Fool's Gold: A Kisses and Crimes Novel Read online

  A young guy walks up to me, places his hands on my waist, and when I look into his face, he is no longer there.

  My ballroom has ended and in its place is a curbside on a lonely street.

  An elder man walks up to me. Maybe not even elder. Just… older. He’s handsome, dark-haired. Standing on that isolated avenue, he takes my hand.

  And I want him to.

  “Come here…” he says. “Dani, Dani, Dani…”

  My name plays on repeat, reverberating on his lips.

  By the time I wake up, the name has attached itself to my psyche. I know my name to be Daniela. But I don’t know anything else.

  Including Bishop.

  I don’t get out of bed all day.

  I wrap myself in the strange bed sheets for the better part of a partly-cloudy Saturday and to my surprise, Bishop—who has spent the night downstairs—never really bothers me.

  Only interrupting from time-to-time with one short knock.

  He leaves food and a couple of aspirin on the dresser that’s located on the far side of the room, never bothering to walk any closer.

  He leaves, in and out all day, as the sound of locks on the living room door slam in his wake. He never leaves for what seems like more than an hour.

  Part of me takes comfort in it. Part of me feels caged.

  And all the while Bishop never stops visiting me, his golden gaze undoubtedly sweeping my hunched body as it crouches beneath the covers just above the bedspread.

  We run this routine from dawn until dusk for two days… until finally, hungry and sleep-dazed, I wander into the kitchen.

  I make the only thing I can think to make, and Bishop—just returning from another outbound trip—sits a lone grocery bag on the counter.

  With mild curiosity in his eyes, he gazes over at me as I cook, never letting his glare linger for more than it has to.

  He lets me burn a pan… then two—only stepping in when I’m on my third, and reluctantly, (with a silent, secret sigh of relief), I let him take over.

  He whips up the best-smelling meal I have ever seen, and awkwardly, we sit together at the dining room table.

  We eat dinner in complete and total silence.

  The streets outside our windows—windows that Bishop has purposely shielded to appear opaque from the outside—are quiet, the faint sound of outdoor laughter intermittently drifting into our walls, cutting the quietude into two.

  In a black t-shirt and sweats, his hair lying low over his forehead, Bishop eats with the voraciousness of a starving lion.

  How he manages to stay so chiseled, I have no idea. I have a half a mind to pick at him about it, but I don’t dare.

  Teasing is too intimate for where we stand, and I don’t want Bishop to get any ideas.

  I believe him—what little he’s said… but in the grand scheme of things, I still don’t trust him.

  No matter what he says, he and I, at this very moment, are nothing but strangers.

  For all I know, I muse… he could be the maniac who shot me.

  I pick at the spaghetti he’s made, barely able to hold it down.

  “Do you not like it?”

  I glance over, surprised by Bishop’s question. He never lifts his gaze from where it’s fixated on his plate, but I know he’s talking about the food.

  And I have to admit: it looks damn good… but I’ll be damned if I let him know I think so.

  “Depends,” I say, staring down into my plate. “D’ya poison it?”

  He laughs, a sound that is soft and strangely seductive.

  “C’mon... give me more credit that that. If I wanted to kill you… I’d feed you some of your own cooking. You never did know your way around a kitchen.”

  That explains the three burned pots of long-lost spaghetti.

  I look over at Bishop and he raises an eyebrow at me. A hint of a smile dances on his full and stubble-framed lips, and it does something to me.

  It tugs at a sense of humor I seem to have forgotten.

  “Too soon?” he asks.

  I dig my fork back into my plate, taking my first real bite.

  “Way, way too soon. So what your spaghetti is a little more edible than the batch I whipped up? Big deal.”

  I start eating from my plate, holding back the first urge to laugh that I’ve felt in three days.

  “A little?” Bishop asks. “I’ve seen dog shit more appetizing than what you just made.”

  I grin. “You eat dog shit a lot?”

