Authors: Penny McCall
Danny’s raised voice caught the attention of several people, including the cop. He looked over at them, decided there was nothing illegal or dangerous happening, and went back to standing around looking bored.
“Yeah,” Aubrey said, lifting her voice to get another glance from the cop, “can’t we even keep our crime American? I mean, you get replaced by cheap foreign labor and how are you going to find another job? There’s no placement agency for hit—”
Danny grabbed her by the shoulders and planted a long, smacking kiss on her mouth. No tongue, thank God, but it left her speechless anyway.
“Tell him you’re okay,” Danny said under his breath, lips barely moving.
She tuned back in to reality and noticed the cop on his way over, hand on his nightstick, suspicion on his face. His young, right-out-of-the-academy face.
“If you drag him into this, he’ll be dead before he decides what to do, and to hell with keeping a low profile.”
If they were willing to shoot a cop in front of witnesses, they wouldn’t think twice about killing her. Probably it would be the smart thing to do. Easier to escape without a captive to drag along.
She leaned close to Danny and laughed, like it was a family joke. “I’m going to miss you, Uncle Danny.” She didn’t have to raise her voice this time, because the cop was standing about five feet away, eyes narrowed, assessing the situation. She smiled at him. He didn’t seem all that reassured.
“You okay, miss?”
“Fine, officer,” she said, adding after he’d walked away, “if I don’t count the fact that these two guys want to kill me.”
Danny glared over at her, but she’d mastered the art of looking innocent. She’d had a lot of opportunities to practice on Jack the last few days. She sighed. Jack. If he didn’t show up pretty soon, she was going to have to haunt him because there was no way she’d let him off the hook for dragging her into this just so she could get killed by a hit man in training. Now that would be embarrassing. And she wasn’t going to die ignorant, either. That would be the real indignity.
She turned to Danny. “What does Corona think I know about him?” When he only looked away, she laid a hand on his arm. “You can’t imagine how frustrating it is for me not to know why people are trying to kill me.”
Danny brushed her hand off, but he wasn’t mean about it. “I’ll make you a deal. You come with us all nice and quiet-like, and I’ll tell you.”
“Tell me first, then I’ll come with you.”
Danny looked at Carlo, Carlo shrugged, and Aubrey felt the first real inkling of hope since this whole fiasco had started six days ago.
It figured that just as she was about to get an answer, Jack showed up.
He did his best to appear comatose, usually not a chore for him. For some reason, though, his leg muscles were all jumpy and his arms felt funny—and not because they were twisted beneath him with the circulation cut off. Because they were empty.
Aubrey Sullivan had felt surprisingly comfortable curled against him, more comfortable than he’d expected from such a wafer of a woman, and a hell of a lot more comfortable than she had in the forest a couple of nights back. Sure, there’d still been lust; how could there not be with that pink thong fresh in his memory? There’d been more than lust, though, or maybe something tempering it . . . And he had more important concerns at the moment.
He’d’ve bet whoever was on the other end of that phone call was trying to convince Aubrey to ditch him, and knowing her, she’d do it. Sure enough, she came out of the bathroom and tiptoed around the bed, gathering up her stuff, barely sparing him a glance. And that pissed him off.
He’d kept her safe and alive for five days. He’d sustained life-threatening injuries on her behalf and she was going to run out on him the first chance she got? For someone who prized intelligence so highly, she managed to do the stupid thing a large percentage of the time. But this went beyond stupid. This was a betrayal.
Not to mention she might end up dead.
Every muscle in his body locked against the urge to jump out of bed and stop her. He forced the image of her bullet-riddled corpse out of his brain, dammed the hurt and anger back into whatever black hole they’d come from and did what he had to do. He let her go.
And then she hesitated at the door, and even though it was probably fear stopping her and not loyalty to him, something happened that had never happened to Jack before. The dam broke, and there was an instant flood of something he decided to call relief. He knew that wasn’t completely accurate; just because he’d ignored his feelings successfully for more than three decades didn’t mean he couldn’t identify them when they leaked through. He just didn’t have time for an Oprah moment.
Aubrey was going through the door. She’d picked a course of action, and she was following it through. Whether or not it got her killed. There was something admirable about that. Stupid, but admirable.
He let her get a bit of a head start, then set off after her, hating the distance between them, but consoling himself with the possibility of learning something that might help blow the case wide open. Imagining the look on Aubrey’s face when he caught up to her, again, was strictly a bonus.
And then she almost lost him and it stopped being admirable, and amusing. It was embarrassing, not to mention he wasn’t going to learn a whole lot if he couldn’t even keep up with her.
