Over the Middle: A Sports Romance (40 page)

I
felt
bad about knocking Margaret out, but as I tried to make my way quietly down the row of rooms in the motel, I put my regret aside. While she had guts and a lot of reasons to want to put a bullet into Vincent Drake, she also didn't have any training that I knew of. Since I'd known the woman for twenty years, that meant quite a lot.

And Drake was trained, no doubt about it. I had seen the man's work, and while it seemed that he favored knives and other sorts of slicing weapons, he used guns too. I didn't need to worry about Margaret's life while trying to save Adriana.

As I approached the room closest to the van parked near the end of the building, I heard music. While I wasn't quite sure, as I got closer, I heard the unmistakable sound of Phil Collins's singing and knew I had the right place. I checked the safety on the Beretta and got ready.

I tried to look in the window of the unit, but it had been boarded up, probably to reduce the noise that leaked from the building. I knew for sure that inside, the sound of the music would be deafening, which I took as a measure in my favor. I quickly went over my mental checklist of how to bust down a door and sweep a room, and I took a deep breath.

Now, normally, if you're going to kick down the door on a room with a known armed occupant, you want two people, one to check each direction, especially if the asshole inside knows that you're coming. I put my ear to the door, trying to hear something but the music was just too loud.

“Shut up!”
I heard Vincent scream, clearly on the edge of losing control.
“You can't laugh at me! You can't!”

I used the scream to time my kick, driving with as much force as my right leg could muster. Unfortunately for me, my thigh muscle was still more cramp and knotted tissue than actual effective muscle, so a kick that should have shattered the door barely broke the lock, and I had to lower my shoulder to charge the rest of the way through, stumbling as I did.

This meant that when I went through the door, I had my gun down and I was looking to my left. I started to bring my gun up when I heard Adriana gasp, and I started to turn. I heard an explosion, and my neck was suddenly on fire and my right arm turned to lead. Instead of continuing the turn and staying in the line of fire, I rolled with my stumble, hoping to get the hell out of the way.

I got to a knee and pointed my pistol back the other way, but some sort of table was in the way, and I couldn't see Drake at all. Instead, I could see a cascade of red hair draped over the side of the obstruction, and at least I knew where Adriana was.

A sound to my left caught my attention as a door slammed, and I staggered to my feet. Adriana was strapped to the table, and I didn't see anyone else. “Where is he?”

“He went toward that door,” Adriana said, her voice quavering. “Daniel . . .”

“I'll live,” I said, even as I felt the blood start to soak my shirt and drip down my chest. I saw that Adriana was held to the table by some cargo straps, and I didn't have the time to try and work the catch, which was most likely on the underside of the table. Instead, I grabbed a knife out of the toolkit that Drake had left on the table and handed it to her. “Here. Can you cut yourself free?”

“Yeah,” she said. “But Dan . . .”

“It ends tonight,” I said, starting out the door Drake had gone through. I had to be careful. He knew this property much better than I did. Still, at least Adriana was now behind me and Drake in front of me. Much better than it had been.

The blood was rushing through my ears as I stepped into the dark hallway, seeing the open door to the outside. I guessed that the door was a late addition, or perhaps the room wasn't a guest room but instead a manager's quarters back when the motel had been in operation. It didn't really matter, as I had my pistol in front of me. My right arm was heavy, the shock of being shot still blasting the nerves, so I used two hands, my left hand steadying my right as I worked my way down the hallway, not rushing but not being overly cautious. I knew that if he was going to try and ambush me again, he'd do it when I came out of the room.

I saw him as soon as I came out, his nude body nearly glowing in the moonlight. “Drake! Vincent Drake!” I yelled, leveling my pistol at him. “Stop where you are!”

I would have squeezed a shot off at him, but he was already just beyond the maximum range I'd trust for making an open shot with a pistol at night, and I was wounded and using an unfamiliar Beretta. I didn't want to give it away.

He turned, his face sweaty and glistening in the pale white light, madness clear even at the distance he was. “Well, hero, you got me,” he said, laughing. “Whatcha gonna do about it?”

He whipped his pistol up, faster than I thought a man his age could move, and I barely dove out of the way as he fired two shots that bounced off the concrete behind where'd I'd been just an instant earlier. I fired into the air, not caring if I actually hit him but just trying to give him a reason to give up his relatively stable position. Hitting the ground hard, I rolled as best I could to my belly, my arms up and looking for a firing angle.

He was already on the move, charging at me with his pistol outstretched, his grin nearly stretching from ear to ear. “Yeah! Hooo-raaa!” he hollered as he ran, squeezing the trigger. His first shot hit the asphalt inches from my head, and I knew I had only one chance. “Die!”

