Dark Deeds

by Anne Marie Becker

  Then he’d seen the story about Tony, a seasoned gang member who’d raped and killed several women and had been taken down by SSAM Agent Becca Haney. She’d looked into the camera and given a brief statement to the effect that all types of people existed in society, and understanding them was SSAM’s goal. The Fan had begun his documentary that day, petitioning for access to Tony. On their first interview, Tony had looked him in the eyes, his tattoos rippling with life as he leaned forward on the table and looked into his video camera, and given him the answers he’d been searching for.

  “You see, God gave us each certain gifts,” Tony had said. “Some of them don’t fit society’s idea of normal, or right, but if you’re good at it, if you crave it, there must be a reason. Fighting it only makes it worse in the end. Feed the beast.”

  Oh, he had been. But it seemed he’d finally found people who understood why. He’d made the best of what God had given him. He’d decided that he could help himself, society and even Mother at the same time, though he limited his release to only a few victims a year. Feeding the beast too much would become sloppy, and he’d get caught.

  The front door opened and closed. The familiar shuffling sounds of Mother hanging her coat and scarf sounded from the front hall. He poured her tea and met her at the small kitchen table, dipping his head to kiss her cheek.

  “Good evening, Mother. How was work?”

  She didn’t smile, didn’t lift her head to meet his eyes. Her thin lips barely moved as she answered in a thin voice. “Tolerable.”

  His chest tightened with the familiar feeling of drowning in darkness...a feeling he’d experienced regularly. The depression cycle had begun again. He would fix it—as only he could. It was his gift. He was always fixing things for the women in his life.

  Sunday, 9:12 p.m.

  Lakeview East, Chicago

  Eve laughed and tossed her hair over her shoulder, the signal to Patrick to start filming. It was a tiny hidden camera, but he knew how to get the best angles in the worst situations. Even when he was sitting at a table a few feet away.

  Trusting he was capturing the interview on film while she recorded the audio, she worked to keep the prick sitting next to her talking. Coaxing information out of a subject was what she did best. Mining for the gem of a story hidden beneath the bullshit. Flirting was her pickaxe. Stroking egos was her shovel. With these tools, she often unearthed information more valuable than diamonds.

  Of course, James Powell was leaving out his recent incarceration for raping several of his female students nearly a decade ago. She swallowed her disgust and nodded as he spoke, laughed when appropriate and mentally created a checklist of talking points for her news segment. He went on and on about his impressive attributes, including his exalted Stanford education and prowess with the ladies. But her thoughts were on Nico. In the time since he’d appeared at her apartment, she’d done little but think about their recent encounters. If he was seeking her out for help, he was somehow in danger because of Becca Haney sticking her nose into the Circle investigation. Eve had become convinced, as she dug into Becca’s past, that this man held an important key to knowing what made Becca tick...and therefore, could provide valuable insight into how to get Becca to back away.

  Except the more she sat with James, the more she realized what a sleaze he was, and how right Becca had been to make sure he was locked up.

  As if he read her thoughts, James reached over and trailed his finger down her arm from shoulder to wrist. “We could go somewhere more private and continue this discussion.”

  Eve forced herself to smile seductively. “Sounds like an offer I shouldn’t refuse. But that’s not what I’m here for. I want to work with you.”

  James lost some of his verve and pulled his hand away. “Work with me on what?”

  “I want to bring down Becca Haney.”

  His lips curved upward again, this time with a calculated gleam in his eye. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “Before this is through, I’ll make you a legend.” And Becca Haney would be too caught up in the public backlash and a slander lawsuit to quietly pursue her investigation into the Circle. Nico would be safe and Eve would have the glory of releasing a story that would rock Chicago to its foundation.

  Chapter Twelve

  Sunday, 9:30 p.m.

  Jefferson Park, Chicago

  The rest of the night at the Haney household had been a blur, but somehow, Becca and Diego had eaten their cake, kept up their conversation, and issued an intelligible goodbye. All while Becca’s mind was whirling.

  You make me lose my head.

  Diego’s phrasing had been so eerily similar to what James used to tell her that it had stunned her, slamming her with memories that were inconveniently timed. James was out of prison, on the streets, possibly telling his sappy lines to a new woman. Same song, different verse.

  “So the call wasn’t important?” Diego held out her coat.

  “What?” She brought herself back to the present and the people around her. She’d hugged her parents, wished them a happy anniversary, and she and Diego and her brothers were walking to their cars.

  “The call...the one your mother mentioned. You’ve been distracted ever since.”

  “It wasn’t that.”

  He narrowed his eyes on her as she refused to continue. “Was it me? I was trying to prove a point. For the sake of the investigation, I can back away.”

  Backing away wouldn’t help. Moving forward wasn’t possible. It seemed there was no answer. She turned from Diego’s questioning gaze as Matt stopped beside her car.

  “You’ll keep her safe?” her brother asked Diego. “Because, despite whatever she’s said about me, I would never let her go with anyone I didn’t trust. Something tells me I can trust you.”

  “You can.” Diego shook Matt’s hand. “I promise. My sole purpose for existing this week is to protect your sister.”

