Fatal Beauty (11 page)

They’re in a small, upscale clothing shop and Charlie is modeling
a silver dress, floor length and open in the back, that displays her curves
perfectly when she says, almost absently, “
Pax
finished setting up the accounts.”

EJ, toying with a shadowy blue halter top, drops it on the low velvet
couch and turns on the other girl. “When the hell did that happen?”

“Last night, when you were out, doing whatever it is you were
doing.” Charlie’s voice goes up just a little at the end and she gives EJ a
curious stare.

“Don’t deflect. Why the hell did you wait so long to tell me?” she
snaps. “Get changed.”

“Are we in a hurry?” Charlie asks.

EJ stares at her. “We aren’t fucking on vacation, Charlie. What
the hell do you think we’re doing?”

“Well, personally, I think you’re being paranoid.” Charlie says,
smoothing the skirt of her dress and frowning at the mirror critically. “He has
no idea where we are. Relax. We’ll stay the night and leave in the morning.
Pax
deserves an explanation anyway.”

EJ studies her friend. “What are you going to do about him, by the
way?”

Charlie stills, and her dark gaze meets EJ’s in the mirror. “What
do you mean?”

“Just that. We need to go. We have to decide where. It’s time to
step up or step out. So—what are you going to do?”

“What are you going to do?” Charlie snaps back, twisting and
crossing her arms over her chest. EJ shakes her head.

“We aren’t having this conversation here. And I’m starving. Are
you almost done?”

Charlie huffs but vanishes back into the changing room. She
emerges a few minutes later in her jeans and black one shoulder top. “Let’s
go,” she says.

They wander down the street to a small bistro and sit outside. The
day is gorgeous, and even with the stress of everything going on, and all the
reasons she should be careful, EJ has to wonder if Charlie might not be right.
If Jacobs is a long distant threat that she needs to quit seeing behind every
corner.

She snorts softly. As long as that damn thumb drive and cell phone
sit in the bottom of her purse, she knows she’s being exactly what she should
be—vigilant and smart.

Charlie leans back in her chair, and EJ studies her. She’s
indolent, lazy, lounging there, her golden hair throwing glints of red, eyes
hidden behind oversized sunglasses, and a tiny smirk on her lips.

She’s missed this. It’s a realization that hits her hard,
suddenly, without warning, and it stirs unease in her belly.

A waitress, pretty and altogether too damn perky, swings by the
table and both girls order mimosas and salads. When she retreats, Charlie pulls
off her sunglasses and fixes EJ with a searching stare.

“What now? We’re covered financially, and we have the leverage on
Jacobs to cripple him. So what do you want to do?”

Now that some of the anger is abating, she has time to think, to
process everything they’ve been doing. And the familiar resentment is there,
bubbling angrily at Jacobs, but that’s it. Not the uncontrollable desire to see
him and his criminal network burn.

“I want to go somewhere where no one knows me. Where I’m just a
girl and I’m not expected to marry into trust fund royalty and my mother can
never snap her fingers and demand obedience again.”

Charlie arches an eyebrow. “Where is that?”

She smiles, “Ireland.”

Charlie blinks and EJ shrugs. “When Mom got married to lucky number
seven, they took a six month honeymoon trip around the world. Jacobs was gone
then—that fun time before he reappeared in my life, but only just. But I had a
housekeeper, named Kristin. And a passport. Kristin was only a few years older
than me, and I’d been bribing her for almost a year to keep out of trouble with
Mom. So it wasn’t hard to blackmail her into taking me to Ireland for a few
weeks. Mom never found out, and I fell in love with it. Do you know there are
castles there for sale? I could live in a castle and never see anyone I didn’t
want to. No one would ever know I was there, because why the hell would I ever
go there?”

Charlie stares at her. “You want to buy a castle in
Ireland
.”

“You asked,” EJ says, giving her a tiny smile. It’s just a little
bit self-conscious and embarrassed, but unrepentant.

“So do you have a castle picked out?” Charlie asks after a
heartbeat, and some of the tension eases in EJ. She wasn’t sure what kind of
response she’d get from Charlie, and it matters. Galling as that is, the little
blonde girl’s opinion matters.

