The Losing Game (3 page)

It felt to Lucas like Dante was the one with intuition, looking right into him, right past his studied pose.

Lois perched on the other end of the sofa. “Tea?” She handed Lucas a plate and pointed to the cakes. From his dry mouth and the way his stomach roiled, Lucas didn’t think he could swallow a crumb, tempting as the cakes looked.

“So what’s it to be?” Dante shot Lois a sidelong glance. He grinned. “My guess is you prefer the cocks to the hens?”

Lucas blushed more furiously than ever, despite the fact that he’d never been shy about his sexual orientation. He clutched the arms of the wingback, tense from his temples to his toes. Then the words tumbled out, no pause, one after the other.

“I want to murder someone. Avery said you could plan it for me. I don’t want to get caught.”

The air changed. The fire in the hearth crackled loudly, as if it were really burning logs. Its heat roared over Lucas’s face and down the back of his neck. At the same time, Dante froze, the heat replaced by the chill from his stare.

“You thought I could plan you a murder?”

“Yes.”

Lucas waited, anxiously trying to read Dante’s expression, who in turn seemed to be trying to read his.

“Huh.” Dante sat up straighter, hands on his knees, and rolled his shoulders and neck. As if he was warming up to something. Like strangulation. Or the swift ejection of his prospective client. “You told Avery you want to kill someone?”

“Yes.”

“And she sent you to me.”

The statement hung.

Dante deliberated for a long time. Lucas wasn’t sure if this meant he was considering the proposition or whether he was considering Lucas.

Lois picked at the top of a cupcake, breaking off the crust in small pieces. If she’d been taken aback at Lucas’s request, even for a moment, he’d missed it. He’d been too preoccupied looking at Dante, trying to glean something of his state of mind from the way he gazed into the fire or the way he rapped his fingers one after the other over his knee.

Helplessly Lucas waited and waited.

At last Dante cleared his throat. “No.”

“
No
?”

Was that it? Lucas had spent hours—
days—
drumming up the courage, rehearsing what he would say, how he would act. He’d bought a new coat. Dante had invited him into his office.

“That’s what I said. No.”

“I have money. Name your price.”

Dante’s mouth twitched, as if he was amused. “The answer is still no.”

“But you don’t know why I…. You don’t know who.”

“I don’t need to know. I sell sex swings and ball gags. Some of my clients like to hurt each other, but as a rule, they tend to prefer their partners alive. I don’t know anything about killing people.”

“But Avery
said
….” Lucas’s voice had risen to a desperate pitch. It was all he could do to remain in his seat.

“It was a misunderstanding.”

Lucas’s pulse thundered in his ears, his burning blood seared his cheeks.

Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

Using both hands, Lucas reached for his cup and saucer and brought them to his knee. His hands shook, but he didn’t spill a drop. Lois had thankfully not filled the cup to the top, as if she might have sensed his nerves.

The tea burned Lucas’s lip, and somehow the sensation centered him. Calmed him. Perhaps this was a test. Perhaps Dante wanted to know he could keep his cool under pressure.

Yes. That was it.

Lucas’s shoulders eased, and he leaned forward to return his cup and saucer to the table—as the clock on the mantel loudly chimed a glorious
ding-dong, ding-dong
.

Lucas jumped like a startled deer. Hot tea sloshed over the side of his toppled teacup, overflowing the saucer and soaking into his trouser leg. “
Shit.
” He leapt up, put his cup and saucer down, and shook the fabric away from his leg.

Lois reacted immediately, handing Lucas a napkin and mopping at the spillage with another. “It’s fine,” she said. “That old clock surprises everyone.”

“I haven’t heard Westminster Quarters since I was a child,” Lucas said breathlessly and far too loudly. “My grandparents had a carriage clock. Nothing as grand as that one, but it chimed the quarters and the hours.”

The tea cooled, and Lucas returned to his seat, acutely aware of Dante studying him, with what felt less like his earlier amusement and more like interest.

“I hope you’re not scalded,” Dante said.

“No. I’m fine.”

“I don’t have many visitors in here.” Dante inched forward to the edge of his seat. He cast his eyes briefly toward the clock. “You’re the first to know the name of the chimes. I’m impressed.”

