She shook her head, but not before he’d seen the answer in her eyes. His gaze pummeled her. “All right, yes. But you don’t know the combination for my safe, and I won’t give it to you.”
“I’ll get into it whether you give me the combination or not.”
“But that will take time. Isn’t time of the essence here?”
“She’s got you there, Manelli,” Harry interrupted. “Take her along, we’re wasting time arguing. I’ll get a team in place. You’ll have backup. One hour.”
Nick glared from Toni to Harry. “I don’t like it—she’ll be a moving target.”
“We’ll take precautions,” Harry told him. “Beginning right now. Get out of the car.” Nick hesitated. “Come on, Manelli, I don’t have all night. You’ve been driving that one through this entire operation. Taranto knows it. We’ll switch. I’ll get that thing out of sight for a while. You have any vests on?”
“Not yet,” Nick said.
“There’s a pair in the back seat. Get into them.” He got out of the car as he spoke and yanked Nick’s door open. “Come on, let’s not sit here all night.” She could see that Nick didn’t want to comply, but the moment he opened his mouth to argue the other man held up a hand. “Consider it an order.”
Lou Taranto leaned back in his overstuffed chair. He took the cigarette from his lips and held it in front of him, studying the smoke that spiraled up from the glowing tip. He released what he’d inhaled, and his face became a blur in the center of the stark room. Viper stood at his right hand, his button eyes gleaming. He alternately clenched and opened his red-knuckled hand.
“Bring him around,” Taranto ordered.
Viper shook his head. “He’s had it, Lou.” Viper thumbed a swollen, purple eyelid open and let it fall. The only things holding Joey upright were the ropes that bound him to the straight wooden chair. “He’s told you all he’s gonna.”
“He’s told me nothing. But he will, damn lousy cop. Bring him around!”
“I told you, he’s had it. Damn near comatose. Be dead in a few hours.”
“Stubborn little son of a bitch,” Lou muttered.
Viper rolled his eyes. “You don’t need Salducci to tell you what you already know. Nick’s a cop, too. It’s obvious. They came in right around the same time. They were both in on the shipment that was taken.”
“Nicky took a bullet that night!”
“And Joey patched him up. You know he’s a Fed. You think he’d have patched up my leg? Yours? No way, he’d have smiled while we bled to death. What do you need? A signed confession? Manelli’s a cop. I say we off him.”
Lou came to his feet as fast as his ample weight would allow and gripped Viper by the lapels. “We have to be sure, you little twit, because of the girl! If Nicky’s a cop, then you can bet she isn’t dead. She’s still out there and she’s got more on us than any cop does. We have to find out for sure.”
“She saw my face,” Viper ground out, jerking himself from Lou’s hands. “And so did he. I’m on the line here, and I’ll deal with it my way.”
“Don’t cross me, Viper, or I—”
“Don’t you worry, Lou. I’ll handle it. You’ll thank me before this is over.” Viper spun and left the room. Lou opened the door and bellowed after him, but he kept on walking. A moment later his car left the lot outside the Century.
A bulky man with a crew cut loomed over Lou a moment later. “Word is they have warrants to search the place. What do we do?”
Lou looked at the limp, bruised man in the chair. “Cop or not, Nicky didn’t know who that broad was until I told him, I’d bet my life on that.”
The overgrown hulk in front of him puckered his brows. “Huh?”
Lou turned, paced away from him, muttering to himself. “If he’s a cop, he’ll go to her apartment to see what she had on me. If he’s loyal, he’ll go because I told him to.” He stopped in front of Joey and lifted the lax head by a tuft of hair. “What do you suppose he’ll think when he finds you there waitin’ for him?”
“I don’t get it, boss.”
Lou whirled. He yanked a small notepad from his shirt pocket and scribbled three letters onto the first sheet, then tore it off. “Here, pin this to his chest. Then take him to the Rio broad’s apartment and dump him there.”
“But how can I get him in there without somebody seein’ him?”
“How the hell do I know? Roll him in a rug for all I care, just do it! We’ll soon find out just how loyal Nick Manelli is to the family.”
