Knight Errant Read online

  “You never minded sharing those profits.”

  Nicholas couldn’t argue the point with him. Maybe on some nobler level he had objected to being paid with dirty money, but it had been a necessary part of his quest for revenge. That was how his business—Jimmy’s business—was conducted.

  “You should have come to see me. You should have shown me some respect. You’re going to have to pay for that, Nicholas.” With a signal to the men, Falcone got to his feet. For a moment he stood looking down at Nicholas. There was genuine affection in the old man’s eyes and, underneath it, sorrow. Nicholas was reminded of what he’d told Lainie a few days ago. He could... tell you he loves you and mean it with all his heart, then put a bullet in your brain. That look left him more sure of it than ever. “You’re going to have to pay for a lot of things, Nicholas.”

  They left then, Vince in front, the other guy bringing up the rear. Nicholas turned to watch them go, but as soon as they’d disappeared into the car, he turned his attention to Lainie. She was still sitting at the bar, watching him openly, her expression grim and concerned. He rose from the chair and scraped its legs on the concrete floor as he slid it into place, then started toward her.

  For a moment she sat motionless, then apparently she decided that retreat was the best course of action. She slid to the floor, murmured something to Reid, then started for the stairs.

  Nicholas followed her. “I told you to go across the street.”

  “I went.”

  “I told you to wait there.”

  She stopped halfway up the stairs and faced him. “I didn’t want to wait there, Nicholas. I wanted to see what was going on here. I didn’t speak to you. I didn’t look at you. I didn’t give the slightest hint that I knew you. Falcone never even noticed me.”

  “He noticed.” The bastard noticed everything. Considering that several of his business ventures exploited attractive women, he had certainly noticed Lainie.

  “What did he want?”

  He climbed the stairs, pushed past her and went to his door. She followed as far as the landing. “It was private business.”

  “I heard him say that you would have to pay. He was threatening you, wasn’t he?”

  “I didn’t hear a threat.”

  “Oh, come on, Nicholas—”

  “He wanted to know why I hadn’t been to see him since I got out, why I hadn’t paid my respects to him. He’s big on respect, you know. He doesn’t get it from the people who count, but he damn well expects it from the rest of us. He thought I might like to offer an apology for everything I did, and he wanted to know why I’d done it. And, yes, he said I would have to pay for my sins.”

  “Sounds like a threat to me.”

  For a moment he simply looked at her—so pretty, so innocent, so damned desirable. Jimmy had all but stated that Nicholas’s days were numbered. A dying man deserved one wish, didn’t he? He already knew what his wish would be: Lainie. One night, from sundown to sunup, in her bed, seducing, using, giving, taking, pleasing, tormenting, fulfilling. One night in Lainie’s bed, and he could die, maybe not happy, but satisfied. Just one night. Surely she and Jimmy would allow him that.

  He turned the key in the lock and swung the door open, then looked at her again. “It didn’t sound like a threat to me,” he disagreed. “It sounded like a promise.”

  When Karen sent Lainie out of the neighborhood on errands Wednesday afternoon, she took advantage of the opportunity to arrange a meeting with Sam. In jeans and a chambray shirt, he looked like most of the other men wandering the aisles of the building supply superstore. He was pushing a cart that held a variety of tools and gadgets, which surprised her. She hadn’t figured that he’d know a hammer from a screwdriver. He didn’t seem the sort to go in big for manual labor.

  “This is neat, isn’t it?” he greeted her as she studied samples of wood stain. “A toy store for adults.”

  “Yeah, it’s great. What do you think of this?”

  He glanced at the stain she’d singled out and shrugged. “Kind of ugly. I hear your neighbor had company last night.”

  It wasn’t ugly. It just didn’t have the depth and life her beautiful dresser required. The mahogany next to it, though, was a rich, dark hue with deep red undertones. It would be perfect. She picked up a quart, then located an applicator sponge in the next section. “Yeah,” she replied grimly. “The man himself.”

