by Wendy Byrne
“I’m fine. But I’d better get back to help Enrique.” She shrugged. “God only knows what trouble he could get himself into.”
“I’m sure he can take care of himself. He seems to be a little hard-core.”
For some strange reason, she was almost tempted to argue the point and defend Enrique. Luckily she was saved by a yelp-like sound coming from Chloe, followed by a string of expletives.
“Keep your hands off me.” Chloe elbowed an unruly customer, but he pressed closer. The beer mugs on her tray hung precariously in the balance as she tried to scoot away.
Enrique made his way over, but she was closer. While she never wanted to think about depending on a man, for some of the more unruly customers, having a man around at least quelled the storm of craziness.
“I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” Sammie came up next to the man, her feet planted apart and ready.
Even though she was prepared, it surprised her when he came after her with a right hook. When she blocked it with her forearm, pain radiated clear through her toes, since it was still tender. She bit back a curse, then landed a palm-heel strike blow under his chin.
The guy stumbled back just as Enrique stepped between them. He grabbed the guy by the upper arm and shoved. The force sent him crashing into the wall.
“Out.” Enrique’s deep half growl, half command was laden with unsuppressed rage.
The guy didn’t look back as he scurried out the front door.
Sammie had worked at a lot of bars in her lifetime. She couldn’t ever remember having this much trouble on a nightly basis. Not that bars were the bastion of civility, but pawing Chloe, going after her, what the hell was going on?
“Thanks, guys,” Chloe muttered as she slipped behind the bar. “Maybe you need to teach me some of those moves, Sammie. It’s never been this crazy before.”
“Give me a day or two to heal and I’ll be more than happy to give you some pointers.”
Chapter Eight
Sammie pulled the pillow over her head and tried to ignore the insistent knock at the door downstairs. Squinting open one eye, she read the digital clock on her nightstand: half past ten.
Why, oh why, had she agreed to have Enrique take her by Tony’s again? Between the aches and pains in her body and all the crap going on in her life, she’d barely slept six hours total over the last several nights. Involuntarily, her eyes floated closed. A few more minutes…
Then the pounding started again. “Sammie, I know you’re in there. Rise and shine.”
That man was relentless. She threw off the covers, slipped into her robe, and stomped down the back stairs. Blowing an errant hair out of her eyes, she yanked open the door. “I overslept. Can you wait while I shower?”
He walked in, his hands resting on his hips. “Did somebody wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?”
She rolled her shoulders, trying to unkink the tightness that had set in from hours and hours of tossing and turning. Her hair refused to behave, so she did the best she could by pushing it over to one side and resting it on her shoulder.
She peered at Enrique through hooded lids. Wasn’t it a crime to not only look positively gorgeous this early in the morning, but to be so happy, too? “Ooh, I’m so tired.”
“Stop whining.” Those gosh darn dimples appeared. “Besides, after Tony’s, I’m going to take you to Sloppy Joe’s. You know, the place Hemingway made famous.”
Her eyes opened a little wider. “As in Ernest?”
“Is there another? Come on.”
“Wait a minute. Before I agree, I have a few questions and some stipulations.”
“I’m all ears.”
“This started out being a mission to find out more about what happened to Tony, and believe me, I appreciate you helping me out, but now with lunch…is this a date?”
He rubbed his fingers under his chin as if considering her question. “You and me alone, eating, talking, maybe even having a good time. Yeah, it might be a date.”
She tsked. “I told you I don’t want to go out with you.”
“Okay, wrong answer.” He shook his head. “It’s not a date.”
“You’re only trying to appease me.”
“And your point?” His mischievous smile remained infectious.
Still, her head felt leaden from lack of sleep, and Enrique’s grand plan wasn’t helping. It only made her thoughts more muddled. She grabbed a bottle off the counter in back and swallowed two aspirins.
She needed fortification. And a clear head. Spending time with him outside the bar was not a good idea. But there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to stop herself.
