With the concourse behind them, Aiden cursed silently at the thought of having to go back through security. They’d be damned lucky to make the flight at all, and taking a later one would only increase the danger of his being stopped. After the chief had his meeting—for which Aiden would not show—it was very likely that even if the current crop of suits weren’t hanging around here for him, there would be a fresh batch who would have Aiden Flynn on their minds.
“I know you don’t want me to mention this,” Olivia said, and he didn’t miss her longing glance at a Starbucks coffee stand, or the way her eyes lingered on scones, and Danish, and muffins. “I’ve done this to you and I can’t forgive myself. If I’d remained in Hampstead I could have gone to Mark and he’d have helped me.”
She surely could, and later he’d find out why she hadn’t “You’re hungry. Hang in there and I’ll feed you.”
“You don’t have to worry about me at all. Vanni just took a right turn. There—“ She pointed, and he slapped her arm down. “Sorry, didn’t think. He pointed and turned right.”
He wouldn’t burst her bubble by saying he already knew. “Lead the way.”
She took his hand as naturally as if they’d been friends since childhood and led him into a corridor that opened to the right. She could really move. “There he is. Now where’s he going? Oh, Aiden, we’re definitely going to miss that plane.”
Aiden thought so, too, but said nothing. Vanni had scooted out of sight into what looked, from a distance, to be an airline club room entrance. When Olivia pulled Aiden to a stop outside the door, it said, “Maintenance.”
“Stand still,” Aiden told her. “I want to make sure no one’s interested in what we’re doing.” He pushed back the old letterman jacket to give him easy access to his gun and braced a hand on the wall. He played with Olivia’s hair for several seconds before looking over his shoulder. People surged by the end of the corridor in an endless, yammering tide. No one seemed to as much as look his way, and the corridor itself was empty.
Aiden pushed Olivia behind him. He took the gun from his waistband, held it in his right hand, turned the door handle, and shoved the door inward with his left.
Vanni stood amid buckets and mops and shelves piled with plastic trash bags and cleaning supplies. “Get in here and shut the door,” he said. “Lock it.”
Last in, Olivia followed Vanni’s instructions and locked the door.
“I almost blew it,” Vanni said. His complexion seemed white under his olive skin. “Honestly, I opened my big, stupid mouth to one of the suits back there and just about ruined this for all of us. I asked who they were looking for. Can you believe that? I might as well have said he was obviously a badge and admitted I had a reason to be nervous about his business out here. Lucky for me, the dumb shit blew another gum bubble and told me to move along. I was so darn lucky, Aiden. He wasn’t smart enough to smell something rotten.”
“Cool it,” Aiden said. “The last thing we can afford is panic.” He didn’t add that he’d never seen Vanni panic before and he couldn’t imagine why he’d start now.
“This has got me rattled,” Vanni said, as if he heard what Aiden thought. “I keep thinking I ought to be able to go to the chief and tell him the truth. But you’re right. He wants to take you down. I called in really early and told Margy I was tied up but I’d be there. The chief was already in. You know he doesn’t do early mornings. He came on the phone, and the first words out of his mouth were about you. He wanted to know where you were and if I could get you to the meeting without letting on you were in trouble.”
“What d’you say?” This was how it had to feel to face an electric chair when you knew you were innocent. Close, anyway.
“I said you were following up leads on the Carreras case. That’s the one where the strawberry’s giving blow jobs while her partner rips off the dealer.”
Aiden hardly dared look at Olivia. She said, “What’s a strawberry?” but showed curiosity, not shock.
“A female who does sex acts for cocaine. Gang types usually.”
“Thank you, Vanni,” Aiden said. “Sometimes I wonder about you.”
“I wonder about you all the time,” Vanni said with a grin.
Olivia said, “Poor thing.”
Aiden gave up. “I know the case. What am I supposed to be following up? Just in case I need to know.”
“I dunno. Make it up as you go along. Aiden, old buddy, you can’t fly out of this airport now. You may not even be able to get out of this airport, period, but we’re going to try.”
