The Naked Detective (9 page)

“Come on.” His voice was dark and rough as he spoke against her ear. His fingers never let up for a second. “Come for me, sweetheart.”

“Oh
God
.” Her orgasm jolted through her, a slingshot release that sent her flying. Waves of liquid pleasure rippled out to her toes, her fingertips, even her eyelashes. She felt decadent and wild and so damned
alive
she could live forever.

Nate slowly removed his hand from beneath her skirt, smoothing the fabric down. His erection pressed hard against her hip. She’d have to do something about that…

Ciara opened her eyes. Her vision cleared and she glanced at the gap in the curtains, more curious than embarrassed by the idea that someone might have seen them. Her eyes flicked over the gap. No one was looking back at them. A small frisson of relief shimmied down her spine. Maybe she wasn’t such an exhibitionist after all. She should grab Nate and take him back up to their room, make good use of that tent he was pitching for her.

Across the room, a new go-go dancer bounced up onto one of the platforms.

A go-go dancer with long, straight blonde hair, silver eyelashes and a pink bustier.

“Oh my God.”

Chapter Ten—Postcoital Sprints

Somewhere between the dunk tank and the roulette wheel, Nate had completely lost control of the situation. He may not always play strictly by the book, but at least he had a nodding acquaintance with the rules. Fingering an informant to orgasm in a public place fell somewhere outside normal Bureau procedure.

But he couldn’t regret it. Ciara was worth every second of whatever professional punishment his superiors could dream up. She looked at him like he was her personal miracle. There was never a hint of pity or scorn in her eyes. It was like she didn’t even see the cane. And when she didn’t see it, it was almost like he didn’t feel it.

“Oh my God,” she gasped.

Nate smoothed her skirt down over her hip. “Yeah, sweetheart, I know,” he said, feeling duly smug.

Ciara shook her head sharply. “No, Nate. Oh my God, that’s her. The go-go from my vision. She’s right over there.”

His smugness curdled. He followed her gaze and saw a familiar-looking platinum blonde in hot pink hooker heels. Nate frowned. Why did she look so damned familiar?

“What do we do? Do you want me to flank her while you read her her rights?” Ciara bounced on his lap.

He winced as her weight bore down on his bad leg. Carefully shifting her toward his good side, he kept his arm firm around her waist so she couldn’t launch herself into an impromptu flanking maneuver. “We don’t do anything,” he said firmly. “We call for reinforcements…” He trailed off as a man the size of a Himalayan mountain in a black Armani suit took up a position at one edge of the go-go platform, glaring at anyone who got too close to the prancing blonde. “
Shit
.”

“Shit?” Ciara asked, with undisguised enthusiasm. “What is it? Do we need to move now? No time for reinforcements?”

“Cool it, Geronimo. There’s always time for reinforcements, and we definitely need them now. That big bastard guarding her is a known associate for Sergei Lubov, an infamous Jersey lowlife. I
knew
that asshole was dipping his fingers into more than just drugs and guns these days.” And that was why the blonde looked so familiar. She was Lubov’s regular arm candy. “I need to call organized crime and get them down here.”

“Mafia?” Ciara burbled. “Really?”

He gave her a little shake, squeezing her until she looked back over her shoulder at him. “This isn’t a game, Ciara. These people are genuinely dangerous. No hero bullshit. That isn’t how we do things.”

“How do we do things?”

“We watch. We gather evidence. We
do not
go in guns blazing. Ever.”

Ciara’s eyes flared wide. “Are you packing heat? Right now?”

His erection was still hard as a damn fireplace poker, but he didn’t think that was what she meant. He had no intention of telling her about his ankle holster. “Ciara, it doesn’t matter if I’m packing or not. The only piece of equipment I need right now is a cell phone and a quiet place to call the correct authorities.”

He stood her up and grabbed his cane, shoving himself awkwardly to his feet. Ciara gazed longingly toward the go-go dancer. He could practically see her fantasizing about dive-tackling her and sitting on her until the correct authorities could be bothered to get their asses down here.

“Aren’t you the authority on the necklace?” Ciara asked.

“Not even close, sweetheart. Let’s go find someplace with cell reception and a little less noise.”

