Chapter 6
Toni's face burned with humiliation as she stared at the door he'd just slammed. She'd made a fool of herself, let herself believe in something that was pure fantasy. Like a little girl dreaming of a knight in shining armor, she'd allowed her imagination to twist the truth. She'd seen everything exactly the way she'd wanted to see it. Nick had nailed the reason, in his crude way. She couldn't allow herself to feel what she was feeling for a criminal, so she'd built him into a hero.
“How could I have been such an idiot?” She turned from the door, and her gaze darted around the empty room, not really seeing anything. “My God, I almost told him...” She bit her lip, unwilling to complete the thought aloud. Hadn't he just warned her about listening devices that might be in the house? Who was to say he hadn't planted a few of his own right here? She'd come perilously close to admitting her alter ego tonight. She'd almost told him she was Toni Rio. If he truly worked for Taranto, that would be suicide.
She grimaced when she realized she'd mentally injected an if into the thought. Was she still determined to think he was some kind of a saint? Her eyes burned and a stabbing sense of betrayal twisted inside, even deeper than the humiliation. It made no sense, that feeling. He'd never claimed to be anything but what he was. Yet she'd told him her most painful secrets. She'd bared her heart's deepest wounds to him.
He'd seemed to care, she thought miserably. The way he held her and spoke softly....
So what? Even a morally bankrupt bastard was entitled to noble impulses now and then.
What about all the other things that don't fit? What about all the surveillance equipment, and his fear of being monitored by Taranto? Why the hidden apartment—the traveling telephone—the late-night meetings with Carl?
More than that, her mind whispered. There was his brother, who'd died of a drug overdose. Just the mention of his brother brought Nick extreme pain. How could he be working for Taranto?
Angry with herself for trying to make a case for her own wishful thinking, she wondered if her theory that he was a cop might still be valid. She was too close to this to be sure. It was like a work in progress at the moment, like the jigsaw puzzle on the floor. She wouldn't be able to look at things objectively until she was able to distance herself.
The fact was, she'd allowed herself to begin to care about Nick. The lines between realistic theory and whimsical fantasy had blurred until she couldn’t distinguish one from the other. She had to get the hell out of here. Tonight.
Before she let herself forget his cruel words and started seeing him as a character from one of her books.
She paused as she realized that was exactly what she'd been doing. Nick was exactly the type Katrina would go for. Built like Atlas, arrogant and dangerous—that air of mystery about him.
But she was not Katrina Chekov, she reminded herself. The things she'd seen in him had been different. His inability to hurt her or even let her go hungry. That well-hidden gentleness that wasn't nearly as well hidden as he thought. And while she'd exposed her secret pain to him, she remembered that she'd seen his, as well. The pain of being abandoned by his parents and of losing his brother, the pain he pretended didn't hurt at all.
Toni shook her head slowly. No, she couldn't stay here another night. She had to leave before she did something she might regret for the rest of her life.
An hour later, on an elevated loading dock outside the warehouse with a handful of Taranto’s lower level thugs, Nick was still replaying that encounter in his head. He’d only glimpsed the hurt in Toni’s eyes briefly before he'd looked away. If he faced her, he was sure she'd see right through his act. He wanted to tell her the truth so bad it was eating him up from the inside out. But he couldn't. Taranto was an expert at getting the truth out of people. He was damn good, too, at sensing when a person had something to tell or when they honestly knew nothing. If he ever got his filthy hands on Toni, it would be far better for her if she fell into the latter category.
Damn, the effect that woman had on him was like wildfire on a tinder-dry forest. He could still taste her on his lips, feel her small body straining against him. Every move she made, every breath that mingled with his had been a plea. Tell me. Trust me.
Trust her. He couldn't do that, dammit. Trusting other people had never brought him anything but disappointment. He'd be stupid to trust her when he knew she was hiding something. She had her own agenda. Who was to say she wouldn't get whatever information she could from him and then just walk away? And why the hell shouldn't she? Everyone he'd ever cared for had. He'd learned to depend on no one but himself. Leaning on others brought nothing but pain. It made you weak, vulnerable.
