Razed

by Shiloh Walker

  “Yep. Cuz that’s what a forensic accountant does. We fingerprint balance sheets and 1040s and W-9s.” He gave Zane a sober look. “Didn’t you know that?”

  “You need to start talking to women who have actual brains in their heads.” He tried to imagine his genius brother spending his life fingerprinting balance sheets and tax forms. “Maybe at least look for somebody with an IQ higher than her bra size,” Zane muttered, shaking his head. He unlocked the door and then started to swear as another bag went on a downward slide.

  “Your grace astounds me. How can you tote around cameras that cost ten grand without dropping them, but give you groceries and you’re all thumbs?” Travis took another bag and came in after Zane, kicking the door shut. “At least you don’t come home with a black eye once every other week all because you were in the way of somebody’s elbow during basketball.”

  Zane grimaced, studiously keeping his gaze averted. Yeah. There is that. “I’ll have you know I only drop stuff once a week and twice on Saturdays now. Just out of habit.” Dumping the bags on the island, he looked at his brother.

  Trey and Travis—the twins—were a couple of years younger than Zach. Out of all of his brothers, Travis was the one he saw the least. It was the job—and no matter what Travis said, it still sounded boring as hell. But it kept him busy and he traveled a lot. Consulting, according to Travis.

  “What brings you to Arizona?” he asked.

  Travis shrugged and started to unpack the bags. “Just visiting. I have to head to Europe for a while, wanted to see everybody before I headed to Virginia. I’ll hang with Trey a few days, then disappear. Hey, did you hear he was doing a thing at a bookstore in a couple of weeks?”

  “Ohhhh . . . yeah.” Zane ran his tongue around his teeth. Trey hadn’t done anything book-related, well, other than writing, since his wife’s death several years earlier. “I about had a heart attack over that one. Mom mentioned it when I was in San Francisco a few weeks ago. And the conference a few weeks after? Who in the hell blackmailed him into that?”

  Travis shot him a grin. “Mom? That’s my best guess.” He shrugged. “I called him to rib him about it, but he wouldn’t say much. Clay keeps asking to go visit Mom and Dad . . . and I think he’s trying to adjust to the little guy starting school soon.”

  “He’ll be fine,” Zane said.

  They both knew he wasn’t talking about the kid.

  Trey had all but shut down. His entire focus was the boy and that boy was moving closer and closer to starting school.

  Trey didn’t even like leaving the kid with a babysitter. It was going to rip a hole in him to send that kid to school the first day.

  Hell. The first month.

  “Will he?” Travis asked, his voice soft as he took the cloth sack and crumpled it into one big fist. His blue eyes stared at nothing. “Everybody keeps saying he’ll be fine. He’s not fine. I talk to him and I hear his voice and I know—he’s not fine. He’s twenty-nine years old and he’s so far from fine I don’t even know where to start. He’s locked up inside himself. He’s been like this for years and I saw it coming, but I thought . . .”

  He stopped and stared up at the ceiling. “Fuck,” Travis muttered. “Mom saw it coming. I told her to leave him alone. He’d work it out. But he’s just gotten worse.”

  “He will be fine,” Zane said again, despite the knot of worry. “Something is going to happen that will jar him out of that empty place where he goes and he’ll be forced to open his eyes and look around. You’ll see.”

  “I hope so.” Travis didn’t look convinced. “There was this . . .”

  Then he stopped, shook his head. “That his business anyway.” He shrugged, looking away. When he looked back, it was like the tension of the past moment had just disappeared. “So, you’re here. Why are you here and not in Albuquerque? I was going to crash here. I guess I can flop on the . . .”

  He paused and then eyed the box he had in his hand. “Or maybe not.”

  Zane caught the box of Trojans Travis tossed his way.

  “Got plans, Z?” A wide, wicked grin split his face. “And here I was thinking I should worry about you and Trey. I guess not.”

  “Seeing as how you were too afraid to even buy your first box of condoms when you needed them? I think I can do without your concern, kid,” Zane advised, heading out of the kitchen. He put the box in the nightstand and turned around to see Travis loitering behind him.

