Bounty

by Aubrey St. Clair

  Too quickly, we make it to the front of my complex.

  “So, um…” I say, and trail off. I want him to ask to come up. I don’t want to be the one to ask. I thought this was a bad idea to start with. I don’t want to look desperate. I don’t want him to know how goddamn attracted to him I am, how quickly he won. I-

  “April,” Liam says, and pauses.

  My body feels like it’s on fire. I’m suddenly very aware of my nipples rubbing against the cups of my bra. The seams of my jeans hugging my hips. The way my panties are pressing into me… I feel wet already.

  He leans forward and presses his lips to mine, softly. His lips are warm, the puff of his breath is electric. His chest pressing against my breasts feels amazing. My pussy aches.

  “I —”

  “Goodnight, April.”

  My breath goes out of me in a whoosh. That’s it. Good. I guess.

  “Goodnight, Liam.”

  I head up the stairs quickly so I don’t have to watch him walking down the street, and throw myself onto my bed, my whole body hot and shaking.

  This is an unmitigated disaster. How did I let this happen?

  5

  Liam

  Every nerve feels like it’s on fire. April is the best lead anyone’s ever gotten on Devlin Sullivan.

  And my cock is hard as a rock just thinking about her.

  I don’t know if it’s the danger, or the way her bottom lip puckers out when she locks eyes with me. It’s like she’s just begging me to kiss it. Begging to wrap it around my…

  Yeah. I’ve got a massive hard-on for my lead.

  Not a good situation.

  I walk briskly away, hoping the cool night air will help calm things down.

  April Fitzpatrick. Not Bluebird. Something has been tickling the back of my brain since she told me that. Suddenly something clicks, and a crazy thought leaps into my head.

  I text Vicente: What was the dead wife’s name?

  Always the consummate workaholic, Vicente texts me back immediately: Caitlyn Fitzpatrick.

  Shit.

  I tap out: Can you look up head-shots?

  Sure. You got a lead?

  I’ve got a lead, alright: April is Devlin Sullivan’s daughter. I’m 90% certain. Fitzpatrick isn’t a completely unique name, but it’s not that common. And she’s fronting his shop — at the very least, there’s no way the crime lord is unaware that there’s a girl with his late wife’s name running one of his laundering operations.

  And someone called the shop urging her to attend a party, and from what I can tell, for business purposes.

  It’s very likely that Devlin Sullivan just had a conversation with his daughter right in front of me. And I missed it.

  I briskly walk to one of Vicente and my meeting points, texting him as I go.

  Lead is good. We’ve hit the jackpot, potentially. Meet me at Copley Park.

  I’ve got him. Devlin Sullivan’s daughter, his own flesh and blood. At my mercy. This is exactly what we need to not only track down his location, but force his hand, bring him in. Take down one of the most intractable crime organizations, too. This collar could dismantle a third of the drug trafficking infrastructure in Boston. I’ll be a hero, and earn the biggest bounty this city has ever seen.

  And April will lose her father.

  For a split second, I imagine her tear-rimmed lashes, her downturned head.

  Whatever. He’s a criminal. That’s not her fault – unless, of course, she knows – but she will be collateral damage. That’s his fault. That’s just bad parenting. Not my fault, either. Even though I’m the one feeding information to the FBI.

  I can’t follow that line of thinking. Not too far. And anyway, Vicente is here.

  I can see him googling furiously as he approaches. He’s excited, I can tell, though he always tries to stay cool and collected.

  “Here,” he says triumphantly, flashing his phone in my face.

  It’s a picture of a pale, redheaded woman with exactly April’s eyes and the same sly smile, the same sharp jawline.

  “Yeah,” I say, and my lungs seem to have done a strange whooshing thing. I clear my throat. “Yeah. Clock shop girl is definitely this woman’s daughter.”

  “Well, Copperhead. I gotta hand it to you, homie. This is the best lead on Sullivan we’ve had in years. Years.”

