Dark Taste of Rapture

by Gena Showalter

  On her behalf? Sweet of him, but she wouldn’t soften. “He’s the guy I oh, so generously gave my virginity to.” The rest spilled from her, her resentment no longer a living thing but sharper tonight because of the man beside her. “The next day, he told everyone what we’d done. All the guys slapped him on the back in a job well done, then tried to get into my pants as if they had a right to plant their flag, too, and all the girls but Ava treated me as if I had the plague. As if I would steal their boyfriends with my whoring ways.”

  “Tell me you hurt him.”

  “Me? No.” A true grin kicked at the corners of her mouth. “But Ava wrecked his car. Slammed his pride and joy right into his parents’ house.” Now that was friendship.

  A tense pause. Then, “I would have killed him for you,” Hector said in a low, quiet voice that left no room for doubt. “I would have burned him and dumped the ashes in a pile of animal shit.”

  “Really?” Damn it. She was softening. He doesn’t want to continue seeing you, remember?

  His nostrils flared as if he could already smell the burning flesh. “Yeah, really.”

  “Well, you still can. He lives in the Lakeshore Apartments on Lake Shore Drive. Number eighteen B.”

  One of Hector’s brows arched, the gold in his eyes frosting over in that way of his. He wasn’t just on the edge of lethal—he’d already leapt and was falling. “You actually kept track of him. Why? Did you want to see him again?”

  “Are you kidding? Hell, no, I don’t want to see him again, but someone has to send his wife pictures of his illicit activities, and that someone is me. Yeah, I’m a giver like that.”

  A quicksilver blaze of amusement, gone before she could wonder at its source.

  She waited, but Hector remained quiet and his expression never reverted back to … whatever. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said anyway. “Why’d I let him off with such a minor, lifelong punishment? Well, let me tell you a little something about me.” Something you might learn intimately, bubby. “If anyone so much as drops a beer can on my lawn I pay for DNA testing. The very day the results come in, I have two tons of trash dumped in their yard. I don’t get revenge, I teach valuable lessons. Barry’s still learning his.”

  Hector massaged the back of his neck. “I’ll remember that.” His voice had dropped another octave, reminding her of when he’d pressed his erection between her legs. She shivered like the stupid girl she was. “Well, uh. Huh.” He cleared his throat. “As I was saying. This was a mistake. Us messing around, not us showing up together.”

  Smile—check. “I know that, too. No need to drive home the point.” Or rather, the dagger in her chest. “We’re not going to see each other romantically. No big deal.” Except, it was a big fucking deal!

  Maintain your happy face.

  His hand dropped from his nape to rest on the seat, his fingers digging into the upholstery with enough force to leave cracks. “It’s not because I don’t like you. It’s that I’m dangerous, Noelle. Really, really dangerous.”

  “This is the AIR version of it’s not you it’s me, right?” she asked dryly. “If only you’d used it before, I would have known to use it on Dallas tonight.”

  “No, damn it!” Back up the hand went, scrubbing down his face, leaving red marks. “Well, yes, it is a version of that, but it really is me. I want you, so damn badly I ache all the damn time, but I can’t do relationships. I just can’t. Damn it!” So many damns.

  Something in his tormented expression thrust its way past her defenses and clanged a warning. He wasn’t just spouting nonsense to get rid of her. He believed what he said wholeheartedly. He wanted her—craved her, ached for her—but he couldn’t let himself have her.

  “Why can’t you try with me? I wasn’t picking out china patterns or anything.” He’d like something bold. Scarlet, maybe, with ebony flecks and asymmetrical edges. “I save that for date two.” She’d tried for a witty tone. She’d failed. She just sounded needy.

  “You deserve something better,” he said miserably. “I’m not just really dangerous, I’m too dangerous.”

  Dangerous. How many times had he tossed that word at her? As many times as he’d tossed out damn, she was sure. “Uh, have you met me, Agent Mean? I’m kinda dangerous, too.” God. She was practically begging him to date her. How pathetic she was. She should stop, leave now while she still had a little dignity. He might want her, but if he wasn’t willing to try, she couldn’t force him.