Instead, she sucked in a deep breath and laid out the ground rules. “Here’s the deal: no touching, no hand-holding, no flirting, no sexy talk, no dancing, and absolutely no kissy face.”
“No kissy face? Well, that might be a deal breaker.” He drew in an exaggerated breath as if weighing the possibilities. “You didn’t mention no sex, did you? I might have you on a technicality.”
Her face flushed as visions of their naked bodies intertwined shot through her mind. She stomped it down. “That rule was implied.”
“Implied? Where did you get these rules?”
“Years of hard-fought lessons.” Her shaky resolve started to spring back to life.
“You drive a hard bargain.”
“And no coercion.”
“That’s not fair. How do you expect me to get on your good side without a little bit of good old-fashioned coercion? You gave in too early to the idea of lunch. I should have known you had something up your sleeve.” He mumbled the last part under his breath but loud enough for her to hear.
Sammie rolled her eyes. “You can wait upstairs if you want.”
…
Enrique followed her up the stairs. Despite its location above a bar, the apartment was light filled and fairly large.
“Make yourself at home.” Without another word, she padded into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. A few seconds later, Enrique heard the water in the shower turn on.
There was a kitchen to the right with a breakfast bar also serving as a counter. The living room was on the left and had a comfortable-looking couch and a small rocker, along with a bookcase holding a stereo and television. The wall that separated the living room and the bedroom didn’t go all the way to the ceiling, which allowed light from the bedroom to spill into the space. Paintings covered nearly every wall surface, mostly abstracts except for a portrait of Sammie and Jack. Their blond hair and similar smiles made the recognition hard to dismiss. He examined the signature in the corner and confirmed they were Sammie’s works.
No doubt about it, the woman had artistic talent. He removed one from the wall and gave the frame a cursory look. She wouldn’t be the first drug dealer to smuggle stuff inside art. And all this second-guessing he was doing was making him insane. But he had to know.
He pulled away the canvas as inconspicuously as possible and peered inside. Nothing. But a superficial glance never told the story. In order to do this right, he needed to do a thorough job to see what secrets she might be hiding.
Without even a twinge of guilt, he emptied the contents of her purse onto the counter. Nothing incriminating. A tube of lipstick, a pair of sunglasses, some loose change, a couple of Tampax, a hair clip, and a small brush.
Next, he opened her wallet and flipped through the compartments. One credit card. One bank card. A Rhode Island driver’s license. An old picture. Judging by the cap and gown, it was Sammie and Jack at her college graduation. With their arms wrapped around each other, they mugged for the camera. Jack’s head was cocked to the side resting against hers. The connection between the pair was palpable. Seeing this picture brought validity to everything she’d said about their relationship. If Jack was into drug dealing, so was she.
The closer he got to her, the more likely she’d slip up. He’d been played by a drug dealer before; it was time he returned the favor.
The case against Jack was solid. He’d verified everything a million times before orchestrating the arrest.
He’d taken pictures and otherwise ingratiated himself into the Key West scene for months before pinpointing the activity to Jack. Could Jack have been sucked into the middle of something much bigger? If so, why did he confess? Was he being threatened or blackmailed, or was there a threat leveled against Sammie?
Enrique didn’t have the answers. At least not yet. He placed the contents back inside her purse and snapped it closed.
Next he searched the drawers and cabinets in the kitchen. The drawers held the usual things: silverware, towels, pens, papers, and junk. Stacked in the cabinets were dishes, glasses, and row upon row of canned food. Canned pasta, canned vegetables, canned fish, canned everything. He opened the refrigerator to find nothing much inside—a pint of cream, no doubt for coffee, a half a stick of butter, and a jar of pickles. The freezer had a bag of frozen vegetables and a carton of butter pecan ice cream.
He’d found nothing incriminating, unless he considered the poor nutritional content. Sammie had to have cholesterol levels in the high two hundreds if this was what she was eating.
