25
Two o’clock in the morning. A bleach-y, chemical odor stung my nostrils.
“All done,” came Turo’s voice behind me as I entered my apartment.
“All done,” I murmured.
The apartment was immaculate, undefiled. All signs of death and destruction were now absent. But no fairy godmother had swooped in and performed this magical cleanup.
The door clicked shut behind me, and I flinched despite the weariness from the food, the hour, the adrenaline. Turo studied my reaction, but I kept it in check. He was always trying to read me. It was subtle but unsettling.
“You didn’t have to wait for me downstairs,” I said.
“Of course I did. You had a dead body in your apartment. You think I’m not going to make sure you’re okay when you get yourself back in here? What kind of man do you think I am?”
“I don’t think about you, Turo.” I threw my handbag on the chair by the door. I swallowed down the tension that crept up my legs, my middle, my throat.
“You thought about me for this, though, didn’t you?”
My eyes scanned the apartment. Everything in place. “I knew you could get the job done.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“You’re right, I don’t. I made assumptions. See how that turned out, though?”
“You’ve got good instincts, Ash. I got that about you from day one.”
Good instincts. Hmm. Instinct to kill, instinct to go to an underworld crime figure for help. My instinct to survive was a good one, that I knew. The pounding at the base of my skull thrummed. I was relieved, relieved I’d “handled” a murder and its messy aftermath all in the course of an evening.
He smoothed a hand down his crumpled striped dress shirt. “You okay to be here by yourself tonight?”
“Yeah. I’m good.”
“She’s good,” he muttered.
“I’m not tired, I’ll just stay up and work anyhow. I do most nights.”
“Very ambitious.”
“Determined.”
A faint smile whisked across his lips. “I like that.” He moved toward the door.
“Turo, thank you. Everything looks....” Oh hell, how do you thank someone for cleaning a dead body from your apartment and leaving your place spotless? ”You’d never know. What do I owe you for this?”
He eyed me, and my stomach tightened waiting for his answer. Payment would be heavy.
“Tell me who he was.”
I shrugged. “A one night stand from years ago.”
His eyes narrowed, his lips curved up at the edges. “That’s funny. Don’t lie to me. We just went through a very intimate event together. Come on, gorgeous. Who was he?”
Before I’d left Motor’s corpse in my apartment, I’d taken his club colors off his heavy body, cut them up with my shearing scissors, and put the pieces in separate trash bags and dumped them all along the walk to the bistro to find Turo. The tattoos on Motor’s body would betray his club membership, but there was nothing I could do about that now. At least there was no evidence that he was from Med’s chapter. The Smoking Guns were a huge organization. Motor could be an ex-member. He could have come from Australia for all anyone knew.
I’d taken the photos of me and Finger from his pocket and lit them on fire in my kitchen sink.
“Goodbye,” I’d whispered to the carefree images of us, soaking in them one last time as the blue orange flames licked at them, consumed them, charring them into delicate curls of singed paper and ash. I’d turned on the faucet full blast, sending the remains down the drain.
Leave no clues behind.
I hadn’t forgotten our rule, but that happy girl inside me, the one in the throes of first love, bursting with rainbows and lollipops, had wanted to keep those pics so badly. She’d pushed Rena aside and jammed her own bright pink flag in the brittle earth, declaring herself. She believed that everything would work out the way she wanted. She believed that she could hold onto souvenirs of a special night like any other girl in love would.
She was wrong.
Holding on could get you killed.
My heart hurt as I’d gathered up the pieces of the broken compass into a small plastic bag and shoved it in my handbag. I’d promised Finger I’d keep it safe, but I hadn’t been able to. I’d failed.
I cleared my throat and prepared a response to Turo’s question. “I didn’t know him. He said he’d been following me for a while now, like I told you.”
“No, you didn’t tell me. You just didn’t answer that question when I’d asked it.”
“He followed me on the street, to my favorite coffeeshop, not once, but twice. Then he broke in here before I got a chance to lock the door behind me and he attacked me.”
Turo rubbed a thumb at the corner of his mouth. “Should I leave one of my boys on the street?”
He was dropping it for now.
I swallowed hard, averting my gaze. “No, I’ll be fine.”
“I insist. You need anything else, you call me. I’ll check in with you tomorrow.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
He leaned over me and planted a kiss on my mouth. Not quick, not slow. No tongue. But a kiss that was more than a goodbye peck. He pulled back and let out a long breath as if he’d just taken a drag on a quality cigar and he was appraising the flavor. “You’re welcome.”
He brushed past me. My door jerked open, and Turo DeMarco’s well-soled footsteps passed into the night.