Brenda shot a look of disgust at the cop. “You will forever be a revolting 13-year-old boy, Lenny. For goodness sake, grow up. I was talking about my second in command.” She turned back to the twins. “His name is Ernie Sommers. He’s an absolute wunderkind and he knows more about my restaurant empire than I do. He’s been on-site for all of the build-outs, he cooks almost as good as I do, and he’s gorgeous and gay.”
“I don’t know that gorgeous and gay is going to help you, guys,” Skyler said, “but Ernie is marvelous. You’ll love him.”
“He arrives on Thursday,” Brenda said. “I convinced him to give up his New Year’s skiing trip to Park City, so he’s not happy with me, but that won’t affect his performance here.”
The twins exchanged nods. “Cool,” they said in unison.
“So cute,” Georgia said with a sweet smile. “I’m going to miss you boys. Please don’t be mad at me for abandoning you. I’ll be back. I promise.”
Sullivan shrugged his shoulders. “We’re not mad at you, honey. You’ve been stalked and bombed and kidnapped and nearly shot. Like we said earlier, if it wasn’t for all of this…” he gestured with his arms “…we’d be on the first flight out of New Mexico, too.”
“Don’t forget ransacked. She was ransacked, too,” Skyler said.
“Ransacked, stalked, bombed, kidnapped, and nearly shot,” Sullivan said again.
Georgia leaned in and whispered into Carter’s ear. “And screwed.”
Completely caught off guard, Carter choked and pulled away from the group.
“What did she say?” Sullivan asked. He turned to the opera singer. “What did you say?”
Georgia just shook her head and walked off to admire the front desk.
Sullivan looked to Skyler. “What did she say?”
“Why are you asking me? I don’t know.”
“Whatever it was, she probably doesn’t even know which of you she said it to,” Brenda said with a hearty laugh. “Listen, let me get to work so that we can get to the airport. We have a very expensive bird waiting for us.” Brenda started toward the restaurant, a notebook in hand.
“Bird?” Sullivan asked Skyler.
“An Embraer Phenom 300E. It’s a Brazilian beauty.”
“I didn’t understand anything you just said.”
“Seriously? Come on. It’s an airplane,” Skyler said. “This one seats six passengers and has a ceiling of 45,000 feet. I’m just sad that we’re only going a short distance to Las Vegas. We’ll be up and down before we know it.”
“Ahh,” Sullivan said. “I don’t usually notice what kind of airplane I’m flying in. I just get onboard and plug in my earbuds and try to zone out.”
“Not me,” Skyler said. “I drink in every aspect of the plane I’m flying in. I love every second of it. Delta once let me sit in the co-pilot’s seat at cruising altitude—of course that was way, way before 9-11. Next, I want to be up there for a take-off. That’s my favorite part.”
“Why don’t you have your pilot’s license? Given your affinity for airplanes, I’d think you’d want to fly a plane yourself.”
“It’s a huge investment of time and hell of a lot of money,” Skyler said. “I’ve certainly thought about it. I did take a few lessons in college in a small Cessna. But I never really wanted a career in aviation, so I tabled the idea. Brenda and I have had friends who have owned their own planes. It’s a very expensive hobby. These days, I’m just happy riding along.”
“Anything is better than commercial.”
“You can say that again.” Skyler looked up at the wood beams above her head. “This room is gorgeous. You guys are going to have a hit on your hands. I see a Condé Nast Traveler award in your near future.”
“From your mouth to the magazine gods’ ears,” Sullivan said. “Come with me. I want to show you the gym. The equipment was delivered yesterday. All brand new, state-of-the-art stuff.”
Leonard and Carter were walking from room to room on the third floor, inspecting bathroom audio speaker installations. Brenda was making notes in the restaurant’s kitchen. Sullivan and Skyler were walking side-by-side on treadmills equipped with satellite-television screens. And Georgia was sitting on the reception desk, tapping away on her smartphone, alone in the lobby. She was quite oblivious to the man standing five feet away from her.
