Chapter 9
Kolya
I lift Chloe from the chair, her body limp and warm against mine.
She weighs nothing. A bundle of soft limbs and fading pheromones. Her head lolls on my chest as I carry her to the sofa and set her down with more care than the mission requires.
For a heartbeat, I watch her sleep, her pink lips parted, her chest rising and falling in the slow rhythm of drug-induced slumber. Gentle. Innocent.
Vulnerable.
Then I shut down my wandering thoughts and lock them away. I’m not here to monitor a kindergarten teacher’s rest. I’m here to find twenty million in diamonds and get the hell out.
Time to get busy.
I perform a methodical grid search in this one-bedroom box, starting with the living room.
I work with quick efficiency, opening drawers in the beaten-up entertainment console, sliding my fingers along the bottoms and backs in my quest for tape, false bottoms, or anything else out of place.
Nothing. Just remote controls and a tangled mass of charging cables.
The bookshelf yields nothing but paperbacks with broken spines. Mostly romance novels, mysteries, and the occasional self-help book with titles like Finding Your Light and The Joy of Small Pleasures. Mindless, vomit-inducing optimism.
I flip through each book, shaking them to dislodge anything hidden between pages. Nothing falls out but a pressed flower and a movie ticket stub.
Worthless sentiments.
As I lift the couch cushions around her unconscious form, my hand brushes against her thigh.
She doesn’t stir. I check her breathing and pulse to ensure I didn’t give her too much GHB. Both are good. She’s in a deep sleep that’ll leave her groggy when she wakes, as if recovering from a night of too much drinking. Nothing more than a nasty hangover.
I probe beneath the cushions, finding only crumbs, a pen, and loose change. I roll back the rug to scan the floorboards for signs of tampering. The wood is old but intact. No hiding place there.
The bathroom is a quick search. Medicine cabinet reveals prescription anxiety meds, over-the-counter sleep aids, and various creams and lotions in half-used tubes.
The cabinet under the sink holds cleaning supplies, extra toilet paper, and tampons.
I check the toilet tank. Empty except for the mechanism.
Behind the shower curtain, I discover shampoo bottles, conditioner, and body wash. All smelling of her. Vanilla, spice, and sunlight. I unscrew caps, squeeze tubes, flatten everything between my palms.
Nothing.
I move to her bedroom, flicking on the light.
The bed is unmade, sheets tangled as if she’d tossed and turned the night before.
Weird. I would’ve pegged her for a daily bedmaker.
When I spy the large stack of romance novels on the nightstand with titles that include words like Alpha, Captive, Bound, and Claimed, I snort.
Innocent little Chloe has a kinky dark side. Reducing her to putty in my hands would be so easy.
Wet, slippery, gasping putty. Again.
Focus.
I pick up the framed photo of Chloe with an older couple that’s perched on top of her dresser. Parents, probably. A wooden box sits next to it, ornately carved with flowers and birds.
I lift the box, judging the weight of its contents before prying open the lid. A tiny bracelet, a smooth stone, a folded piece of paper that turns out to be a class certificate from elementary school. Small treasures with no apparent value.
Trinkets that only matter to her.
The dresser drawers slide open with a soft whisper. I rifle through them efficiently, starting with the top. Socks. Plain cotton underwear. I freeze when I open the next drawer.
Lace. Silk. Black, red, deep purple. The drawer is full of lingerie that would make a stripper blush. Thongs, push-up bras, garters, things with straps and hooks and purposes I can guess at but don’t want to think about. Not on her.
Not worn for someone else.
Did she wear one of these tonight? For that pathetic man who couldn’t even handle his bill?
A flash of hot anger arcs through me, mixing with dark, possessive jealousy. I slam the drawer shut with more force than intended.
Focus on the mission.
I inspect the closet, dipping my hands into coat pockets, scanning shelves, and moving piles of sweaters and quilts.
Nothing.
Under the bed yields dust bunnies and a shoebox full of birthday cards. I flip through them, scanning for any that seem out of place. Nothing but saccharine-sweet messages from colleagues, parents of students, and her mother. No secret codes. No hidden meanings.
My gaze lands on the globe bar tucked into a corner of the living room. I walk over to the beautiful piece and run my fingers over the dark wood and brass fixtures. I find and press on the latch at the Equator where the two hemispheres should separate. Nothing happens, so I press harder.
