Nineteen
The following Friday night, Dylan and I decided to have our happy-hour drinks at a new place.
It was called Molly’s Cool Dive Bar, and we were having a good time throwing darts.
We had been warned once that we were going to have to stop if more of them didn’t start hitting the board.
They were flying all over the place—pool tables and walls, into the drinks of other patrons.
It was a bad idea, so we quit and just drank screwdrivers.
It wasn’t the kind of place that served a cosmopolitan or a mojito.
It was either a screwdriver or a Tom Collins for the alcohol that wasn’t a beer or a shot.
Dylan dared me to take a shot of tequila with her, and so of course by the time her husband showed up, we were both very happy to see him.
“Great,” he groaned. “You’re both drunk?”
“No,” I assured him, shaking my head, trying very hard not to smile. “We’re fine. We can totally go to dinner.”
“All evidence to the contrary.” He rolled his eyes at me as he pulled his wife to her feet. “Just neither one of you sing, all right?”
“I’m a great singer,” Dylan informed him solemnly.
“No, honey, you’re really not,” he said, grabbing my bicep, tugging me off the barstool, and sliding his arm around my neck to steady me before he reached for his wife.
“But Jory can’t either, as we all found out on Wednesday when we were out with Dane.”
It had been a fun night. Dylan and I had got tipsy on the house wine at Tulio’s, and over lasagna and chicken tetrazzini that was served family-style, we sang from Mariah Carey’s songbook.
Chris had been mortified until he saw Dane’s smile.
He’d made us shut up while we ate, but on the walk to the car, he’d encouraged both Dylan and me to let out our inner divas.
It was funny, and Chris now understood that Dane had an appreciation for the ridiculous and just truly liked me. Whatever I did was okay.
“You know, Jory, considering who Dane Harcourt is, he’s a really cool guy.”
“I know.” I burped.
“Gross,” he groaned and shoved me out the front door ahead of him and Dylan.
Dinner Date was an intimate little restaurant downtown that served a beer-based cheese fondue appetizer and had huge Long Island iced teas. I got one and so did Dylan, and Chris warned both of us not to spill. When a man appeared at the table, we all looked up at him.
“Guys, this is Ray Alvarez, who blew us off last Saturday.”
“That’s not fair,” he said quickly, and my head snapped up because the voice was so deep and warm, with a very mellifluous accent. “You must be Jory.” He smiled down at me, holding out his hand for me to take. “It’s good to finally put a face to the name.”
I nodded as I shook his hand. “And you.”
“I understand we both know Nick Sullivan.”
“Yes,” I said, realizing he still had my hand.
He pointed at the booth. “Can I sit?”
“Sure,” I told him as he released my hand, at the same time sliding into the seat beside me.
He turned to look at me. “So how long’ve you known Nick?”
“Close to a year.”
“Oh, so longer than me.”
“Yeah, but you had the whole relationship deal with him.”
He chuckled, and I understood where Nick’s obsession had sprung from.
If you caught the eye of Ray Alvarez, you wanted to keep it.
And not just because he was so drop-dead gorgeous.
His eyes were dark and liquid, his smile had that hint of naughty instead of nice, and his voice just resonated inside of you.
His hair was almost black, thick and straight, cut short in the back but longer on top.
It looked soft, and I had the urge to touch it and see.
“We went out a few times,” he told me. “It didn’t constitute a relationship.”
I wasn’t listening. “What?”
His smile was wide, and under the table his knee bumped mine. “We’re talking about Nick.”
“Oh, yeah.”
He leaned his chin in his hand, studied my face, his eyes coming to rest on my mouth. I swallowed hard, realizing all of a sudden how long it had been since I’d been to bed with anyone. I felt the blood rush to my groin as he leaned closer to me.
“What are you guys drinking?” he asked, looking at my empty glass then smiling over at Dylan. “Because it’s huge, whatever it is.”
“Long Island iced tea.” She giggled, reaching across the table for his hand. He squeezed it tight and smiled at her. “I was mad at you for standing Jory up.”
“Dyl,” I scolded her.
“No, it’s okay,” he told me, the smile there again. “I got stuck explaining things to Nick, and I couldn’t get out of there. I really wanted to meet you that night, and I hope you won’t hold it against me.”
“Sure.” I nodded as Chris got up.
“I gotta move the car, guys. I’ll be right back.”
“I need to pee,” Dylan announced as I scowled at her. “What?”
“TMI,” I reminded her. “Just a simple ‘hey, guys, I’ll be right back’ is sufficient.”
“Oh, don’t be such a pill,” she snapped at me as she scooted out of the booth.
“You guys are cute,” Ray told me when I sat back.
“I’m crazy about the girl,” I said, rolling my head to look at him.
