Drawn in Blood Read online

  Moe gave a pointed snort and jumped off the bed, leaving to join the others for a long drink.

  “Thanks for taking them out,” Sloane said to Derek. “You know that when I’m in the country I take them for a jog every morning and night. But I hate running in the city.”

  “Not a problem.”

  Sloane watched as Derek guzzled a bottle of water, then stripped off his shirt and tossed it in the hamper nearby. That was the one good thing about a small apartment—everything was within reach.

  The man had a great body. There were no two ways about it. From his broad, muscled shoulders to his six-pack abs, he was as hot as they come. And he didn’t owe that body to the FBI. He owed it to the military. As a former Army Ranger, Derek still rose at dawn and worked out like a demon. When the rest of the world—and the sun—was rising, Derek was finishing up a workout that would knock most people on their asses for a week. No collapsing for him. After the workout, Derek showered, ate a PowerBar, and drove down to the FBI’s New York Field Office to start his workday.

  Tonight the two of them had cut short their regular workaholic hours. They’d quit work by six and headed over to Derek’s apartment to pack. The packing had been minimal. They’d spent most of the past few hours in bed.

  Now, Derek was bare to the waist, and, knowing the effect they had on each other, Sloane held up her palm. “Much as I’d love to see the rest of the striptease, it’ll have to wait. I ordered up Italian. It should be here in ten.”

  Derek gave her that sexy grin that made her insides melt. “We’ve burned up the sheets in five,” he reminded her. “And that included getting our clothes off. You’re already naked, and I’m halfway there. Plus, we both love a challenge.” His smile faded. “Of course, we also know that’s not the problem. The problem is you’ve used the past half hour to freak out and consider changing your mind about my moving in to your place. Kind of puts a damper on the mood.”

  Sloane blew out her breath. She wished he didn’t know her so well. “Guilty as charged,” she admitted. “And it’s not because I don’t want to live together. I just don’t want to screw things up—again.”

  “We weren’t living together when things fell apart,” he reminded her. “And you know damned well that, even if we had been, living together would have had nothing to do with what happened. We shut each other out. We let our pride outweigh our love. We won’t make that mistake twice.”

  “No,” Sloane agreed softly. “We won’t.”

  She was being ridiculous. She knew it. It had been six months since they’d found their way back to each other. They’d worked out the obstacles—at least the big ones. What they had together was unique. She loved him. He loved her. An emotional connection like theirs was rare as hell in today’s world.

  Which was why she was terrified.

  But, as Derek had just said, she loved a challenge. Living together was going to be a biggie. It meant relinquishing another piece of her freedom and lowering another protective wall.

  He was worth it. They were worth it.

  The buzzer sounded, sending the hounds into a barking frenzy.

  “Dinner’s early.” Derek walked over, tipped up Sloane’s chin, and kissed her—not just a kiss, but one of those slow, deep kisses she felt down to her toes. “Pity. We could have put those ten minutes to good use.”

  Her eyes were smoky. “I’ll owe them to you. We’ll tack them on to dessert.”

  “Deal.” Derek yanked his T-shirt back on. “I’ll get the food.”

  Sloane scooted over to get out of bed. “I’ll set the table.”

  “Don’t bother. We’ll eat out of the tins. Fewer dishes to wash, more time to pack. And whatever.” With a wink, Derek went to buzz the doorman and tell him to let the delivery kid upstairs with their food.

  Pulling one of Derek’s oversize sweatshirts on, Sloane combed her fingers through the layers of her dark shoulder-length hair, and then padded into the kitchen to grab some forks and knives. She took an extra minute to pour two glasses of Chianti.

  The wine wasn’t meant to be savored. Not tonight.

  Her cell phone rang.

  Pausing for a quick sip of Chianti, Sloane retraced her steps to the bedroom. One of her clients, no doubt. With something that couldn’t wait until morning. She was used to that. As an independent consultant with credentials as a former FBI agent and crisis negotiator, she had a client list that consisted of law enforcement agencies and companies that needed round-the-clock availability. So, adaptability in her personal life was the name of the game.

