“It’s not the time that I’m worried about,” Nicki said. “Isabel is dead. I already feel partly responsible for that. I don’t want to be responsible for anything that might happen to you.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me.”
“Famous last words.”
“Nicki -”
“I’m not arguing.”
“Jesus.”
“I’m going to finish my coffee. Then I’m going to get my ass out of here.”
Michael’s jaw ached from clenching it so tight. A small part of him acknowledged that Nicki’s idea made some sense. The larger part of him hated the idea for many reasons. “Your driver’s side window hasn’t been fixed,” he said. “You’ll get soaked every time it rains.”
“I’ll tape plastic over it like half the hillbillies around here do.”
“You can’t go back to your apartment yet. You’ll lose all your stuff.”
Nicki shrugged. “I don’t have much anyway.”
“What about money?”
“What about it?”
“You’ll need money,” Michael said. “To get an apartment, buy new clothes, keep yourself fed until you get settled somewhere.”
“I’ve saved a little. I’ll be okay.”
“You’re sure this is what you want?”
Nicki finally met Michael’s eyes. A glint of tears shown in hers. Her eyes searched his and she looked as if she wanted to say something more. Michael wanted her to. And he didn’t want her to. In the end, she simply nodded and said, “Yes.”
Michael breathed a heavy sigh. “Okay. But you need to keep me posted. Let me know where you are.”
“I will. That’s a promise.”
Chapter 33
As soon as Nicki left the house, Michael went straight to his safe. He chose a .9mm for which he had a silencer, stuffed it in his waistband, and headed out. He quickly caught up with Nicki’s gray Saturn. Careful to keep a couple of cars between them, he followed. Within 15 minutes he had no doubt as to her destination.
He dropped back a little further. When she turned onto the side road, he pulled to the curb and parked. He waited, watching. Nothing out of the ordinary caught his eye. No one sitting in parked cars, no one loitering on the street.
He climbed out of his car. Keeping close to the building, he made his way around to the back. Just as he reached the edge of the battered stucco, he saw her go inside her apartment building. Instinct told him to grab her and bring her back to his house. He held back, pressed against the side of the building, watching.
Less than three minutes went by before he heard someone on the inside stairs. He would have expected her to take longer. Maybe it wasn’t her.
Peering around the edge of the building, Michael spotted them. The guy stood about five inches taller than Nicki. One large hand held a fistful of her hair, the other held a knife to her throat. The guy shoved her toward a shiny red Grand Prix. He popped the trunk and tried to get Nicki’s squirming body inside.
Nicki was scratching the man’s face as Michael approached. The guy, his back to Michael, punched her square in the jaw. She fell backward into the trunk.
During the commotion, Michael was able to quietly close the distance between them. The guy turned just as Michael swung, connecting the butt of his gun against the guy’s temple. He crumbled to the ground, dazed but not unconscious.
Michael kicked the knife beneath the car, then pulled Nicki from the trunk. “Are you okay?” he asked.
She stared at him, her jaw bright red, her eyes a swirl of emotion. “Oh God,” she mumbled.
“Can you drive?” Michael asked.
“I …”
“Nicki, listen to me. We don’t have a lot of time. Can you drive yourself back to my place?”
She nodded. He frowned and said, “You’re sure?”
“Yes,” Nicki said with more confidence. “I’m okay to drive.”
“Go straight to my house.” Michael quickly removed his house key from his key ring and handed it to Nicki. “Lock yourself inside. I’ll be there soon.”
“But –”
“Just go. No stops. Understand me?”
“Yes.”
The guy at his feet groaned and began struggling to get himself off the pavement. Michael glanced at him, then to Nicki he said, “Go.”
She opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it, then ran for her car. As she climbed inside, Michael yanked the guy to his feet. Not Lott, unfortunately. But certainly someone working with or for the bastard.
Nicki gave Michael a last look as she left the parking lot. The man glared and muttered, “Fucking whore-lover.”
