Burn (Michael Bennett 7)

“I demand to know what’s going on now,” she said.

“Ma’am, there’s no time,” I said. “This is urgent police business. We need to contact him right now. Could we please have his cell phone number?”

She shook her pretty head vehemently.

“No, I can’t hand that out. I’m sorry. He told me never to do it. Never.”

“Not even to the police?” Arturo said.

“Especially not to you,” she said.

Arturo looked wounded. Like it was personal.

“He has so many businesses and tax things and partnerships, we get subpoenas all the time. I probably shouldn’t even be talking to you. You need to leave. I’m sorry. I thought this was about my housekeeper’s car. Now that I know it’s not, you have to leave. Contact him through his office. Good-bye.”

Lopez and Doyle stood there seemingly frozen after she closed the huge door.

“You know who she is or was, right?” Doyle said. “She’s that supermodel from the nineties.”

“Dude, he’s right,” Lopez said, elbowing me. “She used to be, like, in music videos and Victoria’s Secret.”

“Well, it looks like Victoria is keeping her hubby’s secrets,” I said as we hurried off the porch. “So pick up your chins and come on. We need to get the hell on the road and find this son of a bitch before that girl becomes his next victim.”

CHAPTER 104

ILIANA KUZNETSOV HAD been in limos before. Cheesy white superstretches with disco ball interiors. Hummer ones. Even a MINI Cooper one once with a hot tub in the trunk.

But the car that had picked her up from her hotel room at nine on the dot wasn’t like that at all. It was a luxury Mercedes Maybach with a spacious and shining inlaid-wood cabin in the back. It was almost like a living room. There was a state-of-the-art entertainment console with a large-screen HD TV, dual headphones, clocks and thermometer dials and switches everywhere like the instruments on an airplane.

The white-leather power chaise seat she lay back in was hands down the softest thing she’d ever parked her butt on, like being sunk into a hammock of piled spa towels.

She smiled as she powered the überplush seat back a little with the control, resisting the urge to kick off her stiletto heels.

For a moment, she imagined that this mogul or whatever he was beside her was her boyfriend, like she was suddenly Julia Roberts in the 1990 film Pretty Woman. She hit the seat back another smidge. There. Perfect. She could get used to this.

The forty-something black-haired man smiling next to h

er as he spoke almost imperceptibly into a Bluetooth headset was obviously as upscale as the ride. He was sexy, handsome, tall and quite lean, and perfectly groomed in a dark European-tailored pinstriped suit. His playful smile softened his hard, sharp face and cool blue eyes. Iliana had been with men like him before. Rich, handsome, horny, hard-charging businessmen who could probably get all the action they wanted for free except they didn’t have the time. She smiled. He sure beat some sweaty fat bastard. The nine thousand she would make tonight would be the easiest money ever made.

He finally pulled out the Bluetooth and flicked it into the drink holder beside him.

“Ugh. I hate that thing. How rude of me. How do you do, Iliana? Rylan has told me so much about you. I am Gabe,” he said, very deliberately shaking her hand, making a little game of it. “Thank you so much for coming out with me tonight. I love your dress, by the way. It’s perfect for the party we’re going to. Classy without being boring. I hate boring.”

“Me too,” Iliana said. “I like your car, Gabe. It is yours, right? I noticed that it had private plates.”

“How perceptive of you, Iliana. So you’re not just a pretty face, I see,” Gabe said, zipping his own chair back until he was almost prone. “Yes, it is my car. You know what I like most about it? The windows. The tint is new. It’s literally impossible to see into here. We can see everything yet remain invisible. I mean, we could be doing anything in here right now and no one would know.”

He toed a compartment under the TV and a refrigerator drawer buzzed out. Iliana felt her breath catch when she looked inside. Half a dozen frosty dark-green bottles of Dom Pérignon.

How much money does this guy actually have? Iliana wondered as Gabe ripped off the foil and popped the cork from a bottle.

“Actually, you can have this bottle. We’ll do his and hers,” he said, handing it to her.

Iliana hefted it by its long, delicate neck as he grabbed another one for himself. It was like a genie bottle from a kid’s book. A cold and heavy and very expensive genie bottle. She took a sip. Bubbles tickled her tongue. So cold and sweet. Like ginger ale.

“I just have one more phone call to make,” Gabe said, sipping from his bottle. “But we’re going to have fun tonight, Iliana,” he added as he grabbed the Bluetooth.

“I can tell.”