Infamous: (A Bad Boy Romantic Suspense) (7 page)

Outside, Taylor took a few calming breaths and watched the setting sun over the treetops. Everything suddenly felt more sinister and full of secrets than it ever had before. She wanted her big break, but she wasn’t sure she wanted any of…whatever this was. She was beginning to get a very bad feeling.

As she walked back towards Main Street, lost in her own thoughts and Mrs. Keeper’s words, she did not notice the figure watching her, or how it followed her as she got back to town.

She also didn’t notice it trailing behind her in a dark car as she pulled into the inn, or making a note of the light in her window going on.

It sat there, simply watching, for a long time.

The next day at the shop was busy and Anton found himself mostly distracted from thoughts of Taylor. Mostly. They would still stray to that thick fall of hair, those plush lips, and he’d have to stop himself before he got too excited.

It wasn’t that he was planning on seducing her. He just wasn’t going to avoid it, either. Why miss an opportunity to have hot, maybe even angry, sex?

Although Anton wasn’t quite the “bad boy” Sweethollow made him out to be, he wasn’t an angel, either. He liked women, he liked sex, he liked beer and getting his hands dirty. In more ways than one. He wasn’t shy about what he wanted, and he usually got it. Especially where women were concerned. He just seemed to have a knack at getting them into bed.

However, he also seemed to be relationship repellant. Even if he’d wanted to, no one really wanted him to stay for long. Not that he’d tried very hard over the years. It was easier to fuck and flee.

It probably hadn’t been too smart to have quite so many affairs in town. The potential for drama was pretty high when you screwed where you lived. But he liked to live a bit dangerously, and they were all grown-ups. One reason he generally slept with married women was that they were as invested in keeping things quiet as he was. Most of them didn’t want to upset their home life; they just wanted to get laid.

Anton watched his people work and wished, again, that he was someone else, from a different family. Preferably one with money and no shitty history. Especially no history like his father’s or grandfather’s, a criminal and an abuser.

He liked to act like he didn’t care much about anyone or anything, and he’d mostly convinced everyone else of that. He even convinced himself sometimes. Except late at night, when the demons that were his memories crawled in and set up shop. Then came the nightmares or hours spent unable to sleep, just reliving crap he’d rather forget. He thought maybe Stew at work, who’d known him since he was a kid, had some idea. Stew had tried to help a few times, and Anton suspected he might have loved his mom in his own way…but he couldn’t really stop his father from being who he was. And Anton’s mom hadn’t been strong enough to leave. She’d had no one but him. He didn’t blame her, not really. He got mad sometimes, the way a little kid does when their parents aren’t perfect and they’re confused and hurt. But his mom had loved him. Protected him when she could, getting in front of the blows. That probably broke his heart more than anything.

Sparks flew in the shop, metal clanged, bikes and cars moved through. Some just needed simple things like oil changes or tire rotations. The bread and butter of the mechanic’s life. Sometimes they got total wrecks and did what they could, but it was an honest business. If a bike or car was unsalvageable, they said so.

Even though he didn’t love most of the work they did, he did enjoy the paint jobs and occasional refurbishings. They were like restoring a piece of art. He could get lost in a good custom paint job, even if they were generally the same flames and skulls. It was like his tattoo moonlighting. It might not all be elaborate back pieces or original ideas, but it was still art. And that was where his heart lived.

He worked alongside his guys all day, shooting the shit, springing for lunch, getting dirty and covered in motor oil. He didn’t mind. There was something satisfying in honest hard work that made you sweaty and tired. He just didn’t want to be doing it until the day he died.

They were enjoying a quiet moment towards sunset, already hitting early around 4:30, when a car drove up with a telltale clanging, wheezing sound. It had out-of-state plates, which probably meant a rental and a tourist. Anton sighed, knowing out-of-towners could be the worst when it came to car trouble. He got up and went to meet the car, which slowed to a stop just in front of him. He peered into the windshield, then laughed. The person behind the wheel did not. He stood with his arms crossed and waited.

