“Look, if I had something to give you, I would. There's nothing.”
“Nothing. Not the name of the person who hired you. Not the name of the person who assists you in the resale of stolen goods. Nothing and nobody. Just a crazy story about the Dark Web and a forgery.”
“That's right.” There were people I could give him from other jobs. The Manderson Garnet, for one. But if I did, my career as a professional thief was effectively over. Nobody would ever trust me again.
Bottom line—I wasn't ready to take that step. Being a thief, a good one, was all I had.
“What would you like me to do with you, Thorne? It's your move. You must see how weak your testimony is. Really, you've given me nothing I can use to persuade Jimmy to drop the charges against you. He's probably going to insist on you serving some time because of the assault on his officer.”
Jimmy was Jimmy Victoire, the sheriff. Never a James. A folksy first name is an important ingredient to being elected sheriff in this parish.
I was supposed to react to that, but I didn't bother. My father could contribute, or not, to a sheriff's political campaign the same as any other politician.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The desk phone buzzed, and Lane pushed a couple of mute buttons before he picked up the receiver. “Yeah, yeah, Sheila. Sure, sure. I was expecting his call. Sure. OK.”
I couldn't quite hear what was being said on the other end.
“Sure. Thanks. Tomorrow.”
He put down the receiver.
“The bail hearing has been postponed for twenty-four hours.”
Fuck. Another night in jail. “You arranged that.”
He didn't glance up at the camera or over at the audio box. He looked directly at me, his eyes unblinking. It was Lane and me, the two of us alone and off the record. “I did arrange it,” he said. “If I could get through to you by talking at you, we wouldn't be sitting here right now. So I've arranged for a little demonstration of what takes place in our special program.”
“A demonstration.”
“A demonstration, an orientation... call it what you want to call it, but the point is you'll be able to see what you're getting into it when you choose diversion. If you feel you can't handle it, you'll have every opportunity to say so, and I'll bring you back here and you can go through the traditional process.”
“I can say no.”
“Of course, you can say no. The traditional system is right down that hall.” He gestured in the direction of the jail. “You have a perfect right to demand the same treatment as everyone else.”
“Fuck you. I'm not afraid of your special program. Bring it on.”
Chapter Five
LANE
It wouldn't work if Thorne was diverted against his will. He had to consent to his re-education. Re-programming? Re-training? Hmm. There wasn't a way to talk about what I was doing that didn't sound sinister, but I still believed I was doing the right thing.
Thorne had come from a world of privilege and stepped into a life of crime. His attitude had to change, or he'd never be a productive member of society. He was spoiled and needed to be unspoiled, but I didn't want to break his beautiful spirit.
Easier said than done.
How do you train a falcon? How do you keep control and still let her soar?
She has to recognize your authority of her own free will. If you try to force the issue, she'll laugh and fly away.
“At any time in the next twenty-four hours, you can call the whole thing off, and we'll go back to the official way of doing things. No debate, no discussion.” I walked around my desk and stood up close to him. There didn't need to be any more barriers between us.
“A safeword.” His sculpted mouth twisted into an odd smile that did strange things to my blood pressure. “I always knew you were kinky.”
Deep breaths. Maintain control.
“It's your choice to participate or not. Merlin.”
“Say what?”
“Merlin. That's the safeword.”
“As in Merlin the magician?”
As in the small but scrappy hunting falcon we all saw sometimes in our winter forest. I didn't say that, though. It didn't matter.
“Sometimes I might get tired of your smart mouth, and you'll be gagged. In that case, you'll need a signal.” I put my right hand on top of his right hand and shaped his fingers into a fist, then pulled out his thumb and pinky. “That. Make your hand do that, and I'll know you want me to stop whatever's happening.”
I dropped his hand, and he balled up it up tight in a fist, flicked his thumb and pinky out, then balled it back up tight again.
He looked at me, an odd light in his eyes. More wheels turning.
