Ace Is Wild (19 page)

“We need a place to stay,” Daniel said, and her lower body gave a wholehearted throb of agreement, not over the practicality of his suggestion so much as the fact that there would have to be a bed wherever they ended up. Not that she needed a bed. Just about any horizontal surface would work—some vertical ones came to mind, too.

“Any ideas?” Daniel said.

She looked over at him and thought, “Oh, yeah.” She had ideas, starting with the slightly sweaty T-shirt over all those amazing muscles and working her way down from there.

“If you keep looking at me like that . . .”

Vivi lifted her eyes to Daniel’s and there was intensity, heat. Need. Her throat went dry, her palms went damp, and all of her wanted all of him. She opened her mouth to ask him to finish his threat, but what came out was, “Can I borrow your cell phone?”

Daniel didn’t quite comprehend, caught up in her as deeply as she’d been caught up in him. Good for her ego but hell on her willpower.

“Phone,” she repeated, holding out her hand.

He dug his cell phone out of his pocket, but he didn’t hand it over. “Want to tell me what you’re thinking?”

“Okay,” she said, but only because she’d pulled her mind out of his pants. Unfortunately, it had landed in the gutter. “Eric Brophy.”

Before she even finished saying Eric’s name, Daniel was dialing, and it was no surprise when he said into the phone, “I need you to check someone out for me, Mike.” He looked at her, eyebrows raised until she said the name again, then spelled it, Daniel repeating it into the phone. There were a couple of “uh-huhs,” and then he snapped the phone closed. “Eric Brophy, forty-two, juvenile record but nothing as an adult. At least nothing he’s been caught at.”

“Except lying about his age.” Vivi took the phone from Daniel and punched in Eric’s number. “Vivi,” she said, identifying herself.

“Babe,” Eric said back, “long time no hear. You jonesing for some Eric?”

Vivi rolled her eyes. “Actually, I need a place to stay—”

“Say no more,” he said, rattling off an address that wasn’t far away. “Meet you there in a half hour.”

“ ‘I?’ ” Daniel said when she’d snapped the phone closed and handed it to him.

“It’s Eric’s favorite pronoun,” Vivi said. “He doesn’t do so well with ‘we.’ ”

“And when you show up with me in tow?”

“Trust me, it’s better if I spring you on him.”

ERIC’S BUILDING SAT DILAPIDATED AND EMPTY IN ONE of the older sections of Boston, six stories of brick, mortar, and steel that had probably housed dozens of Irish families during the 1800s. The inside was probably a holy mess, a jumble of original and secondary construction with a questionable infrastructure. The outside looked to be in decent shape. The architecture was plain, blocky even, but the brick had gone a soft pink and the masons had added some unique details to the façade. The place would have been plain for its time, but no one did work like that anymore.

If Eric was telling the truth, Daniel would have guessed the demolition permit wasn’t just taking time, it would never come. There was no way the Boston Redevelopment Authority would let the owner tear this building down. It would cost a fortune to replumb and rewire, to upgrade the heating system, to make sure the place was structurally sound and create marketable spaces inside it, but the owner would be an idiot not to put in the time and effort. Condos in this building would be worth more than some glass-and-steel monstrosity that didn’t fit the neighborhood.

Not that it mattered to Daniel. He and Vivi needed a place to lie low and this place looked like it fit the bill.

No sooner had they gotten a few feet from the car than a man came out of the building and down the front steps, planting himself in their path. “Vivi,” he said, arms wide, swooping in for a hug.

Vivi took a step back. “Eric,” she said, pasting on a smile that was as fake as George Washington’s teeth. Eric didn’t notice. “I could really use a shower.”

“So I smell.” He guffawed—that was the only way to describe Eric Brophy’s laugh, and apparently he found his own jokes hilarious.

“A pipe broke at my—our place,” Vivi said. “We tried to fix it but—”

“Your place? Together? You and . . .” His gaze shifted to Daniel.

Daniel didn’t supply his name. Neither did Vivi.

“Our place,” Daniel said, slinging his arm casually around her waist.

Eric stood a little straighter and puffed out his chest. “I’ve been meaning to call you,” he said to Vivi.

She rolled her eyes—and elbowed Daniel in the side, hard enough to make him realize he’d tightened his grip to near rib-cracking proportions. Eric, it appeared, wasn’t the only one trying to prove something. Daniel chalked it up to his naturally competitive nature and put a bit of space between them. But he kept his arm where it was.

“I have to call a plumber,” she said, “but in the meanwhile, we need a place to stay.”

“Babe,” Eric spread his hands, “you can stay with me.”

“Are you sure? Because—”

“Both of you,” he said, “and not with me, exactly. That would be awkward, seeing as you and I used to . . . well—” His attention shifted to Daniel. “I’m sure you already know Vivi wasn’t a nun before you two hooked up.”

Vivi gave him a dirty look. Eric was no match for it.

“Anyway, I got this building,” he said, still talking to Daniel. “Well, it’s not mine, exactly. I’m watching it for this guy, you know, making sure it doesn’t become a homeless shelter while he’s waiting for his demolition permit. There’s plenty of room. You two can hang here until Vivi’s place is fumigated.”

“Does it have running water?” Daniel asked.

“All the amenities,” Eric said.

Daniel searched for an excuse to say no, but there wasn’t one, which meant his reason for turning Eric down was personal, not practical, and there was no room for personal when his life was on the line.

He turned on his heel, backtracking to the car, his hand on the small of Vivi’s back to nudge her along beside him. Eric tagged along, too.

