Dare Me, page 9
As a DEA agent, he'd spent so many years out in the field tracking down the scum of the earth, he'd forgotten what it was like to be a desk jockey.
He didn't like it.
But he had his lead now, and back in the field he'd go. Unofficially this time. He'd given the FBI a chance and they'd blown it. Mario was still out there, getting away with murder, so Will would see this through himself, somehow.
But Wendy would still be gone. His throat tightened. His sister had been the sweetest, kindest person Will knew. She'd added light and love to his life, and she hadn't deserved what had happened to her.
No one did.
The society and its rich patrons had banded together, offering a cool million in reward for their precious gems back. But Will would do this one for free if it meant getting to put Mario away. He stared out the window and told himself to get some sleep.
But how could he rest when he was so sure that Mario was already working a new con, on a new victim?
Mario hadn't played by the rules with Wendy, and
wherever he was now, he still wouldn't be doing so. But, damn it, Will had to. So he would. Come hell or high water, Mario was going to pay. Will wouldn't rest until he made sure of it.
Los Angeles
The ingredients for a really bad day were all in place. Nasty breakup with Tomas the night before, her alarm clock failing to go off, and now her lost keys.
Actually, it had been a bad week. And, if she was being honest, an off month.
Okay, truth. It had been a rough year.
But that was all going to change, Jade Barrett told herself as she searched her overflowing junk drawer for her spare set of keys. Sure, the Tomas thing had thrown her off. They'd met at an estate sale. He ran a service that handled high-end probate and estate sales, and she'd been checking out some inventory for Heirlooms, her antique shop. The persuasive, fascinating man had been calling and chasing her ever since. She still marveled at that novelty, having a
guy chase her—at least until last night, their two-month anniversary.
He'd looked as tall, dark, and charismatic as ever, and had been making noises about cojoining their businesses, using her stock as collateral to start up a West Coast operation, citing warehouses and numbers that had made her head spin, and her stomach sink. She liked her shop just as it was. Small. She liked the control, liked the coziness.
Then he'd upped her unease by mentioning moving in together. She'd even caught him looking wistfully at the jewelry display in Heirlooms—specifically, the few diamond engagement settings she had.
She'd always figured that when a man got close to asking for her hand in marriage, she'd be over the moon about him. She supposed she'd been too busy trying to keep afloat financially, or wondering what exactly was still missing in her life, why she felt an odd void. She couldn't quite put her finger on it.
Or maybe it came down to one simple fact, that despite her two months with Tomas, she didn't feel like she really knew him.
She felt she herself was easy to know, something her bookkeeper, Jody, always disagreed with. You hold back, she'd accused Jade time and time again, which she supposed was the reason why, after a year of working together, they weren't yet close.
Jade liked to keep to herself, that's all. She'd lost her father when she'd been eight. He'd been a cop, killed when his cover had been inadvertently blown by her mother, who then sank into a depression and died not long after.
Traumatic as that had been for Jade, the sole witness to her father's murder, she'd been young, and had gone into a warm, kind foster home. She'd recovered. Yes, maybe she still was afraid of the boogeyman in her closet, and had a thing against guns and hated violence in general, and maybe she'd remained a tad bit aloof when it came to commitment, but it worked for her.
In fact, a good part of the attraction to Tomas had been his mysterious, sexy, charming ways, emphasis on the mysterious. If he wasn't the commitment type, then neither would she have to be.
But last night, he'd come over, talking about the future. And she'd known. There wasn't one, at least for them. He'd stood in her bedroom, his long, elegant fingers on the precious antique baby rattle collection on her dresser, including her grandmother's rattle, the one and only sentimental item she owned, and his eyes had filled with cold, hard, calculated interest.
When Jade had called him on it, he hadn't smiled or joked it away. So she'd told him it was over between them, but instead of leaving, he'd let his veneer slip, showing her a heart-stopping fury. He'd picked up her grandma's rattle, fingered it roughly, and when she'd grabbed for it, he'd pushed her.
Shocked, she'd fallen, bumping her head on the brass base of her floor lamp, and had actually blacked out for a moment. When she'd sat up, he was sitting at her side, full of remorse and regret, but she'd been done. Kicking him out of her life had been easier than actually getting him out of her place, but she'd been firm, threatening to call the police. And finally, he'd gone.
And for the first time in two months, she'd slept like a baby.
Now she finally located her spare key in the back of the junk drawer. Good. Though it was a Monday, her usual day off, she had some new inventory she needed to catalog and price, and decided getting to it would be the pick-me-up she needed. Slipping her grandma's rattle into her pocket for luck, she left the condo she rented and caught traffic on the 210. By the time she got to Montrose, the small touristy spot where she leased a storefront, the sun was valiantly trying to peek out from the morning's mist. A good sign of things to come, she figured.
Even so, she had to park down the street and around the corner, but parking in Montrose on any day was an exercise in frustration. Walking down the narrow street lined with spring flowers, meandering oaks, and lots of shoppers, Jade got an unwelcome surprise.
Tomas's empty forest-green Jag was parked right out front of her shop. Parked behind him was a black truck, not empty. A man sat behind the wheel. He had a lean, rugged face with light brown hair that looked as if it'd been combed by nothing but frustrated fingers. His eyes locked with hers and held, and the oddest thing happened.
