Buying Love (Marriage of Convenience With Twins Romance)

by Faye, Amy

  If a civilian were to freak out about it, then the only thing I have going for me—the exact time I show up might be a surprise—is gone. Never mind that I need time before the cops start showing up.

  The second-floor hall is empty. It always is. I have heard people talking in their rooms, have heard televisions run. So I know that Brian's not the only one on this floor. But you wouldn't know it to look at the hallway.

  His door is on the far side of the building. My hands are starting to itch. I'm incredibly conscious of the gun on my hip. The stillness in the hall has me on edge.

  I can feel it getting to me. Even the tiniest movement might set me off, now. It's getting to the point where I don't even know if I could stop myself if I tried.

  I fish for his key, out of my key ring. It's silver, unlike the others that are brass-colored, so it stands out. The key goes in easy, turns easy. I can't figure out a way to do it quiet, so I do it quick.

  My shoulder goes into the door hard as I turn the handle, and the door slams open. My hand moves to my hip, feeling like it's moving through molasses.

  I keep repeating in my head. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. I bring the gun up. Nobody visible from the door, but I can't guarantee there's nobody hiding right around the corner.

  I close the door behind me, only a second or two passed after I stepped inside. I check the apartment. It doesn't take long to be sure that the place is empty.

  Nothing in the closets. Nothing in the bathroom. Nothing under the bed. Or, perhaps, not nothing.

  There is one thing, something that twists my stomach up in a big ol' knot. There's a big God-damned dark spot in the middle of the carpet, red fading into black. I don't need to confirm that it's blood. I can see it with my eyes.

  I touch it, smell it. Still wet, but drying sticky. I take a deep breath. I don't know that it's enough blood to have meant anything. It could have been a little injury that they made to look bad.

  The feeling of nausea washes over me again and I'm going to be sick. My mind rebels against the lies I'm trying to tell it. Like hell, it could be something little. The God damned floorboards are going to be stained from that.

  What did they do to my brother? My teeth grit together. What did they do to him, where did they take him, and how could I do a hundred times worse than that in retaliation?

  I slip the gun back into my holster and take a breath. I'm not going to find him running around like a chicken with my head cut off. There's nothing I can do for him if I'm panicking.

  He called me after he was hurt. I could hear it in his voice. I could hear the way that he tried to confirm every answer with his eyes, to find out what he was allowed to say.

  So they knew he was calling. It wasn't a secret thing. He didn't 'barely get a message out.' They wanted him to get word to me, and they wanted me to run out and try to save my brother. Just like I had done.

  So why did they leave, now? Where did they go?

  The idea that they're leading me by the nose occurs to me. I know they wanted me to come here. I know they wanted me to find this bucket of blood in the middle of my brother's floor.

  I know they wanted me to blame myself for it, and by God they got what they wanted. But I'm not going to waste any more time punishing myself over it, not when there's someone else needs punishing.

  I need to look around. I can feel my head fogging back up again. Hard to think. But I shake it off. I don't have time for it to be hard. I have to do what I have to do. I can feel the phone in my pocket.

  I want to call Maguire, or get ahold of Logan somehow. I need to. But whatever she's got going on, she's not answering, and I don't have time to waste on trying to reach her.

  The thing I'm looking for finally dawns on me right as my phone goes off in my pocket. I ignore it for an instant as I stare out the open window.

  If someone was going to do this kind of damage to a guy, you'd close that window. Sure as hell, they'd have closed the shades before beating the hell out of my brother.

  So why are the shades open now? The answer isn't hard to figure. I slip the phone out of my pocket before I miss the call. It's Maguire.

  I hit the answer button.

  "What's up?"

  "We need to meet. I found Logan."

  "Good. But we've got other problems. I've been trying to reach you."

  "I—couldn't answer. I would have if I could, you know that."

  "Sure. Look. I don't have time to worry about that right now. They took my brother. The other one. He's hurt bad, and someone's got him."

  "You know who?"

  "I'll give you a hint: he bled quite a lot on his carpet. That how your guys do things these days?"

  "Got it."

  "I'll meet you. Give me a place." I rub my hand through my hair. I just need to figure out what the fuck to do, and who's been watching me rifle through this apartment. If I can meet up with Maguire, we can try to work through it.

  She gives me a spot to meet her. I don't know it off-hand, but I know the area. It's not far.

  "I'll meet you in fifteen minutes," I tell her, and then I hang up the call.

  I have just enough time to get the phone into my pocket when the door gets smashed in, and a dozen men in navy blue uniforms filter in.

  Chapter Forty-One

  MAGUIRE

  I don't know if this is going to work, but it's going to have to. Not working isn't an option. I take a few deep breaths and fight down the panic that's rising in my chest.

  What if they make me? What if I'm wrong? What if—a thousand questions are running through my head. I waited for an hour after Ryan said he was going to be there. If he's not there, and he's not answering his phone, it must be for a damned good reason.

  So I'm on my own, and he's on his own, too, for that matter. If someone picked up his brother, then it was only one of two people. It was either the A.T.F., or it was the Crazy Horses.

