Out of Control

by Shannon McKenna

“Yeah. Of course. Why? What’s this about a party?”

  Amy looked nervous. “Well, your niece came by yesterday to pick up Mikey for your surprise party, and we told her we couldn’t—”

  “I don’t have a niece,” Margot said. “I have no family here. And my birthday’s in December.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry. Maybe I got it mixed up,” the girl said miserably. “I don’t know. She said she was your niece, I swear. I would have said something last night, but I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.”

  Margot’s stomach had tightened to a queasy, heaving mass.

  Davy stepped forward. “Would you describe this girl for me?”

  “She was about my age,” Amy said. “Platinum blond dye job. Dressed in Goth stuff, lots of piercing. Black leather. She had a tattoo on the side of her neck. A scorpion, I think. We didn’t let her take Mikey, of course, ’cause you’d marked your preference against it on the form.”

  “Thank God.” Margot cuddled the dog closer. “I’ve changed my mind. Mikey’s staying with me today after all.”

  Davy dialed Raul Gomez as they walked out to the truck. Gomez was a homicide detective in the SPD, an army buddy dating back to the days of Desert Storm. They’d worked together over the years on several successfully resolved cases. Gomez also owed him for having unmasked a predator who had targeted Gomez’s vulnerable widowed sister some years back. Between Davy and Gomez, the guy had ended up with good cause to regret his choice of prey.

  “Gomez here,” came Raul’s deep voice over the phone.

  “It’s McCloud,” Davy said.

  “Hey. I was about to call you. About the dead guy you called in?”

  “What about him?” Davy felt his neck begin to prickle.

  “The autopsy’s still pending, but I just heard a weird fun fact from the morgue. The guy doesn’t have a mark on him. Not a cut, not a bruise. And yet he bled to death internally. From both ends.”

  “Poor bastard,” Davy said. “It looked bad.”

  Gomez grunted. “Maybe he was sick and didn’t know it, but we contacted his sister, and she said as far as she knew, he’d been fine.”

  Davy waited, patient with Raul Gomez’s meandering way of getting to the real point. “What are you thinking, Raul?”

  “Weird, creepy stuff. Remember that night in Baghdad years ago when you told me all those legends about Dim Mak?”

  Dim Mak. Death touch. Thoughts of that had run through Davy’s head all night after seeing Wilkes’s contorted body; ancient tales of the Chinese warrior monks who could cause delayed death with a single well-placed blow, hours, days, even months later.

  “It crossed my mind, too,” Davy said. “Let me know what they find. But I’ve got a question for you, too. Have you guys recently seen or heard of a platinum blond Goth girl with facial piercings, black leather, a scorpion tattoo on her neck?”

  Gomez was quiet for a long moment. “What do you know about her?”

  “Nothing,” Davy said. “Why do you think I’m asking you?”

  Gomez grunted. “Hicks was talking about a girl who fits that description this morning. Lila Simons. Seventeen years old, from Tacoma. A runaway. She’d been on the streets since March. We’ve had her in here a couple of times for dealing Ecstasy.”

  “I need to talk to her,” Davy said. “Have you got her in custody?”

  Gomez hesitated. “Not exactly,” he said. “She’s in the morgue. Some kids playing in a construction site found her body this morning. Looks like an OD. It’s not my case, I just happened to overhear Hicks talking about her this morning. He’s the one who had to call her folks.”

  “Oh.” The chill in Davy’s guts got sharper. “I see.”

  “You got any leads for Hicks?” Gomez prodded. “It sounds like you might.”

  “Not yet,” Davy hedged. “I’ll let you know as soon as I know more.”

  “Huh,” Gomez sounded dubious. “Been keeping busy, huh?”

  “Busy enough,” Davy said.

  “I think maybe we should get together, talk about what you’ve been up to. I’m starting to get real curious about your recent activities.”

  “I will,” Davy promised. “Just not today. I’m heading up to Endicott Falls this morning. Connor’s getting married.”

  “No shit. Tell him congratulations from me.” Gomez’s voice warmed. “Call me as soon as you get back.”

