Liquid Lies (23 page)

“So,” she said, because the sudden silence placed terrible pressure on her ears and tear ducts. “You know where I live. You’ve seen my place. Tit for tat. Where do you live?”

“Live?”

She nudged her chin at the outer wall. “Live. Out there. When you’re not working.”

“Um…”

“Not Washington, I bet.”

“You’d win that bet.”

“Aha. We’re getting somewhere. So where do you sleep at night when you’re not”—she opened her arms—“here.”

He tilted his head. Opened his mouth. Closed it. Then he rapped his knuckles twice on the doorjamb. “Check.”

A poker player, eh? “Seems a bit unfair.”

“Does anything about you and I seem fair?” His stare bored into her, frustratingly hot. She couldn’t look away. And no, he wasn’t being remotely fair, ordering them apart and then looking at her like that.

“Maybe I’ll tell you.” He sat up. “Someday. If you’re a good girl.”

Oh, God.

He looked down first. He ran a big hand up his forearm, using his fingernails to test the snaking lines of the vine tattoo that strayed out from under his shirtsleeve. Such a tease. She wanted to do that with her own nails, to know the texture of each and every leaf. Saliva filled her mouth. In her palms the phantom hardness of his body burned.

He looked up at her from under his lashes. “You want to ask me about the tat, don’t you.”

Her eyes widened. “Can I?”

His hand made a fist. He knocked.

TWENTY-ONE

Part of Reed enjoyed playing with her; it felt so real, so
normal
. He’d had to stifle a smile on that last check.

Another part of him wanted to tell her more—tell her everything. But that could be more dangerous than the kissing or touching.

The first of his checks she’d tolerated with a gentle roll of the eyes. The second frustrated the hell out of her. She looked ready to crawl across the bathroom tile and smack the secrets of his tat right out of him. There were so many, it would make quite the mess, that was for sure.

He couldn’t allow himself to think about her crawling toward him, that hair twisted over one shoulder, hiding one dark eye. Those sweats clinging to her ass. It would lead to him thinking about what else she’d do on her knees, and there wasn’t enough money in the world to pay the fine that came with that infraction.

He shifted, trying to disguise his growing hard-on. Gwen had partly risen, now sitting primly on her heels, her hands in her lap. Her nipples were hard, though, and she wasn’t wearing a bra.

It was easier, with this space between them. A silly idea, but it seemed to be working.

“Ask me something about myself,” she dared, “so I can check you.”

He understood her strategy. They fought on uneven ground, with him consistently above, forever having the advantage. It wouldn’t get any better, as long as Nora kept her here. Gwen craved to have the upper hand in something. She did—with how she made Reed feel—but he couldn’t even give her that tiny little amount or everything would crumble around both of them. That was why he’d pulled away from her earlier today. Why he should stand up right now and shut the doors between them.

He took his time rearranging himself: legs bent, wrists on knees, hands clasped together. “I don’t really need to ask. I know a lot.”

“How?” Fear swooped across her face. “From Nora?”

“No. Your apartment.”

The apartment had seemed normal enough, if you were obsessively neat and didn’t have much of a life outside work.

“I know you have a weird thing for shoes, but you seem to wear the same two or three pairs all the time.”

“How do you—”

He tapped the bottom of his feet. “Worn soles.”

“You looked at the soles of my shoes.”

He took her in, the little ball of Gwen, arms wrapped around her waist. Guarded. Unsure. Scared to be here but comfortable enough to want to sit with him. Talking. “I looked at everything,” he told her.

He had, too. And he’d almost walked out, because he saw her in every foot of that apartment. The tough, confident woman he’d encountered in the alley. The flirtatious, open woman he’d touched in the bar. The second he’d broken into her place, his target had become a person—a person who’d snagged something deep inside him on her way out of his life. A tough feat in such a short time, especially when his whole life was made up of quick, temporary episodes.

“Your collection of really bad teen movies is stellar, to say the least,” he continued. “You have a killer kitchen but you must eat out a lot because there’s not anything in your fridge or pantry.”

Her lips parted, shocked. But not in a bad way. He clung to that, wanting more.

