by Joanna Blake
Less than ten feet away, a man was being forced to his knees.
“I warned you.”
“Please- no-“
“Too fucking late.”
I heard the sound of flesh parting as a knife slid across the man’s throat. He clutched at it desperately. There was a horrible gargling sound coming from his mouth as he struggled for air. Then he fell silent. The man holding him let go and he slumped to the ground.
Dead. Gone. Really gone.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
I stepped backwards instinctively and the heel of my boot hit something. A can, I would realize later. At that moment I couldn’t think. All I could do was panic. Because the two men in the parking lot turned to stare.
Right at me.
I held perfectly still, praying I was hidden in the shadows.
They spoke softly and one of the men started dragging the body away. The other one walked towards me. Almost like he could see in the dark.
The one who had held the knife.
As he got closer I saw who it was and my fear quadrupled. My heart felt like it was going to pound itself right out of my chest. I whimpered as he stepped closer and I knew he had seen me.
The bastard probably could see in the dark.
He smiled, a slash of light from inside illuminating his face. He was all harsh angles and scars. And those dark, crazy eyes. He reached out and brushed his knuckles over my face.
I could see blood on his fingers. He still held the knife. I didn’t breath. Didn’t move.
“Such a pretty little thing…”
I was breathing rapidly, puffing like a tiny little bunny rabbit. He smiled and I felt a chill down my spine. He was going to kill me- he was-
“Run little girl. Run back inside now.”
I ran.
Connor
The house was dark and quiet. No sounds of cars passing by. No glow of streetlights or rustling of neighbors. I’d picked this place on purpose, for the seclusion.
Long ago, I’d had a vague idea of sharing it with someone, starting a family, fixing it up someday. But it had quickly become my refuge from the world. The idea of renovating had flown out the window, along with the visions of backyard barbecues or a woman sharing my bed.
The cabin was old, some 1950’s family idea of a rustic lodge. And I hadn’t touched a damn thing. The linoleum, the brick, even some of the original furniture was still here, untouched.
Well, other than some light dusting. I wasn’t a damn pig. But it was definitely… retro. Hell, maybe I was retro too.
My mom and sister rolled their eyes every time they came over. Some of the old stuff was cool, even they had to admit that. Some was… not.
Yeah, it could have used a woman’s touch.
But the only women who set foot in the place were family, and they had to show up unannounced if they wanted to visit. Lately, it seemed easier to be busy than face the disappointed look in my mother’s eye, or the glare in my sister’s.
I’d really planned to fix the place up. Paint it at least. Hang shelves and pictures and whatever else a person did when they set down roots.
I’d thought maybe someday I’d make an effort to find a girlfriend, instead of the rare one-night stand after a night of drinking. No phone numbers. No repeat customers.
But I hadn’t even had one of those in a good long while. That was years ago, when I was coming up in the agency. Now… well, I spent most of my time working or alone.
For the most part, I liked it that way.
It was easier to just ignore the occasional hormonal urge. It’s not like anyone had even caught my eye. Not for years.
Hell, I’d forgotten what a woman felt like.
And now… well, I didn’t care about anything but catching my partner’s killer. I wouldn’t be any good for a woman anyway. I was obsessed. Not to mention ill-tempered.
Ring ring.
I opened one eye a crack. It was after 4 am. Nothing good ever came from a phone call at this hour.
I picked up my phone as it rang again. Just as it abruptly went silent. Great, I missed the call and it woke my ass up.
Should have put the fucking thing on silent.
I sat up as I read the texts that had been coming in for twenty minutes. Basically, since the moment I’d finally laid down. I hadn’t slept more than a few minutes but I was instantly alert.
There was a body found in the road along Route 57. Out near The Mason Jar. Where most of the suspects in my case went to get hammered and beat the shit out of each other.
Well, fuck me.
I was up and on my feet in a heartbeat. The Mason Jar was owned by a guy who was associated with the Untouchables. One of the gangs we were investigating. Mason kept his nose relatively clean, but as far as I could see it, he was swimming in a pool of filth.
The truth was, I had sort of grudgingly liked the guy on the two occasions we’d met. But all that changed after Danny got shot. I squashed any inkling of kindness or comraderie I felt over Mason’s seriously well-curated jukebox or the rare, top-shelf whiskeys he kept in a locked case behind the bar.
The man might like the blues and good booze but he was still a criminal. And he knew the killer of the brother I’d never had. So as far as I was concerned, he was the enemy.
I would never set foot in his joint, except to interrogate the bastard.
But this- this might lead us in the right direction. A turning point to finally pin something on the Hell Raisers. Or any of the local gangs really. They were all culpable.
Anyone who had even so much as breathed near Danny’s killer was on my hit list. And I meant to take them all down.
They were all guilty by association.
I splashed water on my face and hopped in the car without even making a pot of coffee. There was a stale cup in the cup holder and I slugged it down, wincing at the bitter taste.
