She continued serving customers, but now her attention was half on Griff puttering around the dining area, cleaning tables, sorting sweetener packets, and chatting with the customers, many of whom hung around longer than usual.
And then Andrew reached the counter. He glanced up from his phone. “The usual,” he said. “Whatever muffin you have.” He hit the green button on the screen and tucked the phone away, pulling out his billfold.
The crowd had thinned, so when Griff laughed and answered someone’s question, his voice clearly reached the front. Andrew froze, money in hand. His inquiring gaze speared Reese. She swallowed, knowing he’d recognized Griff’s voice as belonging to the guy behind the curtain at the hospital the other day.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Griff stiffen. A moment later, he joined her behind the counter.
“Morning, Chief,” he said.
“Morning.” Andrew handed over his money. “I didn’t realize Reese had hired help,” he said.
Griff filled a ceramic mug with the blend of the day and set a muffin on a plate. “She’s not paying me. I’m a friend.” The emphasis on the last word and the look that accompanied it got the message across. Reese’s cheeks flamed, but neither man looked at her.
“Glad to hear it.” Andrew took his change and went to his regular table, making a show of peeling the wrapper off his muffin.
“What the hell was that?” Reese hissed to Griff, pushing him behind the high glass case for an illusion of privacy.
“What?” Griff raised his hands defensively but kept his voice low. “I was letting him know we’re friends. He was at the hospital, right? Overheard us?”
She ground her teeth. “You sounded like you were warning him off. Now he’s going to think I lied to him about Brian and wonder why. Which means he’ll look at me harder.”
Griff stood, his expression neutral, gaze steady, and she realized that was exactly what he wanted. Furious, she snatched a roll of paper towels and stomped off to spot-check the bathrooms for cleanliness.
So he thought she’d change her mind about tonight if she thought Andrew was watching her, did he? Damn him for making things more difficult. She didn’t care if Andrew was suspicious of her, as long as she never gave him reason to act on that suspicion. But part of convincing Griff to let her go into the Alpine house tonight was letting him help her do it. That put him in the spotlight, too, and he knew she wouldn’t risk him or his firm.
She kicked her way around the ladies’ room, making more work for herself but glad to have reason to burn off her anger in here, away from Griff and Andrew and the other prying eyes of Crestview. Once she was done cleaning, she splashed her face and dried it with a paper towel.
Okay. She took a deep breath and coached herself silently in the mirror. Andrew had to be gone by now. She’d act like Griff had done nothing wrong and proceed with their plan. The precautions they’d already discussed would suffice even if Andrew was somehow out patrolling specifically for her. Short of tying her up in her bedroom, Griff couldn’t stop her.
Tying me up… She closed her eyes, lost in an immediate image of naked flesh, silk scarves, and heated moans. When her body tingled in a very non-electric way she snapped her eyes open again, a little shocked at herself. Was one kiss enough to awaken such carnal fantasies?
Apparently.
She splashed her face again before heading back out to the counter.
When she said nothing more to Griff about what he’d done, he didn’t bring it up, either. They took turns covering the counter and the dining room, and the lunch rush was almost busy enough for her to forget he was there. Almost.
During a lull, he set up his laptop in a corner and said he was going to look up the names she’d overheard in the Alpine house the night before. She gave him half an hour before her patience ran out.
“Anything?” She stood behind him to read the screen.
He shook his head. “ ’Skav’ is probably short for his last name, and we don’t know if it’s spelled with a C or a K. Nothing popped on that. ‘Bark’ is pretty distinctive, but if it’s his first name, he doesn’t have a record. If it’s a nickname, I can’t find anything referencing it.” He entered something into a search box so quickly she didn’t have time to lean closer to read it. The spinny circle hovered in the middle of the mostly blank screen.
“Maybe it’s short for ‘Barker’?”
He nodded and folded his arms, watching the computer working. “We get lots of hits for that. Same if we assume ‘Dob’ is short for ‘Dobson.’ I’m working on narrowing it down.”
