Covet fa-1

by J. R. Ward

  As Vin glanced over his shoulder, his demeanor was focused and calm, which suggested he was not unfamiliar with having his ass in a crack with the police. “That guy with the mustache and glasses who looked down the hall when we were fighting could be a problem. We didn't kill them, but chances are good it's going to get complicated for us.”

  True enough.

  Turning away, Jim went over to the cupboards and took out the instant coffee. Only half an inch of grounds were left in the jar, not enough for one, much less two cups. Which was fine; it tasted like swill anyway.

  He put the jar back and went to the fridge even though there was nothing in it. “Hello? You there, Heron?”

  “Heard what you said.” And he wished like hell someone hadn't shot those two idiots. Getting into a fistfight was one thing. Being implicated in a shooting was another entirely. He was confident enough in his false identity on a local level—after all, it had been created by the U.S. government. But what he didn't need was his old bosses up in his face again, and getting flagged for murder by the CPD was going to pop him onto their radar immediately.

  “I'd like to keep this as quiet as possible,” he said, closing the refrigerator door.

  “Myself as well, but if that club's owner wants to find me, he can.”

  That was right; Vin had given the prostitute they'd rescued his card. Assuming the black duffel had been hers, and she didn't toss the info, the link was there.

  Vin leaned down and gave Dog a scratch behind the ears. “I doubt we're going to be able to keep totally out of this. I have excellent lawyers, though.”

  “I bet.” Crap, Jim thought. He couldn't just bolt out of town—not with Vin's future hanging in the balance here in Caldwell.

  Well, wasn't this complication just what the situation needed.

  Jim nodded at his open bathroom. “Listen, I'd better get showered and go to work. The guy whose house I'm building can be an asshole.”

  Vin looked up with a half smile. “Funny, I feel the same way about my boss—except I work for myself.”

  “Least you're self-aware.”

  “More so than you. It's Saturday. So you don't have to go to the site.”

  Saturday. Damn, he'd forgotten what day of the week it was. “I hate the weekends,” he muttered.

  “Me, too—so I work my way through them.” Vin glanced around and focused on the two laundry piles. “You could always neaten this place up.”

  “Why bother? The one on the left is the clean, the right is dirty.”

  “Then you should do your laundry, 'cuz there's a mountain-molehill thing going on that doesn't bode well for fresh socks.”

  Jim picked up the pair of jeans he'd had on the night before and tossed them onto the “mountain” of dirties.

  “Hey, something dropped…” Vin bent down and picked up the little gold earring that had been in the front pocket since Thursday night. “Where did you get this?”

  “In the alley behind the Iron Mask. It was on the ground.”

  Vin's eyes locked on the thing like it was worth more than the two bucks it had probably cost to make and the fifteen it had cost to buy. “Mind if I keep it?”

  “Not at all.” Jim hesitated. “Was Devina home? When you got back?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you work things out?”

  “Guess so.” The guy disappeared the gold hoop into his breast pocket. “You know, I saw you handle that kid last night.”

  “You don't like to talk about Devina.”

  “My relationship with her is no one else's business but mine.” Vin's eyes narrowed. “You've been trained to fight, haven't you. And not by some strip-mall martial-arts academy.”

  “Keep me posted if you hear anything from the police.” Jim went into the bathroom and cranked on the shower. As the pipes groaned and rattled, an anemic spray arched out and fell onto the plastic floor of the stall. “And don't worry about locking the door behind you. Dog and I will be fine.”

  The guy met Jim's eyes in the little mirror over the sink. “You are not who you say you are.”

  “Who is.”

  Abruptly, a shadow passed over Vin's face, like he was remembering something horrible. “You okay?” Jim frowned. “You look like you've seen a ghost.”

  “I had a bad dream last night.” Vin dragged a hand through his hair. “Haven't quite shaken it.” Abruptly, Jim heard the guy's voice in his head: Do you believe in demons? As Dog whimpered and started limping back and forth between the two of them, the hairs on the back of Jim's neck tingled. “Who was the dream about.” Not a question.

  Vin laughed tightly, put a business card on the coffee table and went for the door. “No one. I didn't know who it was about.”

  “Vin…talk to me. What the fuck happened when you got home?”

  Sunlight poured into the studio as the guy stepped out onto the stairwell's landing. “I'll let you know if I get contacted by the police. You do the same. I left my card.”

  There was no pushing the subject, clearly. “Okay, fine, you do that.” Jim recited his cell number and wasn't surprised when Vin memorized it without writing it down. “And listen, you might want to stay away from that club.”

  Christ knew adding a set of jail bars to this equation was not going to make things easier. Plus, Vin had looked at that dark-haired prostitute the way he should have been staring at Devina—which meant the less time he was around her, the better.

  “I'll be in touch,” Vin said, before shutting the door.

  Jim stared at the wooden panels as heavy footsteps went down the stairs and then a powerful engine started up. After the M6 crackled down the gravel drive, he went over and let Dog out and then hit the shower before his half-gallon hot-water tank had nothing but cold to offer.