Since Danny's death, the grand finale in a series of desertions, Nick had existed in a virtual vacuum. No one got close to him. When he needed sexual release, he found it with strangers. He rarely even asked their names. His encounters with women were always cold, preplanned exchanges. He was consistently sober, consistently protected and never really satisfied.
The only one to breach his self-imposed seclusion was Carl. But Carl had been close to him before his mother had walked out, before his father had been caught running from that liquor store with a six-pack, a wad of money and a loaded gun, and before Danny had died. In all that time, Carl had never broken faith. He'd always been there. But even with that, Nick lived with the constant certainty that Carl, too, would disappear one day. He tried not to need his best friend. People never abandoned you when you were aloof. As long as you could take them or leave them, they tended to hang around. The minute you needed them, they vanished like a magician's trick. Poof! You're on your own again, pal.
“Here it is.” Carl's voice shook him out of his brooding thoughts.
Nick watched the red taillights come closer as the semi backed up to the loading dock. The only other light was from a single bulb overhead, just enough so they could see what they were doing inside the warehouse. Besides Nick and Carl, three others waited to help unload the shipment.
Rosco, an old faithful employee of Lou's who'd never had the ambition to move up through the ranks, stood a few feet away, an automatic rifle gripped in a two-handed, ready-to-fire, hold. He was the lookout. The other two were younger, barely out of their teens, but already loyal lackeys to Lou's machine. One called himself Sly, the other, Jake. Nick figured their real names were something like Howard and Irving.
When the truck came to a halt, Nick went outside and lifted the lever to release the trailer’s rear doors. He swung them open and glanced inside. The crates looked for all the world like an innocent cargo of coffee. The heroin was buried in the fragrant beans, whose aroma would usually throw drug-sniffing dogs off the scent.
The two kids rushed past him into the trailer, grabbed a crate each and moved them onto a waiting pallet. Carl pulled out onto the loading dock with a forklift. When the pallet was filled, he would pick it up on the tines and take it inside the warehouse. Nick glanced out into the darkness. Somewhere out there police officers must be waiting. Any second the night could explode with muzzle flashes and lethal bullets. Still his mind kept wandering into the zone he'd deemed forbidden. He was thinking of Toni, wondering if his cruel words had caused her any tears. She'd had enough pain in her life. Damn woman was systematically chipping away at the walls he'd so painstakingly erected...and that scared him.
When a spotlight blinded him, Nick jerked in surprise, even though he'd known it would come sooner or later. A bullhorn-enhanced voice drilled through the white glare. “This is the police. Step away from the truck, keeping your hands—”
And then Taranto's men started shooting. The kids dove for cover, dropping crates and pulling their guns. Coffee beans spilled all over the place. Rosco squeezed off a rapid burst of fire. The cops shot back without missing a beat, and Nick knew that the men on the dock, himself included, were sitting ducks. He glanced around for decent cover, saw Jake and Sly crouching behind an upturned crate, which was no cover at all. The spotlight moved, bathed the
m.
Nick charged across the dock, slamming into the two kids and knocking them to the ground five feet below. He almost went over the edge himself, but managed not to. Looking behind him, he saw Rosco lying on the platform. He wasn’t moving. He must've been hit in the first volley. Nick lunged toward him and grabbed the AK rifle he'd dropped, pointed it, squeezed the trigger and held, straining to keep the barrel from lifting skyward with the force of the recoil until he’d put the spotlight out.
Carl, where the hell was Carl?
Nick found him, crouching behind the forklift. Before he could move closer, Carl pulled his handgun and shot the light bulb that was dangling over his head, plunging them into total darkness. Nick made his way toward him, bullets flying around him like a rainstorm. At least they had the benefit of darkness now. He and Carl crouched low, ran to the edge and jumped over it, joining the two younger guys on the gravel-covered ground.
A searing pain in his left thigh drew Nick's hand to it. It came away warm and moist. With the adrenaline pumping, he hadn't even felt the bullet rip into him, but he sure as hell felt it now. The two kids were still firing back at the cops, but Nick knew they couldn't see enough to hit any of them. “Knock it off, guys, you’re just showing ‘em where we are.” He clasped Carl’s shoulder. “We’ve got to try for the car. They won't wait long to move in.” The unspoken conclusion to the sentence was in his friend’s eyes. And then one of these crazy punks might kill some of them.
