“Won’t you sleep better at night once he’s finally dead?” he coaxed. “Come on, Milla. Swallow the pill. Follow through. Let them plant the bugs. They’re quick, they’re professional, the equipment will be invisible and the signals will be weak, since the receivers are right on the other side of the wall. It won’t set off any detector alarms. And the guys will be right there to protect you if Zhoglo—”
“Pah! Don’t lie to me again. I am not a fool. Your men give not a shit for me,” she spat. “They will not care if Zhoglo cuts me into chunks for the cookpot. They will watch and laugh.”
“They will be right next door. Their orders are to protect you,” he repeated. “That’s what they’re paid to do. You have my word.”
“Your word. Hah. I spit upon your word.” Ludmilla made a catlike snarling sound, and flounced angrily away from the vid cam.
A couple of quiet minutes went by, and he decided to take that for an assent. He’d gotten no more frustrated phone calls from Marcus and Riley, the guys Davy and Seth had sent over to bug the luxury penthouse apartment from which Ludmilla ran her business.
He lowered his pounding head into his hands. He wished he could be the one, but his face was too well known by now to get anywhere near Ludmilla. He could never pass himself off as a building repairman or a telephone tech. All he could do was watch the vid feed from afar.
He was making an effort, such as it was. He was doing everything he could think of. He just wished to God he could think better, clearer. Faster. He wished he could sleep. And stop thinking about Becca.
Stop seeing that look on her face, when she shoved him out her door. And that classic parting phrase. “Get out. You asshole.”
God knows, it hadn’t been the first time he’d heard those particular words from a woman. He didn’t know why it was bugging him so damn much this time. He realized that he had his hand in his pocket. He was clutching the ziplock baggie that held her hair.
Shit. He jerked his hand out, cursing under his breath.
“So? Did you persuade her? That is one hard broad.”
Nick turned at the dry voice, and faced Seth Mackey, the guy who was more or less unwillingly helping him. “I think so,” he said dully. “I think we’re in.”
“And now?” Seth crossed his arms over his chest and scowled.
Nick blew out a weary breath. “Now we wait. And I watch.”
“In real time? Twenty-four hours a day? Nobody else can identify those guys, and none of us speak Ukrainian. We can’t spell you, man.”
“I know that,” Nick growled back. “I’ve been told. More than once.”
“It’ll be tedious. You’ll go nuts,” Seth warned. “You have to sleep.”
“No, I don’t. And I already am nuts.” In truth, the idea of staring at vid screens of empty rooms sounded kind of relaxing, after all the blood and guts and women scolding him. “It’ll have to be me,” he said. “Unless you come up with a better idea.”
“Yeah,” Seth said, with alacrity. “Passive gulper bugs. We remote retrieve the info every couple of hours and analyze it on the spot.”
“That won’t help Milla if they come to take her away,” Nick argued wearily. “And it’ll be too late to follow whoever might come. Forget it.”
“So that’s why we’re providing bodyguards for this woman? At your expense?” Seth’s lip curled. He had no use for pimps of either sex. “Didn’t know you were so freaking fond of the greedy bitch.”
“I’m not,” Nick said, through gritted teeth. “I think she’s an icy-hearted hag. But I still don’t want her to die because I fucked up.”
Seth shook his head, a wondering expression on his dark face. “Shit. You’re worse than the McClouds. I had no idea you were so principled. I figured you for…”
“What?” Nick snarled. “The kind of asshole who would fuck over a friend and leave him to die? Is that what you figured?”
Seth’s eyes narrowed to dark slits, mouth tightening.
“Sleep deprivation,” Davy McCloud intoned from the doorway. “It’s ugly. Turns a normal man into a raving pig dog shithead. I’ve been observing its effects in my brother ever since his kid was born.”
“Yeah, and you’re next, dude,” Seth said, with a quick grin. “What have you got left? Five weeks? Less? Get ready.”
Nick swiveled his head on his sore, aching neck and stared at the huge blond guy, built more or less like a refrigerator, who filled the doorframe. “Are you saying that I’m a raving pig dog shithead?”
