Designed for Murder (Killer Style) (5 page)

Carlos popped the sore knuckles on his right hand, the ache from pummeling the attacker increasing with each snap. “No, but he had a gun.”

“That new?”

Carlos nodded. “According to the reports I’ve read and what Mika has told us.”

They both turned to look at Mika. Officer Puberty towered over her, but she still managed to seem like the bigger presence as she waved her hands around her like a flock of drunk geese to make a point. She must have felt him watching her, because she stopped her hands in mid-swoop and looked at him. The air sizzled between them. He inhaled and smelled her spicy perfume. Licked his lips and tasted her creamy flesh. Fisted his hands and felt the soft silk of her hair.

Reggie pulled out his radio and messaged the uniforms who’d just pulled to a stop at the alley’s entrance to do a sweep for the attacker’s gun, lost somewhere in the trash and debris littering the alley. Then he turned his attention back to Carlos.

“He’s upping his game,” Reggie said.

Carlos averted his gaze from Mika before his mind got lost going down a road he couldn’t travel. “Seems like it.”

“Any ideas why?”

“Would have a much better one if we could figure out why he’s taking the costumes.” Figuring that out had been the main reason for coming with Mika tonight, but all he’d gotten from her Magic Battledome court was reinforcement for his existing sabotage theory and a lingering discomfort with the ease that he’d fit back into the world he’d shunned so completely.

“If your girl’s got one that’s the same as the others, I might be able to pull a few strings and get the crime lab to take a look,” Reggie said.

Using the police lab sure as hell beat begging help from the few private labs that would do the occasional favor for Maltese Security. Of course, he knew Reggie was about as altruistic as a prowling wolf.

“I appreciate that,” Carlos said. “So much so that I won’t even mention the fact that doing so gives you the perfect opportunity to chat up that new lab tech.”

“Dom?” Reggie chomped on his gum and didn’t bother to hide his grin. “Isn’t that just a happy coincidence that he’s on shift tonight?”

“You’re pathetic.” He laughed.

“No, I just don’t ignore the front door when opportunity comes knocking.” Reggie cut a glance at Mika. “You’d be wise to follow in my footsteps.”

The sound of Mika practically purring with satisfaction and the sight of her blissed-out expression as she collapsed against his chest flashed in his mind.

Carlos shook the image out of his head. “Nothing but trouble doing that.”

“Your loss.” Reggie shrugged. “So introduce me to Little Miss Trouble and let’s find out if she has any more costumes.”

Officer Puberty was just finishing up when Carlos and Reggie made their way over. As soon as he drew near, Mika turned his way and looked at him with the slightest hint of relief in her eyes.

“Mika,” he said. “This is Reggie Watts. He’s a friend and a police detective.”

“Are you doing okay, ma’am?” Reggie asked as he pulled out a small notebook from his inside jacket pocket.

“I’m a little shook up, but yeah.” She gave Reggie a considering look tinged with annoyance. “A detective, huh? Does that mean you guys are finally going to investigate these muggings?”

Carlos chuckled. He probably should have warned Reggie that Mika didn’t have a problem unsheathing her claws.

“The Harbor City Police Department takes all criminal activity seriously,” Reggie said, smooth as peanut butter on burned toast.

She gave the big cop a dirty look that would make weaker men beg for mercy.

“Was anything taken?” Reggie asked, unperturbed.

“I just told the other officer all of this,” she said, frustration eating away at the edges of her words.

Reggie waited.

She rolled her eyes in annoyance. “He had my purse, but he dropped it right before Carlos started kicking his ass.”

“Did he say anything?” Reggie asked. “Make any direct threats?”

“He just said, “Where is it?’”

“Where is what?” Reggie asked, as if he didn’t know exactly what the asshole wanted.

“I’m assuming the same LARP costume that he’s strong-armed away from four other people in my court.”

Reggie arched an eyebrow but let the court comment slide. “And you didn’t have it on you?”

She shook her head. “We were having a planning meeting. There wasn’t a reason to have it.”

Reggie pocketed his notebook. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to let me borrow your costume so the lab can take a look at it and see why someone is going to all this trouble to steal it.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes to help catch this guy.” No hesitation.

At that moment, if Reggie had asked her to act as bait and walk down the darkened alleys of Harbor City wearing the vestment around her neck like a noose, she probably would have said yes. That kind of impulsiveness had Carlos popping his sore knuckles again. He’d need to find a way to curb her act-first, think-second reaction if he was going to solve this case without her going off half-cocked and getting hurt.

“Hey, Detective,” a uniformed officer called out. “We found the weapon.”

