“I have your man.”
The Slayers’ random drug testing had commenced several days prior, and while three members of the squad had tested positive for marijuana—two veterans who’d rolled the dice and tried to use a masking agent that failed, and a rookie who hadn’t put enough stock in the severity of the Blues’ penalties for policy violation—Joey hadn’t been convinced that the search was over.
Nor had she been quick to consider her job concluded when she’d heard that drug paraphernalia had turned up in TreShawn Dibbs’s Vegas home.
The Blues had suspended him from team activities and prohibited him from commenting to the press and signing autographs, and the findings had been reported to the league. However, it seemed to fall into place too neatly and presented itself as a frame job.
Charlotte, who’d been hurt on a personal level, since her friendship with TreShawn had begun during the previous season’s camp, eventually was resigned to accept that the man had backslid and shouldn’t be granted preferential treatment. She, along with the head coach and her parents, had urged Joey to drop her quest to implicate someone else.
But justice was floating out there, waiting to be revealed, and she’d been unable to let it go.
Just as Zaf was unable to abandon his hunt.
From behind a colossal desk at Slayers Stadium, Marshall Blue put his hand on top of the folder Joey had placed there. He rolled his dark eyes to his wife then authorized, “Give us the name.”
“Duncan Torsay.”
“Duncan?” Tem echoed. “He’s a veteran on this team.”
“So were two of the players who got caught in the test,” Joey pointed out. “Duncan offered me cocaine. He’s hosting an after-testing party tomorrow night. I was invited. According to him, his supplier will be there, providing meth and some synthetic drugs.”
“Let’s get Ozzie Salvinski on the phone and have him set up something with the authorities for this party,” Marshall said, already reaching for his desk phone.
Joey cut him off, slapping her hand over the unit before he could make contact. “Don’t.”
“Why not?” Tem demanded.
“Ozzie’s the supplier.” Mind still spinning to process the truth, she indicated the folder. “I asked an independent source to check up behind me. Independent source says I’m right. My supervisor’s been providing drugs to Duncan Torsay, who’s been using and selling.”
The following night Ozzie was arrested in a bust. Joey, who’d refined her research skills under his tutelage at ODC, hadn’t been able to stay away from the precinct.
“Why?” she asked him.
They sat under dim whitish light, with a blank table between them. Not so long ago they’d sat at Nickel’s, chatting as friends. He wasn’t the man she thought he was.
Ozzie’s eyes were like amber-colored stakes driving into her soul. He blamed her.
She tried to accept the circumstances for what they were, because so many criminals felt a compulsion to blame investigators and whistleblowers and witnesses instead of allowing themselves to be humbled with remorse.
“Why, Ozzie?”
“You’re asking me that when the Blues have you driving a million-dollar car?”
“I returned the car.” She had driven to the police department in her Camaro and was done trying on the Blues’ ornate lifestyle. “And what you’re saying is you’ve been selling drugs to Torsay because of the money he’s offered.”
“Money isn’t a number in a bank account. It’s power. It makes decisions.”
“What kind of decisions?”
“Whether or not a man’s wife sticks around or whores herself out to a guy with fatter pockets.”
Joey didn’t let her face reveal a reaction, but inside she cringed. Ozzie’s wife had left him and set up a life with someone wealthy. “Funneling drugs to NFL players doesn’t affect your ex-wife and it won’t bring her back to you.”
Ozzie shot out of his seat the way he had at CUT. The hair-trigger rage had been there then, and she hadn’t known that to question his integrity wasn’t an insult to his pride but merely something that aggravated a secret truth.
Uniforms guided him from the table, and Joey watched a man she trusted be led away. Outside the interrogation room, she waved to someone familiar.
Parker Brandt appeared unsure for the first second that their eyes met. So much attraction had crackled between them once, but that time was an unreachable memory now. He crossed the hall to her. “Hey.”
“I had visitation with Ozzie Salvinski.”
“I heard. How’re you doing?”
“My mind’s blown, but...”
“Aside from Ozzie.”
Terribly. I’m in love with someone and miss him. “Scooting along as I do.”
