Armed and Fabulous (Lexi Graves Mysteries, 1)

  Chapter Two

  "Stop wriggling," hissed a man's voice. His breath brushed my ear and my heartbeat ramped up to marathon speed. "If they find us, we're dead."

  Okay. So here's the good news. I was probably not wedged inside Martin Dean's closet with his murderer. That, at least, had the potential for some reassurance. Powerful arms remained clamped around me, even though I stopped trying to wriggle my way free, and the hand stayed over my mouth, despite my attempts to stifle my whimper. For a brief moment, I contemplated licking the hand because that always made my brothers and sister let go when we were kids, but that was too gross to do to a stranger. In a closet. With a corpse a few feet away.

  "If you scream, they'll shoot us in the head and you're far too pretty to die," came the man’s urgent whisper. Well, I had to agree with that. I really was too pretty to die. Also compliments totally worked on me. "I'm going to uncover your mouth. Don't scream. Nod if you understand."

  I nodded and the hand slid away, while the other stayed firmly clamped around my upper body as we looked through the slim crack in the doors. Two men came into the room and walked over to Dean's body. I remained huddled against the mystery man, shivering with fear as the men stared down at my boss’ corpse. The blood had spread a bit and the carpet was screwed. I knew that because I once cut my hand in my parents’ kitchen and ran into the dining room for help. I tripped and promptly stained their new wool carpet with my bloody handprint. In my opinion, there had been too much whining about the ruined carpet, too much giggling about what forensics would make of it, and not enough sympathy for my potentially early demise. Well, not that I would have actually died, but I was seven and a bit dramatic at the time. Blood did that to me as a kid. Even so, the stain leaking from Dean was decidedly larger than my splotchy handprint and they would never get it out.

  More pressing was Dean's warm corpse on top of it.

  "We'll have to get rid of it," said one of the men to the other. They were both tall and broad with shaven heads, flat faces and flatter noses. They wore black suits that hugged brawny shoulders. Their ties matched. Slightly less business-like were the rubber gloves they both wore. Despite their effort at business disguise, “thug” could have been printed on their foreheads. I was certain I'd never seen them before.

  "Can't get it past security," said the second man, giving Dean’s leg a poke with a shiny shoe. "There's a twenty-four hour desk."

  "Can't leave it here." The second man shrugged.

  They looked down at Dean's body. A bit too hopefully, I thought. It wasn't like he was going to oblige them by getting up and trotting away.

  "Shoulda shot him outside," said the first man. "Coulda made it look like a mugging. I didn't think of that." He was slightly bigger than his friend and clearly the rougher of the two. He looked like he'd led a hard life. Despite his smart suit and polished shoes, just one wrong look, and you'd be in the river, wearing a not-so-stylish pair of concrete stilettos. I shivered. The arm tightened about me for a moment before relaxing.

  "Let's see if there's anything we can move him with," said number two, making for the door. Heh-heh. Number two. I know. Immature. But I’d take a laugh anywhere I could get it right now.

  Number one grunted and followed him out the room, closing the door behind him.

  Just as soon as the door shut, the man holding me whispered, "What are you doing here, Lexi?"

  I twisted my neck and blinked in the gloom. Now that I thought about it, that voice sounded awfully familiar. "Adam?" I whispered.

  "Yeah."

  I thought about all the things I should ask next. "What are you doing in Dean's closet?"

  "I asked first."

  "I was dropping off the report." I still had it clutched in my, literally, bloody hand.

  "I thought you'd gone home."

  "No. I was working in the library."

  "Really?" Adam was incredulous.

  Honestly, we were stuck in a closet, no more than ten feet away from a man who had just been murdered minutes before, his murderers now freely trotting about the floor and my boss was giving me grief about my work ethic. Typical.

  "Yes, really," I replied with as much indignation as I could muster, given the circumstances.

  "I thought you went to Starbucks, then home."

  I gaped into the darkness. "I. Was. Working."

  "Really?"

  "Oh for God's sake." We were quiet for a moment, then, "Adam, what are you doing here?"

  "Trying not to get shot."

  "Oh. Well… well done."

  "Hmm?"

  "You've not been shot yet."

  "Yet, being the important bit." That was quite a sobering thought.

  "Why are you in the closet?" I persisted.

  "I don't want to say."

  "Why not? Did you have something to do with…" I flapped my hand and caught my knuckles on the door. We both froze.

  "Okay, fine. I came to talk to Martin. He got a call and told me to get in here."

