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  After a few tense seconds that felt like an eternity, he turned away from her and walked back to the mangy cat. She noticed now that it lay on its side, twitching as vomit trailed from its mouth.

  “Wretched creatures,” he said as he loomed over the poisoned animal. “They keep fucking breeding, and no one will do anything about it. No one cares.”

  He swung the shovel through the air and brought the flat aspect down on the cat’s head. It made a sound like stomping on an orange. Val gasped and looked away as he slammed the shovel down two more times, until the cat’s head was a pulverized mass of flesh and fur. Val cupped a hand over her mouth to suppress her gags.

  Norman turned back to her, gore dripping from his shovel. His friendly mask had dropped away to reveal a man barely in control of himself, a knife hovering at the world’s throat. “Get out of here, cunt.”

  Val stepped back, her resolve cracking under his primal glare. She turned and walked away, as fast as her legs could go without running.

  * * *

  Val jumped into the passenger’s side of Max’s car and heaved a sigh of relief.

  A weary smile flickered across his lips, like he was thankful she’d come back in one piece. “Well? Did you get what you needed?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “So he incriminated himself?”

  “No, but he’s guilty as hell. He pulled a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on me.”

  His hazel eyes widened, the green starbursts at their centers becoming visible. “Did he try to hurt you?”

  “No.” Val gave him a cockeyed smile. “Your concern is touching, though.”

  He looked at her thoughtfully, reading her as he’d done in his office the first time they met, until his gaze intensified and turned into something primal and hot. The car felt painfully warm, as if he’d jacked up the temperature, but the heat wasn’t coming from the car’s vents. It came from him, she realized, from the inferno that burned just underneath his outer façade, the hidden fire that drew her to him when she knew she should keep her distance.

  He blinked, and his outer cool snapped back into place. “What now?” he asked in a calm, even tone.

  Val cleared her throat and mentally slapped herself. Of course he’s not on fire. That’s not even physically possible. Jesus, woman, pull it together. How Max had learned to control his emotions so well, she could only guess. He put her lame poker face to shame.

  She crossed her arms and looked off into the distance. “He didn’t like when I talked about Chet, but he really lost his shit when I mentioned Lester.” Her gaze cut back to Max. “You’re sure that neither you nor your father has any connection to Barrister?”

  “I know I don’t. And I never heard my father mention Barrister, ever. He was totally uninterested in politics.”

  “Then we’re missing something, because they’re definitely connected somehow.”

  Max drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, then sighed through a grimace. “My father’s home office is on the third floor of the main house. I haven’t been in there since the day he died. It’s packed full of papers and other junk I ignored. Could be useful information squirrelled away somewhere in there.”

  Val frowned. “Why didn’t you mention this before?”

  “Because you were dead-set on talking to Barrister as soon as possible, remember? And…I don’t want to go in there unless I have to. I’m trying to keep it preserved for the police, in case they want to take another look around.”

  He looked away, and Val saw the darkness in his eyes again that made her wonder what his true reasons were for avoiding his father’s office. Despite their unique connection, she knew next to nothing about him—he could have killed his father for all she knew, though the more time she spent with him, the more she doubted he was capable of murder.

  “Then we need to go back to your house to poke around your father’s office,” she said, “right after we make one more stop.”

  He started the car. “Hera’s House of Gyros?”

  “After. First, the Washington State Ladies headquarters in Olympia.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Norman scowled at Valentine Shepherd’s back as she marched away, swinging her hips like she outranked him. It was all he could do to keep himself from chasing the bitch down and beating her face in. Why his Army contemporaries saw fit to give people like her leadership positions, he’d never understand. If the military insisted on clinging to the notion of diversity while ignoring the obvious differences between men and women’s physical capabilities, they could at least put a premium on respect.

  When he was sure she was gone, he tossed his shovel to the side and hurried back inside his house. In his den, he whipped out his cell phone and dialed as he paced across the Oriental rug.

