Brutally Beautiful

by Lynne Connolly

  That was all. When the cameras had returned to the studio and the newscasters began to talk about something else, Nick picked up a remote and switched off the TV. He dropped it on the counter and turned to Gen, covering her hand with his, engulfing it completely. “I brought you back here to talk to you about it, but we got carried away, and then you freaked out, and it wasn’t the time to make it worse.”

  She nodded, her attention fixed on their hands, his bronzed one covering her paler skin. “Poison?” She lifted her gaze to meet his hard, unflinching attention.

  “Strychnine.”

  “Strychnine?” She couldn’t get past the word.

  “Yeah, it’s a bit Agatha Christie.”

  The information ran around her brain, making her ears ring. She sat, pressed the cool tile counter under her hand. “He wanted to kill me?” It was one thing to encounter a man trying to drop a date-rape drug into her drink, quite another to process the fact that someone wanted to see her dead. “Why?”

  “I don’t know, but I mean to find out.”

  From the deadly note in his voice, she knew he meant what he said. But he was a poetry teacher. A badass one, sure, but still an academic. What could he do? “How?”

  “I have friends.” He turned away, dropped the toast on a plate, and brought it to her before rummaging in a well-stocked refrigerator and coming up with butter and marmalade. Marmalade, for Christ’s sake. “Odell is helping. Eat your breakfast.”

  “What?” She pushed the plate away, bile rising at the thought of eating. “This man, Anderson, he tried to kill me?”

  “It might not have been you.”

  She snorted in derision. “The only other explanation is mistaken identity, but the bar was the best-lit spot in the place.” That was why she’d chosen to sit there, albeit in the darkest corner. She needed to see the clientele, and in any case, most people came to the bar sooner or later. As it happened, she’d found her quarry almost immediately. Him, Nick Taylor.

  The most likely explanation was that it had something to do with her job. More than ever she needed to consult with her boss and report the incident. Anderson was from Columbia, they’d said. What if he was an illegal? He might have a grudge against her, but the name didn’t sound familiar, and she didn’t recognize the face when she’d seen him in the club.

  “I want you to move in here,” he said as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “Your place isn’t safe.”

  “And this is?” She motioned toward the open space, the huge windows. If ever a place was exposed, this was it.

  “I told you all the glass is one-way. I don’t employ housekeeping on a regular basis. The elevator is mine, and there’s a concierge and security cameras downstairs. Your place has one front door with inadequate locks, no guard at the door, and bad lighting in the public areas.”

  Of course she knew, but she pushed the information to the back of her mind, preferring to live in peace and take the risk. She took reasonable precautions, and that was all she could do. “This area isn’t completely converted. It’s not safe either.”

  “It’s a fuck sight safer than Flatbush.”

  “Some of the residents might resent that.”

  “Fuck them. They aren’t you.”

  Jesus, how did he do that? He made her feel like the most important person in the world when he looked at her that way, with banked-down desire and single-minded intent. Not that his intent was sex right now. It was protection. His voice softened. “Listen, it doesn’t have to be for long. We don’t even have to share a room. This is a three-bedroom apartment, although I use one of the rooms as a study. The other one’s yours if you want it. I just want you safe while I look into it.”

  “And we need to talk to the police.”

  “Of course,” he said smoothly.

  Gen was independently minded, but she was no idiot. When this handsome stranger offered her shelter in his palace, she should take it. Except for that word—stranger. She didn’t kid herself that Nick wasn’t dangerous, but he’d shown her respect and tenderness. The only time he’d treated her roughly was when they both wanted it. Their relationship was just beginning. Did she want to risk it by moving in?

  Or did she want to sit in her studio apartment, wondering when someone would come up those stairs for her? Break in and kill her? “Do you think he could have been insane? Psychopathic or something?”

  “Fuck, I hope so,” he said, “because if he was, the problem solved itself, and we don’t have to worry. Nobody else involved. Until we know for sure, I want you safe. I want you here, if you’ll agree.”