He took her hand and began to lead her through the crowded club. Her hand nestled inside his and she gave no indication of pain, but he still wasn’t taking chances with random strangers bumping into her, so it was slow going.

They were only halfway to the door when Ciara’s fingers suddenly clamped down hard on his. “Nate, she’s leaving. Do you think she saw us? Do you think she knows we’re after her?”

Nate craned his neck to look. Ciara was right. The go-go girl in question was indeed hurrying out of the club, leaving her black-suited bodyguard in her dust. “She has no way of knowing who we are. Don’t worry.”

Though that must have been the shortest go-go set in recorded history. Could she have recognized him somehow? Or Ciara?

“She’s getting away!” Ciara jerked her hand out of his and began darting and weaving through the crowd after the departing dancer.

Nate swore and gave chase. Again.

The go-go dancer ran up the escalator back to the casino floor and darted down the wide column-lined halls toward the hotel tower. Ciara chased her every step of the way. Nate scrambled in their wake, trying desperately to keep his little troublemaker in sight.

As soon as he caught up with Ciara, he was going to handcuff her to himself. Or better yet, to a bed. That way she couldn’t possibly get in any more trouble. Jumping in dunk tanks. Kissing random strangers. Chasing go-go dancers and known associates to suspected felons across casinos. How much trouble could one woman get into in a twenty-four-hour period?

The go-go dancer flashed a room key at the security guard checking IDs at the hotel tower and darted past him. Ciara slipped past the guard as a group of noisy tourists distracted him—which was lucky for her since he couldn’t imagine where she could be hiding a room key in that dress. Nate hobbled after them, plucking his own room key from his pocket and flashing it at the guard.

She would have to wait for an elevator. He should be able to catch up.

There were three banks of elevators, each heading to a different range of floors. They knew the dancer was at the hotel, likely with Lubov. Nate would call it in, they’d get a warrant, the hotel manager would tell them the room number and they would recover the necklace from the hotel safe. All he had to do was prevent Ciara from blowing everything.

Ahead of him, Ciara darted into the third bay, the one leading to the top floors with the suites.

Maybe she’d realized the chase was unnecessary and had decided to go back to their suite and take a soak in the tub. Nate limped hurriedly into the far elevator bay—just in time to see Ciara step into the far elevator. His leg was aching like a son of a bitch, but he pushed through the pain and shoved as much weight through it as he could stand, half-running to get to the elevator before the doors closed.

He lurched forward and smacked his cane against the closing door, tripping the sensor and sending the doors springing back open. The blonde go-go dancer leaned against a side wall, looking mildly bored and not at all winded. If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he never would have believed she’d just pulled a Flo-Jo across the casino.

Ciara smiled innocently at him as he hobbled inside. The doors slid shut with a whisper-soft sigh. He crowded Ciara into the corner and pushed the button for their floor—two above the one the blonde had pressed. He would physically restrain Ciara if that’s what it took to keep her from getting off the elevator with the dancer, and as soon as she was gone, Miss Ciara Liung was going to get an enormous piece of his mind.

She wasn’t one of Charlie’s freaking Angels, no matter how much she looked like Lucy Liu.

He was mentally rehearsing his tongue-lashing when the elevator binged and the doors slid open.

The sight of three men in black suits with black Glocks trained on them froze the speech in his throat. The go-go dancer pulled a tiny two-shot pistol from God-knows-where and leveled it at Nate’s chest. One of the men slapped a hand between the elevator doors to keep them from closing. A second aimed his gun at Ciara’s forehead.

The third, a tall fair man with Slavic features, a pink dress shirt and a maroon paisley tie, smiled tightly. His hair was shorter and paler than the photos Nate had seen, but it was undeniably Sergei Lubov.

“Agent Smith,” he said, in a strongly accented tenor, “won’t you introduce us to your lovely friend?”

Chapter Eleven—Hot Water

As new experiences went, Ciara decided she could have done without being held at gunpoint.

She watched Nate for cues. Would they fly into action, disarming the go-go dancer and knocking the guy blocking the door out of the way so the doors would close before the bullets could fly? It worked in the movies, but she didn’t have a high degree of confidence that the movies weren’t totally full of shit when it came to close-quarters gunfights. Too many fictional bad guys had appallingly bad aim at point-blank range. Her real-life bad guys were holding their guns like they actually knew which end the little bullet thingies came out of.

