by K. A. Tucker
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Dylan was shot and killed a couple weeks ago.” Her voice wobbles. Bad breakup or not, she’s obviously upset by it.
I slide my glasses off because that’s the appropriate thing to do, though I’d rather keep my eyes hidden. “Seriously?” Luckily I can pull off a compelling cool, shocked reaction very easily. “What happened?”
She gives me the basic rundown—nothing that anyone who read the newspaper article wouldn’t know about.
“Man, I’m just so . . . this is crazy.”
“I know, right?” She swallows, blinks back the glossiness in her eyes. “I mean . . . we actually broke up a few weeks before that and then this happens. Shocking, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. I hadn’t talked to him in at least five months. Maybe longer. He was still over in Kabul with Alliance.”
“Oh.” She sneers. “Those assholes. They didn’t even send flowers to his funeral. I know he wasn’t working for them anymore, but—”
“He wasn’t?”
She shakes her head. “They fired him.”
“They fired him? He’s earned a damn Medal of Honor! Why the hell would they do that?”
She shrugs. “Dylan changed a lot after he started working for those guys. You know how he was.” She waves a hand my way. “He used to laugh and clown around. He was so happy and helpful. Just a genuinely good guy. But after he went back with them . . . he wasn’t the same guy anymore. He was angry. He started doing drugs. Something there changed him.”
I wish she had told me something different. That he was an abusive drunk, that he had always been a dick. Something that might suggest he was no better than Mario when it came to those poor girls, that he deserved the bullet.
“This is awful news.”
“I know. I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you.”
I pause. “I’d love to go see his mother and offer her my condolences. Would you happen to have her address?”
She studies my face—I twitch against the urge to reach up and touch my jaw; I shaved the beard off this morning, and it feels strange to be clean shaven after so many years under shadow. But if I’m going to be showing my face around San Francisco, digging for information, I need to make a small effort to camouflage my usual self.
A small smile touches her pale lips. She’s pretty enough, in a boring, average way. Not an exotic Ivy way. “Sure. Hold on a sec.” She disappears, leaving the door open a crack. I could slip in there now, end her life and stroll out, no one the wiser. It never ceases to amaze me how easily people trust strangers, how many simple mistakes they make that allow the wrong person into their homes, into their lives. Even Ivy, as street smart and suspicious as she is, has allowed me into her bed.
That’s not to say she’s oblivious, that she isn’t quietly wondering about me.
Ivy didn’t say much more about what the biker told her about her uncle, his gambling issues, and the sizable debt he accrued. I’m sure it’s still percolating, but she won’t show it. That’s the way she operates. And that mind of hers, it’s a sharp, dangerous thing because she’s already figured out all on her own the gist of her uncle’s fuckup: He had something he was trying to sell, and it got him killed.
“Here.” Royce’s ex-girlfriend hands me a Post-it note with an address in Sunset scribbled on it in blue pen. “If you don’t mind, could you also pass this bag of Dylan’s things along? Just a few things that he left behind.”
I take the bag, silently thanking her. This will make my next stop easier. “And, again, I’m sorry for your loss.” I feel her eyes on my back as I march down the steps and head down the street to where I parked.
Dylan’s mom lives in a small bungalow in one of San Francisco’s biggest neighborhoods. I used to hang out here a lot in my teenage years. It’s close to the beach and lots of college kids rent out places. I woke up in more than one random bed around here, back in the day.
Now that I’m walking up the street, I’m rethinking the wisdom of speaking with these people. I’ve always followed the rule that I don’t make contact unless absolutely necessary. That’s how I remain an effective ghost.
But my need to know more about Royce overrides my common sense at this point.
I’m just about to turn from the sidewalk onto the path that leads to his mom’s mint-green door when I hear a whimper coming from behind the fence that wraps around the side of the house. A small black snout pokes out.
I smile.
The woman’s eyes widen as soon as she opens the door and sees the golden hairball—a Pekingese, or some version of it—squirming in my grip.
“Ma’am. She was running along the street. Her collar says that she belongs here.”
Her hands go to her chest with shock. “But how did she get out of the backyard?” She looks from the dog—Fefe, from the tag—to her left, to the yard beyond the house. “I just let her out to do her business.”
“The gate is open.”
She frowns. “No. It can’t be. I remember latching it last night. Unless . . .” I watch closely as the poor woman—in her late sixties, by the level of wrinkles around her jaw and eyes—doubts her memory. Deep bags hang beneath her eyes. The dazed eyes of a woman who just lost her son and hasn’t wrapped her head around it yet.
Fefe finally twists her body enough that I can’t hold on any longer without hurting her. So I bend down and gently herd her into the house.
“Oh, goodness. Thank you so much, young man. She could have been hit by a car,” she says, silently accepting that maybe she did forget to latch it. I feel only slightly bad for deceiving her, but rescuing a dog is a surefire way to earn a senior citizen’s instant trust.
“Are you by any chance Dylan Royce’s mother?”
She pauses, frowns. “Yes.”