  She wondered what tonight’s interruption would be.

  Scooping her phone off the nightstand, she flipped it open. “Sloane Burbank.”

  “Sloane, it’s me.”

  “Dad?” Her brows drew together. It wasn’t that hearing from her father was unusual. She and her parents touched base a lot more since they’d moved back north to Manhattan from their Florida condo. But her father’s tone, which was normally smooth and upbeat from all his years in sales, was shaky and strained. Not to mention the disturbing background noises Sloane could make out through the phone. The institutional bustle. The clear, unwelcome echo of a doctor being paged. The sounds were sickeningly familiar.

  Her father was calling from a hospital—a setting she’d had more than her fair share of experience in.

  Her gut clenched. “Dad, what’s wrong?” she demanded. “You’re in a hospital. Why?”

  A hard swallow. “It’s your mother. She’s been hurt.”

  “Hurt—how?” Sloane was already shrugging out of Derek’s sweatshirt and rummaging around for her clothes. “And how bad is it?”

  Another swallow, as her father struggled to keep himself together. “Our apartment was robbed. Your mother must have walked in and surprised the intruders. She was tied up and knocked unconscious. The good news is that, by the time the ambulance got us to the emergency room, she was coming around.”

  “So she’s conscious?” Sloane wriggled into her bra and snapped the front clasp with her free hand, then stepped into her thong, and reached for her slacks and sweater.

  “Conscious, and in pain. I’m waiting for an update from the doctors now.”

  “Which hospital?”

  “New York Presbyterian.”

  “I’ll catch a taxi and be there in ten minutes.”

  “Wait.” Matthew interrupted her. “Ten minutes? Where are you?”

  “At Derek’s place.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of.” An uncomfortable pause. “Sloane, I need you to come alone. Not with Derek. Not with anybody. The NYPD is already handling the break-in. They’ve got detectives here asking me a hundred questions—most of which I have no answers to. The last thing I need is to escalate the situation by having an FBI agent join this three-ring circus. Your mother needs her rest. She also needs you. So do I. Please, come alone.”

  “All right.” Something about her father’s request didn’t sit right. Sloane sensed it, despite her shock and worry over her mother. She just couldn’t pinpoint what it was—not yet.

  But now wasn’t the time to argue.

  She grabbed her pocketbook. “I’m on my way.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes, Dad. Alone.”

  She snapped the phone shut and finished pulling on her sweater and buttoning her slacks. She was halfway through the bedroom door when she collided with Derek, who’d come to announce that dinner was served.

  He frowned, taking in her drawn expression and the fact that she was fully dressed. “What’s going on?”

  “My mom’s in the hospital. I’ve got to get over there.”

  He snapped into take-charge mode. “Is it serious?”

  “Someone broke into their place. She surprised them. They knocked her out. That’s all I know.”

  “I’ll go with you.” Ignoring the trays of lasagna, Derek headed for the door.

  “No—wait.” Sloane stopped him, shrugging into her coat as she spoke. “My dad
asked me to come alone. He sounds really upset. The cops are in his face, asking questions. I think he and my mom have had all they can take.”

  Derek went very still. “I’m not going to interrogate them. I’m going to offer my support. And to be there for you.”

  This was going to be tough. “I realize that,” Sloane carefully replied. “And I’m grateful. But think of it from my dad’s point of view. Right now, he doesn’t see you as my boyfriend. He sees you as yet another law enforcement official. I don’t want to upset him any more than he already is. So I’ll do it his way. He and my mom are right here at New York Presbyterian. I’ll be there in a flash. And I’ll call you with updates.”

  “Fine.” Derek wasn’t happy. But he didn’t argue. “My doorman will hail you a cab.”

  “Thanks for understanding.”

  “I don’t. I’m accepting.”

  “That works, too.” Sloane’s gaze flitted to the kitchen table. “Go ahead and eat. I’ll warm mine up when I get back.”

  “Right. Sure. Send my best to your folks.”

