He slid in the mag, racked the bolt, and loped toward her house.
No good way to sneak up on a row house. No time to go around the block to slither in from the back, not if a bad scene was already going down inside. Frontal attack, then. Classic suicidal dickhead style.
He ran up the stoop, tried the handle, using his sleeve. No need to leave a trail of fingerprints back to himself. Not that he expected to live through this. It was locked, of course.
Aunt Tonya. He felt a sharp pang of regret. But he’d see her soon enough on the other side, if he bought it here today. Tonya would follow him out. If that was how it worked. Who knew.
Whatever. No time.
The street was deserted. No witnesses. He took a deep breath, swung up the shotgun, took aim at the door lock.
Fuck it. Who wanted to live forever?
“Nina,” Pockmarks crooned. “Nina, where are you?”
He knew her name. Oh, God, that creeped her out. She put her hand over her mouth, pressing hard to keep her heart from jumping out . Small. Gray. Pebble. Brick. Blank wall. Not here. Nothing to see.
“If you come out, I won’t hurt you,” he coaxed, in a deep, raspy voice. “Just tell us what Helga Kasyanov told you. That’s all we want. Tell us that, and we’ll go away. Never bother you again.”
So why did you cut Yuri to pieces? Liar.
She stuffed the thought as it formed, or that rough, prodding mind would sense it. Gray, small, blank, boring, nothing. Dry leaf.
Brick wall. Nothing here. No one home.
“Tell us, and we’ll stop bothering you.” Pockmarks’s voice was an oily ooze of menace. “We won’t bother your pretty friend, either—what’s her name again? Shayla, Sharon, Sheryl . . . Shira!
Yes, that was it! Pretty, blond Shira. Who lives all alone in her studio apartment on Sixth Street.” He made an appreciative growl-ing sound. “Pretty legs. Pretty tits. We won’t bother her, or any of the other poor bitches in your shelter. We leave them all in peace.
Everything like it was before. Just come out. Talk to us. Don’t be scared, Nina.”
Brick wall. Blank, corrugated metal. No one here. No one home. She cowered, focusing her energy with all of her strength.
“It would be fun, to pay Shira a visit some night,” the guy mused softly. “All four of us. We’ll bring some Viagra and some cocaine, and some duct tape. It would be fun. We could have fun with you, too, no?” He grinned, spinning around, groping for her.
“You pretty, too? I bet you’re pretty. But all women are pretty with duct tape on their mouths. I like a quiet woman. I don’t like noise, see.” He paused, nostrils flaring wider. “You’re very quiet, Nina,” he whispered. “The most quiet woman I ever met. I go for that. You know what? I think you will be my very special friend, when I drag you out.”
It barely registered. She logged his words for future reference on the edge of her consciousness, but she wouldn’t let them inside, to the real her. Where they could hurt. Another trick, from the Stan years.
Steel reinforced, armor plated. Titanium plates. Smooth as glass.
“So? Hear anything?” A different voice spoke, this one familiar. Nina leaned toward the knothole. It was one of the ghoul doctors, Granger, but in his live human aspect at the moment, thank God.
“Not yet,” Pockmarks said curtly. “Don’t distract me.”
“I told you she was good.” Granger sounded relieved. “We should both have been able to pick her up from this range. It’s not just me, man. I’m telling you, it’s the simax. The bitch is totally blocking us.”
“And if you would shut up, I could get through it,” Pockmarks hissed. “Stop making all this noise. I’ll find her.”
“We don’t have time for you to jerk around,” the bald guy said.
“Got a text from Phil. Someone called in a home invasion here.
Cops will be here soon. She went out a window, and called them.
We gotta go.”
“She didn’t have time,” the dark guy said. “Shut up.”
She caught a glimpse of the bald guy’s face through the knothole before he stomped out. Hooked nose. Cruel, pale blue eyes, shifting and darting nervously. His pink forehead shone with sweat.
Pockmarks twirled again. His spin slowed as he faced her closet. He took a step closer. Her heart juddered, but she held the focus. Nothing here. Nothing at all. She could smell his hot, sour breath as he swept aside her clothes. Knocked against the back closet wall.