Satisfied from a cursory inspection there weren’t any drugs stashed up here, Enrique sat on the couch. As if on cue, the water in the shower shut off. A few seconds later, the door opened, letting out a puff of steam. He heard her brushing her teeth, then she emerged.
As she walked, she pulled her hair to the back while her fingers nimbly wove it into a braid. She wore a pair of jean shorts that hit high enough on her thigh to give homage to a great pair of legs, her signature Doc Martens, and a red T-shirt.
“Let’s get moving. All that talk about lunch is making me hungry.”
…
After another wasted visit to Tony’s neighborhood, they sat down inside Sloppy Joe’s. Sammie couldn’t help but take in the surroundings. The restaurant had the charm of another era combined with a sense of raucousness to attract a younger crowd. Even though it was only lunchtime, the place brimmed with an inebriated mix of people. Luckily, the waitress managed to secure them a table near the back, where the noise level was tolerable.
“I don’t get Tony skipping town like that. Makes him look guilty as hell.” Enrique sipped at his iced tea.
“Jack mentioned something about Tony being in recovery, and he wanted to give him a break. Maybe he needed to get away from the environment completely.” His disappearance figured into the whole issue with Jack. She just didn’t know how yet.
Enrique rubbed his thumbs down the frosty glass of sweet tea. “How come art history?”
She often wondered the same thing. “I’ve always been intrigued by art. While most other kids bugged their parents to take them to the movies, I bugged Jack to take me to art galleries.” She giggled. “Yes, I was one weird kid.”
He grabbed one of the chips from a basket between them. “Tell me about you and your uncle.”
“My mom and dad weren’t exactly normal.” She paused and considered why she felt so comfortable talking to him. Despite the fact she couldn’t come up with a reason, she continued. “My uncle was everything rolled into one.”
“That explains why you’re so close.” He tapped on the wooden table. “How about the teenage years? That had to be tough?”
“For the most part, it went well. Except—”
“Hmm? Uncle Jack wasn’t perfect.”
She grimaced. “Not Jack. Me. He says I was only being a rebellious teen. I wish I could assuage some guilt with that excuse.”
“What happened?” His head inched closer as he studied her face.
“Nothing special. Even back then I had a propensity to pick the bad boys in school. He always said I was too good for them. Which is kind of ironic, since I was a girl from the wrong side of the tracks to begin with.”
“The plot thickens.”
“I had a scholarship for college in Massachusetts. But I didn’t want to go. At the time, it seemed like a million miles away, and I had an I’m-going-to-die-without-him crush on my latest bad boy and didn’t want to leave town.”
“Jack must have had a few things to say about that.”
It was the one and only time she’d ever seen Jack lose his temper. “For a while things got very complicated.”
“How so?”
“My bad boy of the week had a drug problem, and I was going to rescue him.” She hadn’t told anyone what happened. But here she was telling a near stranger. The weird part was it didn’t feel uncomfortable. “He got caught with a stash of cocaine and laid the blame on me. Of course, he reassured me it was only because I was still a juvenile and wouldn’t get in much trouble. At the time, he was eighteen and told me if he took the fall, he’d serve hard time.”
“Sounds like one hell of a guy.”
“Scumbag is being kind.” She bit the corner of her lip to quell the flutter in her gut. “To make a long story short, Jack stepped in, hired a lawyer, got my charges dismissed, and the guy ended up going to jail.”
“Every hear from him after that?”
Should she? Shouldn’t she? “Last I checked, he was doing time for robbery.”
“A real prize, huh?”
Despite her admission she smiled. “Yep. I sure know how to pick them. Thank God Jack intervened, or no doubt I’d be dead by now.”
He raised his eyebrows and stared at her. “You and your uncle are tight.”
A mist of tears began to swim behind her eyelids. She fought the urge to break down into gut-wrenching sobs. “We only have each other. That’s why it makes me so crazy to think he—” She stopped, shaking her head.
