by Cat Porter
“Try the wine,” he said.
Taking in a tight breath, I raised the delicate glass and sipped. His heavy gaze remained on me as he exhaled a long, long stream of smoke, immediately crushing his cigarette in an ashtray. He peeled the glass out of my shaky, damp hand and set it back on the bar.
“This is between you and me. I don’t want Ciara to know,” I said, savoring the smooth wine in my mouth. Its silky warmth was civilized, soothing, and loosened the knot pinching my insides.
He leaned into me, his expensive citrusy Italian cologne filling the air between us. Ciara showed me the bottle once at Barney’s. I’d been impressed. “Ciara doesn’t know a lot of things,” he said. “Let’s hear it.”
“I was being followed.”
“Past tense? Do you know him?”
I would avoid that question for now. “He broke into my apartment today.”
Turo’s face stiffened. “Did he rob you? Do damage?”
“He tried. He tried to do damage to me,” my voice broke.
“Ash—” A warm hand gently cradled my chin, an arm went around the back of my chair. “Ash, look at me.”
My body shook, and he took me in his embrace, but it only made me colder. “Tell me now. Whisper it in my ear,” he said against my hair, his breath warm against my neck.
“I killed him,” I whispered, making my nightmare real.
“You killed him?” His lips brushed my earlobe, and a shiver raced over my skin.
“Yes.”
He pulled back from me and laughed.
My shoulders stiffened. “What’s so funny?”
“Ciara gets upset by a fucking spider, forget the roaches.” He drank more wine.
“Good thing Ciara wasn’t at my place today then.”
He stared at me, a glimmer in his eyes, his tongue slowly swiping at his generous bottom lip. He handed me the glass of wine again. “Why did you call me?” he asked.
I took a small sip. A fleeting hint of chocolate and berries perfumed my strained senses, warmth raced through my chest.
“Say it, gorgeous. I want to hear you say it.”
I set the wine glass down, pushing it away. “I need you to clean it up.”
“You need me to clean it up,” he repeated, his very keen gaze sending a sharp jolt through my veins. He was thrilled to hear those words come out of my mouth.
“Yes.” I was crossing a line, and we both knew it. Brazen acknowledgement, tacit understanding.
“Why didn’t you call 911?”
“Plenty of reasons,” I replied.
He leaned his head down to mine, and I inhaled his warm breath. Wine and a fragrant tobacco, the sophisticated side of corruption.
“Then you’ve come to the right man,” he said, his voice a smooth baritone.
“I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.”
“You appreciate my professional talents?”
“I admire them from afar.”
A smile broke out over his lips. He gestured for me to come closer, but I only lifted an eyebrow in response. “How did you do it?” he asked.
“He had knives on him. I grabbed one and stabbed him in the side with it.”
“Good girl.”
“So, can you take care of this for me, or are we just chatting over vino while my flooring gets soaked in the other red stuff?”
He let out a chuckle. “Of course I can.” He poured more wine for himself. “I won’t ask what you’re hiding. That wouldn’t be professional of me. And I am a professional. After all, that’s why you came to me, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
He tucked his hand inside his jacket breast pocket and took out his cell phone. It was one of those newer ones, a really small model and thinner than any cell I’d seen before. Must have cost him a mint. He tapped a button.
“Hey,” he said into his phone, his voice curt. “Meet me in Pilsen with your toolbox. Now.” He gave him an address, a block over from my apartment.
Turo snapped his slim phone shut, the dull clap making me flinch.
“You know my address.”
“Of course I do.”
I let out a breath, but the dizziness still swirled in my head.
“Give me your keys.”
I handed him my keys.
He flipped them over in his palm and tucked them in his jacket pocket. “I’ll call you when it’s done. You stay here. Have dinner. Dessert. This might take a while.”
“Isn’t Ciara meeting you here?” I asked.
“I’m going to call her now to cancel.”
“I ruined your evening. I’m sorry—”
“Oh, no,” he said. “You just made it infinitely more interesting.”
He turned and gestured at the bartender, a very handsome model-type dressed in a tight black T-shirt outlining his perfect body. He was almost too pretty. “Aaron, my friend is staying for dinner. Whatever she wants—the works—on my tab.”
“Absolutely, Mr. DeMarco.” Aaron nodded at Turo and placed a long card of a menu on the bar top in front of me.
I glanced down at the beautifully designed menu edged in bronze trim, but it might as well have been written in Chinese.
“I don’t think I can eat,” I said.
“When was the last time you did?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Aaron, get the lady the arugula and mesclun salad with feta and the steak frites. Medium rare. And whatever else she’d like.”
“Coming right up.” Aaron vanished, taking the menu with him.
“Turo—”
“You like the wine? It’s a very fine Cabernet from Argentina.” His voice was relaxed. Just another night out with a woman. I tensed, expecting his hands to settle on a shoulder, my back, my arm. Thankfully, the touch never came; the weight of his gaze was heavy enough.
