Rapture (Fallen Angels #4)(79)
Author: J.R. Ward

“Matthias—talk to me. What’s doing.” Not a question. A demand—and he wanted to follow it. He and the roommate had developed a kind of working relationship, what with those black things, and now the whole dead-body/car problem, so he felt compelled to comment.

Except he couldn’t talk.

Something gripped his ass—no, wait, that was the ground or a seat. He’d been made to sit down. Blinking his eyes, he tried to see through the video game that was playing in front of him, but he got nowhere.

“Matthias, buddy—you gotta talk to me.”

With a shaky hand, he rubbed his eyes. That helped. When he opened up again, he could see Adrian’s piercings up close and personal.

“Hey, you back?” the guy asked.

After a while, Matthias muttered, “Why did you do that?”

“I didn’t do shit to you—”

He waved his hand around that fierce puss. “With the piercings. I mean, really. Do you think you need to look like more of a hard-ass?”

There was a heartbeat and then the big bastard laughed. “She was hot. The more I got, the more time I got to spend with her.”

“The piercer?”

“Yeah.”

“So it was a chick thing?”

Adrian shrugged. “The pain made the sex better.”

“Ah.”

At that, Matthias looked away. Strange. Before PLMD—or Poor Land Mine Decision—sex had been like eating and breathing, something he just did. Now…the loss of that part of himself seemed to take on epic proportions.

Then again, if he was honest, that was more about Mels. If he hadn’t met her, he wouldn’t have cared. Hadn’t cared, actually, over these last couple of years of halt-and-lame.

“So did you stroke out on me?” the roommate asked.

“Just things coming back.” Not a fun ride, but if he kept this up, he might actually remember why he had this need to get down to Manhattan.

“But you’re all right.”

The fact that he didn’t get grilled about the particulars—which he wouldn’t have shared anyway—was a nice touch. “Yeah. Now back to the stiff.”

When he went to stand up, his legs wouldn’t hold him, sure as if they were made of paper.

“Let me get your cane and your sunglasses,” the guy said, heading out of the garage.

Left to his own devices, Matthias was determined not to keep sitting next to the rear tire of the unmarked like something that had dropped off a mud flap. Reaching up, he planted a hand on the bumper, and with a groan, got himself vertical.

Palming his way around, he leaned in through the driver’s-side door and popped the trunk.

He was staring into the empty space when the roomate came back. Taking the cane, he put the Ray-Bans in place and shook his head. “There isn’t going to be anything on or in the car. We’re thorough like that.” He went around to stand over the body. “I say we put it all in the Hudson at nightfall.”

Shit, he had dinner plans.

“Make that midnight,” he amended as he shut the trunk. Then, “No, two a.m.”

“You have something on tonight?”

As the roommate hairy-eyeballed him, he clammed up; he wasn’t talking about Mels. Trouble was, though, he couldn’t assign this disposal to anybody else, mostly because he had to see the sedan sink into a watery grave with his own eyes: Until his memory was back in its entirety and he was on his way—whatever that meant—he couldn’t risk any third-party complications.

Nothing like a dead body to get the CPD riled, and XOps? They claimed their men.

Adrian stroked his square jaw. “What if I told you we could do it now.”

“How.”

“Trust me.”

“Who do you think you are, Houdini?”

“Nah. Don’t have a straitjacket big enough for this POS. But I do know where to go with it.”

As Adrian stood there in neutral, his eyes were steady, his breathing calm, his vibe one of total confidence.

Matthias didn’t give a shit about people’s words. But he was willing to bet on affect, which was oh so hard to fake.

Unless, of course, the SOB was delusional.

Matthias thought back to that fight in the woods—most guys who handled themselves like this one did were the product of years of training and experience in the business of mortal-stakes risk management.

“So what’s your plan?” Matthias said.

“Dump the damn thing now.”

“In the river? It’s broad daylight.”

“Won’t matter where I’m thinking of.”

Matthias glanced over at the stiff and thought fondly of the way things bottomed out in water. “Let’s get him into the trunk.”

Adrian went over to the body as Matthias hit the release and popped the rear compartment open again. Rigor mortis was in effect, which was good for carrying, not so hot for cramming something in a relatively tight space: Both of them had to throw muscle into getting those knees bent up and pretzeling the torso, the effort proving that a golf bag was so much easier to deal with—especially given that shit made by Callaway always came with handles.

“I’ll drive,” Matthias said.

“You like to be in control, don’t you.”

“You’d better believe it.”

The two of them piled in, and he hot-wired the engine again.

K-turn. Out the drive. Past the farmhouse.

“Where we doing this?” he asked.

“Hang a left. We’re heading north.”

They’d gone about five miles when the roommate looked over. “So you like that reporter, huh.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Liar.”

“I have amnesia, you know.”

“You like her.”

Matthias glanced across the seat. “Please don’t tell me that you’re trying on a career change as a yenta?”

“We’re going to be driving for a while. Just making conversation.”

“Silence is a virtue.” There was a pause. “Besides, I don’t know why you’re interested.”

“I f**ked a chick last night.”

Matthias’s brows went up behind Mels’s Ray-Bans. “Well, good for you. You want a cookie? Or a commemorative stamp?”

“It was like…you know when you sneeze?”

“Are you kidding me.”

“I’m serious. When you sneeze, like, it’s a relief of an irritation.”

Matthias gave the guy a long, hard one—as in stare. And then decided, yeah, he kinda knew what the bastard was talking about. “But that’s because you can afford to be blasé.”