“Yeah?” she asked as she poured. They were using Styrofoam cups, and that was another thing to remedy.
“Two things, actually.” He turned around to face her, hands braced back on the counter. “One, we need furniture.”
“I’ve got a few things in the loft.”
“Real furniture. Enough to fill this place up.”
Her brows popped in surprise. “Okay.”
“And the other thing is…” He winced. “My mum.”
Interest sparked in her eyes. “You’re thinking of bringing her here, aren’t you?”
He’d told her about his mother’s poor decisions when it came to Devin Green, the way he couldn’t trust that she wouldn’t get hurt again. “Yeah. There’s plenty of room for her here. If you’re okay with it.”
She smiled and it did things to his insides. The simple act of giving her a say pleased her so much, and he loved that he could do that, include her and make her happy. “Yeah. To be honest, it’s super adorable to hear you say ‘mum,’ so I’m totally on board.”
He had to grin. “Just to warn you, though. She’s going to love you to death.”
Her eyes crinkled up she smiled so wide.
His phone chimed again. “I gotta go check in with the boss. You’re teaching this morning?”
“Yep.”
“I’ll be back in a bit.”
“No rush.”
It felt like some suburban cliché, both of them off to work, the smell of coffee swirling around their expensive kitchen.
He grinned, suddenly, at the absurdity of it. The way life had taken such unusual turns to get to such a commonplace moment.
“I know,” she said, nose scrunching up. “Let me call you ‘honey’ and they can slap us in a Rockwell calendar.”
~*~
When he pulled up to the clubhouse at Dartmoor, he caught the bright gleam of sunlight on a black Jag XF. Black luxury sedans were kingpin-required. But a Jaguar? That could only belong to one person.
“Shit,” he muttered, hustling off his bike.
Inside, his brothers were scattered at the tables, a few at the bar, Ghost lounged back on a sofa with deceptive calmness, squared off from Shaman, who was seated in a deep leather chair across from the president.
The man was in a tailored suit, his hair smooth and shiny, like he used a straightener on the damn stuff. His shoes were square-toed, saddle-colored things that cost more than the chair in which he sat.
Fancy bugger.
“Alright, VP’s in the house,” Ghost said with a sigh. “We’re all here. You gonna tell me what this is about?”
The Englishman had a tumbler of what looked to be Scotch and he held it up to the light, highlighting a dozen water marks on the glass that hadn’t come off in the dishwasher. He frowned. “Well that’s not very hospitable.”
“You’re in my house. I don’t have to be hospitable for shit.”
Shaman sighed, set the glass down, and took in the room with a fast flick of his eyes. Everyone listening? Everyone paying attention to me? Self-absorbed prick.
Walsh stole a glance at Tango, to get a read on the guy, but he was staring at the toes of his boots, hands knotted together.
“Your club’s under FBI surveillance,” Shaman said, and a round of disbelieving curses rippled through the room.
“How do you know?” Walsh asked, and Shaman smiled, like he’d been hoping for that question.
“Because I caught him outside my building this morning surveilling me. He had a camera, and I looked through it while Bruce had him…detained.” He motioned toward the hulking black-garbed bodyguard standing behind his chair. “There were photographs of all of you, at your homes, with your families.” He held up a hand and Bruce pulled a folder from inside his jacket and handed it over.
Shaman sat forward and laid out the glossy photos on the coffee table in front of him. There was Maggie standing at her kitchen sink. Holly watering the azaleas. Rottie having dinner at the table with Mina and the boys. Ava and Mercy in bed together, and Ghost flipped that one face-down with a disgusted sound.
Then Walsh spotted Emmie, and a chill skittered up his back. It was her standing at his side, the night they’d discovered the graffiti, illuminated by his bike’s headlamp. The camera was an expensive one, because it was a surprisingly clear shot to have been taken at night, without a flash.
“Jesus Christ,” Rottie murmured, as all the guys crowded over the table.
