Covet fa-1

by J. R. Ward

  “How do you know what I'm going to ask you to do?”

  “Because you and all my bosses before you have wanted only one thing from me,” Jim said hoarsely.

  “Well, maybe we'd mix it up a little if you weren't so fucking brilliant at what you do.”

  Jim cranked his hold down on the cell phone, and decided that if there was any more of this bullshit banter, he was going to take up Vin's method of terminating connections.

  He cleared his throat. “E-mail won't work. I don't have an account anymore.”

  “I was going to send you a package anyway. You don't honestly think I trust Hotmail or Yahoo! do you?”

  “Fine. My address is—”

  “As if I don't already know.” More of that laugh. “So I'm guessing you want Marie-Terese Boudreau's rundown?”

  “Yes, and—”

  “Vincent diPietro?”

  So not a surprise. “Nope. Devina Avale.”

  “Interesting. She wouldn't happen to be the woman who said good ol' Vincent put her in the hospital last night, would she? Why…yes, she is. It's right here on my computer screen. Terrible set of people you're hanging around with. So violent.”

  “And to think it's a step up from the likes of you.”

  Now there was a little less of that amusement: “How does that saying go? It's not wise to bite the hand that feeds you…Yup, I think that's right.”

  “I'm more likely to shoot than use my teeth. FYI.”

  “I'm well aware of how much you like guns, thank you very much. And in spite of your piss-poor opinion about me, I have all the intel on Marie-Terese right here.” Matthias, to his credit, got to the point. “Born Gretchen Moore in Las Vidas, California. Age thirty-one. Graduated from UC San Diego. Mother and father deceased.” There was a shuffling sound and a grunt, as if Matthias were switching position—and the idea that the guy had to deal with chronic pain was satisfying as hell. “Now for the interesting part. Married Mark Capricio in Las Vegas, nine years ago. Capricio is a bona fide card-carrying member of the mob, a real sick shit who has a personality disorder and a half, given his rap sheet. Total skull cracker. She evidently tried to leave him about three years ago and he beat her up, grabbed the kid, and split. Took her a couple months and a PI to find him. When she got the son back, she divorced the asshole, bought herself the Marie-Terese ID, and disappeared, eventually ending up in Caldwell, NY. Since then, she's kept her profile ultra-low, and with good reason. Men like Capricio don't let their wives go.”

  Holy. Shit. So…chances were good that those two dead boys and that beaten man in the alley last night meant Capricio had found her. Had to be. Vin had said the second attack had been on a guy seen with her—

  “But when it comes to her ex-husband, she has nothing to worry about in the short term.”

  “Excuse me?” Jim said.

  “Capricio's been doing twenty in federal prison for a salad bar of felonies including embezzlement, money laundering, witness intimidation, and perjury—and after that he's got a bunch of state felonies to serve out, including accessory to murder, assault, battery. Guy could be an exam question in law school, for fuck's sake.” Another shift around was marked with a soft curse. “Apparently, it was all crashing down on him right about the time Gretchen/Marie-Terese was going to leave him. Which is logical. He was probably getting more and more violent on the home front as the feds and the Nevada staties closed in on him. When he snatched the son, he was running from the law, not just his wife—which made the fact that he managed to disappear for three months a testament to the depth of his connections. Clearly, someone ratted on him, though—maybe her PI applied the right pressure at the right time by threatening to turn one of his protectors in. Who knows.”

  “But I wonder if his family's coming after her now.”

  “Yeah, I read about those two gunshot murders in that alley. Doubtful it's his family. They'd just kill her and take the son. There'd be no reason to expose themselves to any added risk by wiping out innocents.”

  “Yeah, and besides, you kill someone just because she's been with him, that's personal. So the question is, who's after her—assuming she is the common thread between Friday and Saturday night's attacks.”

  “Wait, someone else got blown, and not in a good way?”

  “And here I thought you knew everything.”

  There was a long pause and then Matthias's voice came back—this time without its usual swinging-dick tone. “I don't know everything. Took me a while to realize that, though. Anyway, I'll do the Devina thing for you. Stay by your phone for my call.”

