by Jo Leigh
“Any chance you’ll be up for a visit at the end?”
Now it was her turn to be quiet.
“Fair enough,” he said. “How about this? How about you and me and your clean slate go out to dinner tomorrow night? Early, so that you can get to sleep at a decent hour.”
She thought for a second. Seeing him was all she wanted. Also dangerous. Screw it. “That’s very doable. In fact, I think it’s a great idea. Although, we could eat dinner at home, thereby eliminating a step.”
“Tempting,” he said, and she could picture him leaning against the wall in the bathroom. The one he was fixing up. She could tell he was in there from the echo. He did like to lean, but that probably had more to do with his bad leg than posing. He’d be wearing his tool belt, too. And jeans. Soft, worn jeans that curved around his most excellent behind.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll bring dinner. No cooking. No movie watching. Dinner, then bed.”
“Well, that’s not going to help me sleep.”
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “We’ll have just finished eating. We’ll work off dinner. Then you’ll collapse in my arms and sleep the sleep of the just.”
“Bible quotes?”
“Really?” he asked. “I thought that was from an Elvis Costello song.”
She grinned, wanting him with her, right there in the office. Just sitting there so she could look over and see him. He’d smile at her, and she’d get wiggly. Of course then she’d have to go kiss him and her grand plan would bite the dust. “Right. Dinner, my place—”
Another call came on her line, which she would most likely ignore. “Hang on. I’ll be right back. It could be work.”
She clicked to the second call, a New York number she didn’t recognize. “Hello?”
“Rebecca.”
William West. She recognized his voice. “Mr. West.”
“I thought we agreed on Bill.”
“Bill. Can you hold on a moment? I’m on another call.”
“I’ll wait.”
She clicked again, hating that she’d have to put off Jake. If it had been anyone else… “Crap, it is work,” she said. “I won’t be long. I hope. If it is, we’ll talk tomorrow and settle times and stuff, okay?”
“Don’t stay up too late. I don’t want you falling asleep in the soup.”
She smiled and almost blew him a kiss, which…jeez. She was overtired. “Later.”
She clicked back to West. “What can I do for you, Bill?”
“I think it’s a question of what I can do for you. I’d like to take you to dinner tomorrow evening. We can start the ball rolling on the endowment.”
Holy… “Absolutely. Where and when?”
“I’ll meet you in front of your office building at eight. The chef at Per Se owes me. We’ll have a window seat.”
Per Se was one of the most exclusive restaurants in Manhattan, and getting a table there in anything less than six months took an act of congress. “I’ll meet you at the car.”
Rebecca hung up, looked at her long list of emails, thought about all her options and quickly redialed Jake.
“Yeah?”
“Can you meet me tonight instead? In two hours?”
He was quiet for a minute. “Uh, sure. What changed?”
“William West. He’s finally agreed to meet with me tomorrow night to talk actual money. It’s not attorneys yet, but it’s a major step closer. So I made the executive decision to scrap my noble plans for a clean slate Monday in favor of a delicious Sunday night.”
Oddly there was silence again. She’d thought he’d be pleased. “Oh, wait. Is this about your father? We could make it Tuesday night. Give you time to set things up.”
“No. No, my dad’s fine. He’s got friends on standby. Hell, half the neighborhood would volunteer to stay with him if I asked. So, no. It’s no problem. I’ll bring dinner?”
“That would be excellent.”
“You like Chinese?”
“Love it. Especially dim sum. But brunch is probably over, so never mind.”
“Never mind? I can get dim sum.”
“Really? You’re a magician. Oh, that would be… Maybe some extra char siu bao. And har gau. Oh, and spareribs.”
Jake laughed. “Is that all? I can just order a couple of everything on the menu.”
“I skipped lunch.”
“I can’t leave you alone for five minutes, can I?” he asked.
The tenderness in his voice made her sit back in her chair. It took her a second to respond, what with swallowing past the lump. “No, I guess you can’t. I’ll see you in two.”
