Along Came a Spider (9 page)

His even gaze met mine. “You are to me.”

My breath caught in my chest as I blinked at him, wondering if he was joking, but there was no sign of humor lurking in his eyes. “Thanks,” I finally managed softly.

He gave me a tight nod, then stood and put his hands on his hips. He dropped his eyes to the carpet for a moment, then finally looked back up at me from under those long dark lashes of his, devastating me all over again. “Listen, I really am sorry about last night,” he said, running his hand through his hair. “I don’t usually drink like that. Seriously, if I made a total ass of myself—”

“You didn’t,” I interrupted with a laugh. “You were a perfect gentleman.” Damn it all. . . .

For a split second he looked as disappointed as I felt, but then he gave a nod. “All right, then. So, whaddaya say we get outta here? I’ll buy you something to eat on the way to your apartment.”

I narrowed my eyes. “And coffee? My coffee habit’s almost as bad as Red’s, you know.”

He inclined his head in agreement. “Coffee it is.”

I gave him a terse, satisfied nod and started for the door, but he grabbed my arm as I passed. “Trish . . .” he began, his expression oddly tortured. Then his face cleared and he winked at me, giving one of my curls a playful tug, but the smile that came next was a little sad. “You know, it’ll be strange not having to sneak into your apartment anymore now that the jig is up.”

I laughed, appreciating his attempt to lighten the mood a little. “Yeah, well, Spider, I’m sure you can find some other unsuspecting gal’s apartment to break into. I hear Sleeping Beauty just moved into a new high-rise—might be a challenge.”

“Ah, but you’ve got it all wrong,” he said, casually draping his arm around my shoulders as if it was the most natural thing in the world, and leading me from the room. “The challenge was never the building but the gal inside.”

I sent a sidelong glance his way, a tentative little spark of hope springing to life in the center of my chest.

Chapter Seven

Nicky never left my side the entire time I was in my apartment, his eyes constantly darting around, watching for even a ripple of movement in the air that might signal an attack. I quickly changed clothes and threw together a bag to take with me, then gathered up Sasha’s food and bowl. Last was my laptop and what I could salvage of the various notebooks strewn all over the living room.

“Are you sure you don’t mind me staying at your house?” I asked as we loaded everything into the back of his Escalade.

“Are you kiddin’ me?” he asked. “Forget about it. Like I’m going to let you come back to this place?”

I shoved my hands into my coat pockets and let out a sigh, watching my breath freeze in the air and thinking about the attack on me the night before. “We really should talk to Nate and Red about this.”

Nicky cast a guarded look my way as he slammed the hatch shut.

I cocked my head to one side and narrowed my eyes at him. “You haven’t told Red that you’re back in town, have you?”

“Let’s get going,” he muttered, ignoring my question.

I followed him around to the driver’s side and stood in front of the door, my arms crossed over my chest. “Why not tell her you’re back? Why keep it a secret?”

He zipped his leather jacket, apparently realizing I wasn’t going to be deterred until he answered my question. “It’s complicated.”

I knew Nicky still cared about Red; that’d been clear in the images I’d seen in his thoughts while he was dying. And to see her so happy with Nate—his best friend, by all accounts—must’ve felt awkward at times. Hell, I could relate to that probably better than anyone. Complicated was an understatement.

“Fine,” I sighed. “Just drop me a couple of blocks from headquarters then. I have to check in before someone notices I haven’t made it to work yet. Besides, I need to see what I can find out about our victim from last night, get an ID on the guy.”

Nicky shrugged. “Don’t bother. I know who it is.”

My brows shot up. “How could you possibly—” I didn’t even finish the question. “Who is it?”

“Tim Halloran.”

I blinked at him in disbelief. “The Sandman?”

Nicky’s head bobbed impatiently. “Yeah, now can we get in the car? I’m freezing my nuts off out here.”

Once we were in the Escalade and on our way again, I asked, “Why the Sandman?”

