by M. S. Parker
The clothes were better. Okay, the pants fit well, snugger in the ass than I preferred, but the shirt was amazing. I guessed it was more of a sweater, but it was soft. Like softer than anything I’d ever felt before, except maybe Carly...
I suddenly realized I was standing there, stroking the arm of the sweater, and I felt like a damn idiot. Muttering to myself, I scooped up my old clothes and was now embarrassingly aware of how they looked. Jeans so worn they were white at the seams and faded old thermal that wasn’t all that warm anymore. I didn’t even want to look at my underwear. I opened the door, and then stopped in my tracks, staring at the image of the man in front of me.
I recognized the face, the hair. I knew the man – he was me, after all.
But whoever in the hell said clothes didn’t make that big a difference didn’t know what they were talking about.
Chapter Five
A haircut turned the man in the mirror into even more of a stranger, and an intense session on table etiquette with Jake had me ready to shove my head through a plate glass window. But that headache paled in comparison to what came next.
It was a dinner party at the home of a local mystery author.
Apparently, Louisville had more than its share of local celebrities and this author was known for her slew of mysteries. I’d read more than a few while I was in prison, not that I planned on mentioning that if I happened to meet her.
The car came to a stop in front of the building that I wasn’t sure I would call a house, and Ryan paused before he opened the door. “Remember, you’re mostly just watching and taking things in tonight. There’s security on site. Just stick with Jake and do what he tells you to do.”
I nodded and tried to pretend I didn’t feel like I was going to puke on the toes of the shiny new shoes Carly just bought. And she’d paid some ridiculous amount for them, I was sure.
“Quit fussing, Ry,” Carly said from across the limo. “Bobby will do just fine.”
Ryan rolled his eyes. And then he opened the door.
The flash of lights practically blinded me.
Now it made sense why anytime I’d seen a picture of a bodyguard, they almost always wore a pair of sunglasses. I fumbled in my pocket for the pair Jake had loaned me. They slid down my nose almost instantly – he had a face like a big, square brick – but they were better than nothing.
As I slid them into place, Ryan settled his body in front of the door.
I climbed out and he stepped aside.
The whine of cameras and the roar of voices flooded my ears. I didn’t know how much time passed before that annoying bit of posing for the cameras and ignoring microphones was over.
A few people tried to shove a microphone into my face and I did just as Jake had said, covered it with my hand and pushed it away. After a few minutes of standing silently by Carly’s side, they seemed to get that I wasn’t the flavor of the night, but actually there in a working capacity and they turned their focus to her.
Not that she gave them much more.
She posed and smiled and waved at the cameras, but any time somebody tried to talk to her, she ignored them.
As we were led inside, I caught sight of basketball and football players from the University of Louisville, a coach, and other faces that looked familiar, although I couldn’t remember where I knew them from.
By the time we got inside the big house, I was ready to tell Carly she was out of her mind. This job wasn’t worth five grand.
But as soon as the door shut behind us, she turned and flung her arms around me.
Damn. My dick stood up and took notice.
“You did fantastic, Bobby. See? It’s easy for you. I knew it would be.”
I rested a hand on her hip but didn’t push her away. Ryan and Jake hadn’t covered how to handle this. Clearing my throat, I waited until she backed off and managed a game smile. Okay. I could do this. For a week.
Maybe.
“Doesn’t take much to stand there like a monkey in a suit, Ms. Prince.”
“Ms. Prince?” She wrinkled her nose at me. “It’s Miz Caralee, remember.”
I found myself smiling at her. It was hard when she was teasing me like that. “You like making fun of the way I talk, don’t you...Miz Caralee?”
“Making fun?” She shrugged. “No. But I do enjoy listening to it.” She smiled up at Ryan. “Are we ready?”
He withdrew an invitation from inside his jacket. “Let’s go find our hostess.”