  “Condoms in the nightstand.” He turned and looked back into the kitchen, a thoughtful look on his face. “I don’t tend to do a lot of cooking on my own—it’s just me most of the time. But it seems to me you’ve got the goings for a somewhat nice meal in there.”

  Zane was quiet for a minute and then he pushed past his brother. “Zach and Abby have room at their place. I can give them a call. Or I can—”

  “I can find my own room,” Travis said, his voice mild. “Now be quiet. I’m thinking here . . . although really, there’s not much to think through. Either you’re big on wishful thinking or she finally decided to put you out of your misery.”

  Zane grabbed the olive oil he’d bought and put it in a cabinet near the stove. “Last time I was in town, I stayed at this nice little hotel on the outskirts of town. Quiet. Kind of run-down but it had a killer view. Give me a minute and I’ll remember the name.”

  “What time will Keelie be here?”

  Zane shot him a dark look. “Can you just shut your mouth? For maybe the next month—also, it wouldn’t hurt if you could fail to mention this. To everybody.”

  “Now that kind of silence will cost you.” Travis grinned.

  “Oh, kiss ass.” He flipped him off and then stared up at the sky. “Just what do you want?”

  Cheerfully, Travis said, “I’ll hold it in reserve. Don’t worry, I’m not as demanding as the others are. I’m not going to mess with a hotel, though. If I can’t inflict my presence upon you, I’ll just go crash at Zach’s house. Abby will cook breakfast.”

  “Do that.” Despite himself, he couldn’t keep the sharp edge out of his voice.

  Travis caught it. Narrowing his eyes, Travis cocked his head and waited.

  Zane ignored him.

  And Travis just waited.

  Now this was why Travis pissed him off.

  The son of a bitch should have been a psychologist or a cop or something, the way people spilled their guts to him.

  Finally, he turned and crossed his arms over his chest, stared the younger Barnes down. “Zach is a mule-headed son of a bitch.”

  “You say this like it’s news,” Travis pointed out.

  Zane didn’t comment for a long, long moment. Staring off into the distance, he brooded, debated. Then he started to talk.

  Travis said nothing until Zane had finished. Zane started with the kiss Keelie had laid on Zach months ago—Zach hadn’t told anybody but him—and he finished with the visit to the space Zane thought he just might try to buy to use for his studio.

  When he stopped talking, Travis pushed off the counter and went to the fridge, opened it. He studied the sadly lacking contents and pulled out a beer. “Zach has been lucky,” he said after a minute. “We all have, in one way or another. But Zach . . . yeah, he always knew what he wanted, where he was going. He worked for it, chased it. Doesn’t see how hard it can be for others, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve what he has.”

  “I know that,” Zane said tiredly. Rubbing the back of his neck, he shoved off the counter. “I just . . .”

  Travis slid him a look. “He’s just worried. He shouldn’t be. If anybody can make something work, it’s you. He’ll figure that out. It’s probably just because you’re grabbing for everything at once. You don’t do anything fast and all of sudden, you quit your job, you’re moving, you’re selling your house . . . Keelie.”

  “I think I can handle it,” Zane said mildly.

  Travis absently stroked his thumb across the neat goatee he’d grown over the past year, his eyes still st
aring over into nothing. “It’s not about you handling it. He wants you to be happy. With the job, with Keelie. With everything.”

  “That’s why I’m doing this.” Zane shrugged.

  “I know. He’ll figure it out, too.” Travis took a long pull of his beer and then leaned back against the counter. “So. Keelie. You took long enough.”

  Zane snorted. “You’re not exactly one to comment about my lack of social life. When was the last time you were serious about somebody?”

  “Never.” He shrugged and focused on Zane. “But it’s not like I’ve got a job that actually allows for it. I travel all over the place and I never really meet anybody. But, hey, it could be worse . . .”

  A sly grin lit his face and Zane lifted a brow at it, a mix of curiosity and dread mingling inside him.

  “Yeah? How is that?” he asked.

