Identify

by Denise Wells

  Goddamn it. That is Quinn.

  What in the hell is she doing here?

  I quickly make my way to where she’s standing in time to see her pull a gun from behind her clutch and raise it in David’s direction. I grip her hip with my left hand and lean into her right ear. “What in the hell are you doing?”

  She startles with a low shriek. Her arms fly into the air—her clutch goes in one direction, and I grab the gun before it can go in the other, quickly getting the situation under control.

  At least until someone yells, “Gun!”

  Then all hell breaks loose.

  15

  Mack

  “Mr. Tremblay? There’ve been reports of someone with a gun. You need to come with me so we can get you to safety at once.” I grab David’s arm and pull him toward the rear of the house where the service entrances are. Daria knows that’s her cue to head our way.

  By the time we are there, she’s waiting with the engine of the large SUV idling.

  She’s in disguise, not that David gives her much attention anyway. He’s more concerned about saving his own hide than with anyone else. I give her my attention, however, because she looks fucking hot. To me, Daria has a Sydney Bristow vibe from the TV show Alias.

  Tonight, that couldn’t be clearer: shoulder length, stick straight, fire-engine red wig, combined with heavy eye makeup, and nude-colored lips. Tight black leather pants, equally tight black turtleneck, and I’m assuming some style of boot. She always wears boots. I love her in boots. I love her more in these getups, nothing gets me hotter.

  I push Tremblay into the back seat and climb in after him. Daria takes off, purposely squealing the tires to show David the “urgency” of the situation, while I get a (fake) update in my feed from the security company.

  “Copy,” I say into my wrist in response.

  “Laurel and the other family members are secure,” I tell David.

  “What in the fuck just happened?” David asks.

  “Well, Mr. Tremblay, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say someone just tried to kill you.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “You tell me?”

  “I don’t have any enemies. Laurel and her family don’t have anyone who would want to kill them.”

  “Well, you had a guest there who definitely wanted to kill someone.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I’m taking you to the security team’s safe house until the gunman is in custody.”

  “Who’s she?” he asks about Daria as if he finally notices who’s driving.

  “That’s the driver,” I answer.

  “She doesn’t look like security.”

  “She’s not.”

  “I need to call Laurel.” David pulls his phone from the inside pocket of his jacket.

  “I would advise against that.” I lower his hand with my own, then take the phone from him. “We can’t be too sure about what’s going on right now. At least until we know what’s happened.”

  “You think my fiancée wants to have me murdered?” David scoffs.

  I shrug. “Hard to say, sir. Maybe she found out about all your aliases on those dating apps. And that until just last week you’d been kidnapping and drugging women, then delivering them to a residential brothel where someone either keeps or sells them as sex slaves.”

  His face pales. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Your face says otherwise.” I wait to see what he will say next. When he doesn’t continue, I do. “Look, David. May I call you, David?”

  “No.”

  “Look, David, we have a positive ID from your last victim. The one who got away. We also have evidence from the dating apps—”

  “What evidence? You can’t get anything from the apps.”

  “Really, Jacob?”

  If it’s possible, his face pales even further.

  “But they don’t store information.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  His face fills with confusion as he stares straight ahead. “You need to turn this car around immediately and bring me back to the residence.” David’s attempt at a demand is futile.

  “No can do. Sorry.”

  “I’ll have your ass for this.”

  I laugh in response.

  “Whatever it is you think you have, you don’t. There’s nothing stored anywhere that links me to using aliases to kidnap women.”

  “You sure about that?” I ask.

  He remains quiet.

  “You know they store anything and everything on the internet, right? It has to go somewhere once it’s uploaded. And even if you think you’ve deleted it, it’s never erased.”

  David turns to me. “Who are you? Because you sure as fuck aren’t with the security company.”

  “I’m with the FBI.”

  “Fuck me.” David buries his head in his hand and rubs at his brow. “Why does the FBI care about some dating apps?”

  “We both know that’s not all it was.” I look at him pointedly. He has the good grace to look away, so I continue, “Look, I don’t really care what you’ve done. I want the names of the guys above you. I want names and addresses of where they are, where the girls are, and where the girls go.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’d really hate to beat it out of you, David. Though, I’ll admit, I’m itching for a brawl, you know what I mean?” I crack my knuckles for emphasis, old-school style.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, sorry.” David stays stoic. Which means I’ll have to hurt him. Not that I mind, it’s just such a hassle to get blood out of the car interior afterward. “Last chance,” I tell him.

  He gives me one of those half frowns with a shrug of his shoulders. So, I toss off a right hook and bust his nose.

  “Ow, fuck. What the fuck?” His hands fly to his face and he cradles it in his palms. Blood seeps through his fingers and runs down his arms into his sleeves. More blood pools at his wrists and drips to his lap. “Goddammit! You broke my fucking nose!”

  “I tried to warn you.”

  “I don’t have that kind of information. Fuck.” He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and holds it to his face, trying to staunch the blood flow.

