Читать книгу Sleepless in Las Vegas - Colleen Collins, Colleen Collins - Страница 11
ОглавлениеCHAPTER THREE
VAL SLOWED HER steps as she approached the darkened kiosk. The overhang cast a deep shadow around the building, making it difficult to see what or who was there, but from Dino’s window she had seen Drake stop somewhere around here.
“Hello, you there?” She squinted into the gloom.
“If I told you I wasn’t, would you go away?”
She huffed a breath. “Good thing that bad mood of yours isn’t luggage or it’d be too heavy to carry.”
“You came out here to tell me that?”
“No. You forgot your phone.” She thrust out her hand, more than ready to give it up. Whatever pulsations she had felt, or thought she felt, were gone.
“You want me to come to you?”
“Mercy, must everything be an issue?” Silence. “Yes, I want you to come to me.”
“Why? Afraid I’ll bite?”
“Yes. But I have to warn you, I bite back.”
She swiped a bead of sweat off her hairline. This damn wig was too tight, too hot. And these fishnet stockings made her legs itch something fierce. They never bothered her when she’d worn them at her old job, but that was indoors with plenty of air-conditioning, not outside where temps were pushing a hundred. Honestly, she could almost feel the steam rising from the pavement, even at this time of night.
She debated whether to set the damn phone on the ground and leave, but she didn’t want to fail at this. F’sure, she’d told Marta there were no guarantees to the honey trap, but what if Drake, her fiancé, told her about the weird hooker who claimed she felt pulsations through his phone, channeled his father, then stalked him into the parking lot? Hardly the techniques of a seasoned, knowledgeable private eye.
Marta would demand back every cent of the retainer.
Val would not let that happen. She had to suck it up, figure out how to salvage this mess. She and Grumpy were here now, alone. Which meant she had one more chance to sweeten the honey trap.
“You’re right, I’m a girl for sale.” Technically, she sold her investigator services, so that was true. “But I played the wrong man. You’re too smart, too hip to fall for this silly costume and come-on. I apologize.”
Her vision had adjusted enough to the shadows so that she could see his dark silhouette. He leaned against the building, and from the angle of his head, he was watching her. She remembered that gaze at the bar. The faint lines that fanned from the corners of his eyes, their smoky color. How they shone with intensity, as though he was on the verge of asking a question or in the process of formulating one. But when he angered, their color darkened to a flat, dull shade like gunmetal.
She wondered what color they were right now.
“Let’s call a truce, okay? I’ll bring your phone to you, then you can thank me.”
He didn’t respond. She had probably taken him by surprise with her no-harm-no-foul attitude. Or maybe he was mulling over her ability to actually tell the truth. That man sure spent a lot of time in his head.
She walked almost to the edge of the shadow and stopped. “I’d walk to you, but it’s not so easy to see in there, and I’d hate to fumble and drop the phone while handing it over. Of course, it might survive bouncing on the ground a few times, and you wouldn’t need to replace it, so—”
“Stay put.”
He stepped forward. Hazy moonlight slanted across his face, not enough to clearly see his features, but enough to see the pronounced line of his jaw, the bulk of his shoulders. He reached out with both hands and wrapped them around hers.
“Do you still feel those pulsations?” he asked, his voice husky, and unless she had lost her sense of hearing, more than a little suggestive.
“No,” she whispered. His hands were big and warm, triggering pulsations that had nothing to do with the phone. In the space of a heartbeat, the edginess between them had shifted, intensified, from a mental struggle to a physical one.
“Nothing at all?”
He tightened his hold, stroking his thumb in a light, lingering path on the back of her hand. Sensations sparked within her.
“Of course I feel something,” she managed to say around her heart thundering in her throat. “I’m flesh and blood, aren’t I?”
A throaty chuckle. “I like it when you’re honest. One moment, let me put the phone away.”
She realized she was holding her hands in midair, suspended where he’d abandoned them, as though they had no purpose other than waiting for his touch. “Don’t leave me hanging.”
He captured them again. With a squeeze, he drew her closer, then placed her palms flat against his chest. Through his shirt, she felt his heart pumping, its beat steady and strong. That’s how he is. Steady, strong, focused.
