Elizabeth Lowell - Blue Smoke and Murder

She used the beam on nearby cars. Empty. Locked. Tires intact. No ads tucked under the windshield wipers. Whoever had trashed her ride had left the others alone.

Adrenaline lit up her blood like fireworks.

Gee, I feel really special.

Pissed off, too.

She looked around again, listened, heard nothing but wind and the growl of compressors keeping lettuce cold while drivers gambled the night away.

Quickly she closed the distance to her mutilated SUV. Nothing looked better up close. It looked worse.

She jerked the piece of paper out from under the windshield wiper. Block letters leaped into focus.

STAY OUT OF IT OR DIE

Adrenaline twisted into nausea.

She looked around the SUV again. Still alone. Still quiet. The guard was quartering a different part of the parking lot. She thought of calling him over, then thought of all the questions that the local cops would ask. Questions she really didn’t want to answer.

With a hissing curse she went to the passenger side, opened the door, and reached under the seat. To her surprise her satellite phone was still there. She pulled it out and stashed it in her belly bag. Then she grabbed a fistful of whatever was choking the glove compartment.

As soon as her fingers touched the material, she knew.

Canvas.

Oil.

Anger burned away the faint nausea of fear.

That slime-sucking son of a bitch. The threat wasn’t enough to make his point. He had to cut the missing painting to rags.

And it could just as easily have been her.

MANHATTAN

SEPTEMBER 14

2:21 A.M.

As usual, Dwayne Taylor had night duty. He liked it that way. The calls were more interesting and the view from Ambassador Steele’s office was one of the best in the city. Two of the office’s six walls overlooked Manhattan. The odd sheen of the bulletproof glass only added to the dramatic color-and-black view of skyscrapers. Three other walls held screens with satellite views of places where St. Kilda had operatives and/or things were going to hell. The final wall held a door and various reference books.

Ambassador Steele sat in his high-tech wheelchair, talking through a headset, debriefing someone in Paraguay. Mission accomplished. International executive returned largely unharmed to his worried family.

The “hot” phone rang.

Steele covered his microphone. “Get that, will you?”

Dwayne switched the channel on his headset and picked up immediately. “St. Kilda Consulting. Who or what do you need?”

“This is Jillian Breck. Joe Faroe told me to call this number if I was ever in trouble.”

Dwayne noted the tension in the woman’s voice, typed his best-guess spelling of her name into the computer, and simultaneously asked, “Are you in danger at this moment?”

“Only of losing more money to the penny slots.”

Dwayne smiled. “Not much danger, then.”

“My car is cut to pieces. Someone put a note under the windshield that said go away or die.”

Dwayne’s smile vanished. Information on Jillian Breck began to roll up on his computer screen.

Highest priority.

Joe Faroe.

“Where are you now?” Dwayne’s voice was a lot calmer than he was feeling. If Faroe said something was important, it was important.

“I’m in the Eureka Hotel, outside Mesquite, Nevada, in the casino. I figured it was safest here. Lots of guards.”

“Excellent choice. Do you have a room?”

“Yes.”

“Number, please.”

Jill hesitated.

Dwayne waited for her to realize the obvious-if she didn’t trust St. Kilda Consulting, why was she calling?

“Four-three-five,” she said.

“Ask a guard to escort you to your room. Make sure the drapes are shut before he leaves. Lock the door, both dead bolt and chain. Joe Faroe will call you within fifteen minutes.”

“Wait. I’m okay, just scared and mad. No need to wake him up. I’ll just-”

“Get escorted to your room,” Dwayne cut in firmly. His ruby signet ring glowed against his chocolate skin as he keyed instructions into the computer. “Fifteen minutes, Ms. Breck. If your room phone doesn’t answer, Faroe will”-have a shit-fit-“be very concerned.”

Silence.

“Ms. Breck? Are you all right?”

She made a tight sound that could have been a laugh. “Yes. I’m just not used to taking orders.”

Dwayne almost chuckled. From what he was reading about her on the screen, he wasn’t surprised. “Sorry. Let me make that a request. Please go to your-”

“I’m on my way to the elevator,” she cut in.

“With a guard?”

“A bellman. I waved a ten and he appeared.”

Not used to following orders, either, Dwayne thought. Should make life interesting for whichever operative is assigned to her.

A name came up on the screen. Zach Balfour was the op who was closest to Mesquite, Nevada. On vacation.

Not anymore, Dwayne thought.

He punched in Zach’s number on line 4.

“I’ll hold until you’re safe in your room,” Dwayne said to Jill.

“Really, there’s no need for that. I feel foolish enough as it is.”

“Better to feel foolish than be hurt.”

“The bellman is really big,” Jill said. “And I’m going to lose you in the elevator.”

“Take the stairs.”

“You sound like Joe Faroe.”

“I’m much better looking,” Dwayne assured her.

She laughed.

Steele finished debriefing the operative and glanced over at the man who was his administrative assistant and right hand. Joe Faroe was his left. Grace Faroe was his alter ego in the field.

Dwayne gestured with his head toward Steele’s desk and kept typing, transferring information into Joe Faroe’s priority file, copy to Steele, while Jill and an increasingly breathless bellman climbed stairs to her fourth-floor room.

Line 4 dropped Dwayne into Zach’s voice mail. Dwayne paused in his typing long enough to punch in the override code.

Jill’s breathing didn’t change during the climb. Dwayne heard a door opening, then closing, and the sound of a bolt going home, followed by the rattle of a chain.

