Low air-conditioning notwithstanding, she’d brought sweat. Years of being with the same woman was an asset, not a detriment, as he’d once foolishly believed when he was younger. If there was ever any question about how to spend what might be their last private moment together, she’d answered it. Take this to his grave, oh yeah—no problem. Her hands and mouth were working in unison to kill him sweetly, anyway.
All of her collided against his senses at once ... memories danced with the feel of her mouth, her breasts bobbing in time with her hard pulls, skin against skin, her nipples grazing his thighs as she took him in almost to the hilt without gagging and then wrapped her arms around his hips, not allowing him to fully pump until she was ready. He had to get inside of her, that was all there was to it. Time had been a patient lover, but he could no longer be.
“Together,” he managed to gasp.
Making it to the bed was impossible, even though it was right there beside them. Already weak in the knees, he just let them buckle as she sheared away the last of his will. He punished her mouth for the exquisite offense, covered her, and entered her hard. Old times, their first time, he remembered it all as she clung to him and arched to his mount, riding the wave with him, knowing their dance by heart. Her intense shudder released his in due time, sending him to a place of near seizure that ended in twitching muscles that were only a reflexive response from spent cells.
Soft hands tracing his back lulled him into semiconsciousness. A tender kiss against the side of his face made him know that he was still alive. A hot whisper against his ear caused him to smile with deep satisfaction. Her wicked chuckle gently shook him and made his belly shiver.
“I guess that qualifies as great sex,” she murmured into his ear.
He just nodded with his eyes still closed and gasped more air.
“Now I can think better,” she whispered. “How about you?”
“I’m brain dead,” he muttered, not moving.
She just laughed.
Chapter 7
“I’ve been thinking,” Laura said, leisurely toweling her body dry.
James just peered up at her from the side of the bed, wondering how women did that. He was still liquefied after two hard hours with her and a hot shower, yet she was energized and refreshed, like she’d just come in from the gym. Her sly smile made him simply shake his head.
“I’ve got a copy of the old Haines will stashed in safe deposit down on Seventh and Market. We know what was in the previous one. But what we don’t know is what was in the very first one—the one before he changed all his allegiances.”
“And? Where are you going with this, Laura?” James stood and pulled on his pants.
“Check it out,” she said coolly, slipping on a pair of jeans and a light cardigan. “When people came after us before, there was a will involved. Not that I think they have any monies due them by way of the deceased’s assets, but it will tell us who old Haines thought of as close allies, and then we work our way backward, like reverse engineering, to figure out who might be seriously pissed off.”
“Yeah, but the person who was his attorney of record before all the other bull went down is not one of our allies. Remember, we put his only son away for a very long time.”
“True,” she said, smiling as she finger-combed her damp hair and slipped on her shoes. “But his son’s old lover is. Donny Haines, Jr., used to be hooked up with Alan Moyer’s son.”
James let his breath out hard. “C’mon, Laura. Donny went so far underground after that, we’d need a S.W.A.T. team to pull him out of hiding. He’s not gonna just help us on a friendship tip.”
She placed her hands on her hips and looked at him hard. “We saved his freakin’ life, as I recall. Not to mention, unraveled a lot of family mysteries for him. He owes us.”
“Maybe,” James said, sighing hard. “But he might not see it as cut-and-dried.”
“He’s a smart man, and no doubt has been watching bodies drop. Oh, yeah, he’ll talk to us, especially if he’s not sure what’s started the ball rolling again.”
Tracking down Donald Haines, Jr., was harder than she’d imagined. James had been right, the man had gone AWOL. Rumor had it that he’d moved out to Delaware County, but another lead by way of good ole Rick the reporter had sent them to the right bar in New Hope, Pennsylvania.
The main drag had changed a lot over the years. Bikes littered the street along with noise level warning signs and pedestrians. The quaint little artist town that looked like something out of a nineteenth-century fairy tale—reputed haunted houses included—now sported the jarring contrast of chrome motorcycles and leather-wearing hog riders.
