CHAPTER TEN

"Looking for something?"

 

Nick froze, then looked up from the name on the mailbox he'd been examining, and into the face that blinked out at him from behind the wrought-iron fence where he had pulled up on his bike, still half-straddled.

 

The tall, willowy woman looked older than him by a decade or two. She was dressed in a skintight white, long-sleeved dress that looked like it had been made out of some space-age fabric. Her platinum-blonde hair was groomed and shiny as if she'd coated it with something, and when she swayed toward him on white flat sandals to open the gate, it was as if she had dollar bills under her feet to soften the noise. He tried not to startle as she reached up to press a code on an electronic keypad. In a second, the gate had swung open.

 

He looked down to gather his thoughts, putting the bike in neutral and moving it slowly forward as the gate creaked open. He did his usual athletic hop off the bike and took a step back, feeling scrutinized, sized up, even though he'd come there to do the scrutinizing. The woman's eyes drifted down to the logo on his jacket identifying him as VP of the Black Sparks. Recognition dawned.

 

"So you're Nicholas Stone," she said, her raspberry-colored lips parting in a bemused smile. "I'm Helena Kinski. I think we need to talk."

 

He parked his bike where she indicated, in front of a stone fountain that looked like something out of a storybook someone had once read to him. Nick took off his helmet and ran his hand through his hair nervously. He prided himself on being able to handle just about any woman you could name, but, for some reason, this woman, who reeked of money and privilege, made angst bubble up inside him. Maybe because it reminded him too much of his time at Noel Richardson’s--of being a have-not living among the haves. Of knowing precisely just how much power they held over him, and not being able to do anything about it.

 

"Ever since I read about that Chillicothe truck being hijacked, I figured one of you would show up at my door. Can I get you anything?" she asked, ushering him in the open front door, through the front hall, and into the palatial kitchen, opening the gigantic stainless-steel refrigerator.

 

Nick tried not to gape like a peasant at the ivory parquet floor or the curling staircase up the ceiling, or the floor to ceiling bay windows looking out at the lake beyond. "Yeah," he said. "You can tell me where it is."

 

She tipped her head back and laughed. "That's what I like about you outlaws. You're so blunt. You're going to point a gun at me if I don't tell you what I know?"

 

"I haven't decided yet," he said, figured he could at least enjoy the repartee until she proved dangerous. "What do you know?"

 

"I know Tryg, and I knew he would send his errand boy instead of coming himself," she said.

 

He knew she was taking him in, from the crown of his said down to his boots that were probably tracking spring mud all over her clean floors. "Errand boy? What, you think this is a trip to the post office? There was almost half a million worth of steel in that truck."

 

"I know. Tryg doesn't exactly do small potatoes."

 

“You act like you know him.”

 

"I make it my business to know all of the one-percenters around here. Force of habit, I guess. I grew up around them back in Cleveland. Can I offer you something or not?"

 

"Yeah," said Nick, eyeing the wheeled rosewood liquor cabinet, his eyes gleaming a bit hungrily. What the hell? "Scotch."

 

"Brilliant idea," she said, going to cabinet and taking out two glasses and a bottle of Lagavulin.

 

Nick had never had it, but he'd been to enough liquor stores to know that one bottle of that stuff cost more than he made in a month. "You drink Scotch at nine in the morning?" he asked, slightly amused.

 

"You’re the one who suggested it."

 

"I didn't think you'd actually say yes."

 

She didn't reply, merely plopped two ice cubes in the glass with little silver tongs and handed it to him, its peaty aroma strong enough to send him reeling. He drank it greedily, relishing the taste of something they didn't serve back at the Black Sparks clubhouse.

 

"I've known for some time that my husband is mixed up in some dangerous stuff," she said as she led him out onto the lawn. She started down stone steps built into the hillside. Nick trotted at her heels, patting his back pocket to reassure himself the gun was there if she tried anything, though he didn’t yet know what that might be. Below them, a small lake glistened, its water open except for a tiny island of ice that still sat in the center. A rowboat sat on the landing.

