Complete Mia Kazmaroff Romantic Suspense Series, 1-4 Page 6

  “Yeah, well, maybe it wasn’t that spur of the moment,” he said.

  “You didn’t like your job? You were so good at it. It’s just hard to believe.”

  “Well, there you are. I’ll miss you, Karen.” Why the hell did he say that?

  “You don’t have to, Jack.”

  He let the moment pass, not knowing what to say, or what she wanted him to say.

  “Can I ask what your plans are?” she asked briskly. “You’re not independently wealthy, are you?”

  Jack gave a mirthless laugh. “Nope. I need to find a job.”

  “You had a job.”

  “Obviously I need to find a different job.”

  “It’s just, you do see how bizarre this is, don’t you? For a year, you lobby to get rid of Dave Kazmaroff and then, when he dies, you quit?”

  “This isn’t the way I wanted to get rid of him.”

  “Granted, but the end result is the same. Why does him passing away translate into you abandoning your career?”

  “Did he really ‘pass away?’ Is that really your professional opinion?”

  “Jack, I told you, everything came back negative. Yes, he’d had some alcohol in his system but that’s it.”

  “No barbiturates?”

  “We didn’t test for barbiturates because his condo came up clean. Ibuprofen and aspirin were all he had and neither was present in his system. How does Kazmaroff dying mysteriously affect your desire to stay on the force?”

  “I don’t know. It was a surprise to me, too.”

  “Got any ideas what you’re going to do now?”

  Burton felt the conversation wearing on him. There was greater than a slight possibility that Karen was hoping to set up a time to get together. Maybe even tonight.

  “Thought I’d look into being a personal chef,” he said, yawning.

  “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “Why? You don’t think I can cook?”

  “Fine, Jack. You don’t want to talk about it, fine. I’m just calling like any friend would who sees someone they care about going off the rails.”

  “And I appreciate that, Karen. I do,” he said softly.

  The living room flooded briefly with light as it did when someone’s headlights pointed in the direction of Burton’s front drive. He stood up and looked out the window. He didn’t recognize the car as the blinding headlights snapped off but getting unannounced visitors was unusual.

  “Looks like I’ve got company,” he said into the phone. “Can we pick this up another time? Really appreciate you calling.”

  “Sure, Jack,” she said, her disappointment telegraphing through the line.

  Burton disconnected and held the phone in his hand as he went to the front door. It was Mia Kazmaroff. He watched her walk up to his front porch like she had a serious bone to pick with someone. He probably should let her take some of it out on his front door knocker before engaging with her but she could see him standing in the living room.

  He opened the front door. “Miss Kazmaroff,” he said.

  She pushed past him into the foyer and then stood there taking in the small living room and adjoining dining room. He could tell she was worked up, and he could tell she’d been drinking.

  “Okay, here’s the deal,” she said, more to his living room than to him. “Dave’s death was not an accident. I don’t know why the Atlanta PD is saying it is, but I know for a fact that it wasn’t.”

  “May I offer you a beverage, Miss Kazmaroff? A ride home?”

  She turned to glare at him. He’d been right to be worried earlier. Just standing this close to her stirred up something deep in his gut that felt like a starving man with a T-bone. She was wearing a snug knit dress that hugged every curve from her shoulder to her calves. No cleavage or length of thigh showing but he literally had to dig his nails into his palm to keep from pulling her to him and feeling that tightly-strung, perfect body in his arms.

  “I had one cocktail,” she said, frowning.

  “For people who weigh not much more than yourself, one is enough.”

  After giving him a look of disgust, she walked into the living room and dropped her purse on the couch. The little dog inched over to her, her tail wagging for the first time since Jack had rescued her.

  “Who decorated for you?” Mia asked. “It doesn’t look like a bachelor’s pad.”

  “You mean it doesn’t look like your brother’s condo.”

