In Too Deep: A Romantic Suspense Novel (48 page)

I approached the Pressman building silently, doing my best to avoid any cameras or other surveillance equipment. I was wearing a skull cap and camouflage face paint, so I doubted I could be identified by image, but still I wanted to take as few chances as possible.

I didn't wear a full ski mask. I've done it before, and it does have its uses. If you are in an ambush, or in a long range sniping situation, they can be great for retaining body heat. However, there is one flaw in even the highest tech ski mask, and that is that it changes the way you hear, and the way you breathe. I didn't want either problem during a fluid, sensory driven stalk.

As I came around the side of the Pressman building, I heard the key rattle in the front door, and Scott Pressman came out. I flattened myself against one of the company trucks, close enough that I could hear him and even see when he moved. What he said was helpful.

"Yeah, it's me baby," he said, obviously talking into a cell phone. "Who, the redhead? Yeah, she's going to be ripe for the picking soon. I've got her so hopped up on my act that she'll give us anything we want. Info on Smiley, his bank account numbers, anything we want. Sure, it wasn't as good as taking out that girl with him, Warbird, but still, getting his main financial advisor is a good in."

He paused, listening to whatever the person on the other side said. "No, you'd of had fun with her too if you'd tried. She seems to have had a thing for women, she'd have been putty in your hands. Ha, maybe sometime later, if we could figure out the angle to play it. No, she was pretty good, a lot better than a lot of the marks I hit. No baby, she was nowhere near as good as you of course. Hey, I'll be home soon, I'm going to check in with a buddy on some computer cracking gear, I hear that Smiley's a real bear when it comes to cyber security. The redhead might get us in the door, but I doubt she's got Smiley's passwords. I love you too, baby. Bye."

He hung up the phone, and rattled the keys in the lock again. I heard a deadbolt shoot, and I made my move. Easing around the side of the truck, I saw Scott Pressman pull out a keyring from the door and turn to his right, pocketing the keys. He never saw me approaching from the left, and my tranquilizer dart caught him right where I wanted, close to the carotid artery. He barely had time to swat at his neck before his legs went to jelly, and he collapsed on the ground.

Scott woke up ten minutes later, the sedative was fast acting but also short term. I didn't take him far, in fact we were inside the Pressman building. He struggled a bit against his bonds, but couldn't break the plastic zip-strips I had tied his arms and legs to the office chair with, they were rated to four hundred pounds of pressure each, and I'd used two on each limb, as well as a conveniently left lying piece of rope to tie his waist to the seat as well. He wasn't going anywhere. "What the.....?"

"How's it going, Knave?" I asked. This was the difficult part of my act, and the only part I had to somewhat play by ear. I tapped a small button on my belt, and the digital video recorder I had in my back pocket turned on. The lens and microphone was attached to my shirt, so as long as I kept Scott in my sight, I was good. The lights were dim though, so the image wasn't great. It helped protect me. "Thought you and I should become better acquainted."

"Who are you?" he asked, trying to see in the murky darkness. I was sure he could see my outline against the slightly lighter darkness outside, but that was about it. Meanwhile, the very dim light allowed me to see him in pastel blues, grays and blacks, like some sort of
anime noir
. "Who is this Knave?"

"Oh, don't be shy, you're damn near a legend," I said, teasing him. "I mean, I was pretty well known, but you'd expect that. My job depended on fear and intimidation, people needed to know at least my nickname if nothing else. But you, oh you are the opposite, the fewer people know who the Knave of Hearts is, the better, especially those with wives or daughters who might be your targets. But you're so damn good that even a simple leg breaker like me knew who you were, dude. The Knave of Hearts, best damn dick in the city. The Lothario of Larceny, the Corrupting Cock of Cons, Don Juan de Thievio!"

Pressman dropped the act, and sat up straighter in the chair. "Okay, okay. Fuck man, did you make that last one up yourself?"

"Kinda did. Watched
Rocky IV
before coming over, and loved how Apollo Creed got himself a ton of nicknames. But that's not the point. I've been a big admirer of your work, man."

