by Sybil Bartel
“I’ll wait.”
“It could be awhile.”
“I’ll hold.”
“Your name, sir?”
“Sam Archer.” The lie rolled off my tongue.
“Thank you, Mr. Archer. I’m putting you on hold.”
For two minutes I listened to a recording about the thoroughness of Avis Investigations, then a street-hardened voice came on the line.
“Mr. Archer, I don’t believe we’ve met. This is Mike Avis. What can I do for you?”
“You’ve met my wife, Nicole Archer.”
“I can neither confirm nor deny my client list, Mr. Archer. I’m sure you can appreciate that.”
I made up a bullshit identity. “It’s Sergeant Major Archer, United States Marine Corps. And I’m sure you can appreciate that while I’m on deployment, it becomes a delicate situation dealing with a wife who calls a private investigator this morning only hours after learning her ex-boyfriend is dead at the hands of his father. So I’m asking, as a favor, to know what that conversation was about.”
Avis sighed. “First, sir, I would like to thank you for your service.”
Asshole. “It’s an honor to serve.”
“Yes, well, that said, you’ve put me in an awkward position.”
He should’ve told me to fuck off. The fact that he didn’t would work to my advantage but it earned him a spot on my shit list for his lack of ethics. “Then may I suggest we speak hypothetically, off the record? I’ll pay you for your time.”
“No, no need to pay me.”
I held back a smirk, just barely.
“I’m former military myself. Army, First Infantry Division. But that was a long time ago. Listen, I can’t discuss anything about any of my clients with you but hypothetically, if I had spoken with a young woman today, I can’t recall any mention of a recently deceased boyfriend or his father.”
So she didn’t call this jackass about Stone or Carter? “Thank you, Mr. Avis. I appreciate your time.” What the fuck was going on?
“Good luck, sir.”
I hung up and erased the call log. I pulled out my new phone and sent a quick text to André.
Me: Nic called a PI in Miami this am. Mike Avis.
André replied a few seconds later.
André: Wtf?
Me: I dunno. You heard of him?
André: Yeah. Want me to call him?
Me: I already did. Said I was her husband n wanted to kno what she was after. He wouldn’t say but I don’t think this is about Carter or Stone
André: Did you ask her?
Me: No
André: Because?
Me: It’s complicated
André: I’ll see what I can find out. Give me five.
I drank my coffee and waited. It took him three minutes.
André: He wouldn’t tell me either but I did get him to say he referred her to someone else because what she wanted wasn’t his “specialty”
Me: Wtf does that mean? He spoke with her for 28 mins. How long does a referral take?
André: Don’t know. But Avis specializes in background checks and cyber shit. Field work isn’t his thing.
Christ.
Me: Thx
André: Later. Good luck.
I rubbed a hand over my face. I should’ve been in the shower with Siren, not wondering what the fuck she was hiding. I didn’t want to push her, not after everything she’d been through, but fuck if I was going to sit back and get played.
I strode into the guest room, intending to wait for her, but she’d left the bathroom door cracked. I waltzed in and leaned against the vanity, arms crossed.
A few minutes later, my heart took a hit as she came out of the shower naked and reached for a towel. Her back to me, I got a taste of her gorgeous curves and the ink that made my mouth water. My dick didn’t care what the hell was going on in my head. All it wanted was a repeat of last night.
Siren tucked the towel around herself and turned. When she saw me, she let out a small gasp. “You startled me.”
That was my intent. “Sorry, darlin’. You left the door open. Where I’m from, that means somethin’.”
Her cheeks flushed. “I didn’t know that.”
“Let me guess, not an invitation?” I didn’t smile.
She looked at her feet, inhaled and brought her eyes back to me. “Last night was great, but um…”
I fucking knew it. Fuck. I’d come inside this women. Only two women I’d ever done that with. The first one was dead and now the second one was lying to me? Goddamn it. “You sayin’ you’re not lookin’ for a repeat?” Keeping my tone casual was a fucking feat.
“I’m saying I’m…overwhelmed.”
