Glass Houses

by Stella Cameron

  Boswell grew restless. He paced away from Olivia and stood still, his nostrils quivering and his attention focused on Aiden.

  “Get back here,” Olivia whispered.

  The dog didn’t waste a glance on her before slipping away, homing in on his master but moving along the edge of the trees like a lowlying, black-and-tan shadow.

  Amazingly, the back of the truck hadn’t been locked. Aiden opened the door a few inches.

  Boswell ran now, a big, beautiful animal who could keep his belly down and still cover ground unbelievably fast.

  A man, bent double, sped from the trees. Olivia used her telephoto lens to get a closeup and recoiled at the sight of his expression. Handsome in a Teutonic manner, he also had a crewcut, but his hair was white-blond, as were his brows, and his eyes appeared pale blue. He had paused for an instant, and there was no doubt he looked at Aiden with unveiled hate. He knew him—even with Aiden in disguise, he knew him. The man ran on and reached Aiden only moments after he must have heard him and started to turn around.

  Olivia clapped her hands on her mouth and held them there lightly. Screaming wouldn’t help a thing.

  The man, tall but not as tall as Aiden, and more thickset, raised something in his right hand and brought it down so hard that Olivia heard it thump against Aiden’s skull.

  Terrified, but determined, she kept shooting pictures and inching forward.

  What was the man doing?

  What he was doing took so little time she couldn’t even have screamed in time to attract attention.

  Aiden’s attacker threw open both doors at the rear of the truck and picked Aiden up around his waist. He hung there in a way that told Olivia he was unconscious. Then the man stuffed Aiden all the way inside.

  That was the moment when Boswell left the ground. He threw himself toward the man, sailed past him, and landed with Aiden. That’s where they were when the doors were slammed shut. Olivia heard the blond-haired stranger curse, saw him beat on the door with his fist, and kick at a bumper before he ran around to jump in behind the wheel and drive fast toward Mobo’s.

  Olivia was already scrambling from the trees and running.

  She’d made too little progress before the man appeared again with Fats Lemon and a blond woman wearing a checked western shirt that strained over her considerable breasts and jeans tight enough to cut off circulation to her vital and some not-so-vital organs.

  Lemon and the hip-swinging woman all but threw themselves into the front seat of the truck and the other man drove away.

  Seventeen

  For the third time, Chris Talon dialed Aiden’s cell number.

  Still nothing.

  He watched the flight departure screens, following updates on his flight from Chicago to Seattle. A delay had stretched from thirty minutes to “waiting for replacement equipment.” Chris had called his wife and been relieved to hear there was no sign of her going into labor. Their second child wasn’t due for a month, but their two-year-old daughter had been delivered early, so he was on edge.

  Eight years as NYPD partners had forged something deeper than friendship between Chris and Aiden Flynn. They had a connection. When Chris had heard what Aiden had fallen—no, jumped—into with the British woman whom he didn’t even know, Chris had come close to telling his buddy he needed therapy, or a wife, or both. Ever since Key West, when Aiden had helped Chris with Sonnie Giacano’s—now Sonnie Talon’s—case, Aiden’s private loneliness had become a regular topic in the Talon household. Sonnie was a very sensitive woman, and she noticed Aiden’s wistful glances when she and Chris were together, especially since Anna arrived. Aiden was the best honorary uncle a little girl ever had.

  Where was Aiden? He’d promised to call as soon as he and this Olivia were on the road. He hadn’t and that wasn’t like him.

  One more try, then Chris would give up until he got back to Seattle.

  “Good news, ladies and gentlemen,” the counter clerk announced into his microphone. “The replacement equipment is here, and as soon as we have a crew aboard, we’ll start boarding passengers.”

  Maybe he’d better wait to try that call again.

  Spots of blood squeezed from scratches and small punctures on Olivia’s palms and fingertips. The wounds stung but she kept running.

  The truck with Aiden and Boswell in the back had squealed, spewing a rooster tail of damp grit, from the grounds at Bobby Mobo’s, to the rutted access road between Mobo’s and the more main road Aiden had taken to get there. Olivia hadn’t wanted to be seen, but she ran as if she were a fast jogger while she tried to see which way they would go. The race was hopeless, and she’d turned back filled with dread.

