Authors: Elizabeth Bevarly
Tags: #Fiction, #Thrillers, #General, #Suspense
Overnight Male (14 page)
“And where did the journey lead?” Nick asked.
Iris laughed, a strangled, joyless sound. “In addition to learning how to run one of the biggest crime syndicates in the country I’d also have to marry Michael Covey, a guy handpicked by my grandfather, and the biggest sleazebag on the planet. With wealth and privilege comes obligation, my father told me. And my obligation was to my family. My parents said they’d announce the engagement when I turned eighteen, and Michael and I would get married when I was twenty. In the meantime, I wasn’t allowed to ever go out with any other boys, and I would have to start getting to know Michael better.”
Even today, her revulsion nearly strangled her when she recalled those, thankfully infrequent, times with Michael, when her parents invited him to dinner or whatever so that Iris could grow more accustomed to the idea of spending her life with him.
Yeah, like that was going to happen.
“He was twenty-eight years older than me,” she continued. “And he had more kills under his belt than anyone in the family. At that point, I’d never even kissed a boy. And this guy was supposed to be my first, my last, my only.” She inhaled deeply and released the breath slowly, feeling the quaver in it, even a decade after the fact. “He made my flesh crawl, Nick. I didn’t want…I couldn’t…” She sighed again. “I couldn’t. So the day I turned eighteen, the minute I could legally do it, and before my parents had a chance to announce the engagement, I took off. And I never went back.”
She wasn’t sure what made her tell him the rest of it, since it was something she’d never told anyone else. In spite of that, and much to her surprise, she heard herself say, “But here’s the best part, Nick. You’ll love this irony.” At least, she hoped he would. “By being forced into an unannounced engagement with some creep who might have ended up being the only man I was ever intimate with—or, at least, whatever passes for intimacy with creeps like him—I ended up never being intimate with anyone.”
There. It was out. She’d told him the sad truth of her life. At twenty-six, she had to be one of the world’s oldest living virgins. There was probably some primitive tribe in the Amazon somewhere that still practiced human sacrifice that would love to get their hands on her. Twenty-six-year-old virgins had to be riper than just about anything you could serve up to the gods.
She waited for some reaction from Nick, but he only continued to look at her as if she’d just told him what her shoe size was. All he did was lift his coffee to his lips and look at her expectantly, as if he were waiting for her to go on.
Maybe he hadn’t understood, she thought. Maybe she should have spelled it out a little better. “I’ve never been with anyone, Nick,” she finally said. “I’m still a virgin.”
Okay, that got a response from him. Unfortunately, it mostly involved a lot of choking and coughing and spitting coffee.
“What?” he said when he was able to manage it, grabbing a linen napkin from the tray to dab at the coffee stains on his pajama bottoms. “You’re
what?
”
“I’ve never been intimate with anyone,” she said again.
“Well, neither have I,” he told her. “But that doesn’t make me a virgin.”
“Yeah, well, what I haven’t done
does
make me a virgin,” she told him.
He continued to dab at coffee that he’d already wiped up, focusing way more attention on the task than it actually needed. He couldn’t even look at her. Man, she really was a freak of nature. Finally he replaced the napkin on the tray and met her gaze evenly.
“You’ve really never been with a man?”
She shook her head. “Or a woman, either.”
He smiled at that, and something about it made her feel a little better.
Until he told her, “That’s not what Chuck and Hobie and Donny say, you know.”
The statement confused her. “What would they know about it? Why would they even care?”
“They talk quite a lot when you’re not around,” Nick said. “And sometimes they talk about you.”
This was news to Iris. And not necessarily good news, either, knowing those guys as well as she did. Although she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, she asked cautiously, “What do they say?”
She could tell Nick was trying to hold back a smile—but not very hard. “Well,” he began importantly, “among other things, they each claim to have…been intimate…with you.”
Iris’s mouth dropped open at that. “They what?”
“Only, they meant intimate the way you mean intimate. Not the way I mean intimate.”
“Those liars!” she exclaimed indignantly.
Now Nick let the smile go full-blown, and she could see that it was one of vast amusement. “In fact,” he continued, “they claim that, on one particularly memorable occasion, they were all…intimate with you…at the same time.”
Now Iris felt the blood drain from her face. “They didn’t,” she said, her voice hollow. Those little pricks. And here she’d been thinking they were her
friends?
Okay, yeah, she’d known they weren’t the kind of friends you’d ask to be in your wedding—or, you know,
at
your wedding—but she hadn’t thought they’d think that little of her.
Instead of being as horrified as she was, however, Nick began to laugh in earnest. “I can’t believe I actually believed them,” he said. “As if those losers stood even half a chance of having any kind of…intimacy…with a woman like you.”
