Skin Deep (8 page)

The stark, stabbing fear that had come nearly four years later, when the police had knocked on the door of her
mami
’s house, faces serious and badges bright.

A shift in the shadows had Isabella on full alert, her heart beating a fresh batch of adrenaline through her body and her breath adjusting to temper it. The figure moved up the street on strong, stealthy footsteps, and her muscles released—although only slightly—in recognition. A minute later, Kellan reached the passenger side of her Mustang, his movements perfectly fluid as he hooked his fingers beneath the door handle and settled himself into the seat beside her.

“Nice car. I should’ve known you’d drive a Ford,” he said, a thread of heatless sarcasm woven through the words.

In an instant, Isabella’s armor was locked back into place. “Do not speak ill of my baby. I’ll leave you here before we even start.”

“No you won’t.” His teeth flashed in a smile that Isabella felt in the pit of her stomach even though she really didn’t want to. He said, “The Camaro’s two blocks over, in the opposite direction of Kylie and Devon’s apartment. Everything’s good to go.”

“Great.” She turned the key, the Mustang’s engine growling quietly to life. The job in front of her wasn’t small. She needed to pave over memory lane and get to business. “So listen. Before we do this, there are a couple things you need to know.”

Walker didn’t budge in his seat, but everything about his demeanor said he was all ears. “Shoot.”

“Carmen’s a little, ah. Prickly. Especially in front of people she doesn’t know.” The woman had good reason to be rough around the edges, what with the former junkie/prostitute part of her past. But for now, Isabella was keeping that nugget tucked safely away. No need to air her CI’s dirty laundry. Carmen might give off nine different brands of attitude, but she was getting her life together. “Her abrasiveness is just her way of testing the water, so don’t take it personally. She’s going to be on edge enough as it is when she sees me.”

“Wait. Doesn’t she know you’re coming?”

Walker’s tone was all surprise over judgment, and Isabella couldn’t help it. She laughed, long and loud. “Some CIs are easier to work with than others. Carmen needs a little finesse. Especially if I want to get useable information out of her.”

“Ah.” His chin lifted in a single nod of understanding, the passing street lights allowing small glimpses of his expression. “So you think she’ll be more likely to come out with the truth if you take her by surprise.”

“Now you’re catching on.” Isabella traded one street for another, the asphalt growing dingier and more warped with poorly patched potholes and faded yellow lines as she headed toward the notoriously rough section of the city down by the North Point River pier. “Carmen’s had a hard life. She’s on the upside now, but she’s still pretty wary. Especially of cops.”

“Duly noted.” After another minute, he added, “Anything else I should know?”

A ribbon of surprise uncurled in her belly, but far be it for her to say no if he wanted to go the whole knowledge-is-power route. “I might have to withhold some things or even bend the truth when I ask her what she knows about the house and who was in it. You’re going to need a decent poker face.”

He shifted, his black canvas jacket shushing over the passenger seat as he turned to look at her. “You’re going to lie to your informant in order to get her to give you information.”

“Not if I don’t have to, and I’d never lie about what she’ll get in return for useable intel,” Isabella qualified. After all, CIs were an asset. Jerking hers around wouldn’t get her anywhere, not to mention it was a dick maneuver of the highest order. “But yeah. If I have to massage the truth or be tough on her in order to get her talking, you can bet your ass I will.”

“So it’s more like angling for what you want,” Walker said, and she nodded in reply.

“Yes. Rule number one is to tell as much truth as you possibly can. People have all sorts of tells when they lie, even for the best of liars telling the tiniest untruths. Plus, Carmen’s smart. The more truth I tell her, the less there is to get caught in if she calls me on it.” Isabella paused to lift a quick brow at him through the shadows of the Mustang’s interior. “For example, it would probably be damn near impossible for me to sell you as my boyfriend than as some nosy, pain in my ass firefighter.”

Funny, he raised a brow right back at her. “You wouldn’t date a guy like me?”

The suggestion sent enough warmth through Isabella to be fully distracting, and okay, maybe that example had been a bad idea.

She took a breath. “I don’t date, period, and Carmen knows it. Anyway, you’re bound to infuriate me while I’m talking to her, and I’ll probably be as likely to cover it up as I am to bench press a baby grand. In this case, it’s just better to tell her the truth.”

“That makes sense,” Kellan said, waiting a couple of well-shadowed city blocks before adding, “What do you mean, you don’t date, period?”

Finally
, an easy question. “It’s pretty straightforward. The job doesn’t leave me much free time, and anyway, dating’s too much of a hassle. So I just don’t.”

“Not to get too personal, but don’t you get…”

His tone led her on an easy trip of connect-the-dots. “Horny? Sure. But I didn’t say I don’t have sex. Only that I don’t date.”

