Chapter 17
Liv didn’t want to wake up from this dream. She was awash in erotic sensations, every nerve kissed and caressed. Swimming in pleasure, like raw fresh honey, but something was pulling her to wakefulness. A sound that would not stop, a moaning whimper.
It was coming from her own throat. She opened her eyes, blinking in the morning light. Incredibly warm, held tight against a hot, hard male body. Her thighs were splayed, and Sean’s skillful hand moved between them. His fingers made wet sounds as they stroked and delved and circled. She was sopping wet, squirming with excitement.
Oh, please. Again? This was beyond ridiculous. This was insane.
He smiled into her eyes. “Sleeping beauty,” he whispered.
He was outrageously beautiful when he smiled. She was so dazzled, she just smiled helplessly back as he rolled on top of her, and entered her. Her inner flesh fluttered in protest at the slow stretch, sore from all the unaccustomed sex, but she was too aroused to care. He gathered her into his arms and moved, staring into her eyes with fierce intensity, as if he were trying to tell her something.
She wrapped her arms and legs around him, and moved with him, trying to listen.
It was a slow dance, a lazy, sensual heaven of tender intimacy. He started kissing her, his warm, soft lips coaxing hers open, exploring, claiming. The thrust of his tongue in her mouth echoed the thrust of his penis. She had never felt so alive. She was so present in her body it was almost frightening. Everything was so bold and sharp. She surged against him, rocking on heaving waves of delicious sensation.
She didn’t want it to end, but the shimmering glow between her legs kept growing until it brightened and swelled to bursting. The wave carried her sweetly away. When she drifted back, she found him still inside her, still hard. She blinked at him. “Um, didn’t you come?”
“I had more orgasms than I can count.” He kissed her jaw, nuzzled her throat. “I just didn’t ejaculate.”
She lifted her head, blinking. “Don’t you need to?”
“There’s no law says I have to.” His voice was soft with amusement. “And I’m not wearing latex.”
“Oh. There is that,” she murmured. “I didn’t know guys could do that. Is this another one of your dancing bear tricks?”
He grinned his appreciation. “You could say that. It’s just manipulating energy, controlling your breathing, knowing what muscles to squeeze, and when. It’s a trick of concentration.”
“And practice, too, right?” An edge crept into her voice. “Years of daily practice, I bet.”
He slanted her a cautious look. “You always start whaling on me when we get anywhere near that subject. I’m tired of being pounded.”
He dragged himself slowly out of her body, with a long, hissing indrawn breath of pleasure, and flopped onto his back. His penis lay stiff and hard against his belly. Gleaming wet from her juices.
She gazed at him, bemused. “You can just leave it like that?”
Mischief flashed in his eyes. “You want some more?”
“No, thanks,” she said hastily. “I’m done for now. It just looks like you’re, ah, not done. In the least.”
Sean was enjoying himself hugely. “I’ll live,” he said, his voice offhand. He stroked his penis and brought his hand up to his face, inhaling. “Your smell makes my mouth water. Can I go down on you?”
“Um…actually…” She stared at him for a long moment, and gave in to the impulse. “I have a better idea.”
She rolled over and reached for him, gripping the broad stalk of his penis, and took him in her mouth, tasting herself as well as his own hot salt tang. He groaned, shuddered. “Oh, God, Liv.”
She murmured something soothing, petting and licking him.
It was by no means easy to perform fellatio on a guy of his proportions. Particularly since her jaw was still sore from her pit-bull imitation with T-Rex. She didn’t care. She wanted this. She was hungry to pleasure him, to reduce him to a state of writhing desperation.
Hungry to wrest the sexual upper hand away from him, for once.
But he gave it to her generously, abandoning himself with his usual wholehearted sensuality. He curled his body over hers, clutching her hair, her back, shivering and moaning his incoherent appreciation.
He reached down and touched her cheek when she took a moment to breathe and relax her jaw. “Stop if you’re tired,” he said gently.
She milked him with her hands, smiling. “Gotta get going early if I want to make a dent in that forty-eight-hundred-dollar bill.”
Laughter jerked in his chest, but he tilted her face up again. “You know that’s just a joke, right?” His eyes looked worried. “I know I come on strong, but if you don’t want it, it stops. Is that clear?”
“Um, OK,” she faltered. “Does that mean you don’t want…?”