  “I will.” Sloane was already halfway out the door, waiting only until Derek had reined in the hounds before she took off.

  Derek shut the door behind her. He parked himself at the kitchen table but ignored the food. He wasn’t hungry. He was bugged. Sloane had a hell of a poker face. But he knew her. Something was up. What had her father divulged about the break-in that he wanted kept under wraps? It couldn’t have been too detailed, given the brevity of the conversation. Regardless, he’d managed to convey that he didn’t want Derek around. And Derek wasn’t buying in to that I’m-too-overwhelmed excuse. There was more to this whole scenario than that.

  He was still brooding when his phone rang.

  Hoping it was Sloane, he snapped up the receiver. “Parker.”

  “It’s me.”

  The “me” in question wasn’t Sloane. It was fellow agent Jeff Chiu, Derek’s friend and squad mate on the Asian Criminal Enterprise Task Force.

  “Listen,” Jeff continued in his no-BS tone. “The squad just picked up a weird conversation from our wiretap on Xiao Long’s phone. Something about finalizing a deal with an old art dealer on East Eighty-second.”

  “Shit.” Derek’s fist struck the kitchen table.

  “So I am right. I remember your mentioning that Sloane’s parents live on the Upper East Side and that her father’s a retired art dealer.”

  “Not so retired.”

  “Meaning this involves him. And you don’t sound surprised. What do you know?”

  “Only that the Burbanks’ apartment was just hit. Sloane got a call from her father a little while ago. He’s at New York Presbyterian with his wife. Evidently, she interrupted the burglary. She was roughed up and knocked out.”

  “Just knocked out?”

  “Yup. That means she didn’t see Xiao Long’s guys, or she’d be dead. That’s all I know—at least until I hear from Sloane. She’s over at the hospital now. I’m assuming C-6 will be getting official details soon. In the meantime, from what Sloane said, it sounds like the Nineteenth Precinct is all over this.”

  “I’ll have one of our task force detectives contact them and make sure they’re aware we have bigger fish to fry. But I doubt that’ll come as big news. The NYPD knows we’re closing in on Xiao Long. He’s the Dai Lo. His gang members are superfluous. If the cops want to make a couple of independent arrests, so be it.”

  “I doubt they’ll find enough to do even that. I’d bet money that Rosalyn Burbank never saw her assailants, or she wouldn’t be alive to say otherwise. That eliminates a description or an ID. And, based on the previous break-ins, there’ll be no physical evidence. All that adds up to nothing.”

  “Yeah.” A pause. “But from what Xiao Long said on the phone—this break-in wasn’t random.”

  “No,” Derek repeated darkly. “It wasn’t.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Matthew Burbank was pacing the floor of the waiting room when Sloane burst in.

  “How’s Mom?” she asked.

  “Better.” Matthew reached out and squeezed his daughter’s arm. “She’s talking a bit, and her memory is intact. The doctors want to keep her overnight just as a precaution. Hopefully, they’ll release her tomorrow.”

  Sloane blew out a relieved breath. “Can I see her?”

  “In a little while. The doctor just finished his examination.” An uneasy pause as Matthew glanced down the hall toward his wife’s room. “Now the cops are with her. After that, she’s got to rest.”

  “I’ll wait till the police leave. Then I’ll poke my head in.” Sloane studied her father’s ashen complexion and the tight lines around his mouth. There was sweat beading on his forehead, and he couldn’t seem to stand still.

  She hadn’t been imagining things. Something was wrong, something more than what she already knew.

  “Dad?” She sought his attention, drawing his gaze to hers. “What is it?”

  Another swift glance down the hall. “Let’s go for a walk outside,” he suggested. “I need the fresh air. And we need the privacy.”

  “All right.” Sloane didn’t question him. She just rode down in the elevator beside him, left the building, and waited until they were seated on a bench in a more secluded section of the hospital grounds before she spoke. “Talk to me.”

  Matthew was trembling. “I never wanted to drag you or your mother into this. I really thought it was over. Then the FBI got involved. And now the whole thing’s unraveling.”

