Whiskey Sour (6 page)

“Well, you’re certainly taking it well,” she said, narrowing her eyes at me. “You want to fill me in on what’s going on?”

I started to edge toward the door, hitching my purse higher on my shoulder in case I had to get ready to run.

“I thought of a plan,” I said, opening the door a crack.

“Why do I get the feeling I’m going to hate this plan?”

“Oh, you’ll totally hate it. At least at first. But I think if you give it a chance it might grow on you.”

She was shaking her head at me. Her ability to assess the situation was already giving her a clue what I had in mind.

“No way, Addison. You need to think this through.
I cannot have you running around half-cocked on the streets with my agency’s reputation at stake.”

“That’s the thing,” I said. “If I get my private detective’s license, I’ll be running through the streets full-cocked. I’ll
know all the rules and strategies that you guys use, and I’ll be able to close cases on my own instead of turning over information I collect for another agent to take credit for. How much do you pay your agents?”

“
Thirty percent of the contracted fee,” she said hollowly.

“See, that’s great,” I said even more determined. “I’ve seen some of your invoices. You’re damned expensive. And I can get my permit to carry concealed so you won’t have to worry about my safety anymore. You’re always saying how you need more agents.”

“Oh, God,” Kate said, her mouth opening and closing repeatedly.

“I mean, I know you still feel guilty about giving me that tranquilizer gun, but really, it wasn’t your fault. You were just trying to give me a way to protect myself, and I take complete responsibility for shooting Nick.
You couldn’t have known he’d be at that motel with another woman, though in all honesty, you know me well enough to know that I’m not one to take that kind of treachery lightly. Not after what happened with Greg and Veronica.”

Greg
Nelson
had been my fiancé for a short time. Unfortunately, we’d had different ideas of what monogamy meant, and he’d left me at the altar to play hide the salami with Veronica Wade in our honeymoon limo. A few months later, he’d run out in front of my car during a downpour and he’d bounced off my windshield. It turned out I wasn’t the one to kill him—someone did that with poison—but that just goes to show you that karma is a bitch. I still had nightmares about running him down. No one deserved to die that way. Not even Greg.

I’d run out of positive things to say about why I should become a private detective, and Kate had fallen back in her chair once I’d mention
ed the incident with the tranquilizer gun. She was reaching in the bottom drawer of her desk for the whiskey she kept there for the occasional medicinal purpose.

“
Please, Kate. I’m desperate. I need the work, and the surveillance stuff is good for a side job, but it’s not enough to survive on every month. If I get my investigator’s license, I’ll be able to work full time and make more money. Please don’t say no. Just think about it for a while. I’m begging you. I promise, I’ll take it seriously and do the best job I can do. I won’t embarrass the agency.”

Her gray eyes were round in her fac
e with shock and she tossed back the amber liquid like water. When she was silent for a full minute, I took it as a sign that she needed a little bit of alone time and I escaped her office and closed the door behind me.

“That could have gone much worse,” I said to comfort myself. “Things can only go up from here.”

***

After I’d showered and taken another survey of the damage from the day before, I decided I wasn’t as bad off as I’d originally though
t. My back muscles were sore from where I’d fallen and the cut on my leg looked like hell, but the sunburn had faded so I only looked slightly rosy instead of belonging in the fruits and vegetables section of the food pyramid.

I slathered on moisturizer and pulled my hair back in a loose ponytail, bothering with only minimal makeup since it would melt off by ten o’clock anyway. I dressed in a short khaki skirt and white stretchy top so I’d look respectable and like I could pay my bills when I talked to potential landlords, and I slicked on extra Burt’s Bees lip balm because I liked the taste of mango.

I took a cup of coffee to go and swiped the
Residential
section of the Savannah Times from Lucy’s desk while she was in a meeting with Kate. The outdoors felt like a sauna and I hurried over to the Volvo, thinking it might be a good idea to buy a couple of ice packs to put on the leather seats to keep my backside from melting.