Raising one hand, he kissed her index finger before drawing it into his mouth. She shuddered a release of breath as he suckled it. Maybe she should admit she wasn’t really a hooker.
Slowly, his mouth released its hold on her finger and moved to her wrist, which he kissed and nuzzled.
Or maybe not.
“Do you like that?” he whispered.
“Ye—” The rest of the word ended in a small, ragged moan as his talented mouth and tongue tickled, nibbled and kissed the inside of her arm.
“What’s your real name?” His voice, rough and low, reverberated through her.
“V-val.”
These were just caresses, and some wicked attention from his mouth, yet her insides were rocking and rolling as though they were buck naked in bed. She stifled a building moan and told herself to chill, gain some ground. She was acting as if she hadn’t been touched by a man in years.
Well, she hadn’t. Two years, if she didn’t count that backseat fumble in Houston. A realization that was as depressing as it was embarrassing.
But when he lightly trailed the pad of his thumb across her bottom lip, then dragged it leisurely down her neck, his touch both deliciously coarse and gentle, the only thought she had was more, more...
“Why the wig, Val?”
“Hmm?”
“The wig. It’s obvious you’re wearing one. Why?”
She mentally fought her way through the haze of arousal. “Does it...look bad?”
As soon as she asked, she regretted it. Made her sound pathetically insecure about her looks, which was so far from the truth. If anything, she had been pathetically insecure about how she’d prepared for her job tonight.
“It looks—” he fingered a lock “—like strands of moonlight. Gives you an unearthly, dreamy quality.”
For a man who bottled up his words, he sure knew how to pour them on sweet and thick at the right moment.
“I always wear it with this outfit.” Also true.
“Interesting outfit to wear to Dino’s. Who hired you, Val?”
“Nobody.”
“Was it Yuri? You can tell me.”
“Nobody.”
Interesting, too, how he’d deftly manipulated this encounter so he was now in control. He’d plied her with his mouth and touch, worked her with compliments until her reserve dissolved, and she was ready to divulge whatever he wanted to know.
This man had taken over her honey trap!
Oh, no. Two thousand dollars, and the small but significant fact that her self-esteem needed her to succeed at her first P.I. gig, were at stake.
Time for the queen bee to regain her territory.
She had a job to do. Maybe she’d flitted here and there, floundered a little in her flight, but she would land this job, and do it right. This was her career, her future. Val Louvinia LeRoy would prove she had what it took to be a professional private eye.
“I wore an interesting outfit,” she said, sliding her arms around his waist, “in the hope I’d meet an interesting man.” You drone, me queen, sugar.
She nuzzled her face against his shirt, taking in its clean, crisp scent. Finding a gap between buttons, she slipped her tongue inside, touching the mat of hair on his chest. She probed a little farther and licked the slick, wiry strands, filling her mouth with the tangy, salty taste of his sweat. Closing her eyes, she sensed the warmth rising from his body, imagined what it’d be like to slowly undress him, piece by piece, unveiling his strong, powerful, male body...
Adrenaline surged through her veins. Ah, she felt alive, lost in the sensations. She could stay like this forever, indulging in slow, erotic play, teasing and prolonging the sweet torture until...
With great effort, she shoved down the fantasy.
There would never be an until, only these moments now. Of course she knew that, yet something inside of her splintered, the shards slicing, hurting.
“Val?” His voice was gruff, yet tender.
“Sorry.” She opened her eyes. “Got lost in my thoughts.”
“Anything I should know?”
Staring into his face, she cupped his cheek with her hand, half wishing they were indoors so she could read the look in his eyes. Those brooding, wary eyes, always watchful, always vigilant.
“You need to lighten up more.” The words spilled out before she’d thought them through.
“Are we back to my carrying bags?”
“Actually, it was luggage.”
“And my bad mood fitting into it.”
“Actually, I said it was a good thing your bad mood wasn’t luggage because—”
“It’d be too heavy to carry.”
Listening to his amused chuckle, she smiled. Didn’t completely ease the pain she felt inside, but it was good to share a moment of playfulness.
