Kentucky Vice: A Suspense Crime Thriller (Evan Buckley Thrillers Book 2), page 15
‘But I told them I didn’t want to do it any more,’ Destiny added quickly.
She looked down and played with her coffee cup, her whole body sagging under the weight of her embarrassment.
‘And they’re okay with that?’ he asked.
She nodded without looking up at him. ‘Yeah, it wasn’t a big deal. I said I thought it was too risky for what I was getting out of it.’
‘So they won’t think it’s strange if you say you want back in?’
Destiny shook her head. She looked at Gina. ‘No, we’ve been talking about that—’
‘We’re going to say you picked her up in a bar,’ Gina interrupted, shifting excitedly in her chair. He got the impression she would have liked to be more involved. That made two of them.
‘There are some bars they go to—prospecting you could call it—instead of waiting for the guys to come to the club. Destiny will say she saw you and it was obvious you must be worth a fortune—’
They both leaned back and looked him up and down, looked at each other and shook their heads soberly.
‘We’re going to have to work on that,’ Destiny said.
He looked down at his clothes. There wasn’t anything wrong with the way he was dressed. Maybe not multi-millionaire style ...
‘What if he’s one of those internet millionaires?’ Gina said. ‘They’re all young and look like they need a good wash.’
Destiny bit her bottom lip like she was giving it serious consideration. ‘No, I like the older, sugar-daddy style.’
Gina shook her head. ‘It’s not going to work.’
‘That’s enough, you two,’ he said. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
Destiny was looking at him with a look in her eyes like she wanted to eat him. He could think of worse ways to go.
‘Okay,’ Gina said, ‘she’ll bring you to the club and tell them that it was just too good an opportunity to miss.’
‘Plus, you’re sooo good looking.’ Destiny raised an eyebrow and did something suggestive with her tongue. ‘There’s no reason why we can’t enjoy ourselves at the same time.’
He swallowed and looked from one to the other. It was like he’d been caught in a turf war between two praying mantises. Maybe they’d just split him down the middle.
‘You’ve embarrassed him,’ Gina said and giggled.
It was a lovely sound, made him want to say something to make her do it again. But it was time to get things back on track. He didn’t want to spoil everything, but he also knew he had to make them realize it wasn’t just a bit of fun.
‘I don’t want to be a party pooper—’
‘But you’re going to be anyway,’ Gina said.
‘—but you need to remember that just because we think it’s a bit of fun, they don’t.’
‘No shit, Sherlock,’ Destiny said, nudging Gina with her elbow. ‘Listen up, Gina. It’s serious now.’
They both leaned forward and put their elbows on the table to show him they were paying attention. It showed him something else as well. He was sure they both squeezed their elbows in to make their tops gape and give him a better view. He tried hard to keep looking at their faces, and their eyes told him they were still having fun playing with him. Destiny took hold of her top and hitched it up.
‘Serious now, Evan,’ she said in her best schoolmarm voice.
He knew for damn sure he’d have paid a lot more attention at school if the teachers looked like her. She cocked an eyebrow and looked down her nose at him but then ruined it all by bursting out laughing again.
He cracked up. ‘Okay, that’s it. We’ll do this later. I just wanted to meet you today anyway. We have to meet with Angel—’
‘That’s the cop I told you about,’ Gina said to Destiny.
He saw something pass between them. And felt something pass through him. Was it jealousy?
‘—and work out the details. He can give you the pep talk.’
They all sat back in their seats and looked at each other.
‘What now?’ Destiny said.
‘You can give me a ride back to my hotel.’
‘It’s only got two seats.’ She made a show of counting the three of them. ‘I thought you were a detective.’
Now it was his turn to give a big grin, one that had been building ever since the idea first crossed his mind.
‘That’s okay,’ he said, leaning back and eying Gina up and down. ‘Gina looks just about the perfect size to fit on my lap. It’s only a few blocks.’
Whenever he thought about it later, he liked to think Destiny looked disappointed. It sure as hell helped clear his mind of all traces of Hendricks’ email. For the time being, anyway—until the next one arrived.
