Between HeVan and Hell (21 page)

“You see why I need you here. I need
to make sure every ‘T’ is crossed and every ‘I’ is dotted on this.
Everything strictly by the book,” the Captain said to
her.

“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure
everything is done properly. I would hold off on search warrants,
though. Currently your evidence is flimsy and you wouldn’t want to
find a gold mine and then have it all thrown out as fruit of the
poisonous tree because of a bad search,” she said.

Captain Udaka then turned her over to
the detectives he’d assigned to the case. They didn’t know about
Contadina being Interpol or about the listening devices, so they
wouldn’t leak anything. He wasn’t worried about this meeting
between the two Kadyrovs. Grace said the bugs were on them at all
times. And currently, they had no expectation of privacy. The
meeting with his attorney when he came would be privileged,
however, and they would have to take care to delete that portion of
the record.

For now, until he had a chance to
speak with Jett, he’d keep track of the times when the prisoner
would have a legal right to privacy. Perhaps they would be able to
edit the tapes and remove those time periods without reviewing
them. He seemed to recall Jett saying something about time period
allocations. It was late and a lot of the tech speak went over his
head. He picked up a pad and made some notations on it. Then he
picked up his own secure line and called Grace.

Grace had just finished dressing when
her phone rang.

“Hello? Oh, good morning,
Captain.”

“Grace, I’m pulling you off active
undercover work on this case. You’ll still need to use the Grace
Kelsey persona, but you won’t be working at the casino any longer.
I don’t think it would be in character to work at a job you’ve held
less than a week when the owner’s been charged with attempting to
murder your fiancé’s brother,” he said.

“I’m not going to miss the hot pants,”
she said, “but I’m not completely off the case, am I?”

“You can’t be. Jett pointed out that
Anton Kadyrov is obviously obsessed with you. It’s likely he’s
already put a tail on you. I’m glad the plug’s been pulled on that
job at Hell. Your assignment now consists of acting like a besotted
fiancée to Jalen. Let him convince you to move in with him, have
those kinds of conversations in public places where word will reach
Kadyrov. So he’ll know you’re not without protection. Anton Kadyrov
is an animal; this is important, no hot dogging out on your own,”
said Udaka.

“Have those men watch your back. I
have a feeling, based on what Jett accomplished last night, that
those brothers will offer you the best protection. I’m sorry I
didn’t realize sooner the type of woman Junior focuses on. I’m
officially requesting a task force to look into the missing women
in his life. I finished reading over the Interpol files about seven
this morning. If even half of the allegations prove true, you could
be in real danger. The man is likely a serial killer, and he’s got
you in the cross hairs.”

He looked up from his desk; he thought
he’d heard someone outside his office. As Grace responded, he stood
up and walked over to the door. Opening it, he looked around but
didn’t see anyone nearby.

“Don’t worry, Captain; everything will
work out. We’ll take extra precautions. Jalen and Jett’s other
brother arrived last night. The Kadyrovs don’t know about him. He’s
going to be our ace in the hole,” said Grace.

Closing the door, he went back to his
desk and lowered his voice, “Tell Jett he needs to come in. The
State’s Attorney wants to speak with him. She doesn’t know about
the listening devices and that we got him ordering the hit on tape.
I want to wait until the end of the week before we release that
information to her,” said the Captain.

“No problem, I’ll pass on the word.
I’ll also call Gregor, the pit boss at the casino, and tender my
resignation. Effective immediately,” she added.

“Good. I’ll expect a report from you
later today.” He hung up the phone and went outside to see if the
Defense Attorney had arrived yet.

From across the room, the
listener at the door watched him exit his office.
It’s too bad I didn’t hear more.

After Grace finished the phone call
with her Captain, she got the cell phone belonging to her
undercover persona. She didn’t want her home phone number showing
up on Caller ID.

The office secretary was there at this
time of day. She asked to speak to someone in Human Resources. She
was glad that she didn’t have to come in and fill out any
paperwork. She just had to drop off her employee identification
card. Since she knew both Kadyrovs were at the district station,
now was a good time to go down and take care of that. She didn’t
really want to run into either of them right now.

For the past several years, she’d been
working sex crimes. She’d busted some real low- lives. But even the
worst of them didn’t give her the creeps the way the Kadyrovs did.
As if they were the alligators at the watering hole and she their
prey. Jett and Jalen believed Anton to be a serial killer and she
was beginning to think they were right. And if he were, then his
grandfather would be, too.

She left the bedroom and walked into
the living room. The brothers were sprawled over the couch,
watching the History channel, something about ancient weaponry
or…something.

“Don’t you guys know that you’re
supposed to be watching sports, not history? People are going to
get the wrong impression of you,” she said.

Jalen picked up the remote, switched
off the television, and walked over to give her a kiss.

“Well, maybe not,” she said when he
finished.

