Nautier and Wilder (6 page)

To lose it all because of some asshole with a sock for a dick.

FIVE

P
ulling into the back lot of the rental car agency, Piper was still fuming hours later.

It was too late to be in an area that appeared deserted in New York City, and far
too late to do anything but turn the car back in.

At least the cab she’d called was waiting for her.

She’d stopped to let the driver know she just had to park the car; then she’d be ready
to leave.

What she hadn’t anticipated was that when she’d thrown her portfolio and her purse
to the back of the car earlier, she’d also managed to knock the bag containing her
morning purchases over on the back floorboard.

Rhinestones and colored crystals were scattered along the carpet, twinkling merrily
beneath the interior lights as she scooped them up and threw them back into her bag
without bothering to return them to the small plastic bags they’d been in when she’d
bought them.

That took far too long, as far as she was concerned. The damned cab was charging by
the frickin’ half minute, if she remembered her last trip to New York correctly.

She had only so much cash on her, and her own credit card was barely going to cover
her hotel room. The trip was supposed to be all expenses paid, but Piper knew the
type of man Eldon Vessante was now. No doubt he had already called the hotel and informed
them that he wasn’t paying for anything. That meant she’d better have her own card
ready and waiting when she walked through the front doors.

Tossing the last of the colored crystals and stones into her bag, Piper stepped back,
slammed the door, then hurriedly locked the car before rushing back to the front of
the rental agency.

Depositing the keys in the night box, she all but ran to the taxi and gave the driver
the address to the hotel.

Just as the vehicle pulled out, the first raindrops began pelting the yellow-and-black
vehicle.

“It’s finally raining,” the driver commented as he turned at the corner and headed
for the hotel. “You in town for long?”

“Not really.” She stared straight ahead, fuming.

“Business or just a visit?” he asked then, obviously in the mood to chat.

Every cabdriver she’d ever known had spent their time either on their cell phone or
talking to the company about waiting fares. This one would have to be the chatty type.

“A little of both,” she answered, staring out at the rain as she tried not to cry.

Not yet.

She’d made certain she hadn’t cried on the way back to the rental agency. God forbid
she get pulled over for any reason, even this far away from home, because she knew
it would take less than an hour for Somerset’s chief of police, Alex Jansen, to learn
about it. What Alex knew, his wife, Janey, would be quick to find out.

And Janey, being Natches’s sister and Dawg’s cousin, would find it impossible not
to tattle.

Piper should have known better. She should have known it couldn’t be this easy. She’d
worked far too long and too hard for it to happen as she had imagined once she’d received
that letter from S. Chaniss.

“If it walks exactly like a duck and quacks exactly like a duck, then watch out for
the explosion, because no two ducks walk or quack exactly the same,”
she’d once heard Dawg say with a laugh.

She should have been prepared for the explosion.

The cabdriver chatted about the rain while Piper answered where she had to. She was
aware the trip back to the hotel took much longer than it had going from the hotel
to the rental agency, but she always added in for the detours and “scenic routes”
the cabbies took to add to the time and mileage they charged, no matter where they
were.

There was only so much of a delay he could make, though. It may have seemed like hours
before he was pulling into the front of the well-lit hotel, but it had actually taken
no more than fifteen minutes. Which was way too long, considering it was close to
midnight and the streets, with the exception of Times Square and a few other tourist-heavy
areas, were all but deserted of traffic.

Pushing his fee and a larger tip than he deserved through the small opening in the
divider between the passenger’s and driver’s areas, Piper stepped from the cab and
moved quickly into the hotel.

“Ah, Ms. Mackay.” The young, blond receptionist caught her attention. The girl’s expression
was apologetic, her pale blue gaze faintly concerned. Just as Piper expected.

“Yes?” She should have kicked Vessante while she had the chance.

“The manager would like to speak to you.” The receptionist’s smile was compassionate.
“He’s coming now.”

As she stepped to the reception desk, the night manager moved from his office and
slid behind the desk as Piper waited.

Stocky, his face weathered with laugh lines at the corner of his eyes, his brown gaze
was concerned and compassionate. It was firm, though. He knew what he had to do, and
he may hate it, but he would do it.

