Pink Neon Dreams (31 page)

“Oh, yeah,” Cecily said with a ragged half-laugh.
“He hates Nia almost as much as he does me.
 
She knows him from when she’d come to see me.
 
He tried his damnest to get rid of her but
never could.”

As he considered options and plans of action, Daniel
wondered if his superiors knew he’d gone absent without leave yet.
 
He suspected they did and wouldn’t be pleased
if he phoned in to request protection for Nia.
 
He needed something concrete, facts beyond Cecily’s instincts about a
man she loathed.
 
Anxiety returned
,
racing through his veins until his shoulders tightened. An
invisible hand restricted full access to his airways, and his head ached with a
dull pain.
 
Daniel wished he could lie
down, sleep another few hours, but he knew he’d never relax enough to rest.

“What time is it?” he asked Cecily.

“A little after four,” she said. “Do you want to go
back to bed?”

Daniel shook his head. “I can’t.”
 
He planned to get up, shower, dress, make
coffee and form a plan before he remembered they were at his mom’s house.
 
He couldn’t do any of it without rousing Mama
and he didn’t want to disturb her sleep.
 
Or involve her in the situation or cause worry.
 
“Do you want to sleep,
querida?”

She leaned against him and nodded her head. “Yeah, I
do.
 
I’m tired and I don’t feel very
well.”

Concern for her diminished the other, larger issues
at hand. “Are you sick?”

“I don’t think so, sugar,” Cecily said after a
pause. “I’m just stressed, tired, and scared.
 
Come lie with me, would you?”

He couldn’t refuse her so they settled back into
bed.
 
Daniel curled behind her and held Cecily
in his arms.
 
Her rigid muscles gradually
relaxed, but the way she pulled her knees up made him think maybe her stomach
hurt.
 
He put his hand over her belly and
she sighed.

“That feels good,” she said. “Leave it, okay?”

“Sure,” he promised, his suspicion confirmed.
 
Long before dawn, she slept, but he stared at
the walls. He plotted and pondered.
 
Daniel, tight as a coiled spring, untangled from Cecily when he heard
the house begin to come to life.
 
His
mother’s footsteps padded down to the bathroom and back, her slippers slapping
against the hardwood floors with a familiar rhythm.
 
He heard Michael stir and greet her.
 
When he caught the aroma of coffee, he got
out of bed and dressed, careful not to wake Cecily.

By the time he walked into the small kitchen, his
mother poured her first cup of coffee and startled when she saw him. “
Mi hijo
, I didn’t know you were up so
early. It’s just now six o’clock.”

“Yeah, I’ve been awake awhile.” He hoped she still
brewed coffee strong.
 
From the looks of
the same silver percolator on the counter, he thought she must. “Cecily’s still
asleep, though.”

“Come drink coffee with your brother and me,” Luz
said. “C’mon, we’ll sit at the table.”

Michael slouched over his mug and grinned. “Don’t
tell me the tequila was too much for you.”

“Huh?”

Luz frowned. “I wondered, too. Yesterday, you looked
like a man on vacation, but now you look more like you’re on death row.
 
Did something happen?”

Daniel sighed. Damn, he couldn’t fool his near and
dear after all.
 
“There may be a
situation developing in Branson,” he said. “Cecily’s cousin called her in the
middle of the night.”

His mother’s blue eyes clouded. “It’s dangerous.” It
wasn’t a question and he cringed when he noticed she had a faraway distant
expression.
 
Catholic to the core, she
sometimes claimed to have visions, a gift handed down through the bloodline by
her Comanche grandmother.
 
“Daniel, you
have to be careful.”

Pressure and maternal concern were exactly what he
didn’t need.
 
Before he could unscramble
his brains to reply, he heard the unmistakable sound of Cecily screaming.

Damn it to hell, this day, no matter what happen,
was destined to suck. He said nothing as he pushed back his chair and went to
check on his
querida.

Chapter
Seventeen

The scream clawed out of her belly and up her throat,
raw and unstoppable.
 
Cecily didn’t wake
until after she started shrieking and although she knew where she was, she
couldn’t stop.
 
Disjointed images haunted
her, terrible scenes from her nightmare but they jumbled together. Terror
lingered and so did the crimson blood from the dream.
 
Daniel burst into the room with such speed he
almost tripped.
 
“
Querida,
what’s wrong?”

“I dreamed something bad,” she said, aware she
sounded like a little girl. Then she burst into tears, fast and furious.
 
She lunged forward and he scooped her into
his arms, dragging the covers into a tangle.

“It’s all right,” he said.
 
He cradled her against his chest and she
heard the rapid rate of his heartbeat.
 
She guessed she’d just scared the shit out of him.
 
Didn’t do a whole lot of good for me, either.
“You just had
a dream, that’s all.”

Cecily tossed her head back and forth. “No,” she
said with force. “It’s more than that.
 
Nia’s in trouble or something. And you’re in
danger, too.”

 
Daniel’s dark
eyes burned as he gazed into her face. “First Mama, now you,” he muttered.
 

“I don’t understand.”

He sighed. “I doubt I do either.
 
So, you get these psychic feelings, huh?”

“I don’t like it but yeah, sometimes, I do,” Cecily
said. It wasn’t something she liked to admit. “Always have. My mom said it must
be gypsy blood or something.”

“So does Mama,” Daniel said. “Just before you started
screaming, she must’ve had one. She said there’s danger.
 
In her case, it’s a genetic gift from her
Comanche grandma.”

“You don’t believe me?”

This time he shut his eyes before he exhaled hard.
“I do,” he said in a harsh voice. “That’s the trouble. I do believe both of you
and it scares the piss out of me.
 
