“Then that’s where we’ll go.”
Ronan kissed her again, then released her. “Perhaps this might be a good time to go back to the bus terminal. With Tank thinking you hid the money someplace else, he may not be watching it. Or having his gang do so.”
Daryl nodded, smiling. “You might be right in that.”
“Then let’s get off this roof and find something to eat. Then we can take a taxi to this place.”
“Okay.”
Returning the way they came, Ronan and Daryl reached ground level and closed the theater door. There was no fixing the lock, and Ronan hoped the owners would repair it before they had items stolen from them. Holding hands, they entered the pedestrian traffic again, still keeping a sharp watch for the cops.
No one seemed to pay them any heed, however, and six blocks down, Daryl gestured toward a street café with big sun umbrellas over the tables. “How about that one?”
“As long as there aren’t any yapping canines shitting into purses.”
Choking on her laughter, Daryl led him to a table where a waitress offered them menus and took their orders for iced tea. No matrons with purse-sized mutts appeared, and they were able to eat a nice lunch in relative peace.
“I had no idea you could fight so well,” Ronan remarked. “You took Tank down with hardly any effort.”
Daryl grinned. “I took some self-defense classes before I came here,” she replied. “Now, I’m glad I did.”
“I am, too. It sure helped us to escape them.”
Chapter Eleven
The cabbie dropped them off at the Greyhound station, Ronan paying the fare as usual. “This is costing you a fortune,” Daryl told him as the cab drove off.
“I still have plenty left,” he replied, taking her hand. “And soon, you’ll have yours.”
Daryl watched for Tank’s goons once again while they walked to the entrance of the bus station and didn’t have that same feeling of being watched as she did before. “I don’t think they’re here,” she murmured, striding beside him as they strolled amid the many others entering or leaving the terminal.
As before, the buses lined up, accepting passengers, dropping others off, people carrying luggage and backpacks, talking on cell phones or texting. Entering the terminal, Daryl gazed around the vast building with its many ticket counters, lit information boards informing travelers when a bus was scheduled to arrive or depart and from what destinations.
“The lockers are over that way,” she said, gesturing, feeling her excitement rise. “We’ll have the money, and then we can get out of this place.”
“Blow this joint.” Ronan chuckled.
“Exactly. But the key is in the ladies' room.”
Daryl led him to the right where the restrooms were, for both men and women. A steady stream of travelers entered and exited as she joined the group entering the ladies' bathroom. Rather than go into a stall as the other women did, or washed hands at the rows of sinks, Daryl went to the machine that dispensed tampons and sanitary napkins.
Reaching her hand into the gap behind it, praying the key was still there and jammed between the metal back and the wall, she felt for the key’s tag with her fingers. It’s still there, yahoo. Pulling it out, she jammed it into her pocket, then glanced at the other women to see if her action had been noticed.
If anyone did, they didn’t show it. All around, toilets flushed and ladies ran water into sinks, intent on their own business. Leaving the restroom, Daryl found Ronan waiting where she had left him. “Got it,” she said, then stopped dead, staring.
“What?” Ronan asked, following her eyes.
“Cops.”
A pair of uniformed cops stood between them and the rows upon rows of lockers. The two didn’t pay either Daryl or Ronan much attention, but in order to get to the locker where the money was, they would pass quite close by them.
“They aren’t looking for us, are they?” Ronan asked.
“I don’t know.”
Indecisive, Daryl chewed her lip, wondering if the police from Staten Island might have spread their general descriptions around to the rest of the boroughs. As she pondered, she caught sight of two very obvious gang members oozing their way through the crowd toward them. Their eyes flicked between Daryl and the cops.
“Oh, shit,” she muttered. “They did find us.”
“Will they do anything with the police right there?”
“Yeah. They might. Time to get out of here.”
“They’re between us and the door,” Ronan pointed out.
