J. Kenner - Heated

He waited, obviously expecting me to tell him what happened.

I stayed silent.

His shoulder lifted almost infinitesimally. “I told you I don’t trust easy. I meant it.”

I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to process all he’d told me while at the same time figuring out my next move.

My goddamn prints. It had never occurred to me that they’d run the prints of someone applying for a waitress position. And it had never occurred to me that Tyler would watch the security feed when he was out of town.

Two mistakes, and knowing they were out there—that they were on me—only riled my temper more. “You knew, and yet you brought me to your room, stripped me, fucked me?” I thought about the couch, the waiter. About the way the erotic thrill had ripped through me, like some intimate new secret that he’d shared with me.

“You played me,” I said, my voice low but trembling with anger. “You fucking played me.”

“Hell yes, I played you. I already told you. I pulled you in, step by step. I had every intention of using you and being done with you.”

He moved away from the door, taking a single step toward me. “Nothing but one big con—or at least that’s the way I planned it. Because nobody plays those kinds of games with me. Not and gets away with it.”

“Well, hooray on you,” I said. “You win. Happy?”

“Not really, no.”

“Yeah? Well, good.” I tried to make the words sound cavalier and uncaring. But dammit, I did care. And now that my fear was gone and the anger was settling, I felt hollow and lost.

Goddamn me for letting myself get twisted around by this guy—this fucking asshole who didn’t want a goddamn thing except to use me. And I’d gone and let myself believe that part of it was real. His talk of trust and passion. Of feeling that connection.

I’d let myself forget that he was a grifter at heart, and who better to see your weak spots than a con who manipulated emotions to make a fast buck?

Well, fuck him.

I started to turn away, but he took my chin. “No,” he said, his voice soft yet firm. “I know what you’re thinking, and no. I pushed you because I thought you were a cop. But when you ran—when I went after you—it was because I wanted the woman.”

“Please,” I said, as a brutal wave of exhaustion swept over me. “Please, will you just let me leave?”

He said nothing for so long I thought he was going to simply ignore the question. “Is that what you want?” he finally asked.

Is that what I want?

Wasn’t that a loaded question? I wanted to start over. I wanted him to be squeaky clean. I wanted to not be a cop.

Except, I didn’t. Not really. I liked who I was. And—though I would admit it only to myself, and even then only in the smallest, darkest parts—I also like who Tyler was. Would he be the same man if he’d grown up all corn fed and innocent with a homecoming king crown on his head? I didn’t think so.

But it didn’t matter, because this was the end. There was nothing between us now but memories, and now even those were tainted, tinged with the bloodred stain of deceit.

“I don’t want anything,” I said wearily. “I meant what I said last night. The only reason I came to Chicago—the only reason I did any of this—was because I want to find Amy.”

He arched a brow. “Aren’t you afraid I sold her to some sick fuck on the other side of the world?”

“No,” I said, and though I meant it sincerely, I was cop enough to know that I couldn’t entirely dismiss the possibility.

He nodded his head, and I thought I saw relief in his eyes.

“So can I have the job?” I really did want it. Not only did I hope that one of the girls would know how to contact Amy, but I also wanted to find out if Kevin and Tom were right, and the knights’ played in a dirty sandbox.

“I told you last night,” he said. “No.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Those girls have been through a lot. They don’t need a cop poking around in their personal business.”

“They don’t need to know I’m a cop.”

“And I’m not going to be the one to deceive them.”

“You sure as hell didn’t have a problem deceiving me.”

Temper flashed in his eyes. “Don’t go there. Do not even start to go there.”

Frustrated, I kicked the wall hard, then again for good measure. “Dammit, Tyler—”

He held up a hand. “Enough. Neither one of us is clean on that score, so let’s just drop it.”

“Fine.”

“But even if I was willing to keep what you are a secret, Evan and Cole wouldn’t go for it.”

That I knew I couldn’t argue with.

“You can come in,” he said. “Sit down with the girls. Ask them if they know anything. It’s the best I can do, Sloane. Take it or leave it.”

It wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t even close to good enough. But unless I could figure out a way to convince Tyler otherwise, it was going to have to be.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll take it.”

“Well, at least we know that she got another job,” Candy said. It was just after ten in the morning, and I’d called her as soon as I’d arrived back at my apartment. Now I was wishing I’d called from the car. The cell phone connection inside my place was terrible, and she sounded so far away, making me feel even more alone. “Vegas, huh? Just the kind of place she’d get a kick out of. I just wish she would’ve let me know.”

“Me too, but we both know Amy’s a little bit of a flake. She’s probably just working twenty-four/seven. Either that, or she’s quit this new job and took off with some guy to party. She’ll call. More likely, she’ll just show up on your due date.”

“I hope so,” Candy said.

“Just chill,” I said. “I’ll tell you if you need to worry. And right now, there’s nothing to fret about.”

I told myself I should believe that too, but somehow couldn’t quite manage it. For now, I was willing to believe Tyler. But that didn’t change the fact that Amy had fallen off the planet right when Candy’s baby was due. And that just didn’t sit right with me.

Dammit, I wanted inside Destiny. I wanted to talk to the staff and the customers and see if I could figure out where Amy had gone, if for no other reason than my friend’s peace of mind.