“You first,” I whispered, squeezing my trigger. The Beretta kicked in my hand, harder than I'd expected, and I realized that my arm was really losing sensation, the forty-five feeling like I was firing a shotgun pistol or something. Thankfully, my shot took him high in his chest, right below his collarbone area, and he stopped, dumbfounded.

He coughed, then sank to his knees. The hollow point round had done a number on him. He realized he was dying, and he looked up at me. “Nice shot.”

I squeezed the trigger again. I sagged as his body collapsed, the pain, shock and blood loss finally overcoming me, and darkness crept across my vision. At least Adriana was safe.

* * *

I
came
to when I felt a pair of hands tugging at my shirt. “Come on, I can't get you up on my own.”

I blinked, trying to figure out where that voice was coming from. It sounded like it was on a long distance line a million miles away, but it was familiar. “Adriana?”

“Yeah, you big, stupid, brave, wonderful lunk,” she said, pulling on my left arm. “Come on, we've gotta get out of here.”

“So tired . . .” I said, not knowing what was going on. “Just wanna sleep . . .”

“Yeah, yeah, you can sleep at home. In fact, you can sleep in my bed if you want, but we've gotta get out of here. Come on!”

I staggered to my feet, still not sure what was going on, but tried to lean on Adriana as she started walking. Unfortunately, I was too heavy, and she was also staggering, bumping into the door frame and hissing in pain. “Dan, I need your help.”

“I've got him,” another voice said, and I had to blink. I had two angels with me, it seemed, two Adrianas, who each took a side of me and helped me through the room and out the door. I was glad for the wonderful silence. The music had been splitting my head, it was so horrible. I was never going to listen to Genesis again, that was for sure.

“Mom, when did you get here?” Adriana asked as the three of us made our way toward Margaret's car. The walking was clearing my head, or perhaps just that Margaret's pulling on my right side was jostling my bullet wound, and the pain was waking me up.

“She drove,” I said, not walking much better but at least able to focus. “I kinda knocked her out before coming in to get you.”

“You hit my mother?” Adriana asked. We reached the car, and Adriana pulled open the back door, sliding me into the seat. “Why?”

“Didn't want to get her killed,” I whispered as Margaret closed the door and went around to the driver's seat. I was glad that the GT had a back seat. I'd have never been able to sit in the front seat with my bullet wound. “Sorry. Guess the whole mother-in-law, son-in-law thing is off to a bad start, huh?”

“You told them?” Adriana asked, and Margaret chuckled.

“Honey, it was what got your uncle to not shoot him in the head,” Margaret laughed. “Now hold on, we're getting out of here. This may not be the best part of Seattle, but still, the cops should be here soon enough. I'd prefer not to answer questions. Pietro will have men here in a minute to torch the place.”

I nodded, suddenly tired again. “Okay.”

“We'll get you to the hospital soon,” Adriana said, and I shook my head. “What?”

“No hospital. Home,” I replied, drifting off. “I can get patched up there. Take . . . take me home.”

P
atched
up wasn't the word to describe what we ended up having to do with Daniel. In the end, Uncle Carlo called in a doctor—one who made house calls, took cash, and kept his mouth shut—to seal the hole. “He took it in his trapezius muscle,” the doctor said as he washed his hands afterward in the kitchen. “It was a through-and-through. He's lucky though. Another inch or so toward the neck, and he'd have gotten his carotid or jugular cut. He'd never have gotten off the floor.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Carlo said, giving the man a thick envelope. “Your services are, as always, appreciated.”

“No thanks necessary, Godfather,” the doctor replied. “It's an honor to be at your service. Now, make sure that wound stays bandaged, and leave the IV in for the rest of the night. Then, for the next five days, give him those antibiotic pills I gave you. He's going to need to sleep a lot. He's been through hell. And not just from the gunshot either.”

“Yes, well, that's a family matter,” Carlo said. “Thank you. He'll get the best care we can provide.”

The doctor left, leaving Carlo, Mom and me alone in Daniel's bedroom. He was lying on his bed, his neck and shoulder wrapped, his eyes closed. The doctor had given him a shot to let him sleep, to let his body recover. I sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at his bruised but peaceful face.

“He fought with honor,” Carlo said, standing next to the bed. His voice was soft, almost in awe as he looked down at Daniel.

“He's as Italian as you or me,” I said softly, tracing his eyebrows and feeling the tears coming to my eyes. “Maybe not by blood, but he's been part of our family since he was a baby. He's a good man.”

Carlo hummed and turned his eyes to me. “I owe you an apology.”

