Under the Surface (6 page)

“Conversations. Meals.”

Eight years in bars and nightclubs left her jaded to all but the most inventive lines, but this one gave her pause. “I work five nights a week. You want a meal, it's breakfast at one in the afternoon or dinner at three a.m.”

“Any time,” he said, the words rumbling deep in his throat.

Chad had snared her attention, something curious flickering behind her newest bartender's tall, dark, and mysterious surface. She let her hand slip free from his and put a couple of feet between them. “Good night, Chad.”

“Sleep well.” The words would have been friendly if not for the look in his heavy-lidded hazel eyes. Desire flashed through her like lightning, trapping her breath in the charged aftermath.

He stepped back and disappeared through the office door. Moments later she heard the front door open, then swing shut.

The office seemed bigger after he left. Eve turned back to her desk and gathered her laptop and a stack of invoices. Eye Candy straddled the line between red ink and black. Her family wanted to turn her into a corporate drone. Her new bartender turned what should have been an uncomplicated hookup into something she couldn't define, and she wanted to buy a building she flat out couldn't afford.

Oh, and she'd agreed to inform on Lyle Murphy for the cops. No pressure. None at all in what used to be a pretty typical small businesswoman's life.

Her palm still tingled from Chad's gentle, relentless touch. Stroking her finger over the same spot calmed her, anchored her. But sleep well?

Not likely.

*   *   *

When he woke up there was always a moment, never lasting more than a heartbeat or two, when he was no one, no alias or rank or even his name, just breath and heartbeat and usually an assortment of aches and pains. This morning the blank slate frame of mind ended when he saw the dog tags looped over the corner of the mirror over his dresser. He hadn't worn them in years, but the sight always grounded him: Matt Dorchester, former Army, now LPD.

A filter of identity settled into his brain: Chad Henderson, bartender.

A third facet of his current world took up residence in his awareness: Eve Webber, bar owner, informant.

Woman.

The woman he'd used the high-voltage chemistry with to sweet talk into getting to know him in a manner she would interpret as “date” when he meant “protect her without her consent or knowledge.”

He shifted to his back, directly under the vent emitting a tepid flow of air. The AC unit was clunking away outside his bedroom window. He had to find the time to fix the air conditioner, maybe get the HVAC guy to add some coolant, try to postpone installing a new one until next summer, after he'd paid off the anesthesiologist.

Thinking about the state of the family finances didn't temper the uneasy pitch in his stomach.

He rolled out of bed, started the coffee, then stood under the shower until all the pieces of who he was today merged and the odd weight in his chest subsided. He was due at the precinct before his shift at Eye Candy, so he dressed in jeans and a polo before pulling the Eye Candy T-shirt from the dryer.

The damned thing had shrunk in the wash. “Fuck me
running,
” he muttered.

He gulped down half the pot of coffee while arming himself, then poured the rest into a travel mug. Before leaving, he stopped at his brother's room and knocked on the closed door.

“Luke,” he said softly.

“It's open.”

Matt turned the doorknob and watched his brother wince as he put his full weight on his arms to push himself up against his headboard. Luke's hair was even longer than Matt's and tousled from sleep. Jeans and an Oxford shirt were draped over the wheelchair next to the bed, meaning Luke had gone out last night. Matt inhaled, searching for the acrid odor of cigarette smoke. Luke had picked up recreational smoking in college, a vice Matt felt his brother couldn't afford physically or financially.

“I told you, I quit,” Luke said, and Matt consciously relaxed his stance. “You got in late last night. Three a.m.?”

“Work. Could last a while,” Matt answered. Noon, and neither of them were at work, very un-Dorchester. He scratched through his memory. Was this Luke's first day off this week, or second? “How many hours did you get this week?”

“Twenty-four,” Luke said.

That meant three eight-hour days, and this was Luke's second day off. “Anything new on the career websites?”

“No,” Luke said, rubbing his shoulder with slow, deep strokes that meant sore tendons and ligaments close to the joint.

“You seeing the physical therapist today?”

“This afternoon.”

“No basketball.”

