by Hope Anika
Fortunately, the Vault was a Vault, and Charlie had buried its ownership in the subsidiary of a subsidiary of a subsidiary, and no one should’ve been able to connect it to her or Wylie or the Firm. If someone had, well, hopefully Wylie really was on his way there to save the day.
With any luck, he would find Wanda and Eva Pierce in one blessedly whole, untouched piece.
Please, Universe, make it so.
Charlie wouldn’t have approved of keeping the cops out of the loop; nope, he would have spilled everything to the men currently working the crime scene that had become of her living room.
But only because he’d once been one of them.
Ash, on the other hand, didn’t have much use for or luck with badges. They seemed to sense the gypsy inside her, the nomadic, lawless soul who lived within. They tended to react accordingly, and then she reacted to their reaction, and off it spiraled.
So she avoided them.
Unfortunately, it was Detective LaVern Haggerty—one of Vegas’ leading homicide detectives and also one of Charlie’s oldest friends—who was leading the crew in blue, scouring her home and shooting her dark looks of sour contemplation. Who was going to be a major pain in the ass.
Goddamn it.
“During the second World War, the secret services developed something they called the ‘L-pill’ to give to clandestine agents who were going overseas,” Glory said from beside her and nudged the elbow of one of the dead men with the pointed end of her glossy black pump. “It was a capsule the size of a small pea filled with potassium cyanide, most often used as a false tooth. Just crush it between your teeth and voila: instant death.” Glory’s gaze was speculative as it rose to meet Ash’s. “Just what have you gotten yourself into, dear?”
“More than I bargained for,” Ash told her grimly.
Way more. And Joe Pierce owed her some goddamn answers, because if the dead men on her floor were grunts for Vinnie “The Bird” Talooca—the local kingpin to whom Joe claimed to owe money—she’d eat her left boot.
These boys weren’t middling thugs hired do dirty work. These guys were professionals, the kind of men who hit what they aimed at and didn’t advertise their services on Craig’s List. The only reason she’d gotten the jump on them was surprise and speed. If she hadn’t been able to get out of that chair, she would be dead.
These guys did not belong to Vinnie. They’d offed themselves, for crying out loud.
Who did that?
“These are dangerous men, Ash,” Glory murmured. “You realize this, yes?”
“Oh, yes,” she replied darkly.
Dangerous men.
Anyone willing to die for their cause was dangerous.
She didn’t feel guilty for the holes she’d put in them. None of those holes would have killed them; dying had been their choice. She was not responsible for that decision.
Detective LaVern Haggerty suddenly materialized before her, a fierce scowl plastered across his face.
“You’d better start talking fast, and it’d better be good,” he declared, his dark, coffee-bean skin shining brightly in the recessed lighting. “Because these men don’t exist.”
She blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“No identification,” Haggerty replied succinctly. “And no fingerprints.”
The lack of ID wasn’t news, because she’d searched the men before the cops had arrived, but fingerprints? “What do you mean no fingerprints?”
Haggerty bared his teeth. Dressed in his shimmering, dark blue suit and lustrous, cream-colored tie, he looked more like a model for GQ than a homicide detective for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. He was a phenomenally beautiful man, something that seemed to aggravate him greatly.
He kneeled down next to the man she and Glory stood beside and lifted one of the man’s hands with his own plastic-sheathed fingers. He turned the man’s hand over and revealed a rough, callused palm and five perfectly smooth fingertips, the skin as unlined and immaculate as a baby’s butt.
“No scarring, even,” Glory noted. “Impressive.”
Haggerty’s gaze snapped to her. Ash watched him take in all that was Glory Von Gustaf-Wilson, retired showgirl and former MI6 agent.