“Don’t be late. Your concierge looked hungry the last time I was there.”
JAKE WAS THE ONE WHO WAS almost late. Not because of dinner. Gary had called him while he’d been in the cab on the way to the Great Wall restaurant. It wasn’t a long conversation, just enough to ruin Jake’s mood. He ended up ordering all the dim sum appetizers, even though it was going to cost him a fortune, and he’d have to wait a hell of a long time for it. The wait was fine, and the money, well, he was pretty sure he was trying to prove something by draining his savings, but he couldn’t worry about that now. Not when Gary had found something. It didn’t necessarily make West a bad guy, but it didn’t help.
Rebecca was meeting West tomorrow night. Getting ready to make a deal. What Jake had wouldn’t prove anything. The man’s laugh reminded Jake of a particular cartoon character. A lot of people were born with cleft palates. If the two things hadn’t been combined, he’d have dismissed the notion with barely a second thought. But the two things had been connected.
He had to decide, before he got the food, before he got to Manhattan, whether he was going to ask her to postpone the meeting with West or not.
Dammit, he didn’t want this thing with her to be over. Not yet. Yeah, yeah, it was inevitable, like death, like taxes, like his father driving him crazy, but not yet. He might not have a choice about that, though. Something had been off between them the past few days. Ever since Thursday afternoon. It wasn’t her workload, that he got completely. She was her job, the way he’d been his, so he had no complaints about the hours she spent at the office. It was more subtle. Pauses when there shouldn’t have been. An edginess to her voice.
She’d undoubtedly come to the same conclusion he had, that they were on borrowed time. That the more they saw each other, the more difficult the break would be.
She was the best thing that had happened to Jake in a long time. Even before he’d been shot, his life hadn’t been all that spectacular. When he’d been working his way up the ranks, he hadn’t wanted a relationship. When he’d gone under, he couldn’t have one. And now? With no job, no idea what he was going to do? Even if she wasn’t Rebecca Thorpe he’d have no chance in hell.
God, how he’d wanted deep cover assignments. It was always a choice, those, because of what they meant. It was dangerous as hell, obviously, but more than the prospect of being killed, the real long-term danger was getting lost.
He’d been on the edge of doing just that. He’d become Steve “Papo” Carniglia. A wannabe drug lord who’d worked his way up the ranks in the Far Rockaway Gang of Apes, getting close and tight with the man in charge because while he’d acted like a card-carrying member of the Queens’ gang, he never played dumb.
As he sat on the really uncomfortable bench waiting for the food, he leaned his head back against the window and cursed his instincts. She had so much riding on West’s money. Not just her, but all the people his money could help. The smart thing to do would be to let it go. Forget he’d ever heard that damn laugh. There were a lot of reasons it made sense to put the brakes on, but the one that had him tied up in knots was that she might be walking into something that could put her foundation in jeopardy.
Rebecca was doing everything in her power to elevate the image of the Winslow Foundation, to give it integrity and transparency. If he had a little more time, he could make sure who she was getting involved with. The
n they could both rest easy. All he needed was a short reprieve.
He wanted to show her so much. Now that the banquet was over, she’d have time. First thing, he’d take her to the New York she’d never seen. The hidden city he’d spent so long exploring. He wanted to watch her face when she saw where she really lived.
He could have it, too. If she postponed that meeting. Or if he didn’t bring up the subject of Keegan at all.
The host called Jake’s name, and he shook his head at how overboard he’d gone in buying dinner for two. But he wanted Rebecca to have everything. Food, success, pride, honor, everything. How long he had before she came to her senses and showed him the door didn’t matter in the end. Nothing mattered except Rebecca.
Well, there was his answer.
SHE OPENED THE DOOR AND laughed out loud when she saw the enormous bags he was carrying. “You dope,” she said, taking one of the heavy bags. “You bought the whole restaurant?”
“You skipped lunch.”
