Davy treated him to a long pause, calculated to make Connor feel guilty and flustered. It didn't work. He just waited right back.
'He wants to talk to you,' Davy finally said. His voice was carefully neutral. 'Says it's important.'
The light in the town house bedroom went off. Connor lifted the camera to the ready. 'Don't even want to know,' he said.
Davy grunted in disgust. 'Got Tiff's latest adventure on film yet?'
'Any minute now. She's just finishing up.'
'Got plans after?'
Connor hesitated. 'Uh…'
'I've got steaks in the fridge,' Davy wheedled. 'And a case of Anchor Steam.'
'I'm not really hungry.'
'I know. You haven't been hungry for the past year and a half. That's why you've lost twenty-five goddamn pounds. Get the pictures, and then get your ass over here. You need to eat.'
Connor sighed. His brother knew how useless his blustering orders were, but he refused to get a clue. His stubborn skull was harder than concrete. 'Hey, Davy. It's not that I don't like your cooking—'
'Nick's got some news that might interest you about Novak.'
Connor shot bolt upright in his seat, the heavy camera bouncing painfully off his scarred leg. 'Novak? What about Novak?'
'That's it. That's all he said.'
'That filthy fuck is rotting in a maximum security prison cell. What news could there possibly be about him?'
'Guess you better call and find out, huh? Then hightail it over here. I'll mix up the marinade. Later, bro.'
Connor stared at the phone in his band, too rattled to be annoyed at Davy's casual bullying. His hand was shaking. Whoa. He wouldn't have thought there was still that much adrenaline left in the tank.
Kurt Novak, who had set in motion a chain of events that effectively ruined Connor's life. Or so he saw it on his self-pitying days, which were happening way too often lately. Kurt Novak, who had murdered Connor's partner, Jesse. Who was responsible for the coma, the scars, the limp. Who had blackmailed and corrupted Connor's colleague Ed Riggs.
Novak, who had almost gotten his vicious, filthy claws into Erin, Ed's daughter. Her incredibly narrow escape had given him nightmares for months. Oh, yeah. If there was one magic word on earth that could jolt him awake and make him give a shit, it was Novak.
Erin. He rubbed his face and tried not to think of the last time he'd seen Erin's beautiful face, but the image was burned indelibly into his mind. She'd been wrapped in a blanket in the back of the patrol car. Dazed with shock. Her eyes had been huge with horror and betrayal.
He had put that look in her eyes.
He gritted his teeth against the twisting ache of helpless anger that went along with that memory, and the explosion of sensual images. They made him feel guilty and sick, but they wouldn't leave him alone. Every detail his brain had recorded about Erin was erotically charged, right down to the way her dark hair swirled into an elfin, downward-pointing whorl at the nape of her neck when she pulled it up. The way she had of looking at the world with those big, thoughtful eyes. Self-possessed and quiet, drawing her own mysterious conclusions. Making him ache and burn to know what she was thinking.
And then
A flash of movement caught his eye, and he yanked the camera up to the ready. Tiff had already scuttled halfway down the steps before he got in a series of rapid-fire shots. She shot a furtive glance to the right, then to the left, dark hair swishing over her beige raincoat. The guy followed her down the steps. Tall, fortyish, balding. Neither of them looked particularly relaxed or fulfilled. The guy tried to kiss her. Tiff turned away so the kiss landed on her ear. He got it all on film.
Tiff got into her car. It roared to life, and she pulled away, faster than she needed to on the rainy, deserted street. The guy stared after her, bewildered. Clueless bastard. He had no idea what a snake pit he was sliding into. Nobody ever did, until it was too late.
Connor let the camera drop. The guy climbed his steps and went back inside, shoulders slumped. Those pictures ought to be enough for Phil Kurtz, Tiff's scheming dickhead of a husband. Ironically, Phil was cheating on Tiff, too. He just wanted to make sure that Tiff wouldn't be able to screw him over in the inevitable acrimonious divorce.
It made him nauseous. Not that he cared who Tiff Kurtz was sleeping with. She could boff a whole platoon of balding suits if she wanted. Phil was such a whiny, vindictive prick, he almost didn't blame her, and yet, he did. He couldn't help it. She should leave Phil. Make it clean, honest. Start a new life. A real life.
Hah. Like he had any right to judge. He tried to laugh at himself, but the laugh petered out with no breath to bear it up. He couldn't stomach the betrayal. Lying and sneaking, slinking around in the shadows like a bad dog trying to get away with something. It pressed down on his chest, suffocating him. Or maybe that was just the effect of all the unfiltered cigarettes he was sucking on.
It was his own fault for letting Davy talk him into helping out with the detective agency. He hadn't been able to face going back to his old job after what happened last fall, but he should've known better. After putting a colleague behind bars for setting you up to die, well, following cheating spouses around wasn't exactly therapeutic. Davy must figure that Tiff was just the kind of stultifying no-brainer that even his washed-up little brother would have a hard time fucking up.
Oh, man. The pity party was getting ugly. He clenched his teeth and tried to adjust his attitude by sheer brute force. Davy unloaded Tiff and her ilk onto him because he was bored with them, and who could blame him. And if Connor couldn't take it, he should shut up and get another job. Security guard, maybe. Night shift, so he wouldn't have to interact with anybody. Maybe he could be a janitor in some huge industrial facility. Shove a push broom down miles of deserted corridors night after night. Oh, yeah. That ought to cheer him right up.
It wasn't like he was hurting for money. His house was paid for. The investments Davy had forced him to make had done fine. His car was a vintage '67 Caddy that would not die. He didn't care about expensive clothes. He didn't date. Once he'd acquired the stereo and video system that he liked, he hardly knew what to spend the interest dividends on. With what he had socked away, he could probably scrape by even if he never worked again.
God, what a bleak prospect. Forty-odd years more of scraping along, doing nothing, meaning nothing to anyone. It made him shudder.
Connor fished the unsmoked cigarette out of his coat pocket. Everything got dirty and stained, everything broke down, everything had a price. It was time to accept reality and stop sulking. He had to get his life back. Some kind of life.
He'd liked his life once. He'd spent nine years as an agent in the undercover FBI task force that his partner Jesse had dubbed 'The Cave,' and he'd been good at feeling his way into the parts he played. He'd seen his share of ugly stuff, and yeah, he'd been haunted by some of it, but he'd also known the bone-deep satisfaction that came from doing what he was born to do. He'd loved being in the middle of everything, wired to a taut web of interconnected threads; touch one, and the whole fabric rippled and hummed. Senses buzzing, brain working overtime, churning out connections, deductions, conclusions. He'd loved it. And he'd loved trying to make a difference.
But now the threads were ripped. He was numb and isolated, in free fall. What good would it do to hear about Novak? He couldn't help. His web was cut. He had nothing to offer. What would be the point?
He lit the cigarette and groped around in his mind for Nick's number. It popped up instantly, blinking on the screen inside his mind. Photographic memory was a McCloud family trait. Sometimes it was useful, sometimes it was just a dumb parlor trick. Sometimes it was a curse. It kept things eternally fresh in his brain that he would prefer to forget. Like that white linen halter top that Erin had worn at the Riggs family Fourth of July picnic, for instance. Six goddamn years ago, and the memory was as sharp as broken glass. She'd been braless that day, so it was by far the best view he'd ever gotten of her beautiful tits. High and soft and tenderly pointed, bouncing every time she moved. Dark, taut nipples pressed hard against the thin fabric. He'd been amazed that Barbara, her mother, had allowed it. Particularly after Barbara had caught him staring. Her eyes had turned to ice.
