“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Bobby mutters wryly, shooting Ivy with a look. “I see what’s goin’ on here. If you need me, I’ll be fixin’ the tile in the bathroom. Shirtless.” He rubs his belly.
“No thanks,” Ivy throws back, kicking the door shut with her boot.
I know that look well.
“We’ve still got a lot to do, Ivy,” I tell her. She strolls toward me with purpose. “I could have all the holes filled by tonight if I keep going.”
“Uh-huh.” She stops in front of me, her head tilted back to keep eye contact.
“Didn’t you tell your real estate agent that you’ll have this ready to go on the market by next week?”
“I did.” Her fingers search out my belt, unfastening it, a fierce look taking over her face as her hand slips down the front of my jeans. “You feel like you could use a break, though.”
“Christ, you’re greedy,” I whisper, lifting her up to settle on the ledge of an odd-size window that’s, thankfully, just the right height. “Neighbors are going to get a show if they look up here.”
“It’ll be a good one. Have you seen yourself right now?” She trails a finger along the light sheen of sweat down the center of my abs, and then sticks it in her mouth.
That’s the end of my restraint. I grab her pants at the sides and peel them down over her hips, tugging at them until they’re at her knees and I’ve got her legs pushed out of the way, gaining me access to her.
I’m just pushing into her when my burner phone rings.
That ring is like a bucket of cold water.
“Fuck,” I hiss.
“Ignore it.”
“I can’t.” I pull out, release her legs, and step back, pulling her down with me, sliding her pants back up. “I need to take this.” Bentley will let it ring at least twenty times before hanging up.
“Why? Who is it?” Suspicion screams in her voice. She’s still thinking I’ve got another life. I guess I do; it just doesn’t involve other women.
“It’s work.”
“Oh.” Some of the suspicion eases away.
“I’ll meet you downstairs.”
With reluctance, she walks away, closing the door behind me.
Just in case she’s listening on the other side, I slide the window open, pop out the screen, and slip out onto that shitty old shed in the back that will afford me some privacy as I answer. “Yeah.”
“Ice.”
My stomach instantly tightens. This isn’t just a check-in call. He has another assignment for me, and soon.
“I couldn’t reach you last night.”
“Dead battery,” I answer without missing a beat. That’s a lie. I turned it off, like I’ve been doing every night that I stay with Ivy. I’m not entirely sure how easy it is for his minions to track me down, but I know that if this phone rings and someone answers, he’ll know where I’m staying. In the off chance that he hasn’t already figured it out, there’s no point making it too easy for him.
“I have a job for you,” Bentley says, his voice as smooth as usual. Only I don’t feel the same affection for it anymore, now that I can’t hear it without a rush of distrust. “I need you to come and meet me—”
“No.” Another assignment that involves me meeting directly with Bentley? Hell no.
There’s a long pause. I’ve never refused an assignment before. But just the idea of leaving Ivy right now makes me want to puke.
“I think accepting is in your best interests.”
What the fuck is that supposed to mean? How is sending me to China or Sudan, or somewhere else far away from Ivy, so Scalero can tie up his loose end, in my best interests? “I’m not leaving her.” I’m not a SEAL anymore, and he can’t order me around.
“What’s this about?”
“The car that was sitting outside the house.” He knows exactly where I am right now. There’s no point pretending. “Was he on her, or on me?”
“Why would I have anyone on you?” Bentley’s friendly tone is gone, but I don’t buy his irritation for a second. Months drag between my assignments. He wants me gone now for a reason. He wants to erase this last question mark—Ivy—for a reason.
I don’t answer him. This conversation has already gone on long enough.
“Don’t forget who’s had your back all these years, son.”
“And don’t forget who has done everything you’ve asked all these years with blind trust.” He must hear the anger in my tone.
Silence hangs over the line.
Have I said too much?
“I need time.” Time to reconcile my guilt over this last assignment, a guilt that seems to grow daily, as I get closer to Ivy. Time to make sure she’s safe.
Time to get to know her.
Time to be sure that this is what I want. That she is what I want. Time to figure out how I’m going to lie to her for the rest of our lives.
“I don’t think you understand what I’m—”
“I don’t think you understand what I’m saying. I’m saying no. Send your mercenaries. I’m sure between the two of them, they won’t fuck it up too badly.” I hang up and shut the phone off.
Wondering exactly what refusing him will mean.
THIRTY-FIVE
IVY
I hadn’t intended on eavesdropping. Honestly.
I left Ned’s room and went to the office to collect the debris left after Sebastian patched all the holes. The window was open a crack, letting the cool air in.
The air that carried with it Sebastian’s low voice.
At least I know he wasn’t talking to a girlfriend, or a wife.
But who the hell was he talking to just now? Besides someone he said no to. He kept referring to “her.”
Am I “her”?
And mercenaries?
Jesus Christ. Who the hell is Sebastian?
“You hungry?”
I gasp at the sound of his voice, my mind so preoccupied, I didn’t notice him slip in. He’s in the doorway, his T-shirt back on.
“Maybe in an hour?”
His gaze flickers to the cracked window and then returns to me, screaming with understanding. My heart starts pounding.
