by AJ Nuest
Yes, he’d done his best to reassure her. Kept repeating she didn’t need to worry. They were almost at the house and he’d stick with her every step of the way. But with the heavy sleet icing the back windshield, it’d been impossible to tell if they were being followed.
Not that the limited visibility had stopped her from repeatedly checking over her shoulder. Or from fighting a serious case of the willies as if a hot, thick breath panted against the back of her neck.
And now a cop. Answering the door of Smith Manor.
For God’s sake, what was next? Asteroid shower? Alien invasion? “Hi. Is Eden Smith here?”
Though not as tall as Xander, the dude came off just as buff. Dark wavy hair nearly grazing the black suit jacket idolizing his broad shoulders, thick five o’clock shadow and a set of piercing blue eyes that belonged in glossy spread advertising men’s high-end cologne. Toss in that easy cool he was rocking, and most people probably assumed he was the front man for whatever band hovered near the Billboard Top Ten.
Too bad for him, when it came to sniffing out someone with a badge, her nose was more reliable than a Best in Class Bloodhound.
He crossed his arms. “What’s the password?”
Oh, come on. She hesitated. Was he for real?
“I swear to God, you really need to let that go.” Eden entered the front hall behind him, slender and gorgeous as ever in a black, turtleneck sweater dress, her shiny, auburn coils bouncing against her shoulders, black stiletto boots hugging her calves just below the hem.
Xander dodged onto the recessed front stoop and out from under the rain as she neared, his army duffle slung over one shoulder and Charlie’s bags dangling from his hands.
Eden’s focus flicked between them and her face broke into a wide grin. Slipping past cop-rocker guy, she yanked Charlie over the threshold and straight into her arms. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
Tears threatened as her light floral perfume wafted past Charlie’s cheeks, filled with memories as hauntingly familiar as Eden’s hug. Well, damn… What was it about being reunited with old friends that consistently turned her into a blubbering pile of goo?
Charlie’s eyes slipped closed as she drew a deep breath, regret, nostalgia, admiration and a whole cluster of other girly emotions she couldn’t name joining hands and squatting at the base of her throat. “Me too, E. I’m so sorry about Malcolm.” She hugged Eden tighter. “And Viv. Are you okay?”
“I’m good. Actually, I’m better than good.” Eden spoke quietly, her hold on Charlie firming every bit as hard before she stepped back, the watery shine in her jade eyes a complete contradiction to her smile. “But I’m really glad it’s over.”
“I bet.” Geez, she was right. Charlie ran her gaze over Eden’s face. She was doing better than good. In fact, the woman was practically glowing.
A blink, and the glittering moisture in Eden’s eyes grew even more pronounced. She clenched Charlie’s shoulders and gave her a gentle shake. “It’s been too damn long, Charlie. I mean it. Promise me now that you’re here, you won’t wait another ten years to come back.”
Whoa. That was a tad gushy. Especially considering the source. “Okay, now you’re just freaking me out.”
Eden had never been the sentimental type. If anything that had been Charlie’s department, and generally speaking, only when things got crazy bad and someone’s pain closed in on critical mass. “Wait, are we having a moment?” Charlie pointed at the tiled floor between them. “Is that what’s happening here?”
Eden laughed again, her palms slipping down Charlie’s arms. “I think so. Weird, huh?”
“Super weird.” Yep, something about Eden was definitely different. Something Charlie couldn’t quite put her finger on, and the really confusing part was she didn’t know if she should be concerned. Or jealous.
A frown creased Eden’s brow, and she tipped her head. “You still have those same fantastic eyes. God, I always hated the way they gave you an unfair advantage. I swear, all you ever had to do was bat your lashes, and people got so distracted you could take whatever you wanted.”
Charlie smirked. Now that sounded like the Eden she’d always known.
“Careful, E. Staring into those beauties continues to bring on all sorts of trouble.” Xander eased Charlie’s coat off her shoulders, and tingles flooded her skin as he gathered her hair and smoothed it down her back.
He handed her coat to the cop along with his leather jacket, who then draped both garments over the bags they’d stacked by the stairs.