  A shiver of anticipation ran through Becca.

  Matt walked away and Diego held out his hand to her. “Keys.” It wasn’t so much a demand as a request.

  Because she didn’t want to argue while her family could still be watching, and, frankly, she was tired, Becca handed them over. Diego moved around the vehicle and opened the passenger door for her.

  “Such chivalry,” she muttered, not sure why she was feeling so pissy about his sweet behavior. Maybe because it was battering at her already weakened defenses.

  “You look like you could drop at any minute.” He halfway lifted a hand as if he might comfort her. Rethinking it, the hand fell again.

  She got in and buckled up. Feeling like a popped balloon, she slumped further into her seat.

  Diego squeezed himself into the driver’s side and extended the seat back as far as it would go. He pulled the car out of the driveway, glanced at her, then back at the road. “Rest. We have a lot to talk about when we get to your place.”

  And a strategy to develop. One that had to take into account so many items that Becca was weary just thinking about it. So she closed her eyes and pretended she could quiet the thoughts in her head long enough to rest.

  Several minutes later, she woke up, startled to realize she’d been able to rest after all. Diego was parking in the lot of her high-rise building near downtown. Perhaps it had been a bit longer than a few minutes...

  She frowned. “How do you know where I live?”

  “I have my sources,” he said. “Besides, it’s my duty to know these things.”

  “As my bodyguard.”

  “Right.” In the dim light of the parking lot, his teeth flashed in his amusement. “And as your partner.”

  “And was it your duty, as my bodyguard or my partner, to stick your tongue down my throat?”

  “I didn’t hear any complaints.”

  “Hard to talk with a tongue down your throat.” She sighed through her crankiness. “Okay, partner, so where do we go from here? I thought we’d selected the hands-off plan.”

  “That
’ll be tough for a week, especially now that I’ve had my hands on you again.” He was staring straight ahead through the windshield, but the huskiness in his voice told her just what he wanted. And it was what she wanted. But his next words shattered the delicious images. “But I can’t sleep with a woman I don’t trust.”

  Her jaw dropped, though what he suspected was true. She was keeping something from him. “You don’t trust me?”

  He finally turned to her, regret in his eyes. “I want to, but I know something more is going on.”

  Oddly disappointed at his ability to turn on and off the professional aloofness, as well as the thought that he’d only kissed her to break her down, Becca slipped back into evasion mode. “Let’s get settled. It’s late.”

  She got out of the car and he followed with their bags. In the elevator, he handed her the keys and pushed the button for the tenth floor. He really had done his homework.

  The slide and snick of her key in the door seemed to echo in the empty hall. She pushed her door open and stood there, suddenly uncertain. This was her last chance to back out. Once he was inside her place, this would be real...for a whole week. Unless she could solve the case sooner... That thought, and the knowledge that he might be able to leave before a week was out or she lost her sanity, got her moving again.

  “Need anything?” she asked.

  “Maybe a cup of decaf if you have it?” He set their bags down just inside the door. “Unless you want another shot of tequila to get you talking.” His bottomless brown eyes seemed to dare her to pick the latter, knowing it would loosen her inhibitions.

  “I’ll start the pot,” she said.

  “I’ll check the nooks and crannies.”

  He was gone in a flash, making sure no stalkers—fan or foe—lurked in her bedroom and bathroom. The thought of him in her personal space sent a wave of longing through her. She needed to keep up those defenses, so, rather than run her own security check, she went the opposite direction and entered the kitchen, with a quick check of the pantry, just in case.

  Diego returned a moment later. “All clear.”

  There hadn’t been anybody hiding in her tiny pantry, either, but she’d caught sight of the salt-and-pepper shakers she’d stolen from the delicatessen where she’d first talked with Diego. A little memento of their time in New York together. Silly, since they were nothing special, but just looking at them reminded her of their first conversation, and the strong but emotionally complex man she’d fallen for in those moments when he’d talked about his dedication to justice and his love of family.

  From across the tall bar counter, Becca could watch Diego move about her living room. Though she’d chosen comfortable, functional furnishings in simple, muted earth tones, he roamed her small square footage as if he were at a museum full of priceless art. His fingers lingered on a piece of pottery her mother had made, he gazed at the framed black-and-white scenic photographs of Lake Michigan—the real thing could be seen in full color out her windows—and then he peered at family photos on a bookshelf.

  Diego Sandoval is in my apartment.

  She feared she’d never be able to look at the place without imagining him here. Her nipples puckered, her hair raised as if sensing danger, or the possibility of pleasure. It seemed the two were separated by the thinnest of lines when it came to Diego.

  He picked up a four-by-six frame. The picture was one her father had taken of her and her brothers just a couple months ago, immediately after their annual Thanksgiving flag football tournament. Their faces had been flushed with exertion and the November chill.

  “You look happy.” He turned from the photo to her. “Are you?”

  She avoided his gaze by looking at her hands as she scooped coffee beans. “Sure.” She resisted the urge to cross her fingers behind her back. Detective Sandoval would have noticed that.

  Besides, she was happy...most of the time. Except when she missed Diego, or longed for someone to come home to or share her day with. Someone she could count on, when the exhaustion of being the person others counted on weighed her down.