The door opened, and a very cranky-looking Taylor Harlow stepped out. She was grumbling to herself and shaking her head. She was also looking lovely in a deep blue sweater and boots. Anton couldn’t help but appreciate her newfound fashion sense, especially since she wasn’t shy about hiding her curves.

“Car trouble?” he asked.

“Yes, Captain Obvious. Don’t look so smug,” she said, walking up.

“What seems to be the trouble?” he asked.

“That horrible sound I’m sure you heard. It just started. It’s a rental and I don’t know a thing about cars. I barely got it started back up a few blocks from here. The brakes were acting funny,” she answered.

“And I thought you just missed me,” he said, grinning. She scowled.

“Hardly. I was in the neighborhood, talking to an…old friend,” she said. He wondered who the hell that could have been. He hadn’t remembered her having any.

“Well, we’ll check under the hood, see what’s making our girl here all cranky. I’m sure it’s nothing a little tinkering and finesse can’t fix,” he said. Her eyes narrowed at him, but he feigned innocence. They both knew he wasn’t necessarily talking about the car.

“Great. I’m guessing it won’t be ready until tomorrow. I’ll get a cab,” she said, taking out her phone. She clearly couldn’t wait to get away from him. He stopped her.

“Let’s wait and see what’s wrong. You never know, some problems can be fixed faster than you think.”

“And some are train wrecks that should be taken out back and shot,” she said. He laughed and led her inside. She looked uncomfortable, which he was enjoying. Teasing her was becoming his favorite pastime. She sat in the waiting room just off his office as Carlos brought the car in. He gave Anton a look, like What is going on here? But Anton just waved him away. He knew the guys were getting ready to leave. He was going to take care of this himself.

He hadn’t been expecting to see Taylor before their date, and certainly hadn’t expected to see her the day after the diner conversation. She smelled good, but then the whole place generally stank of oil and sweat and car fluids. She had some vague, flowery scent that was fresh and soothing somehow. Even from across the room, her presence was something he could feel, like his skin was aware of her. Meanwhile, she was looking at her phone intently, studiously ignoring him.

This was going to be fun.

Taylor really had been only a few blocks away when her car had decided it was time to act wonky. She’d gotten out her phone and searched for the nearest shop. Which had, of course, been Anton’s. Because Fate was an asshole and was clearly determined to make her life miserable for as long as she was back in town.

The day hadn’t been much better overall, so she supposed she should have expected something like this. Her luck was just rotten, like an apple that had lain on the ground too long. Something about Sweethollow was really making her work those apple metaphors.

First, she’d gone to the town hall to look up old records and court cases to try to build on the idea of a pattern. But the public records were either missing or lost, with very little that could actually be helpful. She was frustrated; she needed real evidence that something was wrong in Sweethollow and had been for a long time. Otherwise her story was going to be nothing more than tabloid fluff, and that wasn’t going to get her where she wanted to go. She could just run an entertainment blog if all she wanted was page hits based on nasty gossip and made-up bullshit. This needed to be real.

She supposed she was trying to prove something with this story, expose the ugly side of the town that had hurt her. Sure, it was mostly a band of shitty boys who had done the damage but they’d been allowed to. They’d gotten away with it, and probably worse since. The town covered up anything that didn’t project what they wanted it to, and to Taylor it was starting to look like that included murder. Someone had to say something.

She suddenly wished Grams was still around, although it was something that wasn’t often far from her thoughts. She missed her practical advice and tough but kind insistence that Taylor take no crap and do what was right. Just being back in Sweethollow was making it difficult to figure out what was right. It seemed like everywhere she looked she met a dead end, or some kind of corruption she couldn’t possibly prove enough about to get past the fact checkers.

Her next stop was the police station, something she was really not looking forward to. It was full of guys from high school she never wanted to see again and their friends. Sure, the Saints might be mostly gone, but their friends weren’t. They were like some tumorous growth that has roots spread out all over town.