  “I don’t suppose you got to sit in.”

  “No.” After scanning Karen’s list, she set out to locate the supplies, all the while talking quietly to Sam. She repeated Falcone’s one comment that she’d personally overheard and Nicholas’s version of the rest of the conversation.

  “Are you sticking close to him?” Sam asked when she was finished.

  “Yeah.”

  They walked the length of one aisle in silence before he found the nerve to broach the next subject. “You know, Lainie, you were picked for this job for two reasons.”

  “Because I’m a good agent and...?”

  “Well, for three reasons. You’re from out of town, so there’s minimal risk that either Carlucci or Falcone could ever recognize you, and...” He shrugged uncomfortably. “You’re a pretty woman. A pretty woman stands a much better chance of getting close to Carlucci than a man does. But there’s a risk of getting too close. Don’t jeopardize your career or your case by...well...” His face flushed. “Oh, hell. Don’t fall for the guy, okay? Don’t get involved.”

  Clenching her jaw, Lainie stared straight ahead. Don’t get involved. Jeez, he made it sound so easy: Move in next door to the guy, draw him out, spend time with him, deal with the fact that he’s been celibate for more than five years and also with the fact that he’s sexually attracted to you, but don’t get involved. Don’t let him kiss you. Don’t let him touch you. Don’t let him seduce you with looks and with dances and with husky, erotic talk about making love with you. Be a professional. Don’t get personal.

  She was doing her damnedest, but she wasn’t sure she was succeeding. When he’d kissed her outside her door, it had taken her only a moment to come to her senses and stop him. Last night she’d needed half the walk home to say no. The next time he touched her, the next time they danced, the next time he looked at her in that dark, intense, sensual way of his, who could guess when—or if—she would remember to say no?

  Forcing her thoughts in a different direction, she added the last item on Karen’s list to the cart, then started toward the checkouts. “Tell me something, Sam. If Carlucci were a woman and I were a man, would we be having this conversation?”

  “It has nothing to do with sex—”

  “It has everything to do with sex.”

  “It has nothing to do with gender,” he amended. “We’re asking you to spend a lot of time in very close contact with a man whom even our own Shawna finds damn near irresistible.”

  Shawna Warren was one of the agents who had worked with Remy Sinclair on the Falcone case. She had given Lainie a detailed briefing on the case and its principals. She was around forty, pretty but very professional, very ambitious, very aggressive. No one who knew her would be surprised if her ambitions included being the next head of the bureau. It did surprise Lainie, though, after spending a few intense days with her, that Shawna even noticed gender. She seemed the most job-oriented, advancement-obsessed and relationship-deficient person Lainie had ever met.

  And yet she had noticed Nicholas.

  Of course, he was a hard man to ignore.

  “I’m just saying don’t forget why you’re there,” Sam went on. “Don’t let pleasure interfere with business.”

  With no more acknowledgment than a curt nod, Lainie began unloading her cart, separating her purchases from Karen’s. Sam’s warning annoyed her—not because she was an adult fully capable of making rational and right choices without prompting from her superiors, but because she was in danger of doing exactly what she was being warned against. Because she felt guilty. She should request to be removed from
the case, but what would that do to her career? Reputation aside, would they even let her pull out now? She was already in place on Serenity and in Nicholas’s life. How difficult would it be to remove, then replace, her?

  She paid for her purchases, pushed the cart aside and scooped up the bags. “I’ll be in touch.”

  Sam nodded as he removed his wallet. “Take care.”

  His farewell made her smile grimly. She was trying. She was seriously trying.

  After finishing the rest of her errands, she returned to Serenity. As she pulled into Karen’s driveway, Nicholas came out of the house and closed the door behind him. He circled to the back and was approaching as she got out with bags in hand. “What are you doing over here?” she asked, ashamed that she was hoping he’d come looking for her, grateful even if he hadn’t that he’d found her.

