by Karen Rose
Silas lowered his rifle as Grayson Smith drove away. He looked down at his shaking hands. He’d had Paige in his sights for a brief moment.
But he hadn’t been able to pull the trigger. He’d seen them drive up to Delgado’s house as he was driving away. He’d followed them here, to this burger joint, waiting for his clear shot. He’d failed this morning. He needed to make that right. Regain trust.
But Paige had stayed down. Smart girl. That they’d brought in the cop dismayed him on too many levels. When his employer found out, it would be far worse. Hopefully the man had a Plan B, or they were all going down.
Silas calmed himself. His employer always had a Plan B, as did Silas.
That’s how Silas himself had become entangled with the man, after all. His employer had been Silas’s Plan B. Now I’m his. For the rest of my life.
He’d had a clear shot for a single moment, when Smith had pulled her from the car and into his arms. But the look on her face had shaken him. She’d been so valiant, all day, through everything. But in that moment she’d been devastated. Afraid.
Silas’s hand had trembled. Then he couldn’t take the shot without hitting the prosecutor, too. His employer would have been fine with the collateral damage. But Silas couldn’t bring himself to do that, either.
He’d never killed a friend. Not yet. But that might have to change.
He brought out the picture he always carried next to his heart. His little girl smiled out at him, one tooth missing, a smudge of chocolate ice cream on her chin. He rubbed the heel of his hand over his aching heart. Cherri had been five and it had been the Fourth of July, twenty long years ago. The picture was faded now, its edges worn from constant handling.
I miss you, baby. Every damn day of my life.
He slid the photo back in his pocket and flipped open his phone. His baby’s baby smiled at him now. Violet had Cherri’s smile. He’d keep his granddaughter safe. He’d make sure she never found out the truth.
Even if that meant killing a valiant woman who’d done nothing more than be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even if that meant killing a friend.
I failed again. At least his employer didn’t have to know about this one.
Silas put his rifle back in its case and, shifting his focus to his next assignment, picked up the picture he’d printed from the Internet. Roscoe “Jesse” James was an ugly sonofabitch who’d taken way too many punches to the head over his fighting career.
James had been arrested many times, but always managed to skate. He was just one lucky sonofabitch. Silas chuckled bitterly. James’s luck was about to run out.
Tuesday, April 5, 8:15 p.m.
He lowered his binoculars as Silas drove away. Busy parking lot tonight, he thought wryly. He shook a cigarette from the pack and lit it, inhaling deeply.
He’d learned more than he’d planned. He’d learned that Paige Holden really did know something. He’d learned that they’d called in a cop on the Q.T. Not good.
It meant they knew cops were involved—otherwise Miss Holden would have handed over whatever she’d found to the police that morning. Mazzetti had been a good choice on their part. She was… untouchable. He should know. He’d tried, long ago. She hadn’t taken the bait. She was one of those foul creatures—an honest cop.
He’d also learned that there was definitely something going on between Holden and Smith. He’d figured it after seeing the news, but now he knew for sure. That was especially useful. Smith had a family. Men with families were so… easily persuaded.
And finally, he’d learned what he’d actually come for. Silas is getting soft. He’d suspected it for some time. He’d followed Silas, to find out for sure. That he’d balked over killing Roscoe James was bad enough. That Silas looked ill after leaving Delgado’s house was worse. But then he’d had Holden and Smith in his sights and he’d choked.
The boy needs a refresher course. That would be easy enough to provide. And if the refresher didn’t work, he had no compunction in following through with his threat.
Now he needed to decide what to do about Holden and Smith. He considered briefly, then made his decision and took out his phone.
The call was immediately picked up. “Well?”
“The cops are involved now,” he said.
“You said you’d fixed it so they’d never find out.”
“Well, unfortunately they did. We always knew positioning Ramon Muñoz to take the blame wasn’t guaranteed. We need to move to our alternate plan.”
There was a long, tense silence. “Damn that bitch. She should have left it alone.”
He wasn’t sure if the reference was to Elena or Crystal Jones. “Are you agreed?”