“No. You need to get some rest. And lighten up,” Davy said calmly. “Nobody blames you for Novak.”
“You did,” Nick pointed out. “You hated my guts for years.”
“So? What if I did? I got the fuck over it.” Davy strode into the room. The chair creaked under his weight as he sat down. “And so should you. No harm done. So chill. It’s getting old, already.”
The men fell silent. Nick felt like a hysterical idiot for bringing it up at all. Thinking about it made him want to fall into a crack in the ground. Talking about it, particularly with a McCloud, was worse.
But Con and his lady had gotten through that adventure. They were alive, happy, even reproducing. That event had been superseded by brand new nightmares: Sergei, with his entrails piled on his chest. Sveti, in an unmarked grave. Or huddling some place worse than death.
Hell, it was a wealth of guilt, betrayals, mistakes, fuckups. An embarrassment of fuel for his nightmares.
“This isn’t going to work, unless we can find somebody else who speaks Ukrainian,” Seth fretted.
“How about me?” asked a soft, feminine voice.
All three men’s heads whipped around. It was Raine, Seth’s wife, who had accompanied him to the SafeGuard headquarters today. She was a slender, ethereal chick with silvery gray eyes and a cloud of blond hair that hung to her ass. The woman was mouthwatering, but any intelligent guy who took one look at Seth Mackey looming possessively over his wife quickly averted his eyes from her. And didn’t look back.
“You speak Ukrainian?” Nick said, amazed.
Her slender shoulders lifted. “Pretty much. My father and uncle emigrated from there in the sixties. I spoke it with them until I was twelve. They came from Kiev, and the language I remember will be years out of date. But I speak Russian, too. I’ll understand quite a bit. I could spell you at night, at least, when there’s not likely to be a lot of action.”
“No way, babe. You’ve got better things to do with your nights than sit around watching that nasty bitch selling her wares. And you need your sleep,” Seth said testily, patting her belly. “Especially now.”
She laid her hand on his shoulders with a tender smile that was so private, Nick looked away, embarrassed. “Just until you find someone else you can trust who speaks Ukrainian, OK?” she wheedled. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to lose any sleep yourself.”
“Yeah, right,” Seth grunted. “Like I could sleep, alone, if you were here, manning vid screens. Tiring youself out.” He shot Nick an unfriendly look. “I think it’s a shitty idea.”
“I think it’s great,” Raine said brightly.
Nick rubbed his burning eyes, and blinked at her. “Thank you,” he said simply, in Ukrainian. “That would be a great help.”
“It’s nothing,” she replied in the same language. “My pleasure.”
Seth gave her a mock-evil squint. “Don’t talk to other guys in a language I don’t know,” he growled.
Nick looked around on the shelves until he found a pile of telephone books while the others were snickering at the guy, and forced his stinging eyes to focus until he found the Seattle yellow pages. He yanked it down off the shelf, flipped through until he got to R.
“What are you looking for in there?” Seth demanded.
“A realtor,” he said.
Davy scowled. “What for?”
“Gotta sell my condo.” He stared down, daunted by the sheer number of possibilities. Pages of realtors, for fuck’s sake. How could he tell who to call? “I have to pay for this crazy shit somehow.”
Davy snatched the phone book from him, and flung it. It thunked heavily back onto the shelf, slid, and fell facedown onto the floor.
“Stop being an asshole,” he snapped. “Before I lose my patience.”
Chapter
15
C lick. Beep. “Becca, this is Marla. I know you’re not up at the island, because Jerome went there today to check on the place when he heard that the house next door burned to the ground. Were you aware that he found the place wide open? Front door swinging, alarm deactivated, lights on? There was a raccoon in the kitchen going through the cupboards! The place was a disaster. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how unhappy Jerome is about this, and how badly this reflects on me. I’m baffled, Becca. It’s not like you at all. And since you’re not at the island, why aren’t you back at work? We have that banquet tomorrow night, and two weddings this weekend! We are swamped, and I mean swamped. Give me a call, if you value your job. And do let me know at least that you’re all right.”