“Yes.”

“Can I come?”

The question is soft and vulnerable somehow and EJ smiles. The
first real smile she’s given in so long, without shadows or fear or worry
plaguing her. She opens her mouth to respond, and her eyes go wide.

“What is it?” Charlie asks, sitting up in her chair, and EJ shakes
her head.

Her lips are numb and fear is stealing through her. She’s almost
shaking.

She’s seen him before. She can remember the first time she saw
him—she remembers everything about the night Jacobs first took her into his
criminal empire. The night it went from games that she was good at to what he
did.

He’s tall and thin, almost cadaver thin, his jaw and cheekbones
standing out in his face like a death mask, his dark eyes sunken. A shaved head
and tattoos that cover his arms and crawl up his neck, with skinny jeans and a
hipster pair of glasses—he could be any wannabe musician on the street, a
pretentious asshole hung up on clean eating and cold-brewed coffee.

Except she knows better.

For a heartbeat, as fear stutters through her like a live wire
shorting out, as her stomach churns and the bitter taste of acid floods her
mouth, she knows how badly they’ve fucked up.

But he is only watching. A private smile on his face. Observing
from a distance. She swallows hard, gagging a little and forces her gaze away
from him against every instinct screaming inside. “We need to go. I forgot—I
need to buy something.”

Charlie’s moving before EJ finishes talking, tosses some money on
the table and follows her out of the little bistro. And despite the feeling of
being watched, like insects crawling over her neck, she turns her back on him
and trusts that this is too public.

Jacobs might be angry enough to send his favorite enforcer after
her, but he won’t throw aside all his common sense—they won’t be gunned down in
the middle of a busy street.

“Tell me,” Charlie orders.

“We need a gun. Jacobs sent Marco.”

Chapter 20

They buy a black 1911, one that Charlie picks for practicality and
force. The pawn shop owner watches them warily when she starts rattling off
facts about stopping power and the bullet caliber, scoffing when he tried to
steer them toward a shitty, little, pink thing.

She feels better, vaguely, having it. She isn’t sure if EJ is
right—if Jacobs’ pet assassin is in Memphis—but either way, the added
protection is comforting. EJ is pacing the window, watching the street and
she’s beginning to wonder where the hell
Pax
is when
he finally returns.

He looks startled to see the girls there, waiting impatiently, and
his gaze flicks between them, and then to the bags by the table. His eyes go
wide and he shakes his head. “Don’t do this.”

“
Pax
, I—“

“No. Don’t. For fuck’s sake, Charlie, I just got you back,” he
snaps, throwing his briefcase down and stalking into the room. EJ snorts softly
from where she’s standing by the window, and Charlie sees the fury in his gaze,
so briefly, before he shuts it down and focuses on her. “Why?”

“Because—“” she shakes her head. Shrugs. “Because it’s always
going to end this way, Paxton. We aren’t meant for long. If we were, I would
have stuck around in college.”

He looks sick and she feels a pang of guilt. Because as much as
she wants to make EJ happy—as much as she wants that damn dreary castle in
Ireland—once upon a time, she wanted this. Him.

And she broke his heart once.

That should be easy. She’s been breaking hearts since she was a
little girl, toying with the boys her age who were too stupid to realize what
she was doing.

But
Pax
was always different. Maybe
because he was the one who didn’t hate her for it, when she walked away from
him and his diamond and promise of a happy boring life.

Maybe because, after all this time, he still doesn’t. He still
thinks she can be the girl he has in his head. A sweet girl who loves him as
much as he loves her.

“Charlie,” EJ says, her voice low and tight. Charlie closes her
eyes and
Pax
jerks away from her, stalking toward the
girl waiting by the windows.

“This is your fucking fault. Why the hell are you even here? Why
the fuck are you here? You were never part of her life. You didn’t give a shit
about her. So why the hell are you here now?” He’s furious, almost unhinged,
and it’s wrong—so horribly fucking wrong—that it turns her on, to see this side
of him. To see him towering over EJ and shouting her down.