He cleared his throat.
Startled, she looked up.
“Massimo,” she said calmly. “I’m going to scream.”
“You will not, mio caro,” he said. He was dressed in jeans and a pullover sweatshirt and had on a black baseball cap with the logo of the opera house in Milan embroidered on the front. She’d given it to him years earlier. He pulled his hands out of the kangaroo pocket of his sweatshirt and aimed the small handgun at her. “I have a gun.”
“I see that.”
“Why did you leave the car?”
“In Arizona? Massimo, seriously? Why on Earth would I just sit there and wait for my crazy captor to return from wherever it is that you went? Honestly.”
“I was not your captor,” he said, clearly hurt. “I am your best friend. I was rescuing you.”
“You’re my best what? My friend!? Are you mad? You hit me hard over the head. I had to be hospitalized. Friends don’t do such things. And who exactly were you rescuing me from?”
“That deranged girl. Emma.”
“Emma. Are you serious right now, Massimo?!” She said his name rather loudly in hopes that someone else in the hotel would hear her. Where were they?
“Keep your voice down, Georgia.”
“We’ve come to find out that Emma Wade helped you get me out of that boutique. How were you saving me from her?”
“Never you mind that. We’re leaving this place.” He gestured with the gun. “Get down from there and let’s go.”
“I will not be going anywhere with you ever again,” she said defiantly. “I used to trust you. Heaven knows why. You screwed me, Massimo. You stole from me. You lied to me. You used me. And you made that poor girl do all those horrible things to me. How did you convince her to do such horrific things…”
“I made you!” he exploded. He realized he was being too loud and tried to control himself. “I made you who you are today, Georgia. Without me, you’d be doing summer stock at some little community theater in New Hampshire.”
That made her laugh. “You don’t even know where New Hampshire is.”
“I know all the United States,” he said. “I took American history in school.”
“Good for you,” she said. She realized that she still had her phone in her hand and she tried to navigate to the messaging app without directly looking at the screen. “If I went with you, where would we go? Back to Arizona? To New Hampshire? And no matter where we went, how do you think it would end? You’ve gone entirely too far for us to even go back to normal.”
“There is no normal anymore.” He suddenly looked exhausted. “I realize that much.”
“They’ll be looking for us.”
“They won’t find us.”
She thought she’d pulled up the app. She glanced quickly at the screen and saw that it was Skyler that she’d last texted. She moved her thumb to the ‘H’ key. “I’m not leaving with you right now, darling.” She was calmer than she thought she should be. “You should go on without me, Massimo.”
“We don’t have much time to quarrel over this, Georgia. Let’s go. Get down from there.”
She managed to type an ‘E.’
“I mean it. I have a gun.”
“I see the gun, Massimo,” she said as she typed an ‘L.’ “Where did you get that? You’ve never used a gun in your life. Did you bring it from Italy? Is that an Italian gun? Are there such things as Italian guns?”
“What are you talking about?” he spit. “Why do you care where the gun came from?” It’s then that he noticed the phone in her hand. He lurched forward just as Georgia hit the ‘send’ key.
He swatted the phone out of
her hand and it flew across the room and bounced off the tile floor and shattered. Georgia let out a little scream as she propelled herself backward, falling off the reception desk. She landed with a thud on the dusty floor. Stunned but newly energized, she scrambled into a seated position and looked desperately for a weapon of some sort.
Massimo ran to the end of the desk and rounded the corner. The gun leading the way, he darted toward the singer just as she sprang to her feet and launched a bucket of construction debris toward him. Dust, wood chips, a few broken lightbulbs, and a hand full of large screws filled the air, momentarily disorienting the Italian.
Georgia ran for her life. She had no idea where she was going.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The cell phone in Skyler’s back pocket vibrated. She kept walking on the treadmill as she pulled it out and glanced at the screen.
“It’s from Georgia,” she said. “It says ‘Hel’. What does that mean?”