Maybe Nate would con them. Convince them they had the wrong guy, that he wasn’t this Agent Smith of whom they spoke. Though if they knew anything about him, the cane was a pretty distinctive feature and hard to disguise.

Ciara held her breath, certain Nate would do
something
to save the day. Even knowing it was probably the safest action, she was still a little disappointed when he obediently stepped out of the elevator and asked calmly, “How do you know who I am?”

The head bad guy, who seemed to have latched onto the pink-is-manly trend with unexpected enthusiasm, smiled smugly. “Asking too many questions of the loyal hotel staff, I’m afraid, Agent Smith. Did you honestly expect us to set up a base of operations here without securing the loyalty of the management?”

Ciara’s heart tripped, skipping a beat. Why was he telling them about bribes and bases of operations? Didn’t he know that no real-life villain told James Bond how he did it?

He did kind of sound like a fictional villain, with his oddly high, strongly accented voice. Boris on helium. If he had delusions of movie arch-villainy, maybe they could use that to their advantage.

“You still haven’t introduced us to your friend, Agent Smith.”

“She isn’t my friend, Lubov,” Nate said. “I don’t know her. She’s just a girl who got in the same elevator.”

Sergei’s smug smile soured and he gestured to one of the men flanking Nate. The stocky man’s arm lashed out. The butt of his gun slammed into the back of Nate’s head, dropping him to his knees. Ciara gasped and took an involuntary step toward him, stopping herself before she gave away their relationship.

“I don’t appreciate lies,” Lubov said. “After the display you put on downstairs on the dance floor, you can’t expect me to believe you are strangers.” He waved his gun toward Ciara, beckoning. “Come out of there, my dear. We mustn’t hold the elevator too long. It’s rude.”

Nate tipped his head down in a slight nod—either that or he was trying to stem the blood flowing from the scalp wound at the back of his head. Ciara stepped out of the elevator, followed by the bitch skank who’d lured them into this. So much for feminine solidarity.

Lubov and his merry men led them down the hall and into the suite from her vision. They shoved Nate down onto one of the white couches near the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the marina. He was still bleeding, but Lubov apparently had no appreciation for the difficulty of getting blood out of white upholstery. He directed Ciara toward a nearby chair. She plunked down onto it.

What would Charlie’s Angels do? Besides never get themselves into this situation in the first place.

She was unarmed, surrounded by a Russian Mafioso and his henchmen, Nate was bleeding, and they didn’t even have the necklace to use for leverage.
The necklace
… A spark of an idea flickered to life in Ciara’s mind.

“You can’t shoot us,” Nate said, swaying a little from blood loss. “The FBI knows where I am. You would never get away with it. No matter how loyal the staff is to you.”

“Oh? Are you sure about that? Would the FBI really care about the death of a burn-out who blew his cover? Oh yes, we know all about you, Agent Smith. Maybe you put a bullet in your own brain, yes? Maybe you go a little crazy and put a bullet in this pretty girl’s head before you eat your gun. Which would you prefer? Shall we keep your pretty friend or put her down?”

Lubov approached Nate, the business end of his gun getting closer and closer to his face. Lubov’s henchmen watched, as blasé as if their boss threatened the life of a federal agent every day of the week and twice on Sundays. Ciara couldn’t be blasé.

“If you kill us, you’ll never get the necklace back.”

Lubov paused, his head turning slowly to look at her. “What did you say?”

“The Heart of Monaco. You think it’s locked up in the closet safe, but while you were distracted earlier the third member of our team came in here and snatched it. If you want it back, you’ll have to let us go. Unharmed.”

He hesitated. “I think you are lying,” he said, but he sounded far from certain.

“Then how would I know exactly where the Heart of Monaco is? All of the FBI is out looking for it, but I know it’s right here, in a silver safe about this big on the floor of your closet.” Ciara measured the safe with her hands. “Or at least, it
was
.”

“Tatiana,” Lubov snapped. “Check the necklace.”

The go-go dancer scurried to the bedroom—which at least got one gun out of the room. Three to go. And they didn’t have long before the lovely Tatiana discovered Ciara was lying through her teeth. How long did it take to open a safe?