Not that one could tell about the agent part, what with the vampy stage make-up, twinkling rhinestones and dramatic, winged black brows that rose above her faded green gaze as he surveyed her. Her hair was cherry red; she wore a narrow skirt as black as pitch, and a thin white cashmere sweater that glittered like snowfall in sunlight courtesy of the tiny rhinestones sewn all over it. Her pumps were four inches high, her pearls were real, and she had a powerful, willful charisma that her seventy-three years didn’t touch. She was opinionated and headstrong and easily one of the smartest people Ash had ever known.
She also had a serious problem with authority figures.
My sister from another mister.
“What do you know about this?” Haggerty demanded, staring at her.
Glory only smiled coolly. “No more than you, Detective.”
“But you’ve seen this before?”
“Nothing so skillfully done,” she admitted with an elegant shrug.
His gaze narrowed. “Meaning?”
Another chilly smile; Glory was clearly enjoying herself. “In my day, Detective, the method for removing a fingerprint was far more crude.”
“Was it now?” He dropped the man’s hand and pushed to his feet, his eyes never leaving Glory’s face. “Do tell.”
“What does it mean?” Ash cut in.
He continued to stare at Glory. “Trouble.”
“Yeah, I got that much,” Ash retorted. “Being tied to a chair and smacked around was a stellar clue.”
Haggerty transferred his gaze to her. “You need to tell me what’s going on.”
Like Charlie would.
The words hovered between them, unspoken. But Ash was not Charlie.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Ash told him. Which was true.
“Bullshit,” he growled.
“I have no clue who those men are or what they wanted.” With Eva Pierce. “When you find out, I’d love to know.”
His coal-dark eyes narrowed into slits; a muscle jumped in the hard line of his jaw. “So these men you don’t know, whose motives you can’t guess at, just up and decided to force their way into your home, tie you to a chair, and smack you around? For what purpose? And then—when you get out of hand—opt to kill themselves rather than face arrest?”
Out of hand. Ash told herself that punching him in the face was a Bad Idea. “Apparently so.”
His nostrils flared. His big hands curled into fists, and he took another step, until he towered over her. “You need to rethink this course of action.”
She stiffened. She’d stood in the shadow of her batshit crazy father too many times; Haggerty’s bullish intimidation just served to provoke the deep, relentless anger that lived within her. Getting attacked in her own home, tied to a piece of furniture, threatened with torture and beaten had been enough. She didn’t need him adding fuel to the fire that always existed within her, the leashed, incendiary rage that had been born in her childhood; her second, ugly self, one she wasn’t proud of and didn’t particularly like.
One just like her father, a fact she despised and did her best to keep contained. But the events of the evening had threatened to free that self, and it floated close to the surface, a big, hungry shark filled with sharp white teeth. Haggerty’s aggression just scented the water with blood.
She’d spent too much of her life living under threat. She wouldn’t return to that place. Not ever. Not for anyone.
“Ash is the victim here, not the perpetrator,” Glory interrupted coldly, and her hand, slender but strong, found Ash’s arm, as if she sensed the threat Haggerty was too arrogant to see. “Perhaps you should refocus your belligerence where it belongs.”
A flicker of something crossed his features; it might have been shame. Ash couldn’t say, but his gaze mo
ved over her features, lingering on her busted lip and swollen nose.
“We’re not done here,” he warned softly. “Case or no case, it’s against the law to withhold evidence.”
“Pffft,” she replied.
He glowered at her. “You’re in trouble here, Kyndal. You know it, I know it. Just a matter of time before it catches you.”
Probably. But she only stared at him, her nose throbbing, blood a coppery bite in the back of her throat.
“Fine,” he said tightly. “Learn the hard way.” He took several steps and then turned back to look at her. “Charlie would be disappointed.”
Again: probably. But it was a low blow.
The temptation to deliver that punch was almost overwhelming; at her side, her hand curled into a tight fist. But then Glory squeezed her arm.
“Only in you, Detective,” her neighbor said flatly. “You should go now.”
He shook his head and stomped away, his long gray trench coat flaring out around him like wings.
Next to her, Glory sighed. “A dramatic man. Rather arrogant and mean, but quite scrummy. Just my type.”