“Yeah, well, you’re taking the leftovers home. That’ll feed your dad and his buddies for a couple of weeks.”
“Boy, do you not know my dad and his buddies. They may be old, but they eat like beat cops.”
She watched him as he hung up his coat. He looked great, as always. No tool belt, dammit, but nice jeans, not quite as worn in, a little darker than the ones she’d declared her favorite, with a white oxford shirt tucked into them. She took another moment to admire his shoulder-to-waist ratio. She was a lucky, lucky woman.
“What’s that goofy grin about?”
“You’re very attractive,” she said.
“That’s it? Attractive?”
“That’s a lot.”
He shrugged.
“I’m not saying that’s all you are.”
He put his bag on the island, then took the one she was holding and dumped that, too. “What else am I?” he asked as he pulled her into his arms.
“Wow. Fish much?”
“From time to time. Come on.” He kissed her, quick, teasing. “Give me something other than looks.”
“As if you’ve never thought hot wasn’t reason enough.”
“I have, I’ll admit it. But you’re so much more than that,” he said and then he really kissed her. It was as if he’d been starving, but for her. She felt his desperation in his hands and his lips and the way he thrummed with energy. She was helpless to do anything but kiss him back, to give as good as she got. When he finally drew back, she had to blink herself into the present, into the fact that the ache she’d felt for days had dissipated the moment she was in his arms. That she’d never felt like this before, not even dared to dream she could be madly, deeply in love, and that maybe, possibly, he felt… No, he was just being Jake. She’d know if he loved her.
She put some distance between them and the loss of his touch was like a slap. “Let’s put out everything on the coffee table and grab whatever. Want a Sapporo?”
He didn’t answer for a long minute, and she couldn’t read him. Hesitance, and then a smile. His regular smile. “Sure. I’ll start unpacking.”
Rebecca got the beers, the plates and the good chopsticks. She also brought along her bottle of soy sauce because she had a tendency to squirt the packets all over herself and the furniture.
It looked like a modern sculpture, all the white boxes covering her coffee table. He’d had to put the magazines on the floor and the flowers on the side table.
“I’m going to have one of everything.” she said, determined to keep things light. She handed him his beer. “Then decide about seconds.”
“You’d better get a move on, because there’s only three of each thing.”
They sat next to each other on the couch. She had one leg curled under her butt; his legs were spread in that manly way that always amused. After he opened both beers, they grabbed their chopsticks, and it was on.
“Hey,” she said, as she opened the third box. You cheated. This is the second box of char siu.”
“Actually, I got three orders of those. And two each of the har gau and the ribs.”
Before she could even think about it, she kissed him. “Thank you.”
He kissed her back, lingering, until he came away with a sigh. “You’re welcome. Don’t eat them all.”
“I wouldn’t think of it,” she said, deciding right then that the plan to keep her distance was ridiculous. She wasn’t going to send him home after they ate. And she wasn’t going to kick him out of her bed. Fighting it was a lost cause. Maybe the lesson here was to not be so damn logical about everything. So what if she didn’t know where this would lead? That might turn out to be the best part. He’d already taught her so much. Who could say where he would take her next?
They didn’t speak for the next while, but she managed to communicate quite well. Mostly by moaning. Taking a bite of the lobster after dipping it into a delicate sauce that was clearly made by the tears of angels, she made loud yummy noises as she chewed.
He laughed at her, looking at her as if she was extraordinary. It was the best dinner she’d had in ages. He stopped eating surprisingly quickly. Probably because he hadn’t skipped lunch. Then he got himself another beer, and instead of sitting down again, he stood at the edge of the kitchen, watching her.
She smiled, but it faded after a minute. “I’m sorry about tomorrow night. I can’t let this guy slip through my fingers. It’s too important.”
The words hadn’t even finished coming out of her mouth when she saw Jake’s demeanor change. His whole body tensed and he frowned, actively frowned.
