Body Movers Read online

  Hannah snorted. “No.”

  Carlotta nervously withdrew her hand. “We’d better be going, Hannah.”

  The woman smiled. “My name is Amy, Amy Lin. I didn’t mean to scare you, but please be careful.”

  Carlotta studied the woman’s body language for some sign of a con or impending sales pitch. Instead, Amy Lin’s eyes burned with sincerity and…concern.

  Without responding, Carlotta backed away and left the store, with Hannah at her heels like an excited puppy. “Oh my God, that was a psychic moment!”

  “I don’t believe in psychics,” Carlotta said as she climbed into the van.

  Hannah catapulted herself into the seat and slammed her door. “Well, I do, and I’ve always wanted something like that to happen to me.”

  “If it makes you feel better, I wish it had happened to you, too. That kind of stuff is wasted on me.”

  “I wonder what she meant by you facing danger?” Hannah bounced in the vinyl bench seat. “Ooh, ooh—maybe Peter Ashford is the danger, and you need someone to protect you from him.”

  Carlotta sighed, exasperated. “It doesn’t mean anything, Hannah. It’s one of those blanket statements that could apply to anyone, anytime.” She gestured to the cars around them as Hannah wedged the van between two moving cars. “I’m in danger just sitting in traffic in this city.”

  “Still,” Hannah said solemnly, “you shouldn’t dismiss something like that.”

  Carlotta laid her head back. “Just take me home. This is turning out to be a lousy day.”

  “Hey, what’s up with you giving all your loot to charity back there? That was probably hundreds of dollars’ worth of stuff.”

  “Thousands,” Carlotta corrected, closing her eyes.

  “Jesus God, even worse.”

  “I just couldn’t stand the thought of that woman spreading stories to her friends about me selling my clothes. Everyone will think I’m broke.”

  “You are broke.”

  She expelled a long sigh. “I know.” Her chest and head ached when she thought about the things that Tracey Tully had said. Did everyone assume that she and Peter were having an affair, or perhaps had been all along? If Angela had thought so, it made sense that the woman had confided in her friends. And she hadn’t helped matters by making a spectacle of herself at the funeral.

  Good grief, when had life gotten so complicated?

  Hannah rattled on about a psychic moment she’d had with a dog, until they arrived at the town house. Cooper’s white van sat in the driveway.

  “Wesley must be going on another body run,” Carlotta said as they parked.

  “Let’s go with them!”

  “Are you nuts? I’m not getting involved this body-moving business.”

  “Why not? It’s fascinating.”

  Cooper Craft came out of the house dressed in jeans and a dark sport coat, and strode toward his van.

  “And so is he,” Hannah murmured.

  “Down, girl,” Carlotta said before opening the door and dropping to the ground.

  Coop glanced up and smiled as they approached. “Hi. I didn’t expect to see you.”

  “Are you and Wesley going out on a…job?”

  “Yeah, he’s changing.”

  Carlotta swallowed at the force of his eye contact behind his glasses. When had the man gotten so…appealing? His hair was nicely rumpled, his shirt had French cuffs and his jeans were snug against long, muscular legs.

  “Remember me?” Hannah said, stepping up and practically bursting out of her tattooed skin.

  “Sure I do, Hannah,” Coop said cheerfully, but his gaze snapped back to Carlotta.

  “Right,” Hannah said dryly. “Okay, I’m taking off. Call me later, Nancy Drew.”

  Carlotta glared at her friend as she climbed into her graffiti-van.

  “What was that all about?” Coop asked with a laugh.

  “Nothing,” Carlotta said. “Except I think that Hannah is crushing on you.”

  He smiled and his eyes crinkled at the edges. “It must be the spring weather. I’m feeling a pretty intense crush coming on myself.”

  The way he looked at her made it obvious that Hannah wasn’t the object of his affection. Carlotta’s chest tingled with pleasure, but she didn’t believe in starting something that she couldn’t finish. What the man did for a living just creeped her out too much. And since he was going to be around a lot, she thought she should be honest.