“Something’s been bothering you for a couple of days now.” He reached across the table to touch her fingers. “Why don’t you tell me what it is?”
She let out a breath and felt an ease run through her body. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt. Maybe he wouldn’t assume the worst. Maybe he’d understand how ludicrous the whole thing was.
“Jack told me he sold the drugs.” Relief at her admission shuddered through her. “But I don’t believe it. Jack would never sell drugs.”
“Why would he confess if he didn’t do it?”
“I know my uncle, and he looked more scared than guilty.” Admitting it out loud and sharing the burden with somebody else eased some of the pressure.
“What do you think about that?”
“I think Tony knows something, which is why he left town.” She sifted through the information channeling through her brain. The idea of saying something about Tony’s threat twittered at the end of her tongue, but she kept herself in check. “I need to figure out what really happened, and who’s ultimately responsible for my uncle’s incarceration.”
Enrique nodded. “Don’t bite my head off, but they had to have evidence to get the charges to stick.”
“Not if he was set up by the undercover cop.”
“Why would you think that?”
“That’s the only person who makes sense. Jack didn’t do what they’re saying, so somebody had to do a really good job of making it look like he did.”
“Are you sure?”
“Either that, or it was a drug dealer who got Jack to do his bidding for some unknown reason. ’Cause one thing I know for damn sure is my uncle did not sell drugs willingly. Somebody had to have a gun to his head. And I’m bound and determined to find out who.”
Chapter Nine
Getting to know Sammie Murphy better, and being able to separate fiction from reality, was the key to solving this mystery. Enrique had gotten sucked into believing a no-good drug dealer for a couple of years. That wasn’t going to happen again.
Which could also be the reason he couldn’t get either Teresa or her drug-dealing brother, Scott, out of his mind this morning. Again, the lines between personal and professional blurred.
His mother told him it was his propensity for saving sick puppies that got him into trouble with Teresa. Denial was a powerful thing, e
ven for somebody who dealt with druggies, dealers, and kingpins on an everyday basis. He knew she had problems. She drank too much, stayed out too late, and hung with the wrong crowd. That’s what had attracted him to her in the first place. He’d wanted to save her.
Enrique rubbed his hands down his face. He felt no remorse remembering her face as the prison doors closed behind her. When she begged his forgiveness, he’d handed her divorce papers. His only regret had been his inability to nail her brother, Scott, as well.
Cold? Maybe. Necessary? Absolutely. Not only had believing in her nearly cost him his career, but she’d driven a wedge between him and his family. The scar on his thigh from the bullet remained as a constant reminder of his stupidity. Even now, the sting of betrayal wounded him like tearing off a layer of flesh.
This time he wouldn’t be blind. And this time, he’d have absolutely no trouble remaining objective and doing what he needed to do. Sammie Murphy might be getting under his skin, she might bat those innocent eyes at him, but he knew better, and he wouldn’t let her take him down.
…
The knock on the downstairs door startled Sammie even though she’d been expecting him. Still, a juvenile case of first-date jitters inhabited her body.
She bounded down the stairs and peered through the door. Enrique stood on the other side. That flutter started inside her gut—the one that simultaneously barked out a warning even while it seduced her to jump on the crazy train with Enrique. With a vow to ignore the lure, she opened the door and motioned him in.
“You look beautiful today, Ms. Murphy.” He touched at the ends of her hair as she moved past.
“Don’t start that crap, or the date’s off.” Her heart pumped out a rat-a-tat rhythm. Why was it that around him she seemed to have no control over her nerves? And why in the hell did it take Herculean effort for her not to take what he was offering?
“No compliments. Check. Got it.” He eased into a smile, folding his arms over his chest.
“No empty compliments.” To keep him at a distance would be the only way to survive.
“It wasn’t empty. You look pretty with your hair back in a braid, but you look super sexy with your hair down. Kind of like a young Nicole Kidman.”