Sweet . . . tasty, and a hint of spice.
His thoughts made his body tighten even more.
“Go to sleep, Thomas . . . that ain’t gonna happen tonight,” he whispered into the night, to himself.
He rolled onto his side and forced his eyes closed.
All he saw was Trina.
It wasn’t hot.
The breeze flowing into her second floor guest room cooled the space without an artificial air conditioner, but she still couldn’t stop the steam oozing from her skin.
It was a line . . . it had to be a line. No one said they wanted to take things slow unless they were about to call the whole thing off. Only Wade hadn’t done that. He’d held her hand throughout their dinner and told her about how he had dreamed one day of owning a cattle ranch. He’d read a book when he was a kid about a man following his dreams, one prize steer at a time. He’d told her that owning as much land as he did in Texas almost required him to either have cattle or an oil field. He would leave the oil to her.
And they talked.
Wade Thomas, famous singer that he was, started out poor. More so than she had. Her parents had both worked hard to put her and her older sister through school. High school! Trina had put herself through a few years of community college and eventually worked her way into a job with the airlines. She’d met Samantha on a chance flight, where she’d learned about Alliance, and next thing Trina knew, she was married to Fedor Petrov and standing in a graveyard.
So why was she in Wade Thomas’s home, wishing he didn’t want to take it slow?
Trina flipped her pillow over, pounded it a few times with her fist, and growled.
The East Coast wasn’t a place Avery ever wanted to live.
A night of tossing and turning due to the deafening silence left her comatose throughout the next morning.
How Trina thought she could endure this for almost two years of her contracted marital life, Avery didn’t know. Who was she to pass judgment? At least Fedor liked cool tones and open space. Bernie had been all about dark wood and hunter green on the walls.
Still, Bernie lived in a place close to other people, where she could walk outside and see them.
All Avery noticed was a stray cat that ducked under the shrubs the second she approached.
Stupid cat.
Avery held her cup of coffee as if it were the answer to life, and crossed through the space between the main house and Fedor’s office. Most homes like this had interior offices, but not Fedor Petrov’s. He had to have a separate space, as if it would make a difference in his eventual outcome. Like what, sharing your space with your family, your wife, would make your wealth half of what you could accomplish in a separate space? Lotta good that did when you offed yourself.
Avery cautioned herself on her thoughts as she clenched her coffee and crossed the lawn.
Trina was avoiding the room, putting off the last memory she had until the bitter end. To Avery, it was just another room in a massive house that needed a set of eyes to see what held value and what could go at a garage sale for pennies on the dollar.
It was just stuff.
A dead rich man’s stuff.
She opened the locked door, expecting a ghost to jump out.
Instead, she smelled paint and new carpet.
The large office had a desk in the center, minus the chair. There were two chairs positioned in front of the desk for visitors, and the walls were lined with bookshelves. Large windows were hidden behind floor to ceiling drapes, which Avery opened. She forced one of the windows up and moved to another one on the other side to capture a breeze and push out the stale air.
“Okay, dead guy, let’s see what you have hiding in here.”
She didn’t start with the desk, which might seem like the obvious place. She started at the top shelf in the office. There were plenty of books, none of which looked very old or valuable. Still, she climbed a sliding ladder and removed a handful and set them on the empty desktop. Someone had gone through the effort of dusting the room, making Avery’s job spider free, which she was incredibly thankful for.
She flipped through the books, making sure there weren’t any papers, or money, stuck within the pages. As she went through each shelf, she stacked the books against a bare wall and reached for another. The third shelf over revealed a locked safe behind the books. Instead of a dial combination, this safe was locked with a key.
