Erin turned. At the edge of the parking lot stood a woman, wearing a full, calf-length skirt and a hat. An image from two weeks ago flitted through Erin’s mind, seeing that same silhouette in the darkness at the edge of the prison parking lot, an onlooker to Justin’s stay of execution. Now, in the daylight, Erin could see who it was.
“Mother,” she said, emotion knotting in her chest. She turned to Nick. “You?”
He shook his head. “I got in to have a chat with Justin, but I don’t know anything about her.” He paused, as Erin tried to unravel it all. She hated her mother, loved her. The woman who let it all happen, the woman who never tried to stop it.
Or who couldn’t.
I wasn’t strong enough to protect Justin,
Erin had said to Nick. And he’d replied,
You did your best.
Was it the same for her mother?
Nick stepped forward. “Give us a minute,” he said to Justin and Alayna. Layna stepped out of earshot and Justin walked out to see their mother. It was an awkward greeting, Erin could tell, but it was a greeting. A start.
She turned to Nick. “Layna didn’t tell me you were going to be here.”
“I had to come. Turns out you left something in Ohio.”
“I did?”
He pulled a small box from his pocket. “Your ring. The crime scene crew found it in the driveway of my cabin. It was a good idea on your part, even though it turned out not to matter.”
Erin took the box. “You didn’t have to fly down here to give me that. It was just a little pearl.”
Nick cocked his head. “Really? Huh. It didn’t look like a pearl to me.”
Erin frowned. She opened the box and her knees went weak. A diamond glittered up at her. “Oh,” she said, in a stroke of brilliance. She couldn’t think. “It’s… it’s beautiful.”
“But will it replace your pearl?” Nick asked. His voice sounded tight.
Erin looked up at him. “Ohio?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. I’m not sure there’s much to keep me busy up there, and Hannah would like the beach. And I was thinking Miami might be a lot like L.A. Palm trees. Heat. Ocean.”
“Drugs. Violence. Murder.”
A half smile curled his lips. “Who can resist?”
“Not I,” Erin said, and stepped into his arms. “Not I.”
I
T WAS AN ODD PLACE
to find a woman like Kara Chandler, at an odd time: a squalid alley in the armpit of Atlanta, nearly midnight. The air sweltered—orange-zone breathing quality, said the news, with dramatic warnings for asthma sufferers and the elderly to stay inside. And here, behind a dumpster in an alley off Vine Street, the odors of sweat and urine and rotten trash hung in the air like fog.
Luke Varón heard a noise and inched left to peer past the dumpster to the sidewalk. An odd place indeed for Kara Chandler, yet there she was, and looking nothing like he’d expected. The jewels and spiked heels were gone; the evening’s upswept hairdo now falling in waves over her shoulders. In place of the classic black dress that had hugged her curves an hour earlier, she wore jeans and a short-sleeved blouse, and instead of the fashionable clutch purse, a shapeless woven sack hung over one shoulder with her right hand buried deep inside.
Gun.
Luke held to shadows. Two aluminum-caged security bulbs hung under the eaves behind him but he’d broken
the nearest one, forcing what was left of the sickly light toward the street. Kara Chandler paused there, tension rising in the alley like a third presence. She took a few steps and peeked into a culvert that wasn’t visible from the alley’s entrance. Luke’s hackles lifted: Ms. Chandler had been here before.
“Mr. Varón?”
Her voice stroked the night and every fiber of Luke’s body tightened. Damn, he shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t need to give a second thought to Kara Chandler. In less than two weeks, eight-and-a-half tons of cocaine cut with levamisole would arrive off the Georgia coast. Luke had spent the last six days securing the route from Ecuador, making sure every last mile was covered and that nothing could go wrong. He’d returned to the States only hours ago, longing only for a clean bed and about sixteen hours to languish in it.
What he’d found was a message from Kara Chandler, Assistant District Attorney for the City of Atlanta and Andrew Chandler’s wife. Either identity would have made her a concern. Together, they made her downright dangerous.
“Mr. Varón?” she said again.
Luke strung the silence out a bit longer, then said, “Here.”
She whirled, a bulge forming in the canvas of her shoulder bag. “Where? Come out, damn it.”
“So you can shoot me through a wall of macramé?”
