Tara Janzen - Breaking Loose

“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.

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 upper 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.