Bad Moon Rising (27 page)

He shook his head. “I’ve tried to convince myself that
I have to be crazy. She was a hooker, for God’s sake. She killed a man in cold
blood. Killroy was right. Once upon a time I would have dragged her pretty butt
into court and crucified her. But none of that matters. Not what she was or
what she’s done. All I know is that when I looked into her eyes, I saw
vulnerability, desperation, and fear. And for the first time in years she made
me forget my own misery. I wanted to
...
save her.”

“We’re going to find her, J.D.” Anna allowed him a
reassuring smile. “Up to a little detective work? I got your phone records.
Preliminary, but a start. Just a breakdown of the incoming and outgoing calls.
You might want to have a look at it, if you’re up to it. Look for anything that
stands out from the ordinary, and we’ll do a trace back to the caller. Hey, it’s
a start, right? You never know.”

“Sure,” he said. “Why the hell not.”

Shana curled
up
in the bed, her arms around
Puddin’, who slept
contentedly, purring in the silence. She cried softly.

God, it had been difficult to restrain herself from
flying to the door when J.D. came knocking. She had placed her cheek against
the door, wanting to call out to him, wanting to be as near him as possible.
Knowing he would once again chase the fear away and protect her.

But she couldn’t—wouldn’t—risk his life by doing so.
He would be in enough jeopardy as it was.

Stupid, stupid, stupid to have agreed to join him at
his parents. But she had allowed her feelings for him to overpower her better
judgment. But more than that, she had yearned to bask in familial camaraderie,
to experience and share that most personal aspect of Damascus’s life. With John
at her side, she could have held her head high and pretended, just for a little
while, that she was respectable.

But she wasn’t respectable and she had been crazy to
delude herself.

The intense night heat pressing down on her, Shana
rolled to her back, her gaze moving around Honey’s apartment, lit only by the
dwindling glow of black candles. She was reminded of just how far from
respectable she was. Hard to deny all the old memories when surrounded by the
shabby evidence of her past. Granted, she had never been forced to work the
streets long like Honey, thanks to Tyron who felt she was “too fine” to spoil.
She was better suited to big money. Power players. Like Senator Jack Strong.

Bastard. If his voters only knew. How many times had
she been tempted to go public with his filthy little perversions? But if there
was one thing she had always avoided, it was calling attention to herself. As
if she wanted the entire world to know her as somebody’s whore.

What irony that she had done just that by killing
Cortez. But better to sacrifice herself than allow him to continue his sick
foray into victimizing children. If she somehow saved one innocent child from
facing the pain and humiliation of “the life,” then the consequences of her actions
were well worth it.

What now?

She couldn’t simply remain here, and as hard as it was
to accept, she had finally come to grips with the reality that she wasn’t going
to find Melissa. There really was no choice in the matter. She would turn
herself in to the agency and let them worry about it. Once again, she would be
given a new identity, and Holly Jones and Shana Corvasce would cease to exist.
She would spend the rest of her life floating from town to town, afraid to form
relationships because how did one keep her past a secret forever—especially to
loved ones? And she sure wasn’t going to risk again feeling the pain she had
experienced upon looking into Damascus’s eyes and acknowledging his shock over
her killing another human being, regardless of how despicable the human being
had been.

A key scraped at the door lock.

Shana rolled to face the wall. She would pretend to be
asleep. Looking into Honey’s haunting eyes had broken her heart these last
couple of days. Shana didn’t want to witness again the inevitability of her old
friend’s future, not tonight when her own regrets were weighing so heavily on
her.

The door closed, just a gentle click in the quiet.

The cat stirred, wiggled against her, the gentle
purring becoming a growl in its throat.

And Shana knew, even before the cat yowled and sprang
for escape, that it wasn’t Honey who had moved up beside the bed. Her body
stiffened, heart climbing her throat as she rolled to look up into Tyron’s
grinning face.

“Long time no see, bitch.”

He sat down on the bed beside her, his smile widening,
sweeping her back to that sultry afternoon years ago: she and Melissa, hungry,
frightened, sleeping in alleyways and desperate for a friendly face. So
desperate. Tyron had flashed them that trust-me smile that could seduce the
most jaded of souls.

“Lookin’ good, baby. Just like always. Did you miss
me?”

“Honey told you.”

“What did you expect? That she actually gave a bigger
damn about you than she did over gettin’ a ride on the pony?” His hand slid up
her thigh. “Damn, but you always had the best set of legs of any bitch I’ve
ever known.”

“Get your filthy hands off of me.”

He laughed. “Still got attitude, huh? As I recall, I
slapped that attitude out of you a time or two.”

“Lift a hand against me again, and I’ll kill you,
Tyron.”

Eyes narrowing to a recognizable glitter, he clenched
her thigh hard enough to make her gasp. “Me and you got a little unfinished
business to address. Like what I do to bitches who turn on me and my brother.”

“I didn’t turn on you. You’re the one who set me up
with Cortez. I wanted to come back. He wouldn’t let me.”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure. As if you would walk away from the
high life. You always did think you was too good for me.

She gave an incredulous laugh, the pain he was inflicting
on her leg making her grit her teeth. No way was she going to give him the
pleasure of acknowledging the discomfort. “You’re a lousy stinking pimp,
Tyron. A worm is too good for you.”

“Ain’t we got all uppity since you been gone. Or maybe
Damascus rubbed a little class off on you when he was crawling between your
legs.”

