Swift Edge (22 page)

“He was sorry for that,” Irena said after a tiny pause. “He thought you might be working for the men who are pursuing him, but then he realized his mistake. He asked me to apologize for him.”

Hm. Her face was guileless, her tone appropriately apologetic, but something seemed off.

“Why didn’t you tell me he was working with the feds?”

Irena played with the top toggle on her coat. “It’s hot in here. Is there somewhere I can hang this?”

I indicated the coat rack by the door, and she shrugged out of her coat, revealing a terra-cotta sweater over black leggings that made her look tiny and fragile.

“The feds?” I prompted when she returned to her chair.

“Oh. Well, Dmitri told me that was confidential. He was very upset with me for telling you as much as I did.”

“Charlie, can I speak with you a moment? In private?” Gigi asked, giving me another of those meaningful looks.

“Sure.” Since our choices for privacy were the tiny bathroom or the sidewalk in front of the office, I headed for the great outdoors.

“I don’t know anything about being a bodyguard!” Gigi wailed as soon as the door closed behind us. Traffic hissed by on Academy Boulevard, and clouds scudded the sky, hinting at the snow forecasters had predicted for this afternoon.

“There’s nothing to it in a case like this,” I reassured her. “The easiest thing to do is take the bodyguardee to a place no one expects them to be and sit on them.”

“Sit on them?”

“Babysit her,” I said impatiently. “Make sure she doesn’t make any phone calls or open the door to strangers. You can scare her a little by closing the curtains and telling her not to make a target of herself in front of the windows.”

Gigi gnawed her lower lip doubtfully. “Should I take her to a hotel?”

“Only if she springs for it,” I said. “I was thinking your house might be a good place. No one would think to look for her there.”

“Couldn’t you—”

“Negatory.” I shook my head firmly. “I’ve got too many leads to follow up on today. It could be dangerous for her to trail around after me.”

“Why can’t we recommend she go to a hotel and stay put?” Gigi asked.

“You’ve heard the saying ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer’?”

Her blue eyes widened. “Is Irena our enemy? She seems so nice.”

“Let’s just say I’m not convinced she’s a friend.” Her disappearance after the shooting and her reappearance now seemed a bit hinky to me. As did her seeming acceptance of Dmitri’s criminal proclivities. Plus, it struck me that as Yuliya Bobrova’s sister, she came from the same crime-loving background that Bobrova did, so maybe Dmitri was genetically programmed to embrace a life of crime. Was there such a thing as a criminal gene? “She’s our best chance of finding Dmitri again; clearly, they’re still in touch. I’ve got her cell phone. If you keep her cooped up at your place and she uses your phone to call Dmitri, we’ll have a record of the number and can maybe track him through that.”

“If it’s not a cell,” Gigi pointed out.

I had to admit that the proliferation of cell phones had complicated the PI’s life in many ways. “True.” I caught a glimpse of Irena peering out the window at us. I waved in a friendly way, and she withdrew. “Load her into your Hummer and leave Dmitri’s car here,” I suggested. “That way, she’ll have to rely on you for transportation.”

“That’s smart,” Gigi said. I reached a hand to open the door, but she stopped me. “If I’m going to be a bodyguard, I should probably get my gun out of the safe, don’t you think?”

Hell, no! Only if we wanted Irena to be more at risk from her bodyguard than from Dmitri’s enemies. The hint of eagerness in Gigi’s voice reminded me of the day she’d first shown up in the office, waving the gun around, convinced it was a PI’s most necessary accessory. She’d been disappointed to realize I didn’t take mine out of the safe more than three or four times a year. “How about the Taser?” I suggested. “That has plenty of stopping power.”

Gigi looked stricken. “I’m so, so sorry—”

“Forget it,” I said magnanimously, mindful of Dan’s words. “Accidents happen.”

*   *   *

Having explained the plan to Irena, gotten her car keys off her for good measure, and seen the two women and Kendall off in the Hummer, I heaved a sigh of relief and called Sally Peterson, who said she could give me fifteen minutes between classes if I came to her office. Accordingly, I set off south on Academy Boulevard and made the right on Austin Bluffs that would take me to the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs. I was at her office within twenty minutes.

“Come,” she called when I knocked on the half-open door.