 

A schnauzer bounded back with a pinecone in his mouth, dropping it at Nick's feet with a look of expectation that was almost entitled. He couldn't hide a grin as he bent down to pick it up, grateful for the distraction, and to mitigate his discomfort in this strange milieu. Helena made no move to stop him as he lobbed it like a baseball pitcher, as far as it would go, watching the dog take off like a slingshot.

 

"He won't be back for a while," she laughed. "He's no retriever. Anyway, my husband came back from Russia last year after meeting with the arms dealers. I don't like these people; they scare me, in fact. But I don't have a lot of say in it. Back when I lived in Cleveland, my dad was a semi-legitimate businessman who took out a loan from the Vipers, using me as collateral." She stopped speaking, as if the even the memory jolted her.

 

"He didn't pay it back, did he?" asked Nick after a beat.

 

"When Dad got me back from the Vipers, he asked me to describe where I was, but I told him there wasn't much a view from the plastic bag over my head." She stared down at her feet and, as she blinked, Nick could see the fragility in her eyes. All of a sudden, he saw a reflection of the frightened girl she'd been, used as merely a tool in her father's dreams of power.

 

It was a look that was strangely familiar to him. Liana briefly flitted across his mind, though he quickly forced her out. She didn't deserve his sympathy--and Helena Kinski probably didn't either.

 

"But it was okay. He turned to Liam, and Liam got me out. Well not so much Liam, but his money." She kicked a splinter of wood into the lake with the toe of her sandal. "Even if I divorce him, I don't get a dime. He ensured that when he made me sign. I'm less a resident in this house than a piece of the furniture. Even the housekeeper doesn't listen to me." She laughed.

 

"Are you sure she speaks English?" asked Nick slyly.

 

"You know, I'm going to have to check on that," chuckled Helena. "I've got Rory, though," she said patting the dog who had grown bored with waiting for someone to come chase him and decided to come back with a pinecone--a smaller one, Nick was pretty sure, than the one he had thrown. "I suppose it's my own fault. If he got involved with some unsavory characters once, it shouldn't have surprised me that he did so again. But I can't blatantly undermine him with the Russians. There are other ways, though," she said, and Nick felt her fingers graze across the fabric of his jeans. Nick felt his thigh stiffen, the heat of her hand awakening something inside him--something he knew he really couldn’t afford to awaken. Not now.

 

"What if I said I knew how you could get your shipment back?" she said, walking her fingers over Nick's shoulder, caressing the skin near his wound, almost as if she knew it was there. He hissed, more in anticipation of pain than the real thing. "Shhh. It's okay."

 

Her body heat radiated some kind of intoxicating scent, like lavender-flavored ice cream at some upscale restaurant Tryg had once taken the Sparks to for his and Kirrily’s anniversary party.

 

"Tryg should be ashamed of himself," she whispered when she saw the wound. "Sending you to do something he knew damn well was dangerous."

 

Nick dropped his gaze. He should have expected something like this, should have been clever enough to avoid it. "I fucked up. Not him."

 

"That's what he wants you to think to keep you in line. And now he's punishing you for something he should have known wasn't your fault."

 

Her bold blue eyes blinked again, as if she were seeing into him, looking down a long telescope into his soul, into his history, into a childhood that had been basically been defined by false accusations, of being setting up to fail. She couldn't possibly know what had happened with Liana, could she? No. She was manipulating him, doing the equivalent of a TV psychic, making vague hints and allowing him to fill in the rest. And he should have been putting a stop to it. Problem was, most of the women he so skillfully avoided weren't this bold--or this rich. He tensed further, and he knew she felt it.

 

She started massaging a knot, right where it felt the best. "And you've been kept in line for too long. Like a good little errand boy."

 

"I told you." He shifted his shoulder away. "I'm not going against Tryg. He's the closest thing I've ever had to a father. Don't you understand--"

 

"Don't you understand?" she leaned in closer, whispering intensity. "You don't have to. I can help you get that shipment back from the Vipers and more. Tryg won't know what hit him." Nick frowned. "No violence. No blood. We'll just make it so he'll know he can't tell you what to do anymore." He dodged her gaze. "Look at me, Nicholas," she said, touching his chin to tilt his face up, using his full name in a way that seemed strangely authoritative, like a schoolteacher or a parent. Maybe it was her age, but strangely enough, it wasn't unsexy. "It's okay." He blinked at her. She laughed softly. "Why are you are you so hesitant? Why can't you relax and just," she said, "go with it?"