  “I could been floundering at the door, fighting to get my damn dick in my jeans because the zipper is stuck while some ditzy extra is trying to understand why I’m panicking over the sound of somebody calling my name at the door.” Travis took another drink from the bottle and lowered it, sighing in satisfaction, a devilish grin on his face.

  The word extra had Zane cocking a brow.

  “Just what has Sebastian gotten into now?”

  A gleam appeared in Travis’s eyes. “He forgot Mom was coming over a few weeks ago—she let herself in and if she hadn’t pulled a mom thing and started picking up some his clothes, fussing at him in the middle of it, she would have walked in right while he was having some one-on-one time with some cute extra they hired for the new action flick he just finished shooting.”

  “And what’s this thing about his zipper?”

  “Now that’s the best part,” Travis said, laughing. “I think fate was giving him a much-needed reminder to come down to earth—Mom said she heard him yelp all the way across the house.”

  “Oh. Son of a bitch.” Zane damn near clapped his hands over his cock protectively. And Travis stood there laughing about it. “Kid, you are evil.”

  “Yeah. You tell people that all the time. Nobody believes you.” Travis’s blue eyes gleamed as he said it.

  * * *

  Zane eyed the apartment in front of him, still not quite able to make this place fit.

  Keelie lived here.

  And it didn’t fit.

  Zach’s loft—or his old loft—wasn’t exactly luxury, but it was pretty sweet. Yeah, maybe Zane’s little brother still had money from the TV show, but he’d also mentioned that Steel Ink turned a decent profit. Hadn’t the first few years, but most small businesses struggled at first.

  It was doing well now, though. Zach talked about it enough, with enough pride in his voice, that he knew the place did well.

  Javi made decent money—he was talking about the bike he’d just bought and was working on restoring. He’d had the money to pay half the fee needed to send his daughter on an expensive workshop to DC.

  They had a couple of full-time artists and Zach was even talking like he might open a second location in Phoenix.

  The place was doing pretty well.

  So why was Keelie living somewhere that looked like it was going to fall down around her ears?

  This place . . . it didn’t fit. Or rather, it was like she’d made it fit. He frowned as that idea settled itself in his mind. It settled there, took root, and he couldn’t push it aside. Sighing, he climbed out and looked around, eying the car next door, propped on cinderblocks. There was somebody attempting to clean some graffiti off the door and he nodded at Zane. “Hi there.”

  “Hey.” Zane smiled as he headed for the door.

  Screaming broke out in the other building and from the corner of his eye, Zane saw the man dealing with the graffiti lift his face to the sky, like he was praying for patience.

  A second later, the front door flew open. A skinny man—just barely old enough to be called a man—came out, his jeans riding way too low on his hips. On his heels, there was a woman, and when he turned around to glare at her, the woman slapped him. “Is that the fucking best you can do? I give you two fucking kids and you make a lousy two hundred a week?”

  Zane looked over.

  “Yeah. That’s the best I can do.”

  “Why isn’t there any money left now? Where did it all go?” the woman demanded.

  “Bills. Water. Electricity. The sitter. My truck,” the guy said, without looking back.

  “We don’t need a fucking sitter!”

  “We do if you’re drinking when the kids are here.”

  The door in front of Zane opened.

  He swung his head around and, for a minute, the screaming coming from the other apartment faded away. The spit dried in his mouth and he went still.

  Keelie stood there, and if she’d struck him across the head with a two-by-four, it might have had about the same impact. There was a faint smile on her lips—lips painted a dark, lush red. Her eyes were shadowed, dark, made up in a way that complemented both the blue eye and the brown. Her head cocked as she studied him, a fringe of black falling down to frame her face. The rest of it was scooped back, leaving the elegant line of her neck, and the brilliant color of the tattoos there unobstructed.

  Her shoulders and arms were bare. Ruched silk clung to her torso, dipped low over her breasts. The blouse ended at her hips and a skirt of midnight started, only to end a few inches later, revealing legs that just went on and on.

  Zane found himself envisioning grabbing that cloth, dragging it up . . .

