19. Jezebel

CHAPTER 19

JEZEBEL

F inally.

I’d started to think that the hit squad and hotel incidents had been cases of mistaken identity, but there was no doubt that a car was following us now. A silver Ford Escape. Hmm. Echo had responded to my Code Shark—urgent, but not life or death—and run the plates while Cole drove our impromptu surveillance detection route, and this time, they belonged to a yellow Nissan. The driver was male, white with dark hair, but I couldn’t see more than that thanks to the glare on the windshield and the awkwardness of using the side mirror. Cole had nearly blown the op when he reached for the rear-view—way to spook a tail.

Me

He turned with us. 3 mins to Sunrise.

Sin

Calling Deana now.

Deana was the forty-seven-year-old mom who ran the morning shift now that her two boys were in high school, and she’d been there forever, since before Sin bought the place. Deana used to work the night shift, while the diner’s previous owners, a husband and wife who’d come to Vegas for a vacation in the eighties and never left, worked days. When retirement beckoned, the place had nearly gone to developers, but nowhere served home fries as good as the Sunrise Diner’s and Sin’s favourite food was potatoes. In the weeks after she bought it, we’d all piled on the pounds.

These days, I had more self-control.

Me

Get her to keep our usual booth?

Sin

I’ll tell her.

The circular booth at the back would give me a good view of the restaurant, and if shit went down, the walls would protect Cole when I shoved him under the table. Not that I wanted a shootout. The place had just been redecorated.

Dice

10 mins.

Tulsa

20 mins.

Echo

Adding the camera feed to the chat.

Dusk

On my way, traffic’s shit. 25 mins.

So far, the attackers had mostly stayed out of the limelight. After Jimmy’s initial visits, they’d chosen a private house and a quiet parking garage to make their moves. I was eighty percent sure they wouldn’t open fire in a crowded restaurant. No, they’d get us in the parking lot or tail us somewhere else.

At least, that was their plan.

Too bad the tables were about to be turned.

If the dude behind us kept following, I’d take him to a nice secluded spot and ask a few questions. Okay, so I’d feel guilty when I had to drug Cole again, but needs must.

Sin

Back booth reserved. Deana’s leaving dirty plates on the table next to it, and we’ll take that one when we arrive.

I just had to hold out for ten minutes. No biggie. The danger zone was the parking lot, but I had a plan for that.

“Could you park in the spot next to the door?” I asked Cole when we arrived. “My leg aches this morning.”

“The handicap spot?”

“I know I don’t have a permit, but I do have crutches.”

“You definitely qualify. I’m just surprised you don’t want to limp all the way across the parking lot the way you usually do.”

“I forgot to take my painkillers, okay?”

The Escape pulled in as we climbed out of the car, and I kept a surreptitious eye on the driver, ready to yell at Cole to hit the deck if the barrel of a gun appeared. The man looked across at me, and his gaze held for a little too long. I pretended not to notice.

“Want me to take your purse?” Cole asked.

Absolutely not. “I’ve got it, but I wouldn’t say no if you opened the door.”

He jogged ahead, and the Escape carried on to the far corner of the lot. Phase one: complete. Damn, I needed fries.

Unlike Rosa, Deana never went over the top with her greetings. She met us at the host’s stand with menus and a quiet, “Good to see you, Bella,” then led us to the table Sin had requested.

“Do you know every host in every restaurant in Vegas?” Cole asked.

“I like eating. Sue me.”

“That isn’t a complaint.”

I pretended to study the menu as the Escape’s driver pushed open the door and glanced around. He was big, really fucking big, but he was no knuckle-dragger. No, his arms looked oddly short. Those horizontal stripes on his shirtsleeves were a definite fashion faux pas. In my head, I christened him T-Rex, and when he turned his attention to Deana for a second, I snapped a picture and sent it to the group chat.

Me

Meet T-Rex. His vehicle is in the lot.

Dice

Should I disable it?