* * *
It didn’t take me long to realize that while Carly Prince wasn’t the only celebrity there with bodyguards at her side, she was one of the few who actually interacted with them – er...us. Ryan and Jake took their job seriously, there was no denying that. She couldn’t take a step without one of them moving with her, and if anybody so much as moved in her direction, one of them was already working to intercept. It was effortless, the way they did it. It was subtle, elegant. People didn’t realize they were being subtly herded into an approach that the two guys had decided was the safest way to approach their self-appointed princess.
They liked her.
Hell, I liked her, and not just because I’d spent half of the night before dreaming about getting her naked. She was funny, and sweet, but with an acerbic sense of humor that was hidden under that angel’s face.
But they didn’t just think she was charming. They cared about the woman they were paid to protect. I could tell easily enough that wasn’t always the case. It was damn easy to see why too. Quite a few of these people treated everybody as their servant, even the ones who were clearly not working for them. Most of what I saw just solidified my opinion about the upper-class.
Fuck. I needed a drink. Somebody was roaming the room with a tray of drinks, and Carly saw me eying the tray and she leaned over.
“The bar’s open. Go grab you a drink if you want.” She winked. “I’ll bet they’ve got that bourbon you liked.”
“I’m fine.” I shouldn’t drink on the job, right?
“Oh, come on.” She leaned against my arm, hugging it a little. “If you get one, then I won’t feel so bad if I ask you to get me one.”
I couldn’t really explain the charm she possessed, not in words. But standing next to her, I fully understood what charisma was for the first time in my life. Which explained how I found myself wandering the brightly lit, wide-open hall, searching for one of the open bars Carly had mentioned. I found one tucked under the staircase and caught the eye of the guy behind the bar as he finished passing two tall tumblers off to a couple who looked as wide-eyed as I didn’t want to admit I felt.
“Drink, sir?” he asked.
Sir. I resisted the urge to look behind me. Barely. “Ah, yeah. Do you have...?” I wracked my brain. “Angel’s Envy?”
“Of course. Single or double?”
I swallowed. “Double. Make it two.” I remembered how Carly how had taken hers. “No ice.”
He nodded. A moment later, he slid two small, squat glasses to me. “Angel’s Envy. Neat.”
As I headed back to Carly, I pondered the wisdom of asking for two. If I’d been smart, I would have gotten three. One to toss back before I headed back, and then another to have after I gave Carly hers.
I told myself to keep it in mind for next time.
And there I was thinking I’d make it to the next time. An hour ago, I’d been convinced I’d trip over my feet or drop spaghetti sauce down the front of my obscenely expensive sweater. So far, I hadn’t seen any spaghetti, and here I was, making plans on how to drink next time.
Was this really my new life for the next few days?
It wasn’t hard to catch sight of Carly in the crowd. I towered over most everybody, and Carly wasn’t one of those delicate little princesses, even without her heels. The heeled boots she wore tonight should’ve counted as dangerous weapons – in more ways than one – and they put her at just under six feet tall. How she could walk in those things amazed me, and how she could walk gracefully amazed
me even more.
Of course, she’d paired them with a black velvet skirt that ended about three inches above her over-the-knee boots, and the vivid blue shirt she wore was cut low in the back, baring an expanse of soft, pale skin that made my hands itch.
Apparently, quite a few other men liked the way she looked too, but she didn’t look at any of them. She was too busy talking to an older woman. The woman’s smile was a match for Carly’s and they looked like they’d discovered their own little world. A world that didn’t include the rest of us.
I moved closer, feeling more than a little out of place. Then Carly saw me and she waved me closer. Shit. I couldn’t move.
I’d just now figured out who Carly was talking to. It was the writer. The one who’d written the mysteries. The one who owned this museum of a house. I’d known I was out of my league, but seeing the two of them together made it hit me even harder.
“Here he is,” Carly said, seizing the bourbon from my hand and tossing half of it back.
