“How is your mom?” he asked solicitously.
“She’s fine.” The smile on her face was so practiced and perfect, he didn’t believe it for a second. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
“Why did you really come here?”
She flinched.
The action was minute. But Con was an artist when it came to the study of women. He could have catalogued everything about her and, to him, that flinch was as noticeable as if she’d shouted, All right, I lied!
It screamed of guilt and all the hidden secrets he’d suspected from the beginning, the things he’d let himself get blinded to in his need for her. Now all of that came rushing to the fore, but he hid it behind a blank mask as he watched her.
“What do you mean?” Shawntelle gave him a confused smile. “We talked about this. You wouldn’t play ball and I can already tell your brother isn’t going to talk, and neither is Shame. I know a dead end when I see one.”
He pretended to ponder that answer. “And you have no desire to follow up things with…oh…I dunno… somebody’s dark past?”
“What do you mean?” She frowned at him.
“You write stories. Surely you researched us.” He took a step closer, trying to ignore the visceral knowledge building inside him. “I mean, it’s not hard to connect the dots if you look.”
Her brows drew down in a tight line over her forehead. “Just where are you going with this?”
“Did you or did you not dig around and research us? If you didn’t, then the bullshit line about writing a story about us is just that…bullshit.” He lifted a shoulder. “It’s not like there’s much to tell with Riley or me, other than the fact that we fucked women for money. Parents died, left us broke. He had a chance to start making easy money and he took it. Then I joined in. Nothing terribly fascinating there. But there is somebody else involved…and you seem to really dig writing about victims.”
“Victims…” Her mouth fell open. “Shit, you think I plan on writing some exposé about Max.” Fury lit her eyes now.
It was real. It was potent. It was honest.
And he believed it—that much, he believed.
As she stormed over to him, he held his tongue. Even when she jabbed a finger into his chest, he said nothing. “You think I would drag up his history and dig into the kind of wounds he has? That kind of shit doesn’t ever heal.”
“You know that for a fact?”
“I…” She sucked in a breath and looked away. “Not personally, no. But somebody I know.”
She backed away, shaking her head. “There’s no story coming from me. Not about you three—and never about Max. I promise you.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I…” She stopped, and once more, just shook her head. “I’ve told you what I can tell you, Con. I can’t offer you anything else.”
Judging by the look in her eyes, he knew she meant it.
So he left.
* * * * *
And he actually did leave, for a little while. He went all the way back to his boyhood home, a full forty-minute drive, roundtrip, after calling to make sure Charli was there.
She was, and she was so groggy and cranky that she didn’t even ask why he wanted to borrow her mundane Ford Fusion, which was almost too small for his big frame, and let her take his convertible to work. She just nodded, yawned and slammed the door in his face.
Now in a car that was much less likely to catch attention, he sat parked in the driveway of a house a few doors down from Shawntelle’s place. He hoped Shawntelle hadn’t taken the time to get to know her neighbors, and that nobody took notice of him. Of course, if he was still there when the owners of the home returned, he might have some explaining to do.
It was edging up on three when he pulled into the driveway and at three-ten, she left.
He stayed put until she turned left and then he quickly pulled out and headed in the same direction.
He wasn’t too good at the following detail and it got harder when she left the busier downtown area for the less populated side streets.
It got much worse when he recognized the street she turned on to. He told himself he was wrong.
He was too far back. Others lived on that street.
Plenty of reason for her to be there.
Plenty.
He’d do a drive by, just slow down enough to prove that to himself.
Of course the dead-end street made it hard to just drive by. Still, he kept up a nonchalant façade and hit the second-to-the-last house, the hat and sunglasses he’d pulled from his own car firmly in place. They were in front of Kyle’s house.
She had been talking to him, damn it.
How did Shawntelle know Kyle Mobley?
It had to be why she was there. Had to be.
Jaw clenched, he told himself he would just drive on by. He would. Chances were, she knew exactly what kind of ugly ties connected Mobley to Con and his family. So if she was willing to mess with Kyle anyway…
Raised voices jerked his attention away from the road.
He looked in the rearview mirror and saw Kyle grab Shawntelle and shake her.
He threw the car into reverse and hit the gas. Leaving rubber on the pavement, he ended up half on the curb by the time he stopped.
Con came out of the car already seeing blood.
“Let her go, Kyle.” Hate seethed inside him as he remembered the last time he’d gone a round with this piece of shit, trying to keep Kyle away from Toby and still trying to keep his own guard up, too.
Now he’d have his attention divided between the woman he wanted and Kyle, but he wasn’t going to be blindsided or sucker-punched this time.
“Oh, it’s the pretty boy,” Kyle said, shoving Shawntelle aside with a smirk. “You want seconds?”
“I want to put you through the pavement. Haven’t you gotten in enough trouble for roughing up women?”
“Roughing up?” Kyle laughed. “We were just…catching up.”
“Con, don’t. He didn’t hurt me.” Shawntelle’s voice shook as she spoke, trying to get between them.
Con nudged her out of the way. “This is about more than you, Shawntelle.”
“Good thing.” Kyle cracked his knuckles. “Guess she never mentioned our…history, did she?”
