Before Vin had left the duplex, he'd packed a quick semi-picnic for him and Marie-Terese, and the remnants of it were scattered across the chipped table in his family's old kitchen: The tinfoil that had been around the sandwiches and the Cokes that were now mostly empty and the bag of Cape Cod potato chips they'd shared were going to be quick to clean up.
Dessert was the single Granny Smith apple he'd had at his place, and he'd been cutting off pieces of it and alternating one to her, one to himself. At this point, the thing was more core than apple, and as he cleaved the last viable slice from around the seeds, it was going to her.
For no apparent reason, he thought about what he'd said to Marie-Terese:
It's not what you've done - it's who you are.
He was very sure that was true about her...and also clear that it didn't apply to him in the slightest. The way he'd been living his life had been exactly who he was - a money-hungry bastard with absolutely no conscience.
But like her, he was leaving his old life behind. He still had the drive deep in his gut - except now he saw it as a problem, not something to act on. And the trouble was, he had no idea what form the future was going to take.
"Here, have the last piece." He took the slice from the blade of his knife and offered it across the table. "I cut it carefully."
She reached out her lovely hand and accepted what he wanted to give her. "Thank you."
As she ate the thing, he cleaned up, gathering the debris, stuffing it back into the Whole Foods bag he'd brought it in.
"When are they coming?" she asked.
"One hour after sunset, they said. This kind of stuff always seems to happen in the dark."
She smiled a little and wiped her mouth with a paper napkin. Leaning to the side, she looked out of the window, her hair swinging loose off her shoulder and bouncing. "Still pretty light."
"Yeah."
As he looked around, he imagined what the place could be like. Granite countertops. Stainless- steel appliances. Bust out the wall to the right and throw up an addition to make a family room. Rip out all the carpets. Paint. Wallpaper. Face-lift the shit out of the baths.
Young family would be happy here.
"Come with me," he said, holding out his hand.
Marie-Terese put her palm in his. "Where to?"
"Outside."
He took her through the garage and into the backyard - which was hardly a showpiece. The lawn was about as attractive as an old man's beard, and the oak in the back looked like the skeletal remains of a once gracious tree - but at least the temperature wasn't as cold as it had been.
Wrapping his arms around her, he hugged her close and gently closed her eyes with the tips of his fingers. "I want you to imagine we're on a beach."
"A beach." Her lips lifted.
"Florida. Mexico. South of France. California. Anywhere you like."
She put her head on his chest. "Okay."
"The color of the sky's changing to peach and gold and the sea is calm and blue." Vin focused on the setting sun as he spoke to her, trying to picture it going behind the horizon of the ocean instead of the asphalt roof of the ranch house next door.
Vin started to move, shifting his weight from side to side, and she followed his cue, swaying in his arms.
"The air is soft and warm." He put his chin on the top of her head. "And the waves are doing that thing on the sand, up and back, up and back. Palm trees are all around."
He rubbed her shoulders, hoping that she saw what he was describing, hoping she was lifted out of where they really were: the crappy-ass backyard of a shitty little house in chilly Caldwell, New York.
Closest shoreline they had was rocky and on a river.
He closed his own eyes and just felt the woman he held, and what do you know: she was what transformed his landscape, not his words. For him, she was the reason he was warm. "You're a wonderful dancer," she said into his chest.
"Am I?" When she nodded, he felt it on his pec. "Well, that's because I have a good partner."
They moved together until light began to bleed out of the sky and the temperature dropped too far. As Vin stopped, Marie-Terese lifted her head and looked up at him.
When he put his hand on her face and just stared at her, she whispered, "Yes."
He led her back into the house and up to his bedroom. When he closed the door, he leaned against it and watched her as she took her fleece off over her head and then unbuttoned her simple white shirt. Her bra was next, which meant that as she bent down to shuck off her jeans, her breasts swayed.
Vin had been hard before she started to undress, but the sight of her so natural and beautiful made him strain against his slacks.
And yet this was not about sex.
When she stood before him naked, he came at her slowly and kissed her long and deep. Her body beneath his hands was warm and supple, so small and smooth compared to his own - and he loved the contrast and the cushion of her. Loved the way she smelled and tasted.
Capturing her breasts in his palms, he took one nipple between his lips to suck while he rubbed the other with his thumb, and as she arched against him, his name came out of her mouth in a rush.
