"That's good because I'd only consider dating guys that showed me an explosive time."
Dixon laughed as he entered the bathroom. Hot water, soap, and white noise. Exactly what he needed to sort through the mess inside his head.
Chapter 15
Joy held onto the laugh and smile Dixon had flashed her before he entered the bathroom. She slid off the stool and worked her way through the house, meticulously searching the small apartment for any type of monitoring device. She'd already cleared the bathroom. The questions that spun through her mind were the same ones she'd voiced to Dixon but the thoughts she wouldn't express tumbled around with them.
She finished her sweep and perched herself back on the stool. In her line of work, she needed to know who the enemy was. Her eyes slid to Smith. Dixon had hired her. She trusted him in a way she'd never trusted another man. But Smith? No, she didn't know him, and if at all possible, she'd purposefully arrived and left without Smith knowing it. She had numerous reasons for not wanting to be seen or heard. None of them she cared to examine too closely, but Smith was on her scope in a minor way. Now? Her eyes narrowed, and she slid off the stool. She shuffled into the kitchen and withdrew a butcher knife from the wooden block on the counter. Her gun, the only weapon she had tonight, was hastily stashed in a storm drain before she was transported to the hospital, so using that to get answers wasn't an option. But hey...necessity was the mother of invention.
She walked over to Smith and sat gently on the arm of the recliner. She placed the tip of the knife on the strong, throbbing vein in his neck and pressed. The man's eyes popped open immediately. Joy smiled. "Hi. We are going to play fifty questions, and you are going to answer each one. If you lie, I'll kill you. If you tell the truth, you'll live. Got the rules?"
The man gave her the tiniest of head nods. "Who do you work for?"
"Simmons," Smith whispered just as softly as she was talking.
"Okay, I'll give you a pass on that one. Who else do you work for?" She twisted the knife slightly, putting pressure on the very tip of the long, triangular knife.
"I don't know..."
"The answer to that question isn't a lie, Mr. Smith..." Joy let the tip of the knife pierce his skin.
Sweat popped out on the man's brow. He started to speak again, and she shushed him. "Now I do happen to work for Mr. Simmons. He put me on retainer. Do you know what I do, Mr. Smith?"
The man swallowed hard, the motion pushed his throat against her knife. A dribble of dark, red blood trailed down his neck. The slightest shake of his head answered her question.
"Oh no? Really? Well, let's just keep this between us, okay? You see, I do what you do, but in an elegant, connected, defined, expensive, and lethal fashion. I'm very, very good at killing my targets and I have never been caught, because I'm smart, and I don't align myself with stupid men. And you? Well, you see, Mr. Smith, I don't think you're as dumb as you let on. But something you should be aware of is that your employers, whoever they are, think that you are expendable. My sources don't have much information about you, but that man in there saved your ass tonight. If he hadn't pulled you down and then dragged your ass across the street, you'd be dead. You owe him your life. Now we are going to have a little talk. If you lie, you die. Got it?"
"I work for him." The man's eyes drifted toward the bathroom. "Only him."
"How did you come to work for his old man?" Joy watched the man's facial features. From what she could see, the big guy believed what he was telling her. Whether or not it was the truth was another story.
"Referred by an associate that I did time with. I was told he needed muscle."
Joy leaned forward. "Tell me everything that happened tonight. And believe me, I'll know if you’re lying."
Smith swallowed hard and started talking.
Dixon wiped down the mirror and glanced at his face. The dark circles under his eyes weren't unexpected. He had several cuts on his face from debris and his neck hurt like a motherfucker, even after the shower. He was fucking lucky the percussion of the explosion hadn't snapped his spine. He wrapped a towel around his waist and kicked his ruined clothes into the corner of the room.
He opened the door and froze when he didn't see Smith in the recliner. Dixon carefully padded out of the hall, his automatic in his hand, a round chambered, and the weapon's safety clicked off. He breathed a small sigh of relief when he saw the man in the kitchen putting away groceries. His eyes darted around the apartment. "Where's Joy?"
