Madam Temptress

by Meghan March

  She leans forward to kiss me. “Don’t worry about a thing. This is gonna work.”

  Trey chimes in. “And cameras are going in five, four, three—”

  I grab her face and press a solid kiss to it. “Damn right it’s gonna work.”

  “Two, and . . . one. Get the fuck out there. You probably have about five minutes, tops, before they come looking to figure out what the fuck is going on.”

  I give Trey a nod, and Jules and I are out of the SUV in a flash. Jules already has the small set of bolt cutters ready, and he’s cutting the fence links in seconds. We’re inside in less than thirty.

  Space 117, I remind myself as I start searching the painted numbers. I spot the Mustang before Jules and wave him over.

  He disables the alarm system and then gives me a thumbs-up. With the Slim Jim in my hand, I pop the lock and yank open the door.

  A wave of stale air that smells like pot and dirty socks billows out. I hit the unlock button and Jules opens the passenger side. He goes for the glove box, pulls out the registration, and gives me a nod. Then we go to town. Each of us fills a bag we brought with anything not attached to the car that might give us information about the late Ricardo Ortiz from Magnolia’s building.

  Receipts. Business cards. Cell phone—bingo.

  I shove it all in my bag, and Jules pops the trunk. He hefts a duffel bag out of it as I scan the interior for anything else we could have missed, but I’m confident we’ve gotten everything.

  Jules closes the trunk quietly, and I check my watch. We’ve got two minutes.

  That’s when I see the flashlight beam cutting across the lot, three rows away.

  Nine

  Magnolia

  My heart hammers with every second that ticks down on the stopwatch I set on my phone. Trey is fucking with the cameras still, making the ones in the front of the lot—well away from where Moses and Jules are—flash and flicker like they’re trying to come back online.

  “If I just cut them all off, and left them that way, they’d know something was up. This way, they’ll think it’s just another instance of shitty equipment not behaving, which is something they’re likely used to.”

  I wish it made me feel better, but it doesn’t.

  As much as Moses was worried about the possibility of me having to get involved and put myself at risk, I’m a hundred times more worried about him.

  Me distracting a cop isn’t a crime in itself; that’s accessory-type shit. But Moses and Jules breaking into the impound lot? That’s bad news if they get caught.

  “How good are they at this kind of thing? Do they do it often?” I ask Trey, trying to gauge just how anxious I should be.

  Trey barely glances up from his screen as he works his magic. “I wouldn’t worry too much. They’ve had some close calls before, but Moses is smart as fuck. Guaranteed he’s already thinking six moves ahead.”

  “Like chess,” I whisper.

  “Yeah. That’s what he says. We think like chess, and everyone else is playing checkers. That’s why we’re so fucking good at what we do. So don’t freak out just yet. He’ll be back in no time.”

  As soon as he gives me that reassurance, my stomach drops as I see a flashlight beam coming down the sidewalk. If the cop continues walking that path, he’ll go right past the slit they cut in the fence to get in.

  “Houston, we have a problem,” I whisper to Trey.

  He finally lifts his head and looks out the window. “Oh fuck. He can’t keep walking. He’ll see the fence. This place will be crawling with cops if he does.”

  “Looks like I’m up,” I say, my pulse spiking despite my determination to stay calm.

  “Mags—”

  Trey starts to say something, but I’m not sticking around and taking chances that could put my man at risk. I hop out of the SUV and duck behind a van, so I look like I’m coming from across the street.

  “Officer? Can you help me?”

  The uniform swings his flashlight toward the sound of my voice. He’s not the cop I know, but I’m not a stranger to . . . well, strangers.

  “Jesus Christ, lady. Scared the hell out of me. You lost?” He looks me up and down, his expression bordering on appreciative when he takes in my dress.

  “I am so damn lost and confused. I’ve never had my car towed before. I didn’t realize I’d parked in front of a fire hydrant. There were trash bags blocking it, and I couldn’t even see the damn thing.” I giggle as if it’s no big deal. “Sure enough, when I came back, my car was gone, and there was a damn fire hydrant where it was parked.”

