by Tina Whittle
I was incredulous. “You’ve got to be kidding. That was a joke.”
“It is also alleged that you then destroyed the paperwork surrounding the…arrangement.”
“No, that didn’t happen either. I was—”
And then it hit me. I was in my shop—Trey and me, all alone—when I made that joke. Except for the footsteps Trey had heard, in the alley where we weren’t allowed to have cameras. I took a three-count breath. Then another. I waited until the red cleared from my vision before speaking.
“The individual in question—who happens to be my boyfriend, yes—is a fully licensed security agent with both a professional concealed carry card and an HR218 permit from the Atlanta PD. I have documented every transaction he and I have made, every single one of them legal and proper, and accusing otherwise is more of my neighbor’s stuntwork so she can have the whole damn block to herself—excuse me, I did not mean to say ‘damn’—but I did not, nor will I ever—”
He held up his hand. “I think I understand, Ms. Randolph. That’s fine.”
“But—”
“I said that’s fine. I’m getting the picture. All I need at this point is your A&D book.”
I slid the box in front of him. “I wanted to make it more…presentable. But it’s been a hellacious morning.”
“If the records aren’t complete—”
“Oh, they’re complete. Just not neat.”
He made a checkmark on his sheet as he reached for the box. I suppressed a gulp. My phone vibrated against my thigh, and I took a quick peek. Richard.
I stood. “Could you excuse me for a second?”
Agent Cranky Pants waved a hand at the door and opened the lid. I hurried out, snatching the door shut behind me.
“You are a lying son of a bitch!” I hissed.
“What?”
“Why didn’t you tell me you had a daughter?”
A pause. “You talked to Catherine.”
“Damn straight I did. She had some very interesting things to say.”
“Where is she?”
“You don’t know? Haven’t you even looked for her?”
A stray whip of wind slapped my hair into my face, and I huddled closer to the window. Behind the glass, Agent Cranky Pants picked up the A&D book and placed it on the counter in front of him. I turned my back. I could not watch.
Richard’s voice was a monotone. “Of course I looked. She didn’t want to be found.”
“I found her in two hours. You could have done it in less if you’d tried.”
He muttered a curse. I pulled my thin jacket around me and wrapped my arms tighter. The wind had bite, like the snap of a feral dog. It chewed through my jacket, scraping shivers down my backbone.
“I made the rules clear—no drugs in my home. She came into my house smelling like a damn hippie, didn’t even try to deny it, and then got caught stealing.”
“So that was it, your way or the highway?”
“She chose—”
“No, you chose. She made a mistake. Now her name’s coming up in the investigation into Lucius’ death, which means God-knows-what for her. Or you.”
“What does that mean?”
“That means considering that he was sleeping with your daughter right before he died, you just hit a triple play, Richard—means, motive, and opportunity—so you’d better—”
“Catherine was what!?!”
His voice was a mixture of terror and anger and grief and total utter astonishment. Which I had discovered was one of the hardest emotions to fake, even over the phone. But I was too mad to care.
“You heard me. Congratulations, Richard, you have now replaced the freaking Russian mafia as Most Likely To Have Murdered Lucius Dufrene!”
“I didn’t kill him! I didn’t even know about him and Catherine! Tai, you gotta believe me!”
“Save it for the boys in blue. Because I promise you, Richard, if I find one shred of evidence that you had anything to do with Lucius’ death, or Braxton’s bones, or the missing relics, I will put that evidence on a silver platter and deliver it downtown in person!”
“But—”
“In the meantime, stay the hell out of my shop!”
I smashed the off button with my thumb, hard, and I held it down like I was squashing a bug until the display flickered off. And then I stuffed it in my pocket and marched over to Brenda’s, which was locked up tight despite the lights being on. I banged on the door. She stuck her head around the corner and jerked it back.