  “Uh huh,” I say. I should be gloating now.

  “This goes beyond just bringing him into court. This could have a huge impact on the case, and on the entire investigation into his network.”

  “Sure,” I say. “But I’m no cop. My job is to find the guy, not gather evidence or… get in with his daughter.” Though that’s not entirely true. I’m pretty used to pumping family members for information. It’s almost always the quickest way to bagging a skip. And I’m no stranger to flirting or even fucking on the job.

  This just feels different. I try to shake it off.

  “Sorry Copperhead, but this changes our M.O. If this is really his daughter, we need you to stick close to her. We can pay you. Above and beyond the agreed upon bounty value, we can pay you to keep dating her, get info on her dad, on the organization, on her.”

  That catches my attention. The bounty is more than enough, of course, but there’s no guarantee on that – I don’t get it unless I take him down. This would be money now.

  “Yeah? What kind of budget are we talking for an ongoing investigation? And why not just take over the lead yourself?”

  “You’re already in, and what you’re going to be able to do, capitalizing on this relationship you’ve formed with the perp’s daughter… there’s no way my team can match that. Not through legal channels. You’re our best bet.”

  “I don’t know —”

  He shoves his phone in front of my face again. There’s a number on it. A big one with a dollar sign.

  “That’s up front. You’ll get twice that on completion.”

  Well, shit.

  “Okay, never mind,” I say.

  “Right. So we need you to keep seeing her, gather what you can verbally, wear a wire. Or better yet, just use our wire app on your phone. I’ll show you how. And then we need hard-copy evidence, too. Her paperwork can help us trace Sullivan: her birth, her mother, their business. We might be able to pinpoint his whereabouts. His real name. His history. You know the drill.”

  “Laptop, phone, bank account,” I say. Hacking and tracking each of those will put us in a good position to gather any connection he makes to her.

  “Though, Sullivan must know that. April has a landline in her store, didn’t talk to her dad on her cell. Could we potentially tap the shop phone?”

  “Yep,” Vicente says, “though we’re gonna have to talk about what, if anything, we need to be admissible.”

  “I thought that was the point of having me do it? Doesn’t need to be admissible?”

  “Man, you found Devlin Sullivan’s daughter. This isn’t an under the table bag anymore. This is gonna get messy. I’ll send you intel.” He thumps me on my shoulder, beaming. “Hey man, you tired or something? Perk up. You’ve just landed the mark of the decade!”

  “Yeah,” I say. “But this ain’t exactly what I signed up for.”

  “Well you got lucky,” Vicente shrugs. Then pauses. “You could get lucky,” he amends, and there’s the Vicente feral grin.

  I mirror his smile, though it feels a little strange on my face. Maybe I really am just tired.

  “Alright, boss,” I say. “I gotta see a lady about a clock.”

  Seems like I’ll be visiting April again even sooner than I had expected.

  “Keep me posted,” Vicente says. “I want an after action report on every encounter. I want everything you get, or no deal.”

  Okay. I can do that. I’m not used to being monitored so closely, but I can seduce a lady with an audience.

  “No problem.”

  6

  April

  My shop has never felt so boring before. Normally I l
ove it. But I’m having a hard time concentrating today — my mind keeps flashing back to Liam. His tattoos. His hands. The light peck he gave me at the door, when every inch of me was aching for more.

  Why didn’t he ask to come up after our shooting and sushi date?

  The only logical explanation is that he’s just not that into me.

  And who would be? I look like a goddamn Weasley. Oh, and I cried all over him, was rude to him, probably too clingy, and then I told him all about my very recently ex fiancé. No wonder. I wouldn’t be into me. What a weird first date. I probably won’t see him again.

  So stupid and ironic — at first I wanted to scare Liam off, and he couldn’t be deterred. And then as soon as I decided I did like him, he wasn’t interested. I guess that’s how things go, though, right? Men want what they can’t have, and then as soon as they can have it, they aren’t interested anymore.

