A Righteous Kill (13 page)

The temperature in the car dropped maybe fifty degrees and Hero fiddled with the windshield wipers, unwilling to meet dark eyes that always saw too much.

“Alec?” Luca repeated. How could one man pack so much skepticism, accusation, and disgust into such a short word?

Hero parked her car behind the brand new yellow Fiat and reached for the door handle.

“Is there something I need to know—”

“It’s starting to rain for real now. Let’s try to keep the pottery dry as we transfer it inside.” Hero dove out of the car and into a pair of painfully familiar arms.

“Hero!” The smell of tweed, cigars, and Brandywine engulfed her. Once, she’d found the scent alluring and mysterious. She couldn’t really decide what emotion it evoked now. “My God, it’s so good to see you alive and well. Did you get the flowers I sent?”

She pulled back and met a familiar pair of liquid brown eyes set in the unassumingly handsome face she’d seen so many times.

In so many positions.

“I did. Thank you.”

Alec cupped her face in his gentle, scholarly hands. “I’ve been worried. You haven’t been returning my texts.”

Therein lay the problem, didn’t it? She’s brutally attacked by a serial killer and he sends her flowers and texts? No phone calls. No dropping in. No offers of help of any kind. Just enough effort to be socially apropos but deftly avoiding any real physical or emotional responsibility.

Things never changed, did they?

Alec kissed her on the cheek, right below her lashes. Her car door slammed so hard she seriously feared for the pottery in her back seat and trunk.

Hero jumped out of his arms. “Alec, this is Luca, my...”

“Boyfriend.” Luca helpfully supplied for her.

Alec winced as he and Luca gripped hands.

“Alexander Graham.” Those liquid-brown eyes masked a flash of surprise and displeasure behind a very practiced and professional geniality. “Any man who can buy a pair of Cole Haan’s in that size is a man I can respect.”

Hero looked down. Luca
did
have big feet…

“I thought you rejected the relationship labels that denoted ownership and fortified the oppressive patriarchal values of our society.” Alec turned to her, his perfectly shaped eyebrow arched in a way that told her she’d be hearing about this later.

Hero tossed her hair and slipped her arm around Luca’s back. His spine was ramrod straight, and she knew he held a pressure cooker beneath that amiable demeanor. “Yeah well, sometimes you just find that person who changes everything.”

For a split second, Alec looked like she’d kicked him in the nuts.

“Your tastes always did trend toward the exotic.” His smile could have fortified the Bering Glacier.

Whoa. Did he just go there?

Chancing a look at Luca, she was surprised by his lack of umbrage. Instead, keen interest sharpened his dark gaze. He wasn’t so much glaring daggers, but razors, ones he used to cut away the meat and expose the nerve.

“
Anyway
.” Hero stepped around Luca’s wide shoulders and opened her car door. “I appreciate you letting me use the kiln for these.” She carefully lifted the fragile glazed pottery out of the secure nest of blankets and such that she’d crafted around it, hoping to signal the men to do the same.

Luca grabbed the largest vase and turned to Alec. “Lead the way.” Against bronze skin, his sharp teeth flashed white in what was supposed to be a smile. He’d made it a point to identify himself to her as an unapologetic carnivore. Hero never believed that more fully than this moment.

They followed Alec to the garage entrance, which would lead them to the basement. Hero didn’t miss the fact that the professor didn’t offer to help carry anything in. She wondered about the reasons. Was he being bitchy? Oblivious? Or insecure?

Despite his brilliance, she remembered his unerring capability for all three traits.

As the garage door trundled open, Hero fought a sudden and intense chill as she remembered his reasons for parking the Fiat in the driveway. The sleek, silver Maserati he owned napped like a great cat on its padded floor on the right. To the left of that, the vehicle the college supplied him for trips, digs, and field work nearly glowed white against the well-painted grey-blue concrete of the garage.

Even as Hero told herself she was being ridiculous, a tight band began to squeeze her chest and weaken her arms.

A utility van. Probably full of tools like hammers and nails and… cross beams?

God. She was
not
this person. This paranoid, suspicious, fearful child always waiting for the boogey man to jump out of the shadows.