Sullivan snatched the phone from Skyler’s hand. “Help? Could it be the beginning of ‘help’?”
“Oh my God,” Skyler said.
They both stopped their machines and took off running toward the grand staircase that led up to the lobby. Skyler managed to speed dial Leonard along the way.
“What is it? Where are you?” Leonard asked when he picked up.
“Get to the lobby, NOW!” she screamed into the phone and then put it back in her pocket without hanging up.
Leonard darted into the bathroom of the guest room. “We need to go back downstairs right now.” He took off running without waiting for a response.
“What’s happening?” Carter was right on the cop’s heels.
Leonard unholstered his handgun as he ran toward the service stairs. “Is this the way?” he yelled over his shoulder.
“Yeah,” Carter said. “Two flights down to the lobby. The doors aren’t marked yet. It’s dark. Be careful.”
Georgia had her head turned as she ran full speed ahead, and she connected hard with Brenda, sending them both tumbling to the floor. Brenda let out a scream as her notebook went flying through the air.
“My God, Georgia,” the chef managed. “What’s going on?”
Georgia scrambled to her feet and extended a hand to help Brenda up. “Massimo is here. Let’s move.”
“We can handle him,” Brenda said confidently as she brushed off her pants and started in the direction of the lobby.
Georgia reached out and grabbed a fist full of Brenda’s sweater. “Stop. He has a gun.”
Skyler and Sullivan scanned the lobby. Nothing. They listened. All was quiet. Then they heard pounding on the stairs behind them and turned just as Leonard and Carter came into view.
“What is it?” Leonard asked his girlfriend.
“We don’t know,” Skyler said, “but I have a feeling it isn’t good.”
“Where is Georgia?” Carter asked.
“We don’t know anything,” Sullivan said. “Georgia! Georgia!”
Carter knelt down to pick up the shattered smartphone. “This must be hers.”
“Emma is in custody,” Leonard said, “so this must be Massimo.”
“You think he’s here?”
“Let’s find out. And let’s stay together.” Leonard led the way toward the restaurant. “Where is Brenda?”
“I believe she’s back here somewhere,” Skyler said as she checked her phone. “She’s not responding to my texts.”
“Call her,” Leonard demanded.
Brenda and Georgia retreated deeper into the kitchen. It was a maze of hallways and spaces with separate areas for cooking, food prep, dry storage, dishwashing, an office, a wine cellar, and a walk-in deep freeze. In the very back there was a double service door leading to the loading dock. It was chained and secured with a large padlock.
“Why?” Georgia asked.
“The door installers forgot to put in the locking mechanism, so we had no way of securing the building until they can come back. Hence the chains.” Brenda put a hand on her forehead and tried to remember if there was another way out.
“This seems like a safety violation,” Georgia whispered.
“Indeed,” the chef said. “But the place isn’t open yet and the next city inspection isn’t until...” She cut herself off. “Why are we talking about this? Who cares? Let’s move. There’s a door in the back of the wine cellar that leads to the dining room. I think.”
“Great.”
They held hands and started looking for the wine cellar.
“Do you have a phone?” Brenda whispered.
“Massimo made me drop it.”
“Damn it,” she said. “I don’t know where mine is. I must have set it down somewhere while I was working.”
Leonard could hear Brenda’s cell phone ringing and he hurried toward the sound with Carter and Sullivan close behind.
Skyler was in the rear, looking at her screen. She tripped over a rolled electrical conduit and fell face-first into a door jam. A trickle of blood started to flow down her right cheek and she could taste it as it made its way into the corner of her mouth. “Oh my gosh,” she said out loud. Her head ached. She looked up and didn’t see the boys anywhere.
Massimo was crouching behind a stack of boxes when he saw Leonard and the twins enter the dry storage room. The door opened out into the hallway. He sprang forward, slammed the door shut, and locked it. He heard someone moving to his left, so he moved quickly down the hall toward the wine cellar.
“What the fuck?” Sullivan yelled.