“Overwhelmed enough to call a PI?”
Her head popped up, her eyes went wide and a trace of something looking a hell of a lot like guilt flashed across her face. “How did you know?”
“It’s my phone. Bill’s in my name.”
“Oh.”
“You gonna tell me what’s goin’ on?” I stared at her, relentless and unforgiving.
“It has nothing to do with you, I swear.”
“In my experience, when someone swears, there’s always a load of untruth behind it.”
She tightened the towel and looked everywhere but at me. “I wanted to locate my parents.”
I narrowed my eyes, trying like hell to gauge if she was telling the truth. “They disappear?”
“They moved a year after I left home. A few letters I sent came back to me when I tried to find them once before. I thought if I found them, I could go there.”
Every word out of her mouth sounded practiced. “You wanna go home?”
She met my gaze with a blank expression. “I need somewhere to land.”
I couldn’t figure out if I was fucking pissed off by that comment or gutted. “You doubtin’ my sincerity?”
She shoved past me into the bedroom. “I need to get dressed.”
Pissed won out. “In what? A borrowed T-shirt and your last pair of pants? You’ve got even less clothes than a few days ago. That’s what Carter did for you? Five years livin’ with him and you ain’t got shit but the memory of him bleedin’ out in front of you?” Her distance, her lies, her walking away from last night, my anger ramped up to new level and I jammed a finger to my chest. “I’m the one who stitched you up. I drove you to get X-rays. I’m the one who’s been there from the second you walked into my shop. I never would’ve fired a goddamn shotgun at you!” My nostrils flared. “I know I pulled that trigger, but he fuckin’ fired first!” I walked out, slamming the door behind me.
Kendall looked up from the couch. “Well, you screwed that all to hell.”
“Shut the fuck up.” I grabbed my bag.
“Going somewhere? Because there’s no more food and the coffee sucks.”
I yanked my cell out of my pocket and tossed it at her. “Call me a cab. Twenty minutes.”
She moved her leg and let the phone hit the couch. “You call. I’m not your secretary.”
“You wanna eat, make the call!” I stormed into the master bedroom. Kicking the door shut, I dropped my bag and raked my hands through my hair. “Motherfucker.” Kendall was right but goddamn it, I was pissed the hell off.
Siren let me come inside her last night. She’d gripped my hair like I was her only anchor and she’d fucking exploded. Her moans, her body shaking, I knew she felt something for me but then she fell asleep in my arms only to make a hundred-and-eighty degree turn six hours later?
I wasn’t falling for this shit again. Fuck that.
I grabbed clothes out of my bag and remembered André’s warning about lying low. Goddamn it. My hair was too fucking blond and too damn long to blend in. Past my ears, I hadn’t cut it in months. No baseball hat on me, I searched Blaze’s closet and found dick. Ten minutes later, I tossed Blaze’s shaver back in the vanity drawer and ran my hand over the low fade I’d given myself. I showered and dressed then stalked back out to Kendall.
/> “You call?” I barked, my anger hovering at a low simmer.
Like she had all the time in the world, she lazily looked up from the TV and held my phone out. “Nice haircut.” She dripped sarcasm. “Your chariot should show up soon.”
A horn honked in the driveway.
Kendall smirked. “When you’re good, you’re good.”
I snatched my phone and glanced down the hall at the closed guest room door. “Stay put, keep an eye on her. I’ll be back in a couple hours.”
“Whatever. Bring food. Real food, not boxed shit. And decent coffee.”
I stormed out and growled directions at the cab driver to a rental car place. A half hour later, I was dragging the street in South Beach with all the expensive shops, looking for parking. I found a spot a block away from my target. When I walked into the high-end yoga and athletic wear chain store, I was practically jumped by a brunette.
“Can I help you?” She smiled at me like I was the fucking prize in a cereal box.
I didn’t smile back. “Yeah. I need five or six outfits.” I glanced at the brunette’s build. “She’s ’bout your size but a couple inches taller.”