  Now she wanted to reach the Rover as fast as possible and try to follow the truck.

  Slipping, hands first, into the corn stubble hadn’t helped the damage already done by several falls on gravel. The skin needed to be cleaned.

  The barn came into sight. At least Boswell was with Aiden. She’d like to see someone try to hit that dog over the head.

  Would they shoot him?

  The thought didn’t improve the painful ache in her throat.

  Each breath grew louder in her ears and hurt her straining lungs. She could drive the Rover and manage the roads here, of course she could. She could do it for Aiden.

  There was no help anywhere.

  She reached the car and got in. Aiden had deliberately left the key in the ignition, “just in case,” he’d said.

  Sweating, but chilled just the same, Olivia pulled on the rocket jacket Aiden had left behind his seat. She held the striped neckband to her face and struggled with a sweet-sad sensation she got from the familiar wood-and-rain scent of him. How could she have thought there was anything of his she didn’t like?

  The engine turned over easily. Olivia swallowed, unsure if she was glad, but she must try to find him. Next she tried the wipers. They didn’t completely clear the windscreen.

  A shrill ringing close to her heart shattered her last shreds of control. Olivia turned off the car, shuddered at the next reverberating peal from the phone while she fumbled to get it from Aiden’s inside pocket.

  She stared at the buttons. Which one, which one? She’d answered it before, but she couldn’t seem to decide what to do.

  Another ring sounded. Vanni would hang up. Oh, please don’t let him hang up. She punched the right button and whispered a shaky, “Yes?”

  The babble of many voices reached her, and bells, and laughter, and announcements.

  Then it fell quiet. The phone had gone dead. He’d hung up on her.

  Regardless of what Vanni had said, if she had his number, she’d call him. She turned on the phone again and tried punching and holding down various numbers, hoping for an automatic dial Aiden might have programmed. If he had, she couldn’t find it.

  Rain started to fall, the kind that began abruptly, and instantly slashed sideways. Cold and damp from her efforts, Olivia shivered.

  Once more she turned on the car. For some time she fiddled with the gears and clutch, making sure she wasn’t likely to ruin the gear box, or stall the car at an inconvenient moment.

  The phone rang again. Olivia snatched it up, turned it on and whispered, “Yes,” terrified it might not be Vanni at all, or that he wouldn’t want to talk to anyone but Aiden.

  “Speak up.” A deeper voice than Vanni’s, a different voice with a different accent—Southern. The background noise was the same as on the other call. “Damn, it’s good to hear your voice. You do like to scare a guy. Wait a minute, they’re making another announcement.”

  Olivia waited. The car windows steamed up, and her clamminess increased.

  “Yep, that’s my flight. Look, I’ve got to board, but I’ll call you the minute I get to Seattle. Okay?”

  “No.”

  “This one’s already late and they’re in a hurry, so I’d better go. It can wait, can’t it?”

  “No!” she shouted. “No, it can’t wait. There’s trouble her
e, a lot of trouble. You’re Chris Talon, aren’t you?”

  For a beat or two, all she got were the background noises. “Yeah, Talon. Is this Olivia FitzDurham?”

  “Right. And I need help.”

  “I’d have thought Aiden was all the help you should need until you get to Seattle. Put him on, please.”

  He didn’t sound friendly.

  “Hurry up, please.”

  “Aiden isn’t here. He’s unconscious in the back of a truck, and they’ve taken him away. I’m going to try to follow but I need advice.”

  “Repeat that,” Talon said. “All of it and don’t leave anything out. If I’m missing my flight home to my very pregnant wile because of some whim, you’d better not stick around long enough for me to find you.”

  Olivia sat straighter. Sweat in her eyes felt miserable, but this man thought an unjust attack would reduce her to blubber, he was mistaken. “I’m sorry to interfere with your plans, and I do wish you and your wife all the best,” she said, and went on to explain exactly what had happened since they left New York.

  “Did you get a good look at the guy who hit him?” Chris asked.

