Into the Shadows

by Carolyn Crane

  “These.” He didn’t even look in the mirror.

  “You look like a psycho,” she said.

  “Just about right, then,” he said.

  “You can’t wear those.”

  And then he got that look on his face. “How much of a psycho? Good or bad psycho?”

  “All wrong psycho,” she said, reaching up to pull them off his face.

  “How wrong?” He grabbed her wrists—firmly—right there in the drugstore and pulled her toward him. “What if I wore them?” he asked with a playful glint.

  She could remember the way her belly dropped as he pulled her to him, making his look go stern. Thorne could whip out the looks when he wanted. He pulled her forearms to his chest to make her feel his heart beating; his cock felt like a log against her belly.

  What if I wore them?

  For their sexy game, he meant.

  They’d never used props before. She tried it out in her mind, in her body. “Yeah,” she whispered, heart pounding. “But not those. Too nebbish-accountant-slash-axe-murderer-next-door psycho.” She turned to scan the rack. She spotted a definite possibility—brown frames, shaded lenses. Total madness.

  “Show me,” he demanded, letting go. “Which ones?”

  “Don’t you want glasses that you just like?”

  “I want whichever ones made you go a little stiff just now.” That was Thorne, like a satellite dish, grabbing signals from everybody around him. She pulled out the shaded glasses. “These.” Her kink was more lowlife bruiser who mistreated her, less nebbish fashion failure.

  He took off the gold glasses and tried on the lowlife bruiser ones. Then he gave her one of his looks.

  A hot weight melted inside her belly.

  She didn’t even have to say anything; he knew. He simply leaned in and whispered, low and grumbly into her ear: “Go wait for me in the truck. Put on good music.” Gently, he touched her hair. “You’ll need good music for what I’m going to make you do.”

  Her pulse kicked up so hard, she thought it might explode out of her throat. She turned and walked toward the checkout, past the smiling clerk, through the automatic doors, and across the parking lot to the truck. She settled in and waited.

  Thorne wasn’t a big music guy—it was like he’d skipped his entire youth or something. While other kids were making the scene, he was making a custom grip for his Sig. But Nadia was into music, and he knew it. He imagined himself as not thoughtful, not fit for human society. But he always thought about her and about what she’d like.

  She put on an obscure and dreamy retro power grunge ballad from an obscure band and, with a level of sexual excitement bordering on mania, she waited for him to come to her wearing those glasses.

  Her blood raced when she spotted him walking across the parking lot in his brown leather jacket that he would later give to her, his torn jeans and shit-kicker boots and goddamn, those glasses. They obscured his eyes, but she knew in her bones that his gaze was glued to her clear through the windshield. She’d always loved his intense regard, and the way he would come to her, straight and strong, like a shark’s fin through the water.

  He slid in the passenger seat without a word.

  “What do you want?” she asked with the disdain that always started things up.

  He slid his hand onto her thigh, hiking up her skirt. “You know what I want, Party Princess.”

  “You think I let losers ride in my car?”

  “Open up,” he said, voice grumbly-smooth, tugging her legs apart. “Hands stay on the wheel.”

  She remembered gripping the wheel as he’d pulled her legs wide, and the way the glasses made him seem remote in a wildly sexy way.

  “You think I just let a lowlife like you touch me?” she asked as he pressed his fingers between her legs. “A brute like you?” It was usually nonsense at that point—he’d be touching her and she’d be panting.

  “Yes,” he breathed.

  Calling him those names had always hooked into something wicked inside her, and what the hell—her disdain got him aroused, too. So who was it hurting?

  “Come here,” he said, pulling her to him. “Get up here.”

  “You think I’m going to fuck a lowlife thug loser right in the parking lot?”

  “If I want you to, you will,” he said.

  He’d never pushed her—not in those early days, though later, he played the edge. Things got darker and more intense.

  “C’mon up here, baby,” he said, pulling her onto him.

  She got up onto him and ground against him and they made out like that.

