“And if someone does?”
“We chance it and drive straight to the police station. You ready?”
She tugged the shoulder harness tighter and whispered, “Hope you don’t mind if I close my eyes.”
Clay chuckled, turning the key in the ignition. “Hope you don’t mind if I do too.”
Clay threw the car in reverse. Tires screeched and the smell of burned rubber saturated the night air. The force with which he stomped on the gas pedal surged Cassidy forward, compelling the seatbelt to painfully cut into her shoulders. Clay shifted into drive and her head snapped back from the surge like she rode the Jack Rabbit at Kennywood Amusement Park, reminding her momentarily why she hated roller coasters.
The car lurched out of the driveway, eliciting yells from several men who appeared to be walking en masse toward the house. She couldn’t make out what they hollered. Clay swung the steering wheel in an arc and sped down the street. Two hands clutched the wheel as he eyed the rearview mirror.
“Son of a … hold on.”
How fast could they drive through a residential neighborhood before someone called the police? Maybe that’s what he was hoping for. Pure fear kept her from asking. Any minute she expected a g-force tug on her face. Trees, cars, and houses whizzed by. The car tires squealed when he navigated a corner, calling to mind the sales expression “turns on a dime.” She tightened her grip on the door handle and braced her feet on the floor.
Suddenly, flashing lights were charging toward them head-on, approaching them just as fast as they traveled. Red, blue, and white bulbs exploded in her line of sight, spinning and popping, and the high-pitched wails of multiple police sirens pierced the air. She jammed both feet into the floorboard as if the brake pedal was on her side and she could stop the car.
But Clay stopped it for her, barked for her to “Stay!” and jumped out of the driver’s seat with his hands in the air like a felon. “Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Behind me! Blue Chevy,” he yelled.
Four police cruisers sped by him and one halted in front of their car. The siren cut mid-squeal and Dan leaped from the passenger seat, ran to Clay, and embraced him, pounding his back. Only then did she release the door handle and swipe her sweaty palms across her jeans.
She’d never seen so many police in uniform in one place. They were everywhere, their radios cackling in code, their heads moving in constant surveillance. One officer walked to her side of the car and she made ready to get out, but he turned his back to her and stood at attention, blocking her view out the window. The butt end of a rifle protruded beyond his right hip.
She settled back into the seat, trying to make some sense out of the radio transmissions filling the air. Finally, Clay climbed back inside, leaned over, and squeezed her knee. “You okay?”
“What’s happening?”
“They caught two of the men who were at the house and they apprehended whoever was chasing us in the car. He has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, but he’s not talking. The other two seem like lackeys. They are probably just following orders and won’t know much. Everyone is being hauled to the station for interrogation. Right now, it’s not clear who they are or if they are connected to Tony DelMorrie, but I don’t believe in coincidences.” He ticked off his thoughts on his fingers.
“First, they knew our flight details and then they knew we were going to the safe house. There has to be a leak inside the department. Dan still thinks that’s the safest place for you, but I disagree. I’m not willing to take you back there, not knowing who to trust. What do you want to do, Cass?”
She swallowed hard. “What do you mean?”
“I haven’t done such a great job so far. Nothing has gone the way I planned. If you think you’ll feel safer at the police station, surrounded by cops, we’ll go back.”
She studied his face, wishing she could see those laugh lines that brightened up his eyes. He looked so tired, so defeated.
“You’ve kept me safe so far, Clay. If you don’t think it’s safe to go back to the police station, then we won’t go back there.”
He raised weary eyes to her and the silence stretched between them like a bridge begging them to cross. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Clay leaned toward her, leveling hooded eyes on her lips. She inched toward his face, sensing a new beginning. It was the most tender kiss she’d ever experienced, sweet and much too brief.
Dan pounded on the rooftop and appeared at the driver’s window. “You ready to go?”
Clay raised a questioning eyebrow at her. “Lead the way,” she whispered. He smiled and turned to Dan.
“We’re not going to take the chance and return to the station. When we stop, I’ll let you and only you know where we are. Meantime, you figure out who their mole is.”
He ignored Dan’s objections and put the rental car in drive. “I’m afraid you and I are spending another night in a motel room, honey. We’ll grab some takeout along the way. I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry and tired.”