Carlos pivoted on his heel and took a step toward the officer, but then a large hand clapped down on his shoulder, stopping him.

“I don’t think so,” Reggie said. “This is
my
crime scene. You two stay put and I’ll send a unit over to take your statement, ’Los. After that, you two head back to Mika’s. I’ll be by later to pick up that costume.”

T
hirty minutes and one short walk later, Carlos stopped at the front entrance to Mika’s building down the block from the Grounded Coffee. He didn’t know anything more about the perp’s handgun than he had before the cops had found it, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that the addition of bullets meant only one thing: trouble.

Mika stopped on the stoop’s top step, put one hand on her hip, and gave him a hard once-over. “What is it?”

“Hold on.” He hustled over to his jet-black Dodge Challenger SRT Hellca
t and popped the trunk. His nine-millimeter was in a small safe under a false bottom along with a go-bag packed with a week’s work of necessities. He slipped on his shoulder holster, secured the gun into place in it, and closed the trunk.

Mika stared at him from the stairs, the streetlight illuminating her like a spotlight. “Ready for round two?”

“I’m ready for anything.” He meant the gun, but seeing her like that brought back the sight of her last night with the soft light leaking into his bedroom from the hallway, letting him see just enough of her bare flesh to desperately want to see the rest. Heat and hunger strengthened his craving for her even as his mind rebelled. He’d already traveled down that path, ignoring his internal warnings and falling for a woman who tempted him into forgetting his objective. Two people had almost died then. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—let that happen again.

Gritting his teeth, he strode forward and brushed past Mika on the stoop. His step may have faltered for a millisecond when her spicy perfume wrapped around him like an invitation he couldn’t accept, but he pushed the door open and walked into her building’s tiny lobby and headed up the stairs to her third floor walk-up loft apartment. He didn’t have to wonder if she was right behind him; her glare burned a hole through the back of his head. Good. The more she hated him, the less of a distraction she’d be. That’s all that mattered.

He stopped in front of her door and held out his hand. “Keys.”

“You’re shitting me, right?”

“You hired me for my expertise, so let me do my job.”

She rolled her eyes but handed over her keys.

The metal slid silently into the lock, so much easier than when he’d tried to unlock his own front door last night. He turned the knob with more force than necessary.

Focus, ’Los. You can’t fail again because you can’t stop thinking with your dick instead of your brain.

The door swung inward, but only halfway. One quick glance inside and he knew why. A chair had been tossed to the side and blocked the door’s path.

Glad he’d thought ahead, he drew the nine millimeter from his shoulder holster. “Go to a neighbor’s.”

“Why?”

“Do you have to argue about everything?” he asked in a harsh whisper.

She smirked unapologetically at him. “Yes.”

“He could still be here.” And with all the time he was having to spend arguing with her, the mugger had plenty of time to arm himself with a kitchen knife or something else to replace the gun he’d lost in the alley.

Mika squeezed through the small space between Carlos and the doorjamb. He hustled in after her and found her pulling a two-and-a-half-foot-long curved Japanese tachi sword from a display rack on the wall. “I sure hope he’s still here.”

He scanned the loft, glad for the first time that it was one open, airy space. “We don’t have time—”

“Exactly.” She didn’t even bother to look his way. “So are you going to lead this sweep or am I?”

“This isn’t Magic Battledome.” Her impulsiveness could get them both hurt. He knew the truth of that a little too well. “This isn’t make believe.”

“No shit. It’s
my life.
” The sword sat light in her grip, and her stance spoke of her mastery with the weapon. “So let’s do this.”

Due to the small loft’s design, the sweep took about two minutes. Unless Mika’s attacker from the alley was clinging Spiderman-style to the ceiling, he wasn’t here. But he had been. The formerly neat interior was trashed.

“What. The. Fuck.” A familiar voice sighed.

Carlos whipped around, gun at the ready.

Reggie stood in the doorway, his own gun drawn and angled down so the muzzle pointed at the floor. He picked his way through the debris-strewn floor of Mika’s loft. “This guy is starting to really piss me off.”

“Welcome to the club,” Mika said as she hung her sword back up on the display case.

Reggie used his radio to call in the break-in, then returned to Carlos and Mika. “Okay, bring me up to speed.”

He and Mika did, interrupting each other and finishing each other’s sentences like this was their normal routine. By the time they’d reached the end, Reggie looked a few decades older and Carlos had popped his knuckles so many times they were starting to ache—even on the hand he hadn’t used to punch Mika’s attacker.

“You have somewhere else you can stay?” the detective asked.

“My studio space,” said Mika. “I signed the lease a few weeks ago. I moved my materials in there, but I haven’t unpacked. I haven’t even told anyone I have the space.”