In her head, she heard Grams chuckle. “Ovary up, my love. Don’t let ’em see you sweat, and when you show them up for the idiots they are, do it with the sweetest smile on your face.” That had been her advice when Taylor had been terrified to make a speech at graduation, after winning a scholarship for writing after accelerating her studies to get out early. That had been her Hell Year and she’d just wanted to pick up her diploma and avoid any public gathering. Everyone had taken to calling her “Blueberry” at school and she was terrified someone would start chanting it during the speech. But Grams had insisted, and she’d been right as usual.

She’d walked up onto that stage with her head high, even after everything that had happened on prom night. She’d given her speech and hadn’t stumbled on a single word. No one had clapped, but then she hadn’t expected them to. Especially since her speech was all about the trappings of small-mindedness in small towns.

Anton had tried to talk to her after, finding her at her car. She’d looked at him with disgust and driven off, looking back just once to see him standing alone in the parking lot, a cigarette dangling from his hand, smoke curling around him. And she’d a felt a twinge of pity, even then. Even after everything.

All roads seemed to lead back to him, at least where her mind was concerned. It was annoying. She needed to concentrate on her story. She needed to focus on Sweethollow, the legend, find something damning about these deaths, and get the hell out. Preferably right after her date with Quinn, so she could put all this behind her again. Memory lane had so far been pretty much the worst.

She was taking a pretty big gamble, trying to talk to an actual officer. Sure, the Saints had been awful to Nate in high school, too, but cops tended to close ranks. It made sense; you had to trust your fellow officers with your life. It was just unfortunate that these particular guys weren’t worth it. Taylor had a hard time believing any of them had changed much in ten years. They weren’t the types. And she couldn’t really think of a worse occupation for bullies with inflated senses of entitlement than police officer. The law should be respected, the police should be decent, honest, and tough but fair. Most were, she knew. But the Saints who’d gone into it? They were exactly the kind of guys who could ruin all the good things their badges stood for.

The precinct building was small. There couldn’t be more than thirty active officers in Sweethollow. It wasn’t a big town in either size or population, but this time of year, things could get rowdy, so sometimes there were state police around as well. It seemed to be a pretty quiet morning, although there was definitely an air of tension as Taylor walked in and inquired at the main desk. It seemed like there had more than one drunk and disorderly the night before, but there were also a lot of officers on phones, speaking quietly. And the captain seemed to be having some kind of meeting in his office. Taylor could see his face, grim and drawn, from across the room.

“Business?” the clerk asked, in a tone so bored and distracted it was almost robotic. He didn’t even look up at Taylor.

“I have an appointment with Detective Powell. Is he—”

“Three desks down on the right,” the clerk said, then answered a phone in the same flat voice. At least it wasn’t personal.

She made her way down the line of officers, most of them seeming as distracted as the clerk. Except for Powell. She could already see him busy at his computer, going over notes or working an angle. It made her smile a little, reminding her of the quiet, nerdy, focused boy he’d been in school.

The years hadn’t been kind or unkind to him, it seemed. His hair was thinning, but not much, just making his dark forehead higher and more intelligent looking. He had wrinkles around his mouth and on that same high forehead. Probably from actually being dedicated to his work. From what she’d been able to find out, he also had the precinct’s lowest arrest-to-conviction ratio and very few complaints. He had no citations on his record, and a few phone calls confirmed that he was respected by everyone in the community as one of the few fair cops. He still lived in the same neighborhood, was amicably divorced with two kids, didn’t drink or smoke, and seemed almost too good to be true.

The only blemish Taylor could find was that he’d recently been reprimanded for pushing back on several of the cases closed by de Marco and suggesting they were not what they seemed. This hadn’t made him very popular with some of the other officers, although the captain seemed to value him. He just wasn’t great at playing politics. He hadn’t been especially great at it in school, either.