  “White-blond hair, about as tall as Aiden but more stocky. Pale-blue eyes. Cold-looking. And I should have said the other man, the one who got in the truck with the woman, was Fats Lemon—at least I think it was.”

  Chris didn’t immediately answer. When he did, he snapped out his words so fast that Olivia held the phone hard against her ear to make sure she didn’t miss anything. “Interesting,” he said. “Just goes to prove I can’t trust that boy Aiden on his own. Listen to me and don’t interrupt. You are not to drive anywhere. Got that?”

  “I have to find Aiden.”

  “Your loyalty is impressive. Given the choice, I’d rather hunt for one victim than two. You said there’s a motel at that place?”

  “I’m leaving the moment I switch off this phone.”

  “So am I,” he said—through his teeth, she thought. “And I’m coming there. Might as well start from the last place you saw him. I take it there is a motel. Get a room. Lock yourself in and stay there until you hear from me again. Leave the phone on and I’ll call when I’m close.”

  “There isn’t time for me to wait. It’ll take you far too long to get here.”

  “Any time is too much time. I’m at O’Hare—Chicago— and I can be there in two hours. I wish it could be now, but this is better than being in Seattle and having to get to the airport and still having a flight in front of me. Tell me you’ll get that room.”

  She couldn’t bring herself to say something that might not be true.

  “Olivia, do you really care what happens to Aiden?”

  “I most certainly do,” she told him, furious at the question. “He’s the best man I’ve ever met and I’ll never forgive myself if he… I care.”

  “Sounds as if you do.” His tone changed. “That didn’t take long to happen, but we won’t talk about it now. If you care about Aiden, you won’t go after him because you’ll only make things worse. You could ruin any chance he may have for freedom, rather than help him escape.”

  “Every minute I stay here is another minute they could be doing horrible things to him.”

  “Olivia—” Chris Talon paused. “Are you in love with Aiden?”

  Her heart beat very, very fast. “That is absolutely stupid. I hardly know him.” Other than as a lover who could take her apart with a look.

  “Sometimes people never get over the pain of losing someone they love,” Chris said, ignoring her denial. “Particularly if the one left behind has to live with knowing she did something dumb that made sure the one she loved was murdered.”

  “Well, this is a fucking mess,” Fats Lemon said, leaning across Kitty to get closer to Ryan. “Where are we going? It’s going to start getting dark soon.”

  Ryan was already sick of listening to Fats whine. “You afraid of the dark, partner? Maybe you need to spend some time locked away. Immersion, they call it. I could fix it.”

  Fats sniggered nervously. “Only Kitty’s with me, and you aren’t messing with our good times.”

  “Knock it off.” It wouldn’t do for Fats to figure out Ryan didn’t give a flying fuck about Kitty, or that Ryan was a man only into the visual turn-on that left him alone to do his own thing. The days and nights he’d spent with Kitty would make it easy to get rid of her once it was safe. She’d earned some special attention, very special. Ryan had always enjoyed practicing his surgical skills. He had a knife he kept for the job and he didn’t believe in anesthetic. Yes, Kitty was due.

  Kitty wasn’t sure how much she enjoyed sex with Ryan. He was a good-looking devil, and he did things to her that no other man had ever done, things she’d miss later, but there was something creepy about him, something not right.

  Fats might be a skinny little man who spent too much time on tanning beds, but she’d often found the least likely ones could be the most satisfying. They always spent a lot of time telling her all the things a girl liked to hear and that made her feel even sexier.

  She put a hand on Ryan’s thigh and squeezed. “We’re all on edge, lover. Let’s get along.” When she shifted the squeeze to Jolly Boy, he smacked her hand away with a vicious swipe that made her fingers numb. Well, she’d have to do something about that. “Where are we going?”

  “Not far,” he told her. “First likely motel and we stop. We’ve gotta decide what to do about them.” With his head, he indicated the man and the dog in the back of the truck.

  Her stomach turned at the thought of the dog. She’d found the courage to look behind her once and the dog, an ugly great thing with huge, shiny fangs and lips that snarled, stared right back at her. The man on the floor didn’t seem to have moved at all.