“All safe and tight,” Jill said into the phone.

“Stay there, please, until a St. Kilda operative knocks on your door. Don’t open for anyone else, including room service, maids, hotel security personnel-”

“Or Santa and his busy elves,” Jill cut in. “I get it. I’ll wait for St. Kilda.”

“We’ll call and tell you which operator to expect.”

When Dwayne switched his headset over to line 4, Steele said, “And?”

“The river guide who saved Lane’s life just called. Someone gave her a screw-off-or-die note.”

“Interesting. Where is she?”

“Mesquite, Nevada. Eureka Hotel casino when she called, now locked and bolted into her room, same hotel. Zach Balfour is our closest bullet catcher.”

Steele’s light, clear eyes absorbed information from his screen. Zach was St. Kilda’s valued utility infielder and a man whose instinct for when an op was going south was legendary.

“Unhappy ex?” Steele asked, skimming Jill’s file.

“She didn’t say.”

“Call Faroe.”

“Just put in his number, line two. Zach Balfour hasn’t picked up his-there you are, Zach. It’s Dwayne. You’ve got a code two waiting in Mesquite, Nevada, Eureka Hotel, 435, Jillian Breck, death threat. You’ll know more when we do. Move it.”

Dwayne hung up in the middle of Zach’s rant about bimbos and bullet catching.

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

SEPTEMBER 13

11:28 P.M.

Grace picked up Faroe’s phone, saw who it was, and switched on the scrambler before putting the phone on speaker. “Grace, here. Joe’s busy driving.”

“How bad can traffic be at this time of night?” Steele asked, his voice crisp.

“It’s not the traffic, it’s the fact that she’s having the baby!” Faroe said loudly. “Lane, how long since the last contraction?”

“Two minutes, twenty-eight seconds.” Lane’s voice was tight, deep. Like Faroe’s. “How you doing, Mom?”

“Will you both shut up?” Grace asked pleasantly. “I can’t hear the ambassador. And slow down unless you want a police escort.”

Steele’s surprisingly warm laughter came from the speaker. “I take it all is under control, Judge?”

“Yes, but you couldn’t tell by talking to my men. My doctor is on the way in to the hospital, the staff is ready, and apparently so is the baby. What do you need?”

“Jillian Breck just called for Joe.”

“What?” Lane said. “Is she all right? Is she hurt? Does-”

“Belt up, Lane,” Faroe said. He knew his son had a crush on Jill-what healthy young man wouldn’t?-but that wasn’t the point. “Where is she?”

“Mesquite, Nevada. Eureka Hotel. Room 435. Safe enough for the moment. She’s had a death threat.”

“Craptastic,” Faroe said, checking the intersection again as he accelerated through a yellow-going-red light. The Mercedes SUV gave a happy roar. “Never rains but it bloody pours.”

Grace started to say something, then shut up as her abdomen clamped down back to front, hard and long, pushing the baby closer to the moment of birth.

“Time,” she said to Lane between her teeth.

“Oh, god,” Lane said, his voice thinning. “They’re coming too close!”

Grace felt the same way herself. This baby was in one big hurry. She knew that for most women a second baby came faster than the first, but with a sixteen-year-gap between pregnancies, she hadn’t expected the rule to apply to her.

“Zach Balfour is our closest free operative,” Steele said. “Until we know the exact nature of the threat, we’re going with an intelligent bullet catcher.”

Faroe grunted. “Good. I like Zach’s style. But the last time I talked to him, he was packing for a vacation. He change his mind?”

“No, I did. He was about forty miles from Mesquite, Nevada, heading south in the morning. Now he’s heading north.”

“Works for me.”

“I doubt if it worked for him,” Steele said dryly, “but he’s on the way to Ms. Breck just the same.”

Faroe almost smiled. “Did you get him out of bed?”

“He’s recovering from babysitting DeeDee Breitling.”

“Jesus. Give him double pay. Whatever. Just get him to Jill fast.”

“I’ve seen the man drive,” Steele said. “He’ll be there fast.”

Faroe slowed for another red light, scanned the intersection, gunned through it without stopping, and turned hard right. “We’re almost at the emergency entrance to the hospital. Give me Jill’s hotel phone. I’ll call while they’re checking Grace in.”

“I could call her and-” Lane began.

“Time contractions!” Faroe and Grace said together.

Steele said Jill’s number in a loud, precise voice.

“How long was that contraction?” Faroe asked, never looking away from the hospital rushing toward him.

“Not-done-yet,” she said in a strained voice.

“Bloody hell,” Steele said. “I’ll talk to Jillian myself.”

“No,” Faroe said, leaning on the SUV’s horn, summoning the emergency staff as he braked gently to a stop by the wide glass doors. “I owe her. This op is on me.”

“It’s on St. Kilda. I have plans for Lane,” Steele shot back. “Now, just for the novelty of the experience, be reasonable. Grace needs you more than-”

“I can talk to Jill and tell Grace to push at the same time,” Faroe cut in.

“You do and you’ll need a surgeon to remove the phone from your ass,” she shot back.

Steele almost laughed out loud.

Faroe did. “That’s the delicate little flower I know and love. And here comes the med team. I’ll call Jill.”

He hung up, looked at Lane and the people hurrying close, and said, “Help your mother and answer their questions while I talk to Jill.”

“Will do.”

Faroe didn’t answer. He was already punching in Jill’s hotel number.

EUREKA HOTEL

SEPTEMBER 14

12:17 A.M.