“Hands where I can see them.” Dega punctuated his order with three sharp raps of his cane on the car door. “Who knows what tricks you have up your sleeves, and
I’d hate to have to kill you before getting what I’ve come for.”
His heart beating all the way to his eyeballs, Patrick stared through the windshield at the flames licking over the hood of the El Camino, though what he really saw was Soledad facing the business end of Dega’s semi-automatic.
“I don’t have shit that belongs to you.” He growled out the words.
“So you say now.” The other man again tapped his cane. “Maybe I should ask that hot piece of ass you’ve been busy sticking it to.”
Son of a bitch!
Patrick went for the door handle. Dega stumbled; Patrick took advantage. He dug into his pocket for the knife. He had one foot out the door and on the ground when Dega came back, kicking the door closed on his shin.
Patrick bit down on a howl. He sat still, refused to release Dega’s gaze. The knife-blade pain in his leg had his eyes stinging, but his mouth worked just fine. “You touch her, I own your sorry ass.”
Dega pushed harder on the car door. “You give me what I want, you’ll never see me again.”
“I couldn’t get that lucky.” Blood welled where his skin had broken, and began to trickle inside his boot to the cuff of his sock.
“You’re out of luck, Mr. Coffey. I know what Soledad gave you.” Dega bounced the car door with his cane. “She told me just before I shot—”
Motherfu—
Patrick lunged, but Dega had the leverage and full use of his limbs. This time he threw the weight of his body and the force of his good hip at the door.
The bone snapped.
God-freaking-damn.
Patrick pushed out a panting grunt, ready to puke up his guts.
His eyes rolled back; sweat ran from temple to jawline, from his nape to the crack of his ass. His teeth crunched together. “You asshole.”
“Payback, Mr. Coffey. We can get together at a future date and compare the condition of our limps.” Dega pushed away from the car, the motion grinding bone edge on bone edge.
Patrick bit down on his tongue until the pressure finally lessened. He breathed, breathed, found what he could of his voice and said, “The only future date we have will be a threesome. You, me and the needle in your arm delivering a dose of potassium chloride.”
Dega tossed back his head and laughed. “And here I assumed you’d want to shoot me yourself. Finish the job your
federales
botched so badly. Soledad never did show you the safe room under the house, did she?”
Patrick could only groan.
“It was tough to tunnel into, even before being shot all to hell. And it was obviously impossible to find, or I wouldn’t be standing here now. A generator, medical supplies, enough food to last several weeks. Not exactly paradise, but close.”
He’d never even left the island. The bastard had been there all that time. “You’d better watch your back, Russ.”
“I certainly will, Mr. Coffey. I certainly will.” Dega bounced the door on Patrick’s leg, which had gone blessedly numb. “But most of the time I’ll be watching that beautiful back belonging to Miss Annabel Lee.”
Patrick forced his eyes open, his gaze back to Dega’s. “I told you—”
“And I told you.” Dega leaned in with a growl. “I want the information Soledad gave you….” He let the rest of whatever he was going to say trail off, glancing
up as a police cruiser rolled through the parking lot one row over. “Hands on the steering wheel, Mr. Coffey.”
“You can’t run that fast, Russ,” Patrick said, gauging time, distance and pain factors should Dega bolt. The cop couldn’t be that far away—
“I don’t need to run.”
Patrick turned to find the foot of the cane inches from his face. The cane was hollow and nicely outfitted with a gun barrel now aimed straight at his Adam’s apple.
Dega’s thumb hovered over the single button in the dog’s-head handle. “In fact, I’m quite sure you’ll agree that I have nothing to run from.”
“You must not want that info too badly if you’re willing to wipe out your only chance for retrieval.”
Dega’s expression grew confidently smug. “I always thought you were a reasonable man, Mr. Coffey.”
“Sure. I’m reasonable.” He was also teetering madly at the edge of consciousness. “Just make sure you’ve got me chained to a tree trunk or caught in a car door and you’ll get your way, no problem.”