“That’s why we have to find another one.” Daryl tugged on his hand, leading him toward the ticket counters. “Maybe there’s a back door to this place.”
Walking quickly, but not running, Daryl spotted a door marked “Employees Only,” and headed for it. Hoping the real employees were too busy to notice them, she opened it and cast a glance over her shoulder. “They’re after us.”
“Maybe we should turn and fight.”
Daryl heard the growl in Ronan’s voice and shook her head. “That’ll bring down not just the cops on us, but the staff here as well. If those guys start shooting, other people will be in danger.”
“I guess we don’t really want innocents hurt or killed because of us,” Ronan admitted.
The back portion of the terminal appeared to be a large breakroom complete with tables, chairs, refrigerators, microwaves, bathrooms, and a door marked “Conference Room.” Offices lined the wall to the right where Daryl guessed the big kahunas ran the station from, and she found several employees seated at tables watching them curiously.
“Let’s hustle,” Daryl muttered, breaking into a run.
They had no sooner reached the rear door of the station when the two chasing them burst into the breakroom behind them. Both carried guns openly, and the seated employees yelled out, shoving their chairs back with sharp screeches.
Half-listening to the employees shout for the cops, Daryl and Ronan charged outside and bolted toward the rows of buses, no doubt parked until they were needed. “Over there.” Daryl shot a glance over her shoulder, but the bangers hadn’t yet exited behind them.
“Maybe we can hide among the buses,” she added, wondering if maybe the two idiots chasing them got scared off.
“Or in one,” Ronan said, sprinting for the huge gray vehicles with the running dog on the sides.
When they ducked down the row of buses, Daryl was certain the bangers hadn’t seen where they went. She dropped to her stomach, peering under the frame, and saw jeans and sneakers slowing from a run to a walk. Murmured voices drifted to her as they started strolling cautiously toward the lines of buses.
“There they are,” she whispered.
No sooner had that come from her mouth when shouts came from the building. “Police! Drop the weapons!”
The bangers instantly started to run, bolting across the parking lot toward the street. A few moments later, two cops ran hard on their heels. Daryl lifted herself from the ground and brushed off her jeans and tank top. “Time to skedaddle,” she commented.
Ronan seized her hand, leading her along the length of the bus, and peered around it. “All right, no one is around. Let’s get out of here before the cops come back.”
If there were any watchers staring at them from the building, Daryl didn’t see them. Striding quickly, but not running, they made for the street, and within moments, they blended in with the rest of the New Yorkers walking along the sidewalk.
Ronan slowed their pace, looking back over his shoulder. “I think we’re clear.”
Frustration and annoyance made Daryl’s voice harsher than she wanted it to sound. “This pisses me off. Twice now, we went to get the money, and twice, we got chased off. That’s bullshit.”
Ronan put his arm around her. “We’ll get it; don’t worry. You have the key?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe next time I’ll go in alone,” he said. “Maybe I won’t be recognized.”
“Or
we go in disguised.” That idea brightened Daryl considerably. “Get something I can hide my hair under, maybe a wig, darken my skin, put on some shades. We can get a mustache and beard for you, maybe put a blond wig on you.”
Ronan grinned down at her. “And where do we get these disguises?”
She waved her hand airily. “There are costume shops all over town. Let’s try that tomorrow.”
“Why didn’t we think of that before?”
“Too busy running from Tank’s boys, I guess. We should get back to Staten Island and get our stuff. Find a new place to reside.”
Daryl asked the cab driver to wait as they stopped at the Royal Ascot Arms Hotel. “We just need to get our stuff, check out, then we need you to get us to a different place.”
As Ronan had already paid him, he nodded agreeably enough. “The meter’s ticking, lady.”
“We’ll be quick.”
At this time of the day, there were few people in the lobby as they hurried across the marble to the elevators. Wanting out of the place like yesterday, Daryl gazed around at the employees she saw, wondering which of them called Tank to report her presence. While none paid them much attention, a bellhop pushing a trolley laden with luggage stared as they went by. He watched them with more than just a casual interest, she noted.
