Nobody's Angel (35 page)

The cop raised his eyebrows. “Mac Junior or Senior?”

“I'd say Junior is the right age and temperament, wouldn't you?”

Hank offered a profane description that suited Adrian's opinion completely. The name on Sandra's card had been Al McCowan, Jr., heir presumptive of one of the city's wealthiest bankers, groomed for success in the best schools and best society. As a teenager he'd been in more trouble with the law than any coke addict off the streets. He'd apparently learned discretion with age.

“The D.A. ain't gonna like this one at all.” Hank shook his head in sympathy.

“You don't think the D.A. knew about it all along?” With a cynical shrug, Adrian walked away.

He had had no way of knowing about McCowan, hadn't seen it coming, but he should have. Birds of a feather and all that. If Tony had crooked cash, McCowan would have crooked accounts to stash it in. Last he remembered, Mc-Cowan, Jr. had a fancy office in the same bank building he and Faith had visited when they hit town. The man must have eyes in the back of his head or spies on every floor, Adrian thought, but he would wager everything he'd ever earn that Junior had known the instant he'd walked through that door with Faith in tow.

Damn, but he was a stupid shit. Why had he dragged Faith into this?

There was no way on God's green earth that McCowan was helping a nobody like Sam Shaw for altruistic purposes. They had joint goals, and chances were good, once they were accomplished, Sam Shaw wouldn't be the beneficiary. Neither would Sandra. Men like McCowan didn't survive by dispensing charity.

Men like McCowan didn't dirty their hands by trashing apartments and terrorizing people either. That had to be Shaw's work. Tony certainly had kept lovely company.

He needed to talk this out with Faith. She knew Tony better than anyone.

He couldn't mix Faith up in dangerous company.

Shit and hellfire, he wished he could call out the National Guard. Instead, all he had for backup was a half-dozen siblings and half the potters in the state.

Would David have tackled Goliath with a pot shard and a taco?

Faith listened as the back door to the Raphael home quietly opened and shut. She'd recognized the knocking motor of Cesar's van as it pulled into the drive, and she sat up in bed to wait for Adrian's appearance. Something was wrong. She'd known it the moment Adrian hadn't taken her to the pottery with him but left her here instead. She assumed it had something to do with finding Sam Shaw, and Adrian's determination to solve this problem on his own.

She should let him. It wasn't any of her concern. She flatly refused to be responsible for anyone else ever again.

But she couldn't help worrying.

When he didn't immediately come to her, she debated lying down and going to sleep. To hell with temperamental men anyway. Who needed them?

But she'd never sleep unless she knew what was wrong. What if it affected Dolores or Cesar or one of the other kids? Adrian didn't have the right to risk them. She couldn't live with herself if anything happened to them, not after understanding what Tony had done by cheating Adrian of his livelihood. If she'd known at the time, she would have turned Tony's money over to the Raphaels. Of course, back then she'd thought Adrian guilty as hell and hadn't known his family existed.

Creeping down the hallway so as not to wake anyone, she found Adrian sprawled on the living room couch, shielding his eyes against the pale glow of a table lamp as he scribbled on a notepad. She wondered if he'd taken up her habit of jotting down mental notes or if he'd always done that.

“Where's Cesar?” she asked, deriving some satisfaction from startling him into dropping the pen. She'd thought Cesar would sleep on that couch, and that she and Adrian would be returning to the apartment. They couldn't share a bed here.

“Studying, I hope.” He picked up the pen again and avoided looking at her.

“Don't think so.” She shoved his long legs aside and sat down. She'd never particularly thought of herself as capable of doing anything so shamelessly familiar with a man she'd only known a few weeks, but Adrian had stripped her of any veneer of shyness or reserve she might once have possessed. “Jim called and Cesar took off like cannon shot. Something's up.”

He shrugged. “They have lives. It was Jim's night off. They're probably playing pool.”

“Jim picked Belinda up at nine. Cesar didn't come back. You're here and not at the apartment. Something's going down and you're not telling me.” She didn't even bother disguising it as a question. She wasn't a fool, and she wasn't playing one again.

He dropped the notepad on his stomach and glared at her impatiently. “Look, I'm taking care of things, all right? I've fucked up your life and now I'm going to fix it. We'll go car shopping in the morning, and then maybe in a day or two you can have your life back. That's what you want, isn't it?”

His voice should have sounded challenging or belligerent or even offhand, but she heard only weariness. She didn't need to see his features to know the pain etched across his forehead. His hair had come half undone, and it spilled in a black shadow over the pillow he leaned against. They were sitting on a shabby couch in an aging house, surrounded by the signs of poverty, and he was throwing their differences in her face. Something was definitely wrong.

Afraid it might be personal rather than caused by Tony's screw-ups, she shied away from discussing his problems openly. If she stuck to what she knew best, he couldn't hurt her. “I despise lawyers,” she said calmly. “They're all conceited asses. I probably only went to bed with you because
you're not a lawyer any longer. But you're still a conceited ass. So, sue me. I don't need this or you or anyone anymore.”

She stood up and walked toward the doorway into the hall.

“Faith,” he said wearily.

She halted but didn't turn around. She didn't even know if she'd meant what she said. She was too confused to care.

“I'll do whatever it takes to get my license back,” he warned her. “You've known that from the first.”

She nodded. “Yeah, but for a while there I thought maybe you'd turn into a human being. My mistake.” This time she walked out without stopping.

“She's a sloppy drunk. Told my partner all about how she'd been wronged and she couldn't trust anyone and all men are evil,” Jim reported through the phone wire.

Adrian leaned wearily against the kitchen counter and nodded at the receiver. “Yeah, been down that road, heard that song. What else?” He wished he was a smoker, but growing up, he could never afford cigarettes. And it was too early for a drink. Besides, alcohol wouldn't cure what was ailing him.