“Where is it?”
“In a safe place.”
“Of course. Where?”
Patrick shook his head, sliding his far hand from the steering wheel to the bench, and praying like hell he could pull off this bluff. “Not here.”
“Of course not,” Dega said, his attention divided between Patrick and the police cruiser now slowing behind the El Camino blocked in by Dega’s car.
Patrick kept his eyes on Dega’s face. “He’s running your plates, Russ. You’d better hope you have your paperwork in order.”
“The beauty of rental cars and the best documentation
money can buy. He’ll discover nothing more than what I want him to know.”
“And what would that be?” Patrick’s hand had reached his pocket.
“I said keep your hands where I can see them. On the steering wheel. Now,” Dega said with a snarl. At the same time he raised his free hand to signal to the officer that he was on his way to move his illegally parked car. The cruiser drove on.
“Temper, temper, Russ.” Patrick didn’t keep his hand where it was at all, but moved it closer toward his pocket. “You can hardly fire that thing—”
Dega fired. The bullet ripped into the passenger seat with barely more than a
thwup.
Patrick swallowed hard. The throbbing in his leg was nothing compared to the explosive pounding of his heart. He swore his ribs had cracked. “Damn. And I just bought this car.”
“Then I’m sure you’d like to remain alive to enjoy it.” Dega returned the foot of the cane to the ground. “I’ll be in touch to arrange the return of my information. Before I walk away, however, I’d like you to take note of the landscaping van parked at the rear of the lot.”
Patrick glanced into his rearview mirror and saw the back end of a white panel van. “You mowing lawns these days?”
“If I have any trouble making it to my car or getting out of the parking lot, my associate will be on his way to visit your Miss Lee.”
“You bastard.” Patrick spat out the words and moved his hands to ten and two on the steering wheel. He imagined sinking the knife blade deep into the other man’s belly, but nothing was worth chancing Annabel’s life. “Get the hell out of my sight.”
“As you wish.” Dega bowed mockingly. “Until we next meet.”
Patrick watched the other man’s retreat in his side mirror, and only when the luxury rental eased away did he push his own door open. The fire in his leg roared to life. He used both hands to lift his knee and settle his foot on the floorboard at an angle that took the pressure off his shin.
Then he dug for the phone at his waistband, leaning back his head and closing his eyes as he waited for an answer.
“Ray Coffey.”
“It’s Patrick. I need help.”
A
NNABEL PACED THE LENGTH
of her bedroom, back and forth, back and forth, as Joseph Baron, an EMT assigned to the same fire station as Ray, tended to Patrick.
Ray simply stood at the head of the bed. Blood pressure, temperature, pulse, pillows and pain meds. So thorough and competent. So cool and detached and brilliantly able to cope—while Annabel remained totally helpless.
She also remained frightened, and so she wrapped her arms even tighter over her middle as she paced. A ridiculous endeavor, as holding herself did nothing to contain the sharp spiraling pulse of fear in her chest.
Patrick had suffered a fractured tibia. A compound fracture, yes. But his injuries could’ve been so much worse. He could have lost his life.
And she could’ve lost him.
The three men had arrived from the hospital only thirty minutes ago, after five hours spent in emergency. Patrick had refused to stay overnight and had signed himself out, demanding his brother bring him back to the loft. Ray had, but not without objection. He’d wanted to take him
to his house, at which point Patrick had threatened to walk.
Annabel hadn’t known a thing about his encounter with Dega or the hospital visit until way too long after the fact.
She paced even faster.
“Annabel.”
At Patrick’s one-word plea, she stopped, glanced over to see Baron packing his medic kit and Ray staring down at his brother’s elevated leg.
“What?” she snapped, because she had no idea how she was supposed to react. Guilt set in immediately, a reaction so unfamiliar that she tightened her grip on her arms. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice calmer, her stomach still churning. “Do you need another blanket? More water?”