She rifled through the desk in search of a key. Strangely, the middle drawer was completely empty. The left top drawer held neatly placed pens, and not the Bic kind . . . no, these were of the Montblanc variety. Avery pushed the books she’d stacked on the desk aside and lined up the pens. One was so impressive she stopped rummaging and spun the thing between her fingers. Diamonds, tiny bits of glitter sparkled. “Just sitting in a drawer,” she said to herself. All the Petrov treasures hidden in plain sight. Apparently it worked, since the pricey stuff didn’t disappear by the sticky fingers of the staff hired to clean the vacant home. Or maybe the staff didn’t think someone was stupid enough to leave valuables lying around.
Avery didn’t so much as leave a twenty-dollar bill on the counter when the cleaning ladies were due at her condo. Perhaps there was a lesson in Petrov’s thinking.
She set the pen aside and kept searching for a key.
Nothing.
She dropped to her knees to look on the underside. It wasn’t uncommon to have hidden doors in desks, especially if the desk was as ornate and heavy as the one she was probing.
She considered running her fingers along the edges that she couldn’t see, but she doubted the maids had dusted away the cobwebs. Making do without a flashlight, Avery used a lamp and plugged it in close to the desk before climbing back underneath.
The desk had been cleaned on the underside, at least at some point. She peered closer when she noticed a color difference in the pattern of the wood. “How can someone spill liquid on the underside of a desk?” Avery no sooner asked the question to the universe when her mind cleared and she realized what she was looking at.
A cold chill raced up her spine and had her scrambling out from under the desk and to her feet.
Apparently the cleaning crew missed a few spots after they removed Fedor’s body.
Avery scrambled into the office bathroom and scrubbed her hands. Even then, she looked at the soap dispenser and wondered if the last person to use it was a dead guy.
Yeah, she was officially creeped out.
She gathered up the pens and left the office with a slam of the door.
The rest could wait until Trina came back, and even then, maybe they should elicit someone with a stronger backbone to deal with that room.
Chapter Fifteen
Trina had frequented enough Texas barbeques to know the event wasn’t a formal affair. She donned a pair of tight jeans and a button-up silk blouse. Her cowboy boots were at home, so her two-inch wedges would have to do. A hat would have been overkill, not that she had one.
She spent a little extra time messing with her hair and added another layer of eyeliner to help her best feature pop out. Even though it had taken her some time to fall asleep the night before, she still felt more rested than she had in a couple of weeks. Being in the Hamptons home had placed more stress on her shoulders than she’d thought it would.
Thinking about New York prompted her to give Avery a quick call.
She answered on the second ring.
“Hey . . . how is Texas?”
“Am I on a speakerphone?”
“I’m in the car on the way into the city.”
“I thought that wasn’t until this afternoon?” Trina glanced at the clock on the wall: it was just after nine in Texas, and ten in New York.
“I found some pens in Fedor’s desk that I’m taking in to have checked out before I go to the watch guy.”
Trina stepped out onto the balcony of her room. “You went into the office.”
“Yeah. I didn’t think you wanted to tackle it. Actually, I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Oh?”
“I’ll leave out the details. Let’s just say the cleaning crew didn’t do a perfect job . . . after.”
Trina squeezed her eyes shut. “No.”
“Yes. No worries. After a little mental breakdown, I’m all good and en route to Manhattan.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“Has Cindy called back? I’ll have her bring in a better crew.”
“I haven’t heard a thing.”
“I’ll try calling her again.”
“How is the party?” Avery asked.
“It hasn’t started yet.”
“And Wade?” she said his name like it hurt.
“Give the guy a break, Avery. He’s being a complete gentleman.” She paused. “His mom doesn’t like me, though.”
“What? How can any mom not like you? You’re perfect. Sweet, beautiful . . . not to mention the zillion dollar part.”
Avery was good for Trina’s ego. “Sweet and beautiful wasn’t a winning point, and I doubt she knows about Everson Oil. Doesn’t matter, I’m here for Wade, not her.”
“Thanks for cutting me off, asshole!” Avery shouted. “Sorry. Everyone complains about LA drivers, but they hold nothing on these nutjobs.”
Trina laughed. “I’ll leave you to it, then. I’ll call you tomorrow when I’m on my way to Houston.”