Guns and Roses (25 page)

Kevin squinted at me. Then he bent down and peeked under the table.

“Did you lose your pen or something?”

He raised his head. “I see you. I hear your voice, but the excuses you’re offering would never come out of my cynical partner’s mouth. Never.”

“Good one, Shecky.”

“Seriously, you’ve been
all these assholes
are fucking cheaters
and now you’re changing your tune? Because she’s a woman and women don’t cheat?”

“No. And fuck off for assuming I’m gender biased when it comes to cheating. When I saw them on the steps, it wasn’t lovers saying goodbye. It was more like... when you walk a friend out the front door and your conversation lingers.”

“Does that happen when your BFF, Kim, and her new bundle of joy comes over to the place you share with Martinez?”

I shuffled the pictures, a little pissy he’d touched on another sore subject between me and Martinez. The “no visitors” rule. “Kim doesn’t visit me. Guns, goons and babies don’t mix. Even if she did visit, one of Martinez’ bodyguards would warn her off with a shotgun.”

“How can you live like that?”

“I’m used to it.” The threats to Martinez had lessened in the last year, but hadn’t disappeared completely. So a rotating security detail of seven club members protected us 24/7, two guys for two days at a time. Martinez and I occupy one side of the duplex and his security team the other. A door connects the two separate spaces. A door, which is never locked from our side. That main door has to be 100% accessible 100% of the time for Martinez’ protection.

“You put up with a lot of shit to live with him, Jules. You know that, right?”

I shrugged. “My other choice is not to live with him at all.” That I couldn’t handle. “As far as Natalie Brunson... I’ll need another day. Three hours remain on the husband’s initial payment anyway.”

Kevin made a disgruntled sigh. “Immediately after you’re done tomorrow, do the wrap-up report so I can call him.”

“Happy fucking Valentine’s Day.” I gathered the pictures and dropped them in the manila envelope. “You’re handling Marcia Bueller’s case?”

“Yes. But I felt guilty taking her money. I already know Meghan is frequently in old man Bueller briefs—not just the legal ones.”

“How?”

His cool green-eyed stare tightened my midsection. “Paper-thin walls. I’ve heard them going at it on numerous occasions when I’ve worked late. I saw them playing grab ass in the hallway just last week.”

My fist hit the conference table. “Why didn’t you just tell Marcia that?”

“She wants tangible proof of her suspicions, so we’ll give it to her.” He sighed again. “Looks like I’m on stakeout duty tonight. Marcia said Glen planned to work late and told her not to wait up.”

Just what Martinez had said to me the last few nights. Any desire to go home evaporated. “I can stay and help.”

Kevin’s gaze snapped to mine. “I thought you were antsy to leave and play kissy face with your man?”

Given my mood, I’d most likely punch Martinez in the kisser if I saw him. “And miss a chance to hear the old guy and the young tart squeaking the legs on the conference table? I’ll stick around just to make Viagra jokes.”

“Oh joy, my night will be complete.”

“Want me to order pizza or Chinese for stakeout duty?”

“Pizza. Veggie pizza. And get a salad with it.”

Despite Kevin’s resolution to become Mr. Health Conscious since New Year’s, I knew he’d eat his fair share of the chocolate marshmallow dessert pizza I planned to wallow in, since tequila wasn’t an option while I was on duty.

~*~

As far as stakeouts? Our agency hit a new record for efficiency. I was able to sneak into the Bueller Law Office and record the sounds of skin slapping, grunts, and shouts of ecstasy, after I convinced the pizza delivery guy to accidentally deliver the order to the wrong office. For an extra twenty bucks, he’d been more than happy to leave the door open a crack.

Then Kevin had waited in a dark corner to snap photos with his super-duper, secret-spy camera of the pair swapping spit at the office doorway. Then Mr. Bueller took his cheating self down the back staircase while Meghan sashayed out the front door. Really. Who did they think they were fooling?

Kevin sensed my melancholy and offered to buy me a drink at the brewpub down the street from our office, but I declined and headed to the parking lot.

The digital thermometer in my pickup read the outside air temp as eighteen degrees. Below zero. As I waited for the engine to warm up, I smoked and considered my options. Pop in and visit Martinez unannounced? Just drive past Bare Assets and Fat Bob’s looking for one of Martinez’ four vehicles? No. That’d be creepy, girlfriend stalkerish. If he wanted me to know where he was, he’d tell me. I’d be damned if I’d call and check up on him.

Or maybe he thinks you don’t give a shit.

Wrong. He knew how I felt about him. I wasn’t the one who needed to prove those feelings hadn’t faded since we’d moved in together.

The roads out of town were snow-packed and slippery. Ghostly white fingers skittered on the road in front of me, compelling in their haunting beauty. I slowed when I passed Black Hills Speedway and saw a car in the ditch. My Ford looked like a bucket of bolts on the outside, but the sucker got around like a mountain goat in the winter months. I ground out my second smoke right before I hit the turnoff to our place.

No gate. No outwardly obvious security measures. But hidden cameras monitored the entire area. The half-mile long gravel road leading to the house looked like just another untended country driveway—one of hundreds scattered across western South Dakota. I pulled around back and parked in the garage.

Buzz and Bucket were on duty. I punched the all clear code and let myself in.

The living room remained in the same messy state as this morning. My half-empty coffee cup on the end table next to an overflowing ashtray. Magazines scattered everywhere. A psychedelic-colored fleece blanket hung off the easy chair. Slippers and socks kicked off here and there. Martinez hated clutter. If he’d been around, he would’ve picked it up. Petty, but I’d left it that way for that reason.

I ditched my work clothes and slipped on my rattiest flannel pajamas. After fixing myself a bag of microwave popcorn, I snuggled into the leather couch and watched a
Myth Busters
marathon until sleep overtook me.

