Fallen Angels 01 - Covet (20 page)

As her phone rang again, she looked at him before she accepted the call from the sitters. “I don't know.”

As Vin drove through Caldwell's outer reaches, his efficiency was autopilot more than awareness, and it was hard to know what was riding him harder: the shit with those dead boys or that hideous dream about Devina.

The cops were absolutely going to show up at the Iron Mask for a hi-how're-ya-what-the-fuck, and if anyone said a peep about what had gone down in the hallway, they were going to want to see what those security cameras had caught. Which wouldn't be good news. Sure, neither he nor Jim had thrown the first punch or pulled a knife, but then, they were still breathing whereas the other two had had a matching set of lead pacemakers implanted in their chests.

And that horrible nightmare...it had been so real, he could still feel those bony hands locked onto his shoulders. Hell, as he thought about it, his cock shriveled behind his fly like the thing wanted to hibernate in his lower intestine.

You made a bargain and you've taken everything I brought into your
life, you've eaten it, drank it, fucked it—I'm responsible for it all and
you owe me.

Bargain? What bargain? As far as he knew, he'd made nothing of the sort with her. Or anybody else.

Whatever, he was arguing about what had been in a dream. Which was nuts.

Bottom line, he was going to end things with Devina as fast as he could—and not because his subconscious clearly had issues with her.

The thing was, their relationship wasn't based on love and it wasn't even based on passion. Passion was sex with soul, and no matter how many times she'd made him come, only his body had been in it.

He'd thought that would be enough. He'd assumed that was what he wanted. But his first clue that something was off was when he couldn't even ask her the big question. And then looking into Marie-Terese's eyes had sealed the deal.

Of course, it didn't mean that he and Marie-Terese were going to ride off into the sunset together; his reaction to her just told him there was a whole lot missing between him and the woman he'd thought he was going to marry.

God, the past tense in that was as jarring as a slap in the face.

Refocusing on the road, he cursed when he realized where he was.

Instead of driving to his office, which was what he'd intended, he'd ended up on Trade Street, and as he passed by the front entrance of the Iron Mask, he slowed. There were two cop cars parked across from the club and a uniform by the main door.

The smart thing was to keep going.

And he did. Sort of.

Vin went to the next street and hung a left, making a box around the club and heading for where the cars parked in back. Just as he came into the lot, he stopped. There were more police cars in the rear, and on the next block over, yellow crime scene tape was stretched between two buildings.

So that was where the murders had taken place.

The beep of a car horn brought his eyes to the rearview mirror.

Behind him was a dark green Toyota Camry...and Marie-Terese was in the driver's seat.

Popping the gearshift into neutral, he pulled the parking brake and got out. As he walked over to her car, she put down the window—which he took as a good sign.

Man, he liked the way she looked with her hair back in a ponytail and just a red turtleneck and blue jeans on. Without all the makeup, she was truly beautiful, and as he leaned in, he smelled not perfume, but dryer sheets, the kind that were like sunshine in the nose.

Vin breathed deeply and felt his shoulders ease up for the first time since...yeah, right, like he could remember when.

“Did they call you, too?” she asked, staring up at him.

He shook himself back to attention. “The police? Not yet. You going to talk to them now?”

She nodded. “Trez called me about a half hour ago. I was lucky I could get a sitter.”

Sitter? His eyes flipped to the steering wheel where her hands were.

No wedding ring, but maybe she had a boyfriend...although what kind of man would let his woman do what she did every night? Vin would whore himself out first if she were his.

Crap...how was she going to get around the inevitable question about what she did at the club?

“Listen, if you need a lawyer, I know some good ones.” Well, wasn't this the day for throwing attorney cards around. “Maybe you should get one first before you talk to the police, given what you—”

“I'll be okay. Trez isn't worried, and I'm not going to be until he is.”

As her eyes bounced around, he realized she already had an exit strategy, and it didn't take an Einstein to figure out what it might be.

