Convict: A Bad Boy Romance (3 page)

Not that I own a poodle skirt. I’m not sure I own
any
skirts. Maybe one, somewhere in the back of my closet.

“Just start from the beginning and tell me what happened this morning,” I say.

There isn’t much for him to tell: he got to work and it was vandalized. It’s hard as hell for me to concentrate on the details, and on asking the right follow-up questions, like
were the cans of spray paint still there? Did the paint look wet? Was the door open or shut?

I just concentrate on writing it down, because he’s still got this funny little half-smile on his face, his one dimple showing.

Even though coveralls aren’t the most flattering garment, I can tell he’s
built
, easily over six feet, wide-shouldered. A big hunk of sexy man, and
Jesus
, when did I start using phrases like that? I try not to look at him too much, because I’m starting to feel
very
unprofessional.

We walk through everything twice. I concentrate on doing my job, and finally, I get the hang of it again.

“This might be a hard question,” I ask, tapping my pen against my pad. “But is anything
missing
?”

Stone blows air from one side of his mouth and tugs at the cuff of one sleeve. Unlike Eddie, he hasn’t rolled his sleeves up, but he keeps touching them like he wants to. Finally, he crosses his arms in front of himself and looks to one side.

“I haven’t noticed anything,” he says. “But they really did a number on this place, threw all the tools everywhere, just wrecked everything,” he says. “We might not even notice for a couple of days with the mess.”

“How about valuables?” I ask.

He shrugs.

“There’s a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of tools and equipment here,” he says. “But it’s hard to steal a lift and get it out that little door.”

Unconsciously, he pulls at his collar a little, and I realize he’s got it buttoned all the way to the very top button.

Something about this guy is pricking at the back of my brain. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something just a
little
strange about him.

I did watch him throw a surfing-related temper tantrum this morning. I didn’t think anything of it then, because I’ve absolutely thrown them myself. One time I sprained a toe when I kicked my board after falling off.

But he
does
have a temper. And now, his place of employment is wrecked, and he was the first one here.

“How about the office?” I ask.

He looks around, then shakes his head.

“Nothing,” he says. “We checked the cash drawer first thing, and that hadn’t been touched. We keep the keys in that lockbox—” he jerks his thumb behind him toward a metal box mounted on the wall, “and none of those are missing, either. From in here, they could have stolen a couple of cars, easy.”

“Even though they’re in the shop?”

“There’s nothing out there that won’t run if you shut the hood,” Stone says, running one hand through his hair. “No, I take that back. That Volkswagen is getting its transmission rebuilt, so that’s not going anywhere. But there’s a BMW that’s just here for an oil change and a tune-up, and a Land Rover getting its tires rotated. They could have driven either of those off and been at the Oakland docks in a couple of hours, probably before anyone even noticed the cars were gone.”

I stop writing and look at him again, and he looks back at me.

“The Oakland docks?” I ask.

Stone’s quiet for a beat.

“Don’t most stolen cars get shipped overseas?” he asks. “I read somewhere that they were harder to trace that way.”

He’s completely right, and that’s the weird thing, because that’s not really common knowledge. Usually, if a car gets stolen, the owner calls every day to ask if it’s found yet, like they think the thief is just driving it around town.

Every so often, that happens. But usually, within four or five hours that car is in a shipping crate and headed to some other country.

Stone tugs at the cuff of his sleeve again.

“Is there something I haven’t asked?” I say. “If you think I’m barking up the wrong tree, you can say so.”

He folds his arms in front of himself.

“I don’t have any better an idea than you do, Detective,” he says, his voice quiet. “But, between me and you, I’d like to wring the necks of whoever did this to Eddie. He’s got insurance, but this is two weeks’ worth of work that he’ll have to do for free, and even longer than that to get everything in working order again.”

His jaw flexes and he goes quiet, looking at me very, very intently.

“Did you recognize any of the graffiti?” I ask, very slowly.

I don’t know why it occurs to me, but it’s worth asking.

“No,” he says.

