The Judas Relic: An Evangeline Heart Holiday Adventure (10 page)

“I really am sorry, sweetheart.”

“I know,” I whispered against the crisp fabric of his dress shirt. He’d been at the funeral, but we hadn’t ridden together. Griffin’s mom had asked me to stand in line with them, but it had been a mistake. All anyone could say to me was how sorry they were. I saw the sympathy and, while I might have been hyper-sensitive, I could have sworn some held condemnation in their eyes, that I’d caused this, even though they couldn’t possibly know that. Not a single person there had any reason to believe that my cover as a freelance travel journalist was anything other than what it was.
 

Not one of them knew that I had indeed caused Griffin’s death and that the retaliation for the assassination of the Cambodian kingpin who led the largest sex ring in Southeast Asia would be one that would never leave my mind. I sighed heavily and Malcolm squeezed me tighter, then pulled away, his big hands cupping my shoulders while his warm brown eyes searched my face. “We’ll get them, you know?”

I nodded and inhaled a shaky breath. “I know. But that won’t bring him back.”

“No,” he agreed. “Nothing can bring him back, and I’d do anything to take that hit back, Lina. I shouldn’t have let you go after that group so early, we should have seen the retaliation coming and pulled you out. We didn’t have enough intel.” He shook his head. “I knew better.”

I patted his cheek. “We saved a lot of girls, though.” I was trying to justify the lack of intel we had before I pulled the trigger on the bastard Chan and his minions. If the situation was different and Griffin had been someone else’s fiancé, I knew in my heart that he would’ve been considered collateral damage. Griffin had been the one who paid for my mistake in the end, an innocent pawn...

He sighed and withdrew a folded paper from his pocket. “This is incredibly bad timing, but you’re up again.” I took the paper from him, impressed my fingers barely trembled. “I think you should formally request a leave until you can process all of this.”

I scanned the assignment. He was right. I didn’t even feel like I could feed myself, let alone tackle the necessary prep for an assassination. There were few details on the paper, like usual. A name—Gemini Wilaby (most likely an alias). A last known location—Frankfurt, Germany. And a photo of a striking woman in her late thirties. The barest of details I’d need to research further, but enough ... if I wanted. I touched the woman’s jugular and tried to hold on to my cool, detached work mode, but it slipped away beneath my grief. I handed it back. “I can’t, Malcolm. Not yet. Will you ask them if they can give me some time?”

“Of course. How long?”

I shook my head and stepped away. This time I wasn’t quick enough to avoid my reflection. I hardly recognized the woman with the waves of dark brown, nearly black hair falling to my shoulders in curls (only because I’d tried to look nice for Griffin), with bright blue eyes rimmed with dark circles, and with red lips as a stark contrast to cried-out pale skin. This look wouldn’t terrify anyone and while it would be easy to wander around unnoticed looking like I did, this wasn’t how I ran my missions. What I couldn’t see in the reflection was my broken heart and my tortured mind. I needed time to repair both.
 

Would a month be enough, or was I looking at a much longer timeline before I felt like myself again?

“I don’t know how long. I’ve never…” My voice cracked. “I was supposed to be planning a wedding… Not this.”

He lifted his arm like he wanted to reach for me again, but he seemed to realize the futility of offering me answers and it fell to his side. “I’ll ask. But don’t take too long. Sometimes, it’s in the returning to normal that we find ourselves. As normal as our lives can be.”

I gave him a watery smile and returned to him for another hug. He’d never been short on fatherly advice, even when it fell into that Buddha space of help.

His arms wrapped around me. It felt good to be touched, to have contact with a warm and alive person. My lips were still icy cold from kissing Griffin one last time.

Chapter Two

Malcolm bid me goodnight after I promised to check in with him daily.
 

So I was alone again. As much as I loved Griffin’s family, I knew that I didn’t want to spend any time with them going forward, and I felt sure they wouldn’t want me around. I was a painful reminder—as they would be for me.

I avoided my bedroom and pulled my favorite jeans and a black T-shirt from the laundry basket, then tried my best to do something normal. In the living room, I ran my fingers along the spines of my records, looking for the right album to help me through the night and over this first hump of being without Griffin.