“I didn’t ask you here so I could shoot you.” But the bulge in her purse moved. “You’re not worth the effort.”
“Flattery,” Luke drawled. “There’s a saying about where that will get you.”
“I need to talk to you. Come out.”
He did, leading with a G18. Her gaze dropped to the weapon and he watched the details register in her eyes: a lightweight, 9mm shooter with a threaded barrel to accommodate a silencer, and just now sporting an extra magazine that held thirty-three rounds. Tonight, he’d added the extra clip just for show, but in fully automatic mode, the G18 could fire all thirty-three bullets in less than two seconds. It was legal only among law enforcement and the military.
Luke Varón was neither.
He didn’t know what she was carrying, but it didn’t take her long to determine she was outclassed. The bulge in the bag loosened and Luke tilted the Glock skyward. “Your turn,” he said, but Kara Chandler didn’t move. He put an edge of steel into his voice. “Lady, pull your fucking hand out of the bag. I’d hate to fill you with bullets then find out you were going for lipstick.”
An inch at a time, she withdrew her hand—empty. Luke lifted the edge of his Armani suit coat and tucked his gun in the holster. He took a couple of steps to his left so when she angled to keep her eyes on him, the frail light caught her face. Not that he needed any reminders of what she looked like: hair like a waterfall of honey, bottle-green eyes dulled by tragedy, pale skin with two, teasing little tucks in her cheeks that flashed like lightning when she was angry and perhaps—Luke could only speculate here—when she smiled. Without her heels, she claimed only a few inches above five feet, but she carried herself as if meeting him eye to eye. On her turf, in a courtroom trying to convict him of murder, for example, Kara Chandler was the definition of cold control. Out here, she was wired so tight Luke thought she might snap if she so much as took a deep breath.
Better that way. Composed, this woman was a force to be reckoned with. Off balance, he might have a chance figuring out what the hell she was up to.
“Did you enjoy Berlioz’s Third Symphony?” he asked, and she winced—surprised. “Personally,” he continued, “I prefer a slower tempo in the fourth movement. It loses the ominous character of the guillotine when played too fast.”
“You were watching me?”
He tilted his head. “I was watching Spano conduct the
Symphonie Fantastique
. And for what it’s worth, I don’t think you were paying much attention.”
“There was no need to keep tabs on me. I asked you here because I have a proposition for you, that’s all.”
Luke touched his chest, feigning delight. “Now, what could a faithful public servant like you want with a common criminal like me?”
“This has nothing to do with the DA’s office. It’s personal.”
“Even better,” Luke said, and used the opportunity to let his gaze run down her figure and back again. Christ, Andrew Chandler had been one lucky son of a bitch. “If that’s true, I have to tell you I’m a little disenchanted. Until tonight, I was under the impression you were one of the few members of the justice system possessed of integrity.”
“I want to hire you,” she said, and Luke almost blinked. He caught himself and arched a dark brow instead.
“I’m not a stockbroker or private chef, Ms. Chandler.”
“I know what you are,” she spat. “You’re an arsonist and a murderer. So this job should be right up your alley. I want you to blow up a boat and make sure its owners die in the fire.”
Luke was flabbergasted. Christ. It was an effort to keep his jaw hinged in place.
“I’ll pay you twenty thousand dollars,” she said. “Half of it now and the other half when the job is done. We can set up a drop for the money so we don’t have to meet a second time.”
“Twenty thousand,” he said, hoping he sounded disapproving.
“It’s all I can give you.”
Luke narrowed his gaze on her. He didn’t know what she was doing here but the part about the money was probably true. Her husband, architect Andrew Chandler, had been killed by a drunk driver a year ago. Luke was half convinced the bastard deserved it, but his family hadn’t deserved what he’d left behind. Shortly after Chandler’s death, his estate collapsed in a web of fraud, his architectural firm was implicated in the activities of a drug ring, and his wife was left to handle the scandal and a mountain of debts while raising their teenage son alone. In addition, Luke knew, the year since Chandler’s death had been peppered with other personal tragedies—the death of her father and a college girlfriend. It was as if a cloud of doom had been hovering over Kara Chandler for the past year.
