Dirty Devil

by Liliana Hart

  Dirty Devil

  A J.J. Graves Mystery

  Liliana Hart

  Also by Liliana Hart

  JJ Graves Mystery Series

  Dirty Little Secrets

  A Dirty Shame

  Dirty Rotten Scoundrel

  Down and Dirty

  Dirty Deeds

  Dirty Laundry

  Dirty Money

  A Dirty Job

  Dirty Devil

  Playing Dirty

  * * *

  The MacKenzies of Montana

  Dane’s Return

  Thomas’s Vow

  Riley’s Sanctuary

  Cooper’s Promise

  Grant’s Christmas Wish

  Jayden’s Hope

  The MacKenzies Boxset

  * * *

  MacKenzie Security Series

  Seduction and Sapphires

  Shadows and Silk

  Secrets and Satin

  Sins and Scarlet Lace

  Sizzle

  Crave

  Scorch

  MacKenzie Security Omnibus 1

  MacKenzie Security Omnibus 2

  * * *

  Lawmen of Surrender (MacKenzies-1001 Dark Nights)

  1001 Dark Nights: Captured in Surrender

  1001 Dark Nights: The Promise of Surrender

  1001 Dark Nights: Sweet Surrender

  1001 Dark Nights: Dawn of Surrender

  * * *

  The MacKenzie World (read in any order)

  Trouble Maker

  Bullet Proof

  Deep Trouble

  Delta Rescue

  Desire and Ice

  Rush

  Spies and Stilettos

  Wicked Hot

  Hot Witness

  Avenged

  Never Surrender

  * * *

  Addison Holmes Mystery Series

  Whiskey Rebellion

  Whiskey Sour

  Whiskey For Breakfast

  Whiskey, You’re The Devil

  Whiskey on the Rocks

  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

  Whiskey and Gunpowder

  * * *

  The Gravediggers

  The Darkest Corner

  Gone to Dust

  Say No More

  * * *

  Stand Alone Titles

  Breath of Fire

  Kill Shot

  Catch Me If You Can

  All About Eve

  Paradise Disguised

  Island Home

  The Witching Hour

  * * *

  Books by Liliana Hart and Scott Silverii

  The Harley and Davidson Mystery Series

  The Farmer’s Slaughter

  A Tisket a Casket

  I Saw Mommy Killing Santa Claus

  Get Your Murder Running

  Deceased and Desist

  Malice In Wonderland

  Tequila Mockingbird

  Gone With the Sin

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Untitled

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

  Playing Dirty

  About the Author

  Also by Liliana Hart

  Copyright © 2020 by Liliana Hart

  All rights reserved.

  * * *

  Published by 7th Press

  Dallas, TX 75115

  * * *

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  To my readers—may you find peace, joy and escape between the pages of a book.

  Acknowledgments

  A huge thanks to my editors, Imogen Howson and Anne Welch, and my cover designers, Damon Freeman and Dar Albert.

  And always, thank you, Scott. You’re the best partner, husband, sounding board, and police consultant a woman could ask for.

  Any mistakes are mine alone.

  What flocks of critics hover here to-day,

  As vultures wait on armies for their prey,

  All gaping for the carcase of a play!

  With croaking notes they bode some dire event,

  And follow dying poets by the scent.

  * * *

  John Dryden

  Prologue

  John Donnelly liked a good drink. And if the drink was whiskey, even better.

  The Judge’s Chamber was barely half full on a Wednesday night, but it was the only place in King George County to get a decent drink without being hassled. And boy, did he deserve a drink after the day he’d had.

  The plaintiff had crumbled beautifully on the stand. And if John had a soul, the tears she’d shed would have bothered him. But he’d sold his soul a long time ago. His client was guilty as hell, but it was never about guilt or innocence—lies or truth. It wasn’t even about the victim or the accused.

  It was about the game.

  It was the skill, the intelligence, and the outmaneuvering of his opponent that made his blood sing. He’d learned over his thirty-plus years in law that the truth rarely mattered. Money, power, cunning…that’s what separated the men from the boys.

  It didn’t bother him that he was drinking alone. It was par for the course. He liked the solitude and the silence before going home to Kimmie, where Lord knew she’d talk him to death about whatever it was she did all day. He found it best to go into conversations with her with his brain numb.

  The Judge’s Chamber was the best the county had to offer. It was considered high class among the locals, despite the scratched hardwood floors and the eclectic décor—from antlers of various sizes and species to a framed replica of the Constitution and a moth-eaten wig supposedly worn by Charles Henry, who was one of King George’s first judges—though he was eventually hanged for treason. There was history and tradition here, and Virginians loved both.

