Buried In Buttercream

murder.”
    Savannah scowled. “Yes. We confirmed what he told you before about Ethan going to the brothel two days in a row. We verified it with the gal he saw here at Monique’s. And by the way, Monique’s a big, ugly Ruskie dude.”
    “What?”
    “Oh, sorry. Is that un-PC of me?”
    “No, well, I don’t know. But that’s a fake alibi. Ethan was walking around the halls of the hotel here at ... let me check my notes ... eight oh four, nine fifteen, ten oh eight, eleven twenty-six, and then at twelve thirty-nine. And it’s an hour drive there, right?”
    “Yes. An hour and change.”
    “Then he wasn’t there any time during the morning. He was here in town. Mostly here in the hotel.”
    Savannah turned to Dirk, her right eyebrow raised to all-new heights. “You’re very sure about this, right, babycakes? Because I have a feeling this information is gonna open a big can of whupass.”
    “Yes. I’m sure. Who’s ass is gonna get whupped?”
    But Savannah had already hung up the phone and was getting out of the car.
    “What’s up?” Dirk asked, following her.
    “My dander.”
    “Why?”
    “ ’Cause if there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s bein’ lied to. And I’m about to give that lyin’ Russian new excretory alternatives.”
    He stopped and stood there thinking about it as she stomped on toward the door. Then he ran and caught up to her. “Oh, okay. Gotcha. Need help?”
    “No, but you can watch if you wanna.”
    She pounded on the door several times before Vadim finally opened it again. He looked annoyed, but not half as angry as she was.
    She barged past him, nearly knocking him off his feet.
    “What the hell!” Vadim shouted at her. “You again?”
    “Yep, it’s her again. And me, too,” Dirk said, following her inside. “Apparently, she’s got a bone to pick with you.”
    “What bone? What pick?” Vadim said, bristling.
    Dirk opened his mouth. Closed it. Then opened it again. “Well, I’m not exactly sure, but I’ll betcha she’s gonna tell you.”
    “You’re damned right I’m gonna tell you.” Savannah stepped up to him and shook her finger in his face. “You lied to us. And you got that little gal in there to lie to us, too. Ethan Aberson didn’t come back here for a second visit the next day. He was somewhere else.”
    “No. No. He was here.”
    “Don’t you go lying to me again, you two-bit pimp. This isn’t open for debate. We’ve got videos of him in Las Vegas at the same time you say he was here. Solid proof. He wasn’t here. So why are you covering for him?”
    Having caught up to speed, Dirk stepped forward, too, an equally irate look on his face. “Do you know what you’re doing, buddy? You’re providing an alibi for a guy who’s suspected of first-degree murder. You know that? This here’s a homicide investigation you’re interfering with.”
    Vadim’s face tightened with fury as he backed away from them and around the end of the counter. “I did nothing. I said nothing to you.”
    “The guy in that photo,” Savannah said, “paid you and your girl to say he was here when he wasn’t to give him an alibi so he could murder somebody. Now, when we prove that, you’re going to be on the next boat back to Russia or wherever the hell you’re from. And something tells me you might not get a warm welcome back there.”
    “So you’d better start telling the truth,” Dirk said.
    “And you”—Vadim reached behind the counter and pulled out a butcher knife that was at least a foot long—“you leave or I cut your hearts out.”
    Savannah reached beneath her jacket at the same time as Dirk went for his own shoulder holster. In unison, they pulled their weapons and pointed them at Vadim.
    “Two guns beat a knife any day of the week and twice on a Sunday,” Savannah told him. “So you put that cheese slicer on the counter there before we blow your damned lying, pimping head off.”
    Vadim was shaking so hard and glaring at them with such pure hatred, that for a moment, Savannah thought he might go for it. She had already calculated how many rounds she could squeeze off before he was able to get around the counter. And she was pretty sure that, between the two of them, they could drop him ... big as he was.
    Just for a split second, she felt a sick, familiar feeling deep in the core of her being, raw and potent as the adrenaline surging through her bloodstream.
    She had been in a life-and-death situation like this less than one hundred