LITMIR.BIZ

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to the faint tapping sounds over the speaker, which he guessed was Dmitri adding up numbers on a calculator. Drake leaned against the far wall, his arms crossed, a look somewhere between amusement and incredulity on his face.

      Hot dog, he mouthed.

      Although the brothers’ relationship had been frosty during the six years Brax had worked for Yuri, these days they shared their old camaraderie. Often they picked up on the other’s thoughts, sometimes even finishing each other’s sentences.

      Brax grinned. When he’d accepted his brother and Val’s offer to work as a security consultant at Morgan-LeRoy Investigations, he’d told them his number one goal was to bring in the bucks, so he was always pushing for higher retainers, bigger cases. “I want to be the agency hot dog,” he’d told them.

      Like him, Drake and Val were rebuilding their lives. Drake’s home had been destroyed in a fire last summer, and Val, after losing everything in Hurricane Katrina, had started over in Las Vegas a few years ago.

      Dmitri finally broke the silence. “On days when there are two investigators, we’re talking one thousand for expenses, plus a three-fifty hourly fee. You are expensive, Mr. Morgan.”

      For a moment, Brax thought about explaining how chasing Yuri could get complicated and costly, fast. Plus, if he pulled up to a five-star restaurant or a high-end casino in his turquoise Volvo, he might as well spray-paint on it Gumshoe Tailing Somebody.

      Instead, he said politely, “You’re welcome to hire another P.I., Dima, but gotta tell ya...no one in town knows Yuri the way I do.”

      Val, wearing a simple black dress, entered the room from the hallway that connected the agency to her and Drake’s living quarters in the back. The overhead lights caught streaks of violet in her bobbed brown hair.

      When she heard the name Yuri, her brown eyes grew wide. She sat in one of the guest chairs, her hand on her bulging tummy.

      “I accept your terms,” Dmitri said over the speaker, “with the understanding that we review your progress at the twelve-thousand-dollar mark. That is the amount of the retainer check my associate will drop off at your agency tomorrow morning at nine.”

      Val mouthed Twelve thousand? to her husband, who gave her an acknowledging nod.

      “Braxton,” Dmitri said, “I have an urgent appointment, so I must end this call, but I have something else I would like to discuss with you. May I speak with you later?”

      After giving Dmitri his cell number, Brax ended the call and looked at his sister-in-law and brother, cupping a hand to his ear in a let’s-hear-it gesture.

      “You are the hot dog,” Val said approvingly.

      “Agency hot dog,” Drake corrected.

      Brax flashed them an I’d-try-to-be-humble-but-it’s-so-true smile.

      “As much as I would so love to be part of this case,” Val said, “My feet are starting to swell somethin’ fierce—no way I could keep up on a foot surveillance.” With a sigh, she looked at her left hand. “Fingers are swelling, too. Dropped off the family heirloom ring with Grams this morning so she can wear it for a while.” She looked back at the brothers. “Since I’m out, you two split the retainer.”

      “You’re the lead investigator,” Drake said to Braxton, “plus you’ll be working more of the case, so...sixty-forty?”

      Brax racked up the numbers in his mind. “Seven thousand, two hundred...sounds like enough to get my own place.”

      Finally. His own bachelor pad. Not as posh as before, of course, but a place where he could play his music loud, toss a shiny new black satin cover on a king-size bed, invite a special lady over for his renowned spaghetti alla puttanesca, a bottle of Chianti and a homemade tiramisu dessert that would make an Italian mama weep.

      Ah, a pared-down version of the life he left behind was almost his again....

      He looked down at his cell phone.

      Grams, I’m...

      He didn’t mind, much, paring down when it came to his new life, but forget stripping down, as in going shirtless, which was what he’d heard guys did in these date auctions.

      But it wasn’t an issue to be discussed in text messages. He needed to talk to Grams in person, offer a compromise, like his donating some money from his hefty retainer instead. Yeah, that might fix this problem.

      He looked back up at Val and Drake. “Guys, mind if I take off early?”

      Val did a double take. “You finally have a date, Brax?”

      “Sorta.” More like a sit-down negotiation with one of the grandest old ladies who ever graced this planet.

      “That didn’t come out right,” Val continued. “Sounded as if you can’t get a date when that’s so far from the truth. Why, with your stud looks, you could be courtin’ a different girl every night, so it’s just odd you’ve been livin’ like a monk for months now.”

      “Honey,” Drake murmured, “you might be stepping over a line.”

      She looked at her husband, all innocence. “Because I mentioned an obvious fact? Why, even Grams is worried about him! That’s why you—” She pursed her lips.

      Braxton leaned back in his chair and checked out his brother, who was scratching his eyebrow. Which he always did when he was uncomfortable. Or guilty. “What’d you do, bro?”

      “I, uh, paid the entry fee.”

      “Entry fee,” he repeated, not liking where this was going. “To this brawn fest.”

      “Magic Dream Date Auction, yes.”

      Brax rocked forward on his chair, the front legs hitting the floor with a thud. “You think I can’t get a date?”

      “Hey, Brax,” Val cut in, making a placating gesture, “it’s not like that, really. It’s just that ever since you moved in with Mama D and Grams, you stay home every night, get to bed by ten, never answer your former girlfriends’ calls. You seem, well, defeated, flat...nothin’ like my former bro-in-law.”

      “I don’t stay home every night,” he muttered, wondering if it were Mom or Grams who’d snitched about his not returning those calls. Probably both.

      “Right,” Drake said, “one evening you drove to a convenience store and bought a quart of milk.”

      Brax blew out an exasperated breath. “I can’t believe this! I spend years being estranged from my family for hanging out with thugs, dating questionable women and skirting the Nevada criminal justice system, during which time Mom banned me from our childhood home. But now that I’m law-abiding, and yeah, okay, so I haven’t been involved with a woman for a while, but that’s my choice, by the way...” He gave both of them an and-you-better-believe-it look. “Where was I?”

      “A law-abidin’ citizen,” prompted Val.

      “Right. Now that I’m an upstanding citizen, my family can’t hear enough about my uneventful, boring life? I suppose Mom’s spilled that I still watch cartoons sometimes, too.” He jabbed an accusing finger at Val, then Drake. “Maybe it’s you people who need to get a life!”

      “Brax,” Drake said, “don’t take it the wrong way.”

      “What’s the right way? To joke about my do-nothing, go-nowhere, get-nothing life?”

      “It’s all right, dawlin’,” Val said, drawing out the word dawlin’ like a slow pour of molasses. “It must be awful bein’ a former playboy. Like bein’ an ol’ James Bond sent out to pasture.”

      As if he needed that mental picture. An old Bond bull with a bunch of over-the-hill Miss Moneypennies.

      “Look,” he said, “I know you two mean well, but let’s put the brakes

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