Against the Dark Read online

  Cole went on about the sawing of the arms. He’d had to drag the body into the woods and stabilize each arm on a tree trunk to get leverage, he said. He got thick into the details of how the body came apart. Walter heard him in a way he doubted even Cole understood, but this kind of attention to the details of bodies during death and just after death was something common to a lot of killers; it reminded Walter of the way some men like to watch the minute pulsations of their cocks as they ejaculated, as a way to more fully enjoy the whole experience. There were certain…aspects of killing he liked, too. But however much Walter enjoyed a kill, he didn’t want to relive another man’s kill. He cut Cole off, mid-story.

  “I presume he doesn’t work alone,” Walter said. “What about the other guys?”

  “Still out there, I’m afraid. My thinking is, with all this heat on them and now this one disappeared, the other two—there’s two of them for sure—are probably on a plane. I could take this thing international…”

  “An all-expense-paid trip to Europe, Mr. Hawkins?”

  Cole held up his hands as if to show his innocence. As if he wouldn’t hear of putting Borgola to extra expense. “Just my best guess for where they went.”

  Walter motioned at the fireplace. “Set the hands on the mantel for now.” He’d have DNA taken and have his guy compare it to the blood at the crime scene. You always double-checked your people’s work.

  Cole took the bag off the desk and trotted to the mantel and set down his prize, shaggy and freckled and bespectacled like the dog he was. Borgola opened the Ziploc bag; this one contained five small velvet pouches. The diamonds. “I didn’t want any to fall out,” Cole said sheepishly. “So I put them in a Ziploc.”

  Did the man want a prize?

  Walter held one up to the light, watched it sparkle. He’d choose a few random stones to be inspected by his jeweler, but he was relatively sure they were real, and not only because of their look. You fabricated diamonds when you planned on switching them, not after you stole them. Still, a man double checked his facts, even when things were going well. Especially when they were going well.

  “This is all he had with him? What about the other heist? Tell me you didn’t leave anything behind.” Or nick anything for yourself.

  Cole shrugged. “It was these in a leather satchel. The Malibu robbery was women’s jewelry, and it came earlier. Maybe they’re already being fenced or hidden in stuff for smuggling. It was the stones I was following and the stones I found.”

  “Indeed you did, Mr. Hawkins. Congratulations. Looks like you’ve earned the promotion.”

  Cole nodded. Smiled. There was something dark about the smile that heartened Borgola as much as his murder details. This man could rise in his organization, maybe even be a protégé. But protégés often challenged their masters. Would Cole?

  “I’m giving you a bonus,” Walter announced. “And how about two extra days off?”

  “That would be great,” Cole said. “I missed my new girlfriend’s birthday last night chasing all around. She’s steamed. I may take her for dinner and bring her back for the night.”

  “I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.”

  “She’s mostly my girlfriend in her mind. I’m not much for the whole can of worms…you know.”

  Walter laughed. Yes, he knew. “How about you bring her to dinner. I’m entertaining tonight. We could make it a foursome.”

  “Sir?”

  “Drinks poolside to be followed by dinner. What do you say? Dinner with the boss ought to earn you some points.”

  For once Cole appeared speechless. He didn’t seem to like the idea, but when the boss invited you and your girl to dinner, you damn well went. Cole was a little too capable, Borgola decided. He needed to take Cole under his wing or kill him. The fastest way to turn a high-performance killer into a threat was to keep him in a low-level post like mansion security head. If you didn’t use a man’s abilities, his abilities would use you.

  Yes, he needed to get on the inside of Cole Hawkins. He’d see how he operated socially, and in the meantime, he’d install some cameras in his quarters, see what kind of man he was out of the spotlight. If he was going to move him up, he needed to know everything about him.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The jerk arrived on Tuesday morning expecting her to be ready to go. He dismissed Arturio, poor Arturio with his smart-guy glasses and baleful demeanor. But under that nerd exterior was a very dangerous man—Angel had seen the way he came to attention at the slightest sound. Were all of Cole’s friends badass brainiacs just like him? Where did these guys even come from?

