He nodded. “I understand that. And I’ll take it. I like you more than I should, too. I’ve tried to be your friend, but I want more. We’ll see where it goes?”
“I’d like that.” About as much as I like breathing.
“What about your,” he paused, clearing his throat, “federal agent friend?”
“I don’t see where it’s any of his business. At least, not the particulars of it.” I twisted the napkin again. “Kyle is complicated.”
“I don’t give up easily.” Joey took my hand, trailing the pad of his thumb over my knuckles. “And I’m used to getting what I want.”
My breath caught when his eyes finished that sentence before he spoke the words. “As hard as I’ve tried not to, what I want is you.”
Oh. My. God.
The waiter appeared with the credit card slip and Joey signed it, then stood and offered me a hand. “Ready to get this over with?”
I took his hand and returned his smile. “I haven’t wanted to get through an interview more since the serial killer I saw on death row five years ago.”
15.
Moonlight and moonshiners
The drive to Maryland flew, the woods lining I-95 blurring past the windows as we talked and laughed about everything from music and TV to politics. I knew Joey lived north of Richmond, but I’d never been sure how far north until he pulled into the parking lot of a fire-hollowed warehouse in a questionable part of Bethesda.
“This city is crazy,” he said as he stopped the car. “Five blocks that way, there’s a nice part of town.”
“You’re sure?” I looked around. “I’m skeptical, but I’ll take your word for it.”
“I live six blocks that way. It’s nothing like this.” He smiled. “But there are few places better to go when you don’t want to be seen by anyone else.”
I dug out a notebook and tried to concentrate on formulating casual questions for the moonshine salesman, but the smell of Joey’s woodsy cologne mixed with whatever magical something made him so delicious kept my attention focused about a foot to my left.
I reached down and cracked my window, clicking out a pen. If we could buy Mathews-distilled moonshine here, it was going out of state. Which meant Kyle might be able to get a case opened at the ATF, and I might land the story of the year, and find a big chunk of my TJ Okerson puzzle, too. Assuming I was right about anything, anyway.
Priorities, Nichelle.
I repeated that on a loop in my head until an aging F-150 rolled into the parking lot. Joey moved to get out of the car, but paused when both doors on the truck opened.
Two large men, one in jeans and a Polo with a gleaming bald head and barber-close-shaven face, the other in overalls and a dingy wife beater with stringy hair and an untamed beard, met at the front of the pickup and nodded to us. Joey shot me a look, tense lines settling in his face, and pulled a small revolver from the low center console. He slipped it under his jacket without being seen through the windshield.
Shit.
“The driver is my guy. Bubba there, I’m not familiar with. You sit tight for a minute.” He handed me the keys. “If anything goes wrong, lock the doors, crawl over here, and leave.”
“I’m not leaving you,” I said.
“I can take care of myself.”
“So can I.” I held his gaze, not blinking. “I’m not leaving here without you.”
He sighed, turning his attention back to the surly redneck leaning on the hood of the pickup.
“Fine. I’m sure it’s fine. Just sit here until I check it out.”
He stepped out of the car and walked to the front bumper, talking to Mr. Clean before he turned to Bubba.
If I hadn’t been so worried, it would’ve been funny, watching Joey talk to this guy in one-strap overalls and flip flops who spit tobacco juice every other word.
Joey waved toward the car as he talked, and Mr. Clean nodded. Bubba scuffed a flip flop toe in the gravel and twisted his mouth to one side, staring at me through the windshield. I kept my expression neutral, difficult when I was pretty much scared to death.
Bubba nodded to Joey, and Joey backed toward my door, his hand hanging very near where I’d seen him stow the gun. He pulled my door open and helped me out of the car. “Stay behind me, and don’t ask anyone’s name,” he said out of the corner of his mouth.
“I’m not stupid,” I hissed back, nodding acknowledgement at the other two men.