She stood over her desk, reading glasses slipping down her nose, stuffing a pile of papers into a soft-sided briefcase. Other than a cleared semicircle on her desk, every square inch in the place was devoted to posters and photos of Dara. Dara with Dmitri, Dara with some pre-Dmitri partner, Dara with trophies, Dara with sports commentators. Strangely enough, there didn’t seem to be any photos of Dara with Sally or Dara in jeans relaxing or hiking or with a prom date. It was as if Dara had no identity apart from that as skating phenom. Whew.

“Have you heard from her?” I asked with a nod at the room’s decor.

“Oh, hi,” she said absently, buckling the bag and shoving her reading glasses atop her head. “Walk with me—I’m running late for class.”

I stood aside, and she exited past me, the tail of her royal blue cardigan snagging on the door’s handle momentarily. She twitched it free and kept going. I fell into step beside her. An overachieving heater made the halls stuffy, and students of varying ages and ethnic backgrounds bumped us as they headed for their classes.

“She called this morning,” Sally said. “Said she was fine. Wanted to know if we’d found Dmitri yet.” She gave me a questioning look.

“Found and lost again.” I gave her the details of my encounter with the elusive skater. “I wanted to make sure you knew that a friend of his was murdered Saturday—”

“A skater?” Sally looked horrified that it might be someone she knew.

“No, a co-worker from the catering company. Someone shot at his mother and me, too.” I hesitated, not sure how she would take what I needed to say next. “Dara might be in real danger. She should contact the police—they’re looking for Dmitri now. You probably need to accept that he’s not going to be back in a skating rink anytime soon. He’s admitted to credit card theft and seems to be mixed up in something worse and definitely more dangerous. If the police catch up with him, he may end up in jail, and if they don’t…” I trailed off, not wanting to spell out that a dead partner wouldn’t enhance Dara’s chances for a gold medal.

“Then you’d better find him first,” Sally Peterson said in a steely voice. “That’s what I’m paying you for—to find him. If there’s someone threatening him, find out who and get them off his back. Turn them in to the police … whatever it takes. Wherever Dara is, she’s safe, and I’m not going to advise her to contact the police and get involved in the publicity storm that would generate. The Olympic Committee doesn’t like adverse publicity for its athletes.”

Did an obituary count as adverse publicity? I didn’t ask.

We stopped at a classroom door, and the hubbub of chatting students drifted into the hall. “My class,” Sally Peterson said. “Look, you find Dmitri and set it up so I can talk to him. I’m sure I can persuade him to do the right thing.”

As I watched her stride into the classroom, announcing a pop quiz to a chorus of groans, I wondered what her definition of “the right thing” was. I had a sneaking suspicion it had more to do with ice-skating than with crime and justice.

*   *   *

Returning to the parking lot to find my car unticketed—yes!—I slotted the key into the ignition as my phone rang. Montgomery.

“What’ve you got?” I answered.

“Interesting news. I reached out to the feds, and no one admits to running Dmitri Fane.”

“He lied to me.”

“Yes. But the guy I talked to at the FBI, who happens to be a poker buddy, mentioned that a week ago Friday they got a call from a man who claimed to have knowledge of an identity theft ring operating from Colorado. A ring that provides new identities to wanted criminals and sometimes illegals. You can guess why the fibbies were interested.”

I whistled softly. “Terrorists?”

“That possibility made them eager to talk to the guy. He promised to send them proof that he had the goods, and they set up a meet for this past Saturday. They got the package—my buddy was pretty cagey about the contents—but the informant never showed and hasn’t called back.”

“They couldn’t track him down? Surely they use caller ID.”

“Disposable cell. They recorded the call, of course.”

“Do you think it was Dmitri?”

“You tell me.”

“Did you tell your FBI friend about him?”

“Of course,” Montgomery said, a hint of impatience in his voice. “I had no choice.”

Of course he didn’t.
If
Dmitri was the FBI’s mystery caller, and
if
he knew anything about terrorist identities, the FBI could bring a lot more resources to hunting him than the CSPD could. My mind wiggled its way back to last night’s conversation with Aaron Wong. He’d said someone at Dellert House had pointed him toward Tattoo4U as the source of fake IDs. Could there be a connection? There had to be several groups, gangs, or individuals providing fake IDs in the Colorado Springs area—our population of illegal immigrants from Mexico and points south would provide a solid customer base, I figured. I knew of nothing that connected Dmitri Fane to Dellert House or Tattoo4U.

