Lisa nodded. She’d heard as much before – what you didn’t know couldn’t be used against you. “Soooo,” she drawled, “you’re saying you guys – ”
“Don’t always work strictly within the law,” he cut her off with an air of finality. “The security business makes money, yes, but it’s about more than that.” The look in his eyes begged her to understand without asking any more questions. Leave it at that, his gaze said.
She glanced to her mother and saw that Cheryl was now leaned back against the front of the sink, arms resting on the counter behind her. She offered a smile and a softer version of her husband’s please understand face.
And Lisa did understand, really, she did. But she never wanted to wonder if the man she called “Dad” wasn’t the role model she’d looked up to her whole life. It was a relief to know that wasn’t the case. “You always told me laws and ethics weren’t necessarily the same thing,” she said carefully, and watched a smile break across his face that was full of approval. “I just don’t want to be treated like an idiot, Dad. That’s happened to me a lot over the years and…well…” She shrugged. “Thanks for telling me what you did.”
“Sometimes I wish you could just be one of those mall rats. Clothes and hair and boys and all that,” he said, still smiling.
“No you don’t.”
“No. I don’t.”
It was a hot night once the sun went down, but there were currents of cooler air in the breeze, like the welcome fingers of a woman against his cheek. Drew dangled an arm through the open driver’s side window of Ricky’s van and tried to look relaxed. His stomach felt like an angry nest of hornets, but he thought his face was calm enough as he checked it in the side mirror again.
Ricky lived in an ugly little ranch house that had been white once but was now colored by insect remains, red clay spatter and rotting vegetation. The exposed concrete foundation was laced with substantial cracks and the porch sagged, the boards beneath rotten. Holly bushes and some sort of flowering shrubs had grown up in front of the windows, making the place look abandoned. Old beach towels served as curtains. Weeds had choked out all the grass in the lawn. A thick stand of scrub pines and poison ivy had closed the view of the property off from the road, so here, parked in front of the carport, the night was even darker. Ricky’s lot felt completely closed-off from the rest of civilization. Drew swore he could feel Eddie O’Dell and Sidney Hammond watching him from their positions across the street. If he pulled out of here without the goods…well, he didn’t know if they planned on killing him or tying him to a chair again…or maybe even something worse. But he didn’t want to find out. All he had to do was load up and pull out.
“You’re an idiot,” he told himself, but he flattened his right hand out across his thigh and saw the tremors race up the ends of his fingers. His bones and nerves felt tight, if that was even possible, the old breaks talking to him. Warning him. You can’t fight forever. Maybe not even tomorrow. You need to get away from Ricky, his conscience said. There was a risk that each punch might be his last, and that, above all else, had driven him to accept Ray Russell’s offer of a job.
Ten minutes after he’d pulled in, headlights flared in the rearview mirror. Ricky’s ancient, shit-brown Cadillac pulled to a rattling, wheezing stop beside the van and died. Drew felt his nerves ratchet up another notch as he watched his former boss pop the door and roll out of the car.
“Where you been?” the trainer called. In the moonlight, his face looked round and glowed with perspiration as he started around the front of the Caddie on stubby, fat legs. “Huh? I been callin’ you all day, damn it!”
“Yeah, sorry about that.” Drew could hear his pulse thumping hard through the tiny veins in his ears as he climbed out of the van to meet Ricky. Lying made him twitchier than any fight. “My phone died.”
“They still got payphones, don’t they?” Ricky growled. He propped his fists on his wide hips and spat on the driveway. “Anyway, don’t matter now that you’re here. Did you make the drop with Russell? I’m gonna need the cash for next week’s entry fees.”
Guilt tugged at Drew’s conscience. Even if Ricky was a mean, worthless son of a bitch, he’d still invested time and money into Drew’s training. He had Las Vegas UFC dreams and was putting all his proverbial eggs in the Drew basket. Personality and ethical issues aside, it seemed almost evil to pull one over on Ricky.
“I made the drop,” he lied some more. “But Russell wants the rest of your inventory.”
