Owner of a Lonely Heart (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Read online

  “I thought you should see it.”

  Bettina was even compelled to touch it. Many women did. “This is going to be impossible to erase, Taos. You can get it pretty good, but I’ve never seen a tat this large, this dark, ever successfully go away.”

  And this was the tat he wanted to go away. He had not wanted to erase NAOMI on his forearm.

  Reluctantly, Taos bent to swipe his shirt from the floor. “You can see the problem.” The eighteen-inch-tall artwork depicted, as could be expected, a hooded skeleton holding a scythe. Over it in a half circle “rocker” in Gaelic lettering, RABID RAIDERS. Underneath that, ORIGINALS, as though anyone would confuse them with the Rabid Raiders of Peabody, Kansas.

  Park said, “You’re going to have to windsurf with a shirt on, buddy. Hate to say it.”

  “Yeah. I had that feeling.” He also had the feeling that Bettina was sorry to see his white hairless buff chest disappear under the plain, boyish T-shirt.

  “Well, he should try to remove it,” Bettina urged her partner. “We can send him to Miles. He’s the best tat removal expert around. Something is better than nothing.”

  “Yeah, and it’s painful as hell,” Taos shot at her.

  Now it was back to the smirk. Her hands on hips. Her tilted head. “Yeah. And the first time you sleep with a girl she’s going to wonder why you’ve got a skull on your back.”

  Park added, “She googles Rabid Raiders and bing, first thing that pops up is The United States vs. Sigmund Wolfscheim, currently under a RICO indictment for arson, explosives, gun running, and murder.”

  Taos scoffed. “I doubt the kinds of chicks I sleep with would bother googling.”

  Bettina said, “Yeah, well, that’s not a chance you’re willing to take. Now sit again. We’re going over this MOU even though you said you’re familiar with it. I need your John Hancock on about a trillion places.”

  Taos sat. He said to Park, “The Valley of fire does sound cool.”

  Park brightened. “You’ll like it. Brilliant, rich colors, as though the land’s bathed in a perpetual sunset. Goblins and gnomes of limestone and shale formations.”

  “And my new house is near that?”

  Park nodded once. “Practically in the middle of it.”

  Taos nodded. That could be cool. Refugio was flat and boring. It might be cool canyon carving these sinuous roads, surrounded by the towering monoliths the marshals spoke of. Everything warmed by a perpetual sunset.

  “Now,” said Bettina. “This constitutes the entire agreement between WITSEC and the witness. Section One of the MOU protects your identity…”

  Chapter Three

  Sheriff Crispin Marwick was having a good day. The spirited palomino was nearly halter-broken. The gelding Whiskey Tango had spent eight years in a paddock with another riding stallion. He was unbroken, had no grooming, never wormed. He was basically a totally rough horse.

  But these horses were Crispin’s best challenges. The owners were sending Whiskey to the slaughterhouse because he was worthless and dangerous. Crispin had worked with Whiskey for three weeks straight now, tossing tarps over his head, bouncing a ball on his back, throwing and tightening ropes all over his body. Whiskey let Crispin trim his feet, and Crispin rode him bareback with a halter.

  He was responding to voice commands and tongue clicking. This was always Crispin’s favorite part of horse training. Whiskey Tango, the horse who was nearly Elmer’s glue, might even have success in the ring. There was nothing wrong with the gelding at all. Careless people had caused him to rear and buck in fear. The horse had decided to trust Crispin.

  They were making amazing progress in the outdoor corral when a strange vehicle drove up. Yes, he’d seen the electric blue Charger around. He believed it belonged to a female undercover cop from LVPD. In other words, no one he wanted to know. He was finished with LVPD. He was persona non grata in that city.

  Crispin didn’t bother dismounting. His natural wariness made him keep his seat and even reach for the forty-caliber Glock in his hip holster. He kept his hand on it as the—admittedly pretty—cop sauntered up to him, all curves and femininity. She tugged her leather jacket aside to show the badge on her belt.

  “US Marshal Service, Inspector Bettina Crenshaw.” She didn’t bother reaching up to shake his hand. “Is there anyone else around?”

