Designed for Murder (Killer Style) (4 page)

“Knowing what needs to be done and liking it are two different things.” Her heartbeat turned erratic and fast as her body reacted to what her mind rejected. Her body was used to getting who and what it wanted. Well, this was one time it wasn’t going to happen. “The ease with which you pretend to be something you’re not disturbs me.”

He pushed past the invisible bubble society demanded, getting so close that the heat from his body pressed against her, seeping through the barrier of her clothing and right to her core. “Does this
feel
like I’m just pretending?”

“Depends on what kind of games you’re into.” That sounded a hell of a lot steadier than her shaky nerves felt from his full-frontal pheromone attack.

He leaned down, his lips brushing against her ear, and whispered, “Why do you even care?”

“I don’t.” She shifted her stance, giving her the fraction of an inch of space between her skin and his lips that she desperately needed before she lost herself to the hungry need he inspired.

He chuckled. “Now who’s pretending?”

Spooked and unsure of how long she could resist, or even if she wanted to, Mika ducked under Carlos’s arm and hustled out of the closest exit, Grounded Coffee’s back door. She strode halfway down the well-lit alley, oblivious to anything except the angry mix of emotions swirling inside her.

A hand clapped down on her shoulder and spun her around, the motion sending her flailing into the building’s brick wall.

“Hand it over and you won’t get hurt,” the man in the black ski mask snarled.

A scream tore from her throat and echoed in the deserted alley.

Chapter Four

“Fashion is about suspense and surprise and fantasy. It’s not about rules.”

—Wolfgang Joop

C
arlos banged the back of his head hard against the coffee shop’s interior wall, hoping the dull pain would rattle his brain until he was thinking straight again. Mika was going to make him nuts. Hell, she was already making him nuts. It was the only explanation for how he fell so e
asily back into the old rhythms of Magic Battledome. The strategy. The excitement. The promise of victory. He hadn’t promised he’d be at Battle Ultimate, but he wanted to be. So much for burying that part of himself along with Ivy.

Meeting Mika and hearing her sweet moans when she’d come last night had brought everything back to the surface. He fisted his hands. If he didn’t watch it, he’d lose the edge he’d gained by giving up the nerdy nice guy he used to be, and he couldn’t afford that if he was going to solve this case and prove to the Maltese team that he was good for something besides hacking into impenetrable computer systems.

His gaze dropped to Grounded Coffee’s back door. He’d wanted to give Mika a couple of steps’ head start to give her some breathing space, but enough time had passed that he could shadow her home without tipping her off. He pushed off the wall and gave the hot barista with the low-cut shirt a wink, then opened the back door and stepped outside just as a woman’s scream cut through the night.

Mika.

Instinct took over and he took off without a second thought.

F
ear ate away at Mika’s brain, making it impossible to do more than stare, transfixed by the matte black handgun pointed straight at her.

“Where is it?” The man’s voice was muffled by his black ski mask, but there was no mistaking his intent.

“My wallet’s in my purse,” she managed to whisper.

He ripped the small clutch from her grasp and let it drop, then he pushed her against the hard
brick of the building and shoved his right forearm against her throat. The attacker pressed hard, not even bothering to fend off Mika’s ineffective blows to his hard chest. The twin demons of panic and lack of oxygen turned the edges of her vision gray.

He lifted his left hand and pressed the gun to her temple. “Where is it?”

“Right here.” A man’s voice cut through Mika’s desperation.

Startled by the newcomer, the attacker released his hold on her and spun around. Air rushed into Mika’s burning lungs as she slid down the wall. The uneven brick scraped her skin through the thin material of her shirt as she tried to make sense of the scene in front of her.

Carlos stood in the middle of the alley. He rushed the other man and slammed him against the building. He wrapped his fingers around the mugger’s left wrist and pounded the back of his hand against the unyielding brick until the gun fell from the mugger’s grasp. It clanked against the concrete and skittered into the middle of the alley. The two men grappled with each other, fighting their way toward the gun.

Adrenaline screaming through her veins, Mika scurried across the alley—staying low as she scrambled for the gun and the upper hand. She kept her gaze focused on the black metal, refusing to give in to the fear that left the taste of bile on her tongue. This wasn’t like before. It wasn’t Keenan and Hana. This time she wouldn’t be too late. She wouldn’t let Carlos end up dead like her little sister.

She wrapped her fingers around the textured gun grip and looked up in time to see the two men locked in battle coming straight at her. She dodged left. The mugger landed a solid right jab to Carlos’s face, and the momentum knocked him into Mika. She sailed back, the gun flew from her grasp, and she landed in a heap on the concrete hard enough that all the air left her lungs, leaving only the helpless panic she knew too well. It swallowed her up and dragged her under.

