* * * *
Driving home to shower and dress before he picked up dinner, Jake reviewed his day. The Wade interview brought a smile to his lips. Louie had taken the lead, easing Mrs. Wade through her previous statements, questioning this, pointing out that, in his quiet, fatherly manner. Jake had observed over the years how effective this method was for Louie, nailing a suspect or a kid to the wall. For her part Mrs. Wade relaxed, her body sinking deep into her sofa, answering Louie’s questions and embellishing her answers as her confidence grew. Jake stood behind Mr. Long and waited for Louie to finish off Mrs. Wade.
“I don’t understand why you keep asking the same questions, Sergeant.” Here we go.
“Mrs. Wade, Dwight didn’t shoot himself.”
“I know that, Sergeant. Dwight wouldn’t do that to me or the kids. He loved us.”
“Then how do you explain how he died?”
“I don’t know, maybe he was playing a game. A stupid game,” she emphasized, almost yelling as she stared down Long.
“A game?” Louie tilted his head right, then locked his eyes on hers.
She continued to stare at Kevin Long, her husband’s best friend and drinking buddy, and avoided eye contact with Louie. Kevin Long sat at attention, aware Jake was still behind him. It didn’t take long after that for Mrs. Wade to break down and tell the whole story.
It seemed Dwight Wade and Kevin Long had gotten fall-down drunk and decided to play Russian roulette with Dwight’s gun, thinking it was unloaded. Dwight lost. Long was the one who’d come up with the plan. He convinced Mrs. Wade she wouldn’t receive any insurance money if it looked like a suicide. Long staged a robbery gone wrong. He acted as if he was a concerned friend. He didn’t want Mrs. Wade and her children to be in dire straits as they grieved. Long had played her and dug her further into his crime. Both faced charges, Long for murder and Mrs. Wade for abetting after the fact. Jake’s sympathies were with the kids, not Mrs. Wade. In her grief, greed won over justice. She should’ve turned in Long immediately instead of concocting a scheme to get the insurance money. Kids were always the ones who paid the highest price. Now they didn’t have a father or a mother.
* * * *
With the food in hand, Jake knocked. Kyra opened her door to let him in. She looked exhausted and skittish. She wore a deep blue T-shirt, with a blue-and-green scarf wrapped around her neck, paired with jean shorts. On such a warm night the kerchief looked out of place.
“Let me help you with that.” Kyra reached for one of the bags Jake held.
“I’m good.” He walked past her to the kitchen and put the food on the table.
She’d already set the table with china and wineglasses. He’d been hoping for something stronger.
“The table looks nice. You didn’t have to go to all that trouble.”
“You’re supplying dinner, I’m supplying the atmosphere.” Her stance reminded him of a victim waiting for the next blow.
His stomach muscle clenched knowing he’d be the one to deliver it. He wanted to put her at ease. Jake walked over to her, took her in his arms, and kissed her hello. He reached to loosen the scarf, but she stopped him and pulled back. What the hell?
“So…do we talk over dinner or eat first?” Her voice cracked. The sound killed him. He should do it like he did notifications, fast and brutal, then deal with the aftermath.
“Whatever you’re more comfortable with.”
“Truth be told, I’m not comfortable with either. I’m getting dumped here, aren’t I?”
He took her chin in his hands, tilted her face up and stared deep into her eyes. “I never meant to hurt you, Kyra. I do care for you and cherish our friendship, but I love Mia.”
“I knew that from the beginning but it’s unfortunate my heart didn’t listen.” He wiped the single tear that ran down her face with his thumb.
“Let’s sit and eat. I’ll tell you about our meeting last night.”
“Do I want to know?”
While they ate, Jake filled her in on his conversation with Mia. “I told her I needed the week with you.”
“Why?”
“We have your friend’s wedding Saturday. I promised to go with you…and I didn’t want to cut us off from each other that abruptly.”
“So, after next Monday that’s it? No more contact, phone calls, or visits?”
“No, that’s not what I meant, I …” Frustrated, he didn’t understand how to finish his sentence.
Kyra put down her fork and looked at him. “Jake, Mia’s not going to want me around, and who can blame her? I need this time with you too—you’ve come to be a big part of my life. You’ve helped me to overcome—so much.”
He pushed his plate away at the same Kyra did. He didn’t have much of an appetite either. Taking her hand in his, he brought it to his lips. They sat in silence for a while, letting time slip away before Jake got up to clear the table.
“Leave the dishes. I have less than a week with you and I want to use you good—so good you’ll be too tired for her.”
“I’ve never known you to be vindictive.” Jake quirked an eyebrow.
“Who knew?” She grinned.
They walked into the living room, sat on the couch together. Jake liked Kyra’s choice of music. She’d set the mood with a bluesy jazz CD playing in the background. Loud enough to enjoy, quiet enough to talk. Two scented candles burned in their holders on the coffee table. The candlelight cast everything in shadows. It seemed appropriate.