I said what I knew he wanted to hear, “The wine is very nice.” I wouldn’t be drinking anymore though.
“Stay here, eat, and relax.” He leaned in even closer. “I’ll call you, let you know when you can come home,” he whispered in my ear, that icy shiver racing over the back of my neck once more.
“You have my number?” I asked.
He slid on a dark overcoat. “Oh, I’ve had it from the beginning, Ash.”
Sweeping past me, Turo was gone.
25
Two o’clock in the morning. A bleach-y, chemical odor stung my nostrils.
“All done,” came Turo’s voice behind me as I entered my apartment.
“All done,” I murmured.
The apartment was immaculate, undefiled. All signs of death and destruction were now absent. But no fairy godmother had swooped in and performed this magical cleanup.
The door clicked shut behind me, and I flinched despite the weariness from the food, the hour, the adrenaline. Turo studied my reaction, but I kept it in check. He was always trying to read me. It was subtle but unsettling.
“You didn’t have to wait for me downstairs,” I said.
“Of course I did. You had a dead body in your apartment. You think I’m not going to make sure you’re okay when you get yourself back in here? What kind of man do you think I am?”
“I don’t think about you, Turo.” I threw my handbag on the chair by the door. I swallowed down the tension that crept up my legs, my middle, my throat.
“You thought about me for this, though, didn’t you?”
My eyes scanned the apartment. Everything in place. “I knew you could get the job done.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“You’re right, I don’t. I made assumptions. See how that turned out, though?”
“You’ve got good instincts, Ash. I got that about you from day one.”
Good instincts. Hmm. Instinct to kill, instinct t
o go to an underworld crime figure for help. My instinct to survive was a good one, that I knew. The pounding at the base of my skull thrummed. I was relieved, relieved I’d “handled” a murder and its messy aftermath all in the course of an evening.
He smoothed a hand down his crumpled striped dress shirt. “You okay to be here by yourself tonight?”
“Yeah. I’m good.”
“She’s good,” he muttered.
“I’m not tired, I’ll just stay up and work anyhow. I do most nights.”
“Very ambitious.”
“Determined.”
A faint smile whisked across his lips. “I like that.” He moved toward the door.
“Turo, thank you. Everything looks....” Oh hell, how do you thank someone for cleaning a dead body from your apartment and leaving your place spotless? ”You’d never know. What do I owe you for this?”
He eyed me, and my stomach tightened waiting for his answer. Payment would be heavy.
“Tell me who he was.”
I shrugged. “A one night stand from years ago.”
His eyes narrowed, his lips curved up at the edges. “That’s funny. Don’t lie to me. We just went through a very intimate event together. Come on, gorgeous. Who was he?”
Before I’d left Motor’s corpse in my apartment, I’d taken his club colors off his heavy body, cut them up with my shearing scissors, and put the pieces in separate trash bags and dumped them all along the walk to the bistro to find Turo. The tattoos on Motor’s body would betray his club membership, but there was nothing I could do about that now. At least there was no evidence that he was from Med’s chapter. The Smoking Guns were a huge organization. Motor could be an ex-member. He could have come from Australia for all anyone knew.
I’d taken the photos of me and Finger from his pocket and lit them on fire in my kitchen sink.
“Goodbye,” I’d whispered to the carefree images of us, soaking in them one last time as the blue orange flames licked at them, consumed them, charring them into delicate curls of singed paper and ash. I’d turned on the faucet full blast, sending the remains down the drain.
Leave no clues behind.
I hadn’t forgotten our rule, but that happy girl inside me, the one in the throes of first love, bursting with rainbows and lollipops, had wanted to keep those pics so badly. She’d pushed Rena aside and jammed her own bright pink flag in the brittle earth, declaring herself. She believed that everything would work out the way she wanted. She believed that she could hold onto souvenirs of a special night like any other girl in love would.
She was wrong.
Holding on could get you killed.
My heart hurt as I’d gathered up the pieces of the broken compass into a small plastic bag and shoved it in my handbag. I’d promised Finger I’d keep it safe, but I hadn’t been able to. I’d failed.
I cleared my throat and prepared a response to Turo’s question. “I didn’t know him. He said he’d been following me for a while now, like I told you.”
“No, you didn’t tell me. You just didn’t answer that question when I’d asked it.”
“He followed me on the street, to my favorite coffeeshop, not once, but twice. Then he broke in here before I got a chance to lock the door behind me and he attacked me.”
Turo rubbed a thumb at the corner of his mouth. “Should I leave one of my boys on the street?”
He was dropping it for now.
I swallowed hard, averting my gaze. “No, I’ll be fine.”
