Trust Me Page 2
“You okay?” he asked, still holding her.
Mack sucked in a breath as she nodded. She refused to read into the disconcerting sensation that resonated from where his muscled forearm rested underneath her breasts. It illustrated just how hard up she was when Ezra Holmes of all people could elicit such a reaction from her.
“Yeah. Thanks,” she muttered, disengaging from his hold.
“Come on out of the rain,” Indina called from the front door.
Ezra allowed Mack to enter ahead of him, proving that annoying bastards could also be gentlemen.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to make it after you texted that the meeting was running long.” Indina enveloped Mack in a hug. “How did it go with the city council tonight?”
Mack rolled her eyes. “Be grateful I didn’t have to call you to bail me out of jail,” she said. “Where’s the bar? I need a drink.”
“Everything’s set up in the dining room. You’ll have to settle for wine, though.”
“This is why I should start traveling with scotch,” Mack said. She started for the dining room, stopping to give Griffin a quick kiss on the cheek. “Happy birthday. You’ll get a proper hug after I’ve gotten some food and liquor in me.”
“I plan to collect on that,” he called after her.
She arrived at the dining room table, where dainty platters of charmingly arranged hors d’oeuvres jockeyed with several bottles of wine for her attention.
“Someone has been scouring the party planning boards on Pinterest,” Mack teased as she popped a mushroom cap stuffed with something gooey into her mouth. “Oh, good Lord, this is good,” she mumbled around the food.
“Guess you don’t mind my mad Pinterest skills now, do you?” Indina said.
Mack shook her head, chasing a second mushroom with a deep swallow of red wine. It wasn’t her drink of choice, but it would do.
“You want to tell me why I almost had to bail you out of jail tonight?” Indina asked.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get your chance to bail her out of jail soon enough,” Ezra said as he strolled up to the table, grabbing a handful of cheese cubes and popping one in his mouth.
“Kiss my ass,” Mack said. She was so not in the mood for his bullshit.
“Ezra, don’t start,” Indina chastised him.
Contempt shimmered in his intense gaze. “Just preparing the councilwoman for her eventual fate.”
“How long have you been searching for dirt on me?” Mack asked. “If you haven’t found anything yet, maybe that should tell you something.”
“That you’re better than most at hiding your dirt?”
“You’re fucking insane,” Mack sneered.
Indina stepped between them. “And that’s the end of round one. In your respective corners, please.”
Ezra released a derisive snort as he popped another cheese cube in his mouth and sauntered away. Mack changed her mind about the firing squad. She would shove his ass in front of one without batting an eye.
“Why didn’t you remind me that he would be here tonight?” she asked Indina.
“So you could cancel on me again?” She cast a dismissive wave toward her brother. “Don’t let Ezra get to you. He’ll eventually realize he’s wasting his time with whatever story he’s pursuing. Now, tell me what happened at the meeting tonight. It must have been pretty heated to have you so riled up.”
“I’m not talking about tonight’s meeting,” Mack said. “This is supposed to be a happy occasion. I refuse to ruin Griffin’s party by bitching about the city council.”
“Fine, but you will tell me later,” Indina said. “One of the perks of my best friend being on the city council is that I get to hear all the inside dirt. You know I find that stuff fascinating.”
Mack shook her head, huffing out a laugh. “You’re so weird.”
“But you love me anyway.”
“Of course I do. Would I remain in the same house with your pain-in-the-ass brother if I didn’t love you?”
Indina barked out a laugh as she enveloped Mack in another hug. “I owe you one.”
Mack took a sip of her wine and scanned the room. Her gaze arrested at the sight of Ezra staring at her from an arched entryway. His cold eyes were trained on her, his expression redolent with distaste.
Oh, yeah, Indina definitely owed her one.
* * *
“You planning to stay in this one spot all night?”
Ezra Holmes looked over his shoulder and grunted as his cousin, Toby, approached the curved doorway where Ezra had sequestered himself. The spot afforded him a view of the dining room and half of the living room, where the dozen or so people who’d gathered for Griffin’s birthday all congregated.
Toby sidled up to him, a foil-covered plate in one hand and car keys in the other.
“You heading out already?” Ezra asked him.
He held up the plate. “My wife wants dinner. She gets mean when she’s hungry.”
Ezra managed to laugh despite the sulky mood he’d been in for the past half hour. He gestured to his own eyes then pointed at Toby’s. “I’m guessing that new baby is responsible for those bags under your eyes?”
Toby dropped his head back and groaned at the ceiling. “That little sucker wakes up every hour on the hour. I can’t remember what it feels like to get a full night’s sleep.”
“It shows.”
His cousin elbowed him on the arm. “At least I have a good excuse for the sour look on my face. What’s yours?” He looked over to where Ezra had been staring. “Ah, I see. Be careful with that, man. You don’t want to end up in handcuffs again.” Toby tapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll see you later.”
The reminder of his arrest sent Ezra’s mood on another downward spiral.
