by Marni Mann
“I got almost everything you asked for,” he said. “I’m sorry it took me an extra day, but what I’m about to tell you will make it worth the wait.”
“Give me a second,” I said.
I muted the phone and looked over at Mario. There was a naked slut standing behind him, rubbing his shoulders. Another one knelt at his feet, sucking his toes. The whore on the ground was for me. But, when she had shown up, stripping off her clothes to join Mario and me in the sauna, I decided I didn’t want her. I didn’t have the patience for her soft fingers all over me.
I wanted to break fingers. I wanted to make some skin fucking bleed.
“I’m taking this in your office,” I told Mario.
“Do what you need to do,” he said.
I left the indoor pool and hustled up the stairs to the first floor, rushing down the hallway until I reached the last door. Then, I locked myself in Mario’s office and sat on the ledge in front of the windows. “Speak.”
“Mario’s guy was right; the hooker he’d seen near the alley when he went to collect the evidence from Billy’s body had been around when Billy died. She didn’t see the murder, but she had a real soft spot for Billy. She’d fucked him a few times in the last couple of weeks…told me she did it for free, too. She said she was headed to meet up with him, and when she got there, he was already dead.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” I remembered the conversation I’d had with Billy about some whore. She was the one who had said Paulie owed her money. “This isn’t the same one who supposedly worked for Paulie, is it?”
“One and the same. Call it a strange hunch, but I decided to test a sample of the heroin she had on her and compare it to the residue Mario’s guy found in Billy’s needle. I hit the fucking jackpot, Garin. The junk was identical; it must have come from the same batch.”
“So, they bought it from the same dealer; that tells me nothing.”
“Nah,” he said, “it tells us everything because the hooker doesn’t buy it. It’s supplied to her from her pimp; that’s part of her payment. Here’s what we know—the hooker had the same size needle on her that was found in Billy’s chest, and she had the exact same heroin.”
“Don’t fucking tell me it was the hooker.”
“I can’t prove anything just yet, but she would have taken Billy’s cash and his heroin…and both were found on him. I think it was her pimp.”
“What’s his name?”
“Are you ready for this? It’s Anthony Lang.”
That motherfucker.
If I weren’t at Mario’s house, my fist would have shattered the window behind me. I would have punched that goddamn glass until I bled out.
Anthony Lang.
Paulie’s best friend.
Kyle’s brother.
So, if Azzo’s information was right, Paulie had partnered up with Anthony. Something must have gone wrong, and Anthony had killed him. Twelve years later, Anthony found out that Billy was looking into Paulie’s murder. Maybe Billy talked to the wrong person; maybe rumors started to spread. I’d warned Billy that either of those could happen. But, somehow, Anthony found out Billy was snooping, and he fucking murdered my best friend.
All I needed was confirmation that it was Anthony, and I would murder him.
“Tell me what you have on Anthony Lang,” I said.
“He drives to Tampa, Florida, once a month, always around the first. When he arrives, he goes straight to his sister’s house and carries inside a medium-sized black duffel bag. He stays about twenty minutes and leaves with the bag. Then, he goes to his mother’s house and stays there until he drives back to New Jersey. Usually, it’s a one-night visit. On occasion, it’s two nights.”
“I need more.”
“His sister, Kyle, doesn’t have a mortgage on her house. She rents the building her shop is in, and the rent is paid a whole year up front. She has zero debt—no car loan, no student loans, no personal lines of credit. She carries no balance on her credit card. Same with her mother.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
I hoped to hell she didn’t know.
“The mother’s house was purchased less than a week after Paulie’s death,” he continued. “That was where Kyle lived while she attended college.”
Two houses. Both paid for in cash. The first house bought less than a week after Paulie died.
That wasn’t a coincidence.
But did Kyle know?
“Tell me about Kyle’s business.”
“It’s moderately successful. She takes a salary of a little less than a hundred grand and reinvests the remainder of the profits back into the business. But, with that salary, she’s not buying her Lexus in cash, and she’s definitely not buying her house outright.”
She was cleaning Anthony’s money, filtering it through the business and using it to buy the houses and cars and then burying whatever was left in that duffel bag each month.
That wasn’t the Kyle I knew. She only hustled as a kid because she felt guilty for taking so much from Billy and me, and she wanted to contribute. She wasn’t the type to get involved with something this large, especially because it crossed into her art.
Art was everything to Kyle.
“Is there a guy in her life? Or is this all from Anthony?”
“She dates, but it doesn’t look like anything is ever too serious. The steady man in her life is her brother. Unless they’re really good friends, the number of texts she receives from him is on the high side, but she only responds to a small percentage. If I had to guess, she’s taking orders.”
That was my guess, too.
And it started the night Paulie was murdered. I’d gone over the timeline so many fucking times in my head. Kyle must have been outside, somewhere in the vicinity of her front door, when the gun had gone off. I found it pretty strange that she hadn’t come out when I was screaming in the middle of the road, and that she was nowhere to be found later that night when the cops and ambulance left. And that I didn’t see her again until the next day.
