by Lane Swift
Lucas didn’t understand. Okoro—with his black, piercing eyes and unapologetic cheekbones—had thrown him off-balance before he’d had a chance to recite a word of his carefully rehearsed speech. Avery had said good-looking. Lucas had prepared himself for the usual sort of attractiveness. Not this.
“Sub rosa?” Okoro said. “Under the rose?”
“I’m sorry?” Sweat broke out on Lucas’s palms, on the back of his neck, and under his arms. He pulled off his gloves and shoved them into his pocket.
Okoro strolled past the cabinetry, circling the floor, all the while regarding Lucas like a shark closing in on his prey. He moved like liquid.
Lucas couldn’t begin to guess at his age. His skin, the color of burnished bronze, was smooth and flawless. His neat, trimmed beard and close-cropped black hair didn’t show a trace of gray. Maybe he was the same age as Lucas. Thirty? Yet a certainty in his manner and a timelessly cut black pin-striped suit suggested more maturity.
“The roses on the ceiling and around the doors symbolize secrecy,” Okoro said. “Confidentiality.”
“I thought they symbolized love.” Lucas cringed.
“Your choice. I honor both.” Okoro passed the cabinet holding the cranberry glass phallus, not giving it a second glance. “What can I do for you?”
“My friend, Avery Lister, said you might be able to help me. It’s….” Lucas searched his hands for the right word. “A private matter. Delicate.”
“You know Avery?” Okoro’s eyes widened, fractionally. “I haven’t seen her in months. How do you know each other?”
“We met a couple of years ago at a class. We’ve been friends ever since.”
Lucas shivered involuntarily as Okoro drew nearer. Not from fear. Oh no. Lucas’s skin was singing, raising up the hairs on his arms. He was struck by a boyhood memory of iron filings and the sweep of a magnet. A dark-gray iron thing, at first cold and brittle but turning wondrous and warm in the grip of his hand.
Focus on Grace.
“A class? What kind of class would that be?” There was something unsettling in his tone. Surprise? Derision?
“Pottery.”
Okoro’s mouth slipped into a smile that bared strong, straight teeth. “Pottery?” Sonorous laughter followed. “Well, she always was good with her hands.”
“Actually, neither of us were much good. We gave up throwing clay and went to a bar in Roseport Quay instead.”
“I see.”
Lucas began to deflate. Hiring someone to plan him the perfect murder had sounded like a fine idea with a few cocktails searing through his blood. It had continued to sound borderline reasonable for someone with his kind of motive, all the following week. Presently, however, standing in front of a man who looked like he could deliver, and more to the point, might enjoy the challenge? What the bloody hell had he been thinking?
At last, Okoro said, “What did Avery tell you about me? About what I do?”
“Not much. She said she’d been friends with your father and that she’s known you since you were a boy. Other than that, all she gave me was your card.” The one advertising Le Plaisir and its highly acclaimed, bespoke accoutrements.
Having walked the entire perimeter of the shop floor, his focus remaining on Lucas the entire time, Okoro closed in. Close enough for Lucas to feel his breath on his cheek, to smell the citrus scent of his aftershave.
“Can I see?”
Lucas held out the card. Okoro examined and returned it. Lucas slipped it into his coat pocket with his gloves.
This wasn’t the way their meeting was meant to go. Lucas had spent enough time on the other side of the desk—questioning, assessing, and deciding whether a candidate was a suitable fit—to know he only had seconds to project the right impression.
Lucas recalled a dozen workshops. Professionalism. Synergistic compatibility. Strategic dynamism. So many buzzwords he’d diligently memorized and bandied about in Human Resources for the last eight years like he was passing out party favors. He’d never had a clue what those words meant, had he?
Rooted to the spot, locked in Okoro’s sights, Lucas gulped audibly. But Okoro’s stance relaxed. He took a step to the side and held out his hand, palm up.
“Why don’t you come through to my office, Mister…?”
Lucas turned his head to glance at the closed shop door and back again to Okoro. “Green. My name is Lucas Green.”
“Why don’t you come through to my office, Mr. Green?” Okoro repeated.
