Ace Is Wild (17 page)

She could have told him it wasn’t an issue anymore, and not because of his stupid “ground rules.” As much as she hated to face it, she was beginning to have
feelings
for Daniel. Those feelings usually involved some level of exasperation, and there was generally an urge to roll her eyes at whatever came out of his mouth, but there was a definite attraction, too. There had been since his
GQ
strut down the bachelor auction runway, and no matter how condescending, patronizing, and chauvinistic he was, there were . . . feelings.

Being in love with Daniel would have been dangerous under any circumstances—not that she was in love with Daniel—but even mild affection was bad.

As soon as she got emotionally involved with a man, she stopped getting any readings on him. Her grandmother had told her it was the universe’s way of making sure at least one part of her life was normal. Vivi thought it was bullshit. If she had to be a freak, it ought to at least work in her favor, not cut out when she needed it most.

“The spirits telling you knock-knock jokes?”

“Yeah, and the punch line is always about hit men.”

“We should probably take the act inside. I don’t think there’s any real danger, but there’s no point in pressing our luck.”

“Fine,” she said. “Right behind you.”

Daniel ducked under the police tape, holding it up for Vivi to do the same. He didn’t wait for her after that, and she didn’t follow him too closely, taking her own time looking over the wreckage of his house.

The front, where her truck had gone in, was boarded up, and when she stepped inside, the living room was filled with glass and debris. Daniel was walking carefully through it, half bent over. She thought he was keeping an eye out for nails, but then he stopped and hunkered down, unearthing something in the pile of rubble where the passenger side of the truck would have been.

The something he dug out was his gun, and he wiped it off on the arm cover of his former easychair, which was currently providing a nice, comfy resting place for a large chunk of ceiling plaster. He stuck the gun in his waistband at the small of his back and continued into the kitchen without saying a word. Vivi didn’t mind the silent treatment. Probably best he forgot she was there.

Everything in the kitchen was coated with a thin layer of dust, and the whole place reeked of smoke. The back door was singed, but still intact and serving its intended purpose.

“It’s not as bad as I thought it’d be,” Daniel said, so close behind her she almost jumped out of her skin.

It was a new experience, being snuck up on. Vivi figured she’d better get used to it, at least where Daniel was concerned.

“The impact of the truck must have blown out the fires,” he said, turning for the stairs.

“Take your phone.” Vivi plucked up the cell phone that sat in a charging base on the kitchen counter, and handed it to Daniel. “Just saving you some inconvenience,” she said when he gave her one of his stares.

He took the phone and clipped it onto his belt, his expression shifting to no-harm-in-humoring-the-crackpot.

Vivi would have found that amusing, but unfortunately her radar was working fine where everyone but Daniel was concerned, so when his cell rang—an actual old-timey phone ring—she wasn’t surprised, and there was no need to ask him who was on the other end.

He checked the readout, looking like he’d be running a finger under his collar if he’d been wearing a shirt and tie. Since he was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, he had to settle for a shoulder roll. He added a half-turn, as if that would keep the conversation private.

Under normal circumstances, Vivi would have given him some space, but being kept ignorant was incompatible with having a pulse. And knowing he was talking to Patrice Hanlon was incompatible with her feelings, not to mention it added a whole other dimension to those feelings that she wasn’t in the mood for.

“I know,” Daniel was saying to Patrice. “I’m sorry to make you worry. I couldn’t answer my phone last night, but I’m glad you called, and I’m glad you’re feeling better.” There was a pause. Daniel’s eyes cut to Vivi, and she knew Patrice was asking if she was the reason Daniel hadn’t answered his phone last night.

He didn’t respond to that, although it would have been simple to explain that his phone hadn’t been handy. Apparently Daniel had a nondisclosure rule where Patrice was concerned. Vivi liked that.

“I’m at my house getting some things,” Daniel said into the phone, taking the stairs two at a time like the literal-minded guy he was.

Vivi trailed along behind him and found herself in a single room that ran the length of the house, one of the long walls notched out for the dormer windows she’d seen from the front. An entire office setup cluttered one end of the room: desk, computer, file cabinets, overflowing garbage can. An unmade bed and small refrigerator sat at the other.

“I have to go under for a while, and no, I can’t tell you where I’m going, but I’ll try to give you a call in the next day or so, let you know I’m okay.” Daniel snapped the phone shut before Patrice could argue again, turned to Vivi, and said, “Let’s get out of here.”

He gathered up his laptop, then made a quick detour to the other end of the room to collect some clothing—all casual—out of a chest by the bed. He stowed the computer and clothes in a duffel, along with his gun, and headed for the stairs.

“Wait a minute,” Vivi said, trotting along in his wake, “where are your files?”

In answer to her question, he lifted the duffel into the air.

“But—”

He was already out the front door, striding toward his garage. She had no choice but to follow, so she did, thinking, “Fine, let him run the show. Let him think he can make all the decisions without ever consulting her. He’d find out differently. If he lived long enough.”

“WHERE ARE WE GOING?” DANIEL ASKED VIVI ABOUT five minutes after they left his house.

“You let me drive. I thought that meant it was my choice.”

He’d decided to take his car, dented rear end and all, because there were a thousand similar vehicles on the streets of Boston while hers stuck out like a sore thumb, and not just because the windshield was barely intact and the other three windows were gone entirely. There weren’t a lot of ’52 red Ford pickups tooling around.

