Free Whiskey Sour by Liliana Hart

next girl, but I had plenty of testosterone in my life at the moment. I didn’t need more, and there was a part of me that wondered if Savage had somehow sensed there was something going on between me and Nick and was just being overly admiring to get a rise out of a potential rival. I was pretty sure FBI agents were trained to pick up subtle clues. Men were known to get involved in pissing contests over the stupidest things. Not to mention Nick’s threat about never finding the pieces echoed in my mind.
    “Can I get you a drink , Agent Savage?” Kate asked, breaking the tension.
    “Coffee if you have it. Black, ” Savage said. “Thank you.”
    Kate brought the coffee back and we all settled back in our seats. Savage’s pants rose as he sat back and I got a glimpse of the most colorful socks I’d ever seen. They were such a clash with his staid suit that all I could do was close my mouth before he caught me staring. They were multicolored stripes of bright blues, pinks and purples, and yellow skulls were printed right over the ankles. The socks didn’t make Agent Savage less dangerous, but they sure made him a hell of a lot more interesting.
    “I assume everyone has been brought up to speed,” he said, handing out new file folders to each of us. At our nod, he took out photos of the gems that had been in the package Christian DeLuce had purchased and laid them out on the coffee table. It was hard to look at anything other than the main attraction—the Heart of Ivan was stunning, even in a photograph.
    “Along with the emerald,” Savage said, “There were dozens of first quality loose diamonds that totaled more that forty-two carats. There were also assorted colored gems that bring a lesser value, but were still of good quality. I’ve given you an itemized list, and the short of it is that Christian DeLuce got a hell of a deal here.”
    “Do you suspect him?” Nick asked. “I’m assuming if the gems never reappear then DeLuce won’t be out the cash?”
    “You’re right,” Savage said. “And we’ve run an initial check on him, but he appears to be clean. It’ll take some time to dig deeper. Did you suspect him for the Malikov murder?”
    “ At first. But if he claimed the gems were stolen and collected his fee back, he’d never be able to use them in his designs. A man like Christian DeLuce isn’t one to let his creations sit unnoticed. Besides, he had a rock solid alibi. Thousands of people saw him in Salt Lake City at an international jewelry expo. We also haven’t found anything inconsistent with his financials suggesting he might have paid someone to do the deed.”
    “I’ll be honest,” Savage said. “We’re leaving Malikov’s murder up to you guys. We don’t have the time or the manpower. It’s the gems we care about. This has the potential to be an international pissing contest if Russia doesn’t get that emerald back. But we’re going to have some overlapping in the investigations, so it’s probably best to work together.”
    “Fine with me,” Nick said.
    Savage nodded and continued. “For two weeks we’ve kept in touch with pawnshops and some private collectors who keep us informed of underground auctions, but we haven’t heard anything about the gems being sold. It’s like they never existed, which means whoever killed the courier and took them didn’t do it for money. At least not initially. They can afford to sit on them and wait until the right time to unload the product.”
    Savage took another picture out of his folder and tossed it in the m iddle of the other pictures. I sucked in air and my fingers tightened on the edge of my seat at the sight of another body. This one was of a woman, and she hadn’t met death easy.
    She’d been beautiful before her life had been taken. Her dark brown hair was long and silky, spread out like eerie tentacles on the gray carpet beneath her. She was young—really young—maybe a year or two over twenty, and her skin was smooth