Shadows and Lies

by Eden Butler

  He dropped his finger to my neck and I moved my head, not wanting his touch. “On your back business?”

  “Fuck you.”

  He ignored the venom in my voice and the slap of my hand against his fingers, laughing like my anger was funny. “Oh baby, anytime you want to, you just hit me up.” Then sweet Timber leveled up, flicking his finger so Ryan was blocked by his guards as they stood around us. I heard him argue with Cosmo, I heard the mild threats, but wasn’t worried. Timber wouldn’t do anything to me. Not here. Not with witnesses. Still, he took those few seconds to drop the façade of worrying about me, of wanting me there to find out about a job. There was hunger back in those black eyes and I was the meal he wanted to devour. “This tight, sweet body, fuck, what I wouldn’t do to get in it again.”

  “You don’t want in it, Timber.” I stopped him when he inclined his head, but didn’t flinch or strike as he gripped my arm. “You want to hurt it. You hurt everything you touch.” I moved his hand from my thigh and pushed back his skimming fingers. “I’m not gonna let you do that to me again. Once was enough.”

  “Yeah, tell yourself that. Tell yourself that you didn’t like it, that you didn’t look down at those marks I gave you and think about what they meant, about how they got me inside you.” That expression ran back to lust, maybe a little bit of pride as Timber shook his head, amazed maybe, reveling in the memory of the last time I’d settled my ledger. “You tell yourself all the lies you want when that asshole is fucking you. Like how you could ever be happy with a damn cop, even one who walked away from that shit. Tell yourself how much going straight would make you happy, but remember, Alex, I know you.” I couldn’t move, couldn’t fight when Timber’s fingers tightened on my arm, when the bitter tang of his cheap cologne hit my nostrils. “I know the way you think. And even if you don’t want to admit it, I know what makes you ache. We’re the same. We’re both dirty, we’re both fucking filthy, and we always will be.”

  Timber held my gaze for a moment, the pant of his voice, that eerie slip of his desire hinted in his voice, in the hard grip of his nails biting into my skin before he stood, freeing me from the trance he’d tried working in me. I blinked, shaking my head and didn’t pay attention to him whispering in Cosmos’s ear or really notice when the giant slipped a note into my hand.

  “Tomorrow morning around eleven. The house will be empty.”

  And then, just like that, the lounge was empty, left only with the sound of the musicians packing their instruments and Ryan’s steps against the hardwood as he moved toward me.

  It took a minute for me to understand that he was kneeling next to me, hunched at my side with his voice all worried and low. “You okay?” he asked, moving his head to watch my face.

  Fear. Pain. Reality. And dammit, a tremor of thrill. Timber served them all to me and I’d eaten them up like I always did. I’d forgotten to fight. I’d forgotten I wanted to.

  Finally, I cleared my throat, nodding to Ryan. “I’m good.” The mask came on, the one I tried to keep over me when I was weak, when I doubted myself. It was one that I’d almost let Ryan see past. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  I could tell he wanted to say something, there was a hint of hesitation in his face, in the way he didn’t immediately follow me when I stood, how he kept his gaze on my walk as we headed towards the exit, on the set of my shoulders as we made our way through the crowd, but I wouldn’t have him drilling me with questions. Not yet. Not here. “You think my place is safe?”

  He frowned. “Probably not.” I made to step away from him, but Ryan grabbed me, a light touch on my arm, different from the one I’d just felt there moments before. “Hey,” he said, stopping me before I brushed off his hold. “What did he say to you?” To our left, in the lobby, Timber and his court was heading out the door. They all followed him, hung on his words, laughed at his jokes and I frowned, wanting to hit him, wanting Ryan to punch him, but only able to manage a weak glare when Timber caught my eye and gave me a snide wink.

  “Nothing worth repeating.” I walked through the lounge with Ryan, feeling stupid. The curtained back entrance was a tight squeeze as we moved down it, passing the bustling wait staff that slipped through the kitchen. I didn’t really see them and ignored Misty’s text ringing from my phone. She wanted to know what Timber had said. I didn’t need to look at the message to know that.

