Deadly Games - Cate Noble [3]
But at 11:25, a different man had called, changing the time to midnight. Rocco looked at the clock again. Seven more minutes. Would someone call at 11:55 and blow him off again?
Needing to move, dying to take action, Rocco pushed to his feet. Two steps brought him to the front window. The blinds were drawn, but the slight gaps at either edge allowed him to peer out. Beneath the moth-surrounded streetlights, the night appeared normal. Which didn’t mean squat.
Living in a so-called gated community might give most residents a sense of security but Rocco had exploited that same blind trust more than once. Simply giving the gate attendant a name and an address earned you a visitor’s permit.
Turning away from the window, Rocco let his eyes readjust to the town house’s darkened interior. Then he began to pace.
Like a leopard prowling, he moved by instinct, focused. He had the layout of the sparsely furnished town house memorized. Five steps put the coffee table to his left, the pole lamp to the right. A ninety-degree turn brought him to the hulking shape that was a recliner. The one Maddy had openly mocked, calling it “too awful for the junkyard.” And she had felt terrible later, after learning the recliner had belonged to Rocco’s grandfather.
On the end table beside the chair was the now long-dead cactus Maddy had brought over during the I’m-gonna-put-my-mark-here phase of their relationship. Neither the plant nor the phase had lasted long.
The two-year course of their on-again, off-again relationship had been mostly off. The fact that deep down Rocco still cared for someone else had been the death knell.
“Maddy, I—” The apology had lodged in his throat.
“If you say ‘I’m sorry’ one more time, I’ll kill you,” Maddy had threatened more than once. “It’s not what I want to hear and you know it!”
Yeah, he knew. All she’d ever wanted was a sincere “I love you.” The same three words Rocco had permanently stricken from his vocabulary. Oh, sure, he was always up front about it, with Maddy and any other woman he’d dated for more than a week.
And in the beginning, Maddy had seemed okay with that, had even thanked him for being honest. Until she pieced together the why after Rocco called her by another woman’s name. Dumb-ass, dumb-ass, dumb-ass. The Freudian slip became a noose.
“You still love Gena, don’t you?” Maddy had accused.
He wasn’t going there. Not now. Whom he did or didn’t love in no way diminished his responsibility to Maddy.
Reaching out, Rocco stroked the desiccated cactus. The dead spire was smooth, the last of the prickly spines having finally dropped off. The symbolism hit like a baseball bat to the head. Rocco killed relationships with the same callous lack of attention with which he offed his houseplants.
Maddy deserved better. But had she found it? Was there a Mr. Right lurking offstage, some new guy who had prompted Maddy’s roommate to label her preoccupied?
Rocco had heard she was dating and had left her alone. Or tried. The problem was, he genuinely liked Maddy, would call her just to talk. They’d agreed to be friends, and that’s what friends did.
Except not everyone got that memo. Which was also Rocco’s fault.
He recalled the party in Key West they’d attended as “friends” not too long ago. Everyone assumed they were still a couple and Rocco had done nothing to correct those assumptions. Maybe the path to hell was also paved with ego gratifications.
The bottom line was Maddy was in danger because of him. And Rocco was willing to attempt the impossible to save her. Because if not him, who?
The Agency’s response would be 100 percent predictable. There were policies for this type of scenario, a set of procedures to minimize the fallout of lose-lose situations.
Plainly stated, from the Agency’s perspective, Maddy wasn’t worth as much as Rufin. Sure, they’d try to save her. But not at the risk of revealing