He knows I overheard him.
I wonder if this is what Dakota was talking about. His deep, dark secrets.
I wait for him to say something about it, to accuse me of something, to get angry and storm out. But he simply closes the distance and pulls me into his arms, leaning down until our foreheads press together, not saying a word.
“What are you doing?” I finally ask.
After another long moment, he simply says, “I’m staying.”
I drop down to sit on the floor outside the bathroom, my back to the wall. Sebastian is still upstairs, filling the last of the holes, quietly brooding over something I don’t understand. The pre-phone-call windowsill action is clearly not going to pick up where it left off, so I figured I’d let him brood alone.
I gingerly pick up a broken piece of tile from the box, examining it. “I don’t know why they had to break the tile. Did they seriously think he hid money under there?”
“Watch those. They’re sharp,” Bobby warns, his ass sticking halfway out the bathroom as he kneels, setting the new flooring in. “Damn near hacked half my hand off pullin’ them up.”
“Thank God this bathroom is small.” We went with cheap, generic tile and it still hurt when the bill rang up.
“You realize how much it would cost to have a professional in, right?” He peers over his shoulder at me, his brow coated with sweat and dust.
“I guess it’s good that I know an amateur who can do it for free, then, isn’t it?”
He chuckles, pushing himself off the ground to tower over me. “Ned would be laughin’ his ass off at me right now.”
A spark of sadness touches me with the mention of my uncle.
Bobby’s expression softens. “The guys called. I gotta head out now. Got a tow.”
I nod quietly.
“But I sho
uld be ready to grout here by tomorrow.”
“ ’Kay.” I hesitate. “Thanks, Bobby.” For everything else that he is, he and the guys are saving my ass here.
“No problem,” he says, peeling off his work gloves.
A shiver runs down my back as I’m hit with a flash of watching that guy Mario do exactly the same thing from my hiding spot under the desk. I was at the same eye level as I am now, and I remember focusing on the spot of fresh blood on his wrist. I was so horrified by it—by what it meant—that I dismissed everything else.
“Why you lookin’ at me like that?” Bobby asks.
“A scar. He had a scar,” I murmur, remembering it now. The skin was pink and puckered, like a burn mark. It stretched over his knuckles and covered the back of his hand.
When the cops questioned me, they pushed me to think about smaller details. Tattoos and piercings. Any other marks that would make someone stand out. I was so busy trying to push out the memory of Ned’s blood on the guy’s wrist that I pushed the scar out, too.
“Who did?”
“Mario. The guy who killed Ned.”
Bobby frowns. “You just rememberin’ that now?”
“Yeah. Weird, isn’t it?” Fields told me to call him if I thought of anything else that might be useful. I figured that was the standard party line. I didn’t expect to actually remember “anything else.”
I don’t know how helpful this will be, but . . .
I head into the kitchen to find my wallet and Fields’s business card, along with my phone.
THIRTY-SIX
SEBASTIAN
“Keep the porn to a minimum. Dakota’s streaming isn’t unlimited,” Ivy throws over her shoulder on her way out of the bedroom, her voice heavy with sarcasm.
“Like I’d even want that right now.” I eye her ass as it sways in black pants. “Leggings” she called them when I sat here and watched her get dressed, completely spent after a long day working at the house, my mind churning after that disastrous call from Bentley. The one that Ivy ended up hearing anyway, despite my efforts. I played it back in my head at least a dozen times as I worked away, trying to recall every word I might have said. It couldn’t have been too enlightening because she’s still talking to me.
She still stripped down to nothing the minute we stepped into her room, covered in white dust and both needing showers.
She turns to eye me lying in her bed, her gaze drifting over the reaper along my side that she just tended to. It’s scabbing over nicely now, and she seems impressed with the way it’s healing. “I think I’m paid up for at least a week with your bodyguard services, right?”
“At least.” I smirk. “I like your payment plan.”
Her full lips stretch into a devious smile. “I think I do, too.” Dakota’s voice carries into the room. Another guest over for dinner. It’s a revolving door around here. I wonder if this person will top the homeless Jono and the bearded Gerti, whom I never met. “I’m guessing dinner will be ready soon.”
“I’ll be out in fifteen,” I promise her.
I wait until Ivy has rounded the corner before I type “Alliance” into Google’s search engine on my iPad. A list of results fills the screen. They’re the usual articles, most relating to the civilian shooting that government officials were investigating. They’ve been investigating for over four months, with witnesses from both sides giving different accounts. The civilians had guns; they didn’t have guns. They fired first; the Alliance employees fired first. Just two months ago, officials finally concluded there was enough evidence to suggest that enemy bullets were fired, that the two civilians shot and killed may have had guns on them that were swept away by family members.
Alliance was not in violation of deadly-force rules.
When the verdict was first published, I felt only relief for Bentley. Relief that bullshit propaganda wasn’t going to hurt him, or his cause, because it couldn’t be true. Bentley would never support harsh and unfair violence against civilians. Now . . . my stomach turns.
Because the names of two of the Alliance contractors involved mean something to me now.