  Finally, I breathed, deeply sucking the air into my lungs as we left the club and came out the side entrance onto Bourbon. Ryan stayed silent, taking in my movements, watching as I fidgeted with my phone and pulled my jacket tight against my waist. “So you don’t think I can go back there?” I asked, wondering how I could avoid my place but really needing not to be interrogated by him. Besides, I wasn’t a freeloader. I was an opportunist, and being under his roof made me feel needier than I wanted. But Ryan frowned again, looking confused and I sighed, trying to clarify. “My place.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Not yet.” He touched my back as we weaved through the crowd on the street, which was thicker and louder than it had been an hour before. Ryan walked on the outside of the street, keeping his eyes focused on the people that moved around us. “I want Sammy to watch the place for another day at least. We can stop by there if you need anything.”

  “No.” Head bent down, fingers on my temples, I didn’t know what I wanted to say or how to explain myself. “I just…”

  “You’re off,” he told me, nodding to himself and I didn’t need him to look at me or take his curious eyes off the crowd to know he understood what I was thinking. “He spooked you.”

  “That’s what he does.” Ryan had no idea. He didn’t know our life and if he kept pressing, got further in, he wouldn’t like what he discovered about how we lived it. “It’s not your problem.”

  “Alex…”

  But I didn’t want comfort or reassurances. I didn’t need them. Ryan should have realized that by now. Instead, I cut him off, shooting for a joke I knew he wouldn’t find funny. “So one more night on your sofa? You sure about that? I can get a room somewhere.”

  We came to the block between Bourbon and Barracks Street, waiting for the slow traffic and crowd to move before we crossed the street. He watched me the whole time like he waited for a question he didn’t know the answer to. I didn’t respond, let him stare, ignored the small trickle of worry I saw pinching his eyes. “I got room,” he finally said when we move down the street. “Don’t waste your money.”

  “If it’s a hassle…” I hated how whiny I sounded. I hated more that Ryan just looked at me like he was trying to work out what had set me off.

  “You’re not a hassle, Alex. I told you. I got your back.”

  I nodded, hoping Ryan would remember that when he saw me work. Hoping like hell I wouldn’t get pinched again, but hoping more than anything that Timber wasn’t right about me.

  Alex was damn stubborn. It took effort, it took fineness, and finally a warning about the picture of her on my phone to get her to let me tag along. On a B&E. Shit, how the mighty had fallen.

  We sat in the back of a cab, avoiding the dark skies above us and the infrequent splatter of rain that had darkened the streets and forced walkers to huddle under their jackets and umbrellas on the sidewalks.

  “Drop us on Toulouse,” she told the driver and the heavyset cabbie flicked his eyes to her in the rearview¸ then pulled them up at the sky.

  “This is bullshit.” Nothing I said would stop Alex. I hated the way she kept quiet, how she’d been on some sort of mission all morning that she wouldn’t share with me. That driven attitude bothered me. It wasn’t like she was pumping herself up to do anything good. She was keyed up, close to a take and it reminded me of Sammy on missions back in the day. Most of the time my best friend was a laugh, always cutting up or saying something stupid to cut the tension. But when we went into a mission, even now, on a job, his ass got serious. Alex carried that same focus in her body as she slipped the driver fifteen bucks an
d slid across the seat before he’d even come to a complete stop.

  “Alex,” I warned as she walked too fast ahead of me, but all she did was grunt at me, making me wonder if she was picking up some of my bad habits.

  But a moment later: “Look, Ryan, I don’t want to do this bullshit.”

  “So don’t.” The rain picked up and I pulled her under the awning of an abandoned building, the broken balcony railing above letting a steady stream of water fall behind us. “It’s simple,” I told her, not liking that her eyes were hard. “Just walk away. You don’t have to do shit for him.”

  “I’m not doing anything for him, Ryan. It’s all part of my payback.”

  “To Ironside?” She shook her head, drawing her arms around her waist like she was protecting herself again. “What is it? You’ve been off since last night.”