Isabella shivered. As far as she was concerned, ‘relationship’ was just a four-syllable word for ‘please put all my emotions through a wood chipper and expect me to smile while you’re at it.’ At least sex was easy enough most of the time, although lately she’d been all work, no play. Jesus, her vibrator was working as much overtime as she was. Her no-nonsense, just-sex approach wasn’t the norm, she knew, especially for a woman. In fact, it usually either made men shy away from the topic entirely or propelled them to proposition her.

But Walker didn’t do either. “That’s pretty jaded,” he said, and Isabella pulled her gaze from the road for just a second to arch a brow in reply.

“Don’t tell me you’re looking for happily ever after over there.”

He lifted a dark brow right back at her through the shadows. “Looking for it? Maybe not. I’m hardly Prince Charming material. But I don’t want to be alone forever, either. Do you?”

Danger, Will Robinson! Back away from the question
. “Being alone has its benefits,” she pointed out. Namely that not letting anyone in meant not having to worry you’d lose them. Been there. Done that. Not ever doing it again, thanks.

Walker, it seemed, didn’t agree. “And that’s why all you do is have no-strings-attached sex? Because you like being alone?”

Isabella opened her mouth, fully prepared to argue. But the last thing she needed right now (or, okay. Ever) was yet another version of the don’t-you-want-to-find-someone-and-settle-down speech her mother launched in her direction at regular intervals from her retirement condo in Miami.

And the first thing she needed to do—the
only
thing—was work.

“Yes, actually. That’s exactly why I do it. Now did you want to talk about your sex life too, or should we use these last few minutes to finish prepping for this little fishing expedition with Carmen?”

Walker’s stare was a palpable thing through the flashing glow of the overhead streetlights, and for a second, she thought he would push. But instead, after a minute he simply shrugged, turning to look out his window at the inky water beyond the pier that had just come into view in the distance.

“I think we’re good on both counts, Moreno. Now let’s go see what we can find out about the girls in those pictures.”

J
ulian looked
into the mirror in front of him with a hard, assessing stare. He was as meticulous with his grooming as he was with all things, so he moved his gaze slowly from the top of his white-blond head over his cleanly shaved face before coasting lower to the expanse of his bare, smooth chest. His rigid exercise regimen required no less than two hours a day, carefully cultivating the lean muscles covering his frame. No clumsy bulk for him, nothing ostentatious that couldn’t be tastefully covered. Everything about Julian was precise, purposeful.

Clean
. Filth could not be tolerated. Under any circumstances.

Filth needed to be purged. Punished.

A knock sounded on the door, the hard, boorish echo filtering through the suite to capture Julian’s attention all the way in his dressing room. His pulse quickened at his state of nakedness, but he knew no one in the house would dare even touch the knob to his suite without his consent.

After all, he’d made sure to train his staff properly. Mistakes such as the violation of his privacy were disciplined before the entire group to ensure they never happened twice.

Only one person had ever entered his private rooms without permission. And that one example had been enough.

“You’ll wait,” Julian said with just enough volume to be heard and obeyed. Turning away from his reflection, he began to dress, following his routine to the letter until his body was covered, his skin and his scars perfectly hidden, just as they should be. He settled into the large Italian leather chair in his mahogany-paneled sitting room, the one that faced the door in planned strategy for meetings such as this, arranging his features just so before shifting his gaze to the entryway.

“Come.”

Charles stepped in from the hallway, his beefy face appropriately serious. Good that their last meeting had retained the desired effect. “Evening check-in. Sir,” the miscreant added, as if the address would win him any favor.

Julian considered it. Still, best to keep Charles in his place, where he belonged. “You seem to be healing rather well, Charles,” he said, allowing his eyes to rest on the man’s left arm. Truly, the bandage didn’t even show beneath his shirt sleeves. Yet Julian knew from the sudden sheen beading over Charles’s forehead that he certainly still required one.

Satisfaction mingled with power, forming a potent cocktail in his veins. “And how are things progressing with my new acquisitions?”

“Good, sir.” Charles cleared his throat, his hulking body at rigid attention as he delivered the report. “All three girls are at the new facility with Franco. They should be ready by next Friday night.”

“If Franco is training them, I should hope so.” The man was abhorrent, giving in to every base urge under the sun. Unfortunately, that made him a prime candidate for effectively breaking in Julian’s merchandise, and thus he was necessary. Lord knew Julian wasn’t going to subject himself to such disgusting depths. The girls were even more unclean than Franco himself. “And the preparations for tonight’s gathering?”

Charles jerked his head in a nod, the movement awkward considering his distinct lack of a neck. “The private rooms are set. Everything is in place for your guests, and the girls are ready to serve them.”

“Excellent,” Julian said. His thoughts turned to his weekly party, of how his guests would shamelessly suck and fuck and shoot up and share until they were sated, of how the girls they used would take all that was given to them like the dirty little whores they were, and how he himself would watch every move, overseeing it all.