“I insist. You need anything else, you call me. I’ll check in with you tomorrow.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
He leaned over me and planted a kiss on my mouth. Not quick, not slow. No tongue. But a kiss that was more than a goodbye peck. He pulled back and let out a long breath as if he’d just taken a drag on a quality cigar and he was appraising the flavor. “You’re welcome.”
He brushed past me. My door jerked open, and Turo DeMarco’s well-soled footsteps passed into the night.
26
I opened my door a crack. The security chain stretched taut across my narrow view of Turo’s face.
“What is it?”
“Good evening to you too, baby.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Let me in.”
“No.”
“I have something I need to discuss with you.”
“Like what? The weather? The stock market crashing? Clinton’s latest affair?”
He let out a laugh, his face relaxing. “No.” His eyes traveled down my short kimono, lingering on my bare legs.
I pushed the door shut, but he quickly jammed his hand against the edge of the door, catching it. “This is business.” One of his eyebrows lifted as he slanted his head against the door jamb, his eyes piercing mine. “Let me in.”
Clenching my jaw, I unlocked the chain, opening the door for him. He entered, the shoulders of his expensive black trench coat brushing against me. His reddish blond hair was slicked back, his face freshly shaved, and with him wafted in the brisk scent of citrus cut with a dose of anise, almond, and musk. He stood in my living room, glancing at my work table which was strewn with drawings torn from my sketchbook. Drawings I hated. Drawings that were uninspired and bland. I hadn’t been able to work. I’d been distracted and moody. And anxious, very anxious. In the handful of days that had passed, I’d been avoiding Tania and friends from school. I still hadn’t heard from Finger.
Turo turned to me, his polished leather shoes catching the light from my work lamp. “I did some homework,” he said. “Took me a while. Had to go through a lot of different channels, but I’ve been doing this a long time.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You fascinate me.”
I raised my eyes level with his. “Why?”
“I’ve always liked you. You have a certain something. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s interesting. You keep to yourself. You don’t play games. You’re sexy as fuck.”
“I’m your girlfriend’s friend.”
“Yes, you are. From the beginning I needed to make sure Ciara wasn’t hanging out with some lowlife or someone who was using her to get to me. It’s happened before, and I had to deal with both of them. Can’t be too careful.”
“No, I agree, you can’t.”
“I checked you out and didn’t come up with much. Then you came to me for help, because you knifed a man to death. Well, that set off a mellifluous kind of music in my ears.”
“Did it?”
“Yes.”
“Again, your point?”
He leaned in close to me, his lips at my ear, his pricey manly scent attractive, asphyxiating. “Your secret is safe with me, Rena.”
My pulse jammed in my veins, jamming my ability to breathe, speak, move.
“Serena Barnstone, gone missing at the age of seventeen. A high school teacher reports her disappearance, but Serena’s mother chalks it up to her rebellious teen daughter running away. The girl re-surfaces a year later as Rena, old lady to one Medicine Man McGuire, President of the Smoking Guns of northern, Kansas. Within four years she falls out of favor and becomes nothing better than a slave to him and his club.”
“Not anymore.”
“No, not anymore.” His eyes roved over me. “How did you manage to get out? You were bored one rainy day and shot those two by yourself and skipped out of their compound?”
“It was sunny that day. Very sunny.”
An eyebrow lifted. “Ah, protecting someone. Someone special to you. Who could that be?”
“Is there more? Are you going to blackmail me now? Threaten me with your little piece of juicy information that will get me imprisoned, tortured, and killed? You want an in with the Smoking Guns, is that it?”
“No, no, no. I don’t want an ‘in’ with those fuckers.
” He enunciated the word as if it were sour on his tongue. He picked up one of my sketches and studied it, placing it carefully back on the table, smoothing down the edge of the paper. “I’m not here to send you back to them or blow the whistle on you.”
I was still, revealing nothing.
“You don’t believe me? Why, angel?” he asked.
“Because I know that the Smoking Guns are very friendly with plenty of organized crime families.”
“Yes, they are. Not with mine, though. And I wouldn’t call it friendly. I’d call it something else.”
“What do you want from me, Turo?”
“Cooperation. I want information. Anything you can give me on your ex-old man and your colorful past.”
He stared at me, studying my responses, taking in my levels of fear, anxiety. The silence stretched between us, and I waited for it to twang like a guitar string in a hushed concert arena.
“Information about Med?” I finally asked.
“Yes.”
“Why would you need information from me? I was just one of the many girls he kept.”
“No, you weren’t. Not just some girl.” He tipped his chin, licking his bottom lip. “What is it? Do you feel loyalty or duty toward the man who kidnapped you, raped you, and kept you for years? I will tell you this. Medicine Man and his glorious club crossed the line one too many times with the organization I work for. And that’s something you do not do without pissing off very powerful and very intolerant people.”
“That’s one of his favorite hobbies, though.”