Me

No, just add a tracker.

If we needed to lead him somewhere quieter, he wouldn’t be able to follow with a flat tyre, would he?

Apart from being big, there wasn’t much about T-Rex that was distinctive. Brown hair, round face, not-quite-straight nose. I couldn’t see the colour of his eyes from where I was sitting. His jeans were loose-fit, although not as baggy as mine, and his ball cap bore the logo of Nevada Storm, the local hockey team. Either he was trying hard to fit in—unlikely, since his tradecraft wasn’t exactly stellar—or he lived in Las Vegas.

After a brief discussion with Deana, he pointed toward a table and she nodded. He took a seat facing us. This asshole would never make a spy .

Cole and I started with coffee, and perhaps I’d done the Woodstock Grill a disservice because Marcel didn’t have a friend who worked in the kitchen and their coffee was actually good, although the owner had accidentally-on-purpose groped Dice a couple of years ago. Now she was banned from the premises.

“What’s good to eat here?” Cole asked.

“Everything. But if you want to keep fitting into your pants, I’d recommend coming here once a week at most.”

“Or doing a whole lot of exercise the night before.” His mouth settled into that filthy grin that made me do stupid things. “Hey, they have avocado toast on the menu. I didn’t think it was that kind of place.”

“It’s for that one person who won’t eat regular toast.”

Her name was Kendall, aka Barbie, and she spent her teenage years in California. Her mom ran a yoga centre in Antigua with her fifth husband, who was a reformed lawyer, and she thought Barbie worked in a dog shelter. The ruse had held up because Belinda Cummings was allegedly allergic to dogs. Barbie flew out once a year to visit and always came back five pounds lighter and slightly more murderous than usual.

Cole laughed and made his choice. “I’ll have the house special.”

Three eggs served however you wanted them, home fries, bacon, corned beef hash, and regular toast. A mountain on a plate.

“Better loosen that belt a notch.”

“What are you having?”

“The same plus coffee. Good thing we still have two more nights together.”

“Two more nights for now. When I get back from San Galli, we’ll have plenty more time.”

Hell. I’d figured the discussion was coming, but this was absolutely the wrong time and place to be having it. In fact, the only person with worse timing was Deana, who picked that moment to saunter over with her order book.

“What can I get for you folks?”

“Two house specials and two coffees, one black, one with cream. Thanks.”

“Uh, okey-dokey.”

She stood there for a second before retreating, no doubt wondering why I (a) was being even more abrupt than usual, and (b) had a man with me. I wasn’t about to enlighten her, not on either count. Oh, and now Dice was here. Terrific.

Deana spotted her hovering by the door and immediately began clearing the dirty mugs from the next table. Cole reached across and took my hand. Fuck. The temptation to snatch it away was strong, but firstly, he didn’t deserve that, and secondly, I couldn’t start a fight that might blow the op. Not that I thought he’d start yelling, but he might walk out.

“Bella, why throw away a good thing? I’ll only be gone for a month, and we can pick up where we leave off when I come back.”

Shit, shit, shit.

“Relationships aren’t my vibe. It’s not you—you’re a great guy—it’s all me.”

“We could keep it casual. No pressure.”

I shook my head, suddenly unable to speak. I’d miss Cole. He got me, sexually at least. He’d fuck me exactly the way I wanted it, and he didn’t tell me my tastes were wrong or weird or disgusting. The problem was my job. Maybe if I really did write obituaries for a living, I would have taken a chance and agreed to more, but I couldn’t let Cole any deeper into my life, and I’d never leave the Choir.

The thought was a revelation.

It wasn’t Bastian’s duplicity holding me back anymore. It was my own .

“We’ve gone from zero to one hundred in ten days. The sex is great, but we barely know each other.”

Dice took a seat and ordered French toast with a cappuccino. Great. An audience.

“We could change that.” Cole gripped my hand harder. “Come to San Gallicano with me.”