“What?” she asked. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine,” he said, but he burst into motion, leaning over to close the food cartons, avoiding her eyes.
“Jake, what just happened?”
He paused.
“You can’t possibly think I have any interest in Bill West outside of his money.”
“No. I don’t.” He stood, abandoning the boxes.
“So?”
“I’d like to ask you to postpone that meeting. With West.”
“What? Why?”
He ran his hand through his hair, picked up his empty beer bottle and stared at it for a moment. “I have a bad feeling about him.”
“I know. He’s not my favorite person either. He flirted with me right in front of his girlfriend, or whoever she was. It was creepy. But I can handle myself.”
“That’s not it.” Jake moved from behind the coffee table and walked over to the window. “Dammit, I wasn’t ready to get into this yet.”
Rebecca’s stomach tightened and it wasn’t pleasant. “What are you talking about, Jake? Tell me already.”
He stared down into the street for too long before he turned to face her again. “I can’t swear to it, but I’m pretty sure I’ve met West before.”
The way he spoke, the way his voice lowered and his eyes grew cold made her very uncomfortable. “And?”
“It was a while ago. Before I did deep cover work. I think I met him at a drug bust.”
“He was a junkie?”
“If he’s who I think he is, he was a lot worse than that.”
“Okay,” she said, standing, walking toward him so she could see his face clearly. “I am so not understanding this.”
“I have no proof, so this is going to sound crazy. And I might be wrong. Really wrong. My gut, though. My gut is telling me there’s something—”
She shook her head, waiting. Becoming more uneasy by the second.
“I recognized his laugh.”
His laugh? She huffed her impatience and gave Jake a look. “Well, okay. It is…unique.”
“Yeah. Not easy to forget. But that’s not all. The guy I’m thinking of, Vance Keegan, he also had a scar from lip surgery.”
“Am I supposed to understand?” she asked.
“No reason you should. He worked for a drug dealer named Luis Packard. A major drug trafficker who ran most of the East Coast for over ten years. Ever
ything from heroin to coke to prescriptions. This guy Keegan was part of the organization, an office guy. Something with the money, although no one ever told me exactly what his role was. They killed a lot of people, sold a lot of drugs to a lot of kids.
“I was in on the bust. It was all over the news because when we were just about to lock it down, Packard’s people hit us, hard. Smoke bombs, machine-gun fire. Packard was killed, and so were some of the good guys. The gun that killed Packard had Keegan’s prints, among others. Keegan got away. Disappeared. Vanished. They looked for him, but he wasn’t on the top-ten most wanted. They were more concerned with where the drug money had gone, all the millions of dollars that were supposedly in a panic room.”
He kept talking, and Rebecca stared at him, barely comprehending what was happening. The whole thing was surreal. Jake sounded different, looked different…it was as if she’d stepped into one of their film noirs.
“I always believed Keegan’s disappearance and the missing money were connected. But that whole deal was way above my pay grade. Thing is, I was standing right next to Keegan, and he was laughing that weird laugh as we walked across the roof of the warehouse. He was laughing like he knew something, even though he was cuffed and surrounded by dozens of officers. Then he was gone.”
Rebecca took a step back. “You think William West is really Vance Keegan? Wouldn’t someone have noticed?”
“He hasn’t been in New York in years. He claims to be from Nevada, has a home office there. He travels to Europe, to California, even to Africa and Asia, but he’d never been to New York until a few weeks ago. From everything I read, he’s kept himself under the radar until last year. More importantly, he doesn’t look the same. I think he had a bunch of surgery, reworked everything from his hairline to the shape of his jaw.”
“Wait a minute—you’ve been investigating him?”
Jake moved a shoulder, his gaze unwavering. “I wouldn’t say investigating,” he said slowly. “Just searching online.”
She had no idea what to do. Jake seemed dead serious. But West had a multimillion-dollar company. There was nothing shady about him, and her people had checked. “Jake, that’s really a stretch, not to mention a serious accusation.”
