Bold Tricks (The Artists Trilogy 3)

I got home, poured myself a glass of wine and waited for my men to get home. Then I poured myself another glass of wine and waited some more.

Here’s the thing about being alone.

You’re not.

You have your demons with you.

Sitting in that house, the house that wasn’t mine, with the furniture that wasn’t mine, and the red wig splayed across the kitchen table, was the first time I’d been alone in what felt like a long time. There was the time in the jungle before I found Camden, but that was no time to reflect or think.

Now I truly was alone.

And it was terrifying.

Not only being in a large and still unfamiliar house with unfamiliar sounds.

And not because I still had this undercurrent of paranoia at the back of my head, this feeling of dread that followed me around in this bright Californian sunshine.

But because I was alone with my thoughts.

Alone with my guilt.

Alone with the knowledge of the things I’d done.

The people I’d killed.

So many sins.

I put my head on the table and cried. I cried for my mother, for the father I knew and lost, for Violetta, I even cried for Javier. I cried for the men I shot, in self-defense or self-preservation. I cried for the people I’d stolen from, robbed, conned, lied to. I cried for everyone who ever had to meet me.

Everyone except Travis.

For him I felt nothing at all, a stone where my heart should be.

I cried until Camden and Gus eventually came home and found me a blubbering, tear-streaked mess who’d drunk an entire bottle of wine. Camden picked me up in his arms and brought me to bed where he stayed with me until morning.

Then the sun rose and his lips lightened my soul and his heart set me free.

And I was able to move on.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

While I was busy having my pity-party at home, Camden and Gus had stayed out until just after Sophia’s work closed. She got into a Prelude, newer model, and drove on the 134 until she got to Pasadena, Camden and Gus following her the whole time, two cars behind. From the way Camden described it the next morning, it was like old times with him and Gus in the car, only they weren’t chasing me this time.

They said that Sophia lived in a small bungalow on the edge of a golf course, a much easier location to get in and out of than an apartment building, which was good, but she had quite a few neighbors and they were close to her, which could pose a bit of a problem. Camden got choked up when he mentioned Ben. He didn’t see him but he could see a few toys scattered in the front yard, solidifying his existence.

As much as Camden wanted to swoop in there and get his son back, patience was an unfortunate virtue. Gus wanted us to hold off for a few days while they basically stalked Sophia to get an idea of where she went and at what times and who had Ben when she wasn’t around. The tighter the operation was, the less traumatic it would be for Ben.

It was on day three of their surveillance that they discovered the neighbor across the street took Ben to her house every other day, while Sophia placed him in daycare during the remaining days. The neighbor was an older woman in her late fifties who didn’t appear to have children herself but would take in a few other kids in the neighbourhood, maybe for some extra money. An easier target than a daycare.

When they got home that day and we were lying in bed, I could tell that Camden was beating himself up about it and what they had to do.

“Would it make it easier if you knew that Sophia wasn’t a good mother?” I asked, probing him for a hint.

He shook his head and leaned back into the pillows “No. Not really. Because Ben is just a boy and a boy loves his mom. It doesn’t matter how wicked the mother is, that’s the only mother he knows. Ben will be crushed when we do this.”

“And he’ll eventually be crushed if you don’t,” I reminded him. “As will all of us.”

I snuggled into him, kissing down his face, wanting to distract him. “Tell me about our dream life. Where we are. What we’re doing. What you will be doing?”

He smiled and sighed and held me close. He knew I was trying to take his mind off of things and he didn’t care. “Well, if we could I’d still like to go to Gualala. Though in reality we’d probably end up in Canada or something, because Sophia and her brothers will not take this lying down.”

“It’s a dream life, Camden. Gualala it is.”

“Okay then. Gualala. I don’t know if I’d be doing tattoos, maybe I’d try my hand at painting or sculpture. I’ve always loved carving things out of driftwood. I could have an art shop. We’d have Ben and a boy or girl of our own, four years younger. Gus would be there too with some lady love of his.”

“And what am I doing?”

“You?” he eyed me appreciatively. “You’d just stand around and look pretty.”

“And?”

“Give me blow jobs.”

I punched him in the arm.

“What?” he laughed. “I know you love the cock.”

“Shut up.”

“Well then, you tell me,” he said, looking serious and wiping a strand of hair from my face. “What do you want to be doing? If you could do anything.”

The thing was, I’d never really thought about that. I was always just trying to survive and keep going, from one place to the next. I never had goals. I never had dreams. Not really.

I thought back to something I did enjoy once. Something that had put a rift between Camden and I all those years ago.