“Do you know who might hold a grudge against Eddie?” I ask.

I’m not taking notes any more, just talking. I take a step closer to the desk with Stone behind it, and now we’re only a couple of feet apart.

“No idea,” he says.

“What about you?” I ask.

Now I’m leaning forward over the desk, just slightly.

“What about me, Detective?” he asks, one side of his mouth just barely curving up.

“Is there anyone out there with a grudge?” I ask.

He breaks eye contact and looks out the window behind me for a moment, then looks back.

“I don’t even know anyone here,” he says. “I’m still pretty new in town, and I don’t think I’ve pissed too many people off yet.”

“Have you pissed anyone off?” I ask. “Now’s the time to say it, before we find out from someone else.”

Stone swallows and looks away again. I raise one eyebrow.

“Stone,” I say, my voice low and almost coaxing.

It is
not
the voice that a police officer should be using to question a witness, but it’s the one that comes out of me.

“Detective,” he says, mimicking me almost perfectly, a teasing smile in his eyes. “This seems unfair, you know.”

“Don’t tell me you think I’m blaming the victim,” I say, my voice still low. “It’s a valid question.”

He chuckles.

“No, it seems unfair that I don’t know
your
first name, Detective,” he says. “Or is it Detective?”

It’s not the first time that a man has asked me for my first name in the line of duty, but it’s the first time I haven’t minded. Hell, it’s the first time I’ve wanted to
tell
him instead of back slowly away.

“Detective Rivers will do just fine,” I say, trying to cling to my very last shreds of professionalism. “Who’d you piss off, Stone?”

I
’m
at least seventy-five percent certain that Detective Rivers is flirting with me. She’s also doing her job, asking me who might be angry enough to smash up the auto repair shop, but in my experience, cops don’t usually talk like
this
.

They don’t practically
purr
at me while looking up at me through their eyelashes, and they don’t coyly refuse to give me their first names.

Mostly, cops seem to handcuff me, read me my rights, and toss me into a cell. All of which Detective Rivers would
also
be more than welcome to do. Particularly the handcuffing.

“Who’d you piss off, Stone?” she says, and I look away.

Out the window, the other detective and Eddie are slowly walking the perimeter of the auto repair shop. Eddie’s pointing things out, and the other woman is nodding very professionally. Nobody seems to be
purring
anyone’s name out there.

I look back at Detective Rivers and steel myself, because I really don’t want to tell her this.

“There was an angry husband in Emerald Bay about a month ago,” I admit.

I swear her face changes like a curtain falls over it, from the barest hint of a playful smile to all business. The temperature in the room drops about ten degrees.

“Did he have a name?” she asks, writing on the pad and not looking at me.

“The wife said her name was Tiffany,” I say, and cross my arms again. “But she said a lot of things that turned out not to be true.”

“No last name?” she says, eyes still down.

“I didn’t exactly ask to see ID,” I say.

This is ridiculous. There’s no reason I should hate telling her this, but I do. Telling a girl you want to fuck that you sometimes pick up drunk, married women in dive bars isn’t a great seduction tactic, and I would
very
much like to fuck Detective Rivers.

Not that I should be thinking about it.
No attachments
, Tony said. That’s why I’ve been going to other towns for sex. Less chance of having to see someone again.

I’ve gone quiet again, and she’s just looking at me with those warm sable eyes.

“Are you going to tell me more, or what?” she asks.

I shrug, because there isn’t all that much to tell.

“I went into the Rusty Doubloon, and there was an attractive blond woman sitting alone and drinking something in a martini glass,” I say. “I asked if I could get her next one for her, she failed to mention that she was married, one thing led to another, and we wound up in the Starlite Motel off of Highway 1.”

“And the husband?” Detective Rivers asks.

The husband kicked the door in while I was balls-deep in Tiffany, who was putting on one hell of a reverse-cowgirl show, moaning like she was in a porno. Probably loud enough for the entire motel to hear.

“The husband used the GPS in his wife’s phone to find her,” I say. “He found us... in the act.”