“Wait,” he said. “Go back. Gagged?”
“This isn't summer camp, Thorne. This is retraining for criminals. Massive brain change has to happen, and it isn't going to happen if you're coddled.”
“Gagged, though. That can't be legal.”
“We have a perfectly good criminal justice system if you want legal.” How many times was he going to make me say it? Yes, I'd stepped over the line, but I was doing it to pull his happy ass out of Angola.
He practiced making the signal again, fisting and unfisting his hand several times. I refused to react. If he wanted to quit this soon, before we even got started, maybe he wasn't the man I thought he was.
After a while, he let his fist drop, and he looked me dead in the eye again. “My dad put you up to this. He's been talking about how I have to grow up. He thinks I'm playing, and playtime is over. He doesn't respect my career choice.”
What father would? All the other guys on the golf course were bragging about their kids studying to be doctors, lawyers, and hedge fund managers. Raynaud could hardly be expected to boast his son was a master-class thief best-known for lifting the Manderson Satsuma Garnet.
I held his gaze. No blinking. “Your father knows nothing about this.”
“C'mon. My father isn't going to stand by quietly while some pervert DA disappears his only son. We all know better than that. He knows something, or you wouldn't even dare to suggest this crap.”
“You're too smart for your own good. That's going to be a problem.” That's as much as I was going to give him.
Not that he was wrong to guess his father was done and dusted with the wait-and-see approach to changing Thorne's lifestyle. But I couldn't believe Thornhill Raynaud wanted this mess with Shelvin and the sheriff. Was anybody in control of this goat rodeo?
I assumed I'd find out more this afternoon at the nineteenth hole.
Speaking of attitude, Thorne found yet another disgustingly sexy way to twitch his lips. “You like me smart. You wouldn't love me so much if I was your standard-issue Louisiana dumb-ass.”
“You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.” I myself wouldn't risk saying the word. It wasn't one I used lightly.
It wasn't one I used at all.
Still smiling, still smirking, Thorne openly eyed the front of my jeans, and I forced myself to think about the evening weather report. Highs in the lower nineties, lows in the mid-seventies. Twenty percent chance of afternoon thundershowers.
“Why do I keep thinking this is all an elaborate scheme to get me in your clutches?”
Because you're an arrogant little shit who thinks he's the hottest thing since sliced toast.
I thought of that bite. That kiss. I told myself it was a test, stepping this close to Thorne again so soon. It was a display of my personal power. Proof of how little control he had over his own impulses. Sure enough, right on time, Thorne boldly squeezed the front of my pants, the smooth palms of his hands applying just the right—or just the wrong—amount of pressure.
I forced myself to breathe in all the way down to my diaphragm and all the way out to the top of my skull. Slowly. Calmly. I couldn't let myself react.
Thorne was the one who couldn't control himself. Thorne was the one who always found the most in
appropriate possible way to act in any given situation.
My jaw was steel, my eyes colder than Arctic winter. Not a wobble in my knees.
“You obviously have a very active fantasy life, Thorne, but what you imagine is going to happen is not what's going to happen. This isn't about what you think it's about. Your pretty face and tight ass aren't going to get you out of this one.”
Thorne let his hand drop. A little gasping sound escaped his lips. He'd started to say something smart, then bit it back.
His eyelashes fluttered toward the camera in the ceiling. I'd turned it off but he couldn't know that. A tiny light glowed blue, a color which told you nothing about whether the device was recording. I knew exactly what he was thinking.
Would it change your answer if that camera wasn't there?
Fucker. He was so confident of his ability to manipulate men. Well, he had a lot to learn.
I touched a button on my desk, and the door opened. The deputy walked in looking bored. His cuffs rattled at the ready.
“Put him in three,” I said.
“Yes, sir.”
Interrogation room three wasn't much used. Not much larger than a closet, it was barely big enough for the desk and the two chairs.
“He won't need the cuffs,” I said. “Will you, Thorne?”
