Wet Work: A Dark Bad Boy Romance Read online

  “You need a ride? Do you have someone who can take you home?” he asked. I shook my head. My family was back in Indiana and Abby, the only person I would lean on in a case like this, was out of town for the day. Suttman was gone for longer.

  “My car’s here. I’ll be alright.”

  Reynolds was still standing in front of me, refusing to sit down, but not leaving, either. Maybe it made him feel like he was keeping his distance from me, keeping things professional. The honest truth was it would have made me feel better if he sat down again. I’d felt a little safer when I could feel the body heat of another person, at least. Or know that it was there.

  He smiled kindly. “I get that. Sometimes I think the people that find the bodies have it the worst. You’re just minding your own business and then suddenly there it is. It kinda ruins your day.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t sure what to say. He looked uncomfortable with his effort to be sympathetic. “Can I go?”

  He nodded. “You’re free to go. Thank you for your cooperation.” He paused and then smiled again. “I know this is going to sound stupid, but try to find something to distract you. Go be with friends. Try not to dwell on what happened. That does you no good. There was nothing you could do.” He shuffled like he wanted to hug me, to offer me some small measure of comfort, but knew it would be inappropriate. I wished he would. I could use a fatherly hug right about now. He rapped his notebook with a finger. “I have your information. If I have any more questions, I’ll call you.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t planning on going anywhere. I had work to do here, and I was exactly where I wanted to be when something horrible happened—near the ocean and the solace it provided.

  I waited for the detective to leave before I rose and walked over to the lab window. Outside, the officers were still milling around the tide pool. They were too far away for me to tell what they were doing, but I could see the yellow tape around the pool as the blue and red strobes from their cars parked in the OIMB parking lot lit up the drizzle. I watched for a moment then turned away. I wasn’t a part of this now.

  Pursing my lips against the tears, I secured the samples. There was no time limit on how long I had to run the tests. If there were pollutants in the water now, they’d be in it tomorrow. I pulled my purse from the desk drawer and locked up the lab. I was salaried, so I didn’t have to clock out, and my colleagues gave me plenty of space.

  I paused at the parking lot, tears of frustration welling in my eyes. I didn’t want to go to the tide pool, but by car was blocked in by a squad car. I debated walking, but I was cold, wet, and sick to my stomach. Sucking up my tears, I turned and followed the path to the dock then struck out across the grass.

  “Excuse me!” I called, stopping at the yellow tape. “My car is blocked in. Can someone please move the car?”

  The officers looked at one another, then one nodded with a smile. “Sure. Sorry about that.”

  As he ducked under the tape, I wondered how he could be so cheerful at a time like this. He seemed no more concerned that I found a dead man than if I’d found a wrecked boat or a dead animal. Maybe less so.

  I followed him back to the parking lot and nodded my thanks as he moved to the cruiser so I could get my ancient bruised and battered Accord out.

  I cranked my car over as he moved the patrol car out of the way, then backed out as soon as the path was clear. Squinting against the blindly bright strobes, I made my way out of the parking lot and turned toward home.

  I was going to go home and get into some dry clothes. Then, I was going somewhere to get blitzed.

  Chapter Three

  I stood with the crowd, watching the cops doing what cops do. I couldn’t tell much from my vantage point, but there was no way I was going down there—to hang around the po-po and the detectives—no matter how much I needed to see.

  Here I was just another face in the crowd, and that made it safe.

  The body could be Jonas. I was almost sure it was. We’d been keeping an eye out for him for over a month now. First, we’d looked around bars, whorehouses, and other places men like us hung out. When he didn’t show his face there after a while, we’d started checking to see if the cops had picked him up. When that hadn’t helped, we’d started watching the paper for news about missing persons, murder, or bodies turning up.

  I’d kept an eye on the coastline. The best place to dump a body around these parts was in the ocean. It was close by, and the current was a miracle worker when you needed a quick disposal. If you were really lucky, a shark would help you out, and then even if the body were found, it would go down as an accident.

  More often than not, though, sharks stayed away from the already-dead and the bodies washed up on shore again miles further up the coastline. Which was why everyone else had been keeping an eye on the paper and not on the ocean. But not me. I’d had this gut feeling that Jonas would turn up at the worst possible time in the worse possible place. He was good at that when he was living, and the bastard was true to form after he was dead. For the last week, I’d been checking the beach every time the tide went out.

  This morning, I got lucky. Sort of.

  When I’d noticed her, she was already bent over and pulling on a trash bag, and that sinking feeling settled into my stomach. I’d slowed my pace, not wanting to get too close, but at the same time stay close enough to see what she was doing. I saw her fall with a splash and had started to laugh when she’d started screaming with a high-pitched shriek that should have had dogs for miles around howling. I’d stopped and watched as she scrambled backward like a crab, then bounded to her feet and ran for the lab.

  Jonas.