He draped an arm around her shoulder, drawing her closer to his body. He kissed the top of her head. After dropping his bomb, he understood it wasn’t time to bring up Phil Lucci. Coward. Once again, he tabled the subject. Was that for Kyra’s sake or his?
“What’s wrong?” Kyra turned and stared into his eyes.
“I’m happy and sad. I know my decision hurts you…”
“It does, but I’ve been expecting it since the moment I decided to date you. You were always honest with me. I’m trying to be grown up here—so don’t make me cry.”
Pulling her closer, he whispered into her hair. “I won’t.” She turned, banging her head into his chin. “Now I’m going to cry,” he said, rubbing his chin.
Laughing, she said, “Sorry. I wanted to look at you.” She swung her legs over his lap as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
His voice hoarse, he said, “We shouldn’t—”
“Shush,” she answered, kissing him.
He returned the kiss, getting lost in her and her generosity. How was he going to be able to give her up? Had he made the right decision? Why was he questioning himself now?
“I want to be fair, Kyra.”
“I have you until Monday. Mia be damned. The rest of the week belongs to me.”
“I don’t want to hurt…”
“Understand?”
“Yes.”
* * * *
Kyra kissed him again as she unbuttoned his shirt. She trailed kisses down his throat as she spread her hands between the material and his skin. She loved how the muscles tightened under her touch. She’d miss him more than she wanted to admit. Hurt—but relieved—the guilt and lying now ceased. In the short duration he was still hers, she’d enjoy every inch of him before she took off with Trevor. If loneliness set in, she’d amuse herself at any one of the casinos across the country.
He switched positions, lifted her up as he cradled her in his arms, carrying her off to the bedroom. Their lovemaking was tender, consuming and distant. Or was all that in her mind? Had Jake already checked out or had she? She got the physical release, but emotionally, she was drained. Tears fought to escape. Was this her punishment for gambling—the loss of all that was good in her life? Christ, how Catholic is that, she turned her laughter inward. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned… Words from childhood that held no meaning for her now. Her soul w
as beyond redemption.
Jake’s arms drew her in. Until that moment she hadn’t realized she’d turned away from him.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Do you want me to leave?”
“No, I need you here tonight.”
He tightened his grip around her. For one more night, she’d clutch at the safety he offered.
* * * *
In the morning, she woke to the aroma of coffee and bacon. She’d eaten more bacon since dating Jake than she had in all her life. She’d miss being waited on. Before she went into the kitchen she splashed water on her face and brushed her teeth. Toothpaste, what a way to ruin a good cup of coffee.
“Hey,” she said, walking into the kitchen.
“She lives.” He laughed.
“Barely. Where’s my IV?”
“Coming right up, ma’am.” He handed her a cup of coffee, sipped his own.
“Thanks.” Looking over the rim of the cup, she took a deep breath. Get a backbone, Kyra, and ask the forbidden question. “Are you coming back tonight?”
“I want to.”
“Do you want to have dinner here?” They were treading lightly as though it were the morning after the first time.
“Yes.”
“I’ll make it. What do you want?”
“I’ll bring it.”
“Don’t like my cooking?” She laughed.
“It’s not that. Eat your breakfast and stop busting my chops.”
Jake left for work an hour before Kyra. She was going to make the most of the week. She’d enjoy Jake— he wouldn’t soon forget her. She wanted to cry but she’d do it when she was alone, because it was her own stupidity that had gotten her involved with a guy who admitted he was in love with another woman.
Chapter 29
Angelo walked into Phil’s office. “Here’s the plan I came up with to get rid of Stack.”
Phil took the file Angelo handed him, studied it. After a few minutes, he looked up. “I like it. This way there’ll be no body in Wilkesbury or here. I don’t want anyone looking at us.”
“That’s the plan. Why don’t you call him and get him down there? We won’t have to worry about Carrington investigating it because it’s not his jurisdiction.”
“Even better, Ang, I’ll tell him I want to discuss his phone call.”
Angelo chuckled. “That’ll put the fear of God in him.”
“To entice him I’ll tell him I also want to discuss some new business. I don’t want to scare him away.” Phil tapped his finger to the side of his head. “Find a place on Route 16. I don’t want it anywhere near here. Let’s cover all the bases.”
“When are you going to call him?”
“Now’s a good time.” Phil punched in Stack’s cell number.
After he hung up, anticipation built within him. Call him sick, but he liked dishing out punishment to people who deserved it. And Carl Stack deserved everything he had planned for him. Now that Stack was dealt with, Phil turned his mind to Kyra, to decide what she deserved. What most women deserved, in his opinion, was a good, swift punishment. It was the only way they understood who was in charge. Without warning, he was jolted back to the first encounter with his mother, years after she had deserted him.
She’d walked out the door when he was nine and never looked back. Left him to fend for himself against an angry drunken excuse for a father. Phil recalled every beating, every nasty word his father had spoken to him. Phil Sr. was a disgrace to the human race—a lazy, foul-mouthed, fist-swinging drunk who expected people to wait on him hand and foot.
