Badlands (3 page)

I draw a line across her naked shoulder blades, enjoying the soft, supple warmth of her skin. “And what makes you think
I’ll
be able to keep my hands off you if we sleep in the same bed?”

“Because you’re not like Cameron,” she says softly, picking up her robe and getting to her feet. “You’re…you’re more emotional than he is. You’re capable of holding someone for five minutes and not wanting to stick your dick inside them. Cameron’s an addict. He can’t help himself. You’re sexually driven but you know when to stop. That gives you power over your sexuality.”

She’s right. It’s pretty damn obvious that Cameron’s a sex addict, but then I’ve thought the same of Sara, too. That’s why they always seemed so well matched as a couple. I suppose hearing Sara say now that she wants someone to hold her is coming as a bit of a surprise. Not an unpleasant one. Just unexpected. If she were anyone else, I’d probably tease her a little more and give her a hard time but from the hostile frown on her face, I get the feeling she wouldn’t take that well. She wants me to say that, yes, I’ll stay, but she really doesn’t want me to make a fuss about it.
 

“Sure. I’ll spend the night,” I tell her. She doesn’t say anything else. She takes me by the hand and leads me upstairs to the bedroom she normally shares with Cameron, and we climb into their ridiculously oversized bed. It really is grandiose to the extreme; you could probably fit at least five people in here, and you could definitely drown in the sea of pillows they’ve got scattered all over the place.
 

“Don’t tell Cameron about this,” she whispers as she curls herself against my body, resting her head on my chest.
 

“Would he be pissed that I’m staying here?” If there’s one thing I don’t want to do, it’s breach an unspoken rule with these guys. We have an arrangement that works well for all three of us, as far as I can tell, and I don’t want to jeopardize that. Sara shakes her head, though.
 

“No. He wouldn’t mind at all. He just wouldn’t let me live it down is all,” she says quietly.

I don’t know what’s happening in society when showing affection or wanting to feel close to someone is a bad thing, something to be embarrassed about, but it seems that’s where we’re at these days. I love feeling a woman melt against me as she falls into unconsciousness, to know that she’s vulnerable and trusting of me at the same time as she dreams. It feels incredible to share that with someone.
 

Still, this feels a little odd. It’s not our usual dynamic. It’s kind of laughable that I’ve been inside every single orifice the woman possesses and it’s climbing into a bed with and falling asleep with her that I’m finding strange.

It doesn’t take long for us both to pass out, though. I dream about the blonde woman in the photo Freddy Clough kept in his wallet.

THREE

“Wake up, motherfucker.”

A sharp jab to my side startles me from sleep. It takes me a second to figure out where the fuck I am and who I’m with, because the setting doesn’t seem right. I’m with Sara. I’m lying in her bed, with her still sleeping soundly beside me, wrapped up in the bed sheets, hair fanned out around her head on the pillow, so there is no way, in any realm or reality, that my cousin Jamie should be standing over me right now. Absolutely
no
fucking way.
 

I scramble up and jump out of the bed, not caring that I’m naked, only caring that Sara should most definitely stay asleep right now and not see the six-foot-three tattooed monstrosity lurking in the early morning light at the end of her bed.
 
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I hiss, shoving him in the chest.

“Long time no see, cuz,” he whispers, grinning at me like a fiend. “No need to get up. Looks like you might be in for some hot morning sex if you stick around.”

“Get your ass downstairs right now.
Quietly
.” I shove him again, considering thumping him really hard in the arm to emphasize the quietly part, but he holds up his hands, his eyebrows halfway up his forehead.
 

“All right. All right. Consider me gone.” He turns on his heel and leaves the bedroom, his boots clunking on the polished wooden stairs as he descends in a none-too-silent manner. It’s a wonder he didn’t wake me on the way up. Fucker probably snuck up here like a ninja, and now he thinks it’s funny to stomp about like a goddamn herd of elephants.
 

I’m frozen for a second, still trying to figure out what the hell is going on, and then I’m stealthily rifling through Cameron’s walk-in, locating something that isn’t too small for me to throw on so I’m not balls-to-the-wall buck naked when I head downstairs to fire twenty questions at my cousin. I find some sweatpants and a t-shirt that isn’t too tight, and then I’m barreling down the stairs after him as quietly as I can.
 