  "How... odd." No one had ever told me to get into the closet when a friend came to visit. Well, except that time at college when I was about to get it on with some guy, and his girlfriend, (don't judge. I didn't know and he wasn't exactly forthcoming), knocked on his door. I resolved that by climbing out the first floor window, rather than hide and see God knows—his idea, ugh! The perv—and walking home. I try not to think about it.

  "I'm glad he did." Adam exhaled softly.

  "Yes, I suppose you are."

  "We need to get out of here, Lexi."

  "Any bright ideas?"

  "I'm thinking. Shh! I hear something. They're coming back." We fell silent again while the two goons trundled a mail delivery cart into the room, with a large box balanced on top. Behind me, Adam shifted and then put both arms around me, and, oh, that was quite nice, actually. So long as I didn't think too much about our impending deaths anyway.

  I relaxed slightly, partly because I was scared of getting a cramp and partly because being cuddled up to Adam had featured prominently in today’s daydream of choice. Minus the corpse.

  The goons set the box on the floor, then number one picked up Martin Dean's hands and number two got his feet. Together, they dragged him over to the box, a thick smear of blood trailing in their wake. His chest oozed more blood. Ick. I never knew a human body held so much.

  They dropped him. Dean's head rolled to face us, his eyes open and glassy. I squeezed my eyes shut and Adam hugged me a bit tighter again. I turned to press my head into his big, hard, manly chest, while trying not to make a sound. Wow. Adam was quite muscular. That was a surprise. He smelled really nice too, sort of minty. He tightened his arms around me, one hand stroked my hair and... okay, I'm not ashamed to admit it. I snuggled. And I stayed there right through the quiet argument the goons had with each other, even while picking Dean up and folding him into the box before carrying it, and right up until the cart was wheeled out of the room. Adam leaned forward slightly to angle his head to peek through the sliver of space between the doors.

  "They're gone. We need to get out of here before they come back."

  "Why would they come back?"

  "Because they want one of the files on the desk and they didn’t take it."

  "Which one? What's in it?" I might have been scared, but I couldn't help asking. It was the nosy gene. My whole family had it, which probably explains why most of them became cops.

  "Some report."

  "A report?"

  "They were talking about a report and Martin wouldn't tell them where it was," Adam explained.

  "We could take them?" I suggested.

  "Then they would know we were here and they have guns."

  I thought about the bullet wound in Dean’s head. "Oh, right. Bad idea."

  "Do you know what reports were on Dean's desk?"

  "Not right now. Dominic guards this office."

  "Remind me why you’re here again?"

  "Because I forgot to put this report on his desk
and he wanted it today." I flapped the sheets of paper at Adam.

  "Does Martin keep copies anywhere?"

  "Sometimes Dominic has a copy on his desk. See? I have two here. One for Dean, one for Dominic."

  "We'll have to check and see which reports are on the desk."

  "Okay." Neither of us moved.

  "Today," said Adam, giving me a little push.

  "I'm not going out there! What if they see me?"

  "Fine. Wait here." Adam edged around me and slid out of the closet, skirting Dean's blood as he crossed to the desk. A small stack of reports sat squarely in the center and Adam rifled through them, quickly checking the cover sheet of each one before knocking them back into a precise pile again.

  "Do you keep copies of your reports?" he asked, pulling the door open and beckoning me out. He pressed the door shut again.

  "Yes. On the hard drive."

  "Shit. They'll probably delete it."

  I swallowed. "Um... Why?"

  "Your reports are the only ones on the desk."

  My breath caught in my throat. "They killed Dean over one of my reports?"

  "I don't know. Maybe."

  "I might have another copy," I mumbled, my thoughts whirring.

  Adam glanced back at me as he moved towards the door. "What?"

  "I might have another copy. On a memory stick." I wasn't quite sure how he was going to take that. I added, in a mumbled whisper, barely audible, "Of all my reports." It’s not my fault, okay? I had to. I had a habit of accidentally deleting stuff, so now I was super organized and backed up everything. It was a practice that allowed me to save my own bacon a whole bunch of times.

  "Lexi, you do know that's highly unethical? Didn't you sign loads of secrecy waivers and stuff?"

  "Oh, tons." God, it had taken ages.

  Adam sighed. "Where's the memory stick?"

  "At my apartment."

  "At your apartment! You've been sneaking files out of the building! Fucking hell, Lexi!" I could feel him fuming.

  "So you don't want them?" Hah. Got him.

  "Yeah, I do," he conceded, "but we need to get out now. Do you know another way out that doesn't involve using the elevator or getting spotted by security or cameras?"

