Skin Game

by Ann Aguirre

  As she laid out some clothes for the next morning, rain began to spatter on the roof. Kyra couldn’t help but repress a shiver. In her life, rain never signified anything good. It rarely rained in Vegas, but it had been pouring on the August night when she found him discarded in an alley off the Strip like yesterday’s garbage.

  Her hands shook as she opened the carton of noodles. She didn’t want to remember that night. It would only give her nightmares. There was nothing more she could do. She’d avenged him the only way she could, and it hadn’t given her any peace. His wet, battered face still rose up to the surface of her dreams like a corpse floating free of its weights in a night-dark river.

  “Who did this?” she’d whispered.

  “Serrano,” he’d gasped. “But listen to me, baby. Stay away from him. Promise me—” But he wasn’t able to force a promise out of her.

  He died.

  She remembered with crystalline clarity how she felt, kneeling in the rain, which contrasted to the heat of the night. All around her, neon had flashed with maddening regularity. If she closed her eyes she could visualize everything about the moment.

  With effort, she forced the memories away. She needed to eat something or she’d get sick. Since her weird ability sparked to life, she’d had a crazily high metabolism, as if what she did cost a certain amount in terms of energy. That made sense, actually, not that Kyra had asked any doctors about it. She hadn’t seen one in years.

  She got the coffeepot and poured the water into her ramen noodles. What a glamorous life she led. Everything would look better in the morning. It always did.

  It was almost 3:00 A.M. when Reyes pulled into the motel parking lot. He found the Marquis right away, verifying that he was still on target. He wouldn’t have been surprised, actually, to learn she’d found the thing and planted it on another car.

  That would have complicated matters significantly, as it would mean she’d made him, and he wouldn’t be able to coax the information he needed out of her. He’d have to gear up to pain and coercion immediately.

  The tracking device simplified his job; now he had to work out why she’d add him to her routine of her own volition. He’d forced his way in once, and she’d ditched him, even after the smoking-hot sex. He thought that was probably the norm for her. In fact, Reyes doubted she’d given him a second thought since driving away.

  Another man might’ve been flattened by that. For him, it just presented a challenge, a problem he needed to think his way around. She’d proven more capable than he expected, not just a pretty little gold digger. Foster had warned him she had hidden depths and was dangerous as the day was long. She’d apparently killed her own father to cut him out of the score; Reyes had visited the grave himself.

  Maybe he should have thought twice about sleeping with the evil little bitch, but he’d thought that was a way to reach her. Women who couldn’t be manipulated emotionally could sometimes be bound with sex. The way she walked away proved she wasn’t one of them. It was quite the fucking problem, considering he needed information before he finished the job.

  At the moment, however, he needed a room for the night. It was a break she didn’t know the car he was driving. There would be nothing to tip her off when she woke up in the morning.

  The failed gambit would make things more difficult. If he’d known how slippery she would prove to be, he would have planned his first approach a little more carefully. But there was no changing the facts now. He’d have to find a way that didn’t set off all her alarm bells. That might prove tricky.

  First, he needed sleep.

  Reyes rented a room from the surly proprietor and headed to it, intending to crash for the night. It amused him to let himself into the room right next door to hers. When the manager turned his back, he’d checked the record behind the counter: Cassie Marvel. He added it to her list of known aliases, along with Rachel Justice and Lisa Baker. He admired that she didn’t stick with one set of initials. People often made that mistake unconsciously, their egos imprinting their true selves on whatever persona they adopted.

  As he passed her room, he noticed through the filmy curtain that her light was still on. Reyes was surprised to find himself curious as to why she’d be up so late. She must be exhausted.

  It had been a long day of driving, even for him. He knew it was unwise to linger where she might catch a glimpse of him, but with the light reflecting off the inside of the glass, he wouldn’t be more than a dark figure to her. So he permitted himself a glimpse through the gap in the curtains, and was startled to see her curled on her side, fully dressed, facing the door. A pang spiked through him; Kyra Beckwith slept like a child afraid of the dark.

  He walked on. His shoes made no sound as he slipped into his room, forcing away the oddly vulnerable impression she’d left. There was probably a weapon hidden beneath her pillow. He’d been briefed about how dangerous she could be, but he still hadn’t sorted out why her hand-to-hand combat style so closely mimicked his own. Reyes also couldn’t explain the bizarre drain when she touched him.

  Things seemed to be back to normal now. He tested that theory with a few advanced katas. They came to him naturally, so whatever she’d done to him, he had gotten over it.

  Before he slept, Reyes rearranged the room a little. He slid the end table beneath the window, so anyone coming in that way would knock over the lamp. He hated motel rooms on the ground floor—getting into them was like shooting fish in a barrel—but he had to stay close to his quarry. Then he pushed the desk a little too close to the door, so if anyone tried to kick it open, it would rebound back, giving him time to ready himself for the fight. It was a primitive alarm system, but it would do. You didn’t get to be his age in this particular field without perfecting precaution to a fine art.

  Reyes fell asleep with his gun next to him.