  “Adios, amiga,” Arturio said.

  She smiled. “Amigo.” She watched him head down the hall to the elevators. Last night she’d made an extra brie and caramelized onion pizza for him. Unlike Cole, he treated her respectfully. They’d eaten together watching a double feature of reality shows, plus a Venezuelan telenovela. He was of Italian heritage, but he spoke fluent Spanish and it had been nice to converse with him—her Spanish sometimes got rusty, and it made her self-conscious around other Latinos.

  Now it was her and Cole.

  Cole was dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt that was a faded blue, and it was worn enough that the collar hung loose off his neck, revealing a sprinkle of chest hair.

  She closed the door. “You could’ve called.”

  “Well, I didn’t. No time like the present to start acting our roles, right, honey? I’m the kind of guy who drops by. You’re always ready for me.” Cole walked into the living room. “We need to get a few things straight between us if you’re going to pose as my new girlfriend. There’s been a complication.”

  “What?”

  “The boss invited us to dinner.”

  “Excuse me? Borgola?”

  He took the chair he’d taken before. Apparently that was his chair now. “It’ll be fine. He’s taken an interest in me. He’s more grateful on the returning-the-diamonds bit than I’d thought.”

  “Good interest can be as dangerous as bad interest,” she said.

  He smiled like a Cheshire cat—a handsome, brilliant Cheshire cat with dark golden hair. “Is that so?” he said.

  Angel’s stomach jumped. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  Don’t toy with me. Don’t bait me because you know I want you. “Don’t mess with me,” she finally said.

  “But it’s so fun.”

  She shot him a look and he straightened up his smirk. She felt nervous enough without his crap. Going back to Borgola’s wouldn’t be easy. Though she trusted Cole to get the details of the job right; he was clearly in some sort of high-functioning criminal organization. And there was that disarm last night—he was lightning fast and not afraid to play dirty.

  “Anyway, the good news here is that we’ve only just begun dating,” he said, “so it’s not like we need to know everything in the world about each other.”

  “What about the tapes of the party? I’m on those tapes. Should we say we met there?”

  “Nah. The timing will feel suspicious. Plus, anybody who’s reviewing the tapes, I guarantee, even if they’re looking at the women, which they’re not, but even if, let’s just say you’re looking different enough that they won’t recognize you. It’s quite the little advantage you have.”

  “Being able to change my boob size?”

  “You have more latitude with disguises in general, being a woman.”

  “Oh, it’s as much a disadvantage as an advantage, believe me.” He had that fiery look in his gray eyes. “I know you don’t think that.”

  “Gotta use what you can.”

  She heard the edge in it. “And you don’t like being fooled.”

  “Best if you don’t do it again. You won’t like how it ends.” He crossed his legs. “Got any coffee, honey?”

  “I’m not your girlfriend.”

  He said, “If you want to blend in somewhere, the first person you have to convince is yourself. You care
about me. Right now, you’d be thinking, I want to make my hot, virile hunk of man meat comfortable and happy. Access your motivations.”

  She gave him the droop-eye that Macy sometimes used. “You don’t want to know my motivations.”

  “How did you do that with your eye?”

  “Little thing called practice.”

  “Look…” he held up his hands as if in surrender. “Let’s do this right. I started out with a jerky personality.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  He got up from the chair, went back to the door, opened it a couple of inches and then shut it. “Heya baby.” He smiled. “How is it that you can be all morning-ish in sweats and no makeup and still be the hottest thing I’ve ever goddamn seen?” He lowered his voice. “Come here.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. It was better when he was being jerky. “You want some coffee?” she snapped.

  “Yeah,” he said. “The usual. No cream. No sugar.”

  She poured him a cup. “I take cream and sugar. A lot of sugar.”