Phil didn’t blame his mother for leaving. What he blamed her for was leaving him there and accusing him of being a carbon copy of his father. He cursed her for walking out. Ah! Look at what you missed out on, Mother. He looked around his spacious office with its Italian leather furniture, pricey art, and his view of the lake. She should’ve had more faith in him.
* * * *
Beautiful Louisa Lucci was a naïve woman who had wanted much out of life but had settled for Phil Sr. when he knocked her up. He promised her the moon. What she got was a life of hard work and abuse. The day she walked out of Phil Lucci’s house all she had were the bruises from the last beating and a few dollars, but she was determined to survive—and survive she did, until her son caught up with her on that rainy Monday morning in June…
Sitting in the café, he studied the waitress. A beauty in a used-up kind of way. Tall and thin, she looked about sixty, though he knew she was fifty-five. With her head down, she walked over to his table, slipping the pencil from behind her ear as she grabbed her pad from her apron pocket.
“What can I get…”
Ah, recognition. At least she knows her own son.
“Phil?”
Of course she recognized him. He was cursed, his face and build a replica of his old man.
“Yes, Mother.” He had relished the stunned, cornered look in her eyes.
“I-I… How are you?”
“Is that the best you can do, Mother? After all this time, that’s all you have to say to me?”
The conversation never improved after that. He left the restaurant and parked a block away. And each day as she left work, she had to pass by his car. He’d sit there and stare. On the fifth day, he got out of the car and walked up behind her as she rushed by. He dragged her into a dark alley. She jumped when the rats scurried from under the discarded newspapers. His grip tightened on her arm as he pulled her deeper into the shadows. He wasn’t even going to validate her by killing her in her apartment.
He left her with the garbage. It was exactly where she belonged.
“This is for leaving me with that bastard.” He took his knife from its sheath, brought it up, digging it deep into her skin, he cut her still beautiful face.
“No man will want you now, but that doesn’t matter,” he cooed in her ear. “Because you’re not leaving this alley alive. Do you understand that, Louisa?”
“Yes,” she cried. “Please, Phil, what do you want? I have some money stashed away.”
“Where?”
“In my closet in the red hatbox.”
“Louisa, I’m going to take your money and your life. What I wanted was a mother.” He kissed her cheek and watched her shudder at his touch. Then he spun her around to face the wall. With a slow deliberate motion he dragged his knife across her throat from left to right. He made sure that each tooth of the serrated blade hurt and that she was aware of the pain as she died. The blood shot out of her neck. It drenched the wall. After the life drained out of her body, he dropped her to the ground and walked away, exactly like she had walked away from him. It was his nineteenth birthday. It was one of the few times he had dirtied his own hands.
A tinny sound bubbled up from his throat.
“Hey, Phil, I lost you there.” Angelo snapped his finger.
“I’m reminiscing.”
“Uh-huh, anything good?”
“It depends on how you look at it.” Phil curled his lips. “Now let’s discuss Kyra,” Phil said, rubbing his hands together.
“Why don’t we wait and see how your meeting goes with Stack first?”
“Getting squeamish in your old age, Ang?”
“No. To be truthful, Phil, she’s done nothing wrong and doesn’t deserve this.”
“Well, she did, and I make the decisions here.”
Angelo squinted and said, “We make the decisions here, Phil. You’re talking to me. Doing anything to her will bring down a lot of heat on us right now—heat we can’t afford with what we have going on. Any attention will derail our projects.”
“You don’t think there’ll be heat killing Stack?”
“There will be but we can handle that. Carrington is a guy who’ll hunt down anyone who hurts what’s his.
Ask the guy sitting on death row who killed his sister.”
“From what I understand, Ang, he’s dumping Kyra this week for his old girlfriend. It won’t be a problem.”
“Even if he dumps her, he’d still come after whoever hurts her. It’s not worth it—plus, she’s kept her side of the bargain. She’s a good contact to have.”
“We’ve paid her too much. If she continues, we need to renegotiate her fee.”
Phil wasn’t giving in. He’d deal with Angelo some other time. Kyra needed to go, no matter what services she performed.
“That can be done, but not right now. We also need to find a backup for her in case she gets fired or quits before we’re done with her.”
Or dies.
Many ideas popped into his head to accomplish the task. He’d make sure he’d be the one who got to do Kyra up close and personal. She’d pay for her arrogance, her rejection, her betrayal. It got him hard, imagining ways to take her out.
* * * *
Jake liked order. Order in his job. Order in his life. Order in his paperwork. How had everything gotten this far out of hand? He’d broken his golden rule and had gotten involved—not with one woman, but two. ‘Love’em and leave’em’ was a motto he’d always lived by. His job came first, though at the moment he found it hard to concentrate. Two women, each different and intriguing in her own way.
All the Hidden Sins Page 24
