Reckoning and Ruin (6 page)

Chapter Twelve

It was a little after midnight in Georgia, which made it barely past ten in Colorado, but when Eric answered he was gruff and annoyed nonetheless. I decided to skip the part where he was being sued for a couple of million by our racist criminal cousin and focused on the matter at hand.

He promptly scoffed at my belief that Trey was somehow incapable of lying. “Where did you get that idea?”

“From his prefrontal cortex.” I paged through the jargon-dense summary of Eric's long-ago evaluation. “Damage to this area results in reduced ability to suppress verbal expression in response to active questioning, which combined with the damage to the subject's executive function—”

“I know all this, Tai. I wrote the report.”

“—means that if you ask him a question, he will answer it. He can't help it. Automatic response.” I threw the paper on the counter. “How can somebody like that lie?”

“Because it's only an automatic response if you catch him off guard. His intentional responses remain strong.”

I pulled out a fresh piece of nicotine gum. Through the front window, Davis and his motorcycle crew remained gathered in the half-lit street. Even with Trey in their midst, they were hard to distinguish from outlaws.

Eric continued. “Look, it's not as if I can point to a part of the brain and say, this is where lying happens. It's a complicated process involving functions spread out over both cranial hemispheres, and while Trey took a hit to some, others remain as healthy as ever. Plus he built his recovery complex around strong countermeasures, which he has sometimes applied to the point of overcorrection.”

That part I understood—Trey was textbook overcorrection. Got a brain that makes inconvenient stuff fall out of your mouth? Train yourself to respond to questions with a wall of silence. Judgment a tad unreliable? Get smart people to tell you what to do. Verbal functions wonky? Become an expert in visual data representation. His entire recovery complex was built on maximizing his strengths to cover for his weaknesses.

“But if lying is so complicated, why is he so good at it?”

“He's only good at some lies, like logical strategic ones. Off-the-cuff lies? He should suck at those. Lies about deeply emotional matters? Equally sucky. But cool rational lies, especially those that are simply manipulations of the truth? He's probably very
very
good at those.”

Which described the play he'd put on Hope perfectly. A carefully honed truth wielded as skillfully as a rapier.

My brother continued. “Lies are really two-part processes, suppressing the truth, then creating and sustaining the falsehood. He's hit or miss at the former, but the latter? Tai, his whole Italian couture lifestyle is a cleverly constructed, expertly maintained illusion. And don't think for a second he doesn't know it.”

Of course Trey was good at lying—his entire life was a lie. A piece of psychological sleight of hand.

“Well, he's out of Armani mode now. As we speak, he's in the square with a bunch of his cop buddies, trading war stories.”

“Wait, why are cops there?” Eric's voice held an edge of panic. “What's happened? Are you—”

“I'm fine. But Hope showed up at the shop a couple of hours ago with the news that John Wilde is missing.”

“So? He runs off all the time.”

“This time it's more complicated. Like bullet holes complicated.”

I filled him in on the details. Outside, the cops shook hands and clapped each other on the back. I heard the kick-up of the engines. The crew was calling it a night, which meant that Trey would be back inside soon.

Eric was confused. “What's Trey's part in this again?”

“Nothing official, just his usual routine dialed to eleven. He showed up here with his old S&W on his hip like some Wild West gunslinger, barking orders at me.”

“Ah. Enclothed cognition.”

“What the hell is that?”

“Short answer? It's the connection between what we wear and how we behave.”

I rubbed the headache beginning to throb at my temple. “Are you telling me he straps on the department-issue gun and suddenly he's a cop again?”

“The simple answer is yes. And from what Garrity's told me, he wasn't exactly Officer Friendly, if you catch my drift.”

I cursed under my breath. “Crap. So what am I supposed to do?”

“Hard to say. His brain is unique, as are his coping strategies. You should probably…hang on again.”

I heard another voice in the background at my brother's end. Muffled, like he'd put his finger over the phone, but definitely female. And then his voice in reply, low and reassuring.

“Eric? Do you have a woman in your hotel room?”

A pause. “We were discussing Trey.”

“Now we're discussing the woman I hear in the background.”