  He laughs, placing his fork back into his food. He looks at me, and I can tell that his mind is moving a million miles a minute.

  He squints at me.

  “No… and to answer your question, kitten, I could never poison you. I could never hurt you.” Bishop declares, his voice staying level despite an undercurrent of curiosity.

  I don’t answer his unspoken question, instead choosing to eat more, so that my mouth is occupied with meatballs and spaghetti sauce.

  “You know that, don’t you?” he presses.

  I chew soundlessly, swallowing hard with each forced bite.

  “This is crazy,” Bishop says, shaking his head, seemingly speaking to himself. “I close my eyes just a few nights ago, and you’re sleeping like a baby. I wake up and you’re wigging the fuck out with no memory of me. I didn’t think our situation could get any worse…”

  I find my voice, devouring my last bit of food.

  “Our situation?” I scoff. “What would you do if you woke up to a strange, half-naked man in your bedroom?”

  Bishop gazes off into space, seemingly considering it.

  “I’d seriously question my sexuality…”

  I crack a smile. Dammit. And just when I thought I could stay stoic…

  Bishop picks up my now-empty dish. He stands, placing my plate atop his own before heading, without another word, to the kitchen sink where he begins to run the faucet water.

  I jump up from where I’m seated, feeling somewhat guilty.

  “You don’t…” I call after him. “You don’t have to do that.”

  He looks up at me with self-assured eyes, his large fingers beginning to scrub at a dish.

  “Of course I do.”

  But somehow, Dani, the woman somewhere deep inside, won’t let that be it. She and I are up out of our seat, pushing away from the tiny dining room table to join Bishop’s side, where we grab a towel and start drying.

  Nothing else happens for the next God-knows-how many seconds.

  Bishop and I work without exchanging words, busying our hands while our minds undoubtedly go nuts.

  I realize now, while clearing the kitchen, that every minute—every moment that passes is another hurdle I must surmount in order to stop the panic—a panic that creeps in every time I allow myself the opportunity to think.

  To think and to remember… that I truly remember nothing at all…

  I settle in, growing slowly comfortable in Bishop’s presence… which is probably even worse than the panic.

  I dry my last dish.

  “Well,” I comment awkwardly. “I guess it’s getting late.”

  Bishop takes the last utensil from my hand, putting it away.

  “Mm.”

  “Guess I’ll go upstairs…”

  “Sure.”

  “Food made me a little sleepy…”

  Nothing. Dead silence.

  Doesn’t take me long to realize that I’m engaging in a one-person conversation. What I expect from Bishop, I don’t know… but I can’t help but wonder…

  “Where will you sleep?” I say to Bishop’s turned back as he wipes the counters down.

  “Where do you think?”

  My breathing grows shallow.

  He turns to me. “On the couch, of course…”

  “The one down here, right?”

  Bishop almost grins. “Yeah… What’d ya think I’d do?”

  I expel a breath, feeling foolish as my eyes drift to his arms, which are still moving. Flexing and bendi
ng and contracting as he continues to tidy up.

  The tail-end of his tattoo—long, black and intricate—catches my eye for the second time as Bishop’s white sleeve drifts up and down his hardened bicep.

  I look into Bishop’s face and wonder if he can see in my eyes what I feel.

  “Nothing. I just… Nothing.”

  “Good,” he says quietly, wiping his hands on a nearby towel. He says nothing else.

  He turns from me, and when he does, whatever I was going to say next dies a quick death on the edge of my lips. I want to talk to him, but just being beside him makes me nervous.

  He speaks so roughly to me… and part of me likes the way he does.

  Disappointment, unfounded and unexpected, places the tiniest ball in my throat.

  “Well, then I guess I’ll say good night.”

  Hesitantly, I raise a hand in a semi-wave. And just as I spin around to head towards the stairs, I feel Bishop’s hand. Swiping gently across my lower back.

  I turn around.

