Painting the Roses Red Read online

  “Queen,” Trinity answered. They were keeping up all appearances of business as normal, unless there was a more than a one hundred percent guarantee they could talk openly.

  “Eight, I need a change of scenery. Meet me at my place?”

  “Be there in ten.” Trinity disconnected.

  Lisa was still working her way through who was loyal in Sawyer’s organization and who wasn’t, but she never doubted Eight. Trinity was there when Sawyer died. She’d been the closest thing Lisa had to a friend since Alex.

  As she climbed into a cab, something caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. A familiar face? She whipped her head in that direction but did see them again. It wasn’t Blake, but something about the memory made her think of him.

  She knew most of the affluent people in this town, though. It was probably one of them. She stilled her hammering heart. Caution, not paranoia, kept her alive.

  Trinity was waiting in Lisa’s room when she arrived at the hotel. Lisa had simple instructions. Move her things to a location as close to Dexter’s address as possible, and she’d reach out in the next few days, to exchange next steps.

  This wasn’t the kind of work Trinity was trained for, but it required an attention to detail and a discretion Lisa didn’t trust anyone else with, and she was paid well for anything she did. But Lisa would owe her for all this running around.

  Lisa showered, donned more casual clothes, packed a few days’ worth of clothes, in case the babysitting kept her overnight, and grabbed a box of condoms from the gift shop on her way out of the hotel.

  Outside, an eerie feeling crept over her, like she was being watched. Was that the same face she’d seen on the other side of town? No. The stimulants without the warm-fuzzies were making her skin crawl, nothing more.

  Her stomach growled, and she considered growling back. A few people jostled her, and a sharp bark rose in her throat.

  Was someone following her?

  Maybe Dexter was right—it was a bad idea to go out yet. Too late now. She’d grab food near his place. What did he like? Why didn’t she think to ask him? She sifted through her memories of his apartment, for any clues. Nothing stood out. The only things on display were paint supplies. There were basic staples in the cupboards and fridge—bread, cereal, meat, and cheese. No coffee maker. No spice rack. And he kept all of it tucked out of sight.

  He liked juice boxes. She should grab a flavor besides grape. Not that it mattered, because she wasn’t rolling with him again. He could have all the grape juice.

  She waved down a cab and tried to swallow her growing nausea at the unwanted scents in the backseat. Bleach lay on top of it all. That was something.

  Before she could close the car door, someone slid in next to her. “You heading uptown?” he asked. “Mind if we share?”

  A fist clenched around her chest, squeezing all the air from her lungs. She did know him, and he wasn’t one of Sawyer or Whisk’s contacts.

  He had the potential to be far more dangerous.

  Chapter Five

  Lisa didn’t suspect the man sitting next to her knew much about her or whom she worked for. When Blake told her he’d kept his mouth shut, and that he and Reagan just wanted to walk away, she believed him. But he’d told Ephraim something, and any information could be deadly in the hands of the wrong person.

  “Thanks for sharing the ride.” His smile was easy. It was unnerving. “What can I call you?”

  Interesting way to open the conversation. It was possible he didn’t know who she was at all. But she doubted this guy—the best friend of a former colleague and double agent—had stepped into her cab completely by coincidence. “I’m Queen.” How would he react to that?

  He didn’t. “Unusual name.”

  Their cab crept along an inch at a time. This was either the best or worst time for traffic to be congested. “I’ve lived an unusual life. You are?”

  She wasn’t worried about him being here to arrest her. Her connections through Sawyer’s networks were vast. But if he got violent... She wasn’t bulletproof, and this guy had been a Marine sniper, like Blake.

  “Ephraim,” he said.

  “Almost biblical.”

  Then again, if he wanted to take her out at three-hundred meters, he wouldn’t have hopped in a car with her. Oh God. He could have taken her out at three-hundred meters, and she never would have seen it coming.

  He shifted in his seat, so he was half-facing her. “I’ve lived an almost biblical life.”

