Blood And Bone (8 page)

From this point forward, her behavior where Des was concerned would be nothing less than perfectly professional.

By the time Des arrived home, the sun’s first rays had started to brighten the eastern sky, and his mood had improved considerably. So much so, he was whistling. Sure, his body throbbed like he’d gone ten rounds with a fleet of sumo wrestlers, but aside from that, he felt pretty damned good.

Shayne wanted him. Maybe as badly as he wanted her. The knowledge filled him with a heady sense of triumph. Rebound? He grinned. Not when she’d kissed him like that.

He shoved his key into the lock of the garage apartment he rented, but found the door open. His good mood evaporated. If those assholes had broken into his apartment… He’d never considered the possibility before. The old widow he rented from was better than any alarm system he could buy. Nothing happened in this neighborhood Rose didn’t know about.

He pushed open the door and entered the small square kitchen. If there had been anyone in the apartment, they’d been extremely careful. The dishes piled in the sink were as he’d left them. Nothing appeared broken or out of place.

If those idiots had broken in, they wouldn’t have been careful and they certainly wouldn’t have left anything in his apartment intact. So who had been there?

Des climbed the steep stairs to the loft, but froze at the top. Hudson sat on the swivel chair behind his desk.

“I would have picked up the place if I’d known you were stopping by,” Des said, jamming his hands into the back pockets of his jeans.

Hudson watched him with small black eyes. “Now why don’t I believe you?”

“I’m surprised to find you here. Did you run out of defenseless women to terrorize on deserted roads?” As soon as the words left his mouth, he wanted to call them back. If Hudson knew about his visit with Shayne, Heddi would too.

The big man’s face remained stoic, as if he hadn’t heard Des. Between his robotic features and a physique like Frankenstein’s monster, it was easy to believe he was as thick in the head as everywhere else, but Des knew better. Hudson never missed a beat.

He stood, his huge square frame filling the room. “She wants to see you.”

Des tensed. “It’s five a.m.”

“Now.”

“My next payment isn’t due for another two weeks.”

“She wants to see you on another matter.”

His stomach churned sickly.
Please, not Julia. Not again
.

Despite his pounding heart, he cocked his head and tried to appear nonchalant. “Is Heddi interested in acquiring some property?”

“Now!” Hudson’s voice exploded like a thunderclap. “She doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

“It’s. Five. A. M.” He enunciated every word, as if speaking to the insanely dim-witted. “She’s not even awake.”

“You can wait for her at the house.”

Des sighed through gritted teeth. Exhausted and sore all over, the last thing he wanted was to be dragged in front of Heddi, but he had to go. Arguing with Hudson was about as effective as arguing with the wall.

“I want to change first.” Des went to the dresser at the far end of the long room.

“Stop stalling.”

“You might jump at her every command,” Des snapped, yanking open a drawer, “but I’ll be damned if I’m going to.” He pulled out a pair of clean jeans and a new shirt.

Hudson snorted. “Keep telling yourself that.”

Tension gripped Des’s aching muscles, and a dull pain throbbed behind his eyes. “She can wait ten minutes more for me to change.”

“Fine, make it quick.”

When Hudson made no effort to leave, Des yanked open his shirt. “Are you going to stand there and watch?”

Hudson gave him a last measuring stare, perhaps taking in the bruised flesh, then smirked. “Don’t look so down. She has a job for you. One small job and all debts will be wiped clean.”

“What do you mean?” Des asked, refusing to acknowledge the tiny kernel of hope expanding inside him.

“What I said. You do this for her, and she’ll forget the money you owe.”

What could Heddi possibly need from him so badly she would be willing to forget the money? To let him go. A kidney? No, he had two of those. One wouldn’t be worth it for her. Lung? Liver? Heart? Not likely, he doubted she had one to begin with.

Internal organs be damned. He would give his grandmother whatever she wanted if it meant he could finally be free.

Hudson ignored him for the twenty minutes it took to drive to the large Georgian-style house Des had come to despise over the years. The original family homestead dated back to 1860, but his Grey ancestors had soon replaced the original log cabin with the brick monstrosity before him.