I’d just bent in to put my coffee
in the drink holder when a black pickup truck pulled in beside me. Nick slid out of the driver’s seat looking like no man had a right to. He was dressed for work—in a pair of neatly pressed khakis and a white button-down dress shirt. His tie was silvery-blue and his face was already stubbled, even though I could tell he’d shaved by the little nick in his chin. His gun was in a holster at his side and his badge was clipped to his belt.

I mentally girded
my loins and tried to remember it was best if we took a break from each other to see if what was between us was real, but this sudden rash of appearances after we’d spent so much time apart was wreaking havoc on my common sense.

“Wow, twice in twenty-four hours,” I said as he made his way to my side. “Something must be going on. You’ve avoided me like the plague for weeks.”

“Well, you shot me in the ass. I was angry.” He held up his hands in defense when I opened my mouth to start the same argument we kept having. “I don’t want to fight. I’m willing to chalk it up to a misunderstanding and move on.”

“Big of you,” I said, arching a brow. “But that still doesn’t explain your sudden reappearance in my life.
”

“There’s no sudden about it, babe. I
’ve tried calling for weeks and you wouldn’t talk to me. I’ve been giving you the space you obviously wanted.” He smiled and moved closer so my back was pressed against the car. “And then I saw you naked in the shower and decided you’ve had enough space.”

Nick was right. I’d been the one putting distance between us. Not him. He’d tried to explain several times what I’d seen in that motel parking lot, but I hadn’t been ready to
listen. The truth is, I’d put on a good face after Greg had left me at the altar for Veronica. I’d returned gifts with polite thank you notes and kept my head held high at school and around town, but that experience had pretty much destroyed me emotionally.

Not because Greg was the love of my life, but because I’d realized that he was the man I’d picked to spend the rest of my life with and he was untrustworthy, he lacked honor, and he’d never once made me feel like he was willing to make sacrifices for our relationship. That made me doubt myself.

Obviously, I couldn’t trust my own judgment when it came to finding someone I could give my heart to. And seeing Nick in that parking lot, no matter how innocent, had only driven that fact home. It wasn’t even until I was faced with the situation that I realized I hadn’t felt for Greg a fraction of what I felt for Nick. And that had made it hurt all the more.

So to protect myself, I’d distanced myself entirely from Nick, even though I still wanted him with an intensity that terrified me.

“Oh,” I said, my heart thudding wildly in my chest.

“Yeah. We’ve wasted all this time, and we could have been doing this.”

He bent his head and kissed me softly, his lips rubbing hypnotically against mine until I realized I’d stopped breathing at some point. I put my hands against his chest and he leaned back to
look at me while I gulped in air and tried to get my brain cells working. Nick was a pretty good kisser.

“I’m sorry I shot you in the ass,” I said. “It was a gut reaction.”

He smiled and took a step back. “I guess I should be flattered. You want me bad.”

“Conceited much?”

“Not really,” he said. “But I do find myself feeling rather possessive all of a sudden. I can understand where you were coming from. If I saw a man doing those things to you they’d never find all the pieces.”

“Geez.” I needed to get a grip. Possessiveness shouldn’t be a turn on.

“Now, as much as I’d like to keep kissing you on the street, if any of the guys happened to drive by they’d never let me hear the end of it.”

He
looked down at the newspaper I’d crumpled in my hand and slowly unfurled my fingers until he could smooth it out.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“I’m apartment hunting. Living with my mother isn’t going to work for me anymore.”

Nick laughed and skimmed his
knuckles just above the neckline of my shirt. “I heard a rumor going around at the station that Vince Walker is making time with your mom. That wouldn’t have anything to do with your sudden desire to move, would it?”

“Maybe.”

He leaned in close again and whispered, “It turns out I’ve got an empty side of the bed I’d be willing to let you rent for a reasonable rate.”

Spots danced in front of my eyes
, and visions of the methods of payment Nick would demand flitted through my mind.

“I’m not sure I can afford your rent,” I finally managed to get out.

“That’s okay. I’m sure we could come up with some kind of deal that would be mutually satisfying to both of us.”

He paused a minute to kiss me
, his tongue stroking mine in a way that told me Nick would be the type of man who left no stone unturned when it came to bedding a woman. He’d be a vaginal Magellan.