  "Um... yes, actually I do." See? This is another reason why I should have been a spy. Not only could I sneak documents in and out of the building for months without ever being noticed, but I also knew how to physically get out without being caught.

  "How long will it take us to get there?"

  I did a quick calculation. "Thirty seconds to the door. Five minutes to get downstairs." Adam darted to the door, opened it slightly and looked through the crack. After a moment, he signaled to me and I lurched forward, clutching my papers, purse and stained heels, taking the hand he extended towards me.

  "Let's go," he said. "Let's get out of here."

  Holding Adam's hand would have been a lot nicer if we weren't running from two murderers who were, at this moment, somewhere in the building with our boss' corpse. I tugged him along as I ran to the rear stairwell, slamming to a stop when I saw the pass card swipe slot. Shit, I'd forgotten about those. If anyone checked the logs, they would see me swiping out minutes after Martin Dean bit it, a sure sign that I had been on the floor.

  Adam reached around me and ran his pass through the machine as he pushed me through the door, shutting it quickly after us.

  "You'll show up in the system," I said, as we took the stairs down. "If anyone checks, they'll know you were here. You'll be a suspect."

  "It's an unregistered all access pass," said Adam as he ran after me.

  "How did you get one of those?"

  "Uh, can't tell you."

  I shot him a glance as we ran. "Did you 'borrow' it?" I asked, adding bunny ears with my forefingers.

  "No!"

  We descended six floors in, by my guess, less than five minutes. I signaled to Adam to use his magical swipe card again, which he did, and we entered the mailroom. I had been in here a couple of times when I had to sign for a package, so I knew the layout fairly well. Each time it had been busy with deliveries arriving and mail being sorted and loaded into carts. The day's work lay discarded on the long table and in the pigeon holes that flanked one side. The mailroom was completely dead.

  Oh, I wish I hadn't just thought that.

  The plus point of the mailroom was that it could be entered from the outside, and exited, without passing security at the front of the building. It had its own door especially for the mail to be delivered and collected. There were also no cameras except right at the basement level, where there was a fire exit that led to the street.

  Just then, the fire alarm went off and I clamped my hands over my ears to drown out the ringing.

  "They must have set it off to distract security," said Adam. "Which way now?"

  I pointed to the exit at the far side of the room and Adam followed me. He used his pass again to swipe us out. He shut the door softly, even though there wasn't anyone to see us. I leaned against the building, heaving some air into my lungs while Adam looked around. He ran a hand through his hair, leaving it standing in tufts. After sucking in a decent lungful of evening air, I opened my bag and pulled out the spare flats I carried for high heel emergencies, slipping my feet into them.

  "We can't stay here," he said. "Are you north or south?"

  "What?"

  "Where do you live? North or south?"

  "Oh, right, west actually. West Montgomery."

  "Let's go." This time Adam tugged me behind him as we cut through back streets, leading us away from the Green Hand building. After five minutes, Adam slowed his pace so we could walk casually. We were still hand-in-hand and it was strangely comforting. My heart rate slowed from its frantic beating to casual fear.

  "I planned on getting the bus home. My car wasn't working this morning," I said, suddenly wondering where we were going. Was he really planning on taking me home? Shouldn’t we call the police and wait for them to arrive? Or maybe, Adam didn’t want anyone to know he had witnessed the murder. He was a witness. My heart rate sped up and I began to babble. “I turned the key and all it did was this little put-put-put noise. I think it’s dead.” I gulped at the words.

  "We'll get a cab. Too many cameras, too many people on public transport."

  "Right. Yes. Definitely." We walked silently in the dusk. Presumably, anyone looking at us would think we were on an evening stroll, or a date. Adam and me. On. A. Date. When we were a mile from the office, Adam hailed a cab and opened the door for me. I collapsed into the seat, shell-shocked, and looked down at my dress. Oh yuck. I'd forgotten about the bloody handprint. I shifted my purse to cover it and stuffed the papers haphazardly inside.

  "Where to?" asked the driver, glancing at us in his mirror. Adam held my clean hand in his lap. I kept my bloody hand concealed.

  Adam looked at me expectantly so I reeled off my address and we headed there.

  By the time we turned onto my street, I was shivering uncontrollably. Adam let go of my hand and wrapped his arm around me, pulling me into him. He was warm and I snuggled happily. Twice in one night. A little bit of me wanted to do a “yay” but the rest of me felt cold and flat and horrified. This wasn’t the end of a date. Somewhere in Montgomery were Martin Dean's corpse and his murderers, and I had as much as witnessed it. You don't come from a cop family like mine and not know how bad that sounded.