Man, he loved the way that sounded.
With his free hand, he stroked her thigh and moved behind, sliding between her legs. She was oh, so ready for him. Slick and hot.
Cursing under his breath, he carried her to his old bed and laid her out. A moment later, he was naked as the day he was born and he stretched himself beside her, tucking his cock up onto his stomach as he brought their hips together.
More kissing. Hands on his skin. Hers.
Hands between her legs. His.
Marie-Terese ended up on top, her thighs split over his hips, her sex parted for him. After he was covered by a condom, she covered him in a slow, devastating decent that robbed him of breath and sense. In response, he jacked into an arch, his back curling up off the bed, the shift pushing him even deeper.
Planting her palms on his shoulders, she braced herself and swung her hips up and back, falling into a shattering rhythm.
As Marie-Terese took him, he was more than willing to give her anything she wanted of him. He was panting and desperate underneath her as her body worked his to perfection.
With her lids down low as she watched him, her eyes were like blue fire.
But they consumed him without any pain.
"This is Vin's address."
As Eddie pointed to a Happy Meal-sized house on the right, Jim pulled the truck over and put it in park. Out of habit, he scoped the area. Typical lower-middle-class residential neighborhood, with cars mostly in their driveways, street lamps every twenty yards, and lights coming on in small-scale family rooms and kitchens. No pedestrians because everyone was in for the night. Not a lot of cover because the bushes and the trees were leafless.
As he and Eddie got out and hit the bag stash in the back, the glooming light turned everything into a variation of gray, the landscape like a black-and-white photograph.
Vin's BMW was in the drive, and there were lights on inside, so as they came up to the front door, they knocked. The response was an immediate holler from upstairs, but it took a while before they were let in, and the reason why was pretty clear: Vin's hair obviously had had fingers running through it, and his cheeks were flushed.
Jim's first thought as he stepped in and looked around was that cheap furnishings really didn't age well. From what he could see, everything from the wilted wallpaper to the crappy couch in the living room to the dejected kitchen in the back had been done in twenty-year-old Sears Roebuck.
It was the same stuff he'd grown up with and the first time since he'd met the guy that he thought he had anything in common with Vin.
Eddie put one of his bags down and focused on an oddly newer stretch of rug in the hall. "They died here at the bottom of the stairs. Your parents."
"Yeah." Vin shifted uneasily. "How do you know that?"
"I can see their shadow." Eddie stepped to the side, glanced at Jim, and nodded downward.
Jim wondered what the big deal was, because when he looked at the floor all he could see...was...
He rubbed his eyes to make sure he was getting it right - but yeah, he was. At the base of the stairs where the fresher square of carpet was, he picked up on an odd disturbance, a visual echo of what had been two people intertwined in a heap. The woman had had frizzy, faded hair and a yellow housecoat. The man had been in green overalls, like the kind an electrician or a plumber would wear. The bloodstains beneath their heads covered yards of the carpet.
Jim cleared his throat. "Yeah, I see it, too."
Marie-Terese appeared at the top of the stairs. "Where do you want us?"
"I did it in my bedroom," Vin said.
Eddie left some of his load in the front hall and started for the second floor. "Then that's where we're going."
With all the bags he was holding, Jim had to turn sideways to fit as he went up, and Vin was cool enough to take some of the load.
"What's all this stuff?" the guy asked.
"Lotta frickin' salt."
As the four of them crammed into a room that was decorated in faded navy blue wallpaper and seventies schoolboy furniture, Eddie reached down and pulled up the braided rug in the center. "You did it here?"
Self-evident, given the faded circle that was left on the floorboards. "Do we need to clean that first?" Jim asked.
"Clean what?" Vin knelt down and ran his hands around the fake wood flooring. "There's nothing here."
"It's right - "
Eddie caught Jim's arm and shook his head, then started opening bags. He handed both Vin and Marie-Terese a container of Morton salt. "You guys are going to pour a line around the perimeter of the upstairs. It needs to be an unbroken barrier, except for that window." He nodded over to the right. "Leave that clear. If there is furniture in the way, it's okay - just go around it and then back against the wall. There's more in these bags if you need it."
When he seemed satisfied by how they were handling things, he took out a pair of stogies from inside his jacket and gave one of them along with some salt to Jim. "You and I are going to do the same and a little more downstairs."
"Roger that."
