Chapter 13
Thirteen
JACE
Courtesy of Madden, less than an hour after I’d left Layla, I headed back to the AirBnB, loaded down with files.
I was half a block away when I spotted the man coming down the front walk of the cottage.
I pegged him as mid-fifties, broad through the shoulders.
He moved with the deliberate economy of someone who’d spent a long time being paid to be careful, and he got into a dark sedan at the curb, pulling away after a brief hesitation, where I saw him glance back at the house.
I noted the make, model, and plate number automatically, the way I noted everything, and watched him go.
Not a delivery. Not a local. I’d have placed him if he were, or at minimum recognized the type, and this man didn’t fit any category that belonged on Hatterwick in late November.
Something about him gave me the impression of government—either active or someone who’d been part of the fold for a long time.
Beyond that I didn’t have enough to work with.
What I had was a stranger leaving Layla’s cottage, and Layla hadn’t mentioned she was expecting anyone. Not that she owed me the details of her interactions, but something about the whole thing made me vaguely uneasy. I’d long ago learned to never ignore my gut.
I gave it two minutes, idling at the curb down the street, then pulled into the driveway and knocked.
It seemed Layla took a long time to answer, though it was probably less than a minute.
Her eyes were dry, but the redness around them wasn’t, and the effort she’d made to compose her face hadn’t entirely taken.
“What’s wrong?” I demanded. “Who upset you?” My voice came out gruff, driven by an instant aggression I wasn’t quite sure what to do with.
“No one.” She wiped at one eye with the back of her hand, reflex rather than necessity. “This work is just hard sometimes.”
It was a truth, but I didn’t think it was the truth.
“Did you find something?”
“No.” She stepped back from the door. “What can I do for you, Jace?”
I held up the stack of fat, expandable files. “Copies of everything Madden’s compiled. She thought you’d want to go through it yourself.”
Layla blinked, and something that was almost her normal expression crossed her face. “Good. Thank you.” She took the files and set them on the coffee table beside her laptop, moving through the small living room with the restlessness of someone who had too much energy and no clean place to put it.
“You sure you’re okay?” I wanted to ask about the guy who’d been here. Who he was. What he wanted. But I’d wait to see what she said.
Layla turned to look at me, and whatever she’d been about to say shifted somewhere between her brain and her mouth. “Honestly? I could really use a gym. Is there one on the island? Preferably one with punching bags and mats.”
I hid my instinctive surprise. “It so happens there is. I’ll take you.”
She looked at me for a moment with that direct, assessing gaze she brought to everything, weighing something I wasn’t privy to. “Give me a few minutes to change.”
She came back in under five, hair in a tight braid, workout tights, a loose jacket zipped over some kind of fitted shirt.
Koa trotted at her heel with the alert readiness of a dog who’d registered the change of clothes and drawn the correct conclusion about what came next.
He jumped straight onto the backseat when I opened the truck door and settled with his chin on the center console like he’d been riding with me for years.
The gym occupied one of the old fish houses at the commercial end of the docks.
The building smelled of old salt and rubber matting and the staleness of a space that had been absorbing the sweat of working men since before either of us was born.
Inside, banks of free weights that had seen decades of serious use lined one wall in front of an array of mirrors.
One corner held a couple of treadmills with an optimistic attitude about their remaining lifespan, and along the far wall, the boxing setup she’d asked for.
Heavy bags. Speed bags. A mat space clear enough to work in. Shit lighting that was doing its best.
Ray Costello stood behind the front desk.
Sixty-something, built like a retired bouncer, which was approximately what he was, he glanced up when we came inside.
“Hollingsworth.” He came around and shook my hand with the grip of a man who’d never once done anything at half effort.
“Heard you were back. You look like hell.”
My lips quirked. That was practically a hug from the old man. “Good to see you too, Ray.”
His eyes moved to Layla with the frank assessment of a guy who’d spent his whole life in gyms and knew immediately what he was looking at as he absorbed the way she stood, the way her weight was distributed, the economy of how she occupied space. “Friend of yours?”