“Rick said he usually eats dinner at that little bed-and-breakfast over at the corner,” Laura noted, motioning with her head while they circled the block for non-existent parking. “Quiet as kept, he has a permanent room there on the third floor and stays pretty much to himself.”
James glanced at the old Victorian with white shutters, a small white-picket fence bordering the corner property’s wide lawn that wrapped around to the next block. White wrought-iron chairs sat in wait under a grand weeping willow tree, and heavily cushioned white wicker furniture tastefully dotted the broad porch. If ever there was a retirement home, this was it.
“I’m sure they’ll protect their local VIP from any intruders like us,” James said with a skeptical tone as he pulled their unmarked, black Buick sedan into a space several blocks away.
“That’s why we aren’t going in to ask questions. We’re taking a room, with dinner, and we’ll wait to see who comes into the dining room.”
“Yeah and what if dude is so freaked out that he only eats in his room?”
She ruffled her hair in frustration and simply got out of the car.
They both kept their eyes on the small boutiques and antique shops, hoping to spot Donald Haines, Jr., as they silently walked hand in hand like accidental tourists on an early evening stroll. New-age crystal shops, candle makers, tiny galleries, all set against the suburban escape route from urban chaos, made Laura sad.
The theme you can run but you can’t hide replayed itself in her mind over and over again as they made their way up the wide front-porch stairs. Donny had been traumatized by his parents and his lover. Maybe James had a point; this sensitive soul wouldn’t want to revisit all of that ugliness to unearth more of his father’s political past life. It was almost as though the poor man had taken up residence in a home filled with strangers that were probably nicer to him than his next of kin, yet had located himself in what he’d always dreamed of—a quiet home away from it all, a house with a white picket fence.
Pasting on her most convincing smile, Laura walked up to the front desk.
“This is beautiful, isn’t it, honey?” she said, for the benefit of the manager. She turned to James, gave him the eye to play along, and waited until her husband begrudgingly half smiled.
“If you like it, I love it,” James grumbled, his steely grit on the manager, who remained uncomfortable.
“Sir,” she said, ignoring her husband, “I know we don’t have a reservation, but a dear friend of ours mentioned that this place was fabulous, especially the home-cooked dinners, and we were wondering if you had a room available?”
“I’m so sorry,” the manager said, his gaze flitting between Laura and James. “We’re booked solid in the spring and fall seasons.”
She pouted and let out a sigh of feigned disappointment. “Bummer, after we drove all the way down here from Philly, too,” she murmured, seeming helpless as she touched James’s arm. “And at the newspaper they said how great your spinach soufflés are, and beef pot pies ... maybe we can just have dinner here, honey?”
The manager cleared his throat as she barreled into James’s arms, peering up at him with her back to the desk. Laura waited, knowing full well the policy was that dinner was only to be served to guests who had a room—but she was also well aware that business was business, media was media, and no est
ablishment in their right mind would blow off a well-dressed, urban professional couple, that also happened to be African-American with friends at a major Philadelphia press.
“Uhmmm, ma’am—”
“Laura,” she cooed, leaving James’s loose hold to shake the manager’s hand. “Is it too late for us to have dinner here?”
The slightly rotund man smiled weakly, shook her hand, and then smoothed back the few strands of hair that covered his semi-balding scalp. “Well, normally we’re not supposed to extend that service to people who are not guests of the B&B ... but since you folks traveled all the way here to be disappointed, we might be able to slip you in at a table, if you promise not to tell anyone we did so?”
She let out a quiet little squeal and leaned into the desk, glancing around and whispering. “Oh, sir, thank you—you’d do that for us? I promise to let my friends know how accommodating you were when they do the food reviews. We won’t tell a soul.”
The manager beamed at her and stood up a little taller. “The chef, my wife,” he said proudly, “makes the pot pie crusts from scratch, and also does a fabulous baked salmon in pastry.”
