Dead or Alive (15 page)

“Look at what good care you’ve been taking of me, and you don’t even know me.”

She tilted her head.  “I know you.”

She did, but he couldn’t confirm it. “You’ve known me for a week.”

“Two weeks.”

“Potato, potato, tomato--”

“Do you really believe two people need to be able to complete an aptitude test on each other, to really know each other?  Or do you think knowing a person is something that comes more organically?”

“I think it’s both, and I don’t think we have either.”

She frowned across the table at him, realizing why he was being so suddenly snarky with her.  The few kisses they’d shared in their time together had always been brief, but electric, and though she probably couldn’t pass an aptitude test on Remington Archibald, she still recognized what was happening with him at that moment as he frowned into his plate.  “Don’t do that,” she said.

“I’m not doing anything.”

“I can see the exact second it happens, you know.”  She smiled. “You hate that you’re losing control with me.  It’s all over you.  It has been since the first time you kissed me.”

“You kissed me.”

She whooped.  “Oh what
planet?
You grabbed my face and attacked me.”

“You attacked me first.  Back at the gas station.”

“I only kissed you then to hide your face when I saw that trooper, you know that.  Doesn’t count.”

His head suddenly shot up, as if she were telling him this story for the first time.  “You never told me he saw you,” he said.  “The trooper?  He saw your face?”

“For a second, yes, but he didn’t see you.  That’s all that matters.”

His fork hit the plate with a clank. “No, that’s not all that matters, V.  If he saw your face, he’s going to eventually connect the dots.  Connect you to me.  He’s going to know that you’re helping me, and he’ll take it back to all the fucking goons at his station.  Then you’ll be considered my accomplice.  God damn it.”

“Will you relax?” she demanded, watching in surprise as he stood from the table.  “I doubt he looked at me long enough to even make the connection.  Besides, he was white.  You know how white folks think all black folks look alike.  No way in hell he could pick me out of a line-up.  No way.  Not even on his
best
day.”  She burst into giggles.

Remy shot her a look from where he was leaning against the table, and didn’t dignify that with a response.

“Remy, will you lighten up?”

He left the kitchen without a word.  Moving swiftly, with only a slight limp, into the living room, and circling to the back of the staircase.  Hesitating for only a moment, he reached up and took a hold of the highest step he could reach before lifting his body into the air with ease. The muscles in his arms pushed tight against his skin, and he exhaled heavily as he completed one pull up. With every round he completed, having kept it up until his body was glistening with sweat, he pushed for more, only dropping to the floor when he was sure his arms would detach from his body if he dared another.  He leaned down on his knees, heaving uncontrollably as his mind and heart raced.  If he knew where she’d hidden the keys to that damn truck, he would leave that instant.

Violet was standing behind him when he looked over his shoulder, just like he knew she would be, with her arms crossed over her chest.  “How long have you been doing pull-ups on my staircase?”

“Since the day we got here.”  Did she think a man who woke up every morning with that sweet ass of hers pressed against him wasn’t relieving the stress
somewhere?
Somehow? However he could?

“You can’t even walk.  Jesus, Archibald, you’re going to kill yourself.”

Not if she killed him first.  And she was well on her way.  “Remy.”  He’d quickly grown to hate her calling him by his last name.

“I know your name.  Just as well as I know that you need to take it easy until your leg is healed.”

“I need to get my strength back so I can get the hell out of this
house
, and clear my name.  Or have you forgotten that’s the only reason we’re even here?”

Violet nodded.  “I know that.” She motioned to the wall of the kitchen where their cards had doubled in volume since they’d arrived at the house.  “And we’ve done some great work here.  We have more than enough to work with once you’re strong enough for us to go back to Redding and we can finally start getting to the bottom of this.”

“God, we. We.  We, we, we.   I can’t stand the sound of that word coming out of your
mouth
.”

“Remy, we’re a team.”

“I’m sure a grand jury would agree with you completely.”

Violet jammed her eyes shut, losing patience.

“I never asked for a team.  I never asked for you, Violet.”

“Yes, well, you got me, so… too bad.”

He took a few deep breaths, collecting himself.  “I can’t stand the thought of that trooper seeing your face. It makes my stomach sick that there’s even the slightest chance they could assume you’re involved with me… It makes me fucking
sick,
V.”

“Did you not hear me when I told you my father was a district judge?  I could murder you, bury your body in the backyard of this house,
confess,
and he would still get me off with six months probation.  Quite frankly, it doesn’t seem like the worst idea with the turn your attitude has taken lately.”  She crossed her arms over her chest.  “I’ll do it, Remy.  I’m more of a murderer than you’ll ever be.”

Against every inch of will inside of him, a tiny smile broke his lips.  He couldn’t help but shake his head at this beautiful, maddening woman, looking away from her smiling face before it finished him off for good.

Violet drank in the sight. “In fact, I killed a ladybug just yesterday.  It was an accident, I thought it was a roach, but if it had been you, I think you would’ve had a fucking heart attack for hurting such an innocent creature.”

His face had completely transformed.  “You killed a
ladybug
?  You’re such an evil little…” He searched for the words. “Demon child.”

She shook her head with a laugh, happy they were moving passed whatever dramatic meltdown he’d been having before making her way back into the kitchen.

She understood that Remy was constantly on edge.  What man in his position wouldn’t be?  He was actually handling this entire situation with much more composure and grace than most people would.  If she were in his shoes, she wasn’t even sure what she would do after being convicted of a crime she didn’t commit, escaping the courthouse, and going on the run.  She would’ve surely bitten anyone’s head off who came within biting distance of her, just from the sheer stress of it all.

