The Ringer (3 page)

They drove at a quick clip along Lake Front. Anxious, she pushed herself farther into the seat. “My mark.” She splayed her hands out, not sure what to do with them. “I call the cheating husbands marks. Someone from the service told me to meet the guy at the pub.

“When I got there, he appeared nervous. Looking behind his back every few seconds…twitchy—worried about his wife, maybe. So I suggested we get out of there.” Lane swallowed. “As soon as we left out the back, he was all over me. The next thing that happened…
pow!
” She pulled the trigger of a fake gun, putting her hands down before he could see them shake. “Dead.”

“Your decoy agency—”

“Honey Pot,” she offered.

“Yeah, did they tell you to leave with the…mark?” He concentrated on the road ahead of him. He slid the dead man’s vehicle in and out of traffic while still managing to pay close attention to her story.

“No,” she admitted, more than a little ashamed. “I am never to leave with them.”

Lane always made it a priority to not regret anything.
Well, up until this very moment
. Because tonight, she regretted an awful lot.

“How many of these
dates
have you gone on?”

“Uh.” She didn’t want to confess to her naiveté but had a strong sense he could already tell. “Three. Maybe if I got the guy at ease, he’d give up the goods faster.” Lane shrugged. “Then I could go home.”

“Hmm.” Jax steered the stolen car onto an off-ramp.

No one said anything for a while. Since Lane deemed herself too stupid for words, she gladly melted into the silence.

He pulled the BMW through the open entrance of a parking garage. “Give me a second.” He swung the car into a remote corner of the lot before he hopped out. Jax crossed the street, disappearing into the attendant’s booth.

Exhausted, she dropped her head back on the seat and tried to think about the highlight of her day. Often, she would tackle this chore before she went to sleep at night, a strong believer of positive affirmation. However, the dead guy in the parking lot of the pub put a damper on her efforts.

The image of his big body, facedown on the pavement, ran through her mind on repeat. Sure, she may not have liked the cheating bastard, but somebody did. He may have been screwing around on that somebody, but at one point, she had to have loved him. Lane tried in vain to convince herself of a silver lining, but conceded one wouldn’t be found tonight.

A small earthquake rumbled from beneath her. She blinked, unaware she had closed her eyes. Jax wasn’t back yet, and she was still in her stupid outfit. Groggy, Lane opened the car door and planted her feet on the pavement. “What are you doing?”

He worked his way from underneath the car with a boxy unit in hand. “Getting a souvenir,” he said before he nodded at her boots. “How much mileage can you get out of those things?”

Five-inch heels, black and shiny leather made its way up her leg to the top of her thigh. “Three blocks give or take one.”.

“Good, let’s put them to the test,” he said, offering his hand to her. Lane grabbed his calloused palm from her spot in the car and pulled herself up. He didn’t take the obligatory step back, which would allow her to get by, nor did she try to push him to move out of her way.

Instead, she sucked in a deep breath. She wanted to bask in the smell of his crisp, fresh scent. It had been awhile since she had been around such a strong man. If only for a moment, she wanted to enjoy it.

“You okay?” He smiled down at her.

Slowly, Lane took her hand from his. She didn’t want to get too used to his strong touch. Instead, she slipped through the small space left between his body and the car. Not a tiny girl by any means, her ample breasts brushed against him. “Getting there,” she admitted, unsure of the actual truth.

One hell of a trouper
. He waited for Lane in the booth while she freshened up in the washroom. He was impressed she had walked three blocks to the diner with no complaints.

“Thornbird.”

Quiet as ever, his partner Raff had slipped into the restaurant. If the bell over the door hadn’t signaled her arrival, she would have surprised him. Anyone would have found it hard to believe this cagey-looking woman could be on the right side of the law, let alone a homicide detective. The rail-thin, spiky-haired blonde slid into the booth across from him. She flipped a cigarette to her mouth and then patted down her fitted leather jacket for her lighter.

“You can’t smoke in here,” the waitress said from behind the counter. Without acknowledging the smoking ban, Raff flipped her badge from her jacket.

