Page 8 of Ace of Spades
“And you don’t know her real name?” he asked.
“Nope. She’s just Peaches.”
Although that didn’t help much, it gave them a little something to go on.
“Sometimes I’d give her a few dollars because she always looked hungry.”
More like she was strung out. “You know anything else about her? Where she lived? Who she was friends with?”
“Nope. She’s just Peaches.”
“Yeah, you already said that.”
Spider narrowed his eyes. “Why all the questions, Ace?”
Nate decided that Spider wasn’t as stupid as he pretended to be. “No reason. Just bothered me to think I might have seen her around.” He headed to the office to call Taylor.
“She’s not a regular around here,” Taylor said.
Josh nodded. “Yeah, someone would’ve recognized her by now if she was.”
“Where to next?” They’d started near downtown Miami, showing their murder victim’s artist rendering to everyone they came across. Taylor’s phone rang, and her heart skipped a beat at seeing Nate’s name on the screen.
“Hey,” she said.
“Any luck on an identification?”
“Well, hello to you, too.” He was always all business, and she couldn’t resist needling him at every opportunity. She smiled when she heard his sigh.
“Hello, Taylor.”
“See, that wasn’t so hard.” When Josh mouthedNate?she nodded. “To answer your question, no luck on an identity yet.”
“I’ve got something for you. One of my customers recognized her from the news bulletin. Said she went by Peaches, and that she worked around Seventh Avenue and Seventy-Eighth Street in Liberty City.”
“That’s a start. We’ll head over there now.”
“Just be careful, okay?”
She chuckled. “It’s sweet that you’re worried about me.”
“I’m not sweet. Call me when you get home.”
“Will do.” No, he wasn’t sweet, but he was protective of those he cared for, which seemed to include her.
Nate was an intensely private man. She had no idea why he was so open with her, telling her things she wasn’t sure he shared with his brothers. What she did know was that the man had fascinated her since the day she’d met him.
For a good six or seven months after first reporting to the Miami field office, she’d been too afraid to even try to talk to him. But she’d find herself watching him, and as time had passed, she’d learned that underneath his daunting exterior was a man who cared deeply about justice, his brothers, and his team members.
First, she’d grown to respect him, and then over time, they’d become friends. After she’d been assigned to work with him behind the sceneson his undercover investigations, and they’d spent more time together, they’d somehow become best friends. That had surprised her, because he wasn’t the kind of man who—with the exception of his brothers—let anyone get too close. Why he’d let her in, she didn’t know.
She hadn’t meant for it to happen, but one day she’d looked at him and out of the clear blue, her heart had said,I love him. She might as well have fallen for Prince Harry for all the good it would do her. Nate might consider her his best friend, but he’d erected an impenetrable wall that she could only bang her head against. On one side, a close friendship was allowed, and on the other side was no man’s land—or, more accurately, no Taylor’s land.
Yet more than once, she’d caught him looking at her as if she were the proverbial glass of water to a man emerging from a barren desert. That heat directed at her in his eyes when he thought she wasn’t paying attention fed the hope that someday she could do the impossible and obliterate that wall.
There wasn’t any rule against dating a fellow agent, and there had been married agents at one time or another. Not that Nate would ever ask her out on a date, so Taylor wasn’t sure why she was thinking of the possibility that would ever happen.
“Where to?” Josh asked after they were in the car.