  I'm starting to think that they're not as separate as I might have imagined them to be. Something stinks in this whole setup. I can't shake the feeling that there's something more going on here than meets the eye.

  The only way I'm going to get answers is by going to the source, but I only know one side is involved for sure. They've got a guy on the inside, or we've got a guy inside their organization. I have to gamble, and the stakes are pretty high.

  As in, get yourself shot, high. I don't like it one bit; I can feel my pulse pounding in my ears and my neck and my arms. Every inch of my body. It hurts, like an itch I can't scratch.

  A little voice inside me, the one responsible for trying to make sure that I don't get shot, tells me to stay in my car. I should just walk away. I can still salvage my career on this. I can get away with my life. I can do whatever needs doing.

  I can always go forward arguing that I didn't think there was enough evidence to hold Beauchamp. There isn't enough, not unless we find someone to testify. Especially now that Hawkins is dead.

  I could walk away from all of this right now, and I wouldn't hurt myself one bit. I would be just fine. Only…

  A vague feeling that I'm wrong. One I can't shake. There's more at stake here than just Ryan Beauchamp, and that by itself is a big stake. Bigger for me, personally, than I want to admit.

  There's more going on, though, under the surface. Who warned the Crazy Horses that it was a trap? The question keeps coming up, and now matter how I turn it over in my head, I can't figure a better answer than that someone on the command chain must have done it.

  That call Danny made, the one to Donaldsen… it puts me on edge. There's something else that I don't like about it. It raises doubts, doubts I couldn't have acted on five years ago when I decided I couldn't swallow his cum any more, even if I'd had them.

  What I need is positive proof. Proof that he's letting the biggest God damned gang in the country run drugs through the border with impunity.

  Is it some sort of tit-for-tat relationship? I don't know, and I don't care. I need to figure out who's at t
he bottom of this, and if it gets me shot, well, them's the breaks.

  I suck in a breath. If they're anywhere then there's someone here who can talk to me. Beauchamp was taken here when he got himself picked up. Scheck was here only a few hours ago. It's not unreasonable to assume.

  Somehow, reasonable to assume, and a good guess, doesn't help me to feel any better. The buzz of exhaustion has gone to my ears now, a high-pitched whistle that I didn't notice starting.

  Now it seems impossible not to notice it, almost hard to hear anything over it. I push the breath back out and tighten my jaw. Then I pound on the door.

  It takes a long time for someone to answer. Ten seconds. Twenty. I'm almost to thirty seconds when finally I hear a voice shout on the other side of the door.

  "No soliciting!"

  I can feel my jaw tightening up more. It's going to start hurting soon, if I don't slacken it, but it does its own thing.

  "Donaldsen sent me."

  There's no response, at least not right away. I wonder if they've got to go see how to respond to that. It's promising.

  "What do you want?" The voice is different this time. That's a dead ringer for something that needed to be confirmed, then.

  "He sent me to talk. Said that there's someone in the A.T.F. poking around."

  The voice on the other side is muffled, but I can still hear them. They're talking for a second to the other one behind the door. Finally the guy on the other side of the door raises his voice. "Show your badge."

  I flip my badge holder open and hold it up to the peep-hole in the door. It's a little unusual for a warehouse like this, but I didn't question it.

  With the tenants living here, it isn't hard to imagine that they got plenty of use out of it. A minute later the door opens.

  I don't recognize the people on the other side except tangentially. They look basically human, and a lot like the sort of person you expect. I might have seen them in the pictures of Marissa Scheck I looked through, but not enough to stand out.

  The one who looks like he's in charge starts walking off with little more than a nod. I'm going to follow him, and he knows it. So I let him take me through the facility.

  This place is a lot more carefully put-together than the actual warehouse I raided with Ryan and his boys. That place looked like they'd put it together in a week, and never had need to redo it. It had shown signs of heavy use, but it was all cheap stuff.

  This place was less cheap. Solid walls. Most of them painted. The concrete floor gave away the game, though. It was still a warehouse, walls or not.

  They sit me down in an empty room. "Someone will be with you in a few."

  The guy leaves. I can hear his steps picking up speed as he leaves. I don't know whether or not to be worried. I already am, though, so it doesn't much matter. I just have to hope that it will work out. Maybe he's hurrying because a friendly A.T.F. visit is a big deal.

  A few minutes later, I'm joined by a woman in a red dress. She's got long blonde hair and exudes sex. It puts me immediately off her.

  "Scheck."

  "Agent Maguire. Good of you to drop by."

  "So you know who I am?"

  "Of course we know who you are, darling. You must be worried we're going to kill you."

  The way her dress fits, she couldn't have a knife on her that I didn't see. Never mind a gun.

  "It had crossed my mind."

  "You're Martin's pet, though. So hands off."

  She raises her hands. They're small and smooth and very feminine, setting my teeth on edge some more.

  "So why meet with me?"

  "I was curious. What brings you here? Right into the lion's den, and all that."

  "You have Brian Beauchamp."

  "Say we did, what about it?"

  "I need him."

  Scheck's attractively plump, ruby-red lips purse together. "I need him, too, and I have him. You're not doing your job, so we have to do it for you? Fine. But you can have him after we're done with him."

