Sexual Games [The Heroes of Silver Springs 8] (Siren Publishing Classic) (21 page)

“He hasn’t been at Stardust,” Tarantino said. “I’ve been there every time Mallory has worked. I know the guy. I would’ve seen him.”

“Which is why Cooper wants to continue operating under the assumption that yours and Mallory’s covers are safe.” Jackson didn’t like the idea. It didn’t matter that Kenneth Reese hadn’t been seen in the club since Mallory took the undercover assignment. Erin Griffin had been.

“Everyone associated with Stardust is coming up clean or missing. Background checks are pulling up drug charges, shoplifting, petty shit, but nothing to tie any of them to a trafficking ring.” Cameron raked a frustrated hand through his hair. “And there’s still no match on the facial recognition of that Jim guy Mallory and Jennifer turned over to forensics. Either the guy is an angel or he’s damn good at hiding his dirty laundry.”

Jackson would put his bets on damn good. He simply couldn’t fathom an armature hiding his tracks so well. Then again… “We’ve only been at this a few days. He or whoever is behind this has slipped up twice already. First with Lexie Stratus, which involved Jennifer Moss and put us on the case in the first place. Now with Erin Griffin and Kenneth Reese. The connections are there. We’ve just got to put two and two together.”

“Cooper’s got Kell tailing Leroy Platt.” Tarantino’s expression turned to one of complete disgust. “The guy is a real loser, but a connected one. He skipped town late last night, but it doesn’t look like it was for good. I say we stir the pot with Jennifer Moss, send her back in at Cinderella’s. She wants to go back anyway.”

“Nothing has turned up to connect the clubs,” Cameron said.

“Except Lexie Stratus, Jennifer Moss, and Mallory,” Tarantino countered. “This Jim guy is the best lead we have so far even if we haven’t turned up jack on the bastard yet.”

“I think—” Jackson broke off as his office door burst open. The thought sprinted out of his head as Mallory stomped inside. The woman was pissed. He got that in an instant. She hadn’t knocked and didn’t seem to realize he wasn’t alone. Her tunnel vision was cocked and loaded on him. If eyes could shoot bullets, he would have a hole right between his own eyes.

The angry clack of her heels carried her around his desk. She stopped inches from where he sat, tossed her handbag on his desk, crossed her arms under her breasts, and leveled a glare on him that would have made a lesser man run for cover.

Damn, she’s gorgeous.

The woman was arresting even with fumes coming out of her ears, a mouth that looked ready to chew him up and spit him out, and a coffee stain on her pale blue jacket. He knew why she was mad and it pleased the hell out of him. He masterfully hid a smile as he turned toward her and waited.

She stared at him for a full three seconds before she let him have it. “You left.” The accusation in her tone burned in a fire of rage and pain.

“You did, too,” he said calmly. Leaving her apartment last night had been the hardest thing he had ever done. He hadn’t thought he was strong enough to do it, not when he had waited so long to be with her. He had sat in her kitchen for nearly an hour while a fierce battle raged inside him. It would have been so easy to crawl into her bed, to pull her close and fall asleep knowing when he woke she would still be there in his arms.

But what would it have solved? His gut had told him nothing. She still hadn’t admitted to herself that she wanted him for anything more than sex. She was close. He had gotten that when she had told him their time together the night before had been more than sex. Yet, she still fought him at every turn, still wouldn’t allow herself to love him. He had finally walked out in the hope that waking without him this morning when he figured she fully expected him to be there would put another crack in that steel wall she had constructed around her heart.

Apparently, it worked.
Thank you, sweet baby Jesus.

“So that was payback?” She all but squeaked, her eyes widening with shock.

“It was giving you space,” he said evenly.

“You come to my apartment, cook for me, get me off in my kitchen, carry me to bed, and then you walk out? What if I wasn’t done with you?” Cameron cleared his throat and her head snapped his direction. “Shut up.”

Cameron held up his hands, palms out, and chuckled. “I didn’t say a word.”