“We find your planet fascinating. We
are always learning new things about your people. You have much
more cultural diversity on this planet than we have on HeVan,” said
Jalen.

“Maybe I’ll take a leave of absence
when we finish this case and show you some of it,” she said giving
him a hug.

Then turning to Jett she said,
“Because of that stunt you pulled last night, you have to go back
into the police station and answer more questions. And since Jalen
is supposed to be my fiancé, he has to take me down to the casino
to ‘quit’ my job. Starting tonight, I’m on data download duty
because the Captain doesn’t want anyone knowing about the personal
surveillance we managed to set up.

“For now, we’ll drop you off on the
way. If you’re delayed, the Captain wants Jalen to be seen taking
me to lunch and convincing me to move in here with him. He wants
word to trickle back that I’m leaving my apartment. Justyn, the men
we’re after know Jalen has brothers, as in plural. But since you
didn’t go with us to the club last night, I’d like to keep your
presence under wraps. Is it alright if you stay here while we go
out? It won’t be a total waste; you being here would ensure no one
got in to plant bugs,” said Grace.

“I recall you saying something last
night about insects. What do they have to do with your arresting
the law breakers? Are you expecting them to infest your house with
pests?” asked Justyn.

She smiled. “That’s an expression. For
some reason, and I don’t know where it originated. We call
listening devices–bugs. The apartment where I’ve been living in
undercover is full of listening devices and hidden cameras, too.
Really freaked me out when I realized it. I very much doubt they do
that to all their new employees. They must suspect I’m a cop, since
they saw me talking to Detective Anthony. He was supposed to play
my boyfriend on this Op and his cover was blown. So I substituted
you three.”

“And we’re very happy you did,” said
Jett, coming over for a kiss of his own. He picked her up and held
her in his arms and kissed her quite thoroughly. When she got her
breath and her senses back, she asked him why he’d gotten her all
revved up.

“Because, when we leave here, I’m just
your fiancé’s brother. I have no claim on you while we’re playing
these parts. I wanted you wet and thinking of me while you and
Jalen have your lunch,” he said.

“No problem; you got your wish.” She
was still taking deep breaths and her panties were damp. Or they
would be if she hadn’t put in an extra absorbent panty liner. She
learned her lesson fast around these three and going through the
bulk of her day with damp underwear would be uncomfortable. She
knew Jalen would do his best to keep her on the edge of arousal.
After two hundred plus years without a live woman, they were
determined to make up for lost time. She’d still be sore if it
weren’t for some magic cream Justyn had brought in his duffle bag.
He’d gotten it from one of their doctors.

“I’m going to grab a bottle of water
from the fridge and then we should get going.” She walked into the
kitchen and Justyn followed her.

“Plan on coming home for dinner,” he
said.

“Are you going to cook?” she
asked.

“Addie showed us how to grill. Your
balcony is small, but I saw that you had one of these items. I will
cook, if you like. Then I want to take you back to bed and bury
myself deep inside you again,” growled Justyn, as he put his arms
around her and did some kissing of his own.

She took the bottle of water and held
it up to her neck. “Good plan. We’ll go with that,” she panted, as
she started to walk out of the kitchen.

“Wait a minute, I have to work
tonight. I may have to take a rain check on the steaks and the
sex.”

After Grace, Jalen, and Jett left,
Justyn sat down on the couch and tried to figure out what a rain
check was. Finally, he gave up and called Addie.

Instead of dropping off Jett at the
police station first, both brothers insisted they go with her to
the casino. Twenty minutes later, they were walking back into Hell.
This time they used the employee entrance around the back. The
décor was a lot less glamorous than in the 'front of the house', as
they called it. Here the layout had utilitarian, linoleum floors
and plain, white walls. No art, just legally required employment
posters next to a bulletin board and a punch clock. Grace made them
wait in the hall while she cleaned out her locker. Then she went
into the office to turn in her employee security pass and pick up
her final check. Because she had called ahead, they had it ready.
It wasn’t much and she would void it and turn it over to the
Captain to be part of the permanent file.

She breathed a sigh of relief to be
out of the building without running into any unpleasantness. Word
must not have gotten around yet about the boss’s arrest. She’d told
HR that she was leaving for personal reasons. As they were walking
back to the car, she saw Margie coming towards her.

“Hey, there, Betty Boop, how come
you’re here so early? Your shift doesn’t start for another six
hours,” asked Grace when she was within hearing range.

“I’m not going to be able to call you
'Stilts' anymore. These men of yours got you beat in that
department. I’m here because I left my cell phone in my locker last
night when I left. I need to pick it up. Now tell me what you’re
doing here and introduce me. You have to let me know which one is
your fiancé so I’ll know who I’m safe to flirt with,” she
said.

Grace couldn’t believe it; she knew
Margie was joking. Only when she had mentioned flirting, Grace felt
a wave of anger towards her.