Fool's Gold: A Kisses and Crimes Novel (4 page)

DANI

Another sleepless night.

My brain, seemingly a part of life’s plot to torture me, threw curve balls my way while I tried to sleep. During the night—
all
night—I dreamed of men… and
not
in the way that any normal, mentally stable woman could even imagine…

These men… they were not dreamboats, but angry strangers with permanent scowls for faces.

Hunters. Hungry for their next prey. Unfortunately, the prey they’d picked this time just so happened to be me…

The exit from the fancy party had turned into a nightmare.

Through the sidewalks of unknown streets, they tracked me, chasing me past thick crowds of people in a city that I couldn’t even recognize.

I tried to lose them in a throng of faces I’d never seen, places I’d never traveled, hoping I could blend in with this symphony of anonymity playing everywhere, all around me, in the background.

Where was I? Who was I? And why would no one help?

Could they not see these hunters? Could they not see me?

A cloudy sky turns the faces around me into shadows. A subsequent rain changes them into blurs. And I keep on running…

Ten feet. Twenty feet. A hundred. And still the rain, the raging crowd and the persistent hunters will not let up.

I beat my feet against the pavement until I can’t beat them any more. Limbs useless, lungs on fire, I inhale breaths that seem soaked in gasoline.

No one out of the crowd really notices me.

No one—not a single person.

A sea of people… and no one willing to save me…

Then, out of the swarm, he emerges like a tidal wave amidst a calm ocean, splitting the multitude into two.

Bishop.

Out of thin air, he arrives when all hope seems lost. Looking Hell-sent. Lucifer in the package of a Greek god. A fallen angel in an impeccable suit.

He is every bit as diabolically handsome in my nightmare as he is everywhere else.

And he is rushing towards me in a tie and jacket blacker than midnight air, his countenance darker than any hero’s should be.

And yet I crave him.

I am desperate for his touch, for his comfort… but he is too far. So far.  I reach my hand out for him and feel nothing but air.

My savior… too far to save me from the trailing men. And I can’t spare a breath to call out to him.

But he sees me. He waves. His eyes, wild and searching, meet with mine, and he heads in my direction, his arm raised in some sort of greeting.

Maybe he’s pointing…? I’m not sure… and I don’t care.

I just run for him. I run to him.

I am too relieved to even notice that his “greeting”… is nothing more than another threat.

Because I am not being embraced by Bishop. I am being trapped by him.

He isn’t waving a hand at me. He isn’t waving to me at all. He’s raising his hand to point.

With eyes the color of fossilized amber (and just as hard), he holds his muscular arm above the bridge of his nose, pointing a gun—muted silver and black—right at my head.

Right at me.

And then without hesitation—without an ounce of empathy in his eyes—he shoots.

And I don’t even blink. Somehow, I want to watch it happen. I want to capture every moment…

But I can’t…. because the sound of the shot shatters the thin veneer of my dream world, and I wake up in a panicked sweat, reaching out with one hand on the couch for God-knows-what and raising the other hand to strike.

Bishop’s curiosity about my faith in him wasn’t too far off base.

Even my subconscious doesn’t know if it trusts him. And my mind has nowhere to go but into panic.

What’s even worse is that there’s no TV, no books, no entertainment in the loft. There’s one phone line, no laptops and if there’s WiFi, it’s no use because I can’t find any electronic devices.

This whole place is like a pre-historic museum.

And no books?!?
How the hell doesn’t he have any books?

Locked up like a prisoner, caged like a bird, I start to get restless by midday.

Showered, teeth scrubbed, I wander back into the bedroom through the upstairs bath.

I get dressed, putting on
real
clothes, for the first time in two days. I begin to rifle through the rest of the bedroom dresser drawers, looking for insight into my life.

And that’s
when I hit pay dirt.

A little black book.

The instant I pick it up, I know exactly what it is. Couldn’t remember my middle name if you told it to me, but for some reason, the little notebook holds memory.

It’s old, yellowed along the edges. The cover is pure black leather, and the pages have been roughly dog-eared. Some are ripped.

I open the first page… and look at the first name in Bishop’s ancient little phone book. I read the text, thinking…

What an odd first name.

I place my index finger under the first line of the notebook and recite it to myself again.

It’s been crossed out, re-written so many times that I can barely read it, but the phone number to its right is fully in tact.

The handwriting is
illegible
… notwithstanding the fact that the script is actually really beautiful.

It’s just that these…
markings
get in the way.

Angry strikethroughs have been made to the name on the page, creating indentations, and I can tell that Bishop has raged against this person, this
someone
in the phone book, in his mind.

I learn the person’s number just by reading it. I commit it to memory, feeling relieved to be able to commit
anything
to memory at all.

It’s the first new thing I’ve learned as the new me, and I say it out loud.

Ace Delaney
             

Phone number: (212) 665-1214

BISHOP

“Call him.”

The words catch me off guard, and I look at Jax across the tiny café table in a little spot called la Petite Monde.

The music playing in the background is soft. Our conversation is barely above a whisper, and yet I constantly find myself looking over my shoulder.

