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“Back to work, huh?”
She nodded. “First day.”
“Are you okay? You look flushed.”
She put a hand to her warm cheek. “Hectic morning. What are you doing here?”
“Extra security for Eva McCoy. It’s a favor for the mayor.”
Carlotta frowned. “What does the city have to do with this?”
“Apparently Eva’s uncle is a state senator. He wants APD on the scene just in case. And since a uniform might send the wrong signal …” He shrugged. “Here I am.”
She surveyed his gray suit and gave his red tie a tug. “You look good.”
“I keep telling him that red is his color.”
At the sound of a purring voice, Carlotta turned her head. A doe-eyed, exotic beauty in a dark suit stepped into Jack’s personal space.
Jack gave the woman a proprietary smile. “Carlotta, I don’t think you’ve met my new partner, Detective Maria Marquez. Maria, this is Carlotta Wren, a friend of mine.”
Carlotta tried not to react. Friends? Is that what she and Jack were?
She had seen the woman once, at a distance. Up close, Maria was even more … wow. She was almost as tall as Jack, with killer curves, and caramel-colored hair smoothed back from her face in a clasp at the nape of her neck.
“Nice to meet you, Carlotta.” Maria’s English was precise, seasoned with the kind of curling accent that made words like blitzkrieg and psoriasis sound sexy.
“Same here,” Carlotta murmured.
When she’d razzed Jack about getting a partner, she’d envisioned a grumpy middle-aged man with hair in his ears, not a Latina siren with perfect teeth and no wedding ring. Damn, the woman even had good taste—her suit was Ellen Tracy and the pumps were Stuart Weitzman. Carlotta knew her own Betsey Johnson tunic dress and Fendi platform sandals could hold their own, but the cast on her arm was an unsightly accessory she couldn’t wait to be rid of. And she tongued the gap between her front teeth self-consciously.
“So you work at Neiman’s?” Maria asked. The way she said it left the unspoken comparison of “and I carry a gun” hanging in the air.
“That’s right,” Carlotta said.
“Carlotta also moonlights for the morgue,” Jack supplied cheerfully. “She’s a body mover.”
Carlotta squirmed. The gorgeous giantess packing heat made her feel like an underachiever. And short.
“A body mover? How … diverse. Is that how the two of you met?”
Carlotta exchanged a glance with Jack. He looked at Maria. “Not exactly. I’ll fill you in later,” he added in a low voice.
Great. He’d tell Maria all about her criminal family—her fugitive folks, her delinquent brother … Not to mention Carlotta’s own scrapes with the law. And her futile—and inept—efforts to hold her life and family together.
“Speaking of your morbid hobby, how is Coop?” Jack asked her with wry amusement.
Cooper Craft—her brother’s body-moving boss who had pulled her in on a couple of jobs … and who’d made it known that he wouldn’t mind them being more than friends. Coop was a former medical examiner. He and Jack maintained a relationship that existed primarily of circling each other like two big-racked bucks, but collaborating when necessary.
“With this bum arm, I haven’t been helping Coop lately,” she said. “And after Wesley conspired with those thugs to steal the body we were hauling from Florida back to Atlanta … well, let’s just say he needs to earn back Coop’s trust before they work together again.”
Her brother with the genius IQ somehow rationalized making the wrong choice at almost every juncture. She bit her lip and wondered how he was faring in court.
“Despite Wesley’s interference, Coop received a lot of attaboys for the way he handled that VIP body pickup—and the aftermath,” Jack said. “I hear that Abrams might give him more access to the active cases at the morgue.”
“Good for Coop,” she said, and meant it. The quiet intellectual acted as if he was content to be relegated to the job of body hauler for the morgue he used to run, but she often wondered if he missed being in the thick of things.
“I figured you’d be happy for him,” Jack said in a sly reference to the road trip she’d taken with Coop to Florida for some fun in the sun before picking up the body. Their plans to get to know each other hadn’t exactly panned out when Wesley had shown up as an uninvited chaperone. Still, she and Coop had had their moment … and had it snatched away.
