Cold Dark Heart by Julie Kriss

Fifteen

Damon

By the endof my second week working for Andie and the Wild, we had settled into a kind of routine. By day, she’d work in the office, cleaning up the books and the finances while I came and went from the bar, upgrading security. I’d given her the list she’d asked for, and we started working through the items on it based on how urgent they were and how much they cost. The first thing we tackled was installing a security system, including coded door entry, cameras outside the front door, and cameras behind the bar. So I dealt with buying and installing the system while Andie worked at her desk.

At four every day, I sent Andie home to her son, while she argued guiltily that I worked too many hours for no pay. Then, as the evening crowds came in, I took over the office, upgrading the computer and file security. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I’d stay late to bounce drunks, of which there were a good number. The other nights I’d go home at eight, after checking with Jimmy that he could handle things alone.

That was most days except Sunday, which was Andie’s day off. And on the days when she had supplier meetings, I’d drive her.

I didn’t mind the long hours. I didn’t have much to do at home except watch TV while Carl’s music seeped up through the floor. Spring was advancing in Colorado, and I took up jogging, going for longer and longer runs during the cool evenings as my endurance improved. I’d been fit when I worked for the DEA, pushing my body regularly in strength training, but since the shooting I hadn’t been able to work out. Adding cigarettes to the mix meant I could do even less. But there must be something to the idea of the Rocky Mountain high, because the more time I spent in Salt Springs, the more I felt my strength coming back. I was even eating again.

It still wasn’t easy. No matter how bad they were for me, I craved cigarettes all the fucking time, because addiction is like that. I was well acquainted with it. My first day off from the Wild I found a local AA meeting in Salt Springs, held in a church basement, and I started going regularly. I hadn’t had a drink in seven years, but that didn’t matter. AA meetings are something you do for life, whenever you need it, no explanation necessary. The meetings helped me with the cigarette cravings, kept me honest, kept me from backsliding into the other, worse stuff. So I went.

I barely recognized this version of myself. The DEA job had been my identity for so long that I wasn’t sure where Damon Blake, bar security guy, had come from. He wasn’t the bitter asshole I’d been as a young man, but he wasn’t much to write home about, either. At least he was eating a sandwich every once in a while and getting a few hours of sleep at night. That was the best I could do.

My downstairs neighbor, Carl, wasn’t quite buying the new me. He gave me suspicious looks anytime we passed each other on the front driveway, and he was practically hostile the one time I saw him lifting his heavy garbage can to the curb and helped him with it.

“You’re awfully quiet,” he said when I heaved the can into place.

“I thought that’s what you wanted.” I was only a little bit out of breath. Fuck, that can was heavy. What was an old guy throwing out that weighed that much? Did he have a body in there?

“I’ll admit you don’t stomp on the floor,” Carl said as I brushed my palms off on my jeans. “You don’t do much else, either.”

“I work a lot,” I said.

“Huh. You have a girl?”

I immediately thought of Andie, who was definitely not my girl. “No.”

He peered at me closely, because he was far from stupid. “But there’s a girl you like?”

“Maybe.” What the hell was I doing? Was I having a conversation with my eighty-year-old neighbor that belonged in eighth grade? Jesus, Andie wasn’t even a girl, she was a thirty-five-year-old woman. Next Carl would tell me to pass her notes in class.

I almost liked the guy, but then he ruined it by saying, “Well, I’m glad you like some girl. I was starting to wonder if you were a gay.”

I looked him dead in the eyes long enough that he started to fidget. Just gave him that cold, soulless look that I’d used to break so many suspects in the interview room. He was practically sweating when I finally leaned forward and gave him a clap on the shoulder.

“I’m not a gay,” I said, my voice flat. “But thanks for asking.”

He stayed out of my business after that. I felt like we’d reached an understanding.

I used that same dead-eyed look on any guy at the Wild who looked at Andie too long or let his gaze drop to her ass. I used it on the sales rep from a huge beer company who was definitely working up to hitting on her while they talked delivery schedules. I had mastered that look. It was effective every time.

My problem was that yes, I liked Andie, just as if I was in eighth grade. She was sexy and smart and she was raising a kid and putting her back into the business, determined to make it pay the bills. I wanted to get her into bed so bad my body ached with it. I wanted to do all kinds of things to her that maybe she’d never even imagined.

She was also the ex, or near-ex, of my former colleague. Not that I felt I owed any loyalty to Terry. I just had a bad track record with married women.

I hadn’t told Andie that part of my life.

Boner for my boss or not, I still had the gut feeling that there was something wrong with this setup of Terry’s, so I had put feelers out. The Salt Springs PD had pretty much told me to go fuck myself when I called and identified myself, asking for information on a few of the Wild’s former employees. Local police and the Feds have a hate-hate relationship, and my DEA credentials meant the local guys wouldn’t talk to me.

I had reached out to a few former Fed colleagues, looking to get some information though back routes, but they were giving me the polite runaround. No one wanted to risk his job or his next promotion by helping me with a case that wasn’t even a case, just a hunch. They sure as hell didn’t want anything to do with a situation that could involve Terry. The whole thing was kryptonite, and no one wanted to touch it.

That left me stuck. I was used to being the guy who had access to all the information he needed, even the stuff no one wanted me to know. Being locked out was unfamiliar to me. I had put a call in to a local PI, which meant I’d have to pay his bill out of my own pocket, because there was no way Andie would agree to snoop on people who didn’t even work for her anymore. But my gut wouldn’t let me drop it, and I’d trusted my gut for my entire career. It hadn’t led me wrong, except maybe for the time I’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time during a major bust and gotten myself shot.

Okay, maybe that one time. But this was different.

I hadn’t gotten an email back from the private investigator. What I did have in my inbox was an email from my brother, Alex. He and his wife, Kat, had just gotten married in Italy. It was the second time they got married, after marrying a long time ago and divorcing. It’s possible I had something to do with that.

Alex also had a prison record, and it was possible I had something to do with that, too.

He and Kat were reunited now, all these years later, and they were happy, but it didn’t change the fact that I had done some very bad things in my life. Things that people with feelings didn’t do. Things that people who love other people, who love their family, don’t ever do.

Alex and Kat had invited me to their wedding. I hadn’t gone. Maybe they could forgive me, but it didn’t change the fact that I couldn’t forgive myself. I wasn’t a good bet. Not for anyone. I hadn’t even sent them a wedding gift. It was better this way.

I read over Alex’s brief email. I could see that he had attached photos to it, pictures of his wedding to his beautiful wife. I didn’t open the photos.

I didn’t delete the email, either.

Instead, I closed my laptop and went for another run.