Edge of Midnight (22 page)

That had stung. Months of working eighteen hours a day, keeping her nose clean, saving up for first, last and security on the Seattle house in September, and he thought she was just a slut any guy could buy for a couple of lines of coke. Ouch.

She peeked around to see if Miles’s new wheels were parked outside the dojo, but she didn’t see the car. She ran up the stairs, nose wrinkling at the overpowering odor of sweat. A karate class was taking place, she saw through the glass window, kids dressed in their white outfits, going through a sequence of kicks and punches.

She pushed the door open and leaned on the frame, spotting Miles off to the side, correcting the posture of a kid with a green belt knotted around his gi. Miles knocked the kid’s knees out to widen his stance, tugged his arm out, nudged the back arm higher, and said something that made the kid laugh. He held up his hand at shoulder height and jerked his chin, go. The kid swung his leg back, and kicked at Miles’s hand, over and over. Sometimes he hit, sometimes he missed. They tried it from the side, from the front, from the back again.

Cindy was startled. Miles looked different. She hadn’t gotten the full effect in the dark basement. Hair in a ponytail. No glasses. He grinned at the kid, said something encouraging. He didn’t look like the vampirish Goth geek freak she knew and loved. He looked, well, cute. He had a black belt knotted around his waist, too. Wow. Who knew?

He spun around, kicked. Tap, he touched the kid’s chest with his toe, ever so lightly. She was no expert, but that looked awfully graceful.

Then, predictably, disaster struck. He caught sight of her, and did a big fat double take just as the kid threw his leg back again.

Smack, the kid’s foot connected with Miles’s face. Down he went, on his ass. There was yelling, screaming. A bunch of people scurried towards him. Blood streamed from his nose, dripping all over his gi.

Cindy sprinted towards him, horrified. “Shit! Miles? Are you OK?”

“Get off the tatami with your shoes, Cin.” Miles’s voice was razor sharp, even burbling through the blood.

She retreated, chastened, to the door, and waited. People clustered around him. Someone brought him a towel. His eyes kept darting over to her. They did not look friendly.

Aw, shit. Shit. What was it with her? Was she cursed, or what?

Miles got up and stalked towards her, stripping the bloodstained gi off with a hiss of disgust. “What the hell are you doing here, Cin?”

“Uh…I…” She gaped at his naked torso, struck dumb.

Holy cow. Miles was, like, ripped. Big, thick, meaty deltoids that a girl could just sink her nails into. Cut pecs. Serious ab definition. She wanted him to turn around, show her his lats, his traps. His ass.

Um, no. That was asking a bit much, under the circumstances.

“Uh, Cin?” he prompted. “Hello? Why are you here?”

She opened and closed her mouth, helplessly, like a beached fish.

“Just thought you’d help me make an unforgettable first impression on my first day of teaching, huh?” His voice dripped sarcasm. “Thanks, Cin. This does great things for my credibility.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose! I was just standing there!”

“Yeah, that’s all it takes.” Miles took the towel away from his face, and grimaced at the gory smears. “Jesus. I need ice.”

“Can I go get you some?” she asked, eager to redeem herself.

“No. Just tell me why you’re here, and get it over with. Come on.”

He grabbed her arm, steered her into a room full of weight-lifting equipment. He shut the door, and dabbed at his nose. “So? Spit it out.”

“It’s really hard to talk to you while you’re glaring like that.”

Miles rolled his eyes. “A glare is the default expression of a guy who’s just gotten his nose practically broken by a twelve-year-old. So have you thought of something you want from me after all?”

She gritted her teeth and pressed on. “Actually, yes,” she admitted. “But not for me. It’s for Javier. He’s—”

“Forget it.” Miles’s scowl deepened. “I thought you said you didn’t have a boyfriend right now. In any case, I’m not doing favors for him.”

“Javier is twelve!” she snapped. “He’s one of my students. I want to make him a decent audition tape. He’s applying to the All-Star Young Artists Jazz Program, and he needs a scholarship to—”

“Bring out the violins.” Miles clapped the towel over his face, giving her another chance to ogle his awesome body. Those biceps were to die for. She wanted to palpate them so bad, her fingers twitched.

“I’m out of the business of doing sound for free,” Miles went on. “I spend all my time doing favors for my musician friends. That’s why I’m broke. I’ve got to draw the line somewhere, so here it is. Don’t cross it.”