  “Tilt your head back,” I tell him.

  “Fuck you.”

  This time I shrug. In my defense, I tried to help. “You going to tell me what I need to know?”

  “I don’t know anything. I’m just the delivery guy.”

  “Well, not just. Isn’t that right, David? You’re also the guy that gets to go on the date with a pretty girl, sometimes maybe a little more happens than just drinks, then you drug her. Who knows what happens between the time you drug her and drop her off? Would anyone really know if you serviced your own needs?”

  “You’re sick.”

  I remain silent, waiting to see if he’ll continue.

  He does. “I would never. I have a beautiful fiancée who I love. Why would I want to be with someone who’s drugged? That’s disgusting.”

  “Tell me about Quinn Foster,” I say. Daria looks up and catches my eye in the rearview mirror. She wasn’t expecting this, and I can tell it puts her on edge.

  “What about her?” David shrugs as though it’s no big deal.

  “Wasn’t she one of the first girls you abducted? Or at least tried to?”

  “No. She was just someone I dated.”

  “Really? So, that she tripped and sprained her ankle on your first date didn’t deter you at all from drugging her and bringing her to your boss?”

  “He’s not my boss,” David says sourly.

  “What is he then?”

  “He’s just a guy.”

  “A guy you owe a favor to?”

  David shrugs again.

  “Look, I can’t help you unless you help me.”

  “Help me, help you?” David sneers. “Is that it? Are you quoting movie lines now?”

  “If it means you understan
d how this going down, sure.”

  David says nothing. I fake a punch to his nose, happy when he flinches.

  “Okay, okay,” he says. “He’s just a guy I owe some money to. I don’t even know his real name.”

  “So, what? You know his fake name?”

  “He’s a money guy. They call him Black Diamond.”

  I nod even though I’ve not heard of the guy. “How much do you owe him?”

  “Just over two,” David mumbles.

  “Two? Two what? Hundred? Thousand?”

  “Million.”

  I whistle my surprise. “Wow, Dave, I gotta tell you, that’s a lot of money to owe a bookie.”

  “Yeah, well.”

  “Horses? Cards? Cock fights? What’s your jam, man?”

  “I’m in finance, okay. I was flipping money for some clients. The first time paid big. So I took some proceeds to invest for myself, no one was the wiser. A sure thing. Only it wasn’t. I had to make the clients whole first and needed the funds immediately. Someone recommended Black Diamond, and it all kind of went from there.”

  He seems so blasé about it. I want to introduce his face to my fist again. Repeatedly.

  “How’d the girls get involved?”

  “When I couldn’t pay, he said that’s what I had to do until I could produce the money. Which I still haven’t done. I’ve got a wedding coming up, man. I’ve got expenses. I can’t be paying interest to this guy. The girls take care of that, plus some principle.”

  “You realize these are human lives that you are destroying in a truly demented kind of way?”

  He doesn’t shrug again. Lucky for him. But he stays impassive. Like what I’m saying doesn’t even register. He has zero feelings about it.

  “Where do we find this Black Diamond guy?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who’s the guy at the house where you drop the girls?”

  “I don’t know that either.”

  “I want the address.”

  “It’s different all the time, man.”

  “Fine. What was the last address?”

  He gives it to me. I make a note on my phone.

  He really makes me want to punch him. Break his nose all over again, watch the blood fly.

  From the looks she’s giving me in the rearview mirror, Daria isn’t far behind me in that sentiment. I give in to the urge and clock him with my right. He looks surprised for a second, then closes his eyes and melts into the seat, knocked out for the near future.

  I turn off the recording app on my phone and double check to make sure everything recorded. Not that I got the confession legally, but I’ll figure that part out later.

  “Where to?” Daria asks, her accent strong. It always is when she’s upset, and like most other things about her, it’s sexy as fuck. I’d asked her not to say anything in front of Tremblay, her voice is distinct enough he may have recognized it.

  “Hit the address he gave us. I want to make sure there really aren’t any girls there.”

  “And if there are?”

  “Then it’s gonna get pretty crowded in this backseat, babe.”

  16

  Quinn

  Reed drags me upstairs and into one of the guest rooms.

  “What are you doing? Let go of me!”

  He doesn’t let go. Instead, he wraps both arms around me from behind. Pinning me against his body. His long, hard body that I enjoy being up against. I sink into him slightly.

  “What are you doing here, Quinn? And with a gun?” He squeezes my midriff tightly, taking my breath away.

  “None of your business.” I try to turn in his arms to get myself free, but he’s holding me too tight. A minute ago this squeezing was cute, now not so much.

  “Stop moving, Quinn.”

  “No!” I wriggle more, then stomp on his foot with my heel.

  “Fuck!”

  I feel a little bad for hurting him. But Daria said that I was not to tell anyone my true reason for being here under any circumstances. And that it was imperative I make my storyline convincing. Regardless, he didn’t let me go.

  “Look,” Reed says. “I won’t ask again. This is your last chance. What are you doing here with a gun?”

