Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #1: Books 1-4 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [classic children's novels txt] 📗

the whole thing clear in your head until she showed up and started putting lipstick on your cheek. And only on your cheek. Let me ask you another question, partner.”

I sighed. “What?”

“When was the last time you got laid?”

“That is none of your goddamn business.”

“Are you sure?”

“My sexual frustration, assuming I have any, is not affecting my professional judgment, Dehan!”

“But your lust for this woman—and I am assuming that is all it is, Stone—may be. I sure as hell hope you are not falling in love with her.”

I drained my glass and put it on the table.

“Let’s get something clear for once and for all, Dehan. I am not in love with Emma. I am not lusting after Emma.” I nodded several times. “Yes, she has thrown me a curveball. Whether she has done it deliberately or whether there is some other reason, I don’t know. But my judgment is not impaired by lust or love. Are we clear?”

She shook her head. “No. I’ll take your word for it, and I trust you, but I am not clear on either of those two points. And make no mistake, I am going to be watching you like a hawk. Now, I am giving you my advice. Haul her in and put her on the rack.”

I thought about it a long time. In the end I shook my head.

“Watch me. Like you said, watch me like a hawk. If you see me making a seriously bad move, jump on me. But right now, I know we can get a lot more from her if I play along. She said she’d come back and share everything with me. If she does, we may get not just Tammy but Geronimo too. Let’s wait.”

She sighed. She wasn’t happy, but she agreed. She nodded and said, “Okay, Stone, but stop scaring me, will you?”

I laughed. “I can’t promise the impossible, Dehan. One for the road?”

“Come on, then. One for the road.”

We toasted and drank. She smacked her lips and sighed, with that inscrutable smile she had sometimes.

“Guess I’m the lucky one, then.”

“How’s that?”

“She drives you crazy, but I get to stay the night.”

I chuckled. “And you cook me breakfast.”

“What woman does that for you, Stone?”

“Nobody. Only you, Dehan.”

“That’s what I’m sayin’.”

Twenty

We didn’t have to wait long. Next morning, as we were releasing Peter Gunthersen, at about half ten, my phone rang. It was Emma.

“John, we need to talk.”

“Wait.” I signaled Dehan with my eyebrows and took myself outside. “What is it?”

“I haven’t slept all night.”

“I didn’t sleep a lot myself.”

“You have upset everything. I don’t know if I am coming or going.”

“I’m at work. I can’t talk a lot. What’s on your mind?”

“I have to see you.”

“Tonight.”

“No. Now.”

“What for? I told you I’m at work.”

“It’s urgent, John. I told you our lives are at risk.”

I made a show of thinking about it.

“Where?”

“At your house.”

“This better be worth it, Emma. I don’t aim to play any games with you.”

“I’ll make it worth your while, I promise…”

“You know you will. Give me an hour.”

“I’ll be there.”

Dehan was watching me from the doorway. I walked back to her.

“She wants to see me in an hour, at my place. Go find Baxter. If he’s not there, wait for him. Bring him in. Hold him. Don’t let him see a lawyer—delay him, bullshit him, do whatever you have to do. Threaten him with a charge of conspiracy to murder. I want an address for dos Santos.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

She went inside and I headed home, wondering what Emma was going to hit me with this time. I tried to focus on what the case had originally been about. Who murdered Steve Springfellow, and maybe Tamara Gunthersen. But with every clue we unearthed, we seemed to get not just further from an answer, but further from the original question.

I pulled in in front of Dehan’s car and sat staring at it, remembering her words that night. “What is it about this case in particular that makes it so confusing?”

I got out and went inside.

Twenty minutes later, Emma arrived in a cab. I watched her pay the driver, then run across the road. She was carrying a small parcel. I opened the door and let her in.

She didn’t say anything. She just put her hand on my chest and stared up into my face. Then she walked inside and put the parcel on the dining table.

“Give me a drink, will you?”

“It’s eleven in the morning.”

A spasm of anger flashed across her face. “Oh, fuck that! Just give me a fucking drink, will you!” She closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. “My nerves are shot to pieces.”

I poured her a shot of whiskey, and she downed it in one. Then she held out the glass for me to refill it. I did. She sipped it and set it down on the table, next to the parcel. I nodded at it.

“What’s this?”

“I have had enough, John. Baxter, and then you, crashing into my life, threatening me, forever having to look over my shoulder. I can’t. I can’t live like this. I want out. I want to take Tammy and get out.”

“That’s not going to be so easy.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“Who did Tamara steal from, Emma?”

She sighed. “Technically, from Hugh Duffy. But as far as dos Santos is concerned, she stole for him, and whatever she stole belongs to him.”

“What the hell did she steal?”

“This.”

She undid the wrapping to reveal a wooden box, about one foot square and three or four inches deep. She opened the box and extracted a small painting in a fairly plain, gold