Cindy Dees - Her Secret Spy

They parked down the street from her shop a little before noon. He did not invite her out to lunch as she’d hoped he would. There was no small talk, nothing to indicate he had any personal interest in her whatsoever. That was what she got for dressing like a mortician. She should have gone with her first impulse to dress up for him.

“Here’s my card,” he announced without preamble. “It has my private cell phone and personal email address on it. If you ever get in trouble, ever need help, give me a call.”

She took the white rectangle despondently. Not a “Call me if you want to have coffee or go out for a drink.” Just a “If you get in trouble...” It was pro forma polite behavior, not a sincere offer to see her again. Well, hell.

She climbed out of the car, insisting he not get out and come around to help her. She watched the sleek black car pull away from the curb and dart into the city. And she was alone once more. Except today it hurt even worse than usual.

* * *

Max watched the small black figure retreat in his rearview mirror, her shoulders slumped in defeat, her entire spirit shrinking in on itself. He was a horrible human being. She’d obviously hoped he would throw her a social bone and show even the tiniest spark of interest in her.

Thing was, he was interested. And, furthermore, he did give a damn about her. And that was exactly why he had to stay away from her. To cut off even the most casual contact between them. He had to break any link between them before she got seriously hurt. For he and his dangerous, fake life would do just that if he let her into it.

He parked in front of his restored French Quarter condo, pulled out his cell phone and placed a call. In rapid Russian, he said, “Hey, Peter. It’s me. There was some trouble last night.” Peter Menchekov was his boss nowadays, ever since the mobster who’d controlled Max initially had been killed in a government raid a few months back.

At least he no longer worked for the more violent psychopaths who populated the lower rungs of this crime syndicate. He’d finally moved up the ranks to quiet, thoughtful men who wore expensive suits and weren’t prone to fits of temper. But he sensed that he was still far from the top of this sprawling organization. There was someone hiding at the apex of the pyramid. The ultimate predator and mastermind of the whole organization. Until he learned that person’s identity, his work was not done.

“What kind of trouble was there, Masha?”

He winced at his childhood nickname. It was the common Slavic shortening of his full name, Maximillian. “The girl, the one whose store you wanted me to watch, is not the person we thought she was. The store’s owner died a month ago, and this girl is the new owner. She just came to town. She knows nothing.”

“The order I got was to watch the store. Not to watch the store’s owner,” Peter correctly observed. “Continue the surveillance.”

“There’s a small problem with that. The store’s owner met me last night. It was an accident. A guy mugged her, and I had to stop him from killing her.”

A pause while his boss considered that. “All the better. Infiltrate her store. Find out everything she knows about what goes on in the store and whether she plans to continue running it the same way as her aunt did in the past.”

An interesting word choice, that. Infiltration, huh? That smacked of military training. Or espionage school. Who was Peter, really? Max made a mental note and added it to his growing list of suspicions that this was no simple Russian crime gang.

Why was the crime syndicate so interested in this silly little shop, anyway? What was so special about it?

He’d figured his boss would want him to stay in direct contact with the store owner, now that he’d met her. Which was why he’d put off making this call. The last thing he wanted to do was play Lissa Clearmont. She struck him as a kind and decent soul, innocent and deserving of an honest man. Not a con-man schmuck like him messing with her for his own nefarious ends.

“Understood,” he replied shortly. He couldn’t bring himself to say any more politely, and he dared not say any more impolitely.

“Good hunting,” Peter said briskly, ending the call.

Max jammed the phone in his pocket. Good hunting, indeed. He’d be hunting a babe in the woods. This was going to be a massacre of that poor girl’s heart.

Chapter 3

People had a tendency to underestimate her, and Lissa used it to her advantage from time to time. Like the older man in a suit who walked into her store that afternoon, asking after an obscure African fertility statue, almost as though he didn’t expect her to have any idea what he was talking about.

She’d seen it in the showcases somewhere, but couldn’t remember exactly where off the top of her head. Aunt Cal’s ghost was usually around and happy to point out where to find some trinket or another. Not that Lissa particularly wanted any ghost’s assistance, no matter how helpful it might be. Sure enough, a light hand nudged her down the second aisle and to the right.

She left the man happily examining the foot-high statue, which she personally considered one of the ugliest items in the entire shop, and returned to the cash register. She was a little disappointed when he didn’t buy it but was encouraged when he said he would send his grandson in to look at it the following day to see if it was the one the younger man had been looking for. She could use the sale.

Finishing the renovation that Callista had started upstairs was costing a great deal more than she’d anticipated, and she hadn’t even started hiring the various contractors she now knew she would need to finish the job and pass the city building inspection. Yet again, her tendency to leap before she looked had bitten her in the tush.

Business was slow today, likely on account of the football play-offs, and she closed up early. Mr. Jackson shared a TV dinner with her as she settled in to watch an old black-and-white film noir.

Which turned out to be a bad choice. When she had herself properly scared and deliciously tingling, the spirits tended to come to her, whether she wanted them to or not. They were different here in the South, whispering of different pasts and different secrets than the ghosts in her art studio in Vermont had. Not that she wanted to hear any of them.

Desperate to do anything to stave off the insistent murmurs in her mind, she gave in to an urge to read tarot cards. She didn’t consider herself particularly skilled with these sorts of readings, but shuffling and laying out the cards gave her restless hands something to do. She cleared the folding table she currently used for eating, painting and balancing business ledgers. The cards all but leaped out of her fingers into a traditional spread. They spoke of four men in her immediate future. A lover. A trickster. A villain. And a hero. But the cards stubbornly refused to tell her which one would win out in the end.

And that was why she didn’t like using cards. She couldn’t bully them into answering her the way she could stubborn spirits. She tried again, doing individual card turns. She turned over the Prince of Cups from the top of the deck. Then she pulled the Prince of Wands out of the middle of the deck. Then the Prince of Pentacles. She chose a fourth card with great reluctance.

No surprise. The Prince of Swords. What on earth? She would end up with all four men? That didn’t sound like her. She would be thrilled to land one man, let alone four. Although she supposed she could do without a trickster or a villain in her life. She’d already had enough of the influence of those affecting her, compliments of her birth father, whoever he might be.

Her mother never had remembered anything about the night she was drugged at a party and raped, resulting in Lissa’s birth. Or maybe her mother hadn’t wanted to remember. Not that Lissa blamed her. And not that she actually wanted to know who her birth father was.