Cold air violated my warm cocoon and I protested until a pair of strong arms scooped me up. Although I was only groggy, I feigned sleep. What delicious way would Tony awaken me? I was hoping for hot skin, hot kisses and hot man all over me. Thickly whispered Spanish phrases in my ear as he slammed his body into mine. I could almost taste his full lips. I could almost feel his heart thundering against my chest as we tried to outdo each other, tried to push the other to the pinnacle of pleasure first. I could almost feel those clever, rough-skinned hands caressing my skin. Soothing me in the aftermath of volatile sex that left me breathless and more in love and in tune with him than before.

But as it turned out, Tony had nothing planned. He tucked me in. Stroked my hair. Kissed my cheek. My forehead. My temple. Between my eyebrows. He nuzzled my neck. He breathed me in and sighed.

This close, I detected another scent under that familiar tang of leather and his pine-scented soap. Something... sweet. Perfume. Subtle, but there. Not my brand since I didn’t wear perfume.

My pretense of faking sleep vanished. When Tony eased back to smooth my hair from my face, he was surprised to see my eyes were open. And hard as ice.

“Don’t give me the death glare, blondie. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Then you should’ve left me sleeping on the couch.” I eyed him, the handsome fucker, from the midnight black hair brushing the collar of his leather jacket, down his jeans to his biker boots. “I see you’re still in your outerwear which means you’re not staying even though it’s”—I glanced at the alarm clock—“four o’clock in the morning.”

“I needed a change of clothes.” He kept his back to me as he rooted in his dresser drawers.

“You going out of town?”

“No.”

“You moving out?”

Tony stiffened. He turned toward me very slowly. Even in the darkness, I knew his eyes had gone flat and cold. “Why would you ask that?”

“Because you haven’t been here and when you are, you’re not really here.” I stood because I refused to have this conversation lying down.

He didn’t say anything. I couldn’t read him, and that scared me. And as usual, I was the one who broke the mind-fuck eye lock first.

But I didn’t back down entirely. “Who is she, Martinez?”

“Who is who?”

“The woman whose perfume is all over you.” The look on his face indicated I’d actually shocked him.

“You think I’m cheating on you?”

“Are you?”

Martinez slammed the dresser drawer shut and shoved his clothes into his duffel bag. Then he shouldered it and looked at me. “I won’t dignify that with a response, and I’m more than a little pissed off you even asked.”

But he wasn’t denying it.

Goddamn him. I wanted to throw something. Wanted to scream and rage. But I didn’t. I played it as cool and aloof as he did.

He stopped at the door. Seemed about to say something. But he shook his head and walked out.

And I let him.

~*~

Despite my exhaustion—I hadn’t slept more than twenty minutes after Tony left—I made it to my stakeout spot across the street from the Brunson’s. Part of me hoped the math tutor wouldn’t show today.

My wishful thinking was short lived.

The tutor parked in the driveway and left the engine running. Natalie Brunson climbed in the passenger side of the beat up Impala.

This was a new development.

I zoomed in with my camera, expecting a kiss or a show of affection, but nothing. Was I disappointed? Or relieved? With an hour still allotted on the client’s dime, I followed them.

They pulled into the strip mall on Omaha Street and headed into Dunn Brothers coffee shop.

I parked at the far end by Pauly’s Sub Shop and browsed at the other storefronts before I wandered in. The place wasn’t busy and Natalie and the tutor had already claimed a booth across the from the pastry case. In my mind, if they had something to hide, they would’ve taken a table in the back room. I ordered a cup of black coffee, scowled at the pink and red cupcakes with a plastic Cupid on the top, purchased a copy of the Rapid City Journal, and slid into the booth in front of them, keeping my back to the door.

Normally, I didn’t perform surveillance close enough to warrant a disguise, but today I’d slipped on an army green Moosejaw knit cap and kept my scarf wrapped around my neck, so I could hide the lower half of my face if need be. The way I wore the cap made me look like Dopey from
Snow White
but I had to keep my ears uncovered so I could hear.

I tuned out all noises but their conversation behind me.

“What are you saying?” Natalie asked the tutor. “My son doesn’t give a crap about calculus?”

“Look, I can help Braden get a passing grade in the class, if that’s all you and Mr. Brunson want. But if your husband’s expectations are that my teaching methods will make Braden love math and want to become an engineer like him... then I’ll have to quit working with him.”

“We’ve talked about why I need you to continue.”

The tutor sighed. “I don’t want that burden, either. I thought I could do this, Mrs. B, but I can’t. And to be honest, Braden is starting to... suspect.”

“Why?”

“He asked me last night why you and I meet so much.”

Neither said anything else and I sipped my coffee, feigning interest in the letters to the editor.

That’s when I heard the laugh. The warm, deep laugh that rolled over my skin like a velvet caress.

What was Martinez doing in here?

Granted, this coffee shop was closest to the strip club, but he usually sent a minion for his morning caffeine fix.

And why the hell was he laughing? He should be moping we’d had a fight, just like I was.

I remained statue-still, sharpening my auditory focus to the timbre of his voice. A woman responded to his query about a scone with a flirty comment, dripping with sexual innuendo.

Don’t turn around. Don’t jump to conclusions. Gather the facts first.

Martinez’ order included three scones, two large coffees and one chai hot tea, which meant Big Mike was with them.

I was in limbo, unable to give away my position because I was on a case. But I couldn’t focus on my job because I was too focused on my lover sharing coffee and laughs with another woman right under my nose.

Natalie and the tutor made preparations to leave. I did too, as discreetly as possible. I ducked into the back room, but my pride demanded I poke my head around the corner for a look. I saw Martinez and his entourage in the conversation area by the front doors. Tony leaned forward, listening intently to the brunette who had her back to me.