“I wanted to make you wonder,” he continued, his voice low and harsh and deadly. “Wonder if you’d made a mistake playing me. Make you wonder if maybe I was the kind of man who could hurt a woman.”
“Are you?”
I saw his hand rise as fury marred his face. And then, before I had time to react, to do anything, he lashed out. I winced, but he wasn’t aiming the blow at me. Instead, he punched the wall behind me, setting it to shake and rattling the sconces that lined the hallway.
“I’m not,” he said, his low, even voice a stark contrast to the man who’d just exploded in front of me. “Last night, I thought I was pushing a cop. A bitch cop who’d stuck her nose in where it didn’t belong and was afraid that maybe, just maybe, she’d fucked with the wrong man.”
He reached out, as if to stroke my cheek, but I flinched, and he paused, then slowly withdrew. “When I realized that it wasn’t me you were scared of but your memories, I wanted to kick myself. I never meant—” He drew in a breath. “I never meant to hurt you that way.”
“I believe you.” It was true. Whatever else was between us, that fundamental point was true.
He met my eyes, his full of disappointment, and then he released me. I debated running, realized I couldn’t get past him, so I decided to stay and let this play out. Besides, I wanted to know what more he had to say.
For a moment he just stood there. Then he moved across the hall and leaned against the doorjamb. Gone was the earlier fury and the regret. Instead, he looked relaxed and calm and perfectly in control.
“What is it you think you know about me, Sloane?”
I debated how to answer, then decided that some truth was the best approach. “Not much. Not much that’s concrete, anyway.”
“Tell me.”
“I know you were given immunity for Mann Act violations,” I said, watching his face carefully.
His expression didn’t change at all. “That’s interesting,” he said. “Especially when you consider that the immunity deal was confidential.”
I shrugged. “If you know I’m a cop, you probably know that my dad was in the FBI. I have a lot resources.” All true, and yet all deception. But it kept Kevin’s name out of it. I might be pissed at him for pulling me into his vendetta against Evan Black, but I wasn’t about to let Tyler know that an FBI agent still had eyes on him.
“What else?” he demanded.
“Nothing specific,” I admitted. “You three play it close to the vest. There are rumors, speculation. Word is you bump dirty against all sorts of shit. Smuggling, illegal gambling, fraud. As far as I can tell, no one has any solid evidence.”
“And that’s why you’re here.”
“No.” I caught myself taking a step toward him, and stopped. “I’m an Indianapolis homicide detective,” I said reasonably. “You really believe I’m here to find out if you’re smuggling cigarettes?”
I waited for him to reply, but he simply stayed silent, watching me. “How?” I finally asked.
He cocked his head in question.
“How did you know I was a cop?”
“You’re not dealing with idiots, Detective. Or with men who ignore their assets.”
I let his words sink in, then remembered the sign in the reception area at Destiny that plainly announced that the premises were under twenty-four-hour video surveillance.
“Remote video feed,” I said.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his smart phone. “I can play back the footage on my laptop, my phone. Like I said, it’s important for me to keep an eye on the place.”
“Thousands of people must cross in front of your cameras. Why notice me?”
“You intrigued me on two counts.” He winced a little, then ran his thumb over the rising bruise on his knuckles. “One, I liked the way you looked. For another, we don’t get many walk-in applicants. Those things combined to catch my eye.”
“And you learned I was a cop? How?”
“Hardly tricky. Like I said, you caught my eye. And I find it useful to have as much information about people as I can. So I had a buddy lift your prints from your application. After that, it was no trouble at all. Sloane Watson, on medical leave from the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. And that,” he added with a nod toward my hip, “wasn’t from a mugging.”
He waited, obviously expecting me to tell him what happened.