The Right Kind of Trouble (23 page)

Kevin gave a short, ugly laugh. “No. This was…” He shrugged then, as if it didn't matter. “You've been a good boss, Moira. I learned a lot at McKay. I shouldn't have—hell, it's too late for that now. Too late for a lot of things.”

Scowling, she shoved her hands into her pockets. “I don't want—”

Gideon's hand came down on her shoulder and he squeezed. There was enough pressure there that she lapsed into silence. As he stepped past her, she caught sight of the look on his face. All cop.

He wasn't even pretending otherwise now.

“Why don't you talk to us, Towers? Seems to me you're in trouble.”

Kevin's gaze flicked to him, then away.

Moira saw the man swallow, the skin around his eyes going tight. Now that she was really looking at him, she couldn't help but notice that Kevin looked like he had aged a good five years over the past few months. Why hadn't she seen it?

You haven't been looking
.

“I don't think ‘trouble' touches what I got going on.” Eyes dull, Kevin reached out and picked up the bottle. He slid Moira a look. “You want to join me? I've never had any of this before. Heard it's damn good.”

Moira's belly revolted a little but she managed a smile. “Sure. It's beyond good, though. Like silk and fire, all at once.”

“Heard Brannon has some of the Macallan 42. He probably uses it to rinse out after brushing his teeth.” He snorted as he got up, heading into the kitchen. He glanced over his shoulder at Gideon. “You on duty?”

Gideon shrugged. “But you two … feel free.”

A few moments later, Moira closed her hands around the glass and clutched it on her lap while Kevin lifted the whiskey to his nose and swirled it around, sniffing in the aroma slowly. “Man, that's amazing,” he said.

“Tastes even better.”

He nodded, but didn't drink. “I guess you heard about my gambling problem. Drinking … hell, I could go a month without drinking and never miss it. Never did like to smoke. But you could ask me if I thought it would rain, and I'd strike a bet on the answer. It was just … my weakness.”

“We all have them.”

He nodded, shifting his attention back to the Macallan.

Moira no longer wanted hers, though.

Still, out of courtesy, she held on to it.

“I was in trouble. Owed almost fifty grand to this guy. It was his asshole that came to the office, looking for me, I think. I actually got square with him once, but then there'd be a fight or somebody would ask me if I wanted in on the big poker game … I got in over my head. Again and again. And then…” He stopped abruptly, his knuckles going white against his skin as his fist tightened around the glass.

He surged upward and started to pace. The whiskey splashed around to splatter on his hand, but Kevin didn't even seem to notice. His eyes were overbright and when he swung around, he looked a little wild. “I didn't have any family, you know. Not after my dad died. Mom died when I was little. Suicide. Everybody acted like she got sick, but what she did was pop some pills and then went to sleep and never woke up. Dad soldiered on and he did a good job, but still … it was just us. I never had a family. I had my work. I had a few friends. And I was good with cards and shit. Then this guy comes along…” Kevin started to laugh.

Something about that jagged noise was like knives digging into Moira's ears and she wanted to clap her hands over them to make it stop. He went to take a drink, but stopped, staring down into the scotch like it had suddenly turned into cat piss on him. Revolted, he slammed it down and came striding over toward Moira.

Gideon cut between them.

“Ease up there, Towers,” he said, his voice still calm and easy.

Moira wondered if he had any idea how ready Gideon was for him to do
anything
. Anything at all. He had one hand up in a calming gesture, the other hooked in his pocket. Moira had seen how quickly that same stance could go to gun raised. She'd seen it. Only once, thank God, but she'd seen it.

“Don't worry.” Kevin apparently spoke cop. He backed up, his own hands up. “I'm not going to hurt her. I just…” His gaze swung to Moira, or what he could see of her.

She shifted out from behind Gideon, not completely, but enough that Gideon could see her face.

A weak smile quirked his lips. “I used to have a thing for you, you know? I imagined asking you out about once a week. Then you got married and I figured there went my chance.” He skimmed a hand back over his hair.

