Honey (24 page)

“Here—here!”

“C'mon baby, let's see what you've got.”

“Damn, he's so fine.”

“Fine? He's fucking
hung
.”

“Shake your beef, baby—shake, shake,
shake
it!”

Sweat streaked his sides, and despite their dire situation, Honey longed to catch the salty droplets on her tongue. She supposed she shouldn't be so surprised. Though washed-to-death T-shirts and old-as-dirt jeans were his usual off-duty ensemble, Marc always carried himself like a king. No matter how many hours he spent on his feet in the ER, that straight-backed stance never wavered.

The sensation of being watched had her dragging her gaze back to Drew. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught him scowling. Apparently entertainment was one thing, competition entirely another. Ripped, hung, tall, and gifted with moves Drew could only dream of, Marc was an instant sensation, the man of the moment, a big fish. Drew, in contrast, seemed a mere minnow.

Frank returned. He passed Drew a fresh bottle of scotch and whispered something into his ear. They both stared back at the stage—and Marc.

Drew's face twisted into the mean mask Honey had seen too many times to ignore. Instinctively her stomach tightened. “Get him the fuck off—now!” he said to Frank.

Frank looked dumbstruck. “But the song's not—”

“Just do it!”

Honey's heart froze. Helpless, she watched Frank walk over to the DJ and motion for him to kill the music. Burly bouncers from the private security firm Drew had hired stepped up onto the stage from opposite sides. Meeting in the middle, they took Marc by either arm and led him off.

Honey strained to see where they were taking him, but the crowd closed in. Boos burst through the banquet room. Someone, likely Ms. 1992, hurled a beer bottle toward the now empty stage. Bits of food from the buffet followed. The room no longer rained men, or in this case “man.” Instead cherry tomatoes, buffalo shrimp, and chicken wings pelted the front of the room.

Throat tightening, Honey turned to Drew. Too worried for Marc to be frightened for herself, she demanded, “Why did you do that? He was only doing his job.”

He glared at her. “Why are you suddenly so concerned about some no-name male model? Or do you maybe know him after all?”

Had he recognized Marc after all? Doing her best to play it cool, she said, “O-of course not. Until he brought over the drinks, I'd never seen him before.”

He eyed her. “Yeah? Well then, you must have gotten acquainted awfully fast.”

A chill slid along her spine. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“According to Frank, there's security footage showing you and Magic Mike huddled up close and personal in the kitchen.”

He had her. That was the bad—okay, awful—part. On the positive side, it seemed he hadn't recognized Marc, at least not yet. There was nothing to do but brazen it out.

“Oh, right, that,” she said, waving a hand as though flicking away a fly. “After you went to change, I realized I had scotch splashed on my dress. I went to see about getting some club soda.”

“From the kitchen? Why not the service bar?”

“They … ran out of glassware.”

He stared at her askance. “You really are a crap liar, you know that.”

“I'm not lying. Frank is. I wouldn't sleep with him, and now he's out to get me. You heard what he said earlier. Why not have him show you the footage and then you can decide which of us is lying?”

The captured conversation probably looked pretty damning, but the playback would lead her to Frank—and Marc. Confession or not, until she found him, the word “Audrey” wasn't leaving her lips.

“Maybe I will … when he gets back.”

“Back from … where?” she asked, worry ratcheting to something more—panic.

“Back from entertaining our dancing friend.” Lifting his hand as if to consult the expensive wristwatch, a grin cocked the corner of his mouth. “Right about now Magic's being taught the lesson of his life.”

*

Standing in an inner courtyard, Marc glanced between the bullet-headed bouncers flanking him like bookends—seriously scary bookends. “Hey, if your boss didn't dig my routine, he doesn't have to pay me. Sound fair?”

It had been years since he'd danced and, until now, always with his clothes on. It was Tony who'd taught him. Back in the day, they'd ride the subway down to Union Square, set up shop on the 14
th
Street entrance, and breakdance until their feet, knees, and elbows bled.

But once Tony had been convicted and sent away, Marc had put away his dance moves as he'd put away his love for his brother. Both were still there, but buried deep in storage. As he had Tony, he probably should have left any dancing well alone.