“You want to make that clearer?”
Vanni leaned against some shelves, and all three of them were promptly showered with hundreds of plastic bags. They swatted them away from their heads until the avalanche stopped and they stood knee-deep in garbage sacks.
“Clearer, please,” Aiden repeated, kicking at the bags that only settled around his legs again.
“Did you see how much heat there was out there?”
“Sure I saw. They wouldn’t send that much artillery after me.”
Vanni looked miserable. “Look, I don’t want to say this, but I’ve got to. I had a few words with Fats Lemon this morning, too. Ryan’s doing a real number on you. Now we’ve got narcotics possession added to art theft. Apparently you’ve been transporting fortunes in balloons. Heroin. The balloons get rolled inside canvases. Look, this is crazy and crazy-making, but I won’t let it happen to you. They aren’t going to pin it on you. I’ve got to get you out, both of you.”
“She shouldn’t be here,” Aiden said. “She’d be safer in England. You need to do what you’ve suggested, Olivia, and go to your insurance investigator friend. Mark, is it? And to the police.”
“Why?” She braced her feet in the slithering plastic sacks and said, “You’re afraid I’ll slow you down, or get in the way. Well, I won’t. And I think I’d be in greater danger back in England. Those men know where I live. I’ve got some things that belong to them, too. And I already know they don’t care what they do to make sure I’m not a threat to them anymore.”
“Why would you think you’ll be safer here?” Aiden asked. He needed to move fast, and she was already slowing him down.
“Because you’re here, and I trust you just as you said I should.” She raised her chin. “I’d rather die with someone who had at least given me a chance than all on my own waiting to see if someone in England will help me. Also”—and she’d regret saying this—“you’ll think this is silly, but you may need me and I want to be here for you.” She didn’t look at either man’s face.
“She’s here,” Vanni said after too long a pause. “And I doubt we could get her out without her being stopped anyway. So this is the way it’s going to be.” Vanni shook his head vehemently. “Don’t you start arguing with me, Flynn, because I’m putting everything that matters to me on the line for you.”
“Don’t do that—”
“Shut your goddamn ungrateful mouth. You, I care about.” He looked at Olivia. “And now I care about her, God help me. And Pops and Mama would never forgive if I let something happen to the two of you. They’re already hearing wedding bells and thinking about how they’ll pull the wedding off in the Church.”
Aiden and Olivia groaned in unison.
“Yeah, well, you can’t blame ’em after all the years they’ve known you, Aiden, and you’ve never brought a woman home before,” Vanni said. “Enough of that. You’ll be driving across the country. I can get the route mapped on the computer in minutes. I’ll pick out places where you peel away from the beaten track and get some sleep when you absolutely have to. Even with you taking it in turns to drive, you’re going to get exhausted out of your minds.”
“Hold it.” Aiden put his face close to Vanni’s. “All I have to do is get Olivia and me on a plane. If we go to the gate now, we can dash aboard the instant before the doors shut and hope to be safe.”
“What if someone who’s looking for us is already on the plane?” Olivia
asked in a small voice.
“I’m willing to take the risk that they wouldn’t board if we hadn’t showed up.”
“But they may have,” she persisted. “People do the oddest things for money.”
Her way of stating things tended to have a cooling effect. And he already knew his idea wasn’t a great one. “Okay, so we give up on flying, damn it. It’ll take us about three days to get to Seattle from New York, and that’ll be with very little sleep.” He narrowed his eyes at Vanni. “No stopping at all, except for the obvious reasons.”
“I like driving,” Olivia said. “It’ll work. Oh, dear, I wish I had my suitcase.”
“June’Il be happy to donate some stuff,” Vanni said. “And there’s stacks of Sophia’s stuff in her room. I’ll see to that. Aiden, we’ve got to go now.”
Vanni opened the door and stuck his head out. He didn’t seem to notice that a river of slippery bags seeped out into the corridor. Carrying Olivia’s cameras while she continued to clutch the vast bag she referred to as her grip, Aiden held the door open for her and she shuffled out. He followed and barely stopped himself from falling.