  “It doesn’t matter. The job needs doing and he wants me on it.” She stepped away from the awning before I could stop her and kept walking, slinking around puddles and keeping to the sides of buildings. It was something I’d seen a dozen times sitting on stake outs, tailing suspects back home in Tennessee. But Alex had a grace that none of those lowlifes in Cavanagh could hope to copy.

  We turned a corner, me trailing behind her like a damn stalker and Alex pretending that she had no idea who I was. The second we came to the corner of Dauphine I wanted to laugh, maybe throw up, couldn’t decide which.

  The street was heavy with history, and old elegance that I’d seen just months before, first hand. I knew architecture—insomnia and DIY shows will do that to you—and when Alex inched closer toward the old Creole cottage, I closed my eyes wondering if there was some maniac magician moving people and scenarios around in my life like a sick cosmic puppet show.

  I’d been in that house before. Just once, just long enough to be led into believing I had gotten the information I was looking for—and to get sucked off by the horny woman who lived there. Not long enough that the rich bitch doing the job would let her husband catch us. Every time I thought about it, my stomach cramped, although I have to admit, the blow job was mighty fine.

  A low, subtle whistle though my teeth had Alex turning around, stopping before she crossed the street. I hustled to meet her, pulling her behind a light pole catty-corner to cottage. “The pink one?”

  She nodded, peeking at the slip of paper she pulled out of her pocket. “That’s the address. Why?”

  “I know the layout.” I couldn’t believe I was admitting that or even considering helping Alex break into anyone’s home. Even rich bitches didn’t deserve their stuff messed with.

  “How?” For the first time since last night that tight cast of Alex’s features softened, her curiosity working past her focus as she looked up at me expecting an explanation I’d only half give.

  “Met the home owner a few months back.” I didn’t explain, or meet her questioning eyes. Alex could read me. At that moment, I didn’t trust what she’d find if she did.

  “You gonna spot me, Ryan?” I liked how she twisted her mouth, fighting a grin. The tone was teasing and it distracted me from what we were about to do.

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

  “Newsflash, Boy Scout, you’re not a cop anymore.”

  “I still fucking think like one. And this is still breaking the law.” I leaned against the light pole feeling stupid. “Shit.”

  “Give me ten minutes.” She wasn’t teasing now, keeping her voice easy, like she needed to explain the details so I wouldn’t turn and run. “Cosmo said the house was empty. You don’t have to do anything but whistle if you see someone coming.” She nodded toward the sidewalk and I followed. “I’ve cased this street for years. Lawyers and rich business owners who are in the office by nine and home well after seven. Housekeepers and workers don’t generally stick around inside and I don’t see any maintenance or construction workers. It’s cool, okay Ryan?”

  But that sick feeling in my stomach didn’t make me think anything was remotely cool. I knew what lay inside that cottage. I knew it was deceptively sparse. One visit was all it took for the details to stick—original trim work, ten foot ceilings, polished, fine dark wood floors, marble so sparkling it reminded me of the wet river banks back home. And Harmony, the lying bitch who lived inside it.

  She’d stood in front of her veiny Carrera marble, went to her knees and told me she could fit me… all of me, inside that wide mouth of hers and I’d let her because I’d been stupid, desperate for the lead I thought she’d give me. Besides, a beautiful redhead with wide hips and a teasing mouth had me forgetting that I had a brain. Big Brain got ignored that day and I added a count to my rank of sins I’d tallied up in my life. But damn, the blow job was mighty fine.

  I’d listened for the music in our bodies; the small hope that what I’d let that redhead do to me would settle some sort of need in me to connect, to reattach myself to the world. But there was no melody in Harmony sucking me off. There was only the fierce, desperate feel of her tongue, the ridges of her mouth dulling my common sense even as they pleasured my dick, making me forget that I hadn’t asked who she was, that I hadn’t cared enough to wonder if she’d belonged to someone else.

  Alex weaved between the cars parked along the street, slipping between them and into the alleyway that separated the pink cottage from the large home next to it. This wasn’t me, just standing there popping my knuckles, clueless how to stare across the street without looking like a thug or at least someone with no business waiting among those historical homes and the lives led behind each hundred year old door.