  “What do you want, Norm?” Dean Price answered. “I’m meeting with a client in five minutes.”

  “Do you know a woman named Valentine Shepherd?”

  After a long pause, Dean said, “She was an acquaintance of my son’s. Why?”

  “Because she was just here asking questions about Lester Carressa. Why the fuck would she do that?”

  “I don’t know. She’s aware that Robby was on the team of lawyers representing Maxwell Carressa—”

  “How did she connect us? What did you tell her?”

  “I didn’t tell her anything.” Dean’s voice took on an edge of anger. “For some reason she thinks Robby’s death is related to Carressa’s case. Why would she think that?”

  Norman cringed. Calling Dean had been a mistake. Just when Norm had finally managed to quell Dean’s suspicions that his son’s “accidental” death was nothing more than a coincidence, Norm had stoked the flames again. He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, and nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw Gino behind him, lounging on the russet-colored leather sofa with his arms and legs crossed as he bounced a foot in the air, his thin lips twisted in a crooked smile. Goddamn Gino was like a fucking ninja—or a shadow, always there but only sometimes visible.

  Norman turned away from Gino’s distracting presence. “She didn’t mention Robby,” he said to Dean, “but she’s connecting the dots somehow. You need to get her off the trail.”

  Dean scoffed. “She doesn’t know anything. She can’t know anything. Just ignore her. I need to go.” He hung up.

  Norman gripped his phone hard, then harder, until a crack appeared at its edge.

  “Overreacting again, I see,” Gino said in his obnoxious singsong voice.

  “Shut up.” Norman tossed his phone on his antique desk and took a couple of deep breaths. “How much so far?”

  “Seven point six eight million.”

  “Goddammit. There’s no way to move it faster?”

  Gino laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back. “Not unless you want to catch the attention of the FBI. Oh, by the way—I saw Maxwell Carressa parked in a car a block from here, waiting for that woman who paid you a visit, I’m guessing.”

  Norman slammed his fist down on the desk. “Fuck!”

  “Don’t get mad at me. I did what you told me to. Killing the Price boy was supposed to clear our path to success, right? So you tell me why we’ve got Lester’s kid and Little Red Riding Bitch on our case.”

  “I don’t know why. It wasn’t supposed to be like this…” He’d been told eliminating Robby was critical to the plan—exactly how, he still didn’t know. He ran a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. It was a little longer than he preferred, but his campaign advisers told him that voters wouldn’t warm to the close-cropped military look. He glanced at Gino. “Criminal activity is your area of expertise. So how would you handle it?”

  Norman watched Gino run his tongue across his lips as he considered their options—first his top lip, then the bottom. A heat clawed its way out of Norman’s belly and down to his groin, pushing bile up his throat in its wake.

  No, not here. Not again.

  “Keep eliminating the weak links,” G
ino said. “Robby’s gone—though that turned out to be pointless—and your boy toy’s been removed from the picture—”

  “Don’t call him that,” Norman growled. “He wasn’t my ‘boy toy.’ We just…I just…That little faggot tricked me.”

  Gino laughed. “Sure he did, Norm.”

  Norman’s fists tightened into leathery balls. Goddamn Gino, he knew how to push his buttons. He hadn’t even known Gino for that long, met him through a friend-of-a-friend with connections to the criminal underground, but the skinny Italian man with shiny suits and a smart mouth had managed to work his way under Norman’s skin in record time.

  “Next in the chain would be Georgie Porgie,” Gino said. “Get as much out of him as possible, then put him down. That piggy’ll squeal eventually.”

  “Fine. Do it. The Carressa kid, too.” War always involved casualties. The weak were the first ones to go.

  “Uh-uh. We won’t get away with killing a rich white boy, not so soon after Robby. Better to convince your pal Dean to pull the trigger on slipping the incriminating evidence he’s got on Maxwell to the DA. That’ll get the Carressa kid out of the picture. Maybe the redhead will disappear with him.”

