Poughkeepsie (36 page)

Blake kissed her and then spoke solemnly. “I’ll play it for you.”

He studied the keyboard for a moment and then sat behind it. Livia leaned against the counter.

“What would you like to hear?” He seemed sheepish and nervous.

He has no idea I’ve heard him before
.

“The happy one you were just playing on your piano, if you want.”

He brightened. “Okay.”

After trying a few buttons he turned off the key-light guide. He rolled his eyes and shook his head at her playfully. Then he began.

Listening to him play was like discovering an eagle in the wild. It was tumblingly bewitching. She could feel and hear genius—she knew it.

“Blake.” She didn’t have to say more.

He locked his emerald eyes on hers, and she could not look away. Not for anything. He let his happy song trickle into a more intimate one. Blake’s fingers moved as he held her gaze. “I wrote this one while we danced the other night,” he said softly.

The music washed over her. It changed her. Refreshed her. Made her more than she was. Blake stood and twisted the keyboard around, still playing with one hand. He motioned for her with the other. She nearly ran. He scooped her up with one arm and set her on the table next to the keyboard.

“This is what nibbling your ear sounds like.” Blake created a soundtrack for his teeth.

“This is what looking into your eyes sounds like.” The notes were deep and beckoning.

“This is what my mind hears when my tongue is in your mouth.” The kiss sounded steamy and delicate. The rhythm was her heartbeat as he sampled her mouth.

“But when you smile. When you smile it’s…” Blake scooted the keyboard around behind her. He needed both hands.

She put her hands on his face and smiled in amazement as the music exploded. She couldn’t imagine how her simple facial gesture could inspire such a majestic sound.

He smiled back. “One thousand nine hundred and ten.”

“So many? Really?”

“Yes, really. And it’s not nearly enough. I want to lose count, Livia. Make me lose count.” His hands left the beautiful music and grabbed handfuls of her hair.

His kisses were so mind-numbing that when Blake said, “Car door,” it took Livia a few seconds to remember she spoke English.

“Dad. Oh. My dad’s home.”

Blake backed up and helped Livia off the table. He grabbed his cardboard piano and rolled it. He seemed to need it for confidence.

“Don’t worry. My dad’s a really great guy. He seems gruff, but he has a great heart.” Livia rubbed Blake’s back.

“You must take after him then.” Blake eyed the door. “I just hate being inside before I’ve met him.”

“It’s okay. I’m allowed to have friends visit.” Livia went to meet her father at the door.

She looked out the window beside the door and saw that he’d brought a squad car home, which was a rare occurrence. She looked back to Blake. He’d set his cardboard piano on the coffee table in the living room. He wiped his hands on his pants and practiced his handshake with an imaginary, friendly Livia’s father. Her actual dad was headed down the path when Livia opened the door.

“Hey, Dad.” She smiled as widely as she could.

Her father wasn’t to the house yet when he started in. “Livia Marie McHugh, you and I need to have a serious sit down. A homeless guy? What the hell?”

28

Investment

C
RAIG
N
EEDED
T
O
M
EET
with his contact again. After two years of frustration at having his construction teams cockblocked, it was time for definitive action. He knew that. He just needed a little encouragement.

At the root of it, this was not what he wanted. He didn’t even think it was a good plan B—he just couldn’t think of anything else. His phone beeped. The contact wanted to meet at a nearby fast food joint. Craig smoothed his hair and dusted off his suit.
Either shit or get off the pot.

When asked, Craig described his profession as “investment dealer.” It was a broad, sweeping term of his own creation that just barely defined what he did. He’d started as a realtor, but after buying a rundown building, he became a landlord, and his license to sell lay dormant. Landlording to mostly low-end clients tapped into Craig’s darker talents. He could be a hell of a bully. His tactics for acquiring payments, when necessary, bordered on illegal. Luckily his renters had neither the knowledge nor the money to fight him. They just moved out, and he had more bait move in.

When the housing market heated up, he dusted off his real estate license and began flipping homes in his spare time. He became an expert in mirages. He could paint over the flaws in a house and hire his shady inspector to whitewash over shoddy repairs. At his disposal was a group of contractors who did exactly what he said and collected their money. End of story. He’d worked hard to cultivate a crew that had no concern about whether their creations would stand the test of time.

While his money flowed freely and his ego was limitless, Craig also invested in the part of town no one else wanted. He was certain he could revitalize the crappy, drug-riddled rubble—at least on the surface. It was within walking distance of the train station, for God’s sake. Someday it would be “Soho in Pough”—a hipster-friendly selection of bistros, bookstores, and antique shops that currently existed only in his mind. Tourists would seek it out to dump their money into Craig’s pocket.

Near as he could tell there was one, and only one, wrench in his plan. Beckett Fucking Taylor. His broken-down strip mall sat dead center, like a lead weight in “Soho in Pough’s” potential. Any time Craig sent in his contractors to tear down a building in the area, they’d not only fail to complete the job, they’d refuse to ever return—no matter what tirade of disappointment Craig unleashed on them.

Then when the housing market bottomed out, the rest of Craig’s luck went with it. Two lawsuits in particular had proved tough to shake. The duped owners of his flimsy rehabbed houses just had so much proof. Then the city condemned his building full of renters, and complete financial ruin loomed before him.