“I want it done tomorrow night, late. There’s only one neighbor who can see the dock, and she flew to Florida today for a cruise…”
She spoke right past him, as if she’d rehearsed a script, and Luke’s skepticism climbed to the surface. He’d already checked the area. There were no electronics and no surveillance, and there had only been one person hanging around—a homeless man Luke had run off with a hundred-dollar bill. The thought passed that Chandler
could be wearing a wire, but she was an unlikely choice for a sting. The Atlanta Police Department had people especially trained for undercover work.
Besides, this didn’t have the feel of a scam. The DA’s office asking him to commit murder? No one would believe he’d be stupid enough to buy into that.
“Wait at least two hours after dark—”
“Why me?” he asked.
She stopped, glaring at him. “Because you can get away with it. You can get away with anything. You proved that when you walked out of court a month ago.”
“More flattery,” he said. “But you’re a prosecutor. You must know dozens of good criminals.”
Her gaze might have melted steel. “Besides you, the criminals I know are behind bars.”
“Ah, yes,” Luke said, with the ghost of a smile. “You aren’t accustomed to a checkmark in the LOSS column. I’m sorry I tarnished your record.”
She took a step toward him. “It wasn’t a loss, it was a mistrial. And you were guilty. You know it and I know it. You killed a man in that warehouse fire—some poor, unidentified soul who went to an unmarked grave and whose family will never know what happened to him. You should be in prison for the rest of your life.”
“Lucky for you I’m not. Who would you call to commit
your
felonies?”
She quailed, but spoke through gritted teeth. “I don’t know how the evidence against you disappeared but I know there was enough that you would have gotten life—if you were lucky. The fact that you’re a goon for Gene Montiel and have access to his resources is just proof that he’s as dirty as the DA’s office has been saying.”
“And as powerful?” Luke suggested. Kara Chandler
wasn’t a gracious loser. Apparently, that was especially true when the freed defendant—Luke—worked security for a multi-millionaire land developer who owned a good portion of Atlanta’s businesses, police, and justice department. A man whom the DA’s office was convinced had become involved with a major drug cartel. “I appreciate the
film noir
character of this little charade, Ms. Chandler. But is the DA really so desperate to nail Montiel that he’s sending you into dark alleys to entrap one of his… goons?”
“This isn’t a charade and I’m not here as part of some undercover operation. I told you, this is personal.”
“Prove it.”
“Excuse me?”
He skimmed the buttons down the front of her blouse. “Show me you aren’t wearing a wire.”
“You’re crazy,” she said, but Luke could see that she was thinking about it. Considering stripping her clothes in a lonely, dark alley with the likes of Luke Varón, just to prove she wasn’t wired. Proof enough, Luke thought, and couldn’t quite believe his eyes when her fingers rose to her blouse and the first disk slipped through the hole. Jesus, she was going to do it. He felt like a twelve-year-old who’d just stumbled on a
Playboy
magazine under a mattress, watching her cleavage and her pale, flat belly come into view an inch at a time. His blood drained from his brain as she slipped her arms from the blouse and let it drop to the pavement with her bag.
You don’t have to do this.
The words rose to his lips but went no further. She unzipped her jeans and Luke’s pulse kicked up. She shimmied the denim over her hips—an unconsciously seductive move from any woman in any circumstance, and almost unbearably so in the heat
of night with a woman of Kara Chandler’s lithe curves and unexpected mystique. Luke’s mouth went dry as she stepped from the jeans, then she straightened and squared her shoulders.
The notion of sixteen hours in bed took an unexpected turn. Luke swallowed, taking his time looking. Long, slender limbs and gently flaring hips, lace-edged underwear cut high enough and low enough to accentuate a shapely figure usually encased in power suits. Her breasts strained against pale satin cups, and Luke’s fingers curled into fists with the desire to trade the bra for his hands.
“Satisfied?” she asked.
“Hardly,” Luke said, with more honesty than he’d intended. He stepped toward her, noting a trickle of perspiration trail between her breasts even as a shiver drew her nipples tight. “You and I both know transmission devices are sophisticated enough to be almost imperceptible, except upon close inspection.” He circled around her, stopping at her back and brushing a hand beneath her hair to lift it from her shoulders. The scent of something sweet rose to his nostrils from the pulse point on her throat, an incongruous touch of elegance in the fetid alley.