Selling Out (22 page)

At least Luke seemed to have all his faculties, buckling me
into the car. His hands were smooth as they tucked my hair behind my ear. He
pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Close your eyes. We’ll be home soon.”

Only when I felt the car move did I realize I had followed
his instructions. I kept them closed, luxuriating in the cottony comfort. We
were safe; that much I knew. And really, wasn’t that all I’d ever wanted for
us? Safe and together.

Whether minutes or hours passed, I didn’t know, but I felt the
car slow to a halt. I opened my eyes, and first things I saw were trees. I
squinted. Where were we, a park? Luke circled the car and let me out. Then I
saw the cottage. In the twilight, dark crisscross beams could be seen
shadow-framing the cottage, and a dark leafy carpet blanketed the side. I
hadn’t been sure what he’d meant by
home
,
but it sure as hell wasn’t this. “What is this place?”

“A safe house.”

I grew alarmed. “The CPD?”

“No,” he said shortly. “It’s mine.”

“She’s mine,”
he
had said to Todd. All part of the game that had almost blown up in our faces.

It was too dark to see inside properly, even with the small
table-side lamp Luke switched on. I registered vague, ranch-style furniture
crowding the small living space. It all looked very ordinary, as if a
sleepy-headed child might wander out for a glass of water. But maybe that was
what made it a safe house. Not just its location as a hideout, but its ability
to bring ease to the people who stayed here.

Luke prepared a cup of tea for me and coffee for himself. I
warmed my hands on the bowled mug and took a sip.

At length, I asked the question that had sat on the tip of
my tongue all this time. “Do you regret it?”

He leaned back in the wood-and-wicker armchair he’d chosen
and closed his eyes. A lock of golden-brown hair fell across his forehead,
softening the hard, chiseled lines of his face.

“I should. I can’t. He deserved every fucking bruise.”

I dipped my pinkie finger into the scalding tea, then
brought the wobbly drop to my lips. “Still. He might have had information. You
might have found her.”

“He didn’t know anything. Not anything current, anyway.”

I shrugged. “I would have done it. In case you were
wondering.”

“Done what?”

“I would have fucked him if you’d asked me to. So he would
tell what he knew. So that you could find her.”

His eyes snapped open, glowing green in the dim light, like
a cheetah ready to hunt. “I didn’t ask you to do that.”

“I know she’s important to you.”

“Did you know about her? You don’t seem surprised.”

“I had an idea.” More like Jade spelling it out for me.
There had been other clues, but a girl would go to great mental lengths for
love—even the doomed kind.

He reached forward and set his coffee mug on the side table,
then rested his elbows on his knees, his head down. “Daisy is my sister. Was my
sister. Three years younger. Though she probably isn’t alive anymore, I’ve
never been able to make myself accept that.”

“Your sister?” Of course it shouldn’t bring me any
happiness, knowing that his sister had been a prostitute, that she was likely
dead, and yet pure inappropriate relief flooded me. This was exactly the sort
of selfish response that made me unsuitable for him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What for? You were my informant, at great risk to yourself.
Then before you had even fully recovered from the gunshot, you were on the run.
I owed you my help, not the other way around.”

He glanced up, his gaze hooded—and tired. He needed sleep.
And possibly medical attention.

I stood and found an ice pack in the freezer and placed it against
his temple. He winced, then pushed it more firmly against the swelling there,
taking it from me. I sat again, trying to order my thoughts. He had been
searching for his sister all this time. Contrary to my impassioned imaginings,
the discovery didn’t diminish his integrity—it strengthened it. Any prostitute
who denied ever having a white-knight fantasy was lying. And here he was, loyal
to her cause. Considering she was his sister, he wouldn’t even expect sex in
gratitude. The savior scenario didn’t get better than that.

“I could have helped you,” I said. “That’s why you were so
invested in us girls, right? You were looking for her. I could have helped.”

“I didn’t want you to,” he said, so fiercely I blinked.
Then, “That wasn’t why I was so invested, okay? Yes, I’ve been looking for her,
but that didn’t have anything to do with us.”