“How about I lighten up more now,” he said, his voice dropping to a rugged register that sent a thrill skittering up her spine.
“Let me help...”
Pressing closer, she wrapped her arms around his neck. Molding herself against him, she let him feel the length of her body against his, close and tight, from her breasts to her thighs. Emitting a throaty purr, she opened herself to him and gently thrust her pelvis against his. Then once more—giving him an unmistakable confirmation of her body signals.
She felt him hardening against her.
He lowered his head. “That’s not what I call light.”
Leaning back her head, she parted her lips, shuddering her pleasure as he nuzzled her neck, his big hands kneading her bottom. She felt the change in him, the tensing of his muscles, his labored breaths. Kissing was no longer a game. She was playing with fire, and she wanted to be scorched, consumed.
She pulled his head down to her, closer, closer, until she felt his breath warming her lips.
“Give me some sugar,” she whispered.
With a low, guttural groan, his mouth barely touched hers—
A trumpet blasted a riff.
“Wha—?” He jerked back his head.
She blinked, steadying herself as a clarinet wailed, a snare drum tapped.
Drake looked around. “That sounds like...a Dixieland band.”
“It is.”
“‘When the Saints Go Marching In?’”
“Right again. It’s my ringtone.” She reached into her pocket and glanced at the caller ID. Someone from home was calling. Had to be one of her cousins, probably worried as it was late and they didn’t like her taking buses at night. She hadn’t had a chance to tell them that she was driving a rental for the next few days, or that her car would be fixed soon, thanks to the money from this honey-trap gig.
Now wasn’t the time to talk, though. She turned off the phone and stuffed it into her pocket.
“Let me guess,” Drake said, his voice taut, “that was Hubby.”
She barked a small laugh. Couldn’t help it. Of all the secrets he’d accused her of, she hadn’t expected that one. “Girls like me don’t have husbands. You got a wife? Or a girlfriend? A fiancée?”
“None of the above.”
His lie bothered her, even though she’d been expecting as much. She was glad the night shadowed her features, because confusion and hurt were probably stamped all over her face.
The door to Dino’s swung open, and the faint strains of a Coldplay song wafted onto the street. Traffic cruised down Las Vegas Boulevard with its mix of honking horns and screeching tires. The air simmered with the never ending, relentless heat.
Everything was the same as it had been when she first got here, but she had changed, irreversibly so. Until the past few minutes, she had not realized that, deep within her, she had put up a wall that protected something fragile, yet potentially devastating. Now it had been freed, and she could never put it back.
“I need to go now,” she said, fighting to keep her voice even.
“Where are you parked?”
“There.” She pointed in the general direction of the Honda rental, thirty or so feet away.
“I’ll watch, make sure you get into your car okay.”
She didn’t trust herself to speak anymore. With a wave, she walked away.
As her heels clicked across the lot, Jayne’s words drifted through her mind. Diamond Investigations never did honey traps because “inducing the behavior” to “objectively document” was unacceptable. Just like Jayne to couch it in clinical, detached terms.
Val could add an important side note to her boss’s rule. Honey traps were especially unacceptable because people whose hearts had been numbed might unexpectedly wake up and realize what had been missing in their lives—an impassioned connection, a sense of belonging or maybe just a person’s touch. When that happened, inducements became deterrents, and all objectivity was lost. The game became real.
She reached her car and turned.
He stood where she had left him. A dark, lonely form, vigilantly watching, protecting.
* * *
A SHORT WHILE later Val sat at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and East Charleston. She still felt wobbly about what had happened in Dino’s parking lot. And embarrassed by telling him about the pulsations. At the time, she would have sworn they were dead-on real. She winced at her choice of words. Well, whatever, she should have kept the bulletin to herself.
Her nanny was the one who really had the “soul’s eye,” as she called it. Through it, she said she experienced impressions—images, feelings, voices—in the part of her brain where dreams lay, which resonated from objects imbued with memories of their owners’ lives, anything from significant events to people they had loved. Although some people called her gift psychometry, Nanny called it “measuring people’s spirits.”