“Very satisfying,
” he said, breaking the kiss.

His breathing was slow and measured
, but I could see the pulse drumming in his throat. The blue of his eyes had darkened to the color of a stormy sky, and I could feel him hard and ready against me.

“I think I need to go now,” I said, backing into the open car door until I
fell into the driver’s seat. I could barely remember my name, much less about my plan to find a new apartment. If I didn’t get out of here soon, I’d be renting Nick’s empty side of the bed after all.

“Chicken.”

“You bet.”

I started the car and
pulled out of my parking space while Nick gave me a smile that had all my lady parts dusting off the cobwebs and primping in front of a mirror. It had been a while since I’d had a lover, and I hoped I could even remember what to do. Staying away from him would certainly keep me from a potentially embarrassing situation. Or maybe I could just get him drunk first. There was nothing quite as daunting as going to bed with someone for the first time. Not that I wasn’t willing to try.

I
t turns out Savannah is an expensive place to live.

By the time I got back to the agency, I was glistening—because southern women don’t sweat—and
I was wondering where all the decent slumlords were in the world, because it sure as hell wasn’t here.

I’d walked through some of the most hideous excuses for safe lodging I’d ever seen—which was saying a lot considering my previous apartment building—and the prices for rent were sky high. I’d also been propositioned twice and pinched on the ass by a man who had fur coats growing from his armpits and a piece of spinach stuck between his two front teeth.
At least I hoped it was spinach.

When I entered the front door of the agency, Lucy Kim stared at me as if she expected the plagues to follow me in, which in all fairness, I probably deserved. But to
me, a little garbage stink wasn’t quite on par with being devoured by locusts.

“Morning, Lucy.”

Lucy never bothered with unnecessary conversation. She was the strong, silent type, and she jerked her thumb toward the door telling me to go on in to Kate’s office while she continued typing away on her computer.

“
Always nice talking to you,” I said as I headed to the inner offices.

I stopped halfway down the hallway
and felt the sudden urge to kick Jimmy Royal square in his baby maker. Jimmy was an ex-cop like Kate who’d only put in a few years on the force because he’d gotten tired of all the political bullshit and red tape. He was second in command here, and normally he was a decent guy. Except he lived to torment me. If we’d been in grade school I would’ve thought he had a crush on me, but he was happily married with a couple of kids, so I knew that wasn’t it.

Cops were a strange breed, with a sense of humor that took some getting used to. It’s why so many of them ended up divorced. They were kind of high maintenance on a personal level, but since I’d been around cops since the womb, I was used to the oddities.

“Jimmy Royal,” I yelled through his office door after I’d twisted the knob to find it locked. “You get out here and take this sign down.”

There was a chalkboard hanging on a nail just outside his door that said:

It’s been
0
days since Addison Holmes had an accident

Jimmy had been putting the board up since I’d started working for Kate, and I even got up to seventeen days once. The board was like a game for Jimmy, and we’d fallen into a pattern. He kept hanging it in different places all over the agency so there was a better chance for everyone to see it, I’d bitch about it as soon as I found where he’d hung it, and then he’d take it down and move it somewhere else.

“I mean it, Jimmy,” I said again, this time pounding on the door. “Do you hear me?”

“Everybody can hear you,” Kate said from her office a couple of doors down. “Jimmy’s out on a job, so your wrath can’t be appreciated properly.” She looked down at her watch. “Get in here. Agent Savage will be here in a few minutes, and I want to give him the appearance that this is a legitimate place of business.”

I nodded as Kate went back inside her office, but I’d already thought of the perfect revenge for Jimmy. He’d made the mistake of leaving a little piece of chalk in the holder, and I was going to take full advantage of it.

I dug around in my purse until I came out with a tissue, and I erased Jimmy’s idea of a joke, replacing it with one of my own. Jimmy would probably be pissed, because he seemed like the kind of guy who liked to dish it out but couldn’t really take it when the joke was at his expense. But I didn’t care. Jimmy deserved to have his manhood taken into question.