  So she was a federal marshal. That was one step above a LVPD cop, so Crispin took his hand off his piece. He didn’t dismount, though, just touched the brim of his Stetson in greeting. “Inspector.” He presumed she knew who he was. “Nope. Just me.”

  Still, she came closer. Whiskey laid his ears back, and a click of Crispin’s tongue sent the horse back a step. Inspector Crenshaw paused. “You train horses, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah.” She had a faraway look in her eyes. “I used to ride. Never have time for it anymore.”

  Crispin knew the old adage you don’t find time, you make the time if it’s important enough. Besides, he didn’t want to offer Crenshaw any of his mounts, so he cut to the chase. “What do you need?”

  She seemed to come back to the present. “Ah, right. I’ve got a federally protected witness in my vehicle and we’re relocating him into your jurisdiction.”

  Great. Just fucking great. That was exactly what Crispin wanted to get involved in. Some asshole gangbanger who was going to foment a shitload of trouble in his neighborhood. It was already Wild West enough out here, what with drunk Paiutes constantly stumbling off the res—Highway 15 went right through part of their land—and bored redneck kids having ATV rallies on state park land.

  “Where in my jurisdiction?”

  “Rescue.”

  Crispin crinkled up his face. “Rescue? Why do you want to go and do that for? He must’ve had a particularly heinous crime.”

  “Actually, as far as we know, and I’m being brutally honest with you, Sheriff, we can’t find anything to charge him with, really. He was just caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Aren’t they all?” Sighing deeply, Crispin dismounted and slapped Whiskey’s haunch to release him to trot. Leaving the rope halter on would help him get used to it. Removing his Stetson, he slapped the dust out of it against his thigh. Inspector Crenshaw was a nice-looking lady, but he knew women cops hated being seen as women. However, try as he might, Crispin couldn’t get past her shapely figure. If that tight top was cut any lower, the globes of her tits would be jiggling nicely.

  Stop thinking like that, Marwick. She’s a lady, but she’s a US Marshal. And you’re practically celibate. What would this feisty well-seasoned lady want with a stodgy geezer like you? He nodded at the Charger. “So what’d he do?”

  “He was the secretary for a motorcycle chapter down in Texas near Corpus Christi. Things went sideways during a big weapons exchange and my boy was discovered clutching the remains of his girlfriend. I don’t think she was meant to be there. Or it’s possible my boy innocently walked into the middle of it. Either way we’ve got the Sergeant-at-Arms indicted and Taos’s testimony is credible. Taos didn’t want to turn against any other club members but if we squeeze this one guy on RICO he’ll spill on a whole lot more, his enemies and so on down the line. It’s a sweet win.”

  “Yes, but Rescue?”

  “Why not? There’s a library, a gym, plenty of churches…”

  “Yeah, all the places he’s completely going to hang out in.”

  “Look, Sheriff. I know he’s not the cream of the crop, but I think if we give him the benefit of the doubt until proven guilty, he just might surprise us. He genuinely seems to be trying to make a new life for himself. He already calls himself Taos. And I do think he’d join that gym.”

  “Good. He’ll work on his muscles so he can beat a lot more guys into submission. Look, sorry for sounding cynical, Inspector. But Sheriff Bodine over in Nye County had one of those protected witnesses and nothing but a savage balls-up resulted. The witness just created his own startup drug running busine
ss out of his adult bookstore. When the marshals called him on that, he vanished and wound up in New Orleans owning a bar, a complete arse on the piss standing on top of his bar yelling about his experiences as a drug mule for the cartels. I’m telling you, I’ve heard nothing but bad things about these witnesses. They’re just as bad as the people they’re putting away. They can’t stay out of the fast lane, out of the limelight.”

  Inspector Crenshaw nodded. “Most of the time,” she admitted. “But you know what, Sheriff? I’m obligated to protect them all. I’m prepared to take a bullet whether it’s for a scum-sucking drug kingpin or the president of the United States. Capisce? I don’t take a bullet for gangbangers. I take it because I’m a professional. And I’m sure you are, too.”

  With her hands on hips, she obviously waited for a response from Crispin. She was right, really, and he admired her professional ethics. He wondered if she knew that her witness was drinking in every word she was saying. The blue car was only about fifteen feet away, and unusual for April, not a blade of grass stirred in the high desert.

