Cade's Dare (Crime Tells)

by Jory Strong

  “Fuckers,” Cade said as the sedan passed.

  “Assholes,” Mace growled.

  The sedan turned the corner. Cade and Mace pressed their bodies to hers.

  “Don’t,” she said, voice raw. “Just don’t. Okay?”

  The burn in her throat throbbed at feeling them tense against her, as if she’d just delivered a blow. And that made everything worse.

  What does it matter now? The damage is already done.

  Her arms went around their waists.

  Mace touched his mouth to her hair.

  Cade’s hand settled on her stomach, strength and heat, tangling the need for comfort with the desire for intimacy.

  “Mace and I can make you forget all about this,” he said, brushing his lips over hers.

  For a little while they could. And maybe that’s what she needed, connection, comfort, the oblivion of sex, and afterward, a clearer head when it came to dealing with them. Mixing her work with her private life couldn’t happen again.

  She hugged them. “I need to go in and talk to Bulldog.”

  Cade kissed her and stepped away. Then Mace did.

  Fishing her key ring out of his pocket, Cade removed the house key. “We’ll wait for you at your place.”

  His eyes held heat and promise. Mace’s gaze held the same heat and promise.

  “I’ll be home in a little while,” she said, taking the key ring and getting into the car.

  The race of her heart turned into a rolling ache when they disappeared from sight in her rearview mirror.

  She’d failed. On her very first case, she’d failed to get the job done. She’d let the client down. She’d let Bulldog down. She’d let herself down.

  Tears escaped. She dashed them away as quickly as they appeared.

  This is not me. This is so not me.

  She’d suffered defeat before! She’d been at million-dollar final tables and gone bust. She’d had the full force of the press on her during tournaments, only to crash and burn when Lady Luck looked in another direction.

  The last time she’d been so quick to cry spontaneously was after the break-up with David.

  Her heart squeezed painfully—and it did not have anything to do with a previous boyfriend. It was her subconscious mind’s version of yanking a pull chord to get her attention, to make her recognize that letting the client down, letting Bulldog down, letting herself down wasn’t the sole cause of the tears.

  Yeah, those things were worthy triggers, but it was a deeper recognition. Masculine arms around her, offering comfort, but neither Cade nor Mace saying things like: You’ll nail the next case, or, It’s only your first solo case, or Chill, Grace. Every single detective at Crime Tells has had a case they couldn’t close.

  “They don’t want me doing this. They don’t think I can do it.”

  There, she’d acknowledged it. She hadn’t misread Mace.

  It hurt.

  She acknowledged that too. Took a deep breath, forcing some of the tightness from her chest.

  Nothing had changed. Not really.

  I wanted to live like Shane and Braden and Lyric, without worrying about consequences.

  But it didn’t mean there weren’t consequences, and that she hadn’t known she’d have to face them. Just not so soon.

  She called Lyric.

  Her cousin answered, “Need something?”

  “Sympathy.”

  “Cade and Mace?”

  Grace’s eyes dried instantly.

  “What?” Her voice was way too high-pitched.

  Lyric, being Lyric, just laughed and said, “I hope you’re not going to clam up. I’ve got money riding on which one of them was the first.”

  Grace’s face flamed. “And maybe it’s not like that at all.”

  Lyric snorted. “Right. Braden and I crossed paths a little while ago. He said he thought he’d do you a favor and check with them, see if they’d heard anything about an escort service running coeds. Said they tried to play it cool when they found out you were working for Bulldog, but his money was on them showing up at your door and getting involved.”

  So Cade had come on his own as her self-appointed protector, not because he lost a side bet. It tangled her up inside. Hurt and felt good at the same time.

  She was too much of a Montgomery not to ask, “How much money and on who?”

  “Two grand because we’re talking sex. Braden went with both of them there when the deed went down. Shane put his money on Mace solo. I put mine on Cade. Who’s the winner?”

  This was her family. They’d bet money on how long it took to get from the back of the line at Starbucks to the front. Then try to double it by betting on how long until their drinks were on the bar.

  “Cade.”

  Lyric hooted. “I win again!”

  “You do that more than your fair share.”

  “When you’re good, you’re good. Though I will admit, I totally missed it that they have a thing for you, and you apparently have a thing for them. So why the need for sympathy?”

  She didn’t want to drag the personal into it. No, pride made it hard for her to admit she’d totally screwed up, right from the very first. She’d assumed—rationalized—it was okay to involve Cade in the case because he’d been roped into it in a semi-official capacity.

  She’d wanted it to be true so she could let go and be with him the way she’d fantasized about. And once she’d let Cade in, denying Mace was an impossibility.

  “I was with Cade and Mace, about to take over the surveillance on Avery. A couple of agents showed up, flashed their badges and basically told me to cease and desist. Or else.”

  “Damn. I’m sorry. My bad. I should have waited until you actually asked me to see what I could find out about the gang and Leopoldo’s Gym.”

  “I okayed it by not telling Cruz to stop you, or calling you and telling you myself. I wanted answers.”

  Lyric sighed. “Getting answers from people in law enforcement is tricky. Questions have a way of spiraling outward and colliding with someone’s investigation.”

