Golden Trail (18 page)

Merry had wrapped his jacket around the back
of a dining room chair and his eyes came to Layne.

“Heard the ‘dogs won,” he remarked.

“Yep,” Layne replied, coming to stand a few
feet from Merry.

“They got talent this year,” Merry
noted.

“Yep,” Layne agreed.

Merry’s eyes grew sharp. “Heard about Tripp,
big man.”

“Figured that was makin’ the rounds,” Layne
stated.

Rocky burrowed into her brother’s side until
he slid an arm around her shoulders and she did this whispering,
“It was bad, Merry.”

Merry looked down at her upturned face and
nodded then looked back at Layne.

“You gonna do somethin’ about that?” he
asked.

“Formal complaint,” Layne answered.

Merry shook his head, mumbling, “That isn’t
what I’d do.”

No, Layne knew, that wasn’t what Merry would
do. Merry had control, just not very much of it.

“There are times, man, when you gotta play
it smart. This is one of those times,” Layne replied quietly.

Merry’s eyes fell to Layne’s gut, showing
Layne they’d both learned the lesson about playing it smart. Then
he looked back at Layne and nodded.

Then he said, “Welp, gotta hit the hay.” He
leaned down and kissed the top of his sister’s head and after he
did, she tipped her head back and grinned at him. He gave her
shoulders a visible squeeze, let her go, walked to Layne, clapped
him on the shoulder and then walked down the hall, saying,
“’Night.”

“’Night, Merry,” Rocky called.

“Later,” Layne said and headed to the
door.

Rocky followed him.

Merry had a two-bedroom condo. It wasn’t the
greatest condo, it wasn’t shit. At his age, even after the divorce
where he let his ex have the house, he could do better. Then again,
he had an Excursion, a speed boat, a Harley, a timeshare in Florida
and a taste for expensive whisky. Unlike Rutledge, to have
expensive toys on a cop’s salary, Merry had to juggle and,
sometimes, make sacrifices.

Layne opened the door and walked out into
the cold. Rocky held the door open then moved to stand with a
shoulder against the jamb, the door mostly closed, she’d wedged
herself between them and her eyes were looking up at him.

“I’m sorry about Tripp, Layne,” she said
gently.

“He’ll be okay,” Layne replied and she
nodded.

“Thanks for helping with the apartment,” she
said.

“Not a problem.”

Her eyes slid to the side and he watched her
thinking.

He should say goodnight and get the fuck out
of there. They didn’t need to go where they were heading tonight.
They needed to stay focused. Both of them. They had what they had
and then it went bad. That was a long time ago. He couldn’t get
caught in the memories. The good times then and the way he was
finding she was now didn’t change the fact that she’d turned her
back and walked away and didn’t explain why. She’d torn out his
heart and shattered his world. He didn’t see video of her taking it
from the front and back but that would almost make it better, at
least that was a reason.

“Even with all the dramas,” she broke into
his thoughts, “it was a nice night, Layne.”

“Yep,” he agreed, finally got smart and drew
a line under it, “later, Roc.”

Her face changed and he blocked reading it
before she cleared her expression and nodded. “’Night, Layne.”

He turned and walked away, hearing the door
click behind him and thinking any other night spent like that with
any other woman, he would not be walking away, at least not until
after breakfast.

But Raquel Merrick Astley was not any other
woman.

He jogged down the stairs, walked to his
truck and went home to his boys.

Charming

Layne was barely out of the shower, just
beginning to towel off, when he heard the doorbell.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

He was late. He was taking Rocky to Swank’s
tonight, he’d been working the new case all day, he got caught up
in it and he was late.

With drops of water still on his shoulders
and chest, he wrapped the towel around his waist and strode swiftly
out of his room and down the stairs. He went straight to the door,
opened it, barely looking at her but the storm door was already
opening and he smelled her perfume. He turned, saying, “Runnin’
late, Roc, come in and get yourself a beer. I’ll be down soon’s I
can.”