“He says Sammy came home around midnight. He and she had a shouting match that should have woke the neighborhood. Since no one called in a domestic report, I assume the neighbors have heard that before, too.”

“Guilty parties don't report guilty parties. So she must have told him she saw me and knew about Faith. Wish I'd been a bug on the wall.” Adrian checked the kitchen door to be certain it was closed. He'd seen the kids off to school. The last he'd seen of Faith, she'd been with his mother. That was always a dangerous sign.

“Yeah, well, she didn't throw Sammy out on his ass. The truck's still there.” On the other end of the line, Jim hesitated. “You know, Adrian, if this goes down the way you say, heads will roll. I could make detective, or I could get kicked out on my ass.”

“I know.” Adrian rubbed his forehead. “And with Belinda expecting, you can't take chances. I understand. We have to steer clear of the D.A. with this one, if there's any chance he's
involved or even suspects who's involved. You and your buddies lay low, okay? Feed me what you can, and I'll take it from there.”

The door opened and Faith propped her shoulder on the doorjamb, crossing her arms and watching him impassively. He didn't want her looking at him as if he were nothing or nobody. He'd almost rather she came at him with a knife than behave as if they'd never crawled naked all over each other.

He hung up the phone and reached for his coffee. “Did you and
mi madre
have a good chat?”

“Somebody from church is coming over to take her to the doctor later. She has a pretty healthy support system here.”

“With nobody to rely on for four years, she had to do something,” he said cynically, sipping his coffee.

“Go to hell, Quinn.” She stalked into the kitchen and poured coffee for herself. “If I'm not of any more use to you, I want to go home.”

“Not with Sammy on the loose. I have somebody following him, but Knoxville's too damned far away to keep an eye on you.”

“You found him?” she asked casually, stirring sugar into the cup.

He knew better than to take the casual tone at face value. “He's staying with Sandra. Not a hard one.” For emphasis he added, “He drives a pickup.”

“So, you're figuring Sammy is the one who drove us off the road and trashed my shop and apartment?”

“I figure it's about his speed, yup.” He didn't offer more.

“And you think he's trying to find out where I'm hiding Tony's money so he can give it to his sister?”

“Yup,” he said noncommittally.

“Which means Sammy doesn't know where Tony hid anything either, so he's a dead end.”

She said that entirely too brightly for his own good. Adrian put his cup down. “Yup. So, are you ready to go car shopping?”

“Are you planning on buying Sammy off with the fifty thousand so I can go home?” she asked with wide-eyed innocence.

Except there was nothing innocent about a tortured mind
like hers. Adrian knotted his hands into fists. “Don't push me, Faith. You've done everything there is to be done. Now, we just have to sit back and wait. If there are more deposit boxes out there, we'll find out once we get answers to our letters. In the meantime, I'll handle Sammy.”

She slammed her cup down, leaned her hands on the table and glared at him. “If you won't go to Sandra and find out the name of her attorney, I will.”

He'd wanted her to break out of her polite little box and unleash the passion she hid, but he hadn't counted on that box concealing an iceberg that could freeze him in his tracks.

Maybe he should be grateful for her reserved upbringing.

He had no such reserves to call on. If he touched her, he would find better ways of shutting her up than arguing.

“I can deal with Sandra. The two of you are better off not meeting.” He knew he picked at a raw wound, but he couldn't think of any better way of distracting her.

“And I'm beginning to think it's time we did just that. Ignorance is not bliss. It breeds anger, distrust, and hatred. You either introduce me to Sandra or I'll introduce myself.” She didn't walk out, but waited for his decision.

“Don't do this, Faith,” he said softly, grasping for some way of defusing the situation. “I got you into this, much to my regret. Give me a chance to get you out.”

“No.” She straightened and started for the door.

“What do you mean,
no
?” he shouted after her. “You don't have a choice.”

She swung around and her hair bounced with her. She brushed at it unconsciously as she glared at him. “I spent too many years letting a man
take care of things.
To hell with that. From now on I take care of things on my own. I don't need you.”

She looked like confectioner's spun sugar icing, too pretty and delicate to touch. He wanted to lick her all over and gobble her up like a child deprived of Easter candy. He'd never possessed anything quite so lovely and desirable. Always, he had been content turning his valuables into cold hard cash. Had it been his, he would have sold her priceless
clair de lune long ago, right along with a piece of his soul. She was right to tell him to go to hell. She just didn't realize he'd gone there on his own a long time ago.

“I've already talked with Sandra,” he answered reluctantly. He couldn't stop her. He had nothing left to lose.

Her fingers dug into the woodwork but she didn't leave.

He freshened his coffee and sat down. He'd be damned if he let her push him into anything he hadn't thought about first.

She brushed by him to pick up her cup and refill it. Instead of sitting down, she popped toast into the toaster. “When? Last night?” she asked with a measured tone that seemed entirely too accusing for his state of mind.

“Yeah.” She had no right to make him feel guilty about meeting Sandra without her. Faith wasn't his wife. She wasn't even his girlfriend. They had no claim on each other but a couple of nights’ worth of fantastic sex.

Apparently reaching the same conclusion, she didn't comment on his behavior. “What did you find out?”

“That we're in way over our heads, and I want all of you out of it now. I'm the one who stands to gain or lose on this deal, so I'm the one to handle it.”

She leaned the lovely curve of her hip against the counter as she worked his words through her formidable brain. Adrian didn't bother trying to read her mind. He'd rather look at the way her shirt clung to her unfettered breasts. Faith liked silk, apparently. And she must like teasing him into a constant state of arousal by not wearing anything under it.