  “Are you ready?”

  Her voice startled him out of the daydream and he jerked his gaze upward, met her eyes. “Ah . . .”

  She lifted a brow.

  “Sorry.” Zane had to clear his throat, feeling pretty much like he had when he’d shown up on the doorstep the first time he’d actually asked a girl out—and she’d accepted.

  The yelling picked up next door and lines appeared near Keelie’s mouth. Zane held out a hand. “Looks like you’ve got your own live reality TV show living right next door.”

  “Yeah.” She glanced over and then looked back at him. “Wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for her. He busts his ass. She up and disappears with his paycheck half the time.” She jerked a shoulder in a shrug. “The good news is . . . they aren’t the worst neighbors I’ve ever had.”

  “What’s the bad news?”

  She lifted a brow. “Listen to them. Do I need to expand?”

  “Good point.”

  She glanced past him, sighing. “The cops will be here in a minute.”

  “Cops?”

  “Yeah.” She angled her head to the other building. “That’s my landlord. He’s on his phone. Fifty bucks says he’s calling the cops.”

  He had nothing to say to that. As the yelling next door got louder and louder, he stepped aside and gestured to his car. “You ready? I’m starving.”

  * * *

  Just brilliant.

  Keelie settled into the passenger’s seat with a mental groan. Before Zane had managed to shut the door, she caught the wail of sirens. She’d been right—her landlord had called the cops, it seemed. Rarely a month went by when this didn’t happen with Tara and Nolan. She glanced in the mirror, watched as Tara hit her boyfriend—or whatever Nolan viewed himself as these days—punching bag seemed more apt.

  He took it like a champ, his head swinging from the force of the blow, but all he did was stand there. She saw him spit something—it looked like blood—on the ground and then he turned away.

  Tara kept screaming, the sound muted by Zane’s car.

  If Nolan would see the light and maybe press charges against Tara one of these days, he could probably fight for custody of the kids, maybe even win. Battery wasn’t a charge that belonged solely to the male persuasion, something that Keelie had seen with her own two eyes, and she’d seen it a lot since those two had moved in. There was rarely more than a week or two when the poor kid didn’t have either his eye blackened or his mouth swol
len, thanks to his lady’s attention.

  But he wouldn’t leave.

  Cops came peeling around the corner as Zane pulled away from the block. “Is this just a typical Saturday night?” he asked softly.

  “Nah. This is actually fairly quiet.” She gave him a grim smile. “Once she went after him with a lead pipe.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “Nope.” She shrugged, thought about the baseball bat she kept tucked behind her front door for just such occasions. She’d even hauled it out once, threatened to use it.

  The cops had let her go with a warning. The fact that they knew all about Tara probably had plenty to do with why Keelie hadn’t gotten arrested for assault. That, and the fact that Nolan’s forearm had been broken from the first blow Tara had laid on him with that lead pipe.

  Tara had pled guilty to assault but she’d ended up doing only three months and then she was back home. That had been when their oldest was six months old.

  If Nolan had left then . . .

  “And he’s still here,” Zane said, shaking his head.

  “Because of the kids.” Keelie glanced up at the apartment, but the little girls were nowhere to be seen. Thank God for small favors.

  “He’s not helping them any.”

  “No.” She slid him a look. “He’s not. He ought to just take them and go.” Blocking out the familiar flash of lights coming up behind them, she focused on Zane. “So . . . you told me you were making me dinner.”

  A smile curled his lips. “Yes. I did.” He caught her hand and lifted it to his lips. “And I told you that you just might be amazed.”

  “You’re doing that on a fairly regular basis, Zane.”

  He chuckled. “Just wait.”

  Chapter Ten

  “So . . . favorite movie?”

  She eyed him over the steak and cut another bite, popped it into her mouth and chewed before she spoke. “I’m eating. Be quiet. I want more.”

  Zane laughed. “Hey, you were the one you grumbled a few weeks ago that we weren’t the typical get to know you thing. We’re here, nobody is going to interrupt. Ideal time, right?”