  She pulled the dog onto her lap as if they were old friends and began to massage it behind its floppy ears. “My brother lived life as a single man,” she said. “I don’t like to put labels on people so I won’t.” She glanced at him still standing in the foyer. “You of all people should appreciate that.”

  Touché.

  “This dog was abused.” She looked at him questioningly and he nodded. He shut the front door and joined her in the living room. “You and Dave,” she said as he joined her in the living room. “I suppose two bachelors couldn’t be more different.”

  Amazing. Just what I was thinking. Burton sat opposite her in one of the matching armchairs.

  “I’ve decided to move into Dave’s place. He left it to me.” She leaned toward him suddenly. “You were his partner. If anybody should be trying to get to the bottom of what happened to him, it’s you.”

  “The case is closed.”

  “Which means nothing. I know for a fact you two continued to investigate cases that were officially closed.”

  It was true. They never let a little thing like protocol get in the way of what they believed. Come to think of it, they did have that in common. They usually agreed about a case. That special sense a good detective has, he and Dave shared that.

  “I’m no longer a detective,” he said, holding out his hands as if to reveal how utterly helpless he was.

  “You’re no longer an Atlanta police department detective,” she said. “For what I need, that doesn’t matter.” She placed the dog on the floor but it jumped back up on the couch to sit next to her.

  “The answer is no, Miss Kazmaroff.”

  “No, it isn’t, Detective Burton,” she said fiercely. “The answer is Thank you, Mia for giving me a chance to wipe the slate clean. The answer is Of course, Miss Kazmaroff because I know I owe you and your brother.”

  “How do you figure that?” Burton felt his hand reaching for a shirt pocket where a pack of cigarettes used to be kept. Ten years ago.

  “I figure it, Detective,” she said, her eyes flashing and a flush blooming in her cheeks, “because no matter how he died you know you let him down and I figure that’s true or you’d still be happily employed by Atlanta’s finest.”

  He stared at her for a moment, wanting to deny it. He licked his lips.

  “What is it you think I can do for you?” he said finally.

  “Help me prove that Dave was murdered.”

  “And if there’s no evidence to support that?”

  “There is. We just have to find it.”

  “What makes you think he was murdered?”

  “I felt it,” she said, looking away for the first time since she sat down. In Burton’s experience, that usually indicated a lie was coming.

  “You felt it.”

  She stood up and picked up her purse. “You have contacts on the force you can still access. Your friend the medical examiner, for example.”

  How the hell did she know about Karen?

  “And while I’m reliably informed you don’t have many friends on the force—good going, by the way. Ever see a pattern developing?—you probably have one or two contacts who can be convinced to get into the APD database for you. And that would be helpful going forward in your new occupation.”

  “My new occupation?” Although he was confused and slightly agitated by her preposterous take-charge attitude, he was also too mesmerized by her to turn away.

  “You’re opening up a Private Investigations Agency with me,” she said bluntly.

  “Pardon?”
>
  With a heavy sigh, Mia sat back down and spoke more slowly, as if to someone mentally challenged. “The condo my brother left me is over a store front—”

  “I saw it during the investigation.”

  “Okay, good. Very observant. That’ll come in handy as an investigator.”

  Burton wanted to grin at her sarcasm and realized he was actually enjoying this visit. Not a good sign.

  “Originally, Dave was going to rent it out and then when I lost my job at Georgia State, he offered it to me as a retail opportunity. I was thinking of opening up a knitting shop.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want a drink? Because I think I could use one.”

  “No, thank you. So I have an empty store front that we can use as an office.” She opened up her purse and drew out a grey business card. “This is just a prototype I did on my computer. I’ll get them printed up tomorrow.”

  The card read, Burton & Kazmaroff, Private Investigations.

  He looked up at her, dumfounded. “Go into business with you?”