  “Good. This is good.” He grabbed his mug. The picture on it was a sheep with a hat. “So where did we meet? Where do you hang out?”

  “The beach, the gym. My coffee shop. The nail salon.”

  “Ah, the life of a jewel thief. You tell people you’re an interior designer.”

  “I am an interior designer.”

  “That actually sounded convincing.”

  “I am one,” she snapped.

  He looked around. “Well, I guess nobody has to see your place.”

  “Excuse me? My place is awesome.”

  “It’s girly.”

  “I’m a girl. If I were designing your place, it would be more masculine.”

  “It would have to be extremely masculine.”

  “And in the living room I’d put a giant, blown-up photo of your washboard stomach, since it’s apparently your pride and joy.”

  He smiled. “I think it would be more appropriate here. You can moon over it while I’m away.”

  “Or use it as a dartboard.”

  He sipped his coffee. “That attitude won’t do. Because I need to inform you, you’re way more into me than I’m into you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Sorry, that’s how it evolved in my conversation with Borgola. You want a relationship. I want sex. So when we’re around Borgola, no talk of dartboards, okay? You have to act really into me.”

  She glared at him. “Aren’t covers supposed to be vaguely plausible?”

  He pushed up his shirt. “Girl, you just can’t get your mind off this action, can you?”

  “Stop it.” She turned and grabbed a bag of rice cakes. It was a little bit true, unfortunately. Horribly so—she couldn’t get her mind off the way he’d slid his hand over his abs in her bedroom, pulled out her gun and set it down on the nightstand, then lowered his hand, sliding his fingers over his belly, letting them linger on his snaps—oh, it was insanely sexy. She’d wanted him to keep going, unsnap his pants, pull his shirt right off, to go to her, to say those things about her wanting that action. She loved that smart, cocky confidence.

  “And I missed your birthday chasing down the diamonds, so I’m going to show you an extra special birthday over the next few days. Which, incidentally, he’s given me off in thanks for a job well done. This is good coffee.”

  “It’s half decaf,” she said.

  “Why? Why do people do that?”

  “You want me jumpy and shaky when we get to the secret safe?”

  “Fair enough,” he said. “So we met at a coffee shop maybe three weeks ago. The Savannah on Grand—does that work for you?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  “How did we start talking?”

  “I was dog sitting for my neighbor. Dogs always get people talking.”

  “Good,” he said. “The dog’s name is Norman. An Irish Setter mutt. And we took him to the beach together.”

  “It was a Tuesday,” she said. “Let’s make this our four-week anniversary.”

  He pulled out his phone, flipped through some screens. “That works for my schedule. And then our first date was Italian food. How about Mito’s. You know that place?”

  “Fancy. Looks like you had some high hopes for our first date,” Angel said.

  “And every one of them came true.”

  “You wish.”

  He rose, walked over. Her breath hitched, but he just grabbed the bag of rice cakes from the counter. “Got any real food?”

  “This is real food. If you’d wanted me to make you breakfast, dear, you should’ve called first.”

  “Got any peanut butter?”

  She huffed and pulled some peanut butter out of the refrigerator, then grabbed him a knife and plate.

  “Thank you.” He unscrewed the lid and went to work slathering a thick layer over the rice cake.

  Something perverse and wicked inside her enjoyed him there in her kitchen with his attitude and appetite, a prime specimen of the dangerous, bad boyfriend. But Cole was more than a mere specimen—he exemplified the class. He was the pinnacle peak of self-destructive men, having reached an extreme and nearly perfect level of badness out in the wild.

  And here he was, taking over her kitchen. Taking over her life.

  “You were amazing that first night after Mito’s,” he said. “Even at the restaurant we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.”

  “I think you’ve become confused by the kiss at the party. I only kissed you because we needed to know if you thought I was a hooker or if we were being watched as threats. Informational purposes only. I’m usually not like that.”

  “Informational purposes only?” He gave her a smug look. “That kiss?”