“There’s one more piece of news,” he said.
I gritted my teeth. “Let me hear it.”
“I hacked into the University of South Florida’s system; that’s where Kyle went to school. Looks like she applied in person, was interviewed by Admissions, and got early acceptance.”
After Paulie died, Kyle had missed two days of school toward the end of that week. I’d banged on her front door, begging her to come out so that I could talk to her. Banged and fucking banged. She wouldn’t answer. No one did. The banging went on for weeks, even though Kyle returned to school after those two days.
“Let me guess…” I shut my eyes and shook my head. “She applied less than a week after Paulie’s murder?”
“You got it, man. Airline records show Kyle and Anthony spent two days in Florida. She got into school, he bought the house, and they flew back to Jersey.”
I had just talked to Kyle about college, and she hadn’t known where she wanted to go at that point. She used to tell me everything, and never once had she mentioned Florida.
That was because she hadn’t chosen Florida; it had been chosen for her. Just like the house had been chosen and bought for her. Anthony had probably even slipped the Admissions lady a few bucks to get Kyle in early. Then, she came back to Jersey, I cornered her in the alley, and she never talked to Billy or me again. She graduated and moved to Florida.
All these years later, Anthony was still running her goddamn life.
Kyle knew.
Maybe she even saw it.
And I was going to get her to confess.
“I don’t have any evidence that puts Anthony in that alley when Billy died or in The Heart at the time of Paulie’s murder,” Azzo said. “Not yet anyway.”
“I’ll get the evidence.”
“If you’re looking to get it from Kyle, I can save you a trip to Florida. She’ll be at Billy’s funeral.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“Why else would she be flying into Atlantic City tomorrow and traveling back the following day? I’ll email you her flight and hotel information.”
She was coming straight to me. I’d finally get to look her in the face again.
I’d get to put my hands on her. I’d get to hear either the truth or a lie.
If it was a lie, she was going to be punished.
And she would suffer.
Oh, would she fucking suffer, all right.
“Good work, Azzo. Guessing the hooker wants compensation? And whoever else you had to convince?”
“It’s all been covered by the bosses’ petty cash, but I’ll send you an itemized list in case you want to reimburse them.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
The bosses paid for a lot, which was one of the perks of running their casino. But this had nothing to do with them. This was on me. And I’d make sure Mario knew that I would pay back every dollar that had been spent.
“I’ll be in touch,” Azzo said.
And we both hung up.
I paced Mario’s office as I put all the pieces together.
Kyle would be coming into town tomorrow and likely spending most of her time with Anthony. I had to come up with a plan that would get her away from him, so I could get an answer out of her.
But I didn’t have much time.
When I walked back into the indoor pool room, both girls were on their knees, taking turns giving Mario head. He gripped one by the hair and rubbed the other’s tit. His eyes drifted up to mine as the door slammed behind me.
“I need your help,” I barked.
He pulled his cock out of the whore’s mouth and covered himself with the towel. “Get out,” he said to them. When they didn’t move fast enough, he snapped, “Fucking hurry!”
They rushed out and closed the door, and he stood from the chair and walked over to me.
He had the biggest goddamn grin on his face—the same one he wore whenever he got to pull out his gun. “Who do I get to kill tonight?”
Thirty-Two
Kyle
As I walked along the edge of the water, the beer tingled and heated my body; my tolerance had been wiped out from my stay in the hospital. In the short time we’d been gone, I’d taken Garin past the eight homes that surrounded the small alcove that I lived on, down to our private beach where there was the most perfect view of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. At night, the massive structure was lit up a bright yellow, filling the dark sky with an almost eerie glow. Between that and the moon reflecting off the water, it gave us just enough light to see where we were walking.
When we reached the end of the beach, I stopped and slid off my flip-flops. And then I took in the whole view, including Garin’s profile, as I dunked my feet in the water.
During my dream about the cell, I hadn’t thought I’d ever see this bridge again, that I’d ever feel the smooth liquid ocean or the rough sand beneath my feet. Even though the prison hadn’t been real, it felt like I was being given a second chance at life.
And I needed to appreciate it.
“Can we stay here for a minute?” I asked.
I waited for him to nod before I squatted down on the sand, slipping my legs out in front of me, digging my fingers into a large mound. Garin stood a few feet away, his profile sharp as he looked out toward the water.
The things I’d learned about him in the cell were just random bits of information. They weren’t real; they definitely weren’t the truth. It was hard to wrap my head around that. Even though I felt like I knew so much, I really knew nothing at all. But I wanted to. I wanted to know everything—what his life was like now, what I had missed in the twelve years that had passed. What was making him so cold beyond the way I had ended our relationship. Nothing I tried had warmed him. But I didn’t deserve his warmth. I wanted it anyway. I wanted so much more than that.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
“You.” I slowly looked up from the sand, not realizing he’d been watching me.
The moonlight glinted off the outline of his thick, coarse scruff and his narrowed eyelids. It illuminated his parted lips. I wondered if it showed my guilt, too.