Chapter 40
FROM THE OTHER SIDE of the street Seppe sat in his car and watched Gina and Destiny and some guy he didn’t recognize come out of the diner and all get in Destiny’s car.
He wouldn’t have minded swapping places with the guy, whoever he was. There was lots of laughing and giggling. Destiny got in the driver’s side and then the guy got in the passenger seat and Gina sat on his lap. From where he was sitting, it looked like she made a big deal of snuggling right down into his lap too. The guy certainly seemed to be enjoying it.
Seppe got his phone out, zoomed in and took a couple of pictures of the guy’s face. They weren’t great but you’d be able to recognize him. They were all having so much fun he could have crossed the street and taken a close-up without them paying any attention. Even so, he turned his face away when Destiny put her foot to the floor and shot out into the traffic, the massive tires squealing and spinning before they bit. Poor guy, Seppe thought, with all that acceleration pushing Gina’s butt harder into his crotch.
He let a couple of cars get between them and then pulled out to tail them. It wasn’t difficult. If he’d suddenly been struck blind he could still have followed the sound of the big V8 bouncing off the buildings. It sure was a beautiful sound. He followed them downtown for a few blocks and saw them turn into the Econo Lodge. Either the guy’s day was about to get even better or he was from out of town. He turned in after them and drove to the farthest corner of the parking lot. In his rear-view mirror he saw the Corvette stop outside reception and Gina and the guy tumbled out of the passenger door. The guy straightened the front of his pants but Seppe wasn’t sure he got them completely flat. Gina watched him do it with a very satisfied look on her face. Then she jumped back in and they took off again, spraying him with dust and grit. He stood watching them with his hands on his hips as they pulled back into the traffic, waving like crazy and looking like a super-charged Thelma and Louise.
Something crossed Seppe’s mind. He got his cell phone out and called D’Amato.
‘Have you still got that guy Jesse’s cell phone?’
D’Amato said he did.
‘Call his friend on it now. The one you made him call back. Do it now. Quickly.’
Seppe watched the guy walking across the parking lot towards one of the ground floor rooms. He was walking straight towards his car.
‘Okay, it’s ringing,’ D’Amato said. ‘His name’s Evan Buckley.’
Seppe watched the guy in his mirror. He stopped mid-stride, fished his phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen.
‘Wait until he picks up, then end the call.’
Seppe watched the guy lift the phone to his ear.
‘Okay, I just cut the connection,’ his boss said.
The guy took the phone away from his ear and looked at the screen again. Seppe saw a look of confusion mixed with annoyance on his face.
‘It’s him, it’s got to be.’
D’Amato’s sudden bark of a laugh exploded from Seppe’s phone. ‘Yes! Where are you?’
‘I’m downtown at the Econo Lodge. Gina and another girl—Destiny I think she’s called—just dropped him off.’
‘Really ... hang on, he’s ringing back.’
Seppe looked in the mirror again. The guy was holding his phone to his ear. ‘It’s got to be him.’
‘Can you get a photo so we can check with Samantha if it’s the same guy she saw?’
‘I got a couple of him earlier. I’m going to wait to see what room he’s in and then I’ll be back.’
Seppe watched the guy reach his door and let himself in. He wrote the number down on the back of his hand and smiled to himself.
Pleased to meet you, Mr Evan Buckley.
Chapter 41
D’AMATO WAS SITTING AT his desk with Seppe’s phone in his hand, Seppe on one side of him and Samantha on the other. They were looking at the photos of Gina, Destiny and Evan.
‘Nice car,’ D’Amato said.
‘It’s a ‘69 Stingray,’ Seppe said. ‘Three hundred horsepower, I think.’
‘Three fifty,’ D’Amato said.
Seppe nodded. That’s why the guy was the boss.
‘Not sure about it in the black—’
‘When you two are quite finished ...’ Samantha’s lemon-sucker lips twisted into more of a scowl than normal.
