by LAURA HARNER
“I’ll give you a call tomorrow, Dani,” Beau called as the doors slid shut.
“Get Hawk,” Tolley said, stepping to where Tony had rested his hand at the base of the lamp.
“I’m here,” Hawk said moving quickly into the room from the elevator. “Deuce will be up as soon as the other two leave the building. I’d ask as a professional courtesy that we wait for him.”
They waited without speaking until the elevator doors slid open again, revealing Hawk’s head of security. “Mind if I come in, Detective Delacroiux?”
“Not at all.” She smiled despite the sick feeling in her stomach. She watched while Tolley and Deuce went to work with a variety of handheld scanning devices, cameras, and evidence bags.
“Hawk?” Deuce asked.
“Have a seat. Danielle, would you mind if I got us all a drink?” Hawk asked.
“I’ve got it, Hawk,” Tolley said. “Looks as if we all may have some stories to tell. Macallan okay with everyone?”
Tolley handed glasses of whisky all around, then sighed as he sank into a soft-as-butter saddle-colored leather wingback chair. Dani and Hawk sat side by side on her old sofa, while Deuce took an overstuffed floral armchair.
“Danielle, Tolley—first, I’m afraid I’ve misled you a bit,” Hawk said. “As you might have guessed, Deuce here is much more than the head of security for Renaissance Tower. He’s my chief security officer for Resurgence. We’ve been together a good long time, and I don’t suppose there’s much I’ve done he doesn’t know about.” Hawk smiled at the other man, and Dani saw a great deal of affection in their expressions.
“Nice to meet you…Mr. Deuce?” Dani’s voice rose in a question.
“Just Deuce, if you don’t mind, Detective.”
“Only if it’s just Dani, Deuce. And this is Todd Tollefson,” Dani continued.
“And that would be just Tolley,” he interrupted with a grin. “Nice equipment. I’d love to get my hands on an SB-20i scanner like that for the lab.”
Before the two could lapse into geek speak, Dani said, “So tell me what you found.”
Deuce blinked at her for a moment before he brought himself around to the subject at hand. “Right. I already knew from the elevator scan that one of the men was loaded with electronics. As soon as I walked in, Tolley here pointed out the spot where I confirmed his discovery of the first listening device. I found a second device on the floor, kicked just under the edge of the sofa there. Both devices are the same model, designed to transmit a short distance, less than a mile. Most likely, they go directly to a recording device.
“They’re voice-activated to make the battery last longer and to spare whoever’s monitoring them from listening to hours of dead air. There was one other device planted in the elevator. They’ve all been removed, but it wouldn’t have made a difference because the elevator and top floors of the Tower are equipped with jamming devices and swept every few days. I’ll switch that to daily for now, Hawk.
“Got anything to add, Tolley?” Deuce invited.
“Not really, except to say that I bagged the evidence and got a real nice thumb print from the lamp,” Tolley said.
Dani jumped from the couch and started to pace. She needed a moment to compose her thoughts. She felt as if this was suddenly a defining moment in her life. Funny how you never knew when one would come, but here she was. She had something to share that might put her in danger. It might also play into Julian’s hands if this was an elaborate scheme by the master manipulator.
Hawk was Julian’s son. Could she trust that he had actually turned his back on his father? All of LeAnn’s research this afternoon indicated that Julian had gotten into the property game surrounding the waterfront long after Hawk made his land purchases and started construction on the Tower. Wouldn’t Hawk have clued his father in earlier if they were working together?
Putting that speculation aside, she thought about Hawk’s fear for her at Julian’s, the sheen of tears in his eyes when she’d told him she loved him. The goofy little twirl and dip he’d given her.
No matter how she played it in her mind, she believed him. Did that mean she could trust him? It meant she had to. Tolley would be her back up, if it all went wrong, but for now, she was going to trust Hawk. Which meant, she supposed, that she would trust Deuce, too.
“Tony congratulated me,” Dani said without preamble. Then she started over in order to bring Tolley and Deuce up to speed. She told them about the little game she and Hawk had been playing all day, and how at Julian’s, Hawk had taken the prize by announcing they were engaged.
