He glanced at the grandfather clock. Quarter after three. His mother would still be at her Wednesday bowling league, but Grams was either at home or her boyfriend’s down the street. Since she’d just texted this message, she was probably available to read his response right now.
He began tapping the keypad on his smartphone.
Grams, I’m not a slab of...
The desk phone jangled. Why Val LeRoy, his brother’s wife and P.I. partner, insisted on keeping this dinosaur landline service was beyond his understanding.
“Brax,” yelled Drake from the back office, “get that? I’m on another call.”
Braxton lifted the handset, mentally cursing the tangled phone cord that tied him like a leash to the phone.
“Morgan-LeRoy Investigations,” he answered, staring at his unfinished text message to his grandmother. Sounded hostile. Not good. He punched the back arrow to erase letters.
Grams, I’m...
“My apologies,” a man said, “I thought I dialed Diamond Investigations.”
The caller had a strong Russian accent, which brought back bad memories. Although he detected a faint, almost imperceptible British lilt, which he’d never heard in any of Yuri’s crowd.
“The agency name changed to Morgan-LeRoy Investigations last October,” Brax explained, waiting in case the man had questions about the former owner, Jayne Diamond. Sometimes callers didn’t know Jayne had died last October after a brief illness or that she’d bequeathed the agency to her protégé, Val LeRoy, and Val’s husband, Drake Morgan, Braxton’s identical twin brother.
“Ah, I see. I would like to speak to Mr. Morgan, please.”
Probably meant his brother, as Braxton had only come on board recently as a security consultant. “Drake is on another call. I can transfer you to his voice mail.”
Adjusting the sleeve of his blue-striped Armani shirt, he frowned at the phone, wondering if he knew how to do that. He tapped a button on the phone console that apparently turned on the speakerphone, because when the caller spoke again, his voice echoed through the outer office.
“Braxton Morgan,” the man clarified. “I wish to speak to Braxton Morgan.”
Brax hesitated. The Russian thing... Nah, he’d let the paranoia pass. Couldn’t afford to turn down an inquiry for his consulting services. He set the handset on the desk and leaned back in the swivel chair. “Speaking.”
“Excellent! My name is Dmitri Romanov, but my friends call me Dima. I am calling on behalf of my community. We would like to retain your services to help us.”
“Which community?”
“The Russian community.”
Which was a large one in Las Vegas, at least three thousand people. Didn’t mean this call had anything to do with Yuri. “The problem?”
“We are concerned about our image and our ability to run legitimate businesses because of recent negative publicity regarding one individual. We want to know where he spends his time in Las Vegas and if he is still conducting criminal activities. His name is Yuri Glaz—”
“You called the wrong guy,” Braxton snapped, wishing he’d listened to his instincts and canned this call. “Got problems with Yuri? Call the cops. Better yet, call the D.A., who I hope skewers that bastard to the wall at his trial next month.”
Drake strode into the room. To the caller, he said, “Give us a minute.”
He tapped the mute button so he could talk to Brax privately. Dressed in dark trousers, a dress shirt and their dad’s tailored gray jacket, Drake rubbed his palm across his forehead. He wore his hair in a buzz cut, which only men with great-looking skulls could get by with, something Braxton learned when he was forced to buzz his hair, too, last August when he and Drake switched places. These days, Braxton’s dark brown hair had grown back and bad in a short faux-hawk cut, which in his humble opinion made him look like Adam Levine.
“Maybe we should hear this guy out,” Drake said.
“Over my dead body.”
“Information is power.”
Brax got the message. By hearing what this Dmitri guy had to say, they’d learn whatever dirt he might have on Yuri. If it was muddy enough, they could pass it on to the D.A. who could sling it at the upcoming trial.
He pressed the speaker button.
“Sorry, Dmitri, for my reaction,” he said, adopting a more professional tone, “although you probably understand why.”
“Certainly, Braxton. I, too, am upset with Yuri’s unscrupulous ways. I am a respected businessman, ready to fund a significant venture, and I do not wish Yuri’s reputation or his current activities to stand in my way. I am prepared to pay you well for your investigative efforts.”
Braxton looked at the north-facing window and the steady stream of cars traveling along Graces Avenue, their hum like white noise. Sometimes there was only one way out of a problem, and that was to go straight through the messy dead center of it.
“I’m interested in the case,” he said, giving his brother a here-we-go look. “Fill me in on the details.”
“As you undoubtedly know all too well, Yuri is currently awaiting trial and under house arrest. An interesting phrase, house arrest, because with a little creativity and a GPS jammer, those ankle bracelets can slip on and off like a cheap bangle. Rumors are Yuri continues to loan-shark through a check-cashing store and fence goods hijacked from trucking companies.” He exhaled heavily as though blowing out smoke from a cigarette. “We want you to investigate these rumors. If true, the community needs to distance themselves from these enterprises and advise the authorities that none of us are involved. If they are false, we can proceed with a clear frame of mind.”
Braxton leaned back in his chair, wondering why the court had thought a bracelet could stop a guy like Yuri. “This will require two investigators, my brother and myself, each at one-hundred-seventy-five an hour, plus expenses.”
Drake cocked a questioning eyebrow. At Morgan-LeRoy, the hourly rate varied depending on the case, but it had never topped $125.
After a beat, Dmitri said, “That is acceptable. Is one-fifty per diem sufficient for expenses?”
“This is Vegas, Dima, not Boise.”
Dmitri chuckled. “Boise, my friend, is poised for a new era of entrepreneurship. Did you know China is establishing a state-of-the-art technology zone south of Boise?”
No, Brax didn’t know. But he was catching on that this Dmitri fellow was knowledgeable, educated and loaded. As in money. Lots of it.
“Three hundred a day for expenses,” Braxton said, making a rolling-dice gesture to his brother, “plus an additional two hundred each for vehicle rentals.”
For the next few moments, he listened 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.
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