Taken (36 page)

“I guess you don’t have your key,” Kayla said.

Charlotte suddenly realized she didn’t have her purse.

It must still be in the condo. “No, I don’t.”

“It’s all right. I have the extra one you gave me.”

Kayla slipped the key into the lock and opened the door.

As soon as Charlotte crossed the threshold, she realized something was very wrong. Kayla’s shocked gasp and Nick’s swearing told her that her eyes were not playing tricks on her. Her house had been ransacked, vandal-ized, searched. The furniture was in shambles, her knickknacks tossed about, her papers, her books, her magazines scattered across the floor.

She put out a hand, reaching for the nearest wall for support. Kayla was immediately at her side. “Grandma, are you okay?”

“I just need to catch my breath.”

“What are they looking for?” Nick asked.

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“I need to sit down.”

“Of course,” Kayla said, ushering her into the living room.

Charlotte sat on the edge of her couch, not even sure where to start, how to begin. Who had done this to her home? Johnny? He’d been here last night; she was sure of it. But why would he do this? Because she’d fainted?

Because he hadn’t had a chance simply to ask her for what he wanted?

“The key,” Kayla said. “Maybe they were looking for the key you gave me. They realized it wasn’t in the watch, and when they didn’t find it at my house, they came here. It makes sense.”

Charlotte was tempted to nod, to agree, to let that be that. She might have been able to fool Kayla, who was thinking as much with her emotions as with her head, but Nick appeared fairly sharp-eyed to her. In fact, his gaze was fixed on his face, watching, waiting.

“That’s not it, is it?” he asked.

She slowly shook her head. “I don’t think so. I have —

or maybe had — something else.”

Kayla sat down on the edge of the coffee table directly in front of her, their knees almost touching. “What did you have?”

“One of the other watches.”

“Frankie’s?” Kayla asked.

“No. There weren’t three watches, Kayla. There were four. I had Dominic’s watch.”

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Kayla had not thought she could be surprised again, but with her grandmother it seemed to be a given. “Why would you have Dominic’s watch? Why did he even have a watch? Why?” she asked, waving her hand in frustration and confusion.

“In order for you to understand, I need to tell you the whole story.”

“Well, that would be nice for a change,” Kayla said, hearing the sarcasm in her voice, but not willing to hide it. She tried to remind herself that her grandmother had just gotten out of the hospital, that she’d suffered yet another shock at finding her condo in a shambles. She had to go easy, or her grandmother would be back in the hospital with another heart attack. “I’m sorry,” she said hastily. “Do you want some water? Should you take a rest before you tell us the story?”

“I don’t think there’s time for any of that.” Charlotte glanced down at her hands, playing with her wedding ring; then she looked back at Kayla.

“Dominic was the good one, or at least that’s what most people thought. When the boys were childhood
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friends, it was always the four of them together. But after high school Dominic fell in love. He got married at eighteen to a girl from the neighborhood. They had children right away — a boy named Lorenzo; then two girls, Delores and Grace, arrived within the next four years. Dominic went to work at the jewelry store run by his father.

He had to make a living. He had a family to support.

“Johnny, Nate, and Frankie drifted apart from Dominic. They had bigger plans than working nine-to-five jobs for not very good money. They started out small —

pickpocketing, shoplifting, stealing jewelry from some of the older women in the parish who lived alone. They’d get themselves hired to mow the lawn or trim the trees or do handyman work. Once inside, they’d figure out if they could take anything without anyone noticing. Johnny told me it was surprisingly easy. As they got a taste of success, they grew bolder. They started robbing liquor stores, other small businesses, even banks. They were brash, bold, fearless men. And Frankie, particularly, was big, scary-looking. He was the muscle. Johnny and Nate were the brains.” Charlotte paused, taking a breath.

Kayla was fascinated by the story but worried that her grandmother was too pale. “Are you sure you want to do this now?”

“I’ve already started. Let me finish.”

“All right then.”