And everyone in attendance would get exactly what they deserved.

K
ellan took
in the sun-weathered and timeworn pier off the North Point River, keeping his eyes wide open and his body on full alert. At twenty-three hundred hours, the strip surrounding the docks was just starting to buzz to life, an undertone of bad intentions and even worse actions pulsing through the night air. He turned to give Moreno’s car one last look over his shoulder, hoping like hell the thing would be there when they were done with this heart to heart, even if it
was
a Ford. She didn’t seem to have any reservations, though, not even hesitating as she aimed herself in the direction of the long stretch of sketchy bars, tattoo parlors, and seedy convenience stores lining the boardwalk adjacent to the pier, proper.

They fell into step together, her shoulder brushing the outside of his biceps just once before she shifted to give him a wider berth. “This part of Remington gets rough at this time of night. Keep your eyes open.”

Kellan had to put his best effort into not laughing. Half the time he still slept with his eyes open. The other half of the time, he didn’t sleep at all. “I’ll do my best.”

Her brown eyes narrowed on him as they began to move side by side over the slim ribbon of concrete leading to the worst section of town, but she didn’t say anything other than, “Okay. Just follow my lead with Carmen, and for the love of all that’s good, please don’t piss her off.”

“I told you.” Kellan’s feet kept time with hers around the corner leading to the main drag, and he sent another wide-net gaze around them to take in their surroundings from the ground-level up.
Focus. Assess the facts
. “I’m all charm.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

They walked for a minute without talking, although Kellan had zero doubt that Moreno was far from aimlessly wandering. Her eyes moved keenly over the storefronts to their right, while his took ownership of the real estate to their left, cataloguing the people standing off in the shadows, leaning on the wooden railing overlooking the glassy black water in the distance. The boardwalk was wide and sparsely lit, with nook-like lookout points off the main drag that allowed for all sorts of semi-privacy among groups of people who chose not to ask or tell. Kellan had counted six couples—no, make that seven—who had been participating in various states of exactly that before the red and white sign boasting “Three Brothers Pizza” flashed in the near distance above Isabella’s shoulder.

“I don’t suppose you’ve had a change of heart and want to let me do this chat solo?” she asked, firming her shoulders around her spine as she reached for the door handle next to the promise of “we deliver!” stenciled over the glass in bright red letters.

Kellan lost the battle with his snort. “Not a chance, sweetheart.” They were smack in the lap of the worst part of the city. No way was he leaving her to her own devices. Not even inside the pizza place. He didn’t care
how
long she’d been a cop.

“Can’t blame a girl for trying.” The words slid out under her breath, quickly falling prey to the sharp staccato of a woman’s voice filtering into the otherwise empty storefront from somewhere in the half-open kitchen area.

“Jesus H. Christ on a Popsicle stick, Lamar! Are you sleeping back here
again
? I swear on my
mami
’s eyes, I’m going to…” A pause in the diatribe said the voice’s owner had registered the electronic door chime. “I’m not through with you, you hear me? Now wake up and start breaking down this kitchen,
pendejo
. We’re closing in ten minutes. I’ve got a date tonight, and I’m not staying late for your lazy ass.”

Holy shit. This was Isabella’s CI? “Are you serious?” Kellan whispered, and Moreno gave up an I-told-you-so smile.

“As a sledgehammer,
sweetheart
.”

Even though he’d bought her attitude wholesale when he’d popped off and called her ‘sweetheart’ first, Kellan opened his mouth to dish back. His response, however, was unceremoniously cut short by the appearance of a petite, dark-haired woman behind the counter who looked none too pleased to catch sight of them standing there.

“Oh, no.” The woman, who couldn’t be more than five-foot-zip on her best day, jabbed an inch-long lime green fingernail in Isabella’s direction. “Turn back around,
pendeja
. We’re locking it up for the night, and we don’t got what you want in here anyway. Mmm-mmm.”

“Come on, Carmen. I just want to order dinner,” Moreno said, pointing to the pair of pizzas sitting under the grease-smudged heat lamps over Carmen’s shoulder. “I’ll take a slice of pepperoni. For here.”

The woman’s black-coffee eyes flashed beneath a heavy layer of makeup, her lashes so long and thickly fringed that Kellan wondered how she kept them open beneath the weight. “You want pizza,” she said, although she didn’t move a muscle.

“For starters.” Isabella reached into the back pocket of her jeans, peeling a twenty-dollar bill from the other four in her hand.

“With you, it’s always for starters,” Carmen grumbled. She turned to slide a piece of pizza onto a paper plate, but clearly, she wasn’t done trying to push Isabella’s buttons. “So, what,” Carmen said in Spanish, suggestion curving around every syllable. “You screwing this one? Because I gotta tell you, I wouldn’t throw his ass out of bed for eating crackers just as long as he was eating everything else, you know what I’m saying?”