But she didn’t stop there. She twined our fingers together, swinging our hands back and forth like I was some new friend she’d found on the playground at school. Except I’d never seen anyone on the playground who looked like her.
The smile on the older woman’s face widened. She looked like the kind of person who smiled often and laughed loud. Someone I’d probably like. When she held out a hand, I reluctantly tugged my hand free of Carly’s and accepted hers. She gave my hand a light squeeze and the rest of me a quick look-over.
“I have to say, I’m glad to see you’re still standing.”
“Ma’am?”
“Well, after that hit in the head from Carly’s bag...”
Frowning, I slid Carly a look.
She pursed her lips and then shrugged. Tossing back the rest of her bourbon, she put it on one of the trays tucked against the wall and then dug her phone out from the tiny purse she’d elected to use tonight. I wished she’d hit me with that one after the fiasco on the street. The other one with its heavy metal buckles hadn’t done me any favors.
“Here. I guess you might not have seen it.”
“Just about everybody else has.” The author sounded amused.
“Hush,” Carly said, nudging the other woman with her elbow as her fingers flew across the screen of her phone.
A moment later, her face and the back of my head, appeared on the screen. In miniature, I watched an instant replay of the moment where she’d swung her purse at me. Hit me. I couldn’t stop the wince. Then it happened over and over again. Below it was a caption.
Crazy Carly is at it again!
Smaller print continued on and I squinted my eyes to read it.
Has Carly Prince finally gone off the deep end? A rough-looking knight in shining armor saves her from being hit by a car only for her to attack him. Read on for the full video!
I flicked at the screen. But as it started to move, Carly took the phone away.
“Hey!”
“You saw enough.” She shoved it into her purse.
Our hostess laughed. “Carly, he’ll just look it up later.” Then she looked at me and winked. “Are you going to be traumatized by the video of you grabbing her before she was made into a pancake, or will it be from the blogger speculating that you were homeless and Carly’s attack was justified?”
Blood rushed up the back of my neck at how close she came with her last speculation, but I shrugged it off. “I don’t know about justified, but she didn’t exactly know who I was or what I was doing. Being pissed off was a natural reaction.”
Carly sniffed. “Mrs. G, don’t encourage him. He’s already incorrigible.”
Mrs. G.? I guess it suited her better than The Grande Dame of the Modern Mystery. I remembered seeing that title on one of her books.
She smiled at the both of us. “Then he should fit in just fine with you. Oh...oh, dear. Carly, excuse me, would you?”
Carly gave a reply, but I didn’t hear what she said. Something else had caught my eye. Unconsciously, I’d moved to put my back to the wall when I’d rejoined them, and now I had full, nearly unrestricted view of the room before us. I didn’t know what to call it, exactly. It wasn’t a living room, at least not like one I’d seen before. This wasn’t where people flopped and watched TV at the end of a long day or shared a beer or three with friends. It was too classy, too elegant for that.
It was also big enough to hold a good forty people, more as they mingled in and out of the hallway and the dining room. A dining room holding a table long enough to seat the entire population of the city.
My gut tightened as I realized somebody out there was looking in our direction with a whole lot of rage.
As if they’d picked up on my tension, Ryan and Jake moved closer. They’d been holding people at bay from a distance of two feet, giving Carly and her friend the illusion of privacy, but now they closed that gap. Jake bent towards me while Ryan stood at his back, facing the crowd, searching for whatever was bugging me.
“What is it? What do you see?” Jake asked.
“I don’t see anything,” I said, shaking my head. Instinct had me echoing his low tone. I didn’t bother looking at him as I continued to skim the room, trying to keep it subtle and low-key, the way I’d seen them doing it, but I doubted I pulled it off half as well.
“Tone it down,” Jake said softly, clapping me on the back and giving me an easy smile. “Look at me, smile. Do it now.”
I did. The smile felt forced.
“That’s it. Whatever it is...”
The smile froze on my face as I caught sight of someone familiar moving toward us.
