Didn’t take a rocket scientist to see where this was going. “Let me guess, you’re going to offer me your room to crash in— You’ve got a room, right? Or do you keep an apartment here?” That was the only unknown in this, she felt.
“I travel light. It’s a room,” he answered. “Actually, it’s more like two rooms. A bedroom and a sitting area.” He felt that might just come in handy. And now, apparently, it actually might. “And if I did offer, would you take me up on it?”
“‘Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.’” Her mouth curved knowingly. “I wasn’t born yesterday, ‘Wayne.’ Or the day before,” she added, waiting to hear his answer, her eyes on his. He didn’t strike her as someone who gave up easily, but then again, this was about far more than just a one-night stand.
“Didn’t mean to imply that I thought you were,” he told her. “Just trying to be friendly—and helpful.”
“Is that what you call it now?” she mocked with a humorless laugh. “I’ll find my own accommodations, thanks.”
He shrugged, pushing his empty plate away. “Fine with me. I just thought it might be easier for both of us if we joined forces.”
Just what was “Wayne” up to? she wondered. “Easier how?”
He gave her the most logical scenario. One that, he was certain, had probably occurred to her already. “Well, Roland’s got all that muscle behind him. What’s to stop him from taking our money and not delivering the merchandise?”
She hated that her sister—and girls like her—were considered nothing more than chattel. “And the two of us together would be formidable enough to keep him from doing that?” The very idea was laughable.
“Two are better than one,” Brennan pointed out. “And they just might not be expecting this alliance. This way, if one of us gets to find out where the girls are being kept, that one can let the other know. If nothing else,” he went on, “that way we can make the best selections rather than just be forced to take what he decides to sell us. This alliance isn’t about hooking up, it’s about strictly business.” Having laid out his pitch, he backed off. He didn’t want her thinking he was pushing this too hard. “But hey, it’s up to you,” he concluded with a shrug.
“Strictly business?” she repeated. Her tone indicated that she was challenging him more than she was just asking a question.
“Yeah, strictly business. Like I said, I’ve got a bedroom and a sitting room. Bedroom’s got a door. You can take that. I’ll take the couch.” It couldn’t get any more chaste sounding than that, he thought. And if he had the couch, she had to pass him before she reached the door. He slept lightly enough to hear a leaf fall on a rug. There was no way she was going to make a getaway without his knowing it.
Her eyes held his, utilizing his trick on him. “You’d do that for me?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
She wasn’t buying it. There had to be something she was missing. “Someone you didn’t know twenty-four hours ago.”
“Before you ask why, I’ll tell you,” he said, anticipating her next response. “I’ve got a hunch you’re a good person to have on my side,” he told her as she finished her dinner. “And if you ask why, I’ll direct you back to the word hunch. Can’t explain it any better than that.”
“I sleep with a gun,” she told him pointedly.
“I’m sure you do.” And then he grinned. “Just so you know, so do I. In case you decide to have your way with me in the middle of the night—if you’ve decided to take me up on my offer.”
It would make things simpler, she supposed. And there was the point he made about joining forces to discover where the girls were being kept so that they could choose the best girls. Two sets of eyes searching for the location where the girls were being housed was better than one; there was no denying that.
Okay, she’d play along until she could ascertain if Janie was being kept with the others, or if, for some reason, she was being housed somewhere else. In either case, Tiana needed to get her sister out. She planned to notify the local police about the location, hopefully as soon as she had her sister clear of the area.
“Okay, I’ll take you up on your offer,” she told him. “But at the first sign of you switching sides and turning on me, I will shoot you,” she said. “Consider yourself warned.”
Brennan shook his head. “You must be the real life of the party when you get going,” he deadpanned.
“This isn’t a party,” she reminded him. “This is business, remember?”
“Never forgot for a second,” he assured her, putting on his most serious face. “You want anything else?” he asked, nodding at the empty plate in front of her. Her serving had been as large as his and she’d done justice to it.
Anything else? Tiana tensed immediately. Had she just inadvertently left herself wide open? “What do you mean?”
“To eat,” he specified. “Do you want anything else to eat? Like dessert?”
“Oh.”
She felt just a wee bit foolish. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you, she reminded herself. It was far better to be cautious than to blindly walk into something.
“No, thanks,” Tiana told him. “I’m stuffed.” And she was. “You were right. The prime rib is good here.” She looked around the dingy restaurant again. It was not a place that grew on you, she thought. “I guess they spend all their money on the food, not the décor.”
This time the laugh escaping his lips was genuine. “You see any décor?” he asked.
“Actually, I see dust, not décor,” she observed. “How do they manage to stay open?” she asked. When he looked at her quizzically, she elaborated. “Doesn’t the health department periodically send inspectors to check the place out?”
“Palms get greased in all walks of life,” he guessed. “But the guy in the kitchen takes great pride in his cooking—not so much in his housekeeping,” he added. “Still, I don’t think you’ll ever catch anything eating here,” Brennan assured her.