“Charlie? You still there?”

“Just thinking,” I told Montgomery.

“Anything I should know about?”

“I don’t want to waste your time with speculation,” I hedged. “Let me poke around. If I come up with something concrete, you’ll be the first to know.”

“I’d better be.” Montgomery hung up.

25

Irena Fane paced the long, narrow length of Gigi’s Broadmoor living room, stopping only momentarily to look out the wall of picture windows before resuming her pacing. She was giving Gigi a headache. The woman was like a caged cat, Gigi thought, eyeing her nervously from the camel-colored leather sofa in front of the fifty-inch television. Not a big cat like a lion but something smaller and sleeker. An ocelot, Gigi decided. She’d warned the woman, as Charlie had suggested, about exposing herself at the windows, but Irena had paid no attention, saying she got claustrophobic in a room with no natural light.

“We should go out and look for Dmitri,” Irena said for the sixteenth time since they’d entered the house forty-five minutes earlier. Kendall had run up to her bedroom as soon as they’d arrived. “Sitting here … we are wasting time.”

“Your son was worried about your safety,” Gigi said. “You’re safest here. Charlie’s looking for Dmitri. She’s the best.”

“How long have you been a bodyguard?” Irena demanded, hands balled on her hips. “Where did you go to bodyguard school?”

“I don’t think there is a bodyguard school,” Gigi said, considering it. “It’s something you learn on the job.” She didn’t admit that her learning had just started.

“Then how do you know I’m safer here?”

“That’s pure common sense. Why don’t we bake cookies? I’ve been meaning to make a batch and take them to our new neighbors at Domenica’s.”

“Cookies! My son’s life is in danger and you want to make cookies?” Irena snorted contemptuously. When Gigi rose from the sofa and headed for the kitchen, the smaller woman followed reluctantly, looking around. “The private investigator business must pay well,” she observed, gaze lighting on the designer stainless steel appliances and granite countertops.

“Your son probably pays more for a skating costume than I make in a month,” Gigi said, pulling flour from a cabinet. She didn’t want to go into the whole situation about Les running off with Heather-Anne, leaving her and the kids to fend for themselves with nothing except the house, the Hummer, and the half interest in Swift Investigations to keep them off the street. He’d emptied all their checking accounts and cashed out their investments. None of that was Irena Fane’s business.

Seemingly resigned to inactivity, Irena hoisted herself onto the bar stool at the kitchen island and watched as Gigi sifted flour, baking soda, and salt together. “Do you like being an investigator?” she asked.

“Most of the time,” Gigi said. “It’s not at all what I thought it would be, but I enjoy it. There’s something new every day—it never gets boring.”

“You do not seem like the investigator type,” Irena said, eyeing her.

“I don’t think there is a ‘type.’”

“Of course there is. It’s a man’s career, really. You need to be tough, strong.” She flexed a bicep.

“I can be tough,” Gigi said, half offended. She stroked her upper arm surreptitiously, pretty sure a bicep lurked under the coral-colored angora sweater she wore. Why, she’d made it halfway through her
Arms of Steel
DVD yesterday, using the pink three-pound dumbbells Les had bought her four Christmases ago—and she’d only gained four pounds during the holidays, a personal best.

Irena laughed. “You are soft and kind. Not like that Charlie Swift. Now, she’s tough. You should have seen her yesterday. Before I even realized someone was shooting at me, she slammed the door closed, dragged me up the staircase, and helped me get onto the roof.”

“Then you deserted her,” Gigi put in tartly.

“These things happen,” Irena said obscurely. She pulled a cookie tin toward her and began rolling dough into balls and smushing them on the sheet. Within ten minutes, the cookie sheets were in the oven, giving off a tantalizing aroma of warm sugar and vanilla.

Gigi considered her uninvited guest, wondering what to do with her now. The blinds needed dusting and the bathrooms needed scrubbing—now that she could no longer afford a maid service, the basic household tasks went neglected for weeks—but she couldn’t see inviting Irena to pick up a toilet bowl brush and start scrubbing. A phone rang, and Gigi looked around, confused. With a start, Irena pulled a cell phone from her jacket pocket, looked at the display, and said, “Yes?”