Breaking Loose Read online

  So maybe he hadn’t made his point-not yet.

  “They’ve got a few amenities,” he said. “Damn few.”

  “You could have sold that Plymouth of yours and checked into the Gran Chaco. The suite next to mine is available, and no, that’s not an invitation.”

  He let out a short laugh. If she knew about his 1971 Hemi ‘Cuda, a blue fish he’d named Charo, it was only because she’d gone looking to find out. A classic, Suzi Toussi was right, Charo was worth more than a few nights’ worth of suite living at the Gran Chaco.

  “Have you been checking me out, Ms. Toussi?” He gave her an even more assessing look.

  “You failed calculus,” she said.

  So did you, he could have told her, but refrained.

  “You were looking good, too, like you had it in the bag,” she continued, “up until you bombed the final and completely tanked your grade. You were smart, just not smart enough at seventeen to think your way around-”

  “Consolata-”

  “Rodriguez,” she finished for him. “Consolata wrecked your grade point and your Galaxie.”

  “The ‘65 Ford, yeah, that was a car.” Geezus. More of his automotive history.

  “Women seem to be a recurring weak point in your life, Mr. Killian.”

  Right. Like he needed reminding in that department, especially from her. Geezus.

  “You’ve been talking to Esmee.” Talking to Esmee a lot.

  “She adores you.”

  Yeah, he knew it.

  “Have you seen the scrapbook she made about you?” the divine Ms. Toussi asked, thankfully without giving him another of those looks, without giving him any kind of look.

  Yeah, he’d seen his little cousin’s scrapbook. She’d started it young, when he’d been a big hero to her. He just wished she’d stopped young.

  “Sounds like you’ve been busy.” Unnervingly busy, but he wasn’t going to let that show-no way in hell, no matter how many of his report cards she’d seen, or how many of his pink slips she’d tracked down.

  “And you’ve been lucky, starting with the night you didn’t show up at the chop shop on Steele Street when the rest of the boys got busted.”

  “Are you talking about Dylan-”

  “Hart, Hawkins, the whole crew ended up in juvie that night, and you ended up-”

  “Knowing better.” Geezus again. Was there anything the woman didn’t know about him?

  Yeah, of course there was. Guys in his line of work always had secrets, and unless you’d been there, part of the team, or were in the chain of command, you’d never know what had gone down in some of the places he’d been, would never know some of the things he’d done. It’s what separated the big bad boys from all the rest.

  “Which is how you ended up Airborne, Ranger-qualified, and at Fort Bragg,” she said.

  Okay, well, this was all damned interesting, but she couldn’t have gotten all that out of him in a month of Sundays, and for the record, she couldn’t have gotten the piece about the bust out of Esmee. His hero-worshipping cousin didn’t know about his car-stealing days. Ms. Suzi Toussi could only have gotten that little tidbit from one of Steele Street’s original chop-shop boys. He knew the crew was still alive and well and running hard out of Denver, but for the U.S. government, not for grand theft auto-and yeah, Suzi knew them. She’d known them for years, quite a few of them, he’d discovered in the course of his investigation, which was something he usually tried not to dwell on for too long-women’s pasts.

  In her case, he’d made an exception. He’d been dwelling, plenty.

  “None of which explains how you ended up in Ciudad del Este at the Galeria Viejo today,” she said with a smile, stopping at the front door of the Posada Plaza and pulling it open. “After you, Sergeant Killian.”

  Oh, he got it. Oh, hell, did he suddenly get it. She thought she was in charge. Amazing. No wonder she was so generous with the “we” thing.

  “That’s ‘former sergeant,’” he said with a smile, reaching above her on the door and gesturing for her to enter first. “You’re going to like my room-I’ve got a private bath, a hot plate, and a window that opens.”

  The look she gave him might have felled a lesser man, but Dax just grinned-and followed her inside.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Well, another new low, Suzi thought, glancing around the lobby of the Posada Plaza. If the entrance to the Old Gallery had been the dumpiest, dirtiest, most squalid place she’d ever seen in her life, what with the mounds of garbage that seemed to simply pile up and spill over everywhere in Ciudad del Este, then the lobby of the Posada Plaza was the dumpiest, dirtiest, most squalid place she’d ever actually been inside.

