Kansas Nights [Kansas Heat 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Jenny Penn

  “Don’t get smart on me,” Benny shot back as if she were intentionally playing dumb. “You want answers. I want answers. What is he?”

  “Besides an ass? I really don’t know what you’re asking.”

  “Fine, you want to play like that, I’ll tip my hand.” Benny put his pizza down on a napkin and reached for the tequila. “I already did the same math you did and came to the same conclusion. Somebody in Amanda’s security detail isn’t what they appear to be.”

  “We must be working on different problems, because I didn’t come to that answer.” Not that she hadn’t arrived there later, but she’d honestly never suspected that Jack wasn’t what he said he was until he’d revealed it himself.

  “Really?” That answer appeared to throw Benny, causing him to pause as he filled the two glasses. “Then why the hell did you pick him up?”

  “I was working on a different problem.” Knowing she had his full interest now, Kathy straightened up in her seat and laid it all out for him. “Three people were shot at the Shade Tree a few months back, some money disappears. Oh, excuse me, I meant to say millions of dollars disappear. That started the recent spate of violence. The authorities—”

  “—think Will did it.” Benny started nodding, a grin starting to spread over his face. “Old rumors, Kat. I’ve been tracking the recent shootings, looking for a pattern, but you’re missing the big deal.”

  “Yeah?” Kathy managed to sound unconcerned even as her stomach muscles started to quiver with tension. “And what’s the big deal?”

  “Drug runners stay at the Shade Tree, not money runners.” Benny shot her a pointed look. “Got to wonder what crazy fucker would bring millions to the Shade Tree, and just how unlucky was Will to show up there that night?”

  “You think he was set up?”

  “Yeah, but you already knew that.” Benny grunted. “So? What is he? Besides gullible.”

  “Jack isn’t anything but bossy.” Benny had always been like a dog with a bone when it came to wanting to know something, but he’d have to find out Jack’s secrets on his own. Kathy wouldn’t betray Jack. “Now you have your answer. If you don’t like it, tough. I can’t change the facts to suit you.”

  “Is that all you found out last night?” Benny raised a condescending brow at her, making Kathy grimace as he taunted her. “That he’s bossy and has a big dick?”

  “The police think Will was a prostitute.” That popped out and left Kathy silently cussing herself for revealing that fact. Thankfully, Benny seemed to take it about as seriously as Amanda had.

  “Well, isn’t that like a badge? A man puts one of them on and it makes him instantly stupid.”

  “Yeah,” Kathy chuckled. “Will couldn’t even give it away.”

  “Amen to that.”

  Benny saluted her before throwing back his shot. His glass came down, and his gaze immediately went to her untouched one. Kathy waved it toward him, without any interest in it or the pizza. He lifted it up but hesitated as if caught on a sudden thought. Benny didn’t leave Kathy guessing for long.

  “Then again, Will did get around.” Benny shrugged and tipped the shot glass back.

  “Really?” Kathy didn’t know what else to say to that.

  “Oh, yeah,” Benny coughed out. Going red in the face, it took him a second to throw off the fire so clearly burning in him before he gasped for another breath. “Damn, woman! That is some good tequila.”

  “Thanks. About Will?”

  “Will? You mean Mr. Wrinkle Chaser?” Benny paid more attention to picking out a slice of pizza than his answer, leaving Kathy in no doubt of his sincerity. “That boy liked them old and saggy, so I guess…I mean, maybe he didn’t like them that way, but liked the cash. Who’s to say?”

  “Could you be more specific?” Kathy prodded. Despite his casual attitude, she knew Benny was relishing his moment. He was dragging it out on purpose, and Kathy’s nerves couldn’t take it.

  “Specific?” Benny leaned in before answering in the slow tones of a person talking to an idiot. “He liked to fuck old ladies.”

  “Which old ladies?”

  “Oh, no, no, no, my friend.” Benny laughed out that denial as he settled back into his seat. “I have nothing to say about that.”

  “Benny—”

  “Nope.” Benny shook his head, taking a sanctimonious air as he rejected her persuasion out of hand. “Those ladies are entitled to their privacy.”

