by J. R. Ward
“I know I woke up on your grave.”
“Dead is relative.”
“So we’re both miracles.”
Jim lifted a brow. “At least one of us is. We’ll have to see about the other. How’d you find me?”
“Information.”
“This phone isn’t under my name.”
“You gave it to your last employer. I went to the library, reversed the number on the Internet and here you are. Not very good camouflage.”
“I’m not hiding from anyone.”
“Then why are you dead but living.”
“Let’s stay focused on you, shall we.”
“Okay, so why are you afraid of me.” As Jim gritted his molars, Matthias smiled in the way he always had, showing all his sharp white teeth. “That’s not memory, by the way. It’s the gun in your hand. We’re in your humble, out of sight—if I weren’t a threat, you’d put it down.”
Fucker.
Motherfucker.
Even with amnesia, the guy was a bastard.
On that note, Jim walked over, keeping eye contact with the dark Ray-Bans the man had on. With the suppressed muzzle pointing at Matthias, he put the weapon on the coffee table and pushed it across the pitted wood.
“Help yourself.”
“You’re giving me a gun.”
“Sure, why not. Think of it as a homecoming gift.”
“Am I home?”
“Not in this particular place—you can’t stay here, and haven’t. Ever.”
Matthias smiled a little. “Well, I don’t want to stay at my house.”
“Where’s that exactly.”
The guy reached into his pocket, took out a wallet, and flipped a driver’s license onto the table by the forty.
Jim looked at the ID. It was well-done, with the proper holograms. Last name wasn’t right, of course, but the first one and the picture were.
“What do you know about me?” the man demanded.
“Nice mug shot,” Jim said as he eased back.
“Not asking you about my future as a model. And why are you avoiding my questions.”
“I’m trying to decide how to play this.”
“Are we in a game?”
“Yes, we are. And it’s got stakes you can’t begin to guess at.” Jim decided to sit down beside his guest. “Like I said, why don’t we start with what you remember.”
Those sunglasses lowered as if the man were staring at the floor. Maybe his boots. The cane?
“I was hit by a car outside of Pine Grove Cemetery last night and woke up in the hospital with no clue who or where I was. Today, I backtracked as much as I could and found your grave.” The Ray-Bans swung back up and around. “I knew your name the instant I saw it. Knew you as well, the second you stepped into sight.”
Jim poker-faced it. “Not a surprise—the pair of us go way back. And that’s why I’m going to help you.”
“So tell me how I got…” Matthias’s hand made an awkward sweep of himself. “All this.”
“The injuries?”
“No, my tutu and ballet slippers. What the fuck do you think.”
“Take off the glasses.”
“Why.”
“I want to look you in the eye when I answer.”
The hand that lifted shook, but he was willing to bet it was a physical weakness, not a mental one. And what was revealed was exactly the way it had been.
“How did the injuries happen,” his former boss repeated in a deep voice.
“You tried to kill yourself in front of me. You planted a bomb in the sand and stepped on the fucker right in front of me.”
Matthias looked down at his legs, his brows going tight, like he was playing hunt-and-peck with his mental keyboard. “Why did I do that?”
How to answer that one without giving too much away. “You hated the man you were. You couldn’t keep going anymore, and you set it up so you didn’t have to.”
“I didn’t die, though.”
“Not then, no.” Jim got to his feet. “Roommate’s back.”
A split second later, the sound of a Harley percolated through the windows, getting louder until it rumbled to a halt below.
“You have a good sense of hearing,” Matthias remarked.
Jim faced off at the man, wondering exactly how to make the situation work to his advantage. With a sly smile, he murmured, “It’s the least of my tricks.”
“You want me to do what?”
In reply, a L’Oréal box was thrown out of the shadows, and as the woman caught it, she thought…Yeah, wow, great start to the night. She was already tired, cranked off, and ready for it to be one a.m. with her shift over—and this “client” was some freak into hair color?
She was so done with this whore thing; she really was. She was sick of seedy, dark motel rooms, and ugly men with bright ideas—and don’t get her started on her “manager.”
“You want me to color my hair blond. For real.”
A fan of five hundred dollars appeared from out of the corner, the light falling from the ceiling fixture making the bills glow in the dim room. It sure seemed like Benjis from heaven, baby—especially considering the dumb-ass had already paid that to be allowed to come here to this downtown rent-by-the-hour with her.
“Okay, fine.” She walked over and snatched the bills. “Anything else?”
The deep voice was quiet. “I want you to blow it dry straight.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“No sex.”
“I don’t want you for that, no.”
A shiver started at her tramp stamp and chillied up her spine to the nape of her neck. But there was nothing to worry about. There were girls in the rooms on either side of them, and her boss man was out in the parking lot no more than twelve feet away. Plus she carried Mace.
What was he going to do to her.
Muttering under her breath, she went into the bathroom and flicked on the light. In the mirror, she looked like she was forty, with bags under her eyes and hair the consistency of corn husks. The good news was that she did need to touch up her roots—there was a road map straight down her side part, mucky brunette showing at the scalp. But not because she was pulling a Marilyn Monroe.
