Parr had handled my coat. What if he’d tagged me with some kind of locator device?
Ignoring the honking of the outraged drivers behind me, I jerked the wheel over and cut across two lanes of traffic to dodge into the nearest parking lot. Trembling, I aimed the car into a slot and jammed on the brakes before yanking my bug detector out of my waist pouch.
I nearly fainted at the sight of the reassuring green light.
Thank God.
I leaned back in the seat and breathed. The bug detector would indicate any kind of transmitter in the area, no matter what type of signal was being broadcast. I was still safe.
More to the point, Hellhound and Kane would be safe.
I dragged a trembling hand back to the steering wheel and resumed my trip.
Tucked into one of the visitor parking slots at Hellhound’s condo building, I turned off the ignition and sagged in the seat, debating whether to rip a wide, bleeding strip off him for disobeying my orders, or kiss him for being there to watch my back.
Too strung out to decide, I hauled myself out of the car and made for the front door.
There was a note of trepidation in his gravelly ‘yeah’ when he answered the buzzer.
“It’s Aydan,” I said, and the security door released.
The stairs seemed extra steep. About half-way up, it occurred to me that I could have taken the elevator, and I was mumbling obscenities when I rounded the corner on the third floor.
Hellhound hovered in his doorway with Hooker tucked into the crook of his elbow. As I approached, he turned slightly as though to shield himself behind the big cat.
“Hey, darlin’,” he offered cautiously.
The dreadful comb-over was gone, his head clean-shaven as usual. There was a small smudge of black on his neck, but his beard and moustache were back to their normal salt-and-pepper. The hard bulk of his chest and his flat, muscular midsection were a welcome sight after the corpulent image still seared on my retinas.
“Hi,” I said noncommittally. “Is John here yet?”
“Yeah.” Hellhound ducked his chin, not quite meeting my eyes. “Come on in.”
When the door closed behind me, Hellhound opened his hand to reveal a bug detector’s glowing green light. Then he stooped to release the cat before straightening into parade rest, his chin high. “Okay, darlin’. Let me have it.”
“Not just you.” I shot a stern glance at Kane sprawled on the sofa. “John’s as guilty as you are. More so. He’s the ranking officer.”
“Officially I’m retired…” Hellhound mumbled.
“Bullshit!” I snapped, and levelled a glare at Kane.
Kane shrugged, studying the ceiling. “What was I going to do? You know how pig-headed he is. Short of handcuffing him to the balcony railing, I couldn’t stop him.”
“And you didn’t try! What the hell were you thinking?” I rounded on Hellhound. “And you! I told you not to let Parr see you! And you waltz right in there, right in his fucking face!”
Suddenly I was furious. I slammed my fist down on the half-wall beside me. Cushioned by Hellhound’s jacket, it made only a muffled thud, which maddened me even more. “Now he’s seen you! How the hell can I protect you if you won’t fucking follow my orders?”
Hellhound’s parade rest stiffened, his gaze locked on the wall behind me, and I recalled that an ass-chewing for disobeying orders was pretty much the story of his entire military career.
“Well now, darlin’,” he said diffidently, “Ya didn’t actually say ‘don’t let Parr see ya’. What ya actually said was ‘You are not to do anythin’ that might allow Parr to identify ya’. An’ I followed that order to the letter.”
“You… wha… Bullshit! How the hell do you figure that? You were damn near in his face! You couldn’t have been more conspicuous if you’d sat in his fucking lap!”
“Yeah.” His moustache didn’t quite hide the smile tugging at his lips. “But I guarantee there ain’t a single person in that entire restaurant that could pick me outta a lineup. The surest way to keep people from lookin’ at your face is to make sure they don’t wanna make eye contact. An’ they sure as hell wouldn’t make eye contact with a fuckin’ jerk like Al Hamlin. They saw a big fat fucker with a beard an’ a bad comb-over, but that’s it. Not a single one of ‘em looked me in the face.”
“You…” Words failed me, and after a moment I shut my open mouth.
He was right.
They had all looked anywhere but at his face. Nobody was willing to risk being the next recipient of his unwelcome attention. Even I had looked away from the train wreck of ostentatious bad taste.
“You…” I tried again. Behind him, I caught sight of the horrible black toupee, dangling like a grotesque spider from his guitar stand. “You… you…” A bubble of hysterical laughter rose in my chest.
A moment later a snicker erupted despite my effort to hold onto my scowl.
When Hellhound grinned and waggled his eyebrows at me, I lost it completely. Howling with laughter, I collapsed against the door and slithered to the floor. “You… fucking… slay me! Goddammit…” I sprawled among the boots on his floor mat, still laughing. “That was the most… The most… Ohmigod…”
Hellhound abandoned his parade rest to sink to the floor beside me, chuckling. Kane’s laughter joined in from the direction of the living room, hidden behind the half-wall.
“You…” I thumped my fist on Hellhound’s knee. “That was… The most horrible…” I gasped for breath, tears rolling down my cheeks.
“Aw, hell, no, darlin’, it wasn’t anywhere near,” he said modestly. “I was gonna start fartin’ an’ talkin’ about eatin’ too many burritos last night, but I figured that might be over the top. Didn’t wanna get kicked out before I got my food.”