“Not sure,” Nicky admitted. “I got a tip something was getting ready to go down here in Chicago, so I headed back.”

“A tip?” I echoed. “How’d you get a tip on something like that?”

Nicky shrugged. “I know a guy.”

Of course he did. . . .

“And you didn’t do anything to stop the vampires from killing him?”

“There was nothing I could do by the time I found them,” he said, his words clipped.

Tim “the Sandman” Halloran had been Nicky’s biggest rival and one of the most ruthless crime bosses among us. Unlike Nicky’s Outfit, which operated on a system of friendship and loyalty in exchange for protection and the occasional favor now and then, Halloran’s tastes ran to trafficking in fairy dust and financing Tale businesses in exchange for more than his fair share of the returns. And there was certainly no love lost between the two men. During the fifties, they’d had a full-out war going on between them, with Nicky’s Outfit coming out the victor thanks in no small part to the loyalty of those who were lucky enough to call him a friend. In spite of their history, I found it hard to believe Nicky would’ve just left Tim Halloran to die. Even so, I could tell he was hiding something, holding back on me.

“I still want to take a look,” I insisted.

“I’d skip Halloran and take a look at those vampire dames if I were you,” he said. “Those bloodsuckin’ broads had a Tale signature, Trish, but they weren’t from any idiom I recognized. What the hell is that all about?”

“Wish I knew,” I admitted. “Unfortunately, I’m not going to find out any time soon. The Agency took them.”

“Sons of bitches!” Nicky growled, something dark passing over his features.

I blinked at him, startled by his sudden rage. “Nicky, I know it sucks, but—”

“Sucks doesn’t even begin to cover it,” he snapped. He glared at the road in silence for a long, tense moment, then suddenly slammed his palm against the steering wheel. “Shit! I’m this close, Trish. I can feel it. I’m this fucking close to bringing down that bastard Dracula and making him pay.”

“We’ll figure it out,” I assured him. “Right now, let’s focus on Halloran. When I was reading him I saw an image of a woman—
stunningly beautiful with white hair and bright green eyes. Do you know who she is?”

Nicky shrugged begrudgingly. “Sure. That’s Sophia—Halloran’s girl. She’s a shape-shifter from folklore.”

I nodded. “Okay, good. Well, someone should probably let her know what’s happened, right? I’ll make the death notification and see what she can tell us.”

“You can’t just go barging in to Halloran’s compound alone and tell his were-tiger girlfriend he bit the big one—or, more to the point, that a couple of vampire whores bit his big one before bumping him off.”

“You’re right,” I readily agreed. “Guess you’re going to have to come with me.”

Nicky’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. I could tell that making a death notification to the dead crime lord’s girlfriend wasn’t the kind of action he was used to taking. But he nodded. “Fine. Have it your way. But, you’re right—if I’m gonna start poking around out in the open I should probably talk to Red first.”

“Where the hell have you been, you son of a bitch?”

Nicky glanced at me, the look he sent my way conveying “I told you so” loud and clear. “Good to see you, too, kid,” he said, offering Red a grin. Then he nodded toward her belly. “You and Nate have been busy. Congratulations.”

“Don’t try to turn on the charm with me, Nicky Blue,” Red hissed. “You couldn’t take five minutes to send me a fucking e-mail?”

“So you could show up on my doorstep when you had no business—”

“No business?” Red’s eyes went wide. “Are you shitting me? After all we’ve been through together? After I saw you lying there on the floor with your guts hanging out, you have the nerve to tell me I have no business caring what happens to you? Fuck you, Nicky! Get him the hell out of my office, Nate.”

“Tess,” Nate admonished mildly before taking up what had become his usual perch on the corner of Red’s desk and turning his dark gaze on his old friend. “It’s good to see you again, Nicky, but I can’t say I totally disagree with her on this one. You want to tell us what the hell you’ve been doing for the last two years?”

Nicky shifted a little uneasily, casting a furtive glance my way. “I’ve been here and there. You know.”

