Sting (9 page)

Because, even while working hand in glove with the man and hating him to his very marrow, he'd also come to admire the power Panella wielded. No one's knees shook when the name Josh Bennett was mentioned, but so much as breathe
Billy Panella
and grown men were said to wet their pants. Josh envied that quality.

Whenever something unexpected happened, he'd seen Panella's legendary temper erupt. But he'd also watched him quickly regain a cool head and deal with the problem. Never had panic or fear sidetracked him from achieving his objective.

Josh resolved not to be overtaken by them, either.

With hands now steady, he removed the battery from the phone and replaced both in the backpack. He wouldn't call Jordie. Even if by some miracle he was able to talk to her, what could he say?

Panella had threatened to go after her first if Josh ever betrayed him. Hadn't Josh dutifully passed along that warning to her?

Yes. Innumerable times.

She should have listened and been more careful. Whatever her fate, she had no one to blame but herself.

He must think only of what was best for him.

J
ordie angled away from Shaw, but there was no escaping his mesmerizing stare.

When she realized she was breathing through her mouth, she pressed her lips closed, but her respiration remained unsteady as she processed this distressing turn of events.

What could Josh be thinking?

He had cut a great deal, far better than she'd dared hope he would get. He'd driven a hard bargain, and the U.S. prosecutor had ultimately granted him full immunity in exchange for testifying against Billy Panella. Yet unbelievably her brother had squandered—

It
was
unbelievable, wasn't it?

Her gaze narrowed on her abductor, who was still leaning over her, applying pressure without even touching her. “You're a murdering, lying bastard. Why should I take your word for anything?”

“This isn't a lie.”

“No? Tell me something that'll convince me it's the truth.”

“Your heart is still beating.”

He stated it without pause or contemplation. A simple fact. If Josh weren't a factor, she would be dead. This man would have killed her long before now.

He said, “The instant you're dead, your value tanks. Alive, you're a bargaining chip.”

“With Panella.”

“And your brother.”

She scoffed at that. “Get over the notion that Josh has the money. Or even that he knows where it is. If he did, he would have surrendered it when he—”

“—bartered his soul by turning snitch?”

“
Saved
his soul by doing the right thing.”

“Saved his soul, my ass. Everything Saint Josh has done has been self-serving. But now he's in a real pickle. He's reneged on his deal with the feds. And, as if that wasn't bad enough, he's made laughingstocks of them for being taken in.

“If they catch him, they'll throw the book at him. He'll spend the rest of his life in federal prison. But he had better hope they catch him before Panella does. Because he'll tear out your brother's forked tongue, rip open his belly, throw him into the Gulf, and ring the dinner bell. Either way, Josh is sunk. Unless I get to him first.”

She feared his predictions about her brother's future weren't far off the mark. “If you reach him first, what then?”

“I convince him it's in his best interest to give me a share of all that filthy lucre. He does that, we all go home happy. Well, not
home
. But you get the gist of it.”

“That's your idea?”

“Damn good one, you ask me.”

She pressed her fingers to her forehead and rubbed the space between her eyebrows. “It's a lousy idea, Mr. Kinnard. Based entirely on erroneous speculation. Josh doesn't have the money, any money. And, say he did, say his pockets are stuffed with it, he could be anywhere in the country. How do you intend to track him down?”

“I won't have to. He'll come to me. Because I have you.” He shot her a crocodile's grin. “Sooner or later he'll hear about your abduction.”

“He'll assume I'm dead.”

“Probably. Until you let him know otherwise.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“The same way you've been communicating with him all along.”

She actually laughed. “I haven't had contact with my brother since he was taken into custody. Zero,” she said, forming an O with her fingers. “That was one of the conditions of the pact he made with the government.”

He just stared at her, unblinking, unmoving.

“All right, believe what you want,” she said. “The fact doesn't change. I don't know where Josh has been sequestered for the past six months, and I don't know how to reach him. Period. End of discussion.”

“Like hell it is. We're
discussing
the little brother who you protected from slippery stairs and rusty nails. You're telling me that he hasn't come crying to you since Tuesday when he ran afoul of big bad Uncle Sam?”

“It's the truth.”

“You didn't know he'd escaped?”

“No! Not until you told me.”

