Key West (21 page)

Sonnie covered her mouth and retched.

“Oh,” Ena cried out, stumbling to the edge of the desk. She began to gather the photographs, clasping them one after the other to her breast. When she’d collected them all, she turned to Sonnie and said, “Edward. It’s my lodger, Edward.”

Fifteen

Aiden Flynn sat sidesaddle on Chris’s bike and watched the big man pace. Chris had done a lot of pacing in the past twenty-four hours, and Aiden had done a lot of watching.

A hot wind wrapped itself around palms in the courtyard of the Banyan Inn. Chris paused to stare toward the unit Sonnie had moved into. Aiden uncrossed and recrossed his ankles. He’d like to tell his buddy that he wasn’t thinking with his usual scalpel-like precision. In fact, he was being an ass. Prowling around a woman who was running scared just about guaranteed the reverse reaction to the one Chris wanted. Aiden hadn’t been formally introduced to Sonnie Giacano, but he’d lay odds she knew Chris was patrolling her present pad, and that his fanatical determination to be with her—whether she wanted him or not—was making her crazy.

Giving his opinion wouldn’t win him any points. On the other hand, you couldn’t buy much with points. “Yo, Talon.” Chris waved a hand but didn’t turn around.

Aiden raised his voice for the next “Yo, Talon.”

“What?”

“You’re going about this all wrong, man.” But then, taking a few points away wasn’t going to hurt him, either. “She’s sending you a message. ‘I’m going it alone’. That’s what she’s telling you.”

“Save it, Flynn.”

“She’s already running scared. You’re making it worse.”

 “Can it. You don’t knοw Sonnie. She’s scared of something, but it isn’t what you think.”

“What do I think?”

“Hell, how would I know what you think? There she is—you stay put.”

“D’you think there’s going to be a hurricane? I’ve never been in one.”

Chris waved again and strode away.

“Okay,” Aiden said into the wind. “Brush me off, but you’ll be back.”

Chris’s shirt billowed and flattened to his back by turns. One big, good-looking son of a bitch. And hardheaded as they came.

With bulging sacks in each hand, the woman walked—or limped—around the perimeter of the courtyard. A man came from a walkway between buildings and swiftly approached her. She looked up and stood still. The man gestured, and Sonnie turned back and started to run.

Aiden couldn’t hear what Chris shouted but assumed it was her name. The stranger spun to look at him, and took off between the nearest buildings. Chris paused, clearly deciding whether to go after him, but Sonnie set off for the street again. When she saw Chris, she actually sped up and passed him without looking at him.

“Uh-uh. I warned you,” Aiden muttered. Sonnie Giacano’s story wasn’t entirely new to him. He was aware of her husband’s abduction. But he wanted to know more about what she was looking for here in the Keys.

Chris let her go. He gripped his upper arms and watched her. She left the hotel grounds, passing close to Aiden, and crossed the street. She looked desperate, but not frightened.

Swinging his arms again, Chris returned to Aiden. “Who was the guy?” Aiden asked.

“I don’t knοw. You saw how much talking she did.”

Chris stood at the curb until Sonnie went around a corner; then he set off after her.

Aiden followed Chris. He followed him all the way to the front windows of a crowded Laundromat and stood beside him. Inside, Sonnie had dropped her sacks to the floor while she fed coins into a detergent dispenser. Her face was flushed, her movements jerky.

“Some might make a case for harassment here,” Aiden said. “Will you tell me one thing?”

“If it’ll shut you up.”

“She’s let you know she doesn’t want you around. Why don’t you leave her alone?”

“Because that’s not what she wants.”

“Really? You mean she really
does
want you shadowing her?”

“The minute she gets things started in there, I’m going in. I’m going to make her talk to me. She wore me down until I wanted—until she made me agree to help her. Then, when I’m too far in to want out again, she gives me the cold shoulder. I want to know why.”

“You want the woman,” Aiden said, checking out his fingernails. “You’ve fallen for her.” He was fussy about his fingernails.

“Now that would be a really stupid move, wouldn’t it?” Chris said. “In case you’ve
forgotten, she’s married.”

“Το a man who isn’t around anymore—hasn’t been heard from in months.”

“She’s crippled.”

