kidding me.”
“I'm sorry—”
The glass shattered in Vin's palm, bourbon going everywhere, soaking his sleeve and cuff, splashing on the front of his shirt and his pants.
He ended the call by hurling the cell phone across the room.
While Jim hit the end key, he was willing to bet that wasn't the way Vin had terminated the call. No, he had a feeling that whatever phone had been up at Vin's ear was now fodder for a dustpan. Great. Just fucking wonderful.
After he rubbed his eyes, he refocused on the entrance of the inpatient building and let the first part of the conversation register: another beaten guy tied to Marie-Terese. And when Vin called, that had been the number one thing on his mind, even above the fact that, oh, yeah, he was up on felony assault for buzz-sawing his girlfriend with his knuckles.
That shit with Marie-Terese was as strong as ever for him. Which somehow didn't feel like such a great thing.
Man, this particular mission was going to hell faster than a free fall.
Jim glanced down at his watch and then resumed staring at each person who went in and out of the doors. It was close to one, so Devina's people would supposedly be coming any second, and then she would be leaving with them.
God, Devina was such a liar.
It felt like sacrilege to come to that conclusion, given how that woman's face looked, but the truth was what it was: Vin hadn't known a thing about Thursday night and what had happened in Jim's truck. Not one thing. The totally-in-the-dark had resonated through his shocked voice.
Why had she lied about telling the guy? And what else had she lied about?
Sure as shit it made Vin's denial more credible.
One o'clock came and went and so did one thirty. Then two. Devina had to be coming out soon, assuming it took about an hour to process her paperwork and her folks were on time—and assuming she didn't go out another way.
And assuming anyone was coming to pick her up.
Wishing he had a cigarette, he held on to his phone and rubbed the flat surface of the screen until it grew warm. Truth. He needed a truth injection into this situation. He needed to know who Marie-Terese was and who Devina was and what the fuck was going on.
Unfortunately, that was going to cost him—
Devina abruptly stepped out of the double doors, a pair of big sunglasses taking up most of her face. She was dressed in a black yoga suit, and her oversize crocodile shoulder bag made her seem thin as a ruler in comparison. As she came out to porte cochere's curb, people stared at her as they passed, like they were trying to place her in the celebri-verse.
There was no one with her.
And…the bruising that had been on her face was now gone. All of it. She was photo-op ready, as lovely and perfect as she'd been over dinner Friday night.
Ice-cold warning splashed through Jim's veins, the kind that had come only a couple of times in his life.
This was wrong. Way wrong.
Straightening in the truck's seat, he braced himself as he looked at the pavement down at her feet. In the light that was pouring out of the sky and creating echoes of objects large and small on the ground, she did not throw a shadow. She was form, but not substance, shape but not flesh.
As if she heard his thoughts, Devina looked right where he was parked. And then her brows tightened and her face slowly panned from side to side—which he took to mean she couldn't see exactly where he was, but she knew someone was staring at her…
Her expression was stone cold. Nothing like the warmth she'd radiated in front of Vin or what she'd thrown around at Jim in the truck or in the car or in that hospital bed.
Stone. Cold.
Serial-killer cold.
Talk about a truth: She was a seducer and a liar and a manipulator…and she was after Vin. And not as in marriage, but as in owning the man's very soul.
In the center of his chest, Jim also had the sure feeling that she knew who he was and what he was. Had known from that first night when they'd had sex—because she'd seduced his ass on purpose. Hell, the logic was unassailable. His new bosses, the Four Lads, had put him on the field, and it looked like the other side had likewise sent an operative into the situation—who knew more than Jim did.
As that old refrain of “Devil with a Blue Dress” rolled through his head, he started to wonder about guys on Harleys who didn't cast shadows either. And probably were liars, too.
Goddamn it.
Devina scanned the parking lot again, snapped at some poor guy who backed into her by mistake, and then lifted her hand to call up one of the cabs from the line to the right. When a taxi came forward, she stepped inside and off they went.
Time to roll, Jim thought as he started his truck and backed out of his space. As she knew his ride but only in the dark, he had a veil, not a cover, so he had to settle in two cars behind her and pray that her cabbie wasn't in the habit of blowing through orange lights.
While he trailed her, he tuned up his cell phone for a call, and as he pressed
“Zacharias,” he said as the line was picked up.
Matthias the fucker laughed low. “I swear I'm talking to you more than my own mother.”
“Didn't know you had one. I thought you'd been spawned.”
“You call me to discuss family trees or is there a purpose to this?”
“I need the information.”
“Ah. Now why did I have the sense you'd come around.”
“But I want the info on two names. Not just one. And I can't do a job for you until I finish what I'm working on in Caldwell.”
“What exactly are you working on?”
“None of your business.” Although Matthias was going to get a pretty good picture of the whos involved.
“How long are you tied up for.”
“I don't know. Not six months. Maybe not even one month.”
There was a pause. “I'll give you forty-eight hours. And then you're mine.”
“I'm not anybody's, asshole.”
“Right. Sure. Expect an e-mail from me explaining everything.”
“Look, I'm not blowing out of Caldwell until I'm good and frickin' ready. So send whatever you like, but if you think you're shipping me overseas the day after tomorrow to off someone, you've got your head up your ass.”
“How do you know what I'm going to ask you to do?”
“Because you and all my bosses before you have wanted only one thing from me,” Jim said hoarsely.
“Well, maybe we'd mix it up a little if you weren't so fucking brilliant at what you do.”
Jim cranked his hold down on the cell phone, and decided that if there was any more of this bullshit banter, he was going to take up Vin's method of terminating connections.
He cleared his throat. “E-mail won't work. I don't have an account anymore.”
“I was going to send you a package anyway. You don't honestly think I trust Hotmail or Yahoo! do you?”
“Fine. My address is—”
“As if I don't already know.” More of that laugh. “So I'm guessing you want Marie-Terese Boudreau's rundown?”