“Please?” she wheedled. “I know you think I’m pond scum, but this isn’t about me at all. Javier’s a great kid. His uncle Bolivar is the janitor up at the Colfax building, and I’ve been giving him lessons for free for almost a year now. His dad’s in jail, and his mother—”

“I don’t want to hear about his mother,” Miles cut in. “I don’t want to hear about her working double shifts in the factory to put food on the table, and poor Tiny Tim with his crutch in the corner. I do not care.”

“It’ll take you a half an hour,” Cindy coaxed. “We’ll come to your house any time it’s convenient—as long as it’s before the post office closes tomorrow. Javier’s a really great kid. He deserves a break.”

“Who’s going to give me a break?” Miles’s voice was plaintive.

“Well. Since you mention it.” Cindy crossed her arms over her belly, pressing down on her nervous flutter. “That brings me to another thing. What do you intend to do when Mindmeld wants to meet Mina?”

Miles’s face darkened. “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. And it’s none of your damn business, anyway.”

Cindy rocked back, unnerved by the anger blazing out of Miles’s brown eyes. “Well, I got to thinking last night about how the physical profile sounds, um, a lot like me.”

“Goddamnit, Cin, I told you—”

“Shh! Just hear me out!” She held up both hands. “I thought that if you needed to set up a real meeting, you could use me.”

Miles blinked at her. “Use you,” he repeated.

“Yeah!” She gave him a bright, encouraging smile. “As bait, you know? It’s, like, perfect. I’d be more than willing to help.”

He was dead silent for almost a minute, his blood streaked mouth dangling open. “Are you fucking nuts?” he finally exploded.

Cindy jerked, startled at his vehemence. “Ah…”

“Do you have any idea how dangerous that would be? Did it occur to you that we’re talking about a serial killer?”

“Uh, yes,” she said cautiously. “So? People take risks to catch guys like that, right? Why not me? I just thought—”

“Don’t think, Cin,” he snarled. “We’d all be better off.”

“I still think it’s a good idea,” she muttered, defensive.

“It’s not a good idea. It sucks. And I don’t know any polite way to tell you this, but I’ve been making like a physics whiz. Dazzling this guy with Mina’s brain. That’s what this asshole gets hot for. Understand?”

She put her hands over the hot red spots flaring in her face. “So what you’re saying is that I’m not smart enough?”

Miles looked pained. “You said it, Cin. Not me. You play a mean saxophone. I talk shop about acoustic physics. We all have our gifts.”

“Oh, shut up,” she said, through the snot bubbling in her nose. “Don’t condescend to me. How smart can these geeks be? They’re dumb enough to get nabbed, aren’t they? And when it comes to getting mixed up with the wrong kind of guy, I’m, like, unbeatable.”

“Do not mention this to anybody.” Miles’s voice had a steely tone.

“Oh, no. Don’t worry. I understand,” she babbled, through her tears. “God forbid that Connor and his brothers should find out that you talked about their big manly business to a fluff like me.”

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Cin. It’s a really bad habit.”

“Don’t lecture me!” she shot back. “You’re not my friend anymore, so you no longer have the right.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, sniffing angrily. “OK, never mind me and my dumb ideas. I’ll just hire you to do Javier’s tape. How much do you want?”

Miles groaned, beneath his breath. “Cut it out, Cin.”

“No, really. I’ve got some money saved. Quote me your hourly rate. Just don’t tell Javier, because he’d be really embarrassed.”

“I’m not going to let you jerk me around,” Miles said.

“I’m not jerking you around!” she yelled. “God, what do I have to do to persuade you? What do you want from me, a blow job?”

The next fraction of a second was very weird. One moment she was standing there blubbering. The next, her back was flat against the wall, with Miles’s surprisingly hard body holding her there.

Breathless. Squished. Startled…and scared.

“Do not ever, ever joke about that with me,” he said.

Miles’s hoarse whisper sent shivers up her spine. She made a sound like a rusty hinge. She noticed random, disconnected things. Like he had nice breath. A sexy mouth. And his nose was swelling up.

Yikes. Miles’s nose had been really formidable to begin with.

“Ever again,” he repeated softly. “Not. Funny. At all. Got it?”

She licked her lips, and nodded. “Sorry,” she mouthed.