In the elevator, she said, “I think that bellhop squealed,” she told Ronan as the elevator rose smoothly to their floor. “It’s good we’re getting out of here.”
“I agree. I hate being spied on.”
“You and me both.”
Entering their adjoining rooms, Daryl halted just inside the door with a gasp of dismay. “What the hell?”
“Shit,” Ronan muttered.
Someone had clearly gone through their rooms. All of their clothes had been thrown around, the drawers emptied, the mattresses pulled off the beds. Even the bathrooms had been ransacked; everything searchable had been searched. Daryl eyed Ronan sourly.
“Now you see why I’m glad you carried your money with you?”
“I do indeed.”
“This will take longer than I thought.”
As neither of them had much to begin with, Daryl and Ronan gathered together everything that had been scattered. Without bothering to fold her clothes neatly, Daryl threw everything into her battered suitcase as Ronan did the same thing with the clothes he hadn’t even worn yet.
After checking for anything she might have missed, Daryl hefted her bag. “Ready?”
Ronan, too, made certain he hadn’t left anything behind, then joined her at the door. “We should report this to the cops,” she said as they hurried down the hall to the elevators.”
“Would it do any good?”
Daryl grinned. “Nope. We already know who did it. I’ll bet any money that bellhop opened the door for Tank and his goons.”
“I’ll happily roast him alive.”
“Maybe later, hoss. He may be calling Tank right now, so we got to split.”
“Split?” Ronan stared down at her, his brow up.
“A hippy word for leave.”
Daryl didn’t see the bellhop on their way back across the lobby, pausing long enough to turn their keys in at the front desk. The cabbie was still there as the valet opened the rear doors for them, the driver opening the trunk for their luggage.
Safely in the cab and driving away, Daryl asked the driver, “What’s a fairly decent place to stay by Kennedy airport? Not expensive, but clean and quiet.”
“There’s a small hotel off the main drag,” the cabbie answered. “Run by an old man and wife team. Something like that?”
“Exactly. Take us there, please.”
“You got it, lady.”
Settling back into her seat, Daryl glanced at Ronan, who stared out the window. He seemed pensive and ill at ease, and Daryl suspected she knew what he was thinking. She couldn’t say much with the driver there and listening, but she got his attention when she took his hand.
“You okay?” she asked.
Ronan sighed. “I need to get out. You know.”
“I thought you might.”
“But I shouldn’t leave you alone.”
Daryl laughed. “Park me in front of the television with HBO and I’m good.”
Ronan leaned over and kissed her, smiling. “One step at a time, honeybun.”
“I know it. Just don’t worry about me if you need to go. I’ll be fine.”
At their third hotel in as many days, Daryl felt instantly better upon seeing the place. As the driver said, it was small and quaint, several streets over from the road that would take someone to the JFK Airport a few miles away. The old woman attending the desk took Ronan’s cash without question.
The room was clean and smelled nice, with two king-sized beds, a flat panel television, a dresser, and an expansive bathroom. “I like it,” Daryl said, sitting on the edge of one of the beds.
Ronan set his suitcase down and ambled over to the window to peer out. “I can see the airplanes coming and going.”
“They won’t interfere with your flying?”
He turned back with a grin. “Not as long as I’m careful.”
“Be careful, sonny,” she said, mock stern. “You get flattened by a seven forty-seven, I’ll be mad.”
With a laugh, Ronan sat down near her. “I wouldn’t want you mad.”
Daryl planted her arms over his shoulders and kissed him long, lovingly. “What say we go walk about, maybe find something to eat.”
His brow lifted again. “‘Walk about?’ Your language changes every three minutes.”
“It’s Australian for taking a journey,” she replied with a laugh. “Or something like that.”
“Then yes, we can go walk about. I’m not ready to be cooped up in here right now anyway. Even with HBO.”