Tyler’s offer to let me talk with the girls might seem generous on the surface, but it wasn’t going to do me a damn bit of good. People clammed up when questioned. But when they’re chatting casually, memory flows, gossip flies. Chat with someone, and you get the story. Interview them, and you get facts.

More than that, I wanted a closer look at the man who’d gotten under my skin. And I wasn’t going to get that by sitting down with a bunch of girls he’d handpicked who’d tell me he was the best boss ever.

Shit.

I tried to pace the small apartment I’d rented for the op, but there wasn’t even room for that. I had a whopping two hundred and fifty square feet in the up-and-coming Pilson neighborhood. The kitchen was a joke, the pullout sofa doubled as a bed, and I should demand that the unstoppable bathroom mold pay rent.

As a model of taste and style, it failed miserably. As a place to park my ass while I was working, it did the job just fine.

Currently, my ass was parked on the end of the bed, which I hadn’t bothered to convert back into sofa form.

“Thanks for doing this,” Candy said. “I know I shouldn’t have worried, but I’m blaming it on these damn hormones. They’re making me crazy. Plus, I’m the size of a whale.”

I lay back on the bed, smiling. “I haven’t been gone that long. You were maybe the size of an elephant when I left. That’s a long way from a whale.”

“Bitch,” she said with a laugh, which was exactly what I was going for. “I mean it,” she added when the laughter bubbled away. “It’s solid of you. Taking the time, I mean.”

“It’s what I do.”

“Yeah, well. I’m just—I’m sorry about the stuff with the guy. That’s a real kick in the gut.”

I shrugged, then grabbed one of the pillows and curled myself around it. “It’s fucked up,” I said. “I never expected them to make me as a cop.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said gently.

“Shit,” I said, but the word was soft and without malice. I’d told her nothing but the basics—that I’d gone into the op with a plan to seduce Tyler. That the seduction part of the equation had chugged along just fine. At least I thought so until it boomeranged on me and turned out to be nothing but one big con, with me wearing the neon target sign.

What I hadn’t mentioned was how intimate the seduction had become—how far I’d let him go. Hell, how far I’d wanted him to go.

And I sure as hell hadn’t said anything about how deeply the truth had cut me.

I should have known Candy would dig it out anyway.

“I didn’t want to get you all caught up in my personal crap,” I said, though the words sounded lame.

“I’m all about the personal crap,” she said. “I drag you into my personal crap all the time. That’s sort of the point of the whole friendship thing, right? Celebrating the good, bitching about the bad, sharing secrets?”

I supposed it was. Not that I had oodles of experience in that regard. I hadn’t had any close girlfriends growing up. For that matter, I hadn’t had any close friends, period. Like Candy said, friends shared their secrets. I, however, didn’t share mine.

As far as BFFs went, Candy was probably as close as I came. It probably qualified as pathetic that my closest friend was also my CI. Then again, when did I have time to meet people other than cops, lawyers, victims, and suspects?

Not that we had a frilly-pink girly relationship. We didn’t sit around discussing men and painting our toenails—and though I’d let her glimpse a few bones here and there, she’d yet to see the skeletons in my closet. But we went out for drinks and pizza sometimes, and whenever I hit her up for street gossip we usually ended up sharing a beer on her fire escape and talking about life and television and stuff. As far as I was concerned, that must put us somewhere on the friendship spectrum.

“Sloane?” Her voice held wariness now. “You wanna talk about it?”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” I said.

“Fuck that.”

“Jesus, Candy, what do you want me to say? I didn’t realize he was playing me, and I got burned—end of story. But it’s only my pride that got wounded. It’s not like I’m drowning my sorrows in chocolate ice cream and writing poetic love notes to him in a pink diary. It wasn’t real—how the hell could any of it been real?”

“I’m so sorry.”

It was the gentleness in her voice that undid me. “Bitch,” I whispered. “You’re supposed to just let me wallow.”

“You really liked him, huh?”

I started to say no, then stopped myself. “I liked the man I saw—I liked him a lot. But beats the hell out of me whether that man even exists. Shit,” I added, as I pushed myself up and ran my fingers through my hair. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m not looking to get involved, and even if I were, a Chicago-based criminal wouldn’t be my first choice.”

“No, I guess not. You know what you should do?” she asked. “Go get a pint of that chocolate ice cream.”

Since friends rarely steer you wrong, I took the advice to heart. Fifteen minutes later I was cross-legged on the floor, my back to the bed and the TV on in front of me. The pint of double chocolate chunk ice cream I’d bought at the corner market was still frozen, and I was scraping the spoon along the top, grateful for every tiny little bite I was able to chip off.

I’d turned the television on in a brutal and obvious effort to knock all thoughts of Tyler, Amy, the whole damn thing, from my head. But since the only thing worth watching was Law and Order, I was doing a piss poor job of getting clear.

I wanted Tyler. Irrational and stupid and complicated and dangerous, but damned if I didn’t want him anyway. And even though I kept trying to bury the thought of him down deep, my thoughts of him were as relentless as the man himself.

The shrill ring of my phone made me jump, and I wanted to kick myself, because my very first impulse was to check and see if it was him.

Apparently, I’d never left high school.

With my pulse pounding, I checked the screen. Just a number, but I knew it was him. I could feel it, and I took a deep breath to steady myself before I answered.

But it wasn’t Tyler’s whiskey-smooth voice I heard. It was Kevin’s.

“You got a minute?”