He’d suffered his share of humiliating moments during his thirty-nine years. Tripping over his own feet while walking across the stage at his high school graduation, getting numerous drinks thrown in his face during his disastrous college partying years, losing his job; all had given him reason to want to curl into a ball and just disappear.
But being handcuffed and shoved into the back of a police cruiser in front of his entire family?
That shit made his body shudder with shame to this day.
Growing up in New Orleans, it was easy for young black males to get caught up in the street life. But that had never happened to any of the Holmes boys. It was a testament to his mom and dad’s strength and determination that they, along with his Aunt Margo and Uncle Wesley, had raised six males in this city and not one of them had ever seen the inside of a jail cell. That is, until Mackenna Arnold sicced her brother-in-law on him. That arrest was, without a doubt, the single most humiliating moment of his life.
Ezra clenched his jaw so hard he feared it might break. Disgust throbbed through his veins as he regarded the woman responsible for that mortifying episode.
She stood next to the fireplace, laughing at something his cousin Eli had just said. Eli’s wife, Monica, who still wore her scrubs from the hospital where she worked as an ER physician, made exaggerated hand gestures as she added to the conversation, setting off another round of laughter.
It chapped his ass to stand there and watch Mack enjoying herself, as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
But Ezra knew it was all an act. She was scared as hell that he would expose all the skeletons crowding up her closet. He knew they were there. And he knew he was close to finding them. So close. He felt it in his bones. Ezra would stake his entire career on the hunch that Mackenna was involved in some kind of shady dealings with the company that landed the city’s huge garbage disposal contract earlier this year. He’d found everything but the smoking gun to tie her to it.
And that’s what chapped his ass the most. He knew it was out there. That one piece of information linking her to BDF Disposal, Inc. But damn if he could put his finger on it.
It had been months since he’d received that anonymous tip from the phone number that always followed his byline. During that time, Ezra had uncovered a link between her ex-husband, Carter Arnold, and BDF Disposal’s parent company. It was just one entity Carter had his finger in. The prominent divorce attorney was as much a businessman as he was a man of the law. The web of connections was so convoluted it had taken Ezra months to piece it all together. If only he could find that missing puzzle piece that would prove that Mackenna had knowledge of her husband’s holding interest when she approved the city contract.
She had to have known. How could she not?
“Would you please stop staring at my best friend like you want to chew her head off?”
Ezra jolted at his sister’s voice. Indina handed him a fresh glass of ginger ale on the rocks and then snaked her arm around his waist.
“Can you at least pretend to be the sweet younger brother I once knew and loved?”
“I was never sweet,” Ezra said.
“That’s why I emphasized pretend. Stop brooding for five minutes and enjoy yourself.”
Ezra didn’t promise her anything. He was still upset that she hadn’t bothered to tell him Mack would be here.
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Mack and Indina had been best friends since the first year they roomed together at Grambling State. Mack had taken part in countless Holmes family gatherings over the span of their twenty-year friendship. Although she didn’t make as many once she got married, and even less once she won a seat on the city council,
Ezra should have expected to see her here tonight.
If he were being honest with himself he could admit that he was hoping to see her. His hand still itched from where he’d touched her earlier when she’d tripped on her way up the walkway.
Dammit. Was there a bigger fool?
In those few moments when he’d held her warm body snug against his side, he’d forgotten all about his investigation. His entire focus had centered on his long-standing infatuation with her. An infatuation that continued to thrive, no matter how hard he tried to fight it.
Ezra nearly choked on the self-loathing that climbed up his throat.
It started the first time he laid eyes on her. She’d come home with Indina for winter break back when they were juniors in college. Ezra had just started his freshman year at the University of New Orleans, and thought he was the hottest shit walking the streets. Mackenna had walked through the door of his parents’ home and he’d damn near lost his mind.
He’d tried everything he could think of to impress her, yet for the first two days she’d mistakenly called him Evan. She couldn’t even get his damn name right, but did that stop him from obsessing over her for years? Hell no. It wasn’t until she married Carter Arnold that Ezra accepted there would never be anything between them.
Or had he?
Last year, when he learned that her marriage was ending, his first thought was that maybe he could finally get his chance.
He shook his head, grimacing at his own ridiculousness. Was there anything more pathetic than the torch he still carried for this woman?
More than once he’d questioned if his pursuit of this corruption story against her stemmed from anger over years of unrequited attraction, but Ezra had managed to convince himself that his complicated feelings for Mackenna Arnold had nothing to do with this. He wanted to expose her for the fraud she was. Period.
And because it would be the kind of story that could finally propel him into the same national spotlight Lindsey Marshall was basking in at the moment.
Ezra peered down at his glass and wished it held whiskey instead of ginger ale. He needed something strong and inebriating to wipe his mind clear of the image of Lindsey’s byline in the Washington Post earlier today.
It’s not that he wasn’t happy for his former co-worker. He and Lindsey had been friendly rivals back when they worked together at the paper, pushing each other to do better instead of competing with each other. But the reality that Lindsey had made it to a national publication while he was still here busting his ass to get his stories picked up by local outfits was more demoralizing than Ezra could stomach at the moment.