Carl nodded, nudged the other two, and the four of them ran for the nearest vehicle. Nick had left his car close and behind a steel storage pod for this very reason. They had a precarious three-second start before the police realized what had happened. Nick slid into the passenger seat, and Carl took the wheel as the two kids dove into the backseat. Carl slammed the shift into Drive and the pedal to the floor, sending a shower of loose stones behind them. Seconds later, screaming sirens came to life.
Nick glanced over his shoulder at the two in the back seat. “You two all right?”
“Yeah,” Sly replied. “Damn, I thought we were all goners! I could feel the freakin' bullets flyin’ past me. I could feel 'em. Damn!”
Jake said nothing. He sat still, his eyes dilated and his skin pale in the dim interior of the car. Nick had a feeling he'd think twice before he decided to devote his remaining years to working for Lou Taranto.
Carl's stream of fluent cursing brought Nick's head around. “You're bleeding, Nick. You're hit.”
“Just drive,” Nick told him. “It's nothing.” He looked down now and saw that his pant leg was soaked in blood. The warm trickle along his outer thigh told him it was still flowing. He slipped the belt from his waist, wrapped it around the wounded thigh, just above the injury, and pulled it tight.
Carl rounded a corner, tires squealing, and came to a rubber-burning stop. “Out, you two,” he ordered the boys in the back. “Stay out of sight for an hour, then get your butts home.” The two tumbled out the same door and vanished into a vacant building just as Carl pulled away from the curb.
“I'm taking you to a hospital Nick. You're bleeding like—”
“Forget it!” Nick yanked the belt tighter and held it mercilessly. “It's stopping. They catch up with us, and we'll be tied up for God knows how long. I can't leave Toni to her own devices for more than a few of hours. You don't know what kind of hell she'd raise.”
“What damage can she do? She's under lock and key.”
“You don't know her.”
Toni’s plan was simple. Nick would open the door, she would give him a healthy dose of hair spray in the face and run like hell. She'd wrapped a change of clothes and her notebook in one of his spare blankets, since there was no telling how long it would take her to find help. The bundle rested close enough so she could grab it as she fled. She watched for his car on the monitor, sighing her relief when it finally pulled up at the gate. Thank God. She’d started to think something might really have happened to him. Flicking off the TV, she tossed the remote over the row of books on the shelf. In case her escape attempt failed, no point letting on that she knew about the monitor. She positioned herself near the door, lifted the hair-spray can and waited.
It seemed to take an unreasonably long time for him to come upstairs. She grew restless. Her feet itched and she shifted her weight back and forth from one to the other.
Finally the door moved and Toni braced herself. It opened. Her finger touched the knob on the top of the can. Carl came through with Nick's arm anchored over his shoulders. Nick's head was bowed.
Toni saw the scarlet blood dripping from his pant leg. His head came up. He met her horrified stare, and she could see the pain on his face. The hairspray can fell to the floor, forgotten in her rush to pull his free arm around her and help Carl get him inside. “To the bedroom,” she instructed, and she and Carl half carried Nick there and clumsily eased his huge body onto the edge of the bed. She released him long enough to tear the covers back, then grabbed him again and eased him down onto the bed.
“What the hell happened?” She tried not to look at Nick's face, at the pallor of his skin, and the lines etched at the corners of his mouth. Hooking a finger into what she presumed to be a bullet hole in his pant leg, just below the belt he'd twisted around his thigh, she tore the fabric wider.
“It's nothing. A graze,” Nick ground out. He wasn't lying flat, but holding his head and shoulders off the bed. She could hear the effort he made to keep his voice normal, and the way he struggled to breathe deeply and regularly. The man couldn't admit to weakness at all, even with a quart of blood soaking his clothes. He was infuriating.
“He was shot,” Carl finally answered.
She realized it had been a stupid question. Of course he'd been shot, what else? A mottled chasm in his flesh still pulsed blood. She couldn't see the wound well until she cleaned some of the blood away.