  Hands down.

  The smell alone was a physical assault. She didn’t want to even begin to know what mix of jungle rot and bodily fluids it took to make that smell.

  Fortunately, she was a professional. She had a job to do, and she wasn’t going to be dissuaded by…a small cough escaped her. Then another.

  Good God.

  “This is the worst of it,” he assured her, taking her arm again when she turned toward the elevators. “We’re taking the stairs, remember?”

  The stairs, of course. She glanced back at the lifts and saw two rough-looking women, very rough looking. Then she realized Marcella and Marceline weren’t women.

  One of the “girls,” the shorter, younger one with a Joan Jett hairstyle, smiled shyly and waggled her fingers in a hello.

  It was sweet, unexpected, and Suzi automatically lifted her hand in return, giving the girl a wave.

  “Don’t get too attached,” he said next to her, and she gave him a droll glance.

  “It’s just girls being girls, sisters under the skin and all that.”

  “Sisters.” He let out a short laugh. “Right.”

  Her gaze slid over the two “women” again. Transvestite tag team, Latin style-oh, yes, she was staying the hell out of the elevators. As a matter of fact, professional or not, job to do or not, she wished she’d stayed the hell out of the Posada Plaza. It reeked.

  Fortunately, after the first landing, the air did seem to clear a bit.

  “So you know Superman,” he said.

  “Christian Hawkins, yes.” And, good Lord, Dax Killian-she still could hardly believe it, and what in the hell had happened back there with the police? God, her job had just gotten so much harder.

  They made the second floor, headed up toward the third, and she started breathing a little easier.

  “And Creed? You dated him, too, right?”

  Dated?

  Too?

  She shot him a quick glance. What in the world?

  “Everybody dates somebody sometime. My social life is hardly the issue here.”

  “Did you ever go out with Dylan?”

  She wasn’t going to answer that.

  “I’ll take that as a yes, and frankly, I’m surprised. He doesn’t seem like your type.”

  As if he would know her type. They’d hardly exchanged a hundred words the night they’d met at the gallery.

  “How about Quinn?” he asked.

  Twice.

  And Dylan once-the boss really hadn’t been her type.

  “My point,” she began, thoroughly annoyed and trying not to let it show, “was that I know quite a bit about you, Mr. Killian, and in case you missed it, the issue we’re currently dealing with is what you’re doing here. This thing with Remy Beranger isn’t your kind of gig.”

  “No?”

  “No. Besides the normal course of your investigations, what you and Esmee specialize in is recovering fine art, paintings in particular, not the kind of catchall crap Beranger shills.”

  “I didn’t notice you specializing in catchall crap, either.”

  He had a point.

  “I’m here for a client.”

  “The congressman from Illinois?”

  She nearly stumbled on the stairs, but he caught her, his hand almost instantly wrapping around her u
pper arm, steadying her.

  “Uh, thank you.” Good God. He couldn’t possibly know about the congressman from Illinois, because there was no congressman from Illinois. She and Grant had concocted the story between them just last night. No one else even knew about their plan.

  Except the guy they were squeezing with it, Jimmy Ruiz, and, obviously, Daniel Axel Killian, which led her straight to the question of How in the hell?

  “Are you okay?” Killian asked, very solicitous.

  “Yes, quite, thank you.” Dammit. Jimmy must have told him what was going on, which meant they were partners.

  Cripes. She hadn’t seen that coming.

  “My room is just down the hall,” he said, when they reached the fifth floor. “I’ve got a balcony with a pretty good view of the gallery.”

  “How…uh, convenient.” Of course a tactical genius with Killian’s reputation would have picked an operating base where he could keep a watch on things.

  “Hopefully, we’ll be able to see if the cops are still at Beranger’s, and what they’re doing.”

  “Good.” Great. Wonderful. Crap. Ruiz and Killian, now there was a match to ruin her day and put her back up against a wall.