  It was the last three words that decided her. “Okay.”

  He drove her to her apartment and waited until she changed and threw some stuff into her suitcase, the one she used to store her spare clothes in. Then he took her to the subway station. She only managed to persuade him not to take her the whole way to work by telling him the station at the other end was across the street from her workplace. Because she still hadn’t told him where she worked, and she wanted to do that in her own time, not when she was running late.

  Scared, but knowing there was safety in numbers, she ensured she was never alone. Besides, the guy wasn’t coming after her now. She couldn’t believe anyone really wanted her dead, but she needed to investigate Anderson herself before she told anyone outside the department.

  The guy had worked at a science lab. Perhaps he just grabbed the first drug he could find, and wasn’t strychnine clear? Couldn’t he have substituted it for something else? Water, maybe?

  The thought of an immigrant with a grudge sent chills through her.

  The thought nagged at her that she should have told Nick, but it was too late now. She’d tell him tonight. Certainly not over the phone.

  * * * *

  He’d let her go in to work on her own, but it was a close-run thing. His to do list was growing, and he wanted some of it sorted before she finished. Trouble was, his sense of honor was kicking in. People thought that scum who ran gangs didn’t have a sense of honor, but they were wrong. The system depended on it. When contracts couldn’t be inked, a handshake and a demonstration of power worked just as well until someone arrived to mix things up. When the newcomers had warned Nick that he would face a full-scale war if he didn’t comply, he did the right thing.

  Ran.

  So far it was working, and he was so close to respectability, to trading in counterfeit papers for legal ones, that he could taste it. Then this happened, something he couldn’t walk away from because it involved somebody he cared for. Yes, okay, after this short time he cared for her. Gen’s life meant much more than his, and he wouldn’t rest until he knew for sure nobody was coming after her.

  He went in to the university early, stopping at a pharmacy on the way. Once in the library, in the place that he’d always claimed as his but now had even fonder memories of, he allowed himself one glance at the alcove where he’d fucked her yesterday. Madness, but nobody had caught them, and the library security cameras didn’t monitor that spot. He’d lived on calculated risk once upon a time. His day-to-day existence had depended on his ability to work on risk factors, and he knew, more than any financier, how to work them and balance them so at the end of every day he came out on top.

  His laptop booted up. He engaged the proxy server and went into the security system. After cruising for a while, he found that someone had fenced her in, and the signature, the style, wasn’t one he was familiar with, and it didn’t jive with the way everything else was set up.

  Why?

  The suspicion that Gen was a spy, set on him by someone or something, legal or no, emerged again to eat at him. No way he could do more on his own without alerting somebody. Chances were the alert would be ignored, but he didn’t want to take that risk, because the consequences could be bad. For both of them.

  So he packed up his stuff and took a walk on the grounds, stopping at a bench situated so people sitting there could study a sculpture of three crane
s in a pond that Nick had always considered derivative and frankly tacky. But he liked the bench. He took out the package he’d bought at the pharmacy and set up the phone, dialing a number he’d committed to memory a long time ago and never thought to use again.

  “Hello?” The voice sounded annoyed. “Who is this?”

  “I’m looking for your colleague, Lawrence Cavendish.”

  The voice sounded more alert. “I recognize you. Wait. Call me immediately back on this number.”

  He made note of the number Jim rattled off, and he redialed. A US number. When he reconnected, the first question he asked was, “Are you in the States?”

  “Texas, at company HQ. Lawrence and I are going to New York soon to check out a new venue for the retail section. You’re in the States too, aren’t you?”

  Nick didn’t bother to ask Jim how he knew. Jim was a computer genius, which was why Nick was calling him. He worked for Symbiotics, once a smallish computer company that Jim had helped grow into a worldwide power, moving from hardware to software and unbreakable security systems that companies ate up. “I’m on an unsecured line.”