  Later, he made her suck him off while he drove, pushing her head down like she liked, wearing 1.5 reading glasses that were probably not okay for driving. When they got to the alley they sometimes went in, she called him a thug while he fucked her gritty and dirty and sweet and slow, holding her arms to the bricks. That was another thing she liked—the grit of bricks or some kind of rough wall. It was just the right amount of pain, which is to say, not too much. A Disneyland level of pain.

  Show me, he was always saying—about what she liked in sex, but also about everything else.

  Show me.

  Sometimes he would ask her to show him things about being a normal human—he never realized that that was what he was asking, but it was. It broke her heart because of how much it revealed about the utter neglect of his upbringing. His mom had abandoned him and his little sister Sandi early on, and his trust-fund dad would disappear for days on end, or drag them around and forget them in various places. Thorne and his sister had once hidden on a beach in Hawaii for a week when they were preteens. They scrounged for food while waiting for him to come back from a drug binge. They rarely went to school. The little he’d told her about his early life shocked her—and went to show how money insulated the rich from the consequences of behavior that the poor would hardly get away with….

  She was staring.

  He shifted Rufus on his lap and adjusted the glasses. “You want a piece of this, Party Princess?” he asked again.

  “Fuck you, Thorne.”

  He inspected Rufus’s paws.

  Of course, his far sight was perfect. That’s what really counted for Thorne because it’s what he needed to kill guys; she had to keep that in mind. He wasn’t savable. He was a violent and immoral killer, just like Victor.

  Thorne’s men thumbed loudly through the books in the background, tossing them into heaps.

  “I see it. Glinting in there. See?” He shifted Rufus so she could look; the dog busily licked Thorne’s cheek. He’d shaved not too long ago, she noted remotely. Had he shaved because he knew he would come face to face with her? “See?” he asked again.

  “Yeah.”

  Richard came back with the tweezers, as well as trash bags. He dumped the haul and knelt next to Nadia.

  “Thanks.” She extended her hand for the tweezers. “I’ll do it.”

  “You should let a vet do it, Nadia,” Richard said. “If you hurt him, he’s going to want to bite.”

  “I got him,” Thorne grated, pulling the dog’s head nearer to his own and locking his arms around the dog’s legs, just so.

  “So he’ll bite you in the face,” Richard said. “Works for me.”

  Thorne glowered at Richard with his shaded lowlife reading glasses. Even though they’d both been in her dad’s crew, they’d been in different wings and hadn’t worked together. “Me and Rufe are good,” Thorne said.

  She knew it was true. Thorne was faster than Rufus; he and Rufus had established that long ago.

  Richard held Rufus’s back legs and Thorne had the upper part of him, stabilizing his paw. “You’re okay,” she whispered, tweezers in hand. The dog whimpered and growled. “We gotcha.” She extracted it on the first try—a shard the length of a thumbnail. “It looks all here.”

  “Good job.” Richard dabbed on ointment. Thorne said nothing.

  Thorne showed her where he’d spotted another. She got out two more slivers and Richard
put ointment all over the injuries.

  “He’s due for a checkup anyway,” Richard said.

  Thorne’s face turned stony. He got up and carried the dog to where his guys worked. He’d always loved to carry Rufus around like a giant baby, and Rufus seemed to enjoy it, too. It was one of the pictures she got in her mind when she would fantasize about sharing Benny with him. She’d never questioned that Benny would make him happy. Thorne would want to know everything about Benny, and how to play with him and feed him and care for him, and he would delight in every single story, no matter how small or stupid. And oh, the pride and joy she’d feel as he discovered how amazing his son was—she could practically taste it.

  And then she’d remind herself about who Thorne was and how many people wanted him dead. The real danger it would put Benny in.

  Thorne’s bald-headed minion had started to drill, making a hole right in the wall. He pulled the drill out and shoved it in a foot down, destroying the wall with exactly the look of enjoyment you’d expect from the kind of guy who’d join Hangman.

  At least her dad’s gang had some decorum.

