Authors: Nicola R. White
I kept my eyes averted, as I did up my jeans, shame burning my cheeks. What the hell was wrong with me? Not only had I just thrown myself at a man who had no respect for me, I’d led him on then literally shoved him away. I shuddered at the lingering memory of Miller’s hands on me and wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly cold. Was this how it was going to be from now on? Was I permanently damaged after what he’d tried to do to me?
“What just happened?” Jackson’s voice was tight with frustration.
“What do you mean?” I looked at a point on the wall over his shoulder so I didn’t have to meet his eyes. “You’re an adult. I’m sure you’ve done that before.”
I knew he was really asking why I had stopped—why I’d encouraged his advances then pushed him away so violently—but I misunderstood him on purpose. I was so not about to pour out my heart to this guy.
He stared me down until I had no choice but to meet his gaze. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
I wrapped my arms around my waist defensively. “Why don’t you just get lost and we’ll forget this ever happened?”
I was beginning to suspect my crazy, irresistible attraction to him had something to do with the Fury in my head, but the charge was gone for now. Chased away by my flashback, and I had more urgent things to think about.
Like how to deal with the guy in the bathroom.
I couldn’t stop myself from glancing over at the door and Jackson’s eyes followed mine.
“You’re hiding something.”
“No, I’m not.” I spoke too quickly, giving myself away.
“Yes. You are. This room’s a mess, there’s blood on your clothes, and what just happened between us…” He pushed past me with a shake of his head and headed for the bathroom door. “I guess you think all men are the same, huh? You distract me from whatever you’re hiding in here by letting me feel you up, and I’m supposed to go on my merry way?”
Damn it. For a man who claimed he wanted nothing more than to be rid of me, he had a real tendency not to leave well enough alone.
“That doesn’t even make sense,” I argued, shifting to block his path. “If I was throwing myself at you to get rid of you, why would I have broken it off like that? Why wouldn’t I just convince you to meet me somewhere more…” I surveyed the broken furniture and tacky décor. “I don’t know, more romantic. Sexier. Somewhere that isn’t here.”
His mouth twisted in disgust as he looked down at me. “Save it. I lied to the police for Nora’s sake, not yours. She vouched for you, swore whatever happened at Spyder’s last night couldn’t have been your fault. Said she trusted you.”
He reached for the door, then paused. “What do you think will happen if whatever you’re involved in blows up and the cops find out Nora knew something and didn’t come clean? If Social Services gets wind of Nora filing a false report?”
When I had no answer, he went on. “I’ll paint you a picture. Single mother, works full-time at a bar, gets caught lying to police. You think they’d be very sympathetic?” He shook his head. “Whatever you’re hiding in there, I’m calling it in before you dig Nora and Ruby in any deeper.”
“It’s not like that!” I grabbed his arm, but part of me knew he was right. I’d been so concerned with my own drama—not that it was insubstantial—I hadn’t even considered how much he and Nora risked to help me.
“Then tell me what it’s like. The truth, this time.”
“Well, I’m not a hooker, for one thing.”
He raised an eyebrow, waited.
I sighed and stepped out of the way. “Before you freak out, at least let me explain,” I said as he opened the door.
Jackson stood still and surveyed the glass and blood all over the room. The injured man in the bathtub. It looked bad.
Really bad.
Jackson looked warily from the prone figure back to me. “You’d better start at the beginning.” He kept his face carefully neutral, his thoughts indecipherable.
I told him what Miller had tried to do to me and how I escaped, though I glossed over the part where I’d fought him off. I could accept Nora’s assurance that Jackson wouldn’t narc on me for acting in self-defense, but I wasn’t willing to trust him with the more…supernatural details.
While I talked, his eyebrows lifted slightly and his head tilted forward just a little. “That’s some story.”
He eased back toward the door, and I realized he didn’t believe a word of it. Not that I could blame him. He’d seen Miller’s body with his own eyes, and what I’d left behind had barely resembled the man it had once been.
“There’s more.” I picked up the photos I’d found and handed them over.
He flipped through them. “What are these supposed to be?”
“I found them in this room.” I grabbed the photos back and riffled through them until I came to one in which I was clearly identifiable. I handed it back.
He looked from the photo to me, and back again. “This is…?”
“It’s me.” I swallowed past the nausea that rose in my throat. “They’ve been stalking me. And when I got here…the guy in the bathroom shot at me.”
“You need to call the cops.”
“I can’t do that! They’ll blame me for everything.”
He crossed his arms. “And what do you expect me to do now that I know about all this? I told Nora I’d keep quiet about last night, but there’s no way I’m not calling this in.”
“Nora and Ruby are the reason you have to leave and forget about this,” I pleaded desperately. “You said it yourself—if you report this, it will be bad for them too.”
“So, what? You want me to just walk away and pretend I didn’t see anything?”
Alecto whispered in my ear. We needed more than his silence. We needed his help. If Jackson left, I would be stuck with an injured stalker, a destroyed motel room, and no knowledge of how to deal with either.
I took a deep breath and hoped the creepy pictures and blood on my clothing appealed to the protector in him, that alpha male side that appeared whenever he thought I threatened Nora and her stable, normal life.
“You don’t happen to know anything about how to interrogate a man, do you?” I asked.
Chapter 7
“What?” Jackson stared at me.
“I need to know why he and Miller were after me. If I just leave without getting any answers, how am I going to know if there’s anyone else involved? If I need to watch my back?”
“This is ridiculous.” He pulled out his phone. “I’m calling the cops.”
“No!” I grabbed his arm again. “You can’t do that. I mean, if you give me up, you give up Nora too. Don’t you think she should get a say in this?”