  He relaxes, and it’s hard to tell, but he appears to blush as he scans the ground before me. “I’m real sorry about that, ma’am, but in the interest of public safety, we can’t allow people to block fire hydrants when they park.”

  “I know, I know.” I wave a hand through the air between us. “And I have no problem paying the fine. Trust me, I’ve learned my lesson. I just don’t understand where I’m supposed to go to get my car. I’ve never done this before.”

  He turns to point in the direction of the brown building we drove by earlier, but it can’t be seen from where we are. “If you go just down the street and take a right, you’ll spot a building that says . . .”

  I think I see the black of Moses’s T-shirt on the other side of the fence, and I can’t take a chance the officer is just going to give me directions and send me on my way. So I loop my arm around his, even though he hasn’t offered it.

  “Can you just walk me over there? I can probably find it myself, but walking around here at night by myself gives me the creeps. You’d hate to have something happen to me, wouldn’t you? Do you mind? I’d really appreciate it, Officer.”

  His flashlight beam is pointed at the ground now, but his eyes are pointed straight at my tits.

  Good. Look at my tits. As long as you don’t see my man.

  “Well, I’m on my rounds . . .”

  I peek up at him from under my lashes. “Oh, shoot. I wouldn’t want to take you away from your duties. I just . . . I’m a little scared of the dark, is all. You never know who’s out there or if they’re watching you. Just scares the bejesus out of me.”

  I see the exact moment I win, because his face softens and he smiles.

  “All right, ma’am. I’d be happy to escort you over there. You’ll have to work with the officers inside to get your car, though. That’s not my job.”

  “Thank you so much, sir. You’re a true gentleman.”

  As we start walking, me holding his arm, toward the building and away from the sliced fence, I could do a fist pump of victory.

  Moses, however, might want to kill me.

  Ten

  Moses

  “I’m going to kill her,” I say as soon as I slide into the SUV and Jules fires up the engine. “That wasn’t a fucking last resort. We could’ve gotten out—”

  “Say what you want, man, but I would’ve done the same thing in her position,” Trey says, defending Magnolia’s actions. “If he kept coming your way, there was a damn good chance he would’ve seen the fence. You sure as fuck wouldn’t have got out the same way. And now cameras are up again.”

  “What do you want me to do, boss?” Jules asks.

  “Drive around the block and stop in front of the building.”

  He cuts his face to mine. “You want me to park in between the fucking cop cars or what?”

  “Yeah, whatever you gotta do. Just fucking go get her.”

  He shakes his head slowly from side to side as he shifts the SUV into gear. “I hope she knows what the hell she’s doing.”

  “You and me both,” I say as he circles the impound lot. I glance back at Trey. “Cut the camera in front of the building again. I don’t want Magnolia on the feed.”

  As we turn the corner, I catch sight of the cop she was walking with, turning and leaving her in front of the building. “Slow down, Jules. Give him a few seconds to walk away.”

  We crawl down the street as Mag
nolia picks her way carefully toward the ugly brown building. The swivel of her chin tells me she sees us coming, but she’s waiting for her cop escort to get out of sight before she changes direction and raises his suspicions.

  Jules comes to a stop as the cop turns the corner, headed back down the fence line he’s going to find a slice in, when Magnolia dashes to the SUV.

  “Trey, open the door.” I give the order, but Trey’s already on it, and Magnolia jumps up into the SUV and shuts the door. “All right. Go.”

  “You find anything?” Magnolia asks as she settles into her seat.

  “What the hell were you doing?” I turn around so I can see her face.

  “Helping. And, clearly, everything worked out okay, so you need to take that attitude and stow it, Moby.”

  From beside her, Trey can’t help but chuckle.

  “Something funny?” I snap.

  Unable to hold back his laughter, Trey chokes. “She calls you Moby, and I gotta know—is that short for Moby Dick? Because if it is, that is the best fuckin’ nickname I’ve ever heard.”