  John sat in his usual place at the end of the long mahogany bar, so he could see everyone coming in and going out. There’d been times in his career he’d been threatened, and sometimes the victims he’d trampled wanted to confront him or try to guilt him into doing the right thing. He snorted a laugh into his tumbler. His own mother couldn’t have guilted him into doing the right thing unless the price was right.

  Lightning flashed bright white through the distorted glass in the windows, but no one paid much attention. Weather couldn’t chase away the regulars who came to drown their pain.

  Officers Mahoney, Durrant, Cole, and Smith were huddled together at a corner table, laughing at whatever inside joke had been shared, their empty bottles multiplying with impressive speed. They were off duty, but there was no question they were cops. Cops always stuck together, and they didn’t welcome outsiders crashing their party. That particular crew had been in more frequently since they’d lost one of their own several months back.

  Junie Ward sat in her regular spot, staring out the window and nursing a Jack and Coke, her worn boots propped up on the chair across from her. She’d never been right in the head after her family had been killed when a bridge collapsed on their car. She’d gotten a
huge settlement, but you’d never know it by looking at her. Most people who didn’t know better thought she was homeless. She hadn’t stepped foot in a car since the accident, so she’d shuffle around town or stand on the edge of the bridge looking out over the river for hours at a time. He’d never given it much thought as to how she’d get home from the bar, especially with the weather as bad as it was. But clearly, she managed somehow.

  He shrugged Junie off as his gaze passed over a couple he’d never seen before having a whispered argument. They didn’t look like locals. They looked city polished, so they were either lost, trying to wait out the storm, or visiting someone.

  “I heard you killed it today in court,” Mike Costello said, polishing a glass from behind the bar.

  Mike was a decent guy. He was short and built like a bull, his neck so thick there probably wasn’t a button-down shirt in creation that would fit him. His dark hair was thinning on top, but he kept it cropped so close to his head it hardly mattered. With the hair he lacked on top of his head, it was more than made up for on the rest of his body. His arms were covered in dark wiry hair, and a small tuft sprouted from the top of his T-shirt.

  “It was a slam dunk,” John said, pushing his glass back across the bar for a refill. “My client was cleared of all charges, I get a big fat check, and Kimmie and I are headed to Aruba to celebrate in a few days. She’s been bugging me for months to take a vacation.”

  “Didn’t Kimmie just get back from Paris?”

  John rolled his eyes. “I didn’t say she needed a vacation. I said she’s been begging me to take one. She likes to take her shopping trips, but she says it doesn’t count as a vacation. Go figure on that one.”

  “Ah, the logic of a woman,” Mike said, his grin showing a chipped front tooth. “I could be wrong, but I don’t think you hooked up with her for her brains.”

  John snorted again. “Lord, isn’t that the truth. The only place that woman is useful is in a mall or in bed. But when I send her on her trips, it keeps her out of my hair. And it makes her happy. When she’s happy, then she keeps me happy. Everybody wins.”

  “Spoken like a man who learned something from his divorces,” Mike said, chuckling.

  John toasted his friend in acknowledgment. “Ah, marriage, the most expensive life sentence on the planet.”

  “Only when they find out you’re spending all the money on your sidepiece.”

  John smiled. His divorces had been no secret. In fact, his second divorce had made quite a splash across the media. Christine had been right pissed to find out he’d been cheating on her, and she’d packed up her stuff and the kids, and then set his stuff on fire on the front lawn on her way out. He hadn’t been quite as successful back then as he was now. It was all water under the bridge, but the alimony and child support had still stung.

  “Life without danger isn’t a life worth living,” John said.

  He and Mike had started their careers around the same time, though Mike was a good ten years younger than he was. He’d never really had friends, but if there was anyone he’d call in a pinch it would be Mike. Law and order. They’d both believed in it once upon a time. He remembered the good old days, when they’d been naïve enough to think they could help victims and clean up the city, though John had been young and naïve at the DA’s office and Mike had been a patrolman working the streets.

  But dreams changed.

  Mike hadn’t planned on taking a bullet to the knee after a dozen years on the job. It was only good luck he hadn’t eaten a bullet to escape his misery. Instead, he’d cashed out his pension to buy land and open a bar in the middle of nowhere. It had turned out to be a good business decision, because developers had come in to buy up a bunch of the land and paid him a fortune for it. Now there were rows of tract houses and a strip mall a couple miles down the road, and Mike was loaded.