“Shut up.” Con didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to know. It didn’t matter anyway. If Kyle was any part of the reason she’d been coming around, then…yeah, it just didn’t matter. He didn’t want to know, but that didn’t mean he was going to let Kyle pull whatever he was trying to pull. That mean glint in the bastard’s eyes spelled nothing but trouble. Of course, if Kyle had anything but mean in him, then Con would be damn surprised.
“You really don’t want to be interfering in my business, pretty boy,” Kyle said, scraping overlong nails down the stubbly growth that darkened his chin.
By the looks of him, Con would have to guess he hadn’t seen the inside of a shower in close to a week, and he smelled like it, too. His clothes were wrinkled and his eyes were bloodshot. Rumor had it he’d been told to hand in his badge, pending the investigation. And although nobody would confirm it, he was on leave without pay.
Judging by the looks of things, Kyle probably couldn’t afford that.
“You got in my way once before and it didn’t go well for you, did it?” Kyle cracked his knuckles again.
“Yeah, big man, I got in between you and the boy you were going after. Tough guy, ain’t ya?” Con didn’t feel like smiling at all, but he did it anyway and watched a flicker of ugly hate spew into Kyle’s eyes. “Always knew you had a major hate-on for Riley, but never thought you’d stoop low enough to go after the women in his life. And a kid? Tough guy, you are.”
“You don’t know shit, pretty boy. All you’ve ever done with your life is pour drinks and take money for banging pussy.” The veins in Kyle’s neck stood out now and his face was a florid, ugly shade of red.
“You have to be good at banging pussy to
make the kind of cash I did.” He kept that sardonic sneer on his face, edging closer and keeping Shawntelle at his back. “After all, we all have our talents. Me, I mix a decent Manhattan and I’m good with the ladies. You’re good at roughing them up, isn’t that right? Can’t even keep a job at a small-town police department like we got here in Bardstown.”
“Shut up, you piece of shit.” Kyle, bug-eyed with his rage, prowled nearer.
“Your life must really suck now. When you due in court?”
With a bellow, Kyle rushed Con. Con was ready and caught the shorter, stockier man around the waist, twisting and using Kyle’s weight to take him to the patchy lawn. Once he had Kyle under him, the fury he’d felt when he saw the man put his hands on Shawntelle exploded out of him and he fisted a hand in the back of Kyle’s hair, slamming his face into the ground.
Again, again…and it wasn’t even over Shawntelle this time. It was the fury of what Kyle had done when he’d broken into Riley’s apartment, what he might have done if Bree had been there, what he’d threatened to do to Toby. All of that came flooding out and he drove that rage straight into turning Kyle into a bloody mess.
Blood roared, pounded in his ears like a freight train. It drowned out everything else, even Shawntelle’s panicked voice, for a minute.
But she caught his shoulder and screamed in his ear.
The screaming didn’t let up, either.
“The cops… Damn it, get up, Con. The cops are here.”
She said it again.
He heard her voice the second time, but just barely.
When she caught his wrist, that broke through his rage and he paused, panting.
“Con, stop…the cops.”
Slowly, he looked up, met her eyes for a moment, and then looked past her just in time to see the police cars as they slammed to a stop in front of the house.
Fuck.
One, two—shit—three police cars. The ugly mess that was Kyle Mobley moaned underneath him. “You stupid, useless waste, stay down,” he said, still panting for air.
Then he got up, his hands held high.
Six cops approached, eying him with more than a little caution.
He knew every one of them, and the woman who was second in line—he’d slept with her more than once.
Somehow, he didn’t think that was going to matter here, though.
“Guess it’s not going to make a difference if I say he came at me first,” he said, not even bothering to smile.
Chapter Eleven
He was going to look back on how everything unfolded later on.
Con knew he would and he’d do it damn often, daily in fact, and then regularly, weekly, then sporadically, for the rest of his life.
He’d wonder if he could have done anything differently. Save for beating the shit out of Kyle, he doubted there was. If he’d known what he did would make things turn out the way they had, he wanted to think he would’ve walked away once he got Shawntelle to leave.
But hindsight, while not perfect, is far better than foresight—his ability to tell the future sucked giant balls.
As everything played out, he was too busy dealing with the rage and trying to think past it to see the ticking time bomb that had settled inside Kyle.
As the cops drew nearer, he kept his hands high and spread out. Behind him, Kyle moaned, then started to swear in ugly, heated fashion.
“I’m done,” he said. He didn’t want to be done, not at all.
But he also didn’t want to get his ass arrested.
Of course, that might still happen.
As several cops moved toward him, Shawntelle spoke up. He lifted his voice to be heard over her. “Ignore her. She had nothing to do with this.”
“Oh, hell, no!”
He whipped his head around to glare at her.
She was glaring back.
“You are not going to stand there and act like you didn’t show up here because of me, get into a fight because of me, then claim it had nothing to do with me!” She jutted her chin up in the air and dared him to argue.
“Sure. It had to do with you—me being here. I heard you talking to him.” He’d give her that. “But the rest? That bag of dicks messed with my brother, my family. The rest is all on him.”
