Wanted by a Dangerous Man (6 page)

“The usual. My dad is cutting back a bit, so Rob and I need to step up.”

He nodded, signed the receipt the waiter had brought back, and stood. “Too bad. Have a good lead on one of those most wanted types you’re obsessed with.”

My tongue got thick and heavy. “You do? Which one?”

“Can’t tell you that.”

Lovely. We threaded our way through the other diners while I tried to figure out how to pry the information out of him. I knew it was unlikely to be Corbin, but I couldn’t help but worry. “What’s the tip at least? In general terms.”

Henry squinted one eye. “Guess I can do that. He got back in the country earlier today, and I know where he’s heading.” Henry laughed. “You look shocked, but believe me when I say it’s a good lead.”

The room spun, but I needed to keep Henry talking. “Is that why you’ll be out of town?”

He nodded.

“You can’t tell me where you’re going?”

“Look at your eyes all feverish with excitement. Tell you what. When I catch this scumbag loser, we’ll celebrate with a really nice dinner. We’ll order the most expensive champagne, and lobster stuffed with little lobsters.”

Yech
. I would have rather died than eat a smelly lobster, and I focused on that instead of letting my mind digest what Henry was telling me. He had to be going after Corbin. The odds that someone else on the list had also flown into the country that day were surely about zilch, and I knew that Corbin had caught his interest in the past.

“We’ll do that,” I said automatically. A crazy thought popped into my head: grab Henry, ram my tongue down his throat, and pledge to sleep with him but only if he didn’t endanger himself by chasing violent criminals. But as much as Henry seemed to like me, he probably liked the idea of catching Corbin a whole lot more.

We stood in front of the restaurant. I wasn’t sure what to say or do.

“Thanks for coming out,” Henry said. He moved in, a little too close, and I squirmed back, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear. His lips tightened, then relaxed. “See you in a week.”

“A week? Where are you going?”

He waggled a finger and made an irritating chiding sound. “Nice try.”

I wished him a good night and hurried to my car, my mind in a haze. If anyone was going to get Corbin’s bounty, it should be me. But I didn’t want him in jail.
 

I got home and immediately checked the phone in the drawer. Two texts.

I’m back. Missed you.

And

Sleep well, lover.

He’d sent the second text only fifteen minutes ago.
 

I texted back:
Be careful. We have to talk tomorrow. Please don’t cancel.

Geez. Look at me, worrying about Corbin. He’d probably tangled with people far more worrisome than Henry, but the truth was that Henry had caught men like Corbin before.

I plugged in my heated comforter and crawled under it. I had a feeling that I was going to be spending way more time with Henry than I cared to, pumping him for information to keep my mind at ease.

Rob came by my apartment the next afternoon, which gave me something to do besides stare at my phones, waiting to hear from Corbin.
 

Rob had a bluish bruise under one eye, magnified by his round glasses.

“What happened? Work?”

“Jealous boyfriend,” he said. “The girl set me up.”

I could just imagine. “So, what, you were innocently talking to her… and what?”

“Pleading the fifth.” He slung his duffel bag onto my small kitchen table and unzipped a side pocket. “When are you going to move? This place is depressing.”

“When Dad gives me a raise.”

“You make enough to afford something not condemned by the city.” He dropped a file on the table. “Dad wants us to work together on this.”

“The embezzlement guy. Hoboken…”
 

“Syre,” he finished. “I told Pops that either of us could handle it, and he got his panties into a knot.”

“Weird.”

“Martha’s putting the pressure on. She was hinting to me that if Dad doesn’t cut back, she’s going to leave.”

I didn’t see what that had to do with us working the case together. “Since when does Martha call you up for advice?”

“She didn’t. I was over for dinner, Dad went to the bathroom, and that’s when she said it.”

“They invited you for dinner?”

“Oh.” He laughed, rolling his eyes. “She tried to set me up with her hairdresser. It was a one-time thing.”

“She never tried to set me up with anyone.”