“Fuck, no.” The words burst out of him. “I love it. I’ll beg, plead, suck your toes. But you decide when and how much. Understand?”
“Um, yes, thanks,” she said demurely. “Can I continue, now?”
He ignored the question, caressing her cheek with his fingertips. “This means a lot to me,” he said. “I don’t want to mess it up.”
The earnest, worried look in his eyes made her heart swell with tenderness. “You’re not,” she told him. “Believe me, you’re not.”
She tried to scoot back down and pick up where she’d left off, but he grabbed her and spun his body around until they were sixty-nined.
“I can’t wait,” he said. “Let me play, too.”
He pushed her thigh up and put his mouth to her.
Liv stiffened, at first. Sixty-nining was not her thing. Oral sex required concentration, and to have the guy bend her into a pretzel and stick his face between her legs, tickling and prodding while she tried to pull it off…um, no. In her opinion, a proper blow job, like driving an expensive sports car, or chopping vegetables with a sharp knife, was a thing best done without serious distractions.
But like everything else she thought she knew about sex, that turned on its head when Sean was concerned. Being twisted into a pretzel was great if a girl was relaxed to virtual bonelessness from multiple orgasms, and Sean’s lapping, lashing, trilling tongue was so unerringly skilled at keeping her in a state of quivering delight.
It was perfect, twining and luscious and ravishing. Each inspired the other to more sensual, ravenous excesses with each suckling stroke, each voluptuous caress, his pleasure amplifying hers and vice versa until they melded into a shining whole; his hardness to her softness, his rough to her smooth, offering satisfaction to every secret, wordless yearning. They crested the wave, exploded into crashing foam together.
She lay incapable of moving while the light in the room slowly brightened, inhaling his warm man musk smell. She was petting the gilt tipped hairs on his muscular thigh when she noticed something that looked like a small, irregular bruise. She looked closer. It was a tattoo, written crookedly on his thigh in small, blurry, letters. SEAN.
She traced it with her finger. “Did you do this yourself? It doesn’t look like a professional tattoo.”
He grunted. “It’s not. Dad put that on me when I was about eight, with a hot needle and a ballpoint pen. Bottle of Scotch for disinfectant.”
Liv froze, her hand tightening on his thigh. “Eight years old?”
“Yeah. He was pissed at me and Kev for playing tricks on him. That was back when it was real hard to tell us apart. Dad didn’t have much of a sense of humor. I think that’s the first thing to go, when a person is mentally ill. So he labeled us. He did Kev first. When I saw what was in store for me, I took off for the woods. Took him days to track me down, but I let him find me, in the end. I got hungry.”
“My God.” She stroked the mark with her finger, horrified. “Sean, that’s awful. You poor baby.”
He looked uncomfortable. “I’ve had worse experiences. I’m just glad my name didn’t have more letters. Kev only had three. Cured me of any impulse to get a tattoo, I’ll tell you that much.” He pondered for a moment. “Maybe that’s why I hate Scotch,” he added thoughtfully. “Even the smell of the stuff makes me gag.”
She wondered if he even knew how much that confession revealed about his childhood. She could see so clearly the little boy he’d been, hiding in the woods. Hungry and scared. It made her chest hurt, but she sensed that her sympathy would embarrass him.
She wiggled closer, and gently kissed the faded tattoo. Silently grateful that all that pain, all that darkness, had not put out his light.
In spite of everything, he still shone so bright.
“How romantic. Nuzzling each other’s genitals, like puppies.”
The cool voice issuing from the stairwell made them jump. Liv scrambled to wrap the sheet around her naked body, her face heating.
Sean sat up and glared at her. “Holy shit, Tam. You could knock.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Her head and shoulders poked up over the stairwell. She sniffed the air. “Hmm. I see you two have been busy.”
“Disappear, Tam,” he snarled. “Wait for us downstairs.”
She laughed, and vanished down the hole. “Since when have you gotten so prissy?” her voice floated up from below. “My sources led me to understand that you liked kink.”
“Your fucking sources led you wrong.” He yanked on his jeans and clattered down the spiral staircase after her.
Liv hastened to pull on her T-shirt, longing in vain for her under-pants. She started down the stairs, bracing herself for anything.
Tam propped a taut buttock on the edge of a couch as she lit up a cigarette. She was dressed in black jeans and a silver-gray tailored blouse. Her hair was swept into a roll that looked both careless and perfect. She took a deep drag on her cigarette, nostrils flaring in disgust as Sean rooted through cold leftovers from last night’s dinner.
