by Stacey Jay
“This isn’t going to be easy, or safe,” he warns. “But it matters to me. A lot. I have to find out who did this as quickly as I can.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, meaning it. “I should have met you earlier.”
He shakes his head. “I really did have some other business to take care of. It’s good you pushed us back until nine. And you don’t have to be here at all, you know. You can still walk away. I won’t hold it against you.”
“No. I’m here.” Even slackers have codes, and being there for the people I care about is part of mine. “I’ll help however I can. As long as you need me.”
Relief makes Hitch’s shoulders sag. He steps forward and for a second I think he’s going to take my hand, but he doesn’t. Instead, his fingers curl into fists that he stuffs in his pockets. “Thank you,” he says, studying the gum-pocked asphalt. “I’m . . . glad.”
Me, too. Glad he didn’t touch me. Simply standing this close to him is enough to make my chest ache.
“No worries,” I say, voice as light as I can make it. “What’s the plan?”
He searches the alley behind me and then casts a glance over his shoulder in true paranoid spy fashion. “I have two supervisors I can trust. If we get the name of the FBI operative involved in this or even a firm location on the cave, I’ll feel comfortable turning the investigation over. But I can’t risk it right now. Even if they believed me, we’d waste time with preliminaries and give whoever killed Steven a chance to cover his tracks.”
I nod. “If someone in the organization killed him, you can’t let them know you’re looking into the murder until you have real evidence.”
“Right.” The tension around his eyes eases. “So I thought you could take a trip out to the docks this morning. In the information Steven sent me, he included the shipping manifests from the Gramercy port, just south of here. They’ve had a lot of discrepancies in the past few years. At first it was the usual stuff—a few leather coats gone missing, a box of designer purses that fell off the barge, that sort of—”
“I remember that. One of the Junkyard Kings was selling Coach crap last Christmas.”
He lifts a brow. “The Junkyard Kings?”
“The men singing down the street from my house last night,” I say, remembering the way the Kings’ song drifted through the muggy air, weaving Hitch and me closer together. “They live in the junkyard.”
“And have delusions of grandeur.”
“Don’t we all?”
He rewards me with a tight smile. “I don’t know. Do we?” His eyes meet mine and I see a hint of the old Hitch, my Hitch, the one who didn’t have everything in the world figured out and secured with a regulation knot.
“I don’t know.” I shrug and look away, wishing every other moment with this man wasn’t an exercise in extreme discomfort. “But the purses and crap . . . Isn’t that part of doing business in the infested states? Don’t most companies expect to lose stuff?”
“Sure. Some skimming is expected,” he says, nudging a smashed paper cup under the Dumpster with his shoe. “But a few months ago, major shipments of medical supplies started disappearing from the Gramercy port. Over a hundred thousand dollars of product was lost in July and they’re expecting higher numbers for August. The dock crew said the goods were gone when the boats arrived, but the captains swear they weren’t boarded between Memphis and Gramercy. The supplies had to have been stolen while the dock workers were unloading the cargo for storage until the boats arrived from New Orleans and Galveston.”
“Those are FCC operatives working out there.” I can’t help being shocked. The dock workers make at least thirty grand a year more than I do, and I make enough to have everything I need and a hundred thousand or so left over to donate to Sweet Haven. Pinching a few designer purses I can understand, but hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of medical supplies? “Those guys are getting paid very, very well.”
“Maybe not well enough.”
“Greedy bastards.” I may slack and run late and be on suspension from sample collecting, but at least I don’t steal from the people I’m supposed to be serving.
Though, really, what would I steal? Vials of swamp water? Fairy corpses? Poop?
“They’re more than greedy, they’re unexpectedly particular,” Hitch says. “They left the morphine and the Percocet and all the other easy-to-sell script drugs. Instead, they took a few thousand glass hypodermic needles and three cases of fairimilus.”
“I don’t even know what that is.”
“It’s a rare cyclic peptide derived from a fungus. It’s used as a serum in some malaria vaccines.” He sounds doctory, but not in the condescending way. This morning, doctor sounds good on Hitch. “It keeps the vaccine fresh longer than synthetic peptides. It’s also being used in the fairy venom vaccine research trials.”
“Ohhh . . . kay,” I say, connecting the dots. “So they’ve taken a super-rare serum and needles that can hold fairy venom without being corrupted the way metal would.” The notion gives me an unpleasant scratchy feeling in my brain, but I ignore it.
The Big Man and Tucker deal in drugs and needles, but they’re intensely antigovernment and have a small-time sneaky-criminal vibe. My gut tells me the Invisibles aren’t connected to whatever’s happening at the cave. If they were, Hitch’s friend would have taken pictures of captives fighting someone they couldn’t see as they were dragged away.
“You said some of the people involved used to work in chemical weapons development?” I ask.
“Right.”
“So you’re thinking they’re working on a biological weapon. Using fairy venom.”
He nods. “If they were working on a vaccine, there’d be no reason to keep it secret.”
“And you’re thinking someone in the FBI is helping coordinate the operation and keep it off the government’s radar so these people don’t get caught.”