Michael gave him a hard shove backward. The guy crashed into the trunk, his head bouncing off the back of the lid. His arms and legs thrashed about as he tried desperately to pull himself out. The blows to his head had slowed him down considerably.
The easiest thing to do would be to shoot the bastard and leave him there in the trunk. But this was where Nicki lived. Michael didn’t want anything directing the cops her way. Besides, a gunshot here, even with a silencer, might draw attention. That was the last thing he wanted happening.
He glanced around. No one had come out. An old chain link fence surrounded the lot, and behind that a patch of anorexic trees growing from a swamp that constantly flooded. His real concern was the apartment building and the possibility of one of the tenants coming out the back door. And that could happen at any time.
Of course there was also the line of houses on the other side of the apartment building. Killing someone out here just wasn’t a good idea.
The guy finally managed to get himself into a sitting position, though he remained inside the trunk. Michael said, “I’m in no mood to fuck around, so don’t move.”
The guy kept coming, trying to propel himself from the trunk at the same time he swung a fist. Michael slammed the butt of the gun hard into his temple. The guy crumbled, unconscious. “Jesus,” Michael muttered. “I said don’t move.”
Okay, so the guy had to die. Otherwise he’d give Michael’s description to Lott and Nicki would no longer be the only one being hunted. But he couldn’t die here. And Michael had to make a move quick, before anyone saw him.
Blood seeped from the cut on the guy’s temple. He was still breathing. Now what? Or, more precisely, where?
A crazy idea popped into Michael’s head. He shrugged and muttered, “What the hell.”
Michael knelt down and retrieved the knife he’d kicked under the car. Then he pushed the trunk closed, picked the keys up from the ground where the guy had dropped them, and jumped into the driver’s seat.
While he drove, Michael called Sean. “I need a ride,” he said.
“Yeah, okay,” Sean said. “Where are you?”
Michael rattled off an address. Sean said, “Fifteen minutes.”
“Perfect,” Michael replied.
For the next few minutes, the ride was quiet and uneventful. Then the movement started and soon the man in the trunk was making his presence known. Driving through busy streets with a man yelling and kicking in the trunk was not the smartest thing Michael had ever done.
He turned onto highway 19 and wound up directly behind a police cruiser at a stop light. The muffled shouts from the trunk resonated through the interior of the car. Michael turned the radio up and stared straight ahead.
An SUV pulled up behind him. The light remained red. Michael watched in the rearview mirror. The driver, a woman about his age, didn’t appear interested in his trunk. She spent her time chatting on her cell phone.
The light finally turned green. Michael kept pace with the cruiser in front of him. The kicking against the trunk continued.
Another few minutes and Michael made it to his turnoff. He briefly questioned his sanity with this plan. He’d committed, though, and didn’t have time to rethink things. Unless he wanted to let the scum in the trunk live, he had to keep moving forward.
He swung the Grand Pr
ix into the parking lot. Luckily it wasn’t even noon, so life here had yet to begin. The side of the lot had a narrow passage that led to the back of the building. Michael parked beside the Dumpster, opposite the back door. He stepped out of the car. While aware of his surroundings, Michael didn’t hesitate. He had no time for second thoughts.
He slipped off his t-shirt and used it to quickly wipe down anything in and on the car that he had touched. Then he used the remote to pop open the trunk. The guy blinked at the sudden intrusion of bright sunlight. In that split second, while the guy’s eyelids fluttered, Michael put a bullet in his right eye. Blood mixed with assorted brain matter splattered the interior.
Using his t-shirt, Michael wiped his prints from the gun. He tossed that, along with the knife, into the trunk. After slamming it shut, he tugged his t-shirt back on and strode briskly out to the street. Three minutes later he slipped into the front seat of Sean’s pickup.
“Everything okay?” Sean asked.
“Yeah,” Michael said. “My car’s on High Street.”
As they mingled with the traffic, Sean said, “Wasn’t that Lott’s neighborhood?”