He needed the kind of story that would catapult him into the national spotlight; a juicy political scandal the city—the nation—could sink its teeth into. Like exposing the corruption of a popular sitting member of the New Orleans City Council.
Ezra finished his drink in one swallow and walked over to the table for another. He’d just finished pouring when he heard, “So, are you done harassing me?”
A barrage of conflicting sensations traveled up his spine at the sound of her voice. Ezra dialed his expression to indifferent before turning to face her, cursing the brief tinge of longing that still pinged him in the chest. Pathetic.
“You done giving city contracts to companies you have a business interest in?” he asked, mentally patting himself on the back for keeping his tone emotionless.
Her shoulders wilted with her exasperated sigh. “You are exhausting,” Mack said. “How many times do I have to tell you that I have no idea what you are talking about?”
“You can cut the innocent act,” Ezra told her. “Just because I haven’t found the direct tie to you, doesn’t mean there isn’t one. The deeper you try to bury it, that’s the deeper I’ll dig. Nothing’s going to stop me from exposing you.”
She rolled her eyes. “You need to find a new hobby.”
Hobby?
Now that pissed him off. This wasn’t a damn hobby. This was his job.
If Ezra hadn’t heard the same kind of talk from some of his friends—some of his own family members—after he’d been let go from the paper, it probably wouldn’t have rankled as much as it did.
He didn’t spend hours researching public records and crosschecking sources to pass the time. He was a journalist. Hell, he taught young students how to become journalists. He didn’t have to stand here while some corrupt politician insulted him.
“Let’s see what you think about my hobby once you’re the one being taken away in handcuffs,” Ezra snarled.
“Is that what this is all about?” Mack asked. “You’re still upset over that incident?”
“Incident? You had me arrested in front of my entire family.”
“I already told you Charles did that just to scare you. No charges were ever filed.”
“Must be nice to have an NOPD officer you can call on to help do your dirty work.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you insinuating that my ex-brother-in-law is a dirty cop?”
Ezra shrugged. “If the tarnished badge fits.”
Her deep brown eyes shot daggers at him. “You are one sick son of a bitch,” Mackenna spat.
“Call me names all you want.” He stepped up to her, getting right in that gorgeous face. “But know that I will expose your ass.”
“You can kiss my ass!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Indina slipped between them, holding her hands up. “If you two are going to have this fight in public, at least let me charge people for the show.”
“There is no show,” Ezra said, backing away. “But give me time. I’ll give everybody something to gawk at when it comes to the councilwoman here.”
Mack released another exasperated sigh. “I am so tired of going back and forth with you. For the last time, Ezra, I have absolutely no connection to that garbage company.”
“You hear that?” Indina said. She gave him a playful slap. “Now leave Mack alone. Please.”
Ezra waited until his sister walked away before closing the distance between himself and Mackenna again. Years of experience had taught him that it was stupid to show his hand, but he was fed up with her continued denials.
“You really don’t have anything to do with BDF Disposal?” he asked.
“Nothing, Ezra. I have never had any connection with them.”
“Oh, no?” He leaned in close. “I have two words for you: Starlight Enterprises.”
She jerked her head back, as if he’d landed a physical hit, her eyes rounded with shock. The stunned look on her face was pretty convincing, but Ezra wasn’t buying it. She was a politician. She’d probably perfected that look and a dozen others so she could pull them out when the need arose.
Nope, he wasn’t buying this wide-eyed innocent act.
Yet, as he made his excuses to Indina and Griffin and walked out of the house, Ezra couldn’t shake the feeling in his gut that a hint of the surprise he’d witnessed on Mackenna’s face had been real.
Chapter 2
Ezra parked his navy Chrysler 300 next to the chain-link fence at the corner of Octavia and Fontainebleau Drive. As he navigated the jagged slabs of uneven sidewalk, courtesy of the protruding roots of century old oaks underneath, he picked up a metal Holmes Construction sign that had apparently fallen off the fencing, probably during last night’s downpour. The light but persistent rain that had fallen earlier in the evening had turned into a raging storm in the wee hours of the morning, ripping off tree branches and scattering them and other debris all around the city.
He entered the construction site, nodding at a worker who looked familiar, but whose name Ezra couldn’t remember.
“Hey, is Reid around?” he called.
A second guy in a hardhat gestured to the mobile trailer just to the right of a row of wooden pallets piled high with cinderblocks. “He’s in there with the boss man.”
“Thanks,” Ezra said. He held up the sign. “This must have fallen off the fence last night. I found it on the sidewalk.” After handing the guy the sign, he climbed the metal steps and rapped twice on the door before entering the trailer. “Hey, hey. Y’all in here?”
Ezra closed the door behind him and stopped short.
His cousin, Alex, who owned Holmes Construction, sat behind a desk cluttered with unfurled blueprints, two computer monitors, and at least a half-dozen paper coffee cups. Ezra’s younger brother, Reid, who worked as a plumber for Alex’s company, occupied one of two chairs that faced the desk. One steel-toe booted foot bounced rapidly atop his knee, a clear indication his brother was agitated.