He shook his head, his eyes glazed and foggy, but his smile genuine Patrick. What he had to smile about, she had no idea, but she approached the bed until she could take hold of the hand he offered. The hand that would’ve indicated the extent of his fever if she hadn’t known how high his temperature ran.
“Just stay here,” he mumbled, close to falling asleep.
She glanced toward Baron. He nodded. “He’s fine. Watch for a fever, or numbness in his foot. The meds will knock him out for a while, but he’s good. You’ve got his prescriptions here. Just make sure he takes them on schedule.”
“Even if you have to shove them down his throat,” Ray added, staring at his brother with an expression that belied his gruff voice. He looked at Annabel then. “I’ll take him out to the house, no problem.”
“No.” Patrick’s eyes shot open. “I want to be here. I’ve still got ten days left on my lease.”
“His lease?” Ray asked.
Annabel’s jaw tightened. “An inside joke.”
“But not a very funny one,” Patrick muttered, squeezing her hand as he drifted off.
Annabel forced her gaze back to Ray, swallowing as best she could to clear her throat. “I have your numbers. I’ll call if he gets out of hand. Or out of bed.”
“No need.” A tic pulsed in Ray’s jaw. “I’m crashing on your couch. I’m on duty at six, but I need to see him through the night.”
Annabel tucked Patrick’s limp hand beneath his blanket. “You’re welcome to stay, of course, but I can handle him.”
“I know. It’s handling Dega I’m more concerned with.”
She had to admit she shared Ray’s concern. “There’s an agent watching the fire escape, and the elevator requires a code.”
“Which the bastard is just canny enough to break.”
“He’s obviously not your garden-variety bandit,” Baron added, hoisting his pack on his shoulder.
“He’s a stupid son of a bitch,” Patrick mumbled through closed eyes and a mouth that barely functioned. “Thinks I have information. I don’t have shit but a broken leg and a bad haircut.”
Arms crossed, Annabel reached up to press her fingertips to her mouth. She rolled her eyes, but still couldn’t keep a grin from spreading over her face. “And here we have your not so garden-variety patient.”
Ray met her gaze. “Don’t hesitate to wake me up if he gets contrary. If his fever spikes. If he needs—”
“I’ll wake you, Ray.” She placed a hand on his shoulder and turned him toward the door, when he so obviously didn’t want to go. “I’ll lock up after Joseph, then
find bedding for you. I’m sorry I haven’t yet furnished the guest room.”
“The couch is fine. I’ve slept in worse places.”
“Me, too,” Patrick muttered. “In the mud, in the rain, tied to a tree.”
Pain sliced through Ray’s eyes before he managed to mask it. Baron moved a hand to the center of his colleague’s back and guided him out of the room. Annabel followed, glancing briefly at the man lying naked where she’d slept alone for so many years.
The thought of what could have happened to him, the realization that he might not be lying here now had things gone down differently, was more than she could bear. Catching back a sob, she turned the lamp on the bedside table down low.
“Annabel?”
She glanced over at a nearly unconscious Patrick, looking into his bleary but beautiful eyes. “Yes?”
“I love you.”
S
HUTTING THE BEDROOM DOOR
quietly behind herself thirty minutes later, Annabel tightened the sash on her robe before heading into the kitchen.
She thought a cup of herbal tea might help her relax enough to get to sleep, since the shower, though soothing, had done nothing to take the edge off her nerves.
Since walking Baron to the door and gathering bedding for Ray, she’d checked on Patrick twice before heading to the shower. He’d barely moved a muscle, and seeing him getting the rest he needed pleased her in so many ways—even if defining those ways was more than she was capable of doing tonight.
She was still off balance from his woozy declaration of love, though she was well aware of the drug-induced basis for his statement. He didn’t love her any more than she loved him…
did he?
