Hearts in Vegas (Harlequin Superromance) (22 page)

Frances...or his family?

He hated his brother for making him even entertain that
thought.

Thirty minutes later, Braxton and Frances walked into the
sports-book bar at Bally’s. A silver-haired bartender set a drink in front of a
customer who was intently watching a horse race on an overhead screen.

“Well, if it ain’t Mister Party-Hearty Chex Mix!” the bartender
called out.

“Hey, Ross,” Braxton said, walking up and shaking his hand.
“Good to see you again.”

“I remember this lovely lady,” Ross said, referring to Frances.
“House chardonnay. You came in with Benny’s best gal, Dot.”

“Yes,” she said, “nice to see you again.”

“Your dad, Benny,” Ross said to Braxton. “They broke the mold
with that guy, I tell ya.
Courage and a sense of humor is
all you need to get by in life
. I musta repeated that sayin’ of your
dad’s a thousand times to customers.”

As Ross and Braxton caught up for a few minutes, Frances
wandered over to a TV screen, wondering if courage and a sense of humor were
guidelines for dealing with Drake’s intense dislike of her seeing Braxton.
Courage to face Drake’s loathing, and adopting a sense of humor the next time he
dissed her?

Maybe it’d help her cope—and that was a big maybe—but it
wouldn’t fix this problem.

“Frances?” Braxton, smiling, waved her over to join him at the
bar.

She could hardly breathe for the way he looked at her, his warm
smile dissolving her concerns and worries. Even from ten feet away, she swore
she could feel his breath on her cheek, the heat of his hand cupping her face,
the strength of his arms around her, protecting her.

She gravitated toward him, wondering if she could ever break
away.

When she reached him, Braxton gave her an I’ve-got-a-secret
look.

“Guess what Russian receptionist Ross has seen around here
every Thursday afternoon for the last month?” he asked her.

“Like clockwork,” Ross added, “two on the dot.”

“I suggest we sit at the bar and eat some Rocky’s Deli
sandwiches,” Braxton said, pulling out a stool for Frances to sit on, “and chat
with Ross.”

After Ross handed their order for pastrami sandwiches off to
one of the waitresses, he told them Ulyana sat in the same seat in the sports
book every Thursday from two to three, sometimes three-thirty. A few guys would
drop by and talk to her, but Ross never saw any money exchanged, nor did she
leave with any of them, although she typed a lot on her cell phone.

“Gotta be fair, though,” Ross said. “She might just be a nice
girl who likes to bet the horses.”

After their sandwiches arrived, Frances and Braxton ate in
silence for a while. Occasionally there’d be a loud yell or clapping from the
sports book.

Frances shook some salt on her fries, set down the shaker.
“Ulyana handed me an envelope from Dmitri this morning that had already been
opened. Claimed she didn’t do it, but who knows. Anyway, let me show you what
was in it.”

She pulled the envelope from her purse and showed Braxton the
cryptic assignment Dmitri had left for her.

After looking at it for a while, he said, “All the numbers in
the left column start with either zero or one. Those could be months.”

“Good point.” She took a bite of fry.

“Thank you. Let’s see...the numbers in the right column... I
don’t know. There’s no pattern.” He met her gaze. “How could a bunch of
different three-digit numbers apply to the heist?”

“Whatever those numbers represent, he seems to think I have
one, too.” She pointed to the handwritten message “What’s your number?” at the
bottom of the page.

“Let’s run a Google search on a month and its corresponding
number,” Braxton suggested.

She retrieved her smartphone. They tried June and 278.

“Three years ago in June,” she said, reading the search
results, “a man walked into the Peregrine Hotel in Cannes and stole fifty
million dollars in jewels in two-hundred seventy-eight seconds.”

“‘What’s your number?’ sounds like Dmitri wants you to estimate
how many seconds it will take to accomplish this heist.”

“First a riddle, now math,” she muttered, putting away her
phone. “How’d I get so lucky to get an undercover job with homework
assignments?”

