Glass Houses (37 page)

Twenty-five

O
livia stood before the Talons’ window and looked over Lake Washington. A layer of fog hid the surface of the water, but the sun struggled to appear. Chris had left half an hour earlier
promising that the fog would “
bu
rn
off,” and the mountain would
“
come out.” According to Sonnie, he meant Mount Ranier.

“
Try and relax a bit,” Aiden said very quietly, coming to stand beside her. He put an arm around her waist. “Chris will be getting back to us just as soon as he can.”

“Yes.” She ought to be thinking of nothing other than clearing her own and Aiden’s names—that and getting themselves out of danger. Olivia had much more on her mind.

“
I’ve got bruises,” Aiden said. “On my tush and probably in other places, too.”

She looked at him sharply, then smiled. “Evidently your balance beam days are over. Better choose another event.”

“I was thinking about the trampoline. What d’you think? Could lead to some high-flying experiences.”

Olivia scrunched up her face. “Sounds like a good way to break something, and I think it might hurt you—a lot.”

“Breakfast,” Sonnie said. “C’mon, sit down. I’ve got to.”

Olivia and Aiden gave Sonnie their full attention at once. “You sit down,” Aiden said. “You don’t have to wait on us. Sit there.” He pointed to a chair.

Sonnie sat, sighing as she did so. Promptly, Anna left her quiet game with a hairless doll and climbed on her mother’s lap. Sonnie kissed the top of the child’s head.

“I love muffins,” Olivia said, sitting down, too. Watching Sonnie brought a rush of feelings, warm, sweet, and longing feelings. “Have a muffin, Aiden. This is going to be a busy day. Better top up, as my father says.”

They ate, and drank very good coffe
e. Anna stroked Son
nie’s belly and frowned while she pressed an ear there to listen.

Each time Olivia looked up, she found Aiden watching her. No eyes should be that blue, or that capable of disconcerting a woman.

“All those earrings and things you wear,” Olivia said, desperate to lighten the mood, “they just clip on really?”

“Sort of,” he said.

“Wally Loder, master of disguise,” Sonnie said and chuckled. “You should have seen him the first time I met him as Wally in Key West. He came into the bar Chris’s brother and his partner own. He was so surly, he scared me. After that Wally Loder was everywhere, getting into all kinds of places in all kinds of disguises.”

“You’re giving away trade secrets,” Aiden said around a mouthful of cinnamon muffin.

“I don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to see all of his cars, have you, Olivia?”

She cleared her throat. “
I had the pleasure of riding in a beautiful chartreuse Cadillac.”

“Aiden! You did it? You had that thing painted chartreuse?”

He looked pained and reached for Anna, who went willingly into his arms. “It was your husband who said chartreuse would be a good color. He never appreciated my pink Mustang. Vanni always calls it the Pink Panther.”

Sonnie held her tummy and laughed. “Maybe Vanni gets muddled up between pink panther and pink pony.”

“Oh, sure he does.”

Olivia was aware of the history these people shared, a history in which she had played no part. She wanted to be part of the history Aiden would make in future.

The phone rang and Sonnie pushed herself up from her chair. She picked up on the third ring, listened, and said, “Love you, too, honey. Nothing yet. Okay. Aiden, it’s Chris for you.” Aiden went to the phone, and Olivia couldn’t sit still. She followed and stood a few feet from him, watching the expre
s
sions on his face.

“Got it,” he said after listening for what seemed to Olivia an eternity. “No, I sure don’t have any better ideas. I’ll have to be on that plane. Of course you can’t come, I know that. You’re doing everything you can here. Nothing on Ryan or Fats? Where d’you think Fish and Moody went in New York? No. Vanni can take over there. He’s chewing his fingernails down waiting, anyway. Yeah, see you at the airport tonight.”

“What plane?” Olivia said as soon as he’d hung up.

“A Kitty Fish is booked on this evening’s flight to London. Chris thinks, and I agree, that she intends to run for safety there, then hold up her husband and his partner, and Fats and Ryan. She’s grabbed the evidence and taken off—that’s obvious.”

Olivia touched the scars on the back of his right hand. “Couldn’t they all just be allowed to get on with it? Perhaps they’ve lost interest in us now.”

“Dreamer,” Aiden said. “Ryan Hill’s got the most powerful police force in this country looking for us. Where would we hide? It’s my turn to go after them now. I’m going to help Ryan put a noose around his own neck. Then we’ll have a chance to clear ourselves. I want my job—and my reputation— back.”

He was right and Olivia knew it. “Of course that’s what must be done.
Fiddlesticks.
We’d better get reservations on that flight.”

“You’re not going. Sonnie and Chris will keep you safe here.”

W
hen Vanni finally called, Aiden had been playing with Chris’s computer in his study, and trying for an hour to get the courage to go downstairs and find Olivia. He knew she was down there because he’d seen her return from a walk.

Olivia was angry with him.

“What made you call Margy?” Vanni said.

“I wanted to get hold of you. She wouldn’t listen to a word I said.”

Vanni sighed. “It’s the pits here, partner. I’m steering a course through an ocean of people who think you’re Public Enemy Number One. Ryan’s got ’em brainwashed, including Margy. Use your head and don’t call the station again. Risk my cell phone, if you want to, but don’t give anyone here a clue about where you are.”

“
I
thought Margy would be on my side. I thought she’d believe me.”

“She will when we can tell her everything. Listen, Ryan’s in the Chicago area. He checked in and didn’t even bother to cover up the fact. He reckons Fats has turned rogue on him and he needs to pull him in—only he doesn’t know where he is. Evidently Fats didn’t tell him you’d left for Seattle because he didn’t mention it.”