Moira's smile froze.

Kevin's eyes slid back to her. “Don't worry. That's over. You'd slice off my balls and feed them to me. And everything now … it's all shit. It's all messed up.”

“You've mentioned that.” Gideon shifted so that he stood where he could keep Moira in his sight, but close enough that he could still catch Kevin.

He was wasting his time.

She wasn't in any danger. Not from Kevin, at least.

He looked down at his hands and frowned. Gideon seemed to breathe a little easier when the other man turned away and found his drink. Slowly, he sank down on the couch to stare at nothing. “He comes up to me and I couldn't believe it when he tells me that we were cousins. He starts showing me everything, how he found me … the family tree.”

A cold chill broke out down her spine at the absent, sort of lost tone in his voice.

Kevin shook his head as if he realized what was going on and he lifted the glass to his lips. He took a small sip, then sighed in appreciation. He took another one, draining half the glass that time. “That's some good shit.” He smacked his lips and tossed back the rest before he refilled his glass. As he did so, he looked over at Moira. “It's all about you, you know. You and your brother, your sister. He fucking hates you, Moira. I didn't realize it. I mean … it didn't make sense. If I'd known that, I woulda stayed clear. You never did nothing to me. But I didn't see it. The man
hates
you. He hates you and he wants you to suffer.”

“Who?”

Kevin's mouth twisted in a sneer. “That's the funny thing.” Bottle in hand, he came back over to the couch and sat down. He drained another half glass, staring at her with overbright eyes. “One thing about him—he might be fuck-all crazy, but the bastard has excellent taste in liquor.”

Brooding, he stared down into the glass, but he wasn't seeing it. Moira had no idea what he saw.

Uneasy, she edged a little closer.

“Crazy bastard. You should have heard him rant, Moira. About the museum … or when you would go on a buying trip or Brannon was going up to some no-name winery in the middle of no-name Ohio. He'd rant and rave—throwing things and cussing everybody from you to that Whitehall guy to … you.”

His voice slurred and he reached up, rubbing at one eye while Moira stared at him. “White … Kevin, what in the hell are you talking about?”

“That's what 'm trying to 'splain here, Moira,” he said, talking in a voice that was too loud and too slow—and still his words were jumbled together.

His hand shook as he refilled his glass, splashing more than a little of the pricy scotch on the table.

“Okay.” Moira approached, the fumes from the spilled scotch rising in the air. “I think you've had enough. Give me the bottle.”

Kevin closed his hand protectively over it.

She snapped her fingers and said, “
Now
.”

“Fine.” He shoved it toward her but turned his body away as he said, “But I'm keepin' this.”

To demonstrate, he took another quick swig from the glass.

“Fine, you lush.” Moira glanced down at the bottle of Macallan and then sat it down, moving to closer to Kevin. “Gideon, could you get a glass of water?”

Kevin's eyes were blurry.

Behind her, Gideon said, “I don't know about…”

“Oh, for crying out loud. He's already half-piss faced. I'll get it.”

She shoved upright and moved into the kitchen, opening cabinets at random until she found a glass. She filled it with tap water and moved back into the living room, the dim light making it seem gloomier, darker than it really was. Kevin was curled up the corner of the couch, staring at nothing.

“Here.”

He looked at the water and shook his head.

“Take it,” she ordered. “You should drink it.”

“What? Oh. Yeah. I got a drink. Fan … thanks.” He blinked as if having trouble focusing. At the same time, he took another drink. Half of it spilled, but he managed to get the rest of it down his throat.

In the next moment, the glass fell from his hand.

She tried to catch it and couldn't.

Kevin blinked, three times. And each time, his lashes lingered down a little bit longer.

When he slumped forward, she tried to catch him.

Gideon knocked her aside just in time.

Moira jumped as she bumped into the glass of scotch Kevin had given her. It hit the hardwood floors and shattered, shards of glass and droplets of Macallan 25 spraying across the floor.

Gideon caught Kevin, eased him down.

By the time Gideon had the younger man on the floor, Kevin's face had gone slack.

