I couldn't get out of the closet fast enough. I knew what that had sounded like and I knew exactly what Fate was thinking. He let go of me and I pushed out of the closet with him right behind me.
“You did know him.” He was in my space with a very unsettling look upon his face. It was too close for comfort and, this time, I couldn't stop myself from backing up. Didn't matter, he followed me anyway.
“I have no clue who he is.”
“Why does he know you?”
“I have no clue! Did you forget that I'm the one who wants to kill him? You're the one buying him time, not me. That isn't suspicious? There must have been five other couples there as well. It wasn't like the place was empty. Why do you assume he meant me?”
“If you're lying to me—”
“Yeah, I know. All sorts of scary things will happen. If you think he's such a bad guy, why don't we at least try and catch him? Question him, something!”
There was a tense moment as he tried to stare the truth out of me but I didn't have anything to hide. It must have shown. He relaxed a bit and moved a few feet away, accepting me at my word.
But he still had to try and throw out another warning. “If you're—”
“You covered that already.” That last comment could have gone either way. I knew we were fine when he smiled.
Fate moved to the window and stared down to the parking lot, looking for him.
“I'm still not exactly clear on why we aren't killing him.”
“Because I think he's working for someone. I want to know who. He can't talk if he's dead.”
“I don't have a lot of time left. He's the one who killed me. How long am I supposed to wait? Talk about shady circumstances, why do you keep trying to save him? I don’t care who he talks to. If he's the one that did it, I want him dead.”
“You seem to be taking to killing with surprising ease.” He turned from the window just long enough to shoot me an accusing stare.
“My first assignment, you were there making sure I did a good job, which ended up with someone dead. Now I'm too eager? Make up your mind.”
“You'll get your chance to kill him. Just not yet.”
As long as I got him before I left...retired...whatever the hell they called getting out of this shit job, it didn't matter.
He moved away from the window. “He just walked out. Let's get out of here and see if we can tail him.”
I noticed he was giving me a wider berth than he had as we exited the room, or maybe it was me. I'd had so much up close and personal time, I needed a larger buffer than normal as we made our way to the parking lot.
By time we got down to the car, it was too late. He was gone.
Fate scanned the parking lot. “We lost him.”
“We'll just have to wait for him to come back. All his stuff is upstairs.” I really should've eaten. I wondered what those snack machines had in them.
“He's not coming back.”
Fate was standing by the car, looking a little too agitated for my tastes.
“How do you know?”
“Did you notice the bell boy we passed on our way out?”
I nodded. I remembered a guy his early twenties on our way out of the hotel.
“What's he got to do with this?”
“Because I saw an image of that kid emptying all the contents left behind in that room.”
“Are you sure? Why would you know that?”
“I'm positive. He's going to get hurt in the process, break his leg because the elevators were packed and he took the stairs. While he's laid up for the couple of months, he's going to start playing online poker tournaments. In ten years, he's going to win the World Series of Poker in Vegas.”
“I don't even have two weeks left and I just lost my chance of taking this guy out?” I stared at him over the roof of the car.
“You'll get another chance.”
“Do you know that for sure?”
He paused long enough that by time he said “no,” I'd already known the answer.
I got in the car and didn't speak again. I was so consumed with fury I couldn't verbalize it.
Chapter Fifteen
I hadn't spoken the entire way back to South Carolina. He probably thought I was doing it to be mean. It was a kindness. When we pulled into the drive of the beachfront mansion I'd picked him up from the other day, I was at least calm enough to talk. Maybe not pleasantly, but it was an improvement.
“And what if I wanted to stay at my place? What's so much better about yours?” Besides a few thousand square feet, probably a lot more bedrooms, what looked to be a wraparound deck and, well, whatever. It was still his so it wasn't that great.
“Besides the obvious reasons, I've got more bedrooms.”
“So what?”
“So, I don't want to sleep on your couch like a homeless person.”
We pulled into the garage. If I had plans to stay on, I might have a bone to pick with Harold over pay discrepancy. Fate was living like a CEO while I existed on a hot dog budget—and not even good hot dogs but the value packs.
I begrudgingly got out of the car and followed him. Inside, the place actually seemed warm and inviting. I could imagine resting on one of the brown leather sofas near the huge stone fireplace. Relaxing while I watched the waves break through one of the many sets of French doors that lined the eastern wall, facing the ocean. Even the high pile area rug on the knotty rustic wood floors appealed to me.
“Who was your decorator?”
“I was.”
Sure you were.
“We need to lay down some ground rules.”
“Tread softly. I don't even want to be here.” I looked over at him and couldn't stop my eyes from rolling. Was he going to be one of those people? Don't do this, don't do that, don't touch this. He didn't seem the type, but you never knew.
“I think it's best if we share a bed.”
My stomach did a flip-flop and my pulse instantly ratcheted up. “I'm not sleeping with you.” There. I got it out. Unless you kiss me into submission. Oh no, where did that come from? I'm a harlot. I'd died and become a slut.
