Covet (Fallen Angels 1)

"Roger that."

As Jim hung up, he felt as if he were dressed in a familiar set of clothes: The back-and-forth with Matthias was just as it had always been. Quick, to the point, smart, and logical. That was the problem. They'd always worked well together.

Maybe a little too well.

Jim refocused on his pursuit, tracking Devina's taxi as it headed across downtown to the old warehouse district. When they got into the maze of industrial buildings that had been converted into lofts, he let the taxi turn off onto Canal Street by itself and proceeded to the next left-hand turn. Going around the block, his timing was perfect: As he came back to Canal, he got to see Devina get out of the cab and stride up to a door. When she entered using a key, he took that as an indication she had a place there.

Jim kept going, and as he headed out of the district, he made another call.

Chuck, the diPietro Group's crew foreman, answered in his usual gruff way. "Yeah."

"Chuck, it's Jim Heron."

"Hey." There was an exhale, like the guy was in mid-cigar. "How you doing?"

"Good. Wanted you to know I'm coming to work tomorrow."

Guy's voice actually warmed a little. "You're a good man, Heron. But don't be pushin' it."

"Nah. I'm fine."

"Well, I 'predate it."

"Listen, I'm trying to get in touch with two of the guys I usually work with and I wondered if you have their numbers."

"I got everyone's number but yours. Who you need?"

"Adrian Vogel and Eddie Blackhawk."

There was a pause, and the image of the guy chewing on the stub of a fattie was irresistible. "Who?" Jim repeated the names. "Don't know who you talking about. Nobody by those names on the bluff job." There was a hesitation, like the guy was wondering whether Jim was all there. "You sure you don't need a couple days off?"

"Maybe I got the names wrong. They ride Harleys. One's got short hair and piercings. The other's huge and has a braid down his back?"

Another exhale. "Look, Jim, you're gonna take tomorrow off. I'll see you Tuesday at the earliest."

"No one like that on the crew?"

"Nope, Jim, there ain't."

"Guess I'm confused, then. Thanks."

Jim tossed his cell phone on the seat next to him and all but strangled the steering wheel. Not part of the crew. Big surprise.

Because that pair of bastards didn't really exist any more than Devina did.

Christ, it appeared as if he were surrounded by liars in this new job. Which really put him back in familiar territory, didn't it.

His phone rang and he picked it up. "You can't find her, can you. Devina Avale is nothing but air."

Matthias wasn't laughing this time. "Nothing. Not a damn thing. It's like she dropped onto the earth out of nowhere. The thing is, she has all the right surface credentials - but only to a point. No birth certificate. No parents. Established credit only seven months ago, and the social security number is actually that of a dead woman. So it's not a great facade, which means I should have been able to find something, anything on the real her. But she's a mirage."

"Thanks, Matthias."

"You don't sound shocked in the slightest."

"I'm not."

"What the hell have you gotten yourself into?"

Jim shook his head. "Same shit, different day. That's about it."

There was a short silence. "Expect a package from me."

"Roger that."

Jim hung up, put the phone in the front pocket of his jacket, and decided it was time to go face the music over at the Commodore. Vin diPietro had a right to know who and what his ex was, and here was hoping that the guy would be open to the truth - even though it sounded a lot like fiction.

Abruptly, the memory of Vin looking up from the stool in the locker room at the Iron Mask came back.

Do you believe in demons?

Jim could only hope that question had been a rhetorical one.

Chapter 28

Funny thing about glass. When you broke the shit up, it got pissed and bit back.

Upstairs in the duplex's master bath, Vin was surrounded by gauze and white surgical tape. What he'd done to his palm squeezing that bourbon to shreds was way out of Band-Aid land, so he'd had to call in reinforcements of the Red Cross variety and things were not going well. With the injury being on his right hand, he was a floundering, cursing nurse, fumbling with all the wrapping and the scissors and the tape.

Damn good thing he was his own patient. The vocabularly alone, much less the incompetence, would have gotten him disbarred - or whatever the hell the candy-striper equivalent to that was.

He was just coming to the end of the ordeal when the phone by the sinks rang, and wasn't that just loads of fun. With a tiny pair of nail scissors locked in his leftie, a strip of gauze in his teeth, and his right hand all but a paw, it took every bit of coordination he had to answer the call.

"Let him up," he told the lobby guard.

After putting the receiver back, he did a half-assed taping job and left the mess on the counter as is, heading for the stairs and going down to the front hall door. When the elevator binged and opened, he was in the corridor, waiting.

Jim Heron stepped out and didn't hang around for a hello or an invitation to speak. Which you had to respect.

"Thursday night," the guy said. "I didn't know you. I didn't know her. I should have told you, but to be honest, when I saw the pair of you together, I didn't want to f**k things up. It was a mistake and I'm goddamn sorry - mostly that you found out from someone other than me."

The whole time he was talking, Heron's arms hung loosely by his sides, like he was ready for a fight if things went that way, and his voice was as steady and even as his eyes were. No prevaricating. No artifice. No bullshit.

And as Vin faced off at him, instead of rage, which was what he'd have expected himself to have toward the guy, he just felt exhaustion. Exhaustion and the thumping pain of his hand. Abruptly, he realized he was getting tired of channeling his f**king father when it came to women. Thanks to that legacy, over the past twenty years, Vin's suspicious nature had found so many shadows where none had existed - and yet essentially missed the actual time when someone he was sleeping with cheated on him.

So much energy wasted, all in the wrong place.

God, he just didn't care about Devina. At this moment, he really didn't care what she'd done while they were together.

"She lied about what happened here last night," Vin said roughly. "Devina lied."

There was absolutely no hesitation in the reply: "I know."

"Oh, really."

"I don't believe a word she's said about anything."

"And why's that."

"I went to the hospital to see her because I was having a hard time believing any of this shit. And she gave me this hearts-and-flowers routine about telling you what had happened Thursday night, how that was the reason you went after her. But you didn't know, did you. She never said a thing to you, did she."

"Not a peep." Vin turned away and headed into the duplex. When Jim didn't follow, he said over his shoulder, "You just going to stand there like a statue or do you want lunch."

Food was evidently preferable to playing marble, and after they were both through the front door, Vin locked it and put the chain in place. With the way things were going lately, he wasn't taking any chances with anything.

"Holy f**k," Jim said, "your living room..."

"Yeah, it's been redecorated by Vince McMahon."

In the kitchen, Vin got out some cold cuts and the jar of Hellman's using his left hand. "You got a choice between rye or sourdough."

"Sourdough."

As Vin grabbed some lettuce and a tomato from the crisper, he braced himself. "I need to know how it went down. With Devina. Tell me everything - Shit...not everything. But how did she come on to you?"

"You sure you want to go there?"

He took out a knife from the drawer. "I have to, man. Need to. I'm feeling like...I'm feeling I was with someone I didn't know at all."

Jim cursed and then parked it on one of the bar stools at the counter. "Not so much mayo for me."

"Cool. Now talk."

"I don't believe she is who she says, by the way."

"Funny, me neither."

"I mean, I did a background check on her."

Vin glanced up in the process of getting the blue lid off the plastic jar. "You gonna tell me how you managed that?"