Taking out a hundred-dollar bill, he added a twenty to it as a tip and left both bills in the middle of the table. The chief had told him he needed to play up his part as a high roller because there was no telling when someone from the organization they were looking to bring down might be watching him.
“Let’s go,” he prompted, rising to his feet.
Tiana had taken note of the prices on the menu, intending to pay her own way so he didn’t have an excuse to take his money out in trade later. What they’d had for dinner didn’t come anywhere close to a hundred dollars.
“You always throw that kind of money around?” she asked him.
Brennan inclined his head. “Maybe I identify with the workingman—and -woman,” he tossed in just in case “Venus” was the kind who took offense at accidental omissions.
“You really are a complicated man, aren’t you?”
“Naw. What you see is what you get,” he told her. The next moment, he placed his hand on the small of her back and guided her out.
Tiana knew it was her imagination, but she could almost feel the imprint of his hand against her back. Against her skin. It was almost as if all the layers of clothing had just burned away and there was nothing left between her and this man. Nothing left to protect her from this man’s touch.
Get a grip, she ordered herself.
Once they were outside, the night air brought a chill with it that helped her focus and consequently caused her senses to wake up.
“Your car is still parked in the motel lot,” she reminded him.
“No problem,” he answered. “You can take me there in the morning.”
“You don’t want to pick it up now?” she asked, surprised. She would have thought that a man like him would have wanted the independence of his own car—unless he was going to take over hers. She hadn’t
thought of that until now.
He shook his head in answer to her question. “I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty tired and I’d rather not drive under those conditions.”
He was just full of surprises, she thought. “A careful criminal. Interesting.”
“That’s how you get to live long enough to become an old criminal,” he pointed out, amused at her comment.
“You’re not afraid that someone might steal it?” she prodded. “It’s a pretty nice piece of work.”
“There are ways of getting it back,” he assured her. He had a sophisticated, top-of-the line GPS in the car, as well as a way to completely disable the car. Reaching her car, Brennan waited for her to unlock it. He got in on his side and buckled up. “Let me tell you where we’re going,” he said.
Most likely straight to hell in a toboggan, she said silently.
She braced herself for whatever it was that was waiting for her because she was willing to put up with anything to get Janie back.
She had to. Because Janie’s safety and welfare were her responsibility, and always would be.
* * *
“What’s up with you, Dad?” Andrew asked.
They had just had, by his standards, an incredibly quiet dinner, not to mention exceedingly small as far as company went. It had been just Rose, his father and him at the table, not by his design, but by Rose’s.
Rose insisted that he get back into “the game” as she referred to his culinary efforts for the masses, otherwise known as his family, slowly. This, he had complained to no avail, was more restricting than having training wheels strapped onto a motorcycle. But Rose had told him that it was this, or she would be the one preparing dinner for his father. Everyone knew that Rose’s efforts began and ended with picking up a telephone receiver and calling any one of a number of local restaurants that also delivered.
So he had given in and appeased his wife by making a tray of chicken tetrazzini for dinner. Afterward, Rose, sensing her father-in-law’s obvious somber mood, had withdrawn to allow him to have some privacy with his father and hopefully find out exactly what had brought this on.
“Nothing’s up with me,” Shamus protested in response to his question, but his mood continued to appear darker than a pending storm. He sat at the table, nursing the bottle of beer Rose had brought him instead of coffee.
Andrew studied his father. He’d been like this for a good few weeks. It wasn’t like the old man. “I thought after I located your brother’s family, you’d be doing handstands.”
“Not a pretty sight,” Shamus assured his oldest son. “But you did good, finding them,” he allowed, nodding a head that still sported a full complement of thick silver hair.
“So why do you look as if you just realized you’d lost your best friend?” Andrew asked.
Shamus looked at him sharply. “‘Why’?” he echoed. “You don’t know ‘why’?”
“Wouldn’t be asking if I knew, Dad,” Andrew said matter-of-factly, prepared to ride this storm out for as long as it took to get to the bottom of things.
Shamus set down his bottle of half-finished beer on the table and looked at him, really looked at him to the point that Andrew could almost feel his father’s eyes boring into his face.
Then, in a low, harsh whisper, he told his firstborn, “Don’t you ever, ever do that to me again, you hear? I won’t stand for it.”
“Do what, Dad? Stand for what?” Andrew pressed. So far, his father seemed to be going around in circles and he had no idea what the old man was driving at.
Shamus’s eyes narrowed into slits and just for a moment, Andrew thought he saw them glint.
Tears?
“I lost one son,” Shamus finally said in the same low, harsh tone. “I can’t lose another. I can’t go through that again, do you hear?”
Now it was starting to make sense to him. Whenever his father was really worried or overwhelmed with emotion, the only way he knew how to express it was through a display of anger. Softer words only came to him when he spoke to his grandchildren.
His father was referring to the night he’d gotten shot. “It’s not exactly like I saw it coming, Dad,” Andrew pointed out. As far as he was concerned, that homicidal maniac who’d almost killed him had just darted out of nowhere.