“I'm not asking you to have sex with me, just sleep next to me. I think it will help tap into what's left of your human psyche.” He walked over to one of the couches that wasn't far from me, where he couldn't seem to stop himself from leaning his hip. He crossed his arms in front of him while he waited for me to respond.
“Oh.” That was kind of disappointing. It was one thing for me to think it was a bad idea but I still wanted him to want me. Why didn't he want me? I was a cute dead chick.
“It's not that you aren't attractive, it's just not a good idea.”
I wanted to crawl under a rock. He could tell I was disappointed? “When have I ever expressed any interest in sleeping with you? I really don't need a soft let down talk. I should be giving you the soft let down.” I hooked a thumb toward myself.
“You're really going to try and deny this again?”
His eyebrows were raised and his facial expression screamed you couldn't have forgotten this quickly how you reacted to me in the woods.
I wrapped one arm around my waist, all of a sudden feeling self-conscious. I knew this shirt had made me look frumpy. I had the sudden urge to go change my outfit, but I wouldn't.
“Don't forget, you kissed me,” I reminded him.
“Minor detail.”
There was only one way to handle it now, own it and flip it. It was my only chance of hanging on to some pride. “Even if I did acknowledge that you might be attractive in a certain rough around the edges way, it doesn't mean I'd act on it. If you haven't noticed, I don't particularly like you and I'm not one of those girls.”
“Those girls?” he asked.
“Yes, I'm sure you know the type. Girls with issues.”
“You think I can't get normal healthy woman?”
I scrunched up my face in a false apology. “I would be a bit surprised.”
“If I wanted to sleep with you, it w
ould be a done deal. But we work together so it's not a good idea. I don't do doe eyes.” He pushed off the couch and actually used both legs for once.
“Doe eyes?”
“You know, the way human women get when they start liking a guy.”
“You think I'd fall all over you because we had sex?”
“Pretty much.”
“You're greatly overestimating yourself.” Or at least I really hoped so.
“No. I'm not.”
“Maybe I'm not the almighty Fate but I'm a grown woman. I think I could handle it.”
“Yeah, I'm sure Charlie was a real powerhouse in bed.”
The minute he mentioned Charlie, any teasing nature of the conversation died. I froze in my spot, my body growing unnaturally tense and the atmosphere changed drastically.
“Don't talk about Charlie.” The tone of my voice made it clear he'd crossed the line. This was not somewhere he wanted to go.
He didn't respond right away. He watched me for a minute before he finally nodded, a silent acknowledgment, if not exactly an apology, that he had pushed too far.
I watched as he walked over to a drawer and wondered why the hell he'd even brought up my past with Charlie. The more time I spent with Fate, the worse I read him. It was the exact opposite of what normally happened. I should be able to read him like a book by now, but nothing ever felt normal around him.
He brought a handful of index cards back over and laid them on the wooden table between the couches and I walked over to see what he was up to.
“As of right now, this is what we've got,” he said.
He used the word “we” and I knew it was an olive branch of sorts.
He scribbled “Karma”, “Suit”, “Big Bad” and “Target” on four index cards.
“Suit is the guy we saw today?”
“Yes.”
“Big Bad?” I asked.
“Suit isn't calling the shots.”
“You don't know that. There's no evidence.”
“I know people. Suit's a lackey.” He looked at me, eyebrow raised. “You're going to tell me you think he's in charge?”
My gut feeling was the same as his. “Keep going.”
I watched as he arranged the cards in a triangle with Big Bad at one peak, Suit underneath him, and then Karma and Target taking up the bottom two corners.
“You think Big Bad is really responsible for my death?” I tapped the name, a made up one for someone I wasn't sure even existed.
“Yes. Yours was a mass murder, but I think he had a specific target in mind.” He stared at me, letting me know exactly what he was thinking. It better not have been me, that if it turned out I was hiding something...
“I told you, I've never seen that man before.”
I rested my chin on my hand as I stared down at the cards, the one representing me next to target.
“What exactly do you think is going on?” I asked.
“We've had employees disappear without a word or a trace. I think it has something to do with your murderer. I don't think he's human.”
“But what is he?”
“I think he's like us, and if he is, we should know about him. I've been doing this a long time and I've never seen him before.” He leaned back on the couch.
“This is why you don't want to kill him. You think there's some other non-human group running around out there, messing with things? Killing people? I've never been big on conspiracy theories when there's nothing to back it up.”
He leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. “He was obviously talking to someone. Who? And there's been disturbances.”
“What kind of disturbances?” I leaned back against the sofa while I waited for him to explain and realized this might have been the most civil conversation we'd ever had.
“Imagine that the universe, everything that is around us, every molecule of water flowing, the tiniest cell in the smallest insect is interacting with everything else. Then there's us, and we’re wading around in this vast ocean of tides and swells. I've been feeling something bump against me. I can't see what it is but I know it's out of place. Like a leaf blowing against the wind.”
