Secured By The Seal

She took shallow breaths as she listened to shuffling noises from the other room. Could it be the apartment manager checking on something?

Heavy footsteps trudged down the short hallway, and a man burst into the bedroom.

Britt’s fingers bit into the leather of Alexei’s jacket when she recognized Jerome.

He flung himself across the bed and heaved out one terrible sob. “Lee, I’m so sorry.”

* * *

ALEXEI DRILLED A knuckle into Britt’s hip as he watched the bartender from last night thrash and moan on the bed. Just because Britt knew Jerome, there was no reason for her to reveal herself to him—and no reason at all for her to out Alexei.

But Britt kept as still as one of those shoes on the closet floor.

Jerome dragged a pillow over his face, wrapping his arms around it. His body convulsed with his sobs, and then, apparently spent, he knocked the pillow aside and stared at the ceiling.

Alexei’s jaw ached from clenching his teeth, so he widened his mouth, shifting his lower jaw from side to side. He’d better relax. Who knew how long Jerome would gaze at the popcorn on the ceiling. He might even dissolve into another crying jag.

When Alexei realized he was still poking his knuckle into the curve of Britt’s hip, he stretched out his fingers and smoothed them over the spot. He had to be more careful with Britt. He wasn’t with his sniper teammates on this assignment. He kept making insensitive comments about Leanna and then would feel twenty shades of guilt as he watched the color drain from her face.

If he had to be stuck in a closet cheek to cheek with someone for hours, he preferred Britt to any one of his sniper teammates—even Slade, who smelled damned good most of the time.

After another five minutes of contemplation, Jerome rolled off the bed. He wiped his face with the hem of his T-shirt. Then he smoothed out the covers and plumped up the pillow before placing it back at the head of the bed.

He took a look around the room, and Britt pressed against Alexei’s shoulder when Jerome’s gaze lit on the closet.

Alexei coiled his already-tense muscles. If Jerome approached their hiding place, Alexei would have to take him down before he could identify him or Britt. He had no clue what Jerome’s little performance meant, but Alexei wasn’t going to take any chances—not with Britt’s safety.

Jerome patted the sides of his short Afro and exited the room. A minute later the front door opened and closed, and the key scraped in the lock.

Still, Britt didn’t move a muscle.

Alexei shifted his position. “He’s gone.”

Britt collapsed against the clothes. “What the hell was that all about? Do you think Jerome killed Leanna? Is that what he’s sorry for?”

Pushing open the closet doors, Alexei took a deep breath. Even the stale air of the apartment trumped the cloying scent of perfume that overwhelmed him in the closet.

“I don’t know.” He waved a hand at the made-up bed. “Do you get the feeling this isn’t his first trip to this apartment?”

“Oh, yeah. This is some kind of ritual for him. The act seemed to calm him, as if it satisfied his need to expunge his guilt.”

Alexei’s eyebrows shot up. “Looked like he was crying on the bed to me.”

She shrugged as she ran her hands along her sister’s clothing, as if straightening out the folds for her return. “I’m a psychologist in the real world, a marriage-family-child counselor.”

“Which is why you were able to take off however much time you needed to do your sleuthing. And where do you practice? You never told me where you lived, although I’d assumed it wasn’t LA.”

“Charlotte, North Carolina—and you never told me a lot of things about yourself.” She snapped the closet door closed.

He moved away from her and his desire to run his fingers through the soft strands of her hair. “Do you think the guilt Jerome was...expunging is a result of murder?”

“I don’t know. Would a murderer want to be caught rolling around on his victim’s bed, spreading his DNA? And what would his motive be? Leanna mentioned a bartender once or twice as being a nice guy—nothing more.”

“Maybe that’s your motive.” Alexei moved into the living room and lifted the edge of the blind to survey the walkway in front of Leanna’s front door. “All clear.”

“You mean, he was hoping for something more than friendship and Leanna wanted to keep it platonic?”

“It happens.” Must happen to Britt all the time.

“Then Leanna’s disappearance didn’t have anything to do with Sergei’s family, the Tattle-Tale or Tatyana.”

“You sound...disappointed.”

“Disappointed that my sister was murdered by a love-struck bartender instead of Russian sex traffickers? I just want her home safe. I want to hear from her. I want to know she’s okay.” Britt’s voice hitched on the last word, and she covered her face with both hands, her blond hair spilling over her wrists.

“I know. I say stupid things sometimes. I have no tact. The typical blunt Russian.” Alexei rubbed a circle on her back. “But whatever happened to your sister, I’m going to help you figure it out.”

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.”

Chapter Four (#u6f674270-d476-51fe-bb39-4375f4aba784)