Still nothing. Chloe was right. The latch is broken.
I give the globe a careful spin, monitoring for any wobble or noise that would suggest an object was hidden inside. The sphere rotates smoothly on its axis, silent except for the whisper of movement.
As I return to the kitchen, frustration builds beneath my skin. I open every cabinet, inspect every container. I dump flour onto the counter and rake my fingers through the powder. I check the freezer, the vegetable crisper, behind the refrigerator.
Nothing.
I rescan the room. I’ve searched every inch, every drawer, every container to no avail.
Maybe she found and already sold them? I circle back to her desk and examine her laptop. Password protected. Her desk drawers yield only school supplies, bills, and a checkbook with a pitiful balance. Nothing suggests she has another account with millions.
Irritation claws at my stomach and tightens my chest. This was supposed to be simple. Find the teacher. Locate the diamonds. Go home.
But the diamonds aren’t here, and I’ve wasted precious time while the mission parameters shifted.
I study Chloe, still unconscious on the sofa, peaceful in her oblivion. This isn’t over. She’s connected to those gems. I just haven’t found the right thread to pull.
With my investigation complete for the time being, stillness settles around me. Twenty million in stones just vanished into thin air. Cold, hard failure twists my gut.
I don’t fail.
Not ever.
I glance at my watch. An hour passed while I scrutinized every nook and cranny, every obvious and not-so-obvious potential hiding place. The drug will hold her under for at least another sixty minutes, but I’m no closer to my objective than when I walked through her door.
I started out with a clear, simple mission. Find the teacher and the diamonds and get out. But, ever since I first laid eyes on her, nothing about this has been simple.
My mind loops back to where this all began. MJ’s note. Chloe D., Northwood Elemen. His other message that reads, She has the diamond cache. In classroom. That’s all we have.
Smart, methodical MJ wouldn’t have died chasing ghosts. He had to have a reason for connecting those diamonds to Chloe.
Like some amateur, I’ve been treating this as a smash and grab, thinking I’d discover the stones tucked away in a drawer or stashed under a floorboard.
Stubble scratches my palm as I drag a hand over my face. I’m looking at this all wrong.
This isn’t about a place. It’s about a person. Chloe’s name was in the note, not her home address. She’s the key to the diamonds.
And she might not even know.
A new strategy crystallizes in my mind.
Phase one, the search, is over. Not a complete failure since I’ve gathered some data.
Phase two begins now. Infiltration.
I need to weasel into her life. Learn her routines, her friends, her secrets. Does she have a safe deposit box? A storage unit she’s forgotten about? Is she a courier waiting for a drop? I won’t find those answers in her drawers or cupboards.
I’ll find them in her trust.
Or her fear.
Whichever encourages her to talk.
My gaze drifts to Chloe, out cold, on the sofa. She’s curled on her side, one hand tucked under her cheek like a child. Her breathing is deep and even.
Vulnerable.
Mine.
The dangerous word slips into my thoughts.
She’s not mine. She’s a mission objective. A means to an end. I can’t afford attachment. Attachment gets you killed. That’s the first rule of survival in this business.
And yet.
The logic is sound. Getting close to her makes strategic sense. The most efficient way to extract intel is to entice her to give it to me. And if that means touching her again and feeling her come apart under my hands, hearing her beg…that’s just a bonus.
A perk of the job.
But first, I need to clean this up. She can’t know I drugged her or suspect I searched her house. She needs to wake up believing she just had a crazy Friday night.
We drank too much. One thing led to another. She passed out before we could finish what we started in the kitchen.
I open the refrigerator and pop two more beers, draining them over the sink and leaving the newly emptied cans on the counter and table. Next comes the wine. One bottle is covered in dust, and the other has a screw cap. The screw cap goes down the drain.
An open box of stale crackers sits next to a block of cheese with a paring knife stabbed through the top.
I hack off a chunk of cheese and prepare a carefully crafted scene of drunken revelry. Then I wipe the flour from the counter and take a few minutes to put things where I found them.
I pause on my way to the door, checking on Chloe one last time. Her arms are clenched to her chest, goosebumps forming on her skin. I grab the throw blanket draped over the back of the couch and slowly cover her torso and legs.
After all, I have to protect my assets.
Walking out the door, I ignore the voice in the back of my head insisting I’m deceiving myself.
Not really a surprise when I’ve built my world on lies.