“Garlic, at this hour?” She shuddered delicately. “God.”
“Something tells me you’re not going to serve us coffee and croissants,” he said, dropping a slice of filet mignon into his mouth.
He twitched the cigarette out of her mouth, and scowled at it. “What is this, Tam? Your breakfast?” He ground it out in the empty taboulleh container. “Are you trying to starve yourself to death?” He grabbed a sourdough roll, smeared butter onto it and held it out. “Eat a goddamn piece of bread, already.”
Tam recoiled. “Carbs. Ick. Back off.”
“Why should I?” He took a bite of the roll. “If you’re going to be rude and invasive and in my face, I’m going to return the favor.”
She sniffed. “That’s gratitude for you. I got up early and went shopping this morning, for your friend.” She turned her gaze up, and ran it over Liv. “Morning sex becomes you,” she said, her tone approving. “Makes your lips red and puffy. You barely need the makeup I got. There are your new clothes. Have fun.”
She gestured towards a cluster of shopping bags near the door.
Liv stammered for a moment, bemused. “Um…thanks.”
“No need.” Tam shrugged. “I wouldn’t have bothered doing it if I didn’t enjoy it. Shopping is relaxing. Particularly when someone else is paying. Which reminds me.” She pulled a handful of credit card slips out of her jeans pocket and held them out to Sean. “These, I believe, are yours,” she said. “Pay me back in a timely manner, please.”
Sean took the slips of paper, studied them. His jaw dropped. “Holy shit. What is this stuff? Is it cut out of cloth of gold?”
“Shame on you, you cheap bastard,” Tam scolded. “Aren’t you man enough to buy your woman some decent threads?”
Sean stared at another one of the charge slips. “It’s not that I’m not man enough,” he said. “It’s that I’m not rich enough.”
“Bullshit.” Tam clucked her tongue. “You’ve just never stayed with any one woman long enough to be obliged to buy her clothes.” She shot a glance at Liv. Her mouth curved. “I think you’d better get used to it.”
“He doesn’t have to get used to anything,” Liv broke in. “I don’t need a man to buy me clothes. Don’t worry, Sean, I’ll pay you back, as soon as I get the insurance money from the—”
“Stop!” Tam’s voice rang with sharp command. “This is a teachable moment, cupcake. Don’t spoil it for him.”
“But I don’t need anyone to buy me—”
“And besides, this extravagant boy is a walking fashion plate in his own right. I never see him but he’s wearing Prada, Dolce e Gabbana, Armani. Custom tailored this, leather-tooled that.”
“My wardrobe is none of your goddamn business,” Sean growled.
“Don’t let him tell you he can’t afford it, either.” Tam’s eyes gleamed. “I’ve seen his tax returns, his investment portfolio, the income from his rental properties—”
“Hey!” Sean was outraged. “How do you know my private stuff?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Tam cut in, rolling her eyes. “Privacy is an illusion in today’s electronic world. And I always investigate the people who interest me.” She pulled out another cigarette, lit it. “And we haven’t even gotten to his toys,” she continued. “The motorcycle, jet skis, boat, hang glider, deep sea diving equipment. He’s not as rich as he would have been if he’d participated in some of my projects, but he can afford decent clothes for you. Don’t doubt it.”
Sean peeked up at her, abashed. She tried not to laugh. He made a big show of rifling through the credit card slips. “Eight hundred bucks at one store? What the hell is Melinda’s Intimates?”
“She needs sexy lingerie, don’t you agree?”
Sean’s eyes lit up. He strode over to the shopping bags and rooted through them til he found a pink one with tinted tissue poking out of it.
He reached in with both hands. When he pulled them out, several small, complicated garments dangled from them. An ivory bustier trimmed with a froth of antique lace. A black demi-bra and matching thong. A pearl pink baby-doll nightie. He looked up at Liv. “Oh, wow,” he said reverently. “Good investment, Tam. Worth every penny.”
Tam snorted. “Men. So predictable. It’s sad, really.”
Sean rubbed the pale green silk tap pants voluptuously against his face. “I don’t suppose you picked up anything for me, did you?”
Tam blew out a stream of smoke, her beautiful eyes narrowed to golden slits. “No,” she said. “I was far more inspired by her. You’re perfectly capable of doing your own shopping, big boy.”
