Chapter Thirteen
“The ones who look best are often a bit wilder.” - Miuccia Prada
Drea’s soft snores filled the tiny motel room, soft enough not to travel through the paper thin walls but loud enough to cover the clickity clack of Cam’s fingers as he pecked away on his laptop.
The truth about Natasha Orton’s murderer was buried somewhere in the numbers rolling across his screen. He was as sure about that as he was about the woman asleep in the motel bed behind him—but he was damned if he could get a handle on either. All he knew was that it was fourth down with only seconds on the clock, and they had about ninety yards of turf between them and the goal line.
He scrolled up to the top of the list and took a fifth look at Fergus’s tax records and bank deposits. He’d pulled up every piece of financial information he could find on their number one suspect—through official and unofficial channels—on the butler with a pimped out pad, but on paper, the man was so clean that he had to be dirty. No overdraft fees. Every bill paid a week in advance—if not sooner. No credit card balances. No unusual charges. No weird tax deductions. Everything was exactly as it should be, and that set off every warning bell in Cam’s head.
According to the video, Fergus was tied to Knight—and by proxy, Diamond Tommy. And the crime boss didn’t have friends, only associates who gave him what he wanted. The question was: what did Tommy want from Fergus?
The snoring stopped, and the silence drew Cam’s attention from the screen to the woman still snuggled up under the ugly comforter. She sat up and let the sheet pool around her narrow waist. Her skin glowed in dawn’s soft light sneaking in through curtains, and she stretched her arms up toward the ceiling in a move that elongated everything above her waist and below his belt. Seeing her like that woke him up better than the weak-ass motel room coffee ever could.
A lazy smile curled her full lips, more pink than cherry thanks to the night he’d spent the kissing every bit of lipstick off. He was half tempted to ask her to reapply the color so he could kiss it off again. His dick pressed against his zipper. Okay, more than half tempted.
“Good morning,” she said, sleep still heavy in her voice.
Just the idea of Diamond Tommy getting his paws on her made Cam’s chest tight. She was too good to go down like that. He’d keep her safe. He’d protect her and then, after they’d figured it all out, they could… Damn, he was a fucking idiot. Who the hell was he kidding that he could change. People didn’t change. He’d learned that lesson young and relearned it after each trip his mom made home from rehab only to stumble back into old habits. What the hell had ever made him think he could be more?
Drea wasn’t made for a guy like him, a man who lived his life barely on the right side of the line. The best thing he could do for her was to help her clear her name and then stay the hell away.
“Welcome back to the world of the living,” he said. It came out sharper than he meant, and she flinched. He pulled his lips into some semblance of a smile. “You slept so hard that if it hadn’t been for the snoring, I would’ve thought you’d died.”
For a guy who’d spent a good portion of his life charming women out of their panties and into his bed, his game suddenly sucked. Being around her did that to him. She made him want to become more than just a guy who survived on charm and luck—instead be a guy who settled down and found something permanent—but he knew himself better than to think that he could ever make that transition for real.
“You’re full of it. I don’t snore.” Her sharp gaze zeroed in on his open laptop. “How long have you been up?”
Grateful for an excuse to look away from her beautiful face, he glanced over at the digital clock on the bedside table. It read 6 a.m. “About an hour and a half.” Though judging by the crick in his neck, it had been longer.
She swiped his T-shirt from the floor and pulled it over her head as easy and smooth as if she’d been wearing his clothes whenever she wanted for years. It hung loose, stopped a few inches above her knees, and gave only the barest hint at her curves underneath. His mouth went dry as she crossed the room to his side. Dressed or naked, the woman was magma hot. The sooner he got away from her, the better for his sanity.
“Find anything?”
He turned his attention back to the screen. Not that it made him any less aware of her scent, her warmth, or the low hum of attraction that buzzed in the background whenever she was near. His inability to block it out pissed him off. If he didn’t get his shit together, he’d fuck them both, and not in a good way.
“Not yet.” He shook his head. “I’m trying to find the string tying Fergus and Diamond Tommy together. What do you know about Fergus?”
She sighed, and the deep intake of breath made her round tits push against the cotton T-shirt. She pivoted so that she rested her butt against the table. It took every last bit of his self-control to not to let his gaze dip from his screen to the miles of her strong legs on display. But even without looking, he could still recall the feel of her inner thighs brushing against his cheeks while she wriggled and moaned above him.
“He grew up in Harbor City,” she said, bringing him back from the brink. “He’s been a butler for the past ten years.”
Not a common career choice. “Family business?”