  “Oh, God.” It dawned on Kathy in that instant exactly what Benny was protecting, and it wasn’t the ladies’ right to screw whoever they wanted. “You’re blackmailing them.”

  Benny didn’t deny it, nor did he confess. The smug bastard just grinned as he chomped down on his pizza.

  “That’s low, Benny.” Kathy couldn’t believe it. Actually she could, but it still irritated her. “Even for you.”

  “And that’s dumb, even for you,” Benny shot back. “Or do you normally find that insulting a person helps in getting them to answer your questions?”

  “Fine, you’re brilliant,” Kathy spat back with no attempt to make her compliments sound sincere. “Now tell me how many women.”

  “Oh…about a dozen.”

  “A dozen?” Kathy’s jaw went slack as her mind tried to envision twelve women who would have slept with Will McKinney. Hell, she had a hard time coming up with one.

  “Maybe a little less, somewhere around two a day.” Benny kept on shocking her.

  “Two a day? You mean seven days a week?”

  “More like five,” Benny corrected, his grin taking on a lecherous curve. “Wanna guess which five?”

  “No.” Kathy didn’t even want to envision the horror of what Benny dared to suggest. He wouldn’t let it go, though.

  “Five days a week, two women a day, one in the morning, one in the evening, same women every week…sounds like a hell of a schedule.” Benny rubbed his chin as he considered his own words before pointing out the same thing Kathy was thinking. “Kind of makes you wonder who set that up, doesn’t it?”

  Chapter 11

  “You’re late.” Tagger greeted Jack with that hard accusation before he could even shut his door. “What happened to your truck?”

  “Nothing for you to worry over,” Jack assured him as he walked up to where Tagger waited.

  These multi-department tasks forces could be a real bitch to work with given all the slight differences in the cultures of each agency. Tagger would never be the type of man Jack would choose to hang around with. That didn’t change the fact that they were on the same team, working toward the same goal. Jack tried to remember that as Tagger lifted a brow at him.

  “Really? So it doesn’t have anything to do with Kathy Coben or her car getting wrecked out earlier today?” Tagger’s leading tone said he already knew the answer to those questions. At least he thought he did.

  “No, it doesn’t.” Jack wouldn’t defend himself beyond that. “And don’t tell me that’s why you called me out here.”

  “I called you out here because Kathy Coben is starting to look good as a suspect.” Tagger turned to pick a disk off the trunk of his car, his snide tone sharpening into a crisp, professional one. “I’m assuming you’re of the same mind, along with Amos’s man, Collin Hitchens. Speaking of, I’m thinking we should ask Amos to remove Hitchens before he blows this case.”

  “Collin isn’t going to blow anything,” Jack shot back, amused at Tagger’s conceit to think he could control that situation. “And Amos will just tell you to go to hell.”

  “There’s a police report with Hitchens’s name on it. That could become a flaw in a case we need to be perfect.”

  “There is no such thing as perfection.” Jack had lived long enough to know that. “And you’re not going to build a case against Kathy because she isn’t anything more than a busybody, too damn dimwitted to know better than to stick her nose in the middle of a drug war. As for Collin, he’s not part of the team anymore. Whatever he does is on him.”
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br />   “We still have liability given his close connection to the team.”

  “Collin and I aren’t close.” That felt weird to say despite the fact that Jack had thought that many times over the past five years.

  “But you and Kathy are?”

  Jack took a deep breath and let it out slowly, forcing himself to relax as the air slipped away. Hitting Tagger wouldn’t do any good, but then neither would aggravating the man. The other agent could decide to run back to Camp and have Jack pulled from the case. He wouldn’t let that happen, especially not over Kathy Coben.

  “Kathy Coben picked me up last night and tried to get me drunk so she could find out the latest gossip on the whole Amanda-and-Will saga.” Jack’s tone didn’t waver, nor did his words hesitate as he continued on. “It didn’t work. Now she’s just more determined to find out what’s going on.”

  “And maybe she wants to know that because either she or somebody she knows needs that information. Did you ever think about that?”