So-o-o did that make Sergeant Sexy Pants a guest? Charlie chewed the inside of her cheek. Security for the funeral or maybe a personal bodyguard Eden had hired after Malcolm’s murder?
“Holy shit, X. Getta load of you.” Propping her hands on her hips, Eden stood back and scanned Xander from head to toe. “Damn, you sure filled out nice.”
The cop crossed his arms, but when Charlie glanced his way, he winked. Whoever he was, Eden sure seemed comfortable enough around him to speak without a filter.
Hold on a second… Charlie took a second, better look at him through her lowered lashes, formulating and discarding several different options. Xander had said Eden was involved with someone. Like, seriously involved.
But a member of the Chicago Police Force? Hell to the no. That concept cart-wheeled straight from weird into Ripley’s Believe It or Not.
“Thanks, E.” A grin crinkled the corners of Xander’s eyes. “It’s amazing what regular meals and clean living can do for a guy.”
“Well, get in here and give me a hug.” She waved him forward and Charlie’s jaw nearly hit the floor as light refracted off the three carat diamond solitaire weighing down the ring finger of her left hand.
Panic jabbed her stomach, and Charlie snapped her eyes back to the cop. And the way he bobbed his chin, the deep chuckle rumbling in his chest… Damn, forget Ripley’s. They’d just veered into release the kraken territory.
“I can’t wait to introduce you to the gang.” Squeezing Xander’s upper arms, Eden eased out of their hug and opened her hand toward the main attraction of Charlie’s guessing game. “Starting with my fiancé, Detective Kelly Riordan.”
Xander jerked as if a puppet master had yanked on his strings, but Charlie was having a hard enough time just feeling her legs.
Wow, the poor thing. Over a decade of pretending to be all those women in her closet, and Eden had finally lost her damn mind.
“That’s great, E.” Nice. Charlie cleared her throat. Her words couldn’t have come off more plastic had she slipped a quarter into a toy-filled bubble gum machine and cranked out her response. “I’m so happy for you.”
Canting to the side, she jammed her elbow into Xander’s ribs.
“Oh, right, right.” He smiled and thrust his hand toward the detective. “Congratulations. To you both.”
Eden’s husband-to-be accepted Xander’s handshake, eyes on Eden as the two of them shared a quiet laugh. “You nailed it, all right.” Shifting his attention back to Charlie, he left off pumping Xander’s arm. “She had it a few seconds ago, just like you said.”
“That’s because woman are smarter than men, Detective. Especially at reading relationship cues.” Eden grinned and wound her arm through Charlie’s, turning her toward the living room. “Come on. There are some important people I want you to meet. A lot has changed since the last time we spoke.”
And a ghost pepper was only a tad spicy.
“Really.” Charlie lifted a brow. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“Adder show up?”
Eden glanced at Xander, trailing behind them and shoulder to shoulder with her fiancé. “I initiated contact, but never heard back.” She waved off his question. “I would love it if he surprised us but, at this point, I’m not even sure he got my message.”
They stepped inside the room, and Charlie’s breath caught so quick a strangled squeak eked from her throat.
Oh, no. No,
no, her crazy had already been maxed out for the day.
Two…three…at least five officers of varying rank mingled near the buffet table, standing before the picture window on the left side of the room.
So, what? Eden hadn’t just gotten engaged to a cop, she’d invited the whole damn precinct to the funeral? Why?
Asteroid shower…asteroid shower…
But no such luck.
Eden’s wrist caught on Charlie’s elbow, and she turned, locking onto Charlie’s face. But that couldn’t be right. Dammit all, Smith Manor was the one place Charlie had been counting on to be safe. Where she could disappear for a while and not have to worry about what nightmare might show up next. They were supposed to be friends and, instead, Eden had brought them face to face with the enemy?
“Before you go postal, I swear, I haven’t snapped.” Eden blocked Charlie’s view of the guests, holding up her palm as if Charlie was about to spout a bunch of wild accusations. Which she totally was. “I know what you’re thinking but, I promise you, everyone here is on our side.”