“Oh, he’s dead,” Mercy said. “He’s fucking dead.”
“Also, you need to get some blinds,” Dublin told him.
Ghost picked up the photo of Maggie, face a mask of contained rage. “How do I know you didn’t take these?”
Shaman sighed, rolled his eyes and reached inside his gray suit coat. He came out with a man’s wallet, and tossed it onto the table. “I didn’t just fall off a cartel truck. Give me some credit, Teague.”
Ghost snatched up the wallet.
“Harlan Grey’s your man,” Shaman said. “You’ve had dealings with him before, yes?”
“Yeah.” Ghost ground his jaw as he studied the driver’s license.
“I checked with my contacts,” Shaman said, casually, “and he’s not on assignment in Knoxville. So what he’s doing is completely off the books with the Bureau.”
“You have FBI contacts?” Ratchet asked wistfully. “Dude. Respect.”
“He’s gone rogue?” Walsh asked, gut tightening.
“It would seem so.”
Walsh glanced at his prez and they shared a fast, silent communication. If the guy wasn’t acting as a fed, he was fair game.
~*~
The sight of a squad car pulling up to the barn went a long way toward dampening Emmie’s mood. It was easy to forget, when she was alone with Walsh, talking and tangling together in bed, that the only reason any of this was happening was because Davis Richards was dead.
She felt a fast stab of guilt for her deceased boss – here she’d been enjoying his deep tub last night – as she climbed over the arena fence and walked to meet Sergeant Fielding.
“Emmie, hi,” he greeted with a smile and an awkward half-wave. Thanks to Brett’s constant shenanigans, she’d encountered the sergeant a lot over the last few years, when he was dropping Brett off and unhooking his cuffs. Fielding had always been a likeable, serious sort.
“Morning, Sergeant. How’s the investigation going?”
“Well,” he said with a sigh, hands going on his gun belt, “we talked to Brett, and there’s no doubt in my mind he did it. Unfortunately, he’s got an alibi and we don’t have the incident on tape.” He shrugged and made an apologetic face. “That’s how these kinds of things go, I’m afraid. We rarely charge anyone.”
“Oh, well that stinks. But I meant about Davis. The…” Should she say it? “Murder.”
His brows twitched. “I’m sorry, but you know I can’t talk to you about that.”
“I know.” She nodded.
“But since you brought it up, how’ve things been around here?”
“Except for spray paint and cat guts?” she asked with a dry chuckle.
Fielding was serious. “You seen anything that was off? Anyone been by? Found anything up in that house?”
She frowned, thinking of the night a noise in the barn had awakened her and Walsh, thinking about the door being ajar the night she found Davis. “It’s nothing concrete.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“I…” How to put it? “I get the impression, just this feeling – and there have been some sounds in the barn – that something’s not right. Like there’s somebody skulking around after dark.” After she said it, she realized just how strongly she believed it. She’d been pushing it down, in hopes it was her imagination, but now she felt a new rush of fear. “I guess I sound paranoid.”
“Not at all. When people get that kind of gut feeling, they’re usually right. Listen to it,” he said, “and please be careful. Call if you feel like you’re in da
nger, okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
~*~
Aidan walked into the cramped central office expecting to find Mags, and instead encountered a very different blonde. Samantha sat behind the desk, Remy in her lap, turning the pages of a picture book as she read aloud to him.
“ ‘And then the rabbit said–’ ” Her head lifted as his shadow blotted out the light from the door. Her expression cycled through a series of emotions he didn’t understand, and then settled into a flat neutral. “Oh hi.”
“Hey. Mags isn’t here?”
“Ava had a doctor’s appointment and she was feeling a little under the weather, so Maggie went with her. I offered to keep Remy.”
“Oh. Cool.” He rapped his knuckles on the doorframe and started to back out of the office.
Sam’s voice stopped him. She was a professor, and she had one of those pleasant voices a person could listen to all day, always pitched at just the right volume to carry, but never to startle. “Did you need something?”