“Dominic grew weary of trying to please his father, who kept him on a tight purse string. He felt like Johnny and the others were having all the fun while he was stuck at home with a wife and kids. He said he wanted back in.

They welcomed him back. Dominic did some jobs with them, usually night jobs. No one knew he was part of it.

After a while they were so successful that they needed a
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place to stash their goods. Dana, another dancer at the club, and I knew of this secret room off the basement of the club where we worked. It had been built during Prohibition, when the building was a speakeasy. We’d discovered it one day by accident. We told Johnny he could keep stuff there if he gave us a cut.”

Kayla felt her jaw drop. She couldn’t hide her shock or dismay. “You helped him?”

“The cut was Dana’s idea. She was a very smart girl. I was a lot dumber and poorer. I didn’t like to turn down money, and I rationalized that they were going to steal whether or not I helped them hide it.”

“Oh, that’s great, Grandma. You were an accessory to a criminal. You could have gone to jail.”

“I told you I made some mistakes,” Charlotte said sharply. “Now I’m going to finish this so I don’t have to say it again, so I don’t have to think about it again.”

“Fine. Finish it.”

“Johnny and his friends started fighting. Greed has a way of taking apart even the best of friends. They started not trusting one another, worrying that one was getting more than a fair share. So they started putting things in this big old iron box. Dominic made four locks and four different keys that fit in a secret compartment in each watch. They decided to find a better hiding place, too.

They didn’t say where it was, but the phrases on the watches were some sort of code. They made it so they could open up the box only if they were all there and each had their key. And they kept the keys in the watches.

They loved those watches. They were a symbol of their club, their bond, their secrets.” She drew in another breath before continuing. “The robbery at the mint was
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their final job. It was so big. I had no idea they were going after something that huge.”

“But you were there,” Kayla interrupted. “Nick and I just saw newsreels from the robbery.”

“Where would you see those?” Charlotte asked in surprise.

“At the mint. We went there this morning. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw you and another girl standing by the ambulance.”

Charlotte nodded. “I’d heard about the robbery and that two men had been killed. Dana and I went running down there. We thought when they brought those men out that we might see Johnny or Nate. Dana was Nate’s girlfriend at the time. But it wasn’t them. It was the guards.”

She sent Kayla a look, pleading for understanding. “They had never, ever hurt anyone before. And now two men were dead. I think that’s when I fully realized that it wasn’t a game.”

“What happened next?” Kayla asked.

“The men went into hiding. I only saw Johnny once before he was arrested. He told me that something bad had happened, that it had been an accident. He wouldn’t say more. But he asked me to keep his watch and Dominic’s watch. The next day I heard that Dominic had died during a fishing trip. I had a bad feeling about it.”

“They killed Dominic?” Kayla asked in disbelief. She wondered what had caused such a drastic break in their friendship.

“I think so.”

“Was Dominic part of the robbery at the mint?” Nick asked. “His name was never mentioned.”

“He didn’t enter the mint. He helped them get away from the building. He knew of some secret way out. No
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one knew he was involved, except me and possibly Dana.”

“And anyone else those boys might have spoken to,”

Nick said. “It sounds like they talked a little too much if they were telling strippers about their ill-gotten gains.

Weren’t they worried you’d turn them in?”

“We were in love,” Charlotte said. “And Dana and I weren’t exactly walking on the good side of the law. We didn’t have anything to gain by turning anyone in.”

“So why did they kill Dominic?” Kayla asked. “I still don’t quite understand.”

“I don’t know. They had some sort of falling-out.”

“You should have told me you had Dominic’s watch,”

Kayla said. “Why didn’t you? You knew I was looking for all of them.”

“I thought I would wait until you had the other watches. I wasn’t sure who Evan was working with and what they might know.”

“That is the big question,” Nick said. “But obviously someone came here looking for Dominic’s watch.”

“Or the key,” Charlotte said. “But I gave that to you, Kayla.”

“I still have it in my purse. Do you know what the inscription was on Dominic’s watch?”