When Val was thirteen, she’d thought she was picking up on objects’ impressions, too. Sometimes when she touched one of the antiques in their shop, especially ones with metal or stones, her fingers would tingle slightly. Immediately following that, an image or emotion would pass through her mind. Never heard a voice, though, like Nanny did. Not until tonight.
Looking back, she couldn’t honestly say she really saw or felt those things. Sometimes she wondered if it had just been a way to be closer to her nanny, the two of them sharing something special. Hindsight could sure give a person twenty-twenty vision.
But still, what happened earlier in the bar had seemed like an impression. She had definitely heard an older man’s voice when she held Drake’s phone, but thinking back, she remembered an older couple sitting at a table behind them, and Val had overheard him expressing his love for his lady friend. And those pulsations from the phone? No-brainer. The phone was on vibrate.
A horn honked, jerking Val out of her reverie. Sheepishly, she realized the light had turned green.
Another honk.
“Hold your britches, bubba,” she muttered, stepping on the gas and turning down Charleston Boulevard.
Time to call Marta with a final update. After a quick check to verify no cops were around—Nevada might have legalized prostitution and gambling, but drivers could get hefty fines for handheld cell phones—she punched in Marta’s number.
“It done?” No hello.
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
“I left him in the parking lot at Dino’s.”
“When?”
“Ten, fifteen minutes ago.”
“So that be...quarter to ten.”
“Sounds about right.”
“He go inside Dino’s? Or to Topaz?”
Who cares where he went afterward? “I don’t know,” she said absently. “Listen, Marta, I have something to tell you.”
This next part was going to be tough for her client to hear, even if she had been anticipating it.
“The honey trap,” she said gently, “confirmed your intuitions, Marta.”
Silence. No tears. No rants. Just...silence. Poor girl. Probably numb with hurt.
“What is this intoshuns?” Marta snapped.
Her tone took Val by surprise. “Intuitions...uh, they’re your suspicions. Inklings. Doubts.”
“Too many words. I ask for information, not words.”
Like one wasn’t the other. “He kissed me.” Well, almost, but close enough. “He cheats. So don’t marry the man.” So much for the sensitive approach.
After a beat, Marta muttered. “He like that.”
He like that. What was that supposed to mean? He likes fooling around with women he doesn’t know?
Val felt an ugly zap of the green monster.
Oh, no. She refused to get jealous over the guy. This had been a job, one she had been paid well to do. Didn’t matter what he liked or didn’t like, he was a notch in Val’s investigative career belt, nothing more.
“I’ll send you a report when I get home,” she said tightly.
“No report. This between you and me.”
“Fine.” Like she wanted to rehash all the smarmy details anyway.
“I want you go back to bar.”
“When pigs fly.”
“What?”
“I fulfilled the job request, Marta. The work is done. Completed. Finis.”
“So many words again.”
“Then let me give you just one. No. I am not going back to that bar.”
“Please, Val,” she said, her mood shifting from cold to needy. “I must know if he still there.”
“What does it matter? He kissed me!” Kinda. “That’s what you wanted to know!”
“Yes, kiss. Good. Still...must know if he—”
“Call the bar and ask.”
“No. Want you to—”
“Call his cell, then.”
“I don’t have— Why not you go? It your job! Val, please—”
“Job is over. Terminated. Wrapped up.” She tried to think of even more words, but those would do. “Goodbye.”
She ended the call and tossed the phone onto the seat next to her, then frowned. Why hadn’t Marta cared about that kiss?
Hardly the reaction of a woman whose heart had been broken. She had been teary talking about her suspected philandering fiancé in the office this afternoon, but the only thing Marta seemed upset about tonight—besides Val’s vocabulary—was her not going back to check on Drake’s whereabouts.
Something else bothered Val about that conversation. Couldn’t put her finger on it...something Marta had said. Or didn’t finish saying. When Val told her to call Drake’s cell, she had said something like I don’t have...
She didn’t have what?
The nerve to call him?
The time to make such a call?
Val’s stomach growled. Spying one of her favorite fast-food pit stops, Aloha Kitchen, she decided to pull over. Time to put the crazy case behind her. Maybe she didn’t understand the conclusion, maybe she never would, but some things were best left in the shadows.
