Job Hunt (2 page)

Gareth Flynn didn’t seem to need a reservation. He merely nodded a greeting to the maître d’ before the man conducted them to a quiet booth at the far end of the room.

Jack followed in silence. The world around him felt like a beautiful island paradise littered with land mines, a pleasant dream that could turn into a nightmare at any moment. It urged him to caution, to move carefully, to listen rather than speak.

They settled into the soft cushions, and Jack’s brain unscrambled enough so that he could ask a question. “Do you come here a lot?”

“Often enough for the staff to know that I want peace and privacy when I do.”

Gareth’s tone was just this side of caustic, and Jack met Gareth’s eyes for the first time since the man’s surprise appearance at his interview. It wasn’t the smartest move in the book. The amber eyes burned with an intensity that snared Jack’s mind and took his breath. And that was before Gareth smiled.

A real, genuine smile curved the full lips into a tempting bow and crinkled the corners of Gareth’s eyes into spider webs of mirth. The gaze was warm, and Jack promptly drowned in the expression, painfully aware of how much he had missed seeing that smile.

“What are you drinking?”

Gareth’s amused tone drew Jack from his abstraction. He blinked rapidly, noted the waiter by his side—
where did he spring from? And how long has he been standing there?—
and registered Gareth’s words.

“Just water, thanks,” Jack said quietly. He really wanted something a little more potent, but that would have to wait until he made it home. For now, he had to pull himself together and act like the professional he was. Hiding behind the menu while he chose his lunch helped him settle, and after the waiter had brought their drinks and taken their orders, he felt a tad more ready to deal with Gareth Flynn.

“When did you leave the army?” he asked, pleased when his voice came out level.

“Eighteen months ago,” Gareth replied, raising his gin and tonic in a brief salute before taking a sip.

“Why?” The question slipped out before Jack could censor, and he fought not to flinch. He wanted to know, but… “Sorry. Bad form to quiz the boss—I remember.” His brain stuttered over the old, familiar phrase. He hadn’t heard or used it in too many years, yet here it was. Out of the mouths of babes and idiots….

“Jack.”

Gareth’s tone, commanding and hesitant at once, made him lift his head. Gareth wasn’t smiling this time, and his gaze was unforgiving.

What did I say?

Their food arrived, distracting them both, and Jack was content to let the issue drop. He didn’t doubt that Gareth would revisit this if it bothered him. Leaving things unfinished had never been Gareth’s way. Jack concentrated on his lunch—the devilled kidneys served with his Barnsley chop were just the way he liked them, with a nice kick at the end—and wondered if Gareth’s habit of neatly tying loose ends was the reason for this meeting.

“Have you really been looking for me?”

“Yes,” Gareth confirmed around a mouthful of roast beef.

“Why?” This time, Jack didn’t flinch when he asked. This wasn’t quizzing the boss. He was… gathering intel.

“At first, I just wanted to catch up,” Gareth mused. “Then I joined Nancarrow Mining and thought you might enjoy working there.” He pinned Jack with a direct stare. “And I wasn’t wrong, was I?”

“No.” The stab of disappointment was swift and sharp, but Jack kept his face blank and his answer to a single syllable. He
had
approached Nancarrow Mining about a job, so he couldn’t very well argue with Gareth’s assessment. “Is that the problem?” he asked instead. “You no longer think so now that you’ve seen my CV and watched the interview?”

“What do you mean?”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “If you’re trying to tell me that there isn’t a camera in that monstrous gilt frame behind the group of armchairs—”

…you can save your breath.

“I’m not,” Gareth interrupted brusquely. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d stop second-guessing me. If you possess half the brain everyone says you do, you must remember that I really hate being told what I’m thinking.” He set his knife down with a little too much force and clenched his fingers around the almost empty crystal tumbler. “I thought I’d beaten that out of you years ago,” he added under his breath.

Jack couldn’t stop the grin that spread across his face. This was vintage Gareth, from the bite in the tone to the stilted language, right down to the hand reaching for a convenient missile. Not that the crystal tumbler would come screaming at his head any time soon, but the reminder was… nice. Another little piece of history verified, shifted from the realms of wishful thinking into the box marked “real and true.”