“That’s exactly what I’m thinking.” His dimple pops, and I find myself grinning back at him. To geeks like us, all this conspiracy talk is practically foreplay.
The thought makes me take an awkward step back. I pretend I’m checking the back door to Swallows for interlopers as I pull myself together. It’s like Grace said in my dream: Lusting after Hitch is a good way to get burned.
“Why else would they need the glass needles?” he asks, seemingly oblivious to the way he affects me. “And why else would they set up shop in the middle of the bayou?”
“Well, it’s isolated, not a lot of cops risk going out there, and those who do are too busy rounding up infected highwayman types to notice people hiding out in a cave. Even the helicopter patrols wouldn’t see them if they’re underground most of the time,” I say, always willing to play the devil’s advocate. “Steven and the Breeze task force were probably the first law enforcement on the ground that far out in the bayou in years. Anyone could be doing anything out there.”
“True,” he says, though I can tell he isn’t buying. “But I think this is about weaponizing fairy venom.”
“I think you’re right.”
“You do?” His eyebrows lift.
“The swamp around Donaldsonville has the highest concentration of egg-laying fairies in the infested region,” I say. “If they’re looking for a steady source of venom, this is the place to be.”
“I agree.”
“We agree. Good.” I cross my arms and nod, trying to act like Hitch and I being on the same page is business as usual. “And we also agree I should go out to the docks and see if I can figure out who those guys are stealing medical supplies for.”
“You can pretend you’re interested in a job transfer.”
“I’m ready to give up scooping poop and become a thieving scumbag and I need them to tell me how to get in on the action.” I smile, starting to look forward to my mission. Dramatics can be fun. As long as they’re not of the personal variety. “I’ll bring my Coach bag and look greedy.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
“You sound surprised.”
He shrugs. “Well . . . we didn’t get along so well the last time I was here.”
Right. We didn’t get along at all. Except for the times when we did, like when he tried to save my life and I ended up saving his instead and we made out like randy teenagers in the front seat of my boyfriend’s police cruiser.
Cane wasn’t there at the time, of course, but he saw the recording. Hitch and I unknowingly activated the camera on the dashboard when he hit the sirens to scare away the fairies. Cane’s face after he watched that amateur video was painful, to say the least. The recording, and the fact that I lied about knowing Hitch when he first showed up in Donaldsonville, led to our extended time-out. Cane says he’s forgiven me, but sometimes I wonder . . .
Hitch offered to talk to him—to apologize and explain that the kiss was just a reaction to a near death experience—but I declined. I didn’t think it would help, and a part of me didn’t want Hitch to apologize. I didn’t want him to be sorry for a kiss that felt so much like going home.
I glance up at his scruffy face, and for a second I would swear Hitch is thinking about those minutes when we got along so well, too. But then he smiles, an innocent grin without a hint of longing in it, and I feel like a fool. “But I’m glad,” he says. “Really glad.”
“Me, too.”
“I already rented a car for you, a Land Rover in case you need to go off-road. I parked near the bus station.” He starts for the end of the alley, but stops when he sees I’m not following.
“Thanks. But . . .” I glance down at my not-trying-too-hard outfit and sigh. “I should run home and change before I go.”
“Why?”
“The dock agents are both men. They come into town for groceries and booze every few weeks. They’re probably fairly desperate for female companionship, so I—”
“But it’s an hour drive. Right?” His forehead furrows and an exclamation point made of stress forms between his eyes.
“Yeah. Maybe an hour and fifteen if the roads aren’t in good shape after the rain.”
“You should get started,” he says. “The sooner you get there, the sooner you get back, the sooner we can decide on our next step.”
“If I can’t get one of them to talk, there might not be a next step.”
“You’ll get them to talk. Or I will.” His jaw muscle clenches and I can tell he’s thinking about how he’ll pound the truth out the men at the docks if I fail, but even I know what a stupid plan that is.
“Hitch, please.” I’m tempted to lay a calming hand on his arm, but know contact between us is never calming. “A few minutes of preparation could save a lot of time in the long run, and spare you a trip out to the bayou.”
“I have my suit with me. I’ll be fine.”
“Yes, but if these guys are working with the people in the cave, it’s going to get around that some dude in a superexpensive fairy-repelling iron suit only the FBI can afford questioned them. You may get information, but whoever killed Steven will also know that someone’s on his trail. Right now, I think it’s safer for everyone involved if you’re not seen at the docks.”
“I’m not planning on being seen. Not unless I have to be.”
“Then let’s make sure you don’t have to be. Let me go home and—”
“But you look fine.”
“Fine?”
“Yeah. Fine,” he snaps, suddenly very interested in the brick wall behind me.
“Fine as in, I’m not going to make anyone run screaming? Or fine as in, able to seduce information from men who have no doubt been instructed not to talk?”
He finally makes eye contact, but I wish he hadn’t. “Fine as in, you’re a good-looking woman in skintight jeans and no bra who looks like you just rolled out of bed after being fucked. Repeatedly.”
Woah. That wasn’t what I was expecting. At. All.