“You’d think these kinds of guys would have records, right?”
Another shrug. A page of results appeared on the laptop, and he leaned forward to read them as he scrolled. “Probability’s not low, but it’s not impossible that they’ve never been caught yet.”
She shouldn’t be so frustrated, because she hadn’t even thought of having him run the names. She’d assumed they were all nicknames, insufficient for him to find anything. “Don’t you have other resources? Like, cops who know stuff that’s not in the databases? Nicknames. Habits.”
Griff twisted sideways to look up at her, amused. “You want I should call the chief and ask him what he knows about these guys?”
She flushed, feeling stupid. Of course he couldn’t talk to Andrew about her case. He’d immediately make the connection to the break-ins, and maybe more. “Well, what about Boston? You have a branch there. You work with law enforcement and the justice system. What—”
But he was shaking his head. “I sent a couple of e-mails, but don’t get your hopes up. Cops know their own jurisdictions, so unless these three are confidential informants for someone or operate on a higher level in the big city, the pool we’re diving for grapes in is just way too big.”
She made a face at his analogy. “Your job really sucks, doesn’t it? Boring and frustrating. How do you stand it?”
He just chuckled and went back to scanning the results.
Reese kept working, grateful for the small groups and singles who trickled in and gave her something else to think about. But the clock ticked steadfastly toward closing time, when she wished it would race. At two o’clock they hit the dead hour, and she started pulling leftovers from the case to wrap for tomorrow’s day-olds. The afternoon loomed ahead of her.
Griff stretched, his back popping audibly. “Come here a sec. I want you to look at some photos.”
Excited, she hurried over and dragged a chair around next to him. “For Dob? Or Bark?”
“Both. I flagged a few guys.” He didn’t sound optimistic, and sure enough, when he pulled each one up, she repeatedly shook her head. None even bore enough similarity to make her consider for a moment. Too old, too young, too skinny, too fat, too black, or too stoned—Griff got tenser and more annoyed with each flip of the page, and Reese tried not to let his lack of success drag her down.
“Oh, well, you tried, and it was billable time.” She rose and rubbed her hands on her jeans. “I won’t even make you subtract all the coffee from my invoice.”
While Griff packed up the laptop, she went back to putting away pastries. He came over to snatch a mini Danish from the spare tray and leaned next to her, chewing the whole thing in one bite. “Can you close up soon?”
Man, he smelled good. Rich and edible, more enticing than she could remember any other man ever smelling. She hadn’t realized how much it had sunk into her while they looked at mug shots until she walked away. Having him standing close again was like getting a hit after a very brief withdrawal.
“Yeah, as soon as I’m done cleaning up. Why?” She rinsed the coffee pots, making a note to scrub them with ice, lemon, and salt soon. He took them as she finished and slid them onto the now-cold burners.
“I thought you’d like to go riding.”
Every muscle from her scalp to her lower back released, letting her grin. “Oh, yeah.” She hadn’t been on a horse in weeks, and suddenly it was exactly wha
t she needed. “I’ll hurry.” She quickly cleaned the espresso machine while he wiped out the display cases. They’d kept up the dining area as they went, and Sarah had taken care of the kitchen after she’d finished the morning’s baking.
“Let’s leave that for tomorrow,” Reese told him when he came out of the cleaning closet with a broom. “The floor’s not that bad—I’ll do it before we open.” She was dying to get out to the stables a couple of miles outside town, and was chagrined that he’d been the one to think of it. Every time she used someone else’s horse, she regretted selling Erik’s farm and leaving his horses behind. Of all the hobbies she’d picked up from her husbands, riding gave her the most pleasure. Made her feel the most free.
She’d liked it so much it had annoyed Chris, her third husband. He’d placed out of the medals in Olympic downhill skiing and had been running a ski patrol in Colorado when she met him. He wanted her to ski with him in the winter and mountain climb in the summer, but she had never felt the exhilaration he did. Choosing riding instead had been liberating, and now it was fully her own.
