“When he’s dead,” Jack told her.
“What about if he’s convicted?” she persisted.
Was she joking? Could anyone really be that naive? Was her middle name Pollyanna or something? “When he’s dead.”
The information finally seemed to penetrate her stubborn brain, thank God. Nodding, she wiped her eyes. He, meanwhile, tried to pretend he didn’t see her crying, tried not to know that those precious tears were for him.
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“You’re not?”
He shrugged. “I’m used to it.”
“Can you ever get used to this?”
Opening his mouth, he tried to activate his voice. It took a long time. “No.”
Another nod. They stared at each other for a couple beats, neither speaking, and then she did a snort-laugh thing that had no humor in it.
“Want to hear something sad, Jack?”
“Sure. Because I haven’t had enough sadness in my day yet.”
This time her laughter was the genuine article. Quick but genuine, then gone like a streaking comet. “When I was throwing my stuff in the bag, I kept thinking I should call to let them know I’m okay—”
“Who?”
“That’s the sad part.” She looked exhausted and empty suddenly, as tragic as the sole survivor of a nuclear holocaust. “There’s no one to call other than the office, and I’m on vacation anyway. If I’m gone, they’ll replace me by the end of the week. They won’t find a better lawyer than me, but I’m thinking they’ll round up someone who doesn’t piss everyone off like I do.”
“You’re irreplaceable.”
She stared at him and he gave himself a swift mental kick in the ass.
Because he hadn’t meant to say it and definitely hadn’t meant to say it like that, with all the enthusiasm and fervor of the president-elect taking the oath of office.
Stammering, he changed the subject. “W-what happened to your parents?”
“I don’t have parents.”
“Everyone has parents.”
“Forgive me.” Her lip curled in an ugly smile, an abomination. “I never knew the man who donated the sperm on my behalf, but he was one of my mother’s”—she swallowed hard—“clients.”
No. Oh, no.
“She was a prostitute. Before she died of AIDS.”
She hitched her chin up, waiting for his reaction, daring him to feel sorry for her, and he suppressed that urge only with great difficulty. Instead, because he knew she needed it, he shrugged and finally fished a pair of boxers out of his bag.
“Forgive me if I don’t pull out my violin. We’ve all got our hard-luck tales, don’t we? Maybe we should run a contest, see who wins.”
She glared, looking as though she could happily smash his face with the butt-ugly lamp on the night-stand. After a minute, she continued.
“While my mother was, uh, busy, her younger sister watched me. But then she got into drugs and I got into trouble at school. One of my teachers called protective services. They put me in the system—”
“The system?”
“Foster care.”
“Oh.”
“I was ten.”
“Oh,” he said again because there was nothing else to say.
“I went to Washington State on an academic scholarship. And then to the University of Washington for law school.”
What else? He’d expected nothing less. This was not a woman who could be held back and he was damn proud of her for it. “Good for you.”
“Do you have family, Jack?”
Family. Looking to the plaster-chipped ceiling for some kind of divine intervention, he wondered if this night could possibly get any worse and if he could have just a few more reminders of the things he’d lost and the things he’d never have.
But God was, per his usual practice where Jack was concerned, silent.
Fine, God. Fine.
Angry again, Jack yanked the bag’s zipper closed, threw the whole thing to the floor and kicked it into the corner as he stalked to the bathroom.
“I’m taking a shower,” he called before he slammed the door.
Chapter 9
Kareem Gregory got home just as the first yellow rays of sun were cracking through the trees. Man, it was late. He checked his watch again, wondering why he hadn’t gotten a call yet from Yogi, telling him they’d dealt with Parker. He’d better hear soon.
Meanwhile, it was good to be home. It was a great crib—a Tuscan-style villa, 10,000 square feet and $ 1 million of it—in one of Cincinnati’s best neighborhoods, surrounded by a solid brick wall and security cameras.
All in Mama’s name, of course, because that was the way these things were done when you ran a string of customized auto shops, the customers often paid in cash, and the feds were therefore constantly breathing down your neck, wondering where all the money came from.
The DEA would love to seize this house. They still might. God knew they were working on it. Too bad he was always one step ahead of them.
He tried not to make too much noise and wake anyone up, not that he was creeping in. He didn’t creep, not in his own damn house.
Although … if Kira’d give him what he wanted, he wouldn’t have to step out, but Kira wouldn’t let him touch her. Why? He hadn’t been exactly honest about some of his business dealings before they got married. Hadn’t really mentioned that his auto shops didn’t account for the bulk of his income. Why should he? Did a man have to fill out a disclosure form before he got married? Hell, no. He was an entrepreneur; he owned some businesses; he had some money. That was what he’d told Kira, and that was all she needed to know.
He was a businessman. Maybe he didn’t have a college degree with his name on it, but he was a visionary, the same as Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, who had an organization with rules and layers, profits and projections and losses.
But he’d lied.
Partially because Kira had been trying so hard to escape the ugliness from her childhood that she’d never marry into a situation that might send her back down the same road. Mostly because he needed to see that innocence in her eyes, to know that she looked to him as some kind of knight with the shining armor and black stallion and shit, an honest man who would rescue and protect her.