When they were back on the first floor, Eddie took out a black Bic lighter and fired his Cuban or whatever it was up. As he exhaled something that smelled like...clean ocean air, he offered the flame and Jim bent at the waist and lit his own. One inhale and he was in Heaven. The tobacco tasted amazing, like nothing he'd ever had in his mouth before, and if this was going to be part of his ongoing duties, he was so on board.
Man, he'd liked smoking. And evidently all that cancer concern was off his list now.
Eddie pocketed his lighter and popped open his salt. "We're going to go from room to room and exhale while we make a barrier down here. We're purifying the environment and creating an obstacle for her. There's more Morton's in that bag."
Jim glanced down at his umbrella girl. "Is this really going to keep Devina out?"
"It'll make it harder for her to get in. Adrian's going to keep her busy for as long as he can, but even with his considerable talents, she's going to know something is up."
As Jim cracked the seal on his salt, he realized he liked the way he felt. For better or for worse - well, mostly worse - he was built to fight, and not just because he was a heavyweight motherfucker. Conflict was in his blood and his brain and his beating heart.
He'd missed being on missions. Angling the Morton container downward, he happily smoked away as a thin white river poured out of the silver spout and onto the shitty carpet. Eddie was handling the back of the house, going down the hall and into the kitchen, so Jim headed for the living room. It was fast work, following along the baseboard while pushing dusty curtains out of the way, and it was satisfying: He felt as if he were pissing on his own territory, staking a claim.
Man, he almost hoped that bitch walked through that door just so he could kick her ass.
Talk about a sea change. In the past, he'd religiously drawn a line between men and women. He wouldn't hesitate to kill a man. Same with maiming, trampling, or cold-cocking one. Women, however, were totally different. A female could come at him with a knife drawn and he would disarm her. Period. Disabling would happen only if he absolutely had to, and in the least painful and permanent way.
But Devina wasn't a woman to him anymore. Hell, she wasn't a woman, period.
The salt whispered as he made his wobbly little line, and although it might have been hard to put a lot of confidence in something that was used to spice up McDonald's french fries, Eddie didn't strike him as a fool. Not by a long shot.
And the cigar rocked. Totally.
By the time they were finished, the downstairs of the house smelled like Florida and needed a DustBuster, and as they headed to the second floor, Eddie drew a white line across each of the steps until the stairs looked like a landing pad.
Vin and Marie-Terese had been busy, and after Eddie inspected their efforts, he told them to take a load off on the little bed and asked Jim to join him in the bathroom at the top of the landing. Using the sink as a mixing bowl, the guy put in the hydrogen peroxide, the witch hazel and the juice of the lemons along with the white vinegar, and stirred with his own hands, weaving his fingers through the solutionJust as the pungent smell wafted up and drilled into Jim's nostrils, Eddie started speaking softly as he continued to make circles in the sink. The words were barely more than breath, and in a language Jim didn't understand, but the phrase was repeated over and over again.
Abruptly, the scent rising up changed. No longer nasty in the nose, it became springtime-meadow fresh.
Eddie took his hands out and wiped them on his jeans, then reached into his coat and produced two crystal...
"Are those guns?" Jim asked.
"Sure are." The guy popped the stopper on one and submerged the thing, bubbles floating up to the surface until the belly was full. He handed it to Jim. "Put this in your holster. As opposed to your auto-loader, this shit will actually work against her."
As Eddie filled up his own, Jim turned the wet crystal over in his hands. The weapon was a goddamn piece of art, carved from clear quartz, he was guessing, and engineered with precision. Palming it, he took aim at the bathroom wall and pulled the trigger. A fine, strong line of the solution licked out exactly where he'd wanted it to go.
"Nice," he murmured, ditching his SIG.
"I'll show you how to make them." Eddie sealed up his gun's belly and holstered it at the small of his back. "The fact that you can carve wood's going to help."
When they went back to the others, Vin was pacing around and Marie-Terese was sitting on the bed. Eddie ditched his coat, and rifled around in the Hannaford bags that were now mostly empty.
Taking out the fresh sage, he popped open its plastic container and gave the bundle of leaves to Marie-Terese. "You hold on to this and stay out of the way. No matter what you see or what happens, you do not drop this and you keep this against both of your palms. It's going to offer you some protection."
"What do I do?" Vin demanded.
Eddie glanced over his shoulder. "Take off your clothes."