  Jack’s fist ached to plant itself in Tagger’s arrogant expression. Even as he held that impulse in check, Jack couldn’t stop the anger from grinding his words into gravel. “Yeah, and that person who needs to know is Amanda Johnson. Maybe the name rings a bell with you?”

  “Or maybe it’s not.” Tagger handed the disk he held over. “The deeper background checks have come back. Kathy Coben’s father was a retired Marine Sergeant.”

  “We knew that already.”

  “Daniel Coben, along with fifteen other men, formed a group called the Awakening.” Tagger handed over the disk. “There’re almost no details about their group except that they were all ex-military and kept their secrets, secret.”

  “So?” Jack knew what Tagger wanted him to think, but his evidence didn’t convince Jack.

  It did, however, explain where Kathy got her attitude from. Jack knew what it meant to be raised by a marine, especially one that cared about passing on his survival instincts. Still, Kathy wasn’t a son, and she should know her limits.

  “So she has the right background for the kind of connections our bad boys would need. Now she’s making waves. This is what we’ve been waiting for.”

  “No. It isn’t.”

  That denial had Tagger cocking his head. “Why you working so hard to make her innocent?”

  “I’m not. You’re just wrong.”

  “Really? Then where’s Hitchens?”

  “Like I know.” Technically Jack didn’t, though he did know what Collin was up to. “I told you once. I’ll tell you again. We’re not close.”

  “You talked to him three times today, even went to his hotel room.”

  “You having me followed?” Jack stiffened up, ready to throw that punch if Tagger’s answer irritated him in the slightest.

  Tagger must have read Jack’s willingness to hit him, because he straightened up with the same air of indignation. “I’m having your back watched. You know that’s something teammates do.”

  “Sorry.” It took a lot for Jack to say that because he didn’t fully trust Tagger right then. Without proof, though, there wasn’t anything Jack could do but apologize and wait for the other man to slip up.

  “Forget it. Just tell me that you are giving Kathy Coben a hard look.”

  “Fine.” Jack could agree to that, given he did plan to make sure that Kathy was under constant surveillance. “But Collin is out of my control. As you said, he works for Amos, and apparently he’s been sent down here to help speed things along.”

  “Yes, well, hopefully he won’t speed them right into a mistrial.” Tagger stepped into Jack, his voice dropping low into a gravelly threat. “I’m not going back to those damn family members and telling them we blew this, or have you forgotten what is at stake here?”

  “I haven’t forgotten a damn thing,” Jack assured him. “I promised them answers, and I’m going to find those answers—the truth, Tagger. That’s what I’m after, what I want to give those families. Trust me, if Kathy is involved, I’ll serve her head to them myself, and Collin will not be allowed to get in the way.”

  Tagger studied him for a long minute before finally backing down with a shake of his head. “I wish I could say I believe you, but…my gut is telling me you’re so full of shit that you don’t even know it.”

  “Maybe it’s something you ate,” Jack suggested. “Because there is no sane reason to think that I would betray my country and my vows to it for a woman I met barely twenty-four hours ago.”

  “Actually it is sane,” Tagger contradicted him. “It’s just not logical, which is almost the definition of being human. That’s it. You’re human tonight, Jack. You’re flawed and temperamental, irrational even. That’s not you.”

  No, it really wasn’t. Jack could blame Kathy, but that would only go to prove Tagger’s point. He had a sick feeling he’d already done enough of that tonight. If he didn’t stop, Tagger really would take his concerns to Camp. Jack didn’t need that headache any more than he needed this one.

  “You’re right.” Telling Tagger that should help end this conversation sooner rather than later. “I’m short tempered tonight, but that doesn’t have anything to do with Miss Coben. It has everything to do with being on this case for months and getting nowhere while the bodies pile up deeper and deeper.”

  “I get that.” Despite the fact that Tagger had just suggested people weren’t logical, he fell for Jack’s reasonable explanation without hesitation. “And all I’m trying to do is push it forward.”

  “Don’t think I don’t appreciate the attempt,” Jack assured him with false sincerity. “But Kathy Coben is nothing more than a nosy ditz with a nice set of tits. She’s nothing to worry over.”

