Shoot 'Em Up (17 page)

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Authors: Janey Mack

BOOK: Shoot 'Em Up
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He pointed at the room down the hall. “That's me.” Knocked his knuckles on the door ajar behind him. “Bathroom.”
“Got it.” I nodded. “Thanks.”
I'm just a little shaken up, that's all. Sleeping too hard. That's all.
I moved toward the bedroom. He stepped in front of me and put his arms around me. His voice was low in my ear. “A lot has happened to you in a short amount of time. You want to sleep next to me now or later, that's okay. Hands off.” He gave me a squeeze, then went down the hall to his room
I watched him go. Wanting to follow. Aching for “safe.”
Knowing it wouldn't be right.
Chapter 22
I woke up without my phone. No clock on the bedside table and blackout curtains. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and pushed my hair off my face, feeling as groggy and disoriented as a moth in a mitten.
Jaysus. What time is it?
I got up and went into the bathroom. A new Colgate toothbrush and travel-size tube of toothpaste waited on the edge of the sink. My reflection had the healthy glow of a typhoid patient.
I crept on cat's feet into the sun-bright living room to find my backpack on the couch. Mr. Peanut's 100K and the snowcap were gone. As was my phone.
Apparently Bloodhound Jones was taking a shine to new partner duty, nosing around and marking his territory.
Too tired to give a good golly, I gathered up my remaining possessions and returned to the bathroom. Teeth brushed, hair and makeup salvaged, I put on my clothes from last night—including Lee's flannel shirt—and wandered into the kitchen.
“Yeah. She sweat it plenty, but stayed smooth from start to finish from what I could see,” Lee said into his phone. “Figured she earned a decent kip.” He paused, listening, and laughed. “Uh-huh, Roger that.” He clicked off the phone and stood up.
“Hi,” I said.
“Good morning.” His grin was 1,000-watt bright, brown eyes so lively I froze like a punch-drunk porcupine in the headlights. “Sleep all right?”
I nodded, waiting for him to volunteer whom he'd been talking to.
He didn't. Without a smidge of guilt he went to the fridge. “So, Ms. No Coffee . . . What'll it be?” Lee swung open the door. “Juice, Coke, milk, or tea?”
“Coke.”
He popped the top and handed me a can.
“Thanks. Haven't happened to see my phone?”
He pulled it from his shirt pocket and gave it to me. “Brunch or lunch? It's eleven forty. We debrief with Nyx at nineteen hundred.”
What the what?
“Since when are you coming with me to see Nyx?” I said.
“Aside from serving as your personal secretary,
partner
”—he moved in close and gripped my waist, thumbs pressing my hip bones, face inches from mine—“my talents include armed currency transport, negotiation, and personal protection.”
Talk about being screwed six ways to Sunday.
“I'm guessing that's not all they include,” I said.
Lee's mouth hovered above mine. “Yeah?”
“Lunch. Definitely.”
His eyes narrowed, hands fell away. “Let's go.”
We went for hamburgers and Horse's Necks at the charmingly moody Au Cheval. The 100K, transferred into a well-used Chicago White Sox duffel bag, always infant-safe between us. After lunch we hit Weegee's Lounge, where hours passed like minutes playing table shuffleboard and trading smart-aleck remarks.
With the patience of an ice-angler, I resisted checking my incoming call log until Lee finally took a call in the car while we were en route to Giarrusso Cleaners.
I swiped through the screens. Wes had called and talked to Lee at 9:03 a.m. for four minutes. After which, Lee had called Cash for an eleven-minute chat, and—
sweet Jiminey Christmas
— fielded a call from my mother that lasted more than twenty minutes.
God only knew what that had been about. And I wasn't about to ask.
Still talking, Lee parked in the handicapped space. He hung up and tossed a placard on the dash.
“You do realize those are for physically not mentally handicapped drivers?”
“Admit it, Meter Maid. You just want to show me your ticket book.”
“You're adorable,” I said flatly and got out of the car.
He grabbed the duffel and followed me into the dry cleaner's.
Pin-up girl glanced up from an
OK!
magazine, and started to yell, “Weh—!” but then laid eyes on Lee and changed her tune. “—ell, hell-o.” She put down the tabloid and fluttered her eyelashes. “How can I help you?”