There was a flickering security lamp set above them on the county-maintained power pole and though the plastic globe was cloudy and full of dead moths, Ricky’s disbelieving sneer was vivid and gruesome. “What? How does he even know there’s a ‘rest?’ Did he pay you?”
He felt clammy all over under his clothes. “Not yet.”
“What?!”
“He gave me a down payment,” he covered in a rush, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket. The two fifties he’d been saving were folded up and tucked into a credit card slot, but he pulled them out, willing to take a personal loss if it kept this from getting any uglier. “He’s got some buyer dangling and wants to make a bigger sale. He said he’ll pay twice what our stuff is worth and be able to turn a good profit.”
“And I get a hundred bucks for a down payment?” Ricky snorted, flattening the crumpled bills in his palm. “Who’s this other buyer? Why would I lose out on that much profit to help this Russell jackass?”
I’m so not cut out for this. “Because we’re sitting on a house full of stolen shit.” Desperation and logic collided as he rushed to form a reason that Ricky would buy. “Aren’t you always saying how we shouldn’t sit on hot merch too long?”
The fat trainer gave him a skeptical look, scraping his uneven teeth over his bottom lip.
“We need to get rid of it before the cops start sniffing around.”
The reasoning sounded weak to his own ears – no doubt it sounded even weaker to Ricky. Drew’s t-shirt was rapidly gluing itself to his chest. He felt a little trickle of sweat go snaking down the back of his neck. This is what a rat feels like. Trapped between two factions, both of which had the ability to turn his life to shit, and here he stood, not smart or savvy enough to play the game.
After a moment that felt like an eternity, Ricky exhaled in a loud, defeated-sounding rush. “You’re probably right,” he said. “When’s he want to take delivery? And he better have cash. I ain’t no idiot.”
It took almost an hour to follow Ricky through his routine of disarming his security system, feeding his four cats, sidestepping what looked like rat droppings as he went down the stained, flattened carpet of the back hallway to the garage. Drew felt as if he counted every one of his own breaths and monitored every word that passed his lips as he loaded the van, stressed to the point of distraction that he’d say something or make a face that gave away his true intent.
When he pulled out of the drive finally, able to breathe again, he saw headlights cut on across the street in the drive of the abandoned house opposite Ricky’s: Eddie and Sly. Out of one lion’s den and into another.
Two bouquets. Two identical notes. Lisa and Cheryl had been chuckling nervously about the “coincidence” of it. Ray had forced a smile and told them he thought it was Eddie’s idea of a practical joke.
But as the clock on the far wall of the kitchen struck one a.m., he sat, shrouded in darkness, staring at the twin flower arrangements up on the counter. Moonlight streamed in through the sheer lace curtains above the sink and made the flowers look like shadows. Snakes. More sinister than the bright blooms they were.
He’d tried to believe Mark before, really he had, but when he’d come home and found his wife with flowers too…the evidence had been too obvious to ignore.
Carl Shilling was out of prison. And he was coming for him. Ray had never been more furious, nor more resolute in his life. No one, but no one, threatened his family.
12
Tony Carillo was originally from Jersey, a
nd it would have been obvious to a blind man. He had one of those Italian hairlines, his thick shock of black hair swept back away from his face with a professionally acceptable amount of product, wings of silver shooting over his ears these days. He looked like a fixture in his office in his black suit, crisp white shirt and red tie. The room around him was painted a charcoal gray, white rugs rolled out over the hardwood, black leather couches and chairs with chrome accents grouped around his glass-topped desk. Here and there pops of red complemented his tie: the pillows on the couches, the matting on the framed charcoal sketches on the walls, the leather covers of the law tomes arranged on his modernistic chrome-and-glass bookshelf. Ray had always lacked his former partner’s style, though he admired it.
Tony didn’t delay things. “I don’t have good news.” Ray had just settled uneasily in one of the leather chairs across from the desk, a glass of ridiculous cucumber water in his hand that he had no intention of drinking. “Shilling made parole two months ago.”