“No, I don’t know.” Red leaned across her desk as much as her pregnant belly would allow, her blue eyes now bright with angry tears. “Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been, you unbelievable jackass?” She snatched a tissue from the box next to her and swiped irritably at the tears spilling onto her cheeks. “Shit! Seriously? Now I’m crying? God, pregnancy has made me lose my fucking mind!”

Nicky cleared his throat a couple of times, growing increasingly uncomfortable at the sight of Red’s tears. “I’m sorry, kid,” he said, his voice taking on a gentleness that made me bristle. “I never meant to worry you. I just had to get my head together. And, well, I’ve been doing a little moonlighting since I left town that’s been keeping me busy.”

She eyed him warily. “What kind of moonlighting?”

“You know”—he shrugged—“some cleanup work like back in the day.”

Red flopped back in her chair, her face going slack. “Like back in the New York days, Nicky?”

“Somethin’ like that,” he admitted.

I heard Nate curse under his breath before pegging Nicky with a look of warning. “Are you sitting here confessing to a crime, Nicky? You know we’d have to arrest you if you are.”

Nicky spread his hands and leaned back in his chair. “I’m not confessing to anything. I’m just stating a fact. I had some things to deal with, so I’ve been doing a little work to clear my head.”

“You promised me you’d never do another hit, Nicky,” Red reminded him, her voice barely above a whisper. She glanced at her closed office door before adding, “After you got shot, you said you’d stick to making a point in other ways.”

“I have,” he insisted. “This had nothing to do with my own business.”

Nate crossed his arms over his chest, his face going dark. “Seeing as how I never got any calls for a hit on a Tale, I’m assuming these were Ordinaries?”

Red cursed a blue streak. “Perfect. That’s exactly the kind of headache we need right now.”

“Trust me,” Nicky said, “all these guys had it comin’. Nobody’s gonna miss ’em.”

Red ran a hand through her thick black hair, letting it fall around her shoulders. “So what does any of this have to do with Trish?” She jabbed her finger at his chest. “So help me God, Nicky, if you drag her into your bullshit . . .”

We’d agreed on the way to headquarters that we were going to steer clear of Nicky’s vigilante alter-ego and the connection to Dracula, but we had to have some reasonable explanation as to why he would be helping me on an open investigation or Red would put the smack-down on both of us in a fairytale minute. “Trish needed my expertise on a case,” he said with a shrug.

I glanced over at Nate, not surprised to find his bottomless black eyes on me, narrowed with a silent question.

Red wasn’t nearly so subtle. “What kind of expertise?”

Nicky glanced around as if expecting the authorities to come barging into the room at any moment. He leaned forward a little in his chair and hissed, “Insight into my business ventures.”

“Tim Halloran’s dead,” I blurted, impatient with the euphemisms and innuendo.

Red’s brows shot up. “How? When?” She then turned an accusing glare on Nate. “And how did you not know this?”

Nate shook his head, clearly as baffled as Red. “Got me.”

“He was the victim in the alley,” I explained. “Nicky got a tip about his identity from one of his associates and passed it along to me.”

Nate nodded. “That guy’s soul was so traumatized by his death it was unrecognizable. I couldn’t tell who it was. Damn. Hell of a way to go.”

Red seemed unmoved as she pegged Nicky and me with that look of hers that tells you to stow the bullshit. “And you two teamed up how?”

“Nicky and I bumped into each other sometime back. And, well . . .” I paused, my heart suddenly in my throat as I thought about what Nicky and I had agreed to say. It was just a little too surreal to utter the words aloud. Fortunately, I didn’t have to.

“And we’ve been hooking up for a while,” Nicky supplied. “I came by Trish’s apartment last night after I heard about the vampire attack.” He took my hand in his and raised it to his lips, his gaze locking with mine. My face was instantly aflame, no doubt confirming his insinuation, which was most likely his intention. Oh, man, he was good. . . .