  She should get a dog.

  “As you found out tonight,” she said, “in order from oldest to youngest, that’s Seth, Michael, Billy and Matt.”

  “And then you.”

  “And then me. We’re each within a couple years of age of the next one in line.”

  He set the frame back on the shelf, making sure it aligned with the others, and joined her in the kitchen. He leaned a hip against the counter, facing her. “You deliberately misled me to believe you were in love with another guy.”

  Her eyebrows rose so high, she felt her hairline move. “In love with?”

  “I heard you on the phone with Matt, when we were in the cab in New York. You told him you love him.”

  “I do. He’s family. Don’t you have to love your family?” Her tone was teasing, but this talk of love was meandering into dangerous waters.

  “No, you don’t.” He was perfectly serious and she looked up in surprise. “Not everyone has a solid foundation they can rely on. You do, yet I get the sense you’re holding back from them. Just like you’re holding back from me. Love scares you.”

  She stiffened. Suddenly, the atmosphere was much too intimate. He’d sliced through her defenses to her core, where she’d buried the truth. He seemed determined to exhume it and breathe new life into it, which was impossible because love did scare her. Being that open, that vulnerable, was a dangerous place to be and went against her instincts as a security expert.

  “Maybe we’d better call it a night and talk about the investigation in the morning,” she said.

  “Is that what happened last summer? You couldn’t deal with the intensity between us so you ran rather than face it?” When she didn’t answer, he sighed and went to sit on the sofa, giving her some breathing room.

  Becca busied herself with pouring coffee, ignoring how her body shook with a multitude of emotions. She should never have agreed to this. He was too close. Too aware. Too desirable. Too everything.

  Last July, his grief had taken over his thinking. He probably wouldn’t have turned to her for comfort if she hadn’t been handy. And boy, had she let herself be handy. There’d been an undeniable chemistry between them, but she shouldn’t have acted on her impulses.

  Pathetic, Becca. When will you learn?

  Apparently, she had a pattern of letting men who needed her get under her skin and into her heart. Then let them use her until she had nothing left to give. James Powell had been a dangerous example of that.

  This time, she’d been smart enough to get out, leaving Diego before extensive damage had been done. Except here he was again. Up close and personal. Ready to do serious damage to her heart if she let him in.

  Her eyes narrowed on him as she joined him in the living room. She set their two cups on the coffee table, then sat at the other end of the couch, tucking her feet under her. He sighed as if amused at her attempts to remain distant in her tiny apartment.

  “I heard the pity in your sigh. Don’t feel sorry for me.” That was the one thing she couldn’t abide. Sure, she could feel sorry for herself on occasion, but pity from others, especially Diego? Not allowed.

  He shook his head. “I could never feel sorry for you. You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met.”

  How little he knows about me. The thought brought a crushing pain to her chest, and the overwhelming urge to unburden herself, to share that part of herself with him. But that would let him close, not keep him away. It would create a vicious circle—her giving in to her desire for him, that desire blossoming into a feeling that threatened to swamp her good senses, her giving too much until she was wrung out, and then running away.

  And then the pain would start again.

  Better to break the cycle now.

  * * *

  Diego sensed the moment he’d lost her. Hell, there had been so many of those moments lately. But this time, he could almost see her slamming a metaphorical door s
hut in his face.

  “Don’t do that.” Frustration tightened his throat, making his command nearly a growl. She was too far away to touch, but the need to reach for her, to reestablish some kind of connection, nearly overwhelmed his good sense.

  “Do what?” She fluttered her eyelashes in innocence.

  “Shut me out. We have work to do this week. It’ll be easier if we can talk freely. And the more I’m around you, the more I think the only way we can do that is to get the past out of the way. You can talk to me about anything. God knows I leaned on you. Let me repay the favor.”

  She seemed to weigh his words. When she spoke, it was nearly a whisper. “I’m not sure how.”

  He figured she had defenses a mile high, so simply dropping them wasn’t an easy option for her. Remembering the deck of cards he’d spied on the bookshelf, he had an idea. “How about a game of strip poker?”

  She nearly choked on her coffee. “Sure. That’ll help.”

  He ignored her sarcasm, warming to his idea. “A modified form of it...where we remove barriers instead of clothing.”

  She sent him a wary sideways look. “I may need that tequila after all.”

  “I want you sober for this.” He rose and retrieved the cards. “Though I’d love to see you naked again, I have a different form of stripping in mind.”

  A baring of their souls. He’d gotten a glimpse of the real Becca tonight...the one she kept hidden from him. Her family, her childhood bedroom, her apartment—hell, even her tiny, feminine car...all these things were clues to who she was and why. The brief taste was just enough to whet his appetite for more. He wanted to know all of Becca Haney—head, toes and everything in between.

  “What do you mean?”

  He sat back down on the couch, a little closer to her this time. “This game is more like truth or dare, mixed with strip poker.” He’d make up the rules as they went, but definitely come out the winner.

  Her eyes lit with cautious intrigue. “If the player doesn’t want to answer a question, he or she has to remove an article of clothing?”