Of course, Jack didn’t have to know that.
Besides, with her promise to Peter, it was all a moot point.
“I need to get back to work,” she said brightly, gesturing to the milling crowd. “Nice to see you both,” she said, including the decadent Maria in her glance.
“Hey.” Jack caught her good arm and leaned in, his golden-colored eyes serious. “Wes is seeing the D.A. today, isn’t he?”
She lifted her chin and nodded.
“Don’t worry. Liz will take care of him.”
Carlotta’s mouth tightened, but before she could respond, Jack picked up her left hand and rubbed his rough thumb over her bare ring finger.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Just checking to see if you’re wearing another man’s ring yet.”
He winked, then walked away to join Maria. Confounded as always by Jack’s behavior, Carlotta turned back to the customers to make sure everyone had a ticket before she shepherded them into line. Beneath her lashes, she stole glances at Jack and his new partner as they scouted the layout of the store event. They looked as if they belonged on TV—the great-looking partners with amazing chemistry who put away bad guys during the day … and burned up the sheets at night?
It only made sense that Jack would want to bed the beauty—he was a red-blooded man after all. And not in a hurry to put a ring on anyone’s finger anytime soon.
Besides, since his sometimes-squeeze, Liz Fischer, aka The Cougar, was now banging Carlotta’s little brother, the big-boobed attorney probably had less time for booty calls from Jack.
If there was a bright spot to Liz seducing nineteen-year-old Wesley, Carlotta thought wryly, it was that maybe she’d work harder to keep him out of jail. The threat of having to resort to conjugal visits in the slammer might keep her on her toes.
Carlotta fretted about Wesley between handing out tickets and informing people about the day’s event, as it had been laid out in the memo that she’d memorized.
“When Ms. McCoy arrives, she’ll say a few words and answer questions from the press. Then she’ll step over to the jewelry section where she’ll pose for pictures, sign autographs, and use an engraving tool to sign the back of any Lucky Charm Bracelet purchased. There is a limit of two bracelets per person.”
It would be a sellout, Carlotta thought as she looked down the long line forming. The jewelry department, adjacent to the event area, was already selling the charm bracelets as quickly as they could ring up customers.
The novelty was that each bracelet was purportedly unique, with random charms denoting travel or hobbies or almost anything. Each bracelet was packaged in a small brown box—the recipient didn’t know exactly what they were getting until they opened it after purchase. The idea was for the wearer to treat the bracelet as a suggested life list of sorts, to be inspired by the charms to try something unexpected. There were even special journals and Web sites for Charmers, as they were now being called. The craze was sweeping the nation, bolstered by Eva’s appearances on national talk shows, hefting the gold medal she’d won for the marathon that had held the world captivated as she’d fought back from her illness to pass the leaders and against all odds, win the event. Hers was one of the greatest human interest stories to emerge from the most recent summer Olympics. And like many athletes, she was cashing in on her newfound celebrity.
“Are those two people over there police officers?” Patricia asked, nodding to Jack and Maria.
“Detectives,” Carlotta said, trying not to let the pair’s familiar body language get to her. It was none of her business where Jack holstered his gun. “Added security as a precaution.”
“So it’s true, then.”
“What?”
Patricia covered her mouth with the back of her hand and whispered. “I read on the Internet that Eva McCoy has received death threats.”
“Death threats? The woman is a world-renowned athlete. Who’d want her dead?”
Patricia shrugged. “Who knows? Sports fans can be rabid. Maybe someone doesn’t like the fact that she beat their favorite runner. Or it could be one of those urban myths that start online and run wild. Regardless, I think I’ll buy a charm bracelet before they’re gone. Want me to pick one up for you?”
“I actually have a charm bracelet at home,” Carlotta murmured. From her teenage years. A gift from her father, it was somewhere in the depths of her jewelry box. She had buried so many things from that period in her life. “Thanks anyway,” she added begrudgingly. Patricia wasn’t so bad, she was just … persnickety.