  Like Alan. Only in that case, I guess we both knew that it wasn’t work. Only difference was, I was stupid enough to try to make it work anyway. At least he had the brains to move on and start fucking someone else. Would have been nice if he’d broken off our engagement first, though.

  Men.

  I have to just put it out of my mind, concentrate on my work. And anyways, Dad will want me to get started on that big project. He “trusts my judgement.” Time to get cracking.

  A new concept starts to take shape in my head, a vague sensation slowly solidifying to an actual project idea. Not another driftwood piece. I want to hit up a vintage store, an antiques shop. Or maybe a consignment store or pawnshop. Maybe even the dump. Find something really wild. I’m not sure what, exactly, but I want it to look old. Not just old for cutesiness, but really old. Something someone loved, once, and had to part with. Or cast aside. Something made of wood, and glass, and metal. Something with a bit of function to it, with curving form.

  Nadine isn’t here yet, so really I should stay in the front of the boutique, but I really want to start planning and sketching. I’m just feeling motivated to get working. It’s always the best distraction from my problems.

  I text her to come in early, but get no reply.

  Fuck it. That’s what that stupid door chime is for anyway, right? Besides, it’s been a slow morning.

  I dive into my sketchbooks, my easel, start drawing out a few ideas, looking up stores that might have what I want.

  Finally, a loud dinging catches my attention. I sit up from my sketchbook, where a new idea is forming, and realize that I missed the door chime and someone is ringing the little bell that sits on the counter.

  Fuck. People could just come into my store and rob me with how oblivious I am. It’s probably just another fancy-pants banker-type man, looking for something with which to adorn his new penthouse or suburban castle.

  “Coming!” I shout. My hands are covered in charcoal from sketching, and I’ve got little rolled-up eraser bits flung all across my black shirt. Whoever’s on the sales floor is supposed to look professional, not like a total slob. So my dad says, anyway. Whatever.

  I tuck my charcoal pencil behind my ear and careen back into the front room, trying to suppress the rage that always bubbles up when my flow is interrupted. I can’t hate on my customers. They’re what keeps me able to create art, instead of working a nine-to-five. Being a receptionist somewhere, or an “analyst” of some type. So I put on my best, friendliest, most professional smile for whoever dinged my bell in the showroom.

  It’s Liam.

  Clean-shaven and wearing an actual button-down with dark jeans, rather than his usual tank and grungy denim. He cleans up fucking well. And he’s here. I thought… I didn’t think I’d see him again after that crazy-lady first date.

  And he’s holding a bird cage in the shape of a tree. It’s absolutely gorgeous. And obviously perfect for creating a completely unique timepiece. He has a real eye for this, and seems, somehow, to have seen and understood my aesthetic. It’s exactly what I like, the angles and color combinations work perfectly for me.

  “It’s perfect,” I breathe. “Wow Liam. It’s just perfect.”

  His smile, sudden and dazzling, ignites a spark somewhere in my chest. Then it vanishes again and he shrugs.

  “I just saw it, and. I thought of you.” he says, a little gruff, but sincere. Not smirking, not teasing me, not flashing me that dimple as if purposefully toying with me.

  And it’s like he’s blowing warm air on that spark, fanning it into a small, flickering flame. Burning in my heart.

  “Thank you,” I say. “Come on back, let’s get it set up in the workshop.”

  This he grins at, and there’s that little wicked smile. The flame in my chest burns hotter, starts to spread.

  “Fuck it,” I add, and scoot around him to close and lock the door, flipping the sign to ‘closed.’

  His eyes light up as he watches me.

  “That’s hot, Bluebird,” he says, eyes flickering from my lips to my waist and my nethers as I try to brush past him.

  “Hush you,” I pat his arm. Oh wow, his bicep is thick. “I just really want to get work done and it’s been a slow day anyway.” But the flush spreading across my cheeks and décolletage probably gives me away.

