by Cara McKenna
“No, not even close.”
And that was it, wasn’t it? She’d gotten inside him, just a little, the way they’d talked tonight. Exposed him, if only in glimpses. So he’d stolen the upper hand right back from her, dictating the terms and dynamic of the sex.
Tricky motherfucker.
He’d disappeared into the kitchen, and when he passed by with a glass of water in hand, his erection was still evident. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“You’ll see me inside ten minutes, in your imagination. Doing things I’d happily do to you for real, right now.”
He paused, turning in the threshold of the guest room. “Do you need another orgasm, Ms. Harper? Would that help you sleep, and shut that maddening mouth of yours?”
She bit her lip. “Maybe you’d prefer my mouth if—”
“Good night,” he said, sounding torn between amusement and exasperation. “Thanks for the suffering.” The door shut.
She smiled. “Anytime.”
Chapter 12
Duncan woke up in discomfort, but for a change it wasn’t to do with alcohol or pills. Instead it was an aching urgency between his legs . . . an ache he didn’t think he’d felt this badly ever, or at least not since adolescence. And all because of the woman probably still sleeping soundly—and satisfied—in the next room.
He sat up and checked his phone, shocked to find it was pushing eight. Astrid was dozing in her favorite spot, the V-shaped nest of covers between his shins.
“Why didn’t you tell me how late it had gotten?” He had that godforsaken meeting with Flores this morning, and not even an hour to get there.
In the bathroom, he stole a glimpse in Raina’s scandal-free medicine cabinet before stripping and turning on the shower. She wasn’t a terrible housekeeper, though he had noted the bra hanging from the doorknob, and the tub wasn’t without a haze of soap residue and the odd long, dark hair plastered to the tile. His compulsions nagged at him, itching to dictate, but thankfully Duncan cowed to punctuality as well as order, and he didn’t have the time just now. He could hear his therapist remarking what an excellent invitation this was to practice a little self-guided exposure therapy, standing here in this not-perfect bathroom. It was about as comfortable as wearing a suit made of thumbtacks, but he focused on the things he approved of. Good water pressure. A refreshing minimum of products cluttering the caddy hooked over the showerhead. The massaging showerhead, he noted, then promptly stopped himself from wondering with too much interest about how she might employ it. For whatever willful reason, he wasn’t indulging his lust on this one. He could use the fuel—might help him keep his edge through this morning’s meeting. Where confidence and certainty wavered, the carnal frustration prickling through his veins could help him pass for indignant.
Plus, if a release was in the cards for Duncan, Raina would be there for it, he resolved as he uncapped his shampoo. He’d needed the control last night, but if they fooled around again, it’d be a different matter—
“Knock, knock.” Her muffled voice came through the door, followed by the click of the knob.
“I’m terribly indecent.”
“That’s fine. That’s what showers are for.”
He waited for something brash, for the curtain to be whipped aside, or her face appearing at its edge, but nothing.
“You eat eggs?”
He eased the curtain open enough to meet her eyes. “Eggs?”
“I can make them really good scrambled, or not quite as good over easy. But no soft-boiled and definitely nothing where I have to take the yolks out.”
“No, thank you. Tea will suffice.”
Raina’s gaze seemed to make an inventory of his wet hair, or dripping chin and hand, or however much of his chest she could see. “Suit yourself. Got all the toiletries you need? Fifty-dollar conditioner and whatnot?”
“Plenty.”
She smiled. She was wearing the same clothes as last night, and Duncan wanted to bury his face in her cleavage and breathe in her sweat.
“Are you waiting for an invitation?” he prompted.
She shook her head. “You just look good, with your hair and eyelashes all wet.”
“And you never look nicer than when I’m making you come.”
Oh, that dirty smirk. “I’ll see you for caffeine.” And she left him be.