  The witness leaned out the passenger window displaying an arm that had recently been lasered clean of a tattoo. His fresh, boyish face had also recently been shaven. He had that slightly cross-eyed, confused look of a man whose identity had also been erased. And here the poor guy was, probably being shuttled off to the Surf ‘n’ Turf Trailer Park. It was enough to make a hardened sheriff feel for the guy.

  Crispin looked down at the marshal. “Of course I’m on your side, Inspector. I’ve got your back. I’ve taken bullets for worse scum than this, believe you me.” Crispin knew the witness—“Taos”—could hear every one of his words, too. He wanted Taos to know that he knew he was a gobby scumbag.

  Inspector Crenshaw looked at him, assessing. “Didn’t you used to be LVPD?” She spoke each letter aloud.

  Great. Perfect timing for her to notice that. Well, all she has to do is look up my record. “Yeah. Why don’t you introduce me to your witness, so I know who I’m dealing with? I’ll ride out to Rescue with you and get him settled into his new digs. Are you familiar with the town? You must be, since you chose it.”

  “Not as familiar as you. But if you don’t mind, I don’t want my boy’s introduction to Rescue to be in the back of a sheriff’s car.”

  “That’s understandable.”

  So Inspector Crenshaw—he was to call her “Bettina” from now on, as she was supposed to be a friend of Taos’s family—verbally gave Crispin the new address, which was, predictably, at the Surf ‘n’ Turf Trailer Park.

  Crispin fucked around at his house for awhile before leaving for Rescue. He didn’t fancy being on hand when Bettina’s “boy” discovered he had left behind friends, family, and his entire identity just to subsist in a double-wide.

  Sure, Rescue was gorgeous, with sandstone arches, canyons chock full of mesquite and desert willow. And true to the fact that the Surf ‘n’ Turf was actually on Mormon Mesa, there were some clean, upstanding Mormons running local businesses, as well as Baptists and Christians. There were actually some good, hard-working people in Rescue, folks he’d met through his horse training business—and yes, through his church.

  When he’d been LVPD he’d been embarrassed to mention that he attended church, that he actually baked things to bring to bake sales, and he wasn’t even gay—he was simply unmarried. He would’ve been ruthlessly mocked, even more ruthlessly than he already was, for being the most stand-up, by-the-book cop in the history of Las Vegas. Crispin never took any on the side, off the top, or around the back door. It was a textbook Serpico situation where the more Crispin refused to corrupt himself or accept the smallest perk or bribe, the more his fellow cops shunned him.

  “Everyone’s doing it, Marwick,” his partner had said.

  “Well, I’m not ‘everyone.’” Crispin knew his proper British accent only added to the aura that he was an unbendable, rigid jerk. He had arrived in America when he was fifteen and he thought he sounded like an American, maybe even with a little Southwest twang, but the look of disdain on others’ faces let him know otherwise.

  “At least accept these hookers from this casino owner! If you’re gay, take the male hookers!”

  “I’m not gay! And I don’t want any hookers!”

  That’s how it had gone, for several years. Eventually he’d wound up in this boondock district because no one wanted to work with him. The benefit was that his horse ranch was already here near Moapa and there was very little in the way of organized crime. It wasn’t on the way to Mexico. Even the one casino in Rescue had shut down six months ago, a pathetic and old-timey operation with no windows and thirty years’ worth of cigarette smoke coating the walls. Crispin had watched as collectors removed an ancient Money Honey machine, machines with cherries, melons, and bars. That had been the extent of technology in Rescue, Nevada.

  He’d been stationed near his own horse ranch now for a year and he had to admit, he was beginning to get lonely. This new witness, and the smoking hot marshal, would be just the thing to distract him from his solitude.

  So Crispin drove his truck to Rescue, allowing himself to ponder on how he’d gotten to be so solitary. He’d been married before when he’d been an LVPD, but even Holly had pressured him to accept bribes. She’d wanted a better house, a better vacation, better children. So when he’d been sent down to the sticks, she’d kept their Vegas house, their kid. She wanted nothing to do with horse ranches with a “bunch of drunk Injuns lining the streets.” Crispin was surprised Holly didn’t pressure him to accept the free hookers, that’s how bad of a lover she accused him of being.