The fight went on in her periphery as she sucked in oxygen and tried to banish the memory of the red-splattered room and her little sister’s lifeless body in the middle of it. The metallic smell of blood so thick she could taste it. The coldness when she’d touched her sister’s broken body. The guilt that took up residence in her belly and never left—not really. Lightning bolts of agony ripping her heart apart again.

Don’t lose it now, Mika. Come on.

The past had to stay there if she and Carlos were going to get out of this.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Each shallow breath brought her closer to the here and now until again she looked around and saw the alley. The oil-stained concrete. The red brick. The dented Dumpsters. And the two men trading blows like prizefighters in the thirteenth round when hate and determination mattered more than style or skill. Looking left and right, she searched for the gun while trying to stay out of the fighters’ way but didn’t see it.

The mugger swung big. Carlos blocked the punch with his forearm and landed a hard right to the other man’s chin, knocking him off his feet. The attacker landed face-first and let out a wheezy
umph
before going so still she had to watch his chest rise and fall a few times to convince herself that he wasn’t dead.

Carlos nudged the mugger with his foot. No reaction.

Breathing heavily, Carlos looked over at her. He was a little battered but looked pretty damn good for an unarmed guy who’d taken on a gun-wielding mugger. She shook her head in amazement and rushed over to where he stood looming over her attacker.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine.” She wasn’t, but that didn’t have anything to do with the guy who was face-planted in the alley. The mix of old memories and new questions had her off balance.

Carlos bent and picked up her black leather clutch. “Your phone in here? We need to call the cops.”

“Yeah, it’s—” A flash in her peripheral vision. The mugger rolled up and rushed forward. “Carlos!”

He glanced back, but it was too late. The mugger swung. Her warning gave Carlos just enough time to dodge the full impact, but the mugger made contact. The sucker punch knocked Carlos back on his heels. Taking advantage of the moment, the attacker landed a one-two combination, and in the moment when Carlos was reeling, the mugger sprinted down the alley and disappeared around the corner.

“Are you okay?” Mika ran to Carlos’s side, sweeping her gaze over his face and chest for signs of fatal injury before grabbing her purse from the ground and fishing out her phone. “I’m calling an ambulance.”

“It’s just a couple of bruises. I’ll be fine.” He popped a knuckle on his battered right hand and winced. “He got away.”

And so had they. It could have gone so differently.

“He would have done a lot worse if you hadn’t come along when you did.” She brushed her fingers softly across the purple already showing up on his cheekbone. “Thank you.”

Carlos shrugged. “It’s what I do.”

“Are you really Batman?”

He chuckled. “Not even close.”

The sound of sirens filled the alley. Someone must have called 911. It would have been nice if the caller had offered some in-person help, but she’d take what she could get.

This whole thing was getting out of hand. Four times in two weeks. There was no way her mugging had been coincidental. Her hands shook with pent-up adrenaline desperate for an outlet.

A police cruiser screeched to a stop at the front of the alley.

“Let me talk to them,” Carlos said as he used his thumb to brush blood off the corner of his mouth.

Her temper flared. “What, you think I’m too delicate to give a statement?”

“No.” He jerked his chin toward the plainclothes detective headed their way. “I just happen to know the really pissed-off-looking guy hauling ass toward us, and if he’s going to take someone’s head off, I’d rather it be mine.”

S
quare, tall, and with muscles so thick you could barely tell he had a neck, Harbor City police detective Reggie Watts probably ate metal Corn Flakes for breakfast and snapped felons in half to pick out the crumbs from between his teeth. Watts stormed across the alley, his glare visible even in the dim light. Since that was the same expression the detective wore while scarfing down hot dogs at a Maltese Security barbecue, blu
ffing at Tuesday night poker, and ordering a beer at the Salty Dog, Carlos didn’t even blink.

Reggie stopped just short of Carlos’s toes. “You know how much I love showing up at a crime scene and finding one of you Maltese guys here?” he asked.

Well versed in Reggie-ese, Carlos translated that to:
Is everything okay?

Carlos flipped him off. “Bite me.”

Translation:
All well.

“You’re not my type,” Reggie replied.

Translation?
Good
.

Mika cut him a questioning look, the skittish nervousness hanging like a tarnished halo around her head. The image was ridiculous. There was nothing angelic about Mika. She was a pain in his ass, but until this case was over, she was
his
pain in the ass, and he didn’t want her to worry. He moved a step closer to her—not touching but near enough that she couldn’t miss his message: He was here.