If the sky had opened and lightning had cracked down on me out of the blue, it would’ve been less of a kick in the ass.
The man striding my way was a blast from the past, and not a happy one. Not that I had many happy ones, but he was one of the worst.
He’d been younger – barely out of high school – the first time I’d seen him, but not the last time. The last time I’d seen him had been just over a year ago, when he’d shown up for my parole hearing, and thrown every bit of his considerable weight as an upcoming young detective with Louisville Metro Police Department behind keeping me incarcerated. The parole board had decided to give me a chance and he hadn’t been pleased.
Every day since I’d gotten out, I’d expected to see him riding my ass and just looking for a chance to throw me back behind bars, but it hadn’t happened.
Judging by the look on his face now, he was about to make up for that.
As Detective Dale Mitchell came to a stop in front of me, I pulled my hands out of my pockets. Ex-cons don’t do well having their hands in their pockets when there’s a cop around, trust me. Hands where I can see them, and all that jazz.
“Well, well, well,” Dale said, an ugly smile twisting his face. “I thought that face on the video clip flying across the web today looked damn familiar, but I told myself you had a doppelgänger or something.” He paused, and then added with a sneer, “Doppelgänger means double.”
“I know what it means, Detective.”
He rubbed a hand over the neat growth of his beard. When I’d first seen him, across a courtroom as he stared at me with hatred, he’d been a skinny kid with a face full of pimples and tears in his eyes. The only thing that hadn’t changed in the passing years was the hate. I couldn’t exactly say I blamed him.
I killed his older brother.
His gaze skipped away from me to linger on Jake and then moved to Ryan and Carly. “Why don’t we step outside, Cantrell?”
I gave him a terse nod. I wasn’t about to make a scene here.
Jake moved in front of me. “Care to explain why?” He glanced at me and made an accurate guess. “Detective?”
“It’s okay, Jake,” I said, even as something I couldn’t immediately identify rushed through me. Shit. It was gratitude. Jake knew what I’d done. I’d told him. And he knew the guy in front of me was a cop. But he didn’t care. He was taking
my side.
“No, Bobby.” Jake smiled easily, never once taking his eyes away from Dale. “You see, you’re not doing anything wrong. You’re here doing the job you were hired to do. You haven’t caused any problems.” He paused, continuing to stare at Dale. “So, again...why do you need Bobby to step outside?”
In response, Mitchell pulled out his badge and flashed it. “Because an officer of the law is requesting it, and this man is a convicted felon.”
He smiled smugly as he said it, as if waiting for a reaction to his announcement. But all Jake did was give him a steady look.
“Yes. He’s a convict. An ex-con, I believe is the term he used when he told us about his past. As in, he served his time. But...” He nodded and gestured toward Ryan. “I do believe he’s allowed legal counsel, correct? My associate, Mr. Harmon, is an attorney. He is only licensed to practice in New York and California, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind at least assisting in this matter.”
I swung my head around to stare at Ryan. He gave me a faint smile. He was a lawyer? No wonder he and Jake had realized what I was.
“I wouldn’t mind at all.”
“You’re supposed to be taking care of Carly,” I said tightly. Under clothes that still felt as unfamiliar as somebody else’s skin, my shoulders were tight, and I was painfully aware that people were staring at us. I just wanted to get out of there, even if it was with Dale.
“Is there a problem, Dale?”
And now my humiliation was complete. Mrs. G had rejoined us. Now, she looked and sounded very much like the Grande Dame of something, her tone regal, her head inclined imperiously, her gaze frosty.
Dale jerked his head at me. “You aware you’ve got a convicted in attendance here?”
Mrs. G’s gaze flitted toward me. There was surprise in her gaze, but she hid it quickly and she waved a hand. “I see no need to do a full background check on those my guests bring. Besides he’s one of Carly’s security people, which means he passed inspection with her people. That’s more than enough for me.”