“I figured as much,” he said, looking resigned. “You’d rather be shot through the eye than give me a break, wouldn’t you?”
“You’re getting bodily fluids all over my sheets, insulting me, inconveniencing me. That’s not enough of a break?” She turned to Liv. “You’re in no condition to model this stuff until you’ve had a shower, so get to it. This clown’s brothers will be in my face any minute. Hurry.”
The door clicked shut behind her. Sean shook his head. “I shouldn’t have brought you here,” he muttered. “It’s not worth the stress that woman puts me through.” He reached into the pink bag again, as if seeking comfort, and soon found it, in the form of pink French cut satin panties, trimmed with black ribbon. “Ooh. Crotchless.” He waggled his fingers through a slit in the gusset. “Wear these today.”
Liv willed herself not to laugh. “Why on earth would I do that?”
He blinked innocently. “For spontaneous sex. You know. Bent over the hood of a car. Perched on the washing machine during the spin cycle. Up against the wall in the hall bathroom.”
She decided that ignoring him was the best policy. “I’m going to pay for those clothes myself, you know.”
He waved his hand dismissively. “Like hell. Even if that wasn’t a direct affront to my manhood, it wouldn’t be fair to you. You didn’t ask Tam to drop five thousand bucks on clothes for you. She did it for fun, to bust my balls. It’s between me and her. Besides, she likes to see girls looking good. I think maybe she goes both ways.”
“Five thousand?” Liv’s mind snagged on the sum, stupefied.
“More, actually,” he said, with martyred calm. “But it’s OK, babe. The numbers were just a shock, first thing in the morning. I might have to cut back on the servants in my sixty room mansion. Run my own bath in the solid gold tub. Cut my own toenails with the diamond encrusted platinum clippers. No biggie.”
“Stop teasing for just one second and be straight with me,” she said. “Just how do you make your living, anyhow?”
He shrugged helplessly. “Little bit of this, little bit of that.”
“You’re avoiding the question,” she snapped.
“I’m not,” he protested. “My professional life is a grab bag. I get bored easily. If something starts feeling too much like work, I drop it and move on.”
“Wow. Lucky you.” She tried to picture that kind of flexibility, but it was hard to imagine. “And you can afford to be so fussy?”
He looked embarrassed. “Yeah. Like Tam said, I’ve got some interest income. My brother Davy’s a financial whiz. He did some good investing for me over the years. Lately, I’ve been doing consulting gigs for war films. My brothers think it’s fluff, and maybe it is, but I’ve had enough heavy shit to last a lifetime. I like to keep things light.”
“With us, too?” She couldn’t help but ask.
The smile vanished from his eyes. “No, babe.” He reached up, and gripped her wrist. She stumbled down the rest of the stairs to meet him.
Sean lifted the T-shirt up over her head, and claimed her mouth, in a slow, possessive kiss. “When it comes to you, I’m dead serious.” He shoved the crotchless confection into her hand, closing her fingers around it. “Wear these for me today. Every time I look at you, I’ll think about slipping my fingers through that hole, finding you wet. And when I finally get you alone, you’ll be so ready, I won’t have to do cartwheels and backflips to persuade you. I can just mount up and ride.”
She stumbled back, pulling away. “I have to take a shower.”
He gave her his sexy fallen angel smile. “Can I come?” He popped open the top button of his jeans. They strained over his erection.
“Absolutely not.” She fled to the bathroom, locked the door, and sagged down on the edge of the bathtub, trying to breathe.
When was she going to get used to him? It didn’t matter that she was traumatized, bitten, bruised, penniless, jobless, in danger for her life. All he had to do was whisper in her ear, and hey presto, she was a knot of mindless yearning. Helplessly aching and throbbing for him.
Bits of pink and black satin poked out between her fingers. She looked up at the wrinkled cotton briefs that hung stiffly over the shower rod, and collapsed with her face to her knees, shaking. Maybe it was a blessing that Sean took up so much space in her mind.
It kept her too busy to bother with the screaming panic.
She put on her boring undies after her shower and stared into the mirror. On the run for your life is all the more reason to look your best.
She peeled them off. Pulled on the pink and black panties.