“Try to take care of yourself, Joey. I mean that.”
“Appreciate it. Listen, Parker, there’s a man named Cliff who hangs out in front of CCL.”
“Homeless?”
“Fairly certain. He doesn’t seem keen on handouts, so I wonder if you and the gang here might watch over him for me.”
Parker raised a brow. “Going someplace?”
“Thinking about it.” She couldn’t stand going past the guest bedroom in her house and seeing it empty. The love that lived in the place while Zaf was with her had left with him, as though he’d packed it in his duffel bag, too.
With a parting smile, Parker headed back across the hall. “Take care of yourself, Joey.”
She intended to. On her own with herself to lean on, she had no other choice.
* * *
TreShawn knew who to thank for the restoral of his team privileges, but he wasn’t taking his truck out on the city streets to search for Joey de la Peña.
An apology waited on his tongue and dominated his mind. Minako wasn’t speaking to him—and he didn’t blame her.
He was a dense SOB, but she had forgiven that.
He’d neglected her friendship, but she had forgiven that, too.
He had shown up at her old-fashioned pharmacy and confronted her with accusations that she’d used her access to pharmaceuticals to set him up for drug possession. That, she hadn’t forgiven.
TreShawn’s jersey was secure and his name cleared. Still, he was miserable. He’d spoiled himself, taking for granted the neighborhood girl with the arrogant Doberman pinscher.
Now she wouldn’t answer his calls, open her balcony doors or let her dog lead her down TreShawn’s street.
At the pharmacy again, the place where he’d for certain broken Minako’s heart, he waited in queue at the consultation booth.
The place looked like an old-timey apothecary. Weird, but practical and charming. Like Minako.
“You don’t fill your prescriptions here,” she said when the folks in front of him left the counter.
“You know where I fill my scripts. You know lasagna’s my favorite meal. You know how to pull me back when I’m on the verge of self-destructing.”
Minako slowly looked through her plastic-framed glasses to the colleagues on the left and then on the right. Then, “Next in line!”
“Wait, Min.” TreShawn hopped up onto the counter. People in queue and milling through the pharmacy’s aisles began to stare.
“Please move your ass. Customers fill out forms on this counter.” When he complied, she asked, “What are you trying to accomplish?”
“This is my grand gesture,” he told her. “You say you’re not a romantic person, but you love Breakfast at Tiffany’s and poetry and books that have people ready to do it on the covers.” He braced his arms on the counter. “Min, I watched the movie and read one of those books.”
“You read a romance novel?”
“Just the sex, but yeah.” At her eye roll, he sighed. “Damn, I’m messed up without you. I’m sorry I could think you’d set me up. I’m sorry for not seeing how you felt about me, or how I felt about you.”
In response, Minako clamped her mouth shut and left the consultation window.
Hell. That hadn’t worked. “Sorry,” he said to the establishment in general, and started for the door.
“TreShawn, now you wait.”
Minako had slipped off her white coat and was coming toward him. “First, your grand gesture skills suck.”
“I get it, Min. I’ll leave you alone.”
“Second,” she said, grabbing hold of his arm then hugging him around his neck as she kissed him with peach-balm-scented lips, “I’m on break and was thinking you could demonstrate the just the sex you’ve been reading lately.”
It took him a solid ten seconds to trust he’d heard her correctly. But when the bell jingled over the door, and he saw her walking out, he caught her on the sidewalk, lifting her and spinning her until she laughed.
This time he wouldn’t let her go.
* * *
Joey came home past midnight following Charlotte and Nate’s rehearsal dinner. The wedding excitement was enough to keep her busy and almost distract her from the fact that once again she’d be coming home to an empty house.
Empty house, empty arms, empty heart. Zaf had taken up so much space in each, and she missed him with a yearning that’d leave her sick if she dwelled on it too long.
The man had been gone for days, but to her it felt as if a few lifetimes had passed since he’d been inside her.
It would ease, though, and she’d get on with someone new, because she was tough that way. But getting there, moment by moment, only worked if a person wanted it to.
