Undercover Lover by Jamie K. Schmidt

details, then you’ve got to go to Nikolai’s.” He was trying not to be distracted by her luscious mouth and the black curls that the wind kept blowing in her face. Those frank blue eyes seared something deep inside him. He felt a hard coil of lust that shocked him as much for its timing more than anything.
    “That’s a hard bargain. Are you going to take off your sunglasses when we get inside?”
    He shook his head. “My eyes are all red and puffy from crying. It blows my tough guy shtick.” And she might just recognize him from something other than high school, which would blow his cover.
    “All right. I’ll see you there. Just one drink.”
    Good luck with that, he thought as he closed the door and watched her pull away. He scanned the parking lot and the other mourners. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He nodded at the two plain-clothes detectives that were on the murder case. They were standing next to his partner. Mark and Drake were Vice, not Homicide. Nikolai’s case was better off in the murder cops hands. Yet, he couldn’t shake the feeling that even if they caught the punks that had broken into Nikolai’s house and beaten him to death with a baseball bat, they wouldn’t be able to tie it back to Oksana.
    He sauntered over to the detectives. “Did you pick up Vadim Fomin?”
    “Not your case, Logan.”
    “Peace, McNally. I come in peace.” Drake held out his hands. “Cut me a break. We just buried my godfather.”
    “Yeah, sorry for your loss.”
    Mark gave him a man hug and pounded him on the back. “Nikolai rocked, man.”
    “We’re going to hunt down the animals that did it,” the other detective, Johanssen, said. “Unfortunately, Fomin has an alibi.”
    “Of course, he does.” Drake kicked the dirt.
    “Actually, this one is water tight. He was in police custody for resisting when they went to ask him about the doctor’s complaint.”
    “It’s not his style anyway,” McNally said as he unwrapped a stick of gum and crammed it in his mouth. “We’d never have found Nikolai, or he’d have been floating in the river.”
    “One thing you should know,” his partner said. “I don’t know if you checked your messages.”
    Drake shook his head.
    “The two scumbags that attacked Nikolai’s doctor? They’re pressing charges against her.”
    “For what?” Drake exploded.
    “Assault. Claims she tasered one for no reason and then beat the snot out of the little one.”
    “Seriously, they’re going to pin the beating they got on Pam? That’s going to put their reps in the toilet. Who put them up to it?”
    “I dunno, but the marshal is going to serve her papers tomorrow.”
    “I got news for you,” McNally said. “She ain’t going to survive to go to court.”

Chapter Seven
    P am stopped by her office on the way to the wake. Anything to put off going to the bar and saying goodbye to a friend. Sitting on top of her desk, along with the rest of her mail, was a plain, brown package. It was addressed to her, but didn’t have a return address on it.
    She sat down at her desk and used her letter opener to peel off the wrapper. A card was placed on the box. She opened it up and was glad she was sitting down.
    “I’m sorry to hear those thugs gave you a hard time. I’ll take care of it. Please accept this gift. It was hand carved and painted in Russia. I’ll show you a trick when I see you next week. Sincerely, Nikolai Egorov”
    “Nikolai,” Pam said sadly. She looked at the postmark on the wrapper. He’d sent it the day he died. Fingers shaking, she opened the box. It was a set of matryoshka dolls.
    The doll was painted wearing a red and black peasant dress with a red babushka covering her hair.
    “I know this trick,” she said, twisting the wood to separate the top half from the bottom half of the doll. As expected, a slightly smaller doll painted and carved in exact detail was there. It repeated for four other dolls. The fifth doll was a tiny version of the previous