  “Will do,” Davy said. He hung up the phone, and stared out the windshield for a long moment before he looked at Margot. “The Goth girl’s dead,” he said reluctantly. “Looks like an OD to the cops.”

  Margot’s freckles stood out in sharp relief against her pallor.

  “Maybe it’s not the same girl,” he offered. “Or just a coincidence.”

  She petted Mikey as she stared blindly out the windshield. “You said you don’t believe in coincidences. I don’t, either. Not anymore.”

  Caught in his own trap. Damn. “Whatever,” he said. “I’m just glad we’re leaving town.”

  “Um, Davy?” Margot’s voice was tentative “Are you sure you still want to take me to this wedding? If you want to bail…I mean, bodies are starting to pile up in my wake.”

  “Don’t even start.”

  She flinched at his tone.

  Minutes of deadly silence went by. He was ashamed of himself for snarling at her when she was scared. “This is not your fault,” he said.

  Margot hid her face with her hair. “Why do you believe me, Davy?”

  “Believe what?”

  She shot him an incredulous glance. “Duh! That I didn’t kill Craig and Mandi. What do you think I meant?”

  “Oh. That.” He had to realign his thoughts, he’d been so busy speculating about the pawnbroker and the Goth girl.

  “That’s easy.”

  “Yeah? Hah. Do tell.”

  “For one thing, Snakey himself and all the weird shit he’s doing backs up your story to a certain degree,” he began.

  “For another, I have a lot of experience in interrogation. I’ve talked to guilty people. I know what guilt looks and feels and smells like, even when I’m dealing with a pro. You’re not a pro. And you’re not guilty.”

  She shot him a nervous smile. “Just guilty about dragging you into my mess, that’s all.”

  “I jumped,” he said. “Feet first. I was not dragged.” Except for maybe by his dick. But he kept that crass observation to himself. “I checked the newspaper articles about you last night on the Internet,” he told her.

  She looked up at him, wide-eyed. “Yeah? And?”

  “I would have smelled something off with that story even if I’d never met you,” he said, with complete honesty. “And furthermore…”

  “Yes?” Her eyes filled with trepidation.

  “You’re cute as a redhead,” he told her.

  He felt obscurely better when she started giggling. Tearfully, but still giggling. It was better than nothing.

  It was a long drive. The thickness of the silence in the truck was driving Margot nuts. She’d never been good at silence. Particularly not now. It gave her too much time to think about the rising body count in her life. How Bart Wilkes had looked on the floor last night. How painful and frightening it must have been, to die that way. Alone and desperate.

  It was so scary and sad, it was sending her straight into the hole.

  She had to distract herself, quick. Davy had smothered previous attempts at conversation with monosyllabic answers, but if this went on, she’d be hysterical and babbling by the time they got to the resort.

  “Can I ask you a question?” she demanded.

  Davy looked dubious. “Depends. Try it. See if I answer.”

  “Smart-ass,” she grumbled. “How is it that you have all this time to follow me around? Don’t you have to work, like normal people?”

  He gave her a funny look. “I’m perfectly normal.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Right. Sure you are.”

  “I’m not working any other cases. I t
each at the dojo, but we just went on our summer break. And I’m phasing out the P.I. business.”

  “So that wasn’t just a line to get rid of me?”

  He shook his head. “I’m starting up a security consulting business with Sean and another friend, Seth Mackey. You’ll meet him at the wedding. I’m burned out on private investigating. And I never want to deal with people looking for proof of their spouses’ infidelity, ever again. Big depressing bore.”

  “I see,” she said.

  “Nailing that son-of-a-bitch Snakey, though,” he went on. “That would be fun. I could really sink my teeth into a project like that.”

  “But being as how that’s not a paying proposition, how do you make your living?” She winced, embarrassed. “Oops. Sorry. Call it a rhetorical question. None of my damn business.”

  “It’s OK,” he said. “I don’t mind. I got into trading a few years ago, when the market was good. Did pretty well. Got lucky a few times, reinvested my profits, bought a few rental properties.”