“Yeah. I left a message at his hangout.”
“Not a verbal one.”
“No,” Michael said. “One I hope he’ll understand much better.”
Chapter 34
Michael pulled his Porsche into his garage. He went inside, picked Nicki’s keys up from the counter and went out to put her car in the garage beside his. Back in the house, he found Nicki on the couch holding an ice pack on her jaw. He said, “You okay?”
“Thanks to you,” Nicki replied. “I can’t believe how stupid I was. But, hell, the guy just killed his girlfriend. He’s got to know the cops are watching him. I figured he had better things to do than worry about chasing after me, especially in broad daylight.”
“Yeah…”
“I was so careful, too. I drove past the place once, checked the street and the parking lot. I even looked under the cars before I went inside! The last thing I expected was for him to be waiting in my apartment. Stupid! I should have expected that. And I shouldn’t have cared so much about a few dumb sentimental things that I had to go back there to get them.”
Michael said nothing. He sat beside Nicki and she leaned her head against his shoulder. Her hair smelled like the raspberry shampoo that had been left in the bathroom. One of the women who had come and gone quickly from his life. He couldn’t even remember which.
“What happened after I left?” Nicki asked.
“He won’t hurt anyone again.”
“Thank you,” Nicki said softly. “It’s over now, right? Lott’s dead. His friends will back off now. Right?”
Michael wanted nothing more than to reassure her. But he couldn’t. He said, “That wasn’t Lott.”
Nicki stiffened. “It wasn’t?”
“That was one of his friends.”
“Oh God.”
Michael lightly stroked the side of Nicki’s face. “It’ll be okay,” he said.
“This isn’t over then.”
“No. I think it just began.”
***
Later that afternoon, Michael called to check on his father. He seemed in good spirits. And also sober, which still caught Michael off guard. They talked for awhile about nothing in particular. The relatively mundane activity was a nice break.
Then Michael ordered dinner from a local restaurant that delivered. He and Nicki ate in the living room with an old movie playing for a distraction. When they’d finished, Nicki said, “What do we do now?”
“I don’t know,” Michael replied. “Watch another movie? Sit out back and let the mosquitoes torture us?”
“No, I mean about this whole crazy situation.”
“Oh.” Michael shifted in his seat. The topic made him uncomfortable now that he had left no doubts as to what he did. He could deny the rumors that Nicki had hinted at had anything to do with him. But he couldn’t deny what had happened today. At this point, denying anything with Nicki was pointless. He said, “You’ll stay right here and let me handle things.”
“What if I left tonight?” Nicki said. “I promise to drive straight to the highway and head north. I won’t stop for anything but gas until I get out of the state.”
“No.”
“This time I swear I -”
“No,” Michael said simply. “You’re not running.”
“Okay.”
For a few moments they were both silent. Michael was considering his options, thinking he wasn’t left with many. Nicki said, “You’re okay, right?”
“I’m fine.”
“I mean, no one saw you?”
“No one saw me.”
“Thank God. I couldn’t live with you getting caught because of my stupidity.”
Michael gave Nicki a playful nudge. “Then behave yourself from now on,” he said.
“That’s a promise. Do we have a plan?”
“I’m working on one.”
“Care to share it with me this time?”
“No,” Michael said. “You don’t need details.”
“I should be doing something. I caused this mess, so -”
“You did not cause this mess. Lott did.”
Nicki sighed. “Okay, but I’m the one who dragged you in the middle of it.”
“Shit happens.”
“Do you at least have help?”
“I don’t need help.”
“But Lott has his friends helping him and -”
“If I need help,” Michael said, “I will get it. But not from you. The only thing I want you to do is stay right here in this house.”
“I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty.”
“I never said you were.”
“So let me help.”
“Absolutely not,” Michael said. “This is not something you need to be stepping into. You asked for my help, so stop bitching and let me do what I need to do.”
“Fine. I get it.”
