Chapter 10 Marlowe
TEN
marlowe
I try hard not to shake but fail. I’d picked up the small box, thinking it was a gift and not expecting to find…
A sob catches in my throat.
The poor little bird inside is dead, and some sicko went to the effort to put it in a box, wrap it in tissue paper, then…
“Declan,” I whisper, voice scratchy.
I don’t know what to say or do. How am I supposed to read this sick, twisted thing? Who the hell would even do this? Someone demented, someone disturbed.
Someone out to scare me.
It worked.
I’m terrified, because I’ve only gotten cards, cheap jewelry, scarves, teddy bears, and dance figurines from this “fan” of mine.
“Why…” I swallow hard. “Why would someone send me this?”
“Someone thinks you’re special, Marlowe.”
That makes no sense.
“I’m not special,” I say, clutching the small box. “All the dancers get their fair share of flowers, cards, and gifts.”
“Dead birds, too?”
He takes it from me, looks at it, and puts it down.
I’m horrified. Numb. Somehow, I manage to take in a breath. “No.”
“Hey, look at Dec, here.” He snaps his fingers in front of my face.
“I’m good for the old eyes.” I turn to him, still shuddering.
“You’re fine. You’re with me. Now…” He frowns.
“I was in your dressing room earlier. I didn’t see that box, or I’d have taken it.
Someone must’ve left it for you during the show? ”
Things get dropped off for us all the time during performances. It’s not unusual to find cards, flowers, and gifts before and after a performance. Sometimes even the next day.
I stare at his bare chest, the tattoos of Irish tribal symbols that I didn’t pay attention to earlier because I was busy.
He pulled off the shirt at some point, and I’m aching in a good way between my thighs, like I’ve used muscles I never have.
Which is ludicrous because I’ve had pretty much every muscle of my body aching before, so I don’t know why…
“Marlowe?”
His voice snaps me back to attention. I finally meet his gaze, halting my frenzied thoughts. “Or sent it, had it dropped at the theater. People do that,” I murmur absently.
“What about cameras?”
“I don’t think they have any security feeds.”
“I bet they do.” It’s not contempt exactly, but he dismisses my words while he pulls out his phone.
“Tor? It’s me. I need any and all footage of the Manhattan Ballet foyer and backstage…
if it exists… Yes, it is fucking easy… How far back?
A week?” He pauses again. “Someone dropped off a metallic wrapped package off for Marlowe. I want to know who. Thanks.”
I expel a quaking breath, my eyes dropping to the cards and other small gifts that sit on the table next to my bag. He looks at them, making short work of reading the cards and opening the packages, but there’s nothing dangerous or…dead…in them. Then he swings that fierce aqua gaze to me.
I can imagine what he’s thinking, that I’m so shallow and materialistic I wanted to see the gifts that were sent, to bask in the adoration in the cards.
But I always open them and read them. If the gift sender has their address, I send a thank you on official Manhattan Ballet letterhead. “We all get things.” I look up at him. “It’s normal. I’ll send a thank you if there’s an address, it’s the right thing.”
“Personalized?”
“No. Unless it’s from a child.”
Declan shakes his head, gently strokes the feathers on the little dead creature, and mutters, “Fuck people.”
He’s not mad at me. He’s upset someone killed the bird. For a moment I stare at him, but it makes sense. After all, he was great with all our animals.
He walks over to his bag and unzips the top.
I can’t look away because he’s that magnificent.
I know a perfect body. I’ve seen them. I’m surrounded by them daily.
It takes me a long minute to tear my gaze away.
He turns from his bag, clothes in hands.
And I try so hard not to ogle the thick cock between his legs.
“What’s the small tattoo on your back?” Which isn’t the question I wanted to ask, but it was the stylized outline of a woman looking over five other outlines in a wreath of roses, leaves, and thorns. There’s an Irish word above it.
“Family.” He gives a half shrug. “Mam.”
I force a laugh. “Are you a mama’s boy?”
But he isn’t smiling. “Damn fucking right. I’m Mam’s boy, through and through, so are we all.
She kept us together like glue.” Then the dimple flashes and my heart flutters.
“It’s a tattoo. I thought I was the shit when I got it done at sixteen.
Told ’em I was eighteen. Not that they believed me. Believed my money, though.”
I turn away from him as he starts pulling on clothes.
“Why would someone send me that poor bird?”
“A fucked-up Swan Lake reference,” he mutters. “I don’t know. It’s psychotic—or meant to be.”
I swallow. “Maybe because I was asking around about Daddy?”
