Lion's Quest Read online

  As she went to leave, the bell over the door jingled and a woman walked in. She beamed the moment she saw Montgomery.

  “Peter!”

  “Hey, Heather. How’s it going?”

  Heather batted her lashes as if trying to take off for flight. “Going good. So nice to see you again.”

  And the jerk, who’d soundly rejected Nora because she had a fake boyfriend, gave Heather a dimpled smile. “And you. We really should get together for that drink.”

  Heather barely waited for him to finish. “How about Friday after work? Dinner first?” The lashes fluttered so hard Nora was sure she saw liftoff.

  She couldn’t delay any more without making it obvious she was staring. Leaving her apron behind but grabbing her purse, she headed for the door. Montgomery sprang forward to hold it open for her.

  “Thanks,” she muttered, brushing past. Awareness filled her, and inside there was a rumble.

  Tasty.

  Her inner feline must mean the steak she could smell. Perhaps she should have ordered some food too. But that would mean going back in and watching Montgomery flirting with that vapid brunette.

  Everyone knew blondes were better. Real ones. She tossed her head.

  She also popped into the Chinese place next door, placed an order, and stood near the window to keep watch while waiting for it. Montgomery exited, bag in hand, still talking to Heather. Probably concreting their date plans.

  Grrr.

  “It’s ready.” Two brown bags were shoved at her. She’d made sure to get some for Zach. One bag in each hand, she exited the store, purposefully not looking toward Montgomery, who still chatted with Heather.

  What could they have to talk about?

  Her agitated walk soon had company, as Montgomery suddenly appeared by her side.

  “Chinese? You’re making me rethink my steak decision.”

  “What’s your girlfriend having?” She could have slapped herself for the tone she injected in that word.

  “Heather? Definitely not girlfriend material.”

  “I thought you were making a date for Friday.” Too late she realized it showed she’d been listening.

  “A man has needs.”

  “You’d use her for sex?”

  “We’d use each other. Not a big deal.”

  “If sex isn’t a big deal, then why disparage me when I said Zach and I had an open arrangement?”

  “Because casual sex is one thing. If there’s another person involved, it gets messy.”

  “Fair enough.” She’d seen jealousy. Never really suffered it much, although she did have a competitive streak.

  “So what does your boyfriend do with all those computers?”

  “He’s a programmer.”

  “And gets to work from home, which is nice. Pajamas all day and no one stealing your food from the fridge.”

  “I thought you worked alone.” Again, her tongue slipped away, but he didn’t seem to notice that she’d been paying attention.

  “How did you find the job at the butcher shop?”

  “Family connections,” she explained with a shrug.

  “Yeah, same for me too. My sister’s hubby helped me with that and the apartment.”

  “Got to say a bookstore wouldn’t have been my first choice.” Her nose wrinkled.

  “Says the woman slinging meat.”

  “I like meat. The way it feels in my mouth. The taste. The chewing and succulence.” She cast him a glance from the corner of her eye. Caught him looking right back with a half-grin.

  “I’m more a sweets kind of guy. Nothing better than something delicious to lick, maybe suckle and savor.”

  Would he fight if she dragged him into the alley to ask for a demonstration?

  No playing with her target. What if she broke him?

  “Is being a bookseller your dream job?” she found herself asking to veer the conversation.

  “No, that would be lying on a beach.”

  “Not sure how it would pay the bills.”

  “Money is the only thing holding me back,” he said, holding open the door to their building.

  “You the kind who buys lottery tickets hoping to strike it rich?”

  “Forget hope. I will one day be wealthy. Evening, Nora.” He paused by the mailbox.

  Since she’d checked that morning, she thought it might look odd if she did it again. Instead, she went for the stairs but hung just inside the door, listening, just in case someone followed Montgomery in.

  She heard the elevator ding as the doors opened. Then hum as it moved. A quick peek showed the entrance empty.

  Arriving in her apartment, she dumped the Chinese food and got a plate out to pile some on it. As she wandered to the screens with it heaped high, she realized her subject hadn’t gone home. The monitors showed no movement, not inside his place or the hall. And the elevator had no one on board.

  “Fuck!” she exclaimed. Montgomery had given her the slip.

  She quickly headed back out, racing down those steps, having to slow down rather than burst out onto the street. She glanced both ways and didn’t see any sign of him.

  Arik would have her head if she’d lost Montgomery. Hell, she wasn’t too impressed with herself right now.

  She caught his scent, faint but present, and followed it in the opposite direction from which they’d just arrived. It went to the liquor store, and before she could pretend to walk past it, he exited, appeared startled, and said, “Hey.”

  She eyed the brown bag with meat in his hand and the plastic one with the liquor store’s log on it. He’d gone to buy some booze. She quickly covered her gaffe. “Great minds, I see.” She offered a weak smile. “What’s your poison?”

  “Red wine for the steaks. You?”

  “I’m thinking it’s a good night for margaritas.”

  “Enjoy.” He slipped sideways, and she could really make this worse by following him, or she could get in and out as fast as possible. It still took a few minutes, and by the time she emerged, Peter was gone again. But this time, when she got back to the apartment, she saw him on the screen, broiling his steaks and potatoes in the oven, pouring himself a glass of red wine. Making her drool despite the Chinese feast spread out around her.

