Sinful Love (Sinful Nights #4)(63)

“So are you.”

“I need to tell John.”

She waved him off. “Go, go. This is important. I’ll see you soon,” she said, and she was ready. Ready to have him come see her here in Paris, to have him in her home, to share some of her life here with him. She wanted to show him the local bakery, wander through the alleys, through the shops, take him to some of her favorite places in Paris. To make new memories with Michael.

“Nothing could stop me from seeing you.”

*

No one was home. Detective John Winston knocked on the door of Luke Carlton’s house at a quarter past ten. But the sound of his fist rapping on the wood echoed without an answer.

He turned around, scanning for Luke’s car on the street. He hadn’t seen it when he’d pulled up, but even so, he looked once more.

Course, the man not being home didn’t mean much. He might be at the piano shop. He might be at the grocery store again. It was hard to say.

John leaned to the right, trying to catch a glimpse through the window into the home. It looked just the same as it had when John was here over the summer. He’d interviewed Luke when the case was reopened. The man claimed to know nothing. He played up the whole fear factor, sticking to his story of being terrified the Royal Sinners would come after him. In truth, they were in his back pocket, and the man probably figured he was still getting away with it. That his long and time-honored practice of hiding behind his fake life and pushing others to take the blame would keep working. Hell, even the handful of gang arrests made recently were for other crimes; none were related to the murder.

And so Luke kept going about his business.

If the man stuck to his schedule, and he sure seemed like the type, that meant John might need to track him down at the piano shop this evening. But as he returned to his car, heading out of the neighborhood, he considered whether arresting the man at that place was the smartest approach.

That would be like walking into…well, into target practice. The shop was the center of their gun trade, and if John wanted to keep this arrest as quiet as he possibly could until he had T.J., too, he needed a different way in.

Food was the path.

*

When evening rolled around, John’s partner headed inside the grocery store, strolled around the aisles, and reported back via text.

John nodded to himself with a small sense of satisfaction. Luke Carlton was indeed a man of routine. That routine was his camouflage. It had shielded him for years. His clockwork schedule had made him appear one way to the world, and that masquerade made it possible for him to live a life of crime undetected.

John waited by the automatic doors of the supermarket—ready.

Tension coiled in him, but a kind of excitement, too. This was why he did what he did. The chance to clean up the streets. Put the bad guys behind bars.

After his best friend had been paralyzed by a drive-by gang shooting when he was fourteen, John had vowed to always do his part to keep this town safe. Sure, Luke Carlton had done so much more than sell guns. But all John needed was probable cause to take the man in. Thanks to Michael’s tip, coupled with the weeks of investigation, John and his men had been able to amass the necessary evidence.

He could taste the possibility of justice in the air.

The doors slid open, and his partner crossed from the tiled floor of the grocery store onto the sidewalk.

Briefly, a small knot of guilt wormed its way through John as he thought of Marcus, the courageous boy who’d helped them start down this path. Marcus and the rest of his family would be safer, though, he reminded himself. The sooner John could dismantle the Royal Sinners, the better off everybody in this town would be.

Sixty seconds later, Luke Carlton neared the exit of the grocery store. It was a little after six on a Tuesday evening. He carried two bags of groceries. He wore jeans and a short-sleeved shirt. His gray hair was freshly combed, as if he’d taken a shower before he ran his errands.

Luke didn’t notice the two men in slacks and button-downs loitering outside the local market. He kept walking, his keys in one hand, whistling under his breath. Sounded like Beethoven, something he’d probably taught to a young student recently.

John burned with frustration over the freedom this man had enjoyed for so many years. But it was also Luke’s Achilles’ heel. He thought he could keep it up indefinitely, living like an average guy.

John stepped away from the brick wall he’d been leaning against and stopped in the path of the head of a dangerous street gang. An average, ordinary guy.

“Pardon me,” he said, shifting to the right to avoid John, as if he’d truly just bumped into him. Funny how Luke didn’t even look up. If he had, he might have recognized the detective he’d lied to a few months ago.

Fucking mild-mannered piano teacher, my ass. But the guy had pulled it off, living a double life for years. That was about to be blown wide open.

“Good to see you again, Luke Carlton. You’re under arrest,” John said.

The second the words left John’s mouth, Luke dropped his grocery bags and bolted. It was an instant reaction—he took off along the sidewalk of the cavernous store, running like hell.

John went after him, sidestepping the bunch of bananas, the trail of cans, and the chicken that had spilled from the bags. Luke had more speed than John would ever have expected. He ran past a line of shopping carts, grabbing the handle of one and yanking it out onto the sidewalk.