“Looks like we have a lull,” Patricia said. “I’ll be right back.”
Carlotta glanced around and decided to take advantage of the break in the crowd to get a pain pill from her purse. Her arm hadn’t hurt like this in a while.
She made her way to the employee break room and gave the locker of her former coworker Michael Lane a wistful glance. It had been emptied, but was still tagged with police evidence tape. No one would touch it, as if they might catch whatever it was that had taken hold of Michael. Carlotta opened her own locker to remove her purse. She checked her cell phone for messages, hoping Wesley hadn’t forgotten his promise to call and let her know what happened with the D.A. But there were no messages, leaving her to fear the worst. Jack had once warned her that the D.A. despised her father so much that he might try to take it out on Wesley.
With growing apprehension, Carlotta pulled the prescription bottle of Percocet from her bag and removed the lid. When the last pill rolled out into her hand, she frowned. She’d barely touched the bottle of painkillers, and had even turned down the doctor’s offer for extra refills because she hadn’t wanted to become dependent on them.
She used her cell phone to dial the pharmacy and request one of the refills she had left.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but there are no more refills on this prescription.”
“But I’m looking at the pill bottle, and it says I have two more.”
In the background was the sound of computer keys clicking. “According to our records, the prescription was refilled two weeks ago and again last week.”
“But that’s impossible—” Carlotta began to argue, then cut herself off. She suddenly felt sick to her stomach. She hadn’t taken the bottle of pain pills, and she hadn’t gotten the prescription refilled. Which left only one other person in the house who could have.
“Thank you,” she said hastily, then disconnected the call. Her eyes pooled with sudden moisture. Had Wesley taken the painkillers recreationally? Sold them?
Or was he hooked on them?
She put a hand over her heavy heart and murmured, “Oh, Wesley. What have you gotten yourself into now?”
2
Wesley glanced all around as he hurried into the building on Pryor Street that housed, among other government agencies, the offices of the Fulton County District Attorney. He was a nervous freaking wreck after riding his bike in a circuitous route just in case anyone from The Carver’s camp knew about the appointment and decided to intercept him, then persuade him not to agree to a plea deal in return for testifying against the brutal loan shark.
When he’d agreed to help The Carver’s men swipe the body of a starlet, Wesley had told himself he was killing several birds with one stone, so to speak.
The woman was already dead, after all. It was an olive branch to offer the loan shark for an embarrassing stunt Wesley had orchestrated on him at a strip club. And The Carver had promised to erase the rest of Wesley’s gambling debt in return for the favor. Besides, it wasn’t as if he’d been given the option of refusing the man who had already carved the first three letters of his last name into Wesley’s arm for a former offense.
At the memory, Wesley rubbed his arm through the jacket he’d worn as directed by his attorney. Underneath, the newly healed wounds itched where the skin had drawn tight.
Thinking back to the body-snatching scheme, Wesley shook his head. Why did he think he could do it? At the last minute he’d balked and when it was over, he’d come clean with his boss, Cooper, and the police. The D.A., an asshole named Kelvin Lucas who had indicted his dad, had wanted to nail Wesley to the wall. But his attorney, Liz, had managed to persuade the D.A. that Hollis Carver was a bigger fish. Since Wesley still owed The Carver a shitload of money, it was in his best interests if The Carver went to jail for a long time.
On the other hand, The Carver could probably pull strings no matter where he was. If he found out that Wesley had turned on him, he might have the rest of his name and his address cut into Wesley’s skinny body.
Once inside the lobby, Wesley slowed his pace so as not to attract attention from the security guards, and joined the line of bored people going through a metal detector. He jammed his hands in his pockets, trying to calm his nerves, but his brain was firing like a machine gun. Sweat trailed down his back, and behind his glasses his left eye ticked nervously. It was the OxyContin—or rather, the lack of it—kicking in.