If Lucas hadn’t trusted Avery, he’d have fled. Not that he could quell the voice in his head saying, But how well does Avery really know Dante Okoro? Can you trust him?
No one waited for Lucas outside or at home. The only people who might have missed him should he fail to return were buried in the cold, hard ground. His mum and dad and his poor sister Grace, taken brutally too soon. In Lucas’s shoes, she’d have been through Okoro’s office door like a shot. But, to his dismay, Lucas wasn’t like Grace. He never had been.
Which begged the question, why wasn’t he standing in the travel agency in Roseport Quay, planning a trip to Asia, instead of plotting his revenge?
The sound of some noisy youths whistling and catcalling in the street outside carried through the shopfront glass. Someone banged on the window. The gang were probably too young to enter Le Plaisir, or too afraid. Certainly too immature. Lucas didn’t much fancy having to walk past them, which he would have to do if he left now.
He stepped forward and reached for the welcoming clasp of Okoro’s outstretched hand.
Chapter 2
OKORO’S HANDSHAKE was brief but warm, his grip firm but gentle. Lucas wouldn’t allow himself to draw any meaning from it, nor from the way Okoro briefly brushed his thumb over his skin. (He hadn’t imagined that. It had happened, hadn’t it?)
From the corner of his eye, he noticed the shop assistant look up from their magazine, mouth open as if to protest. Okoro must have seen it too.
“Close the shop, Kit. And tell Lois to bring us some tea.” To Lucas, he said, “You do drink tea?”
Lucas couldn’t stand tea. “Yes, of course.”
They went through the rose-framed door into a dimly lit corridor running parallel to the “back room” of whips and harnesses. At its end, a dark-wood paneled door framed by a modern slim-line security scanner opened into Okoro’s office.
Okoro went first, saying, “Just walk through normally.”
He stood to one side, presumably observing a screen something like the ones they had at the offices where Lucas worked.
There was nothing for Okoro to see except the coins in Lucas’s pocket. Lucas wasn’t armed, wired, or tracked. The light above his head flashed green. Plush carpet gave beneath his feet, and the rich aroma of decades’ worth of polish enveloped him. The office was even more sumptuously decorated than the shop.
“Take a seat, Mr. Green.”
“Please, call me Lucas.”
Okoro took the tiniest of bows. “Then you must call me Dante.”
Lucas shed his sheepskin coat and bundled it over the arm of a brocade wingback. He was glad to be out of it, but at the same time felt exposed and underdressed. His shirt and trousers were decent department-store quality. Here they looked cheap and a disrespectful sort of casual.
Lucas eased slowly into the chair. On the far side of the room, chocolate velvet curtains, worn and faded to gold at the inside edges, hung on either side of a tall window. The silhouette of a fence and dense shrubbery filled the view through the window’s lower half. Above, thick indigo clouds hung in the night sky.
Okoro—Dante—flicked a brass switch on the wall next to the fireplace and blue flames, quickly turning to orange, leapt and danced in the hearth. Not a real log fire, then, but authentic-looking enough to fool anyone who hadn’t witnessed the ignition. Next, he switched on the two table lamps on either side of the straight-backed couch, and took a seat at one end, opposite Lucas.
The whole room was an homage t
o a bygone era. Modern conveniences dressed in vintage clothing. Dante included. He sat with his arms stretched across the back of the sofa.
“There. That’s better. Now, how can I help you?”
Fresh sweat prickled under Lucas’s armpits. He kept his elbows close to his sides, regretful of the thin cotton shirt already sticking to his back.
Dante gave Lucas a moment and continued. “I doubt there’s a kink or a fetish I haven’t accommodated. You needn’t be shy. Everything you say in here will be treated in the strictest confidence. You have my word.”
Oh God. No.
Dante had misunderstood. And why wouldn’t he have? He owned a sex shop. He sold custom gear. Nothing on his card said anything about…. But Avery had been very clear. She’d said he could help Lucas.