They were simply bedmates, and short-lived ones at that…
weren’t they?
Love had nothing to do with their association. Once Patrick was feeling more himself, she was certain he’d recant what he’d said. She was simply bracing for the inevitable and ignoring the nagging reminder that, if she was as uninvolved as she claimed, she wouldn’t have to brace.
She yanked the towel from her hair and roughly squeezed most of the water from her short razor cut. Shaking the layers into place, she tossed the towel into
the kitchen’s laundry closet. She’d just reached for the teakettle when she heard someone close the balcony door.
Ray.
Kettle in hand, she made her way around the lava lamp bubble sculptures and into the main room.
Crossing from the balcony to the sofa, Ray glanced her way. She lifted the kettle. “I was about to make a cup of tea. Can I get you anything?”
Shaking his head, he dropped onto the far end of the sofa, his legs outstretched, head slumped back. The bed-clothes she’d brought him earlier remained stacked on the coffee table. “I’m fine.”
She didn’t think he was fine at all. “You need sleep. The guest room facilities are yours to use if you think a shower might help.”
He looked over as she sat on the opposite end of the sofa. “Did it help you?”
Chagrined, she set the teakettle on the floor at her feet and tucked her legs beneath her. “That’s why I was going to try the tea.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not even sure a bottle of Jack would help me at this point.” He wearily scrubbed both hands over his haggard face.
She understood his sentiment well, just as she agreed with his unspoken caveat that alcohol was best left out of this situation.
“Poe, what are you doing with Patrick?”
She bristled at the bluntness of the sudden question, but then relaxed. Ray was Patrick’s brother; his concern was legitimate and went far beyond a broken leg. And Patrick had said that he loved her….
Annabel tightened the belt on her robe. “I’m not quite sure how to answer that, Ray. I certainly never thought
we’d still be keeping company when he bought me off the auction block eight weeks ago.”
Ray huffed. “Yeah, that was something. I don’t think anyone saw that coming.”
“There’s a lot to Patrick that no one sees,” she said softly, realizing as she did how much she believed it.
“I still can’t believe you got him to cut his hair.” Ray paused, then added, “You’ve really been good for him. He’s seemed more…alive since seeing you than anytime since he’s been back.”
She wasn’t sure how she felt about that responsibility, that compliment, about the idea that she was capable of such a positive impact when most people agreed she was difficult, if not an outright pain in the ass.
“He’s not a bad guy, Ray. But I’m not sure he knows that.”
“When I think of everything he went through…” Ray let the sentence trail off, though Annabel could see by his pained expression that the thought wasn’t as easy to let go.
“He doesn’t blame you, you know.”
“He’s told me.”
“But you still blame yourself.”
His answer was a simple nod, and she waited, sensing he had more to say. The room was dark, lit only by the light over the stove, which reflected off the open area’s white walls. From the end of the hallway, she heard Patrick’s snore, and she couldn’t help but smile.
“It was my idea to book the cruise. I’d just finished my Master’s thesis. That, and the fact that Patrick managed to hang on through four years and actually graduate, was worth celebrating. There were a lot of times my folks didn’t think he’d make it.”
“His grades were bad?”
“Hell, no. He aced everything. He just didn’t give a shit about his degree and partied his ass off for four freakin’ years.”
“Where did he go to school?”
“Texas A&M. Same as me. Because of me,” he added hoarsely, shifting on the sofa, bringing his legs up and leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. “The cruise was going to be his last fling. He swore he was going to get serious, straighten up his act, lay off the booze. He was still such a kid.” Ray buried his face in his hands. “What a goddamn way to have to grow up, tied to a goddamn tree.”
He looked so miserable Annabel wished she was better equipped to offer comfort. “He told me about fishing. About cooking. He wasn’t always tied to a tree.” She paused, unsure if she would be revealing a confidence, then added, “He even had a lover.”
At her strangely painful revelation, Ray glanced over. “What?”