He was really making an effort this time to stay away from the stuff. The Percocet he’d pinched from Carlotta’s purse and the two refills he’d gotten had bridged the worst of his withdrawal symptoms, but he had only one pill left. He fingered the capsule in the corner of his pants pocket, yearning to swallow it, but drawing some comfort from its mere presence.
He’d hardly left the house the last couple of weeks except to go to ASS, Atlanta Security Systems, where he was poking around in his dad’s trial files under the guise of doing community service for hacking into the courthouse computer. So he’d definitely noticed that the house was being watched. The first appearance of the black SUV at the curb in front of the town house where he and Carlotta lived had nearly made him piss his pants. He’d gathered up anything that could be used as a weapon: a hammer, a few butcher knives, a cast-iron skillet, even a can of hair-spray from Carlotta’s bathroom. But when no one had emerged from the SUV with guns drawn to storm the place—the vehicle had simply left and returned at different hours of the day—he’d wondered if someone was looking out for him. Maybe Jack Terry had sent a fellow cop to patrol the house, at least until Wesley could strike his deal.
He pivoted as the line moved forward, looking for signs of trouble. When he was two people back from reaching the detector, he spotted Mouse, The Carver’s head henchman, entering the front door of the building.
Wesley almost swallowed his tongue and pecked on the shoulder of the stout woman in front of him. “I’m late for a meeting. Would you mind if I go ahead of you?”
The woman frowned. “We’re all in a hurry. You’re gonna have to wait your turn like everybody else.”
He hunched his shoulders and tried to look inconspicuous, but Mouse noticed him and came charging toward him.
The woman was chatting with the security officer, taking her sweet, fat time.
“Hey, could you put some wheels on it?” Wesley said, moving his hand in a rolling motion. His heart was galloping like a racehorse’s.
She frowned, but lumbered through the metal detector. Mouse lunged for him and Wesley practically humped the woman trying to get through the narrow opening behind her. He felt a tug on his shoulders as Mouse grabbed the neck of his jacket to yank him back. Wesley held his arms behind him and walked out of the garment.
He looked back to see Mouse glaring at him, holding the jacket. Wesley gave him a little salute. No way was Mouse walking through the metal detector—the man probably had weapons stowed in his cheeks.
“You have to come out sometime,” Mouse called.
Wesley swallowed and continued walking across the lobby and down a hall to the elevators. Liz Fischer, his attorney, was standing to the side, checking her watch. She was a triple threat—beautiful, blond and bossy. When she glanced up, her red mouth lifted in a chiding smile. “I was just getting ready to call you. It wouldn’t look good for you to arrive late for your own plea bargain.”
“It took longer to get here than I’d planned.”
She frowned. “I thought I told you to wear a jacket.”
“Sorry—I forgot.”
She sighed. “Oh, well, at least you wore a tie. But you’re sweating like a pig.”
He wiped a hand across the back of his neck. “It’s summer in Atlanta, and I rode my bike here.”
“So why are your hands shaking?”
“I’m nervous, okay?”
She gave his shirt a little pat. “Shake it off. You need to make a good impression on the D.A. Otherwise he might worry that you’ll renege on your agreement to testify against Hollis Carver.” She glanced at her watch. “We should go. This will be over soon, and we can all get back to normal.” Her fingers slid inside his shirt to stroke his bare skin and the tip of her tongue appeared.
Wesley swallowed. He missed banging Liz—her body was to die for—but at the moment, he’d rather have a hit of Oxy. Inside his pocket he turned the last Percocet capsule over and over, telling himself he’d save it to celebrate after the meeting ended. Maybe he’d just chill in a men’s room and outwait Mouse.
He followed Liz onto the elevator, his pulse clicking as they climbed floors. When the elevator doors opened, he broke out into a fresh sweat. “Will Lucas be in the meeting?” he asked as she led him down a carpeted hallway.
“He could send an assistant, but since it’s you, he’ll probably put in an appearance.”
“You mean since I’m Randolph Wren’s son?”
“That’s right.” She stopped at a frosted glass door, rapped sharply, then pushed it open.