He wouldn’t give her anything else.
Her lids fluttered.
He looked away.
Carla, the cop he knew rather…personally, stepped forward, clearing her throat. The wedding ring on her left hand glinted in the light as she placed it on her weapon. She was a lefty. He remembered that now. “Why don’t we all just take a deep breath and calm down? We can take it from the top.”
He didn’t think calming down was going to help his position at all. But if she wanted to try it, who was he to stop her? “Sure. Why not?”
Carla nodded. “Okay, then, Con…Mr. Steele. Step over here away from Officer Mobley. Keep your hands where we can see them, but you can lower them. You guys okay with that?” she asked, glancing at the other officers.”
They exchanged glances, then looked at Kyle skeptically. However, after a long pause, they either nodded or grunted assent. “One move, son, and you’re in cuffs,” the oldest warned him.
Con nodded shortly. “Yes, sir, Officer Stock.”
“We’ll keep this all nice and friendly,” Carla said. “Stock, can you help Officer Mobley?” As Stock and his partner moved off to check on Kyle, Carla looked at Shawntelle. “Ma’am?”
Whatever response she gave was silent and Con didn’t bother looking in her direction. Stock’s partner was talking to Kyle in a low voice. Con caught some of it.
“Man, he fucked you up…okay…need an ambulance…?”
Con also caught a few low mutters that referenced his brother and then Bree.
Kyle’s belligerent response was easier to hear. “I’m fine, jackass. I want to press charges. No. What? No, it’s got nothing to do with that bullshit. All a bunch of PC, pussy-whipped bullshit.”
Nobody responded to that and when Con glanced back at him, all but two of the cops had distanced themselves from Kyle. Even Stock was looking at him askance.
The only one who seemed even remotely friendly was the one still at his side.
The distance between the rest of the cops and Kyle was subtle, yes.
But it told a story that might as well have been written in flames.
And judging by the way Kyle looked at the cops who had taken care to step away, Kyle read their subtle snub just fine.
His face went carefully blank.
The officer at his side offered him a handkerchief to wipe the blood from his face and Kyle accepted with an affable smile, then asked for some water.
“I’ll get it,” Stock said.
Con kept an eye on him as Carla started to ask questions. To her credit, she kept everything professional and not even a blush showed on her face as she took notes. Of course, he wasn’t blushing, either.
He guessed both of them were pros.
Shawntelle was pacing the limited space she had on the side of the yard between her car and the cops, looking back and forth between him and Kyle, worrying her full lower lip between her teeth.
Con shot another look at Kyle as Stock approached, a bottle of water extended.
Kyle accepted it and twisted off the cap, still smiling a little. He drank, then groaned, doubling over.
“Shit, man…are you okay?”
Things went to hell so fast after that Con couldn’t even begin to tell where it all went wrong, and how.
Carla saw it first.
She started to draw her service weapon, her eyes wide and scared. “Kyle—”
But he already had his hand on the other cop’s weapon and he swung, striking the younger, skinnier cop across the side of the face. He toppled like a felled tree while the others scrambled to draw their guns.
Stock had his drawn and up, rushing in.
Con saw that from the corner of his eye as he grabbed Shawntelle and threw her
to the ground, covering her body with his.
Voices raised and dirt kicked up in the air in front of him. He caught Shawntelle and rolled while the sound of gunfire ripped the air apart.
A few seconds later, that cacophony was gone and one of the cops was talking in a rapid-fire voice, “Shots fired, shots fired. Ambulance… We’ve got two down.”
Two…
Con shoved to his elbows, then went to a crouch by Shawntelle so he could inspect her. Pain streaked down his shoulder, but he gamely ignored it as he checked Shawntelle. She was staring up at him in numb shock. “Are you hurt?” he demanded.
“What?”
“Are you hurt?” He shook her a little.
“No. I don’t…” She sat up and looked around. “I’m fine.”
Con got to his feet, looking around. Two officers, including the one who’d inadvertently allowed Kyle to grab his weapon, stood over a still form. Kyle. Ugly red spread open across his chest and when one of the cops knelt to check his pulse, Con looked away.
That was when he saw the other cluster of cops—three of them gathered around Carla.
“Aw, fuck,” he muttered.
He rushed over, only to be pushed back by the one barking orders into the phone.
She was pale, her face damp with sweat, eyes bright.
Blood pulsed in rhythmic waves from her thigh. One of the cops was talking to her while the other clapped his hands down on her leg.
“Here,” Shawntelle said, pushing between them, dropping her gym bag to the ground. She had a towel in her hand.
The cop didn’t look up at first but when she pushed it into his line of sight, he grimaced. “I can’t take pressure off for long.”
“You won’t have to.”
Con watched as she knelt across from him, the towel already folded into a thick pad.
They timed it perfectly, the cop lifting his hands just long enough for Shawntelle to push the towel into place. It soaked through with blood almost immediately.
Sirens were already drawing closer.
But Carla was getting paler.
“Kyle…?” Carla asked, her voice weak.
“He’s dead,” one of the other officers said.
F*ck Club: Con Page 8