Soldier's Redemption (3 page)

He’d been prepared to use her in whatever way presented itself; he wasn’t prepared to actually feel something for her.

“Here it is. Aneta Cazo, fifth floor,” Skylar said, tapping one of the boxes. “Apartment 509.”

He followed her up the gloomy stairs, enjoying the way her dress hugged her rear, then flared to fall softly against her legs, the natural sway of her hips as she moved. She wore some fragrance that wafted back at him as she climbed, sort of summery and flowery but not too strong. She belonged in a place of light and outshone these somber surroundings like a sun drop in a cave. He dragged his mind back to his job. They would convince Aneta to go back to the gallery with them and produce the painting, which she must have taken out of the frame for some crazy reason, then he would ask Skylar out to dinner, maybe at his hotel, maybe chance a kiss good-night so she would understand he was interested in seeing more of her.

The door was closed, and Skylar rapped against the wood. No one responded, so she called out Aneta’s name and they waited.

Cole heard a sound coming from inside, a sound he couldn’t identify, but it raised instincts honed over many years. He reached around Skylar and tried the knob. It turned in his hand. Soundlessly, he put an arm back to keep Skylar behind him and opened the door.

In one glimpse, he took in two things about the drab apartment. One was a young woman with short brown hair lying on the floor, her white blouse stained red over her heart. The second was a sound coming from behind a closed door to his right. Skylar immediately dashed past him to the woman and fell to her knees. Words of caution died on Cole’s lips as he crossed to the connecting door and opened it. The bedroom beyond was tidy and predictable except for an open suitcase on the bed and a curtain blowing into the room at the window.

He ran to look outside and found someone running down the fire escape. The guy had a pretty good head start, but Cole climbed out and took off after him, hoping the structure was a lot sturdier than it had appeared from a distance or felt now that he was on it.

The man looked over his shoulder to track Cole, but he was too far away for Cole to make out his features. He wore a dark, hooded jacket that obscured even his coloring. Cole took the steps two at a time, adrenaline helping to mask the pain in his leg. While Cole was still two stories up, the man jumped the final few feet to the sidewalk and ran to a black car that sped away as Cole came to a grinding halt still one floor above the ground.

He watched the car turn right at the first corner, then re-climbed the stairs as quickly as he could, hoping that leaving Skylar alone hadn’t been a mistake. Once through the window, he paused by the suitcase where he found a few items that looked as though they’d been thrown in without care and a few others lying beside the suitcase as though awaiting their turn.

Skylar was still kneeling on the floor beside the woman although now she sat with her hands resting against her own legs, tears rolling down her cheeks.

She looked up at him, lips trembling.

He didn’t need to ask, but he did anyway. “Is she—”

“Yes. She’s dead.”

* * *

S
KYLAR WAS TREATED WITH
cool detachment by the police, which included a detective named Kilo who spoke excellent English. Still there were questions to be answered—lots of them. She did her best to explain things as well as she could, but there was so much she was confused about.

Did Aneta’s murder have anything to do with the mysterious disappearance of Mr. Machnik’s painting? How could two such startling events not be connected?

Through it all, Cole stuck by her side, his presence as rock solid as his muscles. The police asked him a few questions about himself and his reasons for being in Kanistan, and from his answers, she gleaned he was here on business, that his business had something to with imports and exports and perhaps that explained his original interest in the gallery.

When it came to personal details, he seemed to be open and yet vague. Skylar didn’t know him well enough to say whether he was actually being obtuse or just private, a man caught up in someone else’s drama maybe or beginning to seriously regret an impulsive offer to help out.

He explained about the chase, as well, describing the man as under six feet wearing dark clothes, age unknown but not too old—going by the way he moved and jumped.

“And he escaped in a car with Kanistan plates?” Kilo quizzed.

“Yes.”

“What color?”

“Black. It looked like a late-model Mercedes to me but I’m not sure.”