“Hard to tell. I don’t know what the whole story is or how this Leon guy might be involved.”
I glare at him. “I told you. We had a meeting set up. Money for information. And Leon arranged it after I gave him the details I knew.” But questions still swirl through my mind about that night, about Leon’s explanations, and I don’t fully trust what I’ve been told.
Not that I tell Declan.
“Which were?”
“Not much. Someone demanded money from Mom, who ignored the request. Just like I told you. Leon got the ball rolling.”
He comes up to me. “Only Leon was mysteriously late and coincidentally at the shoot-out, aiming at us.”
“Not at us.”
Declan smiles and my stomach wobbles. “At me.”
“No, I don’t think so,” I hedge, even though Leon told me that was the case and that Declan was a target.
“Cartels don’t take kindly to people who interrupt their work, and that’s exactly what I did at the truckyard.” He frowns as I pick up the pointe shoes I’m using for rehearsing. “What are you doing?
“I have rehearsal.”
For a moment he just looks at me like I’ve grown another head. “You don’t even want to dance.”
“Want’s got nothing to do with it,” I say. “I still have to go to rehearsal. It’s my job.”
“Stay here.”
“I can’t.” I don’t want to stay anywhere we had sex. Last night I wanted it, burned for it. Now I…burn in a different way. With shame that I opened up to him, shame that I wanted it, practically begged for it. Shame that I still want more.
His phone lights up and he reads a message, one I don’t see. Declan’s mouth sets in a line as he pockets his phone and heads to the door.
“Where are we going?”
“You’re going to rehearsal. I’ve got work to do.”
There’s a woman with dark blonde hair pulled into a ponytail who sits in on the rehearsals. I don’t know who she is, but it doesn’t take much to work out she’s somehow connected to Declan.
She’s pretty and she watches me in the kind of way that makes me feel a little naked, like she’s looking for something in me. But for some reason, I get the feeling I can trust her. And if she works for Declan, why can’t she be my prison guard?
But I know the answer to that. He’s no bodyguard, and he’s not about to let anything go until he uncovers whatever answers he wants.
He promised me my father.
My life is no longer my own.
My gaze shifts back to the woman. There’s something familiar about her, like I’ve seen her in passing, but I don’t have time to think too much on it as the next part of the day starts.
Finally, I stretch out with the others and Topher sinks down next to me. “You’re dancing like shit.”
“Thanks.”
He grins. “It’s true. You’re better than whatever that was, and you know you’ll be hearing about it.” Then his gaze slips to the woman, and he gives her a nod. “She’s an interesting babysitter.”
I gaze at him. “What makes you think that?”
“I know more than you think. Plus, your new husband walked in and she’s walking over to him.”
Sure enough, the blonde’s doing just that. She gives Declan’s arm a squeeze and keeps walking. I don’t know why, but something tells me a Murphy man’s not about to let any woman walk out unescorted, especially one who quietly stood out like a beacon.
Someone will be waiting for her, right outside the door. I’m certain of it.
Declan’s gaze sizzles my blood. He makes the world shrink and my libido soar. But the effect is crushed moments later when the director, Monty, walks over. He snaps a finger at Topher who stands and helps me to my feet.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
“Just what I’m told. Come on.” With that, he leads me like some kind of invalid over to Monty and a smug Declan.
“You should have informed me, you stupid girl. Go.” Monty turns his back, motioning Topher over to Amanda.
Declan slides an arm around me and whispers, “Limp.”
I’m so shocked at his words that I do without questioning it. He sweeps up my bag as we exit the room and then the building. The door to the sleek black car opens and I half expect the blonde to be sitting there.
“Where’s your watch woman?”
“Harry? She’s with my brother, Torin, I imagine.” He sits back, taps his leg as we take off, away from the dance center, and head downtown. It’s not until I recognize the street we turn on that my heart beats fast and furious.
I clasp my hands tight. “We’re not staying at the hotel?”
“No.” Darkness turns his gaze into a midnight sea. “And you’re not dancing, either.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t want to—and someone sent you a dead bird, and now this.” He hands me another package. My heart thrashes. Same silver paper. And the box is open.
A single silver feather hangs on a delicate silver chain. It’s pretty, and if no one had sent me a dead creature, I’d find it lovely.
Now?
It creeps me the fuck out. I shove it back at him. “Is that why I’m suddenly injured?”
“You limped on your left leg, remember that. And no,” he says. “You’re suddenly injured because you don’t want to dance anymore. At least, right now you don’t. So…problem solved.”
“Plus, you can keep an eye on me as easily.”
“Plus that.”