Iris was about to snarl something in outrage about the three of them when Nick’s words registered and stopped her. Mostly because they made something warm and fizzy go
pop
in her brain, chasing away all the bad thoughts. First he’d called her lovely, and now he was saying she was worthy of better men than Chuck and Donny and Hobie. Which, okay, wasn’t maybe such an amazing compliment, but the way he’d said it, he made it sound like one.
He chuckled for another moment, then looked at her in a way that made the warm fizziness travel from her brain to her chest, then down to her belly, then lower still, to settle in a place where she’d never quite felt warm fizziness before. Well, all right, she’d felt warm fizziness there before, but not like this. Usually, when Iris thought about sex, it was in some hazy, uncertain, slightly fearful way. Now, thinking about it with Nick, the haziness and uncertainty were still there, but the fear was totally gone.
His laughter faded off, and very softly he asked, “Why are you telling me this about yourself, Iris?”
She shrugged, the gesture feeling in no way casual, and stared into her coffee. “Like you said. Confession is good for the soul.”
“So it is,” he agreed in that same quiet voice. “And do you feel better now, having confessed this?”
She thought about that for a moment and was surprised to hear herself answer honestly, “Yeah. This time I think I do.”
When she looked up again, Nick was smiling at her in a way she’d never seen him smile before. “Interestingly, Iris,” he said, “I think I feel better now, too.” He quickly added, “What are you doing for dinner this evening? Perhaps you and I could go out for a bite.”
She tried not to look too stunned by the invitation. Nick never invited any of them to go out anywhere with him. And dinner? That was just so…intimate.
“I have to work at the coffee shop this afternoon,” she told him. “But I get off at five. Dinner sounds…”
Intimate,
she thought. “Fun,” she said.
J
AVA
J
ACKIE’S
, L
ILA’S
newest—and most temporary—place of employment, was decorated in typical nouveau Bohemian. The mustard-and-brown walls were covered with framed Art Deco posters depicting coffee beans in varying degrees of production, and the kidney-shaped tables were big enough to seat two, maybe three electrons in their artsy, leopard-print chairs. Both the patrons and the employees were a bit…quirky. And Lila wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not that she felt right at home the moment she began her shift.
Although she would be keeping a careful eye on the clientele, there were three other Waverly students working with her, all of whom were worthy of consideration, and one of whom had specifically made it onto the official OPUS list. Iris Daugherty’s background check hadn’t contained anything remarkable, other than that she was unusually bright and had been a high achiever in high school. But she was a known associate of Chuck Miller, which made her more than a little suspicious. And not just because Chuck was probably engaged in criminal behavior. No, Lila found her suspicious simply by virtue of being an associate of Chuck Miller. Not that it was in any way a virtue to hang out with that little son of a bitch.
Inescapably, Lila’s thoughts turned to the events of the night before. But they weren’t thoughts about what had happened in Chuck’s room. That was something that was easily forgotten. It was Joel’s words at the apartment later that still weighed heavily.
I just haven’t met a woman who was anything special.
She wondered how long it would take for those words, spoken in Joel’s deep, velvety voice, to leave her. And she wondered why they were still hanging around in the first place. And she wondered, too, why every time they echoed in her head, it felt as if someone was tearing another little hole in her heart. She didn’t give a damn what anyone thought of her. And she sure as hell didn’t want to be special to anyone. Even to a guy like Joel who, okay, was kind of special himself.
She didn’t want the same things he did, she reminded herself. She didn’t want the home and hearth in the ’burbs that he’d professed to wanting himself. She could no more be a soccer mom than she could perform a lobotomy on herself. Hell, to become a soccer mom
would
be to perform a lobotomy on herself. She didn’t begrudge anyone who aspired to a traditional life filled with barbecues and SUVs and school uniforms. But to try to live a life like that herself?
It would kill her. If not physically, then certainly spiritually.
She liked who she was. She liked the life she lived. Yeah, maybe she’d had some problems with her job over the past year. Maybe there had been days when she’d wondered if it was all worth it. And maybe there had been times when she’d felt a little empty inside and thought that there must be something more. Still she wouldn’t change anything from her past, even if she could. Because her experiences, even the bad ones, were what made her the woman she was today. And that woman had no desire for the things Joel Faraday desired. That woman shouldn’t even be wanting a man like him.
So why, even after what he’d said to her the night before, did she still want him so much?
“Hi, I’m Iris. You’re Jenny, right?”
The brightly offered greeting brought Lila’s thoughts back around where they needed to be—on the assignment. Funny how they kept veering away from that. She smiled at the young woman who had joined her behind the counter, noting that she was dressed entirely—as was virtually everyone in Java Jackie’s, including Lila—in black. Having scoped out the shop the day before and noted the proclivities of its inhabitants, Lila had made sure she would fit in.