  Norman nodded and cracked his knuckles. Dead people were easier to deal with, but Gino was the expert. Maybe after he became mayor and some time had passed, he could arrange for Maxwell and his whore to have an accident. Tie up those loose ends.

  “You look stressed,” Gino said. His eyes drifted down from Norman’s face.

  “Don’t.”

  Gino chuckled. “It’s hard running for office. Everyone needs to let off steam now and then.” He stood and walked toward Norman.

  Every muscle in Norman’s body tensed, ready for a fight—a fight within himself. “Stay away from me, you fucking fruit.”

  Like the ninja that he was, Gino’s hand shot out lightning-quick and grabbed Norman’s groin. Almost as fast, Norman grabbed the lapels of Gino’s suit coat and yanked him close, staring murder into his eyes, ready to slam his skinny ass into the ground and end this game once and for all.

  “How will you clean up this mess you’ve made without me, Norm?” Gino said as he ran his fingers across the outline of Norman’s hard cock beneath the khakis.

  Norman moved his lips to tell Gino to go to hell, to crawl back under the rock he’d come from, that he didn’t need him for anything, that he had it all under control, but nothing came out. Gino popped the button off Norman’s pants, the sound of unzipping as loud as a freight train, the feel of the air on his bare butt as sharp as a needle to the eye.

  “No…” Norman said, but it came out as more of a moan when Gino knelt down and dug his fingers into Norman’s ass cheeks, then flicked that sharp tongue against the tip of Norman’s penis exactly four times before taking the whole thing in his mouth. Gino took his time sliding his lips up and down Norman’s cock so Norman could feel every movement of Gino’s tongue, every millimeter his wet lips slid down the shaft, every squeeze of his hand cupping the testicles. He was so excruciatingly slow that his legs began to shake and he whimpered like a baby for Gino to get it over with.

  When Norman teetered at the precipice of his shame, Gino shoved him away like a child he’d gotten tired of playing with. They faced each other for a moment, the Italian’s flushed mouth warped into an evil grin, snickering, as the colonel considered snapping his neck.

  “Turn around,” Gino said.

  “Fuck you.”

  Gino grabbed Norman’s arm and spun him, then bent him over his desk. Norman’s bear-like body could have easily resisted, but his mind was weak. When the urge seized him, his military training and moral scruples dissolved in the sickening heat of the moment.

  “I hate you,” Norman murmured when Gino thrust himself into the colonel and painful ecstasy shot through every nerve of his body. “I fucking hate you.”

  “I know,” Gino said, his voice slick with contempt. In and out he went, over and over, faster and faster, their thighs slapping into each other, grunting together in mutual desperation for release.

  This is the last time, Norman swore as he came with a shudder on the rug under their feet. Every time he told himself it would be the last, but he meant it this time. Like last time. Norman cringed as Gino tensed with his own climax, pushing his life force where God and nature didn’t intend it to go, just to spite Norman.

  The last time.

  Chapter Thirteen

  And that’s why we must take a stand against moral corruption and hypocrisy,” Delilah Barrister finished her speech to the room full of Washington State Ladies for Family Values, “for the sake of our children, and the city!”

  The audience erupted in applause. Val watched from the back of the room, keeping a low profile until the end of the meeting. It’d been a fight to get Max to wait in the car again, but he eventually relented after she convinced him talking to Delilah would be a walk in the park compared to her psycho husband. And with Sten and his assassination squad on her tail, it was important they weren’t seen together. If Val could get Delilah alone and build a rapport with her, woman to woman, maybe she’d trust Val enough to spill whatever she knew about the connection between Norman and Lester, and how they were tied to Robby’s murder.

  As the ladies got up and began shaking hands and gathering their purses, Val did one last scan for cops or security who might ID her; still none, thank God.

  When only a few women lingered, Val approached. “Hi again,” she said with a friendly smile.

  Delilah looked up from the papers she’d been gathering. “Oh, hello, Miss…Shepherd, was it?”