  “Death? Damnation? Destruction in the name of righteousness?” She knew her bible. Her stepfather fucked it into her when she was a child.

  Ephraim chuckled. “Pretty much.”

  Her tension was past capacity, which wasn’t her. Dexter was right; she should have waited out the crash. But Lisa could get through this. There were rules that kept her safe. As long as she remembered those and didn’t let her mind tell her they were insufficient, she’d be fine.

  “What kind of life are you leading that comes with a list like that?” she asked.

  This was one thing that was better than staying with Dexter. Here, Lisa could ask questions she already knew the answers to. When she pushed Blake up the ranks of Wonderland, she’d learned everything about him that paper could tell her. Unfortunately, that didn’t include the tiny, massively important detail of what drove his moral compass, but it did contain information about Ephraim.

  “I was a preacher,” Ephraim said. “It didn’t work out.”

  That was true. “Why not?” She was careful not to let any of her thoughts about men of faith show through.

  “Too much damnation and not enough salvation.”

  Story of her life. “What do you do now?”

  “Parents were rich. I live off my trust fund and spend my life hitting on beautiful women in taxis.” There was the lie.

  She looked up, actually took a good look at him for the first time, and saw a smile tugging up his mouth and dancing his eyes. Oh hell, he was sexy. Rugged, hard—

  Lisa must still be high. She forced an appropriately nervous laugh at the bad flirting. There was no way she could go back to Dexter’s now. The last thing she needed was this guy knowing where she was set up.

  “Oh.” She feigned surprise and reached for her phone, as if she’d just gotten a message. They hadn’t even moved a block yet. This was the perfect time for her to bail.

  “Love letters from your boyfriend?”

  She mentally rolled her eyes and resisted the urge to tell him to stop trying so hard. Neither of them was buying whatever he was selling. Instead, she pulled up an old text and pretended to read. “My sister.” She tapped the glass that divided them from the cabbie. “I need to head back to my hotel. It may be quicker to walk.”

  “Is everything all right?” Ephraim sounded genuinely concerned.

  “Babysitting emergency. Nanny fell through.” As she talked, she swiped out a quick text to Trinity. Go to the new address. Tell them I’m going to be late. Trin would know what that meant. Lisa was going to be hanging out, doing nothing for a few hours, to make sure Ephraim wasn’t following her. Then again, he shouldn’t have been able to in the first place. She was really off her game today.

  “How old is the kid?”

  “Thirty or so.”

  When Ephraim laughed, Lisa realized her slip. —the fuck was wrong with her? She joined in the laugher. “Don’t they all feel like that? Six, going on thirty? Anyway. I need to run.” She grabbed some cash and paid the driver before reaching for the door handle. “Better luck with the next beautiful lady.”

  He opened his mouth, and something pinged next to her ear, ringing loudly.

  Gunfire. She was already ducking, when Ephraim threw himself over her and shouted, “Get down.”

  The next bullet pierced the glass, and the car lurched forward, horn blaring. The driver was hit. From her limited view, she saw the car roll forward, and then thunk to a soft stop. They must have hit something else.


  Outside the vehicle, people screamed. First only a few and then a full chorus.

  Active shooter cries mingled with the terror.

  It wasn’t a random incident. Just like Ephraim getting into the same cab as her. This gunman had a specific target in mind. If she pushed Ephraim off her and poked her head up, would she be next?

  THE POLICE WERE POLITE when Lisa when they brought her in for questioning, until they discovered the pistol in her purse. She had a New York issued concealed permit to go with it. That drew even more suspicion. The issuing sheriff had owed Jabberwock a favor, though, so the permit was legit.

  From there she was roughly shuffled into a room to be questioned, and then waited.

  A Detective Hughes finally joined her. “Any reason you’re packing a compact .40?” Hughes asked. She was about Lisa’s height, but broader in the shoulders. All of it muscle from the look of things.

  “I need to carry it in my line of work,” Lisa said.

  Hughes sat across from her. “Are you in a line of work where you get shot at?”

  “Yes. That’s why I carry. I’m in security.”