“No, sir.” Thorne's faux-respectful voice didn't fool the deputy, and it didn't fool me. Nothing about his attitude had changed.
Not yet.
The day went slowly, even though it was packed with events. I signed off on two deals with petty drug offenders. I met with an assistant district attorney about a murder charge which would have to go to trial because it was a potential capital case. Sixty Minutes had run an exposé a few weeks back about the shitty public defender's office, so I'd have to work overtime to make sure the parish assigned a halfway decent lawyer to the creep's defense. Most prosecutors wouldn't have bothered, but sometimes I felt like the only way to see justice done was to take on everybody's job.
Around one-thirty, the sheriff brought in a bagged lunch. Oyster po-boy for me, shrimp for him. It was a peace offering, I suppose.
“I'm going to need you to file soon on the Raynaud boy,” Jimmy said. “My officers are not happy he made one of them look like a fool.”
“Yeah, well, you and I are in elected offices, and we're not going to be happy if we piss off Thornhill Raynaud.” A large campaign contributor for both of us.
“I know that, Lane. Don't talk to me like I don't know that. This is a mess. Thornhill should've sent that boy away to college somewhere.”
“Thornhill can't send that boy anywhere he doesn't want to go. Apparently, that's our job.”
The sheriff brushed the crispy French bread crumbs off my desk and into my wastebasket, and then he was gone. Jimmy Victoire's way of saying, “Your move, Lane.”
Although it wasn't my move, not really. It was Thorne's.
A few minutes before four, I pulled up in front of Angelina Manor and left the keys in the Lexus for the valet. There'd been a brief thundershower earlier in the afternoon, but it was still too damn humid for this stupid-ass golf game.
“Thornhill,” I said.
“Lane. I hope you've worked on that drive since the last time we played.”
“It's good enough to kick your ass.”
“In your dreams, boy. In your wildest dreams. But I'm happy to accept your action.”
“A hundred.” It was the cost of playing golf with Raynaud. He didn't need the money, but he needed the sense of power that came from taking mine. Absent a lightning bolt coming from heaven to knock him over, we both knew I couldn't win.
The press loved to speculate about all the deals taking place at Angelina Manor. They might be surprised about how much was said without words. Raynaud didn't raise the subject of his son's recent incarceration until after we were sitting in the bar, twin crystal tumblers of eighty-year-old Scotch sitting in front of us. A single ice cube in his glass, a splash of spring water in mine.
“My boy needs to change his lifestyle,” he said. “And I'm not talking about the gay. The boy doesn't even date. I'm talking about the contact with the criminal element.”
“Your boy is the criminal element in this parish.” It wasn't a huge exaggeration. Thorne was the only elite criminal in my jurisdiction. There was, of course, lots of other crime, but it was the kind of crime that solved itself because it was committed by lowlife fuck-ups who more or less caught themselves.
“Well, who the hell is to blame for that? Fucking soft-on-crime prosecutor. You should have scared him back on the right path when he was fourteen. This crap has gone on for entirely too long, and it needs to change is what I'm saying.”
I had absolutely zero to gain by pointing out Thornhill Raynaud hadn't been any more enthusiastic about the prospect of his teenage son going to juvie than he was about Angola. My hands had always been tied.
Rich men blame other men for their decisions. Same as it ever was. The man who'd spoiled the son was the father.
Now he expected me to fix it.
We sipped from our respective tumblers.
“We do have an unconventional program to address the special needs of privileged offenders,” I said.
“So Willis told me.” Willis Dauphine, the esteemed mayor of our fair town.
“It's quiet. Private.”
He made a harrumphing noise. A show of skepticism. But it was only a show. He was here because he wanted to believe we could do something before it was too late for his son.
“There will be a period of time where he's completely separated from his friends, his family, everybody. All of his previous contacts. Sort of like boot camp.”