  Trey is laughing all out now. Tears roll down his face as he chuckles, and the mood of the entire car lifts when Magnolia joins in. It’s contagious, and soon Jules is trying to hold back a chortle.

  Finally, I crack a smile. “What can I say? It may be a nickname, but there’s nothing short about it. I bring a lot to the table.”

  Jules bursts into laughter.

  It takes us a few blocks before we’re able to control ourselves, and to tell the truth, we needed the moment of levity.

  When the mirth finally dies down. Magnolia asks again, “You get what we needed?”

  “Yeah, mama. We found the ’Stang and emptied it out. Ricardo didn’t have a lot, but he had enough. Now we just gotta sort through it and see what connects him to the fucking asshole who broke into your place.”

  And who might have slit Alberto Brandon’s wife’s throat. My brain fills in the part I don’t need to say, because I guarantee everyone else is thinking it too.

  “Good. It’s time for this bastard to go down,” Magnolia says from behind me.

  “And he will. Don’t worry about that. We’re gonna find him and take him out.”

  Jules takes a winding and backtracking route to the house in the Marigny, just in case we have a tail, but I don’t see any signs of one.

  “We should be good, man. Let’s get home and start digging.” I twist in my seat to look at Trey. “We got a cell phone. Hopefully that’ll be our jackpot.”

  “Disposable?” He squints, and I know what he’s thinking. A burner won’t do us as much good.

  I shake my head. “No. It looks like it’s a nice, new one.”

  “I’m surprised Ortiz was smart enough to leave it in the car when he brought his fucking wallet to the job,” Jules says, disgust for the rookie mistake underlying his tone.

  “His wallet didn’t do us any favors helping to figure out who the fuck he really was,” Trey says, pointing out the truth. “Clearly, he wasn’t worried about it being found. Maybe that means he was getting cocky with his anonymity. Could also mean his cell has answers his wallet didn’t.”

  “Okay, okay,” Jules says, conceding the point. “As long as you find a name we can hunt down to put this son of a bitch to sleep, we’ll be all good.” He hits the button on the visor. The garage door opens, and then he parks inside.

  I’m out of the SUV first, bag in hand, but I’m not racing into the kitchen to empty it out on the table. First things first. I yank open Mags’s door and pull her out and into my arms.

  “When I heard your voice outside the car, my heart practically fucking stopped. I do not like you taking risks, mama. Not one fucking bit.”

  “All’s well that ends well,” she replies, pressing a kiss to my lips. “Besides, that’s about the best encounter I’ve ever had with a cop. You worried for nothing.”

  I run my hand over her hair and press my mouth to her warm forehead. “Come on, woman. I’m taking you inside. As soon as we’ve sorted through this shit, I’m taking you to bed and showing you exactly how I fucking feel about you.”

  Her smile could light up the pitch-black night. “You’ve got yourself a deal, Moby.”

  Eleven

  Magnolia

  When we make our way inside, Jules is dumping the contents of the bags onto the kitchen table. Moses and I walk toward him, and I’m hoping like hell we find something from the damn car to tell us who is after me so we can put an end to the man.

  The memory of the words smeared on my wall—in blood—still scares me, and that pisses me off more than anything. I don’t let men bully or intimidate me anymore, and the fact some nameless, faceless asshole disrupted my life and put me on edge is driving me crazy.

  There’s no two ways about it. He’s gotta go, and I hope he rots in hell.

  Moses leaves my side and crosses to Trey and Jules. He claps his hands together. “All right, boys. Let’s do this. Time to piece together every goddamned thing about this bastard so we can find out who the fuck would care that he died.”

  Trey grabs the phone first. “I’ll take this. There’s gotta be something useful on it.”

  He strolls over to the end of the table and unearths a cord from the laptop bag on the floor. After he finishes untangling the knot it’s tied in, he plugs the cord into the phone and then into a little silver box connected to the laptop.