 

He squirmed and shoved her away, turning his back, though not fast enough to miss how her lips turned up in sultry laughter. Everything about this was foolish, he knew. She may not be overtly coming onto him, but she also hadn't gotten to where she was by being demure. A woman in her position knew her sexuality was her most important tool—because most men were weak enough to fall for it. Nick knew he couldn't afford to be one of these men. "I can help you. We can both finally get what we deserve – to finally be our own people, to live freely. That's a promise. "

 

He extricated himself and turned away, trying to reassert his dominance, to try to show her that she couldn't jerk him around like a dog on a leash. "Promises are worthless," he growled.

 

"Then don't consider it a promise," she whispered. "Consider it a vow." As if on cue, his phone buzzed from the pocket of his jeans. He tore away, still half in a daze, signaling to Helena as he ducked behind a stand of fir trees, under which sat a wrought-iron bench. Above him, a chickadee flitted from branch to branch. It was almost peaceful here, despite the adrenaline that had begun to course through him. "Tryg, can't it wait? I'm kind of in the middle of something."

 

"In the middle of something, or in the middle of someone?" Nick could barely hear the club president chortling derisively over the atmospheric noise. Nick tried to laugh off Tryg's comment, hoping the older man wouldn't realize he was onto something. "Anyway, where were you this morning?" Tryg demanded.

 

"What do you mean?" Nick crumbled a piece of peeling bark between his fingers, watching it rain down on his boots, suddenly feeling very vulnerable. Helena almost skipped down the hill after her schnauzer, pausing once to glance back at him, a tempting gaze. He glanced up at the window of the house, wondering if there was anybody else home.

 

"Kirrily said you didn't even stop by the house for breakfast."

 

"I wasn't hungry."

 

"I don't care."

 

“Sorry, I didn't realize the sovereign lord required his serfs to pay tribute on a daily basis," said Nick, angrier than he meant it to sound.

 

Tryg didn't even miss a beat. "I do when we have a highly useful guest living inches living inches away from you. She could be the key to unlocking this whole thing."

 

Nick wasn't sure he believed that, but he was willing to entertain the fact that Tryg was right.

 

"Well, I talked to Ted Rogers at Chillicothe, and he told me he doesn't want you supervising the next shipment. We're already absurdly lucky that he's even willing to give us another chance. He's worried about putting you in charge, Nick. He thinks you can't be relied on after what happened. He thinks you can't hold your own against the Vipers. I told him you're my best man, and that I trust you with my life, but he wasn't buying it."

 

"Tryg, what are you saying?"

 

“Fixing leaky gas cans on bikes only pays so much, Nick. If we lose him as a client, it's as good cutting out this club's major source of income.” Nick felt a chill wind sweep around him, pricking at the hairs Helena had already made stand on end. "Martin's going to be handling the next truck."

 

It took of all Nick’s willpower not to hurl the phone halfway across the lake. "No fucking way, Tryg. It's my job. I can handle it."

 

"Show me."

 

"What do you think I'm doing here?" said Nick. "I told you I'd get the shipment back, and I meant that. I'm with someone now – someone who knows about it, and might be able to help us get it back," he said cautiously, not wanting to spill too much.

 

Tryg paused. "Good," he said. "Who is it? I need to know."

 

"Her name's Helena Kinski."

 

"Helena Kinski, as in Mrs. Daniel Kinski? The CEO of Southern Ohio Health Systems?" Tryg sounded impressed. "Still, I’m going to have to look into it. A rich broad like that doesn't give away information for free."

 

"Her husband doesn't know she's meeting with me. And we should keep it that way." Still, Nick glanced back to where Helena stood, willowy, like a cross between a giraffe and an angel, arching her back and neck to throw the pinecone in her hand to the dog.

 

She glanced back at Nick, an unreadable smile on her face. If he could help it, he wasn't going to let Tryg know what Helena had proposed in terms of payment.

 

"I'll look into her."

 

"And as for Liana--" he paused, not knowing what he could promise. Not around Liana, anyway. "I'll get it out of her," said Nick.

 

"Good. Because you're having dinner with her tonight."