  “Yeah. I’m a prude in real life. So, after our date at Mito’s, I maybe kissed you on the cheek but that’s all. In fact, I wasn’t sure if I’d keep dating you. Actually…” She smiled, lowered her voice, “you seemed like a bit of a dip to me.”

  He frowned. “A dip?”

  “Yes, a dip. I recall giving you a pity peck on the cheek.”

  He barked out a laugh. “No, no, no. I’m sorry, but that’s not how I remember our first date, darling.” He captured her with that devastating smile of his; he had a way of mesmerizing her. Was he doing it on purpose?

  And then he lowered his voice. “At the restaurant, you couldn’t keep your hands off me.” He spoke in a smooth, wistful way, like he was really remembering it. “All through dinner, all you could think about was we’d finally be alone, and where I would put my hands, where I would put my mouth.”

  Her face heated.

  “You had a skirt on. And by the time dessert arrived, you had your high heels off under the table and were you exploring me.”

  Her pulse thrummed in her neck. “Exploring you?”

  He raised his brows. “Mercilessly.”

  “Definitely didn’t happen.”

  “You invited me in for dessert afterwards. Fresh baked cookies from that dough you keep in the fridge. But we never got that far.”

  “Dream on.” She tried to say it casually to cover the shot of panic she felt from being chained in place by his gaze, from being excited by his words. This man who was blackmailing her into a dangerous crime.

  He spread more peanut butter onto the rice cake, moving the knife slowly across the surface, creating heavy, velvety ripples. Even this was sensual in Cole’s hands. “You looked so hot, standing right there.” He glanced up. “You stood right where you are now, Angel, and you melted my mind.” He added another dollop, creating a thicker layer, spreading slowly. He paused and looked up again. “And I kissed you right up against that refrigerator, pushing your warm, soft body into that cold, hard surface. God, you felt good. And you were so ready to go. I pressed my fingers between your legs through your skirt—right at the spot that drives you wild. Kneaded you slow and sure.”

  She laughed in shock. “Kneaded me?”

  “Oh, yes, and you ground into my hand, what
little you could move. You were so wet for me, you were practically dripping.”

  “Can’t say I recall that,” she said as his words invaded her senses, sliding over her skin like silk ribbons, turning her on. And he knew—she could see it in his eyes. Watching her, taunting her.

  “Then I pushed up your skirt. Slowly. You begged me to fuck you. You were so ready to go, baby, you were so ready to go. I couldn’t make you wait as long as it would take to carry you to the bed. I slid my hand into your panties. I slid my finger along the seam of your pussy.”

  She swallowed, blood racing. There he stood, clear on the other side of the kitchen island, but she felt like he was touching her.

  “My whole finger, Angel, all along your seam. One long, slow, firm length of a man’s finger. Slicked-up and calloused, running all along you. Front to back. Back to front. Front to back, slowly invading, pressing deeper. Do you remember how you moved with me?”

  “You’re crazy,” she whispered.

  His bangs had fallen in front of his glasses but he didn’t flick them away. It made him look out of control and slightly dangerous. “We were relentless together. You begged me not to stop, and then you bit my earlobe. Well, I have an ear thing, as you quickly learned. Feel free to take notes.” He paused and licked the knife. She watched, thinking about his tongue on her.

  His eyes danced with humor. He knew, of course. He was diabolical, this man.

  “You were helpless under my touch. A good helpless. The kind you like, Angel. I had you in the palm of my hand. Literally. You would’ve given me anything not to stop. And I took pity on you. I didn’t stop. I’m not the kind of guy to put a horny woman through the paces or make her beg. At least not until the third date or so.”

  She tried to speak, but no words came out. Her nipples felt taught with sensation. He pinned her still with that gaze.

  “Now, where was I? Oh, right. You, on the verge of begging, helpless under my touch. I kept it up, all that endless friction of my finger, my rough callouses slicked up. Slowly and relentlessly traveling along your folds, pressing into you.”