“Consider yourself lucky.” He unzipped the duffel’s main compartment and pulled out an enormous stack of papers. “Photocopies of Syre’s cell phone records and some other odds and ends. Paid his ex-wife a visit yesterday. We now know that he’s got expensive taste, he’s extremely paranoid, he made his wife get implants when she turned forty, he pops boner pills—”

“You can stop there.”

Rob laughed. “Syre also ripped off a former business associate who he hasn’t been in contact with. The guy never pressed charges, so he’s not in the files, but the wife told me all about that. Anyway, the business partner was quite happy to give up the goods on the stripper girlfriend.”

“Stripper. Classy.”

“I know. What a loser. Anyway, her shift at the club starts at 4:00, so I’ll go down and see what I can find.”

“Rob!”

He smiled. “It’s a tough job but someone has to do it. That leaves you to stake out either the mother’s house or the storage facility, and Katrina can handle the other one.”

“I’ll do the storage facility.” It wouldn’t be the first time that someone got the bright idea to live in one, thinking no one would consider looking there.

Rob distributed the contents of the folders into three piles. I cleared my throat. “You have any idea why we’re working this together?”

“Ah. Because of Henry.”

“We’re friends.”

“Um…” He aimed an exasperated look at me. “Not what I meant. After you split Jones the other night, Dad is paranoid we’ll get scooped. Thinks the sharks and vultures are circling. He spent hours on the phone yelling about ethics and fairness.”

“So?”

“So he probably figures two of us on this means faster progress.”

“In other words, he would have handled it, but Martha’s upset, so he decided that one of him equals two of us.”
 

“Don’t get pissed.” He double-checked the folders, then shoveled two of them back in the duffel. “I’ll take Kat’s to her.”

“I don’t understand why you
aren’t
offended.”

“Because it’s just a job. Unless you’re getting bonuses that I’m not aware of.” He opened my fridge. “This orange juice expired?” Without waiting for an answer, he twisted off the top and peered inside. I watched in horror as he drank straight from the carton. When it was empty, he belched.
 

“Nice,” I said.

“Do you mind if I have some orange juice?”
 

I swatted at him, but he was already moving toward the door. “The interest and service charges on that orange juice mean you owe me dinner!” I said.

“It’s a deal.” He left, and I stood alone in the kitchen, looking at the pile of papers on the opened folder. Great. He’d left the bulk of the tedious work to me.
 

I dug a highlighter out of a drawer and tucked into the files. But a few minutes later, my mind started to wander. Was Dad finally going to retire? Seemed impossible, but then, Dad didn’t want to get divorced a fifth time. A smile crept across my face. Once I was running Stroop Finders, things were going to change. Less dealing with sketchy bail bondsmen, and more detective work. I thought about something Corbin had said the weekend we were snowed in together. He’d told me that I liked the hunt. He was probably right.
 

After three hours of squinting at old Hobo’s credit card and phone bills, I consolidated my notes, then put on my coat and headed outside. Time to go by the storage unit.

Teenagers streamed by on skateboards and scooters, so I didn’t see him until I was almost at my car. He seemed to materialize from the shadows.

I jumped, my fists coming up protectively even though I’d already identified my visitor. “Fuck.” I plastered my hand to my trembling chest.

“Scare you?” Corbin’s voice was low, seductive.

“No,” I said testily. I pushed past him and unlocked the car. “I don’t have time to arrest you right now, so you’ll have to come back later.”

“You surely have twenty minutes.” He stood close enough that sexual charisma was like a palpable thing between us. He wore a short, dark coat, a gray scarf, and blue jeans with a yellowish vintage wash. His dark hair was a little messy, and I wanted to comb my fingers through it.

“Fifteen minutes,” I countered. “What do you want?”

“To show you something. It’s not far. You drive.”

“You don’t mind being seen in a go-kart, then? Your standards are slipping, Corbin.”
 

He snickered. I got in the car and looked around, trying to guess which vehicle belonged to Corbin. No familiar black SUV in sight.
 

He directed me out of my run-down neighborhood, past the industrial park and to a newish luxury development. Following Corbin’s orders, I pulled into the driveway of an end unit.
 

“That was eight minutes. I have to leave thirty seconds ago.”

