by Jory Strong
A muscle jerked in Cade’s cheek. “Write it off,” he said.
“I don’t want to do that.” She spun the phone, touched her thumb to the screen, launching the application, out of habit more than anything else.
Her blood raced to her gut while her heart took a leap right into the back of her throat at the map displayed on her screen.
Cade’s chair scraped against the floor as he surged out of it. Mace’s thumped, his forward momentum putting the two front feet back on the floor as he launched out of it, both of them coming around to stand behind her.
Avery was four streets down and three over. It couldn’t be a coincidence.
“She made you,” Cade said, a hard edge in his voice.
“Probably.” Unquestionably.
Unless Avery had traveled through this area to get somewhere else in the month Lincoln Webber had watched her, there were no documented destinations even close.
“I can’t let her come here. Gonzalez and Wyatt are probably using her phone to track where she goes. I need to intercept her, lead her somewhere neutral if she wants to talk.”
“Fuck no,” Cade said.
She stood, turned, though they had her trapped against the table. “That’s not your call to make.”
“The fuck it’s not.”
“Cade,” Mace said, voice holding warning. “Grace isn’t wrong about needing to head Avery off if she’s coming here. We don’t need the trouble. Grace and her family don’t need the trouble. We deal with this together.”
Then we deal with the issue of Grace working for Crime Tells.
He didn’t say the last but it was there, like talons piercing her chest and gripping her heart.
Cade stepped back. Mace did the same.
“I go alone in my car,” she said. “You guys go together. If she means for us to meet, then she’ll follow me to Angel’s.”
They didn’t like it. Protest was in their eyes, their lips, their rigid muscles. But they let her plan stand, probably deciding to pick their battles.
She glanced at her cell phone. Avery was about the same distance away, but in a different location.
Are you having second thoughts?
It didn’t change the situation. She couldn’t leave it up to Avery to decide whether to come to the house or not. But that wasn’t the only reason. The case might be shelved but it didn’t kill her desire for answers.
She snagged shoes and ran to the Beetle.
Mace and Cade were in the Boxster by the time she hit the end of the driveway. They were snugged in behind her before she’d made it past Cruz’s house.
Anticipating Avery’s route, Grace drove two blocks, turned, then turned again so they’d pass driver side to driver side.
Avery’s red Cabriolet was four blocks in front of her and coming her way.
Grace held against the temptation to press her foot to the gas pedal to hurry the moment they’d reach each other. Glanced in the rearview mirror and was surprised the Boxster wasn’t riding her tail.
If Avery had made her today then she’d already seen Cade. There was zero possibility he and Mace would let her talk to Avery alone.
The distance between the Beetle and Cabriolet shortened.
Avery’s gaze met hers.
Grace slowed to a near crawl, holding the eye contact until the Cabriolet passed.
Now it was up to Avery.
She passed the Boxster, pulled into a driveway, backed out, followed at a distance.
Grace thumped the steering wheel. “Yes!”
They reached Angel’s Ice Cream Shop.
She slipped into a parking spot in the small attached lot. Cade pulled in next to her.
Avery drove past as Grace was putting her shoes on, but her excitement-high didn’t diminish.
She’ll circle back. I know she will.
Chapter Eleven
Cade emerged from the Boxster, grim faced, practically vibrating with how much he did not like the situation.
Grace felt a tightening in her chest. It didn’t ease when they flanked her, Cade’s hand shackling her upper arm as if he were part of a protective detail there to hurry her in and out.
Eating at one of the outside tables wasn’t an option today. At the counter she ordered a cone with scoops of coffee and chocolate. Mace and Cade ordered shakes, banana for Mace, strawberry for Cade.
They took them to a back booth.
Mace slid in after her. Cade sat on the side that’d put him in position to stop an attack by Avery.
As if.
But she wasn’t impervious to them. She had a giant, gaping hole in her emotional armor when it came to them.
I can protect myself! Didn’t prevent warmth from uncurling in her chest at having these two men feel so protective of her.
She’d loved them for so long. How many times had she imagined this—without the tension created by the case? The three of them at Angel’s because this was a favorite place, not just of hers but for most of the Maguires and Montgomerys.
Cade took a long swallow of shake. His throat working had the heat in her chest thickening and sliding downward.
Angel’s had a no shoes, no shirt, no service rule, so he’d had to put his on, but it was no stretch to picture him bare-chested and flat on his back. To imagine her tipping the cup, dribbling a trail of creamy strawberry on his smooth, muscled chest and over taut abs then licking it up.
The delicious revisit of fantasy ended with Avery entering the shop, hesitating, searching, their eyes connecting.
Avery’s hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She was beautiful with her high cheek bones and model-perfect skin, though right now, she looked more like a coed meeting friends and less like a high-paid escort caught in something dangerous.
She passed the line of customers at the counter, slid into the booth without protest, allowing Cade to cage her in. Outwardly, she appeared composed, confident, but Grace read fear in the pulse beating fast just beneath Avery’s jaw.
“You’ve got a tracker on my car,” Avery said.
