Nighthawk & The Return of Luke McGuire (43 page)

She had no sooner tugged the shirt down than she heard him coming back. Her heart began to trip in anticipation. She gave a last swipe to her hair with a brush but didn’t try to smooth it completely; she hoped he would remember tangling it with his hands when she’d begun her lengthy, intimate exploration of his body. She glanced in the mirror once more, amazed at the reflection that greeted her, the reflection of a woman who had been completely, thoroughly loved. Tousled hair, kiss-swollen lips, even a reddish spot or two his emerging beard had rubbed on her skin.

And, she guessed, a few other marks in some more intimate places. The heat of remembrance flooded her again, and she turned and headed for the door, her body already humming with eagerness.

She broke into a trot as she crossed the living room. As she neared the door she noticed her keys were gone from the table. She smiled; Luke must have taken them, so he could lock the door for her safety, yet get back in when he came back to her.

The noise came from the door again, a metallic sound. He seemed to be having trouble. He was probably having to try every key on there to find the right one; one of these days she would put the store keys on another ring. She smothered a laugh at how surprised he would be when the door swung open from inside. She reached for the deadbolt and flipped it, then the knob. She yanked the door open eagerly. Something fell to the ground, something that looked like a pair of locking pliers. Amelia eyes instinctively tracked the movement, then shot back up to the startled face before her.

It was Snake.

And his friends were with him.

Jackie Hiller stood in her doorway, staring in shock at her two sons.

“I need your car,” Luke said abruptly.

“How dare you!” She seemed torn, not knowing who to focus on. She turned on David. “And you! I’ve already reported you to the police.”

“I don’t care. Give him the car.”

“How dare you speak to me like tha—” She gasped as Luke pushed past her into the house. “I’m calling the police right back here!”

“Yes, do that. The sooner the better.” He ignored his mother’s puzzled look. “Where are the keys?” Luke asked his brother.

“She keeps them in the drawer. There,” David supplied, pointing at a table in the elegantly appointed foyer. She’d changed the furnishings, Luke noticed as he strode across the huge entry. All the glitter and fake gold she’d always wanted. He yanked the drawer open.

“If you so much as touch my car I’ll have you put in jail and the key thrown away!”

He grabbed the keys. And then he faced his mother. Somehow, in the face of possible danger to Amelia, she seemed smaller, less intimidating, a shrewish, selfish woman not worth the energy it took to hate her.

“For once in your self-centered, mean-spirited life, shut up. You have nothing to say that either of us wants to hear.” She gaped at him, stunned, for once, into silence. Luke turned to his brother. “Can I trust you?”

David drew himself up. In the light of the house his face was a sight, tearstained and bruised. Bruises his mother hadn’t even asked about, Luke realized.

“Yes,” David said firmly. “She doesn’t matter.”

His mother gasped. Luke nodded; his little brother had come a long way tonight. “No, she doesn’t. Call the police. Send them to Amelia’s. Fast.”

“Can’t I go with you? I want to help.”

“I need you to do this,” Luke said.

David hesitated, then did the last little bit of growing up. “All right. Go. Hurry.”

Luke ran for the door. The last thing he heard as he hit the front steps was David’s voice.

“Get out of the way, Mom. Now. I’m calling the police.”

His brother might just make it, he thought as he raced around to where his mother’s big new boat of a sedan was parked. Thing probably drives like a tank, he thought as he hit the alarm release on her key chain and the car unlocked and beeped. But it didn’t matter, as long as it got him to Amelia.

In time.

A
melia had never been so terrified in her life. What had minutes before been arousing was now a huge mistake; she felt even more vulnerable dressed only in the silk shirt. She was cornered, nearly naked, barefoot, without a weapon in sight. Snake was between her and the door, one of the others between her and the phone.

And bearing down on her, a malicious expression on a face that seemed decades older than his actual years, was the boy she’d hit the night of the fight.

His knife was much bigger than Snake’s butterfly knife. It was also shiny new, and she wondered if he’d bought—or stolen—it just for the occasion.

Amelia suppressed a shiver, knowing she didn’t dare show them how scared she was. And prayed that Luke would come back. Now.

“We saw your tough-guy boyfriend leave,” Snake said, as if he’d read her thoughts. “We were waiting down the street. Isn’t he going to be surprised when he comes back and finds you like we’re going to leave you?”

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask what they were going to do, but she bit it back. She knew her voice would shake and betray her fear. She also sensed it would somehow acknowledge their complete control of the situation. And besides, she didn’t really want to know; her guesses were bad enough.

“Do you like Fargo’s knife?” Snake asked, as if he’d read her earlier thoughts. “It’s just for you. You’ll be its first blood.”

She had to do something, say something, not let them think she was cowed into total silence. She concentrated on keeping her voice steady. “Fargo? From the place or the movie?”

The boy with the blade looked startled. Snake frowned. And it was Snake who said, “The movie. Not that it’s any of your business.”

Amazingly, that steadied her. They were armed; they were mean; they were dangerous. But they were also kids. Kids who took nicknames out of movies. There had to be something she could do, even if she was afraid.