‘You want to get some curves like that,’ D’Amato said, prodding the phone. ‘Guys might pay a bit more attention.’
Samantha gave him the finger. ‘That’s the same guy I saw with Gina in the club the other night.’
‘Evan Buckley,’ D’Amato said, leaning back in his executive chair, lacing his fingers behind his head.
Seppe and Samantha both stood up straight, their noses twitching. Samantha rolled her eyes at Seppe. He acknowledged with a twitch of his mouth.
‘Private Investigator and good friend of Jesse Springer, the luckiest man alive.’ He looked at Samantha who managed to get her nose under control in time. ‘You shouldn’t have let me let him go.’
‘And Gina,’ Samantha added, ignoring his attempt to put the blame on her. ‘Let’s not forget her.’
‘Okay, so what have we got?’ D’Amato said. ‘Jesse gets rolled, hires Buckley to do some digging. Buckley comes to the club, talks to Gina—’
‘What about Jesse nosing around?’ Seppe said.
D’Amato shook his head. ‘I think we can ignore that. I think he’s the kind of guy can’t sit still for two minutes. Hires Buckley but doesn’t want to sit around waiting for him, so he just jumps right into the thick of it himself.’ He tapped his temple with his finger. ‘Doesn’t think before he acts.’
Says the man who punched their drug supply into the next life because he was having a bad day, Seppe thought.
‘So Buckley talks to Gina at the club and arranges to meet her again—’
‘But Gina doesn’t know anything,’ Samantha said. ‘She’s suspicious, but she doesn’t know what’s going on.’
‘Buckley doesn’t know that,’ D’Amato said.
She shook her head. ‘The first time they talked, he didn’t. But she must have told him she didn’t know anything straight away.’
She walked round to the front of D’Amato’s desk and rested her palms flat on the cheap wood. D’Amato looked at her body leaning towards him and ran his eyes up to her face.
‘So why meet her again?’
‘Even if she did know what’s going on, it wouldn’t do any good because Jesse’s not talking,’ D’Amato said, thinking out loud.
Samantha didn’t bother to hide the scepticism in her face.
‘Believe me, he’s not coming back.’
‘Whatever you say,’ Samantha said wearily, recognizing the brick wall she was banging her head against. ‘So what do you think is going on?’
D’Amato looked at the picture of the three of them in Destiny’s car. ‘I think,’ he said, dragging out each word, ‘they’re planning some kind of a sting.’
The other two looked at him with renewed respect, if not a little surprise as well.
‘Why’s that?’ Samantha said.
‘Because so far they’ve got absolutely nothing that they can use. Jesse’s no use to them—’
‘Why’s Buckley still here if Jesse wants out?’
D’Amato saw a flash of triumph in her eyes. He leaned his elbows on the desk and laced his fingers together, mainly to stop himself from poking her in the eye.
‘For Gina. It’s not about Jesse now. He thinks he’s some kind of Knight in Shining Armor. Gina tells him about her little spat with you and he thinks she’s in danger. He knows all about the scam from his friend Jesse who now wants nothing to do with it. Is he going to walk away too? No way. He’s the only one standing between the free world and the bad guys. He won’t rest until the world is a safe place again. Christ, you can almost hear the music playing in his head.’
‘He certainly seemed to be having a good time with Gina,’ Seppe said. ‘Just look at the two of them crammed into that seat.’
‘You sound jealous,’ D’Amato said, looking down at the image on the phone.
‘What, and you’re not?’ He took his phone back and put it in his pocket.
D’Amato shook his head. ‘No need. I’m looking forward to getting her in our special chair—the one we put Jesse in.’
The two of them looked at each other and something passed between them. D’Amato rubbed his sweaty palms together at the thought.
‘When you two have finished with your little fantasy ...’ Samantha said.
They both looked at her. That brought them down to earth.
‘A sting would explain why they’ve brought Destiny in. They can’t use Gina after our fight, so they need someone else on the inside.’