Laura swooned and smiled brightly. “Oh, sir, you’ve just made our night.”
“How do you do that shit, Laura?” James said under his breath once they’d been seated. He glanced around at the small antique tables with graying couples at them in a cozy, open-air dining room that had been extended for space by a glass enclosed porch.
“What?” she murmured, smiling too hard as she sipped her lemon spiked water.
He shook his head and chuckled. “You worked me the same way when we met.”
“Was that a bad thing?”
“My life has never been the same since.”
She set down her water and stifled a laugh. “I repeat—was that a bad thing? Because this afternoon you didn’t seem to mind.”
He nodded and clinked his glass against hers. “ ’Nuff said. But what if our boy isn’t here?”
“Then we have beef pot pie and salmon wrapped in pastry, and go to plan B.”
“Which is?”
She chuckled. “I’m working on it. Give a sister a break.”
“Ten o’clock. Don’t turn around,” James said, the smile sliding from his face. “You got your lucky break.”
Laura calmly placed the white linen napkin in her lap and watched James’s eyes. As she casually picked up her glass of water, she allowed her peripheral vision to note the movement of a rail-thin blond male who wore a powder blue Oxford shirt that seemed as though it had swallowed him whole.
“I’m going to excuse myself to go to the ladies’ room, then become surprised by the fortuitous, chance meeting. I suggest you put a less menacing expression on your face. This is a delicate entry into a convo with Donny,” she warned, and then stood, pecked James on the forehead, and left the table.
Calmly walking through the dining area that was beginning to fill with patrons, she stopped, waved at Donny, and ignored his stricken expression as she approached him.
“Donny, how are you? Oh, don’t get up,” she said using the balmiest tone she could muster. “Are you eating alone or expecting guests? Sit with us, please.”
He awkwardly stood, kept his voice low, his expression strained. “Laura, you don’t have to play games with me. I’m not exactly on the center city circuit anymore, so if you found me here, you had to be looking for me for a distinct reason.”
She let out a weary sigh and nodded. “Your right, but we didn’t want to invade your privacy.”
Donny set aside his napkin in annoyance. “You already have.”
Refusing to give up, she held his gaze. “And whenever I have, it’s been for a good reason, hasn’t it? I’ve been underground for a long time myself, so if I showed up with James—”
“All right,” he said, moving toward Laura and James’s table. “You’ve made your point.”
Slowly following behind him, she hung back as James stood and kept his demeanor easy, and was grateful that her husband had taken her advice. The two men shook hands and suffered the overly eager waiter who eventually moved Donny’s place setting to their table.
“So,” Donny said on a weary exhale, “now that you know where I’ve relocated, where have you two been?”
“Out of the country,” James said flatly.
Donny didn’t react, just nodded and hailed the waiter for a glass of wine. “But I take it you’ve seen the news.”
“Yes,” Laura said in a quiet voice. “We’re worried.”
“Then, once again, you and my mother have something in common to share as unlikely allies.”
Laura and James glanced at each other and let their worried gazes fall on Donny. His matter-of-fact response was chilling.
“Do you have any idea who might be severely agitated by the distribution of funds?” she finally said once wine had been poured.
Donny smiled. “How about half of the Pennsylvania legislators?”
“Anybody in particular with an axe to grind?” James said, his face stoic.
“About half of the Pennsylvania legislators,” Donny repeated, his expression smug. “And, oh yes, two thirds of the city.”
“But who’s wrapped in tight with the old boys in D.C.?”
Laura’s question wiped the smug expression off Donny’s face. He took a deep sip of wine to poorly cover his new mental strain.
“That, I don’t know,” Donny finally admitted, glancing quickly between Laura and James. “How do you know it’s gone that far?”
“A little birdie told us,” James muttered.
