Beauty & the Beast (6 page)

In Russian, Anatoly said to Ilya, “She was there when you killed Suresh?”

“Saw the whole thing,” Ilya confirmed, also in Russian. “Shouldn’t we just kill her now?”

“Show me the cruise itinerary again.”

Ilya held the paper up to the iPad’s camera. It was spattered with Suresh’s blood, but still legible. Dr. and Mrs. Keller were spending the night in Los Angeles before boarding the
Sea Majesty
for a fifteen-day cruise. There would be five straight days at sea. Day six would see them in Hilo, Hawaii.

He put the iPad on mute, pulled out his cell phone, and dialed in a number. It was answered on the first ring.

“Da,”
a voice answered.

“An American couple is staying at this hotel,” Anatoly said, reading the address off the page. “Their names are Catherine and Vincent Keller. Madame owns a black silk jacket, and in that jacket is a small plastic box that belongs to me. Get it. If you need to kill them to retrieve my possession, do it.”

The voice on the other end of the phone assured Anatoly that it would be handled as discreetly as possible, and that he would be informed the moment that the mission was accomplished.

“Of course,” Anatoly said, and disconnected. He turned the sound back on.

Ilya and Svetlana had finished tying up the girl. They stood back, framing her as if inviting him to admire their handiwork. Ankles tied to the chair, wrists bound, face smeared with color, she looked like a silly clown, a silly repulsive clown. She looked like she would sink like a stone if they threw her in the Hudson.

“My sister is a cop,” she said between hitching sobs. “If you don’t let me go, the entire New York City police force will come looking for me. And they-they’ll find me.”

See? Americans were so childlike.

He cocked his head. “Do you by chance speak Russian?” he asked her directly, in English.

“What? No. No, I don’t.” She hesitated as if trying to decide if her lack of knowledge was good or bad. “So whatever they said to each other, I couldn’t understand them. Okay? Honest. I don’t know anything about any of you.”

“Except that they killed your boyfriend.”

“He wasn’t my boyfriend. We’d just started dating. Oh, God, please, please let me go,” she cried. “I don’t know who you are. Your names, nothing. I can’t identify you.”

“You’re so helpful,” he said. “Listen, Heather Chandler. You may be able to save your own life. As you know, your sister has something that belongs to me. It may come to a trade, you for it. You will need to be able to speak to your sister. But you cannot do that if you are dead. And my two friends there will kill you if you try to escape. Do you understand? They will not hesitate.”

“Okay.” She nodded, pulling herself together with a sniffle. “Okay, I understand.” She nodded like a bobblehead toy.

“So do I have your word that you will not try to escape?”

“Yes.” She sounded almost eager to sign her own death certificate. Surely she must understand that he could never let her live. If her sister was foolish enough to agree to the trade, they would still kill her. More quickly, maybe, but where was the fun in that?

I must not give in to my emotions
, he reminded himself.
They are a sign of weakness. Look at her, so hysterical. A disgusting display.

“Svetlana, knock her out,” he told his beautiful one in Russian. “It’s tiresome,
da
? All the tears.”

“Poor thing,” Ilya chirruped.

Svetlana glared at Ilya, then flashed Anatoly a sour smile, pulled her gun from her jacket, and clubbed the girl over the head with it. Heather Chandler’s face fell forward.

“Put her in the cell,” he said to them both.

He watched as Ilya and Svetlana picked up the chair together and shuffled off to the left. Out of his line of sight, he heard the squeal of the cell door. There was a thud. A giggle. And then a clang.

Ilya and Svetlana reappeared. Ilya was grinning like a naughty little boy. Svetlana’s lips were pursed in silent disapproval.

“Done,” Ilya announced.

“Ilya, what did you do?” Anatoly prodded.

“Her chair tipped over when we set it down,” he said. “We left it that way.”

Anatoly pictured the rat. And then her face. Where there was one rat, there were others. He tried to decide if a group of rats could chew enough of her face off to kill her before he would need her to speak to her sister.
If
he needed her at all.

Better safe than sorry.

“Put her chair upright,” he said. Ilya’s face fell. “Ilya, do as I say.”

“I’ll do it,” Svetlana announced.

