Sweeter Than Sin (21 page)

No, Gary wasn’t a nervous man.

Not many people would know that he was a member of Cronus, save for his brothers, the older members of the club.

Most
of them knew better than to talk.

It just wasn’t done.

Now, though … well, it was only a matter of time before the men started to talk. He doubted it would be Glenn. His father had trained him too well. But the others … Discipline had been slipping over the years.

It was only a matter of time before the cops found somebody who would rather break than honor his word to his brothers.

It would probably be Sam, because that son of a bitch was a weak one and always had been.

Jeb Sims was dead.

Harlan Troyer had been murdered.

Yeah, there were looking dismal as far as Gary was concerned. He needed to figure out just how to proceed from here, because although he’d been cautious, there were still those who knew his name.

Lately he’d been thinking it might be the ideal time to retire … out of the country. It was something he’d researched before, but more and more it was looking like just the thing to do.

The door to his small accounting firm opened and he managed to paste a smile on his face.

When he saw who it was, he relaxed.

Every time it wasn’t a cop, he relaxed.

“Well, hello there.” He managed, barely, not to sneer. He never had liked the son of a bitch who’d just come to a stop in front of him, but he was very good at hiding that sort of thing. Bastard thought he was better than most folks, Gary included.

“How are you doing today, Gary?” He nodded at Gary, his blue eyes studying the posters on the walls, advice for IRAs and all the bullshit the government suggested. Gary didn’t see the point. There wasn’t anybody who’d been able to retire these days. If you weren’t a rich SOB, you’d work right up to your grave, and that’s all there was to it. Gary wasn’t a rich SOB, but he had taken out an insurance policy on his wife—if and when he decided to leave Madison, he’d be using that money.

“Oh, I’m doing well enough, well enough.” He smiled and nodded back. Had to play the little chat game. Being a small-town business owner meant you had to do that bullshit even if you hated it, even if you hated the person you were talking to.

“I need a new accountant.” He blew out a sigh and said, “I’ve been using Maisy Keaten up on on the hill and I just don’t like some of the stuff she was doing with my accounts. All of those suggestions for write-offs and some of the information she needed…” He looked around and then asked, “Would you mind getting me a cup of coffee? I need to wet my whistle.”

If it was almost anybody else, Gary would have just lied and said,
Fresh out.

The problem was as much as he disliked this fuck, he was good for local business. He did business with a lot of other business owners, and it was good to play this game.

So Gary just gritted his teeth and said, “Sure. Give me a minute.”

And then he went to the little kitchenette in the back of his office, grumbling silently under his breath.

Once he came back out, a minuscule cup of the cheap shit he saved for clients, he put it on the edge of the desk and sat back down.

“Black … just the way I like it.” He took a sip and sighed, then put it down on the desk. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a bag of M&M’S, popped a few in his mouth. Then he stood up and put a file down on Gary’s desk. “See this? It’s last year’s return. Will you look it over, see if you think you could do any better?”

I think some of you idiots need to understand the fact that the IRS is going to have its cut and you just need to deal with it.
But he pulled out his glasses and bent over the file, careful to stay away from the bag of candy. “Try to keep that away from me.… Remember my allergies.” He said it with a smile but was tempted to tell the jackass to throw the bag away. Just about every damn person in town knew how bad Gary’s allergies to shit like chocolate and nuts was. He flipped through pages, scowling at the faint gritty feel.

Gary lifted his hand and rubbed his fingers together, frowning at the dusty sort of feel on his hands. “Are you remodeling or something? It feels like there’s dust all over this.”

“Oh, I’m always doing something,” he said, smiling, an odd light in his eyes as he munched on the candy.

Gary grunted and flipped the page. The itching started almost right away and the coughing fit hit next—manners had him covering his mouth, and that was where he really messed up.

“Son, you look like you need a drink now.”

