Alace

She’d woken in his arms yesterday.

Alace twisted to look out the back windows of Eric’s home and into the silent darkness from where she sat in the safety of his house. She smiled at memories of their activities immediately following that awakening, not knowing her face had turned soft.

Eric wasn’t here at the moment, and wouldn’t be for hours. Since there was no real way of knowing how long she’d have before she had to go out again, his absence cut deeply. She understood, and yet wished he could have begged off this fundraiser. If it had been for his stepmother, she knew he would have. But this was for a good cause. It would benefit the basketball teams at the high school where he volunteered, and he was one of the coordinators of the event. With her back in his house, he hadn’t wanted to go, and she’d laughed at his attempts to talk himself into ditching it and staying home. When he failed at that, he tried hard to convince Alace she should accompany him, something she’d turned over in her mind for seconds longer than she should have before shaking her head no. The resigned look on his face told her he hadn’t been surprised at her refusal. It’ll get old for him, a voice that sounded like Regg muttered in her head.

But she couldn’t bear to go, not once she learned his father would be presenting a cardboard check representing a sizable donation from local businesses.

He has to know. She’d thought this a number of times. Eric was far from stupid, and while she might never have come out and detailed why she’d been in town when they’d met, he had to know it was because there was a gig in the area. Maybe he didn’t realize the depths of his father’s depravity and sense of entitlement, or maybe he was just blind to the faults of family. Lots of folks were. Throughout the years, she’d learned that blood was thicker than nearly anything, and sometimes the most resolute denial could be rooted in an effort to reject a relative’s betrayal.

Not with Eric, though. First his behavior at that long-ago party, and then the involuntary expression of disgust that crossed his features every time he spoke of his father—all of those underlined a strong desire to avoid the man at all costs.

Movement at the far edge of the yard caught her eye, and she stared hard into the darkness, trying to force vague lines and shadows into something recognizable, and Alace watched with awe as a deer materialized out of the shadows. Walking carefully, cautiously, delicate legs took tentative steps towards the house. Alace was spellbound as the doe came closer, head lowering to sniff at the grass, every movement guarded. I feel ya, honey. Alace pulled her mouth to one side. I’ve lived my whole life like you.

Lights swung across the trees and the deer’s head jerked up, freezing in place, every muscle taut with the need to be gone, to flee. Ears flicking back and forth, the doe quickly assessed the danger and, at the slam of a car door, gave up whatever edible delicacy it had been stalking. With wide leaps, her tail flagged high, the flashing white signaling danger, it took only moments and she was gone. The yard as empty as if it had never held a living, breathing being.

With the deer’s disappearance, Alace rose and shifted over to a wall, placing her shoulders against the surface, palms braced to push off. Poised thus she waited, unsettled, knowing it was too early for Eric to be back. He’d kissed her goodbye with a reminder that she was to sleep in his bed, telegraphing his need for her with hot hands and hotter mouth, cementing on her skin the desire running through him and she’d soaked it in, appreciating how he mastered himself while managing to stoke her fire ever higher.

A key clattered against the lock, finally seated and turned, and the door opened boldly as a body stepped through. Briefly silhouetted against the ambient streetlights, the man’s frame looked like Eric, but Alace knew better than to believe what she wanted to see, and stayed where she’d be partially hidden. Ready to bolt, her own version of wide leaps would come with pumping arms and racing legs. The door latch slipped into place, and the man shrugged off a jacket, the work of a moment to fling it over the back of a chair as he took long strides towards the stairs.

Alace didn’t speak, still not certain of the visitor’s identity. She hoped, but couldn’t force herself to make a sound. She didn’t have to. Eric seemed to have an innate sense of her location. He paused in his advance, head swinging so he could look into the shadows by the back wall, calling softly, “Alace?” Changing course, he approached her fast, barreling towards her on an inescapable arc until his arms swept around her, pulling her to him. “God, I couldn’t…” His voice trailed off when his mouth became busy, working along her neck to her jaw, and she turned her head. She wrapped her arms around him, one low around his hips and one higher, fingertips in that damned hair curling at his nape. Then his mouth was on hers, possessing her with a kiss that started heated and flared to molten as he quested inside, and she tasted him. Whiskey and good cigars, a light fruity sweetness mixed with the heady woodsy flavor of Eric. He groaned in her mouth, and she captured the sound, working to pull a second one from him. A third and he pulled back, harsh breaths gusting across the sensitive skin of her neck. “Jesus, baby.”

He lifted her and pitched, tossing her slightly into the air to settle her in his arms, laughing when she squeaked in surprise at the motion. “Eric.” Voiceless no longer, she leaned into him, arms twined around his neck, feeling the heat from him baking through the fabric of his shirt.