‘Yes!’ D’Amato shouted, slamming his massive fist down on the table and making them jump. ‘So all we need to do is get the details from Gina’—he looked up at Seppe and they shared a wicked grin—‘and teach her a lesson while we’re at it, of course.’
Seppe swallowed thickly and licked his lips.
‘Then we’ll arrange something extra special for friend Evan Buckley when they try whatever half-assed scheme they’re planning. Something he won’t ever forget—maybe you’d like to be in charge of that, Samantha? Have you still got that straight razor?’
The look on her face told him she’d like it a lot. It made his stomach twist. He felt sorry for the poor guy—he hoped he made the most of his time before Samantha got her hands on him.
Chapter 42
IT WAS A COMPLETE no-brainer. On the one hand, Evan could call Angel and spend the evening working through the details of the sting they were setting up, in advance of the main meeting scheduled with everybody for the following day. On the other hand, he could see if Gina had the night off ...
‘I wasn’t expecting to hear from you so soon,’ she said when she picked up.
‘I was wondering if you wanted to take a drive out into the country. I wouldn’t want to risk being seen together in town.’
‘It must be fate, tonight’s my night off. And don’t worry, I’m not offended if you don’t want to be seen with me.’
He closed his eyes and imagined her mischievous smile on the other end of the line. ‘Must be better than a night in, studying or washing your hair.’
She sucked in her breath through her teeth. ‘It’s close—do I get my own seat this time?’
He grinned to himself as he remembered the two of them squashed into the passenger seat of Destiny’s ‘69 Stingray.
‘That’s up to you. You seemed to be enjoying sharing mine earlier,’ he said, re-living her weight in his lap. ‘Just so long as it doesn’t interfere with my driving.’
‘Absolutely. We don’t want any interfering going on.’
A lovely, throaty giggle came down the line.
‘One more thing—do you think Destiny would lend us her car?’
‘You want me to ask her along too?’
He pretended to give it some thought. ‘Well, now you mention it—’
‘No,’ she said brightly, ‘from what I saw earlier, I don’t think you can handle the two of us. See you later.’
She cut the connection before he could reply.
***
HE GOT TO HER house around seven, almost skipped up the path and rang the bell. The door opened. His heart missed a beat and his jaw dropped as he took in the sight of her standing there in front of him wearing just a lacy bra and skimpy panties, her skin smooth and perfect, as he knew it would be. Before he could say or do anything, her arms shot out and she grabbed him roughly by the shirt front, bunching the fabric in her small fists as she pulled him into the house and slammed him up against the wall. He gasped, amazed at how strong she was, despite her petite size. She pushed herself hard against him, her lips searching for his as she fumbled his belt buckle open, dropping his pants to the ground, right there in the hallway. Working her fingers through his hair, she pushed him down onto the cold floor and climbed on top of him.
The sudden blare of a car horn made him jump, snapping him out of his reverie. He raised a hand in apology and turned into her street. It was just his overactive—and hopeful—mind playing games. But it had passed the time pleasantly as he drove over, and he was aware of faint stirrings south of the belt line. It was the way she’d said interfering that did it.
He smiled to himself as he rang the bell for real. He wasn’t disappointed when she opened the door—she looked amazing even if she was fully clothed in a simple, white silk blouse and a pair of jeans stuffed into her tan cowboy boots. Her hair was in what he thought was called a bedhead style, but, whatever it was called, he got the same effect himself when he didn’t have time to comb his in the morning. Maybe he’d get to find out if it really did look like that when she woke up.
They headed out the way he’d driven with Angel that morning, taking the I-64 to Frankfort but then dropping down onto the Old Frankfort Pike.
‘Do you know where you’re going?’ she asked him, after they’d been driving on the old road for a few miles.
‘Sort of. There’s a place I looked up on the web. It’s got to be somewhere around here. Maybe we missed it.’
‘I thought you were a detective. They’re meant to be good at finding things, aren’t they?’