  “Look,” she said, breaking the pregnant pause, “you’re really nice—”

  “Oh, God,” he cut in, lifting his hand. “Spare me the ‘you’re really nice’speech. If you’re just not into me, I understand.”

  She wet her lips. “We’re just so different, that’s all.”

  He leaned toward her. “How so?”

  “Well…” She gestured vaguely in the air, disconcerted by his nearness. “You’re…an intellectual, and I’m…not.”

  A little frown crossed his face and he shook his head, his gaze boring into hers. “I think you’re smarter than you want people to know. You hide behind that froufrou job of yours, pretending to be happy selling five-hundred-dollar blue jeans to Atlanta’s finest, but I think there’s more to you than meets the eye.” Then he grinned. “Not that what meets the eye isn’t pretty darn spectacular.”

  His little speech left her a little angry, a little frustrated, and…a little turned on. Her breasts perked up as if they had ears. Her thighs tingled like peppermint. Her overloaded senses effectively cut off the signals between her brain and her tongue.

  The front door slammed and Wesley leaped down the steps in threes. “Hi, sis! I don’t know when I’ll be home. Don’t wait up.”

  “Okay,” she said when her voice decided to reappear. Then she looked at Coop. “So you think I’m smart?”

  Coop flashed her another smile as he opened the driver’s-side door to the van. “Yeah. Thanks to you, I was able to convince the M.E. to do an autopsy on Angela Ashford.” He inclined his head to her, then swung inside the van and closed the door.

  Carlotta swallowed hard as she stepped back to allow the van to leave. An autopsy…thanks to her.

  Suddenly panic billowed in her lungs. What had she done? What if, as Hannah had pointed out, her neuroses over Peter had caused her to set a series of events into motion that could endanger more than just her heart?

  She rubbed her thumb across the palm of the hand that Amy Lin had “read.” Was she indeed facing danger?

  Carlotta watched the van pull away, with Coop at the wheel.

  And was Dr. Cooper Craft—a big, strong man—offering his protection…and more?

  22

  “S top the van,” Wesley said. “I’m going to be sick.”

  Coop veered to the shoulder of the road and brought the van to an abrupt halt. Wesley practically fell out the door and made it two steps before he grabbed his knees and projected his half-digested Homewrecker burrito from Moe’s onto the weeds.

  Damn, it had been so good going down.

  “You okay?” Coop yelled.

  Wesley nodded but maintained the position a few seconds longer to make sure the queasiness had passed. He gulped air and closed his eyes, but was immediately assailed by the visions of the teenage boy he’d just helped Coop to peel off Interstate 285 westbound. The teenager, at least, was in only three pieces. His motorcycle was in about a million, recognizable as a motorcycle only because one of the side mirrors had been lodged in the kid’s unhelmeted head.

  Another wave of nausea hit him and he hurled the chips and salsa he’d eaten as an appetizer. Man, that tomato sauce was like battery acid on the flipside. He felt like a moron, puking his guts out on the side of the road in broad daylight.

  “Breathe through your mouth,” Coop yelled.

  He did and gradually the graphic images in his head began to diminish. Slowly he stood and waited for the horizon to right itself, then stepped back to the van.

  “Sorry, man,” he said as he pulled himse
lf up into his seat.

  “No problem,” Coop said, then pointed to the glove compartment. “There’s a package of wipes in there.”

  Wesley pulled out a couple and wiped his mouth, feeling like a kindergartner. “Am I fired?”

  “What?” Coop laughed. “Of course not. That was a rough scene back there. I’d be worried if it didn’t affect you a little.” He clapped Wesley on the shoulder before pulling out into traffic. “At least you waited until we left the morgue. The CSI folks tend to frown upon upchucking at the scene.”

  Wesley eased into the seat, grateful to be let off the hook.

  “That’s it for the day,” Coop said. “And you’re not on call this weekend.”

  “Why not?”

  “I have other commitments,” Coop said, his closed expression indicating he didn’t care to elaborate. “But don’t worry, we’ll make up for lost time next week.”

