Money, Honey

by Susan Sey

  She’d actually taken two faltering steps toward the door with the intention of doing just that when cold realization finally broke through the shame.

  He’d manipulated her, she realized on a sudden flash of fury. He’d played her masterfully. The bastard.

  She flew into motion without conscious thought, caught up to him in the foyer. She snagged a handful of his ridiculously expensive shirt and jerked him back, shoved him against the wall where he’d kissed her senseless just an hour before.

  “How dare you talk to me about honesty?” she spat. He came off the wall with a snarl and she knocked him back with the heel of her hand. To her fierce satisfaction, he stayed put. “You, the virtuoso manipulator. You set me up with consummate skill, I’ll give you that. Drawing the seduction out over long, aching days until I was so lost to reason I couldn’t tell the difference between love and lust, until I was all but begging you to sleep with me. You must have loved that. Well, now you’ve won. You fucked the woman who fucked you all those years ago. Did it make you happy to dismiss me? Reject me? It must have been sweet to render judgment like that, to find me so morally deficient that even you couldn’t stomach my company.”

  “Liz, I didn’t manipulate—”

  “The hell you didn’t.” The words were boiling out of her now without any conscious thought, carried on a pent-up stream of hurt and fury. “I almost ran out here and begged you to forgive me. Can you believe that? You brought this ugliness to Mara’s house and I’m running after you, crying apologies for not protecting her better. But you knew I would. You wanted that. God, you’d think I’d learn, but no. Here I am again, some brilliant amoral bastard using my own heart against me until I’m nothing but a trick pony. But I’m not that little girl anymore, Patrick. No matter how good you are, I cut my teeth on better. I’m not responsible for somebody else’s acts of viciousness. I’m sworn to protect and serve, and I save who I can, but not at any cost. I’m nobody’s victim. Not anymore. And I won’t be yours now.”

  “Liz.” Patrick stuffed his hands into his pockets, and she could see anger fighting with confusion in every taut line of his body. “What are you talking about? Did somebody hurt you?”

  “I want you to go.” She forced her spine to stay rigid as the anger ebbed, leaving her limp and exhausted. She’d probably regret every word she’d just hurled at him in five minutes, but right now, all she wanted was to be alone. “I’m sure you’ll want to judge for yourself whether the security I put on Mara this morning is up to your exacting standards.”

  He stared at her for a long, brittle moment, his face blank and remote. “Fine.”

  It wasn’t until the door closed behind him that she realized she hadn’t collected the recording device clipped to his belt. God, they hadn’t even verbally debriefed. She’d been too busy devouring his body. Heated memory washed over her—his lips on her skin, the taste of his kiss, those clever hands on her body—followed by a punishing shock of loss. It was amazing how quickly and completely she’d accomplished her original goal. Without much effort, too.

  Heartbreak achieved. Good for her. She must have a natural aptitude for it.

  She shook off the hurt and forced herself to think about how pissed Goose would be when she logged on in the morning and there was no new data. But she’d be damned if she’d run after him now, because she’d just realized something else.

  He’d walked out her door without a word about her alarm.

  Since he’d been back in town he’d never once left her house without either setting the alarm himself or reminding her to do it. It had become something of a ritual between them and she’d gotten used to the luxury of his concern. But he hadn’t checked tonight, and she knew why.

  Keeping her safe was no longer a priority with Patrick O’Connor.

  She set the system with clumsy fingers, then walked slowly to the bathroom. She brushed her teeth and washed her face as she always did, then straightened her sheets with automatic motions.

  She crawled into her bed only to discover that while her heart was utterly numb, her body was not. It was a glorious symphony of aches and twinges, as if Patrick had branded her with every touch, every kiss.

  She stared at the ceiling for a long time. Then in the still, quiet hour before dawn, she curled into an anguished knot and wept.

  LIZ’S CELL phone twinkled merrily from the floor, and she sat up, blinking in the early morning light. Shoving a tangled mass of hair from her eyes, she stumbled out of bed and began pawing through the twisted mass of clothing strung out between the foot of her bed and her front door. The memory of Patrick stripping it all off her brought a rush of pain that knocked her back onto her heels, but she breathed through it.