“Yes.” The word was bitten out. “Do what you have to do. Just fix it.”
The connection was abruptly broken, leaving him staring at his phone. “I always do.”
Tuesday, April 5, 9:00 p.m.
Paige was quiet as she walked Peabody up to her apartment. Grayson stayed a step behind to cover her. He’d walk her dog once she was safely inside.
He was on alert, listening for the smallest noise. But the stairwell was empty and by the second flight he found his eyes straying to the view provided by the skintight pants she wore. From this angle he could see the shadow of her glutes flexing with every step she took. That she wore three guns and five knives under all those clothes made the overall picture even more appealing.
When they got to her front door, his focus was shifted jarringly back to her safety. She’d taken every precaution, he thought grimly. Third-floor unit, steel door, three new dead bolts. Not to mention a large dog and a veritable arsenal on her person. That she felt she needed all those precautions made him angry all over again.
“The dead bolts are probably overkill,” she said quietly, “but it makes me feel better.”
“Then it’s not overkill,” he said and a smile tipped her lips.
Once they were inside, she locked the three dead bolts, then dropped her backpack on an old-fashioned secretary desk. “Make yourself comfortable,” she said and went to the kitchen, leaving him to study her apartment, surprised.
He’d expected a sleekly modern look. Instead, she’d surrounded herself with brightly painted antiques that made him think of lederhosen and cuckoo clocks.
A large antique-looking pie safe dominated one wall in her living room, again surprising him. Her place had an old-time, prairie feel that he wouldn’t have paired with the woman he knew. But oddly, it suited her. It was comfortable. Homey. He sat on her sofa, relieved to find it comfortable as well. He’d be able to sleep here. His eye drifted down the hall to what was most certainly her bedroom. Her bed would be a hell of a lot more comfortable than the sofa. But once he got there, he wouldn’t sleep.
And neither would she.
The buzzing in his pants pocket startled him until he remembered he’d never given her back the disposable cell she’d dropped in the garage. “Your disposable is ringing.”
“It’s Clay.” She rushed from the kitchen, her hand outstretched. He tossed her the phone and she flipped it open. “It’s me,” she answered. “Where are you?”
Her face grew dark and angry. “What a bitch.” She closed her eyes. “Yeah, we saw him. He was dead.” She met Grayson’s eyes. “He brought in a cop that he trusts. You recall a Detective Mazzetti?… I promise I’ll be careful. Call me when you’ve got Zach.”
“Zach’s the one whose mother took him,” Grayson said. “What’s the mother done?”
“She wants ten thousand from Zach’s dad for returning their six-year-old, safe.”
“After all these years, I’m still occasionally stunned at what parents do to their kids.”
Paige shrugged. “It’s the drugs. They’ll do anything, say anything, for the drugs. Because reality is that they love themselves and the drugs more than their kids.”
There was a hard yet wistful note to her voice. Grayson had talked to enough kids of addict parents to know he was l
istening to one right now. He followed her into the kitchen, where she was putting a kettle on the stove.
“I’m making tea. Would you like some?”
“Sure.” He leaned against the doorframe, watched her spoon tea into a pot. “Your decor surprises me. I wouldn’t have pictured you as the Little House type.”
Her lips curved fondly. “My grandfather made the cupboard and my desk. His grandfather made the table. I’m the end of a very long line of Minnesotan Norwegians.”
He laughed. “You’re kidding. Norwegian would have been my last guess.”
Her chin lifted, ever so slightly. “Because of my hair?”
He moved closer, stroked her hair down her back. “And your eyes,” he said softly.
Her cheeks heated. “Blond Norwegians are something of a stereotype,” she said lightly. “There are dark ones, too. Just not in my family,” she added ruefully.
“Your mother was blond?”
Her hands stilled on the teacups she’d just taken from the cupboard. “Yeah.”
“And your father?” He was snooping now, but he wanted to know.
“Don’t know,” she said tightly. “Never met him. Would you like some pie?”