‘Yeah, well, most people say I’m not a proper one. Just ask Angel. Anyway, I don’t usually have anyone in the passenger seat stopping me from concentrating.’
She looked down and played with her coffee cup, her whole body sagging under the weight of her embarrassment.
‘And they’re okay with that?’ he asked.
She nodded without looking up at him. ‘Yeah, it wasn’t a big deal. I said I thought it was too risky for what I was getting out of it.’
‘So they won’t think it’s strange if you say you want back in?’
Destiny shook her head. She looked at Gina. ‘No, we’ve been talking about that—’
‘We’re going to say you picked her up in a bar,’ Gina interrupted, shifting excitedly in her chair. He got the impression she would have liked to be more involved. That made two of them.
‘There are some bars they go to—prospecting you could call it—instead of waiting for the guys to come to the club. Destiny will say she saw you and it was obvious you must be worth a fortune—’
They both leaned back and looked him up and down, looked at each other and shook their heads soberly.
‘We’re going to have to work on that,’ Destiny said.
He looked down at his clothes. There wasn’t anything wrong with the way he was dressed. Maybe not multi-millionaire style ...
‘What if he’s one of those internet millionaires?’ Gina said. ‘They’re all young and look like they need a good wash.’
Destiny bit her bottom lip like she was giving it serious consideration. ‘No, I like the older, sugar-daddy style.’
Gina shook her head. ‘It’s not going to work.’
‘That’s enough, you two,’ he said. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
Destiny was looking at him with a look in her eyes like she wanted to eat him. He could think of worse ways to go.
‘Okay,’ Gina said, ‘she’ll bring you to the club and tell them that it was just too good an opportunity to miss.’
‘Plus, you’re sooo good looking.’ Destiny raised an eyebrow and did something suggestive with her tongue. ‘There’s no reason why we can’t enjoy ourselves at the same time.’
He swallowed and looked from one to the other. It was like he’d been caught in a turf war between two praying mantises. Maybe they’d just split him down the middle.
‘You’ve embarrassed him,’ Gina said and giggled.
It was a lovely sound, made him want to say something to make her do it again. But it was time to get things back on track. He didn’t want to spoil everything, but he also knew he had to make them realize it wasn’t just a bit of fun.
‘I don’t want to be a party pooper—’
‘But you’re going to be anyway,’ Gina said.
‘—but you need to remember that just because we think it’s a bit of fun, they don’t.’
‘No shit, Sherlock,’ Destiny said, nudging Gina with her elbow. ‘Listen up, Gina. It’s serious now.’
They both leaned forward and put their elbows on the table to show him they were paying attention. It showed him something else as well. He was sure they both squeezed their elbows in to make their tops gape and give him a better view. He tried hard to keep looking at their faces, and their eyes told him they were still having fun playing with him. Destiny took hold of her top and hitched it up.
‘Serious now, Evan,’ she said in her best schoolmarm voice.
He knew for damn sure he’d have paid a lot more attention at school if the teachers looked like her. She cocked an eyebrow and looked down her nose at him but then ruined it all by bursting out laughing again.
He cracked up. ‘Okay, that’s it. We’ll do this later. I just wanted to meet you today anyway. We have to meet with Angel—’
‘That’s the cop I told you about,’ Gina said to Destiny.
He saw something pass between them. And felt something pass through him. Was it jealousy?
‘—and work out the details. He can give you the pep talk.’
They all sat back in their seats and looked at each other.
‘What now?’ Destiny said.
‘You can give me a ride back to my hotel.’
‘It’s only got two seats.’ She made a show of counting the three of them. ‘I thought you were a detective.’
Now it was his turn to give a big grin, one that had been building ever since the idea first crossed his mind.
‘That’s okay,’ he said, leaning back and eying Gina up and down. ‘Gina looks just about the perfect size to fit on my lap. It’s only a few blocks.’
Whenever he thought about it later, he liked to think Destiny looked disappointed. It sure as hell helped clear his mind of all traces of Hendricks’ email. For the time being, anyway—until the next one arrived.
