by Trixie More
“To understand how all this happened, you have to look at a bigger picture.” He turned the screen a bit, so the gorgeous woman beside him could see for herself. He wondered if she saw the precision or the wilderness in the numbers. It couldn’t matter to him, she was not for him. There would never be a meeting of minds between them. After all, he was the vilest of men. His conscience reminded him that he’d outdone even his own father in reprehensible behavior. The thought was like cold water splashing over his scalp and pooling in his lap. Just as well, time to get to work.
“When I got out, Tommy finally told me about putting money in the bitcoin venture. That was where we’d lost our money. He also told me that he’d first found out about it when Marco Junior approached him at the gym.”
“The gym? A crime boss’s son just walked up to Tom at Planet Fitness and asked him to invest?” Sophia looked incredulous.
“Not quite. I belong...belonged...to a very exclusive gym. Sort of the same as belonging to a very selective golf club. Very few clients, all of whom will be well funded.” Doug shrugged and glanced to his right. She’d moved closer. He shifted his weight to the left, and her slender shoulder flowed into the space he’d vacated. The clean, powdery smell of Sophia’s glossy dark hair came with it. “So it made sense, one, that Camisa would assume Tommy had money and also, it was likely Camisa knew exactly who he was and that I was in jail. Making Tommy a pretty good target.” He glanced at her, raising his eyebrows. “Good so far?”
She nodded. The perfectly manicured fingertips of her right hand rested on the counter, and her thumb tapped rapidly every so often as she thought. He wanted to lay his hand over the top of hers, stop the nervous tic, feel the cool smoothness, calm her back into her natural state of tan and ivory self-possession. There was still something unsettled about her that hadn’t been there before he’d left her with Tommy.
He cleared his throat. “So I began searching the list of members of the club,” he said.
“If it’s that exclusive, how would you get such a list?” she asked.
“The club publishes one. Most of the members value networking, which the club facilitates.”
“Hmm.”
He brought out a series of lists. “So, there are three locations for this club. One in Manhattan, one in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and one in Westchester, New York. I found Nuri and MacDonald on the list of Cherry Hill members. I would expect that Camisa uses that club most frequently since he and his father both live in Jersey.”
“How did you cross reference the list of members against investors? Wouldn’t that be private information?”
“I first looked up all the businesses that I could find linked to members of the club. From there, I searched news articles, investment magazines, blog posts and podcast interviews. All in all, I found six different people that I could link to the investment scheme.” Sophia raised up from the stool just a bit, leaning on her forearm, her left arm, the one closest to him, brushed against his, her palm flat on her thigh as she levered herself closer to the laptop. Her thigh seemed to be radiating heat, like the sun through a window, infusing his own leg with warmth. Doug slid the laptop toward her before he could grab that hand, tossing her off balance, demanding that she brace herself, preferably by pressing into the denim that stretched over his quad. Sophia subsided back to the stool, her narrow hip pressing away from him, leaving him cold.
“I would need a warrant to find out more than this.” She was murmuring and the soft syllables called to him. Was she like the numbers? Was she chaos and power behind precise presentation? “This isn’t that much more than speculation and that won’t get us anywhere.” She pressed her thumbnail to her lip, but the plush softness of her mouth didn’t open.
A woman like this wouldn’t bite her nails. Not anymore, he thought, but he’d bet a grand that she used to. He let himself study her face, let his eyes roam over the shell of her ear, the expanse of pale skin, stretched over quivering nerve endings that would branch and coalesce in a pattern that was common to women since the dawn of time but would also be a pattern all her own. Was Sophia sensitive in the hollow behind the fine tendon that stretched to her shoulder or would she be brought to shuddering by a tongue flickering just between her jaw and the sparkling hoop that dangled from her flawless earlobe? In his lap, heat had boiled away the dousing of his sensibilities and all that was left was a wild yearning, vast and dark. A better man would leap from the chair and find a reason to escape her. Doug leaned forward.
Sophia felt the faint tingle along her neck as if the fine hairs on her nape had lifted, as if a finger was lightly brushing just above her skin. A breath, warm, the slight hint of yeast from the beer they’d drank entered her awareness and heat, burned along her shoulder as the bulk of him lifted and moved closer. She didn’t have to look to know that his broad chest was just a millimeter behind her shoulder, didn’t have to touch him to know that the auburn bristles along his jaw would scratch against her skin, that the palm of his hand would feel heavy and possessive. She didn’t have to kiss him to know that it would be like the unfurling of white cloth before the wind, that the power she felt would drive her forward into a new future—irresistible and final. That wasn’t an option. A future with a convicted felon was no future.
Sophia slid the laptop back toward him without turning her head. Her heart, long since numb and silent, let out a lonely clang as she felt the heat of him fade back.
