Page 14 of Identify
“Can’t help it. You’ve got my soul, babe.”
His eyes lock onto mine, and I can’t look away. Just once I’d like to live in a world where criminals and law enforcement can co-exist. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. One of us has to be the strong one, I just wish it didn’t have to be me. I wait until I can’t take it any longer before looking away. The urge to kiss him is too overwhelming.
I was wrong before, the good days where he loves me, theyarejust as bad.
“Your burgers should be up soon,” I tell him trying to duck under his tree-trunk sized arm to get around him.
“Hang on a sec.” He grabs my upper arm to stop me, pulling me back into place against the wall. “I didn’t just come back here to remind myself of what I can’t have.” He looks at me pointedly. “I also need a favor.”
I nod. “Anything, you know that.”
Mack lowers his voice even further and pushes his nose into my hair, his lips grazing my ear. “Notanything, obviously. If it were anything, we’d be in your office with you bent over your desk and my cock buried deep inside you.” His breath tickles my neck and goosebumps decorate my arms. I shiver at the thought of being with him again.
He bites at my lobe before pulling his head away slowly, capturing me in his hard gaze. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, babe.”
I nod again, hating my acquiescence, yet not doing a thing to change it.
“Now, let’s try this again. I need a favor.”
“I’ll try to help if I can,” I say, my voice shaky. It drives me nuts that he has this effect on me. He’s the only man ever to penetrate the ice-cold exterior I try so hard to keep around me.
“Can you use some of your sketchy connections and get me whatever you can on David Tremblay?”
I look up at him, in surprise. “David Tremblay? As in Quinn’s ex? Reed’s friend?ThatDavid Tremblay?”
“That’s the one,” he says grimly.
“Sure, but why?”
“Main suspect in a sex trafficking case we’re looking into.”
“Oh!” That piques my interest even more. The scum involved in human trafficking are my favorite scum to eradicate.
“Yeah,oh,” he repeats. “But for Reed’s sake I want to make sure he’s guilty before . . .” He nods at me.
Mack has a general apathy for the lines between right and wrong. For him, they are gray and malleable. It’s what allows him to accept what me and my Dirty Darlings do, even though it goes against everything the FBI works toward.
Thanks to otherwise confidential information that Mack has passed along, a number of really despicable people disappear before trial, or after being released because there isn’t enough to get them to trial. My girls and I can take all the credit for that.
In the same vein, much needed—not necessarily legally acquired—evidence has mysteriously appeared in Mack’s mailbox a few times. Courtesy of an unidentified source, which helps him put away the not-quite-so-despicable guys who need not be wiped off the face of the earth completely, just locked away for a while. My girls and I can take all the credit for that too. Because I won’t kill, or have my girls kill,justanyone. It takes a particular breed of contemptible human lowlife for me to do that.
I have a code of conduct that I follow for choosing targets. I got the idea from a TV show about a serial killer who only killed serial killers and thought it was brilliant. Do I consider myself to be a serial killer? No. My girls? Absolutely not. I think of us more as vigilantes. Contract killers for good, not evil. Even if I am the one contracting all the kills.
“I’ll find out whatever I can today. I’ll call one of the girls in to help,” I tell Mack. “What are you going to do if he’s guilty?”
“I’m not worried about what I’ll do. I’m more worried about what Reed will do. You’ll have a race on your hands to see who can take him out first.”
I want to laugh at that, but the look on Mack’s face is serious. So, instead I nod. “I’ll text as soon as I have anything.”
Mack and I do still communicate. Mostly about ongoing cases. But when it can’t be in person, we use burner phones, which we replace every week. I want nothing on either of our persons with traceable information that law enforcement could ever use against us. Something that I’m far more paranoid about than Mack is. We mostly use them to text and sometimes call. I keep a stockpile of them upstairs for the girls and me anyway, so it’s easy.
Because as much as I hate to admit it, I need to know I can contact Mack and that he’ll be safe if I do so. And not even that I need to know if Icancontact him. I have tobe able tocontact him. To hear his voice when I need it, send him a message when I’m thinking it, keep a lifeline between us open. Since we can’t be together, it’s all I have left of him.
He leans in and kisses me on the cheek. “Thank you.
“Of course.”
He heads into the restroom and I make my way back to the bar, still feeling the kiss long after.