  Dammit. The Memphis Sphinx was hers. She was finding it tonight, calling in Dylan and whoever was with him to steal it, and she was personally going to be there when the damn thing landed on Buck Grant’s desk.

  They stopped at the door to room 519, and Suzi’s phone rang from inside her purse.

  She pulled it out and answered, “Yes.”

  “Do you know who this is?” a man’s voice said.

  Well, well, well, she thought. As a matter of fact she did know who it was.

  “Yes.”

  “I have what you want.”

  And that would certainly work for her. That would work very well, indeed. She glanced at Killian, and he was busy getting the key in the lock, but she didn’t doubt for a second that he was hanging on her every word.

  “Are you sure you know what that is?”

  The caller let out a short laugh. “Everybody in Ciudad del Este wants what you want, starting with Esteban Ponce and Levi Asher, the men at Remy Beranger’s this afternoon.”

  Okay, they were definitely on the same page.

  “Meet me at your hotel in an hour,” he said.

  “Certainly.”

  “I want cash, U.S. dollars, five hundred thousand, and guarantees.”

  “Yes.” Fat chance. She wasn’t authorized to grant guarantees, and Grant hadn’t sent her down here with half a million in cash, but she knew how to work an antiquities deal long enough to get what she needed out of it-money or no money.

  “One hour.” The call ended, and when she looked up, Killian was looking at her.

  “Anybody I know?” he asked, opening the door.

  “No.” She shook her head, allowing herself a small measure of relief, very small. No deal was done until Grant said “Good,” but this one at least wasn’t dead in the water, not yet.

  He finished jimmying his key out of the lock, and then, without missing a beat, took the phone out of her hand.

  She started to bluster, but even one look was enough for him to see Jimmy’s number, and with one press of a key, he was dialing it.

  She could shoot him, but somehow she thought, in the long run at least, that wasn’t to her advantage.

  Short run was up for grabs.

  Dammit. She hoped Jimmy was smart enough not to answer with a full introduction, or to have left his name on his voice mail. She’d be back to square one in a damn hurry either way.

  After a moment, with the phone to his ear, Dax said, “Quién es este?”

  And not so surprisingly, it looked like Jimmy hung up on him.

  “Happy now?”

  He didn’t answer her question, and she gave up with an annoyed sigh when she realized he was putting a number into the phone’s memory.

  “Ciudad del Este is a rough town,” he said, punching the last few keys. “If you get into any more trouble while you’re here, call me. Okay?” He handed the phone back to her, and after a moment, she took it and dropped it back in her purse.

  “Okay.” Fat chance. She was back in play with a fairly strong hand, and apparently Killian wasn’t in cahoots with half the black-market miscreants she was up against, not with Jimmy Ruiz calling and offering to sell the Sphinx to her. She’d be out of this hellhole long before she got into any more trouble.

  She discreetly checked her watch. She had one hour to get her butt back over to the Gran Chaco.

  “After you,” he gestured for her to precede him inside, and with just the slightest hesitation, she led the way. A couple of questions wouldn’t be amiss, especially if she got a couple of answers, maybe add a little chitchat, sort of an “imagine running into you in Paraguay” thing, and she was out of here. She wasn’t looking for help on this deal, or, God forbid, a partner, no matter how many people she and Dax Killian both knew. She worked better alone.

  Story of my life, she thought, looking around his room. It was huge, the ceilings at least twelve feet high, the wood floor wide-planked and much used and abused. There were two windows, one on each side of the shutter-type wooden doors leading to the balcony, and one of them was open, just like he’d promised. The other looked painted shut. The room was a dump, but it was kind of an exotic dump, with a big bed covered in muted gold, rose, and sage green bedding-sheets and blankets.

  O-kay, she thought, so much for the bed. She checked to the right, and sure enough, there was the promised hot plate sitting on a dresser. She bet he was having a lot of fun with that. She also noted an ice bucket, a couple of fruity-looking bottled soft drinks, a computer up and running on a table with a pair of binoculars close by, a medium-sized duffel bag and a telephone on a console next to the bed, and an olive drab backpack with extra pouches on the outside sitting next to the duffel.

  “How do you keep the elevator girls and the desk clerk from coming in here and stealing your stuff?” she asked.