She’d walked to Memorial Drive, Jack strolling in plain sight about fifty yards behind her because she never once looked over her shoulder after she realized the neighborhood was safe. It was dumb, blind luck, Aubrey’s best weapon, that a city bus hit the stop barely five seconds after she did. Only the fact that she held up the bus long enough to dig the fare out of her backpack saved him.
He managed to hail a cab and give the cheesy line that sent it in hot pursuit, which in this case was like following a senior citizen with a prostate problem. The Greyhound terminal was another surprise, but when Aubrey picked up a prepaid ticket Jack knew what the phone call had been about. And when two guys who had to be Laurel and Uncle Danny showed up and flanked her on the bench, he wasn’t surprised.
Jack figured he had a couple of choices. Let the scene play out and see what happened, or rescue her.
Now, both options had merit, he said to himself. She didn’t seem to be in immediate danger, unless she talked them to death—hers. It seemed to be a real possibility, judging by how much her mouth was moving and how antsy Uncle Danny was getting.
If they were smart they’d tune out the sound of her voice, settle in, and wait for the crowd to thin. He could do the same, Jack figured, go outside and stake out the place so he’d be ready for them when they decided it was time to bring Aubrey out of the terminal.
But where would be the fun in that? And the hit men were clearly as reluctant as he was to break out the firepower in public. That would change if he allowed them to get Aubrey outside. Jack was fairly sure he could take the two of them in an unarmed fight, but outside they’d be able to draw their weapons.
The place was pretty crowded, mostly with senior citizen junkets and youth groups too small to charter a bus but too large for private transportation. Jack parked himself in a corner where he could keep Aubrey in sight without being conspicuous while he looked for a way to separate her from the hit men without putting any bystanders in harm’s way.
She solved the problem by getting up and heading for the ladies’ room. Jack bided his time, waiting for a woman to pass by, headed in the right direction. It helped that the woman was busy rummaging in her purse like women did, looking for a breath mint or maybe digging to China, oblivious to the fact that she might be walking into a wall. She wouldn’t notice Jack, but everybody else would think they were together, even the hit men. Unless they saw him go into the ladies’ room.
Laurel and Uncle Danny hadn’t gotten a good look at him in the dark at Aubrey’s house, but even they weren’t too dense to figure out there were only two reasons a man would follow their target into the restroom. To kill Aubrey or to rescue her. Jack wasn’t sure which option held the most appeal to him at the moment, but the hit men wouldn’t look kindly on either. They’d stuck since D.C. They wouldn’t like losing their quarry now.
He waited until both their attention shifted elsewhere for a split second and ducked through the ladies’ room door. Aubrey was coming out of a stall when she caught sight of him. She did a fast backtrack and locked the stall behind her.
Jack backed off two steps and planted his foot next to the lock. He felt the shock of it right up to his bruised eye sockets, but it felt damn good when the door slammed back inside the stall. Aubrey yelling, “Ow,” was just gravy.
“Are you trying to kill me?” she demanded, rubbing the front of her thighs. “That door barely missed me.”
“See? There is an advantage to being flat-chested.”
Aubrey narrowed her eyes. “Help!” she yelled, “he’s trying to kill me.”
A woman peeked out of the end stall, got a good look at Jack, and disappeared behind the door with a little squeak of panic.
“So much for the sisterhood.” Aubrey went to the sink to wash her hands. “Okay, you found me, Jack, but so did the hit men, and they’re not going to walk away empty-handed. They wouldn’t let me come in here until they asked the maintenance staff if there were any windows, and they know Corona had my phone turned off.”
The same four annoying notes Jack had heard in the motel room tinkled out. “Your ass is ringing.”
Aubrey met his gaze. They both went for her back pocket at the same time, but she had the advantage, dancing out of reach and keeping her butt pointed away from him. Jack finally managed to grab her, but she wiggled around so much he had to bend her over the counter, holding her there with one hand behind her neck.
Their eyes met in the mirror, and for a split second, they both contemplated the position. The ringing phone kept Jack on course. He dragged it out of her pocket and flipped it open, holding it up to her ear. “Say hello.”
She didn’t cooperate. Big surprise. Jack put the phone up to his own ear, heard the voice of a man saying, “Aubrey? Aubrey? Must’ve got cut off.” Then the connection went dead. The display read Tom Cavendish.
“Time to move,” Jack said, but the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach told him it was too late.
He fast-stepped Aubrey to the door, his hand still on her neck, but sure enough when he eased the door open he saw about a dozen uniformed Atlanta policemen streaming into the bus station.