Pressman laughed. "Which is why I'm zip-tied to an office chair. Nice choice, by the way, choosing the wheeled one that I can't tip over because the base is too wide. And you attached my feet in such a way pushing off the floor is impossible too. You've had training. So can I ask your name, or are you going to just be my secret admirer?"

"Oh, how remiss of me!" I said with a big, fake Southern accent. Actually, all I did was take my native South Carolina accent and turn it up to eleven. "Of course you may know who I am. I mean, after all, when we're done, I'm just going to have to let you go, let you go, can't hold you back any more....."

The hokey singing got the point across, and Pressman grimaced slightly in the dim light. "Fuck, Snowman, I thought you were a hitman, not a torturer. You could just introduce yourself instead of the goddamn Disney tunes. By the way, you know Sal is looking for you."

"I'm sure. It's one of the reasons I'm back in town, actually. Sal and I have unfinished business. He took away the only damn thing I've loved in my life, you know." It was a play, but I hoped it worked. I wanted the Confederation wondering if I was Marcus Smiley, and the more deception I could give them, the better. "Yeah, Sal and I have a date in the future for sure."

"So what's that got to do with me?" Pressman said, frustrated. I could see him testing his bonds, but there was no way he was getting out. I couldn't have pulled those bonds free, and I was stronger and better trained in escapes than he was. "I'm just an operative. I had nothing to do with you or that hospital girl you were caught with."

"No, but you did stumble by bad luck into my business. You see, I happen to work with your latest seduction, Tabitha Williams. We all have to have day jobs, you know. Very few of us can get by just working our night shift work. By the way, nice gig with the HVAC. You and your folks must get plenty of loot that way. You bringing your little brother into the business as well? Your wife too, that's a full house of hearts, quite a strong hand."

My implied threat was clear, and I knew that when Tabby heard this point she'd feel like she'd been stabbed in the heart herself. "Leave my kid brother and wife out of this, Snowman. I'm asking you. He's innocent for the most part, he just thinks I'm in an open relationship sort of thing, and my wife.... man, my wife's retired. She's six months pregnant for Christ's sake."

"Really? I got a different impression listening to you on the phone earlier. Should I go to your home at...... 3457 Hampstead Lane and check it out myself? Or maybe go visit your little brother at your parents' house?" I'd pulled his wallet while he was out, and had read his driver's license. It was standard procedure in things like this.

"FUCK! No, man, shit! I'm not lying to you, okay? Yes my wife is pregnant, and she's out of the game. Hell, I was going to get out too once I was done with this redhead, just use the money I could get from Marcus Smiley to set up my dad's business. Drain Smiley dry, and have a good retirement nest egg for my folks. Have a nice one for me too, really. Mike would be set up to take the whole HVAC thing if he wanted, above board. This place actually does clear a good profit you know."

"After you get rid of the plasma torches and safe cracking devices, of course," I said dryly. "Okay, let's just say I believe you. Still, I work with Miss Williams. In fact, she introduced me to the girl that Sal had killed, did you know that? She's the only thing I have left of the girl I loved. No, you probably didn't know any of that, that sort of thing doesn't get out too often. But Tabitha, she's off limits. I thought I had made that clear to the Confederation when I took out that night club. But it seems like Sal needs another lesson in that regard."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Pressman said, desperation in his voice. "Listen, Sal didn't know who I was going after! He just knew I asked permission to try and get to Marcus Smiley. Hell, he probably thought I was going to try for Smiley's purple haired hottie, Warbird. It was my original plan, but when Tabby came by, I just went with my gut. I figured I could get her to get me in some other way, and who knew, maybe I could drain a few other clients as well. She is a financial advisor, after all. I swear to God man, I didn't know she was on any sort of protected list, I didn't know who she was. She was just another short term pump and dump, that's all."

"I see," I said, tapping the button to my recorder again, stopping the recording. I had what I needed. "Still Knave, you seriously fucked up. Now, I'm not the sort to be overly vindictive, despite my reputation. So I'm not going to kill you."

I could hear the relief in Pressman's voice as he exhaled, followed by a quizzical tilt of his head. "If you're not going to kill me, then what?"

