Magozzi, and you know it.’ She held a strawberry up to his mouth and watched, mesmerized, as he took a bite. This was the most intimate, overtly sexual moment Magozzi had ever had with Grace, and it scattered his frustrations like a shotgun blast. God, he hated being so shallow.
She almost smiled again. ‘So you will look in on Jackson?’
One more strawberry like that, and I’ll adopt him, he thought, but what he said was, ‘I can’t believe you’re going to abandon that poor, motherless child.’
‘He has a very nice foster mother. He says she’s growing on him, even if she is white.’
‘That kid worships you, Grace. He’s here every single day. You can’t just run away from attachments like that . . .’ And then he stopped talking, wondering if that wasn’t also part of the reason she’d decided to take the software company on the road. Attachments were the most dangerous things of all, because someday they might lead to trust and maybe even love, and in Grace’s brutal past, people you loved and trusted almost always tried to kill you.
‘It won’t be for a few days,’ Grace tried to appease him without a strawberry. ‘They finished the custom work on the RV today, but Harley and Roadrunner still have to install all the electronics.’
Magozzi drained his wineglass and reached for the bottle again. ‘A few lousy days? Goddamnit, Grace, people give employers more notice than that. It’s too soon. I could hurry up the seduction thing. I haven’t even seen your ankles yet. Do you have ankles?’
Her eyes dropped to the tall English riding boots she’d worn every day of her life for over ten years, because back then there had been a man who slashed the Achilles tendons of his victims so they couldn’t run away. ‘I’ll come back, Magozzi.’
‘When?’
‘When I can take off the boots.’
Harley Davidson lived less than half a mile from Grace, in the only neighborhood in the Twin Cities he deemed suitable for a man of his wealth and taste.
Nowhere was St Paul’s reverence for the past more apparent than on prestigious Summit Avenue, a broad, tree-filled boulevard that rambled from the river bluffs to the edge of downtown.
At the turn of the century, timber, railroad, and milling barons had settled in this area, erecting vast, imposing mansions on the bluffs and up and down Summit, each newcomer trying to outdo those who had come before. A century later, many of the mansions were still intact and lovingly restored, either by descendants who hadn’t squandered the family fortune, the Minnesota Historical Society, or the newly wealthy.
Harley was one such newly wealthy Summit Avenue homeowner, much to the dismay of some of his ultraconservative neighbors. He often stomped the streets on pleasant evenings, an enormous, muscular man in leathers and motorcycle boots, his full black beard and ponytail bouncing with the weight of his steps. A frightening visage to residents, and that was before they got close enough to see the tattoos.
His house was a turreted, red sandstone monstrosity that was surrounded by a tall, wrought-iron fence with spikes large enough to skewer a bull elephant, but a step inside the massive front doors was like walking into a Bavarian castle from a Grimm brothers’ fairy tale. Ten thousand square feet of imported crystal chandeliers, exquisite antique furniture as oversized as the man who owned it, and dark, hand-carved wood from a bygone era that gleamed like ‘a Spanish whore’s eyes,’ as Harley put it, which explained a lot about why his neighbors took offense at his presence. He had a sound system that would knock your socks off piped through the entire mansion, which played non-stop hard rock or opera, depending on whether or not he was alone, because sometimes opera made Harley Davidson weep.
Last October, after the bloodbath at the Monkeewrench loft office, they’d moved the company to temporary quarters on Harley’s third floor while they worked
She almost smiled again. ‘So you will look in on Jackson?’
One more strawberry like that, and I’ll adopt him, he thought, but what he said was, ‘I can’t believe you’re going to abandon that poor, motherless child.’
‘He has a very nice foster mother. He says she’s growing on him, even if she is white.’
‘That kid worships you, Grace. He’s here every single day. You can’t just run away from attachments like that . . .’ And then he stopped talking, wondering if that wasn’t also part of the reason she’d decided to take the software company on the road. Attachments were the most dangerous things of all, because someday they might lead to trust and maybe even love, and in Grace’s brutal past, people you loved and trusted almost always tried to kill you.
‘It won’t be for a few days,’ Grace tried to appease him without a strawberry. ‘They finished the custom work on the RV today, but Harley and Roadrunner still have to install all the electronics.’
Magozzi drained his wineglass and reached for the bottle again. ‘A few lousy days? Goddamnit, Grace, people give employers more notice than that. It’s too soon. I could hurry up the seduction thing. I haven’t even seen your ankles yet. Do you have ankles?’
Her eyes dropped to the tall English riding boots she’d worn every day of her life for over ten years, because back then there had been a man who slashed the Achilles tendons of his victims so they couldn’t run away. ‘I’ll come back, Magozzi.’
‘When?’
‘When I can take off the boots.’
Harley Davidson lived less than half a mile from Grace, in the only neighborhood in the Twin Cities he deemed suitable for a man of his wealth and taste.
Nowhere was St Paul’s reverence for the past more apparent than on prestigious Summit Avenue, a broad, tree-filled boulevard that rambled from the river bluffs to the edge of downtown.
At the turn of the century, timber, railroad, and milling barons had settled in this area, erecting vast, imposing mansions on the bluffs and up and down Summit, each newcomer trying to outdo those who had come before. A century later, many of the mansions were still intact and lovingly restored, either by descendants who hadn’t squandered the family fortune, the Minnesota Historical Society, or the newly wealthy.
Harley was one such newly wealthy Summit Avenue homeowner, much to the dismay of some of his ultraconservative neighbors. He often stomped the streets on pleasant evenings, an enormous, muscular man in leathers and motorcycle boots, his full black beard and ponytail bouncing with the weight of his steps. A frightening visage to residents, and that was before they got close enough to see the tattoos.
His house was a turreted, red sandstone monstrosity that was surrounded by a tall, wrought-iron fence with spikes large enough to skewer a bull elephant, but a step inside the massive front doors was like walking into a Bavarian castle from a Grimm brothers’ fairy tale. Ten thousand square feet of imported crystal chandeliers, exquisite antique furniture as oversized as the man who owned it, and dark, hand-carved wood from a bygone era that gleamed like ‘a Spanish whore’s eyes,’ as Harley put it, which explained a lot about why his neighbors took offense at his presence. He had a sound system that would knock your socks off piped through the entire mansion, which played non-stop hard rock or opera, depending on whether or not he was alone, because sometimes opera made Harley Davidson weep.
Last October, after the bloodbath at the Monkeewrench loft office, they’d moved the company to temporary quarters on Harley’s third floor while they worked
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