In school he’d had thick glasses, but now he wore some very sharp-looking silver rims. He was rubbing the bridge of his nose and checking the time when Taylor stopped at his desk. He looked up at her with a raised brow.

“Hi, I’m—” she started.

“Taylor Harlow. It’s been a while,” he said, sitting back and picking up his coffee cup.

“I’m surprised you recognize me. Although it does seem to be going around,” she said, sitting down.

“Oh, you haven’t changed that much. Just sort of…grew up, I guess,” he said with a grin.

“That’s kind of you. Other people would say I’ve…transformed,” she said, shaking her head. She’d been so sure she looked nothing like her old self when she came to town; now she felt like she should check and make sure the braces hadn’t resurfaced.

“Well, those people are not very observant and not worth your time.”

“Good point.”

“It’s been a decade since you left. Up to enjoy the festival in some kind of masochistic quest?” he asked. She had a feeling he knew she was a writer. And probably guessed she wasn’t in town for the ambience.

“Not exactly. It’s not a coincidence I’m up here during it, but I’m looking into the deaths of some folks you and I both knew. And the peculiar way people tend to die around this time of year around here,” she said, deciding to just be blunt. Something about his eyes told her that it would be better to be direct than try some sneaky journalist tactics.

He looked at her for a moment quietly, holding his coffee cup utterly still. Then he seemed to reach some kind of conclusion.

“They do, don’t they? Such a lot of accidents. One could argue it’s something to do with Halloween and people being careless or indulgent…but I don’t think either of us believe that,” he said, sipping.

“I had similar thoughts. I did some digging, too. Seems like a lot of files go missing around here, too,” she said, eyeing him carefully. She had to be careful. Although she felt like she could trust him, she couldn’t be sure. Not yet.

“Yes. Just like heads,” he said casually.

“What do you mean?” she asked, leaning in. He came closer, looking down, twisting his cup.

“How much do you know?” he asked quietly, looking around casually.

“Enough that there seems to be a pattern. A very troubling one. A pattern that suddenly changed ten years ago when those girls we grew up with were found. And then it all stopped. Until very recently. And it seems like someone, or several someones, might be going to a lot of trouble to cover something up. As much as I really hated those guys, something about this isn’t right. And I think it’s going to end up with more people hurt,” she said, finally voicing what had been eating at her since she had gotten there.

“You know a lot, then. More than most,” Powell said. “You need to be very, very, very careful from now on. I don’t know how many other people in town know who you are or what you do, but it could get dangerous if the wrong ones found out.”

“Like Nick?” she asked.

“Something like that. Nothing that happened that night, to those guys, tracks. None of it. I have my suspicions, but—”

“You’ve been told not to touch it. I heard.”

“You’ve heard a lot in a just two days.”

“How did you know how long I’ve been in town?” she asked, genuinely surprised.

“It’s not every day a pretty woman stops at the inn and books a room for a week. Not when she has a house she could be staying in. People talk,” he said.

“Damn,” she said. She thought she’d been so careful. Showing up all citified had drawn more attention than she liked.

“Have you seen Quinn?” Powell asked.

“Yes,” she said. Powell knew what had happened that night. Everyone did. One of the reasons she’d sought him out was that he’d never called her Blueberry like everyone else and had once asked, in his quiet way, if she was okay. It might not seem like much, but it had made a difference to Taylor.

“That must have been…awkward,” he offered.

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” she said.

“You know he’s been a suspect from the first, right?” he asked.

“Yes. But you know it’s bullshit,” she said.

“I do. Quinn’s a lot of things, as you well know. And not my favorite person in town. But he’s not a killer. Some others around here, though, would be happy to see him go down for this.” He sipped.

“Is the coffee any good here?” she asked, sitting back.

“Awful. Burnt, several days old, with some instant mixed in,” he said, grinning.

“Then I think we should go somewhere else, get a nice fresh pot, and compare notes,” Taylor suggested.

“Off the record?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” she said.

“Let’s go.”