And damned if he wasn't ready to fall for it again.
Apparently he'd flunked Have Your Nuts Handed to You By a Beautiful Liar 101 and was enrolling for the second time.
Only where Yolanda had been cold and calculating, Greer was soft, vulnerable …
He grunted, cutting off the dangerous path that line of thought was headed down as he drove into the parking lot behind a South Boston shipping and receiving company. He pulled up in one of the farthest spaces from the building, parked next to a black Infiniti SUV, then shut off the engine. Chay stepped out of the vehicle, and they met at the rear of Rafe's truck.
"Everything go okay at the doctor's appointment?" Chay asked as they clasped hands and exchanged pounds on the back in the requisite man hug. As his friend released him, his sharp hazel gaze studied Rafe's face. Lying or ducking his head to avoid that perceptive stare would be a waste of time, so he shrugged, slipped his hands in the front pockets of his jeans.
"Greer's healthy. The doc prescribed something for the morning sickness." He paused, swallowed past his suddenly constricted throat. "Heard the baby's heartbeat."
"Hmm," Chay rumbled, nodding slowly. "You all right?"
Rafe rubbed a hand over the nape of his neck. "No," he admitted. "Not really. I-" He exhaled a hard breath. "I'm scared as shit."
Again, Chay nodded, not requiring further explanation of why and of what. He, Gabe, and Mal had been there when Raphael had found out the depths of Yolanda's betrayal. They'd remained camped out in his living room like silent, strong sentinels. The loss had been as if someone had died-and in a sense it had been a death. In every way but the burial, he'd lost a child. And they had grieved with him.
"Understandable. Have you told Greer about Yolanda and what happened?"
Rafe stared at Chay as if he'd sprouted a second head that resembled Tom Jones and started singing show tunes. Aka, horrified. "Hell, no. And have her think I'm a serial impregnator? Or hurt her feelings by putting her in the same category as that lying bitch?"
"So haven't you already mentally placed her right next to Yolanda?"
"No." Rafe's objection was adamant and immediate. A core of honor and strength existed in Greer that his former girlfriend hadn't possessed. When Greer had been faced with being labeled a murder suspect, abandoned by her parents, terrorized by an unknown stalker, and pregnant, she'd hunkered down, refused to hide, and mapped out a course for her future. In the same situation, Yolanda would've folded. No, they weren't cut from the same bolt of cloth; Greer was a tough, durable suede. Yolanda was flimsy, sheer silk. No substance. "They're not the same."
"I call bullshit."
Rafe narrowed his gaze on Chay, who met his glare with a calm lift of his shoulder.
"You're not protecting her feelings. You're protecting your own. You don't want her to think you're gullible. Most of all, you don't want to start believing the baby is yours, because unlike ‘that lying bitch'"-he quoted Rafe's words with a twist of his lips-"you won't be able to walk away from Greer as easily."
"Now that's bullshit," Rafe drawled, though his heart thudded in his chest like iron striking an anvil.
"Is it?" Chay arched an eyebrow. "Remind me 'cause I'm a little fuzzy on the details. When was the last time you brought a woman to your house, much less moved her in?" Never.
The asshole.
Chay smirked at Rafe's stubborn silence. "Exactly. Look," he said quietly. "I don't know Greer well. But the woman who didn't crack when a bomb showed up on your front step as a gift is strong and made of sterner stuff than that piece of fluff you believed yourself in love with. Greer isn't Yolanda," he murmured. "And it isn't fair that you hold her hostage to someone else's sins."
Hell. That was the problem with having friends who knew your ins and outs. It was impossible to tell them to mind their own business, impossible to lie to them. And when they performed surgery on your heart with a logic-sharp scalpel, you couldn't get up off the gurney and tell 'em to fuck off. Well, yeah, you could. But your insides were still there, exposed and impossible to hide from.
Before he could reply with-what, he had no clue-a grim smile curved Chay's mouth.
"There's our boy now."
Rafe turned, and his own nasty grin formed.