Neither guard so much as cracked a smile. “Jesus, at least give me my stuff and let me get dressed.”

Once again there was no response. No doubt about it. He was about to get an ass whipping, just as soon as whomever they seemed to be waiting on arrived. So long as they stuck to fists, preferably bare and not brass-knuckled, he'd probably come through okay. With their shaven heads and shiny suits, they struck him more as bouncers than hit men—though with a psychopath like Winterthur, it was hard to say who he might have on his payroll. Either way, fighting fair probably wasn't in their vocabulary—if they even had a vocabulary. So far, neither had let a single word slip since “escorting” him from the banquet room.

The door opened. The heavyset suit, Frank Dawes, stepped out. He lumbered up to them and held out Marc's backpack, which Marc had left in the staff locker room. His other hand was wrapped around a baseball bat. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he demanded of Marc.

“What kind of question is that? The agency sent me. Look, if you have a problem with my performance, take it up with them.” He reached for the pack but Dawes held it out of reach.

“Yeah, really? Which agency?”

In hindsight, a vendor list would have been a really good thing for Marc to get from Carlson. Only with Honey already inside, and him chomping at the bit to go in after her, there'd barely been time to figure out a plausible cover, let alone do extensive background prep.

“You should know. You contracted with them.”

“The models we hired were all women.”

He tried for a shrug, but with Mutt and Jeff weighing down his arms, it wasn't happening. “I guess I missed the memo. Anyway, I didn't hear a lot of complaints back in there.” He jerked his chin toward the door.

Frank unzipped the backpack. Fortunately Marc had had the forethought to leave his driver's license back in the FBI van, but what had he forgotten? Frank's smug look suggested he'd already searched the bag and found … something.

Sweat trickled between his shoulder blades. Unlike Honey, he wasn't wearing a wire. He could shout “Audrey” at the top of his lungs, but Carlson and his agents wouldn't come running. But what really scared the shit out of him was what Winterthur might do to Honey. Marc's whole purpose in forcing his way in earlier had been to protect her. So far he'd done a pretty shitty job of it.

Frank dug around in the bottom of the bag and pulled out a wallet-sized laminated square: Marc's state medical license. It must have dropped out of his wallet earlier when he took out his other ID.
Damn!

Dawes held the license up to the light. “If you're moonlighting, Obamacare must be a real bitch, huh,
Doctor
Sandler?”

*

Honey sat through the dinner service, though she barely choked down more than a few forkfuls from each course. “Seriously, you can't just have someone taken away and beaten up because I talked to him for five minutes. There are laws.”

Sliding a bite of steak into his mouth, Drew smirked. “Laws are for the mindless masses that follow them. It's a nation of sheep, baby, and every herd needs a shepherd.”

“I'm serious, Drew. The male model, what have you done with him?” She articulated the question for the FBI's benefit. Marc had gone missing, and they needed to know.

Drew's derisive laugh assured her that her concern had landed on deaf ears. “Screw him, he's nobody.”

Honey swallowed against her throat's thickening. “Everybody's somebody.”

Marc wasn't only somebody. He was the finest man, one of the best human beings, it had ever been her privilege to know—and love. And like everyone she'd ever loved, she'd let him down. Badly.

Drew scoffed. “Do you really think a guy like that could ever give a materialistic little whore like you the lifestyle you're used to? Sure, he has a big dick but when it comes to Manhattan, a man's wallet is the only bulge in his pants that matters.”

So that's what this was about. What she thought of as Drew's Napoleon Complex had once again reared it's ugly
little
head.

But she still had a job to do. She needed his confession, not just for her sake, but also for Marc's and the future she still hoped they'd have together. So long as she wore the recording device, she was protected to a point. All she needed to do was work “Audrey” into a sentence and federal agents would swarm the place—or at least that's how it worked on TV cop dramas and in police procedurals. Marc, however, had no such safety net. They could be waterboarding him in the basement, and unless she found him first, no one would know until it was too late.