“Sounds perfect.” Reggie nodded. “You’re staying with her, ’Los?”

“Of course,” he said without hesitation.

“No,” she said at the same time.

“Yes, I am.” A ribbon of irritation a mile wide wound around Carlos’s lungs, squeezing them tight. After tonight, there was no way Mika was going anywhere that would take her out of his direct line of sight. “You hired Maltese to catch this guy, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. And since he seems to have his eyes set on you now, I’ll give you three guesses as to where I’ll be.”

He stared her down, but she didn’t budge. Hell, she didn’t even blink. But he wasn’t giving in on this. No one was getting hurt again under his watch.

“Fine,” she huffed.

“Weeeell.” Reggie drew out the word as he withdrew a large plastic bag from his jacket. “Since that’s settled, do you still have that costume I can give to the crime lab? Or did he swipe it?”

Mika was all attitude and stiff movements as she strutted over to a large wooden box inlaid with ebony. She ran her hands over the top, popping open a hidden lock, then opened it, removed the long purple vestment, and dropped it into Reggie’s plastic bag.

She pivoted on her heel and looked Carlos dead in the eye. Challenge. Anticipation. Anger. He watched each emotion flitter across her face and braced for the boom sure to follow, but the explosion never hit. Instead, worry lined her smooth forehead, and her bottom lip quivered just the slightest bit. Mika wasn’t about to explode, she was going to implode, and he had a feeling the blast would be much more devastating.

“So what now?” she asked, managing to mask the tremble in her voice with enough bravado to fool most people.

Following her lead, he clamped his hands into fists to better fight off the unexpected instinct to gather her in his arms. “We figure out who in the hell this asshole is.”

Chapter Five

“Conformity is the only real fashion crime.”

—Simon Doonan

M
ika’s design studio inhabited a small corner of a no-frills building in Harbor City’s fashion district, six blocks from her apartment. Earlier in the week, she’d walked the distance, soaking in the city’s early morning hustle and bustle before meeting the movers who had delivered her boxes, furniture, and equipment. The twenty-story glass and steel building had seemed cool and sleek in the daylight. Tonight, after everything that had happened, its stark industrial accents gave off a distinctly cold an
d creepy vibe.

Holding her breath as her heart clanged against her ribs, she slid open the metal door to her design studio, half expecting her attacker to jump out at the last moment. She peered into her studio’s inky darkness, but she could barely make out the closest stack of boxes, let alone the bogeyman lurking in the dark.

Carlos walked past her into the loft and flicked on the lights, dropped his black duffel bag and a sack of necessities from the drug store to the side, and started a quick sweep of her studio—not that you couldn’t see everything in the thirty-by-thirty room from the door. He must have come to the same conclusion, since his inspection of the studio and its small bathroom took about a minute before he waved her inside.

“You’re the only one who knows about this place?” Carlos asked.

“The building manager and me.” She walked in and closed the door behind her, locking the deadbolt and adding the chair for good measure.

“Anything look out of place?”

She scanned the large room. Everything was where it should be. Boxes of material samples stood stacked in the corner. Her desk and computer took up space in the center of the room, close enough to the wall-to-ceiling windows that she could get the full effect of the tenth-floor view. The cabinets on the east side of the room remained shut, as did the mini-fridge tucked away under the counter next to the sink. The world’s most comfortable couch sat on the other side of the room, perfect for crashing when she’d be spending long hours working in the studio—or hiding out from a psycho mugger with a hard-on for LARPing costumes.

“The only thing out of place is the fact that we’re here.”

He laughed, a deep, genuine sound that bounced around the studio. For the first time since he’d strutted into the Maltese Security conference room that morning like just another alpha-hole from the assembly line, he was the man she’d met at Feeny’s the night before: sexy, confident, and relaxed like a man comfortable in his own skin.

An electric frisson danced across her skin, and she sank her teeth into her bottom lip to keep from demanding that they reenact exactly what was going through her head at that moment.

Standing in the middle of the studio, Carlos untied his shoes and then reached behind his head, pulled off his T-shirt, and dropped it on top of his discarded shoes. She took in his broad shoulders, muscular chest, and abs no man who’d ever played Magic Battledome should have.

Oh God, I didn’t say that out loud, did I?

It sounded like something she’d do, but judging by the sharp stabs of pain where her teeth impaled her lip, she was pretty damn sure she hadn’t.

Before she could begin to imagine what workout routine had given him the V indentations inside his narrow hips, he dropped to the floor and started doing pushups.