Alec opened a door leading downstairs, and Hero fought the feeling gripping her insides. The one where her imaginary audience was yelling at her not to go in the basement.

“So Luca, what do you do?” Alec made a stab at being conversational as he disappeared down the wide concrete staircase.

Hero inched around the van, as far away from it as possible, and followed Luca’s broad back into a familiar basement.

“I work for the FBI.”

Alec paused on the bottom step for one beat longer than needed. “Oh yeah?” He didn’t turn around. “Probably means you’re packing heat all the time then?”

“Usually.”

Why would Alec want to know that? He wasn’t particularly a gun enthusiast. The way he’d said
packing heat
made her eyes disappear into her skull. He really shouldn’t try to pull off that kind of vernacular.

The men turned the corner at the bottom of the stairs, and Luca set his load carefully on the long fold-out table next to the kiln. He turned to Hero and took her burden, as well.

“I’m going back up for the rest.” He flicked his gaze toward Alec, though he addressed her. “Do you want to come with me?”

Hero seriously considered it, but shook her head. “You go ahead, I’ll start loading these. You can hear me if I need you,” she felt compelled to add.

“Do what you gotta do.” Leaning down, he pressed a light, familiar kiss to the corner of her mouth. His warm, full lips promised the kind of sin that no amount of confession could rectify. Hero formed a desperate wish that their audience would go away so she could explore that mouth’s capabilities. She wanted a full kiss, Dammit.

With tongue.

Except—their audience was the entire reason for his affection. She needed to remember that.

“Thank you.” Her breathless whisper echoed off the bare walls and through skeleton beams of the vast unfinished basement.

Then she made a mental note to clarify later that she meant thanks for carrying heavy things. Not for the kiss. His smirk caused her to doubt he understood the distinction.

She studied the fit of his pants as he walked away. Could that man
be
any more genetically gifted?

“I remember a time you used to look at me like that,” Alec said.

Hero jumped. Her
ex
, for lack of a better word, had moved uncomfortably close without her noticing.

“That was two years ago before you decided twenty-three was inching toward geriatric and slept with that eighteen-year-old freshman.” She picked up what was going to look like a Grecian jug, and walked over to the kiln, if only to put some space between them.

“Biggest mistake of my life.”

Wrenching the heavy, fire-proof door open, she stepped onto the grated floor of the circular kiln. Even for someone her size, there was barely enough space to turn around. Carefully setting her work on the shelves, she returned to the table for the other piece without looking at the only man who’d ever come close to breaking her heart.

“Why, because you were five months from committing a felony?” she snarked.

God, she was such a cliché, sleeping with the handsome professor. Who
did
that and actually expected it to work out?

“That isn’t fair, Hero.” The hurt in his voice could have been real. “You never said you wanted us to be exclusive. In fact, I remember you being very adamant that I not ‘own you.’”

He actually used rabbit ears. Was there anything more annoying? Hero sighed, unwilling to get into this right now. “We agreed to still be friends, Alec. Friends don’t bring up the past, not after it’s been forgotten.”

“What can I say? History is sort of my thing.”

Ugh. Had she found him charming at one point? Lame.

She carried the heavy vase to the kiln while he stood there with his hands in his khaki pockets.

“Why did you bring
him
here?” Alec turned on the intellectual condescension she’d mistakenly found sexy two years ago. “Is this an intimidation ploy? Are you trying to make me jealous? Tell me what you want from me.”

Hero turned on him and froze. His body blocked her exit. Alec wasn’t sculpted like Luca, but tailored to fit expensive clothing like a department store mannequin. A narrow waist helped to accentuate moderate shoulders rounded by hours spent in the pool. He was strong for his forty years and a medium build. Hero hated that she looked at every man like a suspect. Could he have carried her on that cross? Was he plotting her death even now?

“I don’t want anything from you. Luca’s a gentleman who offered to help.” She hoped he read the underlying meaning in her nonchalant words. “He doesn’t like me to go very many places alone, not with John the Baptist still out there.”

