Violets & Violence (4 page)

At this time of night, the streetlights, moon and stars provided rich illumination on this upscale stretch of Lake Shore Rd. I stopped on the opposite side of the median, on the side of the road where the houses were not as large. Opening my Camry’s power windows, I stared across that median at a house so large and wondered how any rational person could find a functional use for all of its space.

The gate was open, which meant someone would be coming home. Soon. I wondered if it would be her.

Times like this, I ached for a cigar, some kind of poison to fill my lungs and spread into my body. But I had nothing here with me.

I watched a Bentley approach on the other side of the road and sail past the open gate, completely uninterested, its taillights fading in my rearview mirror. Shifting my attention back to the open gate, I wondered for the millionth time why she had left me. The
truth
, the real reason.

A set of headlights appeared in my rearview mirror. They belonged to a Cadillac Escalade that slowed as it got closer, and then turned through the opening in the median. It steered past the open gates and disappeared among the mature trees. Its tinted windows protected the identity of the driver and any passenger, robbing me of a glimpse of what was once mine, what I had lost.

I missed her. A lot.

The gate eventually closed and, as always, I settled on an answer that surely didn’t compare to the truth I wanted: Andrea had left me in favor of more money. She had left me for an insurance policy known as a much older man.

I reached down to the shifter and knocked it into Drive, steering into the darkness and leaving behind the quiet chaos of a life my ex had ripped out of my hands—a life with
her
.

As I approached the city, traffic thickened. It was louder here, cheaper here, but it was alive.

Vibrant.

A block from my loft, after passing the ACE Hardware store and the abandoned properties behind it, I realized that, without this darkness, the light had no reason to exist. Without my ex, I never would’ve found Violet.

I steered my Toyota into the parking garage and waited for the garage door to close before stepping out of the car. As I headed toward the door to the lobby, I heard footsteps behind me. That sound (parking garage footsteps) always freaked me out thanks to all the movies I’d seen as a child. Living in this depressed end of town didn’t help either.

Shit.

I turned around as I reached for the lobby door, and found Violet.

I smiled past the curiosity of how she had found me (I was listed in all the telephone directories) and accessed the secure parking garage (much more difficult than googling me). “Twice in one day.”

“You still haven’t called me,” she shot back, her voice echoing. She wore a sexy skirt and heels with studs that looked like teeth on them. And her hair—dark with a hint of purple now—hung past her shoulders in natural, loose waves. “And you promised you would.”

I produced my iPhone, smiling sheepishly. “I was just about to,” I told her, opening the door once she was close enough.

“Were you out on a night date, Mr. Carter?” she asked, narrowing her eyes in pretend-jealous slits.

I laughed, aware that my cheeks had turned a guilty shade of pink. “Not even close.”

Rolling her greyish-green eyes, she shoved me through the doorway to the cozy little lobby with its upright piano and simple elevator. I hit the
up
button and we rode it to the third floor in relative silence, staring at each other and grinning like love-struck teens. I reached out and took her fingers with mine, wondering if she would come into the apartment and, if so, what she planned on doing with me next because the fact that she had looked for me somehow meant more than her finding me.

The elevator doors opened.

“I’m not going in there,” she said as we stepped into the hallway. She steered the wrong way.

“I’m this way,” I told her, chuckling because it seemed funny that the magician knew where I lived, but not which unit was mine.

Shaking her head, she said, “Nah, this isn’t how things work, Mr. Carter. I want a phone call. I want to have a conversation. I want to get to know you, be sure you’re not some kind of crazy psycho.” She frowned, her heavily made-up eyes darkening as she leaned closer and whispered, “You need to call me, Mr. Carter.”

“Okay.” I produced my phone again and dialed the number I had memorized from the playing card she had given me a couple of weeks ago. When I raised my attention, I saw that Violet was boarding the elevator. She gave a cute wave and a flirty smirk as the elevator doors closed, but I didn’t disconnect the call.

“Hello?” came her voice through my iPhone. It seemed to echo in the hall.

“It’s me.” I beamed. “It’s Carter, Mr. Carter.”

She giggled. “Long time, no see.”

“You realize you shouldn’t be unaccompanied in this end of town at this time of night. Wait for me in the lobby.”

“You’re a funny man. With a poor memory.”

I caught myself frowning. She was wrong. “No, I think it’s got something to do with common sense.” I pressed the
down
button for the elevator.

“Common sense is for common people,” she fired back. “I’m a magician.”

Now it was my turn to the laugh. When the elevator arrived, I stepped on board, but the call disconnected. My phone didn’t like the elevator shaft as much as hers did, so I shoved it into my pocket and willed the ride to speed up.

In the lobby, I noticed a small party—
three couples?
At least that, maybe four or five, all drunk and smelling like they had shared a cab on their way here—waiting their turn for the elevator.

Violet had disappeared.

I looked around, stepped down the stairs to the street-level doors. Outside the lobby’s glass, I spotted a couple of young men smoking cigarettes and chatting. Opening the door and peeking outside, I asked them, “Have you seen a woman, dark hair and a skirt?”

The men shook their heads.

As I reentered the lobby, my iPhone vibrated in my pocket.

The screen showed Violet’s number.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“Waiting,” she said, and I detected that same playfulness in her tone as before. “You called.”