Ray had known, but the confirmation was a punch to the gut that left him leaning forward in his chair. “Fuck.”
“I would have told you if I’d known,” Tony said with an apologetic wave. “But it wasn’t my case, so I didn’t find out till I started digging.”
“I know.” Ray took a swallow of cucumber water, winced, wished it was bourbon, and set the glass on the coaster on the edge of his friend’s desk.
“Apparently, he was a model citizen in county. He was a shoe-in for parole,” Tony went on. “He’s working at a La Quinta off 285 in Sandy Springs. Pushes a laundry cart or something. Checks in with his PO routinely, passes all his piss tests.”
“Yeah, well, whatever else he was, the shithead was never high,” Ray grumbled. He ran a hand over the top of his head, wondering how he had any hair left at all, and furiously racked his brain for explanations to his girls’ flowers that didn’t involve Shilling.
“Hey.” Tony laced his fingers together, light catching the ruby in the ring on his right hand, and propped his elbows on the desk. “Maybe it was a copycat. Someone who knew about the note.”
“No one knew about the note,” Ray countered with a hard look. “That was never leaked. And Shilling isn’t a serial killer – he wouldn’t have ‘fans.’ This is not a copycat.”
Tony blew out a loud breath. “Yeah, well, no argument here, but I wanted to be wrong.”
“Me too.”
The oversized, chrome-framed wall clock ticked loudly in the silence that followed. Once upon a time, Ray had been sitting here in this office, his tie pulled loose, a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue on the desk between them while they celebrated their latest victory. His own office had been next door, a haven of mahogany and potted plants that Cheryl had decorated: his diplomas matted in burgundy and blue on the walls, his little family filling up the picture frames on his desk. He’d spent his whole career defending the indefensible, and in his one, final moment of conscience, he’d managed to put his wife and daughter in danger.
“What are you thinking about doing?” Tony asked.
Ray shook his head.
“Ray,” he pressed. “Don’t go being the Lone Ranger, now. I’ve known your girls a long time, and you know I’m worried here, but as your lawyer – ”
“As my lawyer,” Ray cut him off, “it’ll be your job to defend whatever it is I have to do.”
Tony narrowed his dark eyes in disapproval.
“And I just hope you’re a better attorney than I was, ‘cause I don’t plan on going to prison.”
***
She was wearing a very simple, but very fitted blue tank top with skinny straps. As she leaned forward over a yellow legal pad, writing something that seemed to require immense attention, the silver heart pendant around her neck swung forward on its chain, catching the light, pulling his eyes away from what he could see of her bra down the front of her top. Her hair was coming loose of its ponytail and fell in silky clumps that framed her thin face. She blinked against the incoming sunlight and her lashes flickered, just a ghost of a movement.
Drew had finally learned her name ten minutes before when Sly had given him a flat, serious look and said, “Nobody messes with Lisa.” Lisa. She was even prettier here, in the daylight, at a desk, with one cowboy-booted foot pulled up in the chair, than she had been at the bar the other night. She’d been sexy in the bar, in the dark, with eye makeup as thick and black as charcoal. But there was an abundance of sexy all over the place. Pretty…truly pretty, was much more rare.
She glanced up at the sound of the bell above the door and for one moment, her green eyes went wide with what he thought might have been shock or surprise; and then in an instant, he watched her pull a great big iron curtain down between them. Her face went blank, her eyes dimmed, and she glanced back at her writing with – if it was fake, then it was damn good fake – disinterest.
He decided to be the one who spoke first. “Hey.”
Which he realized was a mistake when he heard the low growl that rose up from behind the desk. A moment later Lisa’s Doberman came stalking around the corner, looking like a hundred pounds of solid muscle and curved ivory teeth. Drew had never once backed down from a challenge from a human, but dogs didn’t use fists and body blocks – and this sonofabitch had a mouthful of daggers.
“Down, Hektor.” Lisa’s voice was almost bored-sounding. But the dog swiveled his ears in his mistress’s direction and then complied with a little groan, settling down on the tile in a wary crouch.
