Amy Atwell - Lying Eyes

But Mickey had invaded her senses from the first time he’d touched that loose hairpin. He’d goaded her emotions, engaged her intellect. She’d done more living with him in those brief hours she’d spent with him than in all the months she’d spent with David.

Maybe life wasn’t the interminable ticking of the clock from day to day, but the fleeting magical moments that built memories.

Drawing back, she was able to look her father square in the face and saw a sheen of tears in his eyes that matched hers. “Leave me like that again, and I’ll kill you.”

He chuckled. “Once I wrap this up, I’ll never disappear again.”

Hunter had hoped to get some sleep, but the information he read on a previous day’s murder victim made him return to the hospital. Mickey was never going to believe this break.

He tucked his head into his partner’s room. Mickey lay in bed, propped against some pillows. The television suspended high on the wall played some news channel, but instead of watching it, he was staring at the ceiling.

“Counting your blessings?” Hunter asked as he came in.

Mickey rolled his head to the side to contemplate him. “Iris get home safely?”

“Yeah. Foote’s watching her place. She’s fine. After last night’s escapades, I hope she gets some sleep. You, too.” He stood over the bed and looked at the various monitors. Mickey had more wires coming out of him than a switchboard, but at least his face had lost that ashen gray color. “You’re lucky to be alive, you know. Turner doesn’t usually miss.”

“Yeah, lucky.” He turned back to stare, unseeing, at the television.

“Wow, is that the anesthesia talking-” Hunter pulled up a chair, sat and stretched his tired, swollen feet and no doubt filthy shoes onto the neatly pleated white linens, “-or have you given up again? Because I thought you wanted back in the game, that’s why you said you came out here.” He watched his partner, not happy with that listlessness around the younger man’s eyes.

“Get me out of here, and I’ll finish the job, okay?”

“You don’t go anywhere for at least twenty-four hours,” he answered emphatically. Easing up, he added, “Besides, I bring good news. Your friend Donovan gave me an excuse to show up on his doorstep.”

This caught Mickey’s attention. “What happened?”

“A journalist for the Las Vegas Sun didn’t show up for work yesterday. Today, he turned up dead. Single gunshot. Time of death, Sunday night.”

Mickey’s brow furrowed. “How’d you tie any of that to Donovan?”

“Seems the business editor at the paper got a call from this journalist Sunday evening. He wanted his editor to pull a story he’d written on Robert Donovan. Said he hadn’t been able to verify all his facts, and he feared he might be putting the paper at risk.”

“Now there’s a coincidence.”

“Exactly. I had the editor email me the story. It’s all about Donovan signing a major deal to buy property in Moscow with plans to double the size of his casino there, with the expectation that the Russian government will allow him to restart his gambling operations. Except Donovan hasn’t signed the deal yet. It appears to be on hold for at least a couple of days.”

Their gazes locked and held.

“Gives you a possible connection to the dead real estate broker and translator.” Mickey gave a half-hearted smile. “Wish I could go hunting with you.”

“Don’t worry.” Hunter wiggled his toes inside his shoes one last time, then pulled his legs down and stood. “Even if I nail Donovan, we still have to track down Turner.”

“Do you think he poses any immediate threat to Iris?”

“Your friend Sergei stuck a knife in his arm. I think he’ll lie low at least until dark.”

Mickey nodded slowly as if he were still distracted. “Did you have to arrest Sergei?”

“I was spared that,” Hunter said. “He pulled diplomatic immunity. Did you know he had a Russian government passport?”

Mickey blinked at that piece of news.

“Yeah, the various branches of Cosmo’s families are full of surprises.” Awkwardly, he patted his partner’s bare arm. “Get some rest. There will still be plenty for you to do to wrap this up when you get out of here. Then, you and Iris are home free.”

“Not exactly home. Not free, either.”

Hunter stopped in the doorway. “Sorry to hear that. Did you call it, or did she?”

“She did.”

Hunter nodded, then left without a word. There wasn’t anything you could say to a guy to ease that kind of heartache. He and Mickey hadn’t known each other that long-only a few months, really. He liked the guy, and he liked Iris, too. What he knew of her.

For a moment he was tempted to call Allie, but he pitched that notion in less than a heartbeat. Nothing good ever came from messing around with other people’s personal lives.

Iris escorted Cosmo and his rabbit out of her bedroom so she could shower and change.

“Don’t you want to hear about the gems?” her father asked.

“Shower first. I want to enjoy five minutes of feeling charitable toward you before you piss me off again.”

Cosmo nodded, accepting that as a standard emotional bond between them. “Did you, er, meet your Aunt Tatiana?”

Recalling the previous day’s adventures, Iris smiled. “Yeah, she’s pretty cool. Not many women her age would go out in public in a swimsuit.”

“Swimsuit?” He shuddered. “Well, whatever she told you about the gems, remember, she doesn’t know the whole story.”

“No one knows the whole story, so I’m eager to hear it.” No doubt her father would have his own spin to put on it. “Just let me hop in the shower.”

It took her less than ten minutes to shower and put on a clean pair of Bermuda shorts in a Madras plaid, a melon-colored camp shirt and a pair of low-heeled sandals. She didn’t bother with makeup. Frankly, she was hoping she’d get in a lengthy nap this afternoon.

Stopping for a moment, she tilted her head to listen. The apartment was quiet. Too quiet. Hastily, she drew her damp curls into a ponytail. Surely, Cosmo couldn’t have left-not with Foote right outside. Maybe he’d fallen asleep. Just in case, she crept out to the living room.

Cosmo sat quietly on the sofa with Edgar beside him. Honestly, the two of them looked like they were waiting for a bus.

“If that rabbit pees on my furniture, you’re going to have to clean it up,” Iris said.

“Somehow, I think that’s the least of your worries.” The cultured male voice chilled her like a cold draft blowing across the room.

Iris spun to see Turner standing just inside the front door. He looked like an average guy in her sunlit apartment-fortyish, tall, lean, thinning dark hair. The danger lay in his hooded eyes and the curling smile that held as much friendliness as a taunted badger. He wore a polo shirt of blood red-Iris felt her stomach churn at the sight of the large bandage circling his upper arm where Sergei’s knife had pierced him-and dark trousers. Crumpled at his feet lay Officer Foote.

She rushed forward to kneel by the young policeman, regardless of any danger to herself. No wound marred him, not even a bruise anywhere on his head. “What did you do to him?” she said, looking up at Turner.

“Relax, I nailed him with a hypodermic. He never even saw it coming. It’s just an anesthetic. He should sleep for a couple hours.”

“You didn’t kill him?” she asked hopefully.

“I’m not some psychopath, Miss Fortune. I don’t kill people for fun. It’s a job, and I have very specific targets.” He looked from her to her father meaningfully.

Oh God. She and her father were about to be murdered, and the only witness would be an overfed rabbit. Iris steeled herself against the panic that tried to envelop her.