“Where?” I surveyed the lobby – it really was not all that complicated; there were less than two places to hide here – and I couldn’t find her in any of them.

“Upstairs, Carter. In your loft.”

“Bullshit.” I shook my head and hit the call button for the elevator, but when the doors didn’t open immediately, I opted for the stairs instead. At the third floor, I raced down the hall and, once I reached my unit’s door, I wondered if she really had let herself inside.

I wanted to believe she had, wanted to believe in the kind of magic she practiced. Reaching out, I turned the knob.

Locked.

“Is that you?” she asked.

Before I could reach for my keys, the door flung open and Violet leaned against the frame, holding her phone and wearing the biggest smile I had ever seen on a grown woman’s lips.

My own phone nearly slipped out of my grip. Even though I had seen those same hazel eyes a few seconds ago, the sight and closeness of her made me weak, just like it had earlier today at the trendy conference center and restaurant.

“Forget common sense,” she said. “I’m a magician and you better not forget that, Carter Borden.”

“How…?” I stepped into my loft, and she carefully closed the door behind me. I noticed my keys on the table and realized she must have lifted them out of my pocket, probably when she shoved me through the door from the parking garage to the lobby. That had been the distraction, why I hadn’t noticed. And at some point while I rode the elevator down to the lobby to chase after her, she had hurried back up to the third floor through the stairwell, completely undetected, and then let herself in. Yes, that made sense why those men smoking outside the building’s lobby hadn’t seen her.

Maybe not magic, but definitely genius. I smiled at her cleverness and stepped toward her, but she turned and walked deeper into the loft, to the living room.

“So what about you?” she asked, dropping onto the leather sofa and crossing one long leg over the other. “If I’m a magician, then what are you?”

I rubbed my face, pulling my hands down my cheeks. She spoke so quickly, I could barely keep up. “Investments,” I said. “I work for an investment firm.”

That piqued her interest and she sat straighter, as if interested all of a sudden. Patting the space on the sofa next to her, she said, “That doesn’t sound very interesting, but I want to hear all about it!”

Violet was right, working at a small, private investment firm had the same sex appeal as shopping for a minivan. But that hadn’t stopped us from cracking open a bottle of Northern Michigan Riesling and finishing it off between the two of us. At one point, either her stomach or mine rumbled, so I ordered Chinese from a place called Dynasty Chinese Food. Neither of us could drive after the wine, but that didn’t matter; Violet said her driver would fetch it.

“I hope the food’s good,” she said, narrowing her eyes into threatening slits.

I slid off the sofa and walked to the balcony doors. “I hope so, too,” I mumbled, staring past the building across the street, across the freeway and the MGM Grand’s parking garage. Dynasty was mostly good, but like any popular restaurant, it could be hit and miss at times.

I hadn’t expected Violet to sneak up behind me, but she had. I sensed her hand on my lower back, just faintly and while I considered myself one of those tense individuals who punched calculator keys instead of pumping weights, it surprised me that I didn’t jump at her stealthy arrival.

“Actually, I don’t really care how great it is,” she admitted, her voice low.

I turned around and noticed, for the first time, just how short she was. Not dwarf-sized, but probably five and a half feet tall without the tall heels; I had seen her as a giant, larger than life, six feet or taller on the stage and at the trendy conference center. But now, in my living room and an inch or two away while we stood at this naked sliding glass door, she had to tilt her head slightly to make eye contact.

I felt her arms slide around my waist and pull me against her. “Just kiss me,” she whispered, closing her eyes.

I leaned forward and pressed my lips to hers. It had been years since I last kissed a woman like this, and I had forgotten just how passionate these things could be. My arousal was instantaneous; my crotch making my pants tight and painful around my eager cock.

“Wow,” she breathed, pulling away.

I opened my eyes and saw that she was only starting to open hers. The hazel had turned green and dreamy, her neck blotchy and her lipstick smeared. When her pupils tightened into focus, she smiled and stepped back.

“I think you’re the magician,” she sighed and then turned away, returning to the sofa where she crossed her legs again. She tugged at the lower lip of her skirt as if to cover up her thighs.

Keeping my back to her to hide my dimming arousal, I glanced over my shoulder, and our eyes locked. “Me? I don’t even know your real name,” I pointed out. “Where you live, whether you’re married, have kids or pets, where you’re from. I know…” I glanced up at the ceiling, shaking my head. “I know nothing about you.”

Violet broke the stare and glanced toward the kitchen area. “Sometimes it’s better that way.”

Still drunk from the wine and the kiss and the stimulation from that kiss, I caught myself agreeing with her. I considered my own past, the past I had watched drive through the gates to a lakeside home on Lake Shore tonight. In a fucking Cadillac Escalade of all things.

Yeah, sometimes not knowing is better.

Her head bowed and she stared at the hands in her lap. I caught the edges of her mouth curling into a subtle grin. “Look at what you’ve done to me, Carter.”

I dropped my attention and noticed the residual of my excitement still trying to pierce through the fabric of my pants. “What I did to you?” I chuckled to myself.

“I’ve faced hundreds of thousands of people in theaters across half a dozen States. I get nervous, I lose sleep. But never this.” I felt her eyes on my back.