Duncan finished up and dried off, shaved, tended to his hair, then shut himself back in the guest room. He dressed to the nines; no way he was sitting down opposite Flores looking anything less than his best, not ever again. As he prepared, he eyed the few piles of Benji Harper’s things still cluttering the corners of the room, and wondered what this place had been like when it was still Raina and her father. Had they joked a lot? Likely. Watched television together? Cooked meals for each other? What must it feel like, to be close enough to a parent to care for him that way? Did it feel good enough to offset the pain she must have suffered when he’d passed?
When he found Raina, she was pouring steaming water into two mugs—one with a coffee filter, one with a tea bag. Her eyebrows rose at his ensemble. “Wow, all gussied up. You going to court?”
“It’s not a trial—it’s an investigation. But yes, I’m going to the sheriff’s department to meet with Flores. There’s no evidence. There’s no way I’ll be charged with anything.” He realized a beat too late, she’d not asked if he was nervous, so that little show of confidence must have been for himself.
She stepped closer to take in his clothes—quite possibly his favorite suit. Darkest gray pants and vest, cream shirt, black tie. She smoothed his damp, combed hair, the contact familiar and . . . and crackling.”You look like you again.”
“I feel like me again.” By which he now realized only meant he felt like a fraud . . . though it wasn’t without its comforts. Still, this woman knew better now. He couldn’t say why, but the more he felt she knew him, the more aggression he harbored toward her. Like a cornered animal. In dark, reflexive moments, he wanted to lash out at her. Not in violence, though. Not with his fists or words. In darker, baser ways. Animal indeed.
She set the milk carton on the table. “Oh—guess what.”
“What?”
She went to the sink, pulling out the trash can from the cabinet and angling it to show Duncan a tiny gray corpse. “Your cat got a mouse!”
He frowned. “How disgusting.”
“How useful,” she corrected, shutting the cupboard.
“Thank goodness she’s had all her shots.” He stirred sugar into his cup.
“Gold star for Astrid. Apparently a posh name and organic cat food weren’t enough to take the cold-blooded killer out of her. And you’re both earning your keep now.”
He drank his tea quickly, standing, and checked his phone’s clock. “Thank you for this,” he said, leaving the mug in the sink. “I’ll be back by lunch, I imagine—I have an errand to run after the meeting.”
“Cool. I should have the last of my dad’s stuff sorted out by then.”
He fetched his leather dossier and a pad and pen, more as a shield than anything else. He was likely going to spend the morning getting interrogated, but at least he’d stride in looking too good for this ridiculous charade. “Enjoy your morning,” he told his bartender-extortionist-landlady-bodyguard.
“Break a leg.”
Downstairs, a raucous din greeted Duncan as he opened the door to the back lot. A gang of crows were camped out on top of the Dumpster, cawing madly, black as death.
“A murder indeed,” Duncan said, checking that the door was locked. He eyed the malcontents as he walked to the Merc; then his heart stopped, along with his feet. Another half dozen of the bastards were standing atop his car, shiny black feathers against shiny black lacquer. And that wasn’t all. White.
“You shat on my car?” he asked them. “Are you fucking kidding me?” He wave
d his arms wildly until they dispersed. Amid the crowing he heard a squeak from above, and looked up as Raina stuck her head out the window.
“Oh, jeez. They’ve never done that to my truck.”
He didn’t have words, just gestured at the vehicle, dumbstruck.
“It looks way worse from up here.”
“Oh, cheers. Thanks very much.”
She smiled—bit her lip as though she hadn’t meant to let him see it.
“You laugh and I’ll throttle you.”
Another stifled grin. “It’s just a car. We can wash it this afternoon.”
“Just a car? Have you met me?”
“What’s a little bird shit, compared to the graffiti? Don’t be late, Duncan.”
He shook his head, found his keys, and unlocked the driver’s side. “I hate this town,” he informed her.
“I’m pretty sure it hates you right back.”
“I’ll see you in a couple hours, darling.”
She laughed. “Bye.”