I know my waitress isn’t a spy.

She hasn’t been sent by some rogue organization to kill me… but she might as well have.

She sets my coffee mug on the table, giving me a wink, and I snatch it so quickly that the hot lava almost spills all over the table.

I nod, dismissing her, before I even reply to Jackson.

“Keep your fucking voice down,” I hiss.

“Oh,
cut the shit
, Bishop,” Jackson groans. “We’re a million fucking miles from New York. We’re in the middle of Nowhere, France, and nobody here gives a flying
fuck
who you are.”

He glances up quickly.

“Except maybe that bombshell of a waitress.”

He winks at our server who passes by.

“Will you get your fucking head on straight?” I pick up my mug again, taking a hurried sip. “I’m not calling his pig-headed ass.”

“But I’m willing to bet you called P, already, didn’t you?” He cocks a brow. “What’s the ‘P’ stand for again?
Pain in my ass
?”

I cut my eyes at him, and Jax leans in.

“Bishop, come on,” he practically pleads. “You’re out on a limb here. You gotta have faith in
something
. He can help you, bro. He’ll
wanna
help.”

I glower.

“I do have faith in something, Jackson.
You
… and P and my nine millimeter. That’s all the fucking faith I need.”

I lean backwards, sitting my mug down. I can feel the cold gunmetal steel against my lower back.

“As for
him
, he’ll help, alright. Like a bullet to the goddamned head, he’ll help.”

“Aw, give the man credit. He taught you everything you know. He goddamned raised ya.”

I raise an eyebrow, chuckling. My laugh is humorless.

“Oh, ‘raising’? Is
that
what they call it these days? Slapping sense into me every time I don’t follow the fucking ‘rules’?

“Hey!” Jackson says, pointing a finger at me. “You wouldn’t be who you are today
without
those rules. And neither would I.”

“Who am I today, Jax?” I shift in my seat. “Really…? Washed up, a former shell of my self. If I saw myself now, five years ago,
I
wouldn’t even recognize me.”

Jax drinks from his own mug, smirking.

“C’mon, you’re
still
the same guy, Bish. You’re still the fucking ‘
Crow
’…” he declares. “Even if the girl’s made ya soft…”

I take out my wallet, getting ready to pay the tab.

“I wouldn’t go
that
far, Jax…
Nothing
makes me soft.”

Jackson laughs low. “
Damn
. I wish I had gotten you saying that on tape…”

I shake my head, resisting the urge to crack a smile.

“Look,” Jax throws up his hands. “I didn’t come here to fight. I
came
here to help.”

He pulls out a file from his briefcase, checking over his shoulder. He points at a page.

“Now, the guy’s name is Duvall.
Isaac Duvall.
He’s Senator Fletcher’s
ex-campaign manager
. Now, if we want to capitalize on that lead, we need to follow the dollar bill-bricked road that leads to Barcelona.”

He smiles wickedly.

“He has a mistress in the city.
You
have a place there. It’s perfect.”

I look down at the page, shaking my head after a few seconds.

“Nah. I’m fine here.”

“Listen, this place is nice and all—Annecy. The French Alps.
Really, it is
. But what are you going to do? Stick it out
here
? Is your location secure? Are
you
…?”

He taps on the table with a rigid index finger.

“If the Gafanellis find you here…”

“They
won’t
find me here.”

“Don’t you at least want to have the upper hand? Dig out Dani’s shooter…? Buy yourself some time? Besides, the longer you wait, the more time the hitter/shooter/
whoever
will have. Wouldn’t you rather be on the offensive?”

He motions out the window towards the mountains in the distance.

“Barcelona is perfect. This place is a little pond, man. You’re a big wave. You need an
ocean
. A place you can get lost in and disappear.
Why not
start there? You’ve got the properties. You have the means.”

He closes the folder.

“How
else
do you think you can afford me?
My services aren’t exactly cheap
.”

Jackson smiles, looking like a million dollars in his new navy suit.

I put my leather jacket back on my shoulders.

Some people wear their wealth on their backs. I wear mine
at
my back… and I check my waistband to make sure that
my little friend
is still there.

And I keep my money as tight to me as the body on our little waitress.

The one that Jackson can’t seem to keep his eyes off.

Me
? My eyes belong to someone else.

I nod, making sure I don’t lock eyes with the smiling, flirtatious waitress, who takes the check.

I keep an elbow on the cafe table.

“Jackson, I told you before… I pay for your services in friendship and teeth. Every time you don’t make a lame ass crack…
I let you keep one.
”

I motion to the bar.

“And you’re going to need all the teeth you can get… if you’re really trying to bag the waitress who’s flashing me ‘fuck-me’ eyes.”

“I’m biding my time,” Jax responds. “Just trying to figure out a way to get her off of your dick and onto mine.”

“You can have her,” I say, standing. “I’m already good.”

I throw a sizeable tip on the table.

“We’ll talk later.”

“You’re damn straight we will,” Jackson tells me, still in his seat. “And think about Barcelona.
Hey!
And Bishop…”

I turn back, leaning.

“Yeah?”

“Really
think
about calling Delaney, too.”