Along Came a Spider by Kate Serine Page A

you had no business—”
“No business?” Red’s eyes went wide. “Are you shitting me? After all we’ve been through together? After I saw you lying there on the floor with your guts hanging out, you have the nerve to tell me I have no business caring what happens to you? Fuck you, Nicky! Get him the hell out of my office, Nate.”
“Tess,” Nate admonished mildly before taking up what had become his usual perch on the corner of Red’s desk and turning his dark gaze on his old friend. “It’s good to see you again, Nicky, but I can’t say I totally disagree with her on this one. You want to tell us what the hell you’ve been doing for the last two years?”
Nicky shifted a little uneasily, casting a furtive glance my way. “I’ve been here and there. You know.”
“No, I don’t know.” Red leaned across her desk as much as her pregnant belly would allow, her blue eyes now bright with angry tears. “Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been, you unbelievable jackass?” She snatched a tissue from the box next to her and swiped irritably at the tears spilling onto her cheeks. “Shit! Seriously? Now I’m crying? God, pregnancy has made me lose my fucking mind!”
Nicky cleared his throat a couple of times, growing increasingly uncomfortable at the sight of Red’s tears. “I’m sorry, kid,” he said, his voice taking on a gentleness that made me bristle. “I never meant to worry you. I just had to get my head together. And, well, I’ve been doing a little moonlighting since I left town that’s been keeping me busy.”
She eyed him warily. “What kind of moonlighting?”
“You know”—he shrugged—“some cleanup work like back in the day.”
Red flopped back in her chair, her face going slack. “Like back in the New York days, Nicky?”
“Somethin’ like that,” he admitted.
I heard Nate curse under his breath before pegging Nicky with a look of warning. “Are you sitting here confessing to a crime, Nicky? You know we’d have to arrest you if you are.”
Nicky spread his hands and leaned back in his chair. “I’m not confessing to anything. I’m just stating a fact. I had some things to deal with, so I’ve been doing a little work to clear my head.”
“You promised me you’d never do another hit, Nicky,” Red reminded him, her voice barely above a whisper. She glanced at her closed office door before adding, “After you got shot, you said you’d stick to making a point in other ways.”
“I have,” he insisted. “This had nothing to do with my own business.”
Nate crossed his arms over his chest, his face going dark. “Seeing as how I never got any calls for a hit on a Tale, I’m assuming these were Ordinaries?”
Red cursed a blue streak. “Perfect. That’s exactly the kind of headache we need right now.”
“Trust me,” Nicky said, “all these guys had it comin’. Nobody’s gonna miss ’em.”
Red ran a hand through her thick black hair, letting it fall around her shoulders. “So what does any of this have to do with Trish?” She jabbed her finger at his chest. “So help me God, Nicky, if you drag her into your bullshit . . .”
We’d agreed on the way to headquarters that we were going to steer clear of Nicky’s vigilante alter-ego and the connection to Dracula, but we had to have some reasonable explanation as to why he would be helping me on an open investigation or Red would put the smack-down on both of us in a fairytale minute. “Trish needed my expertise on a case,” he said with a shrug.
I glanced over at Nate, not surprised to find his bottomless black eyes on me, narrowed with a silent question.
Red wasn’t nearly so subtle. “What kind of expertise?”
Nicky glanced around as if expecting the authorities to come barging into the room at any moment. He leaned forward a little in his chair and hissed, “Insight into my business ventures.”
“Tim Halloran’s dead,” I blurted, impatient with the euphemisms and innuendo.
Red’s brows shot