Chapter 40
FROM THE OTHER SIDE of the street Seppe sat in his car and watched Gina and Destiny and some guy he didn’t recognize come out of the diner and all get in Destiny’s car.
He wouldn’t have minded swapping places with the guy, whoever he was. There was lots of laughing and giggling. Destiny got in the driver’s side and then the guy got in the passenger seat and Gina sat on his lap. From where he was sitting, it looked like she made a big deal of snuggling right down into his lap too. The guy certainly seemed to be enjoying it.
Seppe got his phone out, zoomed in and took a couple of pictures of the guy’s face. They weren’t great but you’d be able to recognize him. They were all having so much fun he could have crossed the street and taken a close-up without them paying any attention. Even so, he turned his face away when Destiny put her foot to the floor and shot out into the traffic, the massive tires squealing and spinning before they bit. Poor guy, Seppe thought, with all that acceleration pushing Gina’s butt harder into his crotch.
He let a couple of cars get between them and then pulled out to tail them. It wasn’t difficult. If he’d suddenly been struck blind he could still have followed the sound of the big V8 bouncing off the buildings. It sure was a beautiful sound. He followed them downtown for a few blocks and saw them turn into the Econo Lodge. Either the guy’s day was about to get even better or he was from out of town. He turned in after them and drove to the farthest corner of the parking lot. In his rear-view mirror he saw the Corvette stop outside reception and Gina and the guy tumbled out of the passenger door. The guy straightened the front of his pants but Seppe wasn’t sure he got them completely flat. Gina watched him do it with a very satisfied look on her face. Then she jumped back in and they took off again, spraying him with dust and grit. He stood watching them with his hands on his hips as they pulled back into the traffic, waving like crazy and looking like a super-charged Thelma and Louise.
Something crossed Seppe’s mind. He got his cell phone out and called D’Amato.
‘Have you still got that guy Jesse’s cell phone?’
D’Amato said he did.
‘Call his friend on it now. The one you made him call back. Do it now. Quickly.’
Seppe watched the guy walking across the parking lot towards one of the ground floor rooms. He was walking straight towards his car.
‘Okay, it’s ringing,’ D’Amato said. ‘His name’s Evan Buckley.’
Seppe watched the guy in his mirror. He stopped mid-stride, fished his phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen.
‘Wait until he picks up, then end the call.’
Seppe watched the guy lift the phone to his ear.
‘Okay, I just cut the connection,’ his boss said.
The guy took the phone away from his ear and looked at the screen again. Seppe saw a look of confusion mixed with annoyance on his face.
‘It’s him, it’s got to be.’
D’Amato’s sudden bark of a laugh exploded from Seppe’s phone. ‘Yes! Where are you?’
‘I’m downtown at the Econo Lodge. Gina and another girl—Destiny I think she’s called—just dropped him off.’
‘Really ... hang on, he’s ringing back.’
Seppe looked in the mirror again. The guy was holding his phone to his ear. ‘It’s got to be him.’
‘Can you get a photo so we can check with Samantha if it’s the same guy she saw?’
‘I got a couple of him earlier. I’m going to wait to see what room he’s in and then I’ll be back.’
Seppe watched the guy reach his door and let himself in. He wrote the number down on the back of his hand and smiled to himself.
Pleased to meet you, Mr Evan Buckley.
Chapter 41
D’AMATO WAS SITTING AT his desk with Seppe’s phone in his hand, Seppe on one side of him and Samantha on the other. They were looking at the photos of Gina, Destiny and Evan.
‘Nice car,’ D’Amato said.
‘It’s a ‘69 Stingray,’ Seppe said. ‘Three hundred horsepower, I think.’
‘Three fifty,’ D’Amato said.
Seppe nodded. That’s why the guy was the boss.
‘Not sure about it in the black—’
‘When you two are quite finished ...’ Samantha’s lemon-sucker lips twisted into more of a scowl than normal.
‘You want to get some curves like that,’ D’Amato said, prodding the phone. ‘Guys might pay a bit more attention.’
