A Breath Away

She shrugged. “Yeah.” She didn’t feel whole without a side piece, though. She felt vulnerable. Exposed. Alone.

Shaking off the thread of irritation, she finally dropped into the chair in front of Lucas’s desk and crossed her booted ankles. “What’s this case about?” For double her usual fee, there had to be more to it than “provide protection, investigate the crime.”

“A favor for a friend.”

“What friend?”

“The friendly kind.”

She smirked. “Cute. Where did you meet this friend?”

Lucas grinned, and his green eyes lit with an obviously favorable memory. “A bar. Yours, in fact.”

“Beau’s?”

“You own another bar?”

She frowned, ignoring the pang of grief that had never fully faded—even more than a decade after her parents’ murders. Beau and Katy Broussard had been a staple of the bluesy French Quarter. Their deaths had completely changed the course of Jade’s life. She’d inherited the bar, and eventually gotten vengeance on their killer, but she didn’t have them—their laughter, their touch or their guidance. Revenge had been a hollow victory, just as she’d been warned it would be.

Normally she liked verbal sparring with her cousin, but if this case was somehow connected to her personally—through Beau’s or her past—she didn’t intend to waste time with chitchat.

“Who’s the friend, Lucas?” she asked, her tone hard.

“Remington Tremaine.”

Jade fought a flinch, but apparently didn’t quite pull it off, since Lucas nodded.

“He said you’d know him.”

Her mouth had gone dry, but she forced herself to think fast. Tremaine was not someone she wanted anywhere near her cousin. Dangerous didn’t even begin to describe the man. “How long ago did you meet him?”

“Three years ago. We bonded over a glass or two of Southern Comfort, and he’s been a client ever since. His family has old San Francisco money, mostly from real estate and vineyards, but Remy loves art.”

No doubt stolen.

“I’ve arranged for the sale of some beautiful and rare pieces over the past few years,” Lucas continued.

While Lucas watched closely for her reaction, Jade simply nodded. Though she knew her cousin had a not-so-stellar past with the law, he’d long ago gone straight. These sales were legit.

Of course they are. Who’d suspect a genteel, handsome-as-sin art collector of anything more serious than spending more on wine than a car?

And wasn’t that precisely the point?

“What happened to Tremaine?” she asked.

“He was shot outside a restaurant here in Midtown two nights ago.”

A thousand thoughts rushed her brain instantly, and she fought to find one question she could ask. “How bad?”

“The bullet grazed his arm. He’s fine.”

“Which restaurant?”

“Plush.”

Jade finally managed to shake off the shock of hearing Tremaine’s name. “Plush?”

“A happening place for the idle rich and semifamous.”

“Naturally.” The bastard would fit right in.

“You’ll be able to see for yourself. The whole thing is on videotape.”

Jade raised her eyebrows. “You have a videotape of the shooting?”

“The police do.”

“And how did you find that out?”

“Not from the cops. The restaurant manager told Remy.”

“Convenient. What about press coverage?”

“Light. Unfortunately, a shooting isn’t big news in Atlanta unless somebody famous is involved. This particular restaurant insisted the cops keep everything quiet and had the pull to make it happen. ‘A local diner was shot last night’ was as much as the media got.”

Something positive in this mess, and yet the most important question was as yet unanswered. They might as well get to it. “Who suggested hiring me—you or him?”

“You know him from…before, don’t you?”

Jade shook her head. Her past was something Lucas knew she didn’t—couldn’t—discuss.

Eyeing her, he stroked his chin. “He asked me to hire you. He called from the hospital emergency room, in fact.”

“You’re that close?”

“No.”

Her cousin was a smart man. Brilliant, in fact. He’d sensed way more than was wise for him. He had a nice life and a beautiful new wife. He didn’t need the complications Tremaine had laid at his doorstep.

Some friend.

“He’s not really an art dealer, is he?” Lucas asked into the charged silence.

No. No, he certainly wasn’t.

Remington Tremaine was many things—arrogant and bold high among them. He was sneaky and obsessively private. He flouted rules and codes, and seemed to operate by a morality that made no sense to anyone but him. He was obscenely handsome and knew it. He was a dark mystery, the kind that inspired feminine sighs of longing and male snorts of envy. The kind whispered about by the very few who knew his true history.

The two most important things Jade knew about him, however, were the two things she absolutely couldn’t share with Lucas. One, Remington Tremaine was a former international art and jewel thief. And two, he currently was an undercover agent with the National Security Agency.