"Well, you've got a job I want you to do," I said. "You're going to go to Sal, and tell him everything we talked about tonight. Tell him that Tabby Williams is protected, plain and simple. Next time she gets messed with, I kill five Confederation soldiers for every scratch on her body. If any of Owen Lynch's men mess with her, I kill five Confederation men and five of Lynch's men, so make sure the message is passed along."

"Okay, okay, I can do that," Pressman said, nodding like an eager puppy. He was just glad he was going to survive the night. I could understand the sentiment. He had a few things going for him. First off, my reputation was never one of being a guaranteed killer, I had let victims go before. But I was known as an enforcer, a person who applied force, not just a killer.

"I'm not finished," I said, pulling out my dart gun from my coat again. "Next thing is, you are going to retire. In fact, I'm retiring you tonight. Hold still, this might sting a bit otherwise."

I shot Pressman in the chest with the dart before he could ask what I meant. The dart was much larger in dose than the first one, a special concoction that was based a bit on LSD, a bit on the drugs used in chemical castration, and a few other darker items that I wasn't sure were in the list of drugs any pharmacist or doctor in the city knew about. I saw Pressman's head roll back and forth as the hallucinogenics started to take effect, and I pulled the last item from my jacket, a carefully prepared and designed mp3 player with headphones that I taped in. I then injected another syringe of the mix into his right thigh, just to make sure there was enough to do what I wanted. I hit the play button on the player, and walked out, locking the door and closing the security gate behind me.

W
hen Scott didn't call
me Sunday morning like he said he was going to, I wasn't worried at first. After all, we'd basically spent the past three days together, and I was still physically exhausted from our passionate lovemaking the day before. I was so exhausted, in fact, that I rolled over and stretched my arms over my head for the first time at nearly eleven in the morning. The sun was shining, and I swore I could hear songbirds twittering outside my window.
All you need is some violin music and you sound like a fairytale princess
, I said to myself.
God it's good to be in love
.

The words stunned me. In love? Already? I mean, I know the last few days were amazing, but love? Was I really in love with him after just three days? I lay back and closed my eyes and knew the answer. If I wasn't in love, I was already ninety-nine percent of the way there, that was for sure. I'd never felt that way about anyone, man or woman, before.

The thought made me smile, and I lay there on my sofa for a good ten minutes, a silly little half smile on my face. I was tempted to just lay there, sure that my prince would come and find his willing lady lying ready for him on the couch, but after about twenty minutes, my grumbling insides forced me up and to the kitchen. A girl has to eat, after all.

I finished slicing up the apple I had found when I saw that both of my cell phones were flashing. I'd missed at least one call, and most likely from Sophie, since she was the only one who had that number. I opened my regular phone, and saw that not only had she tried with her Sophie Warbird phone, but also with her old Sophie White phone. Concerned, I immediately picked up the secure phone that Marcus had given me and called her back.

"Sophie, it's Tabby. What's wrong?"

Sophie's voice sounded both tired and concerned. "Tabby, we need to talk. Can I come over to your apartment?"

"Sure," I said, looking around. "I can have this place kinda ready for company by the time you get here. Anything in particular we need to talk about?"

"That would be better discussed in person,” Sophie said. "So please, just you and me, okay? I'm coming over alone."

"All right, see you when you get here," I said, hanging up the phone. While her tone of voice somewhat concerned me, I was still so over the moon about Scott that I barely heard her tone of voice. Instead, I flitted around my apartment for the next twenty minutes or so, making sure my stuff was kind of picked up, and eating my apple as I did. I had just tossed my crumpled up jeans into the hamper when Sophie knocked on my door.

"Hey babe, what's up?" I said, giving her a friendly hug. She was dressed down that day, just some track pants and an old sweatshirt that she'd picked up in Europe along with a backpack. She looked more like the college student I'd roomed with for four years than the sexy executive ass kicker I knew she was now. I felt some nostalgia, and was glad to see that girl back. "You want some coffee? I'm sorry I missed your call last night, I was kind of distracted."

"I know," Sophie said. She came in, and instead of sitting down, pulled out a palm-sized device. Turning it on, she walked through my apartment, talking the whole time. "I just had some business stuff I wanted to talk about, sorry if I worried you."