“My apologies, Ms. Mackay,” the manager, Charles, appeared genuinely apologetic. “I’m
aware your stay was to be taken care of by another party, but.” He grimaced. “I’m
terribly sorry, ma’am, but I was informed before your arrival that that is no longer
the case and the party is now refusing to pay.”

She couldn’t let the manager finish demanding the payment. It wasn’t his fault, and
she could tell this was one part of his job he definitely didn’t like.

“I’d prefer to take care of my room myself, Charles.” She smiled back at him as relief
gleamed in his gaze.

He was a nice guy; she liked him. He had checked her in during the wee hours of the
morning and ensured she had a cab waiting that morning to take her shopping. He’d
arranged her morning coffee and joked with her about the weather when she’d stepped
into the lobby to leave for her shopping trip.

Taking her date book/planner from her purse, Piper opened it and pulled her credit
card free before laying it on the gleaming marble counter in front of the young woman
standing at his side.

“Thank you.” The young woman—Brittany, her name tag claimed—ran the card before giving
her a bright smile as the payment went through. “Will you be staying with us the full
length of the reservation?”

So much for Dawg being unaware where she had stayed.

Piper shook her head as she slid a tip to the girl. “I’m checking out tonight. Could
you please have a car waiting in about an hour to take me to the train station, and
send the bellhop up for my luggage?”

She should never have gone shopping that morning. There were bags of additional materials
in her room that she would now have to try to stuff into the single extra duffel bag
she’d packed rather than purchasing another, as she’d planned.

“I’ll make certain of it.” Brittany’s smile was too cheerful.

Piper quickly turned and headed for the elevators as she tucked her card back into
the planner’s clear zippered pocket.

As she did so, a phone number caught her eye.

Jed Booker. The number was scrawled under his name in the neat, no-nonsense handwriting
he used.

She should have invited him to come with her, she sighed wearily to herself. Eldon
Vessante would have never tried anything so stupid if Jed had been with her. She had
a feeling Mr. Vessante would have been far less likely to stuff that sock in his pants,
or to make such an outrageous demand.

He would have simply told her he had changed his mind the first chance he had, which
would have suited her fine.

Stepping into the elevator, she told herself it didn’t matter. If it was meant to
be, it would be; it was that simple.

That phone number glared back at her, though, until she snapped the planner closed.
She didn’t push it back into her purse, however. She held on to it even though she’d
already both memorized the number and programmed it into her smart phone.

Yes, if she had brought Jed, she had no doubt the night would have been far less disappointing
and much more interesting.

One thing was certain: Jed so did not stuff his crotch with anything but what God
had given him. And God had been generous.

* * *

Rudy Genoa stared at the disgusting, bloodied face of the car rental agency manager
with bitter fury.

He was tied, in a rather clichéd style, to an old-fashioned wooden office chair, because
he was too damned cheap to buy the nice, if inexpensive, computer chairs that were
so easy to find.

It had worked to restrain him, though.

Duct tape secured his wrists to the arms of the chair and his ankles to the legs.
His face was swollen and pale beneath the blood that marred it. The top of his balding
head was splattered with his blood, calling attention to the fact that perhaps he’d
lost more hair since the last time Rudy had seen him several months ago.

Chester’s head lolled to the side a bit, while small, bloody bubbles filled and deflated
at his nostrils with each breath.

He really was a distressing sight, but it couldn’t be helped. Rudy was furious. The
loss of the delivery had the potential to do far more than just embarrass him. The
loss of that delivery could bring some very nasty individuals into his town looking
for him. The type of men one preferred not to piss off. Even one with Rudy’s power.

He couldn’t believe the stupidity.

This was what you got for trying to trust family to do a job right.

“Did you think I would just let this go, Chester?” Rudy asked as he straddled the
chair he’d pulled over to the balding, overweight little bastard.

“Rudy, please.” Sloppy, bleeding, one eye swollen shut, his lips split by the heavy
fist that had pounded into them, Chester wept pitifully. “I did like you said; I swear.
It was that new girl. She rented the car out.”