Ash felt a startled smile turn her mouth. “You should have told him.”
“Perhaps I will.” Glory’s brows lifted, and she turned to pin Ash with a hard look. “What are you going to do?”
Find her people—hopefully alive. Hunt down Joseph Pierce and get some answers. Find out who these men were, and what they wanted with Eva.
Why they thought a twelve-year-old kid was so dangerous she needed to be destroyed. Because there was no doubt they wanted her dead. The look in that lunatic’s eyes when he’d used the word abomination said it all.
You’ll see. When it’s too late, then you’ll see.
See what?
The future.
Chilled, Ash rubbed her bare arms. Bad B movie...
She’d had no choice but to take Joe Pierce’s case. One, because he’d served with Charlie in ‘Nam, and two, because the Firm needed the work. Business had abruptly dried up after Charlie’s death, and while bodyguard duty was not something the Firm usually took on, she simply couldn’t afford to say no. The damn company was hers now, like it or not. Until she could figure out what the hell to do with it, she had to operate it. Walking away was not an option.
She owed Charlie too much—which he’d known when he’d willed it to her, the manipulative SOB.
“Ash?” Glory prodded.
“I’m going to find my people.” She rubbed her arms again, unwilling to give into the chaos building in her chest like an ugly tumor.
They’re okay. They had to be.
“Then I’m going to find out why there are dead men in my living room.”
*****
The front door to the Vault was wide open, the large steel door dented and hanging crookedly from twisted hinges; behind him, Wylie could hear the scream of sirens.
Fuck.
He ignored the people gathered in the street and strode into the small basement apartment, his heart a painful drum in his skull. He thought about the minutes he’d wasted ignoring Ash’s messages and knew that whatever he discovered was—at least partially—his own fault.
Double fuck.
He halted in the tiny living room and looked around. The place had been trashed. Drawers on the floor, table and chairs overturned, couch ripped apart. Even the refrigerator door was open. Whoever had blown the door had searched the place; Wylie stared at the destruction and wondered what the hell was going on.
Who had Wanda been here with? And why Wanda? Jesus, could Ash have picked a greener newbie to play bodyguard?
He turned and headed into the bedroom; mattress on the floor, sheets shredded. The drawers of the armoire lay in pieces. He stepped over the mess and reached up under the third shelf of the armoire and pressed the small lever there. Then he yanked the armoire away from the wall to reveal the steel door that led to the passageway that was the Vault’s hidden escape.
Still intact.
Relieved, he pulled the door, but it didn’t budge. Locked from the inside—which meant Wanda and whoever was with her had gone into the tunnel and locked it behind them. Thank god.
The old tunnel led to an alley several blocks over. Charlie had bought the place solely for the tunnel, a relic of the days when men with guns had run the city and their trade—beyond gambling—was running illegal alcohol during prohibition. Wylie had always thought it overkill.
“Wrong again,” he muttered and banged his fist against the door. “Wanda!”
He waited, unable to hear anything over the roar of his own blood.
He pounded again. “Wanda!”
Nothing. Which meant they were either still in the tunnel or outside of it. Running. Because that’s sure as hell what he would’ve done had someone blown the front door.
He stepped back, swung the armoire back into place and hauled ass out of the apartment. Firemen and cops were pulling in down the street, lights flashing brightly as the sun dimmed. Wylie only walked back to his truck and climbed in. He pulled his phone out and went to dial and then stopped.
Shit.
Whoever had blown the Vault had somehow found the Vault, and since only a handful of people knew of its existence—him, Ash, maybe Butch—that meant either they had a mole—fat chance, considering the pool—or they’d been infiltrated, which meant that using any type of electronic device was out.
They were going to have to do things the old fashioned way.
He brought up his messages screen and replied to the last text Ash had sent.
Vault empty. Door blown. Whiskey run locked down. Going for the gold. Bandit will be in touch.