  “See, there’s that quick mind I’ve heard so much about.” She looked around the living room as if expecting to see a printing press or home office. “You don’t currently have a business, do you?” She reached over and took the card back. “I didn’t think so. Of course I have no idea if the partnership will work beyond this first case, but I can’t…we…can’t get access to certain information without being an official investigative agency registered with the state. First order of business, by the way, which I’ll ask you to handle.” She tucked the card back in her bag and stood up.

  “Please don’t be a pain in the ass about this, Detective Burton,” she said. “I don’t have time to plead with you. Suffice to say, you know you owe it to Dave. You know you do.”

  Burton’s mouth had fallen open and when she turned to leave, his eyes dropped to her round ass moving away from him. It wasn’t until she had her hand on the front door knob that he had the wit to get to his feet.

  “I’ll expect you at the office tomorrow morning early. We’ve already wasted enough time.”

  “Miss Kazmaroff—”

  She turned around. “Call me Mia. I know it’s tricky but I’ll expect you to pronounce it correctly.” She waited expectantly.

  “Mia,” he said, as if in a trance.

  “Awesome.” She turned and walked down the walkway to her car. Burton watched her back out of the driveway until her taillights disappeared around the first street corner.

  He shut the door but continued to stare out the front window trying to process what had just happened. It was because he was still standing there that he saw the long dark sedan, hidden one house past his, move silently past his house to follow her car.

  Chapter 7

  Mia checked her watch as she drove away from Burton’s house. It was a little after eleven o’clock. Probably too early. She glanced in the rear view mirror. She’d seen the car almost as soon as she’d pulled out of Burton’s drive way. Whoever it was, they didn’t care much that she knew they were there. They were either sloppy or arrogant but either way they were almost surely some rent-a-cop hired by her mother to watch over her.

  She sighed heavily. No use in trying to lose them. Maybe it would even be helpful to have backup tonight. Mia shifted onto I-85 southbound heading to Midtown. All the parties she needed to go to wouldn’t even start for another couple of hours. Might as well set up at an all-night coffee shop and load up on caffeine until it was time.

  It made her smile to think of how easy Burton had been. In some ways, it was almost as if he’d expected her, although surely that wasn’t likely. But even he had to admit her idea was a good one. Or, even if it sounded crazy on the face of it, it still felt right. Else why didn’t he put up more of an argument?

  There was something about the way he reacted to her suggestion that made her think a part of him had been waiting for this all along—a way to put things right with his partner, a way to assimilate how he felt about how it all went down. Why else would he quit his job?

  Mia gripped the steering wheel and smiled. This bloody “gift” didn’t have many benefits, it was true. But one of the main things it did have was the ability to lead the witness to certain conclusions that they would never, normally, have come to on their own. What she had felt in Jack was a longing, an irrepressible, indefatigable desire, to fix a problem he couldn’t even define, let alone address.

  That’s where I come in, she thought smugly. Mia and her handy curse-slash-gift to help you with what you didn’t even know was wrong. And in this case, helping you with your problem dovetails nicely with helping me. She put her turn signal on before pulling onto North Avenue toward Georgia Tech.

  The car following her probably appreciated the heads-up.

  She found a place to park near a strip of bars and clubs that didn’t look too deserted. Not that she was worried. Not with her bodyguards somewhere in the background struggling to find a decent parking spot and not lose her. She locked the car and walked quickly, her car keys in her hand, her finger on the panic button, to the first bar. It was loud and full of students which made her relax a little. She moved through the scrum of bodies to the bar and ordered a red-eye.

  “We don’t have no ex-presso machine,” the bartender said. He was a young man, possibly a student himself.

  “Fine,” Mia said, seating herself at the bar. “Just coffee then.”

  The young man shrugged and went off to make a pot of coffee. Mia pulled out the business card and looked at it again. No wonder Burton didn’t talk much. He’s probably still pulling his jaw off the floor. The image made her smile. She took out her smartphone ear phones from her purse and plugged into her music. A quick glance at the phone screen confirmed the time was getting on. She glanced around the bar, wondering if some of these kids were waiting, too. It occurred to her that if she found a contact now, she might conclude her business and be on her way home and skip the warehouse rave or whatever party she hoped to find.