I turned my head and looked at him, nodding slightly. “You do. I owe you one as well, though.”

It was the most compromise I was willing to offer. Sure, I had been wrong to ditch his bodyguard, but Carlo had been much further in the wrong having had Daniel beaten and turned into the walking bruise that I saw days later in Carmen's apartment. Still, families were brought together and relationships were mended by forgiveness, even if I wouldn't forget. I got off the bed. “Uncle, I'm sorry that I wasn't up front with my relationship with Daniel and that I ran away from home. Please forgive me.”

Carlo gulped and looked to the sky, then back at me with tears in his eyes. “Oh, Bella, there is nothing I need to forgive. It is I who begs your forgiveness. I tried to run your life as if you were still a little girl, and not the beautiful, wonderful young woman you have become. I insulted you, I insulted the man you love, and in the process, I nearly lost the most important thing in my life. I am so sorry, and I promise that no matter what, I will support you and your decisions from now on.”

I felt tears in my eyes too as I came around the bed and embraced my uncle, hugging him tightly.

We stayed that way for a moment before releasing each other. I blinked and wiped at my eyes. “I forgive you. But there's someone else who must forgive you too—Daniel. He's going to be part of my life, and unless he's willing to accept your apology, we can't be part of this life anymore.”

Carlo opened his mouth to protest, then nodded. “You are right, of course. When he wakes up, let me know. I will come and speak with him, man to man.”

He turned and left the bedroom, leaving me and Mom. She'd been silent since the doctor finished his stitching, standing with her back against the wall, a growing bruise forming on the side of her neck. “You doing okay, Mom?”

She stood there for a moment, then smiled, laughing until she was nearly crying. I understood and went to her, where we held each other for a long time, crying and laughing and holding each other. “Adriana, oh, my baby.”

“I'm okay,” I said, still crying and laughing. “How's your neck?”

Mom let go of me and chuckled, rubbing her neck. “He knows exactly where to put someone down, that's for sure. Considering he's knocked me out and called Carlo an arrogant wop, I'd say he's got more guts than anyone else I've ever known.”

“He called Uncle Carlo an arrogant wop?” I asked, amazed. “And he didn't get shot over it?”

“He was about two seconds from it, according to what I heard,” Mom told me. “When he wakes up, maybe he can tell you the story.”

“I'd like that,” I said, looking back at him. “If you don't mind, I think I'm going to sleep here tonight. Not with him—he needs his rest—but on the floor next to him. He protected me for so long. He beat back the demons that threatened me. I think it's my turn to protect him for a while.”

“I agree, honey,” Mom said. “But first, let him sleep, and you and I will get some dinner. I think there are some leftovers in the fridge.”

“As long as we eat here,” I said, indicating the space in front of Daniel's bed. “He even had a TV in here. What a wonderfully luxurious living situation.”

Mom looked around the tiny broom closet-sized space and chuckled. “I think you might be marrying a monk.”

“Yeah, of the Shaolin variety,” I joked back. “Come on, let's get some food. I bet there will be a report on the fire at the motel on the super early morning news, and I'd like to watch.”

* * *

I
n fact
, the news reports were already on the cable networks, as it had been a relatively slow news day otherwise. While I ate some leftover pizza and Mom ate some lasagna, we got to watch as the fire department struggled with two pumper trucks to get the blaze under control. “Wow,” I commented, munching on a piece of bell pepper, “Pietro really outdid himself with the pyrotechnics.”

“He was rushed. Better to do too much than not enough,” Mom replied. “He probably had to focus on the bed you were kept and the room itself. That's a lot of accelerant in a really short amount of time.”

Daniel stirred behind us, mumbling in his sleep, and we both turned to check on him. He quieted after a moment, and we watched the news story continue.

“In another shocking development, police found the body of a nude man outside the hotel as well. Reports are still preliminary, but sources are telling us that the police suspect that the body might be that of Vincent Drake, the suspect in two recent murders. Please note—these reports are preliminary, and the police are not confirming or denying anything at this time.”

“Guess we're going to have to get the lawyers on this one,” Mom said, taking the last bite of her food. “I'm pretty sure the cops are going to want you to make a statement. You might want to start going over the particulars now. A lot of stuff has gone on, and not everyone is going to be willing to keep their mouths shut. The university, for one. The cops are going to want to know why you took a sabbatical, all that kind of thing.”

“Uncle Carlo can't get this all swept under the rug?” I asked, curious but unafraid.