“You love your family. There are pictures of them everywhere. One sister?”

She nodded, holding her breath.

The photos with her mom stopped when Gwen couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen. Dead, he guessed, but he wouldn’t bring it up, because he could see the sorrow in her eyes and knew she couldn’t talk about it.

He wanted to kiss her for that.

Quick. Put something definite between them.

“Tell me about Griffin. The ‘something like that’ boyfriend.”

“Ha!” She knocked, the sorrow kicking out of her expression. Bright challenge lit up her eyes.

He gladly took up the gauntlet.

“See, I don’t think he’s your boyfriend at all. I’m guessing, by the picture I saw of the two of you on your shelf, that you guys have been friends for a long time. I’m guessing that he wants something more from you, and maybe you feel a little trapped by that. I think you don’t want to be with him. Which was why you were going to go home with me.”

She knocked frantically, not realizing that, by doing so, she was answering in the affirmative.

He put a finger to his lips and tilted an ear toward the hall. Gwen watched him, wide-eyed, her hands braced on the door frame, ready to jump up at the slightest signal from him. If ever there was a perfect opportunity for them to cut off this conversation and separate, this was it.

He gave the all-clear sign. Her shoulders relaxed and she settled back into place. So did he.

“It’s okay, you know,” he said, lowering his voice.

She eyed him. “What is?”

“To feel trapped. To want something else.”

“I thought we weren’t going there.”

He shook his head and waved a hand. “I’m not talking about me. I’m talking in generalities. I’m talking about when you get into something that makes you itch. Makes you feel tied down.” Yeah, he knew that well. Too well. “So then you move on, thinking you’ve cured yourself, cut into the wound to relieve some of the pressure, until you start to get antsy again. And you find a situation exactly like the one you just got out of and it starts all over.”

Wow, he hadn’t meant to say all that. He scratched at the stubble on the back of his head.

Gwen fixated on a crack in the tile grout, lost in her own thoughts. Apparently he’d hit a nerve.

“We’ve been best friends since high school, Griffin and I. We’ve never slept together.”

That shouldn’t have mattered at all, but Reed had to hide his smile. “So why are you with him?”

She made a face. “Family?”

“Family.”

“Yeah. Our families sort of…expect it.”

Ah. One of those big money, powerful dynasties he’d only heard about or seen on TV. And she went along with that? The Gwen he knew?

“Wow. Okay.” He chose his next words carefully. “So you don’t want it. Maybe, when this is over, you can break it off with him.”

Her head snapped up and she struck him with such a shocked and horrified expression that he actually recoiled. Anger tightened her mouth and set the slash of her eyebrows.

He could tell that she didn’t think this would ever be over. She thought she would die here. Everything they couldn’t say dropped between them like a rock.

“How did you get into kidnapping, Reed?”

He blinked, determined not to move any other part of his body except his eyelids. “I call it extraction. Or retrieving.”

She held up a hand. “Call it whatever the hell you want. What makes you want to do this? What makes you want to destroy a person’s life? Because you may not kill anyone, but you’re destroying them, regardless.”

“Um.” He shifted his eyes to the shadowed ceiling and took a few deep breaths.

“Well?”

He could say this. He could. It had nothing to do with them. It wouldn’t compromise himself or her.

“I fell into it,” he told the ceiling. “When I was a teenager, I thought I was too cool for school, literally. Just barely graduated. Joined the Marines. After that, I had no prospects. A buddy of mine asked me to work security for some guy, some business bigwig. Boring as all hell. I did that for a couple of years in my early twenties, then my employer asked if I’d be willing to find and bring back someone who owed him money.” He shrugged. “That’s where it started.”

Narrowed, accusatory eyes fell on him. “What happened between then and now? That’s a pretty big time gap.”

“I got really good at setting up extraction jobs—researching them, planning them, going in, and bringing someone out. I got good and I also got…addicted.”

“Addicted?”

That’s it. He’d disgusted her.

He’d never dealt with shame on the job before. Usually, well into the process like he was now, he’d have that interior wall firmly up. He’d be the Retriever until he walked away. But Gwen, true to form, had demolished that wall, and the guilt and shame he usually felt after he collapsed in his own bed now flowed around him.