  “You’re dangerous, yeah, there’s no denying that. I saw you tackle a perp, then stab him in the leg when he ran away. But I’m on a whole different playing field, sweetheart.”

  This was the second time he’d called her sweetheart, and her heart skipped a treacherous beat. When other guys used cute little nicknames with her, she wanted to strangle them with their own intestines. When Hector did it, she wanted to swoon like a Victorian maiden. Weird. “Let’s pretend I believe that.” She. Should. Stop. She should shut up. But then she recalled the handprints he’d left in that wall, the night he’d warned her away, and the way he always tugged on those gloves, time and time again, and some of her hurt vanished, leaving a hollow curiosity. “How? Make me understand.”

  A heavy pause. She thought he meant to deny her.

  Then, “I can … I hurt … People die when I touch …” He banged a fist into the dashboard, the skin boasting a slight glow—even though he still wore the gloves. There were several holes in the material. Tendrils of smoke wafted, curling up.

  When he noticed, he trembled with abject fear, removed them, and fumbled for a new pair in his pocket. As he pulled those on, he said, “Look, it doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have approached you. Shouldn’t have promised you anything more. Nothing can ever happen.” He turned away from her, facing his window, but hesitated. “All right? Okay?”

  I can—kill? I hurt—women he touched? People die—because of his sometimes-radiant arms that could singe asbestos, or whatever material he wore, and burn through metal? Probably. He was so agitated, tension layered with more of that self-disgust vibrating off him.

  So … say she was right. Say his hands really were hazardous, like weapons. Weapons he couldn’t control. Say he normally avoided women to prevent himself from burning them like he’d done the metal wall. Yet still he had kissed Noelle—three times. Still he had almost given her more. Because he hadn’t been able to help himself. That meant he craved her, just as he’d claimed. As desperately as she craved him. Desire ruled him whenever he neared her. If only for a little while.

  Could be wishful thinking on her part. Or she could be dead-on right. She needed to think, to figure out what she was willing to risk—like, say, her pride—to have this man in her life. Or if she was willing to risk anything at all. Right now everything she felt could stem from the lingering heat of his kiss, the fear of losing Ava, and the thrill of her first murder investigation.

  “All right,” she finally said. “I won’t jump you.” Not tonight, at least. “Now let’s go solve this mystery so I can go home and call Ava.”

  Hector turned so quickly he would surely suffer from whiplash, his gaze narrowed and zeroed in on her, his lips pulled back in a scowl, his teeth a flash of white in the surrounding darkness. “What the hell, Noelle?”

  Noelle glanced left, right, trying to figure out what had just pissed him off so badly. Nothing had changed, no one had approached the car. “What?”

  “Why are you going to call her?”

  “That’s what twisted your panties? Jeez. This is the first night of her honeymoon, and I want to know how McKell performed.”

  A muscle ticked in Hector’s jaw. “That’s it? That’s the only reason?”

  “Yes. Why—” Finally, understanding dawned and she scowled. “What, you thought I planned to tell her about you and your speech?” She forced a chuckle. “Darling, if I told her about every man I came close to screwing, we’d never be able to discuss anything else.” A lie, but he would never know that.
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br />   His eyes slitted further, but in the end, he emerged from the car without uttering another word.

  Nineteen

  SMILE IN PLACE, NOELLE exited her side of the vehicle, the length of her gown swishing down her legs and brushing the ground. The officers gave her a thorough once-over; some leered, the obviously blind ones shrugged and looked away, as if she were nothing special. Someone whistled, and someone else cackled out a, “Who’s that? Red Carpet Barbie?”

  “Nah, ’cause then we’d get to strip her and bend her however we wanted.”

  Snickers.

  Had Ava been here, the man would already be on his knees, begging for forgiveness. Noelle would have cheered her on, content in the knowledge that she was loved unconditionally and protected fiercely.