Samantha gave him the finger. ‘That’s the same guy I saw with Gina in the club the other night.’
‘Evan Buckley,’ D’Amato said, leaning back in his executive chair, lacing his fingers behind his head.
Seppe and Samantha both stood up straight, their noses twitching. Samantha rolled her eyes at Seppe. He acknowledged with a twitch of his mouth.
‘Private Investigator and good friend of Jesse Springer, the luckiest man alive.’ He looked at Samantha who managed to get her nose under control in time. ‘You shouldn’t have let me let him go.’
‘And Gina,’ Samantha added, ignoring his attempt to put the blame on her. ‘Let’s not forget her.’
‘Okay, so what have we got?’ D’Amato said. ‘Jesse gets rolled, hires Buckley to do some digging. Buckley comes to the club, talks to Gina—’
‘What about Jesse nosing around?’ Seppe said.
D’Amato shook his head. ‘I think we can ignore that. I think he’s the kind of guy can’t sit still for two minutes. Hires Buckley but doesn’t want to sit around waiting for him, so he just jumps right into the thick of it himself.’ He tapped his temple with his finger. ‘Doesn’t think before he acts.’
Says the man who punched their drug supply into the next life because he was having a bad day, Seppe thought.
‘So Buckley talks to Gina at the club and arranges to meet her again—’
‘But Gina doesn’t know anything,’ Samantha said. ‘She’s suspicious, but she doesn’t know what’s going on.’
‘Buckley doesn’t know that,’ D’Amato said.
She shook her head. ‘The first time they talked, he didn’t. But she must have told him she didn’t know anything straight away.’
She walked round to the front of D’Amato’s desk and rested her palms flat on the cheap wood. D’Amato looked at her body leaning towards him and ran his eyes up to her face.
‘So why meet her again?’
‘Even if she did know what’s going on, it wouldn’t do any good because Jesse’s not talking,’ D’Amato said, thinking out loud.
Samantha didn’t bother to hide the scepticism in her face.
‘Believe me, he’s not coming back.’
‘Whatever you say,’ Samantha said wearily, recognizing the brick wall she was banging her head against. ‘So what do you think is going on?’
D’Amato looked at the picture of the three of them in Destiny’s car. ‘I think,’ he said, dragging out each word, ‘they’re planning some kind of a sting.’
The other two looked at him with renewed respect, if not a little surprise as well.
‘Why’s that?’ Samantha said.
‘Because so far they’ve got absolutely nothing that they can use. Jesse’s no use to them—’
‘Why’s Buckley still here if Jesse wants out?’
D’Amato saw a flash of triumph in her eyes. He leaned his elbows on the desk and laced his fingers together, mainly to stop himself from poking her in the eye.
‘For Gina. It’s not about Jesse now. He thinks he’s some kind of Knight in Shining Armor. Gina tells him about her little spat with you and he thinks she’s in danger. He knows all about the scam from his friend Jesse who now wants nothing to do with it. Is he going to walk away too? No way. He’s the only one standing between the free world and the bad guys. He won’t rest until the world is a safe place again. Christ, you can almost hear the music playing in his head.’
‘He certainly seemed to be having a good time with Gina,’ Seppe said. ‘Just look at the two of them crammed into that seat.’
‘You sound jealous,’ D’Amato said, looking down at the image on the phone.
‘What, and you’re not?’ He took his phone back and put it in his pocket.
D’Amato shook his head. ‘No need. I’m looking forward to getting her in our special chair—the one we put Jesse in.’
The two of them looked at each other and something passed between them. D’Amato rubbed his sweaty palms together at the thought.
‘When you two have finished with your little fantasy ...’ Samantha said.
They both looked at her. That brought them down to earth.
‘A sting would explain why they’ve brought Destiny in. They can’t use Gina after our fight, so they need someone else on the inside.’