  In answer, he lifted his left hand and rubbed his thumb back and forth over the tips of his finger. Money, she got it.

  “Go ahead and have a seat,” he said, walking over and tapping a few keys on his laptop. She looked around one more time. She could sit on the bed-not likely. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d sat on a man’s bed, or had one sitting on hers, or doing anything else on hers-and now was not the time to be trying to remember. Or she could squeeze by him and sit at the table where he had his computer set up. Or she could do what she darn well liked, which was stand.

  “I’m fine. This won’t take long,” she said, taking charge and setting the tone.

  He glanced back at her from where he’d been watching the computer screen and smiled as if he knew exactly what she was trying to do.

  Actually, there was no “try” about it. She was doing it, and she told him so with a return smile-a small smile, a smile that said he needn’t bother to get too friendly. This little association they’d had for the last fifteen to twenty minutes or so was just about ready to come to an end.

  “So how did you know about the congressman?” she asked. Now that she knew it hadn’t been Jimmy Ruiz telling him, she was damned curious. She was also damned impressed with Ruiz. While Remy Beranger had been pleading with the police, and she’d been getting the hell out of Dodge, Jimmy had snatched the prize.

  “I heard you tell Beranger, when you were inside the gallery,” he said. The computer beeped, and he turned his attention back to the screen and tapped a couple more keys before picking up the binoculars and heading toward the balcony. “I bugged the place yesterday morning.”

  Okay, now she was impressed.

  He opened the wooden doors but didn’t step outside. Instead, he checked the streets from the shadowy safety of the room.

  While he looked over the City of the East, she looked him over, letting her gaze drop down the length of him, then wishing she hadn’t. He was trouble of the
worst kind, even dressed in a pair of baggy khaki pants and a nondescript shirt. His clothes were sloppy, but he was built like a slab of granite underneath them. Geezo cripes. He was standing on the edge of the light, doing nothing more than holding the set of optics up to his eyes, and his flexed arms were literally roped with muscle. It was enough to make a girl’s throat go dry, if a girl were exceedingly foolish, which, luckily, she wasn’t. He was in good shape, that was all, incredibly good shape, just like all the operators she knew, the ones whose lives depended on them always being smarter, faster, stronger every time, all the time. His face was boyish, despite the hardened edges of his features, but no one would ever mistake him for a boy, not in any sense. She’d memorized his résumé, and every hard-won year showed in the way he held himself, in the way he moved.

  “I also heard you tell Beranger that the congressman was interested in acquiring a rare and powerful artifact,” he continued, scanning the market through his binoculars. “Something not necessarily Incan in origin, you said, which this week, in this city, means a piece of ancient Near East statuary from the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt’s Middle Kingdom known as the Memphis Sphinx.”

  Well. She took a breath and let it out.

  Walking over to the open balcony door, she pulled a small pair of binoculars out of her purse. When she stopped just off his left side, she set them to her eyes.

  Well, she thought again. She hadn’t expected that, to have everything just thrown out on the table. She certainly wasn’t planning on spilling her guts; she never did.

  Not ever.

  Not to anyone.

  Looked like a bit of a commotion over at the gallery, she decided, like maybe the police had scared everybody off and now even they were leaving. No problema for her. The gallery was old news. This thing was going down at the Gran Chaco.

  “And what I want to know is the name of your congressman,” he said, lowering the binoculars, then doing a small double take when he realized how close she was. “Got your own glass.”

  “Everywhere I go,” she said, lowering her binoculars and meeting his gaze.

  He cleared his throat and headed back to the computer. “What I want to know is how you got involved in this situation, and how long it’s going to take you to pack up your things and get back on a plane, because this deal, Ms. Toussi”-he finished a series of keystrokes and turned back around with an “I’m telling you this for your own good” expression on his face, a very guy-type expression-”this deal has very damn little to do with art, and a whole lot to do with the kind of people you shouldn’t let get within a hundred miles of wherever you’re at. This isn’t a sortie to San Francisco, or a Sotheby’s auction. This is nothing but bad news full of the kind of cutthroats who actually cut throats.”