He didn’t let go. Just loomed over her, vibing like crazy. Wow.

Miles was freakishly tall, but he’d never loomed before. But then again, looming was a state of mind. The McCloud guys were all loomers, every last one of them. Miles must have learned the art from them.

He’d learned it really well. Her head flopped back so far to look up at him, her neck hurt. She’d never felt this quality of energy buzzing off him before. And intense heat was radiating from the hard bulge at his crotch. She sneaked a quick peek, and almost squeaked. Gosh. The old joke about long noses must be literally true. Miles was hung.

It was like there was a volcano inside him. Her geeky old best buddy was looking at her as if he were about to grab her and kiss her.

And for one wild, crazy second, she actually wanted him to.

He stepped back, broke eye contact, broke the spell. “Sorry.” He looked away. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

Her heart thudded. Her knees felt wiggly and weak. “Oh, puhleeze. Give me a break. I wasn’t scared,” she lied.

“Bring the kid to record his thing tomorrow at noon. Don’t be late. I’ve got things to do.” He yanked the door open, and marched out.

Well, that settled that. His lats and traps were finger-licking good. And his ass was just as good as she had imagined.

He eased down, cursing under his breath. It was taking longer than he’d anticipated to make it to Tam’s. He was reasonably sure they weren’t being followed, but he could use some sleep, in someplace secure. Tam’s fortress was as secure as it got, after Seth and Raine’s Stone Island hideaway. Seth had rigged it up for her himself. Pure, high-tech, state of the art paranoia. Just what the doctor ordered.

“What language was that?” Liv asked.

He glanced over, startled to find her awake, and dragged the incredibly filthy epithet he’d just uttered out of his short term memory bank. “Croatian,” he said. “A regional dialect of it, anyway.”

“What does it mean?”

He hesitated. “Uh, well, it was directed at the car,” he hedged.

“Yes?” she said sweetly. “And the meaning?” Her soft, beautiful voice was froggy with sleep, but full of curiosity. She waited.

He sighed. “It was a crude, vicious attack upon the virtue and chastity of the mother, grandmother and great-grandmother of the mechanic who last serviced this piece of shit car.”

She made that muffled little giggling snort that he loved so much. “How awful,” she murmured. “Those poor women. How unfair.”

“Yeah, right. My manners suck,” he said sourly.

“So where did you learn Croatian?”

He shot an uneasy glance, but there was nothing to see in the dark but the pale glow of the oversized T-shirt she wore. He’d been pathetically grateful when the princess collapsed into exhausted sleep the minute they got on the road. She needed the rest, for one thing. And he needed space just as badly. Time to process what was happening.

He wasn’t done with that processing yet, but Liv was done with her nap, and feeling fresh and chatty and curious. He was so in for it.

“In the Army,” he told her. “Ranger Regiment. Mostly in the Balkans. After my stint in the military, I bummed around in eastern Europe and Africa. I got contract work through military contacts. The money was good. And it suited my mood, at the time.”

“Contract work?” Her voice was delicately cautious. “What’s that?”

“Mercenary,” he said.

That shut her up. She was probably thinking that he’d been a hired thug. In some ways, he guessed he had been. It all depended on your point of view. Life was like that. Hard to define, hard to justify.

“Wow,” she said faintly. “Isn’t that, ah, really dangerous?”

“Yeah. I got lots of work because I pick up languages fast. I speak Croatian, and Farsi, and some Arabic, some Persian, decent French, and a bunch of obscure dialects you probably never heard of. That photographic memory about works aurally, too, if you program your brain right.”

“Wow,” she whispered. “Amazing. I wish I could do that.”

He shot her a glance. “Why couldn’t you?”

She gave him a derisive snort. “Get real.”

“No, really,” he protested. “It’s just a trick. My dad taught us. You just have to set your mind to it. No biggie. Anyone could do it.”

“Yeah, right.” Her voice was heavy with irony. “I don’t know how to break this to you, Sean, but what you describe is not normal. It is, in point of fact, what other people would describe as freak genius.”

“You got the freak part right,” he agreed. “You should hear my brothers talk. They think I’m an idiot savant. I can do tricks like a dancing bear, but I can’t seem to stay out of trouble with the cops. What does that suggest about my intelligence level?”

She covered her face. He heard smothered giggles. It gave him a happy glow to get a laugh out of her, even if it was at his own expense.