Nodding, she looked away and reached for the memento box on the coffee table. She didn’t speak again until she held her grandmother’s jade pendant. Rubbing her thumb over the gold inscription, she took a deep breath. “Her name was Soledad. Apparently she’d been Dega’s mistress years before the kidnapping. He’d never intended to let Patrick live, but did so to humor her.”
“Wait. I knew about Soledad. He told me about her, but not about her being his lover. Or about her keeping him alive?”
Annabel nodded. “That’s what he says. And that it wasn’t always a sure thing that she would succeed. Apparently she contacted the authorities on a trip to Key West for supplies. She also made a deal with them that
Patrick would get the reward money should anything happen to her.”
Ray hung his head. “I didn’t know any of this. I mean, I knew she’d been the informant, and the part about her being Dega’s mistress at one time. Patrick told me that much. But none of this. None of the details of their…relationship. Or Dega wanting to kill him.” He wrung his hands together. “It’s like Patrick had this whole other life, and I never even knew.”
“I’m not sure he wanted you to know.”
“Why wouldn’t he?”
“It’s just a guess, Ray. I don’t know this for certain. But I get the sense that he wanted to spare you the dirty truth along with the hurt.”
“But he told you.”
“A disinterested party.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think you’re all that disinterested.”
She shrugged one shoulder, returned the pendant to the memento box, then reached for the teakettle and set it on her lap. “I’ve enjoyed him a lot….”
She stopped, feeling her voice catch and threaten to break. She held tight to the teakettle’s handle, fearing if she didn’t, her shaking hands would give her away.
“But?”
She glanced over. “But?”
Ray smiled gently. “It sounded like you were about to qualify that with a ‘but.”’
“My life is about to undergo a major upheaval. I may be moving. I’ll certainly be changing careers. We’re both high maintenance, and I’ll have a hard enough time keeping myself up and running. I won’t have the energy or the skill to fix Patrick, too.”
“Only Patrick can fix Patrick…but I hear you. He’s
never been easy to live with.” Ray studied her thoughtfully. “So his comment about his lease being up is about splitting from your place here.”
She nodded.
“And from you.”
She said nothing.
Ray huffed. “Why do I think you’re no happier about that than Patrick sounded?”
A
NNABEL SLEPT FITFULLY
, dreaming of wicked walking canes come to life, car doors refusing to close, bullet holes that led to deep dark rabbit holes where the Mad Hatter wore a colorfully coiled snake on his head.
She kept her back to Patrick and stayed as far to the other side of the bed as she could, touching him with the soles of her feet anytime she came awake. She wasn’t even sure she awoke or if she simply never really slept. The latter seemed a more likely scenario.
He was no hotter than usual and he didn’t toss or turn. She was thankful for all of that, knowing sleep was what he needed more than anything.
She needed sleep, too, but her exhaustion was more of the crash-and-burn sort, and her subconscious obviously recognized that it was easier to keep her wits in focus than to try to regain them from slumber’s depths. Of course, that meant she lay there with way too much on her mind.
Beyond imagining the horror of what had happened earlier in the day, she thought of her talk with Patrick’s brother. Both subjects were better than caffeine for keeping her mind buzzing, and between the two it was Patrick’s whispered claim of loving her that had played repeatedly now for hours.
“I meant it, you know.”
She squeezed her eyes as tightly as her chest seemed to close around her fast-beating heart. “I hate it when you do that.”
He chuckled softly. “You’re just saying that.”
“No, I mean it. You scare the spit out of me when you wake up without making a sound.” Not to mention seeming to know exactly what she’d been thinking each and every time.
“Yeah, yeah. Go on pretending you’re mad. That way you don’t have to deal with the truth.”
“You’re delirious.”
“I’m perfectly sober and alert.”
“You’re on medication.”
“For my leg. Not my heart.” He pulled in a deep breath, blew it out slowly. “I can tell the difference in the pain.”