Not the most elegant of subject changes, but he went with it. “Did you make it?”
She glanced up at him. “I did. I’m not the chef Brian is, but I make a very good pie.”
“Then, yes, please.” She put slices in the oven, then returned the rest to the refrigerator. “Wait. If you keep pie in the fridge, what’s in the pie safe in the living room?”
“Come see.” She brushed by him, unzipping her jacket as she went and he let out a breath. The tight black sweater left very little to the imagination. Mutely he followed, his hands itching to touch.
She opened the pie safe doors, revealing a tall gun safe inside. “My friend made it for me for Christmas.” She punched in the combination so quickly he missed it.
Well, that wasn’t exactly true. He missed it because he’d been staring at her breasts and he thought she was very aware of that fact. “Your friend is a carpenter?”
“No, he’s a firefighter. But David does a little bit of everything on the side.” Paige pointed to a framed photo on a shelf. “That’s him.”
He studied the photo, hating the jealousy that instantly rose within him. The man standing next to Paige could have been a model. Together they made a beautiful couple. Both wore gis and black belts.
“He’s a black belt, too.”
Of course he is.
“David’s married to my best friend, Olivia,” she said and he felt better as the jealousy melted away.
“The friend who stopped the guy who came back,” he said and her eyes shuttered.
“Yes.” She checked her watch with a grimace. “I was supposed to call her two hours ago to let her know I’m okay. She worries. I hate that she feels she has to.”
“Did you introduce them?”
“No, she met David through her family. I met him through my old dojo.” She removed the shoulder holster. “He was my uke when I taught my self-defense classes.”
“What’s an uke?” he asked.
She unloaded her Glock and placed it in the safe. “An uke is the receiver in martial arts. He let my students practice on him. He had a way of making them feel at ease.”
“You miss him.”
She dropped to one knee and loosened her boots enough to remove the small pistol she’d concealed. “Every day. He and Olivia and Brie are my best friends.”
“Where was he the night of your attack?”
She put the small gun in the safe. “On his honeymoon. He and Olivia cut their trip short the moment they heard.”
“Why did you leave Minneapolis? If your friends are there, why come here?”
Her jaw tightened, her hand stilling on the safe’s door. “I was suffocating.”
The teakettle whistled and she closed the gun safe before hurrying to the kitchen. He noticed she’d kept the small pistol holstered at her back. He wondered if she always felt the need to be armed in her own home or if today was especially terrifying.
He had a feeling it was the first one. Which made him wonder what, or who, it would take to make her feel safe again.
Tuesday, April 5, 9:20 p.m.
Paige dialed Olivia on her cell phone as she turned off the burner under the kettle. She braced herself for another tirade and once again was not disappointed.
“You never call, never write,” Olivia said sarcastically.
“I’m fine,” she said, forcing her voice to at least sound calm. Being around Grayson Smith was making her edgy.
“How many stitches?” Olivia asked and Paige knew she’d seen the garage video.
“Fifteen.”
Olivia sighed. “Did they catch the bastard?”
“Not yet. And frankly I’ve been a little too busy to even worry about it.”
There was a long, long pause. “What the hell is going on there, Paige?”
Paige rubbed her forehead and told it all again, from Maria hiring her, to Delgado.
“I can be there tomorrow,” Olivia said. “Noah’s already said he can cover our caseload and David’s all but bought plane tickets for me and Brie.”
Just hearing their names made Paige so homesick her stomach hurt. Noah was Olivia’s partner and his wife, Eve, had been one of Paige’s best students. And having Olivia and Brie here… it would have been like old times.
Except not. If she could go back to the time before last summer, she would have in a heartbeat. But all Paige could see was the worry in her friends’ eyes. It was one of the many things that had been suffocating her. “Not yet. I’ll let you know if I need you.”
“No, you won’t,” Olivia said harshly. “Because you turtle. You’ve been turtling for nine goddamn months. You pull your head back under your shell and shut us all out. Why won’t you let me help you?”
Olivia was right. Didn’t mean Paige knew how to fix it. “I’m okay. I’ve got help.”