The detective turned his attention back to Skylar. “You say she had a new lover?” A nearby officer stood poised, pen in hand, to take notes. Kilo himself was on the small side with freckled skin and thinning hair, a wispy mustache accenting a long face. By the outline of a package of cigarettes showing beneath the fabric of his brown suit pocket and the way his hand kept returning to pat it, she assumed he was dying for a smoke. She guessed there must be some rule about fouling a murder scene with smoke and ashes.

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Not long. A couple of weeks maybe.”

“His name?”

“She never said his name.”

“What did he look like?”

“I never saw him,” she said.

The detective patted the cigarette package as he narrowed his eyes. “He never came to pick her up for a date or a coffee?”

“No.”

“Think for a moment,” he coaxed as his hand dropped from his pocket. “Did you get the feeling she was hiding his identity, as though, perhaps, he was a married man?”

Skylar thought. The truth was that she and Aneta had not been close, had shared few if any confidences and that Skylar didn’t really know her. Had she been friendlier the first couple of weeks Skylar was here? Marginally, maybe. “I can’t be sure,” she said, “but I guess it’s possible.”

The detective and the uniformed officer exchanged glances. Kilo shrugged. “Her suitcase is half packed as though she was leaving. A jealous lover, a rendezvous, dissension between thieves? Who knows? We will need to meet you back at your shop and look for the missing painting,” the detective continued. “My men will search this apartment when forensics is finished to make sure Ms. Cazo did not steal it and bring it here. That is, if her killer did not take it with him when he fled.”

Skylar started to protest but didn’t. How did she know what Aneta would or wouldn’t do?”

“And you should contact the owner of your gallery at once.”

“No! The owner is my aunt, Eleanor Ables, and she’s not well. She can’t hear news like this on the phone.”

“Eleanor Ables? You are talking about Luca Futura’s wife?”

“Yes.”

“Luca Futura is your uncle?”

“Yes.”

“And why did you not mention this at once?”

“I don’t want to bother my uncle.”

The detective waved away her concern. “He must be told.” He turned to the uniformed officer and snapped off a few words. The twitch in Kilo’s jaw signaled the regard in which Skylar’s uncle was held. “We will contact him at once,” he said, turning back to Skylar.

“If you must,” Skylar said.

“You may go now. We can give you a lift back to the gallery.”

“That’s okay. I’ll take her,” Cole said from her side.

The thought of thirty minutes in the car with Kilo as he played catch-up to his nicotine deprivation was enough to sway Skylar’s decision in Cole’s favor though she was pretty sure she shouldn’t be leaning so heavily on a stranger. But Cole didn’t seem like much of a stranger anymore. Since arriving in Traterg, she’d spent her days at the shop and her evenings with her aunt and uncle when he was home. There’d been no opportunity to make friends—only Aneta who hadn’t been the warmest woman in the world.

Skylar flinched as guilt prickled her skin. Aneta was about the same age as Skylar and her life was over, destroyed by someone who had made sure she’d never see another birthday.

Cole touched her arm and she jumped. “Ready to go?” he asked, and she turned to see that people had arrived to take away Aneta’s body.

Cole’s limp seemed more pronounced as they walked down the stairs. Once in his car, Skylar lay back against the headrest and closed her eyes, relieved to be away from the murder scene, the police and the strain of the past hour.

“Are you okay?” Cole asked.

She opened her eyes and found him looking at her. He was an imposing-looking man in his way, yet his eyes showed kindness. She wished she knew him better, wished she could seek comfort in his arms, draw heat from his body. In other words, a hug would be nice....

“I really don’t want to go back to the gallery,” she said.

“Where do you want to go, then?”

“Anywhere else,” she said and then smiled. “I’m just dreaming. I have to meet the police, and my uncle will want details. I have to go back. I just don’t want to.”

“Just who is your uncle?” Cole said as he pulled away from the curb. “That detective sure seemed to snap to order when you mentioned his name.”

“Uncle Luca is high up in Traterg government,” she said. “Like a mayor or something. I don’t understand the politics here, but I know he’s held in high esteem.”

“Then he’ll be able to help deal with the man whose painting went missing.”

“I’m sure he can. I wonder what Aneta did with it.”

“Is there any chance someone else might have taken it?”