“
Pax
,”
she snaps.

“I’m here,” EJ says, coldly, “because when the shit hit the fan,
and her world fell down around her, I was the one she called. Not you. Not any
of the pretty boys she fucked. Me. So tuck your dick away, Paxton, and get the
fuck out of my face. She’s mine.”

It happens fast. So fast.
Pax
hits EJ,
hard enough that it snaps her head around and Charlie watches. Her head slams
into the glass, and the world splinters into crystalline fractures as she
crumples. And then the gun in in her hand, and she’s aiming it.
Pax
is backing up and everything fades. There’s a curious
distance, a kind of calm blanket that settles over her that makes the world
fall away and all she can see is him. EJ. And the cracked glass.

“Shit,” he whispers, and he turns.

She gives him a moment—just long enough to see her, for his eyes
to go wide and afraid.

And then she pulls the trigger.

Chapter 21

It was stupid. To taunt him. So fucking stupid. That’s what she
thinks when something stings her face, and she hears someone screaming her
name, a hoarse voice as her body shakes.

“Jesus fuck, Charlie, leave me alone,” she groans and Charlie shrieks,
relief apparent in her voice as she hugs EJ. The world is spinning dizzily, and
she wants an Oxy and her bed, and why the fuck is her ass wet?

“We
gotta
go,” Charlie is muttering. She
tugs her again, and EJ shakes her off. “Why the fuck are we in a hurry? Where
the hell did the asshole go?”

That had been unexpected. She’d been irrationally angry, that this
little shit thought he had some kind of claim on Charlie because of some stupid
history. Fuck that. Fuck him. Charlie was so much better than that, it was
infuriating.

She’d taunted him, knowing damn well that it was stupid, but she’d
never expected this. Never expected him to hit her.

She’d never been hit by a man. Not even working with the addicts
and creeps that Jacobs occasionally exposed her to—Jacobs would never have
tolerated it.

“EJ,
get up,”
Charlie
says shrilly.

The pure panic in her voice pull EJ off the floor and onto her
feet. She notices the glass first, splintered and cracked. Makes sense why her
head hurts, if she hit it hard enough to do that kind of damage.

The distorted reflection makes her freeze, and she looks down.
Blood. So much blood.

“Charlie,” she says, and her voice comes out high and funny. Kind
of choked.

“We
gotta
go, babe. Come on,” Charlie
coaxes and EJ finally understands.

There’s a body—it looks like a still breathing, but who knew how
long that would last—on the ground. And—“Oh, shit, we’re
gonna
run into cops.”

“No one’s come yet,” Charlie counters, her voice slightly
hysterical. “Now come on.”

They make it halfway to the door when it pushes open, and EJ has a
heartbeat to wonder where the fuck her purse is, and then she forces herself to
straighten.

“Marco,” she whispers.

He smirks at her. “Hello,
lil
sis.”

Charlie is shaking at her side, and he flicks a look over her,
then to
Pax
on the ground by the window and she has a
moment of worry. Will he kill
Pax
?

“What happened?”

“He hit me.” EJ says numbly. She sees the anger in Marco’s eyes
and manages to scrape together a low laugh. “Really, Marc? You’re here to kill
me and you care if some random asshole slaps me around a little?”

“You aren’t his to slap around, Ella. And you know how much I
don’t like for people to fuck with Jacobs’ things.”

She scoffs. “Why you’re here, right?”

He inclines his head, a slow assent and she huffs. “What are the
orders?”

Marco watches her for a moment, gauging her, and she shifts,
gritting her teeth to keep from wincing as pain shoots through her. “I deserve
that much.”

“You stole from the boss, Ella. You don’t deserve shit.”

She shrugs and he sighs. “Bring you in. As untouched as possible.
The bastard’s always had a soft spot when it comes to you.”

EJ laughs, and shakes her head. “No, he doesn’t. Not even close to
it.”

“Anyone else, he’d have killed days ago.”

“How did you find us?” Charlie asks, her voice shrill and afraid.

“Credit card. Stupid move—was that you? A local bar?”