  This had been the plan, she reminded herself sternly. Trigger the heartbreak, survive it, maybe gain some sort of immunity for the future.

  Cold comfort, she decided. Damn cold.

  The phone rang again and she found it under her jeans.

  “Liz Brynn,” she croaked.

  “Good morning,” Goose chirped. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

  Liz glared at her bedside clock. It was 6:12 A.M. “At this hour? Lord, no. I’ve already had breakfast and milked the cows.”

  Goose laughed. “Oh, good. Then you won’t mind that I’m on your front porch.”

  Liz shoved herself into her robe, shuffled into her front room and drew aside the curtain. Goose was standing right there on the porch, looking fresh, pressed and polished. As always, Liz thought bitterly. Goose flipped her cell phone shut with her chin, displayed two large to-go cups of coffee and wiggled one finger in an apologetic little wave. Liz sighed and disengaged the alarm.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” Goose sang as she sailed into Liz’s living room. Liz started to snarl, but Goose pressed a coffee into her hand and said, “Drink. We don’t have time for a mood this morning.”

  Liz lifted it to her nose, inhaled deeply. Even the fumes had a nice little punch. She peeled off the lid and sipped cautiously. Hot as lava, black as tar. Just the way she liked it.

  Goose watched her go at the coffee with an alarming combination of amusement and sympathy. “It’s a double depth charge,” she said. “I figured you’d need the hit.”

  “Why’s that?” Liz asked slowly. Her brain was beginning to clear and she didn’t like the implications here. An early-morning house call from a female agent, hot designer coffee and a face that all but screamed sorry you fucked the wrong guy.

  “Patrick called me last night,” Goose said.

  “Oh Christ.”

  “He only said that you and he hadn’t had time for a decent debrief,” Goose said, her eyes sharp, her face carefully neutral. “And that Oz is picking him up to pass the new hundreds this morning.”

  Liz fumbled the coffee. “What? God, what time?”

  “Easy there,” Goose said, plucking the sloshing cup from her fingers. “We have a few minutes. I wasn’t as concerned with what he said as what he didn’t.” Her dark eyes were warm and full of that awful sympathy again. “Oh, honey, I was kind of pulling for you. But you gave in, didn’t you?”

  Liz arranged her face into a blank. “What do you mean?”

  Goose sighed. “You slept with him. And don’t bother to deny it. I can see the trail of clothes leading to your bedroom. And not to be rude, but honey, you sure don’t look like you had a great night’s sex.”

  Liz frowned. “The sex was great.”

  Goose pursed up her red lips and considered. “Just not the rest of the night?”

  “Something like that.”

  She handed Liz the coffee again. “Drink up, honey. Oz is picking Patrick up at ten at Brightwater’s. We have to go wheedle an unmarked car with surveillance capabilities out of maintenance.” She cast a critical eye over Liz’s robe. “Is that Burberry?”

  Liz ignored her, took the coffee into her bedroom. Why the hell was everybody so hung up on her bathrobe? “Give me a minute to get dressed,” she called over her shoul
der.

  “Take your time,” Goose called back as Liz dove into her closet. “And do something about those bags under your eyes, will you? Have a little pride.”

  FOUR HOURS later, Liz was balancing a laptop on her knees while Goose flew along the two-lane highway, a modest couple of cars behind the old Volvo station wagon that Patrick had stepped into ten minutes earlier. Liz frowned at the screen, poked a few keys and let out a triumphant “Ha.” She’d accessed last night’s recording that Patrick had finally handed over half an hour earlier. Neither of them had seen it yet. “Okay, it’s downloading.”

  “Good. Turn up the volume so I can hear it, too.” Goose tapped the brakes as a rusty pickup in front of them pulled onto the shoulder and turned onto a dirt road. “Oh, damn. There goes one of my lead cars.” She paused a moment. “Well, shit, there go the other two.”

  Liz glanced up at the stretch of empty road between them and the Volvo. “Just maintain your distance,” she said, then turned her attention back to the laptop. “Okay, here we go.”