Yeah, right. Charlie rolled her eyes. That comment was not only ridiculous, it flew so wide of its target, it pinged around like a stray bullet, ricocheting back and forth inside her head.
The woman needed to get real. Even if, by some fat chance, she’d decided to hit the straight and narrow, Xander hadn’t. Eden knew that, so why would she set him up this way? Charlie gritted her teeth. Not to mention, only three short days ago, she could’ve easily been charged with breaking and entering. For crying out loud, the carry-on Xander had stacked near the stairs held a portable drive containing Ryan’s latest formula and a stolen laptop worth over five grand.
Xander’s index finger wound around her pinkie, and Charlie peeked up at him as he squeezed a warning.
This was bad. It was very, very bad.
“Listen, I didn’t have a choice or I would’ve gone about this a completely different way.” Eden’s eyes darted between them. “But I trust these people. More than you know. They won’t judge you and I ask that you don’t judge them. Just give it some time and you’ll see.”
How nice for them. Everyone here could take from now until the next millennium for their little love-in and it wouldn’t change a thing. They caught wind of what she’d been up to, and Charlie could say goodbye to ever seeing Ellis again.
No. Not happening. Not while she held the power to change it.
She spun for the hall just as Eden’s detective appeared on her right, settling his palm on her lower back. He bumped his chin toward an older woman occupying a wingback chair in the corner—half-glasses perched on the end of her nose, short gray hair framing her cheekbones and her crisp black suit creased to within an inch of its life.
“The cap knows what Eden does for a living, and if she was gonna have anyone arrested, it’s guaranteed she would’ve already done so a few weeks back.” He eased his hand around Eden’s waist and pulled her to his side. “But I’m not gonna let that happen. And neither is anyone else.” He nodded first at Xander, then at Charlie. “You’re safe here. If you don’t believe me, believe in Eden’s abilities. We’ve all seen what she can do and none of us are itching to piss her off.”
Smart move on their part. Charlie read the resolve in his eyes, and she couldn’t deny he seemed to be telling the truth. But what they’d all seemed to have conveniently forgotten, was that the man at her side was every bit as lethal, twice as pissed, and about eighteen times smarter than the combined intelligence of everyone in this room.
Charlie turned to Xander, his jaw set sharp enough to cut paper, poker-faced as the Sphinx. Hell, when it came to those she loved, she was no slouch, herself.
His focus inched toward her, and Charlie jolted in her heels. Geez, again with the sub-zero blast in his gaze. The one that stripped her bare and made her nipples peak, every follicle from her head on down lifting from the chill.
Damn. The way his irises could go from warm to icy at the drop of a hat had to be some sort of genetic anomaly. Her body both cooled and heated as he stared into her eyes, and she locked her knees against a shiver. If she didn’t know any better, she would’ve sworn that dangerous edge in his gaze was filled with…possession.
He tugged her hand and her pulse tripped as he brought his lips to her ear. “You stick close. Don’t say anything to anyone.”
His warm breath drifted across her throat, and a shudder wracked her shoulders, so stark and penetrating she couldn’t have suppressed it if she’d tried.
God. Talk about having no control whenever he got close.
“Okay, then.” Eden smiled, but the clever sparkle in her eyes nearly had Charlie spinning right back for the door. Whatever the woman had up her sleeve, she didn’t need a history lesson to know it was not good. “Now that we got that settled, follow me.”
Great. Charlie mentally tossed her hand in the air, following at Xander’s side as Eden and her fiancé started them around the room. Not that her plotting mattered. One more surprise, and Charlie was heading for the nearest closet. Xander would find her stuffing her face with shrimp cocktail and humming the theme song to Jeopardy.
The thick, heavy glasses distorting Nick DeFranco’s brown eyes immediately secured his spot in her memory, as if being the Medical Examiner who’d been unlucky enough to perform Viv and Malcolm’s autopsies wasn’t enough. His petite blond wife, Maggie, stood beside him, smiling and chatting a mile a minute as she shook Charlie’s hand.
