“You are such an ass, Lucifer.” An astute, not exactly wrong ass.
“Get your shit together, Pixie.”
The old nickname did the trick, blocking out the unrelenting sadness with a feisty bout of fury. “You are the most arrogant, opinionated—”
A dented pickup truck with Knockemout Diner decals on the doors screeched to a stop in front of us, and Lucian handed me his cigarette.
He rose as the window rolled down.
“Here you go, Mr. Rollins.” Bean Taylor, the scrawny, frenetic manager of the diner leaned out and handed Lucian a paper bag. Bean spent all day every day eating deep-fried diner delights and never gained an ounce. The second a salad touched his lips, he packed on the pounds.
Lucian handed him a fifty-dollar bill. “Keep the change.”
“Thanks, man! Real sorry to hear about your dad, Sloane,” he called out the window.
I smiled weakly. “Thanks, Bean.”
“Gotta get back. I left the wife in charge, and she burns the hash browns.”
He drove off, and Lucian dropped the bag in my lap.
“Eat.”
With that order, he turned on his heel and strode back to the entrance of the funeral home.
“I guess I’m keeping the coat,” I called after him.
I watched him go, and then when I was certain he was inside, I opened the bag to find my favorite breakfast burrito wrapped tight in foil. The diner didn’t deliver. And Lucian shouldn’t have known my favorite breakfast.
“Infuriating,” I muttered under my breath before briefly bringing the filtered tip of his cigarette to my lips where I could almost taste him.
2
Keep the Coat and Leave Me Alone
Lucian
By the time I pulled into the driveway of the house I hated, fat flakes had been falling for nearly an hour. I exhaled slowly and slumped against the heated leather of my Range Rover’s driver’s seat. Shania Twain crooned softly from the speakers. The windshield wipers groaned across the glass swiping away the snow.
It looked as though I’d be spending the night here, I told myself, as if that hadn’t been the plan all along.
As if I didn’t have an overnight bag on the back seat.
As if I didn’t have this cloying need to stay close. Just in case.
I punched the button on the remote for the garage and watched the door silently rise before me in the headlights. The services and meal had eaten up the remaining daylight hours. Friends and loved ones had lingered over Simon’s favorite dishes and drinks, reminiscing while I’d avoided Sloane. I didn’t trust myself to keep her at the necessary distance when she was wounded like this, so I’d relied on physical distance.
I dismissed all thoughts of the blond pixie from my mind and focused on other more important, less annoying things. Tonight, Karen Walton and a few of her local friends were safely ensconced in suites at a spa just outside DC where they would enjoy a day of pampering tomorrow.
It was the least I could do for the neighbors who had given me everything.
The caller ID on my dashboard screen lit up.
Special Agent Idler.
“Yes?” I answered, pinching the bridge of my nose.
“I thought you’d be interested to know that no one has seen or heard from Felix Metzer since September,” she said without preamble. The FBI agent had even less enthusiasm than I did for wasting time with unnecessary small talk.
“That’s inconvenient.” Inconvenient and not entirely unexpected.
“Let’s skip to the part where you assure me you had nothing to do with his disappearance,” she said pointedly.
“I’d think my cooperation in this investigation should at least buy me the benefit of the doubt.”
“We both know you have the means to disappear just about anyone who annoys you.”
I glanced again at the fanciful house next door. There were exceptions.
I heard the snick of a lighter and an indrawn breath and wished I hadn’t already smoked my only cigarette of the day. I blamed Sloane. My self-control wavered around her.
“Look, I know you probably didn’t dismember Metzer and feed him to your school of highly trained piranhas or whatever the hell aquatic life you rich guys invest in. I’m just pissed. Our useless crime boss son gave us the name, we did the legwork, but it’s yet another lead that didn’t pan out.”
The longer my team worked with Idler’s, the less annoying I found her. I admired her single-minded quest for justice, even though I preferred vengeance.
“Maybe he went underground,” I suggested.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about it,” Idler said. “Someone is cleaning up their mess. I’m gonna be pissed if this keeps me from personally slamming a cell door in Anthony Hugo’s face. The only two people alive who can corroborate that Anthony commissioned a list of people for his minions to assassinate are his idiot criminal son and his idiot criminal son’s ex-girlfriend. Neither is going to win any points in front of a jury.”