Uh, what?

“My house is on the beach, and the Wi-Fi is surprisingly good,” he continued. “You could work remotely for a few weeks, right?”

This got worse and worse. Unfortunately, I’d mentioned the “girls’ trip to Cancun” I went on last year; otherwise, I could have pretended I didn’t have a passport.

“I’m not sure…”

“You don’t have to come out on the boat. Just chill on the terrace and enjoy a free vacation. The weather’s great at this time of year—hot, but not as hot as Vegas.”

“Isn’t it hurricane season?”

“Barely, and San Galli is right on the edge of the hurricane belt.”

Service was fast in the Sunrise Diner. The place was busy, both with customers coming in to eat and deliveries going out. Sin employed half a dozen delivery drivers, most of them ex-cons who needed a leg up. Deana slid plates piled high with food in front of us and then poured our coffee.

“Enjoy your meal,” she said.

That was a forlorn hope.

“I have tight deadlines at the moment,” I told Cole. “Four projects, and I don’t just have to write the obituary; I also need to research the deceased’s life and speak with their friends and relatives. That isn’t something I can do on an airplane.”

“So why don’t you fly out later? Stay for a week or two? ”

“I’ll think about it, okay?”

I forked fries into my mouth, but today, they tasted of nothing, even when I covered them in ketchup. Cole didn’t even start eating.

“I know you’ve been hurt in the past, but I promise I’m not that guy.”

“You don’t know I’ve been hurt in the past. I never told you that.”

He held my gaze, and there was such sadness in his. “You didn’t have to.”

What was wrong with my eyes? They’d gone all prickly, and dammit , I hadn’t cried since the day Dawson found Ruby’s body in her bedroom at Blackstone House. Even then, I’d wept in the first-floor bathroom where no one could see me.

Fuck.

I scrambled out of the booth, grabbing my crutches on the way. “I just need to… Give me a minute.”

As I passed Dice, I caught her eye and mouthed, “Watch Cole.” She gave me the slightest nod in return.

In the bathroom, I locked myself into a stall, closed the toilet lid, and sat down. How had this turned into such a tangled mess? Tears flowed, and I tore off a handful of toilet roll to blot them. At least I was wearing waterproof mascara.

My phone buzzed.

Dice

You okay?

Me

What do you think?

Maybe once this shitshow was over, I’d hit up Brax for a membership at his sex club. There were rules at Nyx. Boundaries. I could walk away, and nobody would follow me. Except the thought of sleeping with another man turned my stomach.

Shouldn’t have eaten those damn fries.

My phone buzzed again.

Tulsa

Almost there. What happened?

Dice

Need a hug?

I wasn’t about to lay out the details in the group chat. Instead, I shoved the phone in my pocket and snatched at the toilet roll again. Which kept unrolling and unrolling, so I grabbed at it— Then froze.

The bathrooms in the Sunrise Diner were at the rear. Two doors. A wide door for the handicap-accessible bathroom, which also contained a baby-changing table, and a narrow door that led into a small vestibule. From the vestibule, two more doors led to the men’s and ladies’ bathrooms, except there were no words, just a picture of an egg and a picture of a sausage. At some point in the past six months, a man—it could only have been a man—had added another inch to the sausage with a Sharpie.

The creak told me the outer door had just opened.

I held my breath.

The door to the ladies’ room swung into the wall with a crack . If that was Dice…

I yanked the stall door open, ready to give her an earful for leaving Cole unattended, because she should know better.

She did know better.

T-Rex shoved me backward, turning me as he went so my back slammed against the side of the stall. His hand wrapped around my throat, but not in a good way.

“I have a message for your boyfriend. ”

I kneed him in the groin, and he doubled over, wheezing. Then I booted him in the face. Pain shot up my leg, but the cast did an excellent job of breaking his nose, and as he crumpled, I got in a blow to his jaw. He slumped at my feet, groaning.