He’s standing in the kitchen with a pair of underwear hanging from his index finger—one of Sara’s thongs to be exact. “Is this dental floss or a pair of panties? I can’t tell.”

I snatch them away from him, scowling at the smug look on his face. “What the hell, man? I thought you were in Afghanistan? And what the fuck is that down your arm? When did you get tattoos? Louis’s going to lose his mind.”

“I know, right. It’s going to be awesome.”

I throw my hands up, eyes wide, waiting for him to fill in the rest of the blanks. He’s wearing a pair of ripped jeans, a Led Zepellin t-shirt and a scruffy beanie—no way has he just come from Alabama. Jamie cracks his neck, and then follows that up by cracking his knuckles, too.
 

“You are now looking at a free man,” he tells me. “I’m no longer a member of the United States Marine Corp.
Semper Fi
.”

“They tossed your ass, then?”

He shoots me a look that could wilt plastic flowers. “No. My tour came to an end and I didn’t re-enlist. Simple.”

“And so you thought you’d track me down and break into someone’s apartment? I mean, how did you even find me, man?”

Jamie smiles, and it’s the smile of a man who has secrets. Lots of dark, fucked up ones that I don’t really want anything to do with. “I have a friend. He’s good at hacking into things.”

“So you hacked my cell phone?”

 
“No. You used your credit card in a gas station three blocks away last night. After that you drove down over here and into the parking lot across the street. Then you entered this building, which conveniently enough has a closed circuit camera system in all of the hallways. Simple, really.”

I just stare at him. I should punch him out for violating my privacy like this, but to be honest I’m a little impressed. Damned if I’m going to let him know that, though. He needs to learn boundaries. I haven’t even seen the guy in three years, for crying out loud, and now he’s turning up here at the break of dawn, to…I don’t even know what he’s planning on doing now. “Why are you here, man? Couldn’t you just have called like a normal person?”

Jamie gives me a crooked smile, shaking his head. “I heard you were doing freelance stuff up here. Questionable stuff. I wanted to see for myself before catching up with you face-to-face. I didn’t quite understand what kind of freelance services you were offering, though.” He winks at me, and I realize that he’s implying I’m renting out my ass to the woman lying upstairs in the bed. Now I really want to punch him in his smug face.
 

Fighting in Sara’s place would definitely wake her up, though, and I need to get the hell out of here before that happens. Quickly, I collect my discarded clothes from last night, carefully folding my suit and snatching up my dress shoes, and then I herd Jamie out of the apartment and close the door silently as we leave.
 

I shove him down the hallway, toward the elevator. It’s not until the doors have rolled shut and we’re on our way down to the ground floor that I trust myself to speak normally. “I’m not a rent boy, asshole. And who’s been telling you I’m freelancing?” It’s worrying that that kind of information is out there, floating around, being talked about. No one should know. I’m meticulous when it comes to client confidentiality.
 

Jamie leans against the polished mirror in the elevator, sighing. “Same guy who tracked you down here. He’s good at finding things out.”

Not that good if he still thinks I’m freelancing, though. I’ve been working solely for Zee for the past year now. My name should be all but forgotten in the organized crime circles I used to dip my toes into every now and then. Things move fast in that world. People rise up and fall quickly. You can be king of an empire one day and dead and buried the next. “So you’re done with the army. And you found it necessary to come hunt me down in someone’s bed. To what end?”

The ever-present smile that’s been playing over Jamie’s lips fades as he straightens up, shoving his hands into the pockets of his faded out, torn jeans. “Laura,” he says.
 

“Laura?”

“Cade’s sister. You met her a couple of times a few years back. The blonde?”

“Ah, yeah. The chick with the huge crush on you?”

Jamie shakes his head, making an exasperated sound at the back of his throat. “
How
did everybody know about this but me?”

“Jesus, man. All you had to do was look at the girl. She was glued to you closer than your own shadow.” The elevator doors open and we both step out into the quiet lobby. The marble floor is cold under my bare feet, reminding me that I haven’t even bothered to put my shoes back on. Italian leather doesn’t really go with Adidas sweatpants. “So what about Laura, then? You get her knocked up and now Cade wants to murder you?”