Luke shot him a narrow-eyed glare, and Matt tried to soften his tone. “Your shoulder won't heal if you keep stressing it out on the court. I stopped on my way home last night and got a new bottle of ibuprofen. Ice, rest it, anti-inflammatories. Call if you need me.”

He was halfway to the front door before he heard Luke behind him. “Thanks, Matt. You didn't have to do that.”

Matt paused. “No big deal. CVS is on the way home.”

“Thanks anyway. Hey, leave me the list of AC contractors and I'll call around, get prices.”

“I'm going to do that before work today,” Matt said.

“You're leaving for work right now.”

“Stop trying to duck out of PT. I've got it,” Matt said, and shut the door behind him. He climbed into his Jeep and drove on autopilot to the precinct, thinking about what he'd dreamed about all night: handling Eve Webber. He'd given her a simple choice in her office: back off the flirtatious little games or end up in bed with him. She went for option B with a delight that normally would have ended in the nearest decent hotel room, ASAP. Given that he was a cop charged with protecting her, her enthusiasm was a huge problem. He needed to find a new way to handle her.

Handle
her.… Touch, however, softened her shoulders, made the corners of her wide, full mouth relax with pleasure.

His touch changed the quick wit into limpid desire.

His
touch gave her bedroom eyes.

Last night he'd diverted her from hooking up by suggesting they “date”. But even dating wouldn't stay at the hand-holding stage for long. She'd expect more. Kissing. Touching. Full body contact. Naked, sweating, rhythmic movement full body contact. “Whatever it takes” was the motto for most undercover cops, and Matt was the best there was, especially on long-term assignments. He'd do “whatever it takes” to blend in.

But while sleeping with her was a betrayal, pretending to date her was ten times the deception. He didn't need weeks in Eve's company to know he was trading a physical lie for an emotional one, or to know that she'd tolerate neither.

Rather than think about that, he focused on the way she interacted with customers. Women might come to Eye Candy for the bartenders and the dancing, but he'd bet they also came back to see Eve, who had a real knack for making everyone feel drawn into her inner circle. She circulated, moving from group to group, introducing people, getting clusters to merge and new friendships to form. After even a two-minute conversation with a customer, that person smiled more widely, laughed a little louder, looked just a little looser and more relaxed. She reflected light like the dozens of tiny, mirrored disco balls dangling above the dance floor, taking whatever energy radiated from an individual and multiplying it.

He strode into the squad room and nodded a greeting to Sorenson. Lieutenant Hawthorn emerged from his office and braced himself against Andy's desk. “Report.”

Sorenson had scrounged up a whiteboard and a bulletin board, the latter of which was now decorated with photographs of the pertinent players: Lyle Murphy, Eve Webber, and Lyle's most frequent companion, a known offender from the East Side called Travis Jenkins. On the whiteboard Matt wrote out a list of employees, giving first names and last names when he'd been able to hear them, and drew a basic sketch of the bar's interior and exterior, including exits. “The staircase you can see in the bar goes into her office. There's a door here,” he said, tapping the spot on the diagram, “and a staircase down to the alley you can see from the storeroom door. I'm guessing her apartment is behind the door in her office.”

“I'll start pulling files,” Sorenson said. “Does Lyle have anyone on the inside?”

“Cesar,” Matt said. “Maybe. I don't recognize him, but the ink connects him to the Strykers at some point in time.”

“Good work,” Hawthorn said as he examined the building layout and the photographs. “Stay alert. We lose her, we lose the whole case.”

The group dispersed, leaving Sorenson leaning against his desk, staring at the pictures on the bulletin boards. “She likes you,” she said, noncommittal, just observing.

He didn't pretend to not know who she meant, but he did try to play it down. “She's flirting. It's a way of life for her.”

“Is that a trained observer's read on Eve Webber?” Sorenson asked with a mocking look. “She doesn't strike me as the kind of woman who takes no for an answer.”

I know exactly how to read Eve Webber. She's sexy as hell, secretive, whip-smart, and for the first time in a very long time, I want something. I want her.

I always finish what I start.

At the memory of Eve's husky voice, both flirtatious and flat-out serious, he flushed. He actually flushed, a very male, very human response—a very un-Dorchester response. Sorenson didn't miss it. Both blond eyebrows rose ever so slightly. He firmed up his voice and said, “I've got this.”

