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At least they had a common goal to work toward, as they had always done. And they had the same idea as to how they were going to go about it.

“Barnes proved useful,” Alex said. He turned in a circle, eyes skipping across the checkered black and white tile that crowned the ceiling. “And now we can hit Stanley where it hurts.”

“Evelyn Colter.” Just saying her name out loud caused his stomach to twist so hard he had to put his hands on either side of the sink for a moment. Ryan finally turned off the water and reached for a dry towel. The cotton dragged the water from his hands, his face, and his chest. He turned toward Alex and ignored the way his eyes flickered over his chest and his stomach.

“What about her?” Alex finally met his eyes, interest lighting his face.

“You heard him. They used her as a decoy.” Ryan picked up his undershirt and turned away to pull it over his head. The clean fabric against his skin made him feel anchored back to reality in a way. It drew a breath of release from him.

“Yes,” Alex said, eyes narrowing with interest.

“She’s been running around with Stanley the last six months, it’s the talk of the town. He used her to help set us up. ‘Some rich lady,’ that’s what Sandy said when he came to us about the meeting. Stanley used her to make him think everything was going the way it should so they could catch him off guard. She’s an accessory to Tommy’s murder,” Ryan said, the word murder nearly getting caught in his throat.

“Go on.” Alex crossed his arms, moving a touch closer.

“She stood there and watched him kill Tommy. She participated in the ambush.” Ryan’s voice was calm, steady. He could have been talking about anything. Nothing about his tone betrayed the sickness he felt in his stomach when he thought about it. Tommy’s death. Her involvement. Nothing could have prepared him for that. Nothing. “So obviously, she’s our angle. We get our hands on her, we get Stanley by the balls.”

“Kidnapping.” Alex tilted his head slightly to the side, watching Ryan with hooded eyes. “You want to kidnap her?”

“That is exactly what I want to do.” Ryan pulled his shirt on and began to button it with slow, careful fingers. “She’ll know enough about Stanley that we can probably get him from a few more angles. A guy like Stanley is bound to get careless around women. He thinks they’re beneath him.”

“I don’t doubt that.” Alex stepped over to the toilet and sent his cigarette butt into it with a flick.

“And, to sweeten the deal, she is the wife of the heir to a fortune.” Ryan finished buttoning his shirt and pulled his jacket on, shrugging it into place. “So, if we play our cards right, we’ll hit triple bingo: she’ll tell us what we want to know about Stanley, we blackmail her husband, and we hit Stanley where it hurts.”

Alex smiled, a radiant beatific smile that would have made him look like an angel if his eyes weren’t so empty. “You’re a lot more clever than I give you credit for sometimes, Ryan.”

“I was going to say the same thing about you.”

“So, we’re going to snatch up this sweet dame and send her husband and Stanley both pieces of her fingers?” The smile on Alex’s face turned dark. Predatory. “That’s exceptionally awful. Even for me.”

Ryan snorted. “Yeah, right. Sweet. Not a word I would have ever used to describe her.”

“You know her?” Alex narrowed his eyes at Ryan. “Couldn’t that complicate things?”

“I was a gardener at her rich daddy’s mansion years ago.” Ryan huffed a humorless laugh. “Water under the bridge.”

Alex stared at him a moment longer. Then he turned away.

“So what’s your plan?” Alex put his hands behind his back and planted his feet as Ryan turned to look at him. “We abduct her. Cut her up like a buttery foie gras. Extract information from her by whatever means necessary.”

“Yes.” Ryan nodded impatiently, folding his arms.

“And then what?” Anticipation lit Alex’s face.

Ryan looked back at him, blue eyes glowing unnaturally with righteous anger. “And then we kill her.”

Chapter five

Evie

It was dark by the time Evie got home. Walter’s man drove off, leaving her alone in the lamplight on the enormous front porch of her house. She leaned against one of the great Greek columns, wishing she could disappear and go anywhere else. Walter had nearly kept her prisoner for days. Wouldn’t let her out of his sight except to use the washroom. An extreme measure he had never taken before. There was a part of her that was convinced the whole time that he intended to kill her. Ever since the murder, he’d been watching her like a hawk. Doubting her loyalty to him, surely. But he must have known there was nothing she could do. Who would she tell? It was a police lieutenant who had introduced him to her in the first place.

To tell the truth, she didn’t know if Linus would even care that she’d disappeared for so long. There certainly hadn’t been a search party. And he knew where to find her if he was stupid enough to go looking.

Stuck between Walter and Linus, she couldn’t think of a more miserable existence. And God, she was tired of crying. She patted carefully at her cheeks, blotting away the tears that fell. Then she sucked in a deep breath, straightened her shoulders and walked cautiously into the house.

Linus was usually out in the evenings, enjoying poker and cigars, or God knew what else, with his old school friends. He’d been the toast of the town since they came back, everyone clamoring to see him. It made Evie relive how lonely she’d always been in Tulsa. Her father had insisted on having her privately tutored, effectively isolating her from her peers outside of social engagement that required stiff, formal mingling and nothing more substantive than lukewarm small talk.