  “If you tell me where you are, I can take care of that.”

  “Don’t bother. I just need some advice.” Swiftly, he outlined his problem, not glossing over the fact that Gen meant more to him than most people did. “So how do I get further up the chain without alerting anyone?”

  “Simple.” Jim’s voice sounded like he was smiling. Sometimes Nick could tell. “Ask her. Won’t she tell you?”

  “I—” Why hadn’t he thought of that? Starting with Gen? Because he was used to people who didn’t tell him everything. People who never told the truth unless there was something in it for them. There was no reason she shouldn’t tell him, and if she didn’t, then he’d come back and start again. “Yeah. Thanks, man. Sometimes I need reminding.”

  “Of what?”

  “That not everyone is out for what they can get. Gen has an honesty she can’t fake, not with someone like me. I’ll get back to you.”

  “Will you?” The smile had gone now. “Lawrence has never forgotten you, like you asked him to. He’s desperate to get in touch, to find out how you are. Will you be around New York next week?”

  He’d asked because he suspected it. Nick had reason to trust Jim, and he’d called him, knowing he might expose himself. “I could be. Listen, I’m close, Jim. I’m going straight, and I have a job. I won’t be British for much longer, if I can help it, and then I’ll be totally legit. As much as I’ll ever be.”

  “Putting your past behind you? Well, Lawrence did it.” Jim sounded so much more than the slightly awkward computer tech he’d met five years ago. He wondered if the man matched his firmer, more confident tone. He’d look him up, see how he’d changed. Since Jim was probably a director by now—if he wasn’t, a man of his talents would have moved on—there’d be plenty of information about him on the Net. “We’re staying at the Normal.”

  “Shit, maybe you shouldn’t have told me on an open line.”

  “It’s not open at this end, and who’s going to be tracking you? This is a disposable number, isn’t it?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “You’re good, then. Lawrence is bringing his wife.”

  Nick grinned. Yolanda, Texas-born, blonde, classy. A real find. And the sister of the owner of Symbiotics. He paused, his mind full of memories of a dark-haired temptress from Idaho. Not now he wouldn’t. “Give them my best, but don’t tell them anything else. Hopefully we can celebrate soon, but don’t tell them that either. Don’t want to get their hopes up.”

  “Listen, how do I get in touch with you?”

  He paused briefly. “I have a mailbox.” He gave the address and the name he used for that mailbox. “I’ll pick up another phone.”

  “I’ll send one to the box. It’ll be fully coded.”

  “Thanks.” Even safer, a phone personally coded by Jim Goddard. Nothing would be able to crack that. He might even be able to talk to Larry on it. At the thought, excitement lodged in his stomach, sending signals fizzing through his body. He’d kept away, in case the very dangerous people who wanted his blood caught up with him. He wanted to take no risks, not even with Jim’s help, so he’d cut ties completely. God knew why he’d mentioned it to Gen the other night. He’d never told anyone else he had a brother, not in the almost five years he’d been Nick Taylor.

  His life, pleasantly static for the last few years, was shifting again and taking a new path.

  * * * *

  “What’s going on?”

  She hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that, but Gen couldn’t bear the suspense a moment longer.

  As she’d expected, her boss leaned back in his capacious leather chair and steepled his fingers, smiling at her. “Explain. And calm down.”

  The time it took her to sit opposite him gave her a chance to regain her calm. “Sorry. Bad trip on the subway.” If one counted staring at every passenger, wondering if this was the one who’d kill her. All this shit was making her antsy. “That guy, Anderson, who died? You saw that on the news?”

  Nolan nodded.

  “He was the one who slipped me the mickey at the club.”

  Nolan froze, his smile fixed in place. “You don’t say?”

  “I do. I recognized him the minute I saw him.”

  “Who else have you told?”

  She thought briefly of Nick, but he’d known already. “Nobody. Tell me the truth, Nolan.”