  The other minion shoved a fat, bendable wire into the hole. It had a mini camera on the end, alongside a small, powerful light, and it fed into a smartphone. Nadia knew all about those things—she and Richard and the group used them in the first raid to see under a door.

  “It’s not in here,” she called over the drilling.

  “You have a better place for us to start?” Thorne said, shifting Rufus.

  She shrugged. “Attic. Lower level.”

  He turned to his guys. “When you’re done there, do this wall, that wall, and then the floor.”

  Deliberately ignoring her suggestions. She glared at him.

  He strolled over, still holding Rufus, though the dog was getting squirmy. “Victor would’ve wanted his eyes on it. It’s why I started them here. It’s where his seat on the couch faces. You just want us out of here.”

  “He didn’t need to throw every single thing off the shelves to get that drill in there.”

  “Be lucky it’s us.”

  “You actually think the Slaters are coming, or are you just saying that?” she asked. The Slaters were definitely more evil than Hangman. The Slaters ran the brothels and sweatshops.

  “They won’t come if we find it in the next two days.”

  “Two days?”

  He smirked.

  She looked over at Richard, who was up on the ladder, sealing the second tarp. He didn’t give any sign of having heard, but he would have heard.

  “When Richard’s done there, have him make us three of those sandwiches and set up our rooms. I’ll take Victor’s old room.”

  “Like hell.”

  “You in it?”

  “No,” she said.

  He stepped closer and tipped the glasses up over his head, like sunglasses. “Who is?”

  He’d be curious why she wouldn’t have taken the master bedroom, and maybe he was still wondering about Richard. Virtually nobody in the life knew he was gay, and she certainly hadn’t. She smiled, refusing to answer, letting him stew in his ignorance.

  “You want me in your room, Party Princess? Is that what all this is about?” He massaged Rufus’s neck while he watched her face, strong hands flexing over the dog’s fur, muscles working under intricate tattoos that looked like tangled vines until you saw the scorpions. Rufus was blissing out under his touch; the dog was thoroughly undone. Thorne grinned at her. “Just think—this could be you.”

  She snorted. “Can you act any more fucked up?”

  He sparkled at her, all devilish. His dark lashes gave the effect of pirate eyeliner. Everything about him was disreputable.

  Hotel soap, she reminded herself.

  Chapter Five

  She and Richard cleaned up the glass. Finally, Thorne took Rufus out to the yard. She knew what Thorne was doing—ensuring that the dog had food and water. She wouldn’t be surprised if she found the quilt from the downstairs couch stuffed into Rufus’s doghouse.

  As soon as he was gone, she followed Richard up the stairs. Richard headed into Victor’s old room. It was unlikely that Thorne would suddenly think to run ballistics on the guns in the house, but Richard had suggested they get them out of there. Richard was smart and careful and thorough. Hardly like a Barbarian, though he looked the part with his long curls, and he had the heavy metal thing going on, mixed a little bit with Renaissance Festival, what with his ratty lace-up leathers.

  Nadia headed right to the playroom, knocking once and calling softly. She eased the door open.

  Kara glanced up, face tense, but Benny looked happy and drowsy.

  Nadia smiled. “Hiya, Rooster,” she whispered.

  Benny planted a fat finger on a picture of a truck and babbled a stream of mostly nonsense words, telling all about the truck. Nadia’s heart swelled as she went to him and planted a kiss on his soft, black hair.

  “Was that…?” Kara asked.

  “Yeah. They want the disk.” Nadia explained the situation in an everyday voice while Benny focused on the truck. She made appreciative and impressed sounds when he pointed to different parts of it, calmly filling Kara in about the chaos downstairs.

  “Shouldn’t we get out of here?” Kara asked.

  “And go into hiding? No. Thorne’s no threat. And with the safe room…we’re better off here.” They were safer than anywhere with the safe room Victor had installed. “This gives Richard and me a chance to figure out what we’re dealing with and what the Quartet knows.”