Grace startled. A spark of admiration flared. “Yes.”
Avery crossed her arms, rubbed her palms against a blue shirt that matched her eyes then placed her hands flat on the table.
Grace said, “You were coming to see me.”
A nod. “My parents hired you?”
“Yes. When did you make me?”
Avery’s hands left the table. Cade tensed, relaxed when a cell phone came out of her purse instead of a gun.
Avery put the phone on the table.
Grace cringed at seeing her picture on the screen. It’d been taken when she and Cade had followed Avery to the university, in that moment when Avery had passed her as she’d pretended to be occupied texting.
“You’re Grace Montgomery. You work for Crime Tells.” Avery’s gaze flicked to Mace then Cade. “I don’t know who they are.”
Grace surrendered their first names, asked, “Is Raymond Lennox involved in this?”
“No. That was a test. I didn’t pass him anything important. But I was pretty sure you and Cade would split up if you were following me.”
“Smart.” Grace couldn’t help but be impressed. “Why did you want to meet?”
Avery licked her lips, eyes tracking left as if to see outside the shop.
Grace’s pulse sped despite being positive no one had been tailing Avery. “Do you expect Gonzalez and Wyatt to show up?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Are they the only two agents?”
“No. There are four, that I’ve met anyway. The other two are Ellisson and Chandler. What did Gonzalez and Wyatt say to you?”
“They warned me off.”
Avery crossed her arms again, rubbed her palms against the blue shirt. “I thought that’s probably what they were doing. That’s what made me decide to talk to you.”
“You don’t trust them?”
“It’s more that I don’t think they care if I end up collateral damage. T
hey won’t need me to make their case.”
“Against the senator?”
Avery’s eyes widened.
Grace wanted to push for a name, but thought she’d be more likely to get it if Avery believed she already knew it. “What’s the connection between him and Leopoldo’s Gym? Or was your trip there related to another client?”
Avery’s lips twisted. “You must think I’m absolutely stupid to have risked my future by whoring myself.”
Grace shook her head, gave Avery a genuine smile. “I haven’t judged you. I’m working on my Masters in psychology. I’m more about understanding people, figuring out the why of their behavior, what motivates them. Was Myra Thompson the one who got you involved in this?”
Aubrey’s lips turned down. “She opened the door, but I was the one who stepped through it.”
“Because of the money?”
“Mostly. Not completely. Not if I’m being honest. I was intrigued at the prospect of meeting powerful men. Being a high-paid escort is like an acting job. It’s convincing some guy he’s still got it, that he can make it with a young twenty-something even though he knows he’s paying for the fantasy.” She shrugged. “And part of me thought, who knows, maybe the connections I make will pay off down the road.”
“Only you got caught making those connections.”
Avery’s hands stilled on her arms. Her fingers dug in. “First time. After that there was no quitting, though I’ve only got two clients.”
“The car and the jewelry aren’t yours,” Grace guessed. “They belong to the government, probably confiscated in a drug raid.”
“Probably. Gonzalez is DEA.”
“How’d it happen?”
“Myra invited me to a private party, one put on by a guy who basically gets people who want to buy influence together with people who can be bought. Politicians, government officials, labor union guys, businessmen—men being another common denominator. We were there as party favors. Myra, me, some other girls. Our time was being paid for by the guy putting on the party. But any dates we accepted afterward, as a result of the party, were strictly our business.”
“He’s too savvy to get caught running an escort service.”
Avery nodded. “Definitely savvy. I’d guess he gets enough kickbacks from his guests that he doesn’t need to run girls, plus he’s probably seen greed lead to trouble so many times that he’s careful not to make the same mistake.”
“So you met the senator at this party? And your second client, who is he?”
Avery shuddered. “A coldblooded killer with a USC degree and a five-thousand dollar suit. Before this, I always thought of Mexican cartels being made up of older versions of guys like the ones at the gym, basically thugs. Powerful thugs, sure, but mostly about brute force and threat. Pretty stupid really. I’m talking about me, for not thinking those kinds of guys would send their sons to expensive universities for business degrees and mainstream connections.”
The hair rose along Grace’s arms. “Your other client is a cartel member?”
“I don’t have proof. I don’t want to have proof. I just want Diego to think I’m there for the money and willing to pass messages back and forth between him and the senator. The agents must have had someone at the party who saw the senator’s interest in me. They must have known he was looking for a safe way to connect with Diego. I don’t think they would have offered me an immunity deal and pretty much left me with no choice but to accept when the senator called to arrange a second date.”
“The senator is the one who introduced you to Diego?”
“Not directly. He set up the meet, and after that, Diego started paying for my time with the senator, plus sending a little coke with me, just enough for the senator to use on our dates.”
“And the messages?”
“They type them into my cell, without sending them. Mostly its numbers.”
“Money? Account numbers? Meeting times?”
“Sometimes it looks like that. I think some of them might be shipping container identifiers. The senator has port connections.”
“Drugs coming in. Money, maybe guns going out.”