Once he’d made his intention clear, Vivi had called a friend of hers to have Maxine picked up for repair. Probably one of her customers, since the person on the other end of the phone call hadn’t asked who she was talking about. Vivi left the keys under one of the floor mats, clearly not afraid the truck might be stolen. Daniel felt sorry for the unlucky bastard who tried to jack Maxine.

“I let you drive so I could watch for a tail.”

“And shoot at them?”

“Only if they shoot first.”

Vivi huffed out a breath and shook her head. She didn’t answer his question.

Daniel kept his eyes glued to the road ahead. He’d be damned if he asked where they were going again. She hadn’t put herself in harm’s way three times to let him walk unsuspecting into danger now. Even when she was ticked off about something—

Okay, who was he kidding, he knew exactly what she was angry about: the ground rules speech, followed by him blasting out of his house and expecting her to follow along two steps behind like the good little soldier. Vivi hated violence, and doing what she was told wasn’t high on her list of preferred activities, either. In fact, giving her the I’m-in-charge lecture and expecting blind obedience was not only self-delusional on his part, Daniel decided, it had been aimed at the wrong person.

The boundaries he’d been setting were for himself, because last night he’d seen some lace panties and Vivi’s damp T-shirt, and he’d been inches away from fraternizing with the enemy. James Bond might sleep with women to get information. Daniel preferred to keep that option in reserve. As in, he’d rather walk into court naked than use it.

“I really need to know where we’re going.”

“My place,” she said without hesitation.

“Nope, we’re not going there.”

“I guess I can wash my panties out every night, but I figured that would violate the Daniel Pierce ‘No Personal Involvement’ program.” She glanced over, met his gaze. “Since you seemed to have issues with my panties last night.”

He got hot just thinking about her panties. And she knew it. “We’ll shop.”

“I don’t need new clothes. The ones I have are perfectly good. And I’m not exactly made of money. I’m not working, which means I’m getting further in the hole every day.” Another sidelong look, this one full of temper. “Not that you give two cents about my finances.”

“I’ll buy you some damn clothes.”

“You use your credit cards, or access your bank account, they’ll trace it.”

“So what? It’s not like we’re going to stand at the ATM and wait for them to show up.”

“You’re not buying me clothes.”

“And going to your place is so much less risky?”

She didn’t say anything, but her attitude was prickly at best, and since she claimed to know when it was safe, and he was letting himself be convinced of her talents, he decided not to argue. Besides, this time he was armed.

A half hour later Vivi pulled up in front of a brick row house not far from Quincy Market and got out of the car, Daniel tagging along behind her like an obedient puppy. That ended at her front door. He took the key from her, picked her up by the armpits, and plunked her down to one side, swiping her hair out of his face.

“You really need to do something with that,” he said, pointing to the mass of curls falling to the middle of her back.

“I’ll get right on it,” she said, “as soon as you stop the macho crap.”

“You want clean clothes? We’re doing this my way.”

She jammed her hands on her hips and glared at him, but she didn’t argue.

Daniel unlocked the door and pushed it open, stooping to retrieve the pile of mail that had been shoved through the slot. Vivi tried to take it from him, but he lifted it out of reach and began to leaf through it.

“Tampering with the mail is a felony,” she said.

“So is tax fraud.”

“Huh?”

“Care to show me your books? I bet you’re not declaring all your cash receipts.”

“Most of my customers don’t want receipts,” Vivi said. “It’s a kind of unwritten agreement. And anyway, no one who does a partial cash business declares everything. I’d go broke if I had to pay taxes on all of it, and then Uncle Sam wouldn’t get anything at all.”

“It’s illegal,” Daniel maintained.

Vivi held up her wrists and said, “Arrest me then,” even though they both knew he wouldn’t. And once she’d made her point, she plucked the mail out of his hand and brushed by him, taking it to a long, glass-fronted display case with a cash register at one end. She dumped the mail into a drawer, punched a couple buttons on the register, took out all the cash inside—which didn’t appear to be very much—and tucked it into her pocket.

Just moments ago she’d told him it was costing her more than time to watch his back, but he’d written it off to anger and drama because altruism never set well with him. Now he had to admit she wasn’t in this for the money— hell, she wouldn’t even let him buy her clean underwear. But she wasn’t putting her ass on the line for nothing. She had an agenda, and as long as she kept that agenda private, she couldn’t be trusted.

To make matters more difficult, there weren’t going to be any business records that would magically solve the puzzle by revealing a client connected enough to take out a contract on a federal prosecutor. All that left was gaining her trust and hoping she’d come clean. Or maybe he’d get lucky, and there’d be some clue in her shop, a business card laying around, or a name written on a pad of paper. He rolled his eyes. Maybe if he asked real nice Grandma would point him in the right direction.

The bottom floor of Vivi’s building was retail space, consisting of a shop in the front that was filled with, as far as Daniel was concerned, New Age crap: polished stones, scented candles, books on astral projection and finding your inner peace. Daniel couldn’t say he’d found his inner peace, but he knew it wasn’t going to be lurking between the covers of a book written by some nut job. He didn’t expect to find it floating in the depths of a crystal ball, either, but he went in search of one anyway. And where else would you find a crystal ball except behind a beaded gypsy curtain? Coincidentally, there was exactly such a curtain behind the counter.