“So you’ve been doing, ah, contract work ever since then?” she asked, when she got her voice back under control.

“Nah. I burnt out a while back. For a while, after Kev died—after Kev was murdered,” he corrected himself. “I didn’t care whether I lived or died. But after a while, I started caring again. And if you keep putting yourself in harm’s way, it doesn’t matter how lucky you are. Statistics will catch up with you. Besides, it was so freaking depressing. I would have ended up eating a bullet in the end. Just so I didn’t have to keep seeing all that awful shit every time I closed my eyes.”

“Oh dear,” she whispered. “That’s awful. I’m sorry.”

“You know that diamond mine fuck-up I told you about? The electrical wire episode? That was the clincher, for me. I got this other scar in that incident, too.” He put his hand over the side of his abdomen, against the throb of remembered pain. “I had lots of time afterwards to lie around watching a bag drip into my arm and ponder how fucked up my life was. I decided it was time to lighten up.”

She was quiet for a while while she thought about what he’d said, but he knew he wasn’t off the hook yet. Long car trips were the pits, when it came to curious women. It was like being chained to a chair.

“That summer that we met, you were saving up money to finish your degree,” she ventured, her voice cautious.

And I blew every last penny on a rock for you, baby.

He stopped himself, just in time. No need to burden her with that. He touched the small gem in his ear, twirled it. His one nervous habit.

He’d worn it ever since he’d gotten the money together to set it into an earring, and never examined why. Masochism, maybe. A stern reminder not to get wound up about women. A perverse mix of both.

Maybe just because he was a vain peacock. The diamond looked sharp, which he liked, and it bugged his humorless brothers, which he also liked. Jerking Davy and Con around was one of the great joys of his existence. They considered his diamond an effete affectation. Fuck ’em. That was just dour old crazy Eamon talking. He’d be damned if he’d let the ghost of his dead father dictate his fashion accessories, too.

The shadow Dad had cast over his life was long enough as it was.

“So. I know you were interested in studying chemical engineering. Did you ever…” Her voice trailed off.

“No, Liv,” he said gently. “I never went back to finish my degree.”

She paused. “I didn’t mean to seem as if I was criticizing you.”

“Nah. A lot of things changed that summer. To tell you the truth, I forgot all about chemical engineering. It barely crossed my mind.”

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

“Don’t be,” he told her. “I’m not. In retrospect, academia or theoretical research or a think tank would have been all wrong for a spaz like me. I would have gone batshit. Adrenaline junkie that I am.”

She twisted her hands together. “I’m so sorry,” she said again.

He shot her a puzzled look. “What are you sorry for this time?”

She shrugged. “All of it. What happened fifteen years ago. The dent that it put in your life. What happened today, too.”

“Ah. That,” he said. “Don’t be sorry about that on my account. I’m better off than I was before. It’s easier to deal with Kev being murdered than accept that he’d gone nuts. Now I’ve got someone external that I can hunt down and kill. That’s so much better, babe. So much.”

“Well,” she murmured doubtfully. “I suppose. If you say so.”

He decided to deflect questions from his own twitchy self. “So what have you done with yourself in the past fifteen years?” he asked.

She let out a small laugh. “Compared to you, absolutely nothing.”

“Oh, come on,” he said. “Spill it.”

She tossed her hands up. “Normal, dull, predictable stuff. Went to college. Went abroad. Studied art and architecture and literature. Tried to learn some French and Italian. Didn’t get very far. Got a masters in library science. Worked various places as a research librarian. Decided to try my hand at running a bookstore. And the rest you know.”

“I thought your folks wanted you to go into the family business.”

“Oh, yes. My mother was frantic. I wasted lots of energy opposing her. I guess that’s the big war story of my life, but it’s too sad and boring to tell. So that’s it for me. No crossing the desert on a camel, or swashbuckling swordfights, or guarding diamond mines, or mortal combat with cruel warlords or suchlike. Just dull, normal living.”

He rubbed the scar from his bullet wound. “Be glad,” he said.

“I know, but it seems so tame. At least until yesterday. My normal life is mostly work. In my spare time, I read books, shop for groceries, do laundry, pay utility bills. I see lots of movies. I love to garden. I collect patchwork quilts. I enjoy making bread and jam. Being domestic.”

