On Thin Ice (23 page)

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Authors: Susan Andersen

BOOK: On Thin Ice
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She turned pink and made a sound of distaste. Nose in the air, looking him dead in the eye, she suggested, “Why don't you kiss my pretty gold butt, Morrison.”
“I'd like that, dollface. Like to kiss
all
your delectable pink parts.” Which was nothing short of the truth but he stated it as offensively as possible. He'd known from the first little pulse of sexual awareness that she wasn't for him. Connie Nakamura was another nice girl, like Sasha, and nice girls sure as hell weren't for a loser like him. He reached across the table and ran an insolent fingertip down the subtle slope of her right breast, scratching his nail back and forth over her nipple. “Whataya say we go up to my room, get naked, and get down to it?”
Slapping his hand away, she shoved back from the table and rose to her feet. She stared down, blistering him with the contempt that blazed out of her exotic dark eyes. “You make me sick. For reasons I will never comprehend, Sasha loves you. But instead of thanking your lucky stars for a friend like her you're so damn jealous of the fact that she's finally found someone who'll take care of her the way she deserves to be taken care of that you don't know whether to pee or go blind. Well, let me tell you, bud; you don't deserve her. She's worth a dozen of you.” Then she, too, turned and walked out on him.
“You got that right, my little Far Eastern beauty,” Lon muttered. “You are fuckin'-A, one hundred percent correct. St. Sasha is too good for the likes of this sinner.” Then he shrugged, picked up his sandwich, and forced his attention back to his
Playboy.
 
