Trouble and Treasure (#1, Trouble and Treasure Series)

  Chapter Five

  Sebastian Shaw

  I’d sure had one hell of a night, and I sure had the bruises to prove it. God, I had a bruised ego as well.

  When it had come to shrugging into my suit that morning and getting back to my real job, it had been murder. There were tracks of mangled skin around my wrists where the cable ties had dug into them and a stupendous bruise between my shoulders from where I’d been pistol whipped. But with a great suit, cuff links, and an expensive watch, I’d managed to hide it all.

  That I’d been set free last night wasn’t a surprise. The Special Forces needed me. In their eyes, it was all a painful lesson. Maratova, the titanic and idiotic bastard that he was, was trying to show me who wore the man pants in this partnership. As soon as Maratova and his team had gotten back to the manor, empty-handed, with no babbling Amanda, they’d let me go. Maratova had leaned down, fetid breath breaking against my face, that scar on his top lip stretching as he sneered at me, then he’d told me that from now on I played by his rules and I didn’t break them. Break them, and I’d be tied up like a pig on a spit.

  I hadn’t cared at that moment; Maratova could have pulled a knife and carved his name into my arm along with the line “don’t fuck with me,” and I wouldn’t have cared. I was far more interested in where Amanda Stanton had run off to. She still had my gun and keys.

  Maratova made it clear that I was to have nothing more to do with this. Amanda would be tracked down without me. Lawyer boy, as they often called me, was to get back to his day job and leave the real work to the real men.

  So here I was back at my day job, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to stop there. I was going to find Amanda Stanton myself, not because she had my keys, but because I had spent my whole life looking for those globes, and I didn’t give a fuck that I’d been called off this one.

  I shrugged, trying to ease my posture into a more comfortable stance and away from the stabbing pain in the middle of my back. I composed myself as I knocked on the door. I usually didn’t make house calls to my clients, but this wasn’t an ordinary client. Plus, I was already in the area, and I couldn’t pass up the chance of trying to find Amanda again.

  “Sebastian.” Elizabeth whipped the door open, leaning on the frame and cocking her eyebrow, a sideways smile on her lips. “You know, you are my favorite lawyer.”

  “That means nothing, Elizabeth, as you hate lawyers,” I said with a smile, ignoring the wincing pain between my shoulders and the grating sensation as my watch snagged against the raw skin of my wrist.

  “I don’t hate you, and it is lovely of you to come at such short notice.”

  I nodded at her. To be honest, I had no idea what the old dear wanted; Elizabeth Brown was about as mad as they came. She was the kind of mad that saw her painting smiley faces and happy flowers on the side of her Rolls-Royce in liquid chalk to brighten the days of others. She also had a hell of a lot of money, as did most of my clients. But at least Elizabeth didn’t act like she did. She was kind, and once you got past the chalky smiles, decent. So when she called late last night, not long after I returned home from my ridiculously unsuccessful venture, I’d told her I’d see her in the morning.

  “I didn’t think we should call the police until we knew what we were dealing with,” Elizabeth waved me in through the front door, the two antique ruby rings on her fingers glinting under the morning sun.

  I narrowed my eyes. I was aware of Elizabeth’s eccentricities, as I was aware that my well-off clients tended to be more suspicious of the police than those from the lower echelons of the socioeconomic strata. They always thought the police would take their money off them, Robin Hood style, just for being rich. While I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with the police if they did, the economic stability of the modern age was built on the riches of the few being drawn from the livelihoods of the rest. Still, when you need to call the police, you need to call the police, and even the most stuffy rich boy judge would uphold that law.

  I played with the corner of my watch trying to push it up and off the raw skin of my wrist.

  “Elizabeth, what’s this about?”

  “She is in the kitchen.” Elizabeth nodded down the hall, her wild, never-kempt white hair bunching over her shoulders.

  My stomach gave a kick, a full on kick. I narrowed my eyes. “Who’s in the kitchen?” I tried to keep my voice even.

  “She is,” Elizabeth said, explaining nothing.

  My heart beat faster as I followed Elizabeth, and I kept playing with my watch. It couldn’t be her, could it? She would have gone straight to the police, right? Wouldn’t Maratova have found her hiding underneath a rose bush? Or perhaps speeding around in my car? She wouldn’t have run over to the neighbors, would she? I had my misgivings about Maratova, but as far as I knew he was a capable soldier. How in the hell would he have let jelly-legs Amanda get away from him?

  The thought swirled around my mind as I followed Elizabeth down the long hall. The scent of tantalizing freshly-made pancakes seduced the air, with a hint of sweet apples and blueberries.

  I entered the kitchen.

  She looked up at me, Amanda Stanton, still in pajamas, even if they appeared to be new ones.