His great-grandfather had amassed his fortune with a sawmill, exploiting the area’s resources and using the money to buy business after business, until he’d owned nearly half the town. A tradition his grandmother had maintained and expanded upon.

Hudson parked in front of the house, climbed out of the car and started up the stone steps to the door without a backward glance to see if Des was behind him. Why would he? Hudson knew he’d follow him like a well-trained dog. He had no other choice.

Inside, the foyer was dark and silent despite the sunny brilliance outdoors, the oppressive atmosphere like that of a tomb. Bleak emptiness combined with the sensation that he wasn’t alone. Somewhere down the dark hallways his corpse-like grandmother waited.

He followed Hudson to the parlor, but stopped short in the doorway.

“Jesus,” Des muttered. Someone had been redecorating. The period antiques that had once filled the room to the point of clutter were gone, replaced with a rose leather sofa and brass tables with glass tops. The room had been painted the same putrid pink and a wallpaper border had been added beneath the wide crown molding. “Who did this?”

“Vivian,” Hudson replied.

“And she lives to tell? She’s not buried somewhere in the woods?”

Hudson scowled and turned away. “I’ll see if she’s ready for you.”

Once alone, Des moved to the window. The steady tick of an old cuckoo clock on the wall behind him—one of the few surviving antiques—filled the room and throbbed in time with his head. The ibuprofen was wearing off. He wanted to go to bed.

Outside, sunlight spilled over the emerald lawn. His gaze followed the cobbled drive to the line of trees hiding the road from view. If he squinted, he could imagine he saw, through the tangled branches, the sun glinting off the cars as they sped past.

As a child, he’d stood in this window for hours, hoping some passing car would turn up the drive and take him from this place. Back then, he’d sensed instinctively he didn’t belong here. And even now, as an adult, a desperate smothering settled over him whenever he entered this room.

“She’s waiting for you in the library,” Hudson’s voice broke into his thoughts.

Des nodded and walked out, leaving his grandmother’s henchman in the room he hated. Exhaustion seeped into his extremities, and his body ached, especially his head. He could almost feel his skull expand and contract like a cartoon character struck with an anvil.

I’m Wile E. Coyote, super genius, time for another round with Road Runner
.

A round that would undoubtedly end with his sliding face-first down a rock wall and the old woman’s watching with smug satisfaction.

Beep! Beep!

Des walked down the hall. His footfalls on the wood floor were too loud in the unnatural quiet. God, he hated this place.

The library was tucked away at the back of the house. Dark wooden bookshelves lined the walls, filled with dusty volumes he was sure no one bothered to read. In one corner, there was an ancient rolltop desk and an assortment of chairs from various periods in history sporadically placed about the room.

Heddi waited for him, stretched out on a faded chaise. A ruby-colored blanket draped over her lower half, the outline of her bony legs almost invisible amongst the folds in the fabric.

She pretended not to notice him, gazing through the picture window at the meticulously-landscaped outdoors. One of the games she played before striking to encourage her prey to lower their guard. But Des had been struck far too many times to fall for it.

At last she turned to face him, her thin lips pulled back into a smile, exposing yellowed teeth too large for her thin face. Her appearance surprised him. He’d managed to avoid her for nearly three months. While having heard about her illness from Ian, he’d yet to see the results in person.

Sickness had left Heddi shrunken and haggard, but despite having been ravaged by disease those black eyes gleamed from her gaunt face.

“You look awful,” she said, gazing up at him.

Funny, I was thinking the same about you.
“I know.”

“Sit down,” she ordered. “I’ve no intention of craning my neck.”

Des sat in the chair facing her, slouching to annoy her. Heddi ignored him and turned her attention outside to the slow-moving river. The morning sun glittered on the dark water like diamonds on black velvet.

Another awkward silence settled between them. This was where she hoped people would talk, filling the void with idle chitchat or confessions for things she’d been previously unaware of. Why she bothered with him, he wasn’t sure. He hadn’t fallen for this since he was ten.

“It’s been a long time since you’ve been here,” she said at last.

His insides tightened, but he remained slouched, his expression relaxed.

