Hell or High Water: Chapter One

I huddled deeper in my jacket. What had promised to be a perfectly mild Atlanta spring evening had sharpened into a cold snap, the soft breeze now a cutting wind.

Trey was experiencing none of my discomfort. I credited his Irish DNA, which had gifted him not only with black hair and blue eyes and an ivory complexion, but also an ability to tolerate the dampest of chills. Plus he had a much better jacket than I did, Italian-made with a proprietary thermal lining.

“Do you see them?” I said.

Trey didn’t move. He had the camera on a tripod, his eyes close to the viewfinder. He’d explained that it was the best surveillance camera currently on the market. Auto-focus, superior resolution and stabilization, increased zoom.

“I have them in frame,” he said.

Dressed in black from head to toe, he looked all the world like the sniper he’d once been, a job that had required patience, calm, and an almost supernatural capacity to stay still and focused. Of course being a sniper required other knowledge, like the physics of bullets, plus the proficiency to target the medulla oblongata or perhaps center mass, depending. Bloody work in the follow through, but the essential skill was the ability to lie in wait, and Trey was very very good at this.

“What’s happening down there?” I said.

“They’re talking.”

“Talking like chit chat or talking like something’s about to happen?”

“The former.”

“Are you sure—”

“Tai.” He didn’t move a muscle. “I really need to concentrate. We don’t want to miss this.”

We, he said. As if I could do anything but stand there. I didn’t have former sniper on my résumé, so the surveillance work went to him, which made sense, I couldn’t argue that it didn’t.

But still.

I shoved my hands in my pockets and kept them there. The air in Piedmont Park smelled of an earlier rain shower, the green fragrance of new grass mingling with the mineral scent of wet pavement. The park was quieter than usual, with only a few runners. A couple pushed a stroller. Two dog walkers coming from opposite directions gave each other a wide berth. They all passed the Lake Clara Meer overlook without stopping.

Our subjects, however, stood shoulder to shoulder in the wrought iron semi-circle, silhouetted against the silver water and the Midtown skyline, their backs to us. This was not the photo we were waiting for. But our photo was coming, guaranteed, and we had to be ready for it.

“Will the light hold out?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Rico and I discussed this at length.”

“I’m just—”

“Tai. I need to concentrate.”

I stopped talking and focused on the couple below us, one of them unaware of our presence, the other very aware. He’d hired us, after all, to capture this moment, this once-in-a-lifetime moment. And that meant Trey—the one with the relevant expertise—was working the camera instead of me.

“Come on, Rico,” I whispered, “the light is fading.”

Trey ignored me. The light was perfect, and he knew it.

Apparently, so did Rico. Because this was the moment he turned to Dante, the setting sun burnishing his light brown skin like he was lit from within. I wanted to grab Trey’s shoulder. I didn’t grab Trey’s shoulder.

“Here it comes,” I said.

Trey clicked off the first shot. “I know.”

The soft melting light was a drizzle of honey and orange and cinnamon, ocher and carnelian, a 24-caret sunset. Rico took Dante’s hand and dropped to one knee, which I did not see coming, and Dante put his hand to his mouth.

And then they were enveloped in that charmed glow, the golden hour, and Dante was nodding—yes! yes! yes!—and Rico was grinning. He stood and wrapped his beefy arms around Dante, slight and slim and practically engulfed in the embrace as he took off his glasses and wiped his eyes.

“Can we go down there now?” I said.

Trey stayed behind the camera. “Not yet. Rico will give the signal.”

“But—”

“Wait for the signal.”

I wanted to bolt from behind the shrubbery, but I didn’t, I waited, and it was so hard because every molecule in me was vibrating. Go! Run! Now! And then Rico turned and gave us the thumbs up, beaming, his eyes sparkling.

Trey straightened. “All right. You can—”

But I was already running down the slope.

♦ ♦ ♦

Afterward, we ended up going out to dinner and then to Trey’s. He wanted to go through the photographs, as did Dante, so Rico and I made cocktails—an Old Fashioned for me and a Vieux Carré for him—and took them out on the terrace. The same skyline we’d seen at the overlook was on the horizon, only now from a different angle, and the sky was liquid black—starless—the moon just cresting in the east.

“What’s next?” I said, curling up in one of the paired lounge chairs, pulling a blanket over my legs.

Rico propped his feet on the railing. “Ring shopping. Venue visiting. Cake tasting. Dante made a to-do list on the ride over. He’s in there picking out a photo for the save-the-dates.”

“Don’t you want to see?”

“Nah. Right now I just want to bask.”

The city was adazzle, but we felt far removed from it on the 35th floor. I could see Trey and Dante through the French doors, side by side at the computer, the floor lamp surrounding them in a warm halo.

Rico sipped his drink and gave me a knowing look. “I spotted a lot of your things around the apartment. A whole lot.”

“That’s because Trey hasn’t put them in their proper drawer yet.”

“You moved in and didn’t tell me?” He placed his hand over his heart. “I’m deeply hurt. Wounded.”

I swatted his bicep. “Stop it. I still have the apartment above the shop—the office, I mean, I gotta stop calling it the shop. But I usually end up coming back here.”