  John could sympathize with the temptation to play Russian roulette with one’s life—to wonder if everyone would be better off without you—or if death could really chase away the pain. He’d thought about it himself a time or two. But when it came down to it, he was just too selfish. He had no interest in finding out what waited for him in the great beyond. He enjoyed the alcohol and the women and his work. He couldn’t imagine there was much better for him in the afterlife.

  This life was the only one he could control. And when things got hard, the alcohol did a pretty good job of numbing the things he didn’t want to think about. It just so happened he’d picked the right profession. Criminals were like cockroaches, and he’d learned fast that it was better to look out for himself and line his pockets than have some altruistic notion of serving the greater good.

  He didn’t care what anyone said, money made everything better. His wives had certainly thought so over the decade or so he’d been married to each of them. He couldn’t even blame them for taking the kids and moving on with their lives. They’d ended up buying houses next door to each other on a cul-de-sac so the kids could all stay close.

  And now he had Kimmie. She was twenty-two, younger than his four children, and built like a pinup. She didn’t care what he looked like, what hours he worked, or what he wanted her to do in the bedroom, as long as she had access to his credit cards.

  A crack of thunder boomed loud enough to shake the rafters, and conversations died down as the lights dimmed briefly before coming back to full brightness. The rain was getting steadily worse, and if the color of the sky was anything to go by, all hell was about to break loose.

  He pushed his empty glass back across the bar and tossed down a fifty. He was feeling generous, especially since Mike always made sure his glass stayed full.

  “You heading out?” Mike asked, wiping down the other end of the bar.

  “Weather is getting worse,” he said, struggling into the overcoat he’d placed on the seat next to him.

  “Tell me about it,” Mike said. “I’m shutting down before too long. Chance of tornadoes in the area tonight. Things are looking real bad.”

  “Sounds like a good night to stay in,” John said, waggling his eyebrows. “You got any of that fancy bubbly back there? Kimmie doesn’t know it yet, but she’s going to want to celebrate my big win. I bought her a little black number I’ve been waiting to give her for a special occasion.”

  “Careful, man,” Mike said, grinning. “That girl is going to give you a heart attack.”

  He shrugged. “There are worse ways to die.”

  “The champagne will set you back two hundred,” Mike said. “I’ve got a couple of bottles left.”

  “I’ll take them both,” John said, opening up his wallet and counting out the cash.

  Mike raised his brows. “That little black number must be worth it.”

  John smiled and it took him two attempts to put his wallet in his coat pocket. He needed to get back in the gym. This last case had taken it out of him. Appearances were important, and he could admit he’d put on a few extra pounds around the middle over the last couple of months. A little exercise was just the ticket. What the hell did his doctor know, anyway? His health was just fine.

  “Take my advice, Mikey, and find you a young one,” he said. “They’re worth every penny, and you’ll die a happy man.”

  “I’m pretty sure Cathy would be the only one who was happy while she was murdering me,” Mike said, chuckling. “And knowing Cathy, it would be painful.”

  John shrugged philosophically. He figured Mike and Cathy had been married going on thirty years now. He wasn’t jealous. Sometimes he wondered what his life would have been like if he’d been a better husband and father, but he tried not to have regrets. He’d accepted his life, and it was what it was. He was happy. And when Kimmie was gone—as she inevitably would be once she realized he was serious about never getting married again—then he’d replace her with whatever Tiffany or Brittany or Jackie was waiting in line to warm his bed.

  “Here you go,” Mike said, coming out of the back room and handing him the two bottles. Then h
e lowered his voice and nodded at the group of cops in the corner. “Be careful as you pass Broken Bow Road. They’ve got a speed trap set up because people keep running the stop sign.”

  John grunted in acknowledgment. “I’ll take my chances. I’ve never met a cop who would leave the warmth of his car and get out in the rain because someone ran a stop sign.”

  “You know Jack Lawson doesn’t put up with any of that stuff,” Mike said.

  His lips tightened in annoyance. The sheriff wasn’t someone who could be bought off. Political pressure could be applied if it came down to it, of course, but even he knew it’d be foolish to wave a red flag in front of Jack Lawson. It was a crying shame, because with Lawson—and Lawson’s money—in his pocket, they could’ve run the whole county and most of the state.

  “Thanks for the drink,” John said.

  He made his way past the group of cops, feeling their eyes on him as he pushed the swinging door open and walked into the vestibule. The temperature immediately dropped, but the whiskey was still warming his blood so he didn’t bother trying to button his coat.

  The rain wasn’t going to let up anytime soon, so he tightened his grip on the champagne bottles and pushed open the outer door. The wind blew fiercely, causing him to stumble backward, and cold rain slashed across his face. Water dripped into his eyes, and slid down the neck of his coat, snaking down his back.