  “Roger that.”

  As Jim hung up, he felt as if he were dressed in a familiar set of clothes: The back-and-forth with Matthias was just as it had always been. Quick, to the point, smart, and logical. That was the problem. They'd always worked well together.

  Maybe a little too well.

  Jim refocused on his pursuit, tracking Devina's taxi as it headed across downtown to the old warehouse district. When they got into the maze of industrial buildings that had been converted into lofts, he let the taxi turn off onto Canal Street by itself and proceeded to the next left-hand turn. Going around the block, his timing was perfect: As he came back to Canal, he got to see Devina get out of the cab and stride up to a door. When she entered using a key, he took that as an indication she had a place there.

  Jim kept going, and as he headed out of the district, he made another call.

  Chuck, the diPietro Group's crew foreman, answered in his usual gruff way. “Yeah.”

  “Chuck, it's Jim Heron.”

  “Hey.” There was an exhale, like the guy was in mid-cigar. “How you doing?”

  “Good. Wanted you to know I'm coming to work tomorrow.”

  Guy's voice actually warmed a little. “You're a good man, Heron. But don't be pushin' it.”

  “Nah. I'm fine.”

  “Well, I 'predate it.”

  “Listen, I'm trying to get in touch with two of the guys I usually work with and I wondered if you have their numbers.”

  “I got everyone's number but yours. Who you need?”

  “Adrian Vogel and Eddie Blackhawk.”

  There was a pause, and the image of the guy chewing on the stub of a fattie was irresistible. “Who?” Jim repeated the names. “Don't know who you talking about. Nobody by those names on the bluff job.” There was a hesitation, like the guy was wondering whether Jim was all there. “You sure you don't need a couple days off?”

  “Maybe I got the names wrong. They ride Harleys. One's got short hair and piercings. The other's huge and has a braid down his back?”

  Another exhale. “Look, Jim, you're gonna take tomorrow off. I'll see you Tuesday at the earliest.”

  “No one like that on the crew?”

  “Nope, Jim, there ain't.”

  “Guess I'm confused, then. Thanks.”

  Jim tossed his cell phone on the seat next to him and all but strangled the steering wheel. Not part of the crew. Big surprise.

  Because that pair of bastards didn't really exist any more than Devina did.

  Christ, it appeared as if he were surrounded by liars in this new job. Which really put him back in familiar territory, didn't it.

  His phone rang and he picked it up. “You can't find her, can you. Devina Avale is nothing but air.”

  Matthias wasn't laughing this time. “Nothing. Not a damn thing. It's like she dropped onto the earth out of nowhere. The thing is, she has all the right surface credentials—but only to a point. No birth certificate. No parents. Established credit only seven months ago, and the social security number is actually that of a dead woman. So it's not a great facade, which means I should have been able to find something, anything on the real her. But she's a mirage.”

  “Thanks, Matthias.”

  “You don't sound shocked in the slightest.”

  “I'm not.”

  “What the hell have you gotten yourself into?”

  Jim shook his head.
“Same shit, different day. That's about it.”

  There was a short silence. “Expect a package from me.”

  “Roger that.”

  Jim hung up, put the phone in the front pocket of his jacket, and decided it was time to go face the music over at the Commodore. Vin diPietro had a right to know who and what his ex was, and here was hoping that the guy would be open to the truth—even though it sounded a lot like fiction.

  Abruptly, the memory of Vin looking up from the stool in the locker room at the Iron Mask came back.

  Do you believe in demons?

  Jim could only hope that question had been a rhetorical one.

  Chapter 28

  Funny thing about glass. When you broke the shit up, it got pissed and bit back.

  Upstairs in the duplex's master bath, Vin was surrounded by gauze and white surgical tape. What he'd done to his palm squeezing that bourbon to shreds was way out of Band-Aid land, so he'd had to call in reinforcements of the Red Cross variety and things were not going well. With the injury being on his right hand, he was a floundering, cursing nurse, fumbling with all the wrapping and the scissors and the tape.