Brick wall brick wall brick wall nothing here nobody home Pockmarks backed away, but her tension did not ease, and in a moment, she knew why. He went into the adjacent bathroom, eyeballing the discrepancy in the recessed wall. He started to laugh. Then, a light tappety-tap-tap, a taunting riff that said, I know you’re in there. A redoubled prodding, the mental hand, groping for her.
It made her squirm. Despair spread, cold and sickening. He would drag her out and cut her to pieces, like Yuri. Slowly and horribly.
Calm down. Don’t freak. Stay behind the wall. Her blocking technique seemed to settle her nerves, so she ramped it up.
Pockmarks swaggered back into her line of vision, grinning.
“Quiet Nina,” he chortled. “Nice hiding place. But I hear you.
You know what I hear?” He flung the doors wide, his grin showing his tobacco-stained teeth. “I hear your quiet! I’ve never heard quiet so loud! It’s deafening me! Funny, huh? You looking at me through this hole, Nina? You like what you see? You haven’t seen anything yet. How about this?”
Nina jerked behind the boxes of books, as his pistol swung up.
He fired three times, at the level of her knees.
Bam, bam, bam, the instant he was going to pull the trigger.
Three shots from upstairs. Shit. Already?
Boom, his breaching round blasted through the lock. He kicked the door open, breaking the chain, and shot straight through the door.
He peered in. A man sprawled in the foyer had taken a face and chestful of buckshot. Bloodied and silent. Aaro kicked the weapon from where it lay near the man’s hand, then spun to shoot up the stairs before the sound even registered in his conscious mind.
Bam. The shotgun slug hit the guy dead in the chest. His back hit the staircase wall. He was big and fat, and made a lot of noise as he toppled and slid, stumbling to his knees, then his face. His body snagged, lodged sideways horizontally between banister and wall.
Bam, splinters and plaster flew. Aaro dove for the entryway to the dining room. He peered around the corner, blasted a few more shots up there with the Saiga . Bam, bam.
“Fucking shit,” someone hissed from above. “Who the hell . . . ?”
A door slammed. Furious voices, from the direction of the gunshots. Up, to the right.
Nina gasped for air. Was she shot? She’d feel pain, right? Heat, stinging? Her blood pressure was as low already as if she were bleeding out. Don’t faint. Don’t puke. Hang on. Hang on. She did.
By a thread.
More gunshots, from below. Who? Police, already?
“You asshole!” The snarl of the balding guy. “Your guys downstairs are both dead! Did you tell someone about the simax? Who did you tell? Who the fuck is that guy down there with the shotgun?”
“I don’t know who he is! Nobody knew about this!”
“Well, somebody fucking knows now, so let’s get gone quick, before the cops show! Out the window!”
“But the girl? She’s in the fucking closet! Right here!”
“Out!” the bald guy bellowed. “You first! I’ll watch the door!
Go!”
“But the girl—”
“Forget the girl!” the bald guy howled. “I’ll take care of the girl!”
A screech, as the warped window sash was wrenched up, and the bald guy peered through the knothole, his lip contracted into a sneer. “Bye-bye, sneaky bitch,” he said. “Too bad we couldn’t party with you.”
She dropped sideways as she sensed his intent, wedging herself tight beh
ind the boxes—
Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Each shot that hit the boxes was a punch, pummeling her, crushing her against the wall. The ones that had hit above the boxes pierced holes. Dust and smoke swirled lazily in the sharply defined rays of light that sliced through the closet. She stared up at them, too shocked to scream.
The gun blasts jerked Aaro up from the entryway. He darted up the stairs, clambering over the stiff, his heart stuck high in his throat.
Eight shots. Nina Christie was dead for sure. He’d called it wrong, gotten the chick killed by racing in here like a cranked-up asshole, freaking the bad guys into a panic. He should have come up with something sneakier, smarter. Goddamn them all, his so-called friends, for putting him in this position. Like he didn’t have enough to feel like shit about every fucking day of his life.
He slapped the bedroom door open. Window gaping, curtains fluttering, stench of gunpowder. He lunged for the window, caught a glimpse of a big bald guy, staring up at him. Pale snake eyes. Another man, tall and dark, was clambering over garbage cans.