“Jory, could I take you to dinner tomorrow?”
“That’s fast.” I squinted at him.
“I like what I see,” he said softly. “And I should feed you before I take you home.”
“I’m going home with you?”
“After dinner tomorrow night, yes, you are.”
“I see.”
“I called Nick, and he told me all about you. He says you’re amazing in bed.”
“And you trust him, since you told him he was a lousy lay?”
“True, true.” He smiled wide. “But just because Nick is bad in bed doesn’t mean he doesn’t know what good is,” he pointed out. “Besides, you’re gorgeous, and I bet the rest of you is just as good. Aesthetics can go a long way.”
I nodded, shifting away from him, sitting up straight.
“How old are you?”
He hadn’t noticed my slow withdrawal, and that was fine with me. “I’m twenty-three. You?”
“I’m thirty.” He leered, looking me over like I was something he was thinking of buying. “And without breaking the nice mood we’ve got going here, can I ask you a question?”
What mood? “Go ahead.” It wasn’t his fault he was conceited. He was hot, and I was sure everyone he’d ever given his attention to had probably treated it like a gift.
He took a quick breath. “We’ve both been with Nicky, and I know he’s versatile, so…” There was the inevitable trail off into silence as he searched my face.
“What?”
“Are you versatile too, or do you have a preference?”
I preferred to bottom, always had, but I was not about to share that information. “Ray, I’m really flattered that you want to take me out, but unfortunately I’m busy tomorrow.”
His smile faded just a bit. “Sunday, then.”
“How ’bout I call you?”
It took him a second to realize what I was saying. “Are you being serious? Are you blowing me off?”
I shrugged.
He scowled. “Are you drunk?”
“Little bit.” I grinned. “But the whole one-night stand thing is just not appealing at all.”
He stared into my eyes. “You’re turning me down.”
“Yep.”
“Me?” He was absolutely flabbergasted.
I smiled wide. “Yeah.”
He stared at me a minute before he got up and walked away. When Dylan and Chris returned to the table, I was the only one there.
“Jory, where’s—”
“Gone.” I cut my friend off, smiling at her.
“But—”
“Guys—” I smiled at both of them. “—you’re banned from ever trying to set me up again.”
Chris pointed at his wife. “It was her idea.”
I laughed at how quickly he’d ratted her out.
“Jory.” She laughed as well, reaching for my hand across the table.
“Excuse me.”
My head snapped up, and I found myself looking at Sam Kage.
“I need to speak to you right now.”
“Okay.” I tried to breathe, sliding out of the booth, his presence and not the alcohol making me unsteady.
“C’mere,” he almost growled at me.
“Jory,” Dylan said quickly before I could step away from the table. “Who’s this?”
“Oh, um, this is Detective Kage. Detective, these are my friends, Dylan and Chris Greer.”
He nodded, his brows furrowing, the muscles in his jaw flexing hard. “Hello,” he said quickly, his eyes flicking to mine.
“I’ll be right back,” I assured them before I walked directly out the front door to the street. I turned to face him, and he was closer than I thought he would be. I took another step back to put more space between us.
He stared at me a long minute before he asked me how I was.
“I’m fine. You?”
He nodded. “I’m good.”
I shoved my hands deep into my pockets. “What are you doing here?”
His own hands were buried in the pockets of his wool trench coat. “We have a problem.”
“‘We’ meaning?”
“We meaning the department.”
“Okay.”
“You know that night you saw Brian Minor kill that guy?”
“Of course.” I shivered, partly from cold, partly from the memory.
“Well, do you remember the faces of any of the other guys?”
“Sure.”
“Yeah, well—” He exhaled sharply. “—turns out one of those guys is a little more connected than we thought.”
“I’m not following you.”
“You know the last day you spent at my place…you remember that morning when you called me and I was already working?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, well, that morning I was actually at your old apartment. Turns out the manager rented it out right after you left to a young guy that looked a lot like you.”
“Like me how?”
“Young, blond… I noticed it right off.”
I forced a smile. “You’re freaking me out a little. Just say whatever you—”
“Jory, somebody cut up the guy that looked like you at your old place, and they made it clear that they thought it was you.”
“How?”
“They wrote something on the wall.”
“On the wall?” I trembled, swallowing hard. “With what?”
“Just—it was there, okay?” he said, his voice strained. “It wasn’t made to look like an accident. It was a message to us that they had gotten to you and meant as a warning to anyone else who might think about testifying.”
I nodded. “But it wasn’t me.”
“No.”
“And everybody saw me in court.”
“Right.”
“Brian turned state’s evidence, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Okay, so what does this—”
“It turns out it was never about Brian.”
“You lost me.”
“There was another guy there the night Brian shot Saul Grant.”
“There were a lot of guys.”