Bandit. And to think he’d laughed every time his pop had gotten on that old CB—breaker, breaker one-nine—and chatted up the local truck drivers.
But Charlie had been right more often than not, something Wylie hadn’t appreciated much when he was young. The older he got, however, the more he understood the things his pop had told him, how wise and smart that old man had truly been.
The cliché was true: hindsight was a bitch.
Luckily, Bandit was currently wedged beneath Wylie’s truck seat. When he’d cleaned out Charlie’s garage last month, he’d given most of the stuff away. But those things his pop had treasured—no matter how useless Wylie considered them—had somehow all ended up in Wylie’s truck. Charlie’s favorite bowie knife; his fishing pole. The old Navajo blanket a woman he’d once helped had gifted him, his battered MagLight flashlight. The Bandit.
In Wylie’s hand, his phone beeped.
FIND THEM.
“That’s the plan,” he muttered, but as he reached down to start his truck, he realized he had no idea where to look. And on top of that, the back of his neck had begun to prickle.
He stilled and looked out the windows of the truck, his gaze sweeping the street, the cops and firemen, the crowd gathered in front of the building that housed the Vault. He saw nothing he could pinpoint, no one who stood out, but the hair at his nape was going crazy, and Wylie knew someone had eyes on him. Being a soldier had woken that part of his hindbrain, and after surviving a stint in Iraq, that part never truly slept.
He checked his mirrors, and his eyes narrowed as they landed on an SUV parked several cars back. Gleaming and new, with blackened windows and shiny chrome accents. He would bet every last chip in his pocket that was who was currently surveilling him.
Professionals.
So not only Wanda and whoever she had with her to find, but a tail to lose as well.
Sure. Why not?
“Shit,” he said. He looked out at the Vault, where the cops were talking to people, and the firemen were surveying the scene. A fat black and white calico cat sat off to the side, watching idly. He thought about Wanda and what he knew of her. Really knew.
Where the hell would she go?
He didn’t have a clue. He didn’t know Wanda. In point of fact, he avoided Wanda. She was too innocent for Wylie’s tastes. Strai
ght out of India, with her lush, exotic beauty and lilting accent, her tiny, shapely form and dark, shy gaze. Hell, every time she looked at him she blushed. And every time he looked at her...well, that didn’t bear considering. She was another one of Charlie’s broken birds, and that meant she had shit to deal with. Wylie had enough of his own shit to deal with; he didn’t need anyone else’s added to the mix.
No matter how tempting she was.
Out there on the fucking run. Alone except for whoever the hell was with her.
Someone who’d needed protecting.
Goddamn it. What the hell had Ash been thinking? And why hadn’t she brought him into this?
Dead men in my apartment. Ruslan and Butch in trouble. Wanda in danger.
What the fuck was going on?
“Focus,” he growled at himself.
Wanda. Where would Wanda go?
Not back to the office. Wylie didn’t know much about her, but he knew she was smart. Smart enough to be the Firm’s IT guru, to deal with the equipment and the software, to keep them at the top of their game. Wanda had been a crowning jewel in Charlie’s coronet: she’s a goddamn genius, boy. We couldn’t have asked for better.
So where would someone like her run to? Where—
He stilled.
The only time he’d ever spent with Wanda was just after she’d appeared at the Firm. He’d drawn the short straw to take her back to the hostel where Charlie had found her so she could get her things. Charlie had been there questioning some guy about a stolen Porsche, and apparently he’d pulled her out of a situation with some asshole who didn’t want to take no for an answer. In typical Charlie fashion, he’d swept in and saved the day, rescued her, offered her a roof and a job and damn near adopted her.
Another goddamn broken bird. Charlie’s specialty.
The hostel had been over on Arroyo and Center. A shithole of a place, and one Wylie wasn’t sure she’d go back to. But it was close, and he had no idea how well she knew the city, if she knew how to get around, where to lay low. And if she used her phone—
“She’s smarter than that,” he told himself.
Christ, if he’d just gotten there ten minutes earlier—