  As he soaped himself up, the question Vin had asked the night before echoed again.

  Do you believe in demons?

  * * *

  Across town, Marie-Terese sat on her sofa and stared at a movie she wasn't watching. It was her…fourth in a row? Fifth? She hadn't slept the night before. Hadn't even tried to put her head on the pillow.

  Vin was in her mind…in her mind and speaking in that strange voice: He's coming for you. He's coming for you.

  When he'd gone into that bizarre trance in the locker room, the message that had come out of his mouth had been terrifying, but his fixated eyes had been even worse. And her first response? It hadn't been, What the hell are you talking about? No, she'd thought to herself, How do you know?

  Having had no idea what to do or how to handle herself, much less him, she'd bolted out of the locker room and told his friend to go in there.

  She looked down at the business card in her hand. Turning it over for the hundredth time, she stared at what he'd written: I'm sorry. She believed that—

  The ring tone that lit off beside her scared the hell out of her, making her jerk so badly the card flipped from her hand and went flying.

  Catching her breath, she reached for the cell phone that was next to her on the sofa, but the call failed before she could see who it was and answer it. Just as well—she didn't feel like talking to anyone and it was likely just a wrong number.

  The little Nokia was the only phone she had. The one in the kitchen that was wired into the wall didn't have a dial tone because she had never activated the line. The thing was, however private you could make a residential phone number, people could still penetrate the identity shield more easily than they could a mobile, and she was all about anonymity—which was why she had looked only at rentals that had utilities included in the monthly rate: It meant that the bills remained in her landlord's name, instead of being switched to hers.

  As she put her phone down, she thought of the past, to the way things had been before she'd tried to leave Mark. Back then, her son's name had been Sean. Her name had been Gretchen. Their last name had been Capricio.

  And she was actually a real, live redhead. Unlike Gina at the club.

  Marie
-Terese Boudreau was a total lie, with the only thing she'd kept true being her Catholic faith. That was it. Well, that and the debt with the lawyers and the private investigator.

  At the time, after everything had gone down, she'd had the option of entering into the witness-protection program. But cops could be bought—God knew her ex and his capos had taught her that. So she'd done what she'd had to with the district attorney, and when Mark had pled out, she'd been officially free to run east, getting as far away from Las Vegas as she could.

  God, she'd hated having to explain to her son that they were going to change the names they went by. She'd been worried that he wouldn't understand…except when she'd started to explain, he'd stopped her. He knew exactly why it had to happen and had told her it was so no one could know who they were.

  That facile knowledge had broken her heart.

  As her cell whistled again at her, she picked it up. There were few who had the number: Trez, each of the sitters, and the Center for Single Mothers.

  It was Trez and the connection was bad, suggesting he was traveling. “Everything okay?” she asked.

  “Did you see the news?”

  “I've been watching HBO.”

  As Trez started talking, Marie-Terese grabbed for the remote and went to the local NBC station. Nothing but the Today show—

  The local update chilled her straight to the bone.

  “Okay,” she said to him. “All right. Yes, of course. When? Okay, I'll be there. Thanks. Bye.”

  “What's wrong, Mama?”

  Before she looked over at her son, she gathered the reins of her face and reeled her expression in. When she finally turned toward him, she thought he seemed closer to three than seven in his pj's with his blanket dragging on the floor.

  “Nothing. Everything's fine.”

  “You always say that.” He walked over and shuffled up onto the couch. When she handed him the remote, he didn't change the channel to Nickelodeon. Didn't even glance at the TV. “Why are you looking like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “The bad time is back.”

  Marie-Terese reached over and kissed his head. “It's going to be okay. Listen, I'm going to have Susie or Rachel or Quinesha come over and sit with you for a while. I have to go in to work for a minute.”

  “Right now?”

  “Yes, but I'll get you breakfast first. Tony the Tiger?”

  “When will you be back?”

  “Before lunch. Just after, at the latest.”

  “Okay.”

  As she went into the kitchen, she dialed the Center for Single Mothers' babysitter service and said a prayer as the ringing started up. When she got voice mail, she left a message and went through the motions of filling up a bowl with Frosted Flakes.

  Her hands trembled so badly, they actually helped the cereal out of the box.

  Those two college kids from the club were dead. Shot in the alley behind the parking lot. And the police wanted to talk to her because the clubgoer who'd found the bodies had reported seeing the pair harass her.

  As she took out the milk, she told herself that it was just a coincidence. People got violently mugged downtown all the time, and those kids had clearly been on drugs. Maybe they'd been trying tomake a buy and the transaction had gone south.

  Please let it not have anything to do with her, she thought. Please let her old life not be catching up with her.

  Vin's voice rippled through her head. He's coming for you…

  Resolutely shutting that part of things out so she didn't lose her mind with fear, she focused on the fact that in less than a half hour she was going to be sitting down with the police. Trez had seemed confident that her cover was going to stick, that the whole I'm-just-a-dancer was ironclad. But God…what if she were arrested for what she did?