“Down to a pack,” she mumbled lighting the tip with her lighter. A strange calm washed across her face before she sat back in the booth and put her leg up on the vinyl fabric next to her. Most people would have mistaken her for a teenager at first by her gangly boyish features, but the sheer aura of her confidence would dispel the notion quick enough.

“Some college freshman found the vic outside of Paddy’s,” she told him after she got comfortable. “What the hell, Thornbird! What made you go to the bar tonight of all nights?”

“You sent me there via Sherman with this.” Jax pushed the dismantled microphone across the table.

“Shit,” she hissed. A deep frown crinkled her handsome face. Since Raff’s usual demeanor never gave anything away, he knew there was a problem. “You think the squad got to him?”

“Doubt it, but not sure. Do me a favor and check when you get back to the precinct.” Jax dug in his pocket and took out the GPS unit he pulled off the dead man’s BMW. “Can you drop this off at the garage and run a diagnostic?” He handed it to her. “I have to go under for a while.”

Jax hadn’t thought he would be at this place so early in the game. Raff’s grim expression told him she hadn’t thought his freeze out in the department would lead to this either.

They sat in silence for a bit. He allowed her time to digest the fact he would have to go off the grid.

“Who’s the 50s pin-up girl?” Raff nodded. She knocked her dead ashes into one of the coffee mugs the waitress had placed in front of them.

He didn’t have to turn around. The sexy sound of Lane’s heels across the tile floor alerted him, but the spark of interest in his partner’s bored baby blues confirmed his belief.

“She’s your decoy,” he said with a lopsided grin before he took a hit from his mug of muck.

Lane slid into the booth next to him. “Hi,” she said with a wide-open smile as she held out her hand to his partner.

“Lane, meet your boss, Raff.” He introduced them.

“No kidding!” The beautiful woman swiveled her head in confusion. “But a guy always calls me.”

“Yeah, my kid brother, he’s the manager. My parents wanted a boy, but I came first. They named me Raphaela and my brother is named Ralph. Some sense of humor, right?” Raff sunk the rest of her cigarette in the black liquid she hadn’t touched and Jax wished he hadn’t either.

“Lane tells me you encourage your decoys to leave with their marks,” he lied to goad his partner.

“I, huh….” Complete dismay overtook Raff’s delicate features. “Oh God, you didn’t!” Raff said to Lane before she released a hearty chuckle.

“What?” Lane avoided his gaze.

“No wonder,” his partner grumbled with genuine humor. “Trust me, Thornbird, you got a regular grenade on your hands, here.” Raff continued to laugh, erasing the small crinkles of stress along the edges of her eyes, but just for a quick minute. “Do I get ‘my girl’ back?” Raff gave back the set of keys to his baby on the diner’s table.

“Who me?” Lane squeaked.

“She was a loaner, Raff, not a keeper,” Jax said, amused at Lane’s confusion.

His partner picked the chain up she just gave him and dangled them in front of his face. “Do me a favor, Thornbird, and make it out of this thing alive.” She tossed the keys to him on her way out of the booth. “And you—” She pointed at Lane. “—give great water cooler gossip, but you’re fired. There’s no way I can afford the insurance premiums with those kinds of stunts,” she mumbled on her way past them. “Ask the grenade what happened on the other dates.” She snorted before leaving.

Minutes ticked by while he waited for her to speak. “Do you want to share—”

“Nope, I’m good.” Lane shook her head before she took a sip from her coffee. Not at all surprised by her reaction, Jax raised his hand for the check.

***

The night had been a series of firsts. First, Lane witnessed a murder, then she had a gun pointed at her, and now she rode on the back of a motorcycle. The experience wasn’t on her bucket list. However, she never shied away from a new opportunity once it presented itself.

Lane wanted to take solace in the wind whipping through her hair while she clung to the back of a strong, sexy man. Instead, she sat on the machine with her ass damn near exposed for the greater metropolitan to see. Nonetheless, she could be happy in one thing. Her silver lining had been discovered. Thrilled at being alive, Lane thanked the heavens she had grabbed a pair of boy shorts instead of a thong.

With the right side of her face pressed firmly against his back, they made their way through the exclusive neighborhood of Wicker Park.