“It was the only place the comment was made. Obviously we really aren’t engaged.” She looked at Hawk. “I assumed you said it to counter my telling your father we were together. I could feel the tension in you.”
Again, she shook her head impatiently at herself and continued before Hawk could speak. “The point is, Espinoza knew. Which means he has Julian’s place bugged or they’re working together. I think he’s got too much of a hard-on for your family, and he plans to bring you down to make a name for himself. For now, we’ll assume he’s working alone.
“We know he can’t listen here, but we should assume he has access to our conversations everywhere else. The question is, why? And how? As far as I know, there isn’t a warrant. He said there wasn’t when I asked.”
Just as she was about to outline her plan, Dani’s phone rang, and she flicked a glance at the caller ID. Nicolette Watkins.
“Hang on, guys. I need to take this,” Dani said and stepped from the room. When she returned a few minutes later, the men abruptly stopped their discussion.
“I need to go,” Dani said. “I’m meeting a witness at Alma’s Diner, but I should be back inside an hour. We can all meet again tomorrow after work. If that’s okay with everybody?”
“I’m going with you,” Hawk said.
“No, you can’t. It’s official business, Hawk. I’ll be fine. I’m a big girl.” Dani watched as Tolley and Hawk exchanged some seriously secret man looks.
“I’ll go. I’m official, and I haven’t eaten yet,” Tolley said to Hawk.
She rolled her eyes at their tough-guy antics and said, “Let’s go, Tolley.”
****
He tossed back a shot of Patrón, thinking of the information contained in the file, trying to decide what to do next. Goddamn, he’d nearly fucked this up. The first kill was just to bring the attention to an area he knew Julian Charbonnet had been trying to purchase. All he wanted was to make that deal go south, keep Julian off his game.
He hadn’t figured anyone would tumble to it so soon, because the drug dealer should have stayed fish food for a few days. He thought back to that first day. Killing Beaker had been easy. He’d taken a bat out of an unlocked car on the street and just walked up to the drug-dealing son of a bitch and swung. The redheaded prick had been so focused on his next fix he hadn’t even looked up from tightening the tourniquet with his teeth. The bastard had gone down like the sack of shit he was.
He’d been crouched behind some crates adding stones to the dead man’s pockets to weigh him down when that fucking Del Courtland came along and found the bat. Courtland hadn’t seen him, but he needed to keep the bastard from telling anyone about the body too soon.
Drugs. Courtland had a problem with drugs. He’d just needed a few more minutes. He grabbed the loaded syringe from where it had rolled from Beaker’s limp fingers and jabbed Courtland while the man was bent over the bloody bat. Then he’d had to rush to get away in case someone came looking for Courtland. He shoved Del hard, knocking him headfirst into the stacked crates, and then kicked Beaker’s body into the water, not at all confident he’d weighed it down enough. He didn’t have to worry; he’d just needed to get away unseen.
He’d spied the old wino as he left the pier and tossed a bill at him. The man would now spend the rest of the day and night in the bottom of a bottle. Which bought him time to set up the next scene a little more carefully. Time to ga
ther some evidence that would draw Julian further into the investigation. Junior turning up had been an added bonus.
Detective Danielle Delacroiux hadn’t gone for it. She’d investigated Hawk just as she had every other lead, but from the very beginning she hadn’t bought Charbonnet Junior as a suspect. Which meant the investigation had barely brushed against Julian Senior.
He wanted Charbonnet wrapped up with a bow and delivered to prison by Christmas. Which meant he needed to do something now.
Killing Beaker and the wino meant less than nothing. They were examples of worthless human lives. Killing the cop would bother him a good deal more. Then again, righteous cops fell every day in the battle of good versus evil. Dani Delacroiux would be one more victim in that war, and her death would not be meaningless. He vowed to make it count and to make Julian pay for her murder.
****
When the food was finally on the table at the diner, Nicolette set the recorder between them and pressed play. Constantine’s voice came out in crisp military tone of a man used to commanding his troops.