“The prosecutor. I could see that he was helping.”
Paige’s cheeks burned. “If he hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have gotten away.”
“Fifteen stitches. I saw the tape. Why didn’t you tell me about him?”
There was hurt in her friend’s voice that Paige wouldn’t have put there for the world. “I just met him today and that’s the truth.”
“Oh. That’s… I’m not sure what that is.”
“Me either,” she said, turning to find Grayson at the window, looking at the parking lot through the blinds. He still wore a suit, although he’d tugged the tie loose. His coat had to have been custom-made, his shoulders too broad for off-the-rack. He stood still, a fine tension around him. He was ready. For what she wasn’t certain.
Unfortunately she was ready, too. And she knew exactly for what.
“Just don’t rush into anything,” Olivia said, as if reading her thoughts.
“I’m not stupid, Liv,” she whispered. “I’ve stayed on the Waiting for Mr. Right Express for eighteen fucking months. I’m not going to jump ship today.” Maybe tomorrow, but not today.
“Or eighteen no-fucking months, as it were,” Olivia said dryly, then sighed. “I just want you to be okay. We all do. We’re scared and we feel helpless.”
“And I love you all for it. Truly. I’ll call you tomorrow. I promise.”
“If you don’t, I’m buying those plane tickets. Is the prosecutor with you now?”
“Yes.” He’d left the window and was back in the kitchen, where he watched her, a frown line bisecting his forehead. She wanted to smooth it away but didn’t trust herself to touch. He was too much, too soon. And when he held her it felt too damn good. “I’m safe,” she told Olivia. “I have to go, but I will call if I need you. You have my word.” She hung up and met Grayson’s avidly curious stare. “My friends worry. It makes me crazy.”
“Doesn’t your family worry?”
She took their pie fro
m the oven and slipped by him to put it on the table. “My grandparents raised me and they’re both gone. So it’s just friends left to worry. Come and eat some of this pie so I don’t feel so guilty for eating dessert instead of dinner.”
He looked like he had more questions, but asked no more. “It smells good.”
“Tastes better. Can you get my backpack? I’d like to work on that trial transcript.”
“I can start on the files, Paige. You need to sleep.”
She shook her head. “I can’t sleep. I close my eyes and see Delgado. And Elena. The hours are slipping away. I need to do something.”
“Then let’s start looking at Crystal Jones. But first let’s eat. I didn’t know I was hungry until I smelled the pie.”
And I didn’t know how much I’d missed a man’s touch until you held me. Now she wanted more. A lot more. And that could be worse for her than eating dessert for dinner.
Tuesday, April 5, 9:35 p.m.
Grayson took the Muñoz file from his gym bag, leaving the file Daphne had compiled on Paige. He’d look at it later, when Paige was asleep.
The trial transcript sat on the table in front of her, a spiral notebook next to it. She’d already filled several pages of the notebook with shorthand, surprising him.
“Why do you know shorthand?” he asked.
“I was a paralegal for several years. I transcribed depositions and did some low-key investigation.” She waited a beat. “I even worked for the defense for a while.”
He wasn’t as surprised as she apparently thought he’d be. “Were they all innocent?”
“Hell, no. They were all guilty as sin. I didn’t work for that law office for long.”
“Did you ever work for the prosecution?”
“No. I worked for a family-law firm, doing a lot of the same things for them that I do for Clay. Taking pictures of cheating spouses, et cetera.”
“Did you ever think about going to law school?”
“Only every day at the beginning. But that required money for university and I could only afford community college.” She tapped the transcript. “Just like Crystal Jones.”
“Your avoidance of my questions is improving,” he said.
Her glance was rueful, then she sobered as she began to read from her notes. “Crystal Jones, age twenty, went to a party on the night of September eighteen. She was discovered the next morning in the garden shed by one of the gardeners—not Ramon, who had not yet arrived to work. Crystal had been stabbed three times and there were ligature marks around her throat. Her dress was pulled up to her waist, her upper body exposed.”