A Spill of Blood Ch. 04

If you're still here, welcome. Novel-length stories in installments take patience, I know.

Where we left off: Harry had Sydney stashed at the home of a family friend to keep her safe while he went to meet Nikki, another escort at Regan's party. He hoped to get a line on Larry Beck, one of the men, but really all he got was laid. Charlie Everett, another suspect, has just been murdered. Harry suspects it was on Regan's orders when Everett attempted to ransom some information to Regan.

—C

CHAPTER 4

"I figured," Sydney repeated her words of the previous evening.

The two of us were sitting at Uncle Jimmy's kitchen table. I'd spent almost an hour making sure I wasn't followed. I didn't use my own car in case someone tailed me. I picked up a light-silver Malibu at the rental place and let it merge in with every other cookie-cutter silver sedan on the road. I spent the time along side streets, through the Holland Tunnel, then more of the same as I worked my way south. Finally, a totally illegal U-ey on Bayview Avenue around a Jersey barrier convinced me I was clean, and I headed across the Bayonne Bridge onto Staten Island.

Jimmy announced he was going out for breakfast when I showed up. It wasn't that he didn't want to see me. It was that he didn't want to hear much beyond the answer to his quiet question.

"Are you sure?"

"Ninety-nine percent," I replied. It didn't make me happy to tell him. His sad nod said it all. Uncle Jimmy didn't like bad guys. He didn't have a huge beef with the low-level kind, people just trying to get by in a city that could be very cold. If the law took a dim view of your way of doing that, if you were some kid boosting a car for a few bucks, he'd run you in. But there was no animosity in it.

The ones who ruined lives? Those he had a hard-on for. The drug kingpins for whom a few million wasn't enough so they'd pump that poison to kids, the wife-beaters, the pimps who scoured the bus terminal for new blood. "Fuck the fuckers," he'd say.

But dirty cops were a quandary. There was that thin blue line. Jimmy believed in it. "Us against the shit tide rolling out of the city's sewers" meant that comrades were comrades, and peccadillos, as he saw them, were a gray area best ignored. When I'd had my difficulties, his advice was "Don't see nuthin' long as everybody's got everybody's back and no one's gettin' hurt, Harry."

A cop who was somebody's private hit squad, though? No, that was over the line... way over it, and that made them part of the sewage. But just because he saw it that way didn't mean it didn't cause him serious agita to go against a fellow officer.

"I'll do what you need me to do," he said as he pulled on his jacket. "You know that. Fuck the fuckers." But his voice lacked its usual heat in saying it. It was almost sad as he went on. "But I don't wanna know precincts or names unless I need to know, or how far the shit has spread. Leave me my illusions they're all solid blue like your dad was, Harry."

He looked to see if that upset me. It didn't. I'd known the man all my life. I trusted him. I knew where his moral compass pointed and a few degrees off north was okay by me.

"I promise she's safe here from anyone, no matter how far it goes," he went on. He was telling me he'd pull the trigger no matter who was trying to hurt her. "But beyond that situation, the cleanup..." He looked away. "I'd take it as a personal favor if there's any way I can stay out of it. You and me, we're different people."

We were. It's why I ended up carrying a license instead of a badge, because I couldn't look the other way as he suggested. Neither of our compasses pointed true north, but they didn't point exactly the same way.

"We're good, Uncle Jimmy," I assured him, "and I appreciate what you do."

Now, I sat facing Sydney across the breakfast table. She'd seized on the shopping bag of clothes with glee and emerged shortly in jeans and a sweater. The tight taper of the jeans emphasize the length of her legs, and the cashmere draped softly across her serious curves. Like I said, she'd have looked good in a burlap sack, but I had to admit this was way better than good.

I'd stared at her, the background part of my brain thinking thoughts that weren't going to happen in Jimmy's house, the foreground trying to decide exactly how to tell her the body of a hit man was in her apartment.

"I figured," she said after a moment. "Stop panicking about how to tell me."

What? I'm trying not to panic you. Oh.

Then I wondered about her figuring.