Olivia took a step, slipped, and dropped her bag.
Vanni grabbed for her, but she slithered out of his reach, wildly fighting to regain her balance. The plastic bags behaved like ice skates on the sloping stone floors and she spread her arms, wobbling dangerously and zipping forward.
“Stop,” Aiden yelled, and narrowed his eyes at the sound of his voice. He started to run and instantly knew his mistake.
“Oh, shit,” Vanni hissed, inclining his head. “Will you look what heard you?”
Aiden looked. Coming toward them was a large, muscular, plainclothesman. His attention was all on Olivia. He kept his feet clear of danger and snatched her out of harm’s way.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Vanni muttered. “That’s it. We’re done for.”
Aiden executed a snazzy sideways hop and landed on firm ground. He had nothing to lose now. “Thank you, sir,” he called out. “You okay, honey?”
The cop seemed disinclined to release her arm.
“Topping, thank you, darling,” Olivia said, or almost sang. “This lovely man saved me.”
The lovely man exuded too much interest in his “topping” armful. Aiden waited for the guy to take a good look at “Topping’s” companion. When he did, Aiden said, “Thanks. I’m going to report this mess. It’s dangerous.”
“It certainly is, sir,” the cop said, returning his attention to Olivia, who appeared charmingly mussed and soft—just out of bed, in fact. Very sexy. This flight of fancy was costing Aiden his predictable life and the career he cared about.
“All right, then,” the cop said, with the briefest glance at Aiden and Vanni. “Don’t worry about the report. I’ll make it. Look after the lady.”
Gaping, Aiden watched him till he was out of sight. Vanni’s soft chuckle did nothing for the mood. “What are you laughing about?” Aiden said.
“You,” Vanni told him very quietly. “You do have a case on the woman. If you got out more, you wouldn’t get carried away by the first skirt who—”
Aiden gripped Vanni by the neck. “I’ve had it with that. Got it? The next comment like that, and you’re going to be looking for a really good dentist.”
“Oh, don’t,” Olivia cried. “What’s the matter? Did I do something wrong?”
“She needs some therapy,” Vanni said, holding Aiden’s wrists. “It’s not normal to take the blame for anything and everything that goes wrong. Want to get your hands off me?”
“I meant what I just said,” Aiden told him.
Vanni bowed his head and said, “Yeah. Okay. I’ll try not to make that mistake again.”
Aiden let him go. When he saw Olivia’s face, he felt ashamed. “Just kidding around,” he said. “That’s how we keep from getting too serious.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Follow me,” Vanni said. A service elevator tucked into an alcove was his objective. They soon traveled rapidly downward to the basement of the terminal, where orange-suited employees tossed baggage onto moving belts and there was too much activity for three interlopers to be noticed.
“You know your way around here,” Aiden observed to his partner.
“Not really. Let’s hope I can find us a way out.”
He did, and within another fifteen minutes they were in his unmarked police car—a green Pontiac in need of soap and wax—and heading for the Brooklyn Bridge and Manhattan.
Olivia slumped low in the back seat. She didn’t respond to any of Vanni’s or Aiden’s attempts to make her talk.
“Let me go in to your place first, okay?” Vanni said. “Just in case someone gets sent over there after the chief’s meeting. If it’s all clear, you can grab whatever you need. Then we’ll go back to Mama’s to get some stuff together for Olivia.”
Aiden waited, but she didn’t acknowledge that she’d heard Vanni’s comment. Great, now he had a sulking female on his hands.
“Your pink panther is in good shape, isn’t it?” Vanni said.
“Pink pony. It’s in great shape. So’s the Caddy. But I won’t be taking either of them on this jaunt.”
Olivia glanced at the backs of the two men’s heads. One so dark-haired that a weak winter sun shone blue there, the other light with traces of the sun’s bleach job glinting. They were all business. Surely if she put her foot down and said she wanted to go it alone—in this country (she certainly wasn’t going back to England at this point)—they’d have to bow to her wishes.