Rick Milloy, owner of Milloy’s Riding Center, was always happy to let her exercise some of the less-requested horses. She’d found a kindred spirit in him, though he was nearly forty years her senior.
He walked over to the car as soon as they pulled into the yard. “Been a while, Reese. How are ya?”
She introduced him to Griffin. “Is Hacker available?” He was her favorite horse, as he responded more to leg pressure than rein commands.
“Sure is.” Rick gauged the length of Griffin’s legs and the way he walked as they headed toward the stable. “I’m thinking Teacher’s Pet would be good for your friend.”
“Exactly what I was thinking,” she agreed. Rick got the horses out while she collected the grooming kits and tack, and she and Griff groomed the horses in silence, relaxed and content for a few minutes. Dust motes danced in the stream of sunlight coming in the near end of the stable. Hacker drowsed, shifting his feet and lifting each one Reese touched, allowing her to pick his hooves without a fight. Every so often Griff crooned to Teacher’s Pet. Reese closed her eyes and leaned her head against the horse’s side. This felt like what her life should be. Not sneaking around and breaking the law, and hearts, and being heartbroken, and letting herself be full of anger and hate all the time.
When it was all over, she decided, she’d come back to this, if she could. Maybe not this exactly, right here, but this kind of life.
Rick re-entered the stables and checked the bit she had just put in Hacker’s mouth. “I had the kid set up your targets.” He was referring to the teenager who mucked the stables. He tightened the cinch and patted the horse’s flank. “You’re good to go.”
“Great, thank you.” She kissed the old man on the cheek and smiled at his blush, then led the horse outside while Rick gave Griff instructions he didn’t need. Her bow and quiver rested against the barn’s outer wall, and she slung them over her shoulder before walking the horse to the paddock.
Once she was out of the stable yard and through the gate, she checked the cinch again and mounted. She heard Griff and Teacher’s Pet behind her and kicked her heels. They’d catch up. She had riding to do. Hacker took off, fresh and eager, and Reese let out a whoop.
Milloy’s had a wooded trail and a training ring, but her favorite was a broad, grassy area that rolled in gentle hills on one end and spread flat and clear on the other. She cantered around the flat end, then up and over the near hill and down, then up the next, higher hill. Griffin had entered the field and closed the gate, and she paused to watch him trot across the grass. He rode with grace and ease, and the horse under him recognized the rider’s skill, prancing a little as if to test him, or maybe share its excitement at being out.
During one of her early therapy sessions, when Griff showed up to give her a progress report and ended up staying to chat while she worked, she’d learned he’d gone to a prep school where he’d been on the polo team. She had a much easier time picturing him playing cops and robbers on horseback, leaping off into a rolling dive, and coming up firing an imaginary revolver, than waving a mallet and sporting gleaming white britches and black knee boots.
She chuckled and threw her head back, face to the sun, eyes closed, feeling only the breeze, hearing only the horse’s breathing and the chink of tack as he shifted. She loved the sense of potential, of anticipation, that built as she sat. Finally, when she heard Griff coming up the hill, she opened her eyes, sat deep in the saddle, and yelled. Hacker took off, galloping full out across the flat, his neck stretched forward, his stride confident, solid. He pulled up reluctantly when she reined him in.
She turned him and spied out the targets the stable boy had set up as a favor to save her time. She tipped him well for doing it. He always placed them differently, and had told her once, when she asked what had possessed him to set one under a bush, that he liked to challenge her. It worked. She now made sure to hit every target, even if it took her half an hour to find them all.
He’d gone easy on her today, though. Two of the traditional bullseyes sat out in the open field. A deer-shaped silhouette peered around a tree. A couple of smaller targets dangled from other trees, one high, one low, and he’d set a man-shaped standee of black-painted wood up on the hill.
That one she always saved for last.