  See, this was another thing she'd learned from her husband: If you lived a life with a shaky foundation, the walls could cave in on you pretty damn quick once the cops got to asking questions.

  It had turned out that was really why he'd had to hit the road. He and his “friends” had killed one too many of their “clients” in the “building” trade and the feds as well as the locals had come after them. The one saving grace for her was that as a mere wife, she hadn't had a clue about the way the mob had worked. His mistress, on the other hand, had known much more and been brought up on charges as an accomplice.

  What a mess it had been. What a mess it still was.

  Marie-Terese took the bowl of cereal to her son and got him one of their two TV trays. As she walked around, her heart was pounding so hard it was a wonder Robbie couldn't hear the thing, but she did her best to remain calm on the surface.

  Clearly, he didn't buy the act. “Are we going to move again, Mama?”

  She paused in the process of flipping open the tray's legs. She didn't lie to her son—okay, not about the majority of things—but she wasn't sure how to coach her words. But then there was no way to do that, was there.

  As her phone rang again, she looked at him before she accepted the call from the sitters. “I don't know.”

  Chapter 17

  As Vin drove through Caldwell's outer reaches, his efficiency was autopilot more than awareness, and it was hard to know what was riding him harder: the shit with those dead boys or that hideous dream about Devina.

  The cops were absolutely going to show up at the Iron Mask for a hi-how're-ya-what-the-fuck, and if anyone said a peep about what had gone down in the hallway, they were going to want to see what those security cameras had caught. Which wouldn't be good news. Sure, neither he nor Jim had thrown the first punch or pulled a knife, but then, they were still breathing whereas the other two had had a matching set of lead pacemakers implanted in their chests.

  And that horrible nightmare…it had been so real, he could still feel those bony hands locked onto his shoulders. Hell, as he thought about it, his cock shriveled behind his fly like the thing wanted to hibernate in his lower intestine.

  You made a bargain and you've taken everything I brought into your life, you've eaten it, drank it, fucked it—I'm responsible for it all and you owe me.

  Bargain? What bargain? As far as he knew, he'd made nothing of the sort with her. Or anybody else.

  Whatever, he was arguing about what had been in a dream. Which was nuts.

  Bottom line, he was going to end things with Devina as fast as he could—and not because his subconscious clearly had issues with her. The thing was, their relationship wasn't based on love and it wasn't even based on passion. Passion was sex with soul, and no matter how many times she'd made him come, only his body had been in it.

  He'd thought that would be enough. He'd assumed that was what he wanted. But his first clue that something was off was when he couldn't even ask her the big question. And then looking into Marie-Terese's eyes had sealed the deal.

  Of course, it didn't mean that he and Marie-Terese were going to ride off into the sunset together; his reaction to her just told him there was a whole lot missing between him and the woman he'd thought he was going to marry.

  God, the past tense in that was as jarring as a slap in the face.

  Refocusing on the road, he cursed when he realized where he was. Instead of driving to his office, which was what he'd intended, he'd ended up on Trade Street, and as he passed by the front entrance of the Iron Mask, he slowed. There were two cop cars parked across from the club and a uniform by the main door.

  The smart thing was to keep going.

  And he did. Sort of.

  Vin went to the next street and hung a left, making a box around the club and heading for where the cars parked in back. Just as he came into the lot, he stopped. There were more police cars in the rear, and on the next block over, yellow crime scene tape was stretched between two buildings.

  So that was where the murders had taken place.

  The beep of a car horn brought his eyes to the rearview mirror. Behind him was a dark green Toyota Camry…and Marie-Terese was in t
he driver's seat.

  Popping the gearshift into neutral, he pulled the parking brake and got out. As he walked over to her car, she put down the window—which he took as a good sign.

  Man, he liked the way she looked with her hair back in a ponytail and just a red turtleneck and blue jeans on. Without all the makeup, she was truly beautiful, and as he leaned in, he smelled not perfume, but dryer sheets, the kind that were like sunshine in the nose.

  Vin breathed deeply and felt his shoulders ease up for the first time since…yeah, right, like he could remember when.

  “Did they call you, too?” she asked, staring up at him.

  He shook himself back to attention. “The police? Not yet. You going to talk to them now?”

  She nodded. “Trez called me about a half hour ago. I was lucky I could get a sitter.”

  Sitter? His eyes flipped to the steering wheel where her hands were. No wedding ring, but maybe she had a boyfriend…although what kind of man would let his woman do what she did every night? Vin would whore himself out first if she were his.

  Crap…how was she going to get around the inevitable question about what she did at the club?

  “Listen, if you need a lawyer, I know some good ones.” Well, wasn't this the day for throwing attorney cards around. “Maybe you should get one first before you talk to the police, given what you—”

  “I'll be okay. Trez isn't worried, and I'm not going to be until he is.”

  As her eyes bounced around, he realized she already had an exit strategy, and it didn't take an Einstein to figure out what it might be. Clearly, she was just going to disappear if things got too hot, and for some reason that freaked him right out.