“No, we are not.”

“But—”

“Tai. Is this an emergency or can it wait?”

I sighed. “It can wait. But—”

“Then call me when I get back to Atlanta, okay?”

He hung up. Great, now my brother was avoiding telling me the truth too. Everybody was spinning deceptions, draping them like spider webs.

I stood up as Trey came in, locking the front door behind himself. He flicked his eyes at the roses next to the register, then back at me. I opened the gun safe under the counter and held out my hand. Trey unsnapped the holster and handed it over.

I shoved his weapon inside and held out my hand again. “Now give me your car keys.”

“What?”

“Your keys, Trey, so you can't stomp out of here mid-argument when things get uncomfortable.”

He folded his arms. “I don't have car keys because I don't have a car.”

“Oh right. Because
Gabriella
brought you.”

I trilled her name like it was a fancy curse word. And while Trey had frontal lobe damage, he was no fool. He saw exactly where I was headed.

“Now is not the time—”

“It's exactly the time. And when we're done talking about her, we're gonna discuss your attitude tonight, which sucks. And the lying, which also sucks. And then we're gonna talk about how you came barreling down here and sicced your friends on the situation after I asked you not to call the police—”

“Told me.”

“What?”

“You
told
me. Not asked. Told.” He took a step closer. “You also told me two months ago that I needed to find a way to be in the action again. Your exact words. You said I needed to channel…whatever.”

“Well, you know what? I can't work with this particular whatever. Because it's turning you into a complete and utter ass!”

He started to say something, then snapped his mouth shut. We were standing with the counter between us, but he was too close nonetheless, breathing hard and shallow, cheeks flushed, his cool utterly evaporating. He was on the verge of flashpoint, and I felt myself quicken with the knowledge.

Trey rarely got angry, but when he did, it was pyrotechnic. And heaven help me, I liked watching him crumble, liked the power trip that came with unspooling every ounce of willpower he had. We were at that juncture, the point where I could be the agent of his undoing. All I had to do was keep talking. And then, at exactly the right moment, I could reach across the counter and we'd both tumble down to that dark place of instinct and demand and rough pleasure and forget the very real obstacle between us.

I placed both hands deliberately on the counter, palms down. “We have to be very careful right now.

His eyes were burning. “I know.”

“We've done this before, tumbled into bed mid-argument. And it's hot, I mean volcano-hot—”

“I know.”

“Sweaty, animal, on the floor—”

“Tai!” His voice was sharp. “You're not helping.”

“Right. Sorry.” I kept the counter between us, like it was some magical force field. “What I'm trying to say is, it's a great distraction. But it doesn't solve anything.”

He exhaled in a burst. “No. You're right. It doesn't.” He pulled out his phone. “I'll call a cab. You just…stay over there.”

And everything broke, like a fever. Without the firearm on his hip, Trey was decidedly less bossy and swagger-y. Suddenly, all I saw was a man trying hard to do the right thing despite the hot-blooded tug-of-war going on between his body and brain.

“Don't,” I said.

He looked puzzled. “Don't what?”

“Don't go.”

He lowered the phone. “But—”

“Look, I'm exhausted, you're exhausted, and this is one time we definitely need to go to bed mad. So take your meds and go to sleep. I'll be up in an hour or so when you're totally zonked out beyond all responsiveness. We'll discuss this tomorrow. When things aren't so…volatile.”

He still wasn't convinced. I used the last weapon in my arsenal.

“Please,” I said.

He hesitated, but he went. I watched him go upstairs, the rickety steps creaking. During the argument, I'd glimpsed Fire Trey, moth-to-flame magnetic. But I knew there was another Trey inside—Ice Trey, the professional. Those blue eyes would sheen over and grow opaque, becoming expressionless, unmoved by fear and fury. That Trey was absolute zero all the way to the bone, and I shuddered at the thought of his touch. Not in the good way either.

His voice carried from upstairs. “Tai?”

“Yes?”

“I forgot my bag. Can I come back downstairs and get it? Or should I…what should I do?”

I felt a wash of relief. We were back to Trey-Trey. “It's okay,” I called back. “I'll bring it up.”