It took her a minute to open her eyes, what with the constriction in her chest. How in the world was she supposed to deal with knowing how much and in how many ways he was hurt? Carefully she rolled over to face him. “Do you need another painkiller?”
“No,” he murmured softly. “I need you to scoot your butt over here and put your head on my shoulder.”
Doing that appealed to her on such a deep level that she was almost too frightened to move. She wasn’t sure how to disconnect her concern over his injury from that for his safety. Or how to separate either of those from her more basic sense of caring for him because of who he was.
Then, strangely, it occurred to her that perhaps she wasn’t supposed to. That the weft and warp of her feelings were too tightly woven to separate the individual threads.
“I’m waiting over here.”
Swallowing the lump in her throat, she inched toward him, feeling as if this moment might mean more than any other they’d shared. It was the sense of vulnerability, the way the darkness hid the same multitude of sins exposed in the bright light of day. There were no prying eyes, no need for defenses. This was simply her and Patrick and nothing more.
“Speed it up, woman, before I fall back asleep.”
Sighing heavily, she moved against his side, her head on his shoulder where he wanted it to be. She curled her hands between their bodies, uncertain with his injury how far to take her caress. “Happy now?”
He wrapped his arm around her and urged her to come even closer. “Getting there, though feel free to touch. Just leave Mr. Happy and the boys alone.”
She rolled her eyes; he was such a guy. But she did as he asked, enjoying the heat of his skin. “Mr. Happy?”
“Umm,” he murmured, his fingers threading in and out of her hair. “Make that Mr. Not-So-Happy. He’s on a sort of self-preservation quest. Giving the boys a vacation.”
“After today? I should hope so. The three of them came awfully close to the wrong end of a gun.”
“That’s not it at all, though that car seat business pisses me off.” He grumbled under his breath. “See, this is where women get it all wrong.”
Frowning, she stopped rubbing her fingertips over his ribs. “Get what all wrong?”
“The relationship between a man and his dick.”
She waited a minute, at a totally uncharacteristic loss for words, before saying simply, “I see.”
“No you don’t. But there’s no reason with your history that you should.”
“I haven’t told you anything about my history with men’s dicks.”
“You don’t have to. You’re pretty easy to read, you know.”
“No, I don’t know.” She’d always thought herself an impenetrable and blank canvas.
“Well, you are.” He held her even closer. “You bristle so easily when you’re challenged.”
She started to do just that but kept her mouth closed in an effort to be valorously discreet. And because she didn’t want to prove him right.
“You see, a dick can be a wonderful thing.”
Lips pressed together tightly, she allowed herself a quick roll of her eyes, even though what she most wanted to do was smack him silly. Or laugh.
“But there are times it can earn a man a world of hurt.” He moved the hand that had been toying with her hair lower, massaging the crest of her shoulder.
“I was going to say ‘I see,’ but not being master of my own…”
“Bat and balls?”
“Yes. Bat and balls. Since I have no personal experience owning a set, I obviously cannot see.”
“Exactly.” He turned his head slightly. “Did you know you also speak very formally when a conversation bothers you?”
“This conversation doesn’t bother me. I’m hardly a virgin or ignorant about the workings of the male anatomy.”
“That’s not the conversation we’re having.”
“Oh?”
“Uh-uh. We’re talking about why I had sex with Soledad in the heat of danger, but why I now won’t make love with you.”
Delirious
and
delusional. “You have no business making love now period.”
“I could easily make it my business. But I’m not going to.”
“I see,” she said, the answer becoming automatic, though she didn’t really and had no idea how the conversation had turned to Soledad and sex.
Patrick nodded his head, his chin brushing over her bangs. “I thought you might.”
The one thing she did see, however, was that his level of cognizance remained too high for someone under the influence of the pain medication he’d been given. Then again, he was the one who could drink a platoon beneath the table and never feel a thing.