Page 4 of Deader than Dead

I offered her a smile and ignored the way her gaze drifted over my sweat-soaked T-shirt before dropping to the pair of shorts I wore. Millicent Hutchins had made no secret of being a bit of a cougar, and if I’d been remotely straight, I could definitely have done worse. “I’ll bear that in mind,” I said. “Luckily, I’m not planning on dropping dead any time soon.”

“I should hope not,” she said. “Whatever would I find to look at?” I gave her the laugh she was expecting. “Well… I better get going. I don’t want Henry Hutchins to be late for his grooming appointment. He’s looking quite unkempt, don’t you think?”

The dog looked exactly the same as he always looked, but I nodded obligingly and hung around to offer a wave before pushing my door open and going inside. I’d always wanted a dog myself. Not a chihuahua, though, or any other dog that needed carrying around. Something a bit more substantial, like a Doberman or a Rottweiler. I made my way straight to the shower, hoping the hot water would make me feel less like I’d just done ten rounds in the boxing ring with one of the greats.

I’d gotten as far as peeling my T-shirt over my head and turning the shower on to warm up when my phone rang. I immediately stiffened, only relaxing when I realized it was Bruno Mars, and not Debussy filling my eardrums. Pop music meant my personal phone rather than the one I used for work. I snatched it up before it went to voicemail, my sister wasting no time on greetings. “Thought you weren’t going to answer.”

I rolled my eyes. “Lovely to hear from you too, Vic. Excuse me for not walking around with my phone in my hand and waiting for your call every minute of every day.”

“You’re excused. We’re doing dinner tonight.”

“Oh, we are, are we?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” I already knew the answer, though. It meant she’d split up with her boyfriend, which I couldn’t say I was exactly sad about, given how much of a dick he’d been on the occasions when I’d met him. Not rude exactly, but definitely verging on self-obsessed, and rather too ready to drop my sister at a moment’s notice if anything more interesting came up. Not that he phrased it quite like that, but to me it had been obvious. Vic and I had an agreement to be there for each other whenever one of us went through a break-up, regardless of who ended the relationship. It was one advantage in there only being a couple of years separating us, and I guess to me being gay.

Only when she’d given me the name of the restaurant and the time to meet her there did I get to take my shower, the water having gone way past the point of warming up to the bathroom being full of steam.

I felt better after scrubbing myself clean. At least until I came out of the bathroom to the faint strains of Debussy from beneath a pile of clothes. I toweled my hair dry while I listened to it ring. It stopped, only to start up again less than a minute later. On the fourth such occasion, I strode across the room and snatched it up. “What part of I’m taking a break for a couple of weeks wasn’t clear? It’s been , Baker, not two weeks, two days.”

“Your phone is still switched on.”

I pulled a face at the truth of the statement. No doubt if a psychiatrist ever got their hands on me, they’d be able to tell me exactly what that meant. Until they did, I was going to pretend I’d simply forgotten to switch it off. “What do you want?”

“I’ve got a job for you.”

“I refer you to my earlier statement about taking a couple of weeks off. Surely, even I deserve the occasional holiday?”

“You do.” Baker was aiming to be soothing, his voice lowered to a timbre I rarely heard from him. “And you can once you’ve done this job.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “What’s so important about it, it can’t wait?”

“You’d have to ask them.”

“Them?”

“No names until you agree to take it. You know the rules.”

I did. I’d even insisted on some of them. They were rules designed to protect both parties from repercussions. “Tell them to get someone else.”

“I already did.”

I frowned. “And?”

“They were insistent on it being you. Said they needed someone local with an excellent reputation, that they didn’t want to have to fly someone in, that time was of the essence.”

“Why the rush?”

“I don’t know. You’d need to ask them that.”

Seconds ticked by while I fought the urge to tell Baker where he could stick his job. I needed the break, my last job having proved tricky. Tricky, as in, I’d come far too close to ending up in the arms of the law, and not in a good way. We both knew the question I was about to ask, though. “How much?”

Baker named a big enough sum that I let out a low whistle. “What do they want stealing, the crown jewels?”

He gave a humorless laugh. “Nothing so complex.”

With that amount of money, I could take a month off. Hell, I could take two or three off. I could go on a proper holiday. Somewhere tropical. A nice beach hut in the Maldives, or a five-star hotel in the Caribbean. Perhaps Vicki would be up for coming with me if she could get the time off work. What better way for her to get over her dick of an ex-boyfriend than to sit next to the pool and get a tan while she sipped cocktails. And while she did that, perhaps I could get a bit of bedroom action. A beautiful bronzed sex god with a dick that just wouldn’t quit would do. My sex life had certainly been nothing to write home about lately. “When do they want it done?”

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