You’ve got something more important than nerve, you’ve got brains. That’ll outdo brawn and nerve most times.

Luke’s words rang in her head. She remembered the tenderness in his voice when he’d said them, and she tried to draw strength from that. Surely she could stall them until he got here?

Unless he wasn’t coming back until morning. Or afternoon.

She couldn’t allow herself to believe that or she would panic. And panic was going to get her hurt, raped or worse.

With a tremendous effort she put as much amusement as she could into her voice and face and asked Snake, “Doesn’t anybody else talk but you?”

“Shut up, bitch,” Fargo snarled.

Amelia lifted a brow. “He does talk!”

“I do the talking because I’m the head man,” Snake said, gesturing with his own knife.

Amelia looked around at the others. “You guys elected
him?
Whew. Good thing you’re not old enough to vote yet.”

Snake lunged toward her. It took everything she had not to recoil, not to break and run. He stopped short, looking at her with intense curiosity tinged with the slightest touch of wariness.

“Why ain’t she scared, Snake?” one of the others asked. Amelia didn’t see who; she never took her eyes off of Snake.

“I don’t know,” Snake muttered, clearly disconcerted.

You’ve got brains….

So use them, she told herself. “She ain’t scared,” she said sweetly, “because she has a silent alarm and the cops are roaring over here right now.”

All of them jerked upright and looked toward the street. Amelia took full advantage. She darted back toward the hallway. The instant she was out of their sight she reached out and slammed the door to the spare bedroom shut as she passed it. She dodged sideways into the next room, the second bathroom, but left the door open. She hid in the dark behind it, holding her breath.

She heard them shouting. Heard them running. And seconds later heard them pounding on the closed bedroom door. More shouting, epithets she’d never even heard before, and threats she was pretty sure were physically impossible. She held her breath, waiting for one of them to realize the door wasn’t even locked.

That it stupidly took them so long gave her hope. It was a good minute before she heard one of the yell, “Hey, the door isn’t even locked!”

The slam of the bedroom door back against the wall. Rapid footsteps as they charged in. The moment she was sure they were inside she gathered every bit of nerve she had—and borrowed more from Luke’s faith in her—and came out from her hiding place.

With their voices ringing from the room, she grabbed the chair from the vanity in the bathroom.

“Check the closet!”

“Under the bed!”

“Isn’t no window, she’s gotta be here!”

She crossed the hall to the door they’d opened in one swift step. She reached in, praying they were too occupied to see her.

She yanked the door shut.

She jammed the chair under the knob.

She held her breath as they realized what had happened and tried to shove the door open.

The chair held. She let out her breath in a nearly sobbing gasp of relief.

Don’t let down now. That chair won’t hold forever. Call the police.

She whirled, headed for the cordless phone that she could take outside.

She’d missed one. Snake and his knife were waiting for her.

Her relief vanished. She tried desperately to pull herself back together. Her mind was racing as Snake started toward her, his knife at the ready. She saw his gaze flick to the blocked door. There was the slightest hitch in his steps as he pondered his options.

“Think you’re clever, don’t you, bitch?” he snarled.

“I
know
you’re a coward,” Amelia said with all the cool she could muster. “Why, I’ll bet right now all you want to do is let your friends out, so you don’t have to face the big, bad woman all alone.”

He stopped dead, and she knew that was exactly what he’d been going to do. He’s a hothead, she told herself. Push him, maybe he’ll do something stupid.

Yeah, and you’ll be on the receiving end,
the coward within told her.

Stall, at least, she thought, hating herself for her paralyzing fear. The boys in the bedroom were still pounding and yelling. They shoved against the door. Amelia held her breath, but the chair held.

“You’d better shut up,” Snake said, waving the Balisong at her. She should have read that book, she thought. Maybe there was a way to disarm somebody with one of those.

Stop it,
she snapped inwardly. If there was, she didn’t know it, and she didn’t have time to waste thinking about it.

“And don’t you try one of those fancy things you did to Fargo. I’ll cut your leg off.”

Sticking with what had worked so far—and what had worked for Luke the other night—Amelia laughed. She leaned against the back of her overstuffed chair, trying for the most insouciant posture she could manage. “Oh, no, I wouldn’t think of it. I’ve got a much better one in mind for you. If the cops don’t get here in time to save you.”

She didn’t know how much longer she could keep this up. She tried desperately to think of something else to distract Snake, but she was running out of ideas and had the terrifying feeling she was running out of time, as well.

“Cops’d be here by now if they were comin’,” he sneered disbelievingly, but there was just enough doubt in his face to give her the fortitude to keep going. “I didn’t see no alarm.”

The boys trapped in the bedroom shoved against the door again.

The chair began to slip.

God, I hope I’m wrong. I hope it’s all a mistake, that their talk was all bluster, that it wasn’t tonight, anything. That I’ll get there and everything will be quiet, she’ll be sound asleep, just as I left her, soft, warm, sexy….

Luke ignored the protesting howl of the tires as he rounded the corner. For the first time in his life he prayed for the cops to see him, chase him. But also for what seemed the first time in his life—in Santiago Beach, anyway—there were none in sight.

