Fugitive Heart (16 page)

“This?” She realized he wasn’t talking about the fierce lovemaking. “Oh. That.”

She climbed off him, her bare feet hitting the damp leaves and not blankets. For the first time, she became aware of the chill in the air. Ames groped around for the sweatpants. He found them first and helped her turn them right-side out.

“Next time we do this, there’ll be no rush. No threat hanging over us, just long, slow lovemaking that lasts all night long,” she promised, as she pulled the sweatpants onto her shaky legs.

“Hell, yes,” he said

She smiled at the fervor of his agreement. If, God forbid, something terrible were to happen when they faced the mob, she couldn’t ask for a happier last memory than tonight.

They cleaned up the best they could—he’d brought along extra shirts so his old one worked as a rag. Then they settled again. Her back to his front. His arm wrapped around her and his face pressed to her head. This already felt familiar and cozy.

She tried to avoid the thoughts of the coming hours, but the reality returned too fast.

“I can feel you tensing up,” he murmured. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” He kissed her and hummed softly in her ear. It was a tuneless little chant of
we’ll stay safe, Ames, I’m here, I’m here, hush, hush.

She felt safe at the moment, wrapped in his arms. That would have to do, she thought muzzily. And in so many ways that was more comfort than she’d ever had.

When she woke up, the first gray light of dawn sifted through the tree branches, but the world was mostly dark. It looked to be a dull, even ominous day, and she shivered alone in the blanket. Nick sat on a rock, a small pair of binoculars in one hand.

“Go on,” he said. She sat up with a start, then realized he was on the phone. “Thank Billy for me. Got it. A young guy with a lot of black hair, right. Dark clothes. And another guy who looks like who?” Pause. “Never heard of Telly Savalas, but if he’s bald—yup, yup, I know them. The one with the hair is Bert. Wait. What? They’re leaving the inn now? What the hell? Wait a sec.”

She tried to straighten her disheveled dress. “What—” She started to speak, but he put a finger to his lips and motioned for her to lie down. She obeyed without question. He whispered into the phone, “Someone else is coming. Another car. Gotta go.”

She heard it then. The gravel at first and then the hum of a car engine. Very close. Nick dropped to the blanket next to her. Lying on his stomach, he watched the car and muttered under his breath, “Jake says Bert’s on his way but they just left. So who the hell are these guys?”

Chapter Thirteen

The engine and headlights were cut when the vehicle reached the drive. It coasted to a stop. The two men who climbed out of the black SUV were lumpy figures in the darkness. One was about the size of a refrigerator. The other was shorter, skinnier and wore some kind of nylon windbreaker that made quiet shushing sounds when he moved, which Nick could hear even from yards away. The men were no sooner out of the vehicle than they each reached under their jackets. Nick didn’t need to see the guns. The efficient drawing motion said it all.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit.
He was not equipped to play cat-and-mouse games with professional criminals.

Nick cut a glance at Ames. Her eyes were wide, alert but not terrified. That was good. The last thing he needed was for her to panic, especially since he didn’t know exactly what he was doing. Playing it by ear was an understatement. But he wanted her to feel confident in his ability to handle this.

He leaned close to whisper to her. “Look, I don’t know who they are. Maybe Bert sent them ahead to check things out. You stay put, and I’ll go talk to them.”

She seized his arm. “No way! Those guys look like… Damn, they look plain scary. If your friend’s not with them, maybe they’re not his people.”

Exactly what he’d been thinking, but Nick didn’t know what else to do. One way or another, this situation was going to come to a head. He might as well come out of hiding, show he wasn’t afraid and was willing to do everything he could to set things right.

“Ames. Please, trust me, and
please
stay put.”

She clutched his arm hard enough to hurt for a moment longer, then reluctantly released him. “Okay, but I have nine-one-one on speed dial. If anything starts to happen, I’m calling.”

Nick doubted there’d be time. If something went down here, it might very well be him, with a bullet in his head, hitting the ground.