  The video was dark and grainy, but the audio was pretty clear. She could hear the DJ leading Patrick off the dance floor and into the twisting hallways of the club’s basement. And then they stepped into a pool of harsh light and the DJ’s scruffy smirk filled the screen.

  “Oz, I presume?” she heard Patrick ask.

  “At your service.”

  “Oh, hell,” Liz said.

  “What?” Goose shot her a quick look. “What?”

  “Wonderful.” Patrick’s voice filled the car, impatient and pissed. “Just wonderful. You’d better be as good as I’ve heard. If I bring a sixteen-year-old DJ to the set and he’s not a fucking counterfeiting wunderkind? Well, let’s just say it’ll be unpleasant.”

  Goose whistled through her teeth. “Oz is the DJ?”

  “Looks that way.” Liz pressed balled fists to her weary eyes. “Donald S. Brady. High school junior, excellent fake ID.”

  “No way is this guy in high school. He’s twenty-five, easy.”

  “. . . and second, I’m not sixteen.”

  “See?” Goose smiled at the road, her eyes glued to the Volvo cruising ahead of them at a conservative five over.

  “I ran him after he let Villanueva jump Patrick in the basement,” Liz said. “He’s seriously still in high school.”

  “You think I don’t recognize you? Please. I was you. Fifteen?”

  “God. Seventeen.”

  “See?” Liz paused the playback and leaned back to stare at the stained fabric of the unmarked car’s ceiling. “I was going to bust him this morning. Well, maybe not bust him per se, but maybe make a little house call to see if his folks knew he was moonlighting as a twenty-five-year-old DJ and a counterfeiter’s errand boy.” She rocked her head back and forth as if the motion could shake loose a new plan. “This complicates things a bit.”

  “Holy shit!” Goose yelped and punched the gas. “Somebody else is in the car. And I don’t think Oz knew about it. Must’ve been in the backseat or something.”

  Liz jerked upright and sure enough, there was a third figure silhouetted between Oz and Patrick in the Volvo. The car swerved wildly and then corrected, the driver clearly agitated.

  “Oh Christ, what’s this now?” Liz muttered. She snapped the laptop shut and grabbed up the binoculars between the seats. Goose closed the distance between the cars as Liz focused.

  “It’s Villanueva,” she announced. Her voice was grim, but her heart was pounding out a wild, fear-laced rhythm. “I think he’s holding a knife on Patrick.”

  Liz watched as Patrick handed something slowly over the seat to Villanueva’s free hand, then a passenger-side window rolled down. Something small and black flew past Liz’s window. “There go our eyes.”

  “Well, shit,” Goose said. “I loved that cell phone camera.”

  I love him, Liz thought, then blinked as the words almost came out of her mouth. It had been an automatic, unconscious response, rising up from the deepest place in her heart. God, it must be true. She hadn’t known what to think after last night, but this certainly clarified things. When it came down to it, she’d rather Patrick not actually die just yet.

  She reached for the radio.

  Chapter 22

  “WHAT THE fuck?” Oz craned his neck to look into the backseat where Villanueva had appeared. “Listen, man, we made a deal—I set up a few meetings for you with Mr. Hollywood here and you let me rotate my operation through the brewery. Nobody said anything about you fucking killing the guy in my car, okay?”

  Patrick glanced at Oz. “This is your landlord?”

  “Yeah. He owns the whole building. Cargo, the brewery. Everything.” His smile was wan. “Reasonable rates.”

  Patrick glanced in the rearview mirror at Villanueva. “That’s a lot of investment for a little revenge.”

  “It pays to be thorough.” Villanueva smiled thinly, then shifted his attention to Oz. “Lose the cops, please,” he said, his voice obscenely mild for a guy holding a seven-inch combat blade to Patrick’s throat.

  “Cops?” Oz glared at Patrick.

  “In the white sedan, maybe a hundred yards back. Speaking of which, let’s have the wire, O’Connor.”

  Patrick didn’t demur. He handed the cell phone to Villanueva, who buzzed down his window, flicked the cell phone out onto the highway and conscientiously buzzed the window back up.

  “Jesus, O’Connor,” Oz said with great disgust. “What did I tell you about wires?”