“I’d come back here too. It doesn’t smell like gunpowder and burnt coffee and unwashed white men.”

It did not, that was true. I still dabbled in the Civil War antique market. I’d honed my research skill in the relic trade, after all. And people were happier paying me a thousand dollars to find a circa-1865 presentation sword than to take photographs that proved their husband was cheating on them.

But the rest of Dexter’s shop—the muskets and handguns and black powder—were no longer a part of my business. I’d sold the lot of it to other sutler shops in the area, and what I hadn’t sold, I’d given to my former assistant so that he could carry on the trade himself. I hadn’t made much profit, but it had been nest egg enough for the tools of my new trade, including a very expensive camera that captured long-range images with crisp precision.

“Thanks for doing this,” Rico said. “I was for real when I said I’d pay you.”

I laughed. “And I was for real when I said you can’t afford me. Well, you can afford me. I’m still an apprentice. But you can’t afford Trey.”

Rico swirled the liquid in his glass. “So what’s it like having your boyfriend be the boss of you?”

I felt myself prickle. “He’s not the boss of me. He’s the license holder for the agency—our agency, the two of us equal partners—because the state of Georgia requires—”

“I’m playing with you, don’t get your back up.” He elbowed me lightly. “Seriously though, I appreciate you. Y’all did good.”

I settled back in my chair. “We did, didn’t we? Dante didn’t even know we were there.”

“I barely knew you were there.”

“Trey is good at many things, but he’s especially good at being sneaky.”

Inside the apartment, Dante laughed. He was on the phone—with his sister, Rico said—one slender brown hand waving about his dark, closed-cropped hair. He was cheerful and talkative, a good match for Rico, who tended toward brooding and grumpy at times.

Trey looked up from the computer, and his eyes met mine, his face illuminated in the bluish glow of the computer screen. I smiled at him, and he tilted his head. And then Dante shoved the phone at him, and Trey looked startled but accepted it.

“You ever thought about taking the plunge?” Rico said.

“What plunge?”

“You know what plunge.”

I waved a hand at him. “Pfft. You make it sound like a ride at Disney World.”

“C’mon. You and Trey are long-haul truckers, and you both know it. Why not make it official?”

I rested my glass on my stomach. “Things are good the way they are. Very very good. Why would I tamper with that?”

“Says the woman who loves to tamper.”

“Except with this. Except with him.”

I heard laughter in the apartment, and saw Dante practically spinning around the room, phone in hand again, a combination of giddiness and champagne running through his veins. Trey was once again sorting the photos he’d taken, absorbed in his work. He was comfortable with Rico and Dante because they knew his history—the accident, the brain trauma, the recovery—and didn’t require him to be anybody other than his introverted, task-oriented, sometimes eccentric authentic self.

“And how does Trey feel?” Rico said. “Is he cool with the status quo?”

“Trey would very much like to make things official, with paperwork and witnesses, the whole shebang. But he swears it’s not a deal-breaker, that he’s satisfied being unofficially official.”

“You believe him?”

“Why wouldn't I? He’s sneaky, but honest.” I stirred my drink with my finger, the ice cubes almost melted now. “Tomorrow is the two-year anniversary of the night we met.”

“I know. You called me that night, remember? Said you were being stalked by some hot security guy.”

“Well, I was.”

“And then you stalked him right back.”

“Yes, I did. And now we’re celebrating by ordering out and staying in and not going anywhere near a crime scene.”

Rico shook his head. “What happened to the Tai Randolph who met the crack of dawn with her shoes in one hand and a bottle of tequila in the other?”

I laughed. “She met a man who made staying home much more attractive.”

“I can’t argue with that. That man is fine as hell.” Rico held his glass toward me. “Here’s to me and you and the men who love us. We hit the jackpot.”

I clinked my glass with his. “Damn straight we did.”

At that moment, Dante waved for Rico to come back in the living room. He waved back and pushed himself to standing, then offered me his hand.

“Come on,” he said. “That champagne ain’t gonna finish itself.”

I was reaching for his hand when my phone rang. I glanced at the screen and saw a name that rarely popped up.

“It’s Eric,” I said.

Rico paused. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“No, it’s just . . . you go on ahead. Save me some bubbly.”

Rico continued inside, closing the doors behind himself. My brother hardly ever called me—his consulting work kept him on the road or in the air—and whatever warm surprise I felt was tempered by a less pleasant flush of anxiety.

I answered as soon as the door shut. “Hey, you. What exotic location are you calling me from now?”

“Virginia Highland.”

“Wait, you’re here? In the city? You’re never here.”

“Except that I am. I just got in.” A long pause. “You have a minute to talk?”

“What’s wrong?”

Another hesitation. “It’s a long story.”

I looked over my shoulder. Rico and Dante had left Trey at the computer and were sitting on the sofa now, hands intertwined in Rico’s lap. Trey saw me looking and narrowed his eyes. Everything okay? I nodded and held up a finger. I’ll be there in a sec.

I leaned back in my chair as the wind kicked up, knife-edged now. “I got time. What’s going on?”

Eric cleared this throat. “So . . . I think I need to hire you. Professionally. As a detective.”