  As he sat down to eat, she could have sworn he glanced at the camera in the corner by the air vent. He held his glass in the air a little longer than necessary, as if saluting. He definitely winked.

  Did he know someone watched? Impossible.

  But the next day she really had to wonder because when she didn’t see Montgomery leaving the store when his shift finished, she wandered over to the bookstore, only to realize he’d slipped her again.

  He was unaccounted for over two hours. He returned with a bag of takeout, and she could have sworn he wore a smirk as he leaned in his chair, eyeing the camera.

  Oh yeah, he knew.

  Game on.

  Chapter Five

  He was in Irina’s house, facing off against the tiger.

  Again.

  He knew it was a dream, more like a flashback, one that liked to repeat itself over and over.

  Then he was in the car. The tiger leaped and somehow missed his hood. He swerved to avoid it and took off. He kept checking his rearview mirror, expecting at any second to see an orange and black cat running after him.

  Impossible. A tiger couldn’t match the speed of a car. Still, he didn’t ease up on the gas until he reached the bright lights of the city. It didn’t take much time to make the trip this time of night, although street parking proved to be a challenge. Eventually, he entered his apartment without seeing a single tiger.

  He pulled out the key. The metal was cold enough he couldn’t hold it for long. He dropped it with a clang onto the table and went to bed.

  The next day, he woke late morning. He peered out the window and saw a guy standing across from it, cigarette dangling from his lips, appearing to stare right at his window. Not that he’d see anything. The glare of light would p
revent him from seeing in. Peter kept an eye out and could have sworn the same guy in different spots smoked and watched. First in a ball cap, then a hoodie, then nothing but his bald head.

  He told himself he was being paranoid. No one was spying on him.

  He fired off a message to the people who wanted to buy the key. Let them have it. He couldn’t stand touching it for long. Funny how the fake key he’d had made, so similar in appearance, didn’t give him the same feeling. It didn’t make him shiver.

  The buyers replied with instructions, and that was when they started pulling some shit. Rather than paying half now, half on the trade, they wanted to do the whole amount only once he handed over the key. Smelled like a double cross to him. He messaged them back and said half now, or no key.

  The money arrived not long after, but the trust was gone. He wrapped the key in used panties, put it into an envelope, and mailed it to himself in the States. The return address was for a prostitute who also had a side hustle in worn garments.

  The fake was stashed in a hidey-hole. The day after he handed it over, he had a flight booked to take him home. He’d be on a plane by tomorrow night.

  That night he woke to heavy breathing. Huff. Huff. Huff.

  It reminded him of an animal. Impossible. Unless a rat got inside his apartment.

  Huff. Huff. Huff.

  He was being dumb. No one could be inside. He’d locked his door and windows. It was probably something stupid like in that segment on America’s Funniest Home Videos where the mind conjured up all kinds of weird things at sounds that turned out to be innocuous.

  Just in case, though, he reached for the gun he kept under his pillow, only to have something slam into him. Teeth grazed his throat, paws with claws pressed into his shoulders.

  In his dream, he relived over and over the unmanly whimper that emerged from him. Relived the terror.

  The tiger had found him.

  It would have been easier if it had mauled him to death then and there.

  The dream always fast-forwarded at that point until he was inside the cage. Too short to stand. A bucket sat in the corner. And most worrisome of all, the old lady stood in front of it, wrapped in a robe, hair crazy, eyes even crazier.

  But it was the things she did to him, the things she made him think he saw…

  Peter woke twisted in his sheets. Sweating. Heart pounding. Fear clenching him tight. It took him a moment to calm himself from the nightmare.

  Nothing new. Apparently quite normal given he’d gone through something traumatic. Blah. Blah. He just wanted to stop being afraid all the fucking time.

  Then again, his paranoia might save his life. He thought he was going nuts again when he convinced himself the new neighbors were spying on him. To prove himself wrong, he ran a small test. Decided to run to the liquor store, leaving Nora behind.

  As he browsed for a bottle, he’d wondered if she’d be the one following him or her beefy partner. Or he was wrong and she wasn’t spying on him, just a flirty woman—with baggage.

  However, his sixth sense proved right. He walked out of the store and startled his cute neighbor. No denying she was keeping an eye on him. The question being, was Nora following him because of his sister, or was it the people he’d screwed out of the key?

  After all, he’d received partial payment, but they never got what they paid for. They never would. He’d not suffered to fail now.

  Since he couldn’t trust anyone, possibly not even his sister, there was only one thing to do. Move on.

  First, he rolled out of bed and hit the bathroom, the one place without a camera. Did they know what he could do with his phone in there?

  The footage he’d hijacked previously now came into play. The video stream was pushed into the live feed so that whoever watched wouldn’t see what he was actually doing. Packing to leave.