“Fuck no. God. She was at Louis’ fundraiser three weeks ago. We had a small disagreement and she left. She said she was going home, but she never made it back there.”

The doorman holds the door open for us as we both exit the building. He refrains from saying anything, as all good doormen should, but I catch the bemused look on his face as he surveys my attire. He’s often here when I show up late at night; he knows what I normally look like and it isn’t like this.
 

Outside, my cousin’s best friend Cade is leaning up against what appears to be a motorcycle—a big one, with a matte black tank and a polished chrome frame. Another motorcycle is parked next to it—Jamie’s apparently. My cousin collects an open-faced helmet from the seat and puts it on. “Michael, you remember Cade, right?”

“Of course.” Cade holds out his hand and I shake it. “Sorry to hear about your sister, man.”

Cade nods, looks down at his boots, and then looks off down the street, swallowing hard. When I was a kid and I would spend summers visiting Jamie and my highly racist, not at all awesome uncle, Cade and Laura were ever-present at the house, always joined at the hip, always joking around and creating too much noise. They were inseparable. It’s clear, no matter how hard he tries to hide it, that’s he’s struggling to keep his shit together.
 

“Yeah. Thanks,” he says, his voice, gruff. “We’ll find her. And when we do, whoever took her’s gonna know the meaning of agony.”

“So you think she was taken?”

Cade gives me a strange look. “What do you mean?”

“Well. Could she have just...left? Decided to take off on her own?”

Both Cade and Jamie shake their heads at the same time, equally as emphatic. “No. No way,” Cade says. “She would never have done that. She was just made partner at our father’s firm. She just bought herself a new house, too. She wouldn’t just go without telling me. And if by some weird twist of fate she
did
decide to just up and leave, she definitely would have called me by now to let me know she was okay.”

“Have her cards been used?” It’s reasonable to assume they’ve checked, since it seems they had absolutely no problem checking mine.
 

Jamie swings his leg over his motorcycle, producing keys from the pocket of his jeans. “Nothing. Not a single withdrawal or charge since that night,” he says. “Can you follow us? We need your help with something.”

The sun’s just coming up over the lip of the unseen horizon, long fingers of burnt orange light filtering in between the tall buildings, casting stretched out shadows across the sidewalk. I squint at my cousin, trying to figure out what exactly he needs from me at this ungodly hour of the day. He’s family, though. There was a time not too long ago that we were like brothers. He knows I’ll do anything for him, the same way I know he’ll do anything for me should the need arise. It’s as simple as that.
 

“Sure.”

******

I begin to grow uneasy as we head across Seattle. I have this weird, unpleasant nagging feeling in the back of my mind. It takes me about fifteen minutes to figure out why. As I follow behind Jamie and Cade on their motorcycles, the loud snarling of their engines echoing off the buildings surrounding us, waking up the city, I realize that I’ve driven this route many times before. I’ve driven it when I’ve been heading to collect Zee from his employer’s residence out in Richie Rich suburbia.
 

As the seconds tick by, turning into minutes, and we make each and every turn, leading us out toward Hunt’s Point, I know this isn’t a coincidence. We’re heading out toward Charlie Holsan’s residence, and whatever they have planned there is going to cause huge problems for me.
 

Zeth’s kept me off Charlie’s books. He has his reasons, whatever they are, and as far as Charlie is aware, Zeth works alone. I have a severe headache thumping at my temples by the time we pull up outside the high, wrought iron fence that skirts Charlie’s property. I’ve never met the man but I know enough about him. He’s paranoid, wealthier than all hell, and crazy to boot. He’s put more people in the ground than anyone can really recall; the number of corpses rotting in Washington State because of this English bastard is innumerable. Even I was moderately freaked out when Zeth told me who owned this house the first time I found myself driving past it.
 

On a high post above the fence railings, a camera swivels around to survey the two motorcycles and the non-descript black sedan that have just pulled up outside. Jamie gives the camera a wave and I feel like banging my forehead against the steering wheel.