Jack relaxed against his seat’s cushioned backrest. “Tell me what it is, then,” he demanded with something close to his usual aplomb. “Why did you gatecrash the interview? If you think I fit so well, why not leave the bureaucracy to run its course and surprise me on my first day?”

“Because I haven’t seen you in years,” Gareth replied, voice harsh. “Because you walked out without giving a single good reason. Because you’ve been avoiding all of us ever since.” He drew a deep breath and calmed himself with an effort. “Because I wanted to see if you’d avoid me if I stood right there.”

Heat washed across Jack’s neck and face. He’d known that Gareth would see his actions as a kind of desertion, but hearing the pain in the man’s voice as he recounted it hurt Jack on a level he didn’t think he could hurt anymore.

“I had a reason,” he told the linen-draped tabletop.

“I never disputed that. I just wish you’d trusted me enough to explain it to me.” Like Jack had done earlier, Gareth leaned back from the table and tried to relax. “Tell me one thing,” he said softly. “Was it PTSD?”

Jack drew a deep breath, grateful that Gareth didn’t pry. Grateful, too, that this was a question he could answer. He looked up, straight into a pair of intent amber eyes. “No.”

Gareth nodded, and his shoulders relaxed a fraction. “Fine,” he growled, before he pointed a finger at Jack’s face. “Now, what’s with that tat?”

“Don’t ask,” Jack groaned, wishing for a place to hide. Of course, there wasn’t one. Short of draping a napkin over his head or stripping off his jacket, there was little cover to be had while facing Gareth across a dinner table. Just as there was no way in hell he’d ever admit his real reason for getting that tattoo. “It was an idiocy committed on the back of too much booze, okay?”

“Should have known,” Gareth snorted. “How could you be a spook looking like that?”

“It’s a gift.”

“No doubt. Do you use makeup?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Jack had been trained to change his appearance—and hide the tattoo—using both cosmetic and theatrical makeup, but Gareth didn’t need to know that. Or what Jack looked like while he hunted pimps through nightclubs.

Still, the banter cleared the air, and both men carefully stayed away from serious topics while they finished their meal and drank their coffee. Only when the grand entrance of Simpson’s closed behind them and they rejoined the throng of pedestrians on the Strand, did Gareth return to their earlier conversation.

“I want you to work for me.” Gareth’s voice was low and serious. “We’re more than busy. There’s plenty of competition, and the fight gets dirty at times. Provided you’re careful, you wouldn’t even have to stick to one side of the law only.” Gareth ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Listen to me. I sound like a used car salesman.”

He did, in an endearing way, but Jack was too tense to be entertained. “Gareth, I… I’ll think about it.”

“Yes, you do. Think. Usually too much.” Gareth waved a hand in the air, an odd aura of defeat surrounding him. “Go and think. But watch that you don’t think yourself out of something you actually want.”

T
IME
SPED
and slowed in odd patterns when there were no means to estimate how late or early it might be. Being stuck in the dark made it worse, but Ricky had long given up asking for a light to be left on. Nobody cared enough to listen, and Ricky would rather not reveal another weakness for his keepers to taunt him with. Curled into a tight, tense ball, he huddled into his blankets. He buried his head under the lumpy pillow and tried to block out the sobs and pained shouts filtering through the thin walls from Nico and Daniel’s room next door.

The scent of patchouli hung in the locked, windowless room, so thick that he gagged if he breathed too deeply. His father used to wear it, and Ricky’s memories were full of insults, shouts, and pain, always accompanied by the sickly sweet, invasive scent. It made sense that Goran Mitrovic reeked of patchouli. The pimp got off on pain. He got off even more on inflicting it on others, though he tortured with more deliberation than Ricky’s late and unlamented father.

Ricky found no pleasure in being hurt, but he’d long since learned that being caned was sometimes better than the alternative: streams of strangers through his room at all hours, hard hands and rough mouths on his body, and nothing but threats and insults in his ears. Ricky barely heard the words anymore. Being apostrophized as a filthy, dirty whore didn’t bother him. He was better than that. He had choices. Being caned was the easy way out sometimes.

Daniel didn’t agree, but the slender, blond teen didn’t deal well with pain or violence. Daniel could hide inside his mind—something Ricky had never learned to do—and it seemed to help get the younger boy through the days and nights.