“There’s not enough here to get a warrant for financial records relating to the investments.” She pulled herself together. She was a prosecutor. She cared about justice. There was nothing about this man that deserved anything additional from her. Except, except there was that photo. Nuri, Macdonald, Camisa, and the man Deb had seen standing outside George’s garage. She wanted to have Doug look at that photo again. Maybe if they brought it up on the laptop’s large screen, he might recognize something. Behind her, Doug waited as she swiveled on her seat, settling herself on an angle so that their thighs were in no danger of touching, her knees facing him. “Is this thing online?” she asked, blindly gesturing to the computer. The way he was looking at her was different, as if something in him had awakened, but she knew that didn’t she? She’d felt it. She submerged the understanding and lifted her chin. “Well?”
“Sure,” he said. His voice was calm on the surface, but it held an undertow that she had to fight against. There was just no part of her that wasn’t aware of Doug as a man.
Sophia pulled the laptop closer, like a life raft, and began searching. What was the URL she’d been looking at? She thought back on her search, and after a moment, felt a little rush of triumph. Doug’s computer was large and the photo rendered much clearer. She spun the unit around and presented it to him.
“What’s this?” He looked at it. “This is the same picture, right?”
“Maybe you can recognize the other people in the photo now that it’s larger?”
He leaned closer and studied it, using his fingers to increase the zoom, sweeping back and forth.
“Is that how come you’re so good with trading?”
Doug glanced at her swiftly, eyebrows raised.
She felt herself flush, for the third time, and gave a slight shrug. “Tommy mentioned that you built your business on day trading. I figure attention to detail, and focus might be useful in that line of work.”
“I always thought it just took desperation and balls.” He smiled at her. That smile, that damn smile. When she looked back at her life, she’d blame everything on that smile. It dug deep grooves beside his mouth; it lifted his face and brought sunlight into his eyes. Humor, intelligence, and self-deprecation all wrapped in that one expression did something no intensity or outright pursuit could. That damn smile made her feel—comfortable. Sophia found herself smiling back at him, the goofy, smitten glee of the thirteen-year-old girl she never got to be making her pulse race. She felt a recklessness that she’d never experienced, a lack of caution as exhilarating as it was fr
ightening.
“Doesn’t everything?” she asked, hardly believing this was her own voice speaking.
Doug was smiling back at her, and she grinned broader. All the things she could do with that opening. She held her breath, waiting to see what his next move would be.
“I’m pretty sure everything that interests me right now does,” he said.
Oh, holy, all of it. #Hot was all her overheated brain could come up with. She wanted the slow tease his eyes were promising her; she wanted the conflagration that everything between them pointed to. She wanted it all. In the back of her mind, the better part of her brain was trying to stage a coup. It was shouting that she had Ben, that she was a prosecutor for heaven’s sake, he was gay, he was the worst kind of criminal, Tommy had basically given her proof of that. That last thought brought her hormones to heel.
“Keep looking at that picture, big boy,” she said and almost hit herself when she heard the flirtatious intonation coming out of her mouth.
For his part, Doug snagged the chair rail on her stool with his foot and pulled her and the stool closer, the massive thigh muscle flexing beneath the soft denim. Not that she was looking, not that she was thinking about the implied power in his legs, in the man he had been.
“Look at it with me,” he stated. “Show me what’s caught your interest.”
That caught her by surprise. “Really.” She laughed. “You never quit.”
His red eyebrows waggled above the freckles and bristle, above the laughing eyes. “I don’t think you’re ready to say that yet,” he mocked. “How would you know?”
“Stop,” she said, laughing. Maybe it was knowing that the guy was gay that had her so relaxed. For all his teasing, he was still a man who preferred men. She didn’t have to wonder about his motives. They were clear as day—he wanted to charm her into helping him find his money. That, and nothing more. Sophia moved closer and raised her butt off the stool, leaning over the counter. Gay men were the best. They weren’t jealous of her, and they weren’t trying to get in her pants. “Just look at the people in that photo. Is there anyone there you recognize?”
His face settled into the grave, focused attention that he’d had when he was reading the stock prices. He shook his head. “Just the three we discussed already.” He glanced at her and back at the photo. “So the guy in the white polo shirt, the Italian looking guy, that’s who you think I should know?”
Sophia cursed silently. Something she’d done had given it away. There was no need to admit it. She closed the website.
“So what do you think happened to your money? Couldn’t it just have been a bad investment?”
“I don’t think the money was lost in an investment scam. I don’t think it was on the server when the guy died, and I don’t think he was the only person with the password.”
“You have no proof of any of that, do you?”
Doug leaned back, folding his arms over his chest. “Not yet.”
She shook her head. “Then I can’t help you.”
“Then why did you come here?” His voice trailed off, and she literally saw it in his eyes the moment he put it together. “You have another case.” He tipped his head, his pale eyes narrowed at her. The hair on the back of her neck lifted. “A case you care about. That’s it, isn’t it?”
This time, she didn’t blush. “I’m working on several cases, yes.” She waited him out.
“But the one that connects with mine, it’s personal.” Doug leaned closer. “What is it?”
She pursed her lips. How much should she tell him? Nothing. Nothing at all. You didn’t share secrets with ex-cons.
