~~~~
I read somewhere that tens of thousands of people visit Port Townsend annually, either as a destination in and of itself or as a side trip on the way to the Olympic National Park. I believe this because most of them seemed to be on the sidewalks this fine Sunday afternoon. Young, old, English-speaking and foreign-language speaking, the place was full of people shoulder to shoulder.
I had four blocks to cover, preferably in about five minutes if I wanted another five minutes or so to surveil the bakery. I needed to hurry, but there was only so much hurrying I could do without running people over. That, of course, would not be a good way to stay incognito. So I did my best to walk fast, all the while trying to make it look like I was out for a casual stroll. Just another tourist window-shopping his way down the streets of Port Townsend on a nice summer day. Pay me no mind.
As it turned out, I soon realized that I would make it with a couple minutes to spare. I stopped into a souvenir store and quickly bought a Port Townsend T-shirt with a picture of a killer whale screened on it. The shirt didn’t do too much for me, but the shopping bag helped to round out my disguise. Returning to the sidewalk, I could see the PT Croissant across the street, thirty yards ahead.
Water Street and Taylor Street crossed in a perfect X with Water parallel to the water and Taylor perpendicular to it. I entered a place called the Fitzgerald Gallery kitty corner from PT Croissant, hoping that by ducking off the main street, I’d be able to watch the bakery and perhaps catch a glimpse of Gina in the few minutes I had before I had to cross over for my meeting.
When I entered, I was immediately greeted by a slender young man in his late twenties wearing slacks and a white long-sleeved shirt, rolled up at the sleeves. The collar was unbuttoned and he wore no T-shirt. He wore brown sandals with no socks. His dirty-blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail.
“Good afternoon,” he said. “Welcome to the Fitzgerald Gallery. I’m David.”
“Hi, David,” I answered. I looked around. Great. I’d managed to find the only business in Port Townsend with no people inside.
“Is there something in particular you wanted to see,” he asked, “or do you just want to spend some time browsing?”
“I’m just looking,” I said.
“Feel free,” he said. “Take all the time you want. I’ll be right over here if you have any questions.”
I pretended I was looking around as I made my way to the store’s front window. I glanced at my watch—it was 2:55. From my vantage point, I could see the PT Croissant on the opposite corner. There were four tables outside on Water Street. An elderly couple occupied the first. The second held a happy group of four, laughing, talking, and enjoying the afternoon. A single man sat at the third table, and a single woman at the fourth—the end table. The woman had her head down reading a book, looking away from me. Still, I could see that she had short blonde hair. None of these people looked like Gina.
Because of the traffic, the reflections, and the shadows, I was just barely able to see through the front window inside the bakery. There were a number of people inside, but I was unable to make out any faces from my vantage point.
“I see you’re interested in our Henry Felder lithographs,” David said.
I’d been focusing across the street and hadn’t heard him approach.
“They’re nice,” I lied. “But they’re a little out of my price range.”
“I understand,” David said. “I’d be happy to check for you—we may have the same image in a less-expensive print.”
“No, thanks,” I replied. “I like the real thing or nothing at all. Looks like I’ll just have to save up.”
I decided to cross Taylor so that I’d be directly across the street from the outdoor tables. Maybe I’d have a better view inside the bakery.
~~~~
I waited for the light to change, then crossed the street with the crowd. I took up a position in front of a bicycle shop directly across from the bakery. Music, what sounded like Jack Johnson, drifted out from a tavern window above the bike shop. I pretended to be looking at the newspaper stands on the sidewalk. In reality, though, I was scoping out the inside of the bakery. The front door was located in an inset doorway directly on Water Street. There was a secondary entrance on Taylor. A long display counter full of baked goods took up half the space inside. Small tables—maybe fifteen or so—filled up the balance. Three-fourths of the tables were occupied.
I reached down and grabbed a free Homes for Sale magazine, opened it up, and pretended to read it. Instead, I peered over the top of the magazine and began to examine each table inside, looking for Gina. She’s short with long, dark hair and dark eyes. I thought she wouldn’t be hard to miss. That’s certainly the Gina I remembered. Looking across the street into the bakery, my eye was immediately drawn to a single woman sitting with her back to me who appeared to fit the description. Dark hair. Short. My hopes began to rise. Then she turned to get something from her purse, and I got a clear look at her face. It was clearly not Gina.
I looked down, turned a page in my magazine, and then resumed my scanning. Three or four tables with two elderly women each. Three or four tables with four people each. Three or four tables with couples. One single guy. Despite my hopes, nobody looked anything like Gina.
Then, I had a long-shot thought. If she owns the store—or her family does, anyway—maybe she’d be behind the counter. There were three people working behind the counter, all busy serving customers. The first was a man. The second was a middle-aged woman. The third was a young woman with dark hair. She was maybe eighteen years old. It wasn’t Gina. Damn. So much for that bright idea.