“Evening, ma’am.” Mr. Clean gave me a once-over when I stepped to the front of the car. “I understand you’re interested in something a little stronger than a martini this evening.”
I shook his hand, not breaking eye contact and standing up straight. I top six feet in my good shoes, and I wanted to look as invulnerable as I could, considering my cocktail dress. The gun under Joey’s jacket was comforting.
I turned my head and smiled at Bubba. He spit on the ground.
“Martinis are last season,” I said. “We heard y’all have something with a bit more kick to it.”
“Don’t know why you’d think such a thing,” Bubba said. “Selling unregulated alcohol is against the law.”
I looked between him, his friend, and Joey, not sure how I was supposed to answer that.
No one offered any assistance, Mr. Clean studying the shell of the nearby warehouse outlined in the night between us and the nice part of town, and Joey laying a casual arm across my torso, scooting me behind him a little more.
“Well, if we’ve come to the wrong place, I guess we should all just take our wallets and head home,” I said, staring Bubba straight in the face. “Sorry to trouble you. You’re sure you don’t know where we might come by some genuine Virginia corn whiskey?”
“D’I look like I’d know anything about that?” He delivered the line with such a serious look I didn’t dare give him a straight answer. Joey erupted into a coughing fit until he could stop laughing.
“We were told y’all might,” I said. “I’m sorry for wasting your time.” I took a step back.
“And what if I do? How d’I know you ain’t wearing a wire or something? A fancy camera? You don’t look like any kinda moonshine drinker I’ve ever seen.”
He stepped forward and Joey slid in front of me.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Joey looked down at Bubba. His steely voice and the tension in the part of his profile I could see were enough to send chills racing up my arms. Double shit. Thinking he might have hurt people and seeing him do it because I was stubborn were two entirely different things.
I laid a hand on his arm and leaned close to his ear. “Calm down.”
“We ain’t doing no business here if I can’t check her for a wire,” Bubba said.
“Over my dead body.” Joey’s voice was low and dangerous.
“We can arrange that, mister.” Bubba glowered, rocking up on the balls of his feet so he was eye-to-eye with Joey.
I tugged Joey’s elbow. I wanted the story. But not badly enough to let anyone get hurt.
“Look,” I told Bubba hastily, scooting around the hood of the car and spinning before him. “Maybe you know something about the laws of physics that I don’t, but I’d have to give up chocolate and bread for a month to fit a wire in this dress with me.”
He eyed me shrewdly and motioned for me to turn again.
“I s’pose,” he said when I obliged, a glimmer of respect in his dark eyes. He turned and walked to the back of the truck. I heard the hinges screech a protest when he let the tailgate down, and he returned with a plain cardboard box. “What is it I can help you with?”
“Can I see one of those?” I asked.
He opened the case and pulled out a jar, loosening the lid and passing it to me. “The first sample is free,” he said, his eyes narrowing again.
“I trust your quality,” I said.
“I insist.”
I stared at him, and Joey laid two fingers on my elbow. “You don’t have to drink it,” he said.
Bu
bba’s glare said refusing could be more headache than I might get from the moonshine. I looked at the jar. The tripleX insignia matched the one from the scene of Sydney’s death.
Bubba nodded toward the jar.
Shit. What if it was a bad batch?
I shot Joey a glance from the corner of my eye, Bobbi’s mention of Deliverance fitting with the moonshiner in front of me. I’d read enough to know a smidgen wouldn’t hurt me, even if the stuff was spoiled. No one else was even sick, right?
Catching a breath and raising the jar to my lips, I took half a sip, heat spreading through me as I swallowed.
I blinked back tears. “Smooth,” I choked out around a short cough. Kids were drinking this crap? My mouth and throat burned like I’d had a fire-eating lesson.
Bubba glanced at Joey. “I don’t think it’ll take much,” he said in a voice so low I couldn’t swear under oath I heard him right.
Joey produced a roll of twenties, peeled off ten, and picked up the box. “Nice doing business with you,” he said. “I’ll be in touch.”