“I see you!” I yelled. “I know it was you the other night, in the alley! It’s been you all along, tripping my system, eavesdropping around corners!” I banged again at the door. “Listen to me, Brenda Lovejoy-Burlington, if you tell one more official person one more lie about me, or about Trey, I will come over here and personally kick your lily white ass!”
“Your car is parked out back again!” she yelled in return.
“Damn straight it is! And it’s staying there! Because it’s my space! I can put up a fucking lemonade stand if I want to!”
“I’ll have you towed!”
“You touch my car, and I will hurt you, you hear me?”
She stomped up to the door, but didn’t open it. “I will not be threatened by the likes of you!”
“You just were!”
I kicked the door once for good measure. Then I took another deep breath—which was not working, no matter what Trey said—straightened my jacket, and went back into my shop. Agent Cranky Pants was right where I left him, eagerly making notations in his notebook.
I cleared my throat. “Excuse me?”
He looked up. “Yes?”
“In my first interview with the ATF, I was asked why I wanted a firearms license. And I answered because I believe in the Second Amendment, which is the truth. But the realer truth is that every night, I lay down with my conscience, not the Second Amendment. I take what I do here seriously. That means I abide by the law. You may find some messiness in this shop, and in that book, but you won’t find a single legal violation, not one.”
He smiled at me, the first smile I’d ever seen on his face. “Anything else?”
“No, that’s it.”
“Good. Now may I get back to my evaluation?”
I averted my eyes and headed for the storeroom. My chest felt tight, empty. I shut the door behind me, shoved a stack of targets off the table, and sat. I dialed Trey’s number. It went straight to voice mail, which I expected. He was delivering his paper on resiliency systems, so I knew he wouldn’t answer. But it was good to hear his voice regardless, his patient, professional voice. When the tone sounded, my own voice felt smoother and calmer.
“So I yelled at Richard instead of going into the woods, and then I yelled at Brenda and maybe threatened her with bodily harm if she touched my car. And now the ATF guy is evaluating the A&D book as I speak. I should have listened to you about organizing it, but that’s a big ‘oh well’ now so…cross your fingers, okay?”
The light from was the casement window was thin, but it was enough to illuminate the mishmashed wreckage I’d stuffed out of the ATF’s sight. I heard the chair scrape back in the other room. I ended the call, stood, straightened my jacket. Time to face the music.
As I entered the room, the agent looked up. “Ms. Randolph, I have to tell you. I’m impressed by the accuracy and thoroughness of your information. The organization, however—”
I sat in front of him quickly. “I can explain.”
“—is most impressive of all. Logical, coherent, efficient. The color-coding was a nice touch, but the cross index was especially helpful.”
I stared at him, utterly baffled. I looked where he was pointing and saw…a cross index. And color-coded tabs. My A&D book was virtually unrecognizable—hole-punched, subdivided, a paragon of order and tidiness.
<
br /> I swallowed hard. “Thank you, sir. I truly—truly—don’t know what to say.”
Chapter Thirty-five
A single sliver of light shown under Trey’s office door at Phoenix Corporate Security, the only sign of activity in the otherwise dark and cloistered hall. He was alone, the last of the industrious field agents to call it a day. I slipped inside without knocking, closing the door behind me.
He looked up from his work. He’d known I was on the way up—there were no surprises at Phoenix, which was safeguarded like a super-villain’s lair—but he wore a confused expression nonetheless. “I thought I was meeting you at the shop.”
“Changed my mind.”
Trey’s puzzled frown deepened, but he didn’t put down his pen. His office was as dichromatic as his apartment—ink-black desk, paper-white walls, one bookcase lined with rows of crime foreseeability studies and integrated physical security manuals. The stuff of resiliency design.
I leaned back against the door and folded my arms. “You organized my A&D book.”
Trey’s expression grew wary. “I did.”
“Without my permission.”
“Correct.”
“When?”
“Yesterday. While you were in the shower.”
“I told you I wanted to do it myself.”
He didn’t drop his eyes. “You did, yes.”