Stale, cold coffee… yeah, I was pretty sure that was my blood type at this point. It was the reason I never took milk with it. Black coffee stayed drinkable a hell of a lot longer.
I should know.
I drove the forty-five minutes in absolute silence. My mind was clear. I liked to go into any crime scene situation completely blank.
Clean.
Open.
I saw the flashing lights. They were less than twenty yards from the parking lot of The Jar. Whoever had done this had either been in a hurry or didn’t give a shit about pissing Mason off.
That was the first clue. There was no way this was an Untouchable. Even if Mason wasn’t active, they wouldn’t shit where they ate.
But someone who didn’t like Mason… well, this was a real good way to cause trouble for him.
I imagined he was pretty pissed off right about now. My suspicions were confirmed as I pulled up to the bar and parked.
Mason stood out front, his arms crossed over his massive chest.
I could almost see the steam coming out of his ears. He nodded to me and went back to staring at the crime scene.
That’s when I saw it.
At edge of the parking lot, not far from the scene was a smoking bike. It had been torched.
I stared at it, my mind absorbing visual clues, sorting them into facts and feelings.
I had a hunch that the killer, or killers, had toasted the victim’s bike, but not to make it look like an accident. This already looked like plain old murder. These guys didn’t value life the way ordinary folks did.
But this was unusual. Little was done to hide the crime. The fire wasn’t meant to hide evidence.
No. This was an insult to the dead man. Sort of like spitting on someone’s grave. I’d actually heard of guys getting buried with their wheels.
A biker’s ride was an extension of his body. I knew the feeling. I had a ride myself.
So whatever else we knew about the vic, he’d clearly pissed someone off. Not just a little either. He’d pissed them off a lot.
I walked the perimeter, circling inward towards th
e crime scene. It was dark in the back, but my eyes were sharp. I used a flashlight intermittently, turning it on and off to see what the light revealed, as well as the dark.
I spotted an area that looked like a body might have been dragged and a spreading pool that looked like motor oil, or more likely, blood. I whistled and got forensics to photograph the area and mark it off until samples could be taken.
Only then did I look at the body.
He was on his back, his blank eyes staring up at the sky. His throat had been cut. But that wasn’t all that had been done to him.
No, they’d cut his tongue out too. After the fact. You could tell that without forensics, because there should have been more blood.
As it was, he was positively clean looking. I had a feeling all his blood was back in the parking lot. It was not a pleasant way to go, never mind what they’d done to his bike.
All of that took time. Not just five minutes either. Ten or twenty. I started to mentally clock it all out in my head.
Who the hell would stick around a crime scene to mutilate a body and then set fire to the victim’s ride? Someone who wasn’t afraid of the law, that was for sure.
Someone batshit fucking crazy.
And I had a good fucking idea of who that might be.
I went inside and took a look around. The bar was nearly empty. They must have been closing up when the bike went up in flames. Everyone had taken off after that.
Everyone but the staff.
I saw Mason with his hand resting possessively on a girl’s shoulder. She sat at the bar, her arms wrapped around her protectively. I could only see her profile but even that was enough to stop me in my tracks.
All thoughts of murder flew from my head.
The girl was beautiful.
Not just a little bit pretty, or cute, or even sexy. She was fucking gorgeous. With long, wavy, light brown hair, and a delicate profile with a nose that was just the slightest bit turned upwards. Her figure looked slim and athletic, but with curves in all the right places.
She turned to look at me and my breath stopped. My heart seemed to pause, waiting for my mind to catch up with my eyeballs, which felt like they were bugging out of my damn head.
She was a Goddamned angel.
Even in this smokey juke joint, with the dim lights and neon beer signs, I could see her eyes.
They were the brightest, deepest blue I’d seen in my life. And I was a fan of staring at the sky, or I had been when I had less shit to worry about.
This was the blue of ten thousands skies.
She blinked and I came back to myself. The girl might have the face of an angel but right now she was part of a crime scene. If she worked here, she most likely knew the killer, or at least served him a bucket of wings.
Which meant under my rules, she was part of the problem. The fact that I had such a strong reaction to her only pissed me off. Why the hell work here with all the criminals when she could be plastered all over billboards and magazine covers?
Because she was one of them. The enemy. The ones who had killed Danny.
Remember that, Conn.
I forced myself to ignore the hot pulse of lust that was throbbing in my belly and crossed the bar. I flashed my badge and pulled out a tiny note pad. Yeah, I was old school in that way too.
“Name.”
“They already interviewed me.”
“Not you.”
They exchanged a glance and Mason stepped in front of her.
“She ain’t got nothin’ to do with this, DeWitt.”
I let myself steal another look at her. Her huge eyes were looking down at the ground. Her juicy bottom lip was caught between Chiclet white teeth. I squinted at Mason and asked again.
“Name.”
“It’s okay, Mase.”
She cleared her throat and Mason sighed heavily, stepping aside. I was once again struck by the girl’s absolute physical perfection. And the nervous look in her eyes.
