Crave (Fallen Angels 2)

Hitting the stairs, he went down to the room he'd been given.

Ten minutes later, he headed back to her, fully dressed, with his weapons. Standing over her, he watched her sleep for too long and had to force himself to bend down and pick up her hand. Moving her carefully, he put her thumb on the remote to the security system and deactivated it. After a green light flashed, he reengaged the alarm to see what kind of delay there was.

Which would be none: Immediately the red light glowed, and he was stuck inside.

Made sense. She'd just trigger it after she locked the front door.

He checked his watch. Four a.m.

Grier made a little snuffle and eased her head deeper into the pillow, her blond hair falling onto her cheek.

He didn't trust himself to stay with her until she woke up.

Now or never, ass**le.

Thank you, he mouthed to her.

And then with a curse, he disarmed the system and left without looking back.

Downstairs, he was silent and quick as he went and checked the ADT keypad in the front hall. Just as he'd hoped: disengaged. After all, when you had a rottweiler guarding your house, did you really need a yellow Lab as backup?

The front door was solid wood and three inches thick--so even though he couldn't engage the dead bolt, it was going to take a battering ram to get inside. His only concern was the glass doors and windows, but the frames were super sturdy and locked--and if you shattered panes the size of the ones in the kitchen, they made a hell of a noise.

So she was safe as she could be.

After cutting the exterior lights, he took his muscle shirt from his pocket and tore off a strip; then he stepped out and cranked that big ol' door into place. Quick pause to double-check the handle was locked and secure and he tied the strip of cloth around the wrought-iron lantern to the left.

Next move was to walk off into the chilly April morning.

Not a moment too soon, either. As this was New England, the sun rose real early, and he probably had only an hour or so of good darkness before the dawn's rays started to chase away the shadows. Going left, he headed across something called Pinckney Street, and less than ten yards down the hill, he found what he was looking for--one of the smaller town houses was under reconstruction, its windows on the first floor boarded up, a pathway of plaster dust running in and out of the front door.

And there were no lights on, inside or out.

Going in all Spidey and shit, he grappled up the house, using the moldings around the door and the windows to brace his feet and yank his weight up. A quick punch through a dusty pane and he waited for the scream of a security alarm. None came. So he flipped the latch, shoved the sash up, and hello, Lucy, he was home.

Total elapsed time: a minute and a half.

The place was rock cold and covered with more plaster dust, and he hoped like hell that this was a union job, given that it was Sunday--so he could stay as long as he wanted.

Casing the joint didn't take long, and similar to Grier's setup, the back of the house opened to a courtyardy thing that was gated--and there were no chalky footprints on the red brick there. Obviously, the workmen arrived and left the front way.

To clear the exit route for some parkour action if he needed it, he popped the latch on the window above the rear door's transom; then he returned to where he'd broken in and picked out all of the glass shards on the pane he'd smashed--because no glass at all looked, from a distance, like nothing was wrong.

The vantage point he took was by the window on the far front right of the house, and to hide most of himself, he moved a piece of plywood over for cover. From where he took up res, he could see about seventy percent of Grier's bow-front. What was missing was the rear door and the upper terrace, but this was as good as it was going to get.

Leaning up against the cold wall, his eyes scanned the little park with its wrought-iron fence and statue and gracefully limbed trees. Might as well enjoy the view. He wasn't leaving until he saw Grier get into her car and drive away--without anyone on her tail.

Twenty minutes later what he feared most rolled up. The black unmarked was not what Jim's buddy had described from the night before: no dings or dust on this bad boy. And the darkened windows prevented him from seeing the driver or any passenger.

But he had a feeling who it was.

Shit, he hated when he was right.

And this was all his fault.

Chapter Twenty

Grier woke up at six a.m. and knew as soon as she saw the tail end of a Three's Company episode that Isaac has left: She hadn't restarted the DVD when they'd come up to her room . . . and yup, the security system was off.

She'd obviously slept through his going.

Arching over, she checked her bedside table, thinking that maybe he'd written her a note. But the only thing he'd left behind was the scent of the shampoo and soap he'd used: the cedar-y fragrance was on one of her pillows and some of her sheets.

Getting up, she pulled on her sweatshirt and went down to the second floor. The guest room was neat as a pin, the bed made to military precision. The only sign he'd been there at all was the single towel that had been hung to dry on the rack in the bath. He'd even wiped down the glass walls of the shower so there weren't any water marks on the inside.

The man was a total ghost and she was a pathetic loser to think he'd make some gesture of good-bye.

She headed downstairs to the kitchen and stopped in the archway.

Well, turned out he had left one thing behind: On the counter was the plastic bag of cash.

"Damn it. Goddamn it."

She stood there for a time, staring not at the twenty-five grand, but at the Birkin he'd tried to clean up for her.

Eventually, she went and got the home phone. The number she dialed was one she'd memorized two years ago.

The public defender's office always had someone on call, because crime, like illness and accidents, didn't recognize any distinction between weekdays and weekends. And the guy who answered was an attorney she knew well. Although her resignation from Isaac's case was a surprise to him, when she stated that she had approximately twenty-five thousand dollars from the cage-fighting racket on her kitchen counter, he got on board PDQ.

"Jesus."

"I know. So I have to resign."

"Wait, he left that cash at your house?"

Might as well practice her stab at revisionist history. "Last night, Mr. Rothe came over here. I'd posted his bail and he wanted to pay me back--and I got the impression it was because he was thinking of running. I didn't notify the police because I thought it was my duty to talk him out of taking off and I believed that I'd dissuaded him. Except then I found what he'd left for me this morning on my back porch." She drew a deep breath, the weight of the lies not sitting well on her empty stomach. "Given the money, I feel strongly that he is going to leave the state immediately. I'm calling the police next and I'll drop the cash off at the precinct house as evidence when I go there to give a statement this morning."

"Grier--"

"Before you ask, I'm listed in the white pages, which is how Mr. Rothe found my house, and no, I didn't feel threatened at all. I asked him to come in and he did for a little while--and he left without a fuss." At least that part was the whole truth.

"Well, hell . . ."

"Yes, I do believe that covers it. I wanted you to know what I was going to do and I'll keep you posted. I don't know where this is all going, to be honest."

Ding, ding, ding, another truth.

Her colleague made a dismissive sound. "Look, you've never had a blemish on your record and you're keeping it all aboveboard. You haven't done anything wrong."

No comment on that one. No reason to ruin the veracity trend.

"You are getting independent counsel, however?" he said.

"Of course." Fool for a client and all that stuff. Just like she'd told Isaac back at the jail.

After she got off the phone with the other attorney, she was on with the cops moments later. And they, of course, fit her right into their schedule.

In hopes of bracing herself, she fired up the coffee machine--and then realized she wasn't alone.

Hanging her head, she wondered what if anything Daniel had seen the night before in the guest room.

Nothing, her brother said. I know when to leave.

Thank God, she thought to herself as she hit the power button. "I wish I could give you some of this. I loved when we could have coffee together."

It smells good.

She usually sought him out with her eyes whenever he appeared, but not this morning. She really couldn't face him, and not because she'd hooked up with someone. Well, the sex was part of it. The real driver, though, was that reckless burn; it was just too close to what had destroyed him.