Bubba’s eyes raked over my dress again. “Will you?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that, so I ignored it and spun toward the car instead. Stopping halfway to the door, I turned back. Joey paused next to me.
“What kind of market do you y’all serve these days, anyway?” I asked Bubba. “I mean, you said we’re not your typical customer.”
“Lots of dry counties around here.” Bubba shot a stream of tobacco juice from between his teeth that arced a good six feet. “I’d rather have more customers like you.” He grinned, Copenhagen-stained drool dripping into his beard. Sexy.
I closed my eyes for a long blink. “People in dry counties have cars, right?” I asked.
“Say they go over to a store or across the state line and buy a bottle of whiskey,” he said. “The government tracks everything with satellites and computers, you know. A body gets pulled over by the law on the way home, in a dry county, and possession will get them a night in jail, maybe longer, and a record. Moonshine is delivered. It’s cheap. And it’s off the books. Or the grid, like you city folks say. We live off the grid.”
“Y’all do a lot of business with teenagers?” I asked.
Bubba shrugged. “Enough. Very carefully. I ain’t got no objection to kids having a drink here and there. I got four boys, and kids’ll do as they please. But that’s trouble if the ABC catches you selling to minors. They get pissy about that faster than anything else. You seen all the stings they been running in stores on the TV?”
“I have.” Damn. That didn’t help me figure out where the kids got the moonshine. Or who took it to the party. And I was increasingly sure that was the key to this whole mess.
“Why d’you care?” Bubba asked.
“I’m curious. Occupational hazard. Thanks for indulging me.”
“Much obliged for your business, ma’am.” He climbed back into the truck.
Joey backed me into the passenger seat of his car, stowing the moonshine in the back floor board and shooting Mr. Clean an icy glare as he rounded the hood. The guy raised both hands and shook his head, calling something I couldn’t make out. Joey didn’t turn back, sliding back into the driver’s seat and spinning the tires on his way out of the parking lot.
“I’m sorry,” he said tightly, stopping at a light and tucking the gun back into the console. “I wouldn’t have brought you out here if I’d known there was someone tagging along with him.”
“I would have managed to convince you to bring me,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. It was shaking, as were my hands and knees. Hello, adrenaline rush.
Joey glanced at me as he laid on the accelerator on the onramp for I-95. “No, you really wouldn’t have. I don’t know who that guy was, but I know just enough about all this to know these are dangerous people. You handled yourself well. Nice, pointing out your dress. Though I didn’t much care for the way he started looking at you when you did that.”
“Everyone went home with the same number of holes they arrived with,” I said. “That was my objective. I’m sure his wife thinks he’s adorable, but he’s not my type.”
He glanced at me. “What is your type?”
“It seems tall, dark, and a little bit dangerous works nicely.” When I thought about that, it kind of fit him and Kyle both.
“Good to know.” The corners of his lips tipped up a little.
I picked up my notebook and spent most of the drive home recording the details of our transaction. Moonshine being sold out of state. Check. But how to tell Kyle that without telling him how I knew it? I didn’t have an answer. I noted the label on Bubba’s brand, pulling out my Blackberry and checking the photo of the one Sheriff Zeke had found near Sydney’s body to make sure I remembered it right.
Wait.
I zoomed the photo in and stared, then reached behind my seat and pulled a jar from the box.
“One shot wasn’t enough?” Joey asked.
“Hardy har har.” I stuck my tongue out at him, holding the jar we’d bought up to the map light.
The one from the crime scene was faded across the middle. The one in my hand was not.
Which might just mean Bubba had refilled his ink cartridge since last week. But what if it was a coding system of some sort? I jotted that down and underlined it, returning the jar to the box.
“The labels are different,” I said.
“Different how?”
“The one Sydney Cobb was drinking had this TripleX label. But it was all faded across the middle. These aren’t.”