“Hektor?” Drew asked, and the Doberman glanced in his direction, demonic ears pricked.
“With a K.” Her eyes lifted briefly – apparently the spelling of her dog’s name was important – and then snapped back down.
With slow, deliberate movements, Drew let the office door fall shut behind him and eased around to one of the chairs across from the desk. Watching Hektor from the corner of his eye, he sank down an inch at a time until his ass hit the seat. “Why with a K?”
Either he’d pushed her into annoyed territory, or she’d decided to give up on her charade of being busy. She set her pen down and straightened in her chair, hands braced on the desk. Her fingernails were painted a bright white today, he noticed, right after he got done regretting that when she was upright, he couldn’t see down her shirt anymore. Her expression was guarded and wary, the muscles in her slender arms flexed like she contemplated shoving up and leaving.
“Hektor as in Hektor of Troy,” she explained.
Thank God for Netflix, was all he could think. “The prince who Achilles killed.”
Her brows shot up her forehead. “You read The Iliad?” Her disbelief was comical, and maybe a little insulting, but he was willing to let it slide.
“Watched the movie,” he admitted. “And I knew someone with a pit bull named Achilles once. Since, you know, he was the one who won and all.”
And just like that her eyes were suspicious green slits again. “Hektor was the noble one, though. He fought for his family and his city. Achilles was just a killer.”
Drew couldn’t remember the last time he’d truly smiled, but there was one tugging at the corners of his mouth now. “I’m Drew,” he said, and extended a hand across the desk.
Her mouth twitched to the side, then she accepted his shake with a solid one of her own. “Lisa.”
“You work at that bar, don’t you?”
“Unfortunately.”
Why? He wanted to ask her. Russell couldn’t be hurting for money that bad, and she hadn’t seemed comfortable there. But he was halfway convinced she had an active dislike for him, so he decided to keep quiet on the issue. In fact, he was beginning to think he might have prematurely judged the bar scene. If he went back, as a customer, then she’d have to be nice to him.
“So my dad hired you,” Lisa said, changing the subject in a tactless way that wasn’t really awkward.
“Yeah.” Feeling both the dog’s eyes and the girl’s, he leaned back in the chair and made a go at comf
ortable. “I guess I’m gonna be working security or something.”
She almost smiled. “Yeah. Or something.” Her look was so knowing that Drew wondered how much she was privy to. Did she know what he’d done the night before? The kind of business her father was involved with?
The bell sounded again and a blast of hot summer air broke their stare-down. Ray came striding into view before Drew could turn around and see for himself. He sidestepped the dog, leaned down to press a quick kiss to the top of his daughter’s head, and then fired a sharp glance Drew’s direction. “What are you doing here? I don’t need you for anything right now.” He carried a manila file folder tucked under one arm and crossed the office to a file cabinet. His tone was disinterested and dismissive. “You should go home.”
“Um…” This was why Drew had come into the shop, but suddenly, his situation seemed more pathetic than it had before he’d walked in and found Lisa behind the desk. She was watching him now – covertly – and he could feel her eyes. And she didn’t bite her lip and bat her lashes like so many of the women he’d known. She studied. Ashamed, he admitted, “I kinda don’t have a home to go to. I was rooming with one of Ricky’s other fighters.”
It was silent for a heartbeat…two…
Ray shoved the file drawer shut with a metallic bang and did a slow look-around over his shoulder. The angry lines between his drawn brows shifted, became more thoughtful. Lisa was still watching him. “Talk to Sly. He and Eddie rent a house between here and my place. They might have an extra room.” He stuck his hands in the pockets of his khakis – he was strangely dressed up today, button-down, belt, nice shoes and everything – and frowned thoughtfully. “How’d you get here, by the way?”
“Um…” More embarrassment. Lisa put a hand over her mouth and he thought she might have been covering a laugh. “I took a cab.”
“Can you afford a new ride?”
At this point, he would have rather been kicked in the balls than answer any more questions as to his financial state. “No.”
Made for Breaking Page 11