He needed his fucking EpiPen.
Where the hell—

His throat felt like it was closing up on him and he gasped, sucking the air in. When the glass of water was put in front of him, he grabbed at it and took a drink, tried to say, “Get my ’Pen—”

But then he saw it.

The son of a bitch stood a few feet away.

And he held Gary’s EpiPen.

He also held Gary’s phone.

And gloves … he wore gloves on his hands. Flesh-colored gloves, hard to see unless you were looking, but he was looking now, because the son of a bitch held the cure for the anaphylactic reaction that was killing Gary.

Gary could all but feel the fear busting through him, making his heart race.

He lunged for the bastard but tripped over the briefcase he’d never gotten around to putting away. He hit his head on the metal filing cabinet.

Darkness swarmed around him, and dimly he heard a voice.

“I wasn’t sure if this was going to work, you know,” the man said tiredly. “You were going to be one of the hardest and I knew it. You don’t like me.… Now, now, you can pretend otherwise, but we know it’s true. And I can safely say I don’t care for you, either and it didn’t even have anything to do with Cronus.”

Gary felt hands on him, strong hands, rolling him onto his back.

Something was shoved into his mouth. Caught between bliss and terror, he realized it was chocolate.

Lots and lots of chocolate … A hand clamped over his mouth and he clawed at it, tried to keep from swallowing, but it was so hard to breathe, so hard. While blood roared in his ears, he stared at the man who killing him.

Why?

“You didn’t really think you could get by what you did to those boys, did you?”

The last thing he heard was, “Go on now. God and the devil can deal with you.”

*   *   *

It wasn’t hard, cleaning up. He looked at the office with a jaded eye, making sure to pick up the bag of M&M’S. He’d opened them at home, kept the bag carefully sealed in his pocket.

He kept the gloves tucked away as well.

Gary had no other appointments today. He knew because he’d called.

Gary’s wife had died a couple of years ago and nobody would think to look for him until tomorrow.

The door was locked. He’d taken care of that detail when the man went to get his coffee. He checked it again, the one worry in his mind that maybe somebody had seen him come in here wearing a glove on his hand. It was a possibility, he knew. But the glove had been flesh colored. Even Gary hadn’t noticed.

The risk was a small one, but one he’d have to take.

Gary’s office wasn’t on a busier street, tucked off Second, and he’d made sure to park several blocks away.

Now he just had to let himself out the back door and head away.

After, of course, he left the note.

People had to know.

These men weren’t being targeted in vain and they weren’t being killed for fun.

There was a reason for each of them.

And they’d all die for what they’d done.

He left the note on Gary’s chest after he’d waited a few more minutes. Just to be sure.

The man’s eyes were wide and fixed and his pulse was gone.

He was dead, sure enough.

The note read:

This one raped Glenn Blue. Glenn might tell you the truth; he might not.

Quimby also raped countless others. He’s not the last, either.

Sybil Chalmers was pissed.

She didn’t have time for this.

She’d spent half the morning dealing with Layla’s mouth and still had to figure out how to handle the money she owed the IRS. Why in the
hell
did they want so much when you were self-employed? They made you
pay
for providing a job for yourself. That was some messed-up shit there.

And if Quimby wasn’t here for her appointment, she’d damn sure be switching her business up to that new accountant. Maisy something or other. Sybil couldn’t remember the last name, but she wasn’t putting up with this bullshit.

Pounding a fist on Gary Quimby’s door, she shouted, “Come on, Gary. I know you’re there. I saw your car around back. If you’d answer e-mail, I wouldn’t have to come by.”

It was hotter than hell and she’d walked here rather than drive the two blocks from her house to Quimby’s office, but just then she was regretting that call.

Especially since she might have to go back home.

Pulling her phone from her pocket, she found the number and called.

Through the window, she listened for the ring of the phone.

It wasn’t there.

Frowning, she moved over and peered through the curtains. She didn’t see him at his desk—

Wait.

Was that—

Oh, shit.