Wow. They were…well, bold. She took a deep breath and hesitated at the door. She was so accustomed to privacy, solitude. She just didn’t know how to cope with the intensity of his attention. His sexual energy knocked her backwards. Her fantasy Sean had never reduced her to stammering idiocy like this. Her real Sean was cocky, off the wall, larger than life. So much fun. She had to learn how to get dressed in front of him without tripping, or blushing. Or ending up flat on her back, road-testing those crotchless panties.
She peeked as she walked to the shopping bags. The intensity in his slitted eyes made her stumble into a chair. She rummaged ’til she found the bra that matched her panties. Another bag held jeans. A third held an assortment of tops. She snatched one out, at random.
“Isn’t there a miniskirt in there?” His voice was silky.
“Dream on, buddy,” she said. “I haven’t got miniskirt legs. And even if I did, hah. Like I’d wear crotchless panties with a skirt. That’s just begging for trouble. I’ve got enough trouble right now.”
“But jeans sort of defeat the purpose, don’t they?”
“Cope,” she said tartly.
He laughed, under his breath. “Is that a challenge?”
“No, it’s not, you sex-crazed idiot. It’s just a pair of jeans. Get your mind out from between my legs and get dressed.”
“But my mind feels so good down there, between your legs.” He petted her wet hair as he walked by. “You look gorgeous, princess.”
He disappeared into the bathroom, to her profound relief.
The jeans fit perfectly. So did the red wrap top. Sexy and fitted, but not vulgar. The price tag almost made her hyperventilate.
She rooted through the bags, found a pair of sandals. Delved into the cosmetics. She almost never wore makeup, but these were strange days, and a girl needed all the help she could get. Back off, T-Rex. Bring on the terra-cotta shadow and the scented noir mascara.
When Sean came out, she was as ready as she would ever be.
He held out his arm. “Come on. Let’s go meet my family.”
A rumble of male voices issued from the kitchen door as they appoached it. Tamara’s husky voice cut through it, razor sharp.
“…a cop, to my house? You stupid, selfish, arrogant bastards!”
“I’m not a normal cop,” a voice soothed. “I have no intention of—”
“Of course you’re not normal. No cop is normal,” Tam snarled.
“Come on, Tam. Lighten up. I was a cop once, remember?”
“You are a special case,” Tam spat out. “You’re a McCloud first, cop second. But this is the brainless asshole who almost got you killed two years ago. And you bring him to my home? Do you never learn?”
There was an uncomfortable silence. Liv and Sean glanced at each other and stopped short outside the door.
“Yes,” the first voice said quietly. “I am that brainless asshole, but I’m trying to make it right. I’m here because I want to help.”
“Bullshit. I know why you’re here. You’re still under the delusion that I’m going to help you get closer to Zhoglo, right?”
An embarrassed silence followed.
“Dream on,” Tam said. “When he catches you and puts your balls in his custom-made vise and starts turning the screws, you think you’re not going to tell him where to find me before your testicles explode?”
“He’s not going to catch me,” the guy said doggedly.
Tam said something in a foreign language that sounded like nails spitting. Liv gave Sean a wide-eyed, questioning glance.
“Remember Kurt Novak? That psycho billionaire I told you about?” he whispered. “Vadim Zhoglo was the guy’s business partner. Russian mafia. Real bad-ass. He and Novak’s father are two of the reasons Tam’s so paranoid. He and Daddy Novak wants to chop her into little bitty pieces for betraying Kurt. Nick wants to bring Daddy Novak and Zhoglo down. He’s been bugging her for inside info ever since Davy’s wedding. Tam’s bummed about it. Can’t say as I blame her. Those guys are crazy mean fuckers.”
“For God’s sake.” Liv covered her face. “You people are all nuts.”
“It’s not our fault.” Sean sounded aggrieved. “Vadim Zhoglo is a—”
“Don’t tell me about Vadim Zhoglo,” she broke in. “I can only wrap my mind around one psycho murderer at a time.”
Their whispering had caught Tam’s ear. She flung the double doors open. “The lovebirds have clothed their nakedness and deigned to grace us with their presence! Behold, gentlemen. The beauty who has held our fickle Sean’s attention for, what? A record of three days now?”
Liv blinked. It was like being in a spotlight, having four big, intense looking men, checking her out. Two she could identify as Sean’s brothers from their looks. Both very tall, both extremely handsome. Each with bright, tilted green eyes. The other men were dark, and equally big. One was rough, with beard stubble and long wavy brown hair, tattoos adorning his muscular shoulders. The other was even darker, golden skinned, with flashing black eyes, and a smile that turned slowly into a huge, white-toothed grin as he looked her over.