Clearly, she was just going to disappear if things got too hot, and for some reason that freaked him right out.

“I have to head in,” she said, nodding at his car. “You're blocking the way to the parking lot.”

“Oh, yeah. Sure.” He hesitated.

The question he needed to ask her jammed in his throat, blocked by a conviction of not-here-not-now, and propelled by a whole lot of but-when. “I have to go,” she said.

“What did I say to you last night? In the locker room. When I, you know...” As she blanched, he wanted to hit himself. “I mean—”

“I'm sorry, but I really have to go.” Shit, he shouldn't have brought it up.

With a silent curse, he bounced his fist once on the roof as a good-bye and headed for his car. Back in the M6, he put the engine in first, released the clutch, and eased out of her way, turning around slowly as she parked nose-first to the club and got out of her Camry.

The owner opened the rear door as she came up to it, and the guy scanned the parking lot, as if he were watching out for her. When his eyes got to the M6, he nodded as if he'd known all along Vin was there, and suddenly Vin felt his temples sting, pressure building in his head as if something were pushing into him. All at once, his thoughts scrambled like a deck of cards pushed off a table, flying off in all directions, scattering faces up and faces down.

As soon as it began, it was over, his mind righted, everything from his aces to his jokers back in order.

While he winced and rubbed his head, Trez smiled tightly and said something to Marie-Terese, which caused her to look over her shoulder at the M6. Before the two of them ducked inside, she raised her hand in a little wave and then the door shut behind them.

Rain started to fall and Vin's wipers came on automatically, sweeping up and down, up and down.

His corporate offices were not far from here, only five minutes, and there was plenty of work to do there: Architectural plans to review.

Permit applications to approve before they were submitted. Offers to buy and sell land or houses that needed to be countered. Inspections to delegate. Pissing contests between contractors to settle.

Plenty of shit for him to do.

Except evidently, he'd rather wait here like a dog for her to come out again. Pathetic.

Vin took off, leaving the Iron Mask and going toward the skyscrapers by the river. The building had his offices in was one of the newest and tallest in Caldwell, and when he got to it, he swiped his access card and went down into the underground garage. After leaving the M6 in his designated space, he rode up in the elevator, passing floors of law offices and accounting firms and big-name insurance companies.

The ding for the forty-fourth floor sounded, the doors opened, and he got off and strode by the reception desk. Up high on the dense black wall behind it, done in golden letters and lit from below, was the name of his business: THE DIPIETRO GROUP.

Group. What a lie that was. Even though some twenty employees had desks here, and he had hundreds of contractors and workmen on his payroll every week, there was him and that was it.

Walking down the plush black carpet to his office, he felt stronger with every stride. This business of his was something he knew about and controlled.... He'd built the whole damn thing up from the ground, just like he did his houses, until the corporation was better and bigger than anything like it.

As he came into his corner office, he flipped the light switch and all of the tigerwood paneling he'd handpicked glowed like sun rays. In the middle of his black desk, there was a legal-size manila envelope on the blotter, and he thought, Ah, yes, Tom Williams always worked as hard as he did.

Vin sat down and opened the flap, sliding out the folded land study and approved plot plan of the three parcels of a hundred or so acres he had just closed on. The project that unified the separate farms was going to be a masterpiece, one hundred fifty luxury homes in what was currently horse country in Connecticut. The goal was to attract Stamford commuters who were willing to drive forty-five minutes to work so they could live like they were Greenwich high rollers.

He was going to start demolition and construction as soon as the bids from contractors were where he wanted them to be. The land was perfectly sound, with a low water table that meant owners weren't going to have to worry about their wine cellars getting a bath every spring, and he was going to run water and electric and sewer in through an interlocking underground system. First move, as was the case with the bluff property, was going to be tearing down all the old farmhouses and barns, but he'd decided to leave the stone marking walls in place to keep some character—provided they didn't get in the way.

