Rev It Up (18 page)

When she reached the landing, she slowly turned toward the bathroom and filled a glass from the pitcher of filtered water she kept on hand for just such occasions. Sedately crossing the hall to her son’s room, she watched him gulp it sleepily before once more grabbing his Elmo and settling into slumber. After softly closing his door, she managed to calmly stroll into her own room.

And it was there she let go.

Sinking down on her bed, she dropped her head into her hands, her pulse pounding in her temples as a little
eep
that was one part terror and two parts heartache escaped through her trembling lips.

What
am
I
going
to
do?

Because Jake was right. No matter what she said, no matter the impossibility of it all, no matter how hard she tried to convince herself otherwise, it wasn’t over.

It’d never
truly
be over. At least not for her.

But it had to be. Because there was just no other option.

And then, inexplicably, an image of those blue roses popped into her head. Blue…blue meant mystery, didn’t it? So, what? She had a secret admirer? And just like that, the solution to her little problem with Jake presented itself.

Jumping from the bed, she grabbed her purse and fished inside for her wallet. Once she located it—way at the bottom beneath a granola bar, the extra pair of Underoos she kept in case Franklin had an accident, and her travel sewing kit—she flipped through old receipts until she found the business card she was searching for.

Lifting the phone from her nightstand, she punched in the number printed in a firm hand on the plain white cardstock and waited as one ring turned to two, and then three.

“Come on. Be home.”

“Hello?” The voice on the other end of the line sounded groggy, and she glanced at the digital clock on her nightstand. 11:30.

Dang.

“I’m sorry to be calling so late, Dr. Drummond,” she winced, “er, Chris. But I was wondering what you were doing for dinner tomorrow night…”

***

“Okay.” Vanessa pulled off her wig and flung it on the hotel bed, stepping out of the sky-scraper heels that were absolutely killing her back, not to mention her calves. “The next time you want to pump the lovely Candy for information, you’re going to do it yourself.”

Rock sat on the chair they’d parked in front of the window, a pair of optics held to his eyes. “Well, you’ve still got your eyes,
chère,
” he observed in that slow-moving molasses drawl of his as he turned away from the window. “So it couldn’t have been
that
bad.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I thought she might want to scratch your eyes out after that first scene. ‘Who you callin’ bitch, bitch?’” he mimicked in a terrible falsetto, grinning and batting his almost girlishly thick lashes. “Remember that?”

“For gals like us,” she told him, “
bitch
is a compliment. When I said you’d have to take the next shift with Candy, I wasn’t referring to any possibility of a cat fight breaking out. Yeah,” she shook her head at the look on his face, “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but we professionals stick together. Anyway, I’m saying you’re up next because it’s gonna take weeks, and the repeated bleaching of my ears, to recover from the conversation I just had.”

He lifted a brow, clearly intrigued.

“Candy saw the, uh…we’ll call them
props
that our little delivery boy brought in, and she spent ten minutes regaling me with stories about a guy who used to like to use the same kind of equipment on her as she plucked his chest hair while simultaneously singing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’”

Rock snorted with laughter. “At least the guy was patriotic. God bless America!”

She sent him a disparaging look. “And that’s a clean version of the conversation, I assure you. Of course, given her experience with the equipment, it made it easy for her to believe I’d completely worn you out and left you up here sleeping while I ran downstairs to take a break.”

“But given the size of our equipment, shouldn’t
you
have been the one worn out?”

She smiled innocently and batted her lashes. “Who says we used the props on me?”

Rock shuddered. “Okay, you may need ear bleach, but now I need brain bleach.”

“My work here is done,” she chuckled.

“Not so fast,” he swallowed and made a distasteful face like he was having trouble scrubbing away the images circling around in his head. “What’s the 411 on Johnny?”

“I told Candy I’d
done
,” she made the quote marks with her fingers, “a client here once before who paid really well. Gave her Johnny’s description. Asked if she’d seen him around lately. She says she thinks maybe she saw him yesterday evening out in front of In the Mood Lounge. She couldn’t be sure since she was soliciting another john at the time, but the physical characteristics she described sound an awful lot like Vitiglioni.”

“Does she know if he’s staying here?”

“Nope.” She moved toward the bed, flexing her poor aching toes after flinging herself back on the squeaky mattress they’d stripped of bedclothes and covered with what they hoped were at least semi-clean towels. “She said she hasn’t seen anyone who fits his description go in or out of the hotel today, but at least we have a solid lead on the bar. And speaking of, is there anything new over at In the Mood?”

“
Non
.” She stared at the water-stained popcorn ceiling and let his smooth baritone wash over her. “Just sad patrons, tired prostitutes, and lazy pimps.”

“Not exactly the glamorous life we’re living, huh?”

“It could be worse,” he mused. “It could be
much
worse.”

She lifted her chin and stared at him, curiosity overcoming her. “Like your other job?

He spun away from the window where he’d once more resumed his surveillance duty. “What d’ya know about that?”

“Nothing.” She pushed to a sitting position. “As far as I can tell,
nobody
knows anything about that.”

“And that’s the way it’ll stay.”