She didn’t want to get over Zaf. Not now that honesty was on the table. He loved her—had always loved her. She loved him, too, yet they were apart.
“Story of my crazy life,” she muttered, nosing the Camaro into the garage. She pulled her thoughts back to the flurry of maid of honor duties directly ahead. After the ceremony and reception, Charlotte and Nate would be off to the luxurious, sensual beaches of Aruba. There’d be plenty of time to contemplate her sad excuse for a love life then.
Inside she yawned all the way to the hamper that held her freshly washed pajamas, changed and started to remove her earrings as she padded with her cane to the kitchen.
At the dinner she’d had champagne, then coffee, and now needed about a pitcher of iced water.
The phone rang. Odd, as absolutely no one dialed her landline after midnight. “Hello?”
“Josephine.”
“Ma—”
“Shh! Listen to me carefully, Josephine,” her mother instructed, and the heavy puff of her breath on the line raised the fine hairs on Joey’s skin. “Talk as if I’m one of your friends, okay? We have been tracking Gian DiGorgio’s known vehicles—”
“Okay, you have to stop meddling. I’m going to hang up now. I’m tired.”
“Josephine!”
“I’ll call you tomorrow. Buenas noches—”
“He’s near your home. I don’t know exactly where. I’ve called the police—”
“You didn’t.” So the only thing more nerve grating than having a hovering mom was having Agent 99 as your hovering mom. Now the neighborhood could add police cruisers to the list of unusual vehicles found at Josephine de la Peña’s property. She wouldn’t be surprised if the neighborhood petitioned her immediate relocation.
“You’re not pleased with me, I know. But, Josephine, I’m your mother first. Always.”
“Sure, Mamá.” She could see this leading to a drawn-out discussion and figured she’d need more water. “Hang on a sec.”
Joey set the phone down and went for the pitcher.
Which she dropped to the floor when Gian DiGorgio stepped into the kitchen through the mudroom.
And now she was pissed.
“How the hell did you get in my house?”
“Through the garage,” he said in a cavalier, mocking tone, gesturing to the mudroom. “You opened the garage and I thought it’d be easier than going through the hassle of front entry in this quiet neighborhood of yours. Please, have a seat.”
Joey had looked down the barrel of a gun on numerous occasions, had been injured and struck and frightened on various levels, but never had a criminal walked freely into her home—twice.
“Leave now, Gian, and the repercussions of unlawfully entering my home might not be so severe,” she said, suddenly no longer sleepy or lulled by the lingering effects of a glass of champagne. She needed total focus to talk down a crazy psychopath.
“I told you before, belladonna, that I could get to you anywhere. Putting that high-tech security system in place delayed me, and I’m personally offended by the inconvenience, but I can somewhat understand your need to feel protected.” He glanced around. “Now the house is locked up tight, but I’m the only person inside with you. Where is he? Zafir?”
“I don’t know.” It was true. They hadn’t made contact since he’d left. “The next time I see him, I’ll tell him you popped by.”
He advanced and she backed up to the counter, holding her stick tightly. “Don’t get the idea that you might strike me. I guarantee it won’t benefit you.”
“Gian, I’ll make this perfectly simple. I’ll walk you to the door, will open it and will let you walk out.” She started to move, clutching the counter and the stick now.
Then his hand shot out and caught her neck.
Stunned more than physically injured—how could a living being’s fingers be so cold?—she countered with a cough and dropped the cane, predicting he’d perceive her as defenseless.
Good, she thought, calm now. I knew it would come down to you and me.
Gian gave a full-fledged grin, but the dominance trip impacted his alertness and reflexes, and by the time he saw the glass jar in her hand, it was too late for him to change the trajectory.
The jar connected with his skull, bursting on blunt force impact and setting free dozens and dozens of jelly beans. Joey felt the skin on her hand open in several tiny spots, but the blood that began to flow like wine pouring into a goblet came from her attacker as they both crumpled to the floor.
Candy crunched under her feet, and her cane wobbled as Joey scrambled up. She groped for a phone, but realized with her breath going out in a whoosh that the landline receiver was sideways on the counter.