I set the magazine down on top of the stand and took another look. There’d been no change in the people seated outside. Elderly couple, group of four, single man, and the single blonde with the book. As I was intent on studying them without being too obvious, I gradually realized that the blonde girl was studying me. Suddenly, she smiled and waved.
No one was behind me, so I knew she was waving at me. I looked hard for a second and suddenly it hit me: I’d been fooled by the short blonde hair. Now that she had set her book down and was looking up, I could see her face, and it was one I could never forget. Hello, Gina. It’s been a long time.
PART 3
Chapter 22
I’D NO SOONER recognized Gina than I felt the unmistakable sharp jab of a handgun in the small of my back. I didn’t lift my hands. I didn’t move. I froze.
A man behind me leaned forward and with a quiet but deep, husky voice said, “I’m thinking that the lady over there’d like to talk to you. What do you think?”
I didn’t move. “The one waving?” I asked, trying to buy time.
“Yeah, the blonde. That’d be the one.”
I said nothing for a moment as I ran through the possibilities. My Krav Maga instructors taught me four or five ways to disarm an assailant who approaches from behind, depending on whether he’s on one side or another, or straight behind. The trouble is that the probability of success with any of these techniques runs from 10 percent on the low end to as high as 70 percent on the high side, depending almost completely on the skill of the guy standing behind me. Looked at the other way, it means the odds of getting shot in the back during an attempt to disarm the bad guy run from 30 percent at best to 90 percent at worst. Which, I suppose, is another way of saying that if the bad guy with a gun gets the jump on you from behind, you’re already mostly screwed, especially if he knows what he’s doing. I needed more information.
“Would you be Uncle Frankie?” I asked, without turning around.
“In the flesh,” he said. Odd, but now, I felt a little comfort knowing that the guy with a gun to my back was a Chicago hit man. At least he was Gina’s relative, if that counted for anything.
“Is that a gun in my back?”
“No, it’s my finger, dickhead,” he answered. He chuckled at his own joke, and then said, “Actually, it’s a Ruger .44 Magnum. Big fucking
hole. Old-school.”
“That’ll work,” I agreed, nodding my head slowly. Great. Caught flat-footed by a mob enforcer. I figured my odds of getting shot during an attempt to disarm him were pretty much redlined at the wrong end of the meter—the dead end. “You know, I was just about to go over there anyway on my own. Matter of fact, she asked me here. I really don’t think you need a gun.”
“Oh,” he said. “In that case, I’m thinking I’ll just toss it into this trash can here.” I felt him remove the gun, but I still didn’t turn around. He chuckled again—a real joker, this guy.
“That’s a nice gun,” I said. “No sense tossing it. You could just give it to me.”
He laughed again. “A fucking comedian,” he said. “I like that.” Takes one to know one.
“Well, that’s something. Should I walk now?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Wait for the green, so’s you don’t get splattered. I ain’t a hundred percent certain, but I’m guessing that would annoy her. I don’t want to piss her off.”
So we waited for the light to turn green. Then we walked.
~~~~
Before just now, the last time I’d seen Gina was at Sea-Tac in December 2006. At the conclusion of our three-week romance, she dropped me off at the airport on my way to Quantico. At the time, she was twenty-two, just six months out of college. She’d cried as we said our good-byes. As I’ve thought about it over the past years, I think it’s very possible that I was probably already out of her plans, and we were feeling bad for different reasons. She probably dismissed me not long after I told her I couldn’t alter my training schedule to go on holiday with her. I messed up her Hawaiian vacation plans and, in so doing, proved that she wasn’t in control. I think this was something Gina probably could not—or would not—tolerate. So, most likely, I’d already been written out of the play by the time she dropped me off. I was standing at the airport in the rain, looking at a beautiful young woman, saying good-bye and meaning “Good-bye. I’ll see you in ninety days.” She was saying good-bye and meaning, “Good-bye, it’s been swell.” But oh, she’d looked good. Damn good.
The woman I saw standing at the table, waiting for me to finish crossing the street looked the same in some ways, different in others. The hair was different, obviously. She used to have long, wavy, dark hair. Now, it was shoulder length and a honey blonde shade. Better for being incognito, I guess. Both styles looked attractive, although I was more used to the dark-haired Gina, so I probably still preferred her that way. But her eyes were the same—happy, sparkling, dark blue eyes. Her prominent jaw line, her lips wide and full—all the same. Her figure, if anything, was better now than it had been at age twenty-two. She wore tan shorts and a white sleeveless blouse. Her skin was tanned as if she’d just returned from a vacation in the Caribbean. Quite simply, she was stunning. I forgot all about Frankie and his .44.
“Hi, Danny,” she said happily, smiling broadly when I crossed the street. She stood up and held her arms wide. I stepped forward and hugged her. She didn’t just give me one of those little courtesy hugs—the type where both parties lean in and essentially reach around each other and pat each other on the back without actually touching anywhere else. Instead, she gave me a full-body press, just short of jumping up and wrapping her legs around me. Tight hug. Her large breasts pressed against my chest. Her perfume was mesmerizing, the smell of her hair intoxicating. I started to feel dizzy—like I was being sucked into a whirlpool. Another second, and I’d be a goner.