“You wanted me to stay, Mal?” If she had given him the choice, he would have preferred to have this conversation in private. It shocked him that she apparently didn’t care that Cameron and Tarantino were getting a kick out of the scene. “Why?”

Say it, Mal. Say you wanted to wake in my arms this morning and every morning for the rest of our lives. Say you wanted me to stay because you love me.

She stared at him and the bullets in her eyes disintegrated. He saw every answer he wanted to hear in her expression. She simply wouldn’t say them.

“Looks like he finally got to her,” he heard Tarantino whisper to Cameron and saw Mallory’s gaze slide to the man. Her lips parted, but a song jingling from her handbag interrupted whatever she intended to say.

She dug in the bag, pulled out a cell phone, and glanced at the screen. Jackson recognized the phone and knew it wasn’t her personal cell. It was the one she was using for the assignment, and only one place should have the number.

“Hello?” In a finger snap, she went from stunningly gorgeous, angry, confused Mallory to hard-core agent. Her gaze swept across him, Cameron, and Tarantino, and she dragged a finger across her neck.

Cut the conversation. Yeah, they had all gathered that.

Jackson saw Cameron stiffen and saw Tarantino sit straighter as they listened to Mallory’s end of the conversation.

“I was. I had something I wanted to talk to you about.” She paused, then nodded though whoever was on the other end of the cellular waves couldn’t see. “I can do that. Okay, good-bye.”

“You can do what?” Jackson asked as she snapped the phone shut.

“That was Betty. She wants me to come to the club.”

“Now?” Cameron asked, suspicion heavy in his tone.

Mallory nodded. “She heard I wanted to talk to her. I used that excuse last night when I worked my way into her office.”

“I don’t like this, Mal.” Cameron got to his feet, shoved his hands in his pockets, and started pacing the floor.

“Neither do I.” Mallory put the phone away and lifted her handbag. “That’s why I’m going home to change first. I’ll go in wearing my uniform. Stardust opens at noon on Saturdays. I’m not scheduled to go in until seven, but if she asks, I’ll tell her I wanted to be prepared in case she wanted me to start early. That way I’ll have the excuse to wear the anklet and earrings. You and Tarantino can follow me. You’ll know where I am, and if anything gets sticky, I’ll alert you and you’ll be right outside.”

“Use the earrings,” Jackson said sternly. He didn’t like this anymore than the rest of them. Alarm pricked at his spine and punctured it way up his neck. “At the first inkling of trouble. We still can’t get a good bead on what we’re dealing with here. Don’t wait like last time.”

“Don’t worry.” She reached for him, skimming the backs of her fingers down the side of his face. “I know what happens to people who lose someone they love.” Her hand dropped from his face to his shoulder and she slapped it hard enough to sting. “Damn you for making me think about that now.”

* * * *

Cameron wanted to damn Jackson, too, just about as much as he wanted to congratulate the man for penetrating Mallory’s shields. He understood his sister and couldn’t imagine the turmoil wreaking havoc on her soul right about now.

Can’t you?

He knew it had been easier for her when it had all been fun and games between her and Jackson. She would flirt, lay it on thick in her attempts to get the man in bed, and had convinced herself it would end there. Except it hadn’t. It likely would have if Jackson had given in easily, if he had allowed her what she wanted when she had first made her desires clear.

Instead, Jackson had bided his time, waited for her to weaken, waited for his chance to get in deeper, and then made his move.

Mallory was losing control. Stupid as it might be, the only love she and Cameron had ever allowed themselves was for each other and their mother. They had grown up watching how true love could destroy a person once that true love was taken away. He didn’t doubt that if Mallory lost Jackson, she would end up exactly like their mother, living a life alone in wait for the day she would be reunited with the man she loved. The thought of his sister ending up that way terrified him.

He stared out the windshield of the SUV. A block away, the front door of Stardust was closed, the parking lot empty save for Mallory’s car and the red Nissan Altima the team had traced to Betty Carlisle. One street over, Tarantino was parked, watching the back door. Mallory had been inside no more than five minutes.