  Damn good thing he was his own patient. The vocabularly alone, much less the incompetence, would have gotten him disbarred—or whatever the hell the candy-striper equivalent to that was.

  He was just coming to the end of the ordeal when the phone by the sinks rang, and wasn't that just loads of fun. With a tiny pair of nail scissors locked in his leftie, a strip of gauze in his teeth, and his right hand all but a paw, it took every bit of coordination he had to answer the call.

  “Let him up,” he told the lobby guard.

  After putting the receiver back, he did a half-assed taping job and left the mess on the counter as is, heading for the stairs and going down to the front hall door. When the elevator binged and opened, he was in the corridor, waiting.

  Jim Heron stepped out and didn't hang around for a hello or an invitation to speak. Which you had to respect.

  “Thursday night,” the guy said. “I didn't know you. I didn't know her. I should have told you, but to be honest, when I saw the pair of you together, I didn't want to fuck things up. It was a mistake and I'm goddamn sorry—mostly that you found out from someone other than me.”

  The whole time he was talking, Heron's arms hung loosely by his sides, like he was ready for a fight if things went that way, and his voice was as steady and even as his eyes were. No prevaricating. No artifice. No bullshit.

  And as Vin faced off at him, instead of rage, which was what he'd have expected himself to have toward the guy, he just felt exhaustion. Exhaustion and the thumping pain of his hand. Abruptly, he realized he was getting tired of channeling his fucking father when it came to women. Thanks to that legacy, over the past twenty years, Vin's suspicious nature had found so many shadows where none had existed—and yet essentially missed the actual time when someone he was sleeping with cheated on him.

  So much energy wasted, all in the wrong place.

  God, he just didn't care about Devina. At this moment, he really didn't care what she'd done while they were together.

  “She lied about what happened here last night,” Vin said roughly. “Devina lied.”

  There was absolutely no hesitation in the reply: “I know.”

  “Oh, really.”

  “I don't believe a word she's said about anything.”

  “And why's that.”

  “I went to the hospital to see her because I was having a hard time believing any of this shit. And she gave me this hearts-and-flowers routine about telling you what had happened Thursday night, how that was the reason you went after her. But you didn't know, did you. She never said a thing to you, did she.”

  “Not a peep.” Vin turned away and headed into the duplex. When Jim didn't follow, he said over his shoulder, “You just going to stand there like a statue or do you want lunch.”

  Food was evidently preferable to playing marble, and after they were both through the front door, Vin locked it and put the chain in place. With the way things were going lately, he wasn't taking any chances with anything.

  “Holy fuck,” Jim said, “your living room…”

  “Yeah, it's been redecorated by Vince McMahon.”

  In the kitchen, Vin got out some cold cuts and the jar of Hellman's using his left hand. “You got a choice between rye or sourdough.”

  “Sourdough.”

  As Vin grabbed some lettuce and a tomato from the crisper, he braced himself. “I need to know how it went down. With Devina. Tell me everything—Shit…not everything. But how did she come on to you?”

  “You sure you want to go there?”

  He took out a knife from the drawer. “I have to, man. Need to. I'm feeling like…I'm feeling I was with someone I didn't know at all.”

  Jim cursed and then parked it on one of the bar stools at the counter. “Not so much mayo for me.”

  “Cool. Now talk.”

  “I don't believe she is who she says, by the way.”

  “Funny, me neither.”

  “I mean, I did a background check on her.”

  Vin glanced up in the process of getting the blue lid off the plastic jar. “You gonna tell me how you managed that?”

  “Not on your life.”

  “And the result was…?”

  “She doesn't exist, literally. And trust me, if the people I use can't find her true identity, nobody can.”

  Vin went light with the Hellman's on Jim's sourdough, heavier on his own rye, but it was a messy, imprecise job. Ambidextrous he was not.

  God, it was so not a surprise about Devina…

  “Still waiting for Thursday-night deets over here,” he said. “And do us both a favor and just talk. I don't have the energy to be polite right now.”