‘Yes!’ D’Amato shouted, slamming his massive fist down on the table and making them jump. ‘So all we need to do is get the details from Gina’—he looked up at Seppe and they shared a wicked grin—‘and teach her a lesson while we’re at it, of course.’
Seppe swallowed thickly and licked his lips.
‘Then we’ll arrange something extra special for friend Evan Buckley when they try whatever half-assed scheme they’re planning. Something he won’t ever forget—maybe you’d like to be in charge of that, Samantha? Have you still got that straight razor?’
The look on her face told him she’d like it a lot. It made his stomach twist. He felt sorry for the poor guy—he hoped he made the most of his time before Samantha got her hands on him.
Chapter 42
IT WAS A COMPLETE no-brainer. On the one hand, Evan could call Angel and spend the evening working through the details of the sting they were setting up, in advance of the main meeting scheduled with everybody for the following day. On the other hand, he could see if Gina had the night off ...
‘I wasn’t expecting to hear from you so soon,’ she said when she picked up.
‘I was wondering if you wanted to take a drive out into the country. I wouldn’t want to risk being seen together in town.’
‘It must be fate, tonight’s my night off. And don’t worry, I’m not offended if you don’t want to be seen with me.’
He closed his eyes and imagined her mischievous smile on the other end of the line. ‘Must be better than a night in, studying or washing your hair.’
She sucked in her breath through her teeth. ‘It’s close—do I get my own seat this time?’
He grinned to himself as he remembered the two of them squashed into the passenger seat of Destiny’s ‘69 Stingray.
‘That’s up to you. You seemed to be enjoying sharing mine earlier,’ he said, re-living her weight in his lap. ‘Just so long as it doesn’t interfere with my driving.’
‘Absolutely. We don’t want any interfering going on.’
A lovely, throaty giggle came down the line.
‘One more thing—do you think Destiny would lend us her car?’
‘You want me to ask her along too?’
He pretended to give it some thought. ‘Well, now you mention it—’
‘No,’ she said brightly, ‘from what I saw earlier, I don’t think you can handle the two of us. See you later.’
She cut the connection before he could reply.
***
HE GOT TO HER house around seven, almost skipped up the path and rang the bell. The door opened. His heart missed a beat and his jaw dropped as he took in the sight of her standing there in front of him wearing just a lacy bra and skimpy panties, her skin smooth and perfect, as he knew it would be. Before he could say or do anything, her arms shot out and she grabbed him roughly by the shirt front, bunching the fabric in her small fists as she pulled him into the house and slammed him up against the wall. He gasped, amazed at how strong she was, despite her petite size. She pushed herself hard against him, her lips searching for his as she fumbled his belt buckle open, dropping his pants to the ground, right there in the hallway. Working her fingers through his hair, she pushed him down onto the cold floor and climbed on top of him.
The sudden blare of a car horn made him jump, snapping him out of his reverie. He raised a hand in apology and turned into her street. It was just his overactive—and hopeful—mind playing games. But it had passed the time pleasantly as he drove over, and he was aware of faint stirrings south of the belt line. It was the way she’d said interfering that did it.
He smiled to himself as he rang the bell for real. He wasn’t disappointed when she opened the door—she looked amazing even if she was fully clothed in a simple, white silk blouse and a pair of jeans stuffed into her tan cowboy boots. Her hair was in what he thought was called a bedhead style, but, whatever it was called, he got the same effect himself when he didn’t have time to comb his in the morning. Maybe he’d get to find out if it really did look like that when she woke up.
They headed out the way he’d driven with Angel that morning, taking the I-64 to Frankfort but then dropping down onto the Old Frankfort Pike.
‘Do you know where you’re going?’ she asked him, after they’d been driving on the old road for a few miles.
‘Sort of. There’s a place I looked up on the web. It’s got to be somewhere around here. Maybe we missed it.’
‘I thought you were a detective. They’re meant to be good at finding things, aren’t they?’
‘Yeah, well, most people say I’m not a proper one. Just ask Angel. Anyway, I don’t usually have anyone in the passenger seat stopping me from concentrating.’