Funeral plans had kept me busy and I’d come home every night too exhausted to think, but now that I didn’t have the bustle of activity to distract my mind, I noticed everything in the room. His favorite chair, the book he’d been reading, his slippers by the door, all heavy reminders that he was never going to use any of them. I’d lost my drive to pack them up. Seeing Malcolm had jostled my momentum and I couldn’t get up the energy to return to the bedroom and that first box.

I inhaled the vintage papery smell of the covers and moved further along the wall of records. Music had long been my lifeline to sanity. Even before I’d become a hired assassin, I’d turned to music to help me over Mom’s and Dad’s deaths, the horror of the foster system, and months of lonely nights in Paris during college.

I skipped over Janis Joplin and Leonard Cohen. They’d take me deeper into the abyss of depression. I needed something as comforting as a home-cooked meal and as uplifting as a church choir. My heart ached and I needed a thick rope to tie around my waist tonight so I could let go and know that when I woke in the morning, I’d still be there, dangling on the side of the cliff.
 

I skipped another dozen records and paused at John Denver’s first album. My peers (if I’d had any) would have mocked my choice. Johnny D. had always been too old for me, but his voice was the salve I needed for my heart right now. I pulled the jacket carefully from the shelf and slid the record out, gently carrying it to the player. This was another one of my quirks, and one I could blame Malcolm for. Most of this collection was his, and he’d let me pick my favorites when I’d moved out. Griffin had teased me relentlessly about it and I’d tried all the new technologies but none of it sounded as rich as vinyl, it just didn’t.

I lowered the needle and went in search of a bottle of wine. I had nowhere to be tomorrow, and getting wasted with Johnny D. seemed like a fantastic way to try and close this chapter of my life, if that was even remotely possible. How do you adjust to the loss of someone you loved with every fiber of your being? I had been asking myself those questions as soon as I began to accept the reality that Griffin was gone.

My search for that bottle of wine was futile. I’d forgotten that Griffin and I had finished our last bottle a couple of weeks ago when I’d come home from Southeast Asia. We’d started the evening at a sampling for the reception and had come home liquored up and drunk on each other. I slammed the cabinet closed. Life was pretty damn unfair.

I turned and every single piece of furniture screamed at me. Not even John Denver couldn’t pull me out of this funk. I needed people and tequila.

I slipped on shoes and my sidearm and headed down the back stairs to the subway. I wasn’t sure where I was headed, but getting lost amongst the tourists in Times Square seemed like the ultimate alternative to my suffocatingly silent apartment.

Friday night on the subway is always an adventure and tonight did not disappoint. By the time I got off, I’d been serenaded, hit on, and heard a new twist on the apocalypse. I love The Big Apple.

The smells and heat of the subway on a hot summer night hurried me above ground and I stood for a moment on the top step, soaking in the life and chaos. Grease and pork wafted my way as I walked past a hot dog vendor. A dude with some serious dreds had set up shop on one of the corners and was peddling the famous NYC T-shirts and fare that tourists simply couldn’t resist.

Off one of the side streets, I inhaled and walked half a block. A sign out front of a crumbling brick building read BAR. I peered in the large bay window and was sufficiently satisfied that it was a dive, and therefore, the tourists would be kept at bay.

Dark, eclectic art with cryptic religious themes framed the walls. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I was looking at some voodoo crap, but it came close. I could see an
American Horror Story
scene being filmed in the place. The smell of beer, dank, and perfume filtered through the air. The crowd was just as eclectic—a smattering of business people that may have come over from the financial district just because they enjoyed the dive thing, hipster twentysomethings starting their evening shenanigans, and old dodgers who appeared to be regulars sipping on gin and juice.

Yep. This would work. Griffin would’ve enjoyed it, too. Although, he wasn’t quite as—how can I say this?—earthy as myself. I can get dirty with the best of them, and it doesn’t bother me a bit.

I pulled up a stool and surveyed the top-shelf options.
 

“Ev’nin.’” An old Irishman barely taller than the bar handed me a bar napkin and wiped the space between us with his wet towel. “What can I getcha?”

“I’d love a shot of Patron.”