  Hughes raised an eyebrow.

  Lisa wasn’t impressed by her balking. “You’re not going to tell me that’s hard to believe, based on my gender, are you?”

  “Just your build. You look like you’d snap in the wind.”

  Lisa gave her a tight-lipped smile. I don’t need muscle to shoot a threat.” She didn’t care how that sounded, it was true. “I’m a more discreet type of security. The type who’s not meant to draw attention.

  “I bet,” Hughes said flatly.

  Lisa shifted in the metal chair, but there was no position that would relieve the numbness in her ass and the tight muscles straining her neck and shoulders. “Someone shot at us.” She’d said the same thing to the officer at the scene, and to the one who took her info when she arrived here. “At the driver. At the car. Why are you talking to me, and not out, looking for them?”

  She was exhausted, she was wired, and she wanted this overzealous detective to go hound someone else for a few hours. There hadn’t been more gunfire after their driver was hit. There was plenty of chaos, though. Lisa had struggled to walk a fine line between keeping her face off some random observer’s live feed of the drama, and acting like a scared little mouse for Ephraim’s benefit.

  Hughes she was good at her job, as far as Lisa could tell. “We’re concerned you may have been the target.”

  You and me both. “My cab driver was shot, and no one else was. I’m nobody. Why the fuck would anyone shoot at me?” Lisa needed to figure that out. Was she the target, or were they aiming for Ephraim? If they wanted to get her, was he behind it?

  “That’s what we’re hoping to uncover.”

  “Great. Do it without me.” Lisa stood. She hadn’t requested a lawyer, because they hadn’t Mirandized her and she didn’t want to look guilty. She didn’t have anything to offer, anyway.

  Detective Hughes stepped in front of the door. “We’re concerned about sending you out of here without an escort.”

  “Do you worry about putting police protection on every mugging victim in the city? Everyone caught in a drive-by?” There was no reason to hold her for this long with that kind of statement, unless they had more than a suspicion she was connected to what happened. But they didn’t have enough to prove it.

  “In most of those cases, the perpetrator wasn’t shooting from a distance with a high-powered sniper rifle,” Hughes said.

  “I’d like to speak with your boss.” Lisa didn’t need to give a specific name. At least three of the sergeants here had asked Jabberwock—her, technically—to make them an untraceable connection. They’d know her by face, if not by name.

  Hughes sighed and opened the interrogation room door. “I’ll give you his card. He’s in briefings about the incident right now.”

  “Great. So I can go?”

  “Of course. But be safe.” Was that condescension in her voice?

  Lisa was too exhausted and strung out to tell. As she strode through the hallways of the police station, she pulled her phone out, to check for messages. There was only one, from Trinity.

  I tried. No luck.

  What did that mean? It wasn’t an urgent message, based on the content, but it wasn’t good either. What didn’t work? Trinity only had to tell Dexter Lisa would be late. Much later than she expected.

  At least from here, it would be easier to tell if Ephraim was following her. Unless he could run along the rooftops, like some fucked-up sort of vigilante. She really needed to get someplace where she could unwind.

  The idea of another cab made her skin crawl, but she wasn’t walking back. She reached the parking lot and saw a black Escalade with matching windows waiting a few feet from the building entrance. Whisk’s bodyguard was in the driver’s seat. Walking wouldn’t be an issue.

  How did Whisk know she was here? A contact in the station, most likely, but that meant he’d had someone keeping an eye out for her.

  Now was probably the wrong time to tell him his mode of transportation screamed Drug Dealer. She’d rather take a cab, but there was no choice. At least she could give Whisk a piece of her mind about picking her up here in such an ostentatious way—under the guise of Jabberwock being furious.

  Lisa climbed into the backseat of the SUV and sat next to Whisk. The instant she was settled, the driver pulled onto the road.

  “You’re supposed to be the best.” Whisk’s tone was unreadable.

  “I am the best.”

  “And yet, in less than twenty-four hours, you’ve managed to insult me, pawn the simple task I gave you off on someone else, and get shot at.”