* * *
DRAKE DROVE HIS pickup along Las Vegas Boulevard. Warm breezes rushed through his open driver’s window, almost drying the sweat on his skin. Far off, a siren wailed, peppered with a variety of horn blasts. Ambulance and a fire engine? Maybe a police unit or two thrown in for good measure.
At a red light, he glanced at his phone, which he always set on his thigh when he drove, and checked the time. A few minutes after ten. He’d be home in twenty minutes, fifteen if traffic picked up. He’d piled plenty of food into Hearsay’s bowl, so his dog wouldn’t be hungry. After a short walk around the block, Drake would be in bed by eleven. If he was lucky and fell asleep right away, he’d get three hours before his early-morning surveillance.
Hadn’t been that lucky lately, though. At least he put his insomnia to good use. Was halfway through Michael Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer, which made him wish he had someone to drive him around while he caught up on his paperwork and made calls. Not a partner, just a grunt with a driver’s license.
He hadn’t seen Brax’s Porsche or Yuri’s Benz when he’d walked through the Topaz lot, not a big surprise as Sally said she typically saw the cars in the wee hours. He hadn’t been in the mood to go inside Topaz. Same shift, same nonanswers. Nothing like wasting time trying to convince people to talk who didn’t want to talk.
He passed Bonanza Gifts, its parking-lot-wide marquee advertising itself to be the world’s largest gift shop. More like the world’s largest tacky emporium, but it had been one of his favorite hangouts as a kid.
He remembered a long-ago birthday gift, a dice clock, he’d bought for his dad there. Each hour had glued-on dice, their dots representing that number. “Snake eyes” for two o’clock, “little Joe” for four, “six five, no jive” for eleven. Over his mom’s protests, his dad had proudly hung it in the living room, over the TV. After a while, he and his dad started telling time by dice slang. “Billy’s coming over at Nina from Pasadena” meant Billy would arrive at nine. “He wants you to call at puppy paws” meant call him at ten.
Years later, after the old man died, Drake asked for the clock, but his mom refused, playing on dice slang by answering, “Six five, no jive.”
His dad would have gotten a kick out of that.
He blinked at the streams of red lights ahead, swallowed feelings he didn’t want to recognize.
Damn it to hell. He wished he had never met Val, if that was even her name. Wished he’d never heard about those damn pulsations. Like his dad would send such a message through a total stranger, especially one dressed as though she shopped at Army Surplus for Hookers.
Whatever her scheme, he was one up on it. When she pulled out her cell, he’d memorized the caller ID. He’d run it through some proprietary databases and by the time his head hit the pillow he’d know more about Miss Who Dat than her own mama ever did.
The phone vibrated against his thigh. He checked the caller ID. Las Vegas area code, but he didn’t recognize the number. Without moving the phone, he punched Answer, then Speaker.
“Morgan Investigations,” he answered, raising his voice to be heard.
“Drake Morgan?” A woman’s voice.
“Yes.”
“Sir, I’m a dispatcher, Clark County emergency call center, and are you the Drake Morgan who resides at...”
As the dispatcher recited his address, the hairs bristled on the back of his neck. “That’s correct.”
“I don’t want to alarm you, but I need to advise that your home is being worked on by several Clark County fire units—”
“Are you saying...my house is on fire?”
“Yes, sir—”
Adrenaline jacked his pulse. “I’m on my way.”
“The firefighters are doing their best, and what they need most is for you to remain calm when you arrive—”
“My dog is inside!”
“Anyone else?”
“No.” He gripped the wheel with shaking hands. “My dog likes to sleep under the kitchen table!”
Spring Mountain Road, the main artery to his street, was ahead. As he shifted to check traffic, the phone slipped and clattered onto the floorboard.
“Look under the kitchen table!” he yelled, flipping the turn signal. “I’m on my way there!”
Pumping the horn, he shot through an opening in traffic, straight through to the far lane. A horn blasted. He jerked the wheel left, barely missing an Audi wagon, before he wrestled a turn onto Spring Mountain.
“Check the kitchen,” he shouted again, jamming his foot on the gas pedal, “under the table!”