He grasped the back of Ames’s head, leaned in and gave her a hard kiss; then he scrambled up from the ground. Keeping her safe had become more than a desire. It was a driving need wedged deep, unmovable.

He wanted to put some distance between the car and Ames, so he made his way through the woods, then approached the men just beyond the curve of the long driveway. He shouted, hands raised, “Hey. I’m here.”

His heart raced as the men turned to face him. Looking down the barrels of a couple of Berettas could do that.

The big guy got into the SUV and started it. The shorter one jogged toward Nick, gun raised.

“I’ve got the package,” Nick said, hoping that would convince the skinny guy to aim the gun away from him. It didn’t.

“Nick Rossi?” The skinny guy stopped more than an arm’s length away. The other guy had driven the sixty feet and got out again in an almost lazy manner. His gun dangled from his big hand as he joined his partner.

“Yes. You’re with Bert?” Nick said again. “I’ll only deal with him. We have an agreement.” He prayed Bert thought the same thing.

The big guy scowled, then went around the side of the vehicle and turned on the headlights so they shone in Nick’s face. “Stay there,” he commanded.

His partner approached Nick. As he patted him down, all Nick could think was what a stupid choice a windbreaker was for a person who was supposed to be silent and deadly. The slippery noise the nylon material made suddenly seemed incredibly hilarious. Nick was on the verge of bursting out laughing, his anxiety exhibiting as inconvenient hilarity.

He swallowed the impulse and held perfectly still as the man with the pitted face and thin moustache frisked him, then announced to his partner, “He’s clean.”

Nick had left the gun with Ames, even though she’d made it clear she didn’t want to use it. He was going to let them pat him down, and there was no point in getting it taken away from him.

“Where’s Bert?” he asked, increasingly certain these two had nothing to do with his one-time pal.

“Don’t know. We’re here for
Mr
. Esposito.” The big guy stressed the word “mister” as if Bert hadn’t earned the right to the title. The man’s tone suggested Bert wasn’t part of the senior Esposito’s inner circle. Nick’s stomach churned. If Bert had no authority to deal with Nick, then all bets were off.

“What does Mr. Esposito want?” Nick played for time as he pictured Cesar, the head of the clan. He hadn’t seen the guy in the flesh for years, but his photo had been featured in a news story when he’d been arraigned for a racketeering charge, which was later dropped. Cesar Esposito was a very average-looking man. No expensive clothes or gold chains. In fact, in the photo taken as he was ushered into the courthouse, he looked more like a gardener than a crime boss.

“You,” Windbreaker answered. “And Elliot Jensen.”

“I don’t have any idea where Jensen is. Like I told Bert”—and he’d tried to tell the other guy he’d encountered at Elliot’s house. Nick swallowed, and went on—“I’m not Elliot Jensen’s accomplice, just collateral damage. His trail led Bert to me, and Bert gave me the go-ahead to track Elliot and recover what he took. I’m trying to do that.”

Nick felt like he was throwing stones into a pond that refused to ripple. These guys stared at him blank-faced, as if they couldn’t care less about his story. They had a job to do. He was it.

Refrigerator waved his pistol. “Get in the car. You can explain all this to Mr. Esposito back in New York.”

“You’re not hearing me. I
have
some of the stuff—the accounting information and part of the money. I found it, but I’ve hidden it. I’ve got to have some kind of leverage. Besides, I’m negotiating with Bert on this issue.”

“In this matter, Bert Esposito is irrelevant,” Windbreaker said. “Give us the packet—all of it—and maybe Mr. Esposito will be lenient.”

The Fridge screwed up his face as if he smelled something off. “He still has to come with us. Him and the packet both.”

Windbreaker rolled his eyes. “Yeah, of course.”

They all froze as, from around the bend came the sound of an approaching car. Then the crunch of gravel and the growl of the engine abruptly went silent.

He wondered if it was possible Ames had ignored his warning to stay put. Yeah, he just bet she’d heard the car and run toward it for help. And who drove that car?

Speaking of Mr. Irrelevant, here comes Bert.