When he turned back around, she was shifting Remy to a better seat in her lap. “Not that I know where anything is, but I could look.”
He hesitated. He’d been coming to ask about an advance on his next check, because last night’s date had seriously depleted his cash. “Nah,” he said finally, “nothing you can help with. Paycheck shit.”
“Ah.” She nodded. “Right. Can’t help you there.”
He started to turn away, but didn’t, struck suddenly by how very sad she looked. He’d noticed Sam before in the last year or so that she’d been friends with Ava, because anything blonde and female deserved a good look. But her attitude was all wrong, sort of shy and awkward and too quiet. He looked at everyone, but it was the woman with a hair flip and a sly smile that really grabbed his attention. Chicks like that knew what he had to offer and wanted a slice. Chicks like Samantha were a minefield he had no idea how to navigate.
“Hey, are you alright?” he asked, and felt kind of stupid for it.
Her face smoothed over with surprise. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
“You just…I dunno. You looked upset, or something.”
She gave him a wistful smile. “I’m not upset.”
See, that right there. He had no idea what the point of that was, when their faces said one thing and their lips another.
He decided to make light of it. “It’s cool if you are. Writers are supposed to be all moody, right?”
She exhaled sharply through her nose, smile turning wry. “Right.”
It was time to walk away now. “Okay. Well. I’ll see ya.”
“See ya.”
But she called him back again. “Hey, Aidan?”
“Hmm?”
“Have you been on that date yet? The one you needed advice about?” A tense notch formed between her brows, mouth tucking down in the corners. Was it unhappiness? Disapproval? Or just a general sourness?
“I have, yeah. Went last night, actually.” He couldn’t stop the smile at the memory.
Sam’s brows twitched above the rims of her glasses. “Lucky girl.” More of that wistful look that wasn’t really a smile. “What’s her name?”
Not a question he’d expected, but not a strange one, considering.
“Tonya. Tonya Sinclair. Her dad owns the bank or something.”
Sam’s expression went totally blank.
“She’s a nice girl. Not one of those…” Hmm, no delicate way to say it. “Tell my sister I’m not just doing what I always do.” He grinned, imagining the face Ava would make. “I’ve got a real girl this time. She ought to be proud.”
“Yeah. I’m sure she will be.”
~*~
Tonya Sinclair. Aidan was finally dating someone age appropriate, and it was Tonya Sinclair.
When he was gone, Sam closed her eyes and let her chin rest against the downy soft top of Remy’s head. The baby was a warm, squirmy burden in her arms, grounding her to this chair and this moment. But with her eyes shut, it was so easy to lose her mind to the past.
Tonya’s parents had made a go at exposing her to “the regular kids,” or some such, when she was young. Tonya hadn’t been in her class, but Sam had encountered her at the elementary school playground. The wealthy, beautiful, haughty girl all the other girls had wanted to be friends with. And by “friends,” they’d meant “toadies,” offering to carry her lunchbox, braid her hair, giving her barrettes and curiously shaped pebbles and assorted trinkets they thought would win her favor. She’d held court at the top of the slide, already perfecting that lifted-nose posture that signified her unquestionable superiority.
Nothing had changed in the intervening years. Tonya had been pulled out of the public school system and sent to a private academy, breezing through town in her silver drop-top Mercedes the day she turned sixteen, berating poor coffee shop girls and grocery baggers for the hell of it.
Sam opened her eyes and took a big breath, because it was too painful to think about the girl who got everything taking something that she herself had always wanted.
“This has to stop,” she murmured, and Remy babbled in response.
“Yeah, I know, buddy,” she said. “Your uncle’s a damn stupid dream for a girl to have, isn’t he?”
So she was done with him, she decided then and there in Maggie Teague’s chair. It was time she moved on.
For good.
Twenty-Eight
One week, two trips to Macy’s, and four delivery trucks later, the Walshes had some furniture, a stocked fridge, and something like a daily routine.