  “Jamey said Karen wanted to talk to me.”

  “About what?” Setting the bags on the ground, she unlocked the trunk, then picked up as many bags as she could carry. Automatically he took the heaviest ones from her.

  “You’re nosy, aren’t you?”

  “Well, I can’t think of anything Karen would want from you besides your legal expertise or your money. I don’t know how you feel about money and charities, but you’ve already made it clear that you’re not willing to offer legal advice.”

  He gave her a steady, smug look. “Shows what you know. There are a lot of women out there who want something other than my money or my legal advice. They just want my body.”

  “I’m sure they do.” She was one of them. But she wanted more than just sex. She wanted... Too much to even think about, especially when she couldn’t have anything.

  She led the way through the back door and the kitchen and into a small storeroom down the hall. There she began unpacking the food donations she’d picked up from a local women’s club.

  “What’s with all the food?”

  “Most of it’s for the school. A lot of the kids don’t get to eat as regularly as they should, so the center offers breakfast and lunch. Some of it’s given to the residents, when they have unexpected expenses, when they get sick and can’t work or there’s too much month left at the end of their money.”

  “How do they pay for it?”

  “With work, usually. They can help out here at the center, volunteer at the school, pick up trash, plant flowers, paint their houses—anything that benefits the community.”

  “Not a bad system.”

  She emptied the last paper bag, then folded it and added it to the stack on one shelf. “No, it’s not. Give people something to care about, and they will. I’ve seen photographs of the befores, and every day I see the afters. The center is making a big difference. Of course, with a legal advisor and maybe a nice little chunk of change, they could accomplish even more.”

  He didn’t respond to that, but followed her outside again. “How long till you get off?”

  She glanced at her watch. “Technically I’m off now. I usually quit sometime between four-thirty and five, but I missed lunch today, so I can take off a little early. What do you have in mind?”

  “Just a walk.”

  She opened the trunk again for the last six bags, then slammed it shut with her elbow. “Okay. I guess I can spare a little time away from my dresser.” They carried the last bags in, three each, then Nicholas waited in the kitchen while she returned the keys to Karen. That done, she took a few minutes to leave her own shopping bag at the bar with Jamey, then rejoined Nicholas on the sidewalk.

  She expected him to turn toward Decatur, but instead he headed deeper into Serenity. They passed the Donovans’ house next door to the bar, still dilapidated and in great need but greatly improved over the pictures Cassie had shown her. The original owner of the house had just walked away one day, leaving it to fall into disrepair and the city’s hands. Reid had bought the place for practically nothing, and they’d begun their effort to turn it from a neglected eyesore into a home. For a young couple who worked full-time and had little time or money to spare, they were making admirable progress.

  That was what she would do, if she were the down-on-her-luck Lainie that everyone believed her to be. She would save every extra bit of her salary and one day buy one of the three dozen or so abandoned houses in the neighborhood. With hard work and some of the donated building supplies that Karen was always panhandling for, she would fix it into a pretty little place all her own. She’d never lived in a house, not since the day she’d left home twenty-one years ago. Dorms, apartments, a condo while she was married, then back to apartments. It would be nice to have a house again, with a yard for a garden like her mother used to tend.

  “I used to live in that house.” Nicholas stopped as he gestured to a gray house across the street. It was three stories with a broad porch and a single door in the center, and it went without saying that it was shabby. At one time it had been a single-family home, but about the time Serenity’s general decline had begun, it, like most of the other big houses, had been chopped up into apartments. As far as Lainie knew, only Karen’s and the Donovans’ houses had escaped that fate. “We had the apartment in the left front comer. It was one room, with a tiny refrigerator, a hot plate, a sofa that made into a bed for my mother and a bunk-size mattress on the floor for me. We shared a bathroom with two other families. My mother did dishes in the bathroom sink.”

