“Pierre was shocked, of course, quite dishtraught,” Levi was going on. “And we were both so concerned for you, my dear, that somehow the whole awful-awful thing would bring back memories of your own terrible tragedy, what with the similarities. You know, the girl for Dulcine’s getting shot, and your daughter getting shot.”
Her heart stopped for a beat, and in that short, intense interval, all the pain she always barely held at bay came washing into her.
“How old was she again?” Levi asked. “Your little girl? Three?”
Three, and Suzi could hardly breathe, her little girl.
God, it had been so long-and would never be long enough.
Levi was still yammering away behind her, and the thought crossed her mind to just take her whole damn day out on him.
Her baby, her little girl, how dare he bring that much heartache back to life, how dare he be so casually destructive.
She started to rise from the table, her hands closing, tightening. Christian had taught her how to fight, and she could take Levi any day of the week-except before she could make a move, she was caught from behind and hauled up close to a very solid body. Dax, dammit.
“No” was all he said, very softly, very close to her ear, his grip like iron around her waist.
“Let go of-” She started to struggle, just letting herself get wound up to go after Levi and teach him a damn lesson, and maybe get her hands around his throat and just shake him until he gave her the damn name of the place on the river, just throttle the bastard, just get the information out of him-just get him to shut up.
“Not here, not now,” Dax said, his voice still so very calm, his words still for her ears only.
“You don’t understand,” she gritted from between her teeth, tensing against him, ready to fight him, too.
She felt movement around the table, heard the sound of footsteps, but her attention, every atom of her being, was focused on Levi Asher, on the dawning stupefaction spreading across his face that Suzanna Royale Toussi wanted to slug him.
“Back off,” she heard Dax say to someone coming up behind them. “I said back off. I’ve got her. We’re leaving.” He was angry, protective, his voice on edge.
Tension was pulsing around her, Levi babbling, his bodyguard steadying him, and Dax was taking charge, giving clear directions and walking away with her in his arms, getting them out of El Caribe.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Dylan, we’ve got a mess at the Gran Chaco,” Creed said, walking out of the hotel’s main entrance.
“Explain.”
“Suzi’s AWOL, and the contact she told you about, Jimmy Ruiz? He’s dead. Shot to death in her room. Rumors are running wild out here, but it sounds like the police have all her luggage, and she is definitely numero uno on their suspect list. I thought we should-”
“I’m on it. Stay on the line,” Dylan said, then Creed heard him talking to someone else, giving an order-Get Grant on the horn.
He stopped with his back to one of the portico’s marble columns and lit up a cigar he’d bummed off the boss, holding the phone between his shoulder and ear while he bent his head over the lighter cupped in his hands. He puffed until he got the cigar going, then he closed the lighter and took the phone back in his hand.
Sucking in a mouthful of smoke, he leaned back against the column and visually quartered the area, from the parking lot, to the entrance, to the valet stand and the doormen, and back again to the parking lot.
And he waited, letting the smoke slowly drift out of his mouth.
Fucking twilight zone, that’s where they’d landed with this Sphinx business. He’d seen it coming, and Suzi was in the middle of it. Dammit. That just coddled his balls.
One of the first things he’d seen when he’d walked into the Gran Chaco was the police security on her room, and it hadn’t taken more than two minutes of hanging around in the lobby to find out why. Jimmy Ruiz had been massacred in there. By all accounts, and there were a hundred available, the deed had been a lovers’ quarrel, with the Paraguayan man killed by the beautiful gringa in a jealous rage. Creed could guarantee there hadn’t been any lovers’ quarrel, but that didn’t mean Suzi hadn’t shot Jimmy Ruiz.
Somebody sure had, and Suzi was gone.
“Beranger’s gallery is on Carlos Lopez Avenue, Galeria Viejo,” Dylan came back on the line. “He lives up on the second floor, so he shouldn’t be too hard to find. And I’ve got a confirmed location for one of the dealers short-listed by the DIA as a potential buyer for the Sphinx-Levi Asher. He’s at El Caribe.”
“Got it,” he said, pushing off the marble column and crossing the street to the parking lot.
“One more thing,” Dylan said.
“Yeah?”
“Suzi told Grant that Dax Killian was at the gallery this afternoon. Apparently there was a run-in with the police, and he got her out of there.”
Dax Killian?
“I don’t believe in coincidence, boss. What the fuck do you think is going on?”
“I don’t know, and Grant hasn’t been able to find out, so we’ll play it as it comes.”
“Roger that,” he said, heading back to his car. “I’ll let you know what I find at the gallery.”
Women, Levi thought.
There was just no telling what got into them sometimes. Suzi Toussi had looked a little murderous there, a state of affairs that was absolutely beyond his ability to comprehend.
Suzanna Toussi, ready to pounce on him-and not in a good way. Oh, no.
He hoped she bounced back to her normal, coolheaded self by tomorrow morning. It simply wouldn’t do to send a half-deranged woman up the river.
He shuffled around in his luxury suite, dropping clothes everywhere he went-his jacket in the hall, his tie on the table, a shoe here, a shoe there, his shirt over the back of the couch, his pants on the floor. He’d dismissed Gervais at the door. He felt terrible and simply needed to be alone.
He’d eaten too much, drunk too much, was too hot, feeling light-headed, and his stomach was in distress.
He padded into the bathroom to get a towel to mop his brow, and while leaning over the sink, took stock of himself.
He wasn’t a bad man, but he’d done a bad thing, involving her, and felt very remorseful. Not so much remorse that he would change the course of events, but he felt remorse.
Suzi would be fine, he told himself. It would be an adventure for her to go up the river and meet with this crazy dangerous man with the hot-crawly weapon who was not quite right.
Levi considered himself a very astute judge of people, and this man from Beranger’s who had grabbed Gervais, asked questions, and then invited them all up the river to get the Sphinx-well, he was quite dangerous.
Quite.
Big, strong, determined, fierce-Gervais had said the man’s arms were marked, scarred, and that there had been other scars on his face and neck.
Honestly, Levi had been in a perfect quandary. He wanted the Sphinx, or rather he wanted his Japanese buyer’s money for the Sphinx, but he didn’t care for the company of men under the best of circumstances, and he didn’t care for the company of dangerous men under any circumstances. He hadn’t known what he was going to do, until Suzi Toussi had called.
She was perfect.
The fifty-fifty part, the percentages could be manipulated later, if she actually made it back with the statue.
He reached up and combed his fingers through his hair, arranging it a bit. He wished he hadn’t mentioned that girl in Ukraine and her daughter again, poor little thing. He’d just been trying to be nice, but all that should have waited until after the deal. It wasn’t good to have Suzi upset. He needed her on her game. He needed an expert up there to deal with this man from Costa del Rey That’s the place where he’d told Gervais to come, Costa del Rey King’s Coast, and if the Memphis Sphinx was truly there, then it was a king’s coast indeed. Levi hadn’t come all this way to pay a million dollars for a fake, and Suzanna Royale Toussi could smell a fake from a hundred miles. She was so very talented, a superb negotiator, her instincts impeccable when it came to art and artifacts-but not when it came to men, and Levi didn’t think she’d done any better for herself this time.