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He dried his hands on the kitchen towel and moved around the island. His expression grim, he gestured me toward the entryway of the house.
In the foyer, he paused before opening the door and turned to face me. His eyes searched my face, then he slowly leaned in to brush the ghost of a kiss over my cheek. His hands closed around my upper arms in an achingly gentle squeeze.
The rough texture of his five o’clock shadow tugged over the smooth skin of my jaw like a whisper of sandpaper. My nerves sparked awake. Tingles crawled up my neck and over my scalp—alive with the awareness of him. His smell and body were so close. Familiar but strange too. Twenty-plus years between me and my recollections of him.
Something hard and angry in my chest pulled impossibly tight, then snapped and dissipated. It freed a tidal wave of memories—the greatest hits of Ray and Derek—nostalgia at its finest.
He stepped back, and a long-forgotten corner of my heart cried at the unfairness of the loss. The embrace had been too short. I longed for more time to create a memory of older, grown-up Derek. A bookend for our history.
“Were you serious about fixing the flat?” I spoke the words before I could rethink them. The invitation kept Derek in my life. I was asking for trouble, but a small, reckless part of me didn’t care about what was smart, and now it was too late. I’d invited him.
“Absolutely.” He smiled, relieved.
“Be at Oleander at eleven.” I couldn’t believe what I had done. Before I did something worse, Onyx and I scooted out the door and didn’t look back.
Chapter 9
Derek
“Itwasacontractkilling. The whole robbery crew. My motorcycle club contact said the job was offered up by one of the mob families up east.” Michael Steel always looked somewhat uncomfortable when he talked about his club contacts. Right now, he was tugging at his shirt to fan his chest like the conference room at The Smith Agency wasn’t a perfect seventy-two degrees.
I didn’t know the full story of his past. Only that John had helped him get out of some deep shit, and now he worked here at the agency.
“They were left to rot out in the Everglades. Cops were alerted to the body dump late yesterday by some guys out on an airboat. The bodies weren’t fresh.” Steel winced at his word choice, and his eyes cut to Gigi Mills, who made a small, strangled sound of revulsion. In light of the new developments, we had invited her to sit in on this portion of today’s staff meeting.
I didn’t blame Gigi for her squeamishness. The vision that Steel’s words conjured wasn’t pretty. The Florida sun and swamp weren’t kind to a corpse.
Steel quickly sat down; the leather chair groaned in protest. He was a beefy dude, built like a linebacker. He mouthed an apology to Quinn for upsetting Gigi.
“All the guys that were caught on the ATM camera across from the OceanBlu are dead?” Smith asked.
Steel and everyone else seated at the table looked at me. Steel’s intel didn’t extend to the inside of the official investigation. Mine did.
“Yes. That’s what the investigator at Miami PD told me when I pushed.” My call that morning with the detective had been a beat down for him and me. He wasn’t predisposed to sharing info, and I wouldn’t take no for an answer. Ultimately, a pair of courtside seats to the Heat game got me answers on the case and the promise of the medical examiner’s report as soon as it became available.
“Oh God. The robbery crew was the only lead. My donors will never trust me again.” Gigi leaned into Kira Smith’s shoulder and blotted a few tears that threatened to mar her mascara.
“Mrs. Mills, you were well insured.” John had little patience for tears. He left that up to his wife, who could pretend to empathize with a distraught client. The Smiths were prickly with the outside world but devoted to each other and their son.
“But that’s not the point. My reputation,” she whined to the room, looking for sympathy.
“Appears fine. I’ve heard that your current capital campaign has been quite profitable for the foundation.” John pinned her with a hard stare.
“We understand it’s a matter of trust.” Over Gigi’s head, Kira shot a look that cut like a knife at her husband. And he gave her a curt nod and appeared to swallow any further comments.
I’d once heard John explain his method for dealing with people as no carrot, only stick. And that summed it up. John made people bend to his will. Half the time it was uncomfortable as hell, and the other half, you were unaware of your capitulation. He was one scary bastard when he chose to be.
Gigi sniffed and nodded, turning her tear-stained face to me. “But all those beautiful watches are gone.”
And six men were dead. A fact that should eclipse Gigi’s concern over the donors, watches, and her reputation. Rich people had fucked-up priorities. I could understand John’s impatience with Gigi. I felt it too. The dead men might have been robbers who shot up a hotel, but murder was murder. What happened to compassion?
“After my talk with the detective, I’m willing to say the robbery is no longer the focus of Miami PD’s resources. They’re more concerned with six murders.” The exact comment from the detective to me had been something likefuck the robbery, six people are dead.
“I expected that. Murder for hire has precedence over a robbery, even one of this magnitude. The killings might attract the attention of the FBI. Unfortunately, the Miami field office is—“ John paused and looked at Gigi. He was censoring his comments. All of us at The Smith Agency knew his opinion was that the Miami FBI office was a cesspool of incompetence and corruption. John constantly worked side angles and private investigations, trying to ferret out the individuals that were the source of the rot.
“Mrs. Mills, if the FBI joins the investigation, it will severely limit what information we get access to,” John said.
She nodded solemnly in understanding, and John pivoted to me. “Derek, please give Mrs. Mills an update on our investigation thus far.”