“Dude,” he said to Daniel, “is that your car?”

Daniel glanced over at Vivi. She made a big show of studying her nonexistent manicure. But she was grinning.

“Yeah, it’s mine,” Daniel finally said.

“It looks like a hearse.”

ERIC HAD BEEN RIGHT ABOUT THE WATER—IT RAN hot and cold. He’d hooked up electricity for them, probably not legal, but Daniel wasn’t in a position to quibble, since he didn’t have any other options.

He hadn’t grown up in Boston, and he didn’t have any family here. Probably one of the reasons he’d been posted to the U.S. Attorney’s office for the district of Massachusetts. No connections equaled no conflicting loyalties. He couldn’t turn to the job, either. They’d put him under police protection, and he wasn’t having that—even if he thought it would work, which it wouldn’t. Sooner or later the hit men would take him out, whether or not he was surrounded by cops. His best bet was to find out who was behind the contract and make sure it got revoked.

Eric lived on the ground floor; Daniel had opted for the third, far enough to keep from being overheard, far enough . . . Hell, he might as well admit he didn’t want to be any closer to Eric than necessary. And since Vivi was staying with him, well, that worked out best for everyone. Except maybe Eric.

“So what’s the story?” Daniel asked as soon as they were alone.

Vivi looked around. “Not much in the way of furniture,” she said. Her eyes passed over a half-trashed, circa 1950 dinette set, stopping to take a good long look at the double mattress in one corner of what would have been the front room of the apartment. “It looks clean, and Eric said he’d get us a couple of fresh blankets.”

“I wasn’t talking about the amenities.” In fact, he’d been trying hard not to think about sharing that mattress with her. “Eric,” he said, adding before she could get the wrong idea from the rasp in his voice, “I have to be able to gauge the risk of staying here.”

“I’d say it’s pretty low,” she said with a shrug in her voice. “Eric is slime, but only where women are involved. I dated him three years ago.”

“Casual?”

She didn’t say anything, so he turned around and watched her face. But her face wasn’t giving anything away, either. “If you parted on bad terms, I’ll need to factor in the possibility of revenge.”

“If I wanted revenge, I’d tell my grandmother to deal with him. She’s a Russian gypsy. She knows revenge.”

She was also dead, but that wasn’t Daniel’s first thought. His first thought was that Eric was lucky his dick hadn’t fallen off—and if he kept thinking that way, it was only a matter of time before he started reading tea leaves and slaughtering chickens so he could study their entrails. “When I said revenge, I was worried about Eric” was all Daniel said.

“First, Eric wouldn’t know who to sell us out to. Not that you’d know it to hear him talk. He’d tell you he’s connected to everyone and everything in this town, but his estimation of his own importance is sadly overrated. Second, he couldn’t care less about you and me—except for the ego boost he’d get if he cut you out. The only terms he cares about are his, and as far as he’s concerned, we parted amicably.”

“In other words,” Daniel said, “he cheated on you.”

“There were other issues,” she said huffily.

“I’ll bet he wanted the lottery numbers, too.”

“If my talent worked that way, I’d be living on my own private island somewhere.”

“And I’d be dead.”

Vivi studied his face. No sarcasm, no skepticism. She wanted to believe he was beginning to trust her—or at least her talent—but she couldn’t let herself risk it yet.

“If you’re done picking apart my love life, maybe we can focus on something more important,” she suggested, “like the hit men. You’ve seen them for yourself now. Does that get us any closer to figuring out who hired them?”

“They’re pretty average-looking, unless you count Flip’s . . .”

“Fashion sense? I particularly like the flowered neck brace.”

Daniel smiled slightly. “Aside from that, I didn’t see any distinguishing features. And having their names isn’t going to help much, either, since they’re obviously nicknames. The accent is South Boston Irish, but anybody could hire a Southie, not just the Irish mob. In fact, it makes more sense for the mastermind to hire someone who’s not from his own ethnic group. Throw me off the track.”

“So we’re back to your cases.”

“Looks that way.” Daniel’s phone rang, and he held up a hand, his expression going flat when he looked at the readout.

“More trouble,” Vivi said.

“You having another vision?”

“No, it’s just the way our luck is running.”

Chapter 13

“THE BUREAU IS PULLING YOU IN,” MIKE SAID
when Daniel finally answered his phone. “We don’t have the budget to protect you, even if that would solve the problem. You’ll go under for a while, and when the heat is off you can surface and take another post. California or Alaska maybe.”

“Hawaii not available?”

“Lawyers,” Mike snorted, “always want the cushy job.”

“Actually, I’m pretty fond of Boston. I’m settled in and everything.”

“Not your choice.”

“The hell it’s not. I don’t work for the FBI anymore.”

“You can’t say this contract isn’t payback for something you did when you were an agent.”

“No, I can’t, but I’m not going to run and hide now, any more than I did then.”

“Circumstances are different.”

“The message is the same,” Daniel said, “and it’s not one we should be sending. I run from this, I might as well paint a target on every U.S. attorney in the country. Guys like Sappresi won’t hesitate to take aim.”

“You think he’s behind this?”

“No, but his lawyer will take advantage of the situation, and get the case kicked. And even if he doesn’t, it’ll take time for another prosecutor to get up to speed. If it goes to trial before the government’s case is prepared, we’ll lose. Either way, he’s back out on the street.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Like hell I don’t.”

Mike blew out a breath. “I’ve got no choice. Word came down from the top. You come in or you’ll be brought in.”