He stood and unbuttoned his trousers, the erection
straining his pants appallingly evident.

No way. Not again. Shana kicked out as he fell toward
her, missing his crotch but driving her foot hard enough into his gut that the
wind left him in a rush. She did her best to scramble from beneath him, shoving
at his shoulders and driving her knee into his ribs. But he grabbed her hair
and yanked so hard tears sprang to her eyes.

Somehow she managed to get her feet to the floor and
throw herself backward, dragging him from the bed as he attempted to loop one
arm around her waist. They tumbled hard on the floor, the impact of his body on
hers driving the air from her lungs.

Tyron slammed one knee against her chest, pinning her
to the threadbare carpet. She had managed to draw blood from his mouth. It
bubbled on his lips and smeared his teeth as he sneered at her. “Alive or dead,
bitch. It don’t matter to me. You’re worth two million one way or the other.”

He slapped her.

She threw up her hands to claw his face, vaguely feeling
her nails sink into his cheek. She heard him howl like a kicked dog before he
drove his fist into her face. The impact sent shards of pain through her head
and she felt the strength flow out of her body before blackness came rushing in
to consume her.

The pain roused her, little
by
little. Tyron’s
voice drifted to her, each
syllable he spoke driving through her face like a spike.

“Mr. DiAngelo. Tyron here. I got good news. Yes, sir.
I understand. I ain’t supposed to call you at home, but this is important. I
got Shana Corvasce. Yes, sir, you heard me right. The bitch is right here. On
the floor. I whacked her a good one. She’s gonna be out for a while.”

Puddin’ licked her face, sniffed at the blood running
from Shana’s nose. Opening her eyes slightly, she peered through her lashes,
focusing on Tyron’s feet, so close she could smell the leather on the soles of
his shoes.

Tyron gave DiAngelo Honey’s address, his tone cocky. “I’ll
be waitin’, Mr. DiAngelo. You bet. See you in fifteen minutes.”

He hung up the phone, then squatted down beside her,
knocking the cat aside. Shana closed her eyes.

“You’re gonna be my ticket out of this place, Shana.

You’re gonna buy me respect from the big dogs. No more
slummin’ it with a bunch of stinkin’ whores. No more takin’ orders and insults
from that fat prick. In another twenty minutes, DiAngelo is gonna be singin’ ‘Blue
Suede Shoes’ with the King himself. All the sons of bitches who did me wrong
over the years are gonna suffer. Like your boyfriend Damascus. With my new
influence, I’m gonna take ‘em all out. Just on principle.”

Tyron stood and moved to the kitchenette, opened the
fridge, and began to rifle through the collection of beers and sodas, mumbling
to himself about his high aspirations and what he intended to do with two million
tax-free dollars.

Shana opened her eyes, her bleary vision focusing on
her purse under the bed. Her cell phone lay beside it. She reached for it,
fingers brushing it, her body sweating. She managed to grip it with her
fingertips, tug it up under her body, and slide it down into her panties as
Tyron slammed the fridge door.

Returning, Tyron dropped onto the bed, one foot
planted on either side of her as he popped the top of a beer can, then set it
on the floor.

The deep grooves Shana had clawed in his cheek burned
like hell. Didn’t matter. He’d suffered worse. Well worth the investment, he
thought as he blotted away the blood with his coat sleeve.

He still couldn’t believe his luck. Good fortune had
surely smiled on him this time, just as it had when he had first hooked up with
DiAngelo in California. DiAngelo’s plucking him off the streets had been a big
turning point in his life. But this .
..

He had been destined for big things, but this was
mind-blowing. The potential of it made him heady. Made him sweat, more than he
already was. From now on, things were going to be different. No more kissing
anyone’s ass. Others were going to be doing the kissing from now on.

He slid his gun from under his suit coat, then dug the
silencer out of his pocket, snapped it into place, then fingered the barrel
with awe and a touch of nervousness. It was one thing to put down an old hooker
with bad smack, but it was another thing to blow out a man’s brains. That much
blood and gore was liable to make him a little queasy.

What if he missed? The silencer was good for only one
quiet pop. After that, every worthless bum within a block would hear the shot.
There was only one way out of Honey’s apartment. A fired gun, followed by his
dragging Shana out to the car, was going to call attention to himself.
Obviously.

No problem. He wouldn’t miss. As if he could miss the
fat little bastard. It would be like shooting at the side of a barn.

He looked down at Shana. There was plenty of time to
enjoy her. He’d waited years for it. A little while longer wouldn’t matter.

Just looking at her caused his penis to hurt. There
wasn’t another woman in existence who affected him physically to such a degree.
If he thought he stood a chance at winning her heart, he might have second
thoughts about collecting that bounty.

Nah. No bitch was worth passing up two million. Especially
since she had spread her legs for Damascus. That alone would contaminate her.

Still, going at her just to spite Damascus would be
fun. He would even drop the prick a note detailing the pleasure he had taken in
her body.

Maybe he should just go ahead and kill her. Get it
over with. Before she woke up and he was forced to look again into her
incredible eyes. It was those damn eyes that had always turned him inside out.
They had a way of looking at a man that made him want to change his life.

Once upon a time he’d even considered getting out of
the pimp business just to win her over. She’d made him regret his life. Made
him want to go legit. Get a stupid job doing stupid stuff like office work or
pumping gas. Even made him want to cut her loose from her work— give her the
money to start over and apologize for victimizing her innocence.