Sadly, I thought it had everything to do with us. He never
would have met me if he hadn’t been so bent on finding his sister. He wouldn’t
have gone after the pimps…Henri, especially.

“Was she with Henri?” I asked, incredulous.

After a pause, he admitted, “I think so.”

So we were back to this. It was a small comfort that he
didn’t feel romantic love for this girl, but she was his goal all the same. I was
merely a means to an end. Something to use and discard. And he was just another
man to use me. How unoriginal of him.

Well, far be it for me to let him down. “Tell me about her.
Something other than the fact that she’s a natural blonde. Maybe I’ve met her.”

He scowled. “Stop it. Stop using that voice with me.”

“My helpful voice?”

“The one you use with johns. The one that sounds sweet and
subservient, unless they know you. Then it says you despise them.”

I did despise him. I despised him for seeing me, for knowing
me, exactly as he had so arrogantly claimed to in the alley.

“Fine,” I said brusquely. “This is me. My regular voice. My
pissed-off voice, actually. Better?”

A smile tilted his split lips. “Better.”

“So tell me. Tell me about your sister.”

He sobered. “Blonde hair. Hazel eyes. They change by the
light. Blue in the sun, brown in the dark. Five feet six, a hundred twenty
pounds, although those measurements may be wildly different, even assuming…”

Assuming she was alive. “There’s no chance, then?”

His eyes grew distant. “It was so many years ago. Long
enough to come to terms with it, long enough to give up the ghost. As a cop, I
can figure out the facts, same as if it were a case. She’s likely dead. If
she’s alive, she’s probably not in Chicago anymore.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because I’ve looked. Everywhere.” He ran his hands through
his hair, then hissed out a breath as he found a sore spot. “I can’t let her
go. I can’t shake the feeling that she’s here, right outside my grasp. But I
have to accept that she’s gone. All I’m doing now is investigating her death.
If she were here, and if she were alive, I would have found her by now.”

“There’s one other option you left out.”

Green eyes locked on mine. “What’s that?”

It occurred to me, because it hit upon my own hidden desire.
If she was alive, if she was in Chicago… “She may not want to be found.”

Luke reclined on the chair, stress wrinkling the skin
between his brows. I knew he was thinking about his sister. I wished I could
help, though if I knew for sure she had overdosed or met some other grisly
fate, I wasn’t sure I could tell him. It didn’t matter because his description
of her matched half the prostitutes I’d ever met. Even Jenny, from the blowout
at the corporate party, fit the physical description.

Except she was too young, and so was I. With the beginnings
of leathery skin and crinkles at his eyes when he smiled, Luke was in his
midthirties. At thirty, his sister would be ancient in the realm of
prostitution. If I had met a woman that old working for Henri, I would have
remembered.

But I hadn’t. “I’m sorry.”

“I know it’s too late to help her. I just wish I knew what
happened to her. Then maybe I could… ”

“Avenge her?”

His lids were hooded. “Maybe I could move on.”

A shiver ran through me, a sense of camaraderie. That was
what I wanted too—for myself. Both of us were trapped by the ghosts of our
pasts, him by his sister and me by my father.

“What then?” I asked. “Would you still work for the CPD?”

He shrugged. “Being a cop is all I know, but the only reason
I became one was to find Daisy. I couldn’t get them to help me, to care about
her. So I figured if I was on the inside, I could look for her myself. I didn’t
understand then how many girls go missing, how little time there is. You can’t
do this job and get choked up about every little injustice. I turned into the
cops I hated. Putting in my hours and, at the end of the day, barely making a
difference.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. You did a lot for me. You were
the one who convinced me to quit.”

He laughed sharply. “Some good that did you.”

“Hey, things aren’t so bad.” As I spoke the words, I
realized they were true. This cottage felt like it was a million miles from civilization—and
from danger. In the whole world, there was only the two of us. The darkness and
distance wove a cocoon around us, keeping the scary predators and unkind world
out of sight and out of mind.

“How long can we stay here?” I asked.