  Wesley nodded, looking forward to a free weekend. “Today’s payday, right?”

  Coop pulled an envelope out of his jacket pocket. “Here you go. Don’t spend it all in one place.”

  Wesley pulled out the check and smiled in satisfaction. Thirty-two body retrievals in one week—eight hundred dollars. His fingers began to twitch. He could almost feel the ridged edges of the poker chips in his hand.

  “Did you go see the guy at the car wash?” Coop asked.

  Wesley didn’t want to tell Coop that the guy had blown him off when he’d been stupid enough just to walk up to him. “I changed my mind.” Which was sort of the truth—after Chance had given him his loaner piece, he had changed his mind about buying one.

  “Good,” Coop said. “Then you can put some of that money toward your debts.”

  “Right,” Wesley said, still fingering the check. The urge to gamble was building inside him. He could feel it—the nervous energy, the anticipation. He tried to distract himself. “So, I saw you making moon eyes at my sister before we left. Did you ask her out?”

  “No,” Coop said, then grinned. “She needs time for me to grow on her.”

  Wesley laughed. “Dude, that could take a while.”

  “I got nothing but time,” Coop said in a way that made Wesley think that the man spent a lot of hours alone.

  “Carlotta said that Hannah digs you, though.”

  “The one-woman chain gang?”

  “She’s all right, a little kooky sometimes, but cool.”

  “How in this world did the two of them get to be friends?”

  Wesley laughed. “My sister tried to crash a ritzy party for celebrities a few years ago and got busted with a counterfeit ticket. Hannah was working for the caterer and saw the whole thing. I guess she was impressed with sis’s chutzpah because she let her in through the kitchen. They’ve been friends ever since.”

  “Your sister crashed a party?”

  “Lots of them—I used to design and print the tickets for her. She had real fun with it sometimes—wore disguises, changed her name, spoke in accents.”

  “Your sister did all those things?”

  “Yeah. Then last year she crashed a house party where some guy wound up murdered. Because she and her friends were the only people who weren’t supposed to be there, they got in a shitload of trouble with the police.”

  Coop was staring. “For real?”

  “For real, man. They got off, of course, but I think it scared my sister straight. On the other hand, Satan couldn’t scare Hannah straight.”

  “I knew your sister had a wild streak.”

  “Dude, it ain’t gonna happen with Carlotta. Especially now that Peter Ashford is back on the scene.”

  “Back on the scene? You mean he’s been in touch with Carlotta?”

  “He’s called, like, a dozen times. I’ve seen his number on the caller ID.”

  Coop shifted in his seat and covered his mouth with his hand.

  “Sorry, dude. Maybe he’ll drop out of sight.”

  “Maybe,” Coop said as he pulled up to the town house. “I’ll call you next week.”

  “Later,” Wesley said, loosening his tie as he jumped out of the van. Whistling under his breath, he waved to Mrs. Winningham, who was peeking out the living-room curtains, and ran up the steps. He was hungry and rich—not a bad combination.

  But when he put his key in the lock, the front door swung inside freely. A curse flew out of his mouth.

  Someone had been there…or still was.

  He stood motionless and listened for noises in the house but didn’t hear anything. He glanced around the living room and noticed one of the desk drawers was slightly open. He shot his gaze to the tinsel Christmas tree, and was flooded with relief to see that the little pile of gifts with faded paper seemed untouched. A pang of embarrassment barbed through his chest. He shouldn’t care so much about the stupid tree, but he couldn’t help it.

  He closed the door behind him and walked from room to room, noticing things that had been disturbed—a cabinet door here, a drawer there. When he opened the door to Carlotta’s room, he inhaled sharply. Half of her clothes were gone from the closet—she’d freaking levitate when she found out. Strangely, though, her collection of big clunky necklaces seemed untouched, and they were supposed to be worth something. His room seemed undisturbed, although upon closer inspection, the lock on his door had been tampered with. He checked Einstein’s enclosure, relieved to see that his pet seemed fine, if unresponsive. It looked as if nothing other than Carlotta’s clothes was missing.

