Lara got to her feet so fast that her chair overturned with a hard thump. Aunt Kim sat perfectly still, scarcely breathing. Adam eased to his feet with the lithe movement of well-oiled muscles. They held their places, waiting to see what would happen next.
Five
The chime of the doorbell echoed through the still house. None of the people Lara had met through the quilt shop in recent weeks would show up at this late hour. She could detect no hint of immediate threat, but her nerves were so rattled by the argument with her aunt and reaction to the mental image that had preceded it that her impressions weren’t reliable.
She looked at Adam. Keeping her voice low, she asked, “What do you think?”
“Could be Belzoni’s goons, but doesn’t have to be.”
“It seems odd that they’d walk up and ring the doorbell.”
“It’s what I did, after all.”
“That’s different,” she said shortly. “You only wanted information.”
“They could want the same thing. Always assuming that’s who it is.”
It was them, and she knew it. “What am I going to do?”
“Get the door before they become suspicious,” he said, though with apparent reluctance. “Just spin the same story you told me. You’ve heard from her, know about her husband’s death, but she didn’t say where she was going.”
“And if they want to look for themselves?”
“Don’t let them!” Aunt Kim interjected with a shudder.
Adam spoke to her aunt, though his gaze remained on Lara’s face. “Don’t worry. I’ll be right behind her.”
It was amazing, the steadiness she gained from that idea, Lara thought. The feeling stayed with her as the two of them moved back through the sitting room to the foyer. Clicking on the porch light from the switch beside the heavy front door, Lara glanced out through the sheer curtains that covered the sidelights surrounding it.
Only one man stood on the porch, a tall and weedy-looking individual with a narrow face and protuberant eyes. Another one leaned on the fender of the dark Lincoln that sat on the driveway behind Adam’s SUV, however, and a driver could be dimly seen behind the steering wheel. Lara was painfully aware that she had not locked the door after admitting Adam since she hadn’t expected him to be staying.
Taking a deep breath, she spoke through the door. “Yes?”
“Miss Kincaid?”
Her visitor sounded polite enough, but there was a hard note in his voice that struck a warning chord in her brain. “That’s right.”
“I know it’s late, ma’am, but we need to speak to you concerning a relative of yours, Mrs. Ernesto Belzoni.”
“Who are you?” she asked. Though the answer was obvious, she needed to give the impression that she wasn’t expecting visitors.
“Business associates of her husband. Could I step inside for a few minutes?”
Adam, standing half hidden by the velvet portiere of the encased opening to parlor, gave a decided shake of his head. Lara signified her understanding, even as she answered the man’s question. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. It really is late, and I can’t help you.”
“You seen Mrs. Belzoni lately?”
Lara replied as Adam had suggested, then waited with some trepidation for the reaction. From the corners of her eyes, she saw the man who’d been leaning against the Lincoln straighten then walk toward Adam’s SUV and open the passenger side door.
“You can’t tell me where she might have gone?” her visitor asked without perceptible belief.
“I’m afraid not.”
It was quiet on the other side of the door for a second. Finally, the man said, “I’d hate to think you might be lying to me, Miss Kincaid.”
“Why would I do that?” She allowed natural irritation to sound in her voice.
“I can’t imagine, but it would be a bad move.”
A warning laced that comment though it was still fairly civil. Lara had heard that the Cosa Nostra of New Orleans operated with something of the laissez-faire attitude of the Big Easy. That it might possibly be true was counterbalanced by acute awareness of how easy it would be for the man on the other side of the door to simply open it and force his way inside.
The thought was pushed from her mind as the man near the SUV waved a handful of papers at the man on the porch, yelling out something that attracted his attention. She couldn’t tell what he said, but didn’t like the sound of his voice. Nor did she care for the way the thin man set his feet and squared up to the door again afterward.
“Ma’am?”
“Yes, I’m here,” Lara said, much too aware of thudding of her heart in her chest.
“The SUV out front here belongs to an Adam Benedict from New Orleans. You got a visitor?”
Real anger surfaced in her mind as she realized that the papers the second man had brandished had probably been Adam’s vehicle registration. “I fail to see how that concerns you.”
“You’d be surprised what concerns me. He here on business or pleasure?”
Lara refused to look at Adam as she answered, “Pleasure, of course. Mine.”
“You known him long?”
“A while,” she answered with swift purpose. “He used to live around here, you know. In fact, Adam’s cousin is parish sheriff.”
A grunt served as comment. “Let me talk to him.”
“Do you know him?” She turned her gaze toward Adam who immediately made a hard, negative gesture with one hand.
“Only by rep. Tell him to step out here where I can see him.”
The man’s voice carried a warning that he’d accept no excuse. Lara hesitated, uncertain how to reply. Glancing at Adam again, she met and held his dark blue gaze while the mantel clock in the parlor ticked, mindlessly counting down the seconds.
Then he moved from the shadows with near-silent strides. He caught the door’s heavy brass handle and jerked it open.
The thin man jumped back before he caught himself. Temper and chagrin were strong in his voice as he spoke. “So it is you, Benedict.”
