Whiskey Island (53 page)

He didn’t want to wake Rooney from his reverie. He got up quietly and regretfully left the room. In the den, he pulled the door closed so that Rooney wouldn’t overhear his call.

As he expected, the St. Patrick’s Day party at the saloon was still in full swing, and whoever answered the telephone had trouble hearing him over the clamor.

“I have to speak to Megan. Will you get her, please? Tell her it’s Niccolo.” He repeated this several times, hoping that whoever was on the other end would understand at least one of his requests.

There was a series of crashes from the saloon side of the conversation, as if the telephone had been dropped or the receiver had been left hanging to crash against the wall again and again. He could hear the same band that had been playing when he’d been there an hour ago. The staff would be serving their corned beef and cabbage dinners about now. Someone else would get the one Megan claimed to have saved for him.

“Hello?”

He sat up straighter, clutching the receiver. He couldn’t make out the voice. “Is this Megan?”

“Megan says she can’t come to the phone.”

“Damn it, tell her I have to talk to her. Tell her it’s important.
Tell her it’s Niccolo!
”

“Hold on.”

He considered leaving the telephone to check on Rooney, but he knew that as soon as he did, Megan would answer. Had the phone been cordless, he could have done both. He reproached himself for not running upstairs to get the only cordless device in the house.

“Hello?”

“Is this Megan?”

“Megan says to call back later. After ten.”

Niccolo couldn’t believe this was happening. He wondered if Megan thought he was calling to apologize, or to tell her he was out of her life. Could she really believe he would disturb her in the throes of the busiest day of the year just to process their relationship? “Listen, tell her—”

The telephone went dead. Whoever had been on the other end of the line had tired of taking messages.

He sat motionless for a moment, gathering himself to call again. The house was quiet. Then something disturbed the stillness. Something soft. A click.

A door closing.

Niccolo leaped to his feet, opened the den door and started down the hallway.

The kitchen was empty. Rooney Donaghue had vanished again.

33

N
iccolo drove the neighborhood for an hour looking for Rooney, but he was nowhere in sight. Nick knew that vanishing was one of Rooney’s talents and had probably kept him alive. A man able to live on the streets without being seen could avoid the worst abuse. Many a homeless man and woman had been the target of violence simply because they’d been easy to find.

The streets were dark by the time he pulled up to his house again. He had decided not to go to the saloon. There was no reason to tell Megan what had happened when she was still in the throes of St. Patrick’s Day. He would wait until midnight, when the party was over and the saloon was closing. Then he would deliver his message and leave. He would do it in person rather than risk another abortive phone call.

By eleven-fifty-five, after a late supper with Josh and a long telephone conference with Iggy about funding for his new project, Niccolo was reconsidering his decision. He already knew that Megan was exhausted, and he was tired, as well. Nothing would be served by informing her about Rooney tonight, he told himself. He could wait until tomorrow, when he was in better control of his feelings and she’d had some rest. There was a better chance that way that neither of them would say anything they would regret.

He pulled on his coat and pocketed his car keys. Megan wasn’t the only one racked by ambivalence.

The parking lot was nearly empty by the time he arrived. Casey’s car was still in the shop and Megan’s was gone, but she often made a bank run at the night’s end. Tonight of all nights she probably hadn’t wanted to keep the receipts in the saloon’s primitive safe. He just hoped she’d taken along one of her brawny cousins to ride shotgun.

He parked in front, since there was plenty of room, and tried the front door, but it was already locked for the night. The inside lights had been dimmed, and he couldn’t see whether anyone was nearby. He decided to try the kitchen. Even if that door was locked, someone would let him in.

The kitchen door was unlocked. A light rain had begun to fall, and he spent a moment in the entryway wiping his shoes and hanging up his coat before he ventured inside.

The saloon was surprisingly silent. He’d expected a leisurely exit of patrons and staff tonight. Maybe the day had tired everyone and they’d drifted out on time. Or maybe Megan had firmly shooed away the heartiest party goers before the clock struck midnight. By his watch, it was only ten after.

The kitchen wasn’t neat as a pin, but considering the day’s events, it was more than halfway there. The counters had been wiped and straightened, the floors swept, and no traces of food remained. All three of the sinks were filled with dishes soaking in soapy water, but the lights were dimmed, as if the Donaghue sisters had decided to call it a night and finish cleanup in the morning.