  "You live alone?" Adam asked when the taxi dropped us off outside my place. As far as living arrangements went, I'd majorly scored. It was a three-story brownstone with white trim, owned by my best friend’s parents, who had converted it into apartments, which they rented to us. Lily had the first floor apartment, which was the biggest and had the small rear garden. I had the second floor and someone else rented the floor above me. Lily's turquoise Mini was parked out front next to my dead-as-a-dodo black VW. A lamp was on in Lily’s living room. I felt relief. At least she was close by. If I screamed, she’d doubl
e the noise and bring someone running.

  I nodded. "My best friend, Lily Shuler, lives downstairs," I said as I shakily put my key into the lock. After I fumbled it, Adam took the key, unlocked the door and pushed me inside. He hardly said a word on the way over here and didn't seem likely to get chatty any time soon. He followed me upstairs and unlocked the door to my apartment too. In the little entryway, I dumped my purse and shoes, and flipped the light on with a quivering hand. I went straight into the bathroom to wash up, trying not to look at the pink water as it swirled away.

  When I came out, and walked down the hallway into the living area, Adam was sitting on my couch.

  "Are you all right?" he asked, his concerned eyes running over me as he ran a hand through his hair.

  "Not sure." I flopped onto the couch, next to him.

  "Have you ever seen a dead body before?"

  "Only Izzie, Natalie and Fi," I replied.

  Adam gaped at me. "You found three women's bodies?"

  "My goldfish."

  "Oh."

  "Adam, Martin Dean is dead."

  "I was there."

  "Did those men kill him?"

  "Yes."

  "They would have killed us." It wasn't a question. It was a fact.

  "Probably," agreed Adam. We were quiet for a moment. It was a lot to absorb.

  "We should call the police. Tell them what we saw."

  "Lexi, you can't call the police. Do you understand me?"

  "Why not? A man just got murdered. We're witnesses." Oh God, maybe they'd make us go into the witness protection program. We'd have to live in some horrid town where no one knew us and I'd never see my family again. Bright side: maybe Adam and I would have to pretend to be married. I was willing to do some very creative pretending.

  "Do not phone the police, I'll take care of this." Adam's pocket rang and he pulled a slim cell phone out. He walked over to the window, looking out over the quiet street as he answered it.

  "Martin Dean's dead," was the first thing he said. "I saw him get shot... Two of them... No, they didn't see me. They wanted a file... There was another witness. We got out without them seeing us. I'm with her right now." They talked a while longer, Adam giving short, terse answers before hanging up and turning to me.

  I had a bad feeling about all of this. "What's going on, Adam?" I asked.

  He looked at me for a long moment, like he was trying to decide what to say or whether I could cope. I watched him with scared eyes. He started talking. "I don't work for Green Hand Insurance. I'm a detective with Montgomery PD and I'm undercover in an intelligence op. We've been watching Martin Dean for a while."

  "Did Dean know?"

  Adam nodded. “Not at first. I spoke to him just before he got shot.” He stood in front of me, hands thrust into pockets, looking down with a serious expression. "It's important that you don't tell anyone."

  "Why are you telling me?"

  "Because I know you're not the ditz you make yourself out to be. I read your file. You're smart and you didn't completely freak out when you saw a dead body. You concealed your presence and knew how to get out of there... and I'm going to make a bet that no one knew you were in the building tonight either."

  I thought about the wedge holding the door open so I didn't have to swipe onto the floor, the lack of cameras in the elevator and basement library. The only record of me was leaving the office at four p.m., hours before Dean was killed.

  I hadn't been smart. I had been lucky.

  "Uh, thanks?" I said, then. "Wait, I've got a file? And you work for the police department?" What else didn't I know about Adam? Maybe he wasn't the cute slash trainspotting loser slash management drone I thought he was.

  "Everyone in Dean's office has a file. Yours was the most interesting."

  I perked up a bit at that.

  "Can't understand why you're a temp. You have a perfectly good degree." I tried not to look really pleased that he knew I was a smarty-pants, but when he carried on, I had to wipe the smile off my face a bit. "You temp in a bunch of different offices. You're a really good researcher and I know you've spent a total of ten hours on the last three reports I've given you combined, even though it's taken you at least a week to turn each one in." Busted again. Though, come to think of it, he had been letting me get away with it. Despite my fear, I warmed to him.

  "Why are you telling me all this? Is this one of those monologues the evil dude gives before he kills the girl? And then paints her in gold as some kind of crazy message?" I started to look around without moving my head. I could probably make it to my bedroom, lock the door, jump out the window and flee down the fire escape. Each of my three brothers was a cop. If I called any one of them, the whole of Montgomery PD would turn out in full force and flatten Adam.