“Bottom line, Hawk, I want in on Renaissance Towers and your waterfront development. In exchange, I’ll make available an additional ten million in cash for your development purposes. I don’t require my name on any part of the public face of the company. In fact, I would prefer to remain a silent partner.”
Dani closed her eyes, picturing the scene in Constantine’s sitting room where Nicolette had hidden the recorder. She could just see Costa, standing, as he often did when conversing with others, especially those he wanted to intimidate. Hawk would likely have been sitting, arms stretched across the back of the couch, his legs crossed, with his foot doing a slow tap the only sign of his annoyance.
“I’m not interested in a partner, Constantine. If you had told me on the phone that was what this was about, I could have saved us both a bit of trouble.”
“Not so fast, Hawk,” Constantine said.
The sound of paper rustling was interrupted by Hawk’s voice. “For God’s sake, Constantine! Did you think some pictures of Danielle and I together would be enough to give you any type of leverage over me? Yes, you caught us having a meal together. I confess. It’s true; we have shared a few meals together.”
“Don’t be disrespectful, Hawk. You should know better than to underestimate me.” There was the sound of something else hitting the table. “I know Julian, Hawk. He wouldn’t approve of you sleeping with the enemy. For that matter, neither would Richard Delacroiux. Given the animosity between your fathers, if these pictures were to fall into her daddy’s hands…I think life would get infuriatingly difficult for both you and Detective Delacroiux.”
Hawk’s laughter barked out. “Do you know how I started out, Constantine? Ah, I can see by your face that you think you have some idea. Let me make it clear for you. Despite being Julian Charbonnet’s son, I made my fortune on my own, without any help from my father. I started with gambling, Constantine. Oh, I see that surprises you.” Hawk used his Texas accent as he did when he wanted to either slow the pace of the conversation or fool the listener into underestimating him.
“Now, if I were still a gamblin’ man, I would bet that this here’s a bluff designed to push me into a profitable deal for you. You must see me as a weak opponent, Costa. That’s where you made your error. When I said I made my start-up money in gamblin’, it was true, but we both know, gamblin’s a sucker’s game.
“I wasn’t the gambler, old man, I was the house. When you bet against the house, you always lose in the end. You lose, Constantine. I don’t care if you shout from the rooftops that I was with Dani for a night. To put it crudely, Dani Delacroiux was a piece of ass. She’s not even worth cultivating as an informant because she is nothing but a drone detective. She satisfied a momentary itch, and nothing more. You want to tell my father I fucked a cop? Go ahead.
“That makes your threat a complete waste of time, because I don’t do business with blackmailers,” Hawk finished.
Nicolette stopped the recorder and with tear-filled eyes, she looked at Dani. “I’m sorry, Dani.”
Never betraying an emotion, Dani said, “Thanks, Nic. You did good. Do you mind if I keep that?”
Grabbing the recorder, she threw some bills on the table and walked out into the night, alone.
Chapter Eighteen
The ground fog blanketed the street in patches of light and shadow, hiding cars here, revealing a mailbox there. Dani stretched her legs and walked briskly away from the diner toward the foggiest end of the block. She needed a few minutes to sort through what she’d heard. Tolley knew her well enough to give her some time, but she knew him well enough to know it wouldn’t be as much time as she wanted. She’d walk to the end of the block and back, then she and Tolley would talk.
“Dani Delacroiux was a piece of ass.”
Christ, it played over and over in her head. She wanted to think it through, but she couldn’t get past the hurt. The same voice that told her he loved her had only hours earlier called her a piece of ass.
Hawk’s words cut through her. Betrayed to a man who didn’t respect her, by a man whose reputation, whose life, she’d been trying to save.
“Dani Delacroiux was a piece of ass,” Dani repeated under her breath, the words bitter on her tongue.
She should have known better. Men like Demetrios and Charbonnet were the privileged few, members of the richest families in this part of Louisiana. They expected everyone, law enforcement included, to kowtow to their wishes.