He pictured it. Cooking with her, rattling around together in their homey, cluttered kitchen. Cuddling next to her underneath one of those quilts. Munching homemade bread and jam with her on her couch.

Gardening? Hmm. Maybe he could sprawl in a lawn chair and nurse a cold beer while he watched Liv garden. Bent sexily over her tomatoes at a ninety degree angle, in snug blue jeans. Yeah. Mmm.

“Sounds real nice,” he said wistfully. “Can I come?”

She made a sound, like she was blowing air out of her lungs. “Stop it, Sean. I don’t know what to think when you say stuff like that.”

“I’m a simple creature,” he said. “Take me at my word.”

“Simple?” Her voice began to shake. “Oh, yeah, Sean. Sure. Look what your simplicity has done to my life. I was in therapy for years.”

That perplexed him. She seemed so well-adjusted. “You? Why?”

“I wanted to stop thinking about you,” she said, forcefully.

They both stared out straight ahead, watching the yellow line that divided the small highway curving to the right, the left, the right again.

“Did it ever work?” he asked quietly.

She shook her head. “No,” she whispered.

“Not for me, either,” he admitted.

“I don’t want to think about it.” Her voice sounded bleak. “Let’s figure out what’s going on here and now. You’re not kidnapping me, last time I checked, so what’s our status? Am I running away with you?”

He felt suddenly more cheerful. “I like the sound of that.”

“And what do you plan to do with me?” she demanded.

“I can think of some real fun things right off the top of my head.”

“Oh, stop it,” she snapped. “Be serious, for once.”

“I’ll keep you safe.” The words came out clear and decisive.

“Well, that’s nice, Sean, but in exchange for what? A professional bodyguard comes at about two hundred bucks an hour. I have exactly nothing. And I do mean zip. Just a burned-up bookstore and a gargantuan mortgage. I’ll get some insurance money eventually, but until then—”

“I don’t care,” he said.

“And don’t think my parents being filthy rich will help.” Her voice quivered. “They’ve cut me off. I’m out of the will.”

“Good,” he said, with quiet vehemence. “That’s great news, babe.”

“Is it? Really? So how am I supposed to recompense you?”

“Sexual favors,” he said promptly. “Let’s see, two hundred bucks an hour for twenty-four hours, that’s forty-eight hundred bucks a day, princess. That’s a lot of favors.”

She snickered into her hands. “Oh, would you shut up.”

“I’d be at you all the time,” he said. “When I’m not defending you with life and limb, we’ll be writhing around in bed. It’ll be strenuous.”

“It already is,” she snapped. “I can barely walk.”

“Sorry,” he said meekly. “Bullshit aside, though. I don’t need two hundred bucks an hour. I’ll just do it because you’re the princess. You deserve to be protected. You don’t have to put out. And you don’t have to pay me. All you have to do is exist. That’s more than enough for me.”

Her eyes gleamed at him, luminous with tears. She wiped her eyes, looked away. The silence got very thick for a moment.

“That’s a very sweet thing to say,” she said demurely. “But it’s not very economically practical. We need a nuts and bolts plan.”

“I’m working on it, babe. Now if you’ll excuse me, this is where I have to start concentrating if I’m going to find Tam’s place.”

He had memorized the exact point on the fourth curve after the old stonework bridge where he had to stop, and slew to the left, bumping down into a narrow ditch and up again, straight into what seemed like a blank thicket of scrubby bushes. They scraped and brushed against the body of the car. He pushed on through the wall.

Once through it, they found themselves in a blind clearing blocked by the wall of a barn. The tumbledown roof was green with moss and full of gaping holes. The fogeymobile bumped over something metallic. Sean saw a flash of movement ahead and jerked to a halt right before the low, jagged metal spikes rising up at an angle out of the ground could puncture the front tires.

“Oh, God,” Liv squeaked.

“Damn you, Tam,” he snapped. “Snotty bitch. She did that to rattle me. I don’t want to have to replace the tires on this heap of junk.”

The row of spikes slowly, majestically retracted back into the ground. Sean grunted. “Gee, thanks. So generous of you.”

A narrow beam of red light flipped on, swiveling until it focused first on him, then on Liv’s face. It flicked back to him, lingered. Sean thumbed his nose, waggled his fingers, stuck out his tongue. “Yes, it’s me, Tam,” he said. “What do you want, a fucking DNA sample?”