Then he headed straight back up the stairs,
hearing her heels on his wood floors and not noticing she didn’t
say a word.

It had been two weeks since they’d put their
plan into action and he was playing it smart. This was helped by
the fact that her apartment was vacant and she was good to move in
right away so she did. She spent her evenings shopping for shit for
her house and Layne was dedicated to the cause of bringing down
Rutledge but not so dedicated he’d go shopping.

They spent time together but not much. She
was shopping and he was working this case. It wouldn’t take him
long but it required time, planning, equipment and a shitload of
field work. This was good. He’d been climbing the walls while
recuperating. Being back out in the field felt fucking
great.

The Sunday after their night that ended in
pizza, beer and heartfelt conversation, Rocky came over with Merry
and they ran the Rutledge case down for her. Then they watched
football on TV. Then Merry left and Rocky stayed so Natalie Ulrich
could see her car in his drive and know she was alone with him in
his house. The boys came home from doing whatever it was they were
doing and he got them down to homework and walked Rocky out to the
car. He didn’t play make out because that was playing with fire. He
just touched his lips to hers, opened the car door for her and
stood in his drive watching her drive away. Then he went
inside.

They’d had dinner together at Frank’s and
coffees together at Mimi’s. She went to both subsequent Friday
games with him, one away, the next one, last night, at home. She
went with him but she sat with her Dad at the away game, Josie Judd
and the girl posse at the home game, hanging with Layne, and, for
show,
on
him, only at halftime. He didn’t know why she
didn’t stand with him by the field, if it was because she felt
responsible for what happened to Tripp or if she was giving him
space. He also didn’t ask.

She’d started working Rutledge. She was
breaking him in but Layne was too busy to be there so Merry was
covering her. She’d gone three times to the Station on the pretence
she needed to talk to or was meeting Merry. Merry made himself busy
with bullshit work so she could wander over to Rutledge and strike
up conversations. Only once was Layne close enough to go in and see
her in action. When he topped the steps to the bullpen, she was
sitting by Rutledge’s desk and they were both laughing though
Rutledge was staring at her tits
while
he was laughing.

Seeing that, Layne had walked right up and
claimed her, giving Rutledge a cursory greeting and that was when
they went to Mimi’s for a quick coffee.

Other than that, if they were alone and no
eyes were on them, he was friendly but kept his distance. He made
it clear the getting to know you again part of their operation was
done, they needed to focus and, thank fuck, Raquel read him and
went with it, returning the favor.

The problem was, when they weren’t alone,
and eyes were on them, he was forced to be far friendlier and there
was not even a hint of distance. Rocky was just as friendly back.
This was extremely bad because it always felt extremely good.

Now, he was taking her to Swank’s.

Swank’s was Jarrod Astley’s favorite
restaurant in Indianapolis, intel Layne had learned from Merry’s
e-mailed report of all things he knew about Astley. Apparently,
Rocky took Astley there for his birthday every year and Astley took
Rocky there to be seen in the exclusive hotspot as often as he
liked which, even though you couldn’t get out of there without
spending at least a hundred dollars a head, was
often
.

Layne had made time to swing by the
restaurant so he could chat up the hostess. He found out promptly
that she knew Dr. Astley. She also knew Dr. Astley had recently
made a reservation, she knew the date and she knew the time and
Layne convinced her to share that information with him. Then he
made a reservation for two, half an hour after Astley was to get
there, gave the hostess a fifty and asked her to make certain he
was seated close to Astley. After he smiled at her, she promised he
would be.

Layne learned from the intel on Astley that
getting into his face made it even better he had a time-consuming
case because that fifty he’d slipped the waitress was only the
beginning. Astley made a lot of money, even more than Layne
reckoned he did (and Layne knew this because he ran every search
and report he could on the doc) and Astley wasn’t saving for a
rainy day. He lived large. Swank’s was named that for a reason. The
place was trendy and expensive and, the time Layne visited the
hostess, packed. In Indy, it was the place to see and be seen.