“Wes Dorram,” I said. “Please.”
Pin-up sashayed out from behind the counter, gave Lee a lascivious ogle, and disappeared down the hall, tight red skirt straining at the seams.
“You take me to all the best places,” Lee murmured in my ear.
Pin-up returned. Wes lumbered behind, like a bear at a bank meeting. “Who's this?”
“My deliveryman,” I said. “Let's go.”
Wes didn't like it. But he could see Lee had him beat.
Lee and I followed him to the back office.
Gunther Nyx lounged behind the desk. The tiny table and chairs were full of boxes, invoices, and envelopes. It wasn't going to be a chatty meeting.
“Maisie.” Nyx's smile went horizon flat when Lee stepped into the room behind me. “And Lee Sharpe.”
“Gunther.” Lee scanned the cramped, dingy office. “Looks like business-as-usual.”
Nyx popped his chin up at the hit. “While your taste in women has improved, I see your career choices have not. How is SWAT?”
“Suits me just fine. I never had your taste for an altered mental state.” Lee's eyes sparked. “I'm man enough to live with my sins.”
“Is a life half-lived even a life at all?” Nyx's thin lips parted. His instantaneous resemblance to an albino python was remarkable. “But it is difficult for a soldier boy to resist the toys, eh?”
“Not at all,” Lee tossed the duffel bag onto the desk.
Nyx was as interested in the bag as if it was full of dirty laundry. “Just as expected,
Liten Sötis
.” His eyes drifted down my body, slowly, insolently, wanting to see how far Lee would let it go.
Lee's hands hung loose at his sides, but his weight shifted to the balls of his feet.
“Kennel your guard dog, Maisie.”
No one moved.
Lee reached over and gripped my butt. I jerked upright, stung. “I'll wait for you out front, Bae,” he said.
Lee sailed out of the office as carefree as a sunny day. Wes closed the door behind him, then walked over to the desk and removed the duffel bag.
Nyx's pale brows tipped down at the corners. “Anything you'd care to share, Maisie? Say . . . Sharpe joining Sawyer's team?”
“How should I know? You kinda left me high and dry,
sir
. Selling five kilos of heroin without a distribution line? Not to mention, 100K is an awful lot of cash for a girl to carry around on the mean streets of Chi-town. I had to use what resources I had to hand.”
“Is Sharpe working with the Special Unit?”
I lifted an uncaring shoulder. “He hasn't mentioned it.”
“You sure about that, ma'am?” Wes said. “The two of you seem awfully close.”
Look who's not so sweet now.
Throwing shade over my shoulder, I rolled my eyes at the beefy agent. “Nah. I just use him for sex.”
Wes gave a strangled cough.
“Will you be able to operate independently from your . . . partner?” Nyx asked.
“Of course.”
Hank's Law Number Twenty-Two: When among wolves, act the wolf.
Itching to leave, “I'm afraid I haven't had time to write up a report yet on the contacts or who I sold the heroin to,” I said demurely.
Gunther Nyx adjusted the line of his trousers. “Wes will see to that.”
Sawyer wasn't kidding about him playing fast and loose.
“It'll be my pleasure,” Wes said. “You're too valuable to waste on paperwork. Especially since SWAT and the CPD have recently cleared three more stash houses. The composition and packaging of the heroin traces directly to the Grieco cartel.”
And now, apparently, from me, as well.
“Also found at the stash houses were black-tipped, armor-piercing solid core 28mm rounds. Always pleasant to have a field confirmation.” Nyx spun slightly in his chair. “An excellent report on El Cid, Maisie.” He propped his feet up on the desk. “I think it's time we file a temporary personnel reassignment request for Miss McGrane with Special Unit, Wes.”
“Yessir,” the agent said.
What?
“If the DEA is going to continue to use you, it's only sporting we foot the bill,” Nyx said. “See if El Cid is amenable to another deal. Four times the product.”
My spine went ramrod-rigid—which had nothing on my heart, which had quit beating.
Oh, feck me.
“It sounds as though you already have the evidence you need, sir.” I shook my head. “I think Ditch Broady of the ATF had the right of it. I can't see how this effort will be of any real use.”