She nodded. “You’re going to let Dan know where we are when we get there?”
He glanced at her quickly and then looked out the windshield. “No. I’m not telling anybody where we go.”
• • •
From his hiding spot behind some schmuck’s front yard hedges, Tony DelMorrie watched the car drive away and cursed. He’d planned to park and walk the final two blocks to the address Mittens had called in, when a flood of police cars woke up the whole neighborhood and forced him to drive to the curb and stop. He’d gotten out of the car to watch the scene unfold. Fortunately, the house whose yard he crouched in remained dark. The owners must not be home.
The action reminded him of a raid on one of their numbers joints — lights, sirens, and cops everywhere. He felt sorry for the poor dope who jumped out of the car with his hands up until he realized it was the cop with Cassidy Hoake. He watched fascinated as four cars surged ahead and others arrived, the fuzz swarming the area like flies at a picnic table. From what he could make out from the garbled radio conversations, they nabbed Mittens. That little shit better keep his trap shut.
His thighs had cramped and his back pulsed in protest against the unnatural squat position he’d been in forever. He doubted he could straighten up without pain, but he had to force his muscles to move because the cop and that Hoake bitch were driving away.
Despite the cool air temperature, sweat rolled down the sides of his face. He crawled through the grass toward the sidewalk, ruining a good pair of dress pants. One more reason to hate her. Gawd, he’d lost count of the reasons.
He stood, grateful for the two large maple trees that virtually cast the entire yard in darkness, straightened his clothes and walked nonchalantly to his car. Just a resident going out for some milk. He eyed the fracas as any curious onlooker would do, and even raised his hand in acknowledgement in case any of the cops were watching. Snickering, he unlocked the driver’s door and eased into the seat. What a bunch of idiots.
Smiling, he made a U-turn and casually drove to the end of the block, laughing out loud when he saw the car with Cassidy and the cop make a right turn. Wherever they were going, Uncle Tony was right behind.
What a cheap s.o.b. He was taking her to a sleep cheap motel. Maybe it was all he could afford on a cop’s salary. She didn’t deserve better anyway.
DelMorrie backed into a parking spot at the far end of the lot and switched off the headlights. He played out several scenarios in his head. If the cop left Hoake in the car while he went to the office to check in, he would drive up, shoot her through the passenger window and take off. If they both walked inside and he had a clear shot of her from here, he’d take it. If the cop blocked the shot, he’d wait until they came back to get their bags, zoom up and blast her to kingdom come. He’d been shooting a gun since he was ten, detonating every tin can his mother emptied. He’d perched them upside down on the cyclone fence that enclosed their backyard and little by little was able to step farther back and still hit the target. This would be a cinch.
• • •
Clay shifted into park but kept the car running. “Stay here, crouch down if you can. I’ll register and be right back. It’s better if the clerk thinks I’m alone.”
The fear in her heart must have etched itself on her face because he paused, stretched across the console, and squeezed her knee. “Don’t worry, hon, it will be fine.”
She nodded, once again so overwhelmed by all that had happened she was speechless. She pressed the switch to lower the window, silently begging the fresh air to decrease her elevated body temperature and calm her nerves. Clay sauntered across the parking lot as if he didn’t have a care in the world and entered the glass-walled motel office. A young man and woman stood at the counter and Clay stopped a short distance behind them, waiting his turn.
Remembering his directive, she unbuckled her seatbelt and slouched in her seat. A minivan driving into the parking lot to her right caught her attention and she turned to watch in idle curiosity, wondering if its occupants were as exhausted as she. The driver touched his brake pedal and the taillights glowed, shining a red spotlight on a man getting out of a car beyond the van. She blinked and eased up to see more clearly.
It was him. DelMorrie. His fedora rode low on his forehead and his coat collar stood high, but enough of his face was revealed to recognize him. He looked first to his right, then left, then hunched over and scurried to the line of cars in the row where she was parked, crouching while he advanced forward.
She was all thumbs and she cursed when the cell phone dropped to the bottom of her purse. Balancing it on her thigh she touched Clay’s name on the contact list screen with trembling fingers and typed. She studied Clay, counting the endless seconds until he felt his phone vibrate, reached into his back pocket to retrieve it, and read her message: DELMORRIE.