  In the morning, the pavement was still wet from the storm he’d driven through to find her. He took a shower and then ate a protein bar, considering his options. When she left, he didn’t follow her immediately, merely kept an eye on her signal. No further than it went, he’d guess she was looking for breakfast in this two-bit town.

  If she ran true to form, she’d be looking for a place to run her next con. That made little sense, based on the amount she’d gotten from Serrano, but she didn’t seem to be touching her principal. From what Reyes could tell, she was living off what she made along the way, not the cash from the casino. That told him she must have stashed it somewhere for the time being. But where? And why?

  He collected his things and stopped by the office to check out. There was a young woman, maybe the guy’s daughter, working the desk today. She couldn’t have been more than nineteen, bottle blond and corn-fed. The boys probably loved her.

  She blushed as she took the key from him, letting her fingers brush his. “Too bad you can’t stay another night.”

  He smiled faintly. “Well, you never know. I might be back.”

  Depending on what his quarry decided to do.

  The clerk took that as a compliment and giggled slightly, gazing up at him through heavily mascaraed lashes. Every inch of her face had been covered with some kind of cosmetic, trying to cover up a slight complexion problem. In the morning light, he saw the bumps on her chin raying outward toward her jaw like a Braille map of awkward teenage hormones.

  “I’ll leave the light on for you,” she joked.

  He got the reference, vaguely remembering some motel chain that used that as a slogan. Well, why not make use of her? The kid’s in the mood to talk, unlike her old man, and you might get some useful info. Reyes leaned on the counter, offering a slow smile that told her he thought she was the finest thing in all of Texas. Like most of his smiles, that one was a lying bastard, but it served the purpose. She softened visibly, leaning in. He almost regretted how easy it was.

  “Are there any decent bars in this town?” he asked.

  “The Blue Rock,” she answered at once. But she sagged with disappointment. “But
I can’t . . . uh, my dad doesn’t like me hanging around in there,” she finished, chewing the color off her bottom lip.

  As if I didn’t know you aren’t old enough to drink. She assumed the question came as a precursor to an offer of a date, and he left her that illusion.

  “Well, I wouldn’t want to cause trouble for you,” he said gently. “Do they have a pool table there? Darts? Maybe a poker game in back?”

  She shrugged, likely sensing she wouldn’t be getting a free dinner or felt up in his car. “Yeah, to the first two, not sure on the last thing. Take care, mister.”

  Reyes pushed away from the counter. Being polite entertained him because in the back of his mind, he carried the knowledge that for the right reasons, he would have put a bullet through her brain. In his opinion, some scumbags needed killing, and he could earn a good living doing exactly that.

  He strolled over to his rental car, thoughtful. Ten would get him twenty that Kyra Beckwith would check out the Blue Rock before she left town. She went about it like a compulsion, as if she didn’t know any other way to live. It would have been harder to track her if people didn’t remember her little swindles here and there, but she wouldn’t think of foregoing them.

  If he was wrong about her, he could try again in the next town . . . and again . . . until their paths crossed naturally. He wasn’t sure how he would parlay an opening into a permanent opportunity at her side, but he thought well on his feet, always had. Reyes rubbed his hands together, full of anticipation that came in the form of a low, almost sexual hunger deep in his belly. He wanted another chance against her.

  With some effort, he drove away the images of her clawing him like a cat. He still bore her marks on his skin. There was no way he could continue to think about that and stay professional, so he pushed the images aside with consummate control.

  It’s almost time for round two, and this time, you won’t come out on top.

  CHAPTER 6

  Kyra had miscalculated.

  There probably wasn’t a score here. The guys at the Blue Rock weren’t typical yokels, and they almost seemed to expect her to try something. They’d been watching her with avid suspicion ever since she sauntered in the door. Something wasn’t right. There was something fishy in this little town, echoed by the paranoia of that motel owner.

  She just couldn’t figure out how they’d made her. At this point, she hadn’t done anything but order; she’d only been in here for two minutes. Maybe they simply had something else to hide, and she was paranoid, thinking their secret had to do with her. A place like this might front any number of unsa vory enterprises. Kyra took a pull of her beer and locked eyes with the bartender, a big bald guy who watched her like a hawk.

  Instinct told her to finish her beer, eat a few stale pretzels for the look of the thing, and then hit the road. There would be another town, another round of suckers. Instead, she tried a smile.

  “Gonna be a hot one,” she said, conversational.

  A ceiling fan stirred sluggishly overhead, not doing much more than moving the warm air around. Two guys played pool behind her, but she took care not to watch them overtly. Too much interest would seem out of place in a casual barfly.

  “Yep,” he agreed with a nod. “What brings you to Mount Silver?”

  The question surprised her, the modern equivalent of “what’re you doing in these parts, stranger.” She wondered, smothering a smile, whether it would be followed up with “we don’t like your kind around here.” The bartender propped his elbow on the counter, waiting for her reply. Generally, a lean like that meant the guy wanted a closer connection. In this case, it meant he wanted her near enough he could grab her.

  So she shrugged. “Just passing through.”

  Before the guy could reply, someone strolled out of the bathrooms in the back. Her nerves were on edge, so she wanted to categorize everyone in the place. Through smoky sunlight, she recognized him immediately as the guy she’d left exhausted in her bed at a motel somewhere outside Lake Charles. What the hell was he doing here? Her bad feeling exploded into a flash fire.