She’d liked being a redhead. And damn, if her hair was already brittle as hell, this wasn’t going to help—
Oh, look, it came with a conditioner. Sweet.
She laid out the squeeze bottle full of creamy shit, the tin tube of color, and the squat thing of postblond goo. Reading the directions took a little time, because she’d always sucked at the whole letter/word stuff, but this wasn’t rocket science.
Through the open doorway, she saw that the client had sat down in that far corner, his boots planted widely apart, his hands resting on his knees instead of at his groin. Not much showed of him, the light from above reaching up only so far on his legs. Better that way—made him more anonymous.
Funny, she hadn’t remembered these rooms being this dark.
Getting back to business, she punctured the top of the tube with the plastic cap, squeezed the stinky crap into the bottle with the pointy top, and then shook the mixture like she was giving someone a hand job. The plastic gloves were on the back of the directions, and she pushed her hands into them. Thank God they were big, because there was room at the top for her fake nails.
She hit the side part without a glitch, but tangles in the ends made it impossible to get the shit down the length. Getting a brush from her bag, she ripped through from root to split end until she could do the whole job; then made quick work of covering everything that came out of her skull.
The stuff smelled like air freshener and chemical glue, and had the consistency of cum.
Was that what turned this guy on?
Men were such pigs.
During processing time, as her scalp heated up and her nose itched, she texted people about the freak job she was on. No reason to talk to the client—he was still just sitting there, maki
ng like a statue.
Thirty-five minutes later she stepped into the shower with a bottle of shampoo that had been left on the counter. The stuff had been half-used by someone else, but there was enough to get things rinsing clean. The warm water felt good, and the conditioner smelled so much better than the bleach.
When she got out, her hair was the color of movie popcorn, all that golden yellow making her white-ass skin glow green. Putting her slut clothes back on didn’t help her image much.
Unhitching the hair dryer, she pivoted on her bare feet. “You ready for this?”
The man rose from the chair and came over, stepping into the light. He was good-looking enough, but for some reason, she wanted to give him the money back and leave. Fast.
“I’m going to take things from here,” he told her, snagging the dryer and brush from her.
The noise from the hot air roared in her ears as he began to slowly stroke the bristles through her hair. Steady. Sure. As if he’d done this before.
Freak.
When everything was dry and smooth, he clicked the Conair off and put it on the counter beside her.
Meeting her eyes in the mirror, the man just stared at her.
She cleared her throat. “I have to go—”
His face wasn’t right all of a sudden, the features seeming to change into….
She opened her mouth and dragged in her last breath to scream just as a blade lifted behind her head.
With a quick slash across her throat, the monster opened a different exhalation route for the air in her lungs, the release not making it high enough to become a cry for help.
Her final image was of a dead, animated corpse that was smiling in the midst of its rotting flesh.
“Party time,” a female voice said.
Suicide.
As Matthias stewed on the word, a man the size of a bus came into the garage’s studio apartment, his black jacket, gloves, and leathers making him look like a Hell’s Angel. That harsh expression fit the job description, too—and all those piercings didn’t mark him as a pussy, either.
Jim made the introductions, classifying Matthias as “a friend,” and the leather-wearing roomie as “Adrian.”
Suicide.
Trying on the concept for size, Matthias found it fit, and waited for more to come to him: a context, a place, a triggering reason. Nothing bubbled up, even as he strained against the constipation in his head—
With sudden clarity, he looked over at Heron. “The desert.”
The man with the answers stopped talking to his roommate and nodded. “Yeah. That’s where it happened.”
“And you were right there.” As Heron nodded again, Matthias’s frustration roared. “How the fuck do we know each other—”
Any answer was cut off by the sound of a car pulling up in front of the garage. Instantly, guns were outted, and Matthias joined the party, snagging the one off the table.
God…it felt so good against his palm. So natural.
Matthias shoved himself around and played dog, looking through the drapes. As soon as he saw what was in the driveway, he eased back with a groan. “Son of a bitch.”
“You know her?” Jim asked from over at the window in the door.
Turning around again, he watched as Mels got out of the Toyota and focused on the Harley. It wasn’t a shocker that she’d found the goddamn address; if he’d done it, she could. But he couldn’t believe she’d followed through. He’d hit her with the hard reality before they’d split, and most people would have dropped out of the drama right then and there.
I’m a black belt, licensed to carry a concealed hand weapon, and I never go anywhere without a good knife.
“Let me handle this,” he said, going over to the door and pushing Jim out of the way—even though the other man outweighed him by as much as a hatchback. “And let me make this perfectly clear—no one touches her. Do you both understand that. No one.”
He was physically compromised in some ways, but it didn’t take a lot of strength to pull a fucking trigger. And if anybody got too close to that lovely woman down there, he would hunt them down and kill them if it was the last thing he did on earth.
In the heavy silence, two pairs of brows went sky-high, but neither of the men argued with him.