“You called the cops,” he said, disgusted.
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“Yeah, you did. You made it back at the motel, and it was the wrong choice.”
“Maybe, maybe not. I had no way of knowing Carlo and Danny were going to show up here.”
“Carlo? You’re on a first name basis with the hit men?”
“Focus, Jack,” she said in a tone of voice that went along with an eye roll. “The point is, I made the choice, the hit men found me, and the only way I could think of to get away from them was the police.”
“Well, it worked.” Carlo and Danny were up and moving toward the exit, nonchalant, nothing to make the cops take a second look at them. “Now we have to get away from the cops.” All in all he’d rather have dealt with the hit men. At least he knew the agenda there. With the cops there was no telling.
“We’re going to have to go out there sooner or later,” Aubrey said. “They’ll get around to checking the bathrooms eventually, and then we’ll be trapped.”
Jack didn’t waste time telling her he’d already come to the same conclusion. And that the bus station offered little cover, unless he counted the crowd. Even if he would’ve used innocents as cover, it was too late; people were scattering out of the way of the cops, who were spreading throughout the bus station. One of them was heading straight for the bathrooms.
“There’s no way out of the station, Jack. There are too many policemen out there. We have to turn ourselves in.”
Jack eased the door shut. “Save it,” he said, picking her up bodily and placing her in a corner where she’d be out of the way. “And stay put.”
He stood behind the door, waited until the cop pushed it open, then grabbed him by the wrist and yanked him into the bathroom. Before he could do more than yelp in surprise, Jack had cracked his head against the wall and was easing him down to the floor.
Aubrey stood by watching, hands over her mouth, while Jack handcuffed the officer, dragged him into a stall and pulled the door shut behind him.
“Oh my God, Jack.”
“What? He’s not dead.”
She just looked at him, horrified. She’d had no illusions about Jack, but seeing him assault a police officer, coupled with the suspicions Tom had raised about him, convinced Aubrey she’d been right to get away from Jack. Whatever his agenda, he’d do anything to further it, and that included sacrificing her if the need arose.
“You’re hatching some lamebrain plan, aren’t you?”
“What makes you say that?”
“This.” He tapped her between the eyes with his index finger. “You get a line right there when you’re thinking. Do us both a favor and don’t try anything stupid.”
“According to you, everything I do is stupid.”
Jack made one of his angry sounds and grabbed her by the arm.
She wrenched herself free. “I’m done being dragged around by you.”
“I ought to shoot you myself—I’m going to shoot you just as soon as I find out what you’re hiding in that egghead . . . head of yours.”
“Miss Sullivan,” one of the cops called out. “We know you’re being held against your will. There’s no way he can get you out of the bus station. Come out and we’ll protect you.”
Aubrey met Jack’s gaze and saw the warning there. But she really had no choice. If, by some miracle, he got them out of the terminal in one piece, she’d be on the run again with no safe haven in sight. If she wanted this thing to end any time soon—and for the ending to be a good one—there was really only one choice.
She ducked by him and took hold of the door handle, meeting Jack’s gaze.
“Fine,” he said, backing off, both hands in the air, “try it your way.”
She waited a couple seconds, heart thudding, mouth dry, then opened the door and stuck her head out. And all hell broke loose.
A bullet plowed into the door by her head at the same time she heard the report. Somebody roared, “Hold your fire.” Women were screaming, babies crying, more shots rang out, and Aubrey just stood there while chaos reigned and bullets whizzed by her. Her mind was racing but her body wasn’t keeping up. There wasn’t even a big, fat atlas handy, but Jack was there to tackle her again—or in this case drag her back into the bathroom.
“Jesus,” he said, putting her up against the wall, running his hands over her body and up to cradle her head. “You hit anywhere?”
Aubrey stared up into his face, still dazed but not so much she didn’t notice how white Jack had gone. “Exoneration flashing before your eyes?”
He held her eyes for a few humming seconds, then pulled his gun, cracked the door open, and squeezed off a couple shots in the general vicinity of the ceiling, towing her out of the bathroom while everyone was busy ducking, including the cops.
They hit the nearest exit with what was left of the crowd, and kept going into the parking lot. Jack pulled her, hunched over, into the darkened maze of vehicles, keeping behind vans and SUVs to hide them from the terminal windows.
“We need a ride,” Jack said. “It won’t be long before the cops restore some order and come looking for us.”
“I have a b-bus t-ticket,” Aubrey said, amazed the words were even that clear with her nerves jumping around.