“The sex act?” she asks, so dryly that I think she might be making fun of me.

“Yeah, that one,” I say. “He was upset, so we exchanged some words, I gathered my things, and left.”

She looks at me skeptically.

“Sure,” she says.

Well, actually, he lunged at me, Tiffany dove off me, and I gave the husband a bloody nose before I grabbed my clothes, keys, and ran out of the motel room buck-ass naked.
Then
he followed me in his car until I lost him on the freeway just outside town.

“Do you upset a lot of husbands?” she asks.

“I’m not in the habit of picking up married women,” I say.

Hell, I’m barely in the habit of picking up women. I only ever do it when I don’t think I can bring myself to jerk off one more time, because five years on the inside didn’t exactly do wonders for my social skills.

God, the old me would be embarrassed.

“Any other angry men?” she asks. “Husbands, boyfriends, fathers?”

Probably, but I can’t think of them.

“Angry women? Wives, girlfriends?” she goes on.

“None that I’m aware of,” I say. “You think it was him?”

Detective Rivers sighs and looks at her notes. Then she looks over her shoulder at the window, where the other detective and Eddie are still talking.

“Not really,” she says. “Batali hates it when I guess, but I think he’s more likely to be
upset
at Tiffany’s next drunken conquest than still angry with you.”

“Are you saying I wasn’t Tiffany’s one and only transgression?” I ask, trying not to smile.

“I’m saying that getting drunk alone in a dive bar and going to a shitty motel with a stranger is rarely the first stop on the Infidelity Limited,” she says.

I think she’s trying not to smile, too.

“That sounds like a terrible train,” I say.

“People usually seem to regret boarding it,” she says.

Detective Rivers looks down at her notes, flipping backward through them.

“Anything else?” she asks.

“Not that I can think of,” I lie.

The dollar sign emblem flashes through my mind again, but I shove it back. I can handle that myself. If the police get involved they’ll blow everything.

“Is Stone your real name?” she asks.

The question totally catches me off guard, and I just stand there with my mouth open. Technically, it is
now
, but for a second I just think
how does she know?

“I mean, your parents named you that? It’s not a nickname?”

“No,” I say, recovering. “Old family name.”

She just nods, then holds out her hand again. We shake, her grip warm and firm and, I swear to God, just a little tingly.

“Thanks, Stone,” she says.

She reaches into her pocket and comes out with a business card.

“Call me if you think of anything else,” she says. “My cell number is on there.”

DETECTIVE L. RIVERS, it reads.

“Come on, Detective,” I say. “What’s the L stand for?”

She just smiles.

“Lucille,” I guess. “Loretta. Lacy.”

Detective Rivers turns, walks for the door, and stops with one hand on the frame.

“Lauren. Lula-Mae.”

She looks at me over her shoulder, almost the same position as this morning, when she was watching the waves over her shoulder.

“Tell me,” I say, and my voice comes out a low, rough rumble.

Detective Rivers gives me a long, slow once-over that makes every hair on my body stand on end. If a woman looked at me like that in a bar, twenty minutes later we’d be in a cheap motel, but that’s not in the cards right now.

“Luna,” she says, and steps out the door into the sunlight.

* * *

I
spend
the day sweeping glass, putting tools back where they belong, ordering replacement car windows, and thinking about two things.

One is Detective Rivers. Detective Rivers in the back seat of the Land Rover, my face between her thighs. Detective Rivers bent over the hood of the Volkswagen, moaning with my cock buried inside her. Detective Rivers on her knees, lips around my shaft as I lean against a tool bench, looking up at me.

Even Detective Rivers, standing in front of me fully clothed, tapping her pen against her notepad.

The other thing is the Syndicate’s symbol, spray painted on the corner of the garage gate. I know what it means.

They want me to think they’ve found me. They want me to run, to try to hide somewhere else.

But seven or eight years ago, I was the guy going out at one in the morning and spray painting that symbol on warehouses in Atlanta. I know how this works.