* * *

A
T
TWO
, F
RANCES
met Charlie at Ronald’s Donuts, a mom-and-pop business
located in a strip mall off Spring Mountain Road. They sat in the back at one of
the small Formica tables. The air smelled like coffee and cinnamon.

A slim middle-aged man with clipped dark hair stood behind the
glass counter filled with trays of doughnuts and pastries. As customers entered,
he’d greet them with a slight bow.

“This place,” Charlie grumbled, “is a hole-in-the wall.”

“It’s conveniently located,” Frances said, ripping off a piece
off her apple fritter, “and I figured a safe spot to meet, as Dmitri and his
associates probably don’t eat vegan doughnuts.”

“
Vegan
doughnuts?” He snorted a
laugh. “Isn’t that an oxymoron? At least this place is cheap.”

His comment seemed so...un-Charlie. “Since when do you care
about cheap?” She put the piece of fritter in her mouth, savoring its gooey
sweetness.

“Since my ex-wife took me to court to bump up her alimony and
child support
again
. After quitting her
personal-shopper job at Nordstrom because she doesn’t like the new spring line
or some such nonsense, I’ve taken over mortgage payments on a vacation condo in
Tahoe that’s in
her
name, car payments on her Lexus,
plus I’m paying for a trip to Italy for her, my kids
and
a nanny for some bullshit ‘intensive language program.’”

His sullen gaze turned inward, into what she guessed was more
mental seething.

She took another bite of her fritter, thinking about how her
boss had always seemed like a guy who wallowed in money. Tossing a grand here or
there the way others tossed pennies into water fountains when making wishes.
Guess she got that wrong.

He finally looked up from his reverie. “I’m sorry for that
diatribe.”

“I, uh, hope things work out.”

She wiped her sticky fingers with a napkin, feeling uneasy
hearing about his personal issues, especially as they made him so angry.

Setting the napkin aside, she met his gaze, taken aback at the
pleading look in his eyes, as if he sought some kind of understanding from
her.

“You wanted to meet because there’s something critical I need
to know?” she asked, steering their conversation to business.

“Yes, that’s right.” He pressed his fingertips together and
affected a somber air. “Remember the two investigators I wanted to set up in
that warehouse business office? Unfortunately, I’ve had to pull them onto
another critical fraud case. I’m sorry.”

She hadn’t thought about those investigators in a few days, but
hearing they wouldn’t be nearby, she felt a trickle of cold panic realizing how
isolated she’d be in that Russian Confections office.

He frowned. “You’re upset.”

She tried to flatten her face, make it a blank canvas, then
thought,
Why pretend I’m not upset? This situation needs to
be corrected
.

“Right now,” she said quietly, “I’m treated reasonably well at
the office, but if Dmitri were to suspect anything...well, that scares me.”

Charlie spread his hands helplessly. “I didn’t mean to leave
you high and dry, Frances. Maybe I can pull McKenzie off his case early....”

“Please, not McKenzie. He graduated from college, what, six
months ago? I need an experienced investigator. Someone who can help me sift
through details, be there when I call....”

Braxton
.

No, Charlie wouldn’t go for this. He despised private
investigators. She remembered his words at their brunch.
Most of those shamuses will do anything for a buck, including break the
law
.

On the other hand, they were under a time crunch, no one else
was available, and despite what Charlie claimed, he
was
leaving her high and dry.

“I have an idea.” She paused. “What about hiring Braxton as
a—”

“Braxton,” he muttered. “Did you tell him you’re working
undercover?”

“Of course not.”

A white lie, but Vanderbilt didn’t like its investigators
revealing their identities while undercover except under extraordinary
circumstances—and she doubted that Charlie would think these qualified.

“Anyway,” she continued, “what about hiring him to—”

“No.”

“Charlie, please, hear me out.”

“I’m not bringing some Vegas private dick into a Vanderbilt
case.”

“But he’s knowledgeable about the Russian community, which is a
big plus.”

“Does he speak Russian?”

“Yes,” she said, recalling his understanding some things Dmitri
had said the other day.

“Fluent?”

“I don’t know. But another point in his favor is that Dmitri
already trusts him, so it’s not like we’re bringing in as an unknown.”