  Her older sister looked at her skeptically. Kara frequently thought Nadia was doing things wrong, but it wasn’t like before—it wasn’t a mean sister thing, it was a fierce family thing. Benny had brought Kara and Nadia together in every way.

  “It’ll be fine,” Nadia repeated.

  Benny watched her with pale brown eyes that saw everything under a mop of curly black hair. She picked him up, and he put on a grumpy expression at being interrupted. Benny made the best faces.

  “Poor little grumpy!” She pressed her lips to his forehead and made a motor sound. She knew she shouldn’t encourage his grumpy little faces, but she couldn’t help it. There were so many ways she could be a better mother, and she was trying. And God, it had killed her to act dead to his cries down there.

  “What are you going to say?” Kara asked, meaning when Thorne saw Benny.

  “He won’t know.” She rubbed Benny’s back.

  “He won’t know,” Kara said skeptically. “Come on.”

  “I’m telling you. He won’t.” Nadia gave Benny back to Kara.

  “What now?”

  “Richard and I need to stow some stuff.”

  She left Kara with Benny and joined Richard in her dad’s old bedroom. Richard had the gun safe open. He’d already started pulling out firearms and throwing them on the bed. Three rifles, three nines, and the Glocks. Thorne might not think anything from seeing the guns—it wasn’t like they kept the flash grenades or Uzis or masks or drugged dart guns in there. Or the CD he was looking for. They kept all that stuff off-site.

  Still, it didn’t exactly look domestic. And they’d shot a few of them in the course of the first raid.

  “Grab the duffel bag from the drawer,” Richard said. “I’ll put it all in my truck.”

  “Why now, dammit?” She flung open the bottom drawer. No duffel bag. She opened all the drawers.

  “We have to call off tomorrow night,” Richard said. “They know something—it’s why he’s here. How did he learn about the CD?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll find out,” Nadia said. “Maybe this is a blessing in disguise. If I can get him to reveal exactly what the Quartet is thinking, it could make our job easier.”

  “I say we cool it.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. “Richard...” All she could think about was her mother. The Slaters would have no reason to keep her alive.

  “It’s dangerous,” Richard said.

 
; “We’re so close.”

  “I know,” he said softly.

  “What if Baypointe is the one?”

  Richard walked to the window. “We can’t be doing it if Thorne and his guys are still here. What will he think if we’re gone in the middle of the night the same time as a raid?”

  “We’ll figure something out. Make something up. It’s not for two days.”

  Richard didn’t like it. He had a lot of experience hitting places from his Vegas mob life, and he didn’t like variables shifting.

  “In the meantime, I’ll pump Thorne for information tonight and see what kind of measures they’re taking—and if they’re shaking things up.”

  “Would be good to get a little insight,” Richard said.

  “What if we plant the CD for him to find? That would make him leave.”

  “The second he opens the CD, he’ll see that somebody has been messing with it.”

  “So we get your computer guy to clean it,” Nadia said. “Right? Set the dates back and stuff?”

  Richard stared out at the yard; the breeze made the leaves of the Russian olive tree turn and flash their gray undersides; the bougainvilleas along the stone walls were in full bloom, a riot of pink leading back into the distance where the palms stood. “Let me think about it. What are you going to tell Thorne? When he sees…” He tipped his head toward the hall. Benny.

  “He won’t know.”

  Richard said, “He’s not stupid.”

  “He won’t know. I can’t explain it, but he just won’t.” She joined him at the window. “It’s not a smart or stupid thing. It’s about blinders. It would never occur to him that Benny is his. Trust me.”

  “You’re fucked if he figures it out.”

  The sun was just peeking out after the brief rain, and the light made the wet grounds look fresh and bright. She mowed the grassy part of the ten-acre expanse now and then, but a lot of it was weeds and clover. She liked it better that way, and so did Benny. He was only eighteen months old, but he loved exploring nature. They would sit for hours on the blanket together, and he would pick at the clover. His Irish heritage was already shining through. Black Irish, from Thorne’s side.