Page 36 of Ace of Spades
“I concede that you got moves,” she said, sounding half-asleep.
“Told ya.” He smiled against her hair, laced his fingers around hers, and allowed himself to enjoy the soft press of her body against his. With her as his inspiration, he could probably move mountains.
“Go to sleep, tiger.”
“Kay.”
And just like that, she was out. He should be sleepy, but left alone with his thoughts now, his mind was busy thinking again.
The man punched his steering wheel so hard that a sharp pain shot up his arm. He wanted to destroy the motorcycle parked outside his angel’s apartment. She belonged to him, but he would forgive her since she didn’t know that yet. It was obvious the longhaired man was spending the night. As much as he wanted to tear the motorcycle apart with his bare hands, he resisted. Someone would hear him and call the cops.
The piece on the news informing him that his last angel had been a mother to two young girls had sent him into a rage. Mothers were sacred. They didn’t need saving. The bitch should have told him she had daughters. He wouldn’t have taken her away from them the way his mother had been stolen from him. It had taken hours to regain his control after the news story, and if there was anything he hated, it was losing control. That happening was unacceptable. Mistakes were made that way.
The woman inside the apartment was his true angel, not like the others. The girls under her care weren’t her real daughters, so they didn’t count. They didn’t make her a mother. He’d tried to save Raisa Collins, but she’d rejected his offer of marriage, hadn’t understood the honor he was bestowing on her, that he’d chosen her to love. When he’d followed her back to her pitiful room, it was with the intention of making her understand that he was her savior, there to take her away from the squalor and the life of a whore.
She hadn’t wanted to listen, was furious that he’d followed her. He hadn’t meant to kill her, but she wouldn’t stop screaming. To get her to shut up, he’d wrapped his hands around her throat. It wasn’t until she’dtaken her last breath, finally going quiet, that the roaring in his ears had cleared and he’d heard a child crying.
When he’d seen her, so beautiful in her innocence, he’d stroked her face and neck. Her skin had been soft and flawless, her blue eyes wide and frightened. He’d known then that it wasn’t her mother he was meant to save, but her. He would take her with him, raise her to be pure and untainted. She would be his perfect little angel, and he would give her the chances his mother had never had.
Then that bitch had come in with her baseball bat, and he’d fled. But he’d only gone down the hallway, where he hid around the corner. After the woman had taken the girl across the hall to another room, he’d gone back to Raisa’s to make sure he hadn’t left any evidence behind. While wiping his fingerprints from anything he thought he might have touched, he’d found an old Polaroid camera. Without stopping to think why he was doing it, he’d taken pictures of her body.
After he left the building, he’d waited across the street in the alcove of a closed neighborhood grocery for the police to arrive. But they never did. Instead, a short time later, the woman and girl had come out, carrying bulky trash bags. He’d followed them to a motel a few blocks away. All it had taken to learn their names was a few bucks handed over to the motel clerk. From then on, it had been easy to keep an eye on them.
As time passed, he often looked at the photos he’d taken of Raisa Collins. Then six years ago, on the anniversary of his mother’s death, while looking at the pictures of Raisa, so pure in death—a beautiful angel like his mother—it had come to him, his life’s work. He had been too young and helpless to save his mother, but he could save others like her by making them angels. He hadn’t been able to make Raisa his bride, but his angels would arrive in heaven as brides, pure and virtuous. The way his mother had. He’d chosen his first angel the same night.
As for Taylor Collins, she belonged to him. He’d known that from the moment he’d seen her. It was time for her to come home. He neededto get her attention, and he knew just how to do it. Before going, he left her a little present.
Nate lay on his side, watching Taylor sleep. The low glow of the lamp cast a golden light over her—he’d insisted they leave it on so he could see her face when she came. She was so beautiful. What would it be like to wake up to her smile every morning?
She was pleasured, sated, and sleeping. This was when he left a woman’s bed, dressing in the dark and then tiptoeing out. Always. But he couldn’t bring himself to slide out from under the covers, careful not to wake her so he could make his escape without awkward words. So he stayed. This time.
At the sound of Rothmire’s ringtone, he came instantly awake. A call from the boss at this time of night wasn’t good. He grabbed his phone from the nightstand, eyeing the clock. They’d only been asleep two hours, and it was likely the only sleep they’d get tonight.
“Yeah?” He listened, then said, “I’ll collect Taylor, and we’ll head that way.” She was already up and dressing by the time he hung up. “A prostitute was murdered. Some kids found her body.”
“I guess we’re headed to the Everglades, then.”
“No, she was found behind a grocery store in Hialeah. She’s ours, though. She’s wearing a white dress and there’s a wedding ring on her finger.”
“Damn.”
That about summed it up. “We’ll have to take your car,” he said as he pulled on his clothes. He gave her a summary of his phone call with Rothmire.
Although the night hadn’t ended the way he’d wanted it to, he’d enjoyed their date more than he’d thought he would. But he suspected that was because of her. She was a happy person, and he liked beingaround her. Dancing with her, holding her slim body against his ... He was getting aroused just thinking about it. Unfortunately, duty called.
“I’ll make us some coffee to go.”
He yawned. “That would be great. I’m going to check my bike, make sure it’s locked up good.”
At his bike, he took a ball cap with the FBI logo on it out of the saddlebag and put it on, then slipped a lightweight FBI jacket on over his gun and holster. After working undercover for so long, it went against everything ingrained in him to advertise that he was an FBI agent.
After making sure his alarm was on, he walked over to her car. The woman who exited her apartment was all business now, her walk and expression her FBI persona. She’d put back on the jeans and black sweater from earlier, but had added a jacket with “FBI” emblazoned on it, under which he knew she had a holstered gun.
When she neared the driver’s door of the car, she paused, glancing down, and then bent over and picked up something. “Someone dropped their good-luck angel.” She held up a small angel on a chain, the kind he’d seen people hang on their rearview mirrors.
“Do people really believe those work?” To Nate it seemed silly to think a plastic replica of an angel would protect you.
“Maybe it’s a question of faith.” She dropped the angel into her pocket. “I’ll put it in the lost-and-found box in the complex’s office.”