Harry Anderson shook his head slowly and tried to see it again in his mind. The way that bit of a woman stuck her chin in Nick’s face and told him what was what—the way he let her! He’d finally met his match, the big jerk. It was about time.
He drove Nick’s car toward the gloomy mansion they’d set him up in. He’d retrieve the videotapes just in case the del Rio girl couldn’t produce what she said she could. They’d be better than nothing. At the very least they could be used to identify Viper. Then he’d head back to headquarters and get a team together to back Nick up when he went to the woman’s apartment. Taranto would be watching, if Harry’s opinion was worth anything.
He was within sight of those ridiculous iron gates, rounding a bend in the curving road, when he heard the glass shatter and felt the searing pain at his left temple. He clenched the wheel reflexively, jerking it to the right. He felt the front tires leave the pavement and realized he was airborne and heading down the steep drop alongside the road. He prayed the bullet that had hit him would kill him before he hit bottom.
Chapter 10
Nick circled the block twice, then turned to enter the parking garage. He drove slowly beneath the fluorescent tube lights on the low ceiling. His gaze scanned every vehicle, peered around every support column. The place seemed as still as a graveyard. The hair on the back of his neck bristled in anticipation. He could feel that he was being watched. His fear made him more careful than he’d ever been. Not fear for himself, but for the woman in the seat beside him, crouched low as he’d instructed. He knew he’d lose her. The cycle had repeated itself again today, just in case he’d forgotten the way things worked. Taranto had Joey. Nick had a grim knowledge in his gut that he wouldn’t see his best friend again. He shouldn’t have let himself care so much.
Now, like an idiot, he’d let himself care again, about Toni. He had to lose her. That was the way it always happened. He’d be damned, though, if he’d lose her to Lou Taranto the way he’d lost Danny and Joey. Let her walk out on her own the way his parents had.
He nearly drove past the stairwell, he was so absorbed in his thoughts. He pulled up close to the heavy door, shut the car off, pocketed the keys. It’ll be all right, he told himself. Harry must have a half-dozen men in the building, a dozen more outside, if he was true to form. Nothing could happen to her. He wouldn’t let it.
He opened the door and stood for a moment, every sense attuned. He saw no one, heard nothing but the normal traffic noises and a car squealing on the level below. The place smelled of exhaust and hot pavement. He glanced down at Toni, nodding once. She wriggled out his door, staying bent low, just the way he’d instructed. With his body blocking her from view on one side, the car on the other, she hurried to the open door of the stairwell. Her running shoes made no sound. She moved through the doorway, pressed her back against the inside wall and waited. Nick closed the car door and moved in beside her. He pulled the heavy stairwell door closed. The place echoed like an empty church. If anyone opened the door, he’d hear them. Then again, anyone already here would hear him, too. Any sound would echo through the cool, hollow stairway. He pressed a finger to his lips to remind Toni of that.
He pulled the Taurus from the holster under his left arm, held it with its nose pointed up and began to move up the stairs. He kept Toni close behind him. His caution doubled when he reached a landing. He pushed her flat to the wall behind her and peered around to the next flight, taking his time to be sure it was safe before urging her to come along. It
seemed to take forever to reach the fourth floor. In reality, it took less than ten minutes.
Nick glanced through the small square of glass, crisscrossed with wire between the panes, before he opened the door and stepped into the tiled corridor. Toni came out behind him. Her tug on his jacket brought his gaze around fast. She frowned at the gun in his hand and shook her head. Okay, she was probably right. He’d draw some attention sneaking through the corridors of an apartment building with an automatic in his hand. He slipped it back inside his jacket. She pointed a finger, presumably in the direction of her apartment, and Nick started moving again.
Trying to walk causally through the hall was the toughest thing he’d done in a long time. Moving steadily beneath the lighted ceiling panels, between the doors that lined both sides—doors that might swing open at any second to reveal a hard-faced man with an Uzi.
He swallowed. It wouldn’t happen that way. Taranto still trusted him. Joey wouldn’t talk, no matter what they did. Besides, Harry was here, somewhere, with an armed entourage.