“And you think that this guy is part of it?” The more I heard, the less I liked it. Even more so that my death might be wrapped up in this somehow.
“Yes. He feels out of place.”
“I knew he felt odd but I couldn't tell he wasn't human.”
“You’re not connected enough, yet. You're only picking up on really obvious things. For a transfer, it takes a while.”
Transfer. The word was starting to sound more and more like a slur. I wasn't going to argue with him. Less than two weeks left. He could call me a crazy bitch if he wanted. It didn't matter...or it shouldn't.
“So what now?”
“We wait and see if I get any more clues.”
“And what if you don't get enough clues before I move on? Then what?”
“This new situation set up will help.”
I stood, more tired than I should've been. I might as well get the inevitable over with.
“Bedroom's down the hall.”
It was very irritating that although I was losing my ability to read him, his perception was still right on.
“I'm going in there.” I pointed in the direction down the hall like I was preparing to enter a minefield. “You can't come in until after I fall asleep. I don't want to know you're there.” Because even though I definitely won't be sleeping with you now, even if you begged, I didn't know if I'd be able to fall asleep with him next to me.
“Agreed.”
“And I'd prefer if you were gone when I wake up as well.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“You're the almighty Fate. I'm just a feeble brained transfer. You figure it out.”
***
I woke up alone in his massive bed, confirming he'd found a way to manage. When I rolled over, I could still smell his clean masculine scent, proving he'd been next to me all night. The guy was a jerk but he did smell nice.
I forced myself to get up before I was tempted to take a suspiciously deep breath and I would do that under no circumstance. Wanting to sleep with an attractive man was natural. Trying to smell him took it to a new low—kindergarten crush kind of low. Even I had my limits when it came to acknowledging things. If I tried to breathe in his scent, I was crushing hard. Forcing myself out of bed lent me enough deniability that it couldn't be proved.
There was an adjoining bathroom but I avoided it and opted for the common one down the hall. It might have seemed ridiculous, but I drew the line at sharing a bed. I needed my own bathroom.
The house sounded empty and I hurried, wanting to get out of there before he showed up again. Nights and work time was enough. I wasn't going to hang out at his house all day, too.
There was a luncheonette not far from here. Since I didn't have my Honda, I'd walk there and get a taxi home after I got some breakfast and much needed coffee. This body might not have been physically addicted, but I was certainly still in need.
Stepping outside, it was a beautiful sunny day. I loved this time of year. It was why I'd chosen to get married this month. And then I couldn't seem to stop the thoughts from rolling in. I wondered if my wedding dress was still hanging in the closet in the home I'd shared with Charlie.
“Camilla, I don't understand why you're so crazy, lately.” He paused outside the cafe we were about to lunch in and squeezed my hands. “We're going to be married next week. Where are all these fears coming from?”
I looked into his almond eyes but the calm I usually felt when I was near him didn't come.
I reached a hand up and ran my fingers along his cheek. My calm Charlie. Everything was going according to plan, right now. I was marrying a kind man, who was my best friend. I had a supportive family, great friends, and a job I loved.
And yet, for days now, I'd been plagued by a foreboding so powerful I woke in fear every night. Knowing it was irrational
had done nothing to quell it. Standing here, on a beautiful spring day, I couldn't shake the feeling that a dark shadow chased me.
“Honey, please don't worry, everything is going to be fine.”
When he used to smile at me like that, it would make me feel like everything was right in the world. But not today, or for the last week. If I could just understand why I felt like this, maybe I could get myself out of this funk.
“I don't know what's wrong. It's just this feeling I can't get rid of.”
“Everything will be fine.”
His hands brushed my hair back from my face as he looked at me with concern. “Fine.” I hated that word. I didn't want fine. I wanted great and fantastic. But Charlie was a “fine” person. Never swung too much in either direction and that was what I loved about him. He grounded me, so I overlooked the choice of words, knowing it was petty.
“I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm acting like this.” I smiled back at him but it was forced and he knew it. “Let's eat.”
I tugged him along after me into the luncheonette.
Chapter Sixteen
“What are you doing here?”
I looked over to see Fate sitting next to me on the bench across from the luncheonette I used to go to with Charlie.
I didn't know myself how I'd ended up here. Once I'd started thinking about my life, I'd also started losing some of my control. I’d picked up my Honda this morning and the next thing I knew, I was driving to all my old haunts until I was sitting there, a stalking dead girl.
Charlie and I used to meet here at least once a week for a long lunch. Small tables lined the front sidewalk, where we'd sit when the weather was nice. If I squinted my eyes, I could see the menu board above the counter we used to order from.
“How did you find me?” I was resentful of the company. This was my place. And Charlie's. This was my life and nothing to do with Fate, or the office and the craziness surrounding it.
He leaned against the wrought iron back and rested an ankle upon the opposite knee. I'd never met someone who could make themselves so comfortable no matter where they were.
“Why are you doing this to yourself?”
Karma (Karma Series) Page 12