  “You could shoot the dog,” she said.

  “We have a little problem. That moron back there loves the dog. That means the dog’s life could help us get what we need faster. We need that interfering prick back there. He’s our link to the woman. That’s also the main reason we’re not traveling far yet. He’ll hold out, but by the time we finish with him, he’ll tell us exactly where she is. Now keep your mouth shut. Chatty broads bore me. I don’t keep boring things around.”

  Fats had taken advantage of Ryan’s preoccupation to slip a hand, palm up, under Kitty. She wanted to squeal and wriggle, but knew better. Fats had good fingers.

  “You’re right about everything,” he told Ryan, leaning close to Kitty. “We get a room and find a way to get Flynn out without Boss. We can have some fun with Detective Flynn. He was always too big for his boots.”

  Surreptitiously, Fats put the fingers of his free hand under Kitty’s arm and fondled the side of her breast. The view he had down the front of her shirt—wow, casabas like that deserved a lot of attention and he was willing to dedicate himself to them. He could feel her growing hot against his left hand, but apart from pressing down harder on him, she showed nothing of her feelings.

  “I’m betting the woman’s back there somewhere,” Ryan said. “Probably waiting for him in the Morgan. But we couldn’t stick around with him in the truck.”

  “How are you going to get him out and into a motel with the dog there?” Kitty asked.

  Ryan looked sideways. Did the slut think he didn’t know what she and Fats were doing? “Real carefully,” he said. Fats was redesigning her cleavage, not that it needed any help. “I can deal with the dog. I’ll hold him through the cab window”— he indicated the window behind his head—“while you get Flynn out. Then I’ll drive in circles with Boss for a while. Maybe I’ll let him go, maybe I won’t. He doesn’t know the area—he’d get lost anyway. Whatever I decide, I’ll tell Flynn the dog’s in the truck. You and Fats can keep Flynn company while I’m gone. Make sure he doesn’t have a good time.”

  Fats controlled an urge to grin. His dick was already looking at the sky and ready to fly a flag. “We’d better hope for a big room,” he said nonchalantly. “It’s going to ge
t cozy with four of us.”

  “We’ll get two rooms and I’ll be next door to you. See to it. Make sure there’s a plug for my laptop.” He had a disk to play just to get in the mood for anything that came his way. “We don’t want to risk me being seen if the two stooges show up, remember? They don’t think I’m anywhere near, and I want it that way until I’m ready to surprise them.”

  “Those fools?” Kitty said. “They’ll never find us now.”

  “I want them to find us. First we make sure Flynn tells us where the woman is, then we wait for the guys from London to arrive. Flynn doesn’t necessarily have to be around for that. He thinks he’s so tough. I’ll enjoy finding out just how tough he is.” He took a knife from his pocket, flicked it open, and tested the blade on his thumb.

  Fats felt the ripple of Kitty’s climax and marveled at her ability to sit still and not make a sound. He said, “I don’t think I know what you have in mind for Moody and Fish.”

  “Of course you know,” Ryan said, squinting to see an upcoming signboard. “I don’t want to risk a murder rap, but I want Flynn dead. I’ve got a big enough beef with him to want him real dead. I’m going to have Rupert and Winston do that little job for me—after I get him ready.”

  Bobby Mobo’s wasn’t the kind of place where the desk clerk asked if you needed help with your baggage. The man had asked Olivia how long she needed the room for. Flustered, she’d said, “Just one night, please.”

  To which he’d replied, “A long one, huh,” and given her a grin that made her itch.

  The room smelled strongly of cheap perfume and disinfectant. Olivia stood up as long as she could, but eventually sat on a wooden chair beside a chipped vanity. She held the keys to the Rover and Aiden’s phone on her lap. She’d also earned his jacket with her because it brought some comfort. Her bag was on the floor beside her.

  Predictably, when the phone rang she jumped hard. But she got it turned on in record time. “Hello?” she said.

  “Olivia, this is Vanni. Gimme Aiden.”

  “He’s not—”

  “Goddammit! Tell the bastard to keep his mind on the job. I’ve got trouble here, and I don’t need any extra irritation.”