“No. He’s with a service.”
Okay, now they were getting somewhere. Fergus had come up clean, but the service could be a different story. Diamond Tommy had a slew of legitimate businesses to help hide his other funding sources. “Do you remember the name?”
She closed her eyes and clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Grayson Domestics Incorporated.”
“Sounds expensive.”
She snorted. “It probably is.”
And snooty. Who in the hell said domestics?
He brought up Grayson’s website and scrolled through. “It looks legit from this end, but we need to get a peek at the stuff we can’t see.” He picked up the burner phone and dialed.
Carlos answered on the first ring. “Dude. I thought Tony was on the warpath about how this case is going, then I had a chat with Sylvie.”
He’d seen his boss at Maltese Security lose his temper only once—when Ryder had taken off for The Andol Republic on a case without clearing it with Tony first. She’d almost gotten killed before taking down the bad guy and bringing home a fiancé. Tony’s explosion had to have hit twenty on the Richter scale. If Sylvie was worse than that, Cam was glad to be in hiding.
“Not good?”
“Depends. How attached are you to your motorcycle? She’s threatened to run it over…while you’re still on it.”
She had to be joking. Mostly. But he’d seen Sylvie with Drea. Those two were as loyal to each other as a quarterback and a killer offensive line. “Yeah, this case hasn’t taken the usual path. Any luck on the safe house?”
“Fifteen Parsnip Lane in Waterburg. It’s fully equipped. Go in through the garage keypad. The code is nine—six—three—one. When you get there, Tony wants an update STAT.”
Cam just bet he did. He pushed away from the table and stood. Antsy energy rolled through him in waves. He needed to pace. He knew the feeling well. It was the same edgy rush that had pushed him onto black helicopters and unregistered flights from one end of South America to another—the knowledge that he was about to take care of business. His gut didn’t lie, they had something with Fergus.
“Thanks ‘Los, but I need another favor.”
“Shocker.”
He crossed to the window and peeked out. The silent parking lot was filled with older model cars that had more dents and less tire tread than you’d find in the parking garages across the bridge in Harbor City. Nothing and no one moved outside. The stillness did nothing to lessen the amped up buzz running through him. “Can you bring up Grayson Domestics Incorporated? I need to know owners, stock holders if they’ve got them, board of directors. Also, let me know what their money situation is like.”
“Need it right away?” Carlos asked.
“I needed it yesterday.”
“Isn’t that always the case?”
Cam hung up and tossed the phone onto the bed, still rumpled from last night’s activities.
Drea stood on the opposite side of the bed. She stripped off his shirt, which effectively short circuited his brain. “Good news?” She grabbed her silver bra and slid it on, then put on her dress.
“Hopefully.” He grabbed his T-shirt from where she’d dropped it on the bed and tugged it over his head. He inhaled…and his heartbeat went into overdrive. She’d worn it what, five minutes? And already it carried her tempting scent as if she’d slept in it all night. “What else do you know about Fergus?”
“He seemed like a good guy. Obviously that’s wrong, because he’s a shithead.” She crumpled up the silver panties he’d ripped last night and tossed them at him.
He dodged the satin ball. “Does he have family?”
“Not to my knowledge.” She tugged the dress into place and fastened the button at the top of its scoop neck with a decisive snap.
It was a tossup which he hated more. That button…or himself for wanting to pop it back open. “Anything you can think of that would tie Fergus to Diamond Tommy?”
She shook her head.
Both were fully dressed now. They stood on opposite sides of the bed. An awkward silence fell as she did some girly twisty thing with her hair, and he watched like a starving man locked out of the kitchen—hungry, empty-handed, and his belly burning with want.
His phone buzzed on the bed, doing a little vibrating dance in the twisted sheets. He leaned over the bed to grab the phone. The smell of sex mixed with Drea’s scent from his shirt, and his eyes nearly crossed. Fuck. He had to get away from her before he forgot that he had simply been the wrong man at the right time for her.
The text message notification flashed on his screen.
CARLOS: ON THE SYSTEM.
He hurried to his laptop, logged into the Maltese Security website, and clicked on the folder labeled Grayson. In it, he found the names of every board of director member, management, and major stockholder. None of the names rang any bells. Shit. They really needed something in their win column.
Drea peeked over his shoulder at the screen. “That was fast.”
“‘Los isn’t known for dicking around.” But even for Carlos, this was speedy. Ever since he’d decided he wanted to move from behind the desk out into the field, the computer guru had busted his ass to prove himself to Tony.