Before the downfall of his empire, Craig had had the luxury of waiting. He’d been willing to bide his time until the inevitable death of Beckett Taylor, whose lifestyle was bound to catch up with him. But Taylor wasn’t cooperating. He had more lives than a bucketful of cats, along with a distinctly devoted staff of assholes. And Craig was out of time. He needed Soho in Pough to start happening
now
—before he no longer had the last of his money to finance it.

And so, despite his better judgment, here he was. The deal was simple: eliminate Beckett Taylor, however dirty the job became. Craig had hired a crew of trained mercenaries. They didn’t come cheap, but they did come professional. And he’d never have found them without his contact.

Craig had never planned anyone’s death before, and sometimes his hands shook when he thought of the enormity of his actions. But he was only speeding up the inevitable. Taylor would have been dead soon enough anyway, he often reminded himself.

He pulled his Jag into a spot at the burger joint. If he didn’t pull this off, they’d finally repo this car.
I might have to get a job
here
to make fucking money.
This has to work.

The back booth contained a nondescript man eating an equally blasé burger. He didn’t look up as Craig sat down.

After slowly polishing off his fries and looking everywhere but at Craig, the contact spoke up. “Now’s the moment, if you’re ready.”

Craig swallowed the burning in his throat and felt cold sweat trickle into his suit pants.
I have no other options.
“Go over our deal one more time,” he said, finding his voice. “Explain it like I’m a little kid.” Craig clasped his sweating hands under the table.

“My boss will only respond to great force. You have to hit him hard and close. He has only two weaknesses that I’ve observed: his brothers. You get the brothers, you get the man.”

The contact made a giant, crumpled ball out of his wrappers and ketchup packets. “The men skilled in the talents we discussed are on standby right now. All I need is the go from you.”

Instead Craig finished the plan. “Then you’ll run his organization because you’re his right-hand man. You’ll sell me the strip mall and clear out the riff-raff. We’ll be partners in my new renovated section of town. Easy. Simple.”

The contact looked bored. “It won’t be easy or simple. Don’t underestimate Beckett. I can handle my part, but you need to follow my directions to the letter.”

“Go,” Craig said. “You have my permission.” He wiped sweat from his upper lip.

The contact nodded, got up, and disappeared. Craig looked at the ball of trash in front of him. It would all be over soon.

Beckett Taylor was a horrendous person. This opportunity had fallen in Craig’s lap, and he’d simply jumped on it.
You have to be able to jump quickly with investments
.

Craig left the ball on the table, earning him a dirty look from an employee patrolling with a broom and an overworked rag. He sat for a moment once he was back in his Jag. One of the two brothers would be paying for their unfortunate connection to Taylor right about…now.

Merkin smiled as he slid into a drug runner’s car. He texted the eight men he’d looked long and hard to find. His smile slipped for a moment as he stuffed down the gnawing pain that Beckett’s brothers had to be involved. He still hoped he’d need only one to force Beckett out into the open. He texted the orders to his point man. The team had kept track of the easiest brother to find: Cole, always at his stupid church.

Merkin took a deep breath. He couldn’t second-guess himself now. For at least a year he’d been looking for a way out—with a windfall. When he’d first joined Beckett’s organization, he’d hoped to be chosen second in command. He was by far the most talented with technology. Christ, that was how he’d found Craig in the first place. Keeping watch on the local newspaper and following through with some backup hacking had paid off. He knew more about Craig’s plans and finances than Craig did.

He hadn’t wanted to do this. Mouse was close to Beckett, but the knitter had no head for business, so his path was clear—or so he thought. He kept waiting for something to happen, for Beckett to bring him into the fold. But he never did. Then Eve had come along and condemned Merkin to eternal second class. There wasn’t jack shit she couldn’t do. And judging from the screams in the office not long ago, her pussy was made of solid gold.

He was lucky if he was third in command at this point. Who really knew.

The point man texted back:

Subject in church. One female on premises. Terminate?

Merkin rolled his head on his neck; these were the kind of quick, hard decisions he’d have to get used to. He texted his answer and closed the phone. Merkin knew he had to get back to Eve
now
. Everything was about to happen real fast, and he needed her far away from Beckett.

He pulled in the parking lot of Beckett’s strip mall office to find the usual stragglers milling around. Beckett’s Hummer was gone, along with the vehicles that usually accompanied it, but a quick check of everyone’s cell phone GPS chips let Merkin know where they were. At least he was still in charge of whereabouts. Mouse was in the fucking Jo-Ann Fabrics. Beckett was at a bank downtown, and Eve was inside Beckett’s strip mall by herself.

He grabbed the douchebag guarding the front door. “Aunt Betty’s coming to visit. Eve and I have the interior. Clear the exterior.”

Soon the people in the lot scrambled. The code for “police on the way” worked like magic. Merkin knew this only bought him an hour or so, but he hoped that was all he’d need. He knocked on Beckett’s office door.

“Enter.” Her voice was husky and sexy.

She sat behind his desk, twirling a knife in her hand—flipping it from finger to finger like a secretary with a pencil.

“Better head out, Eve.”