances
lucked out and Oleg or Dmitri happened to wander through the waiting area and
hear someone knocking at the door.

She didn’t have Uly’s cell-phone number, and even if she did,
that Russian dominatrix wouldn’t respond. And although she’d had Oleg’s number
yesterday, he said he changed it every day...which didn’t make a lot of sense to
her, but she didn’t have today’s number, so that took care of that.

She knocked again, her knuckles starting to hurt from rapping
on the cold metal door.

Thanks, Dmitri, for being too fricking
paranoid to give me a fricking key.

She couldn’t text Dmitri and let him know she was out here
because he didn’t like to be texted unless it was an
emergency,
which he’d told her three times yesterday after
Uly-Byotch gave her the men’s bathroom key, which Frances didn’t realize until
she’d walked all the way down to the women’s bathroom and noticed the key with
the clunky chain was attached to a
blue
candy box,
for men, and not a
red
candy box, for ladez, so
Frances had to schlep all the way back to the office, her bladder screaming,
only to find the Russian Confections door locked and no response when she
knocked and knocked.

She probably should have just schlepped back to the men’s
bathroom, but she was nervous about running into Dmitri or one of his Balkan
safe cracker thugs at the urinals, so she’d texted Dmitri, asked if he could
please open the Russian Confections door as she was locked out.

He’d opened it all right.

Looking like a pissed-off James Bond after wrestling with the
metal-toothed assassin-villain Jaws, as though Frances had purposefully locked
herself out just to irritate him.

After giving her a lecture about never texting him unless it
was an emergency, he snapped his fingers and Ulyana, looking surprised and
concerned—an acting role that should earn her a Best Supporting Actress
nomination in the Duplicitous Receptionist category—ran over with the key to the
ladez room.

Frances checked the time on her smartphone. Nine-fifteen.

She thought of that English band The Clash’s song “Should I
Stay or Should I Go?”

Thinking of funny old songs made her think of Braxton last
night with his bad old pop lyrics.

She pulled out her phone and texted him.

Uly locked me out of office

He texted her back immediately.

I’ll be right there to break down the door

She heard a sharp click and tested the knob, which now turned
easily. Apparently Uly had decided to allow Frances inside. She texted back.

Door open

Good. Lunch?

She was meeting Charlie over coffee at two this
afternoon, which she’d told Dmitri was a doctor’s appointment. Plenty of time
for lunch before that.

She texted him back.

11:30?

She paused, not sure where to suggest they meet. She didn’t “do
lunch” with her Vanderbilt coworkers, except for occasional meetings with
Charlie at restaurants, and she didn’t want to suggest any of those places. Her
best choice was to meet Braxton at Morgan-LeRoy. They could figure out where
they wanted to go from there.

She finished her text message.

11:30? Meet you at M-L?

She hit the send button, feeling a little tingle at the thought
of seeing him as she slipped her phone into her jacket pocket. Then she stood in
front of the Russian Confections door and took in a deep, life-affirming breath
before entering.

Her last breath of fresh air as the waiting room was already
hazy with cigarette smoke. Ulyana sat at the metal-tile desk, puffing away,
observing Frances as she walked inside. Today she wore her usual business
attire. Another sparkly plunging-neckline top, a red one that barely restrained
her breasts. As Ulyana was sitting down, Frances didn’t know what else she was
wearing, but guessed it to be a pair of skintight pants—shiny or lizard
print—and stiletto heels.

To top off the office look, Uly’s chestnut hair had been
back-combed over her head, from where it tumbled down the side of her face and
spilled over her shoulder onto her chest, the curly ends shellacked into place
with hairspray.

“You late,” she said, her eyes narrowing into two thick lines
of black eyeliner.

Frances didn’t expect everybody she met to like her, but she’d
never encountered someone who expressed such instant venom toward her. She could
chalk it up to jealousy over Braxton, but Ulyana’s intense dislike had started
before he’d even entered the picture.

Some things were too complicated, or crazy, to waste brain
matter on.

“The door was locked,” Frances said, as though that was
news.

“Door, really?” Uly took another puff on her cigarette,
feigning a look of incredulity. “Maybe Dima or Oleg lock when they go.”

“This morning?”

“Yes,” she said on the exhale, smoke seeping out with the
word.

“Where’d they go?”

She shrugged. “Have thing for you,” she said, setting her
lighted cigarette on a white ashtray, a cursive gold
B
visible underneath several cigarette butts stained with Uly’s berry-red
lipstick. The
B
looked familiar, but Frances
couldn’t place it.

Uly retrieved a letter-size white envelope from a stack of
papers held down by a rock paperweight and handed it to her. “From Dima.”

Frances
was written in blue ink on
the front of the envelope. She’d never seen Dmitri’s handwriting before, and it
surprised her he wrote in such a tight, small script instead of big and bold,
the way he was.

Frances turned the envelope over. It had already been opened,
rather hastily, she guessed, as the flap had a small rip.

“Did you open this?” she asked Uly.

“No.” The receptionist took another drag off her cigarette.

“What time are they expected back?”

Uly shrugged again. “Dima say use his office. It open.”

A moment later, Frances opened Dmitri’s door and stepped
inside, catching a healthy whiff of his cherry-leather cologne that permeated
the room. As she started to close the door, Uly spoke loudly.

“
Nyet.
It stay open!”

“Door, really?” Frances said while closing it, letting it shut
with a loud thunk. She pushed the lock button on the knob.

Turning, she looked around the room, her gaze settling on the
far window. Crossing to it, she looked in the direction where Braxton said the
airstrip lay. It had to be in that small, undeveloped square of land. She
scanned the patch of greenish-brown, settling on a faint, grayish line—that had
to be it.

