Paris put his hand on my shoulder. “Maybe they won’t go after her. I mean, they gave Gin a reprieve. After what they put you through last time, maybe they’ll let her off the hook?”
I looked at my cousin for a long time. He’d never hurt me. And I had to take care of Louis. It was a long-shot, but I had to try.
Paris stood up and pulled his cell phone out. “I’ll do it. You go clean yourself up.”
I nodded, grateful to have him handle things. Paris definitely had a cooler head. If anyone could manage to pull this off, it would be him.
Of course, no one was answering the bat phone on Santa Muerta. It was 2 a.m. here, which would make it… oh hell, my head hurt too much to calculate the time difference. Paris sent me to bed and insisted on sleeping on my couch, just in case. Good man. He was always someone you could really depend on. A dependable assassin.
I woke mid-afternoon, to find Paris in the kitchen making eggs and bacon. What a guy!
“Any news?” I asked, not really wanting an answer.
“I talked to Dela this morning. She was going to call an emergency Council meeting for – ” he paused and looked at his watch “ – right about now.” He pushed a plate of scrambled eggs, hash browns and bacon toward me. “Might as well eat.”
The food was excellent. I didn’t realize Paris could cook. We said nothing as we ate. Both of us were probably thinking the same thing, coming up with no answers. I finished quickly and decided on a shower.
While I felt clean and full, I also felt numb. Leonie’s break-up had devastated me more than the attack last night. And now Louis was in jeopardy. I toweled off feeling nothing but despair and pulled on a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt.
I walked into the living room just in time to see Paris ending a conversation on his cell. My heart lurched. The moment of truth.
Paris winced as he hung up his cell. “Well, I guess you are off the hook on this dilemma.”
“Is the Council calling the hit on Leonie off? That’s great! Now I just have to find her and convince her everything’s going to be alright!” I jumped up and hugged my cousin.
But Paris pushed me away. “No. That’s not it. Grandma doesn’t want you to have to hunt the woman who made you grow up. She still feels bad about almost killing you last year.”
I frowned. “That’s good news, isn’t it?”
“They still want her dead.”
His words sunk slowly into my skin, ending in a pool of ooze around my ankles. “Oh no,” I whispered.
“No.” I said more forcefully using the anger that welled up in my throat. “That’s not going to work. I can’t let him do that.”
Paris nodded as if he knew this was going to be my reaction all along. “All right. I’m in this with you. Let’s go get her.”
“Really? You’d come with me?” I couldn’t believe it.
He grinned. “Hey, if there’s no hope for you to have a chance at true love – then I’m screwed.”
I slapped him on the back. Maybe he drank sissy drinks and wrote poetry. Maybe he was anal retentive and wore silly pajamas. But he was still my wingman.
“How do we find her?” I asked.
Paris thought for a few moments, then smiled. “Why don’t we call Missi?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“We’ve got a blind date with Destiny – and it looks like she’s ordered the lobster.”
- the Shoveler, Mystery Men
It turned out that Missi was at a technology convention in Vegas. She agreed to meet with us so Paris and I made plans to hop a red-eye, meeting her at her room about 1 a.m.
“What are you doing?” Louis had his arms folded over his chest as he watched me pack.
“What are you doing up? You have school!”
“I’m going with you.” He added a frown to his stance, appearing very menacing for a six-year-old.
I sat down next to him, ignoring Paris who was tapping his wristwatch to tell me we had to leave.
"You can't go with me. It's going to be very dangerous. Remember when I told you what we do for a living? Well, there are some dangerous people out there chasing Leonie. Paris and I are going to find her and bring her back."
"You promised you wouldn't leave without me!" This time he stamped his little foot.
“Louis. I know I promised that. But taking you would mean putting you in danger. And I just can’t do that. You are too important to me. I need you to stay here with Gin and Diego until I get back.”
My son didn’t look convinced. But there was no way I was taking him with me. Losing Leonie would be devastating. Losing Louis would kill me.
“I’m an awful father for breaking this promise, I know. But I love you so much it hurts. And if anything happened to you, I would never, ever forgive myself. You are my son and I need you to stay here.” I put on what I thought was a very convincing stern-father face.
Louis exploded into tears and threw himself into my arms. I held him while he cried, trying desperately not to sob myself. After a few minutes, I took him by the shoulders.
“You need to stay here and help Gin take care of everyone. Okay? I’ll be back. I promise. And I’ll never leave you again – unless you want me to.”
Louis sniffled and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “Okay Dad. But you better come back.”
I nodded and Paris and I left. I spent the next two hours on the plane fighting back the tears.
We found Missi as soon as we landed. It took only about half an hour to fill her in on everything.
“Let’s see what we’ve got.” Missi pulled out the weirdest looking laptop I’d ever seen and began to turn it on.
“What is that?”
Missi grinned like a kid in a chocolate play room. “Do you like it? It’s my latest thing.”