* * *
TEN OR SO minutes later—although it felt like hours, a lifetime—he slammed the pickup to a stop across the street from his house, his stomach lurching as he saw the gray-white smoke billowing to the sky, its core pulsing orange and red. Monstrous flames shot twenty, thirty feet from the roof. The wooden structure resembled an oversize pile of kindling.
Jumping out, he jogged across the street and around one of several fire trucks. Three or four police officers stood on the periphery of the property, keeping neighbors at bay. Several firefighters handled a hose, pointing its gushing stream of water at the flames. Others worked another hose, aimed at the roof of the neighboring house.
He headed up the driveway.
“Hey, buddy, you can’t go in there!”
“Chuck, stop that guy!”
A firefighter, his mask pulled off his face, blocked Drake’s path.
“My dog’s in there, damn it!” He tried to shove past, eyeing the crackling flames that licked at the side of the house. His office.
“Stop!” A second firefighter, his face gleaming with sweat, grabbed Drake’s arm. “Calm down or I’ll call those cops over to drag your butt to jail.”
The heat radiating off the fire was intense. Sucking in a breath that tasted like soot, Drake glanced at the name on the firefighter’s helmet. “Captain Dietrich, I’m Drake Morgan and I live here. My dog’s inside.”
“I know. Heard it from dispatch.” He looked over his shoulder and yelled, “I said, step on it!” Turning to Drake, he continued, “Sorry, but I can’t have you doing something stupid like trying to go inside. We got enough on our hands fighting the fire, looking for the dog. Can’t be trying to save you, too.”
“I won’t fight you.” Drake swiped at his brow. “My dog—”
“Two guys made an attempt to go inside, but I had to pull them back after a wall collapsed.”
His heart jammed in his throat. “Where?”
Dietrich jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “East side of house. Looked like an office. According to neighbors, that’s where the house first exploded in flames. Did you store flammable chemicals, other petroleum distillates, there or anywhere else?”
“Absolutely not.” A small relief sifted through Drake’s fear. The office was the farthest from the kitchen. “I think my dog is in the kitchen.”
“Where is it?”
“Back northwest corner.”
Dietrich stared at the front door, smoke swirling out the opening.
“It’s a clear shot,” Drake said, “thirty feet diagonal, from the door. Table is against the west wall. Hearsay—that’s his name—likes to lie under it.”
Dietrich pointed at Chuck. “Got that? Back northwest corner? Look under kitchen table for the dog. You and Ross are going in.”
Chuck pulled up his mask as Dietrich strode to a truck, gesturing and talking to several firefighters.
Drake watched Chuck and Ross, air tanks strapped to their backs, enter and disappear into the smoke.
“Hang in there, buddy,” he said under his breath, “they’re almost there.”
When the mutt—who looked to be part whippet, part retriever—showed up at Drake’s house a year ago, he’d ignored it, figuring it would meander back home. Instead it hung out in his yard like a lonesome guy in a bar who had nowhere to go after last call.
The next day, he’d grudgingly put out a bowl of water, some leftover meat loaf. It was cool enough in April that he didn’t worry about the mutt hanging around outside, figuring he’d soon go back to wherever he belonged.
Within the week, Drake was lugging home dog food. Mutt sniffed it, turned away. Wanted meat loaf.
Drake’s gut clenched as a front window exploded, glass shattering. Gray smoke streamed out the window, curling furiously over the roof as flames lashed through the opening.
He tried to still his thoughts, told himself that the worst of the fire was in his bedroom and office, was traveling only now into the living room...hadn’t yet reached the kitchen.
“Mr. Morgan?”
He turned. An elderly woman, who he vaguely recalled lived several houses down, stood hunched in her chenille robe.
“I’m so sorry.” In the flickering light of the fire, her milky blue eyes brimmed with emotion. She clutched his hand and squeezed it. “Oh, your sweet little dog...”
He couldn’t deal with this.
Clamping his mouth shut, he looked at the fiery hell, grinding his teeth until his jaw ached, willing God or whoever was in charge to hear him out. Take it all. Destroy everything I own. But please, spare one small heart...
In the doorway, a form materialized in the whirling smoke. A firefighter emerged, cradling a limp form in his arms.