“I was on my way here anyway. I wanted to offer my condolences. My name’s John. Dylan was a friend of mine. I’m very sorry for your loss, ma’am.”
Her eyes begin to water as her head bobs up and down in silent thanks. “It was terrible. He survived so many years in the war and then he was shot in a tattoo parlor, right here in his own city.” She produces a tissue from a pocket and blows her nose. “Would you like to come in for coffee?”
That was even easier than I had expected.
“Here he is, receiving his medal.” She taps on the picture of her son, shaking hands with the president. “I never saw his father more proud of Dylan than on that day. When he passed away six months later, it was as a happy man.”
“I can understand why.” An hour after sitting down to a pot of hot coffee, listening patiently as a devastated mother showcases his local hero medals, and his time as a volunteer firefighter, with letters from little girls and boys who thanked him for saving their kittens from trees and dogs from house fires; a picture of a baby he delivered on the side of the freeway. To top it all off, the highest medal that anyone can receive.
I’m now all but convinced that Royce was not the troublemaker that Bentley painted him as. And if he was, it’s probably because he didn’t agree with what he was seeing over there.
And that is what got him killed.
And no one will ever know the truth, thanks to me.
I’m not sure what I expected to feel after I confirmed this hunch, but it’s not this sickly pain in the pit of my stomach.
His mom sniffles. “As much as I hated what happened to Dylan and Jasmine, I was so happy to have him back home for a while, to help me with cutting the grass and taking out the trash, all those house things. Taking care of this house is a lot of work for just me.”
I glance around at the small tidy house, in need of a good purge that I’m guessing won’t happen until after she’s gone. “Do you have any family in the area?”
She shakes her head. “My sister lives near Syracuse with her kids. They asked me to move there, but I can’t handle the snow. So it’s just me and Fefe now.” At the sound of her name, the little dog runs up to paw at her thigh. Royce’s
mom leans over and scoops her up, giving the top of her head a kiss. “I can’t thank you enough. Had I lost her, too, I don’t know that I could handle it.”
“My pleasure, ma’am. Glad I could help.” This woman has helped—and burdened—me so much more.
“Isn’t that right, Fefe? You should say thank you to this man.” Royce’s mother looks up at me and smiles. “She just loves company. The detective on the case has been over a few times and she’s always at his ankles.”
I fight to keep my face calm, curious. So Fields has been here? “Have they told you whether they have any leads?”
She shakes her head through a sip of coffee. “They don’t seem to know anything. At first they said it was a robbery. Then they said it was likely a disagreement between the shop owner and someone. And then, just a few days ago, that Detective Fields started asking questions about Dylan’s old job at that company.”
“Alliance.”
“Yes. Them.”
“Are they thinking this is related to his old job?” This could just be routine questioning. This detective may just be doing his job thoroughly.
“They’re looking at all possibilities, he told me.” She shrugs. “He took my album, though. The one I made with all the pictures Dylan sent me over the years while on deployment. He promised he’d give it back to me when he’s done. It’s all I really have left of my son.”
A sinking feeling hits my stomach. “Pictures of him with the Marines?”
“Yes.” She smiles sadly. “He knew I loved getting pictures from him, seeing him safe and sound. Most times he’d just email them over, but I’d print them out and put them in this big square scrapbook. He kept doing it while he was at Alliance, though he wasn’t sending nearly as many pictures by the end.”
Which means there’s a chance that Fields now has an album with pictures of both Mario and Ricky.
Fuck. If he puts two and two together, then Ivy’s eyewitness testimony is all the more important.
And it makes her a threat to them.
And to Bentley.
It’ll take Fields time, though, to do that. Unless a Mario is named in that album. Then it won’t take much time at all. “I wonder if Dylan sent you a picture of us . . .”
Her face crinkles into a smile. “Oh, I don’t know. I’ll be sure to check the pictures more carefully when I get it back. I don’t remember seeing any Johns in there, but of course, he rarely included names.”
Okay. If Dylan’s mom didn’t identify them by name, then that may buy me some more time. I reach over to grab a pen. On the corner of the newspaper, I jot down my new cell number. “If you need some help, please give me a call.”
“I’ll call you when I get my album back. Thank you, John. That’s so kind of you. All of you boys have been so good to me, coming by to visit.”
“Family is important to all of us.” I smile and feel like a complete hypocrite.
I say my good-byes and leave, my guilt over being involved with this cover-up growing with each step.
TWENTY-NINE
IVY
“Rough morning?” I ask, eying Sebastian’s stony face from the passenger side. Considering he left my bed at five this morning after logging in eleven hours of sleep and getting laid—repeatedly—he should be outright chipper, not in this mercurial mood.
Which makes me wonder where he goes when he’s not with me.
My distrustful side tells me he goes home to a girlfriend. Maybe they’re on the outs, but still . . . that shit ain’t cool. I push those thoughts out of my head, though. They’re a sign of insecurity, which is the last thing I will let creep in.
“Have you ever had someone you trust completely betray you?” he asks softly. I don’t think he meant to say that out loud, though, because when I turn to study him, he’s clamped his mouth shut.