Mom shook her head. “The police won't be chasing this too hard. Drake was a murdering psychopath, but they will still want to make sure all their paperwork is done right. Drake had military connections and who knows what else. The people who made this monster are going to want to make sure their asses are covered, so as long as they know they won't have someone chasing them down and that Drake is well and good in the ground, they'll keep their noses out of it. Still, they will have questions.”

“And I don't want to give them a reason to keep poking around Bertoli business,” I said. “That's a lot of stress.”

“Which I am sure you will handle well,” Mom said, relaxed. “You're a Bertoli, and less than an hour ago, you got the Godfather of this entire area to tearfully apologize to you. I'd say you've got the nerve.”

* * *

M
om was right
. The next day, after I had crashed for six hours from sunrise until noon, I was invited down to police headquarters to make a statement on Vincent Drake's death. Daniel was still sleeping, but Mom promised me that she would stay by his side, so I changed into my best clothes and went down with Uncle Carlo and his lawyer, a guy named Dominic Petruzelli, whom I'd met occasionally but never had the chance to seriously talk to.

As Uncle drove—something totally unlike him—Dominic briefed me in the back of the car. “Miss Bertoli, I strongly stress that you only answer questions related directly to Vincent Drake's murder. The police have no reason to ask you about why you went on sabbatical or your rather—ahem—public display of running away from your uncle's employees.”

“So what am I supposed to do? Plead the Fifth?” I asked, incredulous. “Won't that just make me look guiltier?”

“The law is not about what people know, but what they can prove,” Dominic replied. “The Seattle police, I am sure, know more about your uncle than they will ever tell us. They are probably also quite sure that someone affiliated with your uncle was involved in killing Drake. However, what they suspect, what they know, and what they can prove in a court of law are three entirely different things.”

Carlo chuckled up front. “Listen to him, Bella. The man knows what he is talking about.”

The interview was conducted by two detectives, Fritz and Taguchi, who obviously knew who I was. However, they weren't the cops I'd met before who worked Angela's murder case. “Hello, Miss Bertoli. Would you like a coffee?”

“No thanks,” I said. I took a chair while Dominic sat down next to me. “I did ask Mr. Petruzelli to join us today, guys, just to make sure things are on the up and up. What can I do for you?”

“Why would you have a lawyer if we just asked you to come down so we can clear up some details about Vincent Drake's death?” Taguchi asked. He had a sort of faux hawk look, with the sides of his head nearly shaved while the top was about two inches long. To me, he kind of looked like a rooster. “That makes no sense to me.”

“It makes no sense to me that a man who killed two people, looked like Mr. Potato Head, and was on the wall in every police station from here to Sacramento was able to get within two hundred yards of me on a regular basis and was killed at an abandoned motel less than a mile from a police station,” I replied evenly. I nodded to Dominic, who reached into his briefcase and took out a digital recorder, which he placed on the table and turned on. “Now, I'm not interested in pursuing the Seattle PD for being incompetent, or for putting my personal safety at risk. I just want to make sure I'm not turned into some sort of scapegoat by someone looking to cover his own ass. That's all.”

Fritz and Taguchi exchanged a look, and I knew that I'd won. Despite what they'd said, they were hoping to use the investigation to get something, some sort of angle that they could use to pry at the Bertoli family. They weren't going to get that from me.

Fritz sighed and opened his case file. “All right then, Miss Bertoli, can you tell me . . .”

The interview took two hours, and at the end, I could see that both cops were cracking. Each time they strayed from anything other than the time surrounding when Vincent was killed, Dominic was there, shutting them down. They tried tricking me. They tried cajoling. In the end, they were both nearly crying, they were so frustrated. I realized that Dominic was right. Fritz and Taguchi knew what had happened. They knew that Mom had driven her Maserati in the area of the fire. They didn't have a shot of the license plate though, because of a supposed weird trick of light that didn't allow the traffic cameras to get a clear image. They knew that a Beretta had been used to shoot Drake. They knew that Drake had also fired his own pistol, having dug a bullet out of the burned wall. They knew that someone had been strapped to a table. They were sure I'd been kidnapped, and they were sure of so many things. They knew. They
knew
.

But they couldn't prove a damn thing. Maybe in the future, if Daniel's DNA was ever logged, they'd be able to fix him to the crime scene. Maybe, if some cop wanted to track it down and some prosecutor was willing to run the risk of taking a man who killed a multiple murderer to trial. But until then . . . they could prove nothing.

The afternoon sun was low in the sky, the day still bright and clear when I walked out of police headquarters with Dominic. Uncle Carlo dropped us off to head to work, promising that he'd send a car if we wanted it afterward. “You handled yourself like a pro in there, Miss Bertoli. Sure you haven't done this before?”