Alec nodded, but didn’t budge. “Did you get a good look at him, John the Baptist?” His shoulder was only inches from the burn switch, and this kiln was old enough not to have any installed safety measures.

Her heart sputtered.

“No.” It would take nothing at all for him to slam the door and lock her inside. She stood and studied Alec’s casual posture, telling herself she was being paranoid and ridiculous. This was a man who was a card carrying member of the ACLU. He strongly opposed the death penalty. The only time he handled dead bodies was if they’d been worm food hundreds of years ago. Plus he got squeamish at the sight of blood. How could he handle driving huge nails through someone’s hands?

“He’s been quiet for a long time after your attack. Some people say that he’s moved on.”

“What do you think?” she asked.

His hand inched up the metal door frame. “I think it’s impossible to move on.”

***

Luca ducked his head beneath the basement doorframe and shifted the massive, weird-shaped plate in his hands. Voices echoed off the concrete walls and, though he couldn’t make out their words, Hero’s tone conveyed equal amounts annoyance and alarm.

He strode into the dimly-lit basement where the kiln grooved out of the far corner of the room surrounded by a wall of stone and mortar.

The professor crowded Hero into the kiln, way too close in Luca’s opinion.

Instead of drawing his .45 on the guy and yelling ‘
Back off her, dickbag!’
as was his first instinct, he said, “Do you want me to put these here?”

The surprised jerk of the douchebag’s shoulders as he turned around caused Luca inappropriate amounts of pleasure.

Maybe it was because these two had obviously slept together. And the good professor’s eyes didn’t hide the fact that he wanted to do it again.

Well, I’m drinking ‘morning after’ coffee now, motherfucker.

When Alec moved, Hero lunged out the door and didn’t stop until she was at the table. “Yes! Go ahead and set that down. I have one more coat of glaze to add before it goes in.” She smoothed her hair, patted the table, and grinned at him, but Luca didn’t miss the bloodless pallor of her skin.

He didn’t take his eyes off Alec as he gingerly set the piece down. The guy looked like one of those sullen Tommy Hilfiger models who’d just lost their favorite yacht.

Luca had a feeling he should have overheard their conversation, but he’d taken a few extra moments to check out the van in the garage. With only two windows on the driver’s and passenger’s side, it matched Hero’s description of her transport vehicle perfectly. The doors had all been locked when he’d tested it, and he couldn’t take an
official
look inside without a warrant.

Who locked their vehicles while parked in a garage?

Guilty people. Okay, and most cops.

“You okay?” he asked, rubbing an affectionate hand down her shoulder. “Need any help?”

Hero stepped into his touch and Luca couldn’t help a triumphant glance at Alec.

“Actually, this is mostly a one-person job but will take me a minute to finish.” She patted his chest. “How would you like Alec to show you his collection of ancient weapons?”

A chance to shove imaginary sex with Hero into his smarmy, worthless, trust-fund-baby face? “I’d
love
it.”

“Certainly.” Alec tried to meet Hero’s eyes, but she avoided looking at him. “This way.”

Luca followed him down the long stretch of basement. His fingers still itched for his gun, but he kept them balled at his side as he looked back at Hero. She paused in her bustling to meet his eyes, and what he read there told him everything he needed to know. She was suspicious of this man, whether she admitted it to herself or not.

Luca sneered at the patches on the elbows of Alec’s cardigan as they climbed to the first floor of the house. This guy sure bought into his own image.

Did Hero?

“So what are you a professor of, specifically?”
Come on, buddy, give me something to hang you with.

“I hold double doctorates in cultural anthropology and Western European history with a specialty in religious iconography and theology from Harvard.” He epically failed the false modesty angle. “That qualifies me to teach a myriad of subjects.”

“Impressive.” Luca probably failed to sound all that genuine either.

“Thank you. It was a lot of hard work.” Alec wound Luca through a largely unused palatial kitchen and formal dining room to a hallway mounted with what Luca assumed were antique knockoffs of famous paintings and sculptures he recognized from his own required art and culture classes in college.

Now he wished he’d paid more attention.

“So with those credentials, why settle here in Portland? Wouldn’t the East Coast afford you more options for advancement in your career?”