Uh-huh. She shouldn’t have expected anything more.

“You all have a lot of secrets, don’t you? Even from one another.”

“What do you mean?” His brows lowered over his perfect nose.

“I mean, there’s you and this other job. Boss kept his sister hidden for years. Then there’s Snake and this thing with Michelle and Franklin and the—”

“What about this thing with Shell and Franklin?” he demanded, and she realized it might be smart to close her mouth right now.

Like, right now.

Sometimes she just wasn’t very smart.

“I, uh, I thought it was obvious.”

“What’s obvious? What are you talkin’ about?”

“Nothing,” she shook her head. Far be it for her to be the one to enlighten him.

He narrowed his eyes before pushing up from the chair. Stalking across the room, he grabbed his designer jacket and slung it over his shoulder before dropping the optics on the mattress beside her. “I’m goin’ to go make some inquiries at the bar. You stay here and keep an eye on things.”

The set of his jaw was hard and unforgiving as he turned and marched toward the door.

“Be careful,” she called to his back. “We don’t know how many guys Johnny has out looking for us, and that disguise is good but it’s not infallible.”

He lifted a hand in answer, refusing to turn back to her as he disappeared through the door.

O-
kay,
she thought,
so
talk
of
his
second
job
is
clearly
a
big
no-no.

Good to know…

Bang!

The sound jerked Michelle from a fitful sleep, and she was out of bed, throwing on her robe, and wrenching open her bedroom door before she was fully awake. Which might account for her momentarily forgetting the fact that she had a very big, very
menacing
houseguest. Because when a large shadow loomed in front of her, she opened her mouth to scream.

And she would have, too. Just let ’er rip with everything she had, if a hard hand hadn’t clamped over her mouth.

“Geez, Shell, it’s me!” Jake whispered, and she nearly collapsed with relief onto the hallway rug.

Then she remembered what had jolted her awake.

“I heard a noise,” she said after batting his hand away, blinking owlishly in the dim glow given off by the nightlight she kept plugged into one of the hallway’s outlets.

“Yeah, me too.” He pushed the cold handle of her Beretta Tomcat into her shaking hand. The little .32 pistol had been a gift from Steven. He’d given it to her right before he’d left for his final mission, and the feel of it against her skin brought on a deep, aching sadness that took the edge off her momentary panic. She couldn’t help but think that none of this would be happening if Steven was still alive…

“I recognized Preacher’s lockbox above your refrigerator,” Jake said. “And, FYI, you really shouldn’t tape the key to the lock onto the actual box, but that’s neither here nor there. Right now I just need to be sure you know how to use this thing.”

“I know how to use it,” she assured him. “Frank made sure of that.”

“Good. Now I’m going to check out that noise.” He handed her his cell phone. “If I’m not back in five minutes, you lock yourself in Franklin’s room, hit one on the speed dial—that’ll be your brother—and shoot at anything or anyone that tries to come through that door. You got me?”

“Yes.” She nodded again, swallowing jerkily, her heartbeat pounding in her ears, as she followed him the short distance down the hall to plant herself in front of her sleeping son’s door.

As Jake silently descended the stairs, she noticed he was naked save for a big, black Glock and pair of boxers covered with…

Were those hearts?

A laugh that was one part incredulity and two parts hysteria bubbled up the back of her throat, but she managed to bite it off.

Now was not the time to lose her mind.

***

Jake’s blood pumped through his system at a rate of about a hundred miles a minute, because someone or something was right outside Shell’s back door.

He carefully turned the knob and slowly pushed open the door, stepping barefoot onto the cold concrete of her back steps. With his Glock held ready, he flipped the switch to the outdoor fixture. A sudden wash of golden light bathed the back of the brownstone and part of the driveway in a twelve-foot radius—which meant there was still a whole helluva lot of area left in darkness.

Goddamn
shadowy
corners. They’re the bane of my existence tonight.

Goose bumps pebbled his flesh, but they had nothing to do with the harsh bite in the night air and everything to do with the fact that even though he couldn’t
see
anything, his senses—heightened by years of training and living on the edge—told him he wasn’t alone.

Come
out, come out wherever you are
, he silently challenged as he descended the steps, quartering the area with his weapon, ears cocked to the slightest sound. He could smell the sweet, earthy aroma of the purple flowers blooming in the flowerbed beside Shell’s driveway and the more pungent smell of newly turned mulch.

Gauging the short distance to the neighbor’s house, the street in front and the alleyway behind, he chambered a round and methodically scouted the area.

When he’d decided to come to Chicago to finally lay claim to Shell, he certainly hadn’t imagined himself stalking around her backyard in his damned skivvies, acting as her bodyguard and bullet-catcher. Hell, no. He’d imagined himself upstairs, in her bed, sunk deep into her warm, soft body.

Ah, the ever optimistic turn of the male mind…

But given that Shell was about as close to inviting him to bed as she was to starting a career in pole-dancing, he figured this was as good as it was going to get. And honestly, it did appear that perhaps Fate, the unbelievably fickle bitch, had finally seen fit to throw him a bone.