Something Sinful This Way Comes [McQueen Was My Valley 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (3 page)

Instead, Nathan turned chummily to the friendly angler. He wanted to wallop this loser, too, for saying there was “no damned reason” for military men to die. But he had to hold it together, and he was an expert at that. “Let me get your next round.”

A few fishermen, including the fellow whose nose he’d broken, grumbled and backed away. But more than a few were apparently desperate for a free drink, so they bellied up to the bar. Nathan cursed himself.
Now I’ll have to talk to them.
All the cabins were booked up. If I had a place to lie down, I wouldn’t be in this damned bar to begin with.

Nathan attempted to smile, gesturing at the hippie. “Colorado Spinners your sponsor?”

“Yeah. Who’s your sponsor?”

Luckily Nathan was accustomed to thinking on his feet. “Bait and Switch. They’re a big…”

The hippie nodded, knowledgeable. “Bait producer.”

“Exactly.” It was funny because Nathan had just made up the company name.

“Excuse me, sir?”

Nathan tensed at the sound of a woman’s voice. There didn’t appear to be many women entered in this tournament. That was one aspect of Utah he had been looking forward to. Very few women. Very few
people
at all, which was what he needed for a few months, to end this jumpiness, this antsiness. These nerves.

But it was a feminine hand on his bare forearm. In the tussle the sleeves of his windbreaker had hiked up, and he was certain his Glock had been visible at times in his shoulder holster. He was facing an extremely tall, gangly woman who would probably never be able to wear heels. Her extreme overbite made her look like a duck, but she was a friendly, harmless duck. “Please, sir. We have a situation that requires a cop.”

Nathan’s heart almost stopped. “I’m no cop.”

She didn’t remove her hand from his arm. “Please. I’m Cass Cameron, the director of the front office here at Triple Play. I noticed when I walked by that you’re packing heat, so you must be a cop of some kind. You’re too old to be military.”

Nathan had to chuckle at that. “Packing heat.” “Too old to be military.” He was only forty, but he got that a lot, people thinking he was too old to do what he did. It stood him in good stead when people underestimated him. He could easily pretend to be a cop. “What’s the issue?”

“Please come with us.”

Another female. Nathan’s eyes flickered to her. Oh,
ibn himar. Son of a donkey
. This one was luscious and juicy beyond all reason. Her shoulder-length curly blonde hair was obviously lightened, but the metallic shade complemented the steely blue depths of her eyes. Her lips were plush and shiny, as though she’d been biting them—full of nerves, like he was. He knew if he let his eyes stray to her bosom he would find her shapely and pert, but Nathan had more manners, was able to control his impulses—usually. These women needed help, not ogling.

And besides. He didn’t want a woman. He wanted peace.

“All right.” He gulped the rest of his martini and didn’t even nod at his new fishing acquaintance as he followed the two women down the hall. Since he was walking behind the women, he did allow himself the luxury of admiring the curvaceous woman’s ass swaying under her tight black dress skirt.
Wow
. Against all his better inclinations, his prick began to swell inside his jeans.
Think about firefights. Blood. Carnage.
“What happened?”

Cass explained as she walked. “Alexandra here had her suite broken into by an unknown assailant.”

Cass had watched too many procedurals. Nathan pointed out, “He’s not an ‘assailant’ if he only broke in. He’s a burglar.” He took this opportunity to stride next to Alexandra. “He didn’t assail you, did he?”

She compressed her lips, trying to suppress a smile. “No. That’s the problem. We don’t even know who he is. My front door was already open when we got there ten minutes ago.”

Alexandra appeared to have the best suite in the entire building of a hundred and fifty rooms. Nathan knew how many rooms the Triple Play had because he’d tried to get one, and they were all booked.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said a goofy fellow whose hair resembled an explosion of cauliflower, holding up his palms in the
halt
gesture. His nose resembled a chayote squash. “Who is this clown? We don’t want the whole lodge knowing we have a burglar running around.”