  I beckon to him, feeling hot and bold, and totally touched that he thought of me. He follows me down the hall to the workshop. I might just be imagining it, but I can feel his gaze on my ass, which is currently only covered by a pair of stretchy pants. I can feel myself flushing even more deeply.

  “So, this is it,” I say, gesturing around to the big, airy space filled with tools, materials, wood scraps, canvas, paints, and currently, warm morning light. I turn back to him to see his eyes glowing a luminescent jade when lit from the side like they are now.

  “So this is the Bluebird’s little nest,” he says, grinning. He puts the lamp down on the very edge of a table where that’s only a few layers of newspaper under. Suddenly the fact that he brought me a bird cage feels significant.

  I brush it aside.

  “Yep, this is where the magic happens.”

  I’m embarrassingly eager to have him back here. I try not to fidget too much as he has a look around, picking things up and putting them back down, running his fingers across various tools, exploring my old-school phone. His face looks calm and happy as he turns back to me.

  “It’s nice to see you in your natural habitat.”

  He’s standing just a little bit too close for polite conversation. The heat emanating off of him is incredible, I want to curl into it. I can smell him. His cologne, a brisk whiff of deodorant, and something saltier and deeper. Liam’s smell. I can almost taste it, and I wish I could.

  God, I have to keep my thoughts under control. But my skin has turned to fire.

  “Wanna see me use a circular saw?” I say, to try to dissipate some of the feeling.

  “I’ve never wanted anything so much in my life,” he replies, and even though I know we’re joking, the tone of his voice makes my knees turn to jelly.

  I show him how to saw planks of wood in half, introduce him to my power sanders, anything I can think of, but he’s still too close, I can smell him, feel him move around the room. I show him my paints. A middle finger immediately gets dipped in the blue paint, which he then wipes across my cheek before I can dodge out of the way.

  “Hey!” I squeal, pretending to wiggle away as I actually dive for the paints myself. Before he knows it, he’s got a dab of green streaking across his arm. He looks down at it, actually astonished, and then back at me. His smile could melt butter.

  7

  Liam

  “Hey yourself,” I say, looking April up and down, the blue paint streaking across her pale, freckled cheeks. She doesn’t look silly as much as… strangely warrior-like. Like a Celtic queen. Even with a smear of blue paint edging across her plump bottom lip, for a split second all I want to do is take her face into my hands and press a kiss to it. I want to watercolor her skin from head to toe. I want to stain us both irrevo
cably.

  I shake my head. I’m starting to lose my edge here. Must be particularly horny, spending so much time with a fox like April. Gotta stay on task.

  Showing up at her shop was absolutely the right move — our date went well, as dates go, but it wasn’t the best way to get more information. Too awkward to give her the third degree while trying to charm her — pressing too far will only scare her off.

  I’ve already placed a few tiny microphones, just little bugs under various objects in the workshop. They’ll just look like little buttons, not noticeable to someone who isn’t trained to find them. And now that I’m here, I can ask a million questions about the Boutique and her business without sounding suspicious. Devlin Sullivan must be involved in the business model somehow – the devil is in the details.

  So instead of kissing her, I gesture back to the paints. Endless colors, different types, everything both organized and labelled neatly, but also sloppy, splashed, mixing and chaotic. Controlled chaos is what it is. I don’t usually notice this kind of shit but honestly it’s pretty striking, all those colors and all those raw materials. Makes me feel like a little kid again, when the teacher would hand you crayons and paper and cardboard and glue.

  I don’t know how to verbalize what I’m feeling, so instead I say “These look nice. This must all be expensive.”

  “Yeah,” she says, shrugging, wiping the corner of her hand off on an apron that’s been tossed across her painting workbench. “Maintaining a shop with this much versatility is pretty rare,” she admits. “There aren’t a lot of artists who do carpentry, metalworking, glasswork, and painting all in one place.”

  “Wow you can blow glass here?” I waggle my eyebrows at her. “I’d like to see you blow something.”