Kellan clamped down on the urge to let his surprise show at the same moment Moreno froze into place next to him at the counter. “Yeah, I know what you’re saying, and no. I’m not screwing him,” Isabella answered, also in Spanish.

“But you want to.” Carmen’s eyes glinted, her lips curving into a hard smile as her stare moved from Moreno’s face to his and then back again. “Girl, I can practically smell it on you.”

By the time the second wave of Kellan’s shock registered, Moreno had the twenty tucked safely back in her pocket and a healthy foot added to the dance space between her body and the counter. “Your mouth always gets you into trouble, Carmen.”

The tension between the two women was even easier to translate than the words and shit.
Shit
. Moreno had made it clear that he was just along for the ride. She didn’t even have a clue he’d understood her conversation. But they’d come for answers, not a pissing contest, and they weren’t going to get anywhere this way. Best case scenario if he butted in was calming Carmen down enough to get her talking. Worst was that Moreno would be pissed that he hadn’t stayed quiet, and fuck it. He was getting pretty good at fielding her irritation anyway.

Kellan leaned one arm over the scuffed red Formica and worked up a smile just shy of cocky. “Isabella and I are only friends,” he said in Spanish. “But thanks for the compliment.”

Although both women gaped at him in clear what-the-fuck surprise, Carmen spoke first, switching back to English. “You’re welcome. I suppose you want pizza for starters too.”

“That would be great. Thank you.”

“You a cop?” Carmen watched Isabella, not Kellan, as she murmured the question softly, and damn, the woman knew exactly what she was doing.

“Nope.” He tiled his gaze downward to look her right in the eye, answering just as quietly even though the restaurant was dead empty. “Like I said, I’m just a friend of Isabella’s.”

“Hmm. All my ‘friends’ should look like you.” Carmen’s tone hooked verbal air quotes around the word, and she stood back, shifting her gaze between him and Moreno. Finally, she turned for another piece of pizza, nudging both plates across the counter, and Kellan let go of the breath he’d been holding. “I like you better than the other one she normally comes in with. He’s hot too, but bossy. Thinks he owns the place.”

“I’ll be sure to let Hollister know you said hi,” Isabella said lifting a brow along with one corner of her mouth. She passed over the twenty to cover the pizza, putting all the change Carmen handed back into the otherwise empty tip jar by the register.

“Be sure to tell him I said kiss my ass. Now what else do you want? Believe me when I tell you I’m not wasting all night with you two.”

She didn’t have to ask Moreno twice. “I’m looking for some information on a delivery you guys made to a house not far from here on August twenty-second.”

“That was almost a month ago, and we make a lot of deliveries.” Carmen folded her arms over her chest, but Moreno didn’t so much as bat an eyelash.

“You also have a computer system that keeps great records. Ninety-three-ten Glendale, about four miles from here. Can you look it up?”

“It’ll cost you.”

“I tip well.”

“You’d better,” Carmen said, blowing out an exaggerated breath before tapping the touch screen register to life. “Ninety-three-ten Glendale, let’s see…oh.” Her lips pressed into a hard, flat line. “Looks like we delivered there a bunch of times.”

“Anything recent?” Moreno asked, and Kellan could practically see the wheels turning in her mind.

Just like he could see Carmen’s expression slam shut. “Not in the last three weeks.”

Moreno leaned forward, hands flat over the chipped countertop. “Did the customer ever pay with a credit card?”

“No.” Carmen frowned and started to fidget. “Always cash.”

“But you remember the house,” Kellan said, and bingo. Her frown deepened for a split second before she blanked it from her face.

“Whatever, pretty boy. Like I said, we deliver to a lot of places.”

“Carmen.” Isabella’s gaze narrowed, although with more question than accusation. “Have you been to this house?”

Carmen made a noise comprised of mostly irritation, but it didn’t hide the unease pulling at the corners of her mouth. “Maybe I did the deliveries one night when our regular runner was out with the flu.”

“And you brought a pizza to this address?” Moreno’s tone shifted, softening ever so slightly, and Kellan would bet his paycheck she’d seen Carmen’s grimace just as clearly as he had. “Do you remember anything about the delivery?” she asked with care. “Who was in the house? What they looked like?”

Pushing back from the business side of the counter, Carmen scoffed, her titanium-tough attitude right back in place as she jammed her hands into the denim slung dangerously low over her hips. “Yeah, I remember. The guy invited me in to be dessert, then stiffed me for a tip when I told him he’d have better luck fucking himself. Asshole.”

Okay, so it was a good start, but being an asshole wasn’t against the law. Sadly. A fact which Moreno hadn’t seemed to have lost sight of, either. “What else, Carmen?”