He drove around the building, wipers and washer fluid doing little to clear the offenses on the windshield aside from smearing them into chalky rainbows. She was right, of course—the spray paint was far more mortifying, and it was only a fierce streak of pride that let him drive through town sporting that message—a fuck-you to whatever ignorant hillbilly had presumed he could be intimidated.
Though he’d be calling on Vince Grossier at the garage the second this meeting was dealt with, and seeing about a temporary fix. Duncan was as vain as he was stubborn.
Intellectually he knew his attachment to presentation was a manifestation of his mental illness, but that didn’t lessen how naked he felt, driving through town with his car looking so . . . neglected. Few things rankled him as badly as a lack of care being paid to things. Surely most saw it as showing off, as him wanting to shout, “Look at me, I’m rich and I’m better than you!” It was far sadder than all that, he’d realized. Obsessive safeguarding to keep his fingers gripping the edge of the cliff, clinging desperately to his self-image, the one he’d spent the past twenty years meticulously cultivating. He’d suffered too many pointing fingers, too many taunts and whispers making a mocking inventory of his awful charity clothes, his ugly shoes, his laughably uncool school bag, whatever horrid haircut he’d most recently been subjected to. Now, driving through town with his car defaced and beshatted, his precious veneer vandalized . . . He doubted many people had ever looked at him and felt anything particularly warm, but he vastly preferred to inspire contempt over ridicule.
Or worst of all, pity.
He opened the center console and swallowed a Klonopin. And if he hadn’t had this meeting to tend to, yes, he’d be wishing he had a shot of vodka handy to amplify it.
Mercifully the town was quiet—the heathens still had a few hours to sleep off their hangovers before church, and nothing would be open yet. Nothing aside from the door to Ramon Flores’s borrowed office, it seemed. Duncan nodded tightly to the BCSD’s front desk girl, then headed down a hallway he was getting far too familiar with. He knocked.
“Come in.”
Flores hit RECORD before even looking up. He was dressed down this morning, in gray chinos and a black polo. Duncan felt about two inches taller striding in this time, dressed to kill. Figuratively.
“Welch, hello. Have a seat.”
“No rest for the wicked, I take it? What could be so pressing that you just had to speak to me first thing on a Sunday morning?”
“In my line of work, there are no weekends. Coffee?”
Duncan smiled wanly. “You do love to keep me guessing whether this assignment is as much of a joke to you as it is to me.”
“Also no jokes in my line of work. Just offering you a coffee.”
“No, thank you.”
“Good choice,” Flores said, and took a sip from his own cup. “It’s pretty disgusting.”
“Shall we dive right in?”
Flores crossed his legs, leaning back. “This is probably no surprise, but the bureau’s going to need to audit you.”
Duncan sighed. No, it wasn’t a surprise. But Christ, it’d be a headache. “That’s fine by me. I have impeccable records. Such an intrusion would only serve me.” He’d never so much as written off a paper clip unless it got attached directly to a legal form. Rules had been his Jesus, for years now. Until he’d come to Fortuity, that is. Since crossing into this town, he’d grown a touch lax, as though criminality traveled through the air just like that relentless red dust. Though he never got sloppy when it came to accounting.
Flores made some notes.
“Anything else?” Duncan asked. “I’m more than happy to get you in touch with my accountant. We could’ve had this little chat over the phone, incidentally.” Of course the man knew that. The beck-and-call act was surely a means to get Duncan feeling annoyed, agitated, jerked around, to trick him into giving something away. Charming.
More notes, and Flores didn’t look up, trying Duncan’s patience. He rubbed his forehead, unable to hide his angst.
“One other thing,” Flores said slowly, and finally met his eyes. “Raina Harper.”
“What about her?”
“No chance she’s got anything to hide, in her books?”
He frowned. “What, you think she’s been laundering these supposed bribes for me? We met six weeks ago. When was I meant to have begun collecting these gratuities, precisely?”
“I’m being thorough, that’s all.”