Cass turned to Nathan. “Doug is the general manager. Doug, this is, ah…”

Nathan didn’t offer his hand to the dork to shake. “Nathan Horowitz.” He continued glancing around. Some Navajo gewgaws had been tossed onto the carpet from the fireplace mantel.

Cass added, “Retired policeman.” She pointed meaningfully at Nathan’s chest while winking and shaping her hand into a gun.

Doug appeared to get Cass’s message. “Marcus here already dusted for prints on the doorknobs.”

“Yeah,” said a nerdy guy who seemed to be made of all squares. “Guy obviously used gloves. Didn’t touch the sliding glass handle, came in and out the hall door.”

Marcus sat at a table where apparently Alexandra did her daily work, whatever that was. Nathan meandered over and looked over Marcus’s shoulder to see a video surveillance tape of the hallway on a laptop, paused.

Nathan pointed at the screen. “The guy walked down the hall in profile to avoid a facial recognition hit.”

Marcus made a lip fart. “Yeah, and even if facial recognition existed at a reasonable, workable level, he kept his face shaded under the brim of that baseball cap.”

“Oh, it works,” Nathan assured him. “Technology is getting better every day. This is a very low-res film but you could use face hallucination to enhance it. Still, see how he walks between sun and shadows, how the flood of sun from those tall windows erases nearly all his features? That ruins it.”

He suddenly became aware that Alexandra stood so close to him, her voice feathered his neck when she spoke. “Where were you a cop? I doubt they’re that high-tech in Utah.”

“Hey,” Doug protested feebly. “Nothing wrong with Utah.”

From this, Nathan concluded Alexandra was not from around here. Was she a mover and shaker with the fishing foundation? On the table he saw deeds, titles, inspections, and a parcel map that showed the area surrounding the lodge to the limit of at least two thousand acres. She seemed to be transferring title to land that encompassed the Colorado River nearly to Lake Powell, where the tournament was. The land included Prism Canyon upriver and beautiful sandstone
property that abounded in spires and monoliths all the way through McQueen Valley.

Alexandra McQueen. Of course.
“Abilene,” Nathan said off-handedly. It was true. He’d been assigned to Dyess Air Force Base out of Abilene after graduating from West Point. So he had been there—over a decade ago. A hint of lime wafted over from Alexandra. Such a simple thing was confusing him disproportionately. “He didn’t mess up any of your paperwork or touch your computer?”

“Nothing.”

“So he wasn’t interested in any of this…real estate paperwork.”

“Not at all. I mean, any fool could easily
see
it all sitting here, but it seems like he went straight to my bedroom.”

Nathan gave her a questioning look which she instantly interpreted, and they went to the bedroom.

“I haven’t moved anything,” Alexandra told him. “But he seemed to come straight in here, as though looking for something specific.”

“Something you’d hide in your sock drawer.” Nathan grinned, relieved to see her crack a smile as well. “And the obvious question. Was anything taken?”

“Not that I know of. I only arrived here in Bird in Hand three months ago with all my worldly goods, and believe you me, ‘everything I own’ is not much. See, he tried to get into the safe but wasn’t successful. He took none of my costume jewelry, not even this sterling silver and turquoise stuff.”

Nathan gestured at the nightstand. The drawer had been left open. “He take anything from there?”

Shrugging, Alexandra plopped down on her mattress and listlessly rifled through the drawer with one hand. “I mean, there’s nothing terribly exciting in here.” A bottle of saline solution.
She must wear contacts
. Ear plugs.
It must get noisy in this wing
. A pedometer.
She must like to run, too.
She grabbed a handful of things and brought them to her lap, shrugging. “See? Nothing…”

A roll of antacid tabs. Pens. A thermometer. A fake leopard skin Velcro handcuff.

It was adorable. The moment Alexandra realized what she was holding, she actually
blushed
. Nathan hadn’t seen a woman blush in a very long time. She tossed the handcuff back into the drawer as though burned, and just by leaning over a little, Nathan could see a compact battery-operated vibrator the size of a lipstick tube.