“So what’s so important about the costumes?” He went down and pushed back up in a steady rhythm. “What would make someone go to so much trouble for LARPing gear?”

She would have answered if her brain could form words. She forced her gaze away in an attempt to cool off her overheating imagination and looked at the tin ceiling, the slate-gray wood floor, the deep purple couch big enough for two…

Her nipples puckered underneath the smooth silk of her bra. Damn, the things she could do to him on that couch.

“Mika…” he prompted.

Returning her focus to him, she said the first thing to pop into her head. “You’re doing pushups.”

“What? I think better when I work out,” he said without slowing. “It’s a right brain, left brain thing.”

“Like the Arrow.” That didn’t sound like she was about to pass out from hotness.

Not. At. All.

He paused mid-pushup, the stillness emphasizing the way his biceps bulged in the position, then continued the downward movement without commenting on the superhero comparison. “Another LARPer is the obvious choice, but what if it’s not about the LARP but about you? Has this asshole broken into anyone else’s apartment?”

She shook her head. “I guess I’m special.”

He adjusted his hands to form a diamond and continued with his next set of pushups, setting off a wave of movement in a different section of his back muscles. “Why?”

“Don’t use up all your charm,” she managed to get out, even though her mouth had turned to chalk.

“You know what I mean.” He jumped to his feet and shook out his arms. “Why you? What is your connection to the vestments that’s different than the others?”

Not for the first time since the muggings had started, she asked herself that question. Unfortunately, the only answer she ever came up with was pretty damn lame. “I made them.”

He paced the room, alternating between swinging his arms and popping his knuckles, which had to be arthritic considering how much he abused them. “Okay, but then you gave them out to the rest of your court.”

Mika
mmm-hmm
ed “Everything but the leftover material.”

“Leftover?” Carlos stopped in his tracks, turned to face her, and rested his hands on his lean hips.

She nodded.

“How much is left?”

Mika crossed over to the stack of boxes and trailed her finger down the labels until she hit the one that read
mbdv
. She reached up to remove the boxes on top of it, but Carlos reached over her and moved them. For the briefest of seconds, his arms surrounded her, and she watched the byplay of the muscles in his forearms as he plucked three boxes from the stack.

Any other circumstance—any other man—and she would have followed her natural impulses, just like she always did when it came to fashion or fun. But this time it was different. It wasn’t just the danger presented by the mugger, it was the threat lurking in her mind’s shadow of trusting a man who hid behind false pretenses. She’d made that mistake with Keenan, and her little sister had paid the price. Carlos wasn’t a killer, but he wasn’t the über alpha-hole he was pretending to be, either.

Her hands shook the slightest bit as she took the
mbdv
box down. Inside was the large spool of silver thread that she’d woven into her court’s vestments.

Carlos peeked over her shoulder. “What about the material?”

She didn’t trust herself not to lean back against his bare chest, so she ducked under his arm and walked to the east side of the room. The mini kitchenette took up half the wall. Eight-feet-high pantry doors dominated the rest, but instead of canned goods, her pantry held bolts of fabric. She moved a few bolts of yellow cotton, black silk, and antique ivory chiffon over to reveal the dark purple aubergine of the broadcloth she’d used to make her court’s vestments.

“What’s so special about this material?” Carlos asked.

“Nothing really.” She ran her palm down its smooth surface. “It’s my favorite color, and I have a fabric importer I work with who gives me a discount. I was looking for a fabric that would be stiff enough to give the feel of a kind of armor in the decorative vestment. It wasn’t exactly what I’d wanted, but it was close enough that I wasn’t about to pitch a fit, considering he sold it to me at cost.”

“Is it valuable?”

She shrugged, unable to come up with anything special about the fabric. “It’s not fast-fashion priced, but it’s not couture, either.”

Carlos leaned against the kitchenette’s counter and crossed his arms. The move did everything to draw her eyes to the arm porn on display. Damn, it was her trigger. She clamped her hand down on the bolt of stiff broadcloth, less than satisfied with the tactile sensation it offered. Keyed up by the mix of an adrenaline rush from the alley encounter and the attraction tugging her closer to Carlos, she chewed the inside of her cheek.

Maybe that will bring me back to reality.

“You can’t think of any reason why someone would want this specific material?” he asked.

“Not unless the person is expecting a run on purple broadcloth.” Which had happened before, but with a specific pattern of black lace that everyone and their mom was using for designs that walked the runway during Paris Fashion Week. But purple broadcloth was a helluva lot different than handmade Italian lace designed in honor of Princess Diana.

“Okay, what about you?”