Chapter Thirteen

Sometime during the night, the rain had finally rolled in, leaving the city blowsy with dogwood petals and bright with morning sun. Trey insisted that we go by his apartment on the way to Phoenix. He needed a suit, he said, and I obliged him.

I changed into the closest thing I had to corporate wear—clean khakis and a white button-down—and pulled my hair back into a knot. Marisa definitely wanted something from me, but I wanted something from her too, and if I had to toe the line wardrobe-wise to make that happen, then so be it.

Trey got a call from Davis the second I pulled us into the Phoenix parking garage. His end of the conversation was monosyllabic, but I caught the drift—Hope was gone.

I smacked the steering wheel. “I told you this would happen!”

Trey waved me quiet and kept talking. “Yes, sir. I'd appreciate any further information. Thank you.”

He returned his phone to his pocket, and I glimpsed the holster again. It didn't conceal as well as the shoulder rig, but then, concealment wasn't really the point of cop weapons. I wasn't sure what the point was this morning; we were at Phoenix, which was as impenetrable as a moated castle. But a firearm was as much a part of the company dress code as a tie and Brioni lace-ups, even on a Sunday morning.

“Well?” I said.

“Hope declined the offer of a safe house, leaving the station on her own volition, but not alone. She was seen getting into a car with a unidentified woman.”

“Unidentified? Didn't they run the plates?”

He kept his eyes out the window. “If they did, they didn't share that information with me.”

“Hope got a phone call last night. I bet it's the same person who picked her up.”

“An assumption on your part. We have no evidence.”

I started to remind him that had I not been trying to manage his obsessive need to call in the authorities, I might have found out who was on the other end of that mysterious call. But I gritted my teeth and kept quiet. He'd started the morning in a reasonably manageable mood, and I didn't want that to change.

He looked annoyed nonetheless. “Hope also declined to fill out a missing persons report, although a police report has been filed on the incident and John's information distributed with a BOLO to Savannah Metro.”

“So it's out of her hands now?”

“Yes. And ours.”

***

Inside Phoenix, the elevator doors opened onto a darkened hall. I'd only been up to the third floor, the field agent offices, a couple of times. It skeeved me a little, to be honest—the carpets that sucked up any sound, the blank gray walls, the office doors that were perpetually closed. I wondered what lay behind them, what electronic eyes were on me, recording and filtering and analyzing.

“Are we the only ones here?” I said.

“Most likely.”

I saw Marisa's office at the end of the hallway, the lights on, the door cracked. Trey knocked. When he got no response, he stepped inside. I gritted my teeth and followed him. My mouth was dry. I was gonna get reamed out, I knew it, and I was in no mood for it. I had my own lawsuit to worry about, after all, and Dexter's shop didn't have the deep pockets that Phoenix did, or its own legal team, or—

Trey put a hand on my stomach. “Stop.”

I stopped. Marisa's office was deserted. A woman's cardigan hung on the back of the desk chair, pale lilac, an Easter color. A briefcase lay on the desk, closed, along with a cell phone and a key ring. The room smelled strongly of coffee, but I didn't see any. It was as if Marisa had been jerked into another dimension through some space-time portal.

Trey cocked his head, listening. And then he reached under his jacket, switching his hand at the last second to the holster on his hip, moving smoothly from the cross-body draw to a side draw.

“Trey? I don't think—”

“Shhh!”

He held the weapon at low ready and moved into the center of the room. I saw what had caught his attention—a puddle on the carpet, soaked into the dark gray. And beside it, a single high-heeled pump. Lilac, like the cardigan.

Outside in the hallway, I heard the squeak and slam of a door down the hall. Before I could react, Trey shoved me behind the desk. He pivoted, pulled the gun up with both hands, and took a sight line on the doorway. He gave no warning. He just waited, like a tripwire.

Marisa appeared in the door frame. She was shoeless, her stockinged feet silent on the carpet, a coffee-blotched high heel in one hand, a wad of paper towels in the other. She assessed the situation for approximately a millisecond.

“Trey Seaver,” she said flatly. “You drop that weapon and drop it now.”