  I take a deep breath. "Alive?"

  "Sure. You were supposed to clean up this mess, Sara."

  Being called by my name sets me on edge. "Don't call me that."

  "Oh, I'm sorry. Is that a sore spot? I know that it can be, after a rough breakup."

  I hold back the snarl. I'm not going to let her get a rise out of me. But the look on her face says that I didn't hold it back well enough, and she's already gotten what she wanted.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  RYAN

  It's not my first time in an interrogation room. Hell, it's not my first time this week. I don't know what these locals are planning, but I don't like it one bit. I don't know how long it's been, not exactly. They're sweating me.

  But I know it's been long enough that Maguire's not still waiting for me at that damned 24-hour spot. By itself, that means that Brian's in a bad spot. Everything past that is just icing on the cake.

  Not for the first time, I wonder how much longer they're planning on keeping me in here, without any word from the outside. Without even telling me what they wanted.

  My question is finally answered, though, when a big guy with a square jaw and a flat nose comes through the door. He's got a broad neck and broad shoulders, but he doesn't carry an ounce of fat on him. Built like a fire hydrant.

  "Ryan Beauchamp. Aged twenty-seven, from Cleveland, Ohio originally. You've been down here for a while, though. Business?"

  "I guess I just needed a change," I tell him.

  "Well, Arizona sure is a big change from Ohio," he says, smiling to himself. "You want to tell me what you were doing in that apartment, Ryan?"

  I consider what to tell them for an instant. For now, the truth will have to do.

  "I got a call. Brian said he was in trouble, so I went to his apartment."

  "That's good. Good. Because we've got witnesses that place you tearing the place up looking for him."

  "Good. Can I go?" I hold my hands out for him to unlock. It's a meaningless gesture, because I know there's going to be a 'but' at the end.

  "Not quite yet, son," he says. He couldn't be more than ten years older than me. "We've got a few more questions for you."

  "Okay, shoot." I lean back into the seat, my hands as close to my lap as the cuffs will let them get.

  "You say you got a call. He was in trouble. Is that right?"

  "I just said that, yes."

  "What kind of trouble did he say he was in?"

  "He didn't. He said I needed to get there as soon as possible."

  "But you must have had some idea, right?"

  The guy hasn't introduced himself and it's frustrating me. Who the fuck is this guy? Is he even a cop? I really have no way of knowing, unless he tells me, and he doesn't seem interested in telling me anything. Just asking more questions.

  "I don't understand what you're trying to ask."

  "It's simple, Beauchamp. I know, if I called my brother, I'd say 'Ryan, I've got a problem, you see, my television isn't working.' And then you'd come over, because you're… what, a television repair man?"

  "Sure. No, he said there was trouble."

  "And you didn't have any idea what kind of trouble it could be."

  "He sounded strange, but otherwise, no. He sounded like someone was telling him what to say. Or, what not to say."

  "So you did know what kind of trouble, then."

  "I didn't say that. I said that he sounded off, and I could make a guess at what was off about it."

  "Right."

  The guy writes something down and looks up at me through his heavy eyebrows like a shrink. I don't like it. He's asking useless questions. He's not waiting for me to give anything away, not far as I can tell.

  He's waiting for something else, and it's probably something going on outside this room. That makes me extremely nervous. What the hell were they trying to hold over my head?

  Still, the bracelets around my wrists say I can't leave until they tell me I can, so I get to stay.

&n
bsp; "So take me through what happened when you got there. We found you armed—"

  "Which is my right according to Arizona state law, by the way," I interject.

  "Which is your right, afforded to you by the state of Arizona, yes. In a room full of blood. Christ. It looked like you slaughtered a pig in there, Ryan."

  "I just got there, same as your boys. I didn't do anything in there at all, pig or not."

  "That's not what we've heard. Folks across the way, they made it sound a hell of a lot like you were all over that room. They couldn't positively say whether or not your brother was there at the time, but they were very sure about you."

  "And I was there. I checked around to see if there was any sign of what had happened to my brother."

  "Other than the blood, you mean."

  I roll my eyes. "Obviously other than the blood. What is this, your first day? Are you a disgruntled, out of work English professor who needs to play word games all the damn time to make up for the fact that nobody would hire you? What the fuck is it?"

  The guy sits back and smiles for a minute. He likes that he's gotten a rise out of me, and I guess I understand why. It's step one to trying to knock down my story.

  The problem is, there's nothing to knock down yet. I haven't had to lie, haven't had to mislead the guy. I haven't even avoided any questions.

  "You know, Ryan, you have quite a lot of people looking for you."

  The last part carries with it an implication that hits hard. I try to keep my face neutral, but I'm not confident that I manage it.

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "I mean that some folks from Washington, they say that you're an illegal trafficker of narcotics."

  "Well, then they're mistaken. I own and operate a bar. Right on the edge of town. You might have seen it? Come on by some time, I'll pour you a drink."

  "I'm aware of that cover story, Beauchamp, and I know as well as you do that is bullshit."

  "Think what you want. I came down here because I wanted to go straight." The words came out easy. Easier still, because there was a tiny ring of truth to them, even after these years.