She reminded herself that Remy was a wanted man.  The news segment they’d watched together the other night had actually used the phrase
dead or alive.
The sound of those three words had infuriated her, and she wouldn’t hesitate a moment in cracking the skull of any bastard who dare try the former on Remy.  Even in her rage, she couldn’t even begin to imagine what that must have been doing to him.  She had to remind herself to think about that when he had mood swings like the one he’d had right then.

They sat back down at the table, but he didn’t continue eating, opting instead to run his hands through his hair in frustration.

“Do you want to work on the case some more?” she asked.

“No.” He continued running his fingers through his hair for a long while, staring down at the table.  “Tell me about your demon sisters,” he finally said, clasping his hands under his chin while shooting an amused smile at the irritation on her face.  “I mean your sisters.  Tell me more about your beautiful, loving,
not-at-all-demon-baby
sisters.”

“Well.” Violet smiled as she thought of them.  “Constance is older than me, by a year, and Jackie is younger than me, by two years.”

“Middle child, huh?  That explains a lot.”

She launched a piece of toast that she’d picked off across the table, watching as he caught it expertly in his mouth.  Her own mouth dropped.  “That was pretty good,” she beamed.

He beamed back, swallowing the bread.  “Didn’t you say they were both police officers?”

“No, I said Constance is a detective.  And Jackie is a crime scene investigator.”

“And your father is a district judge.”  He laughed to himself.  “If I haven’t said it a million times already, I snatched the wrong girl.”

“No, you snatched the best girl.”

He couldn’t argue with that.  “You really could murder me, and hide my body.  You really could.  Jackie would help you get rid of the evidence, Constance would divert the investigation, and if all else failed, your father would get you off in the unlikely event you were ever actually charged with anything.”

“Pretty much.  Yeah.”

“And what does your mom do?  Does she work for the embassy? Could she smuggle you into a country that has no extradition laws?”

Violet laughed out loud.  “Who are you asking for?  Me or you?”

Remy shrugged, his smile still easy and sweet.

“Nah, she was just a mom.  Just a regular old, stay at home mom.”

“Nothing regular about that.  In fact, it’s pretty extraordinary, especially with the stories I’ve been hearing about you, Jackie and Cadence.”

“Constance,” Violet corrected gently.  “And, yeah, we made her life a living hell sometimes.”

“Sometimes?”

“Kay… all the time.”  They laughed easily together.  “What about you?  Where are your parents?  Man, they must have worshipped your dirty drawers. Their only child. Their only son.”

“They did.” He cleared his throat.  “And they’re in Washington.”

“D.C.?”

He nodded.  “Born and raised.”

“What brought you all the way out to the West Coast?”

“Flying. My first and only love.”

“Only?”  Violet asked.  She almost rolled her eyes at herself, hating to admit that his words stung her a little.  She’d known this man two weeks and she was already allowing that poisonous, four letter word, to take a toll on her emotions? She willed herself to reel it in.

“Yeah.” Remy saw something shift in her eyes after saying the word love, and felt the familiar tug of
I need to get the hell away from this girl
that he’d been feeling since the moment they’d met.  They were both falling farther and farther into a dangerous gray area of their own devising, one that they both knew was there, but hadn’t a clue what to do with.  Was their connection genuine? Emotional? Purely sexual?

Maybe it wasn’t any of those things.

Maybe it was the kind of artificial connection that only bubbles up when two people find themselves in the kind of extraordinary circumstances that Violet and Remy had found themselves in.  Would they feel this intense a connection and attraction if they were two people who’d just run into each other at the park, or during a trip to the supermarket?  Remy didn’t know.  All he knew was that something was there, he could see it in her eyes whenever he looked at her.  It wasn’t just sex, it ran deeper.  He prayed she couldn’t see the same in his own eyes, but feared that she absolutely could.

He cleared his throat.  “When Virgin hired me as a first officer six years ago, they based me out of San Diego.  So I moved to California, and never looked back. Three years later they promoted me to Captain.”

“Your parents must have been so sad to have you so far away.”

“Nah.  One of the perks of working for an airline.  I fly for free.  Or…” He jammed his eyes shut.  “I
flew
for free.  Back when I still had a life, a job, my freedom…”  He shook his head.  “It wasn’t hard to get to my parents, or for them to get to me.  In fact, I think what upsets them the most about me being a convicted felon is that they have to pay for all their plane tickets now.”

“Are they not able to afford it on their own?”

“Not really.  She’s a nurse and he’s retired military.  They’re not exactly broke, but they also can’t afford to fly to Ibiza every other month like they did when they had my passes.”

“Every other month? That’s the life.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Why weren’t they at the courthouse for your hearing?” she asked.  “They weren’t there, were they?”

“No, they weren’t, because I begged them not to come.”

“Why Remy?”

“I knew I would be convicted, and so did they.  No reason to put them through that.”

“Didn’t they want to say goodbye to you?”

“They already did.  Through a scratched up Plexiglas, bi-monthly.”

Violet veered the conversation, sensing he was hating every second of it.  “Were you dating anyone in San Diego?”

His eyes rose to hers playfully.  “Are you interviewing me?”

“No.” She held her hands up.  “Honest.  This is just me and you.  ‘
Violet Chambers over and out’
is not here.”

“I thought you didn’t say ‘over and out.’ ”