She marched out of his visual range; while she was gone, Ilya pouted. “It was Svetlana’s fault that we knocked the chair over. And she was the one who made such a mess when we killed Suresh.”

Anatoly was a bit alarmed. Not a lot. But some. “There was a mess?” This was a detail both of them had omitted.

“A lot of blood,” Ilya said. “She shot him on their sofa. We didn’t have much time for cleanup.”

“And this was her fault.”

“Head wounds are bloody.”

“And she was the one who shot him.”

Ilya reddened. “She’ll say I did it.”

Anatoly realized with a shock that his nephew was lying to him.
Ilya
had done it. Was he so stupid that he thought his uncle wouldn’t see through this falsehood? Why even bother? What did he hope to gain?

Ilya was so immature. Thank God for Svetlana. A scrawny little child when he had taken her off the streets. A woman now. His woman. Or one of them, anyway. A man in his position must protect himself with redundancy. He must have backups everywhere. He could not rely on one particular hit man. Love one specific woman.

Trust one particular relative.

“Was there a blood trail to the van?” Anatoly asked. Ilya shook his head, but uncertainty blazed in the younger man’s eyes. Anatoly couldn’t help another attack of anger. It didn’t show on his face but he dug his fingers into his palms to maintain control. Emotion was always weakness.

“Torch the car,” Anatoly said. “Then junk it.”

His phone rang. He muted the iPad and looked at the ID. It was the man he had called in Los Angeles.

The voice on the other end said, “We’ve got someone headed for the Kellers’ hotel now.”

Anatoly huffed. “Don’t bother me with the details. Just let me know when it is done.”

“
Da
, Anatoly.”

Anatoly hung up.
I am surrounded by idiots.

And idiots can be dangerous.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The moon cast ripples of silver on the easy, cresting waves of the Pacific Ocean. Sea foam bubbled onto the warm sand. It was a night straight out of the pictures from the tour brochure Catherine had downloaded.

“This was a wonderful idea,” Cat said as she and Vincent strolled barefoot along the beach. Catherine’s strappy sandals were dangling from Vincent’s fingers and her faux hibiscus flower was nestled behind his ear. The Pacific was chillier than either of them had expected, but the evening air was balmy and smelled of honeysuckle and star jasmine. They had flown into Los Angeles the night before the cruise and were enjoying a luxurious stay at a Spanish Colonial-style hotel in a part of Los Angeles called Playa del Rey, dining on fresh swordfish and mango salsa. Two margaritas later, they were kissing under the palms, already under the sway of their romantic getaway.

“This is so perfect,” she murmured as they finished one kiss and began another. “I hope everything is all right back home. Heather didn’t answer my text—”

“No,” Vincent said firmly. “No texting, no Wi-Fi. There’s a reason you left your phone on the nightstand, remember?”

“Yes.” She smiled lovingly up at him. “And he’s standing right here.”

“I love you,” he whispered. “I can’t even tell you how much.”

“Then why don’t you show me?” she asked huskily. “Back in our room?”

“You don’t need to ask me twice.”

They turned around, passing through an arch of bougainvillea illuminated by flickering torches with their arms around each other. A distant guitar played a sensuous Spanish melody.

They bypassed the elevator and climbed the stone stairway together. Each riser was decorated with a matching row of colorful tiles. Then they were at their door, which was made of wood and ornately carved.

And hanging open.

They looked at each other. No phones. No gun. She left it to Vincent to go first. If there was trouble, he could beast out.

Their single overnight bag lay on its side, and all the contents were strewn on the mattress. Cat’s surprise sheer black nightgown lay on the floor. The drawers to their nightstand were open, the dresser as well. They didn’t touch any of it as they moved across the room. The sliding glass door to their balcony was open too. They looked down, scanning the palms and purple jacaranda trees surrounding a tile fountain where a few guests were drinking at wrought-iron tables beneath colorful umbrellas.

Nothing.

“Do we call the front desk?” Vincent asked.

Cat knew what he was asking:
Do you think this is something we need to keep off the books?
Something beast-related? Liam, the ancient beast who had killed their ancestors Rebecca and Alastair, was dead, and as far as they knew, all Julianna’s human-enhancing experiments employed to combat him had been accounted for.