  The heavy metal key, still just as shivery cold, went into an inner pocket of his knapsack, one with a zipper so it wouldn’t accidentally fall out, along with a flint and some chalk. In the larger section went his clothes, extra footwear, and protein bars. He would have taken the old book of fairytales with him; however, at its age and size, the pictures he’d stored in a cloud online would be more practical. The book itself he kept tucked inside the linen cabinet, between the folds of a towel. It would be found if someone tore his place apart, but he couldn’t bring himself to destroy it. The thing was priceless. The cover, the pages, every illustration and text done by hand. No one even suspected he had the original.

  Just like no one knew he had the real key. He’d kept them busy chasing the fake that someone finally located inside his apartment. Meanwhile, the original waited for him in a postal box back home.

  With all his things packed, including his passport with his new fake name, Peter swung the knapsack on his back and then climbed out of his window onto the fire escape. He didn’t dare use his front door. Time for a stealthy escape since he didn’t want his shadow tailing him.

  Not where he was going.

  He thought he’d made a clean getaway until the morning after his arrival in Switzerland when he woke to a weight on his chest and a purring voice that said, “Where do you think you’re going, Peter?”

  Chapter Six

  Rather than reply to her query, Peter asked one of his own. “What the fuck are you doing following me, Nora?”

  She’d yet to ease the pressure on him. It should be noted, she enjoyed the position a little more than she should. “Why did you run, Peter?

  “Maybe because I don’t like being spied on.”

  “When did you figure out I was watching you?”

  “The sandwich was when I got suspicious.”

  “Why is everyone freaking out about that damned sandwich?” Pamela had lectured her a few more times about economics and profits and other boring stuff that amounted to make the sandwiches puny or else.

  “You and that job weren’t well suited.”

  “Neither were you and yours,” she sassed right back.

  “You’re right, it wasn’t.” He grinned, a little too cute and boyish.

  She wouldn’t let him fool her again. She kept her guard up. “Most people don’t assume they’re being watched.”

  “Unless you’re a man in my position. Not to mention your cameras were less than discreet.”

  She grimaced. “The best they could manage on short notice.”

  “They?”

  “You don’t really expect me to answer that, do you?”

  “No. But you did just confirm you were hired. Hopefully with a discount given you were less than subtle.”

  The dig might have stung more if it were false. Problem was he’d intrigued her from afar and she’d wanted to get close. And now that she pinned him, she wanted to get even closer. “Subtlety is not a requirement for my job.” Not entirely true. After Arik freaked out on her, assuming she’d messed up, he’d told her to do whatever it took to find Peter and then stick to him like glue. As for Zach, he took apart the apartment Peter left behind.

  “A job for who? Who do you work for?”

  “Still not telling,” she sang, wondering when he’d attempt to get out from under her.

  “Is it my sister? Her husband?” he insisted.

  “Does it matter? It’s obvious there’s a few groups of people interested in you.”

  “And yet I am a boring guy.”

  “Hardly. Although you did a good job trying to make us think you were. How many times did you switch out the feed so you could do your thing?”

  His lips quirked. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

  “It was clever,” she admitted. “And might be handy to know in the future.”

  “A magician never reveals his secrets.”

  “You’re hardly magical,” she said with a snort.

  “And yet I eluded you and your partner numerous times. Tell me, where is the big guy? Hiding outside in the hall? Keeping the getaway car warm? Drilling a hole in the wall from the room next to this
one?”

  “It’s just me and you, Montgomery.”

  “Montgomery? And here I thought we’d reached first name status,” was his sarcastic reply.

  “Would you prefer I call you Peter? After all, you and I are about to become close friends.”

  “No, we’re not.”

  Funny because his racing heart and hard-on said otherwise. She straddled him, ignoring the cheap thrill the pressure put on her parts. “Where are you going?”

  “No idea. I got itchy feet and decided I wanted to wander.”

  “Could that wandering have to do with a certain book and key?”

  He stiffened, and not just his dick this time. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “If I could read women’s minds, I’d be rich.” he tried to joke. It fell flat.

  “Are you really going to make this hard?” And yes, she might have pressed down on him. Saw his eyes dilate, his lips part. He definitely twitched.

  He didn’t give in. “Why are you watching me?”

  “I’m the one asking questions here.”

  “Then ask ones that I can actually reply to. I know nothing about a book and key.”

  “I really wish you’d skip the lying part,” she said with a sigh. She held up the ugly, heavy key that gave her an uncomfortable shiver. She’d scrounged it out of his pack while he slept.

  His eyes narrowed in anger. “Give that back. It’s mine.

  “Is it? Or did you steal it?” She kept it out of reach when he would have grabbed it.

  “I went through a lot to get that fucking key.”

  “No kidding, given it was supposed to have been washed away when Lada dropped it into the river.” The realization hit her suddenly. “That wasn’t the real key.”

  “And if it wasn’t?”

  “Holy shit. People died because of that fake. You put your sister in danger because of it.”

  He grimaced. “It wasn’t meant to fall into her hands. I intended for it to act as a decoy to throw people off my trail.”

  “It worked.” All too well, given the people who’d died trying to get their paws on it. “And just so you know, Zach has the book.” A grimoire-style tome containing an old fairytale and an image of the highly-in-demand key.