“Comin’ right up.” He disappeared, which wasn’t tough for a guy his size and I watched the other people through the mirror over the bar. New York certainly was interesting.

My bartender came back and set my glass on the bar. “Name’s Pete, let me know if ya’ need anythin’ else.” He winked at me.

I cracked a smile for the first time in days. This had been a good idea. I held the glass for a heartbeat and toasted Griffin, then slammed it, desperate to take the edge off.

“Can I buy you another?” I twisted slightly on my seat and tried not to be shocked at a striking gentleman who’d taken the spot next to me. My assessment training kicked in instinctually. His dark blond hair was neatly trimmed over the ears and combed precisely to the side, crisp part, jaw freshly shaved. Aftershave applied recently—spicy, citrus. The mint-green dress shirt was open at the collar, revealing the right amount of skin without being skeevy. The cut of the shirt was expensive, but not blatantly rich. Nails neatly trimmed. Breitling watch and Lucchese shoes revealed that the guy worked for his money and had done well. He’d either just come from impressing a big client or was trying to impress the women here. Small pickings.
 

Either way, I was going to let him distract me from my day.

I returned his smile and gentled my attitude. “Thanks, I’ll have another tequila, but the Casa Dragones. I’m Lina.”

“Beautiful name. Blue agave? Nice choice. Good taste.” He motioned Pete over. His was a whisky, neat and I added that to my assessment. Not that I was going to do anything with the information. I just didn’t know how to stop. Years of training were habit and even if we sat here for another hour slamming drinks, I’d still be able to fully assess anyone in a split-second.

The bartender brought our drinks and I swirled the sipping tequila in the glass. He lifted his glass in a toast. “To beautiful ladies and fine alcohol.” On any other night I wouldn’t have given this guy the time of day, but he was easy on the eyes and I didn’t mind the company. I felt bad leading him on because I was most definitely not going home with him tonight. But I didn’t feel badly enough to care when he ordered another round.

He sipped his drink and cradled the tumbler between his hands. “Dare I ask what a pretty lady is doing here drinking alone?”

What would have been a creepy line from anyone else came off as charming and genuine from him. So I answered in kind. “A funeral left me both alone and with a deep desire to get loaded.” I gave him a rueful grin and took a healthy swallow of the tequila.

He touched the rim of his glass to mine. “To the deceased. May they live on in our hearts.”

I swallowed the emotion and nodded once. “Realistically, that’s the only place they do live on, isn’t it?”

He took another drink. “Heavy conversation for the setting, my dear.”

I shrugged. “Heavy conversation for any setting, don’t you think?”

He drained his glass and set it loudly on the bar. “No belief in heaven then? Archangels, God, Metatron, Sandalphon? Are those fairy tales to you?”

My breath stilled and I flattened my palms against the bar to quell the tremor he’d just sent through my body. Most people when bringing up God didn’t go straight to Metatron or Sandalphon. At least not anyone beyond my parents, and their interest in archangels had been founded in a lifetime of research and study. I didn’t like that I’d prayed to both less than an hour ago and I hadn’t checked my apartment for bugs since before Griffin’s murder.
 

Something wasn’t right here. Had I been way off in my assessment of him? If so, I really hoped it wasn’t about to get me killed. I eased my feet to the floor and slid one hand to my stomach, inches from my piece. Thank god I hadn’t been stupid enough to forget that, though I really didn’t want to start a shootout in a crowded bar either.
 

“What did you say?”

He turned on his stool, made a big production of looking at my hand placement, then lifted his gaze to mine. “Archangels. Ever heard of them?”

More than I cared to let on right now. My preference was to turn and walk slowly out of the bar with the hope that I’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time and this attractive gentleman wasn’t anything more than a crazy loon. Never mind that my life never, ever worked that way.

I nodded toward Pete, who’d come to ask if we wanted another round. “Thanks for the drink, but I’m headed out.” He gathered our empty glasses and left. I turned my attention back to my companion and tried to get a new read on him. Nothing about him had changed. I didn’t see the bulge of a weapon beneath his coat, didn’t get a single hint that he wanted to do me harm. For all I could tell, he was a normal guy out hitting on random girls. I inclined my head slightly.