  “I wasn’t just hanging out with Cade and Mace,” Grace said, tightness returning to her chest. “It was obvious I was with them both. It gave the agents leverage. They used the word reputation, threatened to look around, see if anyone else connected to Crime Tells was doing anything interesting, and bring pressure to bear.”

  “And you couldn’t risk them making trouble for Calista or Kiera.”

  “No.” They were both teachers, both had morals clauses in their contracts.

  “Did you get badge numbers?”

  “No. I totally screwed up. But lesson learned. No more letting my private life onto the job.”

  Lyric snorted. “Good luck with that. Cade and Mace aren’t going to let that happen. Though fight the good fight. It’ll lead to some great sex.”

  Grace laughed, though even to her ears it sounded watery. “It’s a little different with you and Kieran. He’s a cop. He’s also a permanent fixture in your life.”

  “And you don’t think Cade and Mace are?”

  Grace cringed. She might as well have pulled her heart out so it could be poked and prodded.

  “You know what they’re like.”

  “Dante and Benito played the same way until they met Calista.”

  She couldn’t prevent a small curl of hope from unfurling. It seemed like it didn’t matter how often she told herself that this couldn’t last, a part of her refused to believe.

  “Cade and Mace have known me for over three years.”

  “Maybe they weren’t ready. Maybe they didn’t think you were ready. It wasn’t that long ago when you were an undergrad.”

  “And now suddenly they are ready? Suddenly they think I am, just because they find out I’m working for Bulldog?”

  “Don’t downplay the power of testosterone. Or the fun to be had when it’s in play.”

  She heard the grin in Lyric’s voice, couldn’t fight off the surge of heat or the shiver of
need that came with remembering the dominance and pure masculine power that poured off Cade and Mace.

  “I’ll take that under advisement,” Grace said.

  Lyric laughed. “Don’t beat yourself up. You didn’t do anything wrong. Benito and Dante stuck so close to Calista when she got her first case there was hardly room for clothes. In fact, come to think of it, there was a lot of nakedness going on.”

  “The differences being, she got her case solved and realized detective work wasn’t for her.”

  “Okay, so it’s not a perfect example. You didn’t get this particular case wrapped the way you’d like, but for you there’ll be another, and another, and dozens more after, because the work suits you.”

  “They don’t think so.”

  Somehow it hurt less admitting it to Lyric.

  “They’ll change their minds or they won’t. A relationship with even one uber-macho guy has its tough moments. I could tell you stories—”

  Grace choked out a laugh.

  Lyric joined her. “Okay, so you already know how it was when Kieran and I got together. But what are you going to do? Suddenly get so scared of losing you muck your cards when you might be holding the mother of all winning hands? Or are you going to keep playing through the raises and the reveals?”

  And there was the way the majority of the Montgomerys and Maguires looked at life.

  “I’ll get back to you on that,” she said, though with Cade and Mace waiting for her at home, she knew she was going to play through the next reveal and find out what it’d be like to be with both of them at once.

  Lyric laughed. “Time to collect from Braden and Shane.”

  “Thanks for the pep talk.”

  “Anytime.”

  The tightness returned to Grace’s chest when the Crime Tells’ office came into sight. She parked and went inside. Paused to gather herself.

  Muscle by muscle she put her poker face on before stepping into Bulldog’s doorway. “Got a minute?”

  “Sure.”

  He leaned back in his chair. If word had already reached him about the case, it wasn’t reflected in his expression or voice or body language.

  The back of her throat burned. She wasn’t sure what was worse, disappointing the boss, or disappointing her grandfather.

  The dappled dachshund that was pretty much a permanent fixture on his lap jumped off and came to her. She swooped Peaches up, said, “Hi sweet girl,” and placed a kiss on the dog’s head, getting a series of licks in return before reaching the chair on the other side of Bulldog’s desk.

  Grace sat, putting Peaches on the floor and smiling at the way she quickly returned to her favorite spot, just like Perry and his chair in the living room or the sun warmed pavers right next to the tomato plants.

  Might as well launch into it, she thought, and did, with a sanitized version of how Cade and Mace had come to be with her—one that absolutely wouldn’t fly in another detective agency but would at Crime Tells considering Bulldog had made a side bet that led to her cousin Cole working a case with Renata, who was a reporter.

  Grace let the threat made by the agents stand at they’d take a hard look at everyone associated with Crime Tells and bring pressure to bear, ended by saying, “I’m sorry. I let you down. I let the client down.”

  Bulldog tilted forward. “Nonsense. I told you when I handed this one off to you that I didn’t like it and wouldn’t have touched it except for someone calling in a favor. I’d say now we know the real reason Lincoln Webber quit the Londons.”

  Relief swept through her. She stiffened her spine to keep herself from sagging.

  It didn’t even bother her that she hadn’t immediately considered that Webber had been warned off too. What mattered was that this was no longer in the fail category.

  “I’m going to contact Webber,” she said, needing that bit of closure for herself.

  “Wouldn’t hurt. He may or may not be willing to talk to you.”

  “What should I tell the Londons?”

  It was a legitimate question. It impacted how Bulldog and the agency were viewed.