  “Wait…” He steps into me, his determined eyes locking onto mine.

  Irises, the color of sunburnt ivy, travel from the top of my head down to the tip of my chin.

  He places a hand there finally, tilting my face towards him, and just when I fear the worse (or best)—just when I think Bishop might place his mouth on mine—he swoops in with his other roughened hand, sweeping my hair behind my ear.

  The ear just below the bullet wound.

  I flinch… but not from fear. I flinch from something I can’t identify… something I won’t even admit to myself.

  I stand silently in wait.

  “Dani, let me make a few things clear to you,” he comments softly, “and listen to me when I say this… I need you to really fucking hear me,” he emphasizes, holding my gaze.

  My mouth turns dry. I nod without even realizing what I’m doing. Bishop continues.

  “I don’t know what’s happened to you. I don’t know what the fuck could be going through your head right now or what you feel. I don’t know if you even want to hear this shit from me…” He takes a deep breath. “But I hate that this happened to you.”

  “I hate that someone hurt you… And I…” He cuts himself off, grinding his teeth together. “And I hate that I fucking let it happen.

  But you need to—you need to understand that… protecting you is the most important thing to me, and I won’t ever give anyone a chance to hurt you again.

  You have my fucking word. You have my…” Bishops stops, and his golden-green eyes turn somber, serious—blazing.

  And in that instant, I want to be there. I watch to reach right into them… and be cloaked in their unwavering warmth.

  “You have my everything, Dani—everything I have to give,” he finishes.

  He lets me go, and I instantly feel cold without his touch. His serious face breaks out into a lopsided grin, one that keeps my skin from turning to ice.

  “But don’t ever insult my food again…” he comments off-handedly, widening his smirk. “Now go and get some sleep, kitten.”

  “Who knows what Hell tomorrow will bring…?”

  WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS

  DANI

  Another sleepless night.

  My brain, seemingly a part of life’s plot to torture me, threw curve balls my way while I tried to sleep. During the night—all night—I dreamed of men… and not in the way that any normal, mentally stable woman could even imagine…

  These men… they were not dreamboats, but angry strangers with permanent scowls for faces.

  Hunters. Hungry for their next prey. Unfortunately, the prey they’d picked this time just so happened to be me…

  The exit from the fancy party had turned into a nightmare.

  Through the sidewalks of unknown streets, they tracked me, chasing me past thick crowds of people in a city that I couldn’t even recognize.

  I tried to lose them in a throng of faces I’d never seen, places I’d never traveled, hoping I could blend in with this symphony of anonymity playing everywhere, all around me, in the background.

  Where was I? Who was I? And why would no one help?

  Could they not see these hunters? Could they not see me?

  A cloudy sky turns the faces around me into shadows. A subsequent rain changes them into blurs. And I keep on running…

  Ten feet. Twenty feet. A hundred. And still the rain, the raging crowd and the persistent hunters will not let up.

  I beat my feet against the pavement until I can’t beat them any more. Limbs useless, lungs on fire, I inhale breaths that seem soaked in gasoline.

  No one out of the crowd really notices me.

  No one—not a single person.

  A sea of people… and no one willing to save me…

  Then, out of the swarm, he emerges like a tidal wave amidst a calm ocean, splitting the multitude into two.

  Bishop.

  Out of thin air, he arrives when all hope seems lost. Looking Hell-sent. Lucifer in the package of a Greek god. A fallen angel in an impeccable suit.

  He is every bit as diabolically handsome in my nightmare as he is everywhere else.

  And he is rushing towards me in a tie and jacket blacker than midnight air, his countenance darker than any hero’s should be.

  And yet I crave him.

  I am desperate for his touch, for his comfort… but he is too far. So far. I reach my hand out for him and feel nothing but air.

  My savior… too far to save me from the trailing men. And I can’t spare a breath to call out to him.