  I’d debated trying to rush in and grab Jonas before she returned, or the cops showed up, or whatever was going to happen next, but then what? I was on my bike. Hauling a dead body through town was not only grisly but also probably as illegal as hell. I already looked like a thug. The last thing I needed was to have a murder pinned on me because a stiff was riding bitch.

  So I’d walked on by, casually glancing at the bag as I passed. I couldn’t see shit, but it definitely looked like a body bag. She was standing at the lab door, watching the pool while talking on her phone and waving her free arm around. I kept walking then stopped further up the beach when I heard the wail of sirens. She’d called the cops, of course.

  I climbed back to the road that paralleled the beach then circled back around, picked up my bike, and rode it back to where the body had been found, leaving the bike parked on the side of the road as I melted into the gathering crowd.

  Now the blues were everywhere, taking pictures and standing around. I watched until they pulled the body out of the drink and loaded it into the back of the pickup topped with a shell and the county shield on the doors. There was no way in hell I would be able to reach the body now to see if it was a face I recognized. That’s all I wanted, for God’s sake.

  The crowd began to thin, now that the body was gone, but there were still enough people standing around to prevent me from standing out. As I watched, she came out of the building, stopped at the parking lot, and then walked to the beach. I faded back from the crowd, walking back to the road and my bike as she returned, trailing along behind an officer. They shuffled cars for a moment as I mounted up and made myself ready to ride.

  “Fuck,” I growled when I thumbed the bike to life, the water on the seat soaking my ass. I hated the fucking rain.

  I watched the silver Honda as it pulled out of the parking lot and turned away from me. I smiled. At least I wouldn’t have to pull a U-turn. I waited until the brake lights lit before I pulled out onto the road to follow. I didn’t want to be too close. The Harley made a hell of a noise and following someone wasn’t the same on a bike as it was in a car. People took notice of bikes.

  I kept track of the dolly and followed her all the way to what I assumed was her home—the left side of a duplex in an okay neighborhood. I rode slowly past as she walked in and closed the door.

  Damm
it.

  I rode down the road and turned around, then stopped in a driveway when I could see her car. I pulled out my phone and selected the number from a list.

  Butch answered after the second ring. “Yeah?” he growled. He sounded pissed off, but then he always sounded that way, even when he wasn’t.

  “I found a body, but the cops beat me to it.”

  “Lizard shit! You didn’t want to tell me that before the cops arrived? Maybe we could have done something.”

  “There was a witness. A woman. She found it first and called in before I had a chance to do anything.”

  “Fuck! The stupid cunt waffle. Where?”

  “Near the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, out on Seaview.”

  “I don’t know the place. Have they already taken the body?”

  “Yeah, and there was a shit load of cops around. No chance for me to sneak a peek.”

  “Motherfucking shit lickers! This just keeps getting better! How the fuck are we going to know who the dead bastard is now?” We were all rough and raw, but Butch was a cut above the rest. Curse words comprised at least half of whatever he was saying, and that was when he wasn’t in a bad mood.

  “I followed the chick that found the body. I might be able to get something out of her.”

  Butch grunted into the phone. Getting Intel was what I was good at and what the Venom Chasers used me for. I could use my charm and my way with words to get what we needed almost every time. If that didn’t work, I could use my muscles, fists, and foul temper, but that was rarely necessary. I was put on God’s green earth to sway the innocents, and that was what I did. Now and then I swayed the not-so-innocent, too, using my gift so I could spend a couple of hours choking some bitch with my cock before I used it to pound her through the bed.

  “You’re going to find out what she knows?”

  I swallowed. “She’s at home. I can’t do it now, but I’ll keep an eye on her.”

  “Make it happen, Pax,” Butch snarled then hung up without a goodbye.

  I put my phone away. Butch was a good guy, and I never doubted he’d have my back when I needed him, but he wasn’t one for fancy small talk, and his manners were virtually non-existent. How the guy was married was beyond me.

  I watched her place as I lit a cigarette. I dragged the smoke into my lungs, feeling the familiar burn, and exhaled a cloud of smoke through my nostrils. I couldn’t just walk up to the door and knock. She’d be suspicious and wary of that. I had to find some other way to make it look like I accidentally ran into her.

  It wasn’t going to be easy unless she was the type of girl that liked going out on the town, but she didn’t seem like it. She was one of those nerdy types—dressed for comfort and not style—and she didn’t mind getting her hands dirty. She also kept her head after her initial start, unfortunately. It would have been better for me if she’d panicked.

  When my cigarette was done, I threw it on the ground and stubbed it out with my toe. I was ready to give up and go back to the clubhouse to get out of the weather. I knew where she lived and probably where she worked. I’d give her another ten or fifteen minutes, and then I was packing it in. The weather sucked big, and I wasn’t going to sit out here all day with water dripping down my collar when I could pick her up another day.