“Yes. ‘All the Riches.’ I figured it had something to do with their loot.” She paused. “I kept the watch in my safe in the bedroom closet. The carpet pulls up and you can see a combination lock. The numbers are forty-six, eighteen, twenty-two.”

“I’ll look,” Nick offered.

Kayla was tempted to go with him, but she decided to stay with her grandmother. “That’s quite a story.”

“And one that doesn’t show me in a particularly good
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light,” Charlotte replied. “I tried to clean up my act after I married Edward. He set me on the right path. As the years went by, it was easy to forget I’d ever been wild. It seemed like a dream to me. It was so long ago. I can hardly believe it’s all coming up now. I guess you’re never truly free of the past. You can’t outrun your mistakes no matter how far you go. They always catch up. I don’t know if you’ll ever forgive me, but I do love you, Kayla, and my biggest regret is that I put you in danger.

I never should have given you that watch. I should have held on to it forever.”

“I’m glad you did what you did for Johnny out of love,” Kayla said. “It doesn’t make it right, but it makes it more understandable. I’ve certainly done some stupid things based on what I thought was love. I have a better idea now of what’s real and what isn’t.”

Charlotte’s gaze narrowed on her face. “Is Nick real?”

Kayla started. “Good grief. Why would you ask that?”

“Because I can see the way you two look at each other, as if there’s something between you, something deep, intimate.”

Kayla felt herself blushing and wished she could stop the spread of warmth across her face, but it was impossible. “We’ve gotten close,” she admitted. “He’s a good guy. I don’t have the best track record for judging men, though. With Evan I think a part of me always knew it wasn’t right. I just didn’t want to admit it. I wanted to have the dream he was selling me, so I bought into it. I rushed into marriage so I wouldn’t have time to talk myself out of it.”

“Is Nick selling you a dream?”

“He isn’t selling me anything. We aren’t even talking about us. There’s too much going on.”

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“But you want there to be an ‘us’?”

“What I want is not to have to answer that question.”

Charlotte smiled. “You don’t have to tell me, but at some point you have to be honest with yourself.”

“I’m afraid,” Kayla admitted. “I’m terrified that if I am falling in love with Nick, I’m doing it all alone again.

I don’t want that to happen. So I don’t ask, and he doesn’t answer. And you’re right: It’s not the best way to go, but then I think, why do I have to know right now? For the first time in my life I’m not in a relationship with any expectations.”

“Maybe not expectations you’ve said out loud, but just because you’re silent doesn’t mean they’re not there, and that you won’t have to deal with them at some point.”

“As long as that point isn’t today, I’m happy,” Kayla said. She looked up as Nick walked back into the room.

His face was grim, his hands empty.

“I found the safe open,” he said. “There was no watch.

However, it appears that some other jewelry and papers are still there.”

Charlotte’s face fell. “How did they open the safe? I guess the lock wasn’t good enough, was it? Johnny once showed me how easy it was to crack a safe.” She paused.

“But I’m an old woman and I didn’t have that much to protect. At least, I thought I didn’t. It has been so long. I was more careful earlier.” She shook her head, her eyes filled with regret.

“It’s completely understandable that you grew lax as the years passed. I did the same thing,” Nick said. “Evan came for me twelve years after our falling-out. I hadn’t given him a second thought in years, and then there he was.”

Kayla watched Nick comforting her grandmother with
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a pleased smile. He could have been yelling in frustration and anger that if Charlotte had just told them all this the first time they asked, things might have turned out differently, but instead he was being nice, putting her grandmother first. She liked him even more, if that was possible.

“Thank you,” Charlotte said. “You’re very kind to say that. I can see why Kayla likes you.”

Kayla shifted in her seat as Nick turned a questioning gaze in her direction.

“Did she tell you she likes me?” he asked with a smile.

Charlotte gave a little laugh. “You should know by now that I can definitely keep a secret.”

Nick grinned. “You can say that again.”

“Okay, you two, let’s focus,” Kayla interrupted. “What are we going to do now? There’s only one watch left, and it belonged to Frankie. We have no leads.”