  “Fuck…” Jim rubbed his face. “Okay…she was at the Iron Mask. I was with…friends, I guess you could call them, although 'sonsabitches' would also cover it. Anyway, she followed me out into the parking lot when I left. It was cold. She seemed lost. She was…You sure about this?”

  “Yup.” Vin picked up a tomato, put it on a cutting board, and started slicing with the grace of a five-year-old. Hacking was more like it. “Keep going.”

  Jim shook his head. “She was upset about you. And she appeared to be really unsure of herself.”

  Vin frowned. “How was she upset?”

  “How…you mean what for? She didn't go into specifics. I didn't ask. I was just…like, I wanted her to be okay with herself.”

  Now Vin was doing the head shaking. “Devina is always okay. That's the thing. No matter her mood, down deep she's tight. It was one of the things that attracted me to her…well, that and the fact that she's one of the most physically confident women I've ever met. But that's what you get when you're built perfectly.”

  “She said you wanted her to get breast implants.”

  Vin's eyes flicked up. “Are you kidding me? I've told her she was perfect since the night I met her, and I meant it. I never wanted her to change a thing.”

  Abruptly, Jim's brows drew in tight, a hard look coming onto his face.

  “Looks like you were played, buddy.” Vin cracked apart the lettuce and went over to the sink with a couple of leaves to wash. “Let me guess, she poured her heart out to you, you saw a vulnerable woman tangled up with a mofo, you kissed her…maybe you didn't even think you would take things that far.”

  “I couldn't believe where it ended up.”

  “You felt bad for her, but you were also attracted.” Vin turned off the water and shook the romaine. “You wanted to give her something to make her feel good.”

  Jim's voice grew low. “That's exactly how it was.”

  “You want to know the way she got me?”

  “Yeah. I do.”

  Back at the counter, Vin laid out slices of roast beef that were thin as paper. “I went to a gallery opening. She was there by herself, wearing a dress that was cut down to the small of her
back. They had these lights in the ceiling that were directed at the paintings that were for sale, and when I walked in, I saw her standing in front of the Chagall I had come to buy, that light hitting the skin of her back. Extraordinary.” He added on a layer of ragged tomato and a fluffy blanket of lettuce, then top-hatted the sandwiches. “Sliced or whole?”

  “Whole.”

  He handed the sourdough over to Jim and cut his rye in half. “She sat in front of me at the auction and I smelled her perfume the entire time. I paid a fuckload for the Chagall, and I'll never forget the way she looked back at me over her shoulder as the gavel went down. Her smile was what I liked to see in a woman's face at that point.” Vin took a bite and remembered vividly as he chewed. “I used to like it dirty, you know, porn-style. And her eyes told me she had no problem with that kind of shit. She came home with me that night and I fucked her right here on the floor. Then on the stairs. Finally on the bed. Twice. She let me do anything to her and she liked it.” Jim blinked and stopped chewing, like he was trying to match up the Leave It to Beaver lines he'd been fed with the Vivid Video routine Vin had gotten.

  “She was”—Vin leaned to the side and snapped free two paper towels—“exactly who I wanted her to be.” He handed one to Jim. “She gave me free rein to do whatever I wanted business-wise, didn't care if I was gone for a week on no notice. She'd come with me when I wanted her to, stayed home when I didn't. She was like…a reflection of what I wanted.”

  Jim wiped his mouth. “Or in my case, what would get to me.”

  “Exactly.”

  They finished their sandwiches and Vin made two more, and while they ate the second round, they were mostly quiet, as if they were both recalling their time with Devina…and wondering how they'd been played so easily.

  Vin eventually broke the silence. “So they say they have me on a surveillance tape from last night. Coming up in the elevator. Security guard tells me he saw my face, but that's impossible. I wasn't here. Whoever that was, it wasn't me.”

  “I believe you.”

  “You're going to be the only one.”

  The other man paused with the sourdough halfway to his mouth. “I'm not sure how to say this.”