An honorable man. That’s what she’d wanted and that’s what she’d gotten. He had ethics and principles that he lived by and that he required of those who worked for him. They just weren’t the ethics and principles that she thought.
So they’d gotten married and they’d been happy.
Two years after that, it all went to hell. Thanks to the DEA and their undercover agents, assorted snitches and entrapment, his beautiful life had gone south on an express bullet train riding greased rails, and she’d turned away.
He hated her for that.
What had happened to the for better or for worse part? Huh? Her pretty little manicured hands weren’t clean in this mess. Oh, no. She’d played her role. She’d been—what was the word?—complicit. Yeah, that was it. She’d pretended she didn’t know that drugs were paying for her house and her clothes and her college education, but she knew. She saw guns and the bodyguards, the feds and their warrants and their searches and their Big Brother routine.
Kira was complicit, the same as Carmela Soprano was complicit in Tony’s business activities, the same as Kay Corleone was complicit in Michael’s. Wives knew. They always knew. And they accepted.
So why wouldn’t Kira act like his wife?
Halfway down the hall, he heard the light jangling of tags and the click of nails on the polished floor, and met up with the stupid little dog she’d gotten while he was in the pen. Fucking beagle. She’d named the little yapper Max, which was idiotic.
But Kira liked Max, and Kareem wanted the privilege of screwing his wife again, so he pretended he liked Max, too. “Hey, doggy.”
Inside the kitchen, the smell of coffee had already alerted him that someon
e was awake. It was Kira, sitting at the built-in desk, dressed already with her curly black head bent over her homework.
Nursing.
While he’d been rotting away in federal prison, she’d been working on her degree, and getting damn good grades, too. She’d graduate soon, with high honors. He didn’t know whether to be annoyed or proud.
She ignored him for as long as possible, then troubled herself enough to look up from her notes and give him a vacant Stepford wife smile.
The blank expression irritated him like sand in the crotch of his trunks when he went to the beach, because she never looked at him the way she used to.
“Good morning,” she said, like she was glad to see him.
It was all part of the game, so he’d play. “How’s my baby girl?”
Part of the game was that she pretended that whatever he did didn’t bother her, and this worked to his advantage a lot of the time. Like now. He ran his hand over the soft fluff of her short and natural hair, soaking in the apple-fresh scent of her skin. And then, because that wasn’t enough, he leaned down and kissed the mocha satin of her cheek and pretended he didn’t feel her stiffen.
She wanted to pull away, but rejecting him outright wasn’t part of the game, so she didn’t do it.
One day, he knew, she would do it. When she’d finished her degree and could make her own financial way in the world, she’d ask for a divorce and try to break free. Even though there was no breaking free of Kareem Gregory for anyone who touched his life, no liberation for anyone, friend or enemy, until he said so (and he never said so; like Cosa Nostra, this was a lifetime thing with him and you didn’t just say See ya, Kareem and hand in your resignation letter), she would ask him for a divorce and hope he agreed.
She knew better, but she’d ask anyway.
Either way, that day was coming and the confrontation between them was as inevitable as the Mexicans trying to short him on the latest shipment of his shit.
But today wasn’t the day.
“Coffee?” She was already up and on her feet, heading to the coffeepot.
“No, thanks. What’d you do last night?”
“Studied. I thought I’d make some pancakes, if you’re hungry—”
“Maybe later. You ready for your test?”
“Yep.”
That was the game. He asked her about school; she offered to cook him something; sometimes they mentioned the weather. That was it. Whoever dropped the illusion of them being a happily married couple first, lost. Right now, they were stalemated and had been for a while.
“Later, Baby Girl.”
He left. He was almost out of the kitchen and about to head up the back steps to the bedroom, when something happened.
“Hey, cutie.” Kira was using the voice she used to save for Kareem on the dog. Fucking Max. “Hey, cutie. You want some kibble?”
Kareem paused in the doorway, hot anger seething to life in his chest, and watched her bend down, scoop up the dog, and kiss his furry forehead with the same lips she wouldn’t let anywhere near Kareem.
Kissed. The. Fucking. Dog.
Time to up the stakes.
Determined to provoke a genuine reaction out of her, he wheeled around, walked back, and did something he hadn’t done in forever: gave her the onceover that let her know what he wanted.
He let his gaze heat up several notches and ran it over her face … her titties … her hips, her crotch. Hopefully this reminded her of a couple things. That he still wanted her, for one. That she still belonged to him, for another. That he could do any damn thing he wanted to do to her and there was nothing she could do to stop him.
Nothing.
He flicked his gaze back up to her face and saw the flare of panic in her eyes before she blinked and hid it. He leaned past the dog and kissed his wife on the mouth.
If she could kiss the dog, she could damn well kiss him.
Kareem brushed his lips back and forth over hers and then slid his tongue inside the hot silk of her mouth, tasting her revulsion, her hatred, and he reveled in it. If hatred was the only true reaction he could get from her, he’d take it.
When he was good and ready, he ended the kiss, breathless now.
She was breathless, too, with a spark of heat and remembrance in her eyes.
