“I’m going to take things from here,” he told her, snagging the dryer and brush from her.
The noise from the hot air roared in her ears as he began to slowly stroke the bristles through her hair. Steady. Sure. As if he’d done this before.
Freak.
When everything was dry and smooth, he clicked the Conair off and put it on the counter beside her.
Meeting her eyes in the mirror, the man just stared at her.
She cleared her throat. “I have to go—”
His face wasn’t right all of a sudden, the features seeming to change into….
She opened her mouth and dragged in her last breath to scream just as a blade lifted behind her head.
With a quick slash across her throat, the monster opened a different exhalation route for the air in her lungs, the release not making it high enough to become a cry for help.
Her final image was of a dead, animated corpse that was smiling in the midst of its rotting flesh.
“Party time,” a female voice said.
Chapter Fifteen
Suicide.
As Matthias stewed on the word, a man the size of a bus came into the garage’s studio apartment, his black jacket, gloves, and leathers making him look like a Hell’s Angel. That harsh expression fit the job description, too— and all those piercings didn’t mark him as a pussy, either.
Jim made the introductions, classifying Matthias as “a friend,” and the leather-wearing roomie as “Adrian.”
Trying on the concept for size, Matthias found it fit, and waited for more to come to him: a context, a place, a triggering reason. Nothing bubbled up, even as he strained against the constipation in his head—
With sudden clarity, he looked over at Heron. “The desert.”
The man with the answers stopped talking to his roommate and nodded. “Yeah. That’s where it happened.”
“And you were right there.” As Heron nodded again, Matthias’s frustration roared. “How the fuck do we know each other—”
Any answer was cut off by the sound of a car pulling up in front of the garage. Instantly, guns were outted, and Matthias joined the party, snagging the one off the table.
God…it felt so good against his palm. So natural.
Matthias shoved himself around and played dog, looking through the drapes. As soon as he saw what was in the driveway, he eased back with a groan. “Son of a bitch.”
“You know her?” Jim asked from over at the window in the door.
Turning around again, he watched as Mels got out of the Toyota and focused on the Harley. It wasn’t a shocker that she’d found the goddamn address; if he’d done it, she could. But he couldn’t believe she’d followed through. He’d hit her with the hard reality before they’d split, and most people would have dropped out of the drama right then and there.
“Let me handle this,” he said, going over to the door and pushing Jim out of the way—even though the other man outweighed him by as much as a hatchback. “And let me make this perfectly clear—no one touches her. Do you both understand that. No one.”
He was physically compromised in some ways, but it didn’t take a lot of strength to pull a fucking trigger. And if anybody got too close to that lovely woman down there, he would hunt them down and kill them if it was the last thing he did on earth.
In the heavy silence, two pairs of brows went sky-high, but neither of the men argued with him.
Good thinking, boys.
The instant Matthias stepped out onto the top landing, Mels’s head shot up.
Putting her hands on her hips, she somehow confronted him eye-to-eye, even though she was at ground level. “Surprise, surprise.”
Keeping the gun way out of sight, he said, “You need to go.”
She nodded at the motorcycle. “A dead man’s ride?”
“Of course not.”
Frowning, she abruptly crossed over the gravel and picked up what looked like one of the cobblestones. Except it caught the sunlight and sent out a flash, suggesting it was metal.
Straightening, she brought the bullet casing to her nose and took a whiff. “Been doing a little target practice?”
As she held the empty round up, he wanted to curse. Especially as she smiled coldly. “This is freshly discharged—no more than twenty minutes, maybe thirty since it was shot out of a gun.”
Tucking the borrowed weapon into the small of his back, he came down as fast as he could, and when they were actually face-to-face, he’d never felt so powerless in his life. He’d tried to scare her away; that clearly hadn’t worked. Maybe honesty would do the trick.
He traced her face with his eyes, that stubborn, beautiful face. “Please,” he said quietly. “I’m begging you. Let this whole thing go.”
“You keep talking about danger—but all I’m seeing is a man without a memory on a wild-goose chase. Look, just talk to me—”
“Jim Heron’s dead. And I don’t know who owns that Harley, or who was shooting—”
“So who are you talking to up there? And if you say no one, you’re lying. There’s no way you took that bike here. No way—and its engine is still ticking. I bet if I went over and put my hand on the block, it would be warm.”
“You really need to let this all go—”
“I’m not putting any of this in the paper—we’ve already established that. Everything’s off the record—”
“So why do you care?”
“I’m more than my job.”
He threw up his hands. “Why the hell am I arguing with you. You won’t even wear a goddamn seat belt in the car. Why would I expect you to—”
At that moment, the door opened and Jim Heron came out into the sunlight.
Mels looked up at the guy and shook her head. “Well, as I live and breathe…you know, you look a helluva lot like a construction worker who was shot and killed about two weeks ago. Matter of fact, I worked on the article in the
Matthias squeezed his eyes together. “Son of a bitch…”
The first piece of good news, Jim thought, was that the woman threw a shadow. No chance she was a Devina-ogram.
The second was Matthias’s little all-mine performance. That cruel bastard had never called dibs on anyone other than in a target situation—hadn’t acted protective toward a living soul. But something in this fire-eyed reporter with the attitude had gotten through to him—and that did not suck.
The female in question glanced at Matthias. Glared at him was more like it. “Not going to introduce us?”
“I’ll do it myself,” Jim announced as he started down the stairs.
“How refreshing to think manners aren’t dead,” she muttered. “Then again, with the way you boys go, dead’s not really a binary term, is it.”
Matthias was not happy behind those Ray-Bans of his, but he was going to have to get over that. Along with a few other things.
“I’m Jim.” He stuck out his hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