  Maybe he was shitty in bed. But he had enough drive that he was constantly wanking off. And he knew, after meeting Inspector—Bettina—Crenshaw, that she’d be the subject of his session the next time he played a little five on one. She was one hot tamale.

  Crispin hung a right at the Toolbox, Rescue’s bar and grill where Ed served up greasy burgers and even greasier glasses of beer. Crispin had whiled away many a pleasant hour there throwing darts, but today he ignored the ramshackle building and drove over Halfway Wash to enter the Surf ‘n’ Turf trailer park. He could hear Taos yelling even before he cut his engine.

  Instinctively, Crispin lurked underneath the window, listening. The double-wide Bettina had chosen was actually quite nice. This model would have two bedrooms, thermal pane windows, and one of those tubs you could soak in, but Taos was yelling.

  “Listen to me! If I wanted to be stuck in a burg where the homes are mobile but the cars aren’t, you could’ve stuck me within city limits, couldn’t you? There must be plenty of rednecky trailer parks inside Vegas limits.”

  Crispin could tell Bettina was trying to keep her voice low. “Taos. You don’t seem to realize that you don’t hold all the cards. A nice clean town like Rescue is better for you than the bright and sleazy lights of Vegas.”

  Taos was pacing the kitchen. “Jesus criminy, Bettina! I’m surprised there isn’t a cable spool for a coffee table! And what’s this? This coffee pot used to be plugged into a Motel 6 wall. And I don’t think I want to know why there’s a can of Raid on the kitchen table.”

  “Look, Taos. Once you’re in, you’re in. Opting out means going back into the danger zone. WITSEC rules are here for a reason. I can promise to keep you alive and safe. I can’t promise that if you opt out.”

  Crispin could practically see the outlaw biker pointing at Bettina’s well-endowed chest. “No. You listen to me. You don’t hold all the cards. If you want my testimony, you’re going to move me within Vegas city limits instead of this hellhole where people’s gas pedals are shaped like a bare foot and the main car color is bondo.”

  Bettina gave up on modulating her voice. Crispin decided now was a good time to go inside, so he climbed the steps to the front door. “All right, asshole. You want out? You’re out. I’ve got better things to do than to stand here listening to this shit. You may have been able to boss around your weenie whiny biker f
riends, but I’m a federal marshal, and I do hold all the cards. Taos, you’re a high-risk witness, and I’m going to do everything in my power to protect you.”

  “Shitfire, Bettina! This home has more miles on it than my bike.”

  “Listen, asshole.” Crispin spoke in his best authoritative voice, and his hand was on the grip of his pistol. Taos and Bettina both spun around to stare at him, and it was then that Crispin realized the crackling in the air between them wasn’t just over the black velvet painting on the wall.

  It was sexual tension, and Crispin had ignorantly just stepped into the middle of it.

  Their chests heaved and they panted with emotion. Sweat beaded on Taos’s forehead, although he could hardly be a stranger to hot weather, coming from Texas. Bettina’s aura of case-hardened tough-as-nails flint had chipped away to reveal a woman with some vulnerabilities.

  Crispin wouldn’t blame Bettina for belting him, but now he’d started it, he had to finish it. He took his hand off his pistol grip. “Not only do you not talk to a federal marshal like that, but you don’t talk to a lady like that. She went out of her fucking way to find you this house and get you safely relocated. You knew it wasn’t going to be as easy as falling off the face of the earth.”

  Taos was stubborn, and it was obvious he didn’t want to back down right away. He pointed at the floor. “Did you see that fucking trading post on the way in? They were selling paintings of dogs playing cards. And my next door neighbor has a fucking washing machine in his front yard.”

  Crispin continued, “You may have come from a higher echelon of society, Taos or whatever your name is. You’re perfectly free to work your way back up the ladder here in Rescue.”

  Taos snorted. “Phh. Some ladder.”

  “It’s all right, Sheriff,” Bettina said soothingly. “I don’t need defending. This guy’s just a two-bit hustler. I’m sure his house in Texas had big-eyed kids on the kitchen towels, too.”