“You want my car?” Vanni said.
“No, thanks.” Aiden cleared his throat. “Nice offer, buddy, but you need that Four Runner. Nice vehicle for hauling things.”
“In other words, you don’t think much of my wheels.”
“They’re great. I need one. But I’ve got something else in mind. You’ll approve.”
Of course they wouldn’t bow to her wishes. Men were never more than boys grown larger. They smelled a challenge, a game to be won, and they wouldn’t be diverted.
The scenery was all industrial and alarmingly large. They’d driven on a road called the Van Wyck Expressway. Like the motorways at home but blown to enormous scale and with vehicles also on a large scale. Then the Belt Parkway which she remembered from yesterday and this morning. Kennedy Airport sat on the edge of a marshy, sandy, bog-like area. At least there was some blue water dotted with green islands to be seen today.
Unfortunately, the air wasn’t at all fresh. It smelled of low tide, even though it wasn’t, and her nostrils tickled at the scents of oily sludge and exhaust fumes.
“You’re very quiet, Olivia,” Aiden said, turning to look at her over his shoulder. “It’s a pretty day, huh?”
She supposed all things were relative when you lived in a huge city. “In a way. Yes, it is pretty. Like an industrial miracle.”
He beamed and his upper lip arched away from strong white teeth. “Exactly. Not very many newcomers view the area as clearly as you do. It’s fabulous. You’ll be surprised how quickly it gets into your blood.”
The way he smiled mesmerized Olivia. “Yes, you’re probably right.” People talked about blue eyes, but they were usually more gray-blue nondescript than blue. Aiden’s were blue, neon blue.
Her life was in danger. Aiden’s life was probably also in danger—because of her. And for all she knew, Vanni’s life was threatened for the same reason. And she was obsessing on Aiden Flynn’s physical charms.
He continued to smile at her. There was question in his eyes, as if he couldn’t decide if he should say anything else.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I’ve never had an adventure, and I’ve always moaned about it. So now I’m having one, and I intend to enjoy it.”
“She’s bugs,” Vanni said.
Aiden inclined his head and said, “I don’t think you should talk about my friend like that.”
Olivia shrugged and said, “It doesn’
t matter,” although she had no idea what Vanni meant.
They took the Midtown Tunnel and entered the city. Olivia gripped the edge of her seat while Vanni seemed to drive much too fast for the dense traffic and the waves of pedestrians that surged into the street at every intersection.
“I live off 49th,” Aiden said. “Not far. People don’t realize it, but nothing’s too far in Manhattan. Take a look at the stores. Everyone says they’re something. I’ve never had time to notice.”
Olivia tried to notice. A shop with a huge bear outside revealed floor upon floor of toys visible through its windows, but Vanni passed too quickly for her to make memorable impressions. He made a turn onto another street, and another until Olivia no longer knew in which direction they were heading. “I’m going to park at the end of the block,” Vanni said at last. “Okay?”
“Yeah,” Aiden said, “Okay. But I don’t have to like it one damn bit.”
When Vanni finally pulled alongside a curb and stopped, Olivia looked out to see shopfronts, many of them still barred shut from the previous night, and what appeared to be flats above. Groups of men clustered around doorways smoking and laughing. Some sat on upturned crates and waved their hands to emphasize what they were saying.
“This used to be a rough area,” Vanni said, “like the Bronx. But it’s a happenin’ place now. Gettin’ to be one of the places to live, right, Aiden?”
“Right. Some great apartments here. Get going, Vanni.”
“Yes, master.”
Vanni got out of the vehicle, tossing the keys to Aiden as he went, and sauntered up the block. He stopped in front of a barred window and looked in as if he was deeply interested in whatever he saw.
“Jewelry store,” Aiden said. “Russian family. Good people. The grandfather owns the building and the ones on either side.”
“I see.” Olivia would like to see much better. She’d like to get out a camera and start shooting. Everywhere she looked she saw something that coalesced into a natural composition. “What’s the shop on the corner, the open one?”
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