Her gaze pinned Carl. “Prop his feet on pillows—they ought to be elevated. Get the wounded leg higher. It'll slow the bleeding.” She got off the bed. “Take his shoes off, too.”
Carl's quick nod assured her he'd do what she asked. She ran into the bathroom, dug into the medicine cabinet and gathered everything she thought might be of use: gauze pads and a roll of gauze, a tube of antiseptic ointment, some Ibuprofen tablets, adhesive tape. She carried all of it into the bedroom, dumped it on the nightstand, then rushed back for a basin of warm water, a washcloth and a bar of soap.
She was faster than Carl—then again, the poor man was shaking so hard it was amazing he could stay upright himself. She hurried into the kitchen for the bottle of whiskey she'd found there before and a small glass. As she headed back, she glanced out the wide-open bookcase door. A little shudder passed through her. Could the one who'd shot Nick have followed them? She closed the door and raced back to the bedside.
She had to swallow hard before she could speak. All of this was almost too much. Seeing that much blood, knowing it was his... She twisted the cap from the whiskey bottle and poured with an amazingly steady hand. Leaning over him, she supported Nick's head and held the glass to his lips with the other.
“Hell, I'm not dying.” He took the glass from her and swallowed the contents. Toni poured another shot as soon as he'd emptied the glass. She handed him some pain reliever to swallow with it this time.
“Will you quit with this, Toni? I'm all right.”
“Shut up and drink.” Fear for him made her voice sharp. “And then you can quit this macho bull and lie down. It's a strain to sit up and you know it.”
Again Nick downed the whiskey. But he didn't lie down. Toni sat on the bed and tore the pant leg completely off. Then she began washing the blood away from his thigh. Carl had Nick’s leg propped on four pillows, and had tightened the belt. The blood flow had slowed to a trickle.
“Carl, go close the door,” Nick said, watching her, “before my bird decides to fly the coop.”
She didn't pause in her removal of the blood with the wet, soapy cloth. “
I already closed the door. I was afraid you might have been followed. Didn't want whoever did this to walk right in and finish the job.” She dipped the cloth and squeezed, continued washing, repeated. God, there was a lot of blood.
“Your mistake,” Nick said slowly. “I was shot by a cop. If he had followed me, he'd have been your ticket out.”
“I figured that out all by myself,” she replied. “And if I'd wanted out, Nick, I wouldn't be here. Don't kid yourself about that. I could’ve been out of here days ago if I wanted.” She'd removed most of the blood by now. The bullet's path had dug a furrow along his outer thigh. He was lucky it hadn't been fractionally more to the right. It could've cost him his leg. She took the whiskey bottle and removed the cap again. “Another shot?''
He shook his head.
Toni took a folded towel and slid it beneath his thigh, then she tipped the bottle up and rinsed the wound in whiskey. She felt his body stiffen, heard the air he sucked through his teeth. Carl turned away, clapping a hand to his mouth.
Toni used a gauze pad to absorb the blood-colored whiskey that ran from the gash, down the sides of his leg, and prepared to pour a bit more over the wound. She glanced at Carl. In another minute he'd be puking. “You two must’ve left a blood trail right up to that cliché bookcase door. Maybe you ought to clean that up before your boss shows up to check on you.”
“Yeah, right. I hadn't thought of...” He stopped and glanced at Nick. “If you guys don't need me.”
“It's not as bad as it looks,” Toni told him. “He'll be fine, and I can handle this alone.”
Carl's relieved sigh filled the room. He sought Nick's nod before he turned and left them alone.
Toni rinsed the wound again, then began pulling the edges together and taping them to hold them tight. “I know it hurts,” she told him. “You ought to have stitches, but tape’ll have to do. Just hold on and I'll get it over with as fast as I can. If you want another shot, for God's sake say so.”
He said nothing. She finished closing the wound, coated it in ointment and then several pads, and then wrapped gauze around his entire thigh several times and taped it down.
He was still sitting up, and his expression was peculiar when she sat back again, and looked him in the eye. He seemed puzzled, as if he couldn't quite fathom what she was doing. She hoped he hadn't lost a lot more blood than she realized, as she slowly released the belt and watched the white gauze, waiting for—half expecting— a red stain to appear. It didn't.
