He nodded.
“Business income must be accounted for and taxed,” she said, as if she was worried about tax evasion. “Taxes pay for schools and roads and business development parks that provide jobs for local residents.”
He leaned forward, all earnestness. “I don’t mind funding local projects. Five percent ongoing for your trouble, to get you through the dry spells, or to help any community organization you want. Your dad’s new program. The basketball court looks pretty rough. He could buy new computers for the job training program.”
He thought he could buy her. She pursed her lips, like she was considering the offer.
“You don’t have to give me an answer now,” he said. “I’ll catch you later, see what you’ve decided.”
She’d seen a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take apart a prominent pipeline of cocaine and heroin into Lancaster, and gone to the police with the information. They’d asked her if she’d help them get the evidence they’d need to take out the biggest threat to the East Side’s economic and social health.
She was the linchpin, and she couldn’t tell anyone. Lieutenant Ian Hawthorn, her contact, made two things abundantly clear: they needed hard and fast evidence of Lyle Murphy’s intent to launder drug money through Eye Candy, and she couldn’t tell a soul what she was doing. Not her father, who believed in salvation and second chances. Not her brother, a defense attorney who believed all cops were lying bullies with badges. Not her best friend and manager. No one. Which meant she couldn’t say anything to her father about staying away from Victor, his best friend from childhood, because Victor might tip off Lyle.
“Nothing wrong with dreaming, Dad,” she said finally.
“You’ll be at dinner Monday night?”
Two years ago, before the rift over her job that kept her from the Webber Monday family nights for eighteen months, he wouldn’t have asked. “I will,” she said lightly. “Love to Mom.”
The door closed behind her father, and Eve went back to the cartons of fruit waiting for her, wielding the knife precisely, as if lemons sliced in quarter-inch increments would settle her nerves. But as she worked, the memory of the shuttered look in Chad’s dark hazel eyes skittered across her skin to settle deep in her belly. While every owner and manager paid lip service to appropriate relationships and professional work environments, the sexually charged atmosphere of bars and nightclubs was a breeding ground for quick, explosive, short-lived relationships based on chemistry—the kind of chemistry she’d felt in one ten-minute interview. With the bar finally launched to a promising whirlwind of buzz and a whole lot of chemistry with her newest bartender candidate, for the first time in a very long time, she could look forward to mixing a little pleasure with business.
What her parents didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. Everyone kept secrets, even a pastor’s daughter.
*
Mistake number one: the Yes, ma’am that came right after he opened the door and made eye contact with Eve Webber. The connection hit him like a blow to the sternum, dropping him twelve years in the past to boot camp, where ma’am and sir became spinal reflexes. While a bartender in need of a job might use ma’am out of respect, his tone would have been gentler, less authoritative.
Mistake number two: getting scratch on the way onto the street. Ideal employees didn’t drive like a sixteen-year-old trying to impress a girl in the school parking lot. But the adrenaline contracted the muscles in his calf, and the next thing he knew the rear tires were spinning. Once again, instinct took over and he automatically corrected for the swerve. In an effort to slow his pulse he exhaled slow and deep, relaxed his grip on the wheel, and, most important, lifted the gas pedal from the Jeep’s floor.
For Detective Matt Dorchester, one of the most treacherous parts of undercover work for the Lancaster Police Department was discovering exactly how deeply military and paramilitary organizations were carved into his bones. Twenty minutes into his newest role and he’d already made two dangerous mistakes, two more than he’d made in either of his previous, months-long undercover assignments.