  “None. Of. Your. Business.”

  “The hell it’s not my business. You had a gun pointed at my best friend. At his fucking engagement party. Are you crazy?” He grabs me by the upper arm and throws me toward the bed. I land in an ungraceful heap, my dress bouncing up around my thighs.

  His gaze heats as it lowers to my bared legs—the top of the slit in my dress barely covering my lady bits. Making me want to spread them slightly. Until I remember he just asked if I was crazy.

  “No, I’m not crazy. Don’t be a jerk.” I try to sit up, adjusting my dress as I go.

  “Can you just sit there, please? For a minute, while I wrap my head around this?”

  I nod once so that my actions aren’t a total lie. I mean, I will sit here for a minute, but not too much longer.

  “What’s really going on Quinn?” He walks toward me; his voice is low and gravelly. I’m digging this deep, sexy tenor he’s got going on, it makes my nether regions all atwitter—but it doesn’t mean I will answer his questions honestly.

  “It upset me.” I try to act nonchalant, casually standing as I answer. I need to get out of here before I do something stupid like tell him the truth.

  “What did?” He pushes lightly at my chest and I bounce back onto the bed. Damn high heels make me unsteady on my feet.

  “His engagement.”

  He laughs. “So, you thought you’d shoot him?”

  “Why not?” I raise my chin as I open my eyes to look at him.

  “Do you expect me to believe that?” His eyes squint and he cocks his head.

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Okay, so after months and months of no contact at all, you suddenly decide that you’re upset enough about his engagement to shoot him at his own party?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “You guys went on, what? Three dates?”

  I shrug. I don’t really want to talk any longer.

  “So, not like the relationship of the year or anything. Why not just, I don’t know, slap him in the face? Crank call him in the middle of the night? Post shit about him on social media? Like what normal jilted girls do?” He snaps his fingers to get my attention.

  “Sounds like the girls you’ve jilted are boring, Reed.”

  He grins sardonically. “I guess so if the alternative is getting shot.”

  Okay, enough of this. I need to get the hell out of here. I’m distracted, I’m turned on, I don’t know what’s happening downstairs. I try to stand again and scoot around him, but he grabs my upper arm stopping me. I try to yank it from his grasp and spin away but end up with my back flattened to his front.

  Again.

  He wraps his arms around me, grasping his wrists to lock me in his embrace. I lean back against him, liking how our bodies align when I’m wearing heels, then wriggle my bottom against what I’m hoping is his dick.

  “Don’t play with me, Quinn. I’m not in the mood.”

  Which gives me an idea.

  I twist my head to face him. “What are you in the mood for?” I soften my voice as I ask, hoping I sound alluring. I’d brush his hair out of his eyes with my fingertips, but he has my arms pinned to my sides.

  He cocks his head and squints his eyes. “What are you getting at?”

  I look up at him from under my lashes, giving my best come hither look. “I enjoy being in your arms.”

  He blinks once. Twice. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Do you ever think about kissing me, Reed?”

  “This is not the time, Quinn.”

  “I think about kissing you.” I arch my head back to run my nose along his neck, breathing in his scent as I go. “I think about it a lot.”

  God, he smells good.

  He clears his throat but
says nothing. His hold on me loosens and I turn in his embrace, then run my tongue along the same path, up his neck to just behind his ear, my heart races and my breath gets heavy. I think becoming a hired assassin has given me super seductive powers, because no way would I have the balls to do this ordinarily.

  I take the lobe of his ear between my teeth and bite gently. He groans.

  Which I take as a good sign. One that means I should continue, so I kiss my way along his jawline and up to the corner of his mouth. His lips twitch ever so slightly as I run my tongue along their seam.

  “Quinn,” he breathes. “You need to stop this.” His hold on me loosens further as he moves his hands closer to my ass, enough for me to get one arm free which I wrap around his neck.

  “Why?” I nibble on his bottom lip and he groans again. Or maybe that was me. “Kiss me, Reed.”

  His face inches closer to mine until our lips are mere centimeters apart. I close my eyes and strain my face forward, just as our mouths are about to meet, he shakes his head and snaps out of whatever trance I’d put him in, waking me up with him.

  “Don’t play games with me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Are you kidding? This is the oldest trick in the book. You try to seduce me, then sneak away when you have me all distracted and wound up.”

  “Are you wound up?” It would be nice to know if my techniques were effective.

  “Can you just . . .” He steps away from me and turns, running his palm over his face. “Are you still hung up on him, is that it?” His eyes search out mine. If I’m not mistaken, I see hurt reflecting from his. I close my eyes to steel myself against him. If I were Superman, Reed Roberts would be my kryptonite. I can’t lie to him about having feelings for David. If he thinks I have feelings for David, he’ll never want to be with me. And being here with him like this, having just felt his body against mine, confirms that I most definitely want to be with him.

  “I’m just upset.” I breathe heavily.

  “Upset about his engagement?”

  I nod.

  “It’s been over a year, Quinn.”