  “You can call me Val. I’d like to talk to you about Colonel Barrister, if you don’t mind. Do you have a moment?”

  “Of course. Let’s go to my office.”

  Val followed Delilah into a modest office with pictures of Washington State forest landscapes on the walls along with half a dozen certificates of appreciation. Atop the desk sat a fresh bouquet of flowers, next to a brass plaque that read “President.” At Delilah’s gesture, she sat down in one of the two seats in front of the desk.

  Delilah took the other seat, crossed her legs, and leaned toward Val. “What can I do for you?”

  Val laced her fingers on her lap and considered her words carefully. After thirty-something years of marriage, Delilah was in the best position to know what kind of man Norman was behind his carefully controlled public persona. True, many people chose to stay ignorant of their spouse’s transgressions if facing reality could result in the loss of their cushy lifestyles. Val didn’t know what went on between Delilah and Norman behind closed doors, but Norman definitely had a temper. If his wife feared him, she might be willing to turn on him and help Val in exchange for getting Norman out of her life.

  “As I’m sure you know, sometimes people come back from war changed,” Val said, “usually not for the better.”

  Delilah’s mouth fell into a slight frown. “What do you mean?”

  “When I visited Colonel Barrister today, he seemed…off. Not the same man I used to know.” That was a lie—Val always knew Barrister to be a two-faced bastard, but pretending to see it for the first time might bring Delilah around to her own realization. “He was more, I don’t know”—Val cringed like it pained her to say it—“violent.”

  Delilah sat back in her chair. She gripped the armrests and swallowed hard. After a long pause, she said, “He’s had a hard time readjusting to civilian life. It takes a toll on you, all those years of fighting. You’ve been there. You know.”

  Yes, Val had been there. She’d been broken down and put back together again, to fight for Uncle Sam in one ultimately pointless skirmish after another. She might’ve had sympathy for Barrister if she thought he suffered from something like post-traumatic stress disorder, and wasn’t naturally a cat-killing, woman-hating, homophobic hypocrite.

  “He’s changed, and…” Delilah’s eyes filled with tears. “Sometimes he scares me.”

  Val leaned
forward. “Has he hurt you?”

  “Not yet, but…” Delilah shook her head.

  “Has he hurt other people? Is he involved in anything…not right? Maybe illegal?”

  Norman’s wife narrowed her eyes at Val, suddenly suspicious. “Of course not. Why would I know that?”

  She’d pushed too hard. Time to try a different tactic. “Listen, I’m going to be honest with you. I’ve been hired by Maxwell Carressa to look into his father’s death and help exonerate him. The information I’ve discovered so far has led me to believe your husband is involved.”

  Delilah’s eyes widened. “What information?”

  “I can’t divulge that right now. But the evidence is strong. I just don’t know exactly how Norman is involved.”

  “Oh my God…”

  “Delilah, I could help you. We could help each other. Your husband scares you, he’s been unfaithful—”

  “What?” Delilah sat up straight in her chair, anger overriding her shock.

  “I’m sorry, it’s true.”

  The prim woman said nothing for several seconds, clenching and unclenching her jaw as if she literally chewed on the information. Finally, she spat, “What do you want from me?”

  “Give me evidence of Norman’s involvement in Lester Carressa’s death, or anything that might tie him to the death of Robert Price, Max Carressa’s lawyer.”

  “I—I don’t know anything about that.”

  “Come on, Delilah,” Val said, her patience waning. “You’re a smart woman. You must know something. You live with the man. If you help me, I’ll make sure you’re safe and help you leave him—”

  “I can’t leave my husband! I’d have nothing! I can’t put my son through a messy divorce. I’d lose my position here. Everyone would know. I can’t—” She launched from her seat, her back rigid. “Thank you for coming by, Miss Shepherd, but I really need to get back to my work. Though it was very nice talking to you, I have a lot of errands I must run today.”