  I settled on stepping into the street, leaning against a black Mercedes with a flat tire, listening as Alex jumped the fence, the gate hinge rattling once, and then I could only make out the lazy sirens a dozen streets over and the horns and music that filled the French Quarter. It was Friday, just before lunch. I was away from my home town, away from the purpose I thought my life should have, watching out for anyone that would disturb the thief I was protecting. Shit.

  My mind wandered back along the road I had traveled. Lies had twisted me, left me shuffling through the shadows left behind by a man I once thought was good. An envelope written in Dot’s handwriting had spurred all this confusion, had disturbed the tomb of my mother’s death and the kicked up the secrets that had been told in order to keep her buried. That should have been my focus—finding Dot, getting my questions answered, but then less than a week ago Alex Black stumbled back into my life and made that mission seem like a small piece in a much larger puzzle. How could someone do that so suddenly? Slip my focus, unhinge my world? Have me calling Sammy to make excuses to our partners since I didn’t want them around Alex? Shit. I shouldn’t have wanted Alex around them. When had that order changed in my mind? After four damn days?

  To my left, I caught the movement of Alex on the second story, behind the thin curtains and, despite how sick this whole situation made me feel, I was impressed with how quickly she moved, how she didn’t hesitate. That took skill. It took cunning and I had to remind myself that those were the actions of someone committing a crime. And I was aiding and abetting that crime. Shit. Was I a damn lowlife now?

  “Son of a bitch.”

  I knew the voice before I saw the woman and tried keep surprise and repulsion from showing on my face. Harmony’s front gate was just fifty feet away and she stood near it, her arms weighed down with canvas grocery bags that had her teetering on her three inch wedges. I wondered if she was just surprised herself, or angry I was there. I wondered if she’d gotten over me threatening to tell her husband about us being together. But then, from the corner of my eye, I saw Alex peak behind the curtain, watching me push off from the Mercedes with my hands in my jacket pocket as I approached Harmony on the street.

  Distraction. That’s what she needed. That’s what I could do for the little crook inside.

  “Harmony,” I greeted her, forcing a smile I didn’t feel onto my mouth. “How you been?”

  “Ho
w have I been?” The snobbish attitude was genuine, French Quarter society I’d come across once too often since I moved here. She wasn’t the type to pretend. I’d guessed that about her the second she let me come in her mouth and then hurry me out of that cottage as her old man slipped his key in their front door. Harmony wasn’t a good person, that much I’d discovered when she set me up to tussle with Malcolm, supposedly her friend. Reality: the asshole had tried taking me out for asking about Dot.

  The bags in her hands swung a little as she readjusted then, but she kept her smug attitude in place, despite the obvious struggle she had handling her groceries. “I’ve been wonderful, Ryan, but I’m surprised you are.”

  “Why?” I asked, trying like hell not to look back at that window. “Because you sent me into a fight with gun-waving, grizzly old bastard?”

  “I didn’t know that’s what Malcolm was going to do.” She looked almost genuine, but the smile she didn’t bother hiding diminished her sincerity.

  “That right?”

  Harmony smelled different. Expensive, too polished, not like she had months before and it was distracting as she stepped in front of me, twisting her head in that way that some women do to seem harmless. “Why would I do that?”

  I wasn’t buying the innocent act but I did wonder why she even was bothering to talk to me, why she just accepted that I was hanging out in front of her place chatting with her as if we liked each other. “You wanted to shut me up about the, thing between us.”

  “I wouldn’t have killed you over that, Ryan, really. You think I’m a criminal?”

  “Oh, Harmony, you don’t wanna know what I think about you.”

  That insult took the flirty attitude from her, had her stepping back with mock insult I knew was feigned. “Then why the hell are you standing outside my house, Ryan?” She didn’t wait for an answer, or bother to slow down as she jerked her head away from me and stared up at that second story window. I held my breath, hoping that Alex had gotten what she needed and couldn’t blink or even move my eyes until Harmony went through her gate and into her house, wobbling with each step in those ridiculous shoes.