Paris and I looked at each other, then turned back to the computer. It was about the size of any other notebook, but it had all kinds of weird attachments and wires sticking out of it. Closed, it resembled the kind of sandwich a robot would eat. Once opened, I could see that the monitor was really four small screens, and the keyboard had ten rows of keys instead of the usual six.
“Holy cow.” Paris whistled under his breath.
“How does it work?” I asked a little louder.
Missi smiled. “I guess you could say it works like a laptop. It’s just tricked out to my specs. With four screens, I can multi-task more efficiently. This puppy has infra-red capability, satellite feeds to U.S., European and Asian government space programs, and the best GPS system I could put together.”
She touched the keyboard and the thing quivered to life. “I added some special touches to the keyboard to make work easier. Each monitor is color coded, and I just switch back and forth between them using the touchpad.”
I held my hand up to interrupt. “Okay, it’s totally cool. But let’s just get to the part of how we can find Leonie before Doc Savage, National Resources or the Council does.”
Missi had the good grace not to look crushed that I interrupted. I figured Paris would ask her more about it later, but Leonie’s life hung in the balance.
“Sorry. I just get carried away sometimes,” she said. “I can’t take stuff like this to the convention.”
“My bad, Missi. I’m being insensitive.” This caused her too jerk her head toward me in surprise. Apparently, I wasn’t just shocking my immediate family with my personality make-over these days.
“Wow,” she said. “No, no, you’re right. We have to find your girlfriend before anyone else does.” She began typing on the weird keyboard. “Give me everything you know about her.”
I told her that her family ran a funeral home in Oregon, and it didn’t take long to find the Doubtfire Funeral Home in Portland. Missi plugged a green wire from the keyboard to the monitor as the funeral home came up on monitor #1. When I raised my eyebrow, she told me she’d hacked into their security system. I filled her in on everything I knew about Leonie, from Crummy’s to current and former addresses, to phy
sical description.
Missi kept working, plugging wires in, and tapping on the keyboard, until all four monitors showed different aspects from Leonie’s life.
“Here -” Missi pointed at the first monitor - “I’m tapping into her family’s home and work phone lines. I can actually record conversations past and present. No future ones though. But I’m working on it.”
How the hell could she do that?
“This monitor shows her current home and cell phone lines. I can tap into those too. I can access them as far as three days ago. That should give us some info on where she’s planning to hide out.”
“And this,” she grinned broadly, “is a GPS tracking program. I’ve typed in her name, description, phone numbers and social security number. I should have her located in no time.”
I slumped to the bed, my head whirling. Paris looked like he’d been hit with a tazer.
“Does the Council know you have this technology?” he asked weakly.
“Hell no. Nobody – not even Mom knows. I think Monty and Jack suspect something though because once when they said they were at the library I tracked them to this kegger in Belize. . .”
“Missi!” I shouted.
Her face went from dazed, back to the present. “Oh. Right. Anyway, I just want you to know that I understand what you’re going through so that’s why you now know about Lulu.”
“Lulu?” I asked, afraid of the answer.
“That’s what I named her. Oh!” A buzzing noise emanated from Lulu and she turned toward it. “Found her! Well, that’s weird.”
Hearing Missi say that something was weird is truly a strange experience.
“She’s here. In Vegas. Huh.” Missi said distractedly.
“Are you serious?” That was weird. “Where is she? And is anyone following her?”
She pulled up another screen. “It looks like she’s -” Missi looked at us with an odd expression - “in the room next door. On the left.”
I ran to the door that adjoined that room to Missi’s. Knocking was out of the question. Leonie would just run away again. So I scrambled through my pockets to find some way to pick the lock.
Missi appeared beside me, rolling her eyes. She held what looked like a garage door opener and pushed the red button. After a few seconds, the door popped open.
“I need one of those!” I said as I burst through both sets of door to find a shocked Leonie looking out the window.
“What the. . .” She opened her mouth, and shut it. “How did you. . .?”
I closed the gap between us and crushed her to me.
“Oh my god.” I said over and over, “You’re all right. You’re all right.”
“Dak,” Leonie murmured against my shoulder. “Dak! I won’t be alright if you don’t stop crushing me!”
I loosened my grip but did not let go. “You’re not going anywhere until you hear what I have to say.”
Paris entered the room, gesturing madly and whispering, “In here! Get in here!”
I dragged Leonie into Missi’s room and Paris shut and locked both doors behind us.
“Hi! I’m Missi, Dak’s cousin. You must be Leonie.”
Leonie cautiously reached out and took Missi’s hand.
“What the hell is going on here?” she asked.
I started to talk when Paris brought his finger to his lips. “Someone with a gun is on the elevator. He’ll be here any minute,” he whispered.
“How do you know that?” Leonie whispered to me and I shushed her. I wanted to know that too, but figured Missi’s Lulu could do a lot more than I thought.
Missi sighed and pulled a case out from under the bed. Inside were six semi-automatic handguns, all .45s. We snatched them up, quietly shoving the magazines into them and racking the slides.
We couldn’t hear anything at first. Then there was a rap on the door to Leonie’s room. I looked around and realized we were pretty much trapped. Our best defense would be to wait whoever it was out.