All thoughts of biceps, black lace, and stiff broadcloth disintegrated at his question. “Me?” Her voice had gone up half an octave between the single word’s first and second letter.

“Yes, who hates you enough to fuck with you this hard?”

Unease prickled her skin. “Keenan Galligan’s parents, but it’s not them.” Just saying his name out loud turned her stomach.

It took every ounce of concentration to push the bolt of purple broadcloth back into place in the back of the cabinet and shut the tall door. She wiped her clammy palms across her jeans and turned to walk away, but she couldn’t quite take those first few steps—they were always the hardest.

“Who are they and why not?” Carlos’s voice was as soft as his questions were hard.

Oh, they were easy to answer, but they brought with them the difficult truth that if she’d only listened to her gut about Keenan then, Hana would be alive today.

“Their son killed my little sister, and my testimony landed him on death row.”

Her words floated in the air like an ugly black cloud, heavy and oppressive. She tried to avoid this conversation at all costs, because when forced to tell it, this was the part when the hugging or the words of condolence came out. People were well meaning, but their sympathy only deepened her shame.

“You want to tell me the story?”

Her gut cramped. “No.”

“That’s fine, but you need to explain why it couldn’t be them.”

“After the trial, they moved to Europe—Switzerland, I think.”

This time it was Mika who needed the movement, the physical activity, to maintain her equilibrium. She reached up and twisted the unfettered hair at the end of her braid around her finger. The silky texture smoothed away the rough edges of her emotions.

Carlos reached out, but she avoided his touch, swerving around him and getting a glass from the cabinet. Her hand shook only the slightest bit as she filled it with water.

He didn’t follow her, seeming to understand her need not to be touched at the moment. “Is the son still on death row?”

“He is.” She downed the full glass of water like a college kid chugging a red Solo cup of beer.

“And they don’t visit him there?”

She flipped the glass upside down and placed it in the sink. The memories of the police investigation, the trial, and the sentencing hearing whipped around her, threatening to knock her down. “Turns out they’re not that kind of family.”

“What kind is that?” he asked.

“A family.” The loss of her own tore at her, ripping through the protective fabric of her made-up LARPing family. After Hana had died, her parents had divorced. Her dad had moved to Japan, supposedly for business, but she knew the real reason. It was because he couldn’t stand to see her and not think of Hana. Her mom lived in Harbor City, but she rarely left her Upper East Side apartment.

All of it could have been avoided, if only…

She shook the never-ending argument out of her head. Regret and guilt, like scar tissue, thickened with age but never went away. “Look, I’m exhausted, and unless you put dibs on the couch, I’m claiming it.”

It was large enough to stretch out on and comfy enough to make her forget the world, but she wouldn’t be sleeping tonight. New battles and old troubles would see to that.

“Nah.” Carlos shrugged in that easy way of his. “My duffel has a sleeping bag in it.”

“Aren’t you a Boy Scout.”

“Computer club,” he deadpanned.

She chuckled, the joke lifting some of the misery from her shoulders. “Close enough.”

“Do you mind if I use your computer?”

She nodded and glanced over at the desktop outfitted with the latest textile design software and more bells and whistles than she’d ever use. “Knock yourself out.”

C
arlos settled in behind the computer. It was a
decent setup—not what he was used to back at Maltese, but he’d make do. The to-do list unfolded in his mind. He needed to track down this Keenan kid’s parents, do a little background snooping on Mika to see what she was leaving out, and hack his way into the police server to track the lab results for the LARP costume.

The bathroom door opened and Mika emerged in an oversize Harbor City University T-shirt they’d gotten at the drug store along with a toothbrush. The T-shirt stopped mid-thigh, and the extra material gave just enough of a tease about what lay underneath to make Carlos pop the knuckles on his right hand.

“You should stop that,” Mika said as she curled up on the couch directly across from the desk and pulled down the blanket draped across the couch’s back. “You’re going to get arthritis.”

It took a second for her words to compute. He looked down at his hands. “Old habits.”

After shooting Ivy, the snap, crackle, pop of abusing his knuckles had eased the pressure of knowing he’d curled his finger around the trigger and taken her life. He hadn’t had a choice, but shooting the woman you loved—even when she was a stone-cold killer—took a toll.

“You do it when you’re thinking too hard.” Mika snuggled underneath the silver blanket.

Just to be contradictory, he popped the knuckles on his left hand. “Is that so?”

Mika shook her head and closed her eyes. “You just need to relax and trust your instincts.”

Had he ever been that naive, that impulsive…that optimistic? An image of Ivy handing him a glass of poisoned Red Bull flashed in his mind. Yeah, he had, and two people had nearly died. “I’d rather go by logic.”