If I could just get him on the phone with Nora, I was sure she’d convince Jackson to help me. She’d gotten him to lie to the cops for me once already, and if anyone could persuade Jackson to take me at my word, it would be her.
“I know I’m going to regret this,” he muttered, but I could see he was swayed by the idea of bringing trouble down on Nora. My knees went weak with relief as he dialed.
“It’s me,” he said when Nora answered. “I’m with Tara, the girl from the bar.”
He walked a few steps away in a futile attempt to gain some privacy as he quickly summed up events at the Stardust. When he noticed how intently I eavesdropped, he lowered his voice even further, but I was still able to catch most of the conversation.
“
Epikindynos?
”
I raised my eyebrows. Was that Greek?
Dangerous
, Alecto translated.
He asks if you are dangerous.
Very interesting—Jackson could speak Greek. And it seemed I had my own built-in English-to-Greek translator. Which kind of made sense, since I had an ancient Greek legend living in my head.
Across the room, Jackson ended his call and turned back to face me. “This is the last time,” he growled at me. “Nora’s got a soft spot for you, but if you bring anything like this near her and Ruby again, I call the cops. Understand?”
A groan sounded in the bathroom as if on cue, and we both looked toward it, then back at each other.
“About that interrogation…”
Jackson ran a hand over his face and through his hair. “I’m
definitely
going to regret this.” He shook his head.
I closed the open window in the main room, then returned to stand on tiptoe and peer over Jackson’s shoulder. I appreciated the solid, reassuring wall of him between me and the mess in the bathroom.
“What did you do to him?” Jackson asked as he assessed the other man’s injuries.
I didn’t know what to say. “I’m…stronger than I look?”
He glanced back at me with skeptical, raised eyebrows, but he let it go and took a few crunching steps into the small room, his heavy boots grinding against the broken glass underfoot. The injured man’s moaning filled the room as Jackson grabbed him under the arms and hauled him to his feet, then half-carried, half-dragged him into the main room. He propped my victim up against the headboard and I saw that his skin had a definite blue tint. The man sagged weakly, blinking like an owl, and I hoped I hadn’t brain-damaged him.
“What’s your name?” Jackson asked, starting out easy.
It was a different approach than I would have taken. My plan had been to terrify the information I wanted out of him.
“Vic.” The guy’s voice wavered. “Vic Priest.” He shifted his weight and winced. “Can I get a doctor, man? My hand’s hurt pretty bad and I don’t feel so good.”
“You can see a doctor when you tell us what’s going on here. The lady says you shot at her.”
I raised my eyebrows. So, I’d gone from a hooker to a lady now. And to think all it took was getting stalked and shot at.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Priest responded.
Jackson held up the photographs. “She found these in your room.”
“So what? They’re just pictures. Anyone could have put those there. Besides, there’s no harm in a few pictures, right?”
Wrong. So wrong. I stepped into his line of sight. “Say that again. I dare you.”
Priest shrank back and looked wildly at Jackson. “Hey, man, I’ll answer your questions. Just keep her away from me.”
“Just talk,” Jackson ordered. He cut me a look that clearly said
back off.
Obediently, I stepped out of Priest’s line of vision.
“W-we’ve been watching her for s-six months,” the man stammered
.
“Some big shot from DeVille paid me to keep an eye on her when the work program sent me here for the hospital job. Then, when my buddy Clint got out, they sent him here and told him to watch her, too. He’s better with the camera, so he took over with the pictures.”
Aha. I felt a small flare of satisfaction. My theory had been right—Miller’s involvement did explain the sudden improvement in picture quality.
“
Who
had you watching me?” I asked Priest, forgetting Jackson’s warning glance.
The ex-con looked at me nervously, but he answered my question. “I d-don’t know, just some guy. I f-figured he was high up in the company ’cause nobody ever asked him for ID or anything when he showed up at the site.”
“What did he look like?”
“Tall. Blonde hair. Good looking, I guess.” I shifted my weight and he cowered. “I don’t know who he is, lady. Honest. He was just another suit to me.”
“Tell us about this work program,” Jackson said.
“It was a work-exchange thing with the jail. If you were strong enough to work construction, you could sign up, even if it was just to carry two-by-fours around the site or sweep floors. DeVille lets the cons work on their buildings and if you do good, they give you a job when you get out.”
“So someone from DeVille sent you and Miller here to keep an eye on Tara,” Jackson summarized. “Why?”
“I don’t know, man,” Priest whined. “They sent a lot of guys here for that job. I figured she was somebody’s ex-girlfriend or somethin’, and he wanted to make sure she wasn’t seeing nobody else. I only met the guy a coupla’ times. The money just shows up, cash in an envelope under my door every week.”
“What were the pictures for?” Jackson’s voice was hard as he pressed the smaller man for details.
“I don’t know.” Priest’s voice cracked. “I was just supposed to watch her.”
“Then why did you and Miller approach her last night?”
This was the million-dollar question, as far as I was concerned. Why had Miller attacked me if they were just supposed to keep watch over me?
“I got a phone call,” Priest said. “It was the same guy I met in the beginning, who told me what to do. He said we should put her in a dangerous situation and see what she did. Then I was supposed to report back.”
“So you and your buddy had instructions to rape me?” I demanded, voice rising. “Just to see what I would do? And you didn’t see anything wrong with that?”
My hair twitched and I willed myself not to get Furious.
You’re getting a buzz cut if you do that in front of Jackson,
I told my hair. Priest, already wary of me, noticed the twitch and moaned in fear, but I had things under control by the time Jackson looked over.
“I didn’t!” Priest protested. “It was Clint!” He was on dangerous ground, but he was too stupid to see it, and he kept babbling. “Clint came up with the plan.”