The brunette nodded. “Okay. Are these outfits for working out?”
“For everythin’. Tanks, pants, sweaters, hoodies, whatever you think.”
She smiled wider. “No problem. What colors does she like?”
I didn’t have a fucking clue. “Just give me a variety. I’m in a hurry.”
“You got it.” She scampered off.
I messed with my phone for the next ten minutes while she put shit together. When she was done, she tried to show me what she’d picked out but I handed her my credit card.
“Just ring it up.”
Her smile faltered. “I hope she likes these. She can exchange anything that doesn’t fit.”
I nodded and signed the receipt, wanting to get the fuck out of there. I was irrationally pissed that I was buying Siren clothes because she’d kicked me to the curb. But the woman didn’t have shit to her name and I knew what the fuck that felt like.
An hour and half later, I was pulling into Blaze and Layna’s driveway in the rental with groceries and Siren’s clothes. I carried everything in and set the groceries on the kitchen counter. Both of them were on the couch watching TV.
“He returns,” Kendall said dryly without looking up. “You come bearing gifts?”
“Yeah.” I walked to the couch and stopped in front of Siren. “Hey.”
She wouldn’t look at me.
Wearing my T-shirt, her hair in soft waves around her face, she took my fucking breath away and I hated her for it. I remembered every second of what it felt like to be inside her last night. “These are for you.” I set the bag of clothes at her feet.
She drew her legs up and tucked them under her.
Fuck you, Siren style.
HER BACK TO ME, SHE stood in the living room and stared out at the intracoastal as the early morning sun made an appearance. With the exception of meals, it was the first time she’d come out of her room in two days.
I stepped up behind her but stopped short of touching her.
“He shouldn’t have died,” she stated. “I should have done something.”
Inhaling, I closed my eyes for a second and just listened to the sound of her voice. Jesus, I’d missed that. “What were you gonna do? Take the shotgun out of his hand?”
“I could’ve said something.”
I chose my words carefully but I couldn’t sugarcoat the truth. “Nothin’ much you can do when a man’s testin’ his own mortality.” Randy knew he was going to die.
Siren spun and glared at me, all anger and fire. “He didn’t have a choice! You know what Stone is like. He thought he had to stand up to him.”
I was glad as fuck she was talking to me but I still raised an eyebrow. “Not sure you can say what he was thinkin’, darlin’.”
I watched the anger contort her face and a fucked-up part of my brain registered the emotion as a win.
“I knew him for years, years,” she spat.
I’d take her anger over the blank mask she’d been wearing any day. “Never said you didn’t.”
“He took care of me.”
The angrier she got, the more I wanted to push. Shutting down my expression like I was bored as hell, I raised an eyebrow. “So you said.”
“I know what you’re doing,” she snapped.
I chuckled. “Yeah? What’s that?”
“Stop it!”
“Nothin’ doin’, darlin’, nothin’ doin’. I’m just standin’ here enjoyin’ the view.” I rocked back on my heels and looked out the window like I didn’t have a care in the world.
“Is that it? Human life means so little to you? You don’t care about killing?”
“Killin’? Like when someone’s pointin’ a twelve gauge at your chest and pulls the trigger?”
Her cheeks went bright red. “You had a vest on. He knew you had it on.”
“So now you sayin’ you not only knew what he was thinkin’, but you know what he saw in the dead of night on a dark stretch of road? That’s some kinda speculation.” Taunting her was probably the last thing I should be doing but Jesus, it’d been a long two days. I was at the end of my rope.
“I’m not speculating, I’m stating facts. You saw he was bleeding through his T-shirt, he saw you in a vest. He said he was already dead because he knew Stone would hang him out to dry. He was desperate and you knew he was desperate.”
“Oh, darlin’.” I shook my head. “You really need me to explain the fundamentals of conjecture?”
“Do you ever take responsibility for anything?”
The wall around all the fucked-up emotions I’d been sitting on for forty-eight goddamn hours started to crack. “We talkin’ taxes or your safety? ’Cause responsibility’s a big fuckin’ word.”