Cameron hadn’t wanted to let her go in at all. Back in Jackson’s office, he had wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake some sense back into her. How could she let her guard down, even with Jackson? Despite what he had told Jackson about him being the best man for her, and he had meant every word, the part of him that grew up with the same fears she did wanted to smack her for allowing herself to get in so deep.

Now, he only hoped he got the chance. He wanted to walk into that club and drag her ass back out. She might be armed with a GPS device, alarm trigger, and two agents watching her, but that didn’t settle the boiling in his gut that told him something was about to go down.

The Bluetooth in his left ear beeped, and he pushed the button to answer the call. “Stone,” he said curtly.

“Tarantino, are you still there, too?” Jackson asked as he conferenced the calls.

“I’m all ears,” Tarantino replied.

“We finally got an ID on Jim, otherwise known as Wade Forbes. It took Mason Sharp some serious digging on this one.”

“Why didn’t the run on the sketch pull it up?” Tarantino wanted to know.

“Reconstructive surgery,” Jackson answered. “Forbes has been through a ton of it.”

“Did Sharp find a link between Forbes and Stardust?” Cameron asked.

“A solid one. Forbes owns the damn place.”

“What’s his connection to Carl Jordan?” They had investigated every nook and cranny they could find about the listed owner of Stardust.

“Cell buddy. Forbes has done time for embezzlement, robbery, and possession, but his last stint coincides with Carl Jordan’s six months in the state pen.”

“What was Forbes in for the last time?” Tarantino asked.

“Numerous counts of rape and prostituting women.”

“Son of a bitch.” Cameron smacked the steering wheel. “I don’t want to know how the bastard ended up back on the streets.”

“That’s not important right now. The fact that he knows Mallory’s face is.”

“Not Mallory’s, Jacqueline’s,” Cameron corrected, grasping at hopeful straws. “The names aren’t connected by anything but her face.”

“A face Kenneth Reese knows,” Jackson pointed out, and a death chill raced down Cameron’s spine.

* * * *

The interior of Stardust looked far worse by the light of day. Mallory raked her gaze over the scattering of tables, the cluttered floor, the stage riddled with articles of clothing, and wondered if there had been an afterhours party she hadn’t been invited to last night. Sasha, who Mallory knew put in extra hours cleaning the club, greeted her with a bright smile when she walked inside.

“Check you out. You came dressed for work.”

Mallory glanced down at her uniform and shrugged. “Betty asked me to come in to talk. I was hoping when we’re finished I could convince her to let me start early, maybe pick up a few extra hours.”

Sasha nodded. “I bet she will. I hope you don’t mind, but she called you because of me. I told her you were looking for her last night. If you were serious about taking up a few shifts on stage, now would be the perfect time to ask for it. We lost another one last night. Natalie quit.”

Mallory’s jaw dropped. Shock and a trickle of apprehension surged through her bloodstream. “Really, she quit, too?”

“You just don’t know how hard it is to keep a good employee these days.”

Mallory turned at the voice behind her and found Betty walking out of the back rooms. “I would think it would be easy with so many people out of work and all.”
Easier if you didn’t keep kidnapping and killing them.
“Jobs are hard to find, especially one that pays good money.”

“These girls just don’t get the value of the position Stardust offers them.” Betty angled her head. “But I’m getting that you do. Sasha tells me you’re thinking of taking me up on the offer I made when I hired you about hitting the stage instead of carrying a tray.”

Mallory shifted and wrinkled her face indecisively. “Yes, ma’am. I could really use some extra money.”

“Why don’t we continue this conversation in my office so we won’t be in Sasha’s way.” Betty turned slightly, gestured toward the employee door, and followed Mallory through it. “How much money did you make last night?”

“A hundred and twelve dollars.” Mallory shot the older woman a grin over her shoulder. “It’s double what I made the first night.”

“You’ll make four times that working the stage,” Betty predicated as she reached a hand past Mallory to open the office door, taking Mallory’s purse with the other. “Go on in and have a seat.”