And her mother on the other end.
“Mamá!”
“Ay, Dios mio, are you all right?” Anita cried. “Did he hurt you? Are you okay? Where the hell are the police?”
As though on her command, sirens screamed outside on the street. “I’m okay, Mamá. The police are here. It’s over. Finally, it’s over, and I’m okay.”
* * *
Joey supposed it made sense for her friend Charlotte to break from tradition at her wedding reception when instead of tossing her bridal bouquet from the grand second-story balcony of an elegant centuries-old ballroom, she took the staircase in measured graceful steps and joined the hundreds of guests and photographers anxious to see who’d wind up holding the bundle of rustic cream roses, branches and imported silk ribbon.
From her seat in the ballroom, Joey couldn’t see much once the bride was swallowed up by single women clamoring and competing for the flowers, but with a bandaged hand she lifted her champagne flute in an early toast to the gal who’d receive them.
Charlotte appeared then, in her diamond-strapped wedding gown, holding the bouquet toward...
“Me?” Joey asked, frowning as she looked around her. Guests watched from lavishly decorated tables as lights winked up to the cherubs dancing across the stories-high ceiling.
“Yes, you,” Charlotte said, handing her the bouquet. “Be happy, Joey.”
“But I’m not getting married anytime soon. I don’t even have a date tonight.”
Around her people laughed, but did anyone—including Miz Willa Smart, who shared her table and spied her with eyes that seemed to know too much—notice the sorrow beneath her humor?
As the band struck up live classical music, Joey took the bouquet and her scepter-styled walking stick out to the gardens.
It was a beautiful summer night for a wedding...for promises and for dancing.
The lights had been magnificently webbed over the lush gardens, and the flower petals and plant leaves wore a golden blush.
“A sight like this will make me never want to leave you again.”
She turned as her mouth fell into a soft O.
Zaf stepped away from the double doors and across the stone walkway to her. The music seemed to trail after him, but he had a way of amplifying everything. “Can I get a dance?”
“You came back to Las Vegas for a dance?”
Zaf drew closer and she let him kiss her: forehead, nose, lips, the bandage wrapped around her hand. “I didn’t protect you, Jo.”
“In a very bizarre way, you did,” she protested. “The weapon I used to fend him off was a gift from you.” She offered her lips again. “Why did you come back?”
“For you. I didn’t go to New Mexico. I had to let Raphael rest in peace, by not hanging on to his murder.” He raised a hand; his cousin’s ring was gone. “I’m letting the Pote sting happen and I won’t be a part of it. I came back to be with the woman I love.”
He’d put her first. He loved her. It was dizzying and she didn’t doubt it this time.
“Where were you if not in New Mexico?”
“A small town outside El Paso, applying for a job. There’s this security firm that seems interested in my skill set.”
Joey gazed at him, greedily taking in his sulky features and serious dark eyes. “The Espositos want you in the family business, do they?”
“Seems that way. I, however, want to be home with you.” Holding her so that she could toe off her stilettos and settle her feet on his, he started to move to the music that caressed the gardens. “I don’t know if it’s here in Las Vegas.”
“Or in Texas,” she said truthfully. Some undefined mission, some undecipherable chapter in the arc of her life, had been completed. Underneath the bittersweet finality of it all was the certainty—as comforting as it was exhilarating—that she wasn’t meant to go it alone. Not anymore.
Joey and Zaf were unfinished apart, but mesmerizingly complete together. Two halves of a whole. They were risky, intense, dirty together, and no one understood them more than each other.
“So what do you propose we do?”
That’s exactly it, she thought, looking at the bouquet in her hand. Propose.
Zaf kissed her. “I love you, so here’s what I’m hoping. Marry me, Jo.”
“I will,” she whispered. “I can’t wait another five years for you, though. Or five months or five days. Just marry me, Zaf, and take me...”
“Somewhere for us.”
There was such a place. They just had to search for it. For now, they had a diamond sky, a golden garden and this dance.
* * * * *
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