I examined him closer. The suit wasn’t Armani—it was his Dolce & Gabbana. Still Italian, still black, but cut looser in the arms, more relaxed across the back. I tried to read his expression, but he dropped his eyes to his desk. He gathered the papers and stacked them in his in-box. They’d been in a haphazard pile when I’d walked in, a disheveled mosaic of blueprints and pie charts.
I remembered then all the ways he’d stepped out of the black-and-white and into the gray over the past few days—staking out Fishbone, trudging into a dive bar, driving into the mountains. He’d been freaked-out, discombobulated, out of his comfort zone, and he’d still done it, like a seasick man climbing on a boat over and over again, until the pitch and toss of the waves became exhilarating instead of nauseating.
The realization bloomed with fresh surprise. “It’s all part of your damn strategy, isn’t it? Deliberately doing something I told you not to do?”
He hesitated, then nodded. “You said you wanted me to seduce you. That requires I improve my ability to tolerate uncertainty and lack of consequential control. So…” He moved a mechanical pencil out of its soldier-perfect formation, then moved it back. “I’ve been practicing.”
The earnest resolve in his eyes utterly undid me. Suddenly, I wanted him more than I’d wanted anything in my life. I unbuttoned my jacket and dropped it to the floor, then stepped out of the puddled fabric.
Trey’s expression sharpened. “What are you doing?”
“Undressing.”
“Here? Now?”
I engaged the lock with a single twist. “Right here, right now.”
“But Marisa is—”
“Still with a client in the conference room, yes. I passed her on my way up.”
I kicked my heels off, one into each corner, then hit the light switch with my elbow, plunging the room into darkness illuminated only by the streetlight outside. I walked barefoot toward his desk, reaching behind my head and unclipping my curls as I did. They fell about my shoulders in a mass of tendrils and ringlets. I stopped right in front of his desk, letting my vision adjust to the silvered darkness. He was eyeing me like a mouse might eye a cat.
“But Marisa doesn’t matter,” I said. “This is all that matters, this dangerous, transgressive, utterly chaotic moment. You’ve been doing so good, you really have. Wading in, testing the waters. But it’s time to get off the shore and into the surf.”
The slacks went next. I got a shiver when the air hit my bare thighs, but the rush of blood warmed me fast. I came around the corner of the desk—Trey watching, not saying a word—and then I took hold of his chair with both hands and spun him to face me.
He shook his head. “Right now, the signal-to-noise ratio is…” He kept shaking his head, dazed and bewildered. “And I can’t…”
“Yes, you can.”
Trey didn’t move—not a muscle twitch, not an eyeblink. He kept his hands on the armrests, fingers wrapped tight, practically white-knuckled with effort.
He swallowed, hard. “You said you wanted me to seduce you.”
“You did. It worked. Here I am.”
“But you said you wanted me to make the first move. You said—”
“Oh, you’re gonna make a move, all right. I guarantee it.”
I unbuttoned the blouse, revealing a lace-enhanced expanse of genuine heaving bosom worthy of the trashiest romance novel cover. Trey exhaled in a sharp burst. He’d bought me the bra I was wearing, a crimson La Perla push-up that had set him back almost five hundred dollars, and was as precisely engineered as the Ferrari to deliver exactly the kind of high-octane response I was seeing right in front of me.
I smiled. “Your move, boyfriend.”
He dragged his eyes back to mine. All I could hear was the hum of traffic and the cadence of his breath, quicker on the intake now, shaky on the exhale. And then—slowly, deliberately—he pushed himself to standing, his chest brushing against mine as he rose, starched cotton and hard buttons dragging against my flushed tender skin. And as he stood, I could feel the heat and stir of every inch of him—every single inch—and I knew that he was watching me burn for him, like a lit fuse racing to the inevitable. And he needed too, was trembling with pure uncut need, even if his hands never left his sides.
Slowly he bent his mouth to my ear, his voice a rough whisper. “Does that count?”
I removed his belt with one practiced tug. “Hell, yes.”