  She scanned the crowd. Most of the patrons were chugging beers at crowded two and three high-top tables. She was annoyed with herself that she’d forgotten to look for her tail when they came in. It would be just her luck to ask her own tail if they knew where she could score drugs. Assuming they were off-duty police, which was likely, that would probably not end well.

  A scruffy looking young man caught her eye in the corner of the bar. He sat alone as if he were waiting for someone. She watched him for a moment and decided he was watching everyone else in the place. He didn’t look like a drug dealer, but then what do they look like? At least he didn’t look like an undercover cop either. But, of course, that’s what undercover cops are going for.

  When her coffee came, she put a ten on the bar and gathered up her purse. She walked purposely to the man and sat down at his table as if he were expecting her. When he looked at her without any surprise at all, she knew she’d pegged him correctly.

  “I need to buy some Ecstasy,” she said, primly, setting her coffee mug down on the table.

  He wasn’t bad looking, she decided. Older than she’d originally guessed from across the room. Dark hair, possibly Hispanic, with bright blue, but wary, eyes.

  “How much?” he said softly.

  “Just enough for me,” she said. “Do they come in pills?”

  His eyes fluttered a bit as if in amusement or surprise at her question, but he nodded.

  “Is there a minimum purchase or can I just buy one?”

  “You into experimenting?”

  “Something like that. How much for one pill?”

  He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small paper packet which he put on his lap under the table. Without taking his eyes off her or dropping his smile, he extricated a single pill and held out his hand as if to shake. Mia grasped his hand and felt the hard knot of the pill being pressed into it.

  “My compliments,” he said. “Enjoy. Now please to go.”

  Mia was on her feet, her
hand clenched around the pill. “Thank you very much,” she said breathlessly, and turned to go.

  “Hello, baby?” he said to her.

  She looked back, fear beginning to inch its way up her spine.

  “Your coffee.”

  “Oh, yes. Thank you.” She grabbed her coffee mug and moved it to an empty table on her way out the door. Out of the corner of her eye she saw movement as two men seated at a table by the door made signs of leaving too.

  The next morning, she drove to Dave’s condo from her mother’s house. She intended to move in as soon as her bed was delivered and Dave’s was picked up by AmVets. As it was, she’d make the guest room her bedroom and leave the master bedroom vacant for now.

  As soon as she drove into the mixed-use development where Dave’s condo was located, she saw Burton standing outside the storefront window on the first floor of the townhouse. He was peering in the window, both hands holding jumbo coffee cups, the little Maltese mix on a leash by his feet. The moment made her smile. Even if he only came to tell her he wasn’t staying, just the sight of him—complete with the coffee…just like Castle and Beckett!—gave Mia optimism.

  She pulled in next to his Jeep. “Morning, Detective,” she called as she gathered her bags and briefcases from the front seat. “What’s your dog’s name?”

  “I’m not staying,” he said.

  She bustled past him to open the front door. “That’s fine. I’m sure you have legwork to do while I’m handling paperwork. Is one of those for me?” she turned and plucked a coffee cup from his grip before pushing open the door with her hip.

  She’d never been in the store before now and it smelled musty. She flipped on the lights and found a desk wedged up against one wall to drop her bags onto. Dave had obviously used the place for storage. His kayak leaned up against one wall. Several boxes, empty as it turned out, were stacked high against another.

  Burton came in behind her.

  “The guy from the cable company will be out tomorrow to hook up the router and the phone lines,” Mia said, eyeing Burton and wondering what he thought of the place. He’d unsnapped the leash and now the dog was curled up on a flattened stack of cardboard boxes where it could keep both of them in view. “It’ll just take a few weekends of elbow-grease to get it into shape.”