Mario Scalero and Richard Porter.
They probably did fire on unarmed civilians. They probably do deserve to be charged with murder. Just like they probably deserve to be charged with rape.
And yet they’re going to get off for all of it.
I don’t believe that any of what Royce admitted to Ned on that tape is bullshit propaganda. And now they’re free to go back to a war-torn country to continue doing the kinds of things that Royce spoke up about and got himself killed for.
Worse, Bentley knows. He knows and yet he’s sending them back in because Alliance just won another contract and Scalero is “effective” overseas.
I click on the news article posted just yesterday, showing a head shot of Bentley and a headline that reads, “Alliance Rewarded with Multimillion-Dollar Contract for Private Security Services in Ukraine.”
Bentley must have been in negotiations for that one for some time. Had that video surfaced, I’m guessing that the government would have passed Alliance over for one of the many other companies in line. It wouldn’t have taken too long for an investigative reporter to make the connection between the Mario and Ricky mentioned in Royce’s tattoo shop confession. The confession of a Medal of Honor recipient who was murdered not long after the recording happened.
With an eyewitness who can place a man with a heavy Chicago accent by the name of Mario at the scene.
My stomach tightens. One way or another, that connection may still be made, with something as simple as a mother’s scrapbook.
And the burn scar that the only witness to the murders just remembered.
Fuck . . . Why did she have to remember that?
It’s only a matter of time before someone—Bentley or Scalero or even this Ricky Porter guy, whom I have yet to lay eyes on—feels that Ivy is too big a threat to be allowed to linger.
I toss my iPad to the side and close my eyes, struggling to suppress my panic.
I don’t think I’ve ever been this unnerved at a dinner table.
We’re in Dakota’s greenhouse again. It was peaceful enough the other night, lit by dim lights, surrounded by a jungle of plants. I even liked the dozens of wind chimes dangling from above. Tonight, though, it all adds to the eeriness I’m feeling.
Dakota’s psychic medium guest—she goes by Esmeralda, though I’m guessing that’s her stage name—hasn’t lifted her unsettling crystal-blue eyes from my face since dropping her plump ass into her seat across the table. It’s not in a sexual way, either. She’s not trying to attract me or seduce me.
She’s trying to read me.
Or at least pretend that she can read me, because I know as well as she does that she’s a crook. None of that shit is real. No one can see the dead.
I’ve caught Ivy glaring at the woman through dinner several times. I’m guessing we share the same feelings about people like this. Right now, I’m wishing she’d stop biting that sharp tongue of hers and say something.
“So, Esme, any interesting readings lately?” Dakota asks, seemingly oblivious of the discomfort around her table as she slides a mouthful of scrambled tofu into her mouth.
I’m so uneasy under this woman’s gaze that I don’t even taste what’s on my plate.
“Not as interesting as what I’m reading right now.” Her eyes never lift from me.
Shivers run down my back.
This is bullshit. She can’t see the dead bodies piled up around me.
She can’t.
The pain in my jaw tells me I need to stop clenching my teeth.
“So, what exactly is a psychic medium, Esmeralda?” Ivy asks in that dry, disbelieving tone that I love even more right now, skipping the tofu and going straight for the chicken she threw onto the grill for me.
“Oh, it’s so much,” Esmeralda answers in a soft, breathless voice. “You can be psychic and not a medium, but you can’t be a medium a
nd not a psychic.”
“There’s a difference?”
She smiles kindly at Ivy. As if she can see the same doubt pouring from her as it does from me. “A psychic reads your energy to understand your past, your present, and your future. Your friend Dakota has that intuitive ability.”
“Yes. Auras,” Ivy murmurs, her dark gaze flipping to Dakota, who simply winks.
“Yes, exactly. For example, I can see that you have been wandering for years but you’ve only just found an anchor. No . . .” She squints. “Two anchors. Or rather, one of your anchors has found you.”
Ivy pauses, her fork in her mouth. I can see the tension in her jaw.
Esmeralda’s eyes twinkle, as if she knows she’s hit a mark. “That’s a psychic. Now, a medium has the ability to read your spirit energy to see your past, present, and future.”
“Sounds like the exact same thing to me.” Ivy has regained her cool composure. “Do you charge double for that?”
Esmeralda reaches across the table to seize Ivy’s small hand. “Someone from your past who has left you recently, who loves you, approves of these anchors, both the new and the old. Very much so.”
Ivy’s complexion goes from pinkish to deathly white in seconds as the blood drains from her face. I watch quietly to see how she’ll react.
But she doesn’t. She doesn’t even pull her hand away. Her mind is too busy working through the woman’s words, deciphering them. Making sense of them.
And I suddenly want to get the hell away from this woman.
That’s of course when she turns her attention to me. “Now you are something else. Are you being chased?”
“No,” I answer without missing a beat.
She frowns, as if disappointed in my answer. And not because she thinks she was wrong; because she knows she’s right. “Yes . . . Yes, you are. Ghosts from your past that need to be faced. It wasn’t your fault. You know that, and yet you haven’t forgiven yourself for it yet, after all these years. She knows, as well. She has forgiven you. So have the others.”