“That’s something,” Aiden said. Through the study door, he caught sight of a shadow on the wall at the top of the basement stairs. Olivia was listening, and there was nothing he could do about it. He filled Vanni in on Kitty and what he intended to do about her.

“I’m going to join you,” Vanni said.

“
No,
”
Aiden said, grimacing.
“
Absolutely not, Vanni. You disappear now, and they’re going to figure out it’s because of me.”

“This is taking too long. It’s driving me nuts.”

“How’s Pops?” Maybe he could shake Vanni out of it, Aiden thought.

Too much silence followed before Vanni said, “Touch and go. If you feel like praying, we can use all the help we can get.”

Olivia detached herself from the shadows and moved around to sit on the foot of the stairs.

“Stay put,
”
Aiden said to Vanni, looking at Olivia’s profile. It was too late for him; he didn’t just want her body anymore, he wanted the woman. “Vanni, you can help me most by staying where you are and letting me know everything you find out. Fish and Moody have headed back to New York. Chris said he was getting the flight details to you.”

“I’ve got them,” Vanni said. “I’m
not worried about those two. I am worried about you.”

“I’m thinking about Pops,” Aiden said. He didn’t like using the old man to distract Vanni. “Will you tell him that? Tell him I expect to drown in Mama’s gravy and his best Chianti when I get back to New York. Got that?”

Vanni didn’t sound convincing when he said he’d got it, but he hung up the phone.

This was one of those times when a guy had to wait for the woman to come to him. With very little of his mind on the task, Aiden idly logged back on to his own e-mail account. He’d done so several times that day and found nothing but junk mail.

More junk mail had shown up.

Olivia got up and walked slowly into the study. She leaned on the wall just inside the door. “It’s nice outside,” she said. “Even if it is cold.”

Aiden smiled at her, grateful that she was talking to him again, and more than grateful that she was accepting the wisdom of his going to England without her.

He got up and quietly closed the door.

Olivia put more distance between them.

“D’you think that will stop me?” he asked. Without taking a step, he shot an arm around her and hauled her against him.

He bent her backward and kissed her, and his body stiffened. She tried to resist him by refusing to respond. Holding her limp form only whipped him up more. He wrapped her in both arms and kissed her until she gave in, crossed her forearms behind his neck, and kissed him back.

As abruptly as she’d responded, she summoned enough strength to leave him in no doubt that she wanted to stop.

Aiden released her, but couldn’t wipe away his smirk. He wasn’t alone in this growing obsession. “I’ll be back for you, Olivia,
”
he said.
“
I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone. I wouldn’t go at all if I didn’t have to.”

Meaning what? Olivia wondered. “Why are you going?”

“The action’s moving that way. I think Ryan and Fats will go to England, too. Sooner or later I’ll get my chance to bring them in. Then I’ll prove our case.”

I, I, I.
He was excited now, excited about the chase, but he didn’t think she could be of any help to him, even though she had every bit as much to win or lose as he did.

“Is that something you want to read?” Olivia said, indicating Chris’s screen.

Aiden saw Vanni’s address and moved the cursor to click and open the post. “He’s not missing an angle,” Vanni wrote. What followed was an excerpt from a post supposedly written by MustangMan, alias Aiden Flynn, and addressed to Ryan Hill:
“Nice of you to send some company along. I hate being lonely. I get bored. Now I can entertain myself, unless you can think of a reason why I s
houldn’t. You know what I want.
”

In a post using his own e-mail address Ryan had written:
“I’ve got to move fast. I hope I’m not too late.”

And Vanni added a postscript:
“I only wish
I was sure w
hat angle he isn’t missing this time. The guy is giving me the creeps.
”

Aiden looked at Olivia, wh
o said, “Any idea what Ryan’s u
p to?”

“Nope.”

“Ryan pretended to be you. He excerpted something you
s
upposedly wrote and sent it to—”

“Yeah, I know.” He studied the screen. “He’s setting something up. It’s important to him to grind down any scrap of credibility I might have left—not that I appear to have any.”

L
unchtime came and went. Olivia couldn’t bear sitting around, pretending she was going to be a good little girl and do what Aiden had said she must. Chris had called several times to check on Sonnie and to talk with Aiden, who had moved into his own grim space that didn’t include room for any extra baggage. He’d closed her out.

Olivia went to the basement again. She’d arrived with very little, and since Kitty Fish had stolen the suitcase, leaving with just as little was guaranteed.

She let herself out onto the boardwalk, and Boswell came around the side of the house to join her. He grinned. Some might argue that dogs couldn’t grin, but he definitely did.

“Come along,” Olivia told him. “Can you swim?”

He trotted beside her to the water’s edge. She freed a stick that protruded from beneath a long piece of driftwood, then hesitated. “It’s awfully cold, Boswell.”

“That won’t bother him,” Aiden said, making her jump. “He loves to swim.”

She watched his deceptively casual approach. His strides were long, and he covered a great deal of ground very quickly.

Olivia turned back to the water and threw the stick. Boswell waded after it, showing no sign of discomfort.

“You like him, don’t you?” Aiden said.

“I’m British,” Olivia told him.

He nodded, and chuckled. “And that’s all the answer I should need, of course.”

Just being near him started a weak feeling in her legs. His long, lean, strong body had an aura that was tangible to Olivia. He didn’t have to touch her to make her feel touched. The fragile, exposed sensation crept into her belly and sought out deep places.

But she would not allow him to decide what was best for
her. Her seat on the evening’s one flight to London was booked. So was the taxi that would wait for her on the street above the Talons’ property.

While Aiden watched, Boss swam, snatched the stick between his teeth, and headed toward shore. Aiden shouted, “Attaboy.” Olivia might think it the most normal thing in the world for her to be comfortable with the animal, but Boss made most people nervous. She met the dog and wrestled over the stick until Boss decided to let her have it. He started back out and she threw the stick again.