In the Arms of the Wind (32 page)

“Sick puppy,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Sick, sick puppy.”

They took a room at a quaint little bed and breakfast on Tybee Island and sat on the wraparound porch for an hour watching the tide until Danny developed a bad case of upset stomach. Since the B & B’s owner had nothing he could take for the nausea, he and Kaycee decided to make a run down to a convenience store.

“It was that last shrimp,” she said as they pulled into the brightly lit parking lot of the Come and Get’em.

“Don’t remind me,” he said, turning off the engine. He started to get out then froze, staring intently at a man going into the store.

“What’s the matter?” Kaycee asked.

He didn’t answer but cranked the Beemer and backed out of the slot.

“Danny?”

He whipped the wheel sharply to the left and drove beside the convenience store and around to its back. He leaned forward, looked up through the windshield then reached down to pop the trunk.

“What are you doing?” she asked, but when he leaned across her and opened the glove compartment, reached inside and took out a gun, she pressed away from him, her eyes going wide. “Danny, what are…?”

“Lock the door behind me and stay in the car,” he ordered.

“Why?”

“Just do what I tell you.”

“Not until you…”

“Don’t argue with me, woman. Just fucking do what I tell you!” he thundered, and shoved his door open. “Lock it!”

She automatically did as he demanded, turning around in her seat to watch him as he disappeared around the side of the building. A bad feeling was creeping up her throat and she began to tremble.

Danny stuffed the gun into the waistband of his pants and pulled his shirttail out to conceal it. When he entered the store, he went straight to the back, avoiding being seen by the tall man who was standing at the refrigerated beer section. He turned down the hall, found the door leading to the outside, cursed when he saw it was wired with an alarm. Biting his lip, he spun around and headed back into the main part of the store. His target was at the checkout counter, paying for his purchase and didn’t even look around as Danny walked past him and out the door.

Coming out with a case of Bud in his hands, LeJuan Cannon had no idea the man he had sodomized so brutally, had humiliated so intensely was only a few steps behind. Balancing the case under one arm, he opened the back door of his Cadillac, put the case on the seat and when he straightened, felt the press of something hard against his backbone.

“Step back and shut the door,” Danny ordered. “Make one move and you’ll have a hole the size of Detroit in your spine.”

LeJuan stiffened. “That you, Gallagher?” he asked in a dry tone.

“I’d just as soon kill you here as anywhere else,” Danny said, shoving the bore of the gun harder into the black man’s back. “I’m gonna fry either way, but maybe you’ll get lucky and find a way to jump me.”

“Count on it, mo’fucker,” LeJuan grated.

“Step back and shut the fucking door,” Danny hissed in his ear.

Danny was close to the black man but moved back with him as though they were synchronized swimmers and had practiced the move to perfection. The door was slammed shut.

“We’re going around to the back of the building,” Danny said. “Not one word out of your goddamned mouth. I’ve got nothing to lose. You saw to that, so it’s nothing to me if you buy it here or out in the bayou.”

“I’m gonna rip your ass all the way to your throat, fucker,” LeJuan said, but he moved with Danny around the back of the car and past two others.

Danny glanced up at the corner of the building and ground his teeth when his prisoner laughed.

“Smile, pretty boy. Camera’s watching yo sweet white ass.”

“Yeah, well, they’re never gonna find your black one,” Danny said under his breath.

Kaycee saw the two men coming around the side of the building and stopped breathing. From the way Danny was walking so close behind the tall black man, she knew he had the gun on the African-American. Even as she watched the man in front twisted around, but Danny must have been expecting the move for he brought the gun up and hit the man on the side of his head. The black man lurched to the side, falling against the trunk, then slid down it. Danny hit him again—hard—and Kaycee slapped a hand over her mouth in horror.

The trunk lid was pushed up and then the car dipped as Danny rolled the black man into the trunk then slammed the lid down. She thought he’d come to the driver’s door, but instead he turned and went back around the side of the building, staying gone so long she was on the verge of getting out to see what had happened when he reappeared again. She fumbled with the door lock to let him in.

“Danny, there are cameras,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Yeah, and I’ve got the tape,” he said, reaching into his shirt to pull out a cassette he tossed over his shoulder into the backseat.

“How did you…?” She shook her head. She really didn’t want to know.

He pulled around the other side of the convenience store then out onto the highway, glancing at Kaycee where she sat huddled in the corner with her arms wrapped around her.

“Was that LeJuan Cannon you put in the trunk?” she asked.

“I’m going to drop you at McDonald’s,” he said, ignoring her question.

“What?” she asked, blinking against the tears. “Why?”

“Because you don’t need to be a part of this,” he said.

“I’m not going to…”

“Let me rephrase that, Kaycee,” he said in a hard, brittle voice. “I’m not going to let you be a part of this.”

“Was that LeJuan Cannon?” she yelled at him.

“What do you think?”

She thought she was going to be sick. “Don’t do this, Danny,” she said.

He swung across two lanes and into a McDonald’s parking lot.

“Danny, please. Don’t do this.”

He stopped the car in front of the fast-food restaurant, reached around to pluck her purse from the backseat and slapped it into her arms. “Get out.”

“Danny, no,” she whimpered.

He leaned across her and threw the door open. “Get out, Kaycee!” he bellowed, eyes feral.

She scrambled out of the car and barely had the door shut before he screeched out of the parking lot, garnering the attention of everyone in the building and those waiting in line at the drive-thru.

“Oh Danny,” she cried. She was trembling so hard she could barely make it to the silly-looking bench out front on which a life-size statue of Ronald McDonald sat. She sank to the bench and sat there for a long moment as people pointed at her but no one came near. Not a one of them had the decency or compassion to see if they could be of any help.