Emmie approached her unexpected marriage as if she were getting to know a new horse that was in for training. Observing, taking note, reacting here and pushing there, working with and around him so that there was a flow to their interactions. She didn’t want to fight, fuss, or struggle, and instead absorbed every little detail about him, so that she could know him, and live with him. And maybe…
Too early for that yet.
He’d been a bachelor so long that he wasn’t hesitant in the kitchen. If he was up first, he put the coffee on. He was fine with scraping together eggs, or something frozen, or sandwiches. But he was happy to stand back and let her have a go at roasted chicken and spaghetti with real meatballs.
He spent a lot of time on his computer and phone, and she had learned that unlike his brothers, who were mechanics and laborers by day trade, he worked solely for the club, moving money around, consulting, acquiring, and selling. She learned that his shoulders got tense, and that he groaned in delight when she worked the knots out of them with her fingers.
And the sex. God, the sex was incredible. In bed, in the shower, in the tub, on the new Oriental look-a-like rug.
It was Sunday and she was done at the barn for the day, all her lessons taught and her Apollo spoiled with a good curry and a mash. Fred had offered to do the evening feeding – his in-laws were driving him up the wall and he was glad for the chance to stay at work – and so she was relieved of the business end of Briar Hall until the next morning.
In days past, that would have been less of a gift and more of a burden. Time off had always been spent watching old test videos to see where she could improve her score, or cleaning her loft, or going generally stir-crazy because she was nothing without her work.
But today she was in the cozy suede chair at the living room’s picture window with a cup of tea and a romance novel. Wondering when Walsh would get home. Wondering what they’d have for dinner. Idly enjoying the words on the page and the hopping of birds in the grass outside.
It was like she was a married person or something.
The sound of the doorbell startled her. Badly. The thing was loud, and she guessed that was because Davis had been old and hard of hearing, but damn.
There was a woman waiting on the front step, a napping baby in a car seat/carrier clutched in one hand, a sack full of groceries in the other. She was brunette, vaguely familiar, and had the biggest, greenest eyes Emmie had ever seen.
“Hi!” she greeted. “I’m Holly. And this is Lucy.” She hefted the carrier. “And I’m hoping Michael remembered to give you my gift, or you’re going to think I’m a crazy person.”
“Holly, right. Michael’s wife.” Emmie smiled, but the bag of groceries had her worried. “It’s nice to meet you.”
They stared at one another a moment.
“I brought stuff to make dessert,” Holly said, and the grocery bag rustled. “Brownie trifle. It’s a little rich, but Michael likes it…” She trailed off as Emmie continued to stare at her. “Walsh told you we were coming, didn’t he?”
“We?”
A flash of brilliant blonde hair out on the sidewalk caught her eye. A woman she didn’t know walked alongside Ava, both of them loaded down with more bags, and baby Remy.
Behind them were two more women.
“Um…” Emmie said.
The blonde reached the top of the porch steps and flashed Emmie a cool smile. “Hi, darlin’. Which way’s the kitchen?”
Realizing it was let them in or get run over, Emmie stepped aside. “Straight back through the living room,” she said numbly.
The woman waved a hand in acknowledgement and breezed right on in, smelling faintly of gardenias, managing to look imperial in a gauzy top, jeans, and ballet flats.
“Maggie,” Holly explained as she slipped past. “Ghost’s wife.”
Which made her the president’s wife.
“Got it,” Emmie whispered back.
“You don’t mind if we barge right in, do you?” Ava asked, rolling her eyes as she went past.
“Um…no…”
“Mina,” the next one said with a smile.
“And Nell. Can’t miss me ‘cause I’m the old bat,” the one with the sun-lined face and the smoker’s voice said with a rough laugh.
“Don’t say that about yourself,” Mina said.
“Well, if the flu shits, ya know.”
Emmie checked that there was no one else coming up the walk, then shut the door and hastily followed them into the kitchen. They seemed to be making themselves right at home.
The Skeleton King (Dartmoor Book 3) Page 23