Chapter 5
Enzo
As I near the bed with Flora in my hands, my senses begin to return to me.
She's clinging so tightly to my neck that her breasts are squashed against my chest. Her breasts are generously proportioned and soft, and the flimsy material of her shirt is not nearly enough to diminish their effect on my bare skin.
It’s difficult, if not impossible, to keep ahold of my senses. Her heady perfume doesn’t help matters. It fills my nostrils and clouds my reasoning.
When I reach the bed, I kneel on its edge to lower her gently on her back, and she lets go of my neck.
However, her eyes stay on me, those big blue eyes holding me in place with invisible hands, luring me in, into their depths.
Her lips are slightly parted in a silent invitation.
They’re full, they’re red, and they’re tempting, practically begging me for another kiss.
I pull my gaze away from them, but that takes it inadvertently lower, to her chest.
Her shirt is tousled. A button must have come loose or open at some point during our flight from the motel room or when I lifted her here. But I can tell that the creamy mounds partially exposed by the slight opening is not encased in a bra.
The knowledge makes my head pound with a rush of blood. However, it’s nothing compared to the rush between my legs. I can feel myself getting hard by the second.
Her shirt lies flat over her taut stomach, and when my eyes stray past her torso, they trace the gentle curve of her hips, covered in a pair of black denims that accentuate that curve.
A maddening need to rip her clothes off takes hold of me.
This need is a living thing, gripping me in a chokehold so tight I can only manage the shallowest of breaths.
You shouldn’t.
The warning is faint, almost inaudible in the chaos that is my head. I should heed it and back away, but I don’t. Against my better judgment, I lower myself slowly over her.
Her legs are open, still loosely hanging from my waist. They reel me in, onto her body. She raises her head to reach for my lips as I settle over her. I meet hers with gratitude.
There is a hunger in her kissing that takes me by surprise.
It tugs at the leash holding me back and comes really close to unraveling it.
I can’t say if it’s the incredible softness of those lips that hold me back.
They border on a delicateness that worries me.
I don’t want to leave bruises on her mouth.
I try to maintain as much self-control as I can while I kiss her. Matching her silent demands without going overboard is a challenge that takes more from me than I expect. Her hands find my nape again, and her fingers get lost in my hair.
Beneath me, her body is pliant and welcoming. I want to ravish every inch of it as I pull away from her lips and find the sensitive hollow at the base of her neck.
I kiss it once, twice, and then thrice before moving up to the side of her neck to plant a love bite. All it takes is a little sucking, and she’s whimpering. I go lower again, away from her neck and perilously close to those succulent mounds.
I palm them through her shirt, one after the other, and knead gently.
Her breath escapes her lips in a hiss, and she lets out a long moan.
I should undo the buttons now and get rid of the fabric, but I don’t.
I shut my eyes and take a deep breath. It’s not enough to suppress the primal urge that is growing rapidly in my head.
I draw in more air in longer and deeper breaths until my lungs are filled to bursting.
That provides the distraction I need. Then I exhale and roll off her.
This is the most difficult thing I’ve done tonight. It’s harder than taking bullets from dirty cops, firing back at them, or maneuvering a car away from the onslaught of a hail of bullets.
Flora Mount is in a pretty vulnerable state where she’s likely to say yes to almost anything I ask for. So having sex with her right now would be wrong. The events in the motel have left her in shock, and it’s made her way too susceptible to me.
Right now, this reasoning doesn't make half as much sense to me as my need to take her. Still, I hold on to it, like it’s the only meaningful thing in the world.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
“Yes,” I reply. My voice is a husky whisper. “You should probably tell me what Richard Wells told you.” Regret fills me as the words roll off my tongue.
For a long while, there’s no comment from Flora.
When I turn, her eyebrows are raised in a silent question.
Unfortunately, the question is not one I can answer at the moment.
So I pretend not to see it and get up from the bed.
The wardrobe provides a distraction as I walk over to it in search of a new shirt.
There’s still nothing from Flora.
I sort through the clothes hanging in the wardrobe in silence.
There’s an oversized tartan shirt, a sweatshirt, a pullover, a tank top, and a pair of denims coupled with leather jackets on one side.
On the other side, there’s a complete suit enclosed in a transparent bag, a dress shirt and pants ironed to razor sharp creases, and an overcoat.
On the floor, there are pairs of dress shoes, jungle boots, and tennis shoes. I’m spoiled for choice. Yet Flora hasn’t said anything.
“Flora?” I call.
