The Merchant of Death (Playing the Fool, #2) Read online

  Riptide Publishing

  PO Box 6652

  Hillsborough, NJ 08844

  http://www.riptidepublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The Merchant of Death (Playing the Fool, #2)

  Copyright © 2015 by Lisa Henry and J.A. Rock

  Cover art: L.C. Chase, lcchase.com/design.htm

  Editor: Delphine Dryden

  Layout: L.C. Chase, lcchase.com/design.htm

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Riptide Publishing at the mailing address above, at Riptidepublishing.com, or at [email protected].

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-221-9

  First edition

  February, 2015

  Also available in paperback:

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-222-6

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  All’s fair in love and war.

  There’s something rotten in the state of Indiana. When con man Henry Page takes it upon himself to investigate the death of an elderly patient at a care facility, he does so in true Shakespearean tradition: dressed as a girl.

  FBI Agent Ryan “Mac” McGuinness has more to worry about than Henry’s latest crazy idea. Someone is trying to send him a message—via a corpse with a couple of bullets in it. He needs to figure out who’s trying to set him up before he gets arrested, and he really doesn’t have time for Henry’s shenanigans. Then again, he’d probably be able to focus better if Henry didn’t look so damn distracting in a baby-doll dress and a wig.

  But when Mac discovers that Henry has been keeping a secret that connects the cases, he has to find a way to live on the right side of the law when he just might be in love with the wrong sort of man.

  Tom Stafford,

  If the winds of fate should ever blow you back toward this corner of the world, I hope that you will stay with me again. This time I’ll be sure to warn you if Pastor Bob is intending to visit. I agree with you—I’m not sure that’s where he ought to lay hands on the faithful.

  —Denise from Dillsboro

  About The Merchant of Death

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Dear Reader

  Also by Lisa Henry

  Also by J.A. Rock

  Also by Henry & Rock

  About the Authors

  Enjoy this Book?

  Henry Page took the bus up 65 toward Zionsville. All around him, people stared ahead or out the window or at the floor. Never at each other. While Henry preferred cars—not always his own, and not always legally obtained—he liked the anonymity of public transport. All these people crowded together, heading in the same direction, and they spent most of the journey trying not to notice anyone else.

  That was also one reason buses and subways were great places to pickpocket—so many people looking the other way. A crowd, but no witnesses.

  Not that he was here to pick any pockets.

  Unless . . .

  He didn’t know how long he’d be away from Indianapolis, or what he might have to do in Zionsville. And he didn’t have any cash on hand.

  He tried to remember what Mac had told him. “You’re a smart guy. I’ll bet there are a lot of other things you could do to get by.”

  Mac. Ryan McGuinness, FBI agent. The sort of guy who should have been on the top of Henry’s Do Not Fuck With (In Any Sense of the Word) List, but since when had Henry played by the rules? Since never. Mac had actually gotten shot saving Henry’s life. It was hard not to want the guy.

  But Henry was needed elsewhere now, so he’d run out on Mac—for the third time. And practice really did make perfect, because this time he hadn’t even needed to impersonate a police officer or clog a public toilet to get away. He wasn’t sure he’d get another chance with Mac, but that was okay. He’d always known whatever flare of feeling had existed between them was temporary. Too bad we never got to fuck.

  And they’d been so close too. Pants off, dinner abandoned, ready to roll.

  There will be other inappropriate hookups. In places far from Indianapolis.

  But at the moment he only wanted to hook up inappropriately with Mac.

  The bus rolled to a stop in traffic just off the Zionsville exit. Henry drummed his thigh. He’d get out and walk if he had to.

  He checked his phone. 7:35. Viola had been waiting twenty-eight minutes at this point. If she was still there. He ran through a list in his mind of possible ways she could have gotten away from St. Albinus, but it made him too sick to think about her wandering the streets alone. He’d have to get the story from her.

  To her credit, Viola had picked an obscure location from which to phone him. Hadn’t gone somewhere the St. Albinus staff would have taken her before on outings, somewhere they’d think to look.

  What makes you think she’s hiding from them?

  “I need your help,” Viola had said on the phone.

  He got off the bus in the town center. The flag with a bulldog Viola had mentioned was a Hoosiers pennant over a café on Mason Street. A solid hour’s walk from the care center. He ran all the way to the café.

  When he arrived, Viola was sitting at a table outside despite the chill in the evening air. She had on jeans and a baggy, raspberry-colored T-shirt, and she was drinking hot chocolate.

  “Vi,” he said, keeping his voice hushed. However she’d gotten here, he had a feeling it wasn’t with the care center’s help or permission.