  I was halfway through my second cigarette when her door opened, and she stepped out. I could tell she’d changed her clothes but little else from this distance. She flopped into her car, backed out, and drove past me as I pretended to talk on the phone.

  The moment she made the turn at the end of the street, I thumbed the bike to life and banked it out onto the road to give chase.

  I was careful with my following, staying far enough back that I could keep a car or two between us. She meandered around town as if she was unsure where she was going, or she was trying to shake a tail, but then she pulled into Salty’s. I rode past and pulled into a gas station and turned around, watching until she stepped out of the car. She looked up at the sign as if she wasn’t sure it was what she was looking for, but then she stepped through the door.

  Salty’s was just short of a hole in the ground, with an owner that would be better off if he just closed up shop and went home. It wasn’t the kind of place I would have tagged her for at all.

  I looped the bike around and parked it in the corner near the road so if she came out she didn’t see the bike in the parking lot. I darted across the road then slowed to a walk. When I stepped through the door, it was like stepping into dusk. The lights were on inside, but they were dim, and the windows were so dirty the meager sunlight outside didn’t stand a fighting chance. The pub smelled of stale smoke, old shoes, wet clothes, and a hint of vomit.

  Murray was behind the bar fixing a drink. He nodded at me when he saw me and I nodded back. We knew each other. He was well paid to pretend any of the VC that entered were strangers unless we made it clear otherwise. Salty’s was one of our bars—one of the four places around town that we met to conduct business.

  I walked to the bar and climbed onto the second stool over from where she was sitting. She looked better than when she left her office. Her new clothes and, while still comfortable looking, were more feminine and form-fitting than the longshoreman look she was sporting before. She still had on jeans but had swapped out her red rubber boots for a pair that caressed her calves and had a bit of a heel. Under her down vest, she was wearing what appeared to be a man’s button front shirt that complimented her. Her hair was still a mess, though, and her face seemed just as pale and serious. If I was going to get her to talk about what she saw, it was going to take all my charm.

  “Daniels, neat,” I said as Murray placed her drink on the bar in front of her. I took a twenty out and tossed it on the bar to start the tab. I looked at her full on. There was no reason to make it a secret now. She focused on her drink, swallowing down at least half the glass before sitting it slowly back on the bar as she tucked her chin into her chest and sneered at the glass. It appeared finding the body had shaken her, despite her cool and measured response at the time.

  I took in her blonde hair, with just a hint of strawberry, liking the way it framed her round face. I couldn’t see her eyes yet, but all in good time. I wanted her to look at me. Women loved looking at me.

  Murray brought me my drink. I sipped the whiskey, letting the amber liquid slip down my throat. There was nothing better on this planet than a glass of good whiskey.

  Blondie didn’t take the time to savor her drink at all. She sucked down the second half and waved at Murray with a limp hand. At this rate, she was going to be trashed before she got to round three. I needed her to slow down.

  “That one’s on me,” I said to Murray.

  “That’s not necessary.” She didn’t look at me, and her voice was low and monotone. She could use some cheering up.

  “Of course, it is. Are you going to deny me the pleasure of buying a pretty lady a drink?”

  It was damn cheesy, and I knew it.

  For a moment it looked like she was going to reject my offer, but then she turned to face me as a smile curled around her lips and dimples formed in her cheeks.

  Chapter Four

  Big, round, and cornflower blue, her eyes were the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen. And the saddest. Murray brought her second drink, and she wrapped her fingers around the glass, pulling it closer. She lifted it to me in a small salute of gratitude then brought it to her lips.

  “I’m Pax,” I said.

  She took a small sip and put the glass down again. She wasn’t going to down another one. My idea had been to get her drunk but not this fast. It wasn’t healthy for anyone, and I didn’t need her so slobbering drunk she couldn’t talk.

  “Leah.”

  I smiled at her—the smile I used on women, the one that made them melt, and she blushed. Her blush was sweet. Her cheeks flamed red like she wasn’t used to this kind of attention and her eyes turned away in shyness. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d
seen a woman this self-conscious. I tried to remember the last time I was with a woman that didn’t think she was the be-all and end-all of the world. It was refreshing, and my smile widened a bit. It was a pity this girl had gotten involved with the ugly side of things. In a parallel universe, I might have tried to find out whom she was just for the sake of getting to know her.

  “Thanks for the drink,” she murmured.

  I nodded. “Sure.” I moved one bar stool over so that I was right next to her. When I sat down, I leaned forward, my elbows on the bar. The thing was always sticky, but I was wearing my colors, and it showed off my arms as the leather strained around my muscles. I followed her eyes as she looked for a moment before forcing herself to meet my gaze. I flashed the same smile. She followed the same little blush routine.

  “What are you doing in this shit-hole at three in the afternoon?” I had to get the conversation going because she wasn’t going to. Usually, it took one smile, and the woman was eager to get things going. This one was different.