I dusted my hands off and stood back t
o examine my handiwork. If luck was on my side, I’d be out of the building before Jimmy got back. I headed into Kate’s office and saw Nick lounged on the leather couch in the sitting area she used to make clients feel more comfortable. He looked perfectly relaxed, but I could see his body was tightly coiled, ready to spring into action if needed. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Nick completely relaxed.

“I re
cognize that look,” Kate said. “You always get that little smile whenever you’ve just done something you shouldn’t have. What gives? It makes me nervous for you to have that smile in my office building.”

I rolled my eyes and looked back and forth between the empty spot on the couch next to Nick and the small chair on his other side. He arched a challenging brow at me, knowing the debate going on in my mind. If I sat next to Nick on the couch, there was no way I was going to be able to concentrate on anything anyone was saying. And heave
n forbid we accidentally touched thighs or something. It had been so long since I’d had an orgasm I was afraid I might spontaneously combust.

I wisely took the chair next to the couch, and Nick whispered, “Coward,” out of the corner of his mouth. I would’ve thought of something clever to say, but Agent Savage picked that mo
ment to walk into Kate’s office and I lost all train of thought. At least I assumed he was Agent Savage. He certainly looked like he could live up to the name.

He
was a couple of inches taller than Nick, making him close to 6’5”, and he was broad and muscled. Everywhere. He looked like the love child of The Rock and Pocahontas. He took up every bit of space in the doorway, and not even his conservative black suit could hide the power beneath. His skin was the color of copper and his hair was black as coal and cut stylishly. His face was like a work of art, sharp angles to make it interesting, and full lips that brought nothing to mind but sin. His dark eyes were framed by lashes that I’d have paid good money for.

Even Kate was rattled by the sheer magnetism of the man, and Kate was never rattled about anything.
I snuck a look at Nick and saw his eyes were narrowed menacingly at the new arrival. I could already feel the tension crackling in the air, and I was pretty sure it was the testosterone. Two men like Nick and Agent Savage couldn’t be in the same room without there being cataclysmic results. They probably shouldn’t have been inhabiting the same planet.

“Agent Savage,” Kate finally managed to say, extending her hand to shake his. “It’s good to meet you in person.
I’m Kate McClean.”

“Nice to meet you. Your
agency has a great reputation. I’ve heard it’s the best,” he said diplomatically.

Savage’s voice was even and deep, betraying no accent or inflection that would give me a clue about him
. He couldn’t have been from Georgia. It was hard for anyone to get rid of the southern drawl once you’d been here long enough. I was guessing Yankee, but mostly because he had that formal politeness that belong to people who live on the northern side of the Mason-Dixon Line.

“W
e work hard to keep it that way,” Kate said. “Let me introduce you around.”

She walked over to us
and Nick and I both came to our feet. I wasn’t going to lie, Agent Savage was a beautiful piece of man, but there was something about him that scared the bejeezus out of me. He wasn’t the kind of man I’d ever be truly comfortable around, and there was something in the black pits of his eyes that made me think he could pull the trigger of that giant gun he had hidden under his suit jacket and never bat an eye.

He also looked like the kind of man who could pleasure a woman for hours, and I snuck a glance at the thigh muscles bulging against his suit pants. I had the sudden urge to fan myself, being surrounded by all that hot male glory, but then I caught a glimpse of his eyes again and the fantasy disappeared.
Nope, I could appreciate from afar because I wasn’t dead, but that was about it.

“This is Detective
Nick Dempsey,” Kate said, motioning to Nick.

I watched as Nick and Agent Savage shook hands, their grips tight enough to have vei
ns popping out on the back of their forearms and their smiles brittle with tension as they sized each other up. I wouldn’t know who to put money on if they ever came to blows, but damned if this macho display wasn’t entertaining.

“Thanks for being here, Detective,” Savage finally said, releasing Nick’s hand.
“I understand you’re the lead investigator on Sasha Malikov’s murder. You’re running a tight investigation.”

