Designed for Murder (Killer Style 4)

—Alber Elbaz

Thirty minutes later, Carlos was back in Mika’s design studio, and all he wanted to do was touch her—drag her back over to the couch and make her forget she’d ever smiled at the douche Roger. Wanting her was the last thing he needed in his life right now and the one thing that pushed through everything else crowding the front of his brain to take center stage. Wanting didn’t matter, though. He couldn’t have her.

Mika was the Silver Queen LARPer, a Magic Battledome player, and a nerd sex goddess. She represented everything he’d left behind after he’d killed Ivy and walked away from the man he’d been. Falling back into that world wasn’t an option, no matter how much he wanted to fall into her.

Also not an option was sitting around on his ass waiting for something bad to happen. Something was off at Durning Imports, and it was his job to figure out what so he could solve this case and get away from Mika before he forgot the lesson Ivy had taught him. He opened her laptop, dragging his fingers across the touchpad to bring it to life as he watched her pace in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows. The sun was setting behind the Faversham Building, throwing a skyscraper-size shadow across most of the fashion district. The golden light put a halo around her when he knew that she was anything but an angel. Wearing the skin-tight jeans from yesterday and a drugstore T-shirt with a V-neck that dipped between her tits, she was all temptation. The sooner he got away from the source, the better.

Hands on her hips, she stopped in the middle of her pacing. “So what now?”

“I call Reggie.” Sharing information had been the entire point of the farce of an interrogation this morning. Carlos needed to hold up his end of the unspoken bargain and bring the detective up to speed.

“He thinks I’m a drug mule!”

“No. His bosses want him to think you’re a drug mule. There’s a difference. Someone in the department is pushing an agenda.” He scrolled through his contact list and tapped Reggie’s name.

“Dirty cops?” she asked as she started pacing again, her ass swaying from side to side as she strutted across the studio.

The phone on the other end rang, buzzing in Carlos’s ear. “Either that or overworked pencil-pushing supervisors who have to close cases or get their asses handed to them by the mayor and the press. Crime is up in Harbor City and everyone wants it down now. A closed case is a closed case.”

“That’s comforting.”

“That’s life.” The call clicked over to voicemail. He hung up without leaving a message. Reggie would know it was him by the caller ID. “He’s not answering.”

“What did you find at Durning Imports?” She toyed with the end of her braid and walked close to him, worrying her full bottom lip.

It was mesmerizing, and his cock was officially hypnotized. It twitched behind his zipper.

“Your old employer isn’t as squeaky clean as you’d like them to be. Large sums are coming in and going out just as fast.” Glad for an excuse to look at something besides the way she chewed her bottom lip, he sat down at the computer and brought up Harbor City Federal Bank’s website.

“So?” she huffed. “They have bills, plus the economy is still recovering.”

Carlos logged in with the password he’d seen the elder Durning had helpfully written on the outside of the bank statement folder. “Did you look at that place? There were security cameras, high-end sensors around the entry points, and those locked lobby doors that would look at home at an off-site betting facility where the need to keep someone out was of vital importance. There aren’t any dangerous fabric thieves armed to the teeth that you know too much about, are there?”

She flipped him the bird. “No.”

Mika moved to his blind spot behind his left shoulder, placed her hand on his shoulder, and leaned forward to get a better look at the screen. Her spicy perfume wrapped around him. If he turned his head even the slightest bit, he’d get an eyeful of her luscious tits. His dick fully endorsed that idea, and the rest of him was warming up to it.

Focus, ’Los.

Grinding his teeth together, he clicked on the tab for past statements. A minute later, he had the importer’s past year’s bank statements laid out in front of him. The numbers didn’t add up. There were a lot of transactions, but they usually weren’t consistent in both amount and timing—except for a nine-thousand-dollar deposit that came in on the tenth of every month and went back out on the eleventh. The dollar amount would keep it under the federal limit that would have required the bank to report it to the authorities.

“What happens on the tenth of each month?” he asked.

/> Mika reached past him to run her finger over the touchpad and scroll the screen down. “Deliveries.”

“Every month?” That would provide cover and ensure a regular supply of drugs coming in.

“Occasionally the shipment will get held at customs, but Mr. Durning has built a solid relationship with customs, so that rarely happens.”

“How rare?” he asked, forcing his gaze to stay on the screen instead of straying toward her.

“Maybe once in the five years I was with them.” She straightened and stepped back away from him. “But he doesn’t have that good of a relationship. They still inspect the goods to make sure they’re all fabric and whatever else is on the manifest.”

“Exactly.” Really, it was the perfect cover. “So a few special bolts of fabric wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow. The nine grand is courier charges. The dirty drug money goes into the business account one day and gets withdrawn as clean funds the next day.” His gut twisted when he looked at the cabinet holding the tainted fabric she’d used to make the vestments for her court. As long as she still had the fabric, she wasn’t safe. “What you’ve got there is worth half a million on the street, probably more right now with the city experiencing a cocaine drought.”

“Fuck.” Mika groaned.

That was the understatement of the year. He texted Reggie.