She secured the reins so they wouldn’t drag and pulled her bow and an arrow from the quiver on her back. She had checked the arrows in the car, making sure there was no damage, and the bow had been restrung since the last time she used it, so she was ready to go. She moved into position and waited for Griff to join her. He’d only been on the field with her once before, but knew to stay out of range in case an arrow went astray.
She nudged the horse into a canter and nocked the arrow. Her first release went wide of the target. She had the second one nocked before the first landed on the grass, and this one hit, though well out of the bullseye. She wheeled the horse around, switched hands, and let the next two fly. The first hit the outer edge of the target, the second the innermost ring but not the center.
“A bit rusty?” Griff teased when she stopped next to him. The horse immediately bent to graze.
“A little,” she admitted, not bothered. That was what happened when you didn’t practice. Still, she couldn’t help adding, “But I’ve never been as good with my left as I am with my right.”
“Then why do it that way?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes the angle’s not right for the other way. Really, it’s just to stretch myself.” She tightened the buckles of her wrist guards and took off again, this time circling toward the deer. She wasn’t a hunter, and didn’t care for the animal targets. Too much symbolism when one of the other targets was human. She let the stable boy keep setting them up, not because she wanted to desensitize herself to her discomfort, but because she never wanted to stop feeling it.
She hit the deer broadside, crossed over to aim at the small, dangling targets—missed one moving in the breeze, clipped the edge of the other—and dashed up the hill to the human. This one represented Big K, though he’d never had a name before. What she’d heard last night ran through her head. All get off on her… Have a go at her corpse…
Then the older memories came. Changed the pickup date… Suggested I take you… Too much of a hurry… Rage flooded her as she topped the rise and loosed the arrow straight into the target’s chest.
She let the horse slow to a walk across the top of the hill, her own breathing as hard as if she’d been the one running. The arrow had splintered the target around the hole, the wood underneath bright in contrast to the black paint. She studied it, and felt nothing. Not even the rage that had propelled her up here but dissipated as fast as her arrow left her bow.
Griff reached her, his body moving easily in the saddle, his hands light on the reins. But his eyes were hard as he studied the target. “Nice one.” Careful voice, free of judgment, which telegraphed it anyway.
“Thanks.” She nudged the horse over and yanked the arrow out of the wood, and they rode side by side across the field until they reached the first one she’d released. She dismounted to retrieve it and Griff joined her. They walked the horses around the field, picking up the rest of the arrows and talking about inconsequential things. The blue sky. The overgrowth of autumn olive at the edges of the field, and how strong its scent was. What kind of muffin she’d make for tomorrow’s special.
Slowly, though, the tension began to creep back up on her. As they returned to the stables and prepared the horses for their stalls, the conversation slowly progressed through dinner plans—grinders from a place they’d pass on the way home—to what time they’d leave tonight. Once they got in the car to go, Griff took things up a notch and tried again to make a case for her to wear a wire. She was glad he hadn’t leaped straight to trying to talk her out of the whole thing, but she still didn’t agree it was safe to be wired.
“I’m supposed to be naked,” she argued. “Where am I going to hide a wire?”
He winced when she said the word “naked” but refrained from commenting.
“I have some pretty cool technology. They’ll never see it. It’s not like the wires and battery packs in the old movies.”
“I don’t care. This is risky enough without making them think I’m a fed or something.”
He shot her a look. “You agree it’s risky?”
“Of course I do.” She looked out the side window, not wanting him to see how much it bothered her that four men—or more—expected her to have sex with them. If she thought her plan wouldn’t work, she wouldn’t be going in there, but a million things could go wrong and put her in deep trouble.
“All right,” she said, “I’ll wear the wire. If you stop brothering me.”
“Thank you.”
After they ate, she went to pick out what she was going to wear. Her wardrobe wasn’t that extensive, but she did have a few options. She draped a sundress on the bed and folded the hem up. She had just enough time to cut it shorter.
A Kiss of Revenge (Entangled Ignite) Page 9