“What do you think that means?”
I sighed. “Hell if I know. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Any idea how I can find out which?”
“Not off the top of my head. But I’ll let you know if I think of something.” Joey grinned.
He turned onto my street, and I laid a hand on his arm. “I appreciate your help. I know you didn’t want to do this. But these folks in Mathews deserve to know what happened to their children.”
“That’s the only reason I agreed to it.” He parked the Lincoln in my driveway and turned to face me. “There’s not much that scares me. But the idea of something happening to you…I can’t stand it.” He raised my hand and brushed it against his lips.
A cavalcade of butterflies took flight in my middle as I stared into his dark eyes. Whatever he’d done or not done, he was telling me the truth. Better than half a decade of dealing with some of the best bullshitters to walk the Earth had graced me with a good radar for lies, or even half-truths. Joey wasn’t selling either.
He let his eyes fall shut and leaned to kiss me, and I put one finger across his lips. He flinched, confusion plain on his face.
“Come in,” I said.
His eyes widened. “That the moonshine talking?”
“From half a sip two hours ago? Not even I’m that lightweight. I think I’ll swear off the hard stuff, but I have a nice bottle of red in my wine rack.” My voice shook again, with nerves instead of shock. “You feel like a nightcap?”
“I’d love one.” He strode around the car and opened my door, pulling me close to him.
I felt my brow furrow at the bothered look on his face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “You don’t have to stay, if you don’t want.”
“Oh, I want.” He flashed a tight smile before his face fell serious again. “What I don’t want is for you to feel like you owe me anything. I took you to meet that guy because what you’re doing is important. Not because I expect anything in return.”
I laid my hands along both sides of his face, pulling it to mine. “Good. Because I wouldn’t trade this for a news tip or interview if it meant a sure shot at the Pulitzer,” I whispered, kissing him softly. “Let’s go find that bottle of wine.”
He turned for the door, one hand on the small of my back. By the time I got the lock opened, heat had spread from that spot through my entire core. I bent to scratch Darcy’s ears, gathering minor contr
ol of my hormones.
Smiling, I directed Joey to the sofa and busied myself opening my splurge bottle of Chilean red.
I gulped deep, calming breaths as I poured it into glasses, but sloshed a few drops onto the counter, anyway. What the hell was I doing? Joey was sexy, and gorgeous, and downright debonair. He struck me as the kind of man who did not lack experience in this area.
It’d been so long since I’d had a man in my bed that my side of the mattress sagged from disproportionate overuse. Aside from one short relationship in college, Kyle was the only guy I’d ever slept with. I’d spent years going on a lot of first dates, and I have a rule against sex on first dates. The resulting dry spell had turned into a drought. And I thought this was the way to end it? I hoped I remembered what to do well enough to avoid making a fool of myself.
Grabbing the glasses and feeding Darcy a biscuit to keep her quiet, I peeked into the living room. Joey was perched on the edge of my navy jacquard sofa, his fingers steepled under his chin and an unmistakably unnerved look on his face.
Thank you, God, for letting it not be just me.
“I had this at a party and bought a bottle the next day,” I said as I walked into the room.
He jerked his head up and a slow grin spread across his face. I handed him his glass and pulled the clip out of my hair, letting it fall into its soft mahogany waves around my shoulders.
Sitting on the sofa next to him, I watched as he took a sip. “It’s good,” he said.
He reached across the cushion between us and laid a hand on my bare knee.
I jumped and splattered wine onto the rug, but he didn’t move. Neither did I, except to drain the rest of my glass in one gulp. I set it on the table and put my hand over his. Joey finished his glass just as quickly and put it next to mine.
“Really good.” I wasn’t even sure who said that. My eyes locked with his.
He wound his other arm around my waist and pulled me to him, his lips crushing mine for an instant before he parted them. He flicked the tip of his tongue into my mouth and I gasped, pulling him closer before he laid me back onto the cushions.
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