“Can’t you see I’m having a crisis here?” I kicked him again. “Learn to read the fucking room.”

Asshole.

The outer door opened again, followed a second later by the door to the ladies’ room. Fantastic. The last thing I needed was a traumatised diner, so I tried to shove the stall door closed, but T-Rex’s tiny arm was in the way. Maybe I broke a bone.

“Babe? Why are you crying?” Tulsa put her hands on her hips. “Did he hurt you?” Before I could explain, she kicked him with a pointy-toed cowboy boot. “You asshole.”

“It wasn’t him. Well, he tried, so if you want to kick him again, go ahead, but this”—I pointed at my face—“was something else.”

“Men suck. What are we doing with this dude? Nice touch with the tissue on the floor. The blood would be running everywhere otherwise.”

“I have questions for him.”

“So we put him in the holding cell?” Tulsa glanced at the door. “Wait a second.”

She grabbed the yellow CLEANING IN PROGRESS - PLEASE USE HANDICAP BATHROOM sign and placed it outside. The holding cell in the basement at the Cathouse was the best place to take T-Rex, but getting him there would be a challenge. The diner was half full, and those folks weren’t going anywhere voluntarily until they finished their meal. Which I honestly couldn’t condemn them for. The fire alarm was connected to the fire department, and Sin wouldn’t thank us if we staged a health inspection .

“Fake ambulance?” I suggested.

Tulsa nodded. “Fake ambulance.”

“At least you didn’t kill anyone this time,” was Valeria’s parting shot.

“At least you didn’t poison anyone’s pet this time.”

She stuck her nose in the air and stalked out of the Cathouse, annoyed with me as usual. Didn’t she understand that people like me kept her in a job? A very well-paid job, if the rumours were to be believed, and by rumours, I meant Echo, who knew all sorts of things she wasn’t supposed to know.

T-Rex was tucked away in the basement, and thanks to the ketamine Valeria had used, he hadn’t woken up yet. Maybe I could grab lunch before I questioned him? I’d barely touched breakfast.

“You are such a coward,” Dice said, finger pointed as she faced me in the hallway. “I can’t believe you just left.”

It was over. Done. Finito.

While Valeria and her team were removing T-Rex from the ladies’ room, I’d slipped away through the crowd that had gathered to watch.

The cover-up had been simple. T-Rex hadn’t been the first patron to somehow get confused between the egg and the sausage, and wasn’t it unfortunate that a previous user of the facilities had splashed water on the floor? T-Rex had been the victim of a tragic accident. As he was wheeled out the front door, an enterprising lawyer had tucked his business card under the strap on the gurney, just in case T-Rex wanted to sue the restaurant’s owner. Echo worked fast. She’d already redirected the asshole’s website to a porn star’s fan page .

“I basically did exactly what I said all along I would do, except two days earlier,” I told Dice.

“But he seems so nice.”

“Exactly. He is nice, and I’m not. It could never work.”

“You’re not un -nice, not most of the time, anyway. You have a job that requires you to do unpalatable things, same as we all do, but aren’t we great at compartmentalising? Nobody’s saying you have to marry the guy.”

“But he deserves a woman who will marry him if he asks. A woman who’ll support him in every way. Did you know Cole works a job he hates so other people don’t lose theirs? He’s worthy of more than I can offer.”

“So that’s it? You just block his number and carry on?”

I should have blocked his number, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to take that final step. He’d sent seven text messages that I hadn’t read. Left three voicemails.

“It’s for the best.”

We’d caught one of the men behind the attacks—alive—and once I’d made him talk, we’d be able to put an end to the threat against Cole. Wasn’t that what I’d wanted?

Dice rolled her eyes, and I prayed for divine intervention, but it was Tulsa who saved me from further lectures.

“Diner dude’s awake. Do you want to pull out his fingernails, or should I?”

I cracked my knuckles, a habit everyone hated. “The pleasure will be all mine.”