She couldn't look away, and the intensity of the connection confused her because she was certain she'd never seen him before. But then she was jostled by a couple of joggers. Staggering a few steps on her heels, she caught her balance and started walking again, but couldn't stop herself from taking one last look. The sun bore into the truck's windshield now, distorting her view, and distracted by Tomas's empty Jag, she turned away.
Tomas couldn't be waiting inside her shop; he didn't have a set of keys. She unlocked the deadbolt and let herself in the glass door with the pretty wooden welcome sign. With the hanging bells tinkling, she inhaled deeply the scent of cedar and lemon oil, and much of her tension drained away. God, she loved it in here, the one place she'd ever given her heart and soul to.
The front room was filled with furniture she'd found and carefully placed, and all had one thing in common. They were lovingly cared for, fully enjoyed, and old. She was certain a psychologist would have a field day with her need to surround herself with things that had all existed through time, giving comfort and the feeling of roots.
She ran a finger over a chest of drawers, open and filled with lace and linens, but went still when from behind the sales counter, from the large back room where she held all her uninventoried items, came a rhythmic squeaking she couldn't quite place. Setting her purse behind the counter, she moved past the curtain of beads and flipped on the light.
Taking up most of the room was her newly requisitioned Queen Anne bed, and on it was Tomas's bare ass pumping up and down on top of . . . "Jody?"
Jade didn't realize she'd staggered backward until she felt the light switch cut into her back. The light flicked off, and then back on as her knees started to give before she locked them. Jody and Tomas. Together. Doing the horizontal tango on her bed.
"You're going to ruin the silk comforter," she said in a shockingly normal voice. "Get off."
And then she walked out. Grabbing her purse off the counter, she headed out of the store and into the morning sunshine, blinking like an owl because there were still flowers blooming, still people walking around, as if everything were normal, perfectly normal.
Her eyes locked on the Jag. She had a sudden and vicious need to break the precious windshield or scratch the paint. Missing keys, her ass. Tomas had stolen her keys! She kicked his tire and then hopped up and down as pain shot through her toe. "Damn it, damn it."
She hobbled all the way back to her car and drove home on shocked, numbed autopilot. Inside, she tossed her purse down and went to her fridge for an ice pack. She sat right there on the kitchen linoleum, put the ice on her toe, and thunked her head back against the fridge. And then, went still.
It was her shop. Her stuff. Her life. And she shouldn't have left it! Lurching to her feet, she limped out, got into her car, and hit the gas. She made it halfway back to the shop before she caught the blue and red lights flashing in her mirror. "Oh, this is just perfect."
She steamed through the thirty minutes it took the officer to write her up. "I'm having a really bad day," she told him, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel.
"Uh-huh. That's what they all say." He kept writing. "I had a flat tire already today. You don't see me whining."
"Is your boyfriend boinking your friend?"
His pen stopped moving. "Okay, you win."
"Gee, thanks." She sighed and put her head down on her steering wheel. By the time she was free to go and got back to her shop, the pain and anger were choking her.
The Jag was gone. So was the black truck, and the man in it. There was, however, a different man outside her shop. Mr. Tyrone, her landlord. When he saw her coming, he gave her a long look as he lifted a . . . padlock? "What's going on?" she asked him.
"As if you don't know." The short, chunky, balding man was out of breath as he placed the padlock on the door and jangled it to be sure it held tight. He shot her a look of remorse. "I liked you, Ms. Barrett. I liked you, a lot."
Clearly she'd entered an alternate universe. "Mr. Tyrone—"
"Your bookkeeper called me, said she wanted to warn me." "Jody?"
"She was looking out for me, she said. She said that you hadn't authorized her to pay the rent for two months, that you were going under fast."
"What?" Jade had thought she'd already experienced the worst she could experience in one short morning.
"I'm locking you out." Mr. Tyrone hitched up the pants that were always sinking south on him because his waist was twice as wide as it should have been, and he had no hips. "I'm sorry, Jade. I have to protect myself."
"No, wait. I—"
"When you come up with the back rent, you know where my office is." With one last tug on his waistband, he walked away, his pants already slipping down.
"But I have the rent money!" she called after him. "You should have been paid! Mr. Tyrone— You have to let me in there. My checkbook's in there!" Stunned,
Jade watched him go, then pressed her face to the window, looking in at her entire life, trying to figure out what she wanted to do. Smash something, yes. Cry, most definitely. Instead she pressed harder against the glass, where her eyes caught on. her cash register. Open. Empty.
And beside it? Her checkbook, also open. "Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no . . ." She whipped out her cell phone and called Jody. No answer. She tried Tomas next and got another nasty shock, a recording saying the cell number was no longer in service. She didn't have his work number; she'd always reached him via his cell.
Oh God. They were going to wipe her out, if they hadn't already. She ran for her car, fumbling through her purse as she went. In the two months she'd been with Tomas, she'd never been to his place, which should have occurred to her as strange, but it hadn't. He'd said he traveled so much, that his place was too small, and she'd never pushed.