  But he drew up short at seeing her. “Are you following me? Look, lady, I appreciate the ride and everything, but whatever it is you think I did, it wasn’t me. I didn’t touch your stuff.” Rey tried a placating smile. “If you’re mad I wasn’t there when you got back, then . . . uh . . . I promise our night was special, the best I ever had, but I’m not really the settling-down type.” His dark, rough face gained an expression of manifest horror. “You’re not pregnant, are you? It’s not mine.” He glanced at the other guys in the bar as if for moral support. “I wore a jimmy hat, every time. I swear.”

  Furious color burned in her cheeks. Now everyone in the bar thought she was a slut. If it hadn’t been so embarrassing and inconvenient, it would have been funny. Much funnier if it happened to someone else. Coincidence? It seemed unlikely, but he seemed as shocked to see her as she was him. Sometimes life threw unexpected curves, and you just had to catch them.

  “I’m not pregnant,” she muttered. “I just seemed destined to run across you.”

  Rey grinned. “Some people are just born lucky, I guess. So . . . just to be clear, you weren’t looking for me?”

  The room felt hot and thick. Somebody snickered. “Of course not.”

  She couldn’t tell if the heat came from remembering how he’d woken her twice before morning, imprinting himself on every inch of her body, or embarrassment from his fear she might be hunting him down for seconds. Her bedroom show came to town one night only, no encores. So she’d never slept with the same man twice.

  “You two know each other?” the bartender asked into the silence.

  That roused an uneasy reaction from the guys playing pool. One of them whispered, “They gotta be cops, trying to play us.”

  “Yep,” the taller one agreed. “It’s the only reason we’d have two strangers who ‘happen’ to be acquainted in on the same day.”

  The big guy stepped forward, pool cue in hand, but it looked more like a bo staff, the way he held it, than an instrument of recreational fun. Kyra took a step back and came up against the bar. Rey took a position at her side that was oddly reassuring.

  “If you think we’re cops,” she offered, “then it would be stupid to try anything. Just let us walk out of here and nobody gets hurt.”

  She’d been right about them having something to hide. At this point, she had no idea what it could be. When she’d inquired about bars in the area at checkout, the girl at the motel had said her dad didn’t let her hang out here, but Kyra had thought that was because the man didn’t want his underage kid drinking. Maybe there was something worse going on.

  The big guy grinned. “I got a better idea. We could just end you quietly, and bury the bodies out back. How many nosy cops we got out there anyway, Ed? Four? Five?”

  Before answering, the bartender, presumably named Ed, did some math, counting on his fingers. “Five right now. Seven if we do these two.”

  Rey shifted, leaning most of his weight against the counter, as if they weren’t outnumbered and receiving death threats. “Go on. Take your best shot.”

  If she hadn’t stolen and used his capacity for mayhem, she’d think he was being cocky. She knew better. Kyra took care not to touch him. Crippling her only ally wouldn’t do them any good. It would serve her best if she borrowed from one of these guys; she just had to hope her target didn’t hide a secret gift for macramé.

  Enraged, the ox lunged with the pool stick, but Rey stepped aside neatly and came into a fighting stance with an ease that said he was on a whole different level. He beckoned, curling his fingers up twice, and three guys ran at him.

  Kyra didn’t take time to watch their tussle, as she had the smaller guy to worry about. He wouldn’t think he needed to use his best stuff on her. That assumption would cost him. She slapped him on the forearm as he came at her. Her sissy move stopped him dead in his tracks as laughter overwhelmed him.

  “Is that t
he best you can do?” he demanded. “My ex-wife hit harder than you.”

  She had no idea. Maybe he was really good at watercolors or refinishing old furniture, and just took a casual interest in fighting. But no . . . his technique flowed over her within a few seconds. Tae Kwon Do, huh? Okay, she could work with that.

  “No,” she said, smiling. And spun into a jump kick that connected with his head. “This is.”

  She fought him easily, using his own style against him, while he fumbled as if he’d taken no classes at all. There was almost nothing better than taking a belligerent man’s best ability and turning it against him, except maybe relieving some mean, greedy bastard of his money. The best moment of her life had come when she won at 21, playing with Serrano’s money.

  Her opponent reacted with disbelief, rocking with every hit. His kneecap popped out of socket and he went down hard. Kyra kicked him in the head for good measure. The sound of the bartender cocking a shotgun put her on the floor. No matter whose skill she stole, she wasn’t bulletproof.

  That didn’t seem to stop Rey. She heard him dive over the bar as the gun went off, and then there was the sound of breaking bottles. Something gave a wet pop and she thought it was probably a body part. Then there was a thump from the body falling.

  She stood up, carefully. There were four guys on the floor, including the one she’d dropped, plus the bartender. Rey had taken on three men at once, and only suffered a scratch on his cheek from the flying glass. He vaulted lightly over the counter.

  “So,” he said, “come here often?”

  Kyra couldn’t help it; she laughed. “No. You ass. Did you kill any of them?”