Corbin jumped out of the car and opened my door. When I didn’t move, he unbuckled my seatbelt and extended his hand.

I accepted it, and he led me through the front door. He switched on the light. “What do you think?”

I looked around. It was decorated in an ultra-modern way, all sleek designs and black shiny surfaces. Beautiful but sterile. “Eh. I liked the other place better. Is this your new… home?” I curled my fingers into quotation marks.

Corbin caught my hand and led me into the sparsely furnished living room. “Thinking about it. Haven’t made a decision yet. What was better about the other one?”

“The enormous skylight. It was open. Warm.”

He nodded, looking around. “Well, I have this one for a week.”

“You can do that?”

“You can do anything you want if you know how to ask for it.”

I put my hands on my hips. “Please tell me the owner isn’t stuffed into a box in the basement.”

“The owner isn’t stuffed into a box in the basement,” he repeated.

“You’re giving me the impression that the owner might be boxed and in the attic, or bagged and in the basement.” I shot him an evil look. “Have you considered that it will be much easier for me to find you if I know where you’re living?”

“I was hoping you’d spend a lot of time here,” he said, dropping his coat and scarf on a polished table.

I blushed.

He leaned up against a wall, arms over his chest, blue-green eyes studying me. “Not like that. Well, like that, too. Remember how I suggested you come work for me?”

Like I could forget. He’d said that the people he worked for were interested in getting from one place to another. Sometimes that meant going through something—and by something, he meant some
one
—that could have been handled in a different way. He seemed to think that if I came to work for him, I could find safer ways of doing… whatever illegal things he did.

But I hadn’t been able to reconcile that with the fact that I would be working for a criminal organization. And that every time I failed at my job, it meant that someone was going to die. Thanks, but no thanks.

“I said no.”

“This would be a one-time thing. One project, one month. Unless you wanted to extend it.”

“No.”

His frown threatened to morph into a pout. “You’re being unfair. You don’t even know—”

“If you tell me more, it’ll turn into one of those situations where if I don’t go along with it, you’ll have to find a way to make sure I don’t talk or something.”

His head came back like I’d slapped him. Then he shrugged, feigning casualness. “Come see the upstairs at least.”

I could spare a few more minutes. I’d always had a curiosity about the way other people lived… probably the same thing that made me enjoy poking around in others’ lives and inventing interesting backgrounds for complete strangers.

Corbin took my hand, and I smiled, turning my face so he wouldn’t see.

The second floor was nicer than I would have expected. Certainly less tacky. The main bedroom had an enormous hot tub. I stared at it for a few seconds, the gears in my head churning.

One of Corbin’s arms drifted around my shoulder, enveloping me in his exciting scent. “You know you want to try it…”

“Never claimed otherwise, but I don’t have time.”

“That’s a pity.” He pulled off his T-shirt as he walked toward the tub, and I watched the muscles in his broad back rippling. He turned on the water and the whirlpool, then slowly started to unbutton his jeans.
 

I stared. I had never had a chance to actually watch him strip before. I wanted to slather his perfect abs in whipped cream and spend all evening licking him clean.

“What are you so busy doing?” he wanted to know.

“Work,” I managed to squeeze out despite the fact that I was almost drooling. “Have to stake out a storage unit for a few hours. Very glamorous stuff.”

He stepped out of the jeans, and stood before me in black boxer briefs. He had the most amazing abs I’d ever seen. I’d always thought that bodies like his didn’t exist except in the editing programs of photographers, but now I had proof that it was physically possible. “Give me another twenty minutes, Audrey.” His deep voice was low, intimate.
 

How could I walk away when his cock was half erect and his eyes gleamed like that?

I shucked off my coat and kicked my boots away without bothering to fully untie them. I pulled off my shirts, not caring that they were full of static, making strands of hair float across my face.

The rest of my clothes quickly joined the pile on the floor, and I wrestled my messy, curly hair into a bun atop my head. Corbin waited patiently next to the tub, his muscular legs now devoid of boxer briefs. His cock rose, proudly erect. When I neared, he caught me around the waist and lifted me into the tub before I even knew what was happening.