Astley also came from money, he wasn’t the
elite of the elite but he was from the upper class, albeit the
middle
upper class. He had a trust fund that he didn’t dip
into much since he didn’t have to and he stood to inherit a whack,
even sharing it with a brother and sister, when his mother
eventually passed away

Taking his mind off Astley, Layne stood at
the sink in his bathroom, shaved, slapped on aftershave and ran a
comb through his hair. Then he went to the closet and pulled
clothes off hangers.

Melody lived in LA and she worked retail, a
fancy-ass store that, from what Layne had learned from Astley’s
credit card statements, Jarrod Astley would cream his pants over.
Melody liked dressing Layne and she got a great discount so
whenever he saw her she always had bags of shit to give him. Even
though he rarely wore the shit she bought, he didn’t throw it away
but most of it had never touched his skin.

He put on a pair of slacks, shrugged on a
shirt, buttoned it, grabbed the jacket off a hanger, went to his
bedroom and pulled on his socks and boots. He shoved his wallet in
the inside pocket of the jacket and shrugged that on as he walked
downstairs.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Rocky
sitting at the island as he rounded the corner into the kitchen,
tagging his keys and cell off the counter as he walked to the
utility room door.

“Ready?” he asked, stopped, turned to her
and froze.

“Yeah,” she replied, her back to him, she
was moving, doing something, he didn’t know what, because he
couldn’t force his mind to think.

Her back was bare. Completely. There were
only thin black straps that curled over her shoulders and stopped
at the back of her pits and her lower body was hidden by the island
but what he could see of her back it was completely bare.

And her hair was down, down in a sleek,
gleaming fall that went to beyond her shoulder blades but, with her
movements, was now gliding around the skin of her back and
shoulders. That skin disappeared when she pulled up a black coat
and settled it on her shoulders. Turning to the island, with one
hand she pulled the thick length of her hair free of her coat and
with the other hand she grabbed a little, shiny, deep purple purse
and a deep purple scarf in some slithery material. Then he heard
her heels on the tiles, she rounded the island and he saw her from
the front.

The black coat went to her knees but she
hadn’t buttoned it and, as she moved, the coat went back and showed
the entirety of the dress. The top front of the dress was straight
above her breasts, the middle loose and partially draping, but at
her hips and thighs the dress clung, as in
clung.
It was so
formfitting it left nothing to the imagination. And it was short.
It wasn’t short-short but it came to just below the tops of her
thighs. Her long legs went forever under that skirt, they were bare
but looked shiny in a sexy way and she was wearing purple,
spike-heeled sandals with a fuckload of thin straps that were so
damned sexy, just looking at those shoes made him start to get
hard.

He tore his eyes from the shoes, made the
grave mistake of trailing them up her body and seeing that dress
again and then he saw her face. She was arranging the scarf around
her neck and her makeup was smoky, in deep grays and purples,
heavier than usual, just as perfect… and
hot
, especially
with her hair falling around her face and shoulders.

She got close and even her perfume was
stronger.

Fuck.

She stopped, her head down and twisting
around as she settled her scarf around her neck, she finished with
that, tipped her head back to look at him, tilted it to the side
and said, “Ready.”

Yeah, she was ready. Fucking shit, it was
going to be a long night.

He turned to the door, opened it and held it
for her.

Her perfume assaulted him again as she
walked through. He followed her, reaching high to grab the edge of
garage door she opened and she preceded him through that as he
bleeped the locks on his truck. Rocky headed to the passenger side,
Layne followed. She climbed up and he saw more leg, her coat
falling back as the skirt stretched to the danger zone and she
settled in.

He slammed the door and rounded the hood
forcing himself to think of kittens.

He got in, buckled in, hit the garage door
opener, started the truck, backed out and hit the garage door
opener again. They were out of the development and on the road
toward Indy when she spoke.

“Went by the Station today,” she said.

“I know,” he replied.

“Rutledge and I are forming a bond,” she
told him.