Please, don’t do anything stupid! Just give him what he wants,
Ricky begged silently. He knew that prayers served no purpose, but the sounds coming through the thin walls made him screw his eyes shut and address any higher powers that might perchance be listening. Or maybe he was simply hoping to connect with the youngest member of their little group, who refused to scream even though it might end the beating sooner.

The wall blocked the hiss of the whip, but it did little to muffle the sounds of harsh, rough laughter from the adjoining room. Daniel’s screams made Ricky bite his knuckles, made him flinch and shudder and drag the thin pillow tighter over his head, while Nico’s bitten off groans tore at his soul.

Ricky knew that Nico would rather take a beating than watch his friend being hurt and abused, that he frequently offered himself in Daniel’s place, to clients as well as their jailer. It had worked often enough that Nico had grown just a little too sure. He had tried to spare Daniel when Goran was in a foul mood, and now both boys were reaping the fruits of his failure.

Ricky was wiser in the ways of their world. He had learned to pick his battles. It hurt, but he swallowed the urge to hammer on the walls to stop the torture. Getting in the way of Goran’s entertainment would accomplish nothing; might even prolong the violence if he misjudged. At sixteen, he was the eldest of Goran’s boys and had been in the man’s clutches the longest. That didn’t mean that Goran listened to anything Ricky said. Just like the other boys, Ricky was caged. The doors to his prison opened when Goran saw fit and not a moment sooner.

Ricky pulled the thin blanket tighter over his head and buried his face deeper in the pillow. The rough laughs, Nico’s broken sobs, and Daniel’s screams continued for some time. Ricky huddled under his covers, muscles tight, and kept his eyes wide open in the dark long after the screams had turned to silence.

C
HAPTER
TWO
B
AIT

J
ACK
DIDN
’
T
talk to dead people. Not when sober, not when drunk. He wasn’t usually plagued by nightmares, either. The ghosts that haunted Jack Horwood were all among the living. And no nightmare matched the tortures his mind could inflict upon itself.

He hadn’t bothered to change when he came home, merely shed his tie and the coat of his suit before reaching for a bottle of his namesake. Soul-searching didn’t require fine Islay malt. Neat Jack was plenty to get him good and drunk. Not quite sozzled enough to muzzle his brain, but fairly close. He knew that was as good as it was going to get. Any more whisky and he’d be throwing up his guts for the next six hours—a prospect that just didn’t appeal, not even for the sake of nothing but white noise between his ears.

This morning’s interview had rattled him, had upset the equilibrium he had worked so hard to attain. Now his world teetered out of balance. Reality and want clashed with options he’d not realized he had. Continue on his chosen road or take a turn toward something new? Confront familiar dangers or unknown risks? Jack knew that he had to make a decision, had to make it before the alcohol-induced fog thinned and his mind went down six tracks at once again.

He stood by his bedroom window and looked out over the sleeping neighborhood of well-kept Victorian terraces and tree-lined streets. He lived in a decent part of town these days, where people had few reasons to break the law. At this time of night, the streets lay empty, quiet, and seemingly peaceful. Jack knew better. He had seen the living nightmares that hid in dark corners come out and prey on the unsuspecting when the sun went down. He had run from them as a kid, dodged them as a teen, and now he fought them with all his strength.

His army career had been the first thing that Jack had chosen purely for himself. He’d felt accepted there. Safe. Which was ironic, really, given what they did for a living. Walking away from all that had been torture. It had derailed Jack more than he’d expected it would. And it had taken a long time for him to settle and to find a measure of equilibrium. But he’d done it.

Jack was proud of his hard-won peace. He wasn’t happy, but he hadn’t expected to be happy. He kept busy, and he was useful—that was enough.

Jack stepped back from the window and closed the blinds. Then he fell onto his bed, still half-clothed but with his decision made.

T
HE
RINGING
phone brought Jack awake. Pearly gray light filtered around the blinds—too bright for his migraine-grade headache.
Too much thought and not enough water,
his subconscious mind supplied helpfully as memories of the previous day and night returned. They explained the headache and queasy stomach, explained why he sprawled across his bed in shirt and trousers… didn’t explain why he had woken.