“Building an international case is a tenuous process, Maisie. One never knows exactly which weights and balances will prove useful.”
Wes gave a small cough. “Unless you're not up for the task.”
You want to see sparks, pal? Go put a fork in an electrical socket.
“Making a deal with El Cid won't be a problem, sir.” I folded my arms across my chest. “Stateside distribution, however . . .”
“I'm sorry you were inconvenienced, Maisie,” Nyx said silkily. “You have my word that will not happen again.”
* * *
We swung by Hud's to pick up my car. “I need a drink,” Lee said. “You in?”
Hell, yes.
“Sure thing.”
We took over the same booth as the night before. Only, instead of sitting across from me, this time Lee slid in next to me. We spent forty minutes studiously not rehashing the meeting or talking about Nyx, Sawyer, the DEA, or the BOC.
Lee took two showers a day, had three Marine Corps tattoos, preferred winter to summer, sci-fi, Italian food, and his favorite color was, unsurprisingly, navy blue.
“You gonna call him or what?” he said.
Who?
“Er . . . Cash?”
“El Cid, dopey-face. Nyx wants another buy, doesn't he?”
My mouth opened, closed, and opened again. “How did you—”
“Call him.”
Derp. Two Bud Lights and I'm out of sync faster than a dubbed Chinese action flick.
“Here? Now? In a cop bar?”
“Yeah,” Lee said. “I like the irony.”
I don't.
“What's the matter?” Lee knocked his knee against mine. “You scared?”
A hundred smart-ass remarks bubbled up to the surface. Instead I said, “Yes.”
He hadn't expected that.
Neither had I.
Awesome. Way to admit to your hotshot partner you can't hack it.
I grabbed the phone from my pocket, tapped AJ's contact icon, and dialed. He answered on the first ring. “El Cid.”
“Hi,” I said. “You busy?”
“Nah. Just crushing my enemies, seeing them driven before me, and listening to the lamentations of their women.”
“Nice, Conan.” As in the Barbarian.
How close is that to reality?
“You get me, Valeria. You really get me.” AJ chuckled. “What's up?”
“You know the vacation I took to see you? The five days ?”
“How could I forget?”
“Maybe it's time for a longer return visit.” The words were stilted and off, sticking in my mouth. It was impossible to flirt under Lee's intent stare.
“Miss me?” AJ said, genteelly filling the conversational void.
“Desperately.” I made a face at Lee.
“How long can you hang with me?”
“Two and a half weeks.”
“Now, that's something I can get behind.” AJ paused. “When?”
“Well, that's up to you, isn't it? I mean, if I'm coming all that way, I'd like for us to spend some quality time together.”
“You should know by now, you never have to ask, Maisie.” He let that settle. “You come back, I'll make it extra-special.”
Lee's jaw slid to one side.
“You're a king among men, baby,” I said as throatily as I could.
“Later, princess.”
I swiped the phone off and took a sip of beer to keep the smirk off my face.
“You talk a good game. But that's all it is. Talk.” Lee leaned back. His arm still rode across the back of the bench behind my head, but he was as far from me as possible. “Shouldn't play like that.”
I felt a perverse rush. “Oh? Why's that?”
“Doesn't work out so well when you need to put up or shut up.”
Hank's Law Number Nine: Confidence is not competence.
“Brass tacks or brass knuckles, Lee. I can hold my own.”
“I know you think you can.”
Maybe he had a point. “Gee, is this the pep-talk part of our partnership?” I laughed but it was high-pitched and nervy.
“You're not built for this.”
“Thanks,” I said. “But I'll take my chances.”
“Not if I can help it.”
He was angry with me, with the situation.
But there was more to it than that. Lee carried around a molten red core of fury inside. About what, who knew? But it'd take a more than a little “opening up” from me to make that happen. The quid pro quo would be exorbitant.
My beer had gone flat.
Propping my elbows on the table, I dropped my head in my hands and rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands.
Hank.
Lee's warm hand slid up the nape of my neck, stopping where my neck and skull connected, and started kneading.
Pressure hissed out of me like the release valve on an engine. His thumb and middle finger rotated in small, firm circles.

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