“Why not?” Shamus demanded angrily. “You’re the one with eyes in the back of your head.”
Andrew laughed and shook his head. “You’re confusing me with Brian.” He was aware of what the rank and file said about his younger brother, that as the chief of Ds, Brian was always one step ahead of everyone, always knew things before anyone else did. “He’s the one with eyes in the back of his head. I’m the wise one.”
“Wise one, huh,” Shamus snorted. “Some wise one. If Fergus’s boy hadn’t been out there, pretending to be some hobo—”
“They call them homeless people now, Dad.” Not that his father would remember that. He hadn’t the other ten times Andrew had corrected him on the subject. The old man had a selective memory when it came to what he wanted to retain and what he didn’t.
Shamus waved one sun-wrinkled, dismissive hand at the picky correction. It wasn’t worth the effort to retain the information.
“Whatever. Point is if the good Lord hadn’t had him there, you wouldn’t be sitting here, correcting your betters, and I’d be standing in front of another tombstone, trying to explain to your mother how I could have let this happen.”
Amusement highlighted Andrew’s patrician features. “You do realize that you can’t control everything, right, Dad?”
Shamus slanted an indignant glare his way that had more show than substance. “Says who?”
Andrew laughed. “Mom, for one, if she were still with us.”
“Oh, she’s with us, don’t you ever doubt it,” his father told him firmly. He never believed anything more in his life. “Right here—” the old man tapped his still somewhat muscular chest with his closed fist “—she’s right here, with us.”
Andrew merely nodded, knowing better than to get into a discussion with his father when he was in the sensitive mood he appeared to be in.
Glancing at his wristwatch, he saw that it was past ten. “It’s getting kind of late, Dad. Why don’t you and ‘Mom’ stay for the night?” he suggested. “We’ve got a lot of empty bedrooms just going begging, now that all five of the kids are out of the house.”
“Not a bad idea,” Shamus agreed, rising. “I am a wee bit tired—and I know when not to drive.” Andrew began to get up, too, but his father waved him back into his chair. “It’s not like I don’t know where the bedrooms are,” he said. “Your mother and I’ll just pick one of them.”
Rose, who chose that moment to reenter the dining room, raised an eyebrow as she looked at her husband.
“Your mother?” she mouthed.
“Long story,” Andrew mouthed back.
“I look forward to it,” Rose responded, then turned toward her father-in-law. “C’mon, Shamus, I’ll get you some fresh sheets,” she offered.
“I never argue with a lady,” Shamus told her with an ingratiating smile.
Andrew snorted. “No, he saves that for me.”
“How else are you going to stay on your toes?” Shamus asked. “The pots and pans aren’t going to do it for you” were his parting words as the old man left the room.
Rose offered her husband an impish smile over her shoulder just before she accompanied her father-in-law out of the room.
Chapter 8
While it was not as opulent as the hotel where Roland was staying, Tiana had to admit that the Ambassador Hotel, where “Wayne” had brought her, was still light-years away in appearance from the motel that had turned out to be Wayne’s final resting place.
She did her best to divorce herself from the not
ion that the motel might also have sheltered her sister, as well, before Janie vanished. For the most part, Tiana was trying very hard not to allow any negative thoughts about Janie’s current state or her possible fate seep into her consciousness. If they got through, she had an uneasy feeling, the thoughts would wind up paralyzing her, and right now she needed all systems to be in top form if she was going to be of any helpful use to Janie.
And to be that, Tiana knew she had to survive her association with “Wayne” or whatever his real name actually was.
Unlike Roland’s suite, where Wayne was staying was tasteful without being “in-your-face flashy.” She supposed the proper term for the room might have been “understated”—just like the man himself.
“How much does staying in a place like this set you back?” she asked him as she looked around the two-room suite.
“It doesn’t,” Brennan said. “That’s the whole point.”
She turned to look at him, a dubious expression on her face.
Yeah, right.
“They’re just letting you stay here out of the kindness of their hearts,” she concluded, mocking the very suggestion. Exactly how stupid did he think she was?
“No, of course there’s a charge. But you didn’t ask that. You asked if it set me back, and it doesn’t. The amount is something that I’m able to pay without thinking about and it has no effect on what I can afford and what I can’t afford,” he told her.
As he spoke, Brennan made his way easily around the room, seeming to aimlessly glance about. What he was actually doing was checking certain items in the suite to see if they’d been moved even the tiniest bit. He’d carefully placed those items at angles that were not obvious but if disturbed would have been immediately noticeable to him.
Everything was where it was supposed to be. There were no bugs planted. Nothing had been removed, either. That meant he wasn’t on anyone’s radar yet. The operative word being yet. He was very aware of the fact that he was operating on borrowed time.
“If something ‘sets you back,’ that means you have to budget to make sure the rest of your ends meet. I gave up that sort of painful existence when I made up my mind to go into ‘the life.’”
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