HE DROVE THEM to an all-night diner by the river. In a shitty corner of town. It wasn’t a surprise he knew it existed. It was a surprise she’d never been there.
Dump-diners were a specialty of her father’s. Often childhood visitation meant touring the city for rhubarb pie and vanilla milkshakes. Maybe the eateries weren’t the most hygienic, but her dad knew the best spots. That’s what those visits were: pie and shakes. And laughter. He’d always been able to make her laugh. Damn, why was she thinking about that?
“Coffee,” Jagg said to the waitress, who came over as they slid into opposite sides of a booth in the darkest corner, far from the window. “Want anything, kid?”
“Coffee’s good,” she said, offering the woman a smile.
Couldn’t be easy to keep the faith if life meant coming to this place every night, spending hours on your feet, serving society’s less-than-finest.
Jagg plucked the menu from its slot at the end of the table. “Want something to eat?”
“You don’t have to babysit me,” she said. “We’ve left Hustle. It’s done. Okay? You did your duty, you got me out of there.” Way sooner than she’d wanted to be done. “Good job.”
“This means something to you,” he said, tucking the menu back into its slot. “Why?”
“Why not?”
The server came over with two cups, filled them from her pot, and disappeared again.
“What’s special about these women or this story?”
“Everything,” she said, hooking her cup closer to her body. Letting out some optimism, it wasn’t easy to be the only one giving a shit all the time. “Did you finish that car?”
“You don’t want to talk about the car,” he said. “Tell me about the women.”
For a second there it sounded like…
Suspicious, she met his eye. “Why?”
“This means something to you,” he stated again. “I’m serious, Genny, talk to me.”
“I…” He was asking. Actually asking. Sitting up straighter, she pushed the coffee aside. “It started almost two months ago. For me. Every day we get bulletins from the districts. Updates. Usually nothing exciting, one thing or another. I write for a local section, so I can investigate whatever I want providing it’s…”
“Local.”
“Right,” she said, breathing out a smile. Crime and murder weren’t her typical field. “Michelle Cadlow was found… by the river… She didn’t have defensive wounds, but there were suspicious marks on her body… They couldn’t tell how long she’d been in the water… But she has this tattoo…” Retrieving her phone from her purse, she found the picture and pushed it across the table to show him. “They all have the tattoo. The cops say it means nothing—”
“It doesn’t,” he said, sitting back, drinking his coffee.
She deflated. “Lachlan says it like that too. How can you possibly know—”
“It’s the Manzani mark,” he said. “All their girls have that tattoo.”
At least he explained it. “All of them?”
“Manzanis mark women as property. Once they’re on the books, they’re in for life.” The Manzani family didn’t have books for the women who worked for them, not literally, but she got his meaning. “It on the front of their leg? On the seam where the thigh meets the torso?” She nodded. “Yeah, they’re working girls.”
“But they’re not,” she said, infused with certainty. “These women are good girls. They’re respectable. From good families. With good jobs. Great prospects. None have substance or addiction issues. Their friends and family reported no erratic behavior. No indications they were mixed up in anything suspect.”
“How’d you get to Hustle?”
“The last victim…” she said, “she told her roommate that her boyfriend could get them into this exclusive club. They didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t know anything about it.”
“She used Vex’s name?”
Why in the hell would he ask that question? “I thought you quit working for him.”
“I did.”
“Then why are you talking to me like that? Like you’ll run back to him with whatever I say.”
“I don’t give a shit about Manzani, except he’s dangerous,” he said, resting his elbows on the table to lean closer. “This contact of yours needs to be careful.”
“And I would tell her that if she hadn’t disappeared.” Saying it out loud struck a chord of fear. “Oh, God, you don’t think something happened to her too, do you? That’s how it happens. They disappear, for a couple of days or a couple of weeks, then reappear dead.”
“Cause of death?”
“Never the same. Heather bled out. I don’t know how. Lachlan said I didn’t want to know. Michelle was blunt force trauma. Stephanie, they haven’t released that yet… and Lach hasn’t told me, which suggests it’s something really bad.”
“He just gives you this information?”
On a glare, her head dropped to the side. “I sucked the guy’s cock for three years, Jagg, so, yes, he just gives me the information.”
His semi-shrug was maybe supposed to be an apology. “Figured there were rules about that shit.”
Her smile quickly became a laugh. “And you’re all about following the rules.”
“Wasn’t passing judgment on the guy, just saying, some crims aren’t all bad, and some cops ain’t all good.”
“He’s good,” she said, scooping up her cup. “In all the ways that matter… Lach’s probably the most honorable man I’ve ever known.”
“Not much of a line for that medal, Genny. Your dad and Ford were breaking rules before you were born… And the asshole your mom married…”
“He’s not an asshole. Is that what Ford says?”
“The dude made Ford wear a tie to dinner at Christmas.”
The memory switched her mood. “Yeah, that was funny,” she said and laughed. “I have never seen him so mad… in a situation that didn’t end in bloodshed.”
“I was in the car on speed dial. We were ready to take on him, his preppy son, and their posse.”
Sometimes her brother went looking for a fight. Jagger was always there, no questions asked. Their friendship was more like blood brothers than buddies.
“Ted doesn’t have a posse. I can’t believe he took you away from your holiday. That’s so rude!”
Sinking down on the bench, he laid his forearms on either side of the coffee cup. “Not much of a holiday person.”
He was right. It wasn’t good to admit it, but fuck, he’d been right. “Have I not been paying attention?” The question was so genuine, it seemed to startle him. “You said ‘maybe you weren’t paying attention’ the night you took me home.”
“I was just talking, kid.”
“I haven’t been a kid for a long time, Jagg,” she said, folding her arms under her breasts before leaning across the table, plumping them for his visual consumption. “I grew up.”
