Trained To Kill (3 page)

He realized she was staring at him
when a chill ran up his spine. He turned to look at her and he
didn't like the look in her eyes. She hid it instantly and smiled
at him. It was professional as well. They were being very courteous
toward each other.

"Yes, he is my biological father. Why
do you say so?"

"Oh. Uh, I'm sorry. I recognized your
name from the papers from when you...when your stepfather died."
Alex coughed into his hand and continued to wander around the club.
That had been a stupid thing to say.

"You recognized my name from the
papers from nine years ago? You must have an excellent memory." Isa
was standing perfectly still in the center of the room, watching
him wander. Why did he feel like a target?

"Well, I mean I remembered your name
from back then. I looked you up when Mr. Axworthy mentioned he had
a partner."

"Mm." Isa was still staring at him.
She desperately wanted to bash his head into the wall right where
he had been standing. No, stop it. He didn't mean anything by it,
she admonished herself. "I don't like talking about that," she
said. Walking over to the bar, she righted a barstool and sat
down.

"I understand, but maybe it pertains
to the present."

"Why would it?"

"Well,” Alex said, moving closer to
her and leaning against the bar. "He was a drug dealer, a pimp, a
gun runner, right?"

"Among other things," Isa
muttered.

"Exactly. What if Malone knew that?
What if he knew who you were and chose this place
deliberately?"

Isa was staring at him again, it
seemed to be a habit of hers, and her gaze hadn't lost any of its
effect after being in her presence for the last 15 minutes. His
heart sped up and he felt like he had been under water for too
long.

"You think that's relevant? It was
nine years ago," she repeated. "And he lived in New Orleans, not
New York."

"Maybe. It was just a
theory."

Isa studied him for a moment. She was
being a bitch. Why did he have to bring up Thorn?

Isa sighed, "I'm sorry Sergeant. I
don't mean to be rude; I just don't like to talk about
him."

Alex inclined his head, acknowledging
her words.

"So, was this your doing?" Isa asked,
indicating the ruin around them.

"Ah," Alex chuckled lightly. "I'm
afraid so."

"Impressive." She was looking at him
again, this time with a hint of interest in her eye. He liked it
better than the predatory gleam from earlier.

"Well it was this or become a floater
with the spring thaw."

Isa tilted her head and regarded him
with curiosity. "You would be so flippant about your
mortality?"

"I'm an undercover narcotics cop. I
have to be flippant about my mortality or I would never leave my
apartment."

Isa continued to study him and he
studied her in turn. She liked the look of him, she realized. He
had a modern haircut for his brownish-reddish hair. It was closely
cut on the sides and longer on top. His skin was fair, and his eyes
were a warm brown that squinted when he smiled. He had a two-day
stubble, at least. He smelled like coffee…and vanilla, she
concluded. He wore dog tags around his neck.

“
What were you in?” she
asked indicating the tags with her forefinger, never taking her
eyes off of his.

“
Marines,” he said
shortly. “Short stint. I got injured. Honorable
discharge.”

“
Any permanent
damage?”

“
Nothing
important.”

Isa nodded. Digging in her jacket
pocket, she took out a flash drive and handed it to him.
“Here.”

“
What’s this?”

“
Information.”

“
Information about
what?”

Isa considered him for a minute before
answering. “Why don’t you go over it first and then we can talk.”
They heard a banging on the front door. “My insurance agent.” She
walked over to let them in.

Alex stayed where he was while they
walked around making notations and taking pictures. The club was
big, as Alex had mentioned to Isa earlier, but then she already
knew that. The main floor was all dark colors and tasteful
track-lighting with a huge circular bar in the middle of the floor.
Low couches and chairs lined the walls. The dance floor was over
underneath the balcony with a DJ booth high in the corner and a
small stage for live music.

The upper floors had private rooms and
tables with another smaller bar against the back wall. Alex had
like it when he had been working undercover. He knew the employee
area was through a door back to the right of the bar along with the
stairs leading to the main office. It took about 15 minutes for the
Insurance agent to get what she needed and she left.

Alex waited until Isa was halfway back
to him, “Why don’t you tell me what’s on here,” he said gesturing
with the flash drive, “then we can talk about it. I don’t like
vagueness.”

Isa stopped where she was and pushed
up her sleeves, mainly because she was getting hot, but Alex seemed
to think she was angry and straightened up from where he had been
leaning against the bar. Isa laughed inside her head. He’s wary of
me, she thought. He has a good sense of character. Well, she had
been glaring at him awfully hard earlier; he was bound to sense
something. She would have to be careful of what she allowed him to
see of herself. Or did she want him to know her true-self? She had
already let her guard down more with him in the last half hour than
she had with Ben in the last year and half. Why had she just
realized that?

“
Fine. It’s information
about Malone and his men.”

“
I have information about
them.”

“
Then throw it away,” Isa
said walking back over and holding her hand out for the flash
drive, but instead of giving it to her Alex put it in his
pocket.

“
Where did you get the
information?”

“
I researched
it.”

“
Online?”

“
Sure.”

“
How did you know what to
look for?” he frowned.

“
Well Ben told me Tyler
Malone’s name and I went from there.”

“
Why did you do
this?”

Isa started glaring at him again and
crossed her arms over her chest. “Because I’m pissed off that they
used my club and Maggie like this and I wanted to see for myself
who they were.”