He shrugged. “From my talk with Todd, it’s clear Henri has
gone to ground. I have a few people who can help me with tracking him down, but
I can coordinate that from here. It’s a secure location, completely
untraceable. We can stay here until we find him.”

I thought of Henri’s new hideout, the Barracks. But if I
told Luke, we would have to leave. If I told him, the cocoon would dissolve.
Henri would still be there a week from now, but I would never have this chance
again. Of course, it was selfish. This wasn’t just about me or Claire. Luke
wanted to take Henri down for reasons of his own. He might finally get closure
on his sister. He certainly wouldn’t thank me for withholding information that
could help. But I couldn’t make myself say the words. I couldn’t destroy the
one thing I had longed for.

I looked away, as if the lie of omission were written in my
eyes.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “You didn’t get hurt in the fight,
did you?”

I swallowed my guilt. “No, I’m fine. Just a little tired.”

He stood. “Sure, let me show you the bedroom.”

He led me to a small room, which had a large bed and an oak
side table and dresser. Across the bed, a ruffled bedspread with large white
flowers was both ostentatious and humble at the same time. Matching drapes
covered the windows.

“It came with the place,” he said from behind me. “In case
you were thinking of mocking me.”

“It suits you.”

“I have always felt that about magnolias.”

“I meant the ruffles.”

“Thanks. At least the bed is comfortable. The bathroom is
down the hall, so I’ll let you use that before you turn in. I keep spare
toothbrushes and everything else in the cabinet.”

Exhausted, I only planned to wash up in the sink, but the
prospect of a bath was too alluring. The tub was bare, no shower curtain and no
drain stopper. I indulged in a hot shower instead, spilling water over the side
and feeling guilty for using this much hot water. I cleaned the greasy residue
from my hair, reveling in the bitter-soap scent I recognized from Luke. It was
harsh stuff, the kind that took my skin off as it cleaned, but I appreciated
its strength. The residue of my sins went too deep for regular soap.

A small pile of neatly folded clothes waited for me outside
the door. A man’s white undershirt and a pair of boxers. Well, that answered
the boxers-or-briefs question. I rolled the waist until it promised to stay on
me, while the shirt draped over me. Luke didn’t look like a large man from far
away, mostly due to his leanness. But up close he was tall and filled out with
muscle. His was a deceptive power, which made me adore him even more.

I found him in the bedroom, turning down the thick blankets.
He stepped back when I came inside. Would we have sex here tonight? Almost as
if I had voiced the question, he answered.

“I’m sleeping on the couch.”

“Oh.” I slipped past him and climbed into bed. It was a
relief, the lack of expectation. So why did my stomach feel so hollow?

I thought for a moment he might tuck me in, maybe even sit
on the bed, and I realized with alarm that I might fall apart if he did.
Already, with him just standing beside the bed, my heart rate had increased.
Heavy blankets, in the dark, couldn’t breathe.

He turned and left without a word.

My eyes slid shut. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea.
My clothes and makeup and sultry sarcasm were all part of my armor, but here
they were stripped away. Just me, as lonely and scared as I had been at
sixteen, desperate to get out of my father’s house.

From the bathroom, I heard the shower turn on. I imagined
him under the spray, rivulets of sweat and dirt running over roughened skin. I
pictured the pleasure on his face as hot water soothed the tension in his
muscles.

I stared at the little dots on the ceiling, wondering how I
could have been so tired before but so awake now. How just knowing he was naked
had drained all the sleep from my body.

I heard a groan from the bathroom. Or had I? It was hard to
tell over the rush of the shower. What if he had been really hurt? He might
need my help.

Pushing the covers back, I slipped from the bed. The carpet
was thin and brown, as if I walked on a soft dirt path. The bathroom door was
open a crack. I pushed it a little farther.

The overhead light blinded me for a minute until my eyes
adjusted. Luke stood in the shower, facing away from the spigot, letting the water
beat his back. One of his hands was on the wall, supporting his weight. The
other was on his cock, thick and long and clearly right in the middle of
something. Something dirty, something private—I couldn’t look away.

His eyes were shut, his entire face tight in concentration.
What did he think of? Who?