He bent down closer. “Even if I believed that he hasn't contacted you in the past four days,
which I don't
, the FBI would have jumped on you like a duck on a June bug. Like Billy Panella did. Want Josh Bennett and can't find him? Easy. Stay on his sister, his next of kin, the first and only person he would scurry to when in trouble.”

“The FBI didn't notify me of his escape.”

He stared her down as though trying to intimidate the truth out of her, which made her nervous, because she wasn't an adept liar. Not that she was lying, exactly.

True, no government agency had officially informed her of Josh's disappearance. But the authorities might very well have been keeping an eye on her to see if he would show up on her doorstep.

Last night, as she left her house for the bar, she'd noticed headlights in her rearview mirror. They had remained the same distance from her as she drove through town. It might have been perfectly harmless. But she'd been just paranoid enough to deliberately outdistance the other car when she reached the back roads.

She wasn't about to share that with Shaw Kinnard, however.

Instead, she kept her expression as impassive as she could, and he finally relented, straightening up, giving her space. She came to a full sitting position and for the first time in minutes, was able take a deep, even breath.

“You're wrong about Josh and the stolen money,” she said. “Billy Panella absconded with it. Everybody knows that. He moved it somewhere out of the country.”

“Then flew off to enjoy a happy rendezvous with his millions?”

“Doesn't that seem logical?”

“Perfectly. So answer me this,” he said. “If Panella is jacking off onto piles of money, why's he so upset over Josh's vanishing act?”

“I don't know. Maybe he…he…” She came up empty.

“Hmm? What was that?” He gave her another moment to contribute something, and when she didn't, he said, “Mickey told me Panella wanted to kill you in order to send Josh a message. He hasn't forgiven or forgotten that your brother turned on him. I'm talking mafia-fashion revenge, Jordie. Panella's mind-set is ‘Rat me out, I slaughter your family, preferably while you watch.'”

She didn't need a lesson on Panella's methodology. She was well educated on it.

Josh had been working at a small investment firm when Panella sought him out and made him an offer. It was an unlikely pairing: Panella with his tailored suits and the glibness of a snake oil salesman, and her shy, self-conscious, socially awkward brother. But Panella needed Josh's genius mind, and it hadn't taken much to woo him with flattery and promises of wealth. However, no sooner had Panella reeled him in than he established what Jordie considered an unhealthy working relationship. It angered and sickened her to see how Panella maintained control of her brother by preying on his weaknesses and insecurities, sometimes in ways that bordered on sadistic.

Also concerning were the rumors of Panella's involvement in other enterprises in addition to the one he shared with Josh. She had begged Josh to see Billy Panella for what he was. At best, a manipulating bully. At worst, a shifty, possibly criminal, operator who couldn't be trusted. As he was wont to do, Josh had taken a stubborn stance and turned a deaf ear to her pleas, citing jealousy as her reason for disliking his boss.

It was almost a relief to her when the house of cards that Josh and Panella had built finally collapsed. But it did so on Josh's head. His participation in their crimes was unquestionable, so when the FBI gave him a chance to turn informant, she had pressured him to take the deal.

Panella had several reasons to resent her, but knowing that Josh wouldn't have capitulated without her encouragement made her his sworn enemy, and based on the rumors circulating around him, Panella didn't treat his enemies kindly.

For weeks after Josh was taken away and Panella presumably had left the country, she'd been wary and cautious of her surroundings, afraid that Panella would decide to get vengeance on her and, by extension, on Josh. Josh had even alluded to that possibility when he was trying to worm his way out of striking a deal with the FBI.

“He'll kill you, too,” he'd wailed. “He's told me he would.”

But as time passed and nothing happened, she'd relaxed her vigilance. Not until she saw Mickey Bolden and Shaw Kinnard approaching her last night did she realize that Josh hadn't been merely theatric. His warning had been sincere.

Trying to hide her apprehension from her kidnapper, she said, “Panella has had six months to get revenge. Why now?”

Shaw replied in a quiet voice, “You know why, Jordie. Panella made his move when Josh made his. Maybe he knows your brother better than you do. Maybe he figured all along that Josh was playing the feds. He's been sitting back waiting, and when Josh did exactly what Panella anticipated, he put into action the plan he'd had all along.”