“But I thought he didn’t want Braxton in the offices. How can
he help you if he can’t get inside?”

She never thought she’d view Ulyana as an asset, but she did
now. “For starters, the Russian receptionist has the hots for Braxton and would
open the door for him while she’s there. If possible, I could also let him in,
which would irritate Dmitri but at least he knows and trusts Braxton. If I were
to let a total stranger in, Dmitri would implode.”

He thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know....”

“We’re under an insanely tight time constraint, Charlie.
Braxton’s not just our best option, but our
only
one. If Vanderbilt was willing to put two additional full-time employees on this
case, seems they’d be happy to pay a lot less to an investigative
consultant.”

“Investigative consultant.” He smirked. “They’re
private dicks,
Frances. Most being ex-cops who quit or
were fired, which says it all right there. By the way, I did a Google search on
Braxton...need I say more?”

A loud burst of giggling distracted her. At a nearby table, a
red-haired teenage boy fed a maple bar to a girl who managed to giggle and
nibble at the same time. Frances had a fleeting ache to run away with Braxton,
away from their problems and worries, just be the two of them doing something
silly and fun....

She looked back at Charlie, entering the ring for the next
round.

“If you looked him up on Google,” she said, “you must have also
read that he worked closely with the Vegas police last summer in a sting that
brought down a Russian mobster and that the D.A. has tapped Braxton to be his
star witness at the trial next month.”

“So you’re saying he’s reformed.”

“It’s possible people can be, you know. You’ve acknowledged my
rehabilitation yourself in reports to the court.” She paused. “Anyway, I could
use his help on this case.”

“What kind of help?”

“Field investigations.”

Braxton had already helped her this morning when they went to
Bally’s, but Charlie wouldn’t like hearing she’d already involved him on case
work, so she’d keep that one to herself.

“For example,” she said, “there’s an abandoned but supposedly
still functional private airstrip I’m interested in checking out. It’s near the
Russian office, which makes me think Dmitri might be planning to use it for his
great escape after the heist. The location of the airstrip isn’t exact—somewhere
on acres of uninhabited desert—so I’d like Braxton to accompany me.”

He frowned. “But if you find evidence of Dmitri stealing coins,
he’ll be in jail instead of making a great escape.”

A roundabout way of saying he didn’t want to bring Braxton on
board, but he hadn’t said no this time. Plus, Charlie had brought up something
she’d been thinking about ever since visiting Bally’s.

“There might be other evidence that could put Dmitri in jail,”
she said. “Unrelated to the coins, but it could lead us to them. Like you said,
criminals behind bars can get chatty, thinking the more they tell, the less
their sentence might be.”

From the glint in his eyes, she knew she’d sparked his
interest.

“Do you know about something else?”

She thought about Uly hanging out at Bally’s on Thursday
afternoons. Where else was she hanging out on her other afternoons off? Was she
conducting business for Dmitri? That bartender Ross said maybe she was just a
bettin’ girl, but Frances would bet otherwise.

“I have a hunch about something,” she admitted, “but nothing
concrete.”

Charlie gave her an assessing look. “Keep your priorities
straight, but if you learn something that backs up that hunch, let me know. Now,
tell me about this airstrip.”

“Don’t know much about it yet, just that it exists on property
owned by an elderly gentleman who now lives in another state. Apparently he
cowboyed this landing strip on his own, literally flew below the radar, so
McCarren never detected it.”

“How’d you learn about it?”

Better to slide into the truth sideways, cloud the fact Braxton
had first told her. Otherwise, Charlie would wonder why Brax mentioned it out of
the blue.

“Dmitri has a thing for James Bond, and while he was looking
out his window at something in the distance, he started talking about a dramatic
escape Bond once made by airplane from some secret airstrip. I mentioned this to
Braxton...as he was walking me to my car...and he told me about a small
abandoned airstrip near the warehouse.... When I looked out Dmitri’s office
window today, I saw it.”

“How did Braxton know about it?”

“Seems his dad and the guy were friends.”

He nodded slowly. “Check out this airstrip, give me a
report.”

“I’ll need Braxton’s help finding it.”