He was halfway across the room when he heard voices from the bar. Something made him stop to listen, the emotion in the woman’s voice, perhaps, or the sense that her words were falling on resistant ears.

“I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know who you think I am, but you’ve got the wrong woman. I don’t have your daughter.”

A man’s voice, his accent honeyed by years of moonlit, magnolia-scented nights, spoke softly enough that Niccolo had to strain to hear his answer.

“You can’t fool me, darlin’. I know you’ve got Alice Lee. I’ve seen her myself. You’ve got my little girl, and I plan to take her back home where she belongs.”

“I’m keeping a little girl while her mother gets settled in Wisconsin. Maybe she looks like—”

“I know my daughter, Miss Donaghue. You’ve got my Alice Lee, and you can’t keep a little girl from her daddy like that. I love my little girl, and she loves me.”

Niccolo started forward, but the view through the small serving window stopped him. The man, whoever he was, had a gun pointed at Casey, who was behind the bar. They were the only two people in the room. Niccolo knew better than to upset that balance. Unlike the carjacking, he knew instinctively that his sudden appearance would only make things worse.

Casey leaned over the bar defiantly. “You know what I’ve heard about you, Bobby Rayburn? You love your daughter, all right. You love her so much you can’t keep your hands off her. You’re a sick man, and it’ll be a cold day in hell before I unlock that door and let you have her.”

Niccolo stopped breathing. The situation was crystal clear and even more dangerous than he’d feared, because Casey wasn’t going to give this man anything, certainly not his daughter. Niccolo had come to know her well, and he’d learned one thing for certain. On the surface she was a party girl, but in her heart she was a crusader.

“What I do with my little girl is nobody’s business, you slut. You think you have anything to say about it? Alice Lee and I, we have a special sort of bond. Nothing you or that bitch I married would understand. Her mother thinks she can read Alice Lee’s mind. She doesn’t know what my little girl feels. Only I know.”

“I think
I’ve
got a pretty damned good idea,” Casey said. “She’s terrified of you. She knows the things you’ve done to her aren’t right. And all the money in the world will never make it so.”

“I love her! I never did a thing to Alice Lee that didn’t make her feel good, didn’t make her feel like I love her.”

“You’re despicable.”

Niccolo wanted to caution Casey, better yet to silence her, but there was nothing he could do. He watched in horror as she leaned closer to the gunman. Her fury was audible, and she was clearly too angry to be frightened.

“You want to shoot me, Bobby Rayburn? Go right ahead. Be my guest. But the moment my sister hears a shot, the cops will be here. And then the whole world will know what kind of man you really are. Your wife will get out of jail, and they’ll give her permanent custody of Alice Lee. Maybe even a medal for keeping her away from you. And you’ll go to jail, which is too good for a pervert, if you ask me. But hey, from what I hear, the inmates know how to take care of somebody like you. Child molesters don’t last long in prison!”

Rayburn stepped closer. He was a short man, with thick curly hair and an open, boyish face that at the moment was twisted in rage. “I never molested Alice Lee. She liked the way I touched her. She wanted me to—”

“Stop it, you creep! I don’t want the details. God, you’re so sick you don’t even know how sick you are.”

“You give me that key, or I’ll shoot you right here and now.” He waved the gun in Casey’s face. “You don’t think I’ll do it?”

“I think you want your daughter, and that’s not the way to get her. I’ll tell you what you do, Bobby. You get out of here. And then you let the courts of the state of Ohio decide what to do with your little girl. Just tell them what you’ve told me, and they’ll do the rest.”

“If I wanted to involve the police, I’d have reported you.”

“You don’t want to involve them because they may take a second look at this case before they turn Alice Lee back over to you. And it won’t stand a second look.”

“I’m going to take her and go. I’ve been watching you, just waiting for the right moment.”

“You slashed my tires, didn’t you?”

“I don’t want you taking Alice Lee anywhere.”

“If you’re afraid of the police, you must have a reason. What’s wrong? Is your network of lies falling apart? You don’t have any special pull in Cleveland, do you? And maybe I have enough to slow down any attempts to take Alice Lee back to Florida.”