The man's eyes flicked to his for a nanosecond. He bent his head to the task at hand as he answered, "She went to get clothes for all of us."
"All of us?" Dixon dropped onto the stool at the counter. "Where the hell is she going to get clothes for me?" Smith had clothes at his apartment and Joy had an apartment somewhere, but Dixon was literally down to his towel.
"I didn't ask." Smith pulled a six-pack out of the grocery bag and handed one to Dixon before opening one for himself and downing half of it in one gulp. "Is it true? Did you pull me across the street?"
Dixon frowned at the bottle of beer in his hand before he gazed at Smith. "Yeah, of course, I did. The damn building was going to fall down on top of you if I didn't." He stared at Smith, who lowered his eyes and shook his head. "Why?"
The man shrugged. "Nobody's ever put themselves out for me before." He lifted the beer bottle and saluted Dixon. "Appreciate it."
"What happened to your neck?" Dixon motioned to the front of his throat.
Smith swiped at his neck and frowned. "Must have been from the explosion. I could have reopened it when I was putting away the groceries." The man turned around and placed the rest of the six pack into the fridge. "I'm going to go take a shower. Ms. Nguyen should be back shortly. She said within the hour." Smith glanced up at the clock mounted over the kitchen sink.
"Hold on for just a minute." Dixon wanted some answers first. "I left your phone on the counter. It's gone, so you know that I know what happened."
Smith turned and faced him. "I don't know how they faked the text. It was after midnight; the text woke me. I read it, rolled out of bed, got dressed, and came to The Residence."
"You didn't give your phone to anyone or leave it where it could be tampered with?"
"No, sir. Unless..." Smith's eyes snapped to his.
"What is it?"
"When Ms. Banner came yesterday. I left my phone on the desk when I came to your office to announce her arrival."
"That was the only time?"
Smith nodded.
Dixon leaned forward and spun his beer bottle between his fingers. So, it was Stratus who wanted Smith at The Residence last night. But why? Fuck, again there were too many questions and zero fucking answers.
If he went on the assumption that The Fates had planted a body in the house and were trying to pin him for a murder, they had to have worked fast. The ballet had lasted about two hours, including the intermission. They'd spent another hour and a half at the restaurant prior to going to the ballet and then thirty-five minutes on the return trip home. He hadn't received any indication that anyone had been in The Residence, so the entire alarm system had been compromised.
"I don't understand what is going on. I said as much to Ms. Nguyen before she left. There is no reason for anyone to fake your father's death." Smith folded the grocery bag he'd emptied and dropped it on the counter.
Dixon sighed, "Four entities know my father is dead. You, me, Joy and the people who heard it happen." He took a sip of his beer. It had warmed to the point of tasting like piss water. "Joy was with me. You?" Dixon looked at Smith and chose his words carefully. "I know you are a hired killer Smith, but I don't think you'd blindly walk into an explosion with the hopes of escaping unharmed, so I believe you didn't know the house was going to blow." He finished his beer and grimaced at the lukewarm brew. "That leaves me with the theory that whoever heard what happened is trying to manipulate me into prison or will be using this event to blackmail me.”
"What a
re you going to do?" Smith crossed his arms over his chest as if warding off the cold.
Dixon shrugged, "The ball is in their court. I have no idea who did this, but when I figure it out, you can damn well guarantee that I'm going to go after them with everything I have." He was close to getting to the top of Stratus. He needed one fucking tie to the top tier. Fucking middle management was buried under so many layers Guardian wouldn't be able to find the top. That was one of the main purposes of this operation. Find a way into Stratus. Well, he'd pulled an audible and had changed the play. A way in wasn't what they needed. They needed fucking GPS directions to the top and Dixon had put his life on hold, faced his past, and witnessed too fucking much to stop now. Jason King would have to deal with his change of direction. He just prayed he wouldn't get killed in the process. He wanted to see his brother again.