I had no idea who Sash
a Malikov was, but I was assuming he was the courier who’d been stuffed in the barrel. Nick nodded at Savage and his stance relaxed marginally. They’d come to some silent understanding, and I realized Nick’s tension was because he didn’t want the FBI to come in and take over his case.

“And this is Addison Holmes,” Kate said, directing Savage’s attention toward me.

As soon as those black eyes met mine, I had a pretty heavy premonition that things weren’t exactly what they seemed with Agent Savage. My mind flashed
Danger, Danger
even as my ovaries jumped up and begged for him to be a willing sperm donor.

I had no clue what was wrong with me lately. It’s like once I hit thirty all I did was scope out men to be potential
sperm donors. I didn’t even
want
to be a mother at this point in my life, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. Almost as if my body was making the decision for me and leaving me out of the equation.

Savage’s
eyes didn’t leave mine, but I had the feeling he’d somehow managed to check me out from head to toe anyway, and from the tingles in my nether regions, I was wondering if he could somehow see through to my underwear as well. One corner of his mouth tilted up in a smile and his hand reached out to take mine. His grasp was cool and dry, his palm and fingers holding interesting callouses.

“Nice to meet you Ms. Holmes. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Addison,” I told him. “And probably everything you heard has been exaggerated.”

His smile grew a little wider and
it reached his eyes this time. I could practically feel Nick vibrating beside me as Savage kept hold of my hand a little longer than he should have. I pulled out of his grasp and took a step back, and he went to the other empty seat across from me as if nothing awkward had just happened.

I appreciated being scoped out as much as the next girl, but I had plenty of testosterone in my life at the moment. I didn’t need more, and there was a part of me that wondered if Savage had somehow sensed there was something going on between me and Nick and was just being overly admiring to get a rise out of
a potential rival. I was pretty sure FBI agents were trained to pick up subtle clues. Men were known to get involved in pissing contests over the stupidest things. Not to mention Nick’s threat about never finding the pieces echoed in my mind.

“Can I get you a drink
, Agent Savage?” Kate asked, breaking the tension.

“Coffee if you have it. Black,
” Savage said. “Thank you.”

Kate brought the coffee back and we all settled back in our seats.
Savage’s pants rose as he sat back and I got a glimpse of the most colorful socks I’d ever seen. They were such a clash with his staid suit that all I could do was close my mouth before he caught me staring. They were multicolored stripes of bright blues, pinks and purples, and yellow skulls were printed right over the ankles. The socks didn’t make Agent Savage less dangerous, but they sure made him a hell of a lot more interesting.

“I assume everyone has been brought up
to speed,” he said, handing out new file folders to each of us. At our nod, he took out photos of the gems that had been in the package Christian DeLuce had purchased and laid them out on the coffee table. It was hard to look at anything other than the main attraction—the Heart of Ivan was stunning, even in a photograph.

“Along with the emerald,” Savage said, “There were dozens of first quality loose diamonds that totaled more that
forty-two carats. There were also assorted colored gems that bring a lesser value, but were still of good quality. I’ve given you an itemized list, and the short of it is that Christian DeLuce got a hell of a deal here.”

“Do you suspect him?” Nick asked. “I’m assuming if the gems never reappear then DeLuce won’t be out the cash?”

“You’re right,” Savage said. “And we’ve run an initial check on him, but he appears to be clean. It’ll take some time to dig deeper. Did you suspect him for the Malikov murder?”

“
At first. But if he claimed the gems were stolen and collected his fee back, he’d never be able to use them in his designs. A man like Christian DeLuce isn’t one to let his creations sit unnoticed. Besides, he had a rock solid alibi. Thousands of people saw him in Salt Lake City at an international jewelry expo. We also haven’t found anything inconsistent with his financials suggesting he might have paid someone to do the deed.”

“I’ll be honest,”
Savage said. “We’re leaving Malikov’s murder up to you guys. We don’t have the time or the manpower. It’s the gems we care about. This has the potential to be an international pissing contest if Russia doesn’t get that emerald back. But we’re going to have some overlapping in the investigations, so it’s probably best to work together.”

“Fine with me,” Nick said.