“It’s a rush, all that knowledge. All that power. All that fucking adrenaline. And it lasts for days, weeks. A massive surge, all the way up until final payment…” His voice died. Just dropped off.

“Sooner or later you’ll crash.”

He barked out a laugh. “I crash every time. Every single job. It ends and I sit in my place and wallow in what I’ve done. I can’t stand it. Can’t stand sitting around feeling sorry for myself. Can’t stand the boredom. Can’t stand all the damn thinking. Then another job comes and I stab myself with the needle, start the high all over again.” It hurt so much, to tell her this, but he couldn’t stop now. “So I know a thing or two about being trapped. About being caught in a machine you don’t know how to turn off. Or aren’t really sure you even want to stop.”

At last he looked at her, and man, was she a sight. All fierce and beautiful, delicate and demanding. Everything he needed, all at once.

“Want to know something else?” he asked, because apparently he’d shocked her speechless.

“What?”

“I’m not sure I want to be cured. Or even if I can be. I keep thinking that I want out, that I want to stop the cycle, but I don’t know if it’s possible. It’s how I’m wired.”

And why, above everything else, he feared being caught by Tracker or the police. Because for someone else to end it all would destroy him. When he left, he’d do it on his terms. When he was capable.

“I don’t understand what possible joy you get out of it. Isn’t what you do supposed to fulfill you on some level?” She winced and pulled her arms tighter around her midsection, and he knew she’d just turned the spotlight on herself.

He considered that, head bent. “I’ve gone after a lot of people who owe money. I’ve extracted hostages so the police won’t get involved, for whatever reason. All my clients are shady.” He tilted his torso sideways, pressing his temple to the door frame. “All except this one job, nine or so years back.”

“One?”

“There was this kid who left home. Eighteen years old and technically an adult, so legally his parents couldn’t make him come back. And his parents weren’t exactly law-abiding citizens so they didn’t want to open themselves to police speculation. Anyway, the kid got sucked into a cult and claimed he wasn’t being held against his will. His parents hired me to get him out of this crazy compound. Now that kid’s a speaker and activist against cults.”

He didn’t know Gwen’s reaction because he couldn’t look at her. The whole speech felt strange…and strangely cathartic.

“I think about that a lot,” he said into the silence. “Every job that comes in, I hope it might be something like that. But there’s precious few opportunities for good among the people I know.”

“Why can’t you just leave?” she asked softly.

The look he threw at her was harder than he’d intended. “Because I’ve been off the government radar since leaving the service. Suddenly reappearing out of thin air? I just don’t know what’ll happen. How can I do it? Get back into…life? So I keep going and going with what I know. Like a fucking robot.”

“So do something else.” She didn’t sound angry anymore, just frustrated. As frustrated as he was with himself.

He threw out his arms. “Like what? You think I wouldn’t if I had the options? I limped through school. I’ve been a ghost for fifteen years. Convicted felons would have an easier time getting real work and would probably have more motivation.” God, he sounded so weak. To think he was worthless and directionless and living a dead-end life was one thing, but to admit it out loud? To someone he actually liked?

“Know what? Never mind. Opening my mouth was a bad idea.” He jumped to his feet and knocked on the door frame. “I’m done.”

He whirled back to his room.

Her angry voice struck him in the back. “You know how to fix that guilt, don’t you?”

He paused, looked over his shoulder. She’d risen to her feet, too.

“Get me out of here,” she said.

He sighed, head hanging. He’d get Gwen through this and then he’d take off. Quit the game. Hide. But if he didn’t see Gwen safely to the other side, he’d be Tracker’s. Or the Feds’. He had to stick around and so did she.

“I can’t.”

He waited for her to slam the door in his face. Instead she lightly pressed the door shut. The click reverberated in his head. And in his heart.

TWENTY-TWO

“The phrase Genesai says over and over,” Nora demanded
. “What does it mean?”

Gwen stood with Nora at the end of the short pier extending out into the lake. A sharp bluff rose on the right, cutting off views of the neighbors. A boathouse squatted on the left, blocking the southern shoreline.