“I think I’d be a photographer,” I told him. He raised his brows and I continued, “Of course you were always better at that than I was.” He bit his lip sheepishly and I knew he remembered the photos he had taken of me back in art class, for a project he called “Justification.” It had humiliated me at the time, but now I realized that he was only telling the truth. And sometimes the truth fucking hurt.

“I think you would be good at that,” he said. “You have a way of seeing people.”

I traced my fingers across his chest, making swirls and waves. “I like the idea of giving hope. That you can capture the world in such a way that even the ugly things look beautiful.”

The beauty in what was real.

He kissed my head and cleared his throat. “Now. About that blow job?”

I punched him again.

Then I gave him one.

Of course.

I woke up in the middle of the night with a light headache and my stomach grumbling. I hadn’t really eaten anything for the last few days. I had been basically fasting when I was in the jungle, only eating when I had the chance and coasting by on adrenaline the rest of the time, so now that I was back in California and still a pile of nerves, my appetite was slow to come back.

But when it did come back, it was back with a vengeance. As I rolled out of bed, careful not to wake Camden who was snoring lightly, I put my hand to my rumbling stomach and had a silly yet hopeful thought that perhaps I was already pregnant and this was my body telling me so.

I grabbed my robe and slipped it on, a cool, ocean breeze coming in through the open windows smelling of night-blooming Jasmine, and made my way downstairs to the kitchen. I popped two pieces of toast in the toaster, poured myself a glass of water and opened the drawer where I had stashed a bottle of Ibuprofen earlier in the day.

I shook two orange pills into my hand and raised it up to my mouth.

My eyes went to the kitchen window.

There was a man in the reflection.

Grinning.

Behind me.

Javier.

I opened my mouth to scream but he was fast and he grabbed me around the waist with one arm, his hand going over my mouth with the other. I dropped the pills to the floor where they clattered, praying that Camden could hear that but I didn’t think he could from where our bedroom was.

Javier pressed his hand hard into me and started bringing me backward, his hot breath at my neck. There was only one second where I felt a slice of relief that he was still alive. But that quickly vanished. Now I wanted him dead. I wanted Travis to have finished him off. I wanted my gun to have had one more bullet in it. Because, no matter what I thought of Javier before, I knew now that he was here for a terrible reason.

All bets were off.

No more promises.

I struggled, trying to kick out with my legs, to knock over a jar full of cooking spoons, hoping to cause more noise but it was impossible. Javier pulled me out of the kitchen, practically dragging me into the next room, the one-car garage we had.

Dark.

Small.

Practically soundproof.

Not good.

He managed to quietly close the door behind him, shutting us in the garage together, the smell of oil and dust assaulting me, as well as Javier’s distinctive musk which made the whole thing that much more terrifying. I breathed hard against his hand and he leaned back against the door, his arm around my stomach and legs growing tighter and tighter.

“Shhh,” he whispered in my ear, lips touching my lobe. “Shhhh, angel. Keep quiet. Calm down. I promise I won’t hurt you.”

That meant nothing anymore.

I could hear his lips against teeth, smiling. “So you think you could just leave me alone to die, yes?”

You left me, you sick son of a bitch. I wished there was light in the garage so I could see the closest weapon but there was nothing. It was completely pitch black. Dark as sin. And the only sound was my heart pounding and Javier’s breathing in my ear.

“This was after, of course, you pulled the trigger.” He sucked in his breath. “You know, angel, that really hurt me. That really changed … everything. You were the one person I thought wouldn’t betray me. And yet you tried to kill me. How do you think that made me feel? I lost my sister. And then I lost you.”

He suddenly took his hand away and put it at my neck, wrapping it around until I could feel the grooves he was creating. I gasped for air, to scream, but only pitiful sounds came out.

“To think I wasted …” I eked out, my face turning red, “tears on you.”

His grip tightened and he lifted me slightly off the ground, just for a moment, just to let me know he could hang me if he wanted. I couldn’t speak anymore. I couldn’t even get in one breath.

“And to think I wasted tears on you,” he snarled, suddenly malicious. He breathed sharply through his nose and I could tell he was pulling himself together. Trying to be calm. In control. Always in control. “But this is for the best. I can see that. We were never meant to be. You were never as strong as I thought you were. Such a shame though. You had such dirty wings. Such promise. Power makes the world go around, angel. It keeps you alive when you should be dead. Don’t you want that immortality? Or are you so happy with a boring, ordinary life? With a boring, ordinary man?”

I felt my heart slowing, the veins in my head about to burst. Then he slowly released his hand and gave me two seconds to wheeze and try and get the air back in before he covered up my mouth with his hand again. I fought against his palm but he held me hard while his other hand began to ease my robe aside.

I froze like a deer in headlights as his palm slid down my bare middle.

“You know I can give you what you need,” he murmured. “You know I always have. I can make you come just by touching you, even now.”