"Do I really come across as the type to put the move on every pretty woman I meet?" There may have been a little heat in my voice. "Sasha's got it ten times over Nikki. She had guys' tongues hanging out. I did nothing even when it was offered. And for the record, you were the one who started—"

She was laughing and shaking her head halfway through that outburst. "No! I'm not saying that. I know you don't. And yes, I made the first move on you. You're not that type of guy, but she's that type of woman."

I settled back in the chair in confusion.

"Let me guess," she said, "big vulnerable eyes, soft voice, hesitant, scared?"

She saw in my reaction that she was right.

"That's the kind of guy you are, Harry. A knight who'll do anything for the damsel if she's in distress. A femme fatale? You're proof against them. That's why someone like Sasha doesn't stand a chance with you even though ninety percent of the men in this city would cut off their left arm... or left something... to have a shot with her. She's even reeled in Jordan, and he's had more gorgeous women than you can shake a stick at. It doesn't matter his twist is he wants to break her; he's still hooked by that slinky allure." I'd shared my suspicions about where that relationship was going when I'd told her about my visit to his house. She'd agreed.

"And Nikki's that type of girl. Not damsel in distress... the kind of girl to put the move on every pretty man she meets." She was grinning as she bent my words back at me.

"You're wrong. She's really scared, and she should be."

She sobered a little. "Yeah, she should be. Like I am. It's not every pretty man, just those she wants something from. Some, like Larry, it's the lifestyle. With a guy like you, it's something else. From you she wants protection. So she put the moves on you. I knew she would. It's what she does, ties men to her, and she's good enough at it that I was pretty sure she'd succeed. I'm not—"

"No, you're wrong." I was disgruntled at the implication I'd been maneuvered. "She's like... like a deer hiding from wolves."

"A deer?" That got me a snort, and her amusement drove away her usual discretion. "That deer wears studded black leather and carries a paddle when she's around Larry. If she figured you for the same kind of guy as him, you might have found yourself tied spread out on that four-poster hoping she was in a good mood like other guys have."

That last came along with a little of the look. It was the one that said, Yeah, you're the guy when it comes to keeping someone alive. But some other areas, Harry? Heh, you're a babe in the woods when it comes to the intrigues of the oldest profession. It wasn't the first time she'd turned that look on me, and she wasn't the first woman to do it lately. It wasn't scornful, more fondly amused, but that didn't help my pride.

"I'm not pretty," I muttered, looking for some iota I could be right about.

"No... no, you're not." Sydney's face grew serious again. "On the surface you seem like another one of a million average-looking guys. If you tried to score with me, I wouldn't groan inside, but I wouldn't get butterflies either. Like I said before, in a suit you're just a guy at some corporate thing. But..."

She looked away, thoughtful.

"But that's wrong. You hide what's underneath as well as Nikki does. And that something, the part that's under there, that makes me feel a little bit afraid and a whole lot safe." She looked back at me.

"I saw your expression in that mop closet with Brady. You didn't mind hurting him. It didn't matter that he was a cop. That's the part that's scary, the thought of you turning that ruthlessness my way. But it's not turned my way, is it?" She didn't wait for a response. She shook her head. "No, and that's what makes me feel a whole lot safe. You had a gun. If you hadn't gotten the drop on him somehow, if he'd seen me and tried to... you know... he'd be dead right now. I don't know how I know that, but I do. You're a knight. You rescued me."

I didn't like the label, but she was right about what I would have done.

"I know it," she said, "and it came through when I told Nikki about it. So, she responded the way she did because she's really good at guys, and she knew what would bring that out."

"Which is the real Nikki? The one I saw or the one Larry Beck sees?"

"I don't think either. She's just a girl. One who had a shitty time when she was younger and who happened to grow up with looks and a gift for playing to what a guy wanted, and used both to get the hell out."

"And you? Is that what you do? Show me the vulnerable side, show another guy the paddle?"

That got a small smile and headshake. "I can't carry off dominatrix. No, I'm pretty vanilla when it comes to the escort business. You get a pretty face, long legs, big tits, and not a lot of inhibitions. I hope that's enough for you."

I didn't know what to say to that. She expected something, maybe for me to protest that she was everything I dreamed of. Her expression turned concerned.

"Harry? Can we talk about us?

"What about us?"