  * * * *

  Splurging on the good tequila had paid off. It was too bad, though, that it had to be wasted on Benny. Kathy sat behind the wheel staring at Benny’s trailer, frankly amazed at what had become of her childhood friend. Given all of his weird and strange phobias she should probably be thankful that he’d fed her any clues, even if she felt certain he knew more than he’d said about Will’s accomplice.

  Of course, he’d pointed her in the only obvious direction, Will’s only employee—Eddie Dyne. That lead would have to wait until tomorrow because Kathy knew enough about Eddie to know he wasn’t in town.

  There was, though, another lead that could be researched tonight. Kathy glanced in her rearview mirror back to the shadowed Jeep still parked on the side of the highway. A sane woman would probably not antagonize the situation, but Kathy always considered sanity a little overrated.

  Pulling her driver’s window up even with his, Kathy considered just how right the good citizens of Humble were. She did go looking for trouble. Strangely, that thought calmed her enough to offer Collin a wide smile as she rolled down her window.

  “Hey, I got a question for you.”

  “I’m almost afraid to hear it.” That didn’t stop Collin from returning her grin. Kathy ignored the humor in his tone and kept hers sharp enough to be just short of bitchy.

  “You following me because you think I have answers or to make sure I don’t find them?”

  “Perhaps I just like the scenery,” Collin suggested with a charm that came too quick not to be practiced.

  “Do I look stupid enough to fall for that line?” Kathy snorted, pretending that he had no effect on her despite the warmth gathering in the pit of her stomach.

  “What? You don’t think you’re pretty enough to look at?”

  Kathy shot him a dirty look for trying that bit of reverse psychology and returned the favor. “I’m sure I’m more than hot enough to convince the sheriff that you’re stalking me. Unless, of course, you want to explain the truth to him.”

  “Why, Miss Coben, are you threatening me?” Collin leaned back in mock shock before he shook his head sadly at her.

  “Whatever,” Kathy retorted, refusing to be lured into playing his game. “You know the easiest way to get me to behave is to give me what I want.�
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  “Really? And what is it that you want?”

  Pretending like she didn’t recognize the clear suggestion in his tone, Kathy kept her answer blunt and curt. “The truth.”

  “Okay.” Collin straightened his shoulders and looked her straight in the eye, obviously prepared to impart something important. “It’s true, Jack’s is longer, but mine is thicker and I use it better.”

  “What?”

  “Huh?”

  Kathy’s gaze narrowed on Collin’s innocent expression. The man was being intentionally difficult and lewd in an obvious attempt to irritate her. Only Kathy wasn’t annoyed. She was hungry. The heady buzz vibrating through her pooled into a molten vat of want that had the tender flesh between her legs throbbing with a desperate need to feel those hard lips parting over her cunt as his smooth, silky tongue licked out to toy with her clit.

  “What’s wrong, beautiful? Don’t have a smartass answer for that one?”

  Kathy smiled, letting him think whatever he wanted as she pulled out her cell phone. She could hear him grumbling, but ignored him. Whatever derogatory things Collin had to say, he only said them because the phone trick had worked that afternoon. It would work again.

  “Hey, Tony.” Kathy sang out that greeting when the ringing on the other end abruptly stopped. “I hope I’m not calling too late.”

  “Not for me,” Tony answered, sounding tired despite his denial. “But Cindy’s already gone to soak in the tub, if you’re calling for her.”

  “No, actually. I wanted to talk to you about that guy who ran me off the road.” Kathy turned to smile at Collin, enjoying the glower that had replaced his grin.

  “That idiot?” She could hear a can pop in the background. Tony paused to swallow down a gulp of whatever he’d fetched from the fridge before continuing on. “What about him?”

  “Well…It’s just…I mean, with everything going on with Amanda, you don’t think I have to worry that it was more than an accident…Do you?”

  Actually Kathy knew she should be worried given the size of Collin’s scowl. He looked ready to kill, but that didn’t stop her smile from growing ever wider. She played the moment for all it was worth despite the fact that Tony wasn’t exactly giving her a lot to work with. It didn’t matter. Collin couldn’t hear him.