"Like how?"
"The trances stopped, for one thing, and then I just had luck on my side. My parents finally imploded - I'll spare you the details, but let's just say the end was simply an evolution of the alcoholism. After they were gone, I was relieved and free and...different. I turned eighteen, inherited the house and my father's plumbing jobs...and that's how it all started."
"Wait, you say you were different - how?"
Vin shrugged. "When I was growing up, I was laid-back. You know, never much interested in school, content to kind of flake along. But after my parents died...yeah, nothing about me was chill. I had this hunger." He put his hand on his gut. "Always with the hunger. Nothing was...or has been ever enough. It's like I'm obese when it comes to money - starved no matter what's in my accounts or how much I have. I used to think it was just because I went from teenager to adult the second my parents were gone - I mean, I had to support myself because no one else was going to. But I'm not sure that completely explains it. The thing was, while I was working full-time for those plumbers, I got into drug dealing. The cash was crazy and as it began to stockpile, I just wanted more and more. I got into doing houses because I could be legit that way - and that mattered not because I was afraid of jail, but because I couldn't make as much paper behind bars as I could out. I was relentless and uncurtailed by ethics and laws and anything but self-preservation. Nothing eased me...until two nights ago."
"What changed then?"
"I stared into the eyes of a woman and felt...something else."
Vin reached into his back pocket and took out the card of the Madonna. After taking a good long look at it, he put it down on the counter and turned it around so Jim could see it. "When I looked into her eyes...I felt satisfied for the first time."
Jim leaned in and stared at the icon. Holy shit...it was Marie-Terese. The dark hair, the blue eyes, the soft, kind face. "Okay, that's eerie as f**k."
Vin cleared his throat. "She's not the Virgin Mary. I know. And this picture is not of her. But when I saw Marie-Terese, that burning pit in my stomach eased off. Devina? She just fed the drive. Whether it was the sex we had and the boundaries we pushed there, or the things she wanted or the places we went. She was a constant ramp-up of the hunger. Marie-Terese on the other hand...she's like a warm pool. When I'm with her, I don't need to be anywhere else. Ever."
The guy abruptly took back the card and rolled his eyes. "Jesus Christ, listen to me. I sound like a Lifetime movie or some shit."
Jim cracked a smile. "Yeah, well, things don't work out, you could always go into the greeting-card biz from prison."
"Just the kind of career change I was looking to make."
"Better than license plates."
"Wittier, certainly."
Jim thought about Devina and the so-called dream Vin had had. Chances were very good that hadn't been a nightmare. For God's sake, if she didn't cast a shadow in broad daylight, what other tricks did she have up her sleeve?
"What exactly did you do?" Jim asked. "When you were seventeen."
Vin crossed his arms over his chest and you could practically hear the sucking sound as he was drawn back into the past. "I did what the woman told me to do."
"Which was...?" When Vin just shook his head, Jim guessed it was some hard-core creepy. "This woman still around?"
"Dunno."
"What's her name?"
"Why does it matter? That's in the past."
"But Devina is not, and you're up on charges for something you didn't do, thanks to her." As a whole lot of cursing rolled out, Jim nodded. "You open a door, not a bad idea to go back and get the key to lock it back up."
"That's the problem. I thought I was locking it. As for that woman, it was like twenty years ago. I doubt we can find her."
As Vin started to clean things up, Jim watched his awkward bandaged hand. "How'd you hurt yourself?"
"I crushed a glass as I was talking to you."
"That'll do it."
Vin stopped in the middle of twisting shut the sourdough bread. "I'm worried about Marie-Terese. If Devina can do this to me, what isn't she capable of, you know?"
"I hear you on that. Does she have a clue about - "
"No, and I'm going to keep it that way. I don't want Marie-Terese involved in this shit."
More evidence Vin wasn't an idiot. "Listen...about her." Jim wanted to be careful how he packaged this one. "I took a look around her background after you told me that other guy who was killed downtown had been with her."
"Oh, Jesus..." Vin wheeled around from the cupboard he'd opened. "That ex-husband of hers. He's found her. It's - "
"Not him. He's in jail." Jim did a download on what Matthias the f**ker had found and what do you know...the more the story came out, the bigger the frown on Vin's face got. "Bottom line is," Jim concluded, "although it's possible an associate of Capricio's would come after her, it's not likely given those other deaths because they'd really just be concerned with Marie-Terese."
Vin cursed - which meant he got the picture and all the implications. "So, who is it? Assuming she's the tie between the two attacks."
"That's the question."
Vin settled back against the counter, crossing his arms and looking as if he'd like to fight someone.
"She's quit, by the way," he said after a moment. "You know, doing that shit at the Iron Mask. And I think she's going to leave Caldwell."
"Really."
"I don't want her to, but maybe it's for the best. It could be that one of those...men, you know, from the club, that she...yeah."
As the guy's lips flattened out like his gut had frozen up on him, Jim realized things had progressed between the two of them. Fast. Although he wasn't willing to bet Dog on it, he'd wager his truck and his Harley that Vin and Marie-Terese had become lovers - because that expression on the guy's face was kind of heartbreaking.
"I don't want to lose her," Vin muttered. "And I hate to have her running for her life."
"Well," Jim said, "then I think you and I need to make it safe for her to stay here."
Safe from Devina...and from whatever psycho was after her.
At least Jim knew what the hell to do to some creep who had a case of the obsessions with the woman. As for Devina? Well, he was going to have to pull that one out of his ass.
Across the way, Vin looked over, and as they locked eyes, the guy nodded once, like he knew that things were going to get freaky and he was good with that. Extending his bandaged hand, he said, "Excellent plan, my friend."
Jim carefully clasped the paw that was offered. "I have a feeling it's going to be a pleasure working with you."
"Likewise. Guess that bar fight was just a warm-up."
"Clearly."
Chapter 29
As Marie-Terese sat down after the last hymn of the service, she felt her phone vibrating in her purse and put her hand in to stop its rattle-and-shake routine.
Robbie looked over, but she just settled back in the pew, and gave him a little smile. The way she saw it, there were three possibilities for the call: wrong number, babysitters...or Trez. And as much as liked her old boss, she hoped it wasn't him.
Abruptly, she thought of something she'd learned in college about veteran parachuters. It had been in psychology class and part of a study on perceived danger and anxiety. Asked when or if they had ever been afraid, the parachuters, who fit the profile of risk takers, overwhelmingly replied that the only time they'd been nervous was on their last jump - as if they might have used up all their luck over time and the odds they had beaten until that point could suddenly reach out and grab them just as they were getting out.
Funny, when she'd been eighteen and sitting in a lecture hall, it had seemed so ridiculous. After all the jumps those highfliers had taken, why would they have lost their iron nerve on the last one? Now she so got that.
She might have quit the night before...but what if that was Trez calling her back to meet with the CPD again? And what if this time, it wasn't about those shootings, but what she had done for money?
As she sat next to her son in church, the risk she had assumed seemed real for the first time. The thing was, the evolution from sexy waitress to something more had been done in an environment where that was a "career choice" a lot of people around her had made safely. Abruptly, though, she realized she must have been crazy. If she got jailed, Robbie would end up in foster care - with both of his parents behind bars.