Drew gestured with the tines of his fork to the room at large. “Look around you. All these shmucks with their polyester suits and bad haircuts and petty little dreams turn over their money to guys like me because they're too fucking lazy and stupid to figure it out for themselves. See that guy over there—I know for a fact his big dream is to buy a timeshare in St. Pete's Beach in Florida. And that f-ugly bitch with the huge honking beak is planning to spend her payout on rhinoplasty and a boob job. And see that grandfatherly guy with the salt-and-pepper hair, horn-rimmed glasses, and crazy bad cardigan? His wife of thirty years doesn't have a clue, but he has a ‘mister' on the side. He's hoping to feather a homo love nest for the both of them with the windfall from his return—good luck with that.”

“So I wasn't wrong earlier. What you're saying is HG Enterprises and the others, they're all shell corporations. They don't actually provide any services or make any products? They're just … pretend?”

He set the fork on the edge of his plate. “No, I didn't say any of that. You did.”

Beneath the table, Honey ran a damp palm down her designer dress. “But I'm right, aren't I?”

He poured more scotch into his glass. “Tell me again why you're suddenly so interested in finance?”

“I'm not. I'm … interested in you.”

His eyes stabbed into hers. “No, I don't think you are.”

She opened her mouth to protest when his cell beeped, signaling a new text message had landed. He picked it up from the table. Heart in her throat, Honey watched and waited.

Sliding the phone into his jacket pocket, he looked over at her. “Frank's figured out who your boyfriend is.” He shook his head as if she were a child who'd disappointed him. “Fucking the ER doctor—that's low, even for a lowlife whore like you.”

Denial was pointless. Heart rate ratcheting, Honey shoved back her chair and stood. “Where is he? What have you done with him?”

Drew rose up beside her. Heedless of any onlookers, most of whom were too drunk to notice much anyway, he pulled her roughly against him. Squeezing her head between his hands, he kissed her, scotch-soaked tongue delving into her mouth. The suffocating embrace raised every survival instinct she'd spent the past six years burying. Flinging free, she opened her mouth to scream “Audrey!” when her hair fascinator went flying.

It landed on the tabletop. She grabbed for it, but Drew snapped it up first. “You know, it occurs to me I've never seen you wear anything like this before. It looks like it's from the flapper era. Your precious Audrey wasn't born yet.”

Breathing hard, she held out a hand for the accessory. “Lots of people change their style.”

“Maybe—but not you.”

Honey stayed silent.

“Don't ever play a player, baby—you'll lose every time.”

She willed her choppy heartbeats to calm. So far the worst he thought was that she'd cheated on him with Marc. He was still in the dark about Operation Moneybags, and Honey hoped to keep it that way. As dangerous as Drew's jealousy could be, it paled compared to what he'd do to her if he found out she wore a wire with the intention of sending him to prison.

He unclipped the bejeweled butterfly from the headband and cracked it against the side of the table. The case opened, revealing the recording device.

His gaze flew to her face. She expected him to berate her, curse a blue streak, but instead he laid his forefinger across his mouth, and said absolutely … nothing. He pulled his fancy fountain pen from an inner jacket pocket and reached for the table tent. Flattening the card stock, he scratched out a single sentence in big block letters. When he finished, he held up the paper so only she could see.

Keep Your Mouth Shut or Magic Mike Dies.

*

They brought Marc up by way of the service elevator, taking it to what he figured must be a private penthouse floor. With his right eye swollen shut, it was tough to tell much of anything for certain. They stepped off, Dawes leading the way toward a door at the end of the hall. Braced between the two thugs, he felt himself being buoyed along.

Downstairs in the atrium they'd worked him over pretty hard. With the two tough guys holding him pinned, Dawes had gotten in a few punches, but even in a one-sided fight, the man was too out of shape to keep things going. Sweaty-faced and fighting for breath, he'd been only too happy to turn Marc over to the hired muscle. They took turns holding his arms while the other pummeled him. Blows to the head, face, solar plexus, and stomach followed, so many that Marc lost count. A baseball bat to his right knee was saved for the finale. Though he was no orthopedist, he was pretty sure that strike to his patella had ended his breakdancing days.