26
I opened my door a crack. The security chain stretched taut across my narrow view of Turo’s face.
“What is it?”
“Good evening to you too, baby.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Let me in.”
“No.”
“I have something I need to discuss with you.”
“Like what? The weather? The stock market crashing? Clinton’s latest affair?”
He let out a laugh, his face relaxing. “No.” His eyes traveled down my short kimono, lingering on my bare legs.
I pushed the door shut, but he quickly jammed his hand against the edge of the door, catching it. “This is business.” One of his eyebrows lifted as he slanted his head against the door jamb, his eyes piercing mine. “Let me in.”
Clenching my jaw, I unlocked the chain, opening the door for him. He entered, the shoulders of his expensive black trench coat brushing against me. His reddish blond hair was slicked back, his face freshly shaved, and with him wafted in the brisk scent of citrus cut with a dose of anise, almond, and musk. He stood in my living room, glancing at my work table which was strewn with drawings torn from my sketchbook. Drawings I hated. Drawings that were uninspired and bland. I hadn’t been able to work. I’d been distracted and moody. And anxious, very anxious. In the handful of days that had passed, I’d been avoiding Tania and friends from school. I still hadn’t heard from Finger.
Turo turned to me, his polished leather shoes catching the light from my work lamp. “I did some homework,” he said. “Took me a while. Had to go through a lot of different channels, but I’ve been doing this a long time.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You fascinate me.”
I raised my eyes level with his. “Why?”
“I’ve always liked you. You have a certain something. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s interesting. You keep to yourself. You don’t play games. You’re sexy as fuck.”
“I’m your girlfriend’s friend.”
“Yes, you are. From the beginning I needed to make sure Ciara wasn’t hanging out with some lowlife or someone who was using her to get to me. It’s happened before, and I had to deal with both of them. Can’t be too careful.”
“No, I agree, you can’t.”
“I checked you out and didn’t come up with much. Then you came to me for help, because you knifed a man to death. Well, that set off a mellifluous kind of music in my ears.”
“Did it?”
“Yes.”
“Again, your point?”
He leaned in close to me, his lips at my ear, his pricey manly scent attractive, asphyxiating. “Your secret is safe with me, Rena.”
My pulse jammed in my veins, jamming my ability to breathe, speak, move.
“Serena Barnstone, gone missing at the age of seventeen. A high school teacher reports her disappearance, but Serena’s mother chalks it up to her rebellious teen daughter running away. The girl re-surfaces a year later as Rena, old lady to one Medicine Man McGuire, President of the Smoking Guns of northern, Kansas. Within four years she falls out of favor and becomes nothing better than a slave to him and his club.”
“Not anymore.”
“No, not anymore.” His eyes roved over me. “How did you manage to get out? You were bored one rainy day and shot those two by yourself and skipped out of their compound?”
“It was sunny that day. Very sunny.”
An eyebrow lifted. “Ah, protecting someone. Someone special to you. Who could that be?”
“Is there more? Are you going to blackmail me now? Threaten me with your little piece of juicy information that will get me imprisoned, tortured, and killed? You want an in with the Smoking Guns, is that it?”
“No, no, no. I don’t want an ‘in’ with those fuckers.” He enunciated the word as if it were sour on his tongue. He picked up one of my sketches and studied it, placing it carefully back on the table, smoothing down the edge of the paper. “I’m not here to send you back to them or blow the whistle on you.”
I was still, revealing nothing.
“You don’t believe me? Why, angel?” he asked.
“Because I know that the Smoking Guns are very friendly with plenty of organized crime families.”
“Yes, they are. Not with mine, though. And I wouldn’t call it friendly. I’d call it something else.”
“What do you want from me, Turo?”
“Cooperation. I want information. Anything you can give me on your ex-old man and your colorful past.”
He stared at me, studying my responses, taking in my levels of fear, anxiety. The silence stretched between us, and I waited for it to twang like a guitar string in a hushed concert arena.
“Information about Med?” I finally asked.
“Yes.”
“Why would you need information from me? I was just one of the many girls he kept.”
“No, you weren’t. Not just some girl.” He tipped his chin, licking his bottom lip. “What is it? Do you feel loyalty or duty toward the man who kidnapped you, raped you, and kept you for years? I will tell you this. Medicine Man and his glorious club crossed the line one too many times with the organization I work for. And that’s something you do not do without pissing off very powerful and very intolerant people.”
“That’s one of his favorite hobbies, though.”
A smile broke over his face. “That’s no way to conduct business.”
“You think he cares about business ethics?”
Turo took one, two, three steps toward me and stopped. “I want your help to make his life miserable and cut down our competition in the process. Win for me. Plus, I figured you might enjoy the opportunity I’m offering to make him suffer. Win for you.”
I didn’t answer.
He whispered roughly, “Don’t forget, gorgeous, you owe me.”
“I’ll never forget. I know I do.”
“Good. I realize I’m asking you to rat, something that’s not done.”
“Same applies in your world, doesn’t it?”
“Hmm.” A grin broke over his carved lips.
“So you understand the position you’re putting me in.”
“They’re still looking for you,” he said, an eyebrow raised. “Was that what happened with Mr. Motormouth? He found you?”
“Yes.”
His eyes hardened. “I can protect you.”“Oh, I’ve heard that before. Don’t sugarcoat this shit. I’ll keep owing you and owing you, right? Until my usefulness runs out, and then—”
“I wouldn’t feed you to those dogs.” His voice was firm. “I like you, Ashley, and I’m sympathetic to your situation. I’d like to see you thrive far away from that trash. I really would. You say yes, and I’ll plant evidence of Mr. Mouth outside of Chicago. Way outside of Chicago, on the road leading back to Kansas.”
Had he saved a tattooed arm or Motor’s tattooed torso to plant somewhere? His bike? His knives?
“What would you do with information? Feed it to the feds or the cops?”
The lines on his forehead deepened for just a moment. “No feeding any of it to anybody. This will be all mine. I don’t even want anyone to know this information is coming from me. Which means no one will ever know it’s coming from you.”
I held his steady gaze.
Was I really considering this?
This was crazy. This was a road to perdition. Eventually. But right now, I couldn’t see a way out of it. This was everything Finger had warned me about. Getting too close, owing and being obligated. I’d put myself in a position of weakness and vulnerability, hadn’t I?
Med had kidnapped me, raped me, kept me locked in dark closets, terrorized me, and petted me like his favorite kitty all at the same time. I’d done everything he’d asked me and made me do, and then in one night all that had changed. And it had been a brutal change. I had no doubt that if Finger hadn’t come for me when he had, I’d be nothing but body parts all over Kansas right now.
“Only between you and me,” Turo said.
Turo was a player in a powerful crime syndicate. Maybe he really could keep the wild wolves at bay for me once and for all, and there would be no more hiding, no more wondering, no more wandering. At least for a little while. It would be a good jump start.
I swallowed hard, squashing the sour seeping up my throat back down. “Only between you and me. No go betweens or other representatives from your organization. Not even a bodyguard. And definitely no Ciara. No one else can know. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
I believed him.
He removed his trench coat and swept it over a chair in a precise fold. Burberry said the inside lining. He took off his lean suit jacket and folded that over as well. Letting out a sigh, Turo sat down on my small sofa, an incongruous vision in starched lines and immaculate black and white tailoring in contrast to the woven purple and red pillows he leaned against on the turquoise sofa.
“I’ve got an hour to kill.” His eyes dove to my bare legs and his jaw clenched. “Get yourself dressed, make us coffee,” he stroked the cushion next to where he sat on the sofa, “and come entertain me with tales of your sordid underworld.”