They came to a T and Toni jabbed her thumb to the left. Nick moved no more than three doors down when her hand on his shoulder stopped him. Nick looked at her. Their gazes locked for a moment, and that unspoken thing passed between them—that connection he couldn’t acknowledge and didn’t recognize.
He pulled his gaze away and looked at the door she indicated. Nick’s spine stiffened. He took the gun out again and put his hand out for the key. Toni was quicker, already leaning to slip it into the lock. When she touched the door, it fell open without a sound, and she jerked away from it, eyes wide. It hadn’t been locked. It hadn’t even been closed properly. Someone had been here. Maybe they still were. He pushed her to the wall and mouthed the words, “wait here.” He let his gun lead him into the apartment.
His stomach clenched when he saw Joey in the middle of the floor. He wasn’t sure he’d have recognized him except for the familiar clothes he wore. A slip of paper on his jacket had the word Cop penciled on it. His face varied in shades of crimson, blue and purple. His eyes looked like two fat grapes, swollen closed. From the looks of it, he’d never open them again. There was no doubt in Nick’s mind that Joey was dead. His training helped him push the paralyzing grief aside, allowing only the cold certainty that Lou Taranto would pay dearly, to remain. He let the experience of years on the job take over and quickly checked each room of the apartment. When he was certain no one else was there, he went back to tell Toni it was safe to come inside.
She already had. She knelt on the floor beside Joey, tucking a blanket around him. He recognized the throw that had been on the couch and then the matching pillows she’d placed under his feet. Nick approached slowly, afraid to believe…
“We have to get him to a hospital, Nick.” Toni’s brows pushed against each other until they crinkled. Her voice was grim with fear.
Nick looked to see that she’d already closed the door, then knelt opposite her, over Joey. He couldn’t credit what he saw when Joey shook his head slightly left and right. “No.”
Nick felt a twisting sensation in his gut and a sudden rush of guilt to his mind. This has been his obsession. It should have been him lying on the floor, his face encrusted with dried blood, barely able to form a single word. It should have been him, not Joey.
The battered lips moved again. “Nick?”
Nick gripped his friend’s shoulders to let him know he was there. Joey couldn’t open his eyes to see for himself. “I’m right here, pal.”
“Lou…watch—watching,” Joey managed. His slurred speech had Nick more worried about brain damage than about Lou.
“To see if I help you,” Nick finished for him. A white rage unfurled inside him.
“We should call an ambulance.”
The tightness in her voice brought Nick’s gaze back to Toni, and he saw tears brimming in her eyes. She leaned closer to Joey, keeping her voice soothingly low and soft. “We’re going to take care of you,” she was telling him. “You’ll be okay.”
It reminded Nick of the way she’d spoken to him the night before, when the fire in his thigh had burned bright. Funny, he’d barely felt the pain since arriving in this building. Adrenaline was a great anesthetic. “If Lou’s watching, Toni, he doesn’t intend to let Joey out of here alive. There’s no way he’ll let an ambulance crew in the building.” Nick felt the frustration gnawing at him. He had to think! Joey needed serious help and he needed it fast.
“Didn’t…tell…him,” Joey stammered, “anything.”
“I never thought otherwise. And I know what you’re getting at. My cover’s intact. You’re thinking I should leave you here and keep it that way. I’m not going to do that, so shut up and let me think.”
Nick felt Joey’s hand close around his with surprising force. “He’ll…kill you…both.”
“Not if I can help it, he won’t. And if we can get out of here in one piece, he’s going down. Turns out Toni had the goods on him all along.” He glanced up at Toni. “Get the file.”
She got up and hurried into the room that was her office. He heard her moving around in there at the same time he heard the door opening. He yanked his gun out. The apartment door swung open, and Nick saw the barrel of a .44 Magnum staring him in the face. There was a small blond woman attached to it. She seemed vaguely familiar.
“What the hell—”
“Put that gun down and tell me what you’ve done with my daughter!”
Nick realized who she was. Somehow he wasn’t surprised. He lowered his gun slowly and laid it on the carpet. “Come in and close the door.”