Smith leaned against the counter. "Dixon, you need to be careful. There are forces out there that can manipulate a person to do things that they never believed they were capable of doing. Your father was a monster, but you have to know there are others just like him or worse, who will stop at nothing to get their way." The man stared at him and then shook his head. "Just be careful."
"Spit it out, Smith. What are you trying tell me?" Dixon couldn't decipher the meaning between the lines of the man's warning. Of course, he was going to be careful, but what prompted the warning?
Smith lifted his arms off the counter and rubbed the back of his neck. He closed his eyes and shook his head. "Don't trust anyone." He opened his eyes and pinned him with a stare. "Anyone, do you hear me?"
"I hear you. Now let me ask you a question. Why are you still here? Other than the pay, which I admit is good, why are you still with me? You have your files. You could walk away." He'd discussed and agreed on a generous salary with Smith the day he'd given him access to the files, but Dixon suspected Smith had another reason for staying with him.
The big man shoved his hands in his pockets, and he stared at the floor for a solid thirty seconds before he spoke, "I..." He lifted his head, swallowed hard and pursed his lips. "I have no one else..." He dropped his head again and sighed before he headed toward the bathroom.
Dixon narrowed his eyes as he tracked the man. Don't trust anyone. Not. A. Problem.
“Operator Two-seven-four.”
“Sunset clearance, zero operative.”
“Standby, zero operative.”
“Archangel.”
"What the actual fuck happened?"
"We are working on that. What is your status?"
"My status? Damn near splattered all over a New York street. Thank you for asking. The asset is alive. There was another involved. The one I sent a request for information on. I need your geeks to scrub that information and look deeper. Shit isn't adding up."
"Noted. What happened prior to the incident?"
“Fuck...Ahh...Contact was made. You are aware there was a body found in the explosion?”
"We are. We are monitoring law enforcement and the coroner's input."
"Good to know, not that it does shit for me."
“I assume you can do the job I assigned you?”
“Yeah, but it would be easier if I'm allowed to break my cover.”
“No. He can’t know. It may change the way he approaches the mission. We can't have the slightest hint of ties with Guardian.”
“It's limiting what I can do to help him.”
“Watch over him. Things will move fast now. The explosion will undoubtedly set a myriad of things in motion.”
“Right. He's survived the gauntlet of that fucking bastard father, now he faces the execution squad. Tell me again, why is he doing this for us?”
"For reasons far above your pay grade. He is facing the executioners, not the execution itself. He'll make it. You're there to ensure he does."
"It would help if he knew he had backup."
"It could also get him killed."
"He could die either way."
"You are there to ensure he does not."
"Noted."
Chapter 16
Joy stood in the alley across from Dixon's apartment and watched the street. A precaution, but she'd been distracted, and someone could have slipped in on her six. It wasn't in her nature to drop her guard like this. Fuck she was a sap. She leaned against the brick wall, in the dark and watched for anything out of the ordinary. Her nerves had been on edge all week, with damn good reason.
They'd spent the last seven days answering the same questions, phrased differently, from just about every agency in New York. The medical examiner had confirmed the body in the house was Dixon's father, which was fucking impossible, but they'd cremated that body and posted an obituary in the paper. She watched as Dixon and Smith handled the arrangements, insurance companies, the press, and a myriad of other administrative things that needed to be accomplished. Since her little detente with Smith, she'd determined two things. First, the man was devoted to Dixon and second, he was hiding shit. He wasn't stupid, in fact, he was pretty fucking impressive with the admin whirlwind. Glimpses of the man filtered through the mask he wore. She hadn't killed him, but he knew she could have and would if she felt he was a threat to the man who retained her services. That night she'd also determined that Smith may have killed, but he wasn't a killer. It would have been easy to sever his carotid artery. She and Dixon could have dumped the body and placed the blame of the explosion on Smith. Spun it to the authorities that the man had a grudge against the older Simmons and one of the man’s less than savory colleagues had taken retribution. It would have exposed the older Simmons in a way she wasn’t willing to allow…just yet. She'd had all those plans figured out within five seconds of pulling the knife from the butcher’s block. Killing him would have been easy, but she wanted to watch the man...and she had.