How had she expected Hawk to be any different? He hadn’t even been raised in Généreux, didn’t have a clue about the working class and the poor. He was born with a silver spoon up his ass. Charbonnet Sugar, Charbonnet Oil, all of fucking Charbonnet Enterprises. He’d been parceled out to live with his mother and then to other rich relatives in Houston. He would never know what it was like to have to work for a living, to struggle to make ends meet.
Anger coursed red hot through her blood while her thoughts turned ice cold. She refused to be sidetracked by the callus remarks of a spoiled Daddy’s boy who didn’t have the cojones to admit what he really thought of her.
This investigation started because someone took the life of one of her informants. One. Of. Hers. It didn’t matter to her if the victim came from a rich and powerful family or only had a daughter who couldn’t care less about her father’s death. There would be answers. There would be closure.
“Crease Martin will have justice or my name isn’t Danielle Delacroiux,” she muttered.
Tell me, Danielle. Tell me again…Dani Delacroiux was a piece of ass.
Angrily, she pushed at the words. They didn’t fit. Something about them just wasn’t right. A well-aimed kick sent a crumpled beer can skittering across the asphalt. She blew out a breath. Timing. Look at the timing. From what Nicolette had said, this recording would have been made shortly after they’d left Julian’s place. Which meant Hawk went from Julian’s to Constantine’s. In his mind, it would have been one threat following the other.
Hello, Danielle Delacroiux.
Danielle Delacroiux. Danielle. Hawk always called her Danielle, not Dani. Dani Delacroiux was a piece of ass.
A little light began to flicker bravely against the darkness that had been forming in her mind.
Hawk was afraid for her. He’d left her a note, begging her to let him explain about Julian. He hadn’t expected her to show up at his place ready to make love. Hawk had wanted to talk, to tell her something important.
Dani Delacroiux was a piece of ass. When Hawk spoke to Demetrios, he’d called her Dani. He was separating his true feelings from the lie. Hawk must have decided that distancing himself from her in front of Constantine was the way to play it. He must believe that Costa was a danger to her and that denying the true nature of their relationship would protect her. If she wanted Hawk to trust her cop instincts, she knew she needed to trust his as well.
Dani thought over what they’d done before Beau and Espinoza
showed up. She wasn’t a piece of ass to Hawk. She wasn’t wrong…It had been love they’d made. It didn’t matter that his father was Julian Charbonnet or that she was a Delacroiux. Their families might have been at war for decades, but it wasn’t their war.
It didn’t matter they barely knew each other. Knowing someone took a lifetime, loving, only an instant. She knew she loved him. She knew it was the same for Hawk. It was in his every touch, every look, every kiss. She couldn’t breathe when Hawk touched her and she couldn’t breathe without him. For better or worse, Dani Delacroiux was in love with Hawk Charbonnet.
The bands around her heart loosened, and her breath came more easily. A smile touched her lips. The footsteps behind her let her know her alone time was up. Tolley was there to pick up the pieces if necessary. Just as he always was.
Dani turned, the smile on her face wiped clean in an instant as something slammed into her chest. She was already falling, already heading toward unconsciousness before the sound of the second shot echoed through the night.
****
Goddamn! It was like fate. He’d barely decided to kill Dani, when there she was walking alone at night in one of the worst parts of the waterfront district. He didn’t even stop to think, because his cause was righteous. This was proof. Dani Delacroiux was right where and when he needed her. He took two quick shots before turning to slip back into the fog.
Now the real work began. He needed to tie the shooting to Charbonnet. He knew he could get the gun into the desk in Julian’s living room. Maybe there was something in the desk he could use to plant more evidence.
Think, think. Julian wouldn’t do this himself, he would use one of his idiot thugs. Okay, that was what it needed to look like, a hit ordered by Julian. Maybe he could do a little creative splicing of the audiotapes from the surveillance. Might get caught with that, so he needed to make it look as if it was Hawk or…better yet! He would make it look as if Dani herself was behind the bug. Yeah, Dani running the rogue operation would be perfect. He could plant all the evidence he wanted and make it look as if Dani had been a little overeager in her investigation, and Julian killed her because she got too close.