There was so much of it that I’d been hiding. I needed a break from it. I just wanted to feel something other than the constant pain of what I’d seen, of what I’d done.
My mind brought me back to the dream, to the moment when his mouth had been on my body. Those lips, those fingers—they had made me forget. The way he looked at me, the way he kissed me—that had been my relief. I needed that closeness again. I needed to remind him of that moment outside the restroom at the bar.
I needed to make him want me as much as I wanted him.
“Come here.” I held my hand out. “Will you sit?”
He stood, looking down at me while the silence passed between us. He was making me wait, which made me question what he was going to do. That only made the guilt grow.
Why was I doing this to myself?
Why was I craving more when I knew I couldn’t have it, especially when I couldn’t stop lying to him?
I’d come out of the coma, thinking I’d told Garin the truth. In reality, the truth had never been spoken.
I wished it had.
But that would have meant everything that happened in the cell was real. That the truth had been tortured out of me, and somehow my life had been spared.
How could I wish to have gone through all of that?
What was wrong with me?
Garin finally sat down next to me, his shoes pushing across the sand as he stretched out his legs. Now that he was closer, the moonlight showed me more of his face, but I didn’t need additional light to see how beautiful this man was. His face was an image that wouldn’t ever leave my mind. It hadn’t in all these years. But now that he had grown into a man, there was a roughness that came with him, an intensity that burned in his eyes, and the most tantalizing curve in his lips.
I couldn’t hide what it all made me feel.
I turned toward him and crossed my legs. He leaned back a few inches, moonlight flashing across his hands and a breeze passing through the air. It sent me a whiff of his cologne, a scent I’d been devouring the last couple of days. For the briefest of moments, I closed my eyes, imagining those hands on my body, his scent covering me, his mouth moving across my skin.
His lips.
His tongue.
I took a breath, my lungs not filling as easily as they had in the hospital, and I opened my eyes. “While I was in that coma, my mind took me somewhere. It was a place. A dark place…”
He didn’t move. He just stared and listened. His silence was haunting.
“It was a place no one would ever want to visit and no one should ever have to see. But I was there for a reason, and I deserved to be there.”
My mind was taking me back to the night I had been in Garin’s room, the night Paulie had died, and I was trying to tell him how badly I wanted him. At that time in our lives, I’d always been so honest with him, but telling him how I felt, telling him I wanted more was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. This was even harder.
“You were in that dream, too, Garin. I told you in the hospital that you had protected me, and that’s true, but there’s more. You were there to show me what I could have had, had my life gone differently.” My eyes drifted toward the water; it was easier to look at. “This is going to sound crazy. I shouldn’t even think this, let alone say it…”
“You want to go back to the dream.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. His words only added to the dirtiness of that thought.
“Yes.”
“Tell me why.”
I dug my nails into my palms. Admitting this wasn’t enough of a punishment. I needed more…I needed pain. “Because I could touch you whenever I wanted. I could tell you how I felt. I could feel you, and I didn’t have to let you go. It was just you and me and endless darkness.” Finally, I looked up again, and our eyes locked. “
I was given a choice, and this time, I chose you.”
“This time?”
“Yes. This time.” My voice was just above a whisper. “I wanted to before. I wanted it with everything I had. But I couldn’t. I had to leave.”
It felt like I was back in that alley again, cornered by Garin, telling him nothing but lies to protect my brother. But my brother would point a gun at me and pull the trigger as easily as he had pulled it on Paulie.
“Why?”
“I had to.”
“Why, Kyle?”
Here was my chance to tell him the truth. So, why couldn’t I do it? It had taken a dream full of torture—torture I believed to be so real at the time—and the threat on Garin’s life to make me cave last time. What would it take this time?
Anthony holding a gun to my head?
Or worse…Anthony murdering Garin?
Because, once tomorrow morning came, all of that would be possible.
And, if Anthony didn’t kill me, I would go back to being his investment, a way to filter all his cash to make it clean. My payment was an education, a house, and a business. I wasn’t grateful. I was miserable. And I was loyal to a man who didn’t give a shit about me. A man who had sucked out all my happiness to cover all his evil.
“Because I had to,” I said.
“And what do you want now?”
Speaking the word that was in my heart would make this so much harder. But how could I hide it? How could I live with more regret?
“You.”
The sound that came from him was a mix between a grunt and a laugh. And then came movement. His knees bent, and his hands moved behind him…even farther away from me.
Was I crazy to want this man? To crave what we had once almost had? To yearn for his coldness because it was better to feel that than nothing at all?
I couldn’t control my hands anymore. I reached forward and wrapped them around his calf. Even though his jeans were thick, the heat from his skin poured through the fabric.
His stare intensified.
I slid my hands up to his knee. “I have so many regrets, Garin. I can’t live with another.”
Everything was so dimly lit, like the cell, and a little chilly from the winter night. But touching him here felt different. The cold was different. The sensation under my fingers was different.