  She wouldn’t ask what he thought the insult was. “I didn’t shoot at myself,” she said. “And I didn’t pass off the job. I asked a trusted associate to let my assignment know I was delayed.”

  “I’m sure that, regardless of what goes wrong, you always have an excuse. If that’s what makes you the best, you’re not useful to me.”

  Lisa clenched her jaw and her fists. This bullshit was the last thing she needed after the day she’d had. “Excuses are for people who can’t handle what they’ve been given. What I’m offering are legitimate events that were out of my control. If you don’t understand the difference, I’m not the one whose usefulness needs to be questioned.”

  His laugh grated up her spine. “And there you go, insulting me again.” He glided a hand up her inner thigh and pressed it into her crotch.

  Thank God she’d changed out of the skirt. The denim of her jeans didn’t keep her from feeling his heat, but it did lessen the contact. “If this was insulting, maybe you’re too sensitive.”

  “And maybe you fucked your way to the top. With Jabberwock. With his business partners. I’m not big on sloppy seconds—or tenths—but I am curious what’s so magical and golden about your pussy.”

  She swallowed the bile in her throat and spread her legs. “Find out for yourself.”

  “Go back to Dexter.” Whisk pulled his hand away. “Watch him. Do your fucking job.”

  She didn’t ask or what? He was starting to give off that same powerful and unhinged vibe Sawyer had, and the last thing she wanted was him dwelling on her punishment.

  She had enough to worry about with Ephraim and figuring out if those shots were aimed at her or him.

  Chapter Six

  Lisa needed to call off this job and walk away. Every emotional bone in her body insisted it was the only way to survive. Her brain argued that bailing now would be worse.

  Usually, she relished challenging decisions like this. Loved digging for the right answer through two piles of shit labeled Stay and Go.

  Today, she was tired. The kind of soul-crushing exhaustion that made functioning difficult.

  But there was work to be done. Have someone on her side look into the shooting. Be far more cautious about watching her own back. That meant putting as many walls and as few people around her as possible,
to maintain her control.

  Nothing new.

  Perhaps Whisk’s ordering her to sit by Dexter’s side and hold his hand was as much of a blessing as an inconvenience. It would allow Lisa to stay inside. To control the environment.

  She stepped through the front doors of Dexter’s building, moved away from the windows, and checked her surroundings. Alone. It was quiet. That’s pleasant.

  Whisk might have driven off and left her to her own devices for the evening, or she might only have a minute or two before he called up to Dexter, to make sure she’d arrived.

  Lisa wouldn’t stir the pot by risking the latter. Sixty seconds to get work done before she had to head up. She pulled her phone from her purse, and something fluttered to the ground.

  She stepped on the card, bent at the waist to grab it, and examined it as she straightened. Ephraim. He must have slipped it to her during the shooting. Both scary and impressive that he had the presence of mind to do so. Then again, given his background, his keeping his cool in the line of fire wasn’t too big a surprise.

  An address and a time were scribbled on the back of the card. She wasn’t walking into that. And speaking of time, she was out of it. The stairs would buy her a few more seconds. As she climbed, she sent Trinity a text. Held up on 4th Ave. Sorry I missed you. Fill me in.

  Lisa knocked on Dexter’s apartment door.

  He answered with his index finger held up and his phone pressed to his ear. “Just heard the toilet flush.” He met her gaze and mouthed Whisk.

  So much for having a couple of minutes. She stepped inside and grabbed the phone with a joyless smile. “Miss me already?” she said into the receiver.

  “Ensuring your safe arrival.” Whisk’s voice grated over her.

  Sure. “Thanks for your concern. Anything else I can do for you?”

  “Enjoy your stay.” Whisk sneered.

  Lisa hung up. That was more satisfying than just clicking a button on her cellphone. She turned to Dexter. “Thanks for covering for me.”

  “I’m sure you’ll repay me somehow.” His expression was neutral, but there was a hint of kindness in his tone that hadn’t been there the first time she’d arrived.