Raynaud swished the Scotch around slowly to make the ice cube melt. It was a debate between us, whether a splash of spring water or a melting ice cube did more to bring out the complex flavors, but today neither of us had the energy.
“You could have encouraged him to join the army, gotten the same thing from a more conventional source.”
“I don't want my boy under fire.”
See, that's the kind of attitude I was talking about.
“This is a tough program. I don't think you should assume it's an easier choice than the army. Nothing's guaranteed. He could wash out and end up in prison anyway.”
“Yeah, yeah, I got the ass-covering speech from Willis.” He pointed a tanned finger straight at my heart. “You're going to make sure my boy makes it.”
Chapter Six
THORNE
The kiss was strategic, meant to mess with Lane Lacompte's beady little brain. So was the, erm, bulge massage. He tried to pretend I wasn't getting to him, but I could feel the kick in his cock when it stood up and danced in my fist.
Yeah, Lane Lacompte was the dirty dog, not me. He could lie with his words, but he couldn't lie with his cock. His physical response to my body was obvious. Before I let go, I gave him a little extra squeeze to make my point.
Trouble was I responded right back, and I didn't like it any better than he did.
I shouldn't want a guy like that. The district attorney. The guy trying to put me under lock and key.
It was all biology, of course. Nothing more. I'd let myself go too long without. That date I'd missed last night in New Orleans... I should have arranged to meet up with Ryan two or three weeks ago. He was always ready to re-arrange his whole schedule for me. That puppy-dog eagerness of his should be intoxicating, so why did it make me feel so bored?
I stood up and paced, then sat back down. I didn't want somebody to see me pacing like a fucking zoo animal in a cage.
This stupid-ass interrogation room. Stupid-ass not-so-hidden webcam set high on the wall. There was probably more than one, they were cheap enough these days, but one of them was almost sarcastically visible to any prisoner sitting in the miserable stupid-ass metal chair.
You couldn't claim not to know you were being monitored. Couldn't claim you didn't know there was video. I was alone
but not alone, with all the traditional ways of making time pass faster denied to me. My cell phone was in a police locker somewhere. My hands were uncuffed, but I couldn't exactly handle myself with that camera watching.
The pacing... yeah. The pacing made me feel caged. So I kept getting up and sitting back down.
Fuck it.
Ryan was a fun guy. I should have spent more time with him. Made more of a point of seeing him more often. I couldn't say why I felt so little enthusiasm for our dates. He had long skinny legs that he could wrap around and around like they were spaghetti, and he was always trying to make me come to some yoga class in New Orleans. What was wrong with me that I couldn't make time for a guy like that?
Big brown eyes. Sweet as maple sugar, so why did they leave me so cold?
Last night's date was going to be our last chance. Not that he'd handed me any ultimatum. Ryan wasn't the kind of guy who got involved in squabbles and discussions and endless negotiations, but sure. I knew. There was an unspoken ultimatum there. A cute guy like that, only twenty-one, crazy gymnastics skills, living in the French Quarter? He wasn't going to sit on his hands forever waiting for me to make my move.
I should have left Angelina Parish a long time ago. That's what Ryan kept saying.
“What's a smart guy like you doing out there? We could own this town, and then we could move up to New York and own that. You and me, baby.”
Once we were doing eighties' night in a club, and that Pet Shop Boys' song came on. “Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money).”
I just wanted to dance and not think about it, but Ryan was nibbling at my ear, which meant we weren't dancing fast enough.
“That's us, baby,” he said. “With your brains, we could be big time.”
“My brains? I'm the beauty in this relationship.” I tried to play it off as a joke.
Ryan was a sculptor. He had an agent and a gallery, but he kept saying they were shit and I'd make a better agent and run a better gallery. Maybe I would, I don't know, but I would've had to go to my father to get enough money to open a gallery in New Orleans and...
I couldn't. I wouldn't go hat in hand to Thornhill Raynaud like everybody else. I was my own man, not my father's.
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