Disbelief sinks in her belly, and Charlie twists to stare at EJ, furious.
“You used a fucking credit card? Why the hell were you buying your own drinks?”

“Is that really what we need to focus on right now?” EJ snaps
back.

“Considering it’s why we’re
here
right now, I’d say yeah. Let’s focus on how you could do something so stupid.”

“I was pissed and horny and the bartender was hot. I had to buy
drinks to get her attention,” EJ says, exasperated, and Charlie stops abruptly,
her eyes wide and startled.

Marco laughs. “Was she straight?”

EJ shrugs and he laughs again. Shakes his head and looks at
Charlie. “It was her favorite game, when she came to visit with the boss. She
loved to seduce the straight girls and send them home to their boring little
boyfriends.”

Charlie stares at them both, disbelieving. “I can’t believe this
shit,” she mutters finally.

“What? That I’m bi?”

“No, idiot. That we’re taking a fucking trip down memory lane with
the asshole who came here to shoot us.”

Marco looks affronted, “There’s no need to be insulting,” he says.

Charlie flips him the bird, and he sighs. “Are you going to
behave?” he asks, looking at EJ. She shrugs and his eyes narrow. “The boss
didn’t say anything about her. So. Behave or I’ll deliver a dead body with you.
Agreed?”

Fury flares hot and blinding but she shoves it down. Because he’s
holding all the cards. “Fine,” she snaps.

“Fuck this,” Charlie mutters, and she lifts that gun from where it
was tucked into her pants, aiming and firing in one smooth move. Marc grunts
and she adjusts her feet, a tiny pucker of concentration turning her lips, and
fires again.

He drops, hard, and she shoves the gun into her purse, grabs his
and hands it to EJ.

EJ stands still and shocked as Charlie strips Marco of his ID and
phone, all his cash, before doing the same to
Pax
.
She shoves all of it into
Pax’s
briefcase, grabs the
keys off the counter and dials on
Pax’s
phone.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“Hello? There’s been two gunshots. Two people are injured.”

“Where are you, ma’am? Is everyone still alive? How—“

Charlie drops the phone on
Pax
,
whose
breathing is shallow and choppy, his face a sick, waxy
color that would be more disturbing if EJ could work up the energy to care.

Big if.

“Let’s go,” Charlie says, looking at EJ. “The cops will be here
soon.”

EJ nods wordlessly, and follows her out of the loft, out of the
warehouse and onto the street.

It swallows them up as the cop cars come screaming up, and she
ducks her head.

Guilt, working through her, even though no one looks at her. No
one looks at either of them as they walk to the parking garage. They’re just
two beautiful girls, utterly harmless and easily overlooked, remarkable only
because they are beautiful and alone.

In the car, EJ slides into the passenger seat. Her purse is
sitting on the floorboard, and she lets out a shaky breath when her hand closes
over the thumb drive.

Still there.

Charlie takes the wheel and turns on music to drown out
conversation as she pulls out of the lot and onto the busy street, being
cordoned off by police as an ambulance screams up.

They slip away in the chaos. By the time the cops have
Pax
in an ambulance, speeding toward Regional Medical and
figuring their odds of saving him, the girls are on their way out of the city,
the Mississippi looming before them. Charlie hands EJ the phone she lifted from
Marco, and she stares at it.

There’s only one message.

Do you have her?

For a long time, she stares at it, until the words blur and mix
together, and she can’t breathe through the fury and the panic.

“What are you going to do?” Charlie asks, breaking the silence and
the flurry of her thoughts, grounding her.

Charlie, who shocked the hell out of her when she shot not one,
but two men, and never even blinked. Never once fell apart.

Fucking Charlie.

She smiles, and types out a quick message.

He’s at Regional. Better do damage control.

She hits send and then rolls down the window, and tosses it out as
they leave Memphis behind.

*

They stop, after hours of driving, outside of Little Rock,
Arkansas. It's a tiny, dumpy, little town that doesn't make a blip on the map,
which is why Charlie likes it. It reminds her, vaguely, of the backwoods city
her
grandaddy
used to take her to, when she was young
enough that no one was obsessed with what kind of wife she would make and being
the perfect little lady. EJ is sleeping, curled against the door, her mouth
open just a little. She looks innocent and sweet.