We were looking for someone named Ernest. An accountant or something who’d ratted, then gone into Witness Protection. The Syndicate heard that he
might
be in Atlanta somewhere, so we did what my boss called
shaking the trees
. So we could see what flew out.

It started with us tagging shit all over the city and smashing some windows. Nothing happened. We torched a car and left the symbol nearby. Nothing, but the Syndicate
swore
he was somewhere in the city, so we torched a whole building, an old Taco Bell that had shut down.

He still didn’t run. We started to think he wasn’t in Atlanta, that the Syndicate had been wrong, but they insisted. The string of arsons was all over the news, so we gave it one more shot and set fire to an abandoned warehouse near the river.

That did it. Ernest got himself a fake ID, withdrew a lot of money from the bank, and got on an Amtrak train — exactly what the Syndicate was watching for. We shook the trees, and he flew.

He didn’t make it out of Georgia.

Here’s the thing, though: if Ernest hadn’t run, we’d have given up. We were
this
close to deciding he wasn’t in Atlanta. Plus, there were people doing the same thing in Houston and Chicago, and they didn’t turn up anything.

They
want
me to run. They
want
me scared, they
want
me to think they’re close to finding me, but I know better.

I ran once. I went into witness protection in the first place.

I’m not fucking running again.

* * *

W
hen I leave
work I drive straight from Tortuga to San Luis Obispo, the nearest real city. It’s not a big city, but it’s big enough for what I need.

I head straight for the basement bar on the outskirts of town. I don’t think the place has a name, or at least if it does, I’ve never heard it. When I open the door a large, bearded man in a bandana stands from his stool near the door, looks me up and down, nods, and sits again.

I nod back.

I didn’t go looking for this place. I didn’t want to find it, but my whole life, trouble’s had a way of finding me and I’ve never exactly minded.

A few months ago, a guy came into Eddie’s with a busted transmission on an nearly-new car. It was pretty obvious from half a glance that he drove like an asshole, probably drag raced, and definitely wasn’t very good at it.

We fixed him up, and as I was giving him his keys back, he finally asked.

“You know anything about putting nitrous oxide in cars?”

“I know it’s illegal for street cars in California,” I said.

“Oh, right,” the guy said. He was pretty young, and everything about him screamed
rich parents
. “That must be why I’m having a hard time finding someone who likes money enough to do it.”

“Most racers do it themselves,” I pointed out. What I meant was,
most racers know something about the cars they drive, which you obviously don’t
, but I didn’t say that out loud.

He just shrugged.

“I never got into that part of it,” he said. “But take my number and give me a call if you know any mechanics who need a few thousand extra under the table.”

I took the job and the money. Then I took another one, and another, and before I knew it, I was the guy who’d soup up any car, no questions asked.

Yeah, I fucking knew better than to do illegal shit only six months out of prison with a newly-clean record and all that. But it felt
good
to work on those cars. It felt good to hang out with people who weren’t always on the right side of the law, who didn’t mind getting their hands a little dirty. Who weren’t always upright citizens.

Besides, it was just some car mods. A slap on the wrist at worst.

But the thing is, rich kids who like street racing aren’t the only ones who want fast cars. Plenty of people have reasons for wanting to get away from the cops, and it wasn’t long before
those
people came calling. Still just mods, but like I said: trouble’s got a way of finding me.

In the bar, I order a beer, sit down on a stool, and wait. Sylvie usually comes in around this time of day, and true to form, it’s not long before she darkens the door.

She takes her time making her way from patron to patron, even though there’s only five or six of us right now. If her life had turned out different, she’d have made a great politician, because she remembers names, faces, all that shit.

Sylvie gets to me last.

“It’s been a while, Stone,” she says, sitting next to me on a stool, glass of red wine in one hand. “You need a job?”

She’s got steel-gray hair that curls past her shoulders, ice-blue eyes, and a pleasant-yet-no-nonsense attitude. I’ve never seen her wear anything but a leather motorcycle vest over a button-down denim shirt.