“Nice,” he said, staring at her breasts.
“Stop drooling, Seth,” Sean said coolly.
“How can he help it? Isn’t she tasty?” Tam sounded pleased with herself. “Don’t you just love those hourglass curves? Wardrobe courtesy of me, I’ll have you know. I can’t wait to see you in the red halter dress, honey. You’re going to cause car accidents in that thing.”
“Three days, you said?” Seth looked impressed. “That’s a long term relationship for Sean. He goes through chicks like French fries, two, three at a time. So have you gotten her a rock?”
“None of your business,” Liv cut in, in her sharpest, most authoritative voice.
Seth looked chastened. The men shot each other significant glances. Sean cleared his throat. “So. The guys with the dirt blond hair are my brothers. The clean cut one is Davy, the furry one is Con.”
The two men nodded warily. She nodded back.
“The smart-ass lech is Seth Mackey, Davy’s business partner. And that tattooed low life scumbag over there is Nick. He’s—”
“He’s a fed. And he shouldn’t be here,” Tam broke in, her voice harsh. “He’s not welcome. And he’s not leaving this place alive.”
“Aw, come on. We can’t just let you kill him, Tam.” Connor’s voice was mild and conciliatory. “He used to be my colleague. It wouldn’t be right. And besides, sometimes he’s even a little bit useful.”
“So I won’t kill him. I’ll give him a massive head injury. Cause irreparable brain damage.” She turned to Sean. “They had him hunch down in the backseat when they went past the cameras!”
Sean’s mouth compressed, trying not to smile. “That’s terrible.”
“I’m getting a thermal imager installed,” Tam fumed. She swung her furious gaze on Seth. “You got a decent one in your catalogue?”
“Top of the line,” Seth said cheerfully. “Costs a fucking fortune.”
“E-mail me the details. I’m going to price check, and I expect a fifty percent discount, as an apology for this violation of my privacy.”
Seth’s grin faltered. “Aw, come on, Tam. Get a sense of humor.”
“Let’s get breakfast going before we get started,” Davy said briskly.
“What do you think this is, a diner?” Tam lit up another cigarette. “I don’t have breakfast stuff. Go to town if you want to eat. Better yet, don’t come back at all. You dickheads are pissing me off. Goodbye.”
Davy pointed to a big box that sat on the floor by the door. “We brought food,” he said, a hint of triumph in his voice.
Tam sagged down into one of her bar stools, knocking her forehead against the gleaming black marble countertop. “I should have shot the whole mangy pack of you years ago, when I had the chance.”
“Too late.” Connor slapped butter down onto the counter.
Tam lifted her head. “It’s never too late,” she said darkly.
Liv sat in the center of a hive of activity while Sean briefed the others on their adventures. Ham sizzled on a griddle, panfuls of omelet cooked up, fluffy and tempting. Toast, bagels, butter and jam appeared. Orange juice was opened. Coffee made. Tam’s kitchen had never seen such disarray, judging by the delicate revulsion on the woman’s face.
Davy loaded a plate and slapped it down in front of Tam. “Eat.”
She gave him an are-you-kidding look, and blew out a lungful of smoke. “Not hungry,” she said, her voice sullen.
“I don’t care,” he said. “Eat anyway. You’ve lost fifteen pounds since we saw you last. You need food.”
Tam shoved the plate away from herself. “Don’t dictate to me.”
“Who will, if we don’t do it?” His voice could cut steel. “I look around this place, and I don’t see anybody else to tell you to eat.”
Tam tilted a brow. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“So it falls to us.” He nudged the plate towards her. “You wouldn’t let us near this place if you didn’t want us here. So deal with us.”
“I’m rethinking that rash decision,” she said sourly.
“Fine. Rethink it while you eat your fucking breakfast.”
Tam picked up a triangle of toast, sighed, and nibbled the point.
They ate til they could eat no more, and then plates were cleared, fresh coffee poured, and everyone took a place at the table.
“So,” Sean said. “The only starting place I can think of is the notebook, so we need to get those sketches off your walls.”
“We’re ahead of you.” Connor pulled out a battered cardboard file. “We’ve been studying these all night. Knock yourself out, bro.”
Liv pulled the file towards herself, fingertips buzzing. The key to this torturous puzzle lay somewhere in that cryptic sheaf of papers.