Smith had no life. None. He worked for Dixon, went home, got himself ready for work the next day, did an impressive at-home workout and then showered. He turned on the tiny television in his apartment, ate two, microwaved, frozen dinners while sitting in front of the damn thing and then went to bed. She'd put listening devices in his apartment the day she'd retrieved his clothes. He hadn't checked his apartment for the devices, so maybe he wasn't part of her community, or maybe he wanted her to believe he wasn’t. Fuck, he was still a mystery, and she hated mysteries. The miasma that was Smith deepened when she reviewed the recordings from his apartment. He'd said a total of three words since she'd been recording. If she deciphered the recording correctly, he could have been having a nightmare. She didn't know if he was awake or asleep when he spoke, but the words, I'm so sorry, were clear as a bell. Alive he was perplexing. Dead he was useless, so she let him live. For now.
She shifted her weight from one leg to the other and watched the street from a new angle. The mild winter weather today meant people were out, which meant clearing her way into the apartment became a little more difficult. She waited another hour before she made her way across the street, around the corner and into the back entrance to Dixon's apartment building. She put her key in the apartment door and edged it open holding the ugliest, scrawniest, smallest Christmas tree she'd ever seen. Dixon lowered his automatic and lifted an eyebrow at her.
"Hey, it’s Christmas Eve." She pushed her way in the apartment and offered the words as an explanation for the tree.
"Ah, and here I thought it was Arbor Day." Dixon returned his weapon to the shoulder holster he'd started wearing the day after the explosion.
"Smart-fucking-ass. I'm trying here." She held the tree out with one hand and looked at it. "There wasn't much selection left." Her free gloved hand went inside her down-filled coat and pulled out a small white plastic bag. "Lights and a star."
"You thought of everything." Dixon kneed the recliner away from the corner of the room and waved a hand. She plopped the sad thing in the corner and handed him the bag. "Of course, I did. I only do Christmas Eve on a budget and at the last minute."
He laughed and pulled
out the string of lights and yellow plastic star that she'd bought at the dollar store. She dropped her coat in the recliner and helped him twist a single strand of multi-color LED lights around the tree. He put the star on top, and she plugged in the lights. Dixon turned off the overhead apartment lights, and Joy sat back on her heels. Her vision blurred a bit. It was the first Christmas tree she'd ever had–at least the first she remembered. Buying the tree and lights tonight was an impulse. She'd never wanted to celebrate a season of hope...before Dixon.
His hand on her shoulder broke through her thoughts. She sniffed and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. "Stupid to get all mushy over a stick and twinkle lights."
Dixon sat on the floor beside her and pulled her into his lap. "What is your favorite Christmas memory?"
The bitter laugh that escaped her added a few more tears to her eyes. She looked up at the star and sniffed again. "This is. I don't have any others." She leaned back against his hard chest and shrugged. "Pathetic, huh?"
He tightened his arms around her and shook his head. His five o'clock shadow scraped her temple. "Not at all. I'm glad I'm part of your first Christmas memory." He replaced his whiskers with his lips and kissed her.
She sniffed again and wiped at the tears that pooled on her bottom lashes. "What is your favorite Christmas memory?"
Dixon took a deep breath. "Wow...I don't know...probably pretty pathetic, too." He cleared his throat, "My brother and I had a Christmas recently, and we were with a family. A big family. There was a huge tree, and everyone was happy and laughing. Kids were running around hyped up on sugar and the thought of Santa coming. It was mayhem, and it was perfect."
"Your twin brother is dead, right?" Joy got nothing but a tightened jaw in response. She understood, the death of a sibling was personal. "I'm sorry. I know what it’s like to lose someone you love."
Dixon Page 17