A mist had started to fall, nothing too heavy or wet for Lane to worry about. Jax rode his bike through the upper middle class neighborhood. On top of “the baby” he and his partner referred to, they pulled the motorcycle over in front of a firehouse.

She allowed the mist of the earth to christen her face, while he turned off the bike and flipped down the kickstand.

“I can take you somewhere else if you’re not comfortable with this, but until I have a good idea of what’s going on….” He shrugged. “This will be…safe.”

Lane lowered her gaze away from the sky and focused on his handsome face.

“Or we can go grab another cup of coffee while I think about why you haven’t asked me what the hell is going on?” he asked.

He studied her with a bemused look on his face. It seemed as if he already knew everything about her but couldn’t make out what to do with her yet.

Too close
. Lane caught her breath and fought against the urge to cozy up to him. She resisted sniffing that space between his shoulder and neck, to take in the clean notes of amber and wood from his cologne.

She wondered if his proximity could be a cop tactic he used to intimidate people, since his presence seemed to scramble something in her head. The desire to take this hulk of a man down on the pavement and screw him in the parking lot crossed her mind.

If he wasn’t initiating one of those trained psychological tricks on her, then Jax merely practiced a good down-home flirt. The man appeared to occupy the same space without being inside of her, making Lane believe he was one heck of a tease.

“Look, I’m not one to engage in the Scarlet O’Hara routine,” she admitted, “but I’ve never seen someone shot before. Not to mention, I wanted him dead before the dead happened. Either I have telekinesis, or else I’m just an asshole.” She swallowed, in complete disbelief he’d gotten her to confess.

“Trust me, I would love to get the scoop on why an officer of the law didn’t call in a murder.” Lane counted his transgressions off on her fingers. “Doesn’t have a weapon on him, and is filching GPS units off of a dead cheater’s car.” He opened his eyes wide, but she plowed on. “I’m not an airhead or a celeb-idiot, but I am exhausted, which I hear is bad for good decision-making.”

“You mean like leaving a bar with a stranger and telling no one where you’re at?”

“Kinda,” she mumbled at the glint of humor she recognized in the sexy man’s eyes.

“Trust me, sweetheart, I think it’s safe to say you don’t have telekinesis.”

Caught off guard, Lane laughed, grateful for her first chuckle of the night, but she didn’t anticipate many more. A remorseful record of pity and shame had gone around in her head since the moment her mark died in front of her.

“You’ve had a big shock. I just want to make sure you’re comfortable with this.” Jax nodded toward the brick building.

“Is there hot cocoa?” she asked.

“Not one hundred percent sure, but maybe.”

“A tub?” she pressed. “Because no tub is beyond a deal breaker.”

“There are some areas under construction, but the bathroom is not one of them, so we’re good.”

She studied the structure with renewed interest. “This isn’t the kind of firehouse where I will be required to suit up in the middle of the night and slide down a pole, is it?” She walked toward the entrance next to the double door garage.

“If you want it to be.” Jax chuckled from behind her. “Only if you want it to be.”

Startled, Lane sat up, confused. Sunlight streamed into Jax’s firehouse as the horrible events of the previous night flooded back to her in great detail.

The firehouse was under renovation. She took in his three-bedroom, two-bath home. The night before he’d explained his plans for the place when he ushered her up one of the cool, gravity-defying staircases to the bedroom.

For a split second, crazed by her female hormones, she had considered bailing when she didn’t get her promised hot cup of cocoa. However, the glorious marble bathtub convinced her she could rough it after all.

For at least an hour, she’d soaked the filth from the mark’s touch down the drain. Thankful for the fresh reboot, she had started to feel closer to normal and farther away from bat shit crazy.

Once she got out of the tub, she’d found men’s pajamas and a cup of tea waiting for her on the nightstand. The mere sweetness of Jax’s gesture had forced her to not hold the poor substitute for chocolate against him.

The overcast morning fell limp beyond the arched window. Lane caressed the “rich man’s sheets” of Egyptian fabric that cocooned her in comfort.

Eager to see Jax, she padded down the spiral stairs. An autumn draft cooled the fire station, and a chill ran through her body. Construction film covered areas in the house. A skeleton of wood boards and wires showed throughout his home.