Chapter 16
Lovelyn
I must’ve dozed again, as the slamming of the flat’s front door startled me awake. Stumbling from the bed, I peeked into the empty living room. Kane had left, but a check of the time gave me an idea where. His appointment was at nine, and it was ten minutes before.
He hadn’t said goodbye.
The orgasm he’d forced into my flesh must’ve killed a few brain cells because disappointment chased my relaxation from his act.
I heaved a sigh and took a few minutes to wash and dress. I’d brought clothes, toiletries, and makeup, so at least I could feel like myself. I’d neglected to bring any food, though. Not even a snack. Nor was there anything but empty shelves in the kitchen.
Back in the bedroom, I stripped Kane’s bed, figuring it was the last room that needed attention, then set up at the small table in the living room and logged in to the system with the pathologist’s reports. Hah. Updated. A win for the morning.
I searched for Esther’s record and stared.
Quickly, I messaged the Skeleton Girls group.
It had been busy with chat all night after Mila had told the women about Dixie.
Much of their discussion rehashed the thoughts I’d already had, so I’d commented my shock along with theirs, finally getting a release for the reactions I’d had to hide.
Lovelyn: Update on Esther. Cause of death is constriction of the neck, not drowning.
Cassie: That means strangulation, right?
I confirmed it.
Genevieve: It also means she was dead before she went into the water. Holy shit.
Everly: So there really is another killer on the loose.
It sank in. Esther had been murdered. We’d guessed that to be the case, but the evidence was there in black and white.
Cassie: This might be way out there, but I’ve been thinking about our badass hidden legacy, Dixie, all night. Is there anything in common?
Mila: Esther was a sex worker. So is my sister.
My heart hurt. I hovered my fingers over the keyboard.
A private message came in from Mila.
Mila: I realised last night that Dixie vanished when I showed up on the scene. I drove her from her safe place, didn’t I?
Lovelyn: No! You didn’t do anything wrong.
Mila: Convict says the same, but she was fine until I came along.
Lovelyn: You aren’t the reason, I promise. When Dixie gets to meet you, she’ll love you. If I was there, I’d give you a big hug.
Mila: I’d take it. Thank you for saying that. I wish I’d found out before, then I could’ve prevented this. God, I’m starting to hate my family. I have something else to share but I’ll switch back to the group chat.
In the Skeleton Girls group, Genevieve was relating her discussion with Arran over further protection for the women who worked in the warehouse, and Everly commented how Shade was already so overprotective of her in her pregnancy that he was losing his mind at our discovery.
I couldn’t imagine being at the centre of the intensity of someone like him. After all, the psychopath I somehow liked jumped up and ran after making me come.
Mila: I can’t help feeling that whoever tried to kill Dixie will make a second attempt. If it’s to do with our family’s business, that’s still in turmoil, and it’s already out there that a third Marchant heir exists. We can’t suppress that. Too many heard at the will reading.
Cold slunk over me. If she’d been in danger because of her family history before it was revealed, what did it mean now? Was the risk greater? My mind flittered over the issue.
Lovelyn: I’ll find her. I’ll do everything I can.
Mila: Convict might be onto something with a friend of hers.
He asked around in the warehouse and heard about a sex worker who used to work there but left.
Her name’s Pollyanna. Dixie took her under her wing, and another dancer said she was sure she once overheard them discussing someplace they both knew from childhood.
Will report back when we have anything concrete.
I set aside my phone then drummed my fingers on my laptop. I’d already run Dixie’s name through a number of police systems, but I hadn’t tried Darcy’s. I entered the details. Nothing for a criminal record. No other reference. Damn.
Okay. I needed another approach to finding her connections.
People who ran typically went to family, and we were sorely out of information on that front.
If the Marchant son who’d fathered Kane, Dixie, and Mila had paid maintenance, that could be somewhere.
I didn’t have direct access to that data, but I had contacts who could, for a fee.
From discussion with Mila, I knew her father’s name was Able Marchant.
With a quick message composed, I sent my request off into the ether.
The front door opened.
Kane strode inside, a drinks holder with two cups in one hand and a white bag with a coffee shop logo in the other. His gaze shot to me, that storm-cloud expression still haunting his eyes.
Instant heat curled inside me. After what had happened between us, I had no idea how to behave around him, though my body had other ideas. My libido saw Pavlov and smashed the to-the-max button.
