“Where?”
“I’m following you back to your house, where you’re going to pack a few things and then I’m taking you someplace where no one can find you. And if they do, you’ll be protected.”
Kara began to shake. Jace put his hands on her trembling shoulders. “Bend over and breathe deep. That’s my girl.”
Droplets splashed on the concrete like raindrops, yet it was a clear night studded with starlight. Kara was silently sobbing, her tears staining the ground.
“We used to call nights like this magic nights because you could see constellations, even with all the city lights.” Jace kept rubbing her shoulders, wishing she’d never gotten entangled in this.
He wished she’d moved away to a small town where nothing bad happened and she could sell her estate items without a care in the world. Certainly without seeing two teenagers dead on a faded orange sofa, looks of shock and terror on their young faces.
Two teenagers who had their lives stretched out before them, who would never again play video games or ride their crotch rockets through rush-hour traffic, scaring motorists. He felt sick, remembering their bodies on the sofa.
Jace squeezed her shoulders as she straightened up and handed her a bandana he fished out of his pocket.
She blinked, dried her nose and eyes. “You always keep these on hand?”
“When I’m around a lady, yeah.”
Kara flashed a brief smile and then her mouth wobbled again. “So much blood. There was so much blood... Why would anyone kill them? They were barely babies.”
“Babies who carried weapons and committed felonies. You okay now?”
She nodded.
He glanced around. They had to leave. Now.
The sun was starting to climb in the sky as he pulled up to Kara’s driveway. Jace cut the bike’s engine. The others would be at the clubhouse or the garage, starting the day’s work.
Discovering the dead bodies and missing jewels.
The Devil’s Patrol clubhouse had always been known as the Devil’s Den.
Today it fit, since they’d left behind hell and three dead young men who would never again see the light of dawn.
He studied her sedan as Kara hurried into her house. It was a new model. A sticker on the back windshield was the only decoration.
Watch for motorcycles.
Jace blinked. Son of a gun...she hated bikes. Why advise other drivers to be careful of them on the road? It made no sense.
Jace went inside. Kara had brought her love of antiques into her home. Even his untrained eye knew the few pieces in her living room were expensive. Jace went to a round table and a squat lamp sitting on it. A lead crystal vase stood next to the lamp, filled with dried lavender.
Something else adorned the table. Jace’s breath hitched.
He picked up the clear crystal frog nearly hidden behind the lamp. Swore. His fingers traced the edges, noting that the frog had been carefully dusted, since each crack and crevice was clean.
Jace pocketed the frog.
“Pack only what you need,” he called as he walked down the hallway. “No suitcase filled with makeup or false eyelashes.”
“I’m not high-maintenance, Jace.”
He stood at her bedroom door. “I was teasing.”
Open on the bed was a Louis Vuitton overnight case. Kara stood at her dresser, a fistful of lace panties in one hand. He swallowed hard at the sight. Despite the threats trailing them, the grim scene they’d left behind, Kara holding her silk-and-lace underwear made his imagination go wild.
Down, boy. Get her the hell out of here. Yet he had to find out. Jace removed the frog from his jeans pocket and held it in his palm. “I saw this. Why did you keep it?”
Kara glanced at the frog, and color suffused her face. “I don’t know.” A shrug. “I like frogs. Maybe I found it hard get rid of it.”
He stared at the frog. “I remember the day I gave you this. We had only been dating a short time. Went to that antique fair and you were educating...well, trying to educate me on the finer points of valuable antiques. I bought this because—”
“I said you were like the frog prince, except instead of kissing a frog and turning him into a snobby handsome prince, I kissed a handsome prince and he turned into a real man, who liked hot dogs as much as he enjoyed a gourmet dinner and wasn’t afraid of a woman knowing more than he did.”
A slight smile touched his mouth. “Yeah. That was a special day.”
They’d gone to his condominium that night and he’d cooked her a simple dinner of spaghetti and meatballs. They’d killed a decent bottle of red wine and made love for the first time, long into the night. The little frog had sat on his nightstand, a witness to their tangled passion, a secret smile on his crystal face.
They had it good back then, when he thought nothing would separate them. Felt as if he’d found the woman who knew his soul, a woman he wanted to make happy for the rest of his life. He’d felt it deep in his bones that Kara was the one.
Jace turned away and placed the little frog on her dresser. Those days were long gone. “Hurry up.”
To his surprise, she picked up the frog, wrapped it in a shirt and tucked it carefully into her suitcase.
As she came into the living room, Kara gripped her suitcase.
“Do you think whoever killed those kids will come here looking for me? That biker, Mike, he saw me with you, Jace.”