“I see that,” he said, admiring her cleavage just as she’d intended.
Sinking back, she supported her head on a hand. “You know I’m twenty-seven now. I’ve been legal for ten years.”
“Okay,” he said, scrubbing a hand across his forehead. “We’re not talking about this.”
“I don’t know why it makes you uncomfortable. Why is it suddenly such a big deal? I have sex. I like sex. I’m good at it too… certain things. I have boobs and a pussy and—”
“Im,” he said, opening a hand. “Don’t.”
“Okay,” she said on a sigh. “I just don’t get it.”
“You’re Ford’s kid sister.” Something she’d been her whole life. “You’re my best friend’s sister and… this isn’t on the table.”
Except her body tingled again. A specific part of her body. A very specific part.
“We’ve never done this,” she said, her eyes slinking left and right. “Hung out alone and talked like this. Shit, you’ve been inside me and we—”
“Hands don’t count.” When they both looked at his on the table, he was quick to drop them to the bench at his sides. “They don’t.”
“Hmm,” she said, slipping her foot from her shoe as she slid lower in her seat to run her toe up the inside of his leg, past his knee, to his thigh and on. “What about feet?”
He caught her foot and held it tight without pushing away or recoiling.
Though he did cover his eyes, supporting the weight of his head. “Why the fuck is this happening now? Last week you were Immie. I’d have gone to war for you ‘cause you’re my buddy’s family…”
“And this week?” she asked. “You wouldn’t go to war for me?”
He peeked over the edge of his hand. The darkness in those eyes. The mystery wasn’t in the details. It wasn’t in his unknown past or the question marks over his character. Those would apply with a stranger. This man wasn’t a stranger.
“Genny…”
“I always knew you were attractive, that’s obvious, but…”
“Yeah,” he said, letting his arm drop. “Not like I never heard guys talk about you… or beat on some of them with Ford.”
“You beat on guys for me?”
“Just the disrespectful ones.”
Was that adorable or hilarious? Both.
“You never struck me as the kind of guy who’d stand up for a woman’s honor,” she said, bobbing her head in a side-to-side nod. “No, you did… But you also seem like the kind of guy who knows how to enjoy a woman.”
“Yeah. There are available women and then there are…” He drew an invisible line with the side of his hand and pushed it back. “Off-limits women.” He gestured at her. “Which you are. Off-limits.”
“Is that what it is? I’m forbidden fruit?”
“If that’s what it was, I’d have wanted you like this ten years ago.”
And there it was. Out there. He wanted her. Relaxing, she let herself look into him. Let herself be tempted by his dark demons and shadowy past. He was more than any man she’d known. More complex. More broken. More forbidden.
“You know, you’d be doing Ford a favor if you dated me.”
Sensing her joke, his jaw rose. “Oh, yeah, how’s that?”
“He’s never liked any of my boyfriends. Never one.”
“Some of them he’s liked right up until the moment they became your boyfriend. You never noticed that?”
Her hair fluttered around her upper arms when she shook her head. “Nope. He’ll like one of them one day.”
“Always were a dreamer,” he said. “Always an optimist.”
“Wasn’t always easy,” she said. “A part of me got left behind when we left the city. When Mom met Ted and… Everything I knew was here, it was my home. Ford was my home. His routine. His strength. His presence. His buddies… Sometimes I think…”
Maybe it wasn’t the time to get deep. Not the first time her thoughts got ahead of her mouth.
“Sometimes you think what?”
Well, he was asking.
She smiled and surrendered. “It hurt more losing him than it did losing my dad… I was always sort of invisible to Strat,” which was what people called her father. “I was his princess. His angel. Yeah, but that was like this ethereal thing. Intangible. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t me. He stood up for his little girl because that’s what men like him do.”
“Strat loves you like you wouldn’t believe.”
“I know,” she said because she didn’t doubt that. “But it was Ford’s bed I crawled into when I got scared at night.” His placating smile gave her a shake. What the hell was she doing sitting there going on about her childhood? “Shit, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
Taking her foot from his lap, she sat up straight. “You were nice to me and I… Thanks for letting me ramble…” She shifted to the end of the bench. “I’ll get a cab.”
He reached over to catch her wrist before she could fully stand up. “No, you won’t.” She didn’t get it, but relaxed back down when he gave her a tug. “You haven’t told me about the case yet. Tell me everything you know.”
“Why? Why do you care?”
“Because I’ve asked you not to do it. Ford’s asked you not to do it. Probably the cop too, and you’re still on it. When Genny Stratford gets the bit between her teeth, she doesn’t let go. One of my many observations.”
She smiled. “There are others?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Like what?”
“Like when you smile because you think it’s what people want to see,” he said and her smile faded. “You do it all the time. With Ford. With Strat. With me. It’s your shield. You’re so scared to be vulnerable, to show anything but strength. You don’t want to let anyone down. You smile because it’s what people expect and you don’t want to disappoint them.”
“Please,” she said, picking up the coffee, using the prop as a distraction. “Haven’t I already delved deep into the abyss of ridiculous childhood traumas enough for one night?”
He exhaled a laugh. “Fair enough. But you’re still going to tell me about this case… and why it’s so important to you.”
“I’ve met the victims’ friends. Their families. These are good people. Like we’re good people, Jagg. These women are my age. They have nice families like Ted’s family. They have educations. The first woman, Heather, she went to Princeton the same year I was accepted.”
“Why didn’t you go?” he asked. “Ford and Strat were so proud. Wouldn’t shut up about it and then you didn’t go. Why?”
“These women could be me, Jagg,” she said, avoiding the question. As she’d said, they’d delved into the past enough for one night. “If this happened to me, would anyone care? Would they shrug me off as a working girl? Unimportant? Inconsequential? Like I’d been asking for it or got what I deserved?”