He leaned back on the door. “You’re still here.”
Unhappiness shot the attraction down. “Was I supposed to go?”
“That isn’t what I meant. I thought you’d have walked out on me.”
My uncontrolled emotions lurched again, having a field day. I swallowed a hit of sadness. There was no give in his expression or tone, yet he’d neatly revealed how he’d been in his appointment thinking about me. Worrying.
“I don’t scare that easy.” I gestured to the coffee shop order. “A peace offering for being rough?”
Kane drove his eyebrows together but approached and set the bag and drinks on the table then stepped back. “One’s fruit tea, the other’s coffee. No sugar added, but there’s sachets with the pastries in the bag. Choose whichever you prefer. I’ll take what’s left then we’ll leave.”
I helped myself. “How did you know I like fruit tea?”
“Mila mentioned something about meeting over a drink.”
And he’d logged that information away.
Hunger tightened my belly, so I tore into a croissant, pushing the other items across the table for Kane. He didn’t sit, choosing to take his to the window to scowl at the city while he ate.
“I was rough,” he interrogated the glass.
I snorted. “You pinned me down. Then ran away.”
“Or left before I did something ye didn’t ask for.”
Damn how that hit me straight in the depths of my body. “I didn’t ask for anything.”
“Try telling that to your soaking wet pussy.”
I swallowed sheer need, trying to keep it from my face. “If last night wasn’t rough in your mind, what is?”
He didn’t reply, but I caught something in the reflection. A smirk he was hiding by facing away.
I couldn’t keep my focus off him. He’d touched me last night. He’d broken out of his control to take handfuls of me and give me pleasure. It hadn’t been polite, but oddly, I’d liked it all the more for it.
Worse, I wanted another go.
In more ways than one, I was in trouble.
We finished breakfast, and a quarter of an hour later, he’d cleared the remaining items in his flat, which was the bedding and the towels and packets from his bathroom, bagged them up, and shoved them into large municipal bins. In the car park, I peered around. No maniacal gangsters in sight.
“They were gone when I came back down the first time last night,” Kane said.
“Kind of glad you’re moving. It’s scary here.” I squinted at the solitary new bag in the boot. “That’s it? That’s all your personal possessions from your home?”
“I don’t hold on to things I don’t actively use, and the flat will be sold as furnished, so everything else stays with it. I took a winter coat for working outdoors, spare boots, a few other clothes, then I stowed some weapons elsewhere in the car. All I need.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “You’d hate my house. There are ornaments passed down through generations, fridge magnets from seaside trips, pictures on the walls that we put up just because they’re pretty. There’s even a bag of my baby clothes in my mother’s room, under her bed. All the clutter.”
He raised a shoulder, not meeting my eye. “I can see why that might feel good. It’s not my world.”
My heart cracked a little more for all the things Kane didn’t have, whether it was by his design or someone else’s.
In the car, he hit the button for the heat.
I settled in my seat. “What work did you do here in Manchester?”
“Do ye know what I do for the skeleton crew?”
“Not exactly.”
“I hurt people who other people pay me to hurt. I’m good at it.”
A shiver caught me, my mind immediately jumping to his huge fists laying into someone bad. “Monetising those fists. It makes sense. Who?”
Kane threw the car into reverse and eased out of the space. “Businessmen, mainly. Arseholes who back out of contracts or take part in underhand dealings. I’ve also been a bodyguard, but the rules are so fucking strict I didn’t enjoy it.”
“Did you hurt women?”
He shook his head in a sharp motion. “Men are predators. If we piss off other predators, we take the consequences. Like last night. It’s fair game. Rarely the same for lasses.”
I was still not attracted to violence. Definitely not.
I was such a liar.
“What are women, then? Prey?”
Kane shot me a heated look. It went straight to my core.
We emerged from the underground into bright daylight.
I waved goodbye to the apartment block. “Farewell, Kane’s flat. It was sort of nice to meet you. I hope your new owner loves you even if your last won’t shed a tear.”
He shook his head, but it felt indulgent, even if he didn’t give the building a single parting glance as we drove away.
Our journey to Warford and the start of our Dixie hunt would take under an hour, and once we were there, I intended to pound the pavements. It meant the time to talk to Kane was now.
I swallowed but couldn’t phrase the question I wanted to, instead, busting out with, “Star Trek or Star Wars?”
He raised a dark eyebrow.