“There is no one else. It’s just me and Aneta. I opened the store this morning—there was no sign of a break-in. And Aneta is never there alone, and I have the only key. She must have slipped the painting out of the frame and vault while I was in the bathroom and hidden it away to carry out when she left.”

“Your setup sounds kind of unusual.”

“My aunt is very cautious. She’s always taken care of the gallery herself until now, and she made it clear I was to conduct all business transactions myself. Man, what a mess.”

“It’s not your fault,” he said as he guided the car through early afternoon traffic.

“I feel responsible, though,” she said.

“The plight of the conscientious,” he murmured.

She stared at his profile a moment. “Why are you going out of your way to help me?” she said at last.

He cast her a quick glance. “Take a look in the mirror sometime.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you are an exceptionally pretty woman.”

“So you’re helping me because you think I’m pretty?”

“You sound disappointed.”

“I hoped maybe it was my keen sense of fashion.”

That got a smile out of him. “That, too. No, really, you needed help and then things went nuts and you needed more help and I was glad to be able to offer it.”

“What happened to your leg?”

He was quiet so long she was on the verge of apologizing for prying. “Bullets,” he finally said.

“Ouch. Were you with the police, or were you on the other side?”

He smiled again. “Soldier, and if you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about it.”

“But that explains why you chased after a killer.”

“I guess.”

“Because I don’t think that’s the normal response for everyone. He must have had a gun. He might have turned around and shot you.”

“That’s true. I guess you owe me something for all my helpful bravery.”

She smiled this time. “You didn’t actually catch him.”

“Details. I suggest you keep me company tonight over dinner.”

“And that will wipe the slate clean?”

This time he looked at her with smoldering eyes, and she felt a jab of heat in her groin. It had been a long time since she’d been in a serious relationship.

“I’m a businessman alone in a strange city with an evening to kill,” he said. Then he swore under his breath. “Sorry, poor choice of words.”

“It’s okay,” she said, but the mention of killing did somber her mood once again. Thankfully they were just pulling up in the alley behind the gallery. “Thanks for all your help,” she said, her hand already on the door handle.

But he got out, too. “I’m coming with you,” he said over the top of the car.

“I don’t think—”

“Do you really, really want to go into that shop alone and wait for the police by yourself?” he asked, that intense look back in his blue eyes as he rounded the trunk to stop a foot in front of her.

She looked up at him, her throat suddenly swollen. There was something going on with him that she couldn’t pin down. On the other hand, she really, really didn’t want to be alone in the gallery.

He surprised her then by gripping her arms and pulling her close to him until her head came to a rest right under his chin. Slowly, almost tenderly, his arms wrapped around her, his body heat enveloping her. She had the sudden and very strong feeling he was going to kiss her, and she gazed up at him. His lips looked soft and inviting, and her own tingled with anticipation. When he did nothing, she looked beyond his mouth and found his expression pensive.

“What’s the hug for?” she whispered.

“You just looked like you needed one.”

As she unlocked the door, his arm slipped around her shoulders. She did nothing to dislodge it.

Chapter Three

Cole tried to stay out of the way while Skylar and the cops searched for some sign of the missing painting. He planted himself by the vase he’d looked at earlier, such a fragile and fanciful shape it was hard to believe it had started from a combination of fire and sand.

He had a lot to think about to keep him busy. If what he suspected about Luca Futura’s role in this city was true, it seemed unlikely he wasn’t involved with the murder, but in what way? Why would he steal something out of his own wife’s store? Sure, the little painting was apparently quite valuable but not worth a fortune—not to someone like Futura. Had he asked Aneta to take it and then killed her? Again, why?

Or had Aneta been working on her own? Had Futura found out somehow that Aneta was a thief? Did he kill her out of vengeance or send someone to do his dirty work instead of involving the police?

But why do all that when he all but owned the Traterg police? The former chief, a man by the name of Alexie Smirnoff, might be dead, but Cole knew Futura had replaced him almost immediately, promoting from within a network of government workers to find the next man whom he could no doubt manipulate into doing what he wanted. So why resort to murder that would require an investigation?