  But he sees me. He waves. His eyes, wild and searching, meet with mine, and he heads in my direction, his arm raised in some sort of greeting.

  Maybe he’s pointing…? I’m not sure… and I don’t care.

  I just run for him. I run to him.

  I am too relieved to even notice that his “greeting”… is nothing more than another threat.

  Because I am not being embraced by Bishop. I am being trapped by him.

  He isn’t waving a hand at me. He isn’t waving to me at all. He’s raising his hand to point.

  With eyes the color of fossilized amber (and just as hard), he holds his muscular arm above the bridge of his nose, pointing a gun—muted silver and black—right at my head.

  Right at me.

  And then without hesitation—without an ounce of empathy in his eyes—he shoots.

  And I don’t even blink. Somehow, I want to watch it happen. I want to capture every moment…

  But I can’t…. because the sound of the shot shatters the thin veneer of my dream world, and I wake up in a panicked sweat, reaching out with one hand on the couch for God-knows-what and raising the other hand to strike.

  Bishop’s curiosity about my faith in him wasn’t too far off base.

  Even my subconscious doesn’t know if it trusts him. And my mind has nowhere to go but into panic.

  What’s even worse is that there’s no TV, no books, no entertainment in the loft. There’s one phone line, no laptops and if there’s WiFi, it’s no use because I can’t find any electronic devices.

  This whole place is like a pre-historic museum.

  And no books?!? How the hell doesn’t he have any books?

  Locked up like a prisoner, caged like a bird, I start to get restless by midday.

  Showered, teeth scrubbed, I wander back into the bedroom through the upstairs bath.

  I get dressed, putting on real clothes, for the first time in two days. I begin to rifle through the rest of the bedroom dresser drawers, looking for insight into my life.

  And that’s when I hit pay dirt.

  A little black book.

  The instant I pick it up, I know exactly what it is. Couldn’t remember my middle name if you told it to me, but for some reason, the little notebook holds memory.

  It’s old, yellowed along the edges. The cover is pure black leather, and the pages have been roughly dog-eared. Some are ripped.

  I open the first
page… and look at the first name in Bishop’s ancient little phone book. I read the text, thinking…

  What an odd first name.

  I place my index finger under the first line of the notebook and recite it to myself again.

  It’s been crossed out, re-written so many times that I can barely read it, but the phone number to its right is fully in tact.

  The handwriting is illegible… notwithstanding the fact that the script is actually really beautiful.

  It’s just that these… markings get in the way.

  Angry strikethroughs have been made to the name on the page, creating indentations, and I can tell that Bishop has raged against this person, this someone in the phone book, in his mind.

  I learn the person’s number just by reading it. I commit it to memory, feeling relieved to be able to commit anything to memory at all.

  It’s the first new thing I’ve learned as the new me, and I say it out loud.

  Ace Delaney

  Phone number: (212) 665-1214

  TEN CENTS AND A SMILE

  BISHOP

  “Call him.”

  The words catch me off guard, and I look at Jax across the tiny café table in a little spot called la Petite Monde.

  The music playing in the background is soft. Our conversation is barely above a whisper, and yet I constantly find myself looking over my shoulder.

  I know my waitress isn’t a spy.

  She hasn’t been sent by some rogue organization to kill me… but she might as well have.

  She sets my coffee mug on the table, giving me a wink, and I snatch it so quickly that the hot lava almost spills all over the table.

  I nod, dismissing her, before I even reply to Jackson.

  “Keep your fucking voice down,” I hiss.

  “Oh, cut the shit, Bishop,” Jackson groans. “We’re a million fucking miles from New York. We’re in the middle of Nowhere, France, and nobody here gives a flying fuck who you are.”

  He glances up quickly.

  “Except maybe that bombshell of a waitress.”

  He winks at our server who passes by.

  “Will you get your fucking head on straight?” I pick up my mug again, taking a hurried sip. “I’m not calling his pig-headed ass.”