  The window he pointed out was boarded over, making it impossible to tell if anyone lived there now. She hoped not. She hoped even the poorest person on Serenity could afford better. “Did you ever try to find your mother?”

  “Try how? She had no friends and no family but me and the father who disowned her. She didn’t have a driver’s license or a car. She worked the sort of job where people come and go, where they quit with no warning and are forgotten about the next day. Do you know how easy it is for someone like her to disappear?” Shoving his hands into his pockets, he kicked a crushed beer can and sent it skittering across the sidewalk. “I used to think she would have a change of heart and come back for me. A couple years of living with Father Francis relieved me of that notion. At some point I decided that she was probably dead.”

  “Why did you think that?”

  “Because, up until the day she disappeared, she was the mother least likely to pull such a stunt. She was a good mother. She gave up a lot for me.” He shrugged. “Plus the fact that she didn’t take anything with her. Everything she owned except the clothes she was wearing was still in the apartment.”

  Maybe she had left everything deliberately—had wanted an entirely new start with nothing, not even clothing, to remind her of the past. Or maybe she’d gotten tired of the burdens of her life and had freed herself, like Lainie’s mother, through death. Maybe she hadn’t planned to disappear at all. Maybe she’d had a perfectly innocent reason for sending Nicholas to the church after school that day, and someone had grabbed her off the street, leaving her body where it would never be discovered, at least not while it was still identifiable.

  It would be tough not to know. Her mother’s suicide had been tremendously hard, but if Elaine had simply disappeared one day, never to be heard from again... That would have been impossible.

  “The Wades—Reid’s in-laws—lived in the same house. They moved away while I was in school. They were among the lucky ones.”

  “So Cassie didn’t grow up down here, but Jolie did.”

  If the long, steady look he gave her was any indication, when he’d told her about his initial sexual experience, he hadn’t expected the name to mean anything to her. If he’d thought she could connect the name to any particular person, he probably wouldn’t have mentioned it at all. “What do you know about Jolie?”

  She leaned back against the abandoned storefront behind her, feeling the setting sun’s warmth in the soft brick. “She’s a pretty little green-eyed blonde and the best reporter you’ve ever known. She’s married to the U.S. Attorney, and...” She didn’t mean to let her voice get husky.
It slid into the lower register of its own will. “She was your first.”

  When he continued to look at her, she shrugged. “This is Serenity. It’s impossible to live down here without hearing certain names. Jimmy Falcone is one. Vinnie Marino is another. Nicholas Carlucci, of course. And Jolie Wade. You two are Serenity’s homegrown claim to fame. You’re the success stories.”

  “Jolie’s been a big success, but me—I haven’t succeeded at anything.”

  “You got out. You got an education. You had a career that you were damn good at. They say you were a brilliant attorney.” High praise, considering that it came from the opposition—Smith Kendricks, Remy Sinclair and Shawna Warren, all lawyers themselves.

  “How brilliant do you have to be to get a guilty man off?” He gave a scornful shake of his head. “All I succeeded at was making a mockery of justice. It’s hardly anything to be proud of.”

  She couldn’t argue the point with him because he was right. He’d used his education, experience and understanding of the law to subvert the system. He’d made it possible for the bad guys to go free, unpunished for their crimes. His ten-year career as a mob lawyer wasn’t a source of pride.

  They began walking again, Nicholas pointing out old familiar places. There was the barber shop where his mother had taken him for haircuts, the restaurant where they had splurged on special dinners out, the corner grocery where he had worked as a teenager, saving every penny he could for college. How different their lives had been, Lainie mused, listening to his reminiscences and calling up a few of her own. She had begun making regular trips to her mother’s beauty salon when she was six, and expensive dinners out had been a twice-weekly event. She had never given a moment’s thought to working when she was a teenager, but even if she had, her father would have forbidden it. As for college, it was true that she’d required financial aid and as many long hours at her waitressing job as she could manage, but that had been her choice. Her father would have paid every penny if she had continued to play the dutiful daughter.