Tanner Jones’s tough outer shell came off every bit as thick and heavy as the chip Charlie lugged around on shoulder, and screamed of someone who’d done time on the streets. Add in her defensive stance and the defiant glint in her huge blue eyes, and Charlie wasn’t the least bit surprised to hear Eden had brought Tanner on as the next line of defense ala Dirty Deeds.
Homicide Detective and Kelly’s best friend, Ben Archer, stood solo near the fireplace, though from his buzzed blond hair and apparent pissed off inability to stand at ease, it was clear the dude had served a few tours in some branch of the military prior to joining the force.
Or maybe his bad attitude had more to do with how he kept glancing at Tanner, and she appeared to be doing everything in her power to ignore him. Charlie made a mental note to ask Eden what that was about at some point in the near future and shook his hand.
Before Archer and Xander had finished saying hello, a young woman sporting a set of blond, glitter-coated ponytails strode up between them and shoved her palm in Xander’s direction. “Molly Simmons, Lead AV Tech. I’ve been dying to meet you ever since we closed the case.”
Charlie blinked, repeatedly, trying—and failing—to assimilate the glammed-up accessories accenting the woman’s floral sundress, and how in the world they were meant to complement the black combat boots on her feet. Heck, had she known it was kosher to dress for a Grateful Dead concert, she would’ve jumped right on that bandwagon.
The slant of Eden’s lips went from polite to out-and-out calculating as she glanced from Charlie to Xander, and the cool fingers of detached awareness danced up Charlie’s spine.
Uh-oh… Eden was up to something, all right.
“Molly’s the one who decrypted your algorithm, X. Turns out, the program she wrote was able to triangulate Dirty Deeds’s location in a matter of days.” She lifted a brow. “Makes me wonder if you’re losing your touch.”
“Really?” Xander squinted, ignoring Molly’s outstretched hand in favor of crossing his arms. But nothing in the entire world could’ve hidden the flicker of interest in his gaze. Hell, a blind woman could’ve picked up on his curiosity. “How’d you decode the base?”
“Child’s play.” Molly crossed her arms right back. “I checked the length to determine the block size of the cipher.”
“That wouldn’t have been enough. I modified the stream. You would’ve needed the initialization vector and salt values.”
Um, sprechen sie deutsch? Charlie braced her knees against imp
ulse to step between them. Maybe wave a white flag in surrender. Nothing like debarking on foreign soil where no one spoke a lick of English.
She pursed her lips. On the other hand… Even though Molly’s appearance trended toward Japanese anime meets befuddled flower child, she was definitely pretty, slender, and tall. With one of those cute upturned noses Charlie had always envied and a set of cool hazel eyes that probably changed color with her mood. Considering her wardrobe choice, it seemed clear Molly was comfortable letting her quirky style speak for itself, and overall she appeared on par with Xander’s area of expertise.
Huh. Given their mutual interests, maybe she was the kind of woman he should be dating.
Her stupid stomach flipped at the thought, and Charlie waved off a gloved member of the catering staff as he offered a tray of sparkling champagne flutes toward her and Xander.
Eden chuckled, low and quiet, and Charlie hesitated over the knowing glint in her gaze.
Aha! Her perception pulled a one-eighty, and she hiked her chin as the pieces finally clicked into place.
In typical Dirty Deeds fashion, Eden had suspected all along Xander and Molly would hit it off, and had hedged her bets the two of them hooking up would make Charlie jealous.
Please. The guy had every right to flirt with whomever he wanted.
Smacking her lips at the sour taste that notion left on her tongue, Charlie turned from the conversation to survey the room. A…person smiled at her from across the floor, standing near the closed door to Malcolm’s office, his dark weave teased into a bouffant cascade, spiked stilettos stacked so high, Charlie’s three-inch heels were downgraded to flats.
He waved her over with a flash of his neon-pink nails, and she frowned. Did they know each other? Hell, did it matter? Given the spring-loaded trap she’d stepped on, she would’ve gladly gnawed her foot off to escape.
Leaving Eden to her usual tricks, Charlie walked over and introduced herself.
“We’ve talked several times on the phone, hon.” He kissed the air around her cheeks with a pair of frosted pink lips, tugging her to his generous cleavage for a hug. “I’m Mocha.”