It seemed like hours passed before we heard the door open next door. I gripped my gun tightly. Whoever it was took this assignment seriously. Of course he’d break into her room. He had no idea we were just on the other side of the wall. Missi told us she used a fake name on the hotel register.
There was the usual sound of movement in the room. I heard drawers opening and closing, the shower curtain rustling. This bastard was looking everywhere.
A thought chilled me. What if he decided to stay and ambush Leonie? How long could we hold out in silence next door? If we tried to leave through the hallway – what if he decided to leave at that moment too? Damn.
So, we sat. Missi quietly showed Paris more of Lulu while Leonie and I sat together on the bed.
“Who’s in my room?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” I replied, wondering how much to tell her. If I was ever going to gain her trust, it was now. “I’m just glad I found you before he did.” I neglected to add the word seconds before he did, but you get the idea.
Leonie looked at me with an expression I couldn’t read. Hopefully, it was a Wow, Dak! You saved me from your own family! You do love me! But I couldn’t tell. We just sat there.
I came out of distraction hearing a strange noise on the other side of the adjoining door. I recognized it immediately. The uninvited guest next door was sliding his hands around the door, trying to decide if Leonie was in here. I turned to Missi and shrugged. She frowned and picked up the phone.
“Yes, security?” She asked using a very loud, high-pitched Southern accent. “This is Myra Hodges in 6111. I think someone has broken into the room next door and I’m mighty worried. Could you send someone up immediately?”
I looked back toward the door. The sound had stopped. In fact, it sounded like he was leaving. I ran to the door and looked through the security window as a blurred figure in a dark, hooded sweatshirt ran toward the stairwell and disappeared. He was gone too fast for me to ID him.
Now, I want you to know that you should never look through those things. Most assassins love to use them to shoot you through the eyeball – which is really gross but totally effective.
“Good thinking,” I gave Missi the thumbs up as I heard security running down the hall.
Missi just waved me off modestly. “That was kid’s stuff.”
Paris tucked his gun into the back of his jeans, “So, what now? Whoever it is could just be lying in wait in the stairwell.”
“He won’t be on the elevators, and he won’t show up in the hallway until security is gone next door.” I looked at Leonie, “We have to go. Now.”
Missi winked at me. “Good luck!”
I nodded, shoved the gun into my waistband and pulled my jacket down over them. Leonie lifted her dress and shoved her gun into a thigh holster. I started to salivate. That was so hot.
She nodded and the three of us slipped through the door toward the elevators. It seemed like a very long time before the doors opened. Paris got on and immediately started hitting the ‘close door’ button.
The elevator turned out to be slower than the damned train at Disney World. And it played The Girl From Ipanema in Musak. I looked at Paris and saw that he was mouthing the lyrics. That was it. I’d have to plan an intervention for him once we got home.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Bluto: Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
- Animal House
It only took a few minutes to grab a cab outside and with no measure of small relief, the three of us sighed as the taxi drove us across town to the airport.
“We’re flying out of here?” Leonie frowned as I paid the driver and sent him away.
I shook my head. “No. We’re renting a car here to drive to Reno. We’ll fly from there.”
We didn’t say much at first. Paris drove, pretending to be more interested in the road than anything else. I sat in the back with Leonie because I was afraid she’d jum
p out at any minute.
“So,” I started, “are you convinced about my feelings for you yet? I’d never kill you, Leonie.”
She looked away from me – out the window for a moment. Then turned and looked me straight in the eyes.
“Where are we going?”
Truth was, I hadn’t quite figured that out yet. Taking her home was dangerous. Sooner or later the Council would guess I had her and come get her. Also, until I had this mess with Doc Savage cleared up, I didn’t want to put her in danger. As far as National Resources went, there was no way of knowing whether someone was coming for her.
“First there’s something I need to know.” Okay. I was stalling. “Does the name Doc Savage mean anything to you?”
“The Man of Bronze? I read those books when I was a kid. Why?”
My heart jumped a little when I discovered we had something more in common. “Nothing else? Nothing more . . . current?”
Leonie shook her head. “No.”
“Is there anyone else involved with National Resources? Someone still alive?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why would I tell you that? You killed the others.”
She had a point.
“I didn’t know you were involved, I swear.” I did a little cross-my-heart thingy.
“If you had known about me from the beginning, would you have killed the other four?” Her chin was set in the most adorable look of defiance.
“How can I answer that? I don’t know.” It wasn’t much, but it was the truth. “Were they friends? Did you know them well?” I was worried about her answer.
“No. I never knew who they were. We were supposed to operate in a vacuum. There’s a handler who kept tabs on us. She’s the one who called when the last one before me bought it.” She handed me her phone and I saw the message; “Number 4 dead. Run and hide.”
“Who’s the handler?” I asked.
“There’s a handler?” Paris echoed from the driver’s seat. So he was listening after all.
Greatest Hits Mysteries Boxed Set (Books 1-4) Page 38