Aaro yanked out the .45, squeezed off two shots. Two more at the bald one. Bullets pumped into the garbage bins, whinged off a parked car as the bald guy dove for cover. The dark guy jerked, stumbled, and kept on going, ducking out of sight into the alley.
Grazed. No pursuit possible. He had bigger problems now.
He pulled his head back in, holstered the gun, and faced the closet. It gaped open. Clothes were scattered on the floor. The back panel was splintered with bullet holes. Now came the ugly part. His mess, his failure. Calling EMTs for a woman who was dying because of his poor crisis-decision-making skills. Explaining himself to the cops, too. And then to Bruno and Lily. Well, then again. Maybe he could arrange to get himself hit by a bus, and just skip that part.
“Nina?” He was disgusted by the hitch in his voice. “You there?”
No answer. Hadn’t expected one. Not after eight bullets.
He put his hand against the holes in the back panel. His legs shook. “Nina? You in there? I’m not one of those guys who attacked you. I’m Aaro, the guy who pissed you off on the phone, remember? Bruno told me you were in trouble. Are you shot?”
He clenched his jaw, hating the goddamn silence. Hating it.
“Aaro?” It was just a squeak, barely audible. “You’re Aaro?”
“Nina?” Hope jolted his insides hard, and a hot rush of mois-ture fogged his eyes, making him blink. “Nina? Are you shot?
Are you hurt?”
“I think, ah . . . I think I’m OK.”
He rattled the panel, pounded it. “How do you open this thing?”
“Just a minute,” she faltered. “I have t-t-to undo the latch, and I’m kind of wedged in here, so . . . um . . . hold on while I . . .”
He heard a scratching and shifting inside. Then a rattle, a click.
The panel slid open. Nina Christie was huddled inside, stark naked. Curly dark hair draped over her face and trailed over her shoulders. She blinked up at him, her aqua-green-and-gold eyes huge and haunted. She had long lashes. The dark waving hair over her face was snarled in them. Her parted lips looked bluish.
“Nina Christie?” he prompted, feeling stupid. Who else could she be? But he could think of nothing to say to the naked chick who had just dodged death. Not like he had a lot of clever conversational gambits floating up to the surface of his mind in the best of circumstances. He just scooped up whatever was floating on top of his mind, like pond scum, and plop, there it was. No filters. What you see is what you get.
He squatted down so that they would be eye to eye, and peered into the dark recesses of the closet. A heap of boxes. Piled one on top of the other. They looked like textbooks. She’d wedged herself behind them. So that was what had saved her life. It was no thanks to him.
Her blinking shook loose the tears that had gathered in her eyes. They flashed down her cheeks, glinting. “A-a-a-aro?”
Uh oh. The way she stared up at him gave him a twinge of dread. All big-eyed and misty, as if he were God, her saviour, her hero. She was in for a rude shock when the truth became clear.
Wouldn’t take long for that to happen. It never did.
“Yeah, that’s me.” Discomfort roughened his voice. He tried to look unthreatening, a talent at which he did not excel. “Bruno sent me.”
“B-b-bruno?” The girl was scared stupid.
He fought for patience. “Bruno. Your best friend’s future husband? The father of her unborn child?” He fought down his natural urge to be a sarcastic asshole, but she didn’t react. She just crouched there, staring up at him, with those huge, shocked eyes. Her purplish lips shook. He had to get her dressed, take her someplace safe. What would he do if she collapsed? The Coney Island Hospital? That would involve filling out papers, explanations, accountability. Cops. Bad scene. Damn. He made his voice gentle, with some effort. “Come out of the closet, Nina. We have to get out of here. We don’t know when they’ll be back, how many there are, or anything else. So move.”
No reaction. More quivering lips. More blinking. Shit. He was going to have to drag her out. He steeled himself for a screaming, scratching, hysterical freak-out. She was entitled.
He reached in, took her hands. They were icy. He chafed them between his own, and tugged. She came out, offering no resistance.
In fact, she practically flew out, and came to rest right in his arms. There was a weird inevitability to it. A key to a lock. Like they were magnetized. Snick, and they were fused, and he was hugging the naked girl. His arms shook, his guts vibrated, his heart tripped over itself. He was squeezing her too hard. Had to loosen his grip. He’d scare her worse than she was already.