  He dropped onto his bed and pulled out his paycheck, wondering who could have broken into the house.

  Tick had collected Father Thom’s payment on Tuesday, so he should’ve been satisfied, although the man certainly knew his way in and out of their house. The more likely scenario, though, was that The Carver knew that Wesley was paying Father Thom and had sent someone to ransack the town house. Or maybe Carlotta had simply left the door unlocked when she’d gone to work—she hadn’t exactly been herself lately.

  Staring at the check, he wished like hell it was for more money. He needed to make a big payment to The Carver, keep out fifty bucks to pay the court, and geez, a guy needed some pocket change.

  His cell phone rang and Chance’s name came up on the screen. Something told him not to answer it, but then he remembered how Chance had come through when he’d asked about a gun. Wesley pressed the call button. “Yeah, dude, what’s up?”

  “You know that big amateur-game rumor I’ve been hearing?” Chance asked, his voice more animated than usual. “It’s happening tonight, man. An all-weekend tournament.”

  Wesley’s pulse picked up. The promise he’d made to Carlotta not to gamble reverberated in his head even as he asked, “Where?”

  “Basement of an office building in Brookwood on Peachtree. It’ll be a bunch of lawyers and telecom execs—you’ll clean up. Only twenty-five seats, and the top five players are in the money. The grand prize is twenty-five thousand, man.”

  Perspiration beaded on Wesley’s lip. “What’s the buyin?”

  “Twenty-five hundred. You got it?”

  Wesley hesitated. He could probably scrape together another two hundred from his various hiding places. “I have a grand.”

  “I’ll loan you the rest, man, for half of your take.”

  Wes swallowed. He’d vowed never to borrow money from Chance—somehow, it seemed even more dangerous than borrowing money from loan sharks. He’d have to make up something to tell Carlotta where he’d be, but he’d have his cell phone with him if anything came up.

  “Wes, are you there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you in?”

  Wesley’s mind raced. He’d been studying cards like crazy since he’d last played, since he’d made that promise to Carlotta. He’d watched marathon poker tournaments on television and practiced at free online poker sites until his computer had been confiscated. He’d become adept at reading other players’ tells and disguising his own. If the cards fell his way, he could probably doubl
e his money, or triple it. And if he won…he’d be debt free and would have earned enough of a reputation to get a backer for the World Series of Poker tournament on a regional level. An opportunity like this didn’t come around very often.

  “Come on, man—shit or get off the can. Are you in?”

  Sending silent apologies to Carlotta, Wesley stood and grinned into the phone. “I’m in.”

  23

  “Y ou okay, Carlotta?”

  She snapped out of her reverie and turned to see Michael retying his tie in a mirror in the employee break room. She nodded, realizing she was staring into her open locker. What had she been looking for? She was so worried about Wesley that she couldn’t concentrate.

  “Are you sure?” he asked more gently, coming over to stand next to her.

  She closed the locker door and put a smile on her face. “I’m fine. Just being a big sister.”

  “Is Wesley giving you trouble again?”

  “Actually, no. He has a job, he’s looking forward to doing his community service, and he even asked if he could stay with a friend this weekend.”

  “So he’s behaving himself and you have the place to yourself. Did I miss something?”

  She smiled. “Mothers know that when kids are on their best behavior, that’s the time to worry.”

  “Except you’re not his mother,” Michael chided. “He’s an adult, sweetie.”

  “I know,” she said, realizing that Michael wouldn’t understand the sixth sense she’d developed where her brother was concerned. He was up to something, she just knew it. And the fact that he was staying at Chance Hollander’s apartment did little to soothe her anxiety. She hoped that he simply wanted a little privacy—that he was meeting up with some girl that he didn’t want to bring around. Thinking about Wesley’s sex life made her a little queasy, probably because it made her think about her own sex life, which was fictional. But still, thinking about Wesley hooking up with a girl was preferable to all the other trouble he and Chance could get into.