He scrolled down, got to the end of the scanned document stamped with the Harbor City tax office. That’s when he saw it. Paulsen and Paulsen were listed as the company attorneys. “Gotcha now, asshole.”
“What is it?”
He tapped the screen. “Paulsen and Paulsen is the law firm that handles Diamond Tommy’s legitimate businesses—all of the clean stuff that helps him launder his shady money.”
“Could it be a coincidence?”
“It’d have to be a pretty big coincidence.”
“And you don’t believe in coincidences.” She quirked an eyebrow at him.
“Nope.”
The bed dipped underneath her as she sat down on the edge. Her shoulders slumped. It killed him to see her like that. “So what now?” she asked.
Fergus was the key to all of this—not to mention in all likelihood a murderer. If he hadn’t offed Natasha Orton himself, he’d had a hand in it. They had to get him to talk to the cops. Of course, that would mean implicating himself, and Cam doubted the shithead would be all that honorable after what he’d done. Looked like it was time for a little creative motivation.
“We find Fergus and hit him with everything we’ve got.” That wasn’t a lot, but it would be enough. He’d make sure of it.
“Do you really think he’ll talk?” She mauled he bottom lip with her teeth.
“If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll talk.” He rubbed the back of his head. “But that’s not what’s sticking out to me.”
She perked up. “What is?”
“Why Grayson Domestic?” He got up and paced from the table to the deadbolted steel door and back again before sitting down. “Even with his legitimate businesses, he expects a better return than average. The profit margin on a straight business can’t be at the level he expects.”
The threads connecting Fergus to Diamond Tommy to Natasha Orton to Drea hung loose in front of him, as tangible as the plastic chair under his ass. His intuition told him all of the threads were connected, but he couldn’t quite see how. Not yet.
The commonality was Grayson Domestic, but he couldn’t get to the why. And the why mattered. A target’s motivation always highlighted their soft spot, where a swift shot would hit hardest.
An excited gleam lit Drea’s eyes. She stood and cracked her knuckles like a woman about to get into the ring and kick major ass. “So he has to find the extra money somewhere else within the business, right?”
“Exactly.”
They paced in opposite directions, then came together in the middle of the room and turned sideways so they could squeeze through the narrow space between the bed and the table.
“Moving drugs?” she asked.
He rolled the idea around in his head. It didn’t gel. “No, they aren’t going overseas or traveling much.”
More pacing.
“Undocumented labor?” he wondered out loud.
“Possible, but that’s low grossing.” She shook her head. “We need to think about the business’s assets. What assets could he exploit?”
A business like Grayson didn’t have big capital expenses, equipment, or office space. The owners ran it out of a rented office in a high rise. “Really, it’s just the people.”
“He could charge a premium for extraordinary services, or…” Her step faltered, and she stumbled to a stop.
Their eyes met. Certainty punched him straight in the guts. “For the servants’ silence.”
She smiled and nodded. “After all, who knows everything about what’s going on upstairs than those who work below stairs?”
Fuck. If that was true, Diamond Tommy was using Grayson to facilitate blackmailing Harbor City’s elite, people who had more than enough money and motive to want to keep their dirt swept neatly under the rug.
“Okay, let’s walk through it.” He paced toward the door with enough energy bouncing through him to make it feel like he was walking across a trampoline. “Diamond Tommy gets his fingers into Grayson and gets the employees to feed him inside dirt on the big wigs they’re working for. But why kill Mrs. Orton?”
She said, “Maybe Natasha was ready to go public with her husband’s cheating.”
That would do it. If Mr. Orton was paying hush money about his affair, then he wouldn’t have reason to keep shelling out cash if his secret became public knowledge.
“Tommy doesn’t like it when somebody turns off the money spout.”
She stopped, her feet shoulder width apart and her hands planted firmly on her hips, ready to take out whoever pissed her off next. “But why frame me?”
That was the question beating against Cam’s thick skull. For days, they’d been looking at the whole thing like a grand conspiracy, but what if it wasn’t? What if it was just wrong person, right time?
“If I was Tommy, I’d want to throw suspicion as far away from my people as possible.” As the words came out of his mouth, Cam’s certainty increased. “If the police questioned Fergus too closely, he could tell the cops everything and blow the whole blackmail scheme sky high. Instead of losing money from one family, Diamond Tommy could lose it from all of them. So he frames you, throws all of the attention your direction to keep the cops as far away from Fergus as possible.”
“Now all we have to do is prove it.” With her shoulders thrown back and her chin tipped upward, she looked hot as hell and more than up for the challenge.
“Piece of cake.” He winked.