“And now the delivery that came in with that car is missing,” Rudy stated softly.
“We checked it thoroughly.”

“Please.” Chester choked. “You owe me, Rudy. You owe me. I’ll get them back. I swear
I will.”

He owed him.

Rudy agreed with his cousin for a change.

A six-year stint in prison for a crime he had been nowhere near had earned Chester
a hell of a boon. But this . . .

Rudy shook his head as he propped his arms on the back of the chair he was straddling.
Six years in prison for the rape of Rudy’s rival’s mistress came nowhere close to
the millions of dollars in diamonds, sapphires, and rubies that were now missing.

The slightest awareness of another presence behind him had Rudy waiting patiently,
the familiar lack of sound in his son’s movements pleasing.

“I checked the security tapes. She arrived about ten minutes before we did, messed
around in the backseat, looks like she knocked over a bag onto the back floorboard.
We found a receipt pushed beneath one of the seats for a craft seller for colored
crystals and stones. There’s a chance the woman doesn’t know what she has.” There
was no opinion either way in the boy’s voice.

Well, perhaps Andre wasn’t a boy anymore, but as his mother would say, he would always
be Rudy’s boy.

“And her name?” Rudy asked.

At his son’s lack of an answer, Rudy turned to stare back at him with a frown. Rarely
had Rudy seen this expression on Andre’s face.

That look of concern.

Trepidation began to tingle in Rudy’s gut.

“Piper Mackay, from Somerset, Kentucky.” The words were a harsh rasp of anger from
a man who rarely allowed himself to show any emotion. “The investigation I did on
the family after Marlena’s disappearance says she’s James ‘Dawg’ Mackay’s sister.”

But now, Rudy knew why his son had hesitated to give him the information.

Dawg, Rowdy, and Natches Mackay had not just been instrumental in foiling Marlena
Genoa’s plot to kill John Walker Jr. for breaking their engagement, but had also managed
to kill Gerard Andrews, the sponsor backing her acceptance into the Genoa family.

“Coincidence?” Rudy asked.

“She’s staying at a hotel no more than two blocks from here,” his son answered. “Chester
knows the manager there, from what I’ve gathered.”

Andre didn’t confirm or deny the theory of coincidence, though Rudy knew he didn’t
believe in such a thing. Rudy believed, though. He’d seen far stranger occurrences
in his lifetime that could be explained no other way.

“This is a complication.” Rudy sighed, turning back to glower at Chester. “Why is
she here, in the city?”

“According to our contact at the hotel, she’s a clothing designer. She was here for
a meeting with a backer,” his son informed him as Rudy stared at Chester, his eyes
narrowed with a fury he found hard to control. “Getting into her room won’t be a problem.
Once I get in, I’ll restrain her and reacquire our property. That should be the end
of it.”

“Take two men with you,” Rudy ordered as he glanced at the brute standing behind Chester.
“Send them in. This is a matter you oversee, not one you do yourself.”

The boy had a tendency to micromanage shit.

“I’ll take care of it,” Andre promised, and Rudy knew he could depend on him. Of all
the men he commanded, it was Andre he trusted above all others to ensure the job was
taken care of quickly and correctly.

“Very well.” Rudy sighed. “And, Andre, don’t let your men kill the girl. Make it look
like a random burglary. We don’t need the Mackays and their government sidekicks in
our town.”

“Agreed.” Andre nodded shortly before turning and leaving the room once again.

Rudy turned back to Chester.

“See, it wasn’t my fault, Rudy. It was that girl you hired. She let the car out and
I told her not to,” Chester whined. “You don’t have to kill me.”

“True,” Rudy agreed, ignoring the hope that suddenly filled his third cousin’s abused
features. “This is very true.”

The girl was Rudy’s illegitimate daughter. She was his favorite child, and this incompetent
fool thought to place the blame on her? The poor bastard had just signed his own death
warrant.

His gaze flicked to the heavily muscled ex-boxer, the Brute, as Rudy called him, standing
behind the other man. The one whose fists had made hamburger out of Chester’s face
earlier.