Cat assessed their options. “If they’re thieves, they may be hitting other rooms right now. Innocents may be at risk.”

“We could take them on ourselves.”

“We’d have to explain a lot. Unless we know for sure that someone is being hurt, we should let the local authorities handle it,” Cat suggested.

Vincent nodded. “Then we call.”

“Agreed. We call.”

They both rushed back inside and Vincent picked up the room phone. He asked for the manager while Cat studied the debris field and went through a mental list of what they’d packed. Nothing appeared to be missing. Even her phone was still there, thank goodness, plugged into the wall socket behind the nightstand to charge.

In just a few moments, the manager arrived with the hotel’s head of security. By then the hotel had learned that several other rooms had been tossed, and some jewelry and cash had been stolen. Cat and Vincent were escorted to another room—a palatial suite, in fact—so that the LAPD could secure their original lodgings and dust for prints. Luckily they weren’t asked to surrender their belongings. Cat and Vincent agreed to the move so that they could do some private sleuthing on their own, but the other guests who had been burgled were insisting on being relocated to other hotels.

“We’re so very sorry about this,” the manager said anxiously. “I don’t understand how it could have happened, but please be assured that we’ve doubled security and the police are on their way. If you discover that something
is
missing, please let us know immediately.” His face was pale. “It would be a good idea to contact your credit card companies as well. Even if the thieves didn’t take the physical cards, they may have cloned them.”

“Thank you. I’m a detective with the NYPD. If I can be of assistance, please let me know,” Cat said. She knew she had no clout in California but her cop brain compelled her to ask as many questions as he would answer. “You must have security cameras.”

“Oh, yes. Of course we do.”

I wish we could see the footage
, Cat thought.

“And you’re examining the key locks for hacking.” They had been in possession of both their key cards when their room had been tossed.

“Yes. Everything is being handled.”

“I suppose you have a list of all the victims and what was taken.”

His smile was tight. “Please, Ms. Keller, I assure you, we have the entire situation under control.”

Not really
, she thought. But she kept her own counsel. He wasn’t going to give her anything to work with. Maybe he was afraid they were going to sue him.

“Please just enjoy the suite with our compliments,” he continued. “Of course there will be no charge. For anything.”

“Have you—” she pressed, but Vincent put his arm around her and gave her a squeeze.

“Thank you,” Vincent said. He walked the man to the door. The manager left and Vincent closed it quickly. He waited a few beats, then opened it again.

“Did you get the thief’s scent in our room?” Cat asked him, and he nodded.

“
Their
scents. There were two of them. A man and a woman. They went through everything, as if they were looking for something to take.”

Again she felt the sting of an insult. “We have nice stuff.”

“This is a really high-end hotel,” he reminded her. Then he flashed her a grin. “I’ve got my job back. Be patient and we’ll amass a bunch of stuff worth stealing. Next time, they’ll take
everything.
” Before she could respond, he added, “I’m going to track their route.”

“I’ll go with you.”

He held up a hand. “No offense, Catherine, but you don’t have a gun and I can move faster if I’m on my own.”

She knew that was true. It frustrated her to agree to stay behind, but she acquiesced with a nod and a kiss. He blurred, increasing his speed to a point where the human eye could not detect his presence. No one would even realize he’d left their room. Her own parents had altered his DNA to the point where he was something new and different, a human-beast hybrid whose chemistry and physiology would fascinate a company like the one Ravi Suresh worked for. They’d have to be careful around him if he remained in Heather’s life.

I hope Heather kicked him to the curb. I don’t trust him.

She got out her sexy sheer nightgown, then shook her head. How many times had she gone to the scene of a B&E and the victims had told them how violated they’d felt? She couldn’t put this nightgown on now. Besides, Vincent had already seen it. Lucky thing she had lots more sexy lingerie for the cruise.

As a cop, she was lunging at the leash to find the perps and arrest them. But as a brand new wife, she wanted to end this night on a much higher note. Maybe the hotel gift shop was still open. Finding a replacement nightgown would give her something to do, at least, and maybe the thieves had attempted to rob the shop as well. She might be able to get some information from the clerk.