“Find a light switch,” Leonard demanded as he fished his phone out of his pocket. He fumbled with it for a moment then managed to turn the flashlight on. He pointed it toward Carter.
“There are no lightbulbs in the overhead fixtures yet,” Carter said with a shrug.
“Of course not.”
“Skyler was right behind us. What is her number?” Sullivan asked as he produced his own phone. “Damn it. Never mind.”
“What is it?” Leonard asked.
“There’s no service in here. The walls are stone. And they’re like 18 inches thick.”
“Well then, we’re going to have to blast our way out,” Leonard said.
The twins looked at each other. “Did he really just say that?” they asked together.
“I did. Stand back.”
In the dimly lit, empty wine cellar, Brenda was about to open the door to the dining room when she heard someone approaching from behind. Georgia and she turned to find Massimo had entered the room and closed the door behind him. He was aiming the small gun at them.
“Don’t open that door and don’t make a sound,” the Italian said. “This is over.”
“Massimo, darling,” Georgia said as sweetly as she could muster, “We can figure out some kind of compromise here. Let’s you and me try to negotiate some sort of settlement. Okay? Put down the gun and let’s go somewhere and talk. Just the two of us. Brenda has nothing to do with this. Let’s let her go on her way.”
“I’m not leaving you,” Brenda said. She started to reach for the doorknob and Massimo fired off a shot. The bullet pierced the door a few inches above Brenda’s head. Both women screamed and Massimo seemed just as startled as they were; he hadn’t meant to discharge the weapon.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Then he recovered. “But be quiet and do not move or I won’t miss next time.”
“Were you trying to kill one of us?” Georgia asked in a loud throaty stage whisper. “What good will that do any of us? If you hurt me, there’s no money anymore. Seriously, Massimo, this must stop right this instant.”
“This won’t end well,” Massimo said. “For any of us. There is no escape. For any of us, sadly.”
“I am not going to die in this wine cellar in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Massimo,” Brenda said defiantly. “I had my fortune read several years ago, on a whim, really. Anyway, the oracle told me that I am going to die an old lady and that I will die in my sleep in my own bed. So, unless we’re goin
g to be staying in here for a very, very long time…”
“Shut up, lady!” Massimo screamed. “Georgia, come to me. Walk toward me.”
Georgia didn’t move.
“We’re all going to die in this room,” Massimo said with a sigh. “Your stupid fortune teller was wrong. It happens sometimes.”
Leonard wasn’t answering his phone. Brenda’s phone was going directly to voicemail. And Skyler had no idea where the boys went. She wiped a glob of blood off her cheek and rubbed her hand on her pants. That’s when she heard a gunshot followed by screams. Then, quickly, another muffled gunshot. She heard what sounded like one of the twins cry out. She had no idea what direction it all came from. These rooms were like caverns and everything echoed.
Skyler picked up a two-by-four and walked carefully into the dining room. She heard a commotion behind a door to her left. As she approached it, she saw the bullet hole. She stopped and tried to hear over the thumping of her own heart in her chest. Then she heard a gun cock.
Instinctively, Skyler opened the door and held the piece of wood high above her head.
Brenda, who had been leaning against the door on the other side, flopped backward onto the dining room floor.
Massimo fired his gun. Georgia screamed again and hit the floor hard. Skyler threw the two-by-four with all of her might at the Italian and it made direct contact with his head just as he squeezed off another shot.
Massimo dropped the weapon and fell backwards out into the kitchen. Georgia scrambled forward and retrieved the gun at Massimo’s feet just as Leonard knelt down and held his own gun to the man’s temple.
“Don’t even think about moving, buddy boy,” Leonard said.
Massimo closed his eyes and exhaled deeply. “Scopami,” he whispered.
“Fuck you, is right,” Georgia said when she was on her feet. “Fuck. You. Massimo.”
After Skyler helped Brenda to her feet she turned back to her boyfriend who was busy tying Massimo’s hands behind his back. “Should I call the police?”
The New Mexico Scoundrel Page 28