“To kill me?”

“Figuring that killing you would be the harshest punishment to inflict on Josh for his betrayal. Also, if you're dead, you can't tell the feebs everything you know.”

“What
I
know?” she exclaimed. “I don't know anything.”

“Panella must think you do.”

“Well, he's wrong.”

“According to Mickey, after Panella went missing, you were grilled pretty good.”

She nodded, remembering those arduous sessions. “The FBI questioned me extensively over the course of several weeks. I couldn't tell them anything, because I didn't know anything.”

“Did they believe you?”

“Of course.”

He made a skeptical sound. “Why ‘of course'? Was it your honest face? Or did you bedazzle them by pulling a Sharon Stone in the interrogation room?”

Outraged, she surged to her feet.

“Sit down.” He placed his hand in the center of her chest and pushed her back onto the hood.

She encircled his wrist and pried his hand off her. “I told the FBI the truth and they believed me.”

“Maybe. But Panella must be of the mind that you told them something, even accidentally, that jeopardizes his clean getaway.”

“I didn't.”

“You make him nervous, Jordie. Why else would he have contracted hit men to have you permanently silenced? Panella had retained Mickey to get rid of pests plenty of times, and for milder offenses than talking to the feds about him.”

“Well, you saw to it that Mickey is no longer a threat to me, didn't you?”

“Panella's got others. And he's not above doing the deed himself. In fact, he'd enjoy it. Eye for an eye?” He chuffed. “Panella's starter kit.”

Contrary to her own thoughts of moments earlier, she said, “Those are rumors. Exaggerations. Spun by people who wanted to claim a closer acquaintance with him when he became a celebrated fugitive.”

“Rumors, huh? So what does that make Mickey and me? Figments of the imagination?” He didn't wait for an answer. “I sought Mickey Bolden out because even hit men talk, and the word going 'round our circle was that Panella paid well. If you think his only crime was stealing the life savings of hardworking folk, you're deluding yourself.”

Josh had made vague allusions to Panella's “powers of persuasion,” but he'd never given her specifics, and she hadn't asked for them because she hadn't wanted her suspicions of Panella's sinister side confirmed. She didn't want to acknowledge them now to Shaw Kinnard, who was painting a frightening picture to suit his own purposes.

She said, “All I know about Panella's business is what everyone does. He stole thirty million dollars and disappeared with it.”

“He hasn't quite disappeared,” he said. “Mickey was on the phone with him as recently as last night.”

“He could have been talking to him from anywhere in the world. Switzerland. Kathmandu. South America.”

“Could have.” Two vertical furrows appeared between his brows. “But if Panella was in South America with thirty million at his disposal, he would be lounging on a beach, getting blown by dusky girls in thong bikinis, and the furthest thing from his mind would be the sister of his moneyman who turned snitch.

“If Panella had access to the money, he would have severed all ties with the good ol' U.S. of A. and everybody in it. Instead, the man's obsessed. He didn't want you leaving that bar alive, and I predict he'll go apeshit when I inform that you ain't dead. Now why would he care so much?

“He's also paranoid as hell,” he continued. “Mickey said he uses one of those voice synthesizer things to garble his speech. If he was in Switzerland or Kathmandu, why's he bothering to disguise his voice? See where I'm going with this, Jordie? If he was languishing somewhere, using hundred-dollar bills to light his cigars, he wouldn't give a flying fuck that Josh had gone aground. Instead, Josh's flight last Tuesday made him angry and antsy and mean.”

She tried not to reveal how uneasy she became over the thought of Panella being angry, antsy, and mean. It didn't bode well for her or Josh. “How did he even find out that Josh had escaped? There's been nothing on the news about it.”

“You can bet the FBI are good and pissed off that their star witness welshed on the deal, but they're not gonna go on TV and broadcast that they let a bean counter slip through their fingers.”

“Then how did Panella hear about it?”

“I asked Mickey that. He claimed not to know, and maybe he didn't. I'm guessing that Panella has moles in law enforcement. He had to have had help getting away. Fake IDs. Private aircraft. He could spread around a lot of graft with thirty mil.”

“You said he didn't have it.”

“Not the jackpot, but he would have kept a million or two handy to cover expenses.”

“Like your retainer.”