Laura leaned forward; this was getting them nowhere. She dropped her voice to a low, conspiratorial tone. “A hit man with ties to the old federal Black Ops crew just blew up in his rental car in Washington, D.C. You did see the Consumer Report piece about refrigerant safety, didn’t you?” She sat back and allowed that information to sink in. One thing she knew for sure, Donald Haines, Jr., abhorred violence, and anything that smacked of it gave the man the hives.
“How do you know he was a hit man with that sort of association?” Donny said, his bewildered blue eyes searching theirs as he breathed the statement out on a quiet gasp.
“He tried to kill my uncle,” Laura whispered, leaning in even closer, making the waiter pause before bringing bread. “They ran his dental records, since that’s the only way he could be identified once it was done,” she added, weaving in theater and gruesome details to the half-truth fabrication, but leaving out the ruse Akhan had pulled to escape. “He was connected.”
“Oh, my God ...” Donny whispered. “It’s really happening all over again, isn’t it?”
James and Laura nodded together on cue.
“Then how do we stop it? What if there’s some deranged individual trying to wipe us all out?” Donny’s eyes went from bewildered to feral.
Laura placed a hand gently on his arm. “That’s why we’re here,” she assured him. “If they’d wanted you, they could have gotten to you. There’s more to it than that, and we can’t figure out what it is.”
“Yeah,” James said calmly, sipping his wine. “Whoever did this isn’t just some deranged fool looking to whack people. It ain’t the mob, either—but don’t ask how we know. We have sources. Period. This was planned and done with purpose. If we figure out the purpose, we can get ahead of the curve, feel me?”
“Well, what’s this got to do with me? How am I involved?” Donny’s gaze shot from Laura to James in sheer panic.
“We know what was in your father’s adjusted will. We know who he had originally slated to receive assets before that ... but what we don’t have is insight into who he originally did business with before he started moving pieces around on the game board well before I came onto the scene.”
Donny fervently shook his head no. “I can’t go prying into all of that. I wouldn’t even know where to begin, and frankly, if they’re not looking for me, then—”
“You have access,” Laur
a said, sitting back and picking up her glass of chardonnay.
“To what?” Donny said in a tight whisper, leaning forward.
“To whatever Alan Moyer’s son—”
“No,” Donny said, snatching his napkin off his lap and flinging it onto the table, ready to stand. “He’s in prison for life for trying to kill me for my inheritance, being involved in my father’s death, and then going after a material witness ... for ... I’m done with him, with that entire travesty, and—”
“You owe us,” James said, his tone menacing. “We saved your ass a while back, and now—”
“You want money, I’ll give you money. You want—”
“To live,” Laura said quietly, coming between both men, who’d reached a dangerous stalemate. Her tone was urgent and for once contained the brutal truth. “That’s all.” She set her gaze on him hard, but her expression was gentle in an attempt to break through to him. “Donny, I have sisters, family, nieces and nephews, an elderly uncle ... I don’t want to die; I don’t want them to die—not over money, not for any reason. I want to find out who’s been wronged so I can rearrange the money just as it was before, so we can all sleep at night. Can you seriously tell me that by just getting up from this table and leaving us with a target on our foreheads, when you could have done something about it—a very small thing—that you’ll be able to sleep at night? If so, then let’s just order, eat, and call it a night.”
She glared at James, sending him a warning not to move or speak during this extremely fragile negotiation. If he pressed Donny, their ace in the hole would bolt and run.
“I don’t even speak to Alan anymore,” Donny murmured, slumping in his chair, hedging. “I don’t visit that place. After the trial was over, I stopped any form of communication. I rarely even say his name.”
Laura could feel a rush of hope beginning to make her palms moist. She practically bit her tongue to keep from speaking, and forced her gaze to remain serene.
“After all that ugliness came out at my father’s funeral. . . and he was taken into custody, once the media onslaught was over, I packed all his belongings into a public storage unit and delivered the key to his father by courier. I never want to have anything to do with him again in this life.”
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