Sinful Desire (Sinful Nights, #2)(84)

“You’re worrying me. Are you pregnant?”

She laughed. Deeply and maniacally. Oh, but it would be easier in some ways if she were.

But as she met his gaze, the pendulum stopped swinging. She had her answer. It came in his presence here, his pursuit of her tonight, his clear and real concern for her. It came in the facts, too. It was his mother’s pattern; it was his family story.

“I lied to you,” she blurted out.

He furrowed his brow. “About what?”

She grabbed the lapels on his jacket and pulled him to the end of the cavernous hallway, standing against the gold-trimmed, scalloped wall as she confessed. “I lied to you about the pattern. I did make it this morning. But it’s not a pattern, Ryan. It’s a code. A hidden code of addresses. And those addresses match names of people who lived there years ago. Do the names T.J. Nelson and Kenny Nelson mean anything to you?”

He froze. His face turned white. His lips parted but no sound came. Then, he managed words, and they sounded dry and cold as he whispered barrenly, “What did you just say?”

She repeated the names.

“T.J. and K,” he hissed, his eyes full of fire. He stepped back, his hands shooting behind him to grab the wall. As if he needed to hold onto something. “How did you know those names?”

She quickly explained what happened that morning, reversing the steps, then calling Jenna, then finding the addresses from years ago. “I don’t know what it means,” she said, her voice rising with desperation. Maybe it was nothing after all. Maybe everyone would have a good laugh at Sophie’s half-baked code-cracking. “I might be overreacting. Maybe I’m just going crazy. It’s possibly nothing at all. But if there’s a chance that it means something, if there’s a chance that these are the two names that John has been looking for—”

*

He cut her off.

There was no question in his mind. There was not a chance in hell he’d enlist Sophie in sweeping this under the rug. She wasn’t crazy. She wasn’t overreacting. He might be shocked to the bones, but he was dead sure of one thing.

There was no way he was keeping this to himself.

“Let’s go get John.”





Chapter Thirty-Four


Treasure Island glittered across the Strip.

The glass of the window cooled his forehead as he stared at the hotel across the street from the room at the Venetian. Sophie had rented this suite for the event. The orchestra members had used it as a green room before going on stage, and now for Ryan it was a waiting chamber.

The gold-colored hotel shone brightly back at him. Ryan could still remember when Treasure Island opened twenty-two years ago. He’d been ten and his father had taken him to see the towering structure, one of the Strip’s first spectacle hotels.

To his young eyes, Treasure Island had seemed majestic, a true giant among its neighbors. He’d gazed skyward with that childlike sense of awe, his father’s arm around him as his dad had pointed out the original skull-and-crossbones marquee. They’d wandered down the Strip to a cheap buffet, then returned in time to see one of the nightly pirate battles in Buccaneer Bay in front of the hotel entrance. Canons on the ships had lit up with flames, and swashbuckling pirates had whipped out swords and fenced to the death.

Now the pirate theme had been mostly washed away and the nightly battles had ended years ago, though the manmade lake still edged the property. Ryan had seen so many changes in this city. He’d watched it morph from the Stardust and Circus Circus style hotels to the mega casinos and their star wattage of today. Through it all, the city was his home, and always would be.

And through it all, too, he’d been a f*cking mule, carrying secret names in a goddamn dog jacket.

He’d held onto that pattern all through high school, college, the army and beyond. Stowed it safely away because he’d thought it meant something to his mom.

Something real. Something about hope, the future, and another chance.

It was supposed to be her redemption.

What was it really, though? Was it her own notes that she’d never had a chance to toss away? Names of users? Names of dealers she owed money to? Or worse? And if so, had he been simply in the right place at the right time when she was arrested and she’d thrust it into his hands, whispering that he should keep it safe for her?

She knew he’d do what she asked.

He was her favorite.

He was the only one she could ask.

Latent rage roiled inside him, rising and twisting through his veins. He breathed out heavily, an angry plume, like a dragon. The lights on Treasure Island flickered, and he snapped his gaze away, staring at his black leather shoes as his emotions shapeshifted again.

Now, he was flooded with shame—so much shame at having been deceived.

Because dammit. She could have asked him to throw the f*cking thing out instead. Lord knows, he would have. He would have crumpled it up on the way to school the next day and chucked it in a trash can. At least then he wouldn’t have carried it around like some sad sack year after year. He wouldn’t have held onto the patternless pattern like a fool, running his fingertips over it as if it were a symbol of her freedom someday.

When it seemed more like a glaring piece of evidence.

A lie, now exposed.

What else had she told him that was a lie?

He wanted to know so badly his bones vibrated with coiled tension. He wanted to know who those men were. He wanted to know what role they played in his father’s death.