She sat down at the large oval table, wondering how Dmitri had
learned about that abandoned airstrip as she pulled a piece of paper from the
envelope.

On it was a two-column printed table. In the left column were
two-digit numbers, and in the right column were two-and three-digit numbers.
Below it was a handwritten message: “What’s your number?”

Her
number? What was that supposed
to mean?

Something that mattered to Dmitri, obviously, although why he
made it into some kind of riddle escaped her.

She looked at the torn envelope again. She suspected Uly had
opened it, but maybe Oleg had. Or maybe Dmitri had sealed it, then reopened it
to add his handwritten message.

She flipped the envelope over, looked at his compact
handwriting. A handwriting analyst she’d worked with on several investigations
had evaluated a similar cramped style of writing in a case, identifying the
writer to be someone who was intensely focused and handled pressure well...all
of which turned out to be true.

So it appeared Dmitri was intensely focused on her answering
this riddle...but if she didn’t, at least she could count on him handling the
pressure of her failure.

If he was even the one who wrote this note.

* * *

A
T
11:
30,
B
RAXTON
, sitting at his desk,
experienced a sense of déjà vu as he watched Frances stroll through the front
door of Morgan-LeRoy. The last time she’d come here, she’d been the mysterious
blonde visiting the private eye’s office. Seemed like a lifetime ago, and yet it
had only been a week.

And in those seven days, Frances had changed.

If he’d had to sum her up in a word that first day, it would’ve
been
strict.
Like a librarian who’d shush you for
even thinking too loudly. Tailored gray pantsuit, tight bun she was passing off
as a hairstyle. Not so strict she didn’t radiate sex appeal, but a guy had to
think outside the box to pick up on it.

But looking at her today, the word that came to Braxton’s mind
was
soft,
although
sweet
thing
fit the bill, too. Even though that was two words.

She wore light tan slacks and a matching jacket that combined
with her blond hair made her look like a stick of walking butterscotch. She
still went for the bun look, but this one was so relaxed at the nape of her
neck, it looked as if it might shed its inhibitions any moment.

“Hi, you,” she said, sitting in the guest chair in front his
desk.

Her low-throttled voice reverberated through him like heated
sonic waves. She’d put on a darker lipstick, this one a reddish-pink that
reminded him of ripe strawberries. More eye liner, too, and a bronze shadow that
emphasized the sparkling amethyst of her eyes.

“Hi back,” he murmured. “You look pretty.”

She smiled her pleasure at the compliment. “Not so bad
yourself. Like your shirt.”

“Oh, this old thing?” He adjusted the sleeve of his
navy-striped French-cuff dress shirt. “Ulyana treat you any better the rest of
the morning?”

“Only saw her again as I was leaving, and she made it clear she
wasn’t happy that I had shut Dmitri’s office door. But then, she’s not happy
with me in general. I don’t get that girl.”

“Think she’s Dmitri’s girlfriend?”

“From what I’ve seen, they never flirt, and they squabble in
Russian all the time, which makes me wonder if they even like each other all
that much.”

“When I was there, seemed all she did was smoke and shop
online.”

“She also guards the bathroom keys.... Oh, I just realized
something!” She gave her head a disbelieving shake. “Today I saw an ornate gold
B
at the bottom of her ashtray. It looked
familiar, but I couldn’t place it.”

“The old Bally’s logo?”

“That’s it! And you know what else? I saw a rock paperweight on
her desk that I’d never seen before...but now I realize it’s the exact color and
shape as the Rocky’s Deli menus. I saw one that night when I was at the
sports-book bar with your mom.”

Braxton mulled this over for a moment. “We both know how
paranoid Dima is. I’m starting to think he has me checking up on Yuri because
Dima doesn’t want him near something he’s protecting.”

“Something to do with the heist?”

“My gut feeling is no. For the most part, those activities are
contained within the Russian Confections office.”

He stood, plucked his jacket off the back of his chair. “I know
where we’re going to lunch.”

“Bally’s?”

“You’re a mind reader.”

In the background, a door shut with a thud, followed by heavy
footsteps down the hallway. A moment later, Drake entered the room. Seeing
Frances, he stopped and glowered at her, the muscles in his jaw clenching.

“Hi, Drake,” she said softly.

Drake turned his attention to his brother. “I’m heading out to
interview the manager at that trucking company about a recent hijacking. Be back
around three.”

A prickling started at the top of Braxton’s scalp. Fighting to
keep his voice even, he said, “Frances said hello to you.”

“It’s all right,” she murmured.

“No, it’s not,” he said, locking eyes with his brother.

“You start a fight in here, bro,” Drake said, his voice a dark
rumble, “and you’re fired.”

Braxton laughed. “I’m a consultant! You can’t fire me.”

Which he realized made no sense, but he’d said it, so he was
sticking to it.

“I’ll meet you outside,” Frances said softly.

Braxton watched as she headed to the front door, her heels
clicking across the floor. When the door shut behind her, he turned back to
Drake.

“I told you to treat her with respect,” he said.

“And I told you she’s going to drag you down.”

“Because she’s made mistakes in her past? So did I! Does that
mean
I’ll
drag down any woman I get involved
with?”

“Her crime,” Drake said, his scowl deepening, “makes yours look
like child’s play. She got a ten-year felony conviction—you got a slap on the
hand. She’s bad news. If you’re smart, you’ll cut her out of your life. If you
don’t, your family will start cutting you out. It’s inevitable, bro.”

Without another word, Drake headed back down the hallway.
Seconds later, the adjoining door banged shut.

Braxton stood there, his anger dissolving into a gut-deep ache
at the thought of losing his family again. But they wouldn’t cut him out. Drake
was overreacting to Braxton’s past, that was all. Yet he’d thrown down the
gauntlet, voiced the threat.