I don’t know how to handle that tone, that tone that says he’s noticed that I’m not wearing a bra and still thinks I’m good-looking and wonders who’s been making me look just-been-fuckedish.
My mouth opens, but I don’t know what to say. All I know is that the way he said the F word makes me want to do it. Right now. On the ground by the stinky Dumpster. Screw Cane and Stephanie and anyone who walks out the door. Any sacrifice or embarrassment would be worth feeling Hitch’s skin against mine. Just one more time.
“So believe me.” He’s looking at the wall again. I’m glad. “You’ll be fine.”
“Okay.” I clear my throat and make a serious face and pretend I’m not thinking about my hands on his skin or his hands on my ass or how good it would be to be wrapped up in Hitch so tight he could never let me go again.
You’re the one who let go. You’re the one who let him assume the worst and walked away.
Whatever. Even if I’d told him the truth, he wouldn’t have believed me. His face when he walked in our house that morning said it all. He was positive I’d willingly banged his brother’s brains out. He’d heard Anton’s version of events; he wasn’t interested in hearing mine. Or what I remembered of them, anyway.
That night with his brother is still a blur. A horrible blur, that ends with me waking up bleeding and hurting and so ashamed I can’t stop being sick. Maybe it was the Jack Daniel’s I drank the night before that made me toss cookies for an hour. Maybe it was something Anton slipped into my drink to make sure I was “the dirtiest lay he’d ever had” that turned my stomach inside out.
I’m guessing the second option, but it’s only a guess. And a guess about something that happened six years ago means nothing in the here and now.
No matter how he looks at me or what I feel, there’s no future for me and Hitch. We can’t even be friends. It’s impossible to be friends with a man who makes you want to bang him in front of a Dumpster with a few husky words.
“Are you sure Stephanie’s okay with you doing this?” I ask, driving the truth home with a sledgehammer.
“I don’t want to talk about Stephanie.”
I ignore the warning in his tone. “Why? Because she hates that you’re risking your life while she’s back in New Orleans knocked up and waiting to see if the father of her child is coming home? How do you think that makes her feel?”
His lips curl and I see the increasingly familiar disgust for me lurking beneath his smile. “And you care because . . . ?”
“Why wouldn’t I care? About your wife and baby?”
“My fiancée,” he corrects before he realizes what he’s doing, that he’s emphasizing that his future with Stephanie isn’t set in stone.
When he does, I watch the knowledge that he’s slipped flicker across his face, followed closely by fear. Fear that I’ve noticed he has a problem calling Stephanie his wife. That maybe he isn’t as thrilled to be promising his future to another woman as I’ve been led to believe.
“Your fiancée,” I concede, carefully, not wanting to make a big deal out of his moment of weakness. We all have them. They don’t mean anything. They’re a moment, here and gone. “But you know what I mean. Your actions affect your family. They need you alive.”
“I know that, Annabelle,” he says, with forced patience. “But I have to do this. There is no other option. Stephanie and I are on the same page and frankly, even if we weren’t, it isn’t your place to comment on my personal life.”
Ouch. Right. Because I’m not a part of his personal life anymore. I’m just an immune person he’s asked to help him solve a murder. He might have regained a small amount of respect for me, but he doesn’t care about me or like me or have any interest in what I might think or feel. My opinion doesn’t matter to him. I don’t matter to him, and I’d be stupid to forget it.
“I apologize,” I say. “Again.”
“Apology accepted.” His gentle tone makes me want to punch him in the face. How dare he? How dare he act like he’s letting me do
wn easy when he’s the one who refused to call his future wife his wife and said scandalous things about how bedable I am and all but penetrated me with his sex eyes?
He’s impossible. I remember why I couldn’t stand to be around him the last time he was here. Fern is right; Hitch is Jerkface McSmuggy and I’ve had my fill of him for the morning.
“Keys, please.” I hold out my hand, palm up.
“You’re sure you know—”
“I know what to do. I’ll get something we can use.” I cross my fingers and hope I’m right. I need Hitch out of here as quickly as possible and right now the dock workers are our only lead. “In the meantime, you might want to act like you’re doing follow-up work on the Breeze investigation. Otherwise, people are going to wonder why you’re spending time with me.”
“Can’t two old college friends spend a long weekend catching up?”
“No. They can’t. Not when they’re us.”
His smile vanishes. “Okay. I’ll put on my pretty clothes and make a few business calls. Call me when you’re done and we’ll arrange a place to meet. But don’t say anything important on the phone. Cell signals might not be secure.”
I give him a thumbs-up with only a hint of smart-ass in it, and start down the alley, doing my best to eliminate the wiggle from my walk. Unlike Fernando, I’m not into putting on a show for people who couldn’t care less.
“Annabelle?” I think about pretending I didn’t hear him, but then he calls again, “Annabelle?”
“Yes?” I turn to find him still standing by the Dumpster, his hands stuffed in his pockets, shoulders bunched, every inch of him screaming “I’m worried, I’m scared, and I’m not holding it together as well as I’m pretending,” and I feel for him. He’s a bossy, arrogant jerk I’m better off without, but he’s also a bossy, arrogant jerk getting ready to put his life and future in serious danger.