Clay spun around and charged out of the office as she threw her left leg over the console and hauled her body into the driver’s seat. She jammed the car into drive and sped forward, at the exact moment gunfire erupted like a cannon in her ears. Two, maybe three rapid-fire shots. The back window shattered and her nightmare found voice in a scream so forceful, her vocal chords strained. In the rearview mirror, Clay dropped to one knee.
Blindly, she drove to the end of the row of cars and yanked the wheel to the left, hearing more shots. She navigated a wild U-turn and drove straight toward Tony DelMorrie, screaming a second time when the headlights illuminated Clay sprawled on the ground and DelMorrie doubled over but still aiming at his target.
Howling Clay’s name like a banshee, she clutched the wheel and crushed the gas pedal to the floor, the car lurching forward toward DelMorrie like a rocket. Stunned, a deer caught in the headlights, DelMorrie turned to assess the car speeding toward him, repositioned his weapon, and fired the second Cassidy smashed into him with the front bumper. The windshield shattered, the car careened out of control and two hundred and fifty pounds of dead weight bounced onto the hood, spiraled over the roof, and rolled off the trunk.
She crashed into a parked car. Momentarily stunned, she shoved the driver’s door open and fell out onto the ground in time to see DelMorrie roll to his side and rise to his knees, his gun still locked in his grip and aimed at her. The echo of her own scream clashed with Clay’s voice shouting her name. As if in slow motion, she turned in Clay’s direction, watched him twist up to his knees, raise his hands, and shoot. Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Rapid shots, like a machine gun volley, pounded the night air.
DelMorrie folded in the middle, his head falling toward the ground, his arms flailing outward, fingers splayed wide, the gun releasing from his grasp in a slow drop. A spray of giant blood drops spewed from his chest and stomach and, when Clay squeezed the trigger once more, his head shot back, his neck snapping like a twig. The momentum knocked his body backward and his back hit the pavement with a dull thud, his legs and feet flying up into the air as if he’d fallen onto a trampoline, his face distorted, his eyes as wide as baseballs, and his lips puckering into a bloody kiss. Eyes bulging open, arms spread wide, palms up, DelMorrie lay sprawled on his back beneath a light pole, motionless.
She couldn’t hear anything, deafened by the gunfire and the fear coursing through her body, her nose burning from the smell of sulfur, tears blurring her vision.
“Clay! Clay!” she screamed, seeing him face down on the cement. Scrambling on hands and knees, Cassidy flashed back to the day she crawled for her life from the convenience store, praying for God to help her. Now, she ignored the parking lot debris cutting into her palms and her blue jeans shredding as she scurried toward Clay, calling his name and pleading, “Please God. Don’t let him die.”
Faintly, the distant screech of police sirens sounded in her ears. When the motel office came into view, she saw through the shattered picture window the couple huddled in the corner and the clerk barely peeking over the counter.
A puddle of blood slowly seeped from beneath Clay’s left thigh. “Clay? Clay?” She reached for his arm to roll him onto his back and shrieked at the dark, stain spreading across his stomach. His eyes were closed and she laid her hand on the sticky shirt hoping to detect a heartbeat. “Clay?”
Barely a moan. “Cassidy?”
“Oh thank God. Clay, be still, I can hear the police cars.”
“DelMorrie?” he whispered.
She raised her head and stared at the lifeless form.
“Dead. I’m pretty sure.”
He blinked, coughed, spitting up blood, and grabbed her arm hard enough to leave finger marks. “Don’t trust anyone. No one but Dan,” he whispered. His eyes fluttered closed and his head dropped to the pavement.
• • •
Mittens knew his rights. He didn’t have to tell these cops anything and he was entitled to a phone call. His only problem was, who to call? He didn’t dare call Johnny Tanzini, that could be suicide.
Something was going on out in the main part of the police station. Whatever it was, it was causing a commotion in the whole building. The two detectives trying to play good-cop-bad-cop had disappeared, leaving some young rookie standing guard outside the door, the radio on his hip going crazy with transmissions.