Click. Beeeeeeeeep.
Becca stared at the phone from her position sprawled on the couch. It was on the table in front of her, within arm’s reach, but for the fact that her arm was too heavy to lift.
Value her job? Huh. Did she? It was far too weighty a question for her brain to contemplate.
She was too miserable to care. Nothing seemed to have any value. Everything she’d ever accomplished, all her fretting and saving and striving, seemed like so much frantic scurrying on a hamster’s wheel. Who cared about it? Who thanked her for it? Who did it really benefit?
No one. It was busywork. Meaningless, empty busywork. Her life was made up of the trivial details no one else had time to care about.
No wonder Nick hadn’t been interested in sticking around. Or coming back. Or giving her his phone number. Or even asking for hers. Just a couple of bouts of hot, sweaty sex to work off his adrenaline jag, and he was done with her. She could hardly blame him. She had nothing to offer him.
And oh, man, the pity party was getting ugly, but she couldn’t seem to snap out of it. She’d already tried her usual tricks. The Oreos lay on the table, packaging ripped and ravaged. Music annoyed her, movies bored her or filled her with a vague sense of dread. She’d tried a scented bath, with bath pearls and bubbles and perfumed goop. She’d even broken out her emergency stash of Godiva. Nothing worked.
So get busy. Get off your lazy bum, her helpless, hijacked practical self lectured her miserable, depressed, useless self. It’s the only way.
So very busy, her depressed self scoffed. Like always. Busy, busy Becca. Too busy to notice that what she did had no meaning. None at all. Zip.
The phone rang again. Becca groaned, flung her head back and her hands over her ears, bracing herself through the interminable shrill six rings, and her own tooth-grindingly cheerful outgoing message. God, had she ever really been that perky? She wanted to smack herself.
Click. Beep. “Hi, Becca? Are you there? It’s Carrie. I’ve been calling you for three days now and you’re never—”
“Carrie?” Becca pushed the stop button on the machine. “I’m here.” For her baby sister, she’d break the paralysis.
“Oh, thank God. What the hell is going on? Are you OK? I talked to Josh, and he said he hadn’t been able to reach you either! And I tried you at work, too! They told me you were out! Have you been sick?”
“No,” she mumbled. “I just…didn’t feel like going.”
“Didn’t feel like going?” Carrie echoed her words in a disbelieving voice. “Wait. Don’t you work Thursday nights at your catering job?”
Becca felt a zing of alarm, swiftly smothered by another wave of weariness. “Oh, shit,” she said heavily. “Yes, I guess I do. I, uh, forgot.”
Carrie was eloquently silent for a moment. “This is just too weird,” she said. “You’ve never forgotten an appointment in your entire life.”
“Oh, stop it,” she said crabbily. “I’m not that much of a robot.”
“What’s the matter with you? Is it about that scum-sucking man slut, Justin? Would you like me and Josh to flatten him for you?”
Becca hesitated. She’d fretted over how much she should tell her younger brother and sister about what had happened on the island. She’d decided that for the time being, she would go with a highly edited but literally true version.
“It’s not about Justin,” she said. “I, um, had an encounter this weekend.”
“Encounter?” Carrie made an impatient sound. “What do you mean? A close encounter of the third kind? A romantic encounter?”
“I think romantic would be overstating it,” Becca said cautiously. “Intense would probably be the better word.”
“Oh! You mean sex? Yowza! You bad girl! I didn’t know you had it in you! Did you get Justin out of your system?”
She blinked, startled by the question, and realized that, for all her misery, none of it was caused by her ex. Her feelings about Nick were oh, so much more compelling. Not that it made the situation any better.
Misery was still misery, after all. No matter what caused it.
“I suppose I did, though I wasn’t thinking about it in those terms at the time,” she said.
“So? What’s he like?” Curiosity sharpened Carrie’s voice.
“Not my usual type,” Becca said. “Big. Tough. Lots of muscles. Long hair, beard stubble, tattoos. A foul mouth. Sort of…dangerous.”