That spark gave him hope. “How about dinner tonight?”
“I’ve got more studying—” she began, but the automatic refusal trailed off when she saw what he was doing.
“Hello, Max.” Using that same singsong, Kareem scratched the dog’s head and then under his chin. “You want to go for a walk?”
Max, the dumb canine, licked Kareem’s hand.
Kira held the dog a little closer, as though she wanted to protect him.
Unsmiling, Kareem held her gaze. “I like this little guy. You don’t mind if I take him for a walk, do you?”
Kira stared at him, comprehension making her pale. “No.”
Kareem held her gaze for an extra beat or two, just to make sure she understood. Deep down, where it counted, she needed to know who was in charge and who would always be in charge. “What were you saying about dinner?”
“Dinner sounds great.”
Bingo. The game was back on, with Kareem five points ahead.
Cincinnati
Empty.
Marian Barber shook the bottle again, just to make sure, because it was early and she hadn’t slept well and, let’s face it, she didn’t think well until she’d had her first morning dose of her pills, but the bottle remained stubbornly empty.
Oh, God. No pink tablets. No OxyContin. None. Oh God Oh God Oh God.
Panic made her lash out. She hurled the bottle across the room, where it hit the slate shower tile and ricocheted to the floor with a clatter loud enough to wake the dead.
Frozen and panting, Marian waited and hoped Dwayne hadn’t heard.
Just wait. Just wait. Just—
“Marian?” called Dwayne’s sleepy-hoarse voice from the bedroom. “You okay?”
Shit.
Hurrying to the bathroom door, she peeked out and saw her husband levered up on his elbows in the middle of the rumpled bed, with slashes of weak sunlight across his bare chest from the drawn blinds.
“I just dropped a bottle,” she told him. “Go back to sleep.”
“Come back to bed.” He reached out a hand to beckon her.
Jesus Christ. Marian tried to tamp down her sudden rage, but it was hard because her skin was crawling and she could barely stand still. Under her armpits she could feel the steady trickle of clammy sweat, and cramps were starting low in her belly; in another minute or two she’d have diarrhea foul enough to melt the toilet. Drop dead, she wanted to say, but she kept her voice sweet and tried to sound like his offer was remotely tempting.
“Can’t.” Something invisible with icy fingers skittled up her spine and she shivered, crossing her arms over her chest and trying to conserve body heat so the shivers wouldn’t turn into shakes. “I’ve got to take my car in for an oil change this morning, remember?”
“Take it to the dealership. That quicky lube place can’t handle a Land Rover.”
“I will,” she said.
Brilliant, asshole.
Here she was, about to crawl out of her skin and quite possibly tear the house apart in her desperation for some relief, and the clueless idiot she’d married, Sherlock Fucking Holmes, wanted to get serviced, and then he wanted the car serviced, too.
If she tried, she couldn’t hate him more. For sleeping like a baby when she couldn’t keep her mind from churning about how she’d divert more money from their accounts, how she’d cover up another diversion and then, assuming she got that far without discovery, where she’d get more Oxy.
Back in the bathroom, she clicked on the light so she could see better and caught sight of a haggard figure in the mirror. She paused, gripping the sink for support.
Was that her?
Death warmed over didn’t really cover it. She’d have t
o get a little color in her face to look that good. She looked sweaty and gray—yes, gray—with ringed and sunken eyes that looked like they belonged to a cadaver. Her silky brown hair was wild around her face, brittle, and she had the haunted, feral appearance of an escaped convict with bloodhounds baying at her ankles.
God, she needed the Oxy. Her hair could be fixed once she had the Oxy. Everything would be fine once she had the Oxy.
Dropping to her knees on the cold tile, she scuttled for the bottle, ignoring the protest in her aching back, the painful slipped disk that had started her down this road in the first place. She took the bottle and shook it. Held it up to the light just to be sure.
Empty. Still empty.
Crouching back on her heels, she tried to think. Dwayne. That bastard had taken her shit. That was it, wasn’t it? He knew how good it made her feel, how it boosted her through her endless days listening to Mommy-this and Mommy-that and trying to be everything to every fucking body, and he wanted some for himself.
That was it. That was what was going on here. She’d kill him for this.
She surged to her feet and lunged for the door, and then a memory hit her.
She’d come in to use the bathroom last night. She hadn’t felt so hot. She’d chewed those last two Oxys and washed them down with tap water. This was her fault.
She braced her hands on the sink again and, lowering her head, sobbed silently until long strands of spit ran from her mouth to the bowl. Maybe the pharmacy would—
No. The pharmacy wouldn’t. She knew that. The doctor had prescribed a thirty-day supply of the shit and she’d chewed and swallowed her way through the tablets in—she ran through it in her mind, trying to count—six days. Only six days? Yeah. It’d been the day she took the girls for their checkup, and that was six days ago.
If she went to the pharmacy, they’d call the doctor.
If they called the doctor, he’d know.
Help. She needed help.
This was the time to tell Dwayne that she might have a problem. That she’d been taking several tablets a day even though she hadn’t had any serious pain in months. That she might be a little out of control.
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