He was feeling good about all of it, especially for the price he'd gotten everything for. Times were tough and his offers more than fair.

Besides, he'd sent Tom to do the negotiating with the local Realtors, which meant those poor fuckers hadn't stood a chance.

Tom was his baby-faced killer. The guy was a Harvard MBA with a vicious drive—who happened to look like he was twelve. Sweet-as-apple-pie Tom had no problem posing as an environmental conservationist and making unactionable, verbal commitments to preserve land that was in fact going to be developed.

Well, he had no problem now. In the beginning, Vin had had to coach him into it, but as soon as the money had really started rolling in, the guy had gotten with the program and then some.

The pair of them had done the dog and pony show so many times, it was practically rote, with Tom going in and snowing the prospects with tree-hugger charm while Vin marshaled the money and got the permit and contracting side of things worked out. It was precisely how they'd gotten the property on the Hudson River, that quartet of old hunting cabins yielding the ten acres he was putting his grand house on.

When it came to his palace, he could have built anywhere, but he chose that peninsula because of the golden rule in real estate: location, location, location. Unless an earthquake shaved California off the West Coast, or every polar ice cap in Alaska melted, they weren't making more waterfront, and you had to think of resale.

Sure as shit in another couple of years, he was going to want something bigger and better than what he was building now and that was another thing he was coaching Baby-face Tom on: Tom was the one who was buying the duplex at the Commodore.

Nothing like bringing the next generation along.

Vin picked up the phone and called his lieutenant, prepared to advance the ball even farther with the Connecticut project.

***

Marie-Terese frowned and glanced at Trez, who was sitting next to her on one of the club's velvet couches. As he uncrossed his legs as if he were getting ready to stand up, he seemed utterly unsurprised at how little time the questioning had taken—almost as if he'd prepped the police officer into keeping it short and sweet.

She looked back at the cop. “That's it?”

The officer closed his notebook and rubbed his temple like it hurt.

“Detective de la Cruz is in charge of the investigation and he might have more questions later, but you're not a suspect or anything.” He nodded at Trez. “Thank you for cooperating.”

Trez smiled a little. “I'm sorry those security cameras weren't working. Like I've said, I've been meaning to get them fixed for months now. I have a log of malfunctions that I'd be happy to show you, by the way.”

“Well, I'll take a look at it, but...” The man rubbed his left eye. “But as you say, you have nothing to hide.”

“Not a thing. Let me see her out first and then we'll go to my office?”

“Sure. I'll wait here.”

As Marie-Terese walked off with Trez and they headed down the back hallway, she said quietly, “I can't believe they aren't going any further with this. I don't know why I even needed to come.”

Trez opened the rear door and put his hand on her shoulder. “I told you I would take care of things.”

“And you really did.” Her eyes searched the parking lot and she hesitated in the doorway. “So you saw that Vin came by.”

“That his name?”

“It's what he said it was.”

“He makes you uneasy.”

On a lot of levels. “You don't suppose he and his friend—”

“Killed those guys? Nope.”

“How can you be so sure?” She got her car keys out of her pocketbook. “I mean, you don't know them. They could have gone back and...”

Except even as she said the words, she didn't believe them: She couldn't imagine Vin and his friend being the killer or killers. They'd fought with those boys, sure, but they'd done that to protect her and had stopped before they seriously hurt them. Besides, Vin had been with her right afterward in the locker room.

Although God only knew exactly when the shootings had occurred.

Trez leaned in and gently stroked her cheek. “Stop it. You don't have to worry about Vin or his buddy. I get feelings about people and I'm always right.”

She frowned. “I don't believe those security cameras are broken.

You'd never put up with that—

“Those two guys took care of you when I wasn't here. And so I take care of them.” Trez put his arm around her and walked her over to her car. “You see your Vin again, tell him not to worry about anything.

I've got his back.”

Marie-Terese blinked in the bright cold sunlight. “He's not mine.”