"Idiot," she told herself yet again, and raced straight for her bank, knowing she'd be too late. Tomas had gotten her and good, and he was gone, with Jody's help.
That part really bit. Her own personal trust meter had failed her.
The police could help, and she'd call them, but truth was, she'd been had. She knew nothing more than Tomas had been charming and intelligent—and slick. Very slick.
In the bank, things went from bad to worse.
She had three accounts: a personal checking account, which she kept only a couple of hundred dollars in; her business checking account, the balance of which she wasn't exactly sure of because Jody had been handling it, but she guessed to be at least the three thousand she'd just deposited from a particularly large sale the week before; and her savings account, which should have a few grand as well.
It didn't. All three accounts had been wiped out. According to records, it had happened slowly, over the past month.
And she'd not noticed a thing. What kind of a fool did that make her? Her throat tightening, her eyes burning so that she could barely see on the drive home, she let herself into her condo. She needed to call the cops, make a report. . . .
It took a moment for anything else to sink in, but gradually it registered: Her place had been ransacked, carefully and purposefully. Thoroughly. Cabinets open, sofa overturned, drawers on the floor, contents scattered everywhere.
She jumped at the knock on the open door behind her. Turning, she stared into a face she recognized but didn't know.
The man from the black truck.
He wasn't the sort of man one forgot. She just hoped he wasn't as dangerous as he looked. Up close now, she got a few more details. His tawny hair was on the wrong side of his last haircut. He had a tough, lean jaw and a wide, firm, unsmiling mouth. He stood tall and rangy in her doorway, dressed in casual black, though nothing about the man looked casual. Before she'd wondered what color his eyes were. Now she could see he had the sharpest green eyes she'd ever seen.
At the sight of her condo and its condition behind her, his jaw tightened, and those eyes went flat and cold. "Are you hurt?"
A killer wouldn't ask that question, she reassured herself, and hoped she was right. "No. I'm not hurt."
He angled his head for a better look. "Do you know what they wanted?"
"Who?" she asked.
He pierced her with those extraordinary eyes. "The men after Mario Alvarez."
"I don't know who that is, and I don't know you. Look, I've had a really, really bad day." Her voice was beginning to wobble, and horrified, she pushed him back a step, trying not to feel the easy strength of him beneath her fingers. With her other hand, she reached for the door, not about to let a thief, a condo wrecker, a possible murderer inside. "So if you'll excuse me—"
Lifting an arm above her head, he slapped a palm on the wood before she could shut it in his face.
She'd had just enough of a nightmare day for that to really infuriate her. Putting both arms into it this time, she tried to muscle the door closed, but now she couldn't budge it, or him.
He didn't smile or try to put her at ease as he outmuscled her either. He just simply held the door open and leaned in far too close. "Look, however bad you think your day has been," he said in an extremely quiet voice, "you're still breathing. Remember that."
Then, without a care to her wishes, he brushed past her, moving through her condo with easy yet edgy masculine grace. His gaze swept the living room and the mess, and at the sound of glass tinkling in her bedroom off to the left, he whipped out a gun from beneath his shirt so fast her head spun.
"Oh my God." She covered her face, the ultimate hiding her head in the sand. "Not a gun. I can't do this. I really can't."
"Stay," he said in the softest, most dangerous voice she'd ever heard, and with his free hand to her belly, pushed her back around the corner, out of sight. "Stay," he said again, and stared at her for a beat.
"Staying," she whispered, wrapping her arms around her middle as she began to shake.
Will quickly scoped out the small apartment's living room as he moved through, adrenaline pumping through him. Empty. There was no one in the hallway either, and as he burst into the only bedroom, taking in the entire room with one sweeping gaze, he knew he was alone.
He should have nabbed Mario when he'd had the chance this morning at the antique shop, but instead, when he'd realized Mario was being followed, he'd decided to sit back until he knew what was going on. Now he figured Mario had pissed someone off, and that someone thought this woman knew something, which didn't bode well for her.
He toed the pile of shattered porcelain in front of the dresser. Someone had swept everything off the top of it to the floor, and the last little piece falling had been what they'd heard.
"My collection," came a distressed voice behind him, and then she was kneeling at his feet, reaching for the sharp shards.
"I told you to wait out there," he said, and hauled her up before she could cut herself.
Her eyes were wide on his hand, and the gun in it. "I r-really hate guns."
He stuffed the gun in his waistband, and covered it with the hem of his shirt. "What were they looking for?"
When she only stared at him in shock, this little pixie of a woman, maybe five foot two in her shoes, with choppy, shiny dark brown hair to her chin and melting brown eyes that were too large in her face, he gave her a little shake. "Tell me."
"I . . . don't know."
"Damn it." Earlier she'd had a creamy complexion that had reminded him of a china doll. Now it was waxen with shock, her eyes dilating as he swore, punching him in the gut with remorse.
"I'm sorry." She shrank back, away from him. "Please don't hurt me."
Christ. He scrubbed a hand over his face as he struggled for patience. "I'm not going to hurt you." Because that didn't seem to soothe her, he turned away to give her a moment. He'd seen the whole story in her eyes anyway. She knew nothing.