“Don’t try to fool me. You don’t give a damn if she limps. She’s cute—in a different kind of way.”

Chris stared at him. “You aren’t her type, so don’t get any ideas.”

“Geez, sometimes there’s no winning with you.”

“I’m going in. Go back to the Nail if you like.”

“When I came all this way to spend time with my old buddy? No way.” He indicated his car, which happened to be parked within his sight. “And I want you to enjoy my pink pony for a while. You haven’t felt power till you’ve held her in your hands. I’m telling you, Chris....”

Sonnie felt the instant when Chris decided to come into the Laundromat. The other man followed him. She’d made a mistake and now she didn’t know how to back out of the terrible mess she’d made.

Next she felt silence form in the middle of all the hum and clank of machines. She didn’t have to check around to see what had caught the awed attention of the predominantly female customers. Her entourage would silence just about any crowd. She ought to feel lucky to have two dynamically handsome men following her around. What she felt was quite different.
Trapped
would be a better term.

For the first time since the accident, she wore shorts. The police had taken her into the house to collect clothes. The only things that didn’t reek of smoke were in boxes on shelves in a backyard shed. There she’d found shorts and several outfits that would do until she got the washing done. All morning she’d watched Chris and his friend from a gap in the hotel room blinds. She’d watched, and waited for them to leave. In the end she’d given up.

There were two empty washers. After pouring in the little boxes of detergent, she divided the clothes and stuffed them inside the front-loading doors.

“Says not to overload the machines,” Chris’s friend said from behind her. “Those are overloaded.”

She ignored him. Every other washer was in use and she wanted to get through and go back to her room.

“You won’t get anything clean. The way all that stuff stinks, that wouldn’t be a good idea.”

A snicker from nearby was quickly cut off. Sonnie checked out the other patrons. Several young moms with toddlers winding around their knees and babies in their arms. A woman wearing a crocheted hat from which large sequins hung and glittered, and who might well benefit from her own turn in a washer. And several men wearing only undershorts and playing cards while they apparently washed the rest of what they’d been wearing. Gaunt bodies suggested they could use a good meal, not that lack of food had inhibited the growth of their hair—including straggling beards and mustaches.

“What d’you think would happen if you put goldfish in one of those?” Chris’s friend asked. “Ιn cold water, of course.”

“They’d die,” Chris said.

“Even if you set it on delicate? And you wouldn’t put in detergent.”

If they’d planned a way to make her even more nervous, it was working. She’d leave while her clothes washed, only she didn’t really have any place to go other than back to the hotel.

“Salmon swim upstream, don’t they?”

“Your point?” Chris said. He sounded explosive, as if he was so close to the edge he was barely hanging on.

“Well, can’t be as tough to take a whirl in a washing machine as it would be to fight all those currents.”

“We’re talking goldfish here, not forty-pound salmon.”

“Ah, a lot of those salmon aren’t anywhere near forty pounds.”

Sonnie spun around and studied first one, then the other man. They were seated side by side, on green plastic chairs. Chris’s expression was solemn. The other one, the one built with the lean lines of a tall quarterback, and who had startlingly blue eyes, and lashes that ought to belong to a woman, smiled until he finally accepted that she wasn’t going to be amused. He shrugged and bent forward to rest his forearms on his knees.

Without a word, Chris moved one seat to his right and patted the chair he’d vacated. “Sit down, Sonnie,” he said, “before you collapse. Who was the guy with the shaved head who tried to talk to you?”

“The man who threatened me at the Nail that night.”

“Damn it. Why didn’t you give a sign? I’d have run him down.”

“I know. That’s why I didn’t. He asked me to forgive his behavior. I was too shaken up to stay calm.”

“You should have—”

“I didn’t. End of topic.”

“I want you to sit down,” Chris said, raising his voice. “It’s my job to look after you.”

Sonnie turned hot. She avoided checking reactions from the cheap seats and did as she was told. Promptly she closed her eyes.

Pressure against her side, Chris leaning close, was almost enough to make her cry out.

“Sonnie,” he said into her ear, “why did you run away like that last night?”

“I didn’t run away.”

“What would you call it when someone excuses herself to go to the bathroom and doesn’t come back?”

“I had to think about Roy and Bo.”