It was a series of simple, graceful pen and ink sketches. Landscapes, animals. A lake, with wild geese flying over it, golden eagles, owls, gulls, ducks on a pond. Tucked in their midst was Kev’s coded note, the one he’d scrawled in front of her fifteen years before. The page was crumpled from when she’d stuffed it into her bra.
“Does anyone remember the order they were in?” she asked.
Sean spread them out over the table with a gentle circular sweep of his hand, and put them into sequence. He pushed the ordered pile towards her. “I’m sorry to make you repeat yourself, but please tell us, one last time, exactly what Kev said when you saw him that day.”
Liv let out a sigh as she stared down at the coded note. “I was coming out of the library. I heard him calling, from the rhododendron bushes,” she started, dutifully. “At first, I didn’t think anything of it. I ran into him all the time, but when I got closer, I saw that he—”
“Wait a sec.” Sean cut in. “Why did you see Kev all the time?”
“I was volunteering two hours every weekday afternoon in the library,” Liv said. “Don’t you remember?”
“Sure I remember, but Kev wasn’t working at the library.”
“I saw him on his way up to work,” she explained. “He always headed up there the same time. It coincided with my volunteer hours.”
The silence was so charged with tension, Liv stopped breathing. Her eyes darted around the table. “What? Was it something that I said?”
“Work?” Davy said softly. “What do you mean, work?”
“That…experimental thing,” she faltered. “You don’t remember?”
The brothers exchanged grim glances.
“Kev was doing research for his thesis that summer,” Sean said. “He didn’t have any other job that we knew about. Unless you’re talking about the summer school chemistry teaching.”
She shook her head. “No, it was something else. Experiments he was participating in,” she said. “He got paid for each session. He told me about it once. Brain function, human cognition, that kind of thing.”
“Where?” Con asked.
She swallowed nervously. “The Colfax Building. Above the public library.”
“I know the Colfax.” Connor said. “It houses the music department. Erin and I have been up there to see Cindy’s concerts.”
“Do you remember anything else?” Davy asked. “Anything at all?”
Liv squeezed her eyes shut and racked her brain. Reluctantly, she shook her head. “It never occurred to me that you all didn’t know that, or I would have said something sooner,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t sweat it,” Sean said. “It’s more than we ever had before.”
Davy broke the long, reflective silence. “Maybe this is the door.”
Liv looked at him, puzzled. “What door?”
“We spent a year banging our heads against a wall. This is the door. It’s locked, and maybe there’s nothing behind it, but it’s a door.”
“So let’s dynamite that son of a bitch down,” Sean said.
“I recommend a more subtle approach,” Davy said dryly. “Miles is up in Endicott Falls already. We can have him ask around about—”
“No,” Sean broke in. “I don’t want Miles involved.”
Con grunted. “The kid’s got to get some experience. He’s bright, and hungry, and already in place. I think he’s even taken classes from that chemistry professor, what was the guy’s name? Beck?”
“No,” Sean said vehemently. “He can hack. That’s all. I do not want him seen asking questions. T-Rex would wipe Miles out.”
“Speaking of getting wiped out. We raided the gun safe in your condo and brought you a few pieces of your arsenal,” Connor said.
“That’s great news,” Sean said fervently. “Oh, yeah. Nick, could you run some prints on T-Rex’s Beretta?”
“Do I have yours for comparison somewhere?”
“Actually, it was Liv who got hold of his gun and emptied the clip. You’ll need her prints, too.”
The silence was broken by an appreciative snicker from Tam.
Davy cleared his throat, and gave Liv an appraising glance. “She does look a hell of a lot better than you, now that you mention it.”
“T-Rex looks pretty bad, too,” Sean said defensively.
“Bad enough so he would seek professional medical help?”
“No more so than us,” Sean replied. “Some stitches and he’ll be ready to rock. He got my blade in his ass, a bad bite on the wrist—”
“You bit a guy?” Con grimaced.
“Not me.” Sean jerked his chin at Liv. “Her. Stabbed him through the cheek with a rusty nail, too. I’m telling you, the chick is lethal.”
“Was this before or after she emptied the clip at him?” Nick asked.
“Before.” Sean grinned, proudly. “Don’t get on her bad side.”
“I missed,” Liv broke in. “By a mile. So it doesn’t count.”
“Bullshit,” Tam said briskly. “You just need the right gun.”