I can’t help staring at his profile for a long moment. He shaved off his short beard, and he looks very different. Younger. No less handsome, though I can’t decide which look I prefer.
“I don’t think I’ve ever trusted someone completely.” Except maybe Ned, and look where that got me, because I trusted him not to do something so stupid as to get himself shot.
“There’s something for you on the backseat,” Sebastian says, abruptly changing the topic.
I turn to find a small white Macy’s bag sitting there. With a frown, I loop my finger around the string to grab it. Inside is a brand-new bottle of my favorite perfume.
“I figured you needed another one.”
“Yeah. I did. But . . . how did you know which one?”
“I took the lid with me yesterday.”
“Sneaky.” I didn’t notice. “So you really like it or is this a subtle hint?”
He smirks. “I really like it.”
“Thanks.” I guess I know what he was doing for part of this morning, at least. I tuck the gift into my purse. “When do you think you’ll need to go back to work?”
“I’m taking some time off. A few more weeks, at least.”
“So this isn’t just a normal vacation?”
“Considering I’m about to spend another day cleaning up a ransacked house, I’d say that it’s definitely not a normal vacation.”
I reach over to pat his knee—affectionate gestures are not really my thing, but I desperately want to touch him—and offer, “I appreciate the help. Thank you.”
He traps my hand beneath his before I have a chance to pull it back, curling his fingers between mine as he makes a turn into the neighborhood.
“You know, every time we turn down here now, I keep thinking that I hope whoever did this to the house found what they were looking for. I hope they never come back.”
“If they do, then I guess it’s good you have me here.”
I roll my eyes. “I told you, you’re not my bodyguard.”
“So you say . . .” The tiny smirk curling his lips is adorable.
“I’m not paying you.” I pause. “Unless you’re taking sexual favors for payment.”
His gaze veers off the street to settle on me for a moment. “I’m not opposed to that arrangement.”
A bubble of nerves bursts in my stomach. He doesn’t sound like he’s planning on leaving me anytime soon.
The bubble is quashed the second we turn the corner to find three guys on Harleys parked outside the house.
I recognize the blond beard immediately. “What the hell is Bobby doing here?”
“Stay put,” Sebastian says, throwing the car in Park. He slips his gun out from his boot and tucks it into the back of his pants.
I open the door and climb out, my adrenaline pumping. He sighs with exasperation, but he doesn’t scold me. He knows better.
We meet behind Sebastian’s car and walk together toward Bobby, who’s climbed off his bike.
“Nice shiner,” I say, nodding at the prominent black-and-purple bruise marring Bobby’s left eye. Curtains in several windows of wary neighbors across the street shift. I wonder how long I’ve had bikers sitting outside Ned’s house.
“What are you doing here?” Sebastian asks in an icy tone, his gaze shifting to size up the other guys—the two from yesterday. Another guy I’ve never seen before steps out from a pickup truck parked along the curb.
Four against one. I don’t like these odds.
“We came to offer a hand.” Bobby looks directly at me, ignoring Sebastian. “Ned was family to us, which means you’re family, too. Carl over there,” he points to the guy who got out of the truck, “does plaster. You need someone who knows what they’re doing for that.”
“Did Moe send you?”
Bobby’s lip twitches just slightly. “Maybe.”
I heave a sigh. I’m not in a position to tell them to go to hell, even though I’m still pissed at Bobby for leaving me in the dark about Ned’s gambling situation. “Great. We can use all the help we can get.” Spearing Sebastian with a warning glare and a whispered hiss of “Don’t beat them up again” just loud enough that Bobby ca
n hear it—for ego-bruising purposes—we head into the house.
THIRTY
SEBASTIAN
It’s been a long time since I sat on a front porch with a cold beer, watching the sun set after hours of hard manual labor.
I forgot how good this feels.
Dean and Thomas—the guys I knocked out yesterday—are loading the last of the debris into the back of the truck. That’s the third trip to the dump for them today. They’ve stayed out of my way for the most part. All of them have.
“So, if we come back here tomorrow, will you be here?” Bobby asks.
I roll my eyes through another sip. Dakota showed up about an hour ago with a twelve-pack of Coronas and some homemade muffins that Ivy interrogated her over before allowing her to hand them out. Bobby and his guys have been trailing her around like lost puppies after their owner, and she’s happily let them, flicking her hair over her shoulder, showing off the tattoo Ivy just did for her.
“I guess you’ll have to come back and help Ivy to find out, won’t you?” Dakota laughs. It’s such a soft, seductive laugh. I have to hand it to her—she knows how to manipulate men into getting what she wants, and right now that’s helping her friend fix this house.
“Oh, we’ll be here until this place is as good as new. Don’t you worry.” The dumbass is falling right into her trap.
“Good.” Her sandals slide against the concrete steps as she makes her way down to sit beside me. “How’s that beer?”
“Nice and cold. Thanks.”
She smiles boldly at me. If it were anyone else, I’d say she was flirting, but I don’t think that’s the case with her. Glancing over her shoulder, she murmurs, “Who knew these bikers could be good for something besides causing trouble?”