Really?
If Lucas had known all it would take to impress Dante Okoro was pub-quiz trivia, he’d have bought a cheaper coat. He ran his hand through his hair. “I’m full of useless information.”

“Such as?”

Lucas’s treacherous mind hopped and skipped and settled precariously on the crimson-colored glass phallus he’d seen in the shop. “Cranberry glass, like you have in the shop, is made with salts that come from gold. Which is why it’s so expensive.”

Dante tilted his handsome head to one side. The beginnings of a smile played at the corners of his mouth. “You had a look around the shop?”

“Only the front. It’s hard not to look. There are some fascinating things in there.” Lucas blushed yet again.

“The back is more niche. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea.”

Tea
wasn’t Lucas’s cup of tea. Steeling himself, he said, “I don’t really know much about that sort of thing. It’s never been on my radar. I suppose it’s one of those things you don’t know you like until you try it. Until you give it a chance.”

Dante crossed his right leg over his left, and as it hung, his right foot gently bounced. Lucas didn’t get the impression of impatience. More deliberation.

Perhaps Dante had changed his mind.

DANTE’S FIRST
“no” had been easy. A knee-jerk reaction. The second time had taken a little more effort, but not too much. Then, damn it all, Lucas had spilled his tea and noticed the clock and had known about cranberry glass. He’d
interested
Dante, and there were fair few people who did that.

Nonetheless, Dante was losing his touch. He’d always prided himself on the ability to read the secret desires of his potential clients from their stances and expressions. Lucas had stood stiffly in the center of the shop, a tendon in his jaw wildly twitching, looking as if he needed to tell someone he wanted to be blindfolded and bound, and, “Please don’t assume that means I’m weak.” Nothing about him had hinted he was shopping for a homicide.

Could Dante be blamed for not thinking to ask?

He’d let Lucas into his private office because Avery had sent him. Because during the last week, the bright flaming thrill of successfully burgling Rashid Khan’s home had burned out, dull as ashes, into a stultifying ennui. Because he hated the winter. Because….

Dante tried for an air of calm. He was in control of this meeting. He could terminate it whenever he liked. Except—of all things—what Dante liked was the rose-pink blush running from Lucas’s cheeks to his neck. The way it disappeared inside the collar of his shirt.

He probably could have used more conviction when he said, “I think we’re done here.”

“Please. Let me tell you my story, and then you can decide.”

Out of the ridiculous sheepskin coat, Lucas’s lithe limbs pulled against his shirt and trousers. His wrist bones stuck out from his cuffs like invitations to explore.

He was handsome in a strange, ethereal way. His hair closer to white than blond, his eyes more gray than blue, his skin as pale as porcelain. He had high cheekbones, a narrow face, and full, sensual lips. Dante suspected Lucas had become better-looking as he’d grown from boy to man, certainly less conventional and more striking.

The clock on the mantel ticked hypnotically. Very few clocks ticked anymore. Very few people owned clocks anymore. Kit and Lois had been fascinated by it as children. How the years had flown.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dante noticed Lois cross her legs. She bounced her elevated foot impatiently, mirroring his own position. He could guess what she was thinking.
Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare give this poor man a glimmer of hope.

But Dante wanted to dare. “I’ll hear your story. That’s all.”

Lois sucked in a breath.

Lucas’s refilled teacup rattled against his saucer as he lifted, sipped, and set it down again. “At the end of April, my sister Grace was knocked off her bicycle by a hit-and-run driver. She suffered horrific head injuries and died three days later.”

Lois clamped her hand to her mouth, then lowered it enough to say, “Oh God. That’s awful.”

Lucas clenched his fists against his thighs. “She’d been wearing a high-visibility jacket and a helmet. If the driver had been paying attention to the road, he would have seen her, but even if he hadn’t, the auto-driver should have stopped his car, which means he must have turned it off. If that wasn’t bad enough, after he hit her, he drove away and left her on the side of the road. Probably because he was on his way home from a lunchtime drink at the pub.” Lucas dropped his gaze to his lap. “If he’d stayed and called an ambulance, she might have survived.”