“You know, darlin’, for a slut at gunpoint, you’ve got a lot to say.”

“We can talk all night, but I’m not unlocking the door upstairs.” She seemed to struggle with herself, to try to ride herd on her temper. She lowered her voice. “Look, we’re at a standoff here. You get your lawyers and I’ll get mine. We’ll let them talk.”

“Do you think I’m nuts?” He didn’t hesitate, as if in his mind the question was purely rhetorical. “You’ll run like a rabbit and drag my Alice Lee along for the chase.”

“No, it’s time for the running to end. I’ll stay put, and we’ll let the courts decide.”

“They did, and she’s mine.” He leaned over the bar and aimed his gun at her chest.

“If you shoot me and somehow get away with Alice Lee, don’t you think the cops will figure out what happened here? Do you want to go to jail for murder?”

Niccolo knew it was a bad sign when Rayburn actually seemed to consider the question. Rayburn leaned closer, as if to improve on an already perfect target, and Niccolo knew he had no choice but to show himself.

He pushed his way through the swinging doors. It was the moment for a television cop show cliché. “Drop the gun, Rayburn!”

Rayburn swung around, hip against the bar, gun held straight out in front of him, continuing the television cop motif. Casey, without hesitation, dove over the bar to grab it. Rayburn lost his grip as he swerved back toward her. As Niccolo started forward to help, she and Rayburn struggled for the gun.

It went off.

For a moment Niccolo was certain Casey had been hit. She fell backward toward the shelves behind the bar. Then, as he watched, Rayburn slumped to the floor.

“He’s down….” Niccolo sprinted to the man on the floor and knelt beside him. Blood spurted from a wound in his chest. “Call 911.”

“Casey…I—” Megan came in through the swinging doors between the kitchen and the bar. “What’s happened? Oh, my God!”

“Call 911, Megan,” Niccolo shouted. He glanced up and saw that Casey still held Rayburn’s gun, as if it had frozen to her hand. “Put the gun down, Casey. Just lay it on the bar, nice and easy.”

“I shot him.” Casey seemed confused, as if that possibility was unthinkable.

“Put the gun down. Now.” Niccolo stripped off his sweatshirt and folded it against the wound in Rayburn’s chest. He could hear Megan talking to someone, probably the emergency dispatcher. He glanced up and saw that Casey had finally released the gun. It lay on the bar.

“I shot him. The bastard.” She hesitated. “Did I kill him?”

Niccolo wasn’t sure what answer she was hoping for. “No. Not yet, anyway.”

“He’s Ashley’s father.”

“I heard it all.”

“Did you hear—”

“Enough to testify that he’d been molesting her? Yes.”

“Nick, we have to stop meeting like this.” Casey tried to force a laugh, but broke into choking sobs instead. “I’m going to jail.”

“It was Rayburn’s gun. He was going to shoot you with it. It’s clearly self-defense.”

“It’s also kidnapping….”

Niccolo looked up. Rayburn was still unconscious but breathing, and the bleeding wasn’t as profuse as he had feared. “Kidnapping?”

“They’ll say I kidnapped Ashley.”

Megan returned. “They’re on their way. Do you know CPR, Nick? The dispatcher’s staying on the line in case you need instructions. I took a course, but it was a long time ago.”

“He’s breathing, and he has a pulse. Right now we’re just going to staunch the bleeding. But keep them on the line, just in case.”

“Megan…”

Megan left Niccolo’s side to go to her sister. “What, Casey? Were you hurt?
Are
you hurt?”

“When you’re able to hang up the phone, will you do me a favor?”

“Anything,” Megan said.

“Will you call Jon?”

Casey was in a room by herself, an interrogation room, she supposed. The walls were gray, the table in front of her was battered steel. She didn’t want to think too long about how it had gotten all those dents.

Her knowledge of police procedure had been gleaned from good and bad cop shows. So far this experience reminded her of an episode of
NYPD Blue.
She halfway expected Jimmy Smits to walk through the door chewing gum and looking pensive. But Jimmy Smits—or at least the character he’d played—was dead.

And so, quite possibly, was the man she had shot tonight.