“It will be okay,” she said. “We'll have Carl get some more bandages and some antibiotics if he can manage it. You don’t want to risk infect—” She stopped short when his hand shot out to encircle her wrist. He was staring intently, frowning, not angrily, when she looked up.
“The door was wide open, Toni. Why didn't you leave?”
She shook her head. “That has to be the stupidest question I've heard in a year.”
“Not from where I stand. I saw the hair spray, the little pack you had ready. You were planning to run.”
“That was before I knew you’d got yourself shot.”
“What difference does it make?”
She looked at him and frowned. “I couldn't leave you like that. You needed me, for God's sake. You think I could just turn my back and walk out and leave you bleeding all over the floor?”
“Plenty of people have.” He let his head fall back to the pillows.
Toni heard the double meaning behind the remark, and again she saw beyond the facade of toughness to the real hurt inside him. “Not me, Nick,” she told him softly. “I don't walk out on people—not even when they deserve it.” She got up and carried the basin of blood-tinted water into the bathroom to pour it down the sink and rinse it clean. She refilled it, grabbed a clean cloth and returned to the bed.
“You’re talking about what I said to you before I left.”
She nodded, trying not to feel again the hurt his words had inflicted.
Carl's voice from the doorway reminded Toni of his presence. “Bloodstains are all taken care of.” His anxious eyes never left Nick's face. “I still think you should go to a hospital.”
“I told you it’s nothing.”
“Yeah, well, I'm spending the night just to be sure.”
“You can't do that, Carl. We're acquaintances, don't forget. We start acting like bosom buddies and—''
“I thought you two had known each other for years?” Toni's question brought a sudden wariness to both men's eyes. Nick's gaze held hers, tired but unwavering. Carl looked at her, then away, then back again.
“Maybe—uh—Nick and I ought to discuss this in private, if you don't mind, Miss—”
“It's Toni. I suppose you want me to believe you're another one of Taranto's hired killers? Shouldn't you just grab me by the hair, shove me through the door, call me a few choice names and threaten to kill me if you catch me listening? You probably don't realize it, but I've seen the way Taranto's men conduct their business. I don't believe the words ‘If you don't mind, Miss’ exist in their limited vocabulary.”
“Don't ask her to leave, Carl. She'd just press her ear to the door anyway.”
She glanced at Nick again. He sounded drained. He looked worse. Pale, shaky.
“I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm stressed out. Look, if you want to talk, fine. But Nick, you really ought to rest. You lost a lot of blood—”
“Go home, Carl. I'll be fine.”
“If it starts bleeding again, what're you gonna do?” Carl demanded. “The door's locked, you can't leave a phone in here. How could she even get help for you?”
Toni felt a shiver go through her. “He's right, Nick,” she whispered.
“He can't stay.” Nick's eyes looked puffy and leaden. He was obviously wrung out. He shouldn’t waste his energy arguing. Still, Toni knew it would be stupid for her to stay alone with him, with no way to summon help in an emergency. Nick sighed loudly. “Carl, punch the combination into the door before you pull it closed. That way the lock won't engage. If something happens, Toni can go downstairs and call an ambulance. Okay?”
“And if Lou's got the phone tapped?”
“I'll tell him it was just a hooker. He'll buy it. I know him.”
Carl glanced uneasily at Toni. “And if she decides to take a walk?”
“I won't.” She saw the doubt in Carl's eyes. “For God's sake, you guys are the ones claiming to be coldblooded killers, not me. I said I'd stay and I will.”
Carl glanced at Nick. Nick shrugged. “You heard the lady.”
He sighed hard. “I'll go. But I damn well don't like it.”
“Duly noted, Salducci. Now get the hell outta here.”
She didn't miss the affection in Nick's eyes, and once again her certainty that he was no criminal outweighed her doubt. In fact, she didn't believe either one of them was working for Taranto. She'd never come across a gentler man than Carl.
He left, albeit reluctantly. Toni scrutinized Nick's face from her perch on the edge of the bed. “He cares a lot for just an acquaintance.”
“Don't miss a trick, do you?”