Chapter Thirty-six
I drove home slowly, the night an opaque bowl over the city. I could see the Atlanta skyline in my rearview mirror against that matte charcoal sky, my windshield wipers scraping blobs of slush off the glass. I listened to the scrape-squeak rhythm of the wipers and shivered despite the furnace-hot air I had aimed at my feet.
I couldn’t stop smiling. And remembering. The papers and pencils hitting the floor in a flurried clatter, the slanting bars of the streetlight both veiling and revealing. The sounds of fabric rustling, the hitch and release of breath, the whispery friction of skin against skin…
I cranked the heater down a notch and glanced at my cell phone. Nothing yet. It would come, though. It always did. Usually something polite, a brief cautionary warning about the traffic or an inquiry after my safe arrival. These little after-messages felt sweet and illicit, like the scribbled-under-the-desk notes of elementary school crushes.
Sure enough, my phone rang as I pulled into the space behind the shop. I smiled and tucked it to my ear. “Your timing is exquisite.”
“Did you have any trouble?”
“Not a bit. But the weather report was right—there were some flurries.”
“There’s more expected tomorrow night.”
“I plan on being at your place before that happens.”
I sat in the car, listening to the tick-tick-tick of the engine cooling, the soft plop-plop of light rain mixed with snow. My heart warmed at the thought of him. And I kept trying to tell him why, kept failing. And he kept trying to act, kept failing. We each had our walls, Trey and I, mortared and cemented. We’d have to take them down the same way we’d built them, brick by brick.
I pulled the keys from the ignition. “I’m sorry if I ruined your seduction strategy.”
“I have no complaints.”
I laughed. He delivered the words with his usual deadpan blandness, but I could hear an almost-smile lurking in them. I could also hear the rustle of papers, order-making at his end.
“No complaints here either. None whatsoever.” I drummed my
fingers on the steering wheel. “It really is hard for you, isn’t it? Wanting?”
“In itself, no. But it is difficult to process. Sometimes. So I learned to stop. Not stop wanting, of course, but stop acting. Pause. Analyze. Maintain distance.” A hesitation. “It can also be complicated by the…you know.”
I knew, yes. The hormonal signatures of arousal and anger were very similar, especially to someone with his neuronal wires crossed. Both were potent, irresistible, all-consuming, running in twin currents sometimes, one masquerading as the other.
“I know. But I have an idea that might help.”
“What is it?”
“I’m not telling. It’s a surprise.”
“You know I don’t like—”
“You will this one. Trust me.” I opened the door, pulling my jacket tight against the rush of cold. “But don’t worry, it’s not a surprising surprise, it’s a—”
The noise came from my left, a sucking rasping gurgle. I stopped walking, stopped talking.
“Tai? Are you there?”
“I thought I heard something.”
“Like what?”
“Shhh!”
The night fell silent around me, only the murmur of faraway traffic and slushy rain and my own rapid breathing. I switched the phone to my left hand and went into my purse with my right. The .38 slipped free from the holster, and I pulled it out, hands shaking. I thumbed back the hammer, holding it down in low ready, finger alongside the barrel.
“Tai, get out of there.”
“I—”
“Get back in your car and leave, now. I’m calling 911.”
I took a step backward, my shoe catching on a piece of cardboard. The gurgling started again, this time accompanied by a moan, and I swung the gun in that direction. And lying there in the mouth of the alley, sprawled on her back, was Brenda.
I pressed the phone to my ear. “Send an ambulance!”
“What’s happened?”
“It’s Brenda, she’s hurt!”
I knelt beside her, gun in one hand, phone in the other. A pool of blood clotted around her head, but I could hear her talking, muttering, sucking in wet breaths. Her cell phone lay beside her, crushed, as if someone had stepped on it. I looked around, convinced I was about to be shot or clobbered or stabbed, but there was only pavement and snow and night. I put the phone down and put my hand against Brenda’s ice-cold cheek.