She relaxed a fraction as she watched the formerly deserted alley entrance now blocked by a black-and-white unit—its cherries blinking even if the siren was off—and Reggie’s unmarked black sedan.

A uniformed cop joined them, a clipboard in hand and the peach fuzz of his first beard covering his chin. “Ma’am, can you step over here? I need to get your initial statement.”

Mika glanced over at him, not exactly a question in her eyes, but not the normal 189 percent confidence, either. Normally he’d go with her, but he needed to figure out what had brought Reggie to what was probably called in as an ordinary mugging. The detective only worked major cases. Having him show up set off every single one of Carlos’s oh-shit alarm bells.

“Go ahead.” Carlos nodded at Mika. “I’ll wait for you.”

“Actually, sir,” the young uniformed cop said, “I’ll need to talk to you next.”

Reggie flashed his badge at Officer Puberty. “I got this one.”

The officer nodded. “Yes sir.”

He and Mika headed a few feet away and sat down on the employee smoking bench outside of Grounded Coffee’s back door. She toyed with a long strand of brown hair that had come loose from her thick braid during the attack, then tucked it behind her ear. Carlos couldn’t hear what she was telling the officer, but his fingers flew over the police-issued laptop propped on his knees as he took down every word.

It was a lot of immediate attention for a mugging. Something was up.

“What brings you down to a mugging?” Carlos asked.

“Bad luck.” Reggie scanned the brick backs of the buildings lining the alley, no doubt taking inventory of all the Lookie Lous peeking out of windows or brazenly watching the proceedings from the vantage point of their fire escapes. “I’m doing a rotation in robbery and was picking up Chinese on the corner when I heard the call come over the radio.”

Carlos managed not to laugh out loud. “Bullshit.”

Reggie glanced around, making sure none of the civilians was close enough to overhear. “There’s been a sudden drop in cocaine supply and prices have skyrocketed for what’s left out on the street, which has been cut with enough rat poison and other shit to make people nuts—literally. We’re getting a dozen calls a night that would normally be addicts committing no-harm muggings, but instead the purse snatcher ends up bashing Granny’s brains in for ten bucks and a subway card.”

“Diamond Tommy Houston?” Just saying the name made his stomach churn.

Harbor City’s most infamous crime boss was a favorite target at Maltese. After framing Cam’s girlfriend, Drea, for killing her high-society makeup client, Tommy had moved to the top of their Most Wanted list. Alex Lee spent nearly all of his free time looking for a way to nail the man who had more corrupt judges, cops, and politicians on his payroll than any other scumbag in Harbor City. Of course, Alex had his own reasons for wanting to see Tommy in state-issued orange. The bastard had killed Alex’s mom, a prosecuting attorney, in broad daylight, and the police hadn’t even brought him in for questioning.

“Good old Tommy boy.” The detective snorted. “More than likely he’s involved somewhere along the line. He’s got a finger in about a billion rotten pies in this city, but good luck actually tying him to any of it.”

The news sat like poisoned fruit in Carlos’s stomach. “That explains your sudden rotation out of major crimes and into robbery.”

“I always knew you were the smart one over at Maltese.” Reggie shrugged. “So what’s the situation here?”

He looked over at Mika in her bright green
Geeks Do It In Costume
T-shirt as she gave her side of the events to the uniformed cop. “It’s not your kind of case.”

“Why’s that?”

Quid pro quo time.

“Mika Ito is a Maltese client,” Carlos said. “A man in a black ski mask has been targeting her friends. Not like your ultra-violent junkies mugging people. This guy is more of a run-of-the-mill mugger, except for what he’s after.”

The detective raised an eyebrow. “What’s he after?”

“LARPing costumes.” He felt like an idiot just saying the words. The city was on the verge of a poisoned cocaine tsunami of violence, and he was looking for fucking purple and silver vestments.

“What-ing costumes?”

“LARP. It stands for live-action role-playing.”

“Like D&D but with costumes?”

Dungeons and Dragons was the gateway drug to LARPing and other role-playing games. Carlos tried to picture the beefy guy in front of him calling out spells and couldn’t make the image hold. “Reggie, I’m seeing a whole new side to you.”

“What, you think there aren’t any black geeks in the world?” He said it with just enough gravel in his voice that men who didn’t know the detective better would have taken a few steps back.

It just made Carlos want to nudge him further down the annoyed path. “Geeks who look like you and eat felons for breakfast?”

“You’d be surprised, ’Los. I was once a young nerd, too.” He unwrapped a piece of cinnamon gum and popped it in his mouth. “Anyone hurt tonight?”