“Demarius. I might have guessed.”
“You recognize me. How is that?”
“Your mug shot in the family file. It was pointed out when you became an enforcer.”
“Right. I heard you hung out downtown. What’re you doing so far out in the boonies?”
“The lady answered that question already. You have anything else to say, spit it out. I have better things to do than stand here talking.” Reaching for Lara, he slid an arm around her waist and drew her against him. A shiver ran over her at the warm strength of his hold, the intimation of security in the feel of his hard body against hers, though she hoped he hadn’t noticed.
“Can’t say I blame you,” Demarius offered with his gaze lingering on the front of her T-shirt. “I’d have an idea or two, in your place. But I don’t think that’s all you’ve got on your mind.”
“Meaning?”
The iron behind Adam’s question seemed to amuse the other man. “We had a tip saying the woman we want was headed up here.”
“Can’t have been very reliable.”
“From a barkeep in Baton Rouge that owed us a favor. You know how it is.”
“We’ll keep an eye out for her.” Adam’s tone didn’t give an inch.
“Oh, I think you’ll do better than that. Fact is, I expect that’s the reason you’re here. Since I don’t want any trouble with you, I’ll tell you what. You hand over Mrs. Belzoni and everything will be fine. You can stay right here or take off back to town, no questions asked.”
“That’s generous of you,” he said with an edge of mockery in his voice.
“Ain’t it though. You can even have gorgeous here for company.”
Lara didn’t care to be reduced to the role of mere girlfriend. It was her house, after all. “No thinking, moral person would give up anyone to you,” she said in low anger. “You couldn’t have my aunt even if she was here.”
“Now that’s downri
ght noble, ma’am,” the thin man said as he shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Problem is, nobility can get you killed.”
“What do you mean?”
“It gets in the way of self-preservation, you know? What it all boils down to here is a choice. You can stick with your aunt or you can hang out with lover-boy. Benedict can stand between us and the woman we’re after or he can stand back and let us have her. One way you two could get hurt, or worse, and the other way you’re okay. Like I said, it’s a choice—and I don’t care who makes it.”
“That’s crazy!”
“I thought it was pretty fair, myself.” He shrugged. “We could eliminate all of you, probably save ourselves a lot of trouble.”
“Or cause more than you know what to do with,” Adam suggested.
The gaze the thin man turned in his direction was as empty as his voice. “There’s always that possibility. But sometimes you just have to go with your gut feeling.”
“What if my gut says smashing your face in is a fine idea?”
“Adam,” Lara said, closing her hand on his arm that still fastened her to him with the strength of a steel cable. The feeling she received now from the skinny Mafioso in front of her, as effortlessly as sound or scent, was of a love of power, especially the power to control by fear. Destruction meant nothing to him, even when it was destroying life.
Adam relaxed a fraction, for she felt it. When she could be reasonably certain he wasn’t going to attack the man on the porch, she said to Demarius, “I told you my aunt isn’t here.”
“I think you’re lying, honey, but it doesn’t matter a hell of a lot. Tell you what. I never much cared for what I’d heard of Benedict, here, and care even less now that I’ve met him. If you say you can’t put your hand on this aunt of yours, then I’ll take him as a substitute. I expect he can be persuaded to find her for us.”
She sent Adam a swift glance, but his set face gave nothing away. “He could have something to say about that.”
“Makes no difference. You tell me how it’s to be and I’ll see to it.” He paused while he glanced at the expensive watch on his wrist. “You got half an hour to make up your mind.”
“Half an hour!”
He gave her a skeletal smile as he turned to walk back toward the car. Over his shoulder, he said, “Be glad you got that much. I’d have said ten minutes if I wasn’t in such a good mood.”
Lara closed the door and locked it, then moved as if to step away from Adam. He didn’t release her, but only stared in front of him with a meditative expression on his face. Putting her spread fingertips against his chest and exerting pressure, she said with some acerbity, “If you don’t mind?”
He looked down at her, then blinked and removed his grasp. “Sorry.”
Somehow she doubted it, though it didn’t seem a good time to press the point. “What are we going to do?”
“We? Since when did this become a joint effort? The way I heard it, the decision is yours.”
“Divide and conquer tactics. He hopes one of us will let him have what he wants out of fear and self-interest. It only works if we let it.”
“And you don’t intend to let it?” The glance he sent in her direction gave nothing away, though she thought he was probably ahead of her on Demarius’s intentions.
“It was bad psychology on his part. Knowing I’d have to live with myself, afterward, makes any bargain impossible.”
“You’re not tempted, just to be rid of me?”
Her gaze was caustic. “Nothing was said about temptation.”
“So it wasn’t.” A smile tugged one corner of his mouth. “What you really want to know is if I’ll turn your aunt over to them?”
“Would you?” Even as she asked, Lara wondered how many men would hesitate more than a few minutes before accepting the trade-off of their life for that of some woman they’d barely met.
“What do you really think?”