But his eyes were still open.

Open and staring straight ahead.

“Shit,” Moira whispered, staring at his lax face. “Is he…”

“No.” Gideon pressed two fingers to his neck, then tore at his collar. “Get to the car, Moira. Now.”

“But—”

“
Now
!” Gideon whipped his head around and shouted at her. “We need to get him to a hospital.”

*   *   *

It was somewhat problematic.

Studying the feed streaming live to his computer, he stared at Moira's face. He poured the Macallan from the decanter into a crystal highball and toasted the screen.

“Run, run as fast as you can,” he taunted the screen as Gideon Marshall hefted Kevin Towers' inert body into a fireman's hold.

It was a pity, but Kevin had proven to be a hindrance. That meant he had to go.

He'd be dead soon.

That was what happened when people talked.

They could try to get to the hospital all they wanted, but he'd perfected this particular little blend and he knew almost to the milligram how much time Kevin had.

Judging by how quickly he'd been tossing back the scotch, it was probably under ten minutes. The nearest hospital was a good twenty minutes away and it was a miserable little county affair. Not the nicely outfitted one all fixed up with McKay money, but a broke little place, scraping by on what the government could spare and what little people sent their way.

Marshall would never get him there in time.

Assuming by some chance he did, by the time the local idiots even have a chance to look him over? Well, Kevin would be dead.

It was a pity, but a necessity, too.

Kevin knew too much. When people knew too much, they became a liability.

The man watching the monitor stood.

He'd get over there. Clean up. Dump the rest of the tainted scotch.

But the door swung back open and Moira came striding back in, pausing to look back over her shoulder. She made a face and nodded.

Her unseen audience began to swear as she paused and tugged something on. Gloves. Marshall had given her a pair of gloves.

The son of a bitch knew.

She hurried into the kitchen, throwing cabinets open, and he almost grabbed the monitor and ripped it out of the wall when she pulled a jar out. One of those stupid mason jars—the previous owner had kept them all over the place.

She poured the liquor into it. Every last drop.

Then she grabbed something he hadn't seen.

A box.

He recognized it now.

It was the box Kevin had used the last time he brought Chinese food out to the place. She put the bottle and the mason jar and the glass Towers had used inside it.

Then she headed for the door.

“What the fuck is…”

There was a dog.

When had she gotten a dog? He leaned forward until his nose was almost touching the screen, eying the big, pale dog. He punched a control on the computer, zooming in.

And the dog's pale head swung around, its eyes zeroing in exactly on where the camera was hidden.

“Fuck me.”

It was like that dog was staring straight at him.

 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“You realize this looks really bad.”

Gideon thought if the man wearing the county sheriff's badge pointed that out one more time, he just might rip off the badge and use it to gag him.

“Yes, sheriff. I realize it looks really bad,” he said, parroting the words back. Maybe saying exactly what the other man was saying would make the guy get the point.

Gideon was a fucking cop. This looked bad—yeah, he got the point.

“You say you were just coming out here to look around and your girlfriend knew he was here, but she didn't tell you?”

Gideon pinched the bridge of his nose.

He'd gone through this three times already. Logically, he knew what the law enforcement officer was doing. Repetition was everything. There was no telling how many times a suspect had slipped up over the stupidest little detail. Those details got lost in the telling—hard to keep your story straight when you made it up and pulled it out of your ass.

But Gideon was a cop and he knew how all of this went down. On top of that, he was tired
and
fed up with all of this bullshit.

Spreading his hands out wide, he said, “I'm going to go through this again.”

So he did.

The sheriff nodded slowly and took notes.

Gideon didn't think the man learned anything new.

Gideon told the story over anyway.

And all the while, Moira sat huddled on a chair, staring outside while Frost curled around her in a big, canine hug. Every now and then, the dog would nudge her and Moira would respond by stroking a hand down the dog's back. Then the woman would go back to staring outside. Frost would patiently wait. Then after about ten or twenty minutes, Frost would nudge her again.