  Her grandfather leaned back in his chair, his broad hand stroking Peaches. “If you boil it down to the bare basics, we were hired to determine if Avery London was caught up in some kind of trouble so her parents could then determine if they could extricate her from it. We’ve got mostly speculation with little proof, but we can give them the answer they hired us to give them, plus the one they won’t really want to hear. Yes, their daughter is caught up in something bad. And no, they can’t help her get out of that trouble, not at this point anyway, though they might want to start looking for a lawyer. Have that conversation with them and the case is closed as far as I’m concerned. Your case, your call. What do you want to do?”

  It was said in the same way he’d say it if they were sitting at the poker table. And that was tell, a subtle one, because this was a test and he wanted her to pass.

  She leaned back in her chair, mimicking his relaxed pose as she considered the facts, personally observed and other, the impressions she’d gained in the one meeting with Avery’s parents.

  “As far as Avery goes, there are two possibilities. Either she has no clue she’s caught up in an investigation. Or she does know, and she’s cooperating.”

  Bulldog nodded. “Where’s your money?”

  Chapter Nine

  The agents hadn’t cared about being seen, hadn’t stuck around, hadn’t sent a patrol unit to put pressure on the three of them to leave under some pretext. No one had reached out to Bulldog and quietly asked him to call her off, and he had a lot of law enforcement contacts.

  “I think they offered her a deal in exchange for helping them take down a bigger target,” Grace said.

  “That’s where my money is.”

  Grace tapped fingertips against a chair arm, thinking it through. “But even if we’re wrong, Avery’s parents won’t accept that they can’t do something to help her. They’ll confront her, wanting to get her legal help before the operation is done. Or they’ll try to protect her by warning her she’s being investigated. There’s really no bad move for them. Except, if we’re right, what they view as an estrangement is actually Avery trying to keep them safe.”

  Grace stopped tapping. “So we sit on this.”

  Bulldog smiled. His eyes held approval. “That’s what we do. You wouldn’t be doing them any favors by going to them now with what you’ve got.”

  Grace stood, thought about asking Bulldog if there was another case she could work, but didn’t—and didn’t lie to herself about the reason why. Cade and Mace were waiting for her at home. She wanted to be with them at the same time, at least once, before the crash and burn that her heart told her was coming actually arrived.

  One of the business cards Lincoln Webber had given the Londons was in her car. She dialed the cell number handwritten on the back.

  “Who is this?” Webber answered, his voice hard, unwelcoming.

  “Grace Montgomery. Crime Tells.”

  “I wondered if I’d hear from you.”

  Which pretty much confirmed that he’d discovered something and been warned off. But he’d remained interested enough to find out who the Londons got to investigate after he quit.

  “Can we meet somewhere?” she asked. “Just for a few minutes and totally off the record.”

  It sounded like a hand scraped over a cheek covered with stubble.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “At the office.”

  “I assume you know where Heavenly Coffee is. I can meet you there in thirty.”

  It took her about the same amount of time to get to the coffee shop.

  She walked in. The place was packed.

  A mouth-watering guy sporting a five-o’clock shadow motioned her to a table as far from the front windows as they could get. She took the chair across from him.

  “You look like your cousin Erin,” he said, explaining how he’d recognized her. “Haven’t seen her
in a while.”

  “She’s out of town, technically on a case.”

  “Technically? Sounds like fodder for one of your family’s famous betting pools.”

  Grace felt lighthearted enough to laugh. “True. She’s working with a bounty hunter, posing as his wife.”

  Webber laughed. “The question being will she come back actually married to him.”

  “Yes. And if so, when did it take place.”

  “What kind of money?”

  “Lyric is running the pool. Last time I asked, it was at a little over seventeen grand.”

  Webber whistled softly. “Who’s the bounty hunter?”

  “Dasan Nahtailsh.”

  “I’ve met him. I’ll have to hunt down Lyric and get a piece of the action.”

  The amusement faded from his expression. She said, “You got warned off.”

  He took a sip of coffee. “Yep.”

  “Did you get names, badge numbers?”

  His eyebrows lifted.

  Heat crawled up her neck, at how it must look to him that she hadn’t managed either.

  “I got them.” He cut her some slack by adding, “But it doesn’t mean the same guys paid you a visit.”

  “There were two of them. One Hispanic, looked like he spends time in the gym and is rougher around the edges. The other was brown-haired, wore a heavy ring. I’d say his default setting is arrogant when he’s not projecting pissed-off. They were in a black sedan.”

  “Gonzalez and Wyatt.”

  “You were on the case for a little over a month. Do you know what triggered their warning you off?”

  “Yes. You first.”

  “I followed her to Leopoldo’s Gym in the city. It’s in gang territory. They move drugs for a Mexican cartel.”

  For a second time, he whistled softly. “I didn’t see that connection coming, but it’d definitely be reason for a visit and a warning to stop looking at Avery London.”

  When he didn’t say anything more, she said, “Now you.”

  He gave her a piercing look. “Are you trying to satisfy personal curiosity? Or are you ignoring the warning?”

  “I want to understand what’s going on, that’s all. The case isn’t closed, but I’m also not working it anymore.”