She sighed at the tautness in his voice. “It's odd, but I'm not entirely comfortable with the door unlocked. I can't tell the good guys from the bad guys.”
“You don't want to tell,” he replied.
“You're wrong about that.”
He dropped his gaze. “If you hear anyone coming, pull the door open and close it again. The lock will take automatically.” He closed his eyes, then forced them open. “If you leave tonight, Toni, take my gun with you. Get on the first flight out of the country and—”
“I am not going anywhere. What is it with you? Don't you trust anyone?” His lips tightened into a thin line. “You don't, do you?”
“No. I don't.”
She looked at the floor, then at his face again. “Is that why you won't tell me the truth?”
“Are you still fantasizing? Look, I need to get some sleep. I can barely keep my eyes open
.”
It was frustrating the way he kept her guessing. Still, he had admitted to a weakness rather than discuss whether he was or was not being honest with her. Maybe that should tell her something. “So sleep then.”
She leaned closer to him and unbuckled the strap that held his shoulder holster around his body. He stiffened, and his eyes flew open again. “Easy, big guy. I'm only trying to make you comfortable. You can't go to sleep as you are.”
He relaxed and let her take the holster from him, gun and all. She put it aside, then began unbuttoning his shirt. “Just how 'comfortable' are you planning on making me?”
“Still have a sense of humor, I see.” She helped him sit up a little and tried to ignore the feel of his firm biceps as she pushed the material down them and eased his arms from the sleeves. She refused to look at his chest. She wasn't lying to herself anymore. There was a strong physical attraction here. But just because she admitted it to herself didn't mean she had to give in to it.
She eased him back onto the pillows, and then tore the outside seams of his trousers so she could remove them. They were ruined anyway. He watched her without comment. “Brace with your good leg,” she told him. “Lift your hips just a little.” When he complied, she slid the pants from beneath him. He wore white boxers underneath. She kept her eyes averted and grabbed up the clean cloth from the basin of soapy water. Deftly she washed the remaining blood from the length of his leg and patted it dry with a clean towel. She took the whiskey-and-blood-dampened towel from beneath his leg and swiped the wet cloth over the back of his thigh. “Almost done,” she told him, taking the basin to dump it again. “Then I'll let you sleep.”
When she returned, it was with another clean washcloth.
This time she wiped a streak of blood from his face. She put the cloth in his hand. “Here. You can do your own hands.” He did. Toni gave one last, worried glance at the patch of white on his thigh and pulled the covers over him.
“You gonna read me a bedtime story, too?” His voice was heavy with sarcasm but heavier with exhaustion.
“I'm not going to fight with you tonight, so you can quit trying.” She tucked the blankets around him. “Now, is there anything else you need before you go to sleep? Another shot of whiskey? Some more Ibuprofen?”
“No. I'm fine.”
“Okay, then.” She gathered up the bandages, the discarded wrappers, the ruined pants and dropped all of it into a plastic bag. Then she looked down at her yoga pants, which she’d put on for easy running, and saw they were smeared with his blood. Her hands were, as well. A shower was definitely in order. “I just need to clean up, but I'll turn off the light so you can rest. I don't want you to move, Nick.” She chewed her lip, hating to leave him alone in case the bleeding should start up again. “I'll leave the door open. Yell if—”
“It's my thigh, not a damn kidney. I've hurt myself worse than this playing basketball.”
She ignored him and went into the bathroom for a record-fast shower. She pulled on an oversized hockey jersey, her favorite sleepwear, and tiptoed back into the bedroom. Pulling a chair nearer the bed as quietly as she could, she sat down in it.
“What are you doing?” His head turn in her direction as he spoke.
“I'm sitting. What does it look like I'm doing?”
“You don't have to sit there all night. I'm okay. Go sack out on the couch.”
“No thanks. Wouldn't sleep a wink out there, anyway.”
“Why, for crying out loud?”
“Because you might need me. Whether you'll admit it or not, Nick, that’s more than a scratch. You lost a lot of blood and you are not out of the woods yet. If you need me, I want to be close.”
He blew a short sigh. “I won't. I don't need anyone. I never freaking have.”
“Well, I'll be here, just the same, in case you ever freaking do.”