After ten minutes passed, she opened her purse and took out her cell phone.

* * * * *

Dermot and Frankie got out of the car and hurried to Kaycee. She’d been sitting on the bench beside the grinning face of the plastic clown for over an hour and her tears had long since dried on her cheeks.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” Dermot asked, squatting down in front of her.

“I don’t know where he is,” she said. She felt numb.

“Do you want us to take you back to Sigourney?” Dermot questioned.

“I don’t know if he’s alive or dead,” she whispered.

“Let’s go sit in the car,” Dermot suggested. “You’ll be more comfortable there and I’ll call Mr. X. to see what he wants us to do, okay?”

She nodded and was relieved to turn the decision over to someone else. His hand on her arm as he helped her to her feet was a comfort, and Frankie moving close on the other side of her made her feel more secure. Out there on the bench, she had felt vulnerable, exposed and helpless. She didn’t know if she would ever see Danny again.

“He had LeJuan Cannon with him,” she said as Dermot helped her into the back seat. She saw the two bodyguards exchange a look over her head.

“You want some coffee, Miss K.?” Frankie asked. “A cappuccino maybe?”

“Yeah, why don’t you go get us one of those, Mulroney?” Dermot said. “I sure could use one right about now.”

“I’ll be right back.”

Dermot stood in the open door, leaning down. “He’ll be all right, Miss K.,” he told her.

“I’m so worried,” she said, fresh tears gleaming in her eyes.

The bodyguard hunkered down. “Yes ma’am, I’m sure you are, but Mr. D.’s got a good head on his shoulders. He’s a cop and he isn’t going to take any chances.”

“He hasn’t been himself, Dermot,” she said. Her lips trembled.

“Try not to worry,” he said, and stood to pull the cell phone from the holder at his waist. He thumbed in a number as he stood looking at the traffic coming into and going out of the parking lot.

Kaycee laid her head on the back of the seat and tried not to start crying again. She’d made a fool of herself sitting on the bench in front of the restaurant—blubbering like a jilted bride. No wonder the people avoided her as they went in and out the door.

“Is that him?” she heard Frankie ask and sat up.

“Yeah, I think so.”

She scrambled off the seat and out the door, looking where the bodyguards were looking. It was Danny’s BMW coming into the parking lot all right, but the sides were mud-streaked and filthy.

“Looks like he went through a marsh,” Frankie observed.

“We need to take that car and let him have this one,” Dermot said. He turned to Kaycee, took her arm politely and moved her to the passenger door. “Get inside, ma’am.”

“Dermot…” she began.

“Please?” the bodyguard said. He took a cup Frankie held out to him and gave it to Kaycee. “Let us handle this.”

She had no choice but to do as he ordered, getting into the front seat with the steaming cup of cappuccino clutched in her hand. The bodyguard retrieved her purse from the backseat and handed it to her. She cradled it on her lap with one hand.

Danny drove up beside them and Frankie walked to the driver door. The bodyguard opened the door, said something to Danny and Danny got out.

“Oh my God!” Kaycee said just a second before Dermot shut the door, cutting off her words.

Danny’s once-white dress shirt was as dirty as his car, splotched with dark stains she knew were blood, and it was torn at one shoulder. There was a livid scratch down the right side of his face and he was limping as he walked behind the car in which she sat and to the driver’s door. When he climbed into the driver’s seat, he reeked of fecund ground and fish.

“We’ll take the Beemer and get it washed and detailed,” Dermot said as he stood beside Danny with his hand on the top of Danny’s door. “We’ll meet you back at the condo. Here, you need this.” He handed Danny his cup of cappuccino.

Danny said nothing, only nodded, and Dermot shut the door. The bodyguards got into Danny’s car and drove off.

Kaycee wanted to throw her arms around her lover. She wanted to scream at him, beat against him with her fists. But all she did was stare at him as he calmly drank the hot liquid he’d been given. When at last she could find civil words to say, she barely recognized her own voice.

“Are you all right?”

He nodded, squinting against the steam coming from the cup.

“Are you hurt?”

He shook his head.

“Is that your blood on the shirt?”

He shook his head again.

She breathed a sigh of relief. “There’s a Wally World down the street. Drive down there and I’ll go in and get you something clean to wear and we’ll take it back to the B & B.”

He stared straight ahead through the windshield, took another sip of cappuccino.

Her cell phone rang and she flinched, opened her purse to retrieve it. She saw Danny shoot her a quick look.

“Hello? Hi,
Daideo
. Yes, he’s all right. He’s here with me.”

Danny set his cup into the holder on the floorboard, cranked the car and drove out of the fast food parking lot, down the access road and into the Wal-Mart parking lot.

“No sir, we’ll be staying here tonight.”

He found a parking place close to the store and cut the engine.

Kaycee was listening intently to whatever his grandfather was saying. She was staring out the windshield, her brows drawn together.

“Thank you for telling us,
Daideo
,” she said, closing the phone.

“What did he want?”

“The investigation of the residents at Rampart Villas turned up the person responsible for the bombing. Her name is Deidre Reynolds.”

He blinked. “The Olivers’ housesitter?”

“She’s from the same village as Terrence Malone. They are cousins. He brought her here to get her graduate degree, is paying for her classes. It was her way of paying him back.”

“Son of a bitch,” he said. “I would never have suspected her.”

“It seems she’s been keeping tabs on you for Malone for months now. She said he told her he never knew when the information might come in handy.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “Are
Daideo’s
people turning her over to the cops?”