He had to trust David. He had to trust that the boy felt awful enough and guilty enough that he would make that call, no matter how hard his mother tried to stop him.

He barely touched the brakes as he made the turn onto Amelia’s street. His eyes flicked to the little white house with the profusion of flowers.

There was an old, dark sedan parked half in the driveway and half on top of her flowers.

Every muscle in his body tightened, and Luke’s heart slammed into high speed like a kayak coming out of the slot. For an instant he debated. Better to arrive with tires squealing and horn blaring, so they would know she had help now? Or would that startle them into doing something they hadn’t intended? Something they might do out of panic? Something irreversible…?

He couldn’t, wouldn’t, take that chance, not with Amelia. He blacked out the lights, then yanked the wheel to the left, pulling the big car in at an angle that blocked the other car’s exit. He got out and spent a precious second listening. That was all it took for him to hear voices yelling from inside the house.

It took every bit of restraint, every ounce of patience he’d gained in years of learning when to fight the river and when to just go with it, to stop himself from blasting through the front door. Instead he crept up to it, avoiding the sidewalk for silence, keeping to the shadows of the greenery.

He got up to the edge of the porch, beneath the window thankfully open to the summer air, just in time to hear Amelia say, “—could see it and disarm it, it wouldn’t be a very good alarm, now would it?”

To anyone else, Luke was sure she would sound utterly unconcerned. But he’d come to know her voice rather well, and he could hear the undertone beneath the nonchalant words.

He heard another voice, lower, male and young. Snake, he guessed. He could hear Amelia more clearly and hoped that was because Snake had his back to the window. He risked a peek.

Amelia was leaning against her chair as if she hadn’t a care in the world, facing the door. Snake did indeed have his back to the partly open door, and he was the one who looked unsteady, shifting his feet nervously, waving that damned knife around. If he was just a step closer to the door, Luke thought, he could take him out with it. Hit it full force and it would knock him sideways.

For an instant he thought he saw Amelia look toward him. Her expression didn’t change, but he was very in tune with that body of hers, and he saw the sudden increase in tension. He made a quick gesture at Snake and then toward the door, hoping against hope she had really looked, had seen him and had correctly interpreted his signal.

“Don’t tell me you walked right by the control pad and didn’t even see it?” Amelia said to Snake with creditable disbelief. “I mean, it’s right there by the door.”

Snake turned to look. And took that crucial one step.

God, he loved this woman! Luke went up and over the porch railing. He never stopped. He hit the front door hard with his shoulder, felt the satisfying thud as it connected with flesh on the other side.

He heard a string of curses. Saw Snake scrambling to get to his feet. Saw the glint of metal in his hand. Luke tackled him. They went down in a pile. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Snake’s arm flailing. The silver knife waved in a dangerously close arc. Luke saw Amelia move. He put into play all his considerable upper body weight and strength against Snake’s struggling. With a grunt of pain, the boy gave up.

Luke rolled him over, face down on the floor. Amelia was there, armed with a formidable looking brass lamp she’d apparently been about to bring down on Snake’s knife hand.

Keeping one knee in the small of his back, Luke told Snake, “You’re lucky I got here. She would have busted your arm. Or your head.”

In that moment he heard the approaching wail of sirens; David had come through. The pounding and shoving from the spare bedroom stopped at the sound. Amelia slowly lowered the lamp. Luke looked up at her.

She looked fine. She looked unhurt. She looked damned beautiful. He grinned at her.

“Ms. Earhart,” he said, “would be proud.”

“We would have been here sooner,” Jim Stavros apologized to Amelia, “but we thought it was some kid making a crank call.”

Jim had just arrived, now that the dust had settled; he’d heard her address go out on the radio at the station, he had explained.

“That’s all right. It’s over now,” Amelia said.

“Yeah,” Luke agreed, one arm around Amelia, holding her close. “And I don’t want to hear any more about nerve or courage or any of that. I’ve got proof now, lady.”

Amelia blushed, but she had to admit that perhaps, just perhaps, she wasn’t quite as timid as she’d always thought. She leaned into him, loving that it was her right to do so. He’d explained about his leaving, castigating himself so fiercely for it that she’d silenced him with a kiss.

“Just leave a note next time, will you?”

He looked relieved that there would be a next time, then said rather sheepishly, “I’m not used to having anybody who’d miss me.”

“I missed you. Even before they got here, I missed you.”

She would have shown him right then how much, but it didn’t seem quite right, with the police scrambling all over the place. And then Jim had arrived and taken charge, and things seemed to smooth out with only him to deal with.

Jim looked over at Luke now as two officers led Snake and the hapless Fargo away; the others were already in the back seats of patrol cars. It seemed to Amelia that the entire graveyard shift of Santiago Beach PD must be here.

“And I should have figured you’d be right in the middle of it all,” Jim said.

Luke shrugged. “Hey, I just did the clean up. Amelia handled the tough part.”

Jim eyed Amelia somewhat doubtfully. She couldn’t blame him; she couldn’t quite believe it herself, that she’d even survived this.

“Sarge?” The voice came from one of the officers at the door. “I think our reporting party just showed up.”