  Now she’d have to take care of herself. Something she could do, something she had done many times before, and something she would continue to do again and again, because—

  “Shut the fuck up, or I’ll rip out your throats and do it for you,” Hector growled.

  Silence. Absolute silence followed the threat. Or promise.

  “Good boys.” His tone gentled, though it was no less brutal. “Now tell me who called this in.”

  She wasn’t going to point out that the men couldn’t shut up and talk to him. She was too pleased by his defense of her.

  Smile suddenly genuine, she walked to his side, clipping a few of the guys with an elbow to the gut as she did. They hunched over, wheezing for breath. “I’m so sorry,” she said, so sincere she brought tears to her own eyes. “The dress … so long … I tripped …”

  Hector coughed to cover a laugh. “So? Who called it?”

  Hector … amused … the unveiling of his dimples … a shiver rocked her.

  A young man with sandy hair and glasses stepped forward. He was average height, on the slim side, and just a little scared to find himself in Hector’s sights. “Agent Dean, sir, uh, a witness called. Claimed he’d seen four men. Two were here, waiting. One in a suit. One dressed casually. Then two others just appeared. One was an Arcadian, so we think teleportation was used. The other was the victim. Alive at the time. Witness claims the guy in the suit said, ‘Thinking you could blow the lid off my operation just got you killed ’ and pulled the trigger on a pyre-gun.”

  Hector had stiffened at the word Arcadian, then growled at the word teleportation. He must be thinking of the women he’d found, so long ago. The ones in the warehouse who had disappeared while in the hospital. An Arcadian had been suspected then, too, but had never been found.

  Noelle knew because she’d maybe kinda sorta peeked at some of his old case files.

  “How’d the witness know it was a pyre?” he asked.

  Pyres were made for AIR agents, and illegal for civilians to carry. Plus, they weren’t the only weapons that lit up like firecrackers.

  “Said there was a flash of bright light, but no booming sound. Said it was the same type of gun he saw agents carrying on that TV show, As the Other World Turns.”

  Good show. Gotta catch up on that.

  “Anything else?” Hector asked. “You check the tapes for alien voice?”

  The officer gulped. “We did. There’s nothing.”

  “I want to go over them myself.”

  “Of course. As for the rest, the vic was hit in the chest, his organs fried. That’s when the witness screamed, and the three men realized they’d been spotted. They gave chase, but the witness hid and called us.”

  “Did he give you descriptions of the three?” Noelle asked, inserting herself into the conversation. My investigation, too, big boy.

  Those spec-covered eyes flipped to her, softened. “No. He said it was too dark, and that he only knew one of the men was Arcadian because of the white hair and the instappear act. Which is why we called AIR.”

  “Where’s the witness now?” Hector demanded.

  A thumb hitched over his thin shoulder. “Back of my car, sir.”

  Noelle scanned each of the vehicles and spotted their guy in the back of the farthest, the inside light burning bright. A junkie, she thought. Human. Pasty, papery skin. Red, sunken eyes. Chapped lips. Dirt-streaked his face. He rocked back and forth and was muttering to himself.

  “Put him in the back of mine,” Hector instructed. “And post two guards at the doors. Eyes are to be on him at all times.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Before the guy could rush off, Hector reached out and withdrew a pair of latex gloves from his uniform pocket. He pulled the latex over the gloves he still wore as he walked to the trunk of Mia’s sedan. There, he grabbed a tool kit.

  Expression blank, he ducked under the tape and strode away. All without a word to Noelle. Well, that wasn’t going to stop her. She looked at the elegant length of her dress, then at the ground. With a shrug, she palmed the blade strapped to her thigh—earned a few more whistles—and stripped off the bottom half of the material, leaving herself bare from the top of her knees down. Risqué for a crime scene, sure, but she’d bared more skin at the last cocktail party she’d attended. This way, she wouldn’t brush away any prints.

  As the men gaped, she bummed a pair of gloves from one of the officers and followed the same path Hector had taken. All business, she thought. Her personal life would not get in the way.