“Ms. Harper’s accounting is none of my business.”
“No? I heard from a few locals that you once furnished her with a large amount of cash.”
Duncan sank back, feeling slapped. “What? When?”
Flores flipped to a page in his pad. “Circa August fourteenth.”
Duncan thought, frowning deeper. “The night of Casey Grossier’s homecoming party? I donated approximately four hundred dollars from Sunnyside’s public relations budget to open the bar. It was fully reported, a charm offensive to take the edge off the locals’ skepticism toward the casino. PR was the bulk of my job.”
“Four hundred bucks? Not exactly putting the ‘petty’ in petty cash.”
Duncan made his expression dry. “You underestimate Sunnyside’s resources, I promise you. And it’s all on their books. Leave Raina Harper alone.” God knew what state her finances were in, or indeed if she might have something worth hiding, unrelated to this case. She wasn’t the embodiment of professionalism, and the bar was a prime entity in which Vince Grossier might want to obscure some of his own shady earnings. “She has enough to deal with, without adding you to the mix,” he said.
The man made some more notes.
“I also gave her three hundred dollars cash yesterday, for rent,” Duncan added.
“Rent,” Flores muttered, scribbling. He took so long at it Duncan could only assume he was being toyed with.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to do here,” Duncan said, “but don’t punish me for cooperating. And don’t punish Raina Harper for having such poor judgment as to keep my company.” He paused, telling his body to cool, his breath to slow. His anger to subside. He glanced at his cuffs, and the creases running down his thighs, reminding himself, This is me. Cool, together, in control. “Don’t you have more important things to investigate, Agent Flores? Like the whereabouts of human remains, perhaps?”
Flores smiled. “Sadly for me, that’s not my assignment. My digging revolves around David Levins’s dirty laundry, and sadly for you, you’re in that pile.”
“This is all such bullshit,” Duncan sighed, knowing he was giving his emotions away but feeling too much to keep it all inside without risking an attack. “And since you’ve cost me my job and threatened my very professional viability, I’ve half a mind to go and find those miserable bones myself—give you all something actu
ally deserving of all this squandered energy. The longer this ridiculous investigation shuffles along, the more time I spend trapped in this town, surrounded by angry, uninformed idiots who believe me complicit.”
Flores glanced up at that. “Have you been harassed?”
Duncan froze, realizing what the truth could very well invite. He didn’t relish the animosity he might encounter around town, but if he felt this upended and powerless now, he wasn’t about to discover what outright isolation in protective custody would do to his mental health.
“Not harassed, no.” Threatened. “I just want this resolved, same as everyone else. And I won’t stoop to the cliché of reminding you my tax dollars pay your salary.”
“I’m sure you won’t.” Flores smiled. “I think we both know I’m not the bad guy here.”
“Then why do I want—” Duncan stopped, reminding himself he was being recorded, and that sharing his desire to strangle a federal agent would be a terrifically foolish slip of his judgment. “Are you done with me?”
“For now, yes.”
Duncan gave Flores his personal accountant’s contact information and filled out some forms, and was dismissed. It wasn’t until he stepped out into the BCSD’s front lot that he registered precisely how angry he was. It was the powerlessness, of course. The sensation of being bullied and jerked around.
His hands shook around the steering wheel as he drove down Railroad Ave. He took a left on Station and pulled up in front of the drugstore. A gang of surly-looking teenagers parted as he strode for the entrance, their chatter going quiet at whatever evidence of Duncan’s emotions was emblazoned across his face.
One, eyeing his clothes, had the balls to singsong a quiet “Faggot” as Duncan passed.
The comment didn’t offend him, but the situation flashed him sharply back to his childhood. Thirty-eight years old, and still getting mocked by a gang of nascent thugs. He was grown now, but the rage inside him had been fermenting for decades. Duncan turned on his heel and jabbed the kid square in the chest, sending him back a pace, and looming to underline precisely how many inches he had on the brat.