Alex looked at her with a whole new
perspective. She's smart, he thought. Smart and impatient and a
little scary. He wasn’t quite sure what to think of her. He had run
through several theories in his mind. Had she followed in her
stepfather’s footsteps and orchestrated the whole thing with
Malone? Had she been in London for an alibi against all this? Or
was she just a young woman with a large bank account who wanted to
own a club and not have to worry about the finances?

He was quiet for a long time, staring
at her and rubbing his bottom lip with his thumb. She didn’t try to
fill the silence with inane babble though. She just sat back down
on her stool and waited him out; her attention turned inward. He
suddenly had the irrational fear that she would disappear and he
would never see her again. She seemed to be somewhere else
entirely.

He hadn’t been prepared for this. For
her. She wasn’t like anyone he had ever met. He could see
intelligence behind her eyes, focus and determination in her
manner, and strength in the way she moved.

Photo I.D. Isa was just a beautiful,
young, blonde woman. Real-life Isa could very well run an outfit
like Malone’s from behind the scenes, but he didn’t think she was
stupid enough, or careless enough, to use her own place and then
let Malone fuck it up. No. She wasn’t involved. His gut told him
that. But his mind and his training told him he still had to
proceed as if she were a suspect.

While she waited for him to continue,
Isa thought about why she had felt so comfortable around him she
was able to reveal a side of herself she rarely showed anyone. She
never openly stared death rays at people, no matter what they said
or did. And she very often smiled more than she wanted to because
that’s what people expected of pretty, blonde girls.

Not that she gave a damn what people
thought, but it went a long way in hiding who she was and keeping
people at a distance. If all they saw was a ditzy blonde with an
unlimited credit card, that’s likely all they would ever
see.

Alex had been cautious of her from the
beginning though. Perhaps because he knew about her background?
Maybe it was just Roger Thorn that had him wary of her. That was
probably it. She came back to the present to see Alex staring at
her with open curiosity.

“
What?”

“
Where did you
go?”

She ignored that and asked, “What were
you going to ask Sergeant?”

“
Nothing. I’m done for
now. You were the one that asked me to meet you here. Is this all
you wanted to give me?”

“
What else would I want to
give you, Sergeant?”

The air suddenly became as thick as
Alex’s breathing. Her tone hadn’t been suggestive, but he felt it
all the same. Oh he badly wanted to tell her what…No. Don’t go
there. He stopped his thoughts before they finished forming.
Suspect (well semi-suspect), he reminded himself.

“
Not a thing,” he said a
little too late. Isa just raised her eyebrow again like she knew
exactly what he had been thinking. And for all he knew, she
did.

Alex started to head for the front
door to leave; it was past time to go. He couldn’t breathe in here
anymore.

“
Oh,” he turned back
around. “Do you have receipts, itinerary, plane tickets from
London, that sort of thing?”

“
Of course,” she made it
sound like a question.

“
It would be great if we
could get copies of those to put in the file. You know, just for
the record.”

“
Of course,” she said,
this time with finality.

“
Great. It was
enlightening to meet you Ms. La Beau,” Alex said, walking backward.
“We’ll meet again soon I’m sure.”

“
Sergeant.”

Isa stayed where she was and watched
him go. Alex glanced back one last time as the door slammed shut.
He could still feel her gaze.

Chapter 5

Isa knocked on Maggie Shrewsbury’s
apartment door. She lived in a trendy neighborhood, but it wasn’t
that far from Alphabet City, so she stood with her back slightly
turned, ever cautious.

Maggie answered in surprise. Isa had
wanted to surprise her. She was wearing a robe hastily belted and
her hair was a mess.

“
Am I interrupting
something?”

“
Yeah, but come on in
Boss.” Maggie called her and Ben boss, although Isa had only met
Maggie a few times.

“
You’re here about
Inferno?”

“
Of course.”

“
You here to fire
me?”

“
I don’t know
Maggie.”

Maggie sat down heavily on the couch
and took out a pack of cigarettes. Maggie was a character. She was
5’3” with vampire-pale skin and purple and red dreadlocks running
down to her waist. She had huge gauges in her ear lobes, a nose
ring and a belly button ring, Isa remembered. Not to mention the
countless tattoos. She was an asset as their Night Manager. She
didn’t take crap from anyone, and the employees never complained.
She was also a whiz with the receipts and inventory. Isa liked her
a lot.

“
I didn’t have a choice.”
Maggie said it simply.

“
Tell me.”

“
It was back in August. I
remember because I thought my shoes were gonna melt on the asphalt
while I was walking Scottie,” Maggie gestured to the small dog
curled up on the rug. “They came up to me not far from here, just
down the street. There was this giant man. He took my arm and
pushed me into a crevice between the buildings. Normally I would
have screamed and sprayed the fucker, but he held up a picture, and
I just sort of froze up.” Maggie was looking into the past, sucking
on her cigarette.

“
What picture
Maggie?”

She shook herself, “It was a picture
of my mother. She was wearing the sweater I had just given her for
her birthday,” Maggie laughed with derision. “She lives in Queens,”
she added absently.

“
I know,” Isa sighed and
sat back, placing her head in her right hand, she massaged her
temple.

“
Right,” Maggie looked at
her sideways. “Well, I just started babbling like I don’t know
what, begging for them not to hurt her. They said all they need was
for me to look the other way and keep the employees’ noses out of
it.”

“
Why didn’t you tell Ben,
or me?”

“
Because they said not
to.”

“
I realize that, but we
could have helped. I could have protected your mother
Maggie.”