“Yeah, Jenny Sturgis,” she introduced herself. She extended a hand and the other woman, though clearly surprised by the gesture, shook it.
“You’re still in training?” Iris asked.
Lila nodded. “Yeah, it’s my first day. But I’ve worked jobs like this before.”
Iris nodded back. “There’s not a lot to it.”
She gave Lila a brief rundown on how to find and run everything, letting her wait on the first few customers to get the hang of things. The stream of people was fairly steady for the first hour, but by midafternoon things had slowed to nearly a crawl, giving the two women a chance to talk as they tidied up. Their conversation revolved mostly around classes, music and movies, and then, inescapably, boys.
“So you dating anyone?” Iris asked.
“Actually, I’m living with someone,” Lila replied, staying true to the history of Jenny Sturgis.
“No way,” Iris said with a smile. “You gonna marry him?”
“Oh, God, no,” Lila told her quickly.
Iris laughed. “Not the marrying kind, huh?”
“No, I’m not,” Lila told her. Which she actually didn’t know for sure about Jenny, but what the hell.
Iris’s expression shifted to puzzled. “No, I meant him. He’s not the marrying kind. Most guys aren’t, right?”
Lila found the remark curious. Not that she disagreed, but Iris didn’t seem as if she’d had the right kind of experiences in life—which would actually be the wrong kind of experiences—to come to such a conclusion so soon. “Actually, he
is
the marrying kind,” she told Iris. “But I’m not.”
“So then…he wants to marry you?”
“No, no,” Lila replied quickly. A little too quickly, judging by the look on Iris’s face. “I mean…” She hesitated. Just what did she mean? And why had she answered for herself instead of Jenny? For all she knew, Jenny wanted to be the very soccer mom Lila didn’t.
Why was she having so much trouble staying in character for this assignment? Whatever role Lila was told to assume, she assumed it brilliantly. And once she got in character, she stayed that way until the assignment was over. She walked, talked, dressed, thought, ate and played like whomever she was supposed to be. Always.
Until now.
It wasn’t just today that she was having trouble being Jenny Sturgis. She hadn’t been Jenny since…Well, now that she thought about it, she realized she’d never really taken on the role of Jenny completely. Even though Jenny Sturgis should have been one of the easiest roles she’d ever assumed, Lila hadn’t been able to assume it.
Or else she hadn’t wanted to.
Realization dawned on her then, like a Louisville Slugger to the back of the head. It wasn’t that Lila hadn’t been able to become Jenny Sturgis. It was that she hadn’t wanted to. For some reason, on some level, she’d wanted to be herself for this assignment. But why this one? The only thing different this time was—
Joel.
Whap
went the Louisville Slugger a second time. Lila hadn’t wanted to be Jenny this time because she’d wanted to be herself with Joel.
Hell of a time for a revelation, she thought, noting that Iris was beginning to look as confused as Lila felt. She told herself she’d think about all this later, and somehow managed to return her attention to the woman she was supposed to be investigating.
“So why are you living with this guy,” Iris said, “if he wants to get married to someone, but not to you, and you don’t want to get married at all?”
Now was as good a time as any to turn the tables, Lila thought. So she muttered something about her guy just being a really great guy and asked Iris, “Why do you think most guys don’t want to get married?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess ’cause none of the guys I know is the marrying kind.”
Good thing, too, Lila thought, since her closest friends were losers like Chuck Miller. The thought of that guy procreating was enough to keep a person awake nights.
“So are you dating anyone?” she asked in an effort to keep the conversation on Iris.
“No. Yes. I don’t know,” the other woman replied in a rush of words.
“You don’t know if you’re dating anyone?”
Iris smiled a little shyly. “Well, there is a guy. And we are going out tonight for the first time.”
“Oh, he’s a
new
guy,” Lila said.
“Actually, I’ve known him a few months. But tonight’s the first time we’re actually going out on a date. It’s really kind of weird that I even like him,” Iris added. “I mean, we have hardly anything in common. And he’s way older than me.”
“How much older?” Lila asked, her interest piqued.
“Maybe twenty years?” Iris said, sounding both amazed and almost apologetic for going out with someone that much older.
Roughly the same age as Adrian Padgett, Lila thought. And Adrian was notorious for liking much younger women.
“And he’s, like, Mr. Suit,” Iris added. “The really expensive kind. He’s got a ton of money. Not that that kind of thing is all that important to me. But it’s another thing I’m usually not all that crazy about when it comes to guys.”
Adrian Padgett had a lot of money, Lila thought further. And he spent a good bit of it on tailored suits.