“A few months.” He shrugged.

Again the silence. What was she hoping for? His body hummed with nervous anticipation.

“I’m dying, you know,” she said as blandly as if she’d told him she planned to repaint the room.

Good.
“I heard.”

“Stomach cancer,” she told him. “It’s eating my insides.”

“What do you want, Heddi?”

She smiled again, that horrible skeletal smile that made his skin crawl. “Have you no pity for a poor, old woman?”

“I might if there were one here.”

She laughed, but it sounded more like a dry cackle. “You’ll get nothing when I go. Not a cent.”

“I’m glad we cleared that up. I guess I’ll be on my way now.”

“You don’t care, do you?”

Des slouched farther down in his chair and a smirk touched his mouth. “It’s a nonissue.”

“A pity your sister couldn’t say the same.”

His stomach jerked and his smile fell away. Malicious glee shone in her eyes—black eyes like a shark’s.

He used to think of her as a shark, eager to tear into his flesh at the first scent of blood. Until one night after moving out from under Heddi’s thumb for the first time. He’d been living in a dumpy, one-room apartment, stoned from a joint he’d just smoked, eating Pringle’s potato chips from the tin on a stained futon mattress and watching a documentary about killer whales.

They hunt in packs like wolves, positioning themselves over another whale and biting painfully small strips of flesh to keep their prey from surfacing and getting air. Eventually the other whale suffocates.

That was how Heddi worked. Tearing off strips of flesh and keeping him from catching his breath. Only she didn’t need a pack. She was that vicious all on her own.

“What do you want?” Des asked again, turning to look at Heddi. “I have to get to the office.”

“Yes, of course. You’ll want to get to work. You do owe a considerable amount of money, after all. How’s your sister enjoying Bermuda? She and…what was his name? Kevin? Are they having a nice time?”

“Wonderful.”

“Good. It’s such a shame the way they’ve left you to pay the money back. They’d be in some real trouble were it not for you.”

He wanted to laugh. Did she actually think she could get to him this way? Whatever Julia had done, she was away from here. Away from Heddi. Whatever he had to pay, it was worth it.

“That’s the best you got? You’re slipping, Heddi.”

Something flashed in her dark eyes. “Perhaps, though, she needed to get away from you. Do you ever wonder if when she looks at you, she sees your father? If you’re a large factor in her problems?”

Closer to the mark this time. “Is this what you wanted to see me about?”

“I have some work for you.”

“Are you planning on selling the house?”

“Stop being foolish. You’re a Grey, in your own way, and with that name comes a certain responsibility.”

“Not interested.”

“Our family built this town,” Heddi continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “The community looks to us for guidance.”

“If you say so.”

“When something or someone threatens what we’ve built, the Grey family must work to eradicate it.”

“All of this is terribly fascinating, and yet I can’t bring myself to care.”

“I understand you rented a cottage to a certain writer,” Heddi said, again ignoring him.

Here it comes
. “So?”

“I can’t have her writing that book. Publishing our family business. I will not allow some hack writer to profit from what your father did to my Gwen.”

“Of course not.” His stomach churned. He wanted to go home. “What did you want me to do about it?”

Her lips pulled back into a feral smile. “Get rid of her.”

Chapter Six

“Gwendolyn’s first marriage, to Calvin Warren, was little more than a business arrangement. He gave her the family she longed for, and she gave him opportunity.”

—excerpt from
Blood and Bone
by Shayne Reynolds

Des gaped at the old woman grinning malevolently back at him. Heddi had finally completely lost her mind. “Excuse me?”

“I want her out of this town.”

The tension gripping him eased some. “I’m not the strong-arm type. Besides, isn’t that what you pay Hudson for?”

“When I stopped her from taking a room at the hotel—”

“I knew something was off there. That hotel is never booked to capacity. Hell, I don’t how the place stays in business. You must have paid them a good chunk of cash to refuse her reservation.” Shayne had been telling him the truth.

“And it would seem I did, for nothing, since
you
found her such a quaint little cottage to rent.”

He grinned. “I made a commission on that. You’ll see it in my next payment.”