Without even thinking, she looked around and when her gaze landed on one of the decorative rocks in the flower bed, she picked it up and moved back to the door. The glass caught in the blinds behind the little window in the door and she used her purse to knock the rest of the glass out of the way before reaching inside and feeling around for the lock. “Gary? Gary, I’m coming inside, okay? Are you all right?”

No answer.

Had he another one of those weird allergy attacks? He didn’t go anywhere without that adrenaline thing—

Something crunched under her foot. She glanced down, saw the white tubular device, and dread curled in her heart.

Moving around the desk to where she’d seen his prone body, she found him lying there.

And she saw the answer to her question. Gary was most definitely not all right.

He was dead, and if the look of him was anything to go by he’d been dead for quite a while.

Numb, she reached for her phone and dialed 911.

It was as she was speaking to Dispatch that she saw the note.

For a moment, it didn’t make any sense at all.

And then rage exploded through her and she wished she hadn’t even
bothered
to try to helping the monster.

He raped Glenn Blue—

“He’s one of them,” she whispered.

“Syb?”

Swallowing, she turned away from Gary’s corpse. “Send whoever you need to,” she said woodenly. “But whoever killed him, I’m buying him a bottle of champagne. Gary was one of those fucking rapists.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Jensen Bell hadn’t had a good morning. The chief wanted her to talk to a couple of scared, unhappy kids who had already been through hell. Wanted her to push them for information she didn’t think they had. Wanted her, specifically, to try to find any connection that might help the police figure out who was picking off members of the club. Members he hadn’t even realized were connected.

People playing vigilante. They’d drive her insane.

She was out of coffee—she’d had to spend the night at her place, because Dean had to go home to Lexington, juggling his cases like crazy to get it done, but he’d worked minor miracles. It hadn’t surprised her. His grandmother was sick, and there was nothing that man valued more than those he loved.

That included Jensen, a fact that never failed to fill her with something like awe. He loved her. Just thinking about that made her morning a little brighter.

Of course, if she’d slept at his place he would have had coffee. He never ran out.

She’d had to settle for the lousy crap from the diner, because she really wasn’t in the mood to listen to Louisa’s unending attempts to get the good gossip.

Instead of decent coffee, a morning of slow, lazy sex, Jensen had lousy coffee and had her ass handed to her because she hadn’t interrogated a couple of kids. The chief also told her he had faith in her, told her she was a good cop.

Probably trying to psych her up to give those kids grief they didn’t need.

Screw that
.

A good cop knew when to listen to her gut, and her gut told her that talking to the kids was a wrong move.

Maybe she was looking at it wrong, but that wasn’t the avenue she wanted to take yet.

There were other ways. Those kids had talked to others. One other in particular, at least as far as Caleb was concerned. So she’d do an end run around the kid and see if she couldn’t get answers another way.

She started to head in through the front, but the large metal doors in the back were open and she veered in that direction instead.

There she paused, and then, without a bit of guilt, she leaned against the wide-open doorway and looked her fill.

For a preacher, Noah Benningfield was definitely a pretty thing to look at it.

She had about forty-five uninterrupted seconds, watching as muscles gleamed and flexed, as fists pounded the bag with undeniable skill. Then he stopped abruptly, his blue eyes cutting her way as he realized he wasn’t alone.

And judging by the way his blue eyes went grim, she decided he was also pretty damn insightful. She didn’t know if that was a preacher thing or not.

*   *   *

“I can’t help you, Jensen,” Noah said for the third time. He slammed his fist into the bag again, listening as chains rattled, metal clinked. Leather smacked against leather. Each time he hit the bag, he felt the jolt of it echo up his arm. It was like a vicious, beautiful song, and he wanted more. Needed more.

I need to know if Caleb has told you anything.

Caleb … scared, lonely boy … yeah.

Noah had been talking with Caleb off and on, and the kid was slowly starting to talk more. He’d told Noah plenty.

But none of it had come soon enough to help Caleb, to save him.