“You didn’t save me!”
I laughed without an ounce of humor. “No, I sure as fuck didn’t.” She was standing in front of me mourning her dead abusive ex. There was nothing saved about that, no matter how you spun it.
For a split second, surprise flashed across her face then it was gone. When she didn’t say shit, I egged her on.
“You did that all on your own, didn’t you?” I was an asshole for saying it sarcastically as hell because she did do it. She made the choice to leave him, she made the choice to seek me out. I just couldn’t figure out why she did if she still had feelings for the prick.
“You don’t know anything.” She pushed past me.
I caught her wrist. “You wanna throw insults at me? Make them about me, not him.”
“Let go!”
Walking on eggshells around her for two days, waiting for the shoe to drop, listening to Kendall’s bullshit, I lost my fucking patience. I tightened my fingers and stepped into her space. “You want me to let go?” It wasn’t a question. It was a threat. I didn’t give her a chance to answer. “You think before you answer that. You think about who the fuck you’re talkin’ to.”
She recoiled.
“That’s right.” I moved in closer. “I’m done bein’ nice. I’m done caterin’ to your every piece of crazy. I’ll respect the fuck outta your space if you wanna grieve. But this bullshit?” I swept my hand between us. “Not happenin’. You wanna feel sorry for the man who stabbed you, beat you, used you? Get the fuck outta this house.” I made a show of dropping her wrist. “I got more respect for myself than to stick my dick in a woman too weak to know right from wrong.”
She slapped me.
I took the blow I saw coming and glared at her. “Again,” I barked, my cheek stinging.
Panting, nostrils flaring, she clenched her fists.
“Again.”
Her arm swung back and she put twice as much into it as the first one.
“That’s all you fuckin’ got?” I taunted. “Why don’t you show—”
I never got the rest of the words out. Her left hand connected with my fa
ce and she cried out in anguish.
“Hit me again,” I demanded.
“I hate you,” she screamed.
“Good,” I yelled back, knowing full well hate wasn’t the opposite of love. Indifference was.
She slapped me with her left hand and pounded on me with her right splinted arm. Then she let loose. Crying, punching, hitting, slapping, she rained down her grief on me and I took it. All of it. Standing with my arms at my sides, I let her do her worst.
When both of her fists weakly hit my chest and she sagged into me, I wrapped my arms around her. “Shh, shh, I gotcha. Let it all out. You’re safe.”
Her knees buckled. “Youkilledhim youkilledhim,” she chanted, sobbing.
Technically Neil had, but I didn’t correct her. I took her weight and held her closer. “It’s gonna be okay.”
“I should hate you.” She cried harder. “I’m supposed to hate you!”
I stroked her back. “I know, sweetheart, I know.”
“You should hate me,” she wailed. “I caused all this.”
Guilt ripped at my conscience. I pulled back just enough to take her face in my hand. “I could never hate you, Siren. Never. You didn’t cause this. You hear me?”
Tears dripped down her stricken face and she dissolved into sobs. I did the only thing I could. I held her. I didn’t want to acknowledge what she was feeling but I knew grief. Maybe she still loved him, maybe she was mourning the loss of what could’ve been, I didn’t know. All I knew was watching her hold everything in for the past couple of days was torture. God help me, I’d relished in her anger just now, but seeing her sad again, it had me wanting to kill Randy all over again for putting her through this.
“Come on,” I whispered, stroking her hair. “You’re breakin’ my heart. Let the guilt go. Let him go.”
She looked up at me and pleaded for something I wasn’t sure I could give. “I can’t.”
I wiped her tears. “One day, you’re gonna have to.”
“You don’t understand.” Anguish ripped at her features.
A hundred thoughts and emotions went through my brain rapid-fire but only one stuck. The one I knew to be true. “Life is for the livin’.” I stroked her cheek. “And you’re still alive.”
FOR ONE SHOCKED MOMENT SHE didn’t react. Then her arms were around my neck and her lips were on mine. Desperate and rough, she came at me.