"I'm not Nikki. I'm not using sex just to try to cement you to me. I like you, even though you scare me a little. Hell, that's part of the attraction, the bad boy that scares us a little and thrills us a lot. You're not hard on the surface, but it's there, even so. Not like most men." She was echoing what Nikki had said to me, but not like she'd gotten it from her. More like she'd come to the same conclusion.

"I've been thinking about choices," she went on. "I like the going out and the clothes and the nice apartment. If I'm being honest about myself, I like the attention. But I think I would have woken up one day and realized I had nothing except a full closet and a decent bank account. No guy, no real friends, no life that wasn't superficial.

"I lay there in that little twin bed upstairs last night, all alone, thinking. One of the things I realized was that I wasn't even seeing the big picture. It wasn't just making a choice between a steady guy and dates with strangers, between real experiences and a party buzz. If that was the only choice, I wouldn't be scared for my life.

"The world I live in isn't filled with nice people. I mean, nobody's world is perfectly safe, but my world has a bigger share of cruel people who'll just use you. To some of them I'm"—her voice caught for a second, then continued—"I'm just a whore. And whores are expendable to them. Just look at Cara. Just look at me if you hadn't been there. I'd be a body in an apartment, lying there until the super came to see what the smell was."

Graphic, but she wasn't wrong.

"And I realized I'd made a poor choice. But I don't think it's too late to fix it."

I didn't know what to say to that. I was distracted from trying as she stood and moved around the table. She settled onto my lap. My arm went around that slender waist instinctively as she laid hers around my neck.

"Harry, I said I like you and I mean it. Forget pretty. You're okay to look at, and pretty boys are overrated. You excite me, both in and out of the sack, and that's what counts. Look, I'm not going to pretend that I'm some kind of angel. You know I'm not. I have this hope that I can have it all. Maybe the two of us can come out of this with something that lets us have the lifestyle. But even if not, even if I have to make a choice, I'm thinking I better start making better ones. You're a million-times better choice than Tom or Dick even if you don't drive a Mercedes."

It took me a second to figure out Tom, Dick... and Harry. My mind was half on what was in my arms. It was something that said it was ready to be kissed right about now. Hell, it said it was ready to be laid back on Jimmy's table and taken if I was so inclined. It said it was mine.

She went on. "If you're wondering how I can say that after yesterday, then stop. I don't care that you slept with Nikki. I knew it would probably happen, and I told you I'm not a jealous person. I mean I was actually kind of laughing at you not knowing what you were walking into." She chuckled. "Call it a surprise present from me to you."

She searched my eyes for a response. I was busy with the skirmish going on in my mind.

On one hand: Sydney. She had my dick half-hard just sitting on my lap, gray eyes in a gorgeous face staring into mine, the firm curve of hip under my hand and soft curve of unfettered breast against my shoulder. And I liked her. It hadn't started that way. I had felt she needed me at first. I had felt she might be useful in getting out from under Regan's threat. But beyond eye candy, she wasn't much more than a client. Now though, she'd grown on me with her humor and intelligence. I liked her.

On the other side, there was the memory of Amber. There was the conscious decision I'd made once I'd pulled myself out of the bottle. Never again. I'd stuck to the fuckbuddies of the world after that. Nobody was going to get inside enough to be able to tear my life apart again.

Sydney misinterpreted my silence.

"Hey! If you're thinking about Lexie and whoever was in her apartment, and wondering if you're headed for a repeat, I'm done with that life. I know you're the type of guy that needs a one-man woman. That's okay by me. Nobody but you. But—" She leaned down and kissed me. It was a short kiss, but it was full of promise. "But I'm okay with a double standard. I mean, not with you running around behind my back. I wouldn't say anything because it's not my place to try to control you and you don't owe a woman like me anything, but I wouldn't like it. It'd make me insecure."

Yeah, like this woman would be insecure about a man, I thought.

"But if you liked Nikki every once in a while, a really long while, you could bring her to our bed. I'd give you a threesome if you wanted as long as I'm one of the three. Not a lot of inhibitions, remember?"

God, this woman is offering me a fantasy world.

But I spotted the trap. The trap wasn't in the woman or what she offered. It was daydreaming about what she offered and taking my eyes off the ball. You didn't called for a strike in the situation we faced. You got dead. And so did she and who knows who else. I fought off the mental image she'd just shoved in my mind: the filling in a Sydney–Nikki sandwich, to use Sasha's metaphor. Much as I wanted to do something else right now, we needed to get back on track.