“By the way, Hawthorn and I will be in the bar tonight. Hawthorn called in McCormick to handle exterior surveillance.”

“Got it.” He pushed away from the desk and headed back to Eye Candy.

*   *   *

Shortly after Eve found her chopping groove, Pauli ambled into the bar and disappeared down the hall. Every shift, he'd set himself up in the dish room with his homework and his iPod, emerging again at the end of the night soaked in sweat and smelling of industrial soap. A few minutes later the front door opened again, briefly silhouetting a now familiar, tall, muscular figure against the summer sky before closing.

Chad, who thought she deserved better than fast, back early again.

“You don't need to get here until closer to five,” she said.

“I'm turning in my paperwork before you get busy, in case you had any questions.” He slid the completed W-4 and application onto the bar.

She wiped her hands on a towel, then reached for the papers, neatly filled out in black ink with block printing. “No felonies or drug convictions, right?” she asked absently as she skimmed the application.

“No.”

“It's not a deal-breaker,” she said. “I just want to know up front.”

“The answer's still no.”

“Looking good,” she said, eyeing his freshly washed and slightly smaller Eye Candy T-shirt. She tried to keep an amused smile off her face, and failed. “Laundry tip. Use the low heat dryer setting for cotton.”

“Yeah, I got that.” He came around the corner of the bar, clearly intending to help, but she stopped him at the end of the bar.

“As much as I'd like the help, I can't afford to pay you to come in a couple of hours early every night.”

“It's three bucks an hour,” he said. “I work for tips.”

“Three dollars an hour times two hours a day times five days a week is really thirty bucks a week,” she replied.

“On the house,” he said as he came around the end of the bar.

“I'll pay you for today,” she said, brushing past him to get upstairs before the office door opened. “Just show up when your shift starts from here on out.”

She hurried past him but he caught her wrist in one hand, halting her forward progress while he looked her over. Even across the distance of their outstretched arms, his gaze struck sparks as it flickered against her curves. She wore one of her favorite bar outfits, a pair of black leather short-shorts, and a white, sheer, fitted long-sleeved T-shirt over a black silk camisole. Heavy beaten silver discs dangled from her ears, with a matching bracelet around her wrist. Black heeled shoes with an ankle strap lengthened her legs. And if Natalie asked, she'd forgotten she wore the outfit just last week. It had nothing to do with Chad.

“I told you to take advantage of me,” he said, his deep voice a gravelly rumble in the silence of the bar.

She took a step back toward him, leaving only slowly heating air between their bodies, and decided to see if he'd keep his word. “You also told me we were taking things slow. If I can take advantage of you, the storeroom's quiet and dark this time of day.”

One brief caress of his thumb across her wrist, then he let her go. In the silence that followed her heels sounded loud and sharp against the parquet dance floor. As she walked, she felt his gaze on her hips and the length of her legs.

“I bet guys walk into walls when you go out in that outfit,” he said. He hadn't raised his voice but it still carried into the farthest corners of the echoing, empty room.

She'd always known it wasn't the outside that mattered, but who you were inside. What you did. She smiled, because unlike most men who complimented her, Chad meant it without expecting anything in return, then scrolled through her iPod. “Do you have a preference for music?”

“No club music, no boy bands, no disco, no punk, nothing from the fifties.”

Amused, she raised an eyebrow at the decisive list. “Do you like anyone local?” she asked as she scrolled without much hope of a positive answer. Most people lapped up the pap distributed by nationally owned radio corporations.

“Yeah,” he said without batting an eye. “Maud Ward, The Parakeets, Doe-Eyed Girl.”

Three of her favorite bands. “Maud's great. Did you see the feature in the paper last week? She's going to be back in Lancaster this winter, recording her new album, which is great for us. When she's working on new material she shows up around town and does impromptu concerts to try out the new stuff. I've been trying to get her to do a show here, but she's been touring all summer,” she said and found her name in the Artists list and slid the iPod into the Bose SoundDock she had on the bar. A low, melodic voice tumbled out into the bar, backed only by a single guitar, the sound of chatter and laughter running under the music.