  Adam had the good manners to look appalled. "No! I'm telling you I think you did a good job tonight and this isn't James Bond."

  "I didn't do anything," I protested.

  "Exactly."

  "What else was in my file?"

  "Just the regular stuff."

  The fleeting thought that he might have put the lingerie pics in my file pinged into my head and I went a bit pink. "You're really a detective?"

  Adam nodded. He was quite good at that. Nice strong chin.

  "How long?"

  "Eight years."

  "Wow." Then, "You're not very good at keeping secrets." Why was he telling me this if he was supposed to be a super secret undercover operative? I thought spies, sorry undercover cops, couldn't tell anyone about their jobs, except their cats and dead aspidistras. My oldest brother, Garrett, had done some undercover stuff and he never said a word.

  "I am, but you're quietly freaking out and you'll just dig around until you get the truth anyway, so I'm saving you the trouble and me a lot of bother." Actually, he had a point. I would have dug around, and probably blabbed everything to the police in an Oscar-worthy scene. "Plus, I don't want you to blab and tell the police then get yourself killed before you can make it to the witness stand." Oooh! He was good at this. No wonder he got to be hotshot spy... and I DIDN'T. Sore point.

  He got up and started down my little hallway. "Where are you going?" I asked.

  "To get you some juice. You're obviously having some weird internal monologue and I don’t want you to dehydrate."

  I sank back on the comfy pillows and avoided looking down at my ruined dress while trying to process it all. A few hours ago, I had a dull job and a cute boss. Now I had a cute secret spy detective boss, was witness to a murder (though not the actual act, thanks to the photocopying chore) and... and what next? I just didn't know. My imagination always stopped at the fun bits.

  Adam returned with a glass of orange juice and thrust it into my hands. "Drink," he ordered.

  "What are you going to do now?" I asked, taking a sip.

  "I'm going to stay with you until I'm sure you're okay; then I'm going to file my report."

  "Are you sure you aren't going to call the police?"

  "Absolutely, and neither are you. My team will deal with this. Keep drinking. I don't want you to go into shock."

  I slurped another mouthful and tried to think things through. Was I supposed to go into work tomorrow? Should I go back to the agency and ask for a new assignment? Pull a sick day and stay in bed, wallowing in fear? Decisions, decisions.

  "You need to be at work tomorrow," said Adam, answering my unasked question. "Do everything like normal. Turn up at your usual time—late—" I scoffed at that, but really, he was right. I always ran ten minutes late. "—Work normally. Don't do anything that isn't your normal routine. Don't give anyone a reason to suspect you know anything about what happened. I'll take your statement and you can't discuss it with anyone. Understand?"

  "Yes, but why do I need to act like nothing happened?" I asked. "Why are you watching Dean anyway? What was he up to?" I waited while Adam had his own internal monologue. Out of the frying pan, into the fire, I thought as I continued, "C'mon, Adam. You
know I'm going to dig anyway. This isn't just about Dean. What else is going on?"

  "Fraud," he said at last, watching me closely. "There are millions of dollars in fraud going on at Green Hand and we're gathering evidence for the prosecution. We suspect fake policies are being cashed in."

  "And that's what got Dean killed?"

  "Maybe."

  "Not my report?"

  Before I could breathe a sigh of relief, Adam said, "No, your report has something to do with it."

  I mustered indignation. "I am not involved in fraud. I'm a temp!"

  "I know. We ruled you out already."

  "Well... thanks. I guess."

  "No problem. We know the fraud is an inside job. Someone is leaking information out of Dean's department and that person is probably connected to Dean's murder."

  "Really?" I must have sounded quite incredulous. I mean, the images of Bob, Anne, or any of the other inmates as fraudsters, corporate spies or murderers weren't exactly the most feasible.

  "Yes, really. That's why I was assigned there. To get close to the staff and find out what's going on. Lucky for me, a job came up. The whole transfer was a set-up to get me in."

  "So you're staying?" I sipped my juice and felt my eyelids tugging. I yawned and looked at my watch. It wasn't late. There was no way I could possibly be tired. I yawned again and set the glass on the table, blinking hard.

  "Absolutely. Listen Lexi, where's the..."

  My head swam and I started edging to my feet, pushing my hands against the couch for a boost, barely able to concentrate on what he was saying. "Adam, I don't feel too well," I said. I stood up and swayed. Two Adams reached for me. Then the world went black.