  “Sebby!” She set the mug down so hard it rattled on the saucer, then she stood and threw her arms around him. They held each other for a while, Henry unwilling to let her go. Right then, he felt like Sebastian Hanes—a much younger Sebastian Hanes—and not like Henry Page at all. Henry Page had been on the verge of making a mistake with an FBI agent. Sebastian Hanes knew where he belonged.

  Here, with Vi.

  He took a step back. She looked okay. Her face, strikingly similar to his, had gotten a little thinner and more angular in the weeks since he’d last seen her. Her hair was lighter than
his, and worn long, but they were the same height and still roughly the same build. She looked like a gaunter, less happy version of Henry.

  And something had her really unhappy right now. Something had her scared. She sat back down. Henry pulled up a chair beside her and took her hand. “Vi, what’s wrong? Why aren’t you at St. Albinus?”

  She glanced at him, then down at the table, shaking her head. “I can’t stay there.”

  “Why not? How long ago did you leave? Do they know you’re gone?” One question at a time. He took a breath. “Vi, why can’t you stay there?”

  She held his gaze this time, her eyes watery, wide, as though she hadn’t slept in a while. “Something happened. Something bad.”

  “What happened?”

  “There’s an angel there,” she said, in that soft, apologetic way she sometimes said things she was afraid he wouldn’t believe. “A bad angel.”

  “A bad angel?”

  Viola wiped under her eyes with her thumb. “Do you believe that, Sebby?”

  “I think you should tell me what happened.” He kept his tone gentle and squeezed her hand. “Did you see this angel?”

  Viola nodded. She opened her mouth to talk, and then stopped. Got distracted by a waiter who approached. Who stared. Viola smiled at him.

  Oh yeah, and there was that look. That one that was smitten at first, because of Viola’s brilliant smile, but then slowly changed into something else. Something confused, and then pitying, the longer he stared. Henry could see the exact moment it happened. The exact moment the waiter saw that there was something wrong with Viola.

  “A black coffee,” Henry said. Then said it again to get the guy’s attention. “Do you want another drink, Viola?”

  “I want another marshmallow. I want a pink marshmallow this time.”

  “We don’t have pink,” the waiter said. “Just white.”

  “I want a pink one.” Viola’s voice rose, insistent.

  The waiter looked between them. “We just have, um, white.”

  “Then bring a fucking white one,” Henry snapped, and the guy scuttled away.

  Viola’s eyes widened in shock. “‘Fuck’ is a rude word.”

  “I know it is.” Henry tried not to remember how she was the one who had taught it to him in the first place. “Sorry.”

  God, he was so fucking sorry. He’d been sorry for nine years now, because it was all his fault.

  “Fuck, and shit, and dick, and—”

  “Okay.” Henry reached forward to take her hand before she could go through the entire list. “Tell me why you left St. Albinus, Vi. Tell me about the bad angel.”

  Her expression was very serious. “The angel took Mr. Crowley.”

  Henry let go of her hand and leaned back. “You mean Mr. Crowley died?”

  Henry had been grateful these last few years for Viola’s friendship with Mr. Crowley, an old man with mild schizophrenia who’d outlived most of his family. Vi and Mr. Crowley were in the same hall at the St. Albinus Care Center, where Viola had spent the last seven years. The bond between them had made Henry nervous at first. Mr. Crowley in midepisode could be frightening—and Henry would have thought his sudden changes in mood and behavior would be confusing to Vi. But he wasn’t violent, and Vi seemed to understand and accept that her friend wasn’t always himself. Or that he was always himself, but that self was complicated and sometimes difficult to be around.

  To tell the truth, Henry was a little jealous of the friendship. Of the fact that Viola had someone else when it had always just been the two of them. Not that Henry begrudged her any friends she might make, especially now that he couldn’t be around much.

  You could.

  He could worm his way into a high-paying job in the city. Stay in one place, make enough to cover his expenses and put the rest toward Viola’s care. He wanted to be there for her, wanted to at least try to make up for what he’d done that had left her this way. But the guilt was thick and he couldn’t breathe around it. It hit him the same way every time, knocking him back, away from Viola.

  Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, it seems to me most strange that men should fear, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.

  Amazing to him, sometimes, that he still recalled so many Shakespeare quotes—and that he still heard them all in his mother’s voice, low and rich and somehow big enough to fill their apartment even when she whispered. Viola had always loved Julius Caesar for the blood and betrayal. Henry had preferred As You Like It: disguises, bondage and freedom, gender fluidity, and a happy ending.