“All of that plus Diego is paying the senator to work hard to make sure pot isn’t legalized in California. Home-grown weed and the laws of supply and demand will cut into cartel profits.”
“Sophisticated.”
“Yeah.”
“How does the trip to Leopoldo’s Gym play into this?”
Avery’s fingers whitened against her blue shirt. “I don’t know. Nothing about that made sense.”
“Diego sent you?”
“No. The senator.”
Grace was dying for his name.
Information first.
“What happened when you went in?”
“Nothing. I was told to sit and wait. Then a guy came out of an office and told me there’d been a change of plans. He walked me out to the car and when I got in, he leaned down and said, ‘Later.’ The way he said it…”
She shuddered. “The way he said it scared me. Maybe I’m just being paranoid, because being sent to the gym was way outside of normal. But it scared me enough I started thinking about reaching out to someone—to you. I wanted someone to know what was going on, someone I could trust, someone I could call.”
“You can call me.”
“Like hell,” Cade growled. “You’re done with this, Grace.”
Heat shot up her neck and exploded in her face. Her heart rabbited. A hard lump formed in her throat.
“That’s my call.” She reached for Avery’s phone.
Mace shackled her wrist. “The fuck it is.”
Cade knocked Avery’s phone off the table and into her lap. He gave her a hard look. “You’ve got backup, the agents running this thing. You don’t need Grace. Grace stays out of this.”
Grace jerked her arm but Mace didn’t free her wrist. She jerked it again, with the same result.
Just get through this meeting.
She swallowed down the emotions threatening to choke her. She met Avery’s gaze, holding her own steady. “Sorry. Overprotective boyfriends.”
Avery’s eyes widened.
The heat in Grace’s face deepened, at admitting the relationship.
Former relationship a part of her whispered, turning the ice cream in her stomach into a sickening, heavy weight.
Her chest burned. Her eyes burned. She refused, refused to allow the swell of tears.
“You can call me. I won’t go into a dangerous situation with you. I need to be upfront about that. That’s where Wyatt and Gonzalez and the other two agents come in. But I can be your sounding board, and if possible, reach out and try to get answers for you.”
Grace swallowed against the hard throbbing in her throat. This is who I am. This is what I do. Even for Mace and Cade I won’t give it up.
Avery didn’t look at either man, making Grace feel they could have been friends, might one day become friends.
“I can’t pay you,” Avery said. “Not right away. When this is done, if I’m lucky, I’ll be back to living on scholarships, if I even stay in school.”
“Don’t worry about paying me. A favor was called in for us to take this case.”
Avery lifted her phone, her body tense, as if she expected Cade to grab and hurl it across the room.
A muscle spasmed in his cheek.
Mace’s hand tightened on Grace’s wrist. He leaned in to growl in her ear. “Don’t.”
Grace rattled off her number.
Avery entered it into her phone. “I should get going,” she said. Are you going to be okay was in her expression.
“Don’t be afraid to call me, just use a burn phone.” She didn’t want Wyatt and Gonzalez to make good on their threat.
“Already bought one.”
Smart. And the connection she felt to Avery strengthened.
Cade stood to let Avery out of the booth, eyes and body telegraphing the message, You better not call.
Avery
didn’t acknowledge the message. Her eyes met Grace’s. “Thanks.”
A nod and she was gone.
A fist clamped around Grace’s heart. This is it.
Not that she intended to engage in a fight in a place that until now held only good memories.
Mace released her wrist and stood.
Grace blinked, trying to ease the sting in her eyes. She slid from the booth. The burn at the back of her throat pulsed with each step, leaving her with little voice by the time she reached the car and said, “I’m driving alone.”
Mace’s eyes narrowed. His lips were a hard line.
Cade drew in a sharp breath, released it. “Grace—”
She tossed up a hand to silence him.
His nostrils flared. “We’ll finish this at your place.”
Grace got into the Beetle.
They got into the Boxster, following her into the driveway and parking behind her as insurance she wouldn’t escape.
She got out of the car and turned toward them, crossing her arms then forcing them to her sides, her chin going up. “I’m not inviting you in.”
In the house had already become synonymous with surrendering control.
“You really want to do this out here?” Cade asked.
“Here’s as good a place as any. I love working for Crime Tells. I’m not quitting just so I can be with you for however long this lasts.”
“For however long this lasts,” Cade growled, feeling like a fucking bull in a ring and she was waving a red flag.
He hauled her against him, hands locked on her upper arms, his mouth slamming down on hers.
She stiffened. Full of resistance. Her lips unyielding, her jaw locked.
She’d underestimated him—them.
Mace moved in behind her, hands cupping her hips.
Her body jerked, her lips parted. Shock, protest, he didn’t fucking care.
His advantage and he used it. She’d stirred up a riot of emotions inside him and this was the only way he could regain control of them.
His lips pressed hard against hers. His tongue plunged into her mouth, seeking out resistance, destroying it.
All he wanted was to keep her safe. To make her happy. To be with her. Why did that make him the fucking bad guy here? She was his one.