Good.
She should be fucking nervous. I wasn’t going to go easy on her because she was stunningly beautiful. Or young. Or scared.
I realized belatedly that the girl looked more than scared. She was frightened out of her mind. That made me want to tell her that everything would be okay. That I would take care of everything for her.
I frowned, disquieted by the swirl of protective and animalistic urges that she was causing. Unwanted urges, dammit.
“Casey. Casey Jones.”
Her voice was soft and sweet, stirring something even warmer inside me. But something felt off. It felt like a lie. Maybe it wasn’t her real name. I leaned against the bar, musing over how young she looked.
Too young for me.
The thought caught me off guard. Now where the hell had that come from? Completely out of left field. Not only was it true, but I certainly didn’t date criminal trash.
I glanced at Mason who was frowning at me, a worried look on his face. He cared about the girl, that much was obvious. I had a moment of pure animal jealousy, wondering if he was screwing her.
Why I cared, I had no fucking idea.
But I did. I cared a lot.
I gave Mason a hard look.
“Is she your wife?”
“No.”
“Girlfriend?”
He shook his head and some of the tension left my body. I felt a strange relief that made no sense at all. I should not give a damn one way or the other.
But I was almost friendly as I nodded to Mason.
“Then you have to step away, Mason. Sorry.”
“I’m responsible for her, dammit!”
Well, that was unexpected. Maybe she was his kid. I looked at her again. Hmm, no. He wasn’t that much older.
Unless he had a kid at fourteen.
“Is she your child? Relation?”
He shook his head. I glanced at the girl, my eyes skimming over her graceful curves. She really was perfect. She looked like one of those girls in those sexy bra commercials.
Lush and young and desirable.
And way too clean and innocent to be in a place like this. But she wasn’t innocent. At the very least, she was a prime witness.
“Is she underage?”
“I’m old enough to work here. I don’t serve drinks.”
I felt something hitch in my stomach at that. Damn, she was young. Not even twenty-one.
I definitely shouldn’t be having the sort of thoughts I was having. Thoughts about touching her. Kissing her. Taking her to my bed and tangling up the sheets.
No. I should not be thinking any of that, dammit. And not just because she was involved in a crime.
Not just because she was so young either.
She was one of them. The people who had killed my partner.
I’d just met the girl. Never before in my life had I taken one look at a female and thought- I would like to hold her all night.
Not just all night either. I had a crazy feeling I’d like to hold her a lot longer than that.
Well, fuck.
Cassandra
The guy wasn’t a regular cop. Mason had whispered ‘FBI’ to me as soon as he’d walked in the door.
I’d barely even registered his words.
I was too busy staring at the best-looking man I’d ever seen in my life. With his impossibly pretty, blue green eyes, muscular build and chiseled face, he was the quintessential good guy.
He looked like the hero in one of those old Westerns Mason loved to watch on Sundays. He’d cook up a huge batch of chili or stew or barbecue and we’d settle in on the couch to watch old movies.
Mason called those Sunday sessions his church. And I sort of got why. Those Sunday afternoon movie fests had been one of the most reliable things in my entire life.
Well, after.
I used to think of my life as two lives- now three. ‘Before’ my parents died I’d been a happy suburban kid. Then a car accident had claimed them both.
In one split-second they were gone.
The people from child protective services had come and taken me from the neighbor who had taken me in those first few days. We didn’t have any other family. So just like that, I was a ward of the state.
Then there was ‘after.’
Foster homes. State housing. Bad food and cold nights.
And then there was ‘Mason.’
I had a feeling I was going to start thinking of my life as four completely different lives after tonight. The night I’d seen something I shouldn’t have. The night I became a problem for someone like Dante to solve.
No one knew I’d seen a thing. Not even Mason.
I just prayed that my silence would be enough.
Now, this ridiculously gorgeous man was looking at me like I was scum. I bristled. He might be on the right side of the law but I hadn’t done anything wrong.
Well, not yet. But I was about to.
The moment I told him I hadn’t seen a thing, I was an accessory. At least I thought so anyway. I knew it was wrong to withhold information about any crime, let alone a murder.
But I had no choice. For my sake, but especially for Mason’s.
Because I knew Dante wouldn’t be satisfied with my death if I squealed. He would want to make sure I hadn’t told anyone else either.
He’d come after Mason too.
The giant FBI agent was staring at me. He must have asked a question but I’d blanked out on it. He raised his eyebrows and asked me again.
“Were you on duty when the crime was committed?”
I opened my mouth and prepared to lie.
Connor
“I don’t know when the crime was committed. But I’ve been on since six.”
Lie.
I felt it in my gut. And it bothered me.
People lied to federal agents all the time. It was part of the deal. But for some reason, this felt worse.
Maybe because I knew without a doubt that this girl was innocent. She might be in this world, but she was not of it. At least that’s what my gut was telling me.
I was well aware that it might have something to do with the way my dick was feeling at the moment.