I
think things are about to get ugly.”

On cue her cell phone rang, the tune shrill and
insistent. Foreboding sucked the air out of her lungs as she fumbled to grab it
from the bedside table. “Hello?”

Nia’s voice sounded fainter than stone washed denim.
“Cecily, it’s me.
 
I got to tell you
something...”

Daniel bent closer to listen as Cecily said, “What’s
the matter?”

“He’s here.”

“Who?”

“Johnson
fucking
Hamilton!”
Nia
said just before Cecily heard the sound of a slap and her cousin’s screeched,
“Ouch, asshole!”

“What’s going on?” Cecily cried.
“Nia?”

“It’s me,” a dark voice, bass and harsh said into her
ear. “I need to see you, bitch eyes.
 
I
got to settle up with you so you need to come home.”

“Fuck you,” Cecily said. “You leave Nia alone and
come find me.”

“If you want to see this cunt alive, you’d better
come running,” Johnson said. “We’ll be at your little shop.
 
You’ve got twelve hours so hurry or I kill
her just like I did Willard. Show up by six-thirty this evening or it’s over.”

Her body trembled against her will and she couldn’t
make it quit. Her lips opened and closed twice before she could shove words
out. “I’ll be there,” she said. “Don’t hurt her.”

“Just get here, bitch.”

 
The snarled
words echoed and then nothing.
 
Daniel
plucked the phone from her hand.
 
She
stared at him. “Did you hear all of it?”

“Yeah, I did.”

Cecily rocketed out of his arms and groped for her
discarded clothing.
 
He watched her, his
face blank and bland. “
Querida,
what
are you doing?”

“We need to go back to Branson,” she said. “Nia
needs help and that bastard wants to see me so get ready. We’ll have to
fly.
 
There isn’t time to drive
back.
 
C’mon, sugar, get dressed.”

Low-pitched, his voice sounded more dangerous than
she’d ever heard it. “He doesn’t want to see you, Cecily.
 
He needs to kill you.”

Right now, it didn’t matter, but Nia did. “You can
stop him.”

He caught her wrist in his grasp and held it. “I can
and I will, but you’re not going anywhere.
 
I brought you here to keep you safe.”

Hysteria swirled within.
 
She wanted to cry or scream or kick her feet
against the floor like a two year old in a tantrum.
 
Cecily’s stomach churned and a wave of nausea
slowed her rapid actions.
 
“Oh, shit,”
she said.

“What’s wrong?”

“I think I’m going to puke.” She moaned and did as
her tummy turned inside out.
 
No way
would she make it down the hall to Luz’s bathroom, so she aimed for the
wastebasket by the door.
 
She heaved with
force and each time she did, her body wanted to rip in two.
 
Wretched noises accompanied each round and she
figured everyone else heard her upchucking.
 
Cecily dropped to her knees and hugged the trash can so she wouldn’t
miss and make a worse mess.
 
Daniel knelt
behind her.
 
His warm hand on her back
steadied her.
 
When she quit spewing, he
helped her to her feet.
 
“C’mon, I’ll
take you to the bathroom now so you can rinse your mouth and clean up,” he
said. “Then I’ll see if mom has something to settle your stomach.”

“I’m fine,” she said with a bravado she didn’t
feel.
 
Her legs wobbled and the round of
puking left her spent.
 
“It’s like
before, just a gut reaction, sugar. I’m not sick or anything.”

Daniel mumbled something in Spanish and it was probably
a good thing she couldn’t understand.
 
In
the restroom, he ran cold water and wet a cloth.
 
With gentle hands, he wiped her face and
hands.
 
Then he offered her a cup so she
could wash the bitter taste away.
 
Someone tapped on the closed door and Luz
asked something in rapid Spanish.
 
Daniel
replied in the same language and then added, “She says she isn’t sick.”

“I’m not,” Cecily said. “And I need to go to
Branson.”

“You’re not going anywhere but to bed,” Daniel said.
“I’ll go as soon as I can catch a flight.
 
I’ll be back with your cousin, safe, before you hardly have time to miss
me.”

 
“No fucking
way,” she said. “It’s my cousin, it’s my mess.
 
I’m going.”

His hands brushed her long braids away from her
face, gentle as his eyes became dark steel.
 
“No,
querida
, you’re not.
 
I want you safe so you’ll stay here.
 
He has to kill you or he’s aware you’ll prove
he did the crime, not you. He’s got to get rid of you to get away with what he’s
done. And I’ll be damned if I let that happen.”

Stomach still rolling, nerves on high alert,
somewhere down deep Cecily realized he talked sense.
 
The last thing she wanted to do was to fly,
but she believed she should.
 
And she
needed to be at Daniel’s side.
 
Intuition
screamed warnings faster than she could process them.
 
Flickers of her nightmare returned.
 
Danger lurked in the shadows and waited to
pounce.
 
She might be in trouble, but
Nia’s life was at stake along with Daniel’s.
 
Some of the blood-spattered scenes she recalled in gory bits involved
him.
 
The one disturbing her most had
been his unmoving hand sprawled out into a puddle of blood.

“I have to go with you,” she said. “Your mama’s
right—there’s danger for you.
 
I can’t
stand not knowing what’s happening. I need to be there.”

His stern expression relaxed a fraction. “You can’t
change whatever happens,” he said in a quiet voice. “No matter how much you
might want to do it.”

“But I want to come.” Aware of losing ground in her
battle to go along, Cecily began to cave.
 
She loved him too much to fight and his
compassionate caring eroded her will to argue.