Charlie snorts. EJ hasn't been innocent or sweet since she was a
little girl in a Dallas park. And maybe that is why she is so drawn to the
girl. Because she can't remember a time when she was either.

It should bother her more, that she shot
Pax
and Marco. That she's here instead of in her home in Charleston, with Tre in
his office, busy ruling the world while she made a seating arrangement chart
with her maid of honor, some girl in her sorority that she hated a little less
than the others.

She has, suddenly, an absurd urge to hear her father's voice. She
hasn't thought about him much since she left in the middle of the night, but
she misses him. And Hayes. They were overbearing and misguided, but they were
her
overbearing and misguided, and that
counted for something.

"Where are we?" EJ asks, her voice sleepy and hoarse.

"Outside Little Rock. I'm
gonna
go
get us a room. Stay put," Charlie says.

"I'll go. Fake IDs." EJ says, yawning and pulling
herself upright. She rubs the sleep from her eyes and rummages through her bag
before she comes up with a small pink wallet, something she grabbed at a
drugstore in Baton Rouge. She fluffs her hair and climbs out of the car,
leaving Charlie alone with her thoughts and silence.

She'd seen the shock on EJ's face. It's the part of everything
that she hasn't allowed herself to think about too much--that she had seen the
shock and flash of fear—and something else—on EJ's face when she pulled the
trigger.

When Marco had crumpled and she hadn't.

It's different from Tre. That had been desperate, something she
hadn't thought about. Something that was almost an accident, even though it wasn't,
not quite. This was--the same. But different. She'd been furious. And even
though it wasn't given any thought--it was fueled by that anger. By the sheer
fury that
Pax
would hit EJ, and the protective rage
that came from seeing her best friend crumpled like a doll with cut strings.

And from the helpless anger and fear that came when Marco coldly
proposed killing her.

When she stood over Tre's body, it had been in shock and
disbelief. But this--this isn't shock. It's more a resigned acceptance. Like
this is where everything was pointed, from the moment she stood in a pool of
blood and called EJ, to the moment she lifted that pawn shop gun and pulled the
trigger—there was never any other option.

The door slams, and it yanks her out of her musings, to stare with
wide eyes at EJ. "Room 212. It's around back—I asked to be off the
highway."

Charlie nods, and puts the car in reverse, easing backwards before
following the cracked asphalt around the back of the rickety hotel.

“I think I watched a
TruCrime
show once
set in a place like this,” EJ says conversationally.

Charlie laughs, startled and parks the car by the stairs leading
to the second floor. “Sweetheart, I’m pretty sure we are a
TruCrime
show.”

“
Touche
,” EJ murmurs, and they both push
out of the Nova into the muggy Arkansas night.

The hotel room is just as dismal and depressing as the exterior
promised, and Charlie is half convinced that she saw a cockroach scurry behind
the AC unit when she hit the lights, but she forces the thought out of her head
as she tosses her bags on the king sized bed and drops down with a heavy sigh.
All of the day’s tension slams into her so suddenly she feels dizzy and she is
barely aware of EJ closing the door and pulling the curtains. She hears the TV
click on and blinks at it sleepily, her eyes unfocused.

“Do you want to change?” EJ asks, quietly, and she remembers,
suddenly, the little tidbit Marco had divulged.

EJ likes women. That kiss on the dance floor in NOLA makes more
sense, and confuses her even more, and she’s pretty sure that’s not what this
particular question is about. She stands and kicks out of her jeans, shrugs off
her bra and pulls on a t-shirt. EJ has the blankets pulled down, and she crawls
into bed without asking anything or saying anything. Without looking at her.
She listens, her eyes closed against the light from the TV and the bathroom,
listening as EJ washes her face, and brushes her teeth. Undresses and then
crawls into bed. She hesitates there, a few feet of space between them and
Charlie shifts to her back and blinks at her.