Carol Ericson - Secured By The Seal

She peeked at him through her fingers. “Even if it has nothing to do with your investigation?”

“Even then. What’s Jerome’s last name? I can start by checking him out.”

“It’s Carter. Jerome Carter.” She swirled her finger in the air. “Are you going to look him up on your magic phone that will immediately spit out his name, rank and serial number?”

“Maybe.” He took a turn around the room. “Let’s get out of here before any more surprise visitors show up. Did we leave everything as we found it?”

“We didn’t disturb anything, but I don’t know if we can say the same about Jerome. What was he doing in here before he came into the bedroom? I heard some rustling noises like paper being shuffled around.”

“Paper.” His gaze darted around the room and stumbled over Leanna’s easel. The dark, tumultuous painting now had a white corner. “Looks like he disturbed the painting on the easel.”

In three steps he crossed the room to the window and lifted the corner of the heavy paper. “There’s another painting beneath this one.”

As he held the corners of the top painting, Britt reached over him and squeezed open the clips holding it to the easel. Alexei tugged the paper, and it peeled away from the easel, revealing another, much different piece of art beneath it.

A young woman from the waist up, nude, her arms crossed over her breasts, stared back at him with dark, fathomless eyes. Alexei’s eye twitched, and his left hand curled into a fist.

“Oh, that’s different from her usual.”

“Do you see that?” He traced his finger along a tattoo on the underside of the woman’s forearm. “A snake curled around the letter B.”

“Not your typical hearts and butterflies.”

“I know that tattoo.”

“You do? What is it?”

“It’s the sign of the Belkin crime family, and this woman is their slave. This is Tatyana.”

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