  “Like Tilda’s gym?”

  “Among other things. The detective business went pretty well, too, from a financial point of view. I’m in a good place for a career change.”

  “Lucky you,” she said. “So you don’t do trading anymore?”

  “Nah. I—”

  “Don’t tell me. Let me guess. You conquered it, consumed it, and got bored with it. Right?”

  He shrugged. “Once I’d figured out how it worked, why continue? I was doing fine, money wise. Money’s not a good enough reason to run around in circles. It was time to move on to something new.”

  “And you’re like that with your lovers, too?”

  His smile disappeared.

  “Oh, crap. Sorry,” she said hastily. “That was unfair. I never said it, OK?” There was an awkward pause. Margot rushed to fill the hole.

  “Really, I admire that. The money thing, I mean. Working the system, never letting it work you. I wish to God I could do that.”

  “You will,” he said. “You’ll find your groove again.”

  “I thought I’d found it, back in my old life,” Margot said wistfully. “My business was going so well. I was so proud for making it all happen. And then all of a sudden, poof, it’s gone, and I’m as desperate as I was years ago, after Mom died.” She studied his profile. “I bet you don’t even know what desperate feels like. You act like you were born knowing exactly what you’re doing.”

  His smile was ironic. “I was eighteen when my father died,” he said. “No income, no marketable job skills, and three little brothers to support. I know what desperate feels like.”

  Something twisted in her chest; the thought of a teenage Davy McCloud feeling desperate. “Sorry. That was a silly thing to say.”

  “No problem. I don’t mind.”

  The coolness in his voice bugged her. “Of course not. You make like nothing ever bothers you. It’s an act, though. I see right through it.”

  He whistled. “Uh-oh. I think I’m about to find out what Margot really wants to talk about. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.”

  “That’s better,” she said. “I actually prefer it when you’re mad, or sarcastic. At least then, I feel like you’re with me. What I hate is when you get all remote and detached, like you could give a rat’s ass.”

  He scowled out at the road. “Detachment gives you the space to choose your response rather than reacting blindly. It’s a good thing.”

  “That’s not what you’re doing,” she told him. “You’re afraid to throw yourself into the middle of anything messy. You’d rather float above it. Detachment the way you do it is a cop-out.”

  Davy flicked the turn signal on, pulling abruptly off the highway. He drove without speaking until he found an unpaved road. They rattled and bounced into the shade of the tall conifers, out of sight of the road. He braked and killed the engine.

  “We’re talking about last night, right?” he demanded. “You’re still mad at me. About the sex, about my proposition. Right?”

  Margot looked away from him, swallowing nervously.

  “You’re pissing me off on purpose, Margot. Why?”

  It was true. She didn’t know why. And she couldn’t seem to stop.

  Davy got out of the truck and circled around to her side. He yanked her door open, grabbed her around the waist and jerked her down into his arms. Margot stared up into his face.

  “I’m throwing myself into the middle of this thing with you,” he said. “Stalkers, murder, mysterious women on the run from the law, is that not messy enough? Does that not get me points?”

  “Yeah, but that’s not what I—”

  She forgot what she was going to say when he kissed her.

  It was consuming, incendiary. She grabbed him and realized all at once exactly why she goaded him the way she did. She craved him like this; fully engaged with her, involved and connected. Fierce, hungry, almost scary. Not holding her at arm’s length, doing his cool routine. Anger and sex was the quickest way to it.

  He was all hers—if she was woman enough to handle him.

  He dragged her jeans down, and slid his hand down to tangle in the silky puff of gingery ringlets at her crotch. He wrenched her panties down. The fabric ripped and gave. His fingers slid between her legs, stoking the yearning ache his kiss had already kindled.

  “Is that red the real color of your hair?” he demanded.

  “Sort of copper colored,” she told him shakily.

  “I can’t wait to see it like that.” His other hand slid into the mass of brown hair rumpled around her face. “I’ve been wondering about your real hair color since the first day I saw you.”

  She was dismayed. “Is it so obvious that it’s a dye job?”