Leaving their room, Daryl walked with Ronan, taking in the neighborhood they now found themselves in. It was residential for the most part, with mom and pop markets on the corners, a few liquor stores, and dogs barking behind fences.
“Tank will never find us here,” Daryl said happily.
“I hope not,” Ronan replied with a smile. “I’m sick of him popping up where he isn’t wanted.”
“I’m sure you’d hurt his feelings if he heard you say that.”
Walking on, Daryl caught sight of a couple of men lounging on a street corner, smoking and drinking from a bottle in a paper bag. She had never seen them before, but she knew exactly what they were. Drug dealers. Instantly, the craving came back. The stark need to get high cascaded through her veins, and she tore her eyes from them. Her mouth had dried.
She and Ronan ate dinner in a small diner as the sun went down, laughing and talking, the dim thunder of the airplanes taking off in the distance. Lingering over glasses of wine, Daryl hadn’t felt so happy in her life.
Am I falling in love with him? Maybe I am. No one has ever made me feel so special before.
Content in the darkness, she walked back to the hotel holding his hand and wondered if this was really love. For the first time in her life, was she falling in love? Despite her thoughts and feelings on love and a future, the nagging need to get high bugged her like an itch she couldn’t scratch.
Ignoring it as best she could, Daryl accompanied Ronan to the roof of the hotel. The desire to see him in his dragon form again almost ended the cravings. Ronan dug into his pocket and pulled out a couple of twenties.
“In case you need anything,” he said, pressing them into her hand.
“What I need is to see you fly.”
With a laugh, Ronan stepped back from her. His eyes holding hers, he changed. The roof of the hotel protested under his weight, offering up a long groan, then subsided. He lowered his huge muzzle to her, his long tail sweeping around his feet. Awed, her craving forgotten, Daryl stepped forward to caress that long sleek face, to stare up into his emerald eyes.
“You are so awesome,” she whispered.
Resting her cheek against his, she wrapped
her arms under his lower jaw, and her hands couldn’t meet. She listened to his even breathing and wished she could fly alongside him. To love something as much as he loves to fly—the sheer freedom of flying like an eagle.
However reluctantly, Daryl stepped back from him. “Fly, Ronan,” she murmured. “Then come back to me.”
Ronan spread his wings, huge tent-like appendages, then bumped her affectionately with his nose. He leaped into the air, his wings carrying him effortlessly into the night sky. The whirling wind they created fanned her hair across her eyes.
Absently, Daryl swept it from her face and watched him climb higher until he was lost from sight. Intellectually, she knew he would come back. He’d fly for a few hours, then return, and perhaps make sweet love to her. She’d like that. But in spite of these thoughts, an empty ache burned inside her. A loneliness she couldn’t shake followed her down from the roof.
He’ll come back. Of course he will. But why am I feeling as though I just lost him forever?
I’ll go for a walk. That’ll help. On the ground, Daryl started walking, her head down, her hands in her pockets. Perhaps she knew all along what she was doing. I shouldn’t do this; this is crazy. Go back and watch HBO before it’s too late to stop.
Maybe at the last minute, she could find the will to resist. I’m just going for a walk. I won’t stop when I see them. But part of her knew she was lying to herself.
“Hey, baby. What you doin’ out by your lonesome?”
Daryl looked up at the smiling dealer. “I need an ounce.”
“You a cop, baby?”
She started to shake her head, then spoke firmly. “No. I’m not a cop.”
Baring her arm, she showed him the scars.
“Okay, baby. You got it.”
She gave him a twenty and accepted the small plastic bag in return. “Got a needle? Syringe?”
“Sure, baby. Comes included.”
She hated herself for what she was doing, hating herself for what seemed like a betrayal. Not just of Ronan, but of herself. Just this once. Then never again. I won’t do it again. I’ll go cold turkey. I’ll pay the piper when he comes around.
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