“See what I mean?” she said, louder than was necessary, slamming the drawer shut. “Nothing. How do you think he got in?”

“Yeah,” blared the manager, Doug, from where he stood in the doorway. “The card reader’s batteries aren’t dead, and the video didn’t show him picking any lock. He sailed right in.”

Nathan extended a hand. “May I borrow your cardkey?”

He went into the hallway, trailed by Alexandra and her retinue. He went right to the suite next door and slid Alexandra’s cardkey. The round light on the lock lit up green, and Nathan easily turned the handle. He demonstrated to the audience by opening the door a few inches before allowing it to click shut again.

“Bullshit,” muttered Doug, yanking the cardkey from Nathan as he attempted to hand it back to Alexandra. Doug angrily swiped the key again and tore inside the room.

“That’s his suite,” said Alexandra, replacing the shoestring that held her cardkey around her neck. “So the thief snagged a master key?”

Nathan nodded. “Maybe from a maid. Not too hard to do. Now of course you have to think of who you might know who would do this. Why did they single you out?”

“Well,
no one
,” said Alexandra. “I only just moved here three months ago. Cass, does anyone hate me?”

Cass shrugged. “Not that I know of. Marcus, you’re going to have to rekey all the masters. Then you’ll need to re-swipe every door of every guest room.”

“On it,” said Marcus, heading down the hallway.

Nathan said, “He’s probably planning to come back with a giant drill or something to get in the safe. Even if you don’t have what he wants, he obviously is determined to think that you do. Maybe it’s something you didn’t bring with you, left back in your hometown of…”

“Charleston,” Cass filled in for him. “Xandra is the new owner of the Triple Play. She’d never been to Utah in her life until three months ago, so she hasn’t had much time to acquire enemies.”

Nathan suggested, “Maybe someone who resents that you’re the new owner?” He looked meaningfully at Doug’s closed suite door.

Cass had a blank look on her face, but Xandra waved dismissively at Nathan. “Oh, pshaw. Doug? He’s been the sweetest little lamb toward me. He doesn’t resent me getting the lodge. Anyway, the burglar didn’t break in when I was there. He waited until I was gone. It’s not me he’s after—it’s a
thing
.”

“Regardless,” Nathan said. “I don’t feel secure letting you go back into that room until we’ve nabbed this guy. At least set up a camera
inside
the room. He hasn’t gotten what he came here for.”

Xandra insisted, “It’ll take Marcus just a few minutes to reprogram all the masters. I’m not worried. But if you want to set up a camera inside the room, I’m sure Marcus has all the equipment.”

“He does,” Cass verified.

Xandra continued, “And now I’ve got to change. That bass association has a shindig starting at eight, and I haven’t even checked the ballroom yet. Thank you so much, Mr. Horowitz. What room are you staying in?”

“That’s the thing, Miss McQueen.” Nathan just assumed she was a “miss.” He hated himself when his heart leaped because she didn’t deny it.
You’re not here to hook up with women, you rat bastard.
But this woman blows every other one out of the water
. “I don’t have a room. The front desk said you were all booked, but there’s a cabin available starting tomorrow.”

Cass formed her mouth into a sad duck’s bill. “Oh. That’s true, unfortunately.” She brightened suddenly. “But this is
perfect
! Xandra! What could be better than having a
cop
sleeping on your sofa?”

“Oh,
Cass
!” gasped Xandra, as though Cass had suggested a threesome. “I’m sure Mr. Horowitz has better things to do—”

“Not really,” Nathan admitted.

“—than to lounge around on my couch, and…” She was shy and blushing again.

Cass’s big authoritative voice took over. She even grabbed Nathan’s arm. “Come on. I’m not the director of the front office for nothing. I’m sure we can squeeze you in somewhere.” She glared at Xandra. “Seeing as how Mr. Horowitz has been so helpful to us.”

Cass dragged Nathan down the hall. He barely had a chance to lift his hand to the owner of the Triple Play Lodge before a skeezy, slick guy came barreling down the hallway, arms lifted toward Xandra.