Before Lucas could answer Dante, the office door opened and a young person, who looked uncannily like Kit the shop assistant, entered the room. They carried a tray laden with a teapot, cups, saucers, and a plate of small cupcakes dusted with sugar. Their hair was a few centimeters longer than Kit’s but styled just as boyishly. They wore a navy silk blouse trimmed with lace at the cuffs and a dash of plum lipstick.
“Thank you, Lois. You should join us. I believe Mr. Green has an interest in engaging my services.” Dante turned to Lucas. “She has an intuitive eye.”
It felt to Lucas like Dante was the one with intuition, looking right into him, right past his studied pose.
Lois perched on the other end of the sofa. “Tea?” She handed Lucas a plate and pointed to the cakes. From his dry mouth and the way his stomach roiled, Lucas didn’t think he could swallow a crumb, tempting as the cakes looked.
“So what’s it to be?” Dante shot Lois a sidelong glance. He grinned. “My guess is you prefer the cocks to the hens?”
Lucas blushed more furiously than ever, despite the fact that he’d never been shy about his sexual orientation. He clutched the arms of the wingback, tense from his temples to his toes. Then the words tumbled out, no pause, one after the other.
“I want to murder someone. Avery said you could plan it for me. I don’t want to get caught.”
The air changed. The fire in the hearth crackled loudly, as if it were really burning logs. Its heat roared over Lucas’s face and down the back of his neck. At the same time, Dante froze, the heat replaced by the chill from his stare.
“You thought I could plan you a murder?”
“Yes.”
Lucas waited, anxiously trying to read Dante’s expression, who in turn seemed to be trying to read his.
“Huh.” Dante sat up straighter, hands on his knees, and rolled his shoulders and neck. As if he was warming up to something. Like strangulation. Or the swift ejection of his prospective client. “You told Avery you want to kill someone?”
“Yes.”
“And she sent you to me.”
The statement hung.
Dante deliberated for a long time. Lucas wasn’t sure if this meant he was considering the proposition or whether he was considering Lucas.
Lois picked at the top of a cupcake, breaking off the crust in small pieces. If she’d been taken aback at Lucas’s request, even for a moment, he’d missed it. He’d been too preoccupied looking at Dante, trying to glean something of his state of mind from the way he gazed into the fire or the way he rapped his fingers one after the other over his knee.
Helplessly Lucas waited and waited.
At last Dante cleared his throat. “No.”
“No?”
Was that it? Lucas had spent hours—days—drumming up the courage, rehearsing what he would say, how he would act. He’d bought a new coat. Dante had invited him into his office.
“That’s what I said. No.”
“I have money. Name your price.”
Dante’s mouth twitched, as if he was amused. “The answer is still no.”
“But you don’t know why I…. You don’t know who.”
“I don’t need to know. I sell sex swings and ball gags. Some of my clients like to hurt each other, but as a rule, they tend to prefer their partners alive. I don’t know anything about killing people.”
“But Avery said….” Lucas’s voice had risen to a desperate pitch. It was all he could do to remain in his seat.
“It was a misunderstanding.”
Lucas’s pulse thundered in his ears, his burning blood seared his cheeks.
Deep breaths. Deep breaths.
Using both hands, Lucas reached for his cup and saucer and brought them to his knee. His hands shook, but he didn’t spill a drop. Lois had thankfully not filled the cup to the top, as if she might have sensed his nerves.
The tea burned Lucas’s lip, and somehow the sensation centered him. Calmed him. Perhaps this was a test. Perhaps Dante wanted to know he could keep his cool under pressure.
Yes. That was it.
Lucas’s shoulders eased, and he leaned forward to return his cup and saucer to the table—as the clock on the mantel loudly chimed a glorious ding-dong, ding-dong.
Lucas jumped like a startled deer. Hot tea sloshed over the side of his toppled teacup, overflowing the saucer and soaking into his trouser leg. “Shit.” He leapt up, put his cup and saucer down, and shook the fabric away from his leg.
Lois reacted immediately, handing Lucas a napkin and mopping at the spillage with another. “It’s fine,” she said. “That old clock surprises everyone.”