  He crouched beside a dark lump. Once there, she could smell the coppery scent of blood, the release of bowels. Could see … far more than she wanted. The man was on his stomach, his face turned to the side, away from her. She purposely didn’t study that part of him too intently. Already she could see that his mouth was still open in a silent scream.

  Hector rolled him to his back, careful, so careful. The vic wore dress slacks, and his button-down shirt had burned away. There was a gaping hole in his chest, the skin at the edges charred, the organs inside deep fried.

  “Don’t move,” Hector said, digging through his now open toolbox. He stood before she could remind him that she wasn’t stupid and returned to the tape. He walked the edges, stopping every so often to stake a halogen in the ground.

  By the time he reclaimed his place at her side, those lights were bathing the scene with unforgiving purpose, chasing away every soothing shadow.

  “What can you tell by glance alone?” Hector asked her. Lines of tension branched from his eyes, his skin losing a little color.

  Still trying to teach her, even though she was now considered his equal? Fine. Whatever. “There are no tire tracks. No footprints, either. There’s nothing to suggest the body was dragged. So, even though the witness is a drug addict, he was telling—”

  Hector gave a start of surprise.

  “Yeah, I noticed that, too. Anyway, he was telling the truth. Our vic was popped here and killed here.”

  “What makes you think he wasn’t killed somewhere else and teleported in already dead?”

  Was he serious? “Look at the burn marks where he’s lying. He was still frying when he fell on his face, and charred the grass beneath him.”

  “Good. What else?”

  “Judging by what the witness heard—‘thinking you could blow the lid off my operation’—this was a premeditated crime. Our shooter wants to keep something hidden. And our vic was a good Samaritan trying to take him down. Which suggests he knew his attacker, or at least was connected to him in some way.”

  “Good,” he repeated. “Really good observations, Noelle.”

  She was used to being patted on the head, told what she needed to do to be better—at everything. His praise, so easily offered, floored her. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Now what else can you tell about him?”

  Suddenly she was desperate to impress him. “Well, he had money.” A soft breeze danced between them, lifting strands of her hair and caressing them over her cheeks.

  Hector’s gaze sharpened, as if she’d astounded him. “Explain how you deduced that.”

  “His pants. They’re fitted for his frame specifically and not off the rack. P
lus, the material is genuine silk rather than a synthetic blend. And look at his shoes. They’re Burbans and go for three thousand dollars a pop.”

  A pause, as if he were processing what she’d said. “Good eye.”

  The praise lit her up inside. Careful. He could addict her to his compliments as surely as he’d addicted her to his kisses.

  “Let’s find out who we’re dealing with.” Hector pressed his lips together, pulled a small ID scan from the box, and gently pressed the man’s thumb into the screen. A blue light appeared, roving from the top of his print to the bottom.

  With more care than a man as muscled as Hector should possess, he placed the victim’s hand in the same position he’d found it. Then he read the screen. “Bobby Marks. Five feet eleven, one hundred and eight-five pounds. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Caucasian.”

  The name rattled through her mind until she felt as if she’d been punched in the temple over and over again. Now, more than before, she wanted to avoid looking at the guy’s face, but her gaze strayed there anyway.

  Familiar brown hair, rumpled and in disarray. Familiar brown eyes stared at nothing, still glassed with pain and terror. Those lips had once pressed kisses onto the top of her hand.

  “You knew him,” Hector said, a confident observation.

  She must have gasped. “Yes,” she croaked. “I do. Did.”

  Shock caused the words to leave her with the same inflection an automaton would have used. Zero. “He was a gambler. Built himself up from nothing. Won stock in several different companies. Sold some, bought more in others. Those with old money hated him.”

  As Hector dug around in his toolbox, he said, “Your family is old money.” He took several samples from the body—blood, tissue, clothing, under the nails.

  “Yes. My dad never met him. Died before Bobby’s time. But my mother hates—hated him. She made no secret about that. No one did. So if you want a list of families who could have wanted him dead, it’ll be a long one.”

  The witness had claimed the shooter had worn a suit. Could he have been a businessman Bobby had taken down?