  He grins immediately. “She’s dead, but she won’t be for long, and soon, we’ll have a hell of a lot more answers about ol’ Ricardo.”

  Moses nods in his direction. “Good. We fucking need them.”

  Jules studies receipt after receipt. “Dude, this guy loved him some Popeye’s and drive-through daiquiris. He ordered the same damn thing every time.”

  “Which locations?” Moses asks, reaching for a pocketknife on the pile. “Could be near where he lives.”

  Jules squints at the fading print on the paper. “They’re from a couple different ones. I’ll sort them out and see if there’s a pattern.” He moves to the other side of the table to start individual piles.

  I stand beside Moses as he flips open the pocketknife. The handle is silver and set with what looks like wood or bone. Immediately, my brain flashes back to that asshole Ricardo coming toward me in the elevator with the knife that sliced me open.

  This whole situation is beginning to wear on me more than I thought.

  Moses must feel me tense beside him, because he looks at me. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Just . . . remembering.”

  He follows my gaze down to the knife. “He ain’t ever gonna hurt you again, mama. He’s long dead now, and whoever the fuck is out there? I won’t let him get you either. Not even over my dead body.”

  I shake my head. “Don’t say that.”

  His stare narrows. “Say what?”

  “Over your dead body. That’s not happening, and we’re not talking about it.”

  The corners of his mouth curl up with the easy, soft smile that Moses gives me every so often. The smile I love seeing on his face, because it makes him feel like . . . mine.

  “All right, mama. I won’t say shit like that if it bothers you.”

  “Thank you.” I gesture to the weapon. “That’s a pretty fancy-looking knife.”

  Moses raises it between us, testing the balance of it in his hand. “Definitely decorative, but still lethal.” He pauses and flips it over to the other side. “And it was a fucking gift. That’s good.”

  “What do you mean?” I lean closer, and he taps the blade under his thumb.

  “It’s engraved.”

  I lean in closer to read the barely legible markings.

  Ricky, Always be sharp. Tony

  “Who is Tony?” I wonder out loud.

  “No idea, but Trey’ll find out for us.” Moses turns to his friend, who is messing with the phone at the end of the table. “Won’t you, T?”

  “Yeah. Give me a few minutes to break into this
phone. It uses one of those patterns to unlock it. I gotta run a program that’ll give it to me.”

  “A few minutes?” Jules asks with a huff. “Losing your touch, man?”

  “Shut up, asshole. I’d like to see you do this.”

  Jules shuffles through more loose scraps of paper. “I’d draw all the easy patterns first because I don’t think this dude was a mental giant. He literally stopped for Popeye’s every damn day for a week—and never bothered to throw away a single receipt.”

  Moses returns the knife to the table. “When you get it open,” he says, ignoring Jules’s commentary, “look for a Tony. I’m guessing it’s a father or a brother. Or maybe . . . fuck, I don’t know. But it’s gotta be someone he was close to. Men don’t go through the trouble of engraving shit for people unless there’s a damn good reason.”

  I spot a yellow Post-it note that’s crumpled into a ball, and I smooth it out on the table. Written sloppily in blue pen is my address. Well, my former address, including my condo number.

  Holding it up for Moses, I say, “In case we needed confirmation he was coming for me specifically . . . here it is.”

  “Dumbass didn’t even bother to memorize it. Jules is right, definitely no mental giant there.”

  “And I’m in!” Trey says with a fist pump from the end of the table. “Okay, you said look for a Tony? I’m browsing his contacts.”

  “Check his texts and recently called numbers. Search history too. Anything you can think of.”

  Trey’s fingers dance across the keyboard before he picks up the phone again and starts tapping around. Moses moves to the end of the table to stand behind him, while I pick up another piece of paper from the pile. This one is sticky and gross, and I toss it aside before I realize it has a phone number written on it.

  “There’s one with a phone number. No name. Just digits.”

  Moses holds out a hand. “Let’s see if he called it.”

  “What would that tell us?” I ask as I pick it back up and hand it over, quickly wiping my fingers off on my dress.