“Who’s that?” demanded Windbreaker.

Nick shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“Did you call the police?”

He considered lying but decided not to bother. These guys seemed to be getting nervous, and keeping them calm was a priority. “Nope.”

The big guy went to the car and turned off the headlights. The gray light of dawn hadn’t changed or brightened much and probably wouldn’t. It was going to be a cloudy day.

“Why’d you do that? I can’t see a goddamn thing. No goddamn streetlights,” Windbreaker grumbled.

Nick felt a wave of sympathetic agreement.

The other guy told him to shut up. He looked at Nick and tucked the gun away. “We don’t want a situation. You got that, Rossi? Whoever this is, we’re going to act normal. We’re going fishing or something, understand?”

“Sure.” Nick couldn’t help smiling at the thought of these two holding fishing poles. The Refrigerator grabbed Nick’s arm and hauled him to stand in front of them.

“I got a hand on the gun. Whoever this is better not be too interested, understand? We don’t want to clean up a big mess, but I will if I have to.”

Nick wished he’d stop ending sentences with
“understand?”
He nodded.

Three figures walked over the hill as if they were taking a morning stroll. One was a bald guy who probably played high school football twenty years ago, a familiar face. Another was Bert, well-dressed and darkly handsome as ever, although he did seem a little fatter than the last time Nick had seen him. The third person was Ames. Nick’s heart stuttered in fear. He might be glad to see the first two but not Ames. She was not part of this.

He called, “Good morning, Ms.”—and just in time remembered her last name was the same as Elliot’s—“Peterkins.”

She walked next to Bert, and there was at least two feet between them. The football player was on Bert’s other side. No one held a weapon on Ames. He twisted to face the Refrigerator and in a low voice said, “Before we do any more talking, just let the woman go, okay? You want to keep this whole thing quiet, and that means keeping out the locals. This is a small town, and she’s well known, so if anything happens to her, there’ll be big trouble.”

The Fridge paid no attention to him. He tucked his gun away but looked at Bert and muttered, “What the fuck?”

Windbreaker stepped away from their little group. He held the Glock behind his back. Nick was thoroughly sick of guns.

“Bert!” Windbreaker waved with his free hand. “Glad to see you. Didn’t know you were around these parts.”

All friends here.

Windbreaker stood in front of Nick but wasn’t so tall that Nick couldn’t see Bert wave back, a big smile on his bland, smooth face. Nick had seen that cold shark’s smile before and knew Bert was furious.

Odd that the clashes between Bert and his old man hadn’t settled down by now. They had a lot of typical dad-and-son issues—with the bonus of extra menace. Then Nick remembered Bert wasn’t the hothead of the pair, and so the end of teenage years wouldn’t have resolved power struggles.

And here he and Ames stood, literally in the middle.

The other group of three came to an abrupt halt next to the big SUV. Bert’s man, a guy with a shaved head and mashed nose—Nick couldn’t recall if his name was Ducky or Duffy —stared over at them. There was enough light to see that he and Windbreaker immediately began a stare-down. Nick could tell the rivalry was nothing new.

“Yo, Phil.” He nodded in the general direction of Phil the Fridge’s hidden gun. Bert slipped his hand into his jacket pocket sending a clear message of
I got one too
.

Bert continued. “So, Phil, Les—what the hell you two doing here? Didn’t my father tell you I was on it?” His voice was calm, interested rather than angry.

“Hey, what do we know?” Les, aka Windbreaker, gave a nylon-whispering shrug. “Mr. Esposito is kinda worried about this situation. He didn’t like what was going on with people trying to push him around, and the missing material is—”

Nick interrupted. “Thanks for stopping by, Miss Peters, but I guess you can go on and finish your walk. Nice morning for it.”

“I thought you said she was Peterkins.”

Nick ignored Phil. He looked into her pale face, willing her to turn and just walk away. The situation hadn’t gotten to that sizzling point of no return. No one here would shoot her without at least shouting some kind of warning. He was almost sure of it.