  Sloane turned to face him. Taken aback as she was, she called upon her training, making her questions direct and keeping her approach calm and sans accusation. “What is ‘it’? And why is the Bureau involved?”

  Staring at the ground, Matthew spoke. “First, I need to know you’ll keep everything I tell you between us.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a dollar bill, which he tucked into Sloane’s hand. “You’re still licensed to practice law in New York. So that should buy your silence.”

  Sloane’s gaze lifted from the dollar bill to her father’s face. “I was a prosecutor, Dad, not a defense attorney. And that was before I joined the Bureau. But, yes, my license is current. So privilege does apply. I’m also your daughter. So I won’t repeat anything you tell me. You have my word.”

  “Not even to Derek?”

  A hard swallow. “Not even to Derek.”

  Matthew nodded. “You know how far back the art-partnership guys and I go.”

  “Of course. You’ve been tight since college.” Sloane had grown up among the group of men her father was describing. Leo Fox, Phil Leary, Ben Martino, and Wallace Johnson. The five of them, including her father, had met at NYU, formed a lifetime friendship and an equally long-standing poker game, and eventually combined their individual talents to form an art partnership that ended up making each of them comfortably successful. Wallace—formally C. Wallace Johnson III—had put up the initial capital, being that he could afford it. He came from money and had increased his wealth through his career as a successful investment banker.

  “Right.” Matthew was talking again. “Well, a little over fourteen years ago we were lucky enough to buy an Aaron Rothberg—a pretty renowned one, called Dead or Alive. Then, we got a handsome offer for it from a dealer in Hong Kong. So we flew over there to finalize the transaction—all of us except Ben and Wallace. Ben’s father had just suffered his stroke, and Wallace was tied up with a major acquisition. That didn’t present a problem. The three of us could handle it.”

  “Go on.”

  “We made the exchange. The dealer, Cai Wen, was impressed with us. He asked us to meet him the following evening at his Hong Kong office in the Kowloon district to discuss future deals. We were delighted. We showed up at the arranged time. As we arrived, we saw a young man leaving the building. He was carrying the Rothberg under his arm.”

  “A pretty quick turnover,” Sloane observed.

  “That’s what we thought. We soon found out otherwise.”
Matthew drew a ragged breath. “The office door was open. We let ourselves in. Cai Wen was lying on the floor. Half his head had been blown away, and blood was everywhere. There was never any doubt he was dead. And the only ones at the scene were the three of us—all Americans. We had to get away—fast. We had families, lives to protect. So we took off. We agreed never to discuss it again.”

  Sloane was processing this nightmare as quickly as she could. “Obviously something happened to reverse your decision.”

  “The FBI happened. Several months ago, two copies of Rothberg’s Dead or Alive appeared on the U.S. art scene—both presumably authentic. One was up for auction at Sotheby’s. The other showed up in Christie’s catalog before they learned about the discrepancy and pulled it.”

  “I remember reading about this in the paper,” Sloane said, her eyes narrowing. “Although I didn’t pay much attention at the time. I had no idea any of this affected you. I take it the Christie’s painting was the forgery.”

  “Right. The Sotheby’s painting was authenticated.”

  “And which was the painting you sold?”

  “You tell me. There are gaping holes in the provenance of both paintings. They changed hands numerous times. Receipts are missing, sales went undocumented. That’s all too typical in my business. So I have no idea if the painting we sold to Cai Wen was genuine. Or if that’s what got him killed. I only know that we believed our painting was authentic and that we had nothing to do with the murder.” Matthew rubbed the back of his neck. “The FBI’s investigation is coming to a head. Each of the guys in my partnership is being interviewed by an agent with the Art Crime Team. I’m up first. Tomorrow.”

  “Do they know about the murder?”

  “Murders are rare in Hong Kong—then and now. So I doubt it slipped by them. Whether they suspect us of being involved, I don’t know.”

  Sloane placed her hand over her father’s. “Tell them the truth.”