Justin Durrin-twenty, blond hair, brown eyes, six feet tall, 160 pounds, resident of Roxbury, and an organ donor-loped across the loading bay area and entered the parking lot. The identification of the male who'd dropped off the white box had been the purpose behind Chay's late-night call the evening before. While Rafe had been kissing and touching Greer in her bed, Chay had been at the office, waiting for the drivers' license tracking program to complete its search.
Why his friend had been working so late was another story.
Justin reminded Rafe of a rat-nervous, twitching, his head moving from side to side as he scurried across the lot, as if constantly scanning for a threat.
Smart guy.
"Twenty dollars says he's going to score a hit," Chay murmured.
Rafe snorted. "What do I look like? Look at his hands." The long, skeletal digits tightened and loosened, tightened and loosened. "He ain't jonesin' for a Whopper, that's for sure." Justin neared a large white van-the same van that had been on the security video. A cold, slow-spreading rage slid through Rafe's veins. "Let's get him."
On silent feet, they stole across two rows, coming up behind the van just as the engine coughed to life. Rafe approached the driver's side door while Chay rounded the rear of the vehicle to cover the passenger side. Rafe tapped the grimy window.
Justin's head whipped to the side, and his startled squeal penetrated the glass.
"Justin Durrin." Rafe smiled, but from the fearful widening of the kid's eyes, the gesture must've come across more mean than amicable. "We need to talk to you."
Justin's muffled "we" came moments before his head jerked to the side, and he stiffened. Probably catching sight of Chay on the other side of the van. Ah, backup was a beautiful thing.
Rafe dropped all pretense of nice 'n' friendly and glared at the punk. "Get out," he snapped. Justin's eyes jumped from Rafe to the steering wheel as if contemplating taking off. Rafe tapped on the window again, gaining Justin's attention. He shook his head. "I wouldn't try it."
For several moments, the kid remained in the truck, probably weighing his options. Run. Please. Gives me an excuse to beat the snot out of you when we catch you.
Maybe Justin detected the gleeful hope in Rafe's renewed smile, because he shut off the engine. After a couple of fumbling attempts, he opened the car door and spilled out of the van.
In seconds, Chay stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Rafe, blocking in Justin: a wall of muscle and mean in front of him and the vehicle behind him.
"Uh, what can I do for you guys?" Justin stuttered, scratching his chin with a dirty fingernail.
"We just want information, Justin," Chay assured him in a moderate tone.
"Information?" he squeaked
"Yeah, information." Rafe edged closer, invading the kid's personal space and buying himself a noseful of eau de funk. "Yesterday you delivered a package to a house in Chestnut Hill. You remember that?"
Justin gulped, started to jerk his greasy blond head side-to-side. But Rafe had caught the guilt flash in the dull brown eyes. "Oh, yeah, Justin," he drawled. "You remember."
"I don't know what you're talking about," he lied, shrinking away until his back hit the side panel of the van with a muted thump.
"See, Justin, we can do this the hard way or the easy way … "
"Wow, really, Chay?" Rafe tsked in mock disappointment. "That is so cliché. I expected better out of you."
Chay shrugged. "It seemed appropriate."
"And see, I was going to suggest we just beat the shit out of him until the pain in his kidneys forces the truth out of him."
"Well, damn." Chay winced. "That has no class. But whatever. I'm game."
Stark terror stamped Justin's features. His mouth hung open, and all the color had leached from his already pasty face. His eyes nearly rolled to the back of his head.
"I don't know nothing, man!" he wailed.
"You're lying," Rafe growled, dropping the teasing and allowing the rage boiling near the I'm-About-to-Go-Postal point to show. "I have your skinny ass on tape dropping off that white box beneath my mailbox. Tell me, Justin," he gritted out between clenched teeth. "What kind of POS gets off on building bombs and terrorizing an innocent woman? You get off on that, kid? Every time you leave a letter or fucked-up doll you go beat your meat in this dirty-ass van? Huh, Justin?"