  “Only to me. I was staring at you obsessively every chance I got,” he admitted. “Studying you. Speculating about you.” He turned her around and pulled her hips back so that her bare bottom was bent over, provocative and inviting. “I’ve been fantasizing about seeing your ass like this since the beginning. God, it’s gorgeous.”

  She tensed. “No, Davy. Wait. I don’t like—”

  “Trust me.” His voice was husky and soft. She heard the sound of his belt being unbuckled. “I’ve got condoms. I’ll make this good for you.”

  “No,” she said, more forcefully. “Wait, Davy. I don’t like this position. It makes me feel like a piece of meat. Stop it. Please.”

  He froze, his hands digging into her hips for a long moment, and then spun her around to face him. His face was hard with anger.

  “You’ve got a talent for making me feel like an asshole, Margot. You push, and push, and I follow your cues, and then you chicken out on me, and I get to be the bad guy. Piece of meat? Who the hell do you think you’re dealing with?”

  “I don’t think you’re an asshole,” she mumbled. “Or a bad guy.”

  She pulled her pants up, but he grabbed her arms and backed her up against the truck before she could zip them. “But you don’t trust me.”

  “What’s to trust?” she snapped back. “Look, Davy. Chill! It’s just a sexual position that doesn’t work for me! Don’t take it so personally. Am I not allowed to have some preferences? And don’t muscle me around, either. I hate that. This is why I don’t get involved with big guys. I must have been nuts, to take up with a hulking tank like you.”

  “You can trust me,” he said simply.

  The tension drained out of her muscles, leaving her limp and trembling. Her chin began to shake. Damn him. Here she was, pinned against his truck, and he had the gall to say that.

  “Trust you for what?” she spat out.

  “In general.”

  She shoved at him, furious. “That’s so lame. In general? You know me. I need specifics. Black and white. Spell it out.”

  His brows came together. “You can trust me to tell you the truth.”

  “Oh. Gee, thanks,” she shouted. “Even if it hurts like hell!”

  His heavy silence was affirmative. />
  The truth. Huh. It was better than nothing. More than any other guy had ever offered her. She wished he’d gone further with it, though. It would be great if she could trust him to be on her side, to be there for her, to root for her. To trust her back. Even to…love her. And she was bananas, even letting such a thought cross her foolish, mushy mind.

  “Let go of me, please,” she whispered.

  “Why do you say you don’t like being with big guys? Did somebody hit you?”

  She flushed. “Davy, I don’t want to—”

  “Just tell me.”

  She concluded that he wasn’t going to back down any time this century. “My dad hit my mom, when I was little,” she said.

  His eyes narrowed with concentration. He waited.

  “She finally got up the nerve to leave him when he started in on me,” she continued. “I was eight or so at the time. We ran away. Never saw him again. And that’s all there is to say about that. OK? Satisfied?”

  He leaned forward until his forehead barely touched hers. He brushed her cheek with his knuckles. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

  “I don’t want to dwell on it,” she snapped. “Let’s move on.”

  He lifted her clenched fists up to his face and dropped a tiny kiss on each of them in turn. “You can trust me never to hit you.”

  “Oh.” A spasm of hysterical laughter shook her. “That’s nice.”

  He shrugged. “I know it sounds stupid, to say such an obvious thing out loud, but I think it ought to be said.”

  Feeling embarrassed and emotional always prodded her into full-out smarty-pants mode. “OK, cool. I promise never to hit you, either.”

  He grinned. “Thank you. That eases my mind.”

  “Smart-ass,” she muttered.

  He shook his head. “No, really. I don’t like getting hit any more than the next guy. Why do you think I studied martial arts all my life?”

  “Is that the reason you’re so good at, ah…you know?”

  “I’m not sure what you’re referring to,” he said cautiously.

  She shoved at him again. “Don’t be coy. You know. In bed. You know things. About my body. Things I didn’t know myself. It’s wild.”

  “Oh! That.” He looked pleased, and slid his hand into her unzipped pants. “It’s your body that tells me what it wants. I’ve never clicked with anyone like that before. And you do the exact same thing to me.”