He couldn’t. His eyes watered, and what the fuck was that about? He hid his face against her hair, used it to blot the tears away.
This was stupid. They had no time to indulge in masturbatory hugging bullshit, with bullet holes smoking and cops on their way. But what was he supposed to do, fling her off? Her face pressed against his shirt. Her eyelash flutters tickled his collarbone. Her breath bloomed, humid against his chest. The sensation rocketed through his nerves.
Whoa. Back off. Don’t start with that crazy shit. Don’t even start.
Then he caught her scent. And oh. God.
He lived in a forest. Outside his house, the spruce, cedars, firs, and pines towered hundreds of feet over his head, a vaulted expanse of flickering green. When it rained, which was often, the earthy sweetness of pine needles, tree bark, loam, and moss rose to meet the falling rain. The meeting point of earth and water.
Perfect balance. The intersection of opposites. It was the exact scent of Nina Christie’s hair.
He’d bought that property for the smell alone. It had been raining when the agent showed him the place, and he just couldn’t resist it.
So her shampoo has a nice perfume. Get the fuck over it. He knew how to dismantle a foolish notion with a few hard, well-placed blows.
But the damage was done. Now he was hyperaware of her. His body felt like one big eye that could not close. He caught sight of the mirror on her closet door. There he was, clutching the gorgeous naked chick. Like he was about to push her down onto the floor and fuck her.
Wow. So pale. Curvy. Her dark hair draped in swags over his wrist. His fingers looked very brown against the pale, smooth skin.
His fingers tightened. She was silky. Softer than the girls he usually ogled, but maybe he’d been missing something, favoring the taut, lean ones. Her breasts pressed against his chest, springy and soft. Her bare, tight nipples brushed his chest. Her locks of dark hair tapered off so that the tips barely tickled the swell of 68
her ass. He wanted to pet that peachy, shadowy cleft. His body, jangling with adrenaline, did its fucking stupid animal thing, and sprang to attention. His hands had taken off without permission on an exploratory mission, fingers splaying greedily to feel the dip of her waist, to grip the curve of her hip.
For God’s sake, get a g
rip, you oversexed bonehead. This woman was all fucked up. She wasn’t coming on. She didn’t need any attention from the beast lunging on the chain, so back down, already. Now.
He clenched his jaw hard enough to cause nerve damage, and dragged his mind away from the hot throb in his crotch. Good timing, decency, self-control, gallantry; none of those items were featured on his resume.
He’d just pretend this was normal. Gunfights, pulling zaftig naked girls with bouncing tits out of closets. No biggie. All in a day’s work. Nina Christie did not need his engorged prick bobbing hopefully in her direction. She needed a hot cup of tea, a shot of Demerol, a trauma therapist. A police escort.
Bummer for her. All she had was him.
Chapter 7
Nina couldn’t move. Some crucial part of her nervous system was blocked. She shivered like a baby bunny, hiding her face against the man’s shirt. Unwilling to let the moment pass.
Once he let her go, she’d be alone. Bereft even of this brief fiction of safety.
She knew it was a fantasy. It would flicker out in a moment, and reality would thud heavily down. She knew that, even while she clung to him like a strangling vine. Just a wishful feeling she’d latched onto, in a moment of weakness. So sweet. To feel protected. Just for a moment.
The guy was being a good sport about it, patting her, holding her awkwardly. Probably terrified she was going to freak out on him. She didn’t have words to reassure him. She wasn’t ready to let go yet. She pressed her face against his shirt. Her shallow, hitching gasps informed her that he was sweating, and that he smoked.
What was she doing trying to catch his scent, anyway? She shouldn’t be sniffing the guy who had just saved her from a gruesome and protracted death. She should be thanking him.
Yes. Thanking him would definitely be in order.
She lifted her head. Her voice wouldn’t respond. Her teeth chattered. She forgot what she was trying to say, and just stared, transfixed, at the shape of his jaw, the grim lines carved around his mouth. His beard stubble. Sealed lips. Fierce green eyes. Oh.
Wow.
“Look, lady,” he said. “I’m sorry to push you, but how many of them did you hear? I saw four. Took down two, saw two head out the window. Did you hear more?”
One Wrong Move Page 7