 
Sasha was nearly blinded by her tears, but she saw Mick through the blur talking to a man outside their room. She was blearily aware of the stranger shoving a clipboard at Mick and of Mick scribbling on it. Then a small manila envelope exchanged hands and the man smiled, spoke softly, and sketched a finger salute off his forehead before he walked jauntily down the hallway in the opposite direction from her approach. The tune he whistled floated back in his wake.
Mick was still standing in the hallway waiting for her when she reached the room. “Hiya, sweetheart; I didn't expect to see you again so soon.” He broke off when he got his first good look at her and his smile of greeting faded to a frown of concern. “Sasha? What's the matter, baby? Are you all right?” He reached an arm out to wrap around her shoulders and she walked straight past it into his chest, burying her face in the crisp, laundered smell of his shirt and inhaling deeply the scent of soap, water, and man beneath. Clutching his spare waist, she held on as if her life depended on it, and the tears she'd been holding back by sheer determination overflowed.
Mick's arms tightened. “What is it darlin'? What happened?”
She started mumbling rapidly into his shirtfront but only one word in five was even remotely coherent.
“What?” Mick maneuvered them into the room and closed the door behind them. Rubbing his hands up and down her back, he leaned back from the waist and ducked his head in an attempt to see into her face, but she refused to relinquish her position against his chest, apparently entrenched for the duration. Once again she mumbled.
“Darlin', I can't understand a word you're saying.” He backed her over to the chairs, sat her down in one and squatted on his heels in front of her. Reaching up, he used his thumbs to wipe the puddles from beneath her eyes and then swiped them like windshield wipers across her tear-streaked cheeks. When it appeared as if the flow may have been staunched, he picked up her hands, which rested so limply in her lap, and rubbed them between his own. “Start over again, Saush. And this time speak more slowly.”
She told him everything she could recall concerning her past several encounters with Lon. When she'd finished, Mick remained on his haunches in front of her for a few silent moments, intently studying her eyes, trying to gauge exactly how she must have been affected. Finally, he merely said, “I'm sorry, sweetheart. I know it must hurt like hell.”
His eyes dropped to where their entwined hands lay in a tangle on her knees while he considered for an instant what he could do that would be of practical assistance. Watching his thumbs rub back and forth across the backs of her hands, he finally looked back up and gave her the barest suggestion of a smile. “I could always beat him up for you. You want?”
An involuntary snort of laughter escaped her. “Yes! I think that would be most satisfying.” Then her lips wobbled for a second before she got them back under control. Eyes locked with his, she confessed, “I'm scared to death he's getting back into the drug thing, Micky.”
His professional instincts went on red alert, and even as he petted her and murmured reassurances his mind was analyzing ways to utilize this newest data. He was dying to pump her for further information. The portion of him that was her lover, however, was more empathetic.
It was no secret he thought Morrison was a worthless son of a bitch. He also knew, however, how Sasha felt about the guy. He'd learned a lot about her life since they'd been living together and a guiding force in it was that Morrison had been damn near the only friend she'd had growing up. And he'd protected her; Mick had to give him that. Morrison and Saush had been as close as two people can get, and now she was faced with the prospect of being forced to witness him toss his life away again, and all for the sake of the promise of the easy life that had ruined him once before.
Mick figured that what she was feeling had to be an equivalent to the frustration, rage, and bone-deep sorrow he used to feel back in the days when he'd known his brother was about to go out on the prowl in search of a new score. When he had known there wasn't a damn thing he could do to prevent it.
He pulled her up out of the chair and led her over to the bed. Tumbling them onto the mattress, he pulled her into his arms. And he talked to her.
He tried to prepare her for the eventuality that maybe she couldn't save Morrison. That maybe nobody could.
“But he promised me he was through with this shit for good!” she insisted.
“Baby, he could hardly tell you otherwise, could he? We all know your feelings on the subject. You would've wrung his scrawny neck for him.”
“Damn it, Mick, don't patronize me. He
promised
me and I'm telling you I know when Lonnie's slingin' the bull and when he isn't.”
Mick shrugged. “Okay. Then chances are there's someone else out there who's encouraging him to backslide.” He hesitated, but finally decided there was no real reason why he couldn't comfort her
and
do his job—the two weren't necessarily mutually exclusive. “You have any idea who that could be, Saush?” he inquired. And held his breath.
“Not a clue,” she promptly replied. “I can't imagine anyone even attempting such a thing. Well, maybe John Beggart or Marty Roth. But Lon would never go along with a suggestion from either of those idiots.” She shoved up on an elbow in order to see Mick better. “Lonnie is mule stubborn, Mick. Suppose someone did offer him an opportunity to make some really big money. Financially it would appeal to him and he'd be tempted; I'm not denying that. But I also know Lon, and he would say no, flat out—at least at first.”
“What makes you so damn certain?”
She looked him dead in the eye and repeated what she had told him already. “Because he promised me.”
Mick felt a prickling at the back of his neck. For the first time he was beginning to get an inkling . . . and he didn't like what it was suggesting. Incidents, which up to this point had seemed senseless, were beginning to suggest a pattern that made a convoluted kind of sense. “Would he be likely to tell the person that he was refusing because of a promise he made to you?” he queried her without apparent emphasis.
Sasha shrugged. “Who knows?”
“Okay. Let me approach this from another angle. If he made you a vow—and clearly you believe that he was sincere when he did so—then why the hell change his mind now?” Sasha merely widened her eyes at him, her expression suggesting “think about it,” and Mick nodded. “Ah. Sure. You and me.”
“It's gotta be.”
She laid her head back down on his chest and they were both quiet for a moment. It wasn't until then that she remembered the man with the clipboard. “Mick, who was that man out in the hall?”
“Who?” He raised his head up to look at her, but then settled back down again when he realized to whom she was referring. “Oh, the overnight express courier. I'm working on a project for someone and he brought me some information that I need. Or, at least I hope he did.”
“Oh, Mick, I'm sorry.” Immediately Sasha tried to push away. “I ought to let you get back to work,” she insisted guiltily, but Mick tightened his arms around her, preventing her from leaving.
“Hey, it's not a problem,” he said. “Trust me, babe, another five minutes one way or another isn't going to make all that much difference to anything I've currently got going. You know how it is.” He gave her a self-deprecatory grin. “Nine-tenths of the stuff I do around here is straightening out the crew's or cast's personal messes.”
He did a lot more than that, but she understood what he was saying. Mick had an undeniable air of authority about him and he got things done. The combination was irresistible to those who didn't boast similar capabilities and it hadn't taken long before people with problems began bringing them to him. Most were minor; a few were not. Regardless of the severity, he invariably solved whatever predicament was brought to him and he did it confidentially and without fuss. Not even with her did he discuss other people's troubles unless the person requesting help launched into the details of his dilemma in front of her. It was a trait she found admirable.
Luckily for Mick, it was also a trait that provided a convenient explanation for the sporadic missives from his true employer.
Sasha was a great respecter of privacy, but he hadn't stayed alive in a dangerous profession for as long as he had by taking unnecessary chances.
Don't Tempt Fate
were words to live by. He waited until she had tracked down Connie and they'd once again left to take a second shot at their aborted lunch before he sat down and ripped open the manila envelope the DEA courier had delivered.
And about damn time it had shown up, too. McMahon had taken his own sweet time delivering the information, and Mick knew a power play when he saw one. This was a little chest thumping on McMahon's part, his way of saying Mick's threats neither intimidated nor impressed him. Game playing of this ilk was just the sort of bullshit the suits loved best.
Looking on the bright side, though, at least the courier had been a total professional.
He studied the list of names of people connected to the Follies who had been on the amateur circuit at the time of Morrison's arrest. Sara Parsons. Karen Corselli. Jeffrey O'Brien. And seven names from the technical support portion of the Follies personnel. That sort of took him by surprise until he remembered what a closed little society the skating world was and then he felt foolish for jumping to an assumption that wasn't scrupulously thought through. He ought to know better. Of course it wasn't only the performers who moved around in this business.
Given a bit of consideration, as a matter of fact, skating was actually a rich kid's sport. Sasha and Morrison were the exception, not the norm. He'd learned enough since he'd been with the Follies to realize that on the whole it took a great deal of money to support years of training and cover expenses needed to compete on the amateur circuit. Hell, skate boots alone ran eight hundred to a thousand bucks a pair and they didn't even last that long given the moisture they were continuously exposed to. He sure as hell didn't rule out any of the skaters on the list, but they were less likely to need the money. And most of them had an athlete's respect for their bodies, which made it more difficult to imagine them pushing a substance guaranteed to destroy it.
On the other hand, Morrison hadn't hesitated to do it, and for all Mick knew the motive had nothing to do with money. He had to start somewhere, however, and he chose—his finger ran down the list and came to a halt a short ways down the page—Jack Berensen. The bus driver.
Jack struck him as a stand-up sort of guy. But this wouldn't be the first case he'd come across where behind closed doors an apparently stand-up guy turned out be the nastiest son of a bitch a person would ever care to encounter, and in Mick's estimation the bus driver warranted a closer examination. His occupation alone was enough to arouse Mick's inbred suspicions. Driving a bus from town to town presented a world of opportunity to anyone with a larcenous bent.
Who the hell knew if it would lead anywhere; it was a working supposition at best. At least it gave him a place to start. Mick filed the list of names with the rest of his private paraphernalia and gathered his wallet and room key. He let himself out of the room.
When he returned to it several hours later, he was whistling softly between his teeth. His afternoon had been productive. He didn't have a clue yet where the information he'd gathered today would lead him or what it was going to yield in the form of tangible evidence. But it had felt good simply having a concrete goal to pursue. From the word go this damn case had been so far from the standard it was ridiculous. And face it, the fact that his mood was this elevated simply because he'd reestablished a little normal procedure back into his routine was nothing short of pitiful, but there it was. He'd done his job this afternoon as it should be done and he felt great.

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