  He looked at his sister and tried to picture the girl she’d been—laughing along with their mother as Henry strutted across the living room, pretending to be Rosalind. He and Viola had taken some ribbing in school for their names. Having a name like Sebastian hadn’t won him many friends; “My mother really loves Shakespeare” as an explanation had won him even fewer. But he was charming enough—and Vi was kind, funny, and a good athlete—that by the time they got to high school, most people could overlook the name thing. And the fact that, unlike many siblings who attended their school, they didn’t pretend not to know each other when they passed in the halls. They ate lunch together, waited for each other after school and walked to the bus.

  But their sophomore year, their mother had gotten worse. It was Vi who first discovered that not only was the money gone, but their mother owed the landlord, her rehab clinic, the power company, Vi’s orthodontist . . .

  Henry would never pretend to think what he’d done was a good idea. At the time, it had seemed preferable to losing their home. Except he’d ended up losing something a lot more valuable.

  A breeze sent dried-out fall leaves spiraling down the sidewalk. Across the street, a cheer went up from a sports bar.

  “No.” Viola shook her head. “The angel took him.”

  “I don’t understand. Who’s the angel?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The waiter brought the marshmallows in a small dish, along with Henry’s coffee.

  Viola smiled at him again. “Thank you.” She plopped one marshmallow in her cup.

  “Vi, you’re not making too much sense right now.”

  “The angel took him!” When she looked up, that fear was in her eyes again. “The angel’s bad. If I go back there, I’ll get taken too!”

  “Aw, Vi, no.” Henry leaned forward again. “You’re young and you’re healthy. Mr. Crowley was your friend, but he was really old. It might have been his time.”

  Viola stared at him, not looking fearful now but betrayed. It suddenly hit Henry how condescending he sounded. Since when did he treat Viola like a child? She’d always been better in the role of comforter than he was—even after her injury. “It wasn’t his time.” Viola’s voice was low. “Someone hurt him. Someone killed him.”

  “Okay. Okay, I’m sorry.” Henry showed her his palms. “Do you have any idea who?”

  “I don’t want to go back there. I don’t want to go!”

  “All right. Shh. You don’t have to go back, okay? Not until we get this sorted out.” Henry wasn’t sure how, exactly, this was going to get sorted out, but he could worry about that later. “When did you leave?”

  She bit her thumbnail. “This morning. Nobody saw.”

  How the hell did you manage that?

  Henry could have used the pointers.

  “This morning? Vi, what did you do all day?” He felt sick again.

  “I took a taxi to the library. It was nice in there.”

  God. Now all Henry could think about was the hours they’d spent in libraries as kids. Because libraries were warm and safe and free. Because escaping into books was better than going home. When their mom was good, she was great, but when she was on smack . . . Well, the good times were harder and harder to remember. And at the end there had been none at all.

  “I read picture books,” Viola s
aid. “Then I went and had cake for dinner.”

  “Cake?” Henry smiled, and thought suddenly of Mac and his health kick, and the way his eyes narrowed when Henry said provocative things like cake, and caffeine, and sugar.

  Viola ate a marshmallow. “A man talked to me.”

  Fuck. “Who was he?”

  “His name was David. He bought me a drink, but I didn’t like the taste of it. Then he went away.”

  Henry was relieved. God, it was bad enough when Viola went wandering from the care center—she’d done it before, a few times—but the last thing he wanted was for her to hook up with some guy. Because there were some things she couldn’t have, because of her condition. Some things they both couldn’t have.

  Once, she’d seen a woman in the street holding a baby, and she’d looked so suddenly, achingly wistful that he could have cried. Those moments, when a part of her remembered what she’d lost, were hellish. Because the realization was usually followed with an angry outburst, and with tears.

  “Then I called you.” Viola put her purse on the table. It was a small denim purse with a kitten on it. She opened it and pulled out a piece of paper. Henry’s number. He always made sure he told her when he changed phones, but was never sure if she wrote it down or not.

  “Then St. Albinus is going to be looking for you.”

  “Am I in trouble?”

  “No. It’s okay. You called me. You did the right thing.” Henry sipped his coffee. “What if . . . what if I go to St. Albinus and make sure the angel’s gone?” He didn’t even know what he was promising, not really. He didn’t know how to vanquish imaginary monsters. Maybe by shining a flashlight under the bed the way Viola had done for him when they were kids. Or by putting on their mom’s shoes and stomping around, because monsters hated stomping. For as long as he could remember, she had been full of fierce protectiveness and courage.

  “Hold my hand and stomp, Sebby!”

  Stomping and yelling had made the monsters go away. It had made the neighbors pretty angry though. And their mom. It was the sort of memory Henry felt he should have been able to laugh at, now that twenty years had passed over it. But he couldn’t. He didn’t have a single memory of his childhood that wasn’t tainted by what had happened to Viola. By what he’d done.