For all the mockery in his tone, Lara believed he was still busy with his own thoughts. She was silent, studying his face, weighing her impression until she was sure she had his full attention. “Of course you won’t. We’re in this together, you and I. Well, and Aunt Kim.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I just know,” she said in a voice that dared him to doubt her methods. “It’s the way you are. You couldn’t hand a female of any kind over to what might be certain death.”
“Nothing personal, just a principle, right?”
“Something like that.”
“You’re only half correct. I’m holding on to your aunt for the same reason that I can’t ignore the fact that I found her. I gave my word. That means I’ll take her in, no matter who gets in the way.”
“So you’ll protect her from one danger in order to turn her over to another?”
“If it comes to it.”
“I think it has,” she returned succinctly. “But let me get this straight. If you’re pledged to shield her in order to keep your word, that must mean you wouldn’t be inclined to help Belzoni’s uncle locate Aunt Kim, even if I let them have you?”
“No.”
“Regardless of their methods of persuasion?” She winced mentally at that too-nice euphemism for torture, but she had a point to make.
“There’s always that hope.”
“Then giving you up could well buy the time she needs to escape.”
“If you decide that’s the best course, after all.”
He seemed so nonchalant about it that she couldn’t believe he understood what she was saying. “I could conceivably be as much a danger to you, then, as the men outside.”
“A danger?” His firm lips curved at one corner.
“You don’t think I can be? Especially for good reason?”
“I didn’t say that. It’s just that I’ve thought of you in a lot of ways since I got here tonight, but dangerous isn’t one of them.”
The need to know just how he’d thought of her was strong. Asking would be like admitting that she was interested, however, and she wasn’t ready for that. Besides, there was too much at stake just now to explore it. “The men out there don’t change the fact that my aunt doesn’t belong in jail.”
“Not even for her own safety?”
“You know what the system is like. Once she’s caught in it, her motive for killing her husband won’t matter because domestic violence is so common it’s virtually ignored. The police can close the case, the D.A.‘s office can chalk up one more easy conviction, and everybody would be happy. I won’t have her become a scapegoat.”
“You’ve seen too many legal dramas,” he said shortly.
“Don’t patronize me. It can happen and you know it.”
“Suppose I said I’d do everything in my power to prevent it?”
She considered that, more aware than she wanted to be of how much she’d like to depend on his word. Every instinct said she could and should, but she dared not rely on them. Her need to believe was too great, and it wasn’t her life that hung in the balance, after all. “Not good enough.”
“What is? You want a guarantee written in blood? It may come to that before this is over.”
He had apparently faced the prospect of being hurt or killed and accepted it without moaning about his fate, without worry over the odds or the fact that this wasn’t his fight. He’d made his decision and was prepared to stand by it.
Lara had only just met Adam Benedict, yet the idea of what might happen to him made her feel ill. She didn’t want to be responsible for him getting hurt, had no desire to fear his death, despised the idea of needing him. She hated what was happening to them with all its doubts and strains but could see no way to stop it.
It was all very well for the man outside to say she had a choice. There was none that she could see. She could not deliberately abandon her aunt, nor could she use Adam in order to save her. All that was left was a fight against overwhelming odds. The question was whether she and Adam coul
d trust each other enough to join forces, much less to survive the battle.
Six
The kitchen door creaked open beyond the sitting room. Adam whipped around toward the sound, but it was only Lara’s aunt who emerged like a ghost from out of the dark in her white housecoat.
“What are you two whispering about?” she asked, her voice sharp. “If you’re plotting in here, I think I have a right to be in on it.”
Adam left the explanations to Lara, since Kim Belzoni was her aunt. The older woman wasn’t going to like them and her objections would be vocal. Not that he blamed her. She had a right to be upset.
He’d noticed a phone in the kitchen. Checking it was probably useless, but something that had to be done. He moved off in that direction, leaving the women talking in low tones behind him.
The line was dead. He stood with the receiver in his hand, weighing it while trenchant thought streamed through his mind. There were three goons out there. No doubt they’d figured that was enough to take care of a couple of women. He’d upset their calculations by getting here ahead of them. Demarius had been put out about that, which was why he’d talked so big in front of Lara.
Now that he’d made his threat, the Mafia enforcer wouldn’t back down. That made for a sticky situation. What would he do when he didn’t get the results he wanted, try a frontal assault or opt for stealth in a three-pronged entry? The straightforward approach might have been fine before, but Demarius should realize that he, Adam, would be expecting it now. Would that matter, considering how unlikely it was that they had missed finding his weapon when they rummaged through his glove compartment?
He was an unknown quantity, Adam thought. His presence could make them more cautious or more aggressive, according to how big a threat he appeared to them. It would be nice if he had some of Lara’s supposed ESP to guide him, because it was impossible to guess which way they’d jump.
If he were alone, he’d take to the woods. He had hunted and fished the area as a teenager, so remembered its creeks and bayous and how they ran, where the trails crossed side roads, and where those side roads hit the main drag. The guys out there were city dudes who hardly knew which direction was up. He could run circles around them, especially in the dark.
With a Southern Touch: AdamA Night in ParadiseGarden Cop Page 5