  “Oz,” Villanueva said again. “The cops. Lose them.”

  “Whatever you say, dude.” He spun the wheel like a stunt driver and hit the brakes. The car lurched into a deep skid that had Patrick’s gut dropping into his knees. As if he wasn’t in quite enough mortal peril. Jesus.

  The rear bypassed the hood, then the car squealed to a halt in the passing lane, facing the wrong direction. Patrick could see Liz’s face as she and Goose shot by in the unmarked car. Her eyes were huge, her expression grim. He managed a weak little wave.

  Oz punched the gas and the car bucked forward, heading back toward Grief Creek.

  “Turn here,” Villanueva said, and Oz jerked the wheel to the right. They skidded onto a gravel farm road, the car fishtailing wildly and then correcting. They took a curve in the road on what felt like two wheels and Patrick swallowed hard.

  “So, Patrick,” Villanueva said. “Are you ready to settle up?”

  “I’ve already arranged for payment,” Patrick said. “Your half of the take I screwed you out of at a nice interest rate, plus a substantial bonus for your years in sunny Central America. It’s all waiting for you.”

  The knife remained steady at his throat while Oz negotiated another curve at a heart-stopping speed. Villanueva tapped the fingers of his free hand against Patrick’s headrest. “How accommodating of you,” he said. “Waiting for me where?”

  “Zurich. There’s a one-way ticket being held for you at LAX.” Patrick set his jaw, willing his face to remain utterly impassive. Villanueva had always been a ruthless bastard. If he suspected even for an instant that Patrick’s intense desire to continue breathing stemmed solely from a need to protect his loved ones, he wouldn’t hesitate to slit his throat right here. He’d probably force Oz to bury his body in one of the farm fields whipping past the windows.

  “Not that it hasn’t been lovely seeing you again,” Patrick murmured politely. “It’s just that you’re a rather uncomfortable acquaintance to acknowledge at this particular juncture.”

  Villanueva laughed and the sound sent an ugly ripple up Patrick’s spine. “So you are fucking the little blond cop.”

  “It’s a goal,” Patrick managed, keeping his voice light and careless. “And your presence in town hasn’t exactly favored my cause.”

  “Then I’ll just get out of your hair,” Villanueva said, leaning close to Patrick’s ear. He smelled like sour sweat and years of rage. “But I’ll leave you with a little something for your generous cooperation. A p
arting gift, as it were.”

  “Oh?” Patrick met Villanueva’s eyes in the rearview mirror. They were black and burning with hatred in a tanned, sharp-boned face.

  “Pull over,” Villanueva said to Oz, who complied with alacrity. The car skidded to a halt and the sudden stillness was awful and charged. Villanueva pressed the knife to Patrick’s skin until a thin, warm dribble of blood ran down the column of his throat. Patrick forced his breathing to remain steady even as he lifted one questioning brow at Villanueva’s reflection.

  God, I’m sorry, Liz, he thought. There was so much more he wanted to say. That he loved her. That he had for years. That he wanted so many more years to keep loving her, to spend exactly as he’d spent the night before—in her arms, in her heart.

  But if he could protect her from this evil, he’d gamble with whatever was necessary. Even his life.

  He waited for Villanueva to jerk the knife to the left, to finish him. But he didn’t. Instead, he leaned forward and dropped a manila envelope onto Patrick’s lap.

  “I think you’ll find this interesting,” he said. “A little light reading. Enjoy it. I know I did.”

  He sheathed the knife, slapped the back of Patrick’s headrest and slipped out the door. He disappeared into a wooded field before Patrick had sucked in his first full breath.

  Patrick and Oz sat in silence, both staring straight out the dusty windshield for what seemed like an eternity. Then Oz reached slowly across Patrick, clicked open the glove box and handed him a paper napkin.

  “You’re bleeding,” he said quietly.

  Patrick took the napkin, dabbed it against the shallow cut in his throat. His hands were trembling, he noticed. Christ, his entire body was vibrating under the twin assaults of relief and adrenaline. A helicopter buzzed overhead and Patrick could feel it in every oversensitized pore.

  “What should we do now?” Oz asked.