"First, we get out of this alive," I said. I broke it to her brutally. "There was a man waiting at your apartment to kill both of us. He was a pro. He almost got me. And don't forget Charlie Everett. You know, he wanted to come out of this with something extra too."

Every bit of humor and affection fled from her expression. The panic returned.

"The killer's dead now," I reassured her. I left it at that even though I knew she would misinterpret how he got that way. Given her fright, I decided not to tell her the body was still there. Time enough for that once I'd dealt with it.

After a long moment of pulling herself together, she asked. "Did he try for Nikki too?" I said she was intelligent.

"No. She was holed up in her apartment and wasn't a threat to anyone. I think they saw her as bait for you, me, or both of us. That's probably changed now. Call her, make sure she understands that she's not safe even in your building. I already told Jimmy to pick up a burner phone for you. He'll know what to do with it after."

"Okay."

"I need to go hear what Jess found out. I need to call Detective Murray back. I need to talk to your doorman, William, and see if I can figure out how that guy got in. That might be tricky because I wasn't completely upfront with him."

"What should I do?

"Stay here and be safe. Call Nikki and warn her. When you talk to her, see if you can put any leverage on her to let me talk to Larry Beck." I stood to go. "Oh... and maybe don't give Uncle Jimmy a heart attack. Put on a bra."

She grinned, a weak one, but still a grin.

• • •

"It's after ten. I guess hearing about the person allegedly trying to kill your client is somewhere at the bottom of your priority list." Detective Murray's voice held that same world-weariness it had held every time I'd met him.

"Let's not forget redecorating my face," I said lightly. "It grieves me not to look good when my mug gets in the papers. However, it's true that keeping said client alive this morning is actually a higher priority than talking to you."

"Oh?" There was a world of curiosity in that single word.

"In a bit. I want to know if I've ruined another day of yours or if you're going to arrest me for whatever law I happen to be breaking today." Those had been the alternatives he'd promised.

"Are you breaking any laws?"

"The day is young."

"You haven't ruined my day." My heart fell. "You've ruined an entire goddam week. There is... quite unofficially and quite vaguely... a definite odor of shititude around the name Carson Brady. And there is an even more 'get the fuck out here Darryl Murray before someone hears me talking to you' suggestion that you can get a whiff of that aroma in other places as well."

I let out the breath I didn't know I was holding. You ask a cop to turn on a cop and you get a cold shoulder if you're lucky, a beating if you're unlucky, worse if you've really stepped in it. When I'd made the choice, I had a hunch I'd have gotten the first if I'd gone to Detective Gibson. He was sharp, but he didn't seem the type to allow guests into the laundry room. Murray, though, something about him reminded me of my dad.

"Then," I said, "I'd like to buy you a cup of coffee."

"Why?"

"Detective Murray, the answer to your question is, yes, I've broken a law." He waited. "How 'bout if I tell you I know where there's a body?"

"Did you create it?"

"Not really, he was trying to make me be the body. Not only did he fail, he shot himself. But I moved him after so no one would find him."

I got the sigh again. It seemed to say, Why can't I just have one day... just one fuckin' day? "Who is it?"

"No idea. He might be a cop buddy of Brady's. He might be some hired help."

"Mr. Morgan, you were a police officer once. I reached out and got two different stories. One version said you had a yellow streak. The other version said you were a straight arrow."

"Which did you believe?"

"The first came from some officers who worked with you. The second came from some old-timers." I wondered how he'd known about the old-timers. I figured he'd found out I was a cop's son and asked around.

"So, which did you believe?" I asked again.

"Neither. I trusted my own instincts, which was that I wouldn't necessarily trust your compadres with my lunch money. However, now I'm having my doubts about those old-timers too. Senility hits everyone."

"Sure," I said, my voice sarcastic. "I call 911 and tell them I got a dead body on my hands. My second one in a week. The next thing I know I'm in a holding cell for forty-eight hours while they try to decide if I'm the next Joel Rifkin. That's assuming I don't get charged right away. While there, I get a two a.m. visit from someone Brady's paid."