Good thinking, boys.
The instant Matthias stepped out onto the top landing, Mels’s head shot up.
Putting her hands on her hips, she somehow confronted him eye-to-eye, even though she was at ground level. “Surprise, surprise.”
Keeping the gun way out of sight, he said, “You need to go.”
She nodded at the motorcycle. “A dead man’s ride?”
“Of course not.”
Frowning, she abruptly crossed over the gravel and picked up what looked like one of the cobblestones. Except it caught the sunlight and sent out a flash, suggesting it was metal.
Straightening, she brought the bullet casing to her nose and took a whiff. “Been doing a little target practice?”
As she held the empty round up, he wanted to curse. Especially as she smiled coldly. “This is freshly discharged—no more than twenty minutes, maybe thirty since it was shot out of a gun.”
Tucking the borrowed weapon into the small of his back, he came down as fast as he could, and when they were actually face-to-face, he’d never felt so powerless in his life. He’d tried to scare her away; that clearly hadn’t worked. Maybe honesty would do the trick.
He traced her face with his eyes, that stubborn, beautiful face. “Please,” he said quietly. “I’m begging you. Let this whole thing go.”
“You keep talking about danger—but all I’m seeing is a man without a memory on a wild-goose chase. Look, just talk to me—”
“Jim Heron’s dead. And I don’t know who owns that Harley, or who was shooting—”
“So who are you talking to up there? And if you say no one, you’re lying. There’s no way you took that bike here. No way—and its engine is still ticking. I bet if I went over and put my hand on the block, it would be warm.”
“You really need to let this all go—”
“I’m not putting any of this in the paper—we’ve already established that. Everything’s off the record—”
“So why do you care?”
“I’m more than my job.”
He threw up his hands. “Why the hell am I arguing with you. You won’t even wear a goddamn seat belt in the car. Why would I expect you to—”
At that moment, the door opened and Jim Heron came out into the sunlight.
Mels looked up at the guy and shook her head. “Well, as I live and breathe…you know, you look a helluva lot like a construction worker who was shot and killed about two weeks ago. Matter of fact, I worked on the article in the CCJ about you.”
Matthias squeezed his eyes together. “Son of a bitch…”
The first piece of good news, Jim thought, was that the woman threw a shadow. No chance she was a Devina-ogram.
The second was Matthias’s little all-mine performance. That cruel bastard had never called dibs on anyone other than in a target situation—hadn’t acted protective toward a living soul. But something in this fire-eyed reporter with the attitude had gotten through to him—and that did not suck.
The female in question glanced at Matthias. Glared at him was more like it. “Not going to introduce us?”
“I’ll do it myself,” Jim announced as he started down the stairs.
“How refreshing to think manners aren’t dead,” she muttered. “Then again, with the way you boys go, dead’s not really a binary term, is it.”
Matthias was not happy behind those Ray-Bans of his, but he was going to have to get over that. Along with a few other things.
“I’m Jim.” He stuck out his hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
Her expression was all about the oh-please, but she extended her palm. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on here—”
The instant contact was made, he put her into
a trance: She just stared up at him, relaxed, ready to be informed, her short-term memory wiped clean.
Cool. He wasn’t sure he could pull it off.
Matthias locked a vicious hold on Jim’s arm. “What the fuck did you do to her?”
“Nothing. Just a little hypnosis.” He glanced at his old boss. “Here’s what’s going to happen. She won’t remember me—neater and cleaner that way. And you’re going to take her to the hotel that I’m reserving a room for you in—”
Matthias was focused only on his reporter. “Mels? Mels—are you okay—”
Jim put his face right up into the guy’s eye. “She’s fine—haven’t you ever heard of Heron the Magnificent?”
Annnnnnnnd out came the gun. Matthias shoved the barrel right into Jim’s neck, and suddenly the other man’s jaw was right where it had always been, tight, hard, all about the get-’er-done.
“What the fuck did you do to her.” Not a question. More like the countdown to a trigger pulling.
“Well,” Jim said reasonably, “if you pop me in the carotid, you’ll never get her out of it, will you.”
Actually, if the guy shot him, nothing was going to happen. But they had enough drama going on here, and he wasn’t sure he could do this mind trick with two people at the same time. More to the point, given Matthias’s tricky mental landscape, Jim didn’t want to run the risk of blowing the bastard’s brain up with the truth about the whole angel-demon thing. Not yet, at any rate.
That gun didn’t waver. “Bring her back. Now.”
“You’re taking her to your hotel room.”
“I’m the one with the gun. I make the plans.”
“Think about it. If you’re with her, then you can make sure I leave her alone, right?”
Matthias’s voice dropped an octave. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”
“And neither do you.” Jim leaned into the guy. “You need me. I’m the only one who can tell you what you want to know—trust me on this. I’m more aware than you about exactly how buried your past is, and nobody’s going to break that barrier but me. So get in that fucking beater, have her drive you to the Marriott downtown, and I’ll get there when I’m good and goddamn ready.”