Doug continued on as if she’d answered. “Huh. Fine. So the case involves someone you know or matters to you, and that’s why you’re here, alone with a man you consider a...” He didn’t say it, although she thought for a minute there she had him. “You think I have information or know something, so the more you know about me, the more likely you are to solve whatever is actually important to you.” Doug looked at her speculatively. “And someone in this picture is the key. The Italian guy, in the polo shirt. He’s the one.” Doug announced it like it was a fact. Doug pulled up a browser and searched until he found the photo. “So, this is the guy you want my help with?”
It was a calmly asked question; he didn’t raise his voice. In fact, it might have been more mildly asked than most of their conversation. Perhaps that was why it made Sophia’s scalp prickle. She reminded herself that this man wasn’t gentle like Derrick or brashly upfront with his emotions like Ben. This man had done hard time, and before that, had kept his head during some of the most volatile market conditions the world had ever seen. Her prickling skin was worth paying attention to.
“There’s no evidence tying that man to any case of mine,” she said, keeping her voice bland. “I want you to look at that picture and tell me if there’s anyone else in it you recognize.” She hesitated. “You’re right. I’ve got my own interests here; after all, why else would I be here with a convict?” There, that had struck home. Doug turned his attention from the picture on the computer to her face. He always looked her right in the eyes. For something that she’d wanted men to do since as far back as her thirteenth summer, it was unnerving to actually meet someone who never failed to keep his attention right where she’d always thought she wanted it. Perversely, it made her want to wear something short, or low cut, the next time they met.
I’m out of my mind, she thought. Only a lunatic would want to attract this man.
Doug blew a breath out, his lips rolled together, the dimples on his face digging in where his mouth pulled back. It was an expression of holding his tongue and disagreeing vehemently, all with barely a sound.
“Ex-con.” His voice was low and threatening.
“For now,” she said. Sophia stood, keeping her face bland, controlling all the emotions this man brought out in her. He was a criminal, she was a prosecutor. He needed to remember that. She needed to as well.
Her ivory coat hung on the back of her stool. She started to put it on, but he was behind her, gently taking the jacket and holding it open for her. She frowned. It was such an archaic thing to do. She glanced at him, but his thoughts were clearly elsewhere. It appeared he’d picked up the habit somewhere and it meant little to him. She shrugged into the raincoat, and he released it, stepping back.
“I doubt there’s much more for us to discuss,” she said. His face was as impassive as hers.
“I’ll send you weekly updates of my findings,” he countered. “Do you have a card?”
In her breast pocket was a slim stack. She took one out and passed it to him. “My email is there.”
In turn, he grabbed a card out of a kitchen drawer. “There’s mine.”
She turned toward the door, Doug followed, opening it for her, another gesture from some different generation. As she passed him, he said, “I’m looking forward to spring training.” The door closed softly behind her.
“He said, he only switch hits in the bottom of the ninth,” Sophia said, a wicked look in her eye. Marley tossed her hair. At least she would have, but she always had to keep it tucked into the stupid net. It was very hard to flounce around a kitchen. And it wasn’t fair. Not really. After all, Sophia got to go home to Ben Connelly, who was a very hot man and when Sophia was working, she got to talk to men like Mr. Lloyd, who Marley had always liked. As far as Marley was concerned, when they convicted Lloyd of something, then she’d believe it.
Meanwhile, I get to smell like garlic and grease, work my brains out and then share a bed with my mother, she thought. Marley slammed her cleaver down into a butternut squash, halving it in one blow. And my mother is starting to smell like an old woman. There! Now she was ashamed of herself. Her mother didn’t deserve that, but it was so true! Her mother was a wonderful woman who barely spoke any English. She stayed in the hot apartment all day and was letting Karita grow wild and upset and at night? The woman’s mouth went slack, a dark cavern where hot breat
h rushed in and out, whistling and wheezing as her mother lay sweating in her flannel nightgown, even in August. Ugh!
“What does that even mean?” Marley said in her very best impatient voice.
I’m a young woman, Marley thought. Surely this isn’t what my whole life will be. She watched her friend and swung the cleaver again.
“Jesus, Marley!” Allie called.
“What did I tell you about that name?” Marley asked.
“O—fuckin’-kay, Marley. You’re killing something but I don’t think it’s that squash.” Allie grabbed an apron from a hook. “What’sa matter?”
“Oh, now you starting to talk like a Mastrelo!” Marley bitched. She felt out of sorts. “And this one”—she gestured at Sophia with her knife—”this one’s in love with a gangsta when she should be home making babies with her man.”
Allison raised her eyebrows. “Opinion much?”
Marley shrugged and flicked a glance at Sophia, whose face was turning pink.
“Oh, for pity’s sake. I’m sorry,” Marley said, but she didn’t feel sorry. She’d meant it. Why was the woman here, at the restaurant, when she should be home? Lord in merciful heaven knew that Marley wouldn’t be here hiding from a man like that. And if she didn’t have a man like Ben, then she wouldn’t be here, if a man like Doug wanted to give her a ride. So to speak. “Why aren’t you with Ben, Sophia? I think you like Doug Lloyd.”