“Layla Murphy. She’s on island for a while. Hoping to set up a temporary membership.”
Layla put her hand out, and Ray shook it. “I’m looking for bags and mat space.”
“Got both. Dog stays outside.”
“He’s a service dog,” she said. “Very well trained.”
Across the room, someone dropped a loaded bar. The crash rang off the low ceiling. Koa’s ears moved once toward the sound and returned to neutral. He didn’t shift his weight. Didn’t look away from Layla. Just filed it and stayed put.
Ray looked at the dog for a long moment. Then he slid a clipboard across the counter. “Fill that out.”
She completed the paperwork quickly and handed it back, picking up her bag. “Okay. Thanks, Jace. You don’t have to stay.”
“You haven’t worked out yet.”
“I should have brought my own car.” She glanced toward the bags. “I’ll figure out the way back.”
“I could use a workout myself.” I set my own bag down on the bench along the wall. “You want the bag, or would you rather have a moving target?”
She angled her head. “You volunteering to spar with me, Hollingsworth?”
“I find it helps work out a lot of the shit I see on the job,” I said. “So, yeah.”
Something shifted in her expression. A decision being made. “Give me a minute to warm up.”
At a soft order from her, Koa folded himself down at the corner of the mat space, chin on his paws, eyes on Layla with the steady patience of a dog doing his job.
I watched as she warmed up efficiently and without performance—joint mobility, shoulder work, a sequence that told me more about her training than any conversation had managed.
The way she moved through it was answer enough to the question I’d been sitting with since the beach.
Not dance. Martial arts. Serious and practiced for long enough that it had become the way her body moved through everything.
She stripped off the jacket.
The tank was fitted, cut high at the shoulders, and her arms were bare to the wrist, covered in ink.
Botanical, flowering vines started at her wrists and wound upward, flowers I couldn’t name threaded through leaves and trailing stems that followed the lines of her musculature as she moved.
The linework was extraordinary, fine and deliberate, the kind of tattoo that rewarded attention.
At the back neckline of the tank, just visible above her collar, the upper edge of something larger on her back—dark lines suggesting wings, heavy and iron-weighted, the fragment of something I’d need to see the whole of to understand.
All of it was the kind of work that took years to plan and longer to execute.
She was built for what she did, leanly muscled in the way of someone who trained because it mattered rather than because of how it looked. Every line of her was functional. It was one of the most sexy, compelling things I’d ever seen.
She turned and caught me looking. Didn’t say anything about it. Instead, she finished taping her wrist wraps and jerked her chin toward the mats.
I made myself return to my own quick warmup and slipped off my shoes to join her.
Despite the way she moved, the way she looked, I had no idea what her actual skill level was compared to my own.
I’d been trained for lethality. So I’d take it easy on her and assess, while still offering a moving target.
She moved first.
I’d expected her to wait, to let me set the pace the way most sparring partners did when they were new to each other.
Instead, she came at me with lightning speed and a directness that was almost disarming.
I adjusted, but not fast enough. She got a grip on my wrist with both hands, angled her body sharply into mine, using my own momentum and the pivot of her hips to redirect my weight.
I was on the mat before I’d fully processed what she’d done.
The ceiling of the old fish house looked back at me.
I lay there for a beat, not to catch my breath but to give myself a few moments to process the simmer of absolute lust she’d ignited. If there was anything I found truly attractive, it was a strong, capable woman.
I rolled to my feet.
She was already back in her stance, breathing easily, watching me with an expression that was entirely neutral. Not triumphant. Not apologetic. Just waiting to see what I was going to do with that information.
Behind the desk, Ray had stopped pretending to do paperwork.
“You’re going easy on me,” she said.
“I was assessing.”
“Don’t.” She shifted her weight, unhurried. “It doesn’t help either of us.”
This wasn’t just a bid for exercise. This was someone who needed to unleash legitimate aggression.
I could relate.
“You sure that’s what you want?” I asked.
She settled into her stance. “Don’t hold back.”
So I didn’t.