“I haven’t heard Westminster Quarters since I was a child,” Lucas said breathlessly and far too loudly. “My grandparents had a carriage clock. Nothing as grand as that one, but it chimed the quarters and the hours.”
The tea cooled, and Lucas returned to his seat, acutely aware of Dante studying him, with what felt less like his earlier amusement and more like interest.
“I hope you’re not scalded,” Dante said.
“No. I’m fine.”
“I don’t have many visitors in here.” Dante inched forward to the edge of his seat. He cast his eyes briefly toward the clock. “You’re the first to know the name of the chimes. I’m impressed.”
Really? If Lucas had known all it would take to impress Dante Okoro was pub-quiz trivia, he’d have bought a cheaper coat. He ran his hand through his hair. “I’m full of useless information.”
“Such as?”
Lucas’s treacherous mind hopped and skipped and settled precariously on the crimson-colored glass phallus he’d seen in the shop. “Cranberry glass, like you have in the shop, is made with salts that come from gold. Which is why it’s so expensive.”
Dante tilted his handsome head to one side. The beginnings of a smile played at the corners of his mouth. “You had a look around the shop?”
“Only the front. It’s hard not to look. There are some fascinating things in there.” Lucas blushed yet again.
“The back is more niche. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea.”
Tea wasn’t Lucas’s cup of tea. Steeling himself, he said, “I don’t really know much about that sort of thing. It’s never been on my radar. I suppose it’s one of those things you don’t know you like until you try it. Until you give it a chance.”
Dante crossed his right leg over his left, and as it hung, his right foot gently bounced. Lucas didn’t get the impression of impatience. More deliberation.
Perhaps Dante had changed his mind.
Chapter 3
DANTE’S FIRST “no” had been easy. A knee-jerk reaction. The second time had taken a little more effort, but not too much. Then, damn it all, Lucas had spilled his tea and noticed the clock and had known about cranberry glass. He’d interested Dante, and there were fair few people who did that.
Nonetheless, Dante was losing his touch. He’d always prided himself on the ability to read the secret desires of his potential clients from their stances and expressions. Lucas had stood stiffly in the center of the shop, a tendon in his jaw wildly twitching, looking as if he needed to tell someone he wanted to be blindfolded and bound, and, “Please don’t a
ssume that means I’m weak.” Nothing about him had hinted he was shopping for a homicide.
Could Dante be blamed for not thinking to ask?
He’d let Lucas into his private office because Avery had sent him. Because during the last week, the bright flaming thrill of successfully burgling Rashid Khan’s home had burned out, dull as ashes, into a stultifying ennui. Because he hated the winter. Because….
Dante tried for an air of calm. He was in control of this meeting. He could terminate it whenever he liked. Except—of all things—what Dante liked was the rose-pink blush running from Lucas’s cheeks to his neck. The way it disappeared inside the collar of his shirt.
He probably could have used more conviction when he said, “I think we’re done here.”
“Please. Let me tell you my story, and then you can decide.”
Out of the ridiculous sheepskin coat, Lucas’s lithe limbs pulled against his shirt and trousers. His wrist bones stuck out from his cuffs like invitations to explore.
He was handsome in a strange, ethereal way. His hair closer to white than blond, his eyes more gray than blue, his skin as pale as porcelain. He had high cheekbones, a narrow face, and full, sensual lips. Dante suspected Lucas had become better-looking as he’d grown from boy to man, certainly less conventional and more striking.
The clock on the mantel ticked hypnotically. Very few clocks ticked anymore. Very few people owned clocks anymore. Kit and Lois had been fascinated by it as children. How the years had flown.
Out of the corner of his eye, Dante noticed Lois cross her legs. She bounced her elevated foot impatiently, mirroring his own position. He could guess what she was thinking. Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare give this poor man a glimmer of hope.
But Dante wanted to dare. “I’ll hear your story. That’s all.”
Lois sucked in a breath.
Lucas’s refilled teacup rattled against his saucer as he lifted, sipped, and set it down again. “At the end of April, my sister Grace was knocked off her bicycle by a hit-and-run driver. She suffered horrific head injuries and died three days later.”