She did warily. Toni chose that moment to emerge from the office with the thick folder in her hands. The two women spied each other at the same moment, and a second later both the .44 and file folder were on the floor as they embraced.
“You’ve had me worried to death, Antonia. Are you all right?”
“Fine.” They pulled apart, and Toni seemed to drink in her mother’s face. “I’m so glad you’re okay. When you didn’t get on that flight, I—”
“You didn’t expect me to just fly off and leave you, did you?”
Toni shook her head. “Not really. Where on earth did you get that cannon?”
Kate del Rio glanced down at the gun on the floor, then at the man beyond it. “My God, what happened?”
“He’s a federal agent, Mom. Taranto found out.”
“How did you get into the building?” Nick inserted when there was finally a long enough break.
“Through the front entrance. Why?”
Nick blew a sigh and shook his head. “This is a real high-security place you picked, Toni. What the hell do you do with all that money your books earn you?”
“I—”
“She hoards it away like a pack rat,” her mother inserted with a mock scowl. “Saving it for some rambling Victorian house and a sheepdog.” She glanced at Nick and offered him a tremulous smile. “If you’re who I think you are, I have to thank you for keeping her alive to spend it.”
There was affection in her warm blue eyes. “Nick Manelli,” he told her.
“Kate del Rio. Sorry about the gun before.” Nick shrugged. Kate looked again at Joey on the floor. “Why isn’t this man on his way to a hospital?”
“Taranto is watching. If I try to take him out of here, there’s a chance I’ll get him killed.”
She frowned and shook her head. “What are you going to do?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet.”
“I have,” Toni said.
Nick looked at her fast. He hadn’t liked the slight waver in her voice, and he saw now the unnatural paleness in her cheeks. She was scared. “Tell me. I can see you don’t think I’m going to like it.”
“Doesn’t matter if you like it. Joey needs help, Nick, or he won’t make it. I’ll wrap myself in a blanket. You can carry me down to the car, and we’ll leave. Taranto will think I’m Joey and come after us. You just said he wouldn’t let Joey make it to a hosp
ital alive. He’ll come after us. When he does, it will be safe for Mom to get Joey to an emergency room.”
Nick rose from Joey’s side, took Toni’s shoulders in his hands and gazed into her bottomless eyes. “Listen close, little Gypsy, ‘cause I’m only saying this once. No. It isn’t going to happen.”
She stood straighter. “Then I assume you have a better idea?” Her tiny chin jutted, and her eyes flashed with determination that overrode her fear. “We’ll be all right, Nick. You know Harry and all his men are out there. They’ll be right behind Taranto when he comes after us. We’ll be fine.”
His hands tightened. “You’re offering to act as a decoy, Toni. A target. What am I supposed to do if Taranto manages to catch us? Stand there and watch him give the order to put a bullet in your head?”
“Are our chances any better by staying here? They aren’t and you know it. The longer we argue about this, the closer Joey gets to having no chance at all.”
Joey moaned low as if to punctuate her words. His body shuddered once, then went still. Kate tensed beside him, pressing the pads of her fingers to his throat. She sighed and took them away. “Antonia is right. He can’t stay here, Nicholas. Every minute is pushing him closer to death.”
“We’ll leave the file here,” Toni said quickly. “She’ll keep it safe and give it to Harry when he gets to the hospital.”
Nick shook his head. “You give it to Harry. I’ll try and lead Taranto away myself.”
“If you do, Nick, I’ll get in Mom’s car and come after you.”
He closed his eyes slowly, opened them again. He felt like a projectile had lodged in his chest. She was offering him a way to save Joey. Joey, his best friend since he’d been no more than a smart-mouth kid. Joey—whom he loved. But her offer put her at risk. Toni, the woman who’d handed him the ammunition to put Taranto away. Toni—whom he…what?
He damn well didn’t love her. It would be stupid to love a woman he knew he’d lose in the end. Stupid!
“You wanna tell me why you’re being so stubborn about this?”
Reckless Angel Page 15