“What the....” He breathed heavily, angrily. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t have any right to take my trouble into their lives.”

“They want you there with them. That’s why they asked you to stay. They wouldn’t have insisted if they hadn’t meant what they said. There’ll always be a place for you with them.”

The butterflies in her belly sickened Sοnnie. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt like eating. “Why don’t you go back and apologize to them for me? Tell them I’ll be in touch.” He was choosing to forget how he’d embarrassed her by announcing that he’d stay with her while his friend used the cabin.

“Nope,” he said. “I’ll go back when you come with me.” She opened her eyes and looked at him. “You’re making a fool of me.”

Chris assumed the same forearms-on-knees pose as his friend.

“We didn’t have a chance for a formal introduction this morning. I’m Aiden Flynn. Pleased to meet you.”

The large hand that was thrust before her demanded attention. Sοnnie tried to touch palms quickly with Aiden Flynn, but he was too fast for her. Immediately her fingers were enveloped in a strong grasp.

For the first time she exchanged a dedicated examination with the man. He might put on a flippant act but he was one serious guy. “Hello, Aiden,” she said. “I didn’t hear where you’re from.”

“All over,” he said, and the directness in those eyes didn’t invite deeper questions on the subject. “Chris and I go way back. We’ve lost touch recently. I decided to put that right.”

“Great timing,” Chris muttered, apparently engrossed in the card players. “Nothing like dropping in on very busy people.”

“He’s always had a charming way about him,” Aiden said, still holding her hand, still not smiling. “But he’s a hell of a good man to have around. Resourceful. Determined. Bad tempered. Arrogant. Good body. Winner of the best manacled-woman tattoo contest—”

“Stow it, Flynn,” Chris said, looking at them over his shoulder. “And you can quit holding hands. How long is this going to take?”

“What?” Aiden said.

“I wasn’t talking to you. How long does it take to wash the clothes?”

“You got a maid or something?” Aiden said, undeterred. “You never used a washing machine?”

They had the attention of everyone in the place—including the card players, who had breasted their hands and turned their chairs for a better view.

“Can I get a straight answer?” Chris said. “In case you’ve both forgotten, we’ve got places to go and things to do.”

Sonnie caught the eye of the woman in the sequined bonnet and saw...pity? An old irreverent streak that hadn’t surfaced much of late chose that moment to return. Sonnie shook her head and cast her eyes heavenward.

“They’re all the same,” the woman said. “Nο good, any of ‘em.”

Sonnie nodded. “But you try making one of them believe that,” she said. “They think every one of them’s a gift.”

“Men,”
said a woman with four children who might have about eight years between them.

Sonnie congratulated herself on remembering a universal language guaranteed to create a diversion.

“Cute,” Chris said., while one woman after another joined in a comparison of annoying male traits. “How did you do that?”

“Please go, Chris,” she said, as quietly as she could. “I’m trying to work out what to do. When I do, you’ll be one of the first to know.”

“Damn it all,” he said, silencing the women instantly. He looked around at them, then aimed a winning grin at a little boy who appeared close to tears. “Have you started your Christmas list? Hope so. Takes a long time to write down all that stuff.” The child might not know much of what Chris was talking about, but the conspiratorial tone won out and produced a giggle.

“See,” Aiden said. “I told you he was resourceful.”

“Ma’am,” Chris said to the woman in sequins, “are you going to be here for a while?”

“I’m the attendant.”

“Ah.” Somehow he managed to sound enlightened. “So you’ll be here.”

“I’m paid to be here.”

“That right?” He worked his wallet from his back pocket and took out a clump of bills. “When our stuff’s ready, we’d be very grateful if you’d take it from those two washers and put it in a dryer. If that’s okay, we’ll stop back for it later.”

Our stuff?
Sonnie sought about for something to say but came up empty.

“That’ll be fine,” the woman said. She pointed to a scale of fees on the wall, counted out several dollars, and handed the rest back to Chris. “I’ll be here all day. If you don’t get back before closing, I’ll lock your things in the back room.”

Chris thanked her and gave her another dollar—and held Sonnie’s elbow while he stood up. She had little choice but to stand with him. Aiden got up on her other side, smiled all around, and walked out of the shop.