“Good.” Michael pulled Nicki close. “I know you’re not used to having someone take care of you,” he said. “And I honestly don’t care if you like it. Just let me do it. Okay?”
“Yeah,” Nicki said softly.
“I can’t do anything more tonight. Lott and his gang are going to be on full alert once they find their friend, which won’t take long.”
“Did you leave him in my parking lot?”
“No,” Michael said. “And that’s all I’m saying about that.”
“Okay.” After a moment, Nicki said, “I’m going to lose my job.”
“Why?”
Nicki shrugged. “I’m still on my probation period. I have no doctor’s note to prove I’ve been sick, so if I don’t go back by Monday, I’m screwed.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Nicki said. “It’s just rather ironic how I’ve gotten into more trouble with a legitimate job than I ever did when I was on the streets.”
“Well at least now you have a degree,” Michael said. “That should help a lot when you’re looking for another job.”
Nicki chuckled. “Sure, except I have no work history, aside from a few months at the shelter. Being a hooker doesn’t look good on a resume. Neither does getting fired from the one legit job you’ve had.”
“Things will work out,” Michael said.
“I know. And I won’t go back to hooking, no matter what.”
“I wasn’t thinking that you would.”
“Yes you were,” Nicki said. “Hell, even I considered it for a second or two.”
“What you decide to do is your choice.” Michael certainly couldn’t judge Nicki’s career choice. After all, look what he was doing. He said, “I’ll support whatever you decide.”
Nicki snuggled closer to Michael. She said, “I don’t know what I did to deserve such an amazing friend.”
Michael wanted to laugh. If Nicki could read his thoughts, she wouldn’t be thinking that he was such a great friend
. Having her so close and feeling her soft skin pressed against him aroused him to the core. He was no longer thinking about Lott or a plan to help Nicki. He was thinking about taking her to bed, undressing her, and making love to her all night.
Chapter 35
“Fucking whore!” Lotto bellowed.
“You think she hired a pro?” Wiz asked.
“Had to,” Lotto said. He paced the small living room like a caged animal. “You saw what Marcus looked like. One bullet to the head. Stuffed in his fucking trunk. No way she did that. The pro she hired was letting us know he was that close. In our own backyard and he puts a bullet in Marcus’ head.”
Darius sat on the couch nursing a bottle of whiskey. “My fucking brother,” he mumbled.
“What now?” Wiz said.
“I’m gonna rip this fucking city apart until I find that bitch,” Lotto said. “And the pro she hired. I want to bleed the life out of both of them a little at a time.”
“Cops are close,” Pete said.
“And I’ll shoot the first one that steps in my fucking way!” Lotto said. “I want answers. So get moving!”
***
Nicki had been dreaming she was a character on the Sopranos when a tinny melody woke her. She lay still for a moment, trying to identify the source of the noise. When she realized that it was the ring of her cell phone, she groped around the nightstand until she had it in her grasp.
The display was lit. Nicki blinked to clear her vision and focused on the number. Her heart sank. The call came from Isabel’s phone, which meant the caller was Lott. The display went dark and the call went to voice mail.
Before Nicki could consider what to do, her phone began to ring once more. She held it, staring at the display. Not even during her youth, when she’d lived with abuse, had she felt so helpless.
The tap on her door sent a jolt through her. Michael called, “You okay? Is that Lott calling you?”
“Yes to both,” Nicki replied. “Come on in.”
Michael pushed the door open and stepped inside. The phone stopped ringing. Nicki gazed through the darkness at Michael. He wore nothing but faded denim shorts. Even in the dark, she could see his muscular build. Looking at him gave her a tingle. How crazy was that? A maniac was after her and she was getting turned on.
“Has he said anything?” Michael asked.
“I haven’t answered, “Nicki replied. “And he hasn’t left a message.”
The phone began ringing once again. Michael took the phone from Nicki’s hand and flipped it open. He put it to his ear but said nothing. Lott’s voice drifted toward her. She could make out the anger but not the words.