“Gina,” I said, finishing our embrace and pushing back just in time. I smiled. “It’s been a long time—almost five years. You look even more beautiful than I remembered.”
She leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. Hold on, dude. Don’t topple.
“You always knew how to flatter me,” she said, smiling.
“It was all true,” I said. “Every word.”
She laughed. She seemed sincerely happy to see me.
She turned to my left and said, “I see you’ve met Uncle Frankie.”
Jolted back to reality, I turned and, for the first time, saw Frankie the Boot. He was a little taller than me, maybe six two. He probably weighed two-forty—he was a big guy. His hair was silver, and his face was lined with wrinkles. I guessed he was probably in his mid-sixties, but he might have been a little older. He wore a short-sleeved print shirt, untucked, over wool slacks. There was no sign of the .44, but it would have been easy enough to conceal under the shirt.
“I have,” I said. “We met across the street.”
“Uncle Frankie,” she asked, looking at him, “were you nice to Mr. Logan?”
He looked at her, then at me, then back at her.
Before he could answer, I said, “He was a perfect gentleman.”
He smiled—not at me—but at her. “See?” he said.
“I’ll just bet,” she said. “Oh well,” she said to me, “at least he didn’t shoot you.”
“There is that,” I agreed.
She smiled and said, “It’s really good to see you again. Let’s sit down and catch up.” She waved for a waitress. “Are you still drinking Diet Cokes?”
I said yes, so she ordered one for me, another glass of tea for herself. Frankie took a seat at the next table—where the lone man was seated. Naturally, I thought. A bodyguard team for Gina.
We sat down. I spoke first. “It’s really good to see you.”
“You too,” she said. “It’s been a long time.”
“Been very long,” I agreed. “I’ve thought about you often.”
“Me, too,” she said. Then she added, “Especially in the last couple of weeks, huh?”
I chuckled. “True. Do you want to tell me what’s going on? Why’d you suddenly up and disappear?”
“I’ll tell you everything,” she said. “In due time.” She saw that I wasn’t happy with this answer, and she said, “Okay, in just a few minutes, actually. But I’d like to just talk to you like old friends for a bit, if that would be alright. I’d like to catch up.” She paused, and then added, “We were close once, if you still remember.”
I nodded, and then I smiled. “I do remember.”
“Good. What’s it been, Danny, five years or so?”
“Five years this December,” I said.
“A lot’s changed in five years,” she said.
“That’s true,” I agreed. “You’d just graduated and started working for your dad.”
“Where I still am today.”
“Chief financial officer and senior vice president,” I said.
“That’s right,” she said. “But it wasn’t nepotism, you know—I earned the title.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“And you,” she said, “you’re out of the army now. You have your own detective agency. You always said that’s what you wanted to do, and now that’s what you’re doing.”
“Just living the dream,” I said.
“Is it what you expected?” she asked.
“It’s bigger,” I said. “Bigger as in broader, more comprehensive. Better in some areas than I’d expected, worse in others. Probably just more real world.”
“And you have employees. I hear you have a good-looking girl working for you.”
“Sounds like Toni impressed Robbie,” I said.
“Apparently,” Gina agreed.
“She’s a looker,” I said. “She’s been known to impress the guys.”
“Are you with her? Are you with anyone?”
“I’m not,” I said. “I’m single. You?”
“Single, independent, unattached,” she answered.
“Independent,” I laughed. “From what I remember, I think you’d probably be independent, whether or not you were attached.”
She laughed. “Maybe,” she admitted. Then she smiled and said, “Maybe I was just never attached to the right person.”
“Take a hell of a guy to make you want to give that up,” I said.
“True,” she agreed. �
�I don’t mind being in charge.”
I laughed. “Spoken like a master of understatement.”
She laughed again. “You were always witty,” she said.
“It’s not being witty. It’s being truthful. No offense, but you were always a bit of a control freak.”
She shrugged, neither agreeing with nor denying the statement. I think we both knew it was spot-on.
“Anyway,” she said, apparently changing subjects, “I’ve wondered how things worked out for you after our time together.”
“Me, too,” I said.
She smiled. “I thought about how you were probably the most hardworking, dedicated guy I’d ever seen. You were a genuine war hero, for starters. You had a plan, a goal, and you were going after it. I never doubted you’d have your own agency, just like you planned.” She laughed. “I really never thought my own parents would hire you to track me down. But I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when you zeroed in on me so fast.”
“I like to think we’re pretty good at what we do.”
“It would appear as though you are,” she said.
She studied my face intently. “The years have been kind to you, Danny. You look more handsome than ever. I always knew you were a sleeper.”
Angel Dance (Danny Logan Mystery #1) Page 26