  His shoulders slumped. “Okay. If you were targeted, I guess you have a right to know.” He reached into a drawer and produced a plain manila folder, which he pushed across the table to her. She opened it, and the first picture she saw was Anderson’s, the same gloomy mug shot from the news report. “He was working for us, but probably not solely for us. He could have recognized you in the club and panicked. I’m sure that’s what happened.” He sighed. “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this because Nick Taylor could be part of it. We—I—suspect that Bared is part of an immigration racket.”

  Oh, no. It could be possible. Her department usually routinely passed and stamped citizenship application forms, but from time to time something like this turned up and they had the initial investigations to do before they passed it up the line. “Part of an organization?” She meant the gangs. With a sickening sense of inevitability, she realized that would explain why Nick had such a great apartment, why he could afford to pay his way through university without getting a job on the side. “A legacy,” he’d said. She already knew he had more money than she’d first assumed. So vague. Money from immigration deals, passed through the club to launder it… Yeah, that made sense.

  “Listen, Gen, I’ll be straight with you.” He met her gaze, his own darkly sincere. “I thought Odell Prejean was doing this on his own. Then Nick Taylor, the man so close to getting his green card, turned up. I checked his credentials and so did you. Did you notice anything?”

  She hadn’t, so she shook her head. “Everything seems perfect.”

  “Not quite.” He kept her attention. “One or two of those documents aren’t right. I mean they could be—as far as we can tell they check out—but going back, I’m not so sure. A shame Nick Taylor is such a common name, because there are far too many in the UK to track down. Everything’s too perfect. But he could be okay. It could be that he’s being blackmailed. Did you check his address? One of the converted warehouses in DUMBO. True, he bought it when he first arrived, when the owners were trying to make the area fashionable, so it wouldn’t have cost as much as it is worth now. Still, an apartment like that set him back a few.”

  She’d already worked that one out. His concern for her… Was it an excuse, a chance to get her under his control? Her head spun while her boss continued. “I’ve traced several suspicious individuals back to that club, possible illegals.”

  “Do you have any proof?” She leafed through the folder. Photographs from applications, scanned copies of official forms—she underst
ood. None of it, taken separately, added up to anything, but together it started to look suspicious. She cleared her throat. “What do you want me to do?”

  “You live close by, don’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m not sure I should be asking you to do anything, but would you feel comfortable visiting the club again? They know you now. But just watch and report back. Find out what you can, chat to Prejean, watch the comings and goings and make a note of the exit doors. Don’t do anything else. You hear me? Officially you’re off this case, so it needs to look as if you’re just a customer.”

  She nodded again, numbly going through all recent events in her mind. Nick’s concern, his desire to protect her, his seeming honesty. Usually, people didn’t lie to her without her spotting it, but an accomplished liar might. Her studies in sociology and her special study of body language usually dealt with that. “Have you told anyone else about this?”

  He shook his head. “I’m trusting you, Genevieve. We’re at a stage where we’re only doing prelim work. We don’t have to pass the case on yet. If events happen fast, we’re within our rights to keep it in department. You see?”

  Oh yes, she saw. The prospect of promotion stamped his features with greed. She couldn’t blame him; this was a backwater of a job for anyone wanting to get on. However, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services department was part of Homeland Security, and he could move up the chain of command. Nolan was a competent officer and knew how to play the political game; he could start climbing. He had his qualifications and experience. He should be moving on.

  Taking her with him, if she went along with this plan. She didn’t need Nolan to tell her explicitly. Everything in his gaze said so. “Yes, I see. So we keep it on the down low until we’re close. Then we move?”

  “And take the credit we deserve.”

  She knew it had frustrated Nolan to pass on information that other parts of the agency had then taken the credit for. It burned when that happened. Homeland Security and its various departments were newcomers in the battleground between the CIA, FBI, and the NYPD. Everybody wanted the glory cases, the fast tracks to promotion, and there weren’t enough cases to go around.