“I couldn’t stay away.” His words were murmured against her mouth, and she stared into his beautiful eyes as he confessed, “I didn’t even tell them I was leaving. I just…wanted to be here more than I needed to be there.” He jostled her as he climbed the stairs, cool air wafting over her bare toes. “Baby.” She smiled at him, and he stole it by dropping another kiss to her mouth, leaving her gasping open-mouthed.

“I’m glad.” A vision of the startled doe slashed through her, and Alace forced it down, reminding herself that this wasn’t frightening. Eric held no danger for her. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

He stopped in place and angled his head down towards her. Meeting his motion, she folded her elbows between their bodies and lifted her hands, reverently cupping each side of his jaw with a palm as she tilted her face up to his. Crushed to his chest in a fierce hold while he kissed her, it was a wild crash of lips and teeth, contrasting with the gliding satin touch of his tongue against hers. The joining of their mouths taking full attention as she tried desperately to convey to him how much it meant that he had come back to her. That he would come for her. That he’d exhausted precious time and energy to find her and bring her here for this.

She was the one to break the kiss, twisting to bury her face against his neck, blood drumming in her ears. She drew a ragged breath, feeling an echoing pounding of his heart under her hands. Then he proved once again that single words were what signaled important things for them both by telling her how he felt.

His lips touched the top of her head, then her temple, gliding down to nuzzle softly just in front of her ear, and Alace shivered with need as he said, “Blessed.”

***

“No.” Frustrated, Alace clipped the word out as if it were offensive to her. Tipping her chin up, she looked at the angle where the wall met the ceiling. She was seated in a chair by the window in Eric’s study. They’d finished breakfast half an hour ago, and when she told him she needed to make a private phone call, intending to do so outside as she’d done over the past few days, he had turned to glare at the dusting of snow in the backyard and then escorted her in here, pointedly closing the door as he exited.

Now Regg was on the phone, and he not only wasn’t supportive of her newest idea for Ward, he was actively resisting it. His last suggestions were so absurd she didn’t want to itemize the reasons why they were bad ideas, simply dismissing them out of hand.

“Jesus, Alace—”

She cut him off, deciding in an instant to finally get into what had sent her running from the woods. “Why did you use my name?” There was a hush on the other end of the line. Weighty silence, a quiet that felt like the instant between the detonator being triggered and the heavy whump of the resulting explosion. “You knew it wasn’t a secure phone. Why would you do that, Regg?”

“You’d gone dark for too long, I worried.”

This pronouncement, made in a dull, bored tone caused Alace’s back to straighten, her shoulders moving back as she heard not only what he said, but what he meant.

“I go off the grid all the time. It’s what I do.” Normally she wouldn’t consider reminding Regg of this. It was how he’d taught her to work the gigs, and she shouldn’t have to remind him, given it was his wisdom in the first place. “It’s part of the gig.”

“Let’s get back to Ward.” Regg sighed, and that heavy exhalation held a note of disappointment. Alace’s neck angled, her head dipping so she could stare at her feet.

For the first time in their long partnership, she wondered if that sigh had been carefully calculated to be audible without being condescending, because usually when he sighed like that, she capitulated, not wanting to upset him. Regg mattered to her. He was her friend.

My only friend.

She glanced at the door, carefully closed by the first person in her life other than Regg who knew what she did. True, Eric was more than an associate, he was a close confidant, a lover. But he also was a good friend—a person with influence and leverage. Was that why she was suddenly so much more critical of Regg than she’d ever been? Before Eric, would she have taken Regg’s recommendations more to heart? She shook her head, knowing before Eric they wouldn’t even be having this conversation. Leaving a mark alive wasn’t how she worked. But because of Eric, they were. The idea of removing Ward another way had become so attractive, she hadn’t even tried to talk herself back into the original plan. A relief, and not just because he was Eric’s father.

Alace set that feeling aside, knowing she’d have to circle back around to it, but time for consideration was not now.

“Yes, lets.” Alace pushed for brusque, knowing it wasn’t something Regg heard from her often and she wanted to make a statement. If they were blazing new paths in their relationship, then let them not be tentatively crafted. “We’re doing this one my way, Regg.” She paused, hoping for a word, a breath, anything that would tell her he would be all-in on this. Regg gave her nothing, and she hesitated for only a breath before forging ahead. “Here’s what I want from you.”

For the next twenty minutes, she laid out her carefully crafted strategy, and at the end, even Regg grudgingly admitted it not only would work but might have the side benefit of flushing additional marks from cover. “Damn, girl. Might be less brutal to just kill him.”