“But he’s not like a lot of rich guys,” Iris continued. “He’s very sweet.”
Okay, not sounding much like Adrian now. “So what is he, like a stockbroker or something?” she asked.
Had Lila been anyone else, she probably wouldn’t have noticed the very slight, very brief shadow that fell over Iris’s features at hearing the question about what her boyfriend did for a living. But Lila did notice it. And it told her more than anything else Iris had said so far. Immediately, she went on alert.
“He’s a businessman of some kind,” Iris said vaguely. “Investor or something. I can never understand all that finance stuff.”
“Tell me about it,” Lila said, rolling her eyes. “My father is a businessman, too, but I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what his job involves.”
The verbal side route about Jenny’s father had been intended to deflate Iris’s sudden wariness, and it worked like a charm. She smiled the sort of smile people share when they discover the common bond of cluelessness.
“I can’t imagine dating a guy like my dad, though,” Lila added, hoping to squeeze out more information. “He’s so ultraconservative and old-fashioned and everything. Not to mention he’s losing his hair, and he’s all flabby and out of shape. I like guys buff and gorgeous.”
“Oh, he’s totally in shape. And totally gorgeous. He’s like…” A dreamy look came over her face as she thought about him. “Like that guy who used to play James Bond.”
Alarm bells that were nearly deafening began to go off in Lila’s head. What an interesting choice Iris had made to compare her beloved to. Her answer to Lila’s next question would be critical. “Which one? Pierce Brosnan or Timothy Dalton?”
Iris shook her head. “No, not them. The one a long time ago.”
“Roger Moore?” Lila asked.
Again Iris shook her head. “No, that’s not it. I can’t remember his name. Something Irish.”
“Sean Connery?”
“That’s the one. He looks like Sean Connery. They have the same smile.”
Sean Connery was actually Scottish, but Lila wasn’t going to pick nits. She had something far more important pounding in her brain at the moment. The first time she’d laid eyes on Adrian Padgett, she’d thought he looked vaguely familiar. It wasn’t until sometime later that it finally hit her. He bore a vague resemblance to a younger Sean Connery.
Especially when he smiled.
Of course, there were probably a lot of men out there who bore a resemblance to Sean Connery and had similar smiles. And people who were smitten often saw the object of their affections in a more flattering light than was actual. So it was entirely possible that the object of Iris Daugherty’s affections didn’t look a thing like Sean Connery. It was entirely possible that the man with whom she was so entranced was not Adrian Padgett.
Then again, it was entirely possible that he was.
“Sean Connery, huh?” Lila asked, revealing none of the excitement that was humming just beneath her skin. “All tall, dark and handsome?”
“Tall and handsome, yes,” Iris told her. “But his hair’s actually kind of brownish with red highlights, and his eyes are this gorgeous amber.”
The excitement zinging through Lila went downright atomic at that. Not many men had amber eyes. But Adrian Padgett did. He also had dark auburn hair.
“So what’s this guy’s name?” Lila asked, knowing the reply wouldn’t be
Adrian Padgett,
since Adrian was much too smart for that, but thinking it might be close. He’d often used variations on his name, or names that mirrored his initials, in the past.
“It’s Nick,” Iris said. “Nick Darian.”
Darian.
An anagram of
Adrian.
And another word for
Jackpot.
Lila knew without question that the love of Iris Daugherty’s life was the same man she’d been hunting for years, the man she and Joel had come to Cincinnati to find. Now all Lila had to do was figure out how to get Iris to lead them to him. Unfortunately, before she had a chance to ask anything more, Waverly’s quick recall team came into the shop for an afternoon confab, and the two women didn’t have another spare moment to chat. The coffee shop was so busy, in fact, that Lila didn’t even notice when Iris was relieved by another employee and left for the day.
With no small frustration, Lila finished her shift like a good little employee, since she didn’t want to draw attention to herself by bugging out early. Her thoughts, however, were completely consumed by the case. Finally. And the more Lila thought about how close they were to capturing Sorcerer, the more agitated she became. And not just her thoughts became frantic.
It was always like this when she began the final sprint toward an assignment’s conclusion—her body and brain both reacted anxiously to whatever made all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. Her mind darted in a dozen different directions at once, all five senses became hyperaware, her body hummed with expectancy until she could feel the anticipation in every pore. It was as if her body knew it needed to be supercharged for what was to come, and it was gearing up now.
Unfortunately, her body always got way ahead of itself. Even being as close as they were, it could potentially be days before she and Joel got their hands on Sorcerer. In the past, to alleviate the tension, Lila had used sex as an outlet. Unfortunately, she’d been without a sex partner for months. And the idea of finding some stranger to fit the bill was in no way appealing.