Trey slipped the gun back into its holster. “Yes, ma'am. Sorry, ma'am.”

And I let out the breath I was holding.

***

It took us a minute to get back on track after that. Trey offered to clean up the spilled coffee, but Marisa told him to sit. He refused, preferring to stand in the corner with his back to the wall. I stayed out of the way, behind a chair next to the window.

Marisa wore a shift dress the color of asphalt this morning. Even barefoot, she almost matched Trey's six feet, and she was impressively built, with a bosom like the prow of a warship and hips like an earthworks fortification, with platinum hair forever pulled back in a tight bun. She had a clean pair of pumps on her feet now, back-ups she'd pulled from her desk drawer.

She fumed at Trey as she daubed her shoe with a paper towel. “I should snatch your carry license.”

Trey didn't drop his eyes. He didn't respond either.

“Our insurance rep will be the final arbiter on that, however, at the briefing. Tomorrow morning at eleven, right before the McAndrews presentation, which you will also be attending, so don't get any ideas about disappearing into your office.” She shoved a stack of file folders in his direction, tapping the top one with her finger. “There's your copy of the civil suit summons and complaint. Tell me what you make of it.”

He came out of his corner long enough to pick it up and flip it open to the first page. He read silently, quickly. Then he closed it and put it back on the stack.

“Six million is somewhat excessive,” he said, “but still within precedent for a claim of reflex sympathetic dystrophy. He's asking three million of Tai for a much less serious injury.”

She switched her stripped-tundra gaze on me. “Ah yes. Tai. Again.”

I heard the whisper of Old Charleston in her vowels, a sweet echo of her hometown, only a few miles up the Atlantic coast from my own. She'd practically obliterated the accent from her everyday speech; it only surfaced during periods of intense seethe.

I made myself stand up straighter. “Yes?”

She pointed the shoe at me. “Thanks to you, Phoenix suffered that debacle with the Beaumonts, which forced me to slash our operations and almost cost me my entire enterprise.”

I shook my head. “That wasn't my fault. That was—”

“And then you talked me into providing security for some poetry event—pro bono, I might add—that also lurched into debacle in a few short days.”

“Yes,” I protested, “but you got to meet the mayor, and—”

“And then there was Savannah, and this mess with your criminally murderous cousin, whom we are dealing with yet again.”

“Yes, but that one wasn't my idea at all. And I didn't—”

“And then there was the most recent shotgun standoff. In a blizzard.”

I folded my arms. “I cannot control Mother Nature. Besides, you weren't involved in that, Trey was. And he—”

“Exactly my point.” She pointed her shoe in his direction. “This man used to be my most reliable employee. I could count on him to deliver, in any circumstance, without complaint. But now that you've darkened every doorstep I have, he's up to his neck in complications and conflict.” She fixed him with a look. “I can't even count on him to stay fully dressed in the office.”

I swallowed my surprise. I thought we'd managed to sneak that incident by her. Trey blushed and shot me a hot I-told-you-so look of epic magnitude, which I ignored. He'd had no complaints at the time, not a single one.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “That one really was all my fault.”

Marisa's voice rose. “I don't care whose fault it was! That is not the point! The point is that every time my agency has crossed paths with you, it has been to my detriment. And now you're dragging yet another problem in here, this one as fraught with disaster as the previous ones.”

“I didn't—”

“I don't care. Deal with it at your end. This is your official notice to keep me and my company out of it.” She waved a hand at us. “Now go, both of you. I'm late for brunch.”

Neither Trey nor I budged. She raised an eyebrow. “Why are you both still standing here?”

I stepped from behind my chair. “This isn't just about a lawsuit anymore. There's a missing person. And a car shot full of bullet holes.”

Trey cleared his throat. “
Alleged
bullet holes.”

I waved him quiet. “Fine.
Alleged
. But it's not a coincidence that the same day we all get served with lawsuit papers is the same day that Hope Lyle shows up at my gun shop, full of lies and trouble and rumors. This is a much bigger problem than Jasper's spiteful lawsuits, no matter how many millions are at stake.”

Marisa looked at Trey. He nodded. She closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Explain.”

So I did.