Alace lifted her gaze from the toes of her shoes where it had been directed and glanced towards the door again. Eric might not appreciate her methods, but in her gut, she knew it was the right thing to do. “Sometimes having to live with it is harder. For the rest of his life, he’ll regret what he’s done.” I could be the poster child for regrets. At the thought, her brain tried to drift down the path of memories, wanting to catalog the people fallen in her wake. With effort, she pulled away and twisted, putting her back to the door, facing the windows instead. The glory of the Colorado Rockies filled her view, beauty that resisted every effort of nature and man to change them. “I’ll call you in three days.”

She disconnected without saying goodbye, still annoyed with Regg over their near argument at the beginning of the call. She pulled in breath after breath, shoving down the feelings of fear and regret, refusing to rethink the decisions she’d made in the past.

Gotta go with my gut on this one, too.

***

Regg

Scowling, he laid the phone on the desk in front of him, staring at the computer screen without really seeing the things displayed there. It wouldn’t have mattered. There wasn’t anything new to be seen, and he’d long since memorized the contents.

Images of Alace, laid in a collage, taking her progressively through life. He’d uncovered photos of her in grade school through the unsuccessful trial, had those pictures arranged in chronological order, youngest to oldest. Following those were additional images of her pulled from a multitude of sources. Tourist photos where she’d appeared in the background, security cameras from banks and grocery stores, employee ID photos that were nearly as unflattering as any state licensing branch pictures he’d ever seen. This cache was where he pulled his pictures from to create her new identities.

He’d taken the call today expecting them to have that conversation. What was next, where would she go, which gig would she pick. He snorted. Picked with my guidance, of course.

Regg reached out and clicked the mouse, minimizing the images, clicked again and then again, bringing up a folder on the server. Machine named, the string of characters and numbers held nothing to indicate the importance of what was inside. The contents of the folder held a man’s life in the balance, and Regg studied his documentation again, opening files and adjusting terminology slightly here, redacting a detail there. Nothing huge, he’d spent countless hours on this file already, making it into a story that Alace would find compelling. Irresistible.

It needed to be.

Regg clicked again and the screen filled with security camera footage. Angles showing the inside and outside of his home with Lena, the rooms filled with expensive and attractive furniture, the backyard landscaped to showcase the in-ground pool. His children were grouped in the media room, draped across couch and chairs, his youngest stretched out on a rug he knew was plush and should have been, given it cost nearly eight grand. Another image showed the garage, and he watched as the outside door slid up, Lena pulling her new luxury sedan inside, the door silently lowering behind her.

I like my life as it is.

He hid the camera views, bringing up the case folder again. He reviewed a few final details and then closed everything. He logged into the server via a different path and typed in a series of commands, entering the directory location of the folder before triggering a script that would change the metadata on all the files, adjusting all dates to indicate they hadn’t been opened or changed in months.

Alace would read it and want updated information. Information Regg already had, but needed her to be invested before he gave anything else to her. It was how she worked. The longer a case sat idle, the more driven she was to solve everything. She was a sucker for the cold case, the idea that justice had been waylaid for too long. She also needed to be the one in charge, so if he had already investigated on his own, she’d discount the case. He’d learned that a long time ago.

“Alace, baby, you’re too easy.”

The script finished running, and he reviewed the contents of the server in general. There were three other cases she’d expressed interest in before New Mexico, but they didn’t have the same potential for a payday. The one he wanted her to accept would reap nearly two million. Not that Alace would ever know.

“After this little display, I’m thinking you need to be brought to heel, Alace dear.”

Regg clicked over and brought up the collage of images again. His eyes flicked from picture to picture, cataloging the differences he’d noted in her after each of the jobs. Once she had enough money in the bank so she didn’t have to worry constantly about how to afford the work she did, she’d stopped being interested in payoffs at all. Not me.

“Okay, Alace. We’ll do Ward your way. But then we get back to normal.”

He fired off a dozen e-mails and messages, priming his resources for the push that would come in a week, a date that lined up conveniently with the kickoff of Ward’s latest campaign. Every two years like clockwork, the man refused to give up his stranglehold on his state and ran for reelection.

Regg grinned, getting into the groove of things now, relishing the idea of his work bringing down a man of Ward’s power. Normally he was the man behind the curtain, pulling Alace and other hunters’ strings to achieve the final goal. This time he’d be more hands-on than usual, and he liked the idea.

After Ward—who didn’t have a payday if done this way, the idea causing Regg to roll his eyes even as he pulled another chess piece into place—he’d force Alace to pick the job he wanted.