“Yeah?”
“Richard Wells.”
“Why did you stop?”
I grab the sweatshirt and pull it on before I turn to her. “This is not the right time,” I tell her. “Not like this.”
“Not like how?” she asks. “You know what? Never mind.” Her brows are furrowed, and her lips are set in a tight line as she sits up and fixes the last button of her shirt.
Now I’m no longer sure I did the right thing. “Flora I—”
“First I got an email from an anonymous source,” Flora cuts me off. “The source said the details of the coroner's report on Raymond Carter's death were twisted to suit a certain narrative. Blood spatter—”
“The email was from me,” I cut in. “But listen—”
“That was you?” Flora asks. “Well, I'll be damned.”
“I'm sorry about that,” I apologize.
She's sitting on the bed now, perched on the edge with her hands folded across her chest. At least she’s no longer crying.
“There's nothing to be sorry about,” she says.
“Your email is the reason I started looking deeper into the case in the first place. I only started getting suspicious when the cops stonewalled me when I asked them questions and frustrated every attempt I made to get answers, though.”
There’s no point dwelling on our unfinished business on the bed anymore. She’s well past it now, albeit badly. “How did you find Richard Wells?” I ask.
“He called me. Said something about knowing who killed Raymond Carter and how it’s not the person everybody thinks it is. So we set up a meet at the motel.”
Understanding dawns on me. “Jacob and the others must have started shadowing you after you asked them questions they didn't like.”
“I suppose so,” Flora agrees. She stares speculatively at me for a moment. “And you were following me, too, to see what I'd find out?”
I shrug. “You have an impressive track record for blowing open murder cases. I felt it'd be easier to let you do the work.”
A smile begins to form on her face. Just when my lips start to stretch in an imitation of hers, the smile dies halfway through. “You used me,” she says.
“I gave you the opportunity to blow open another case,” I correct. “Possibly win another award. Now, what did Richard Wells tell you?”
That speculative look forms on her face again. She's not sure whether to share or not.
I decide not to prod and wait instead.
After a while, the look disappears. “He said he made a recording,” she says and pulls out the dental floss pack. “Can we use the computer here?”
“Yes.”
I lead the way over to the bank of monitors in the lounge area and fire up one. Flora inserts the card into a card reader and slots it in while the system boots. Once the booting is complete, I access the memory card and play the only video in it.
The images are shaky, but the figures in it are recognizable. The view is from a window up on a second floor. It’s showing a patio I recognize immediately.
“Raymond Carter’s house,” I tell Flora.
“Yes.”
Two men are hauling a body wrapped in blue sheets out of the house.
Flora’s jaw hangs. “Is that…?”
“Those are the men that attacked us tonight,” I tell her. “Officers Slattery and Brown.”
Brown’s perpetually clean-shaven pate is what gives him away while Slatter’s brown hair and generous paunch mark him out.
“Is that Carter?” Flora asks.
“Most likely. Check the time stamp.”
The time on the recording shows 6:15 p.m. That’s a good two hours before Carter was reported dead at the abandoned warehouse.
The men carry the shrouded body around the house to the trunk of a waiting car. It’s the Chevy from tonight. Milton comes into view then to raise the trunk. Slattery and Brown bundle the body into it, and he shuts the trunk. The three get into the car.
The camera pans away from the window to show a bedroom and then begins to move shakily as Richard Wells, or whoever made the recording, walks quickly out of the room. It floats down a hallway to another bedroom at the end. The window from this one shows the street.
Richard is just in time to catch the car going down the road.
“Great,” I say. “Great. This is all I need.”
Flora has a skeptical look on her face. “You don’t have proof that the body in the trunk is Raymond. Richard Wells’s testimony about the gunshot he heard would have helped, but he’s dead.”
I shake my head in disagreement. “By the time a CSI unit goes over that house and the trunk of that car, I’ll have all the evidence I need. All you need to do is put this out, and I’ll have them by the balls.”
My cellphone starts to buzz with an incoming call then. I pull it out to check the caller ID: It’s Lorenzo. Something has gone wrong. A freezing cold spreads rapidly all over me. It keeps my thumb hovering over the screen for a few minutes before I finally swipe to pick up: “Hello?”
“Enzo?” Lorenzo’s voice is level.
“Yes?”
“Franklin is dead.”
“How did he—”
“The official story is that he tried to escape from jail and got shot.”
“We both know that’s a lie.”
“I know.”
“They killed him.”
“Yes, they did.”