Unquestionably Dante had expected a tragedy. At no point had Lucas struck him as the type of man to murder for personal gain. Thus, Dante had braced himself—as ineffectually as the New Year’s Day swimsuit-clad bathers who ran into the sea on Roseport beach. And just like those naked, naïve, boneheaded thrill-seekers, his blood froze.

“He was caught?” Dante asked.

“Yes.” Lucas cleared the hoarseness from his throat. “One of the houses on the road had a security camera pointing into the street. It captured his registration number and the exact time he hit her.”

“Surely the case went to court?” Lois said.

“Yes. It did. And for killing my sister, Richard Shaw earned himself a six-month prison term, suspended for a year. Plus, two hundred hours of community service and a one thousand pound fine. He’s currently enjoying his freedom without a dent in his comfort.”

Lucas hunched over and pinched his forefinger and thumb over his eyes. Helplessly, Dante looked to Lois. Each tick of the clock seemed to become increasingly louder as he struggled to think of what to say.

“That’s unbelievable.” Lois hugged herself, like she was chilled. “A suspended sentence?”

“Yes.”

She went on, “How could the judge…?”

“Privacy laws, apparently.”

Bitterly Lucas looked at Lois and Dante in turn. “And the fact that Richard Shaw’s uncle used to be the Police and Crime Commissioner for Hampshire. He plays golf with ex-policemen. He’s got money.” Lucas’s chin tightened as he finally bit out, “He must have been laughing all the way through the trial.”

Dante’s stomach tightened with a knot of guilt. He didn’t want to hurt Lucas. The man was already in so much pain. But Dante had chosen to walk this path, and he couldn’t turn back. If he was to give Lucas’s appeal full consideration, he had to understand it, fully.

“Don’t you think killing Shaw is harsh? It was, after all, an accident.”

Lucas didn’t flinch.

“Shaw paid for three pints that day as well as his lunch. I know it’s not proof that he drank them, but he did. I know he did. The rest. I have a memory stick. The court transcripts are on it, and my details should you want to contact me.” Lucas reached into his coat pocket and placed the stick on the coffee table between them.

Of course Lucas hadn’t flinched at Dante’s question. He’d been in court. He’d had his heart ripped out of his chest and crushed beneath the heels of Richard Shaw’s defense.

Dante pressed his fingers to his forehead. Before him, Lucas vibrated with tension.

“I’ll pay you. Just to read the transcripts. Then you can decide whether to help me.” He paused. “Avery said you like a challenge. That you can do anything you put your mind to.”

You can do anything you put your mind to, baby.

That’s what Dante’s lover Flynn had said, in the beginning, when he’d been coaxing the young Dante, barely out of his teens, to join him in more than a carnal capacity. He’d appealed to his ego, and it had worked. But that young man was dead and gone. Both of them were.

Lucas would do what he would do, but Dante would not, could not be a part of it. He said, “It doesn’t matter whether I read the transcripts or not. It doesn’t matter whether I believe that this man Shaw deserves to die for what he did. I can’t help you.”

Lucas must have expected multiple rejections, because when he played his final card, it was an ace, a diamond, and it cut straight to Dante’s heart.

“Wouldn’t you do the same in my shoes? Wouldn’t you do it if it had been someone you loved?”

Like Lois or Kit.

Dante shuddered at the memory of that dark, moonless, icy night when Lois and Kit came into his life, and for all intents and purposes, Flynn went out. It had been a night not unlike tonight. Dante pushed the recollection away as Lucas drank his tea.

Lacing his fingers together, Dante mustered every ounce of his resolve. “What I would do is irrelevant. I don’t believe you have it in you to kill anyone. That’s a good thing. Something you should value. Go home. Mourn your sister, and move on. Killing Shaw won’t bring her back.”

Lucas’s eyes filled. Dante had to look away. Anger he could deal with, but not tears.

“Shaw has to pay for what he did. For what he’s stolen.”

Dante glanced at Lois. Her gaze firmly locked on the fire. Dante longed, more than anything, to reach out for her hand. Except he couldn’t. He wished he could tell Lucas what killing a man would do to him. He couldn’t do that either, especially not with Lois at his side.

“Listen to me. You don’t want to do this.”

His words sounded hollow and useless, though he’d meant them from the depths of his soul.

Lucas stood and snatched his coat. “Forget it. I’ll do it without your help.”