The mental image doubled me over. “Please… please… don’t tell me… you can fart… on command!”
“Nah. But I can fake it like a champ.”
The accompanying sound-effect convulsed me. I clutched my aching sides and surrendered to the storm of laughter until at last it died down to feeble giggles and whimpers.
“Oh, help,” I moaned. “God, help me. I’m in pain.”
Still chuckling, Hellhound pulled me close and dropped a kiss on my forehead. “All better now?”
“No. I’m scarred for life.” I flopped against his shoulder, wiping away tears. “Don’t ever, ever do that again.”
“Can’t make any promises, darlin’.” He planted a gentle fingertip under my chin and raised it to regard me seriously. “Forgive me?”
“Of course.” I hugged him, forgetting about his bruised ribs until he winced. My arms flew open. “I’m sorry! Are you okay?”
“Fine, darlin’.”
I touched his face, tracing my thumb across the undamaged part of his cheek. “Thanks for being there,” I whispered.
His arms tightened around me. “I’m always gonna be there.” Before I could react he added, “An’ don’t go freakin’ out, ‘cause that ain’t a commitment. That’s just a fact a’ life.”
We smiled at each other and I disentangled myself to struggle to my feet. Tottering over to the sofa, I fell onto it and poked a finger into the belly-shaped mound of padding lying beside me. “This is gross.”
Hellhound sank into his favourite chair, grinning. “Yeah, but it works. Face it, darlin’, put a suit on a guy like me an’ everybody stares. When I’m Al Hamlin, nobody wants to look at me. Works like a damn when I gotta mingle with some suits for my PI business.”
“Okay, I can’t argue that.” I raised an eyebrow at him. “But seriously: ‘Charlie Daniels’?”
He reached for his guitar. His fingers danced over the strings and the intro to ‘The Devil Went Down To Georgia’ filled the room.
Hellhound shrugged. “First name that came to mind.”
Chapter 10
Kane leaned forward, elbows on knees. “So how did it go?” He shot a sidelong glance at Hellhound’s still-grinning face. “Oth
er than Hellhound’s performance.”
“Fine, I think.” I massaged the ache at the back of my neck. “Parr offered me ten thousand dollars to get a full inventory of Yana’s luggage to him in three days. He laid out a bunch of bullshit about how they were close friends and he thought she might be bringing him a special bottle of booze as a gift.”
Kane’s lips twisted in a cynical smile. “Special bottle. Right.”
“Yeah. He wants me to get close to you and find out if Yana mentioned bringing anything to him.”
Kane leaned back with a long breath, tucking his arms behind his head. “Good. So you’re not in immediate danger.”
“Doesn’t look that way. He’ll probably wait to see if I deliver. And he’s got the bug at my place, so he’ll be keeping tabs on me. He’s probably got eyes on your place in Silverside, too.”
“Likely. That’s fine; there’s nothing for him to see there. And the Calgary condo isn’t registered under my name, so it should be secure.” He rose. “Speaking of which, we’d better go. We’re taking Dad to the airport in a few hours.”
“Tell him goodbye for me. It was nice to see him again.”
“I will. I know he enjoyed seeing you, too. See you tomorrow at the briefing.” Kane donned his boots and jacket and hesitated, hand on doorknob. “Unless you want me to follow you home. The highway report said the roads are still bad.”
“Thanks, but that’s okay. I’ll be fine.”
“All right. Drive carefully.”
“You, too.”
When the door closed behind him, Hellhound and I both rose. I stepped into Hellhound’s waiting embrace and reached up to kiss him.
He rumbled satisfaction and kissed me back slowly, his lips savouring mine for long moments before he lightly traced the inside of my lip with the tip of his tongue. A shiver electrified my spine, sending a burst of anticipation sizzling southward. He gradually deepened the kiss, and my body heated with the memory of exactly what else that amazing tongue did so well.
And those amazing hands. A purr escaped me as they coasted down to fondle my ass, pulling me against him. Hellhound broke the kiss to smile down at me, and I linked my arms around his neck.
“So…” I swayed in sensuous S-curves, sliding my breasts across his chest and my hips against the hard ridge in his jeans. “What are you doing for the next couple of hours?”
He groaned. “Ridin’ back to Kane’s place with a helluva hard-on, an’ sittin’ there with blue balls for the rest a’ the afternoon.”
“What?”
“I gotta go. Kane’ll be waitin’ downstairs. He drove me to the car rental place ‘cause we didn’t wanna take a chance on somebody matchin’ my license plate to my real name. Didn’t ya catch the part where he said ‘we better go’?”
Disappointment drenched me like cold water. “Well, shit.”
He sighed. “Yeah. But hold the thought, darlin’. I’ll see ya soon.”
“The sooner the better.” I gave him a quick kiss and turned for the door before I could start whining.
Nearly three hours later I was whining in earnest when I got out to unlock my gate in the cold twilight. The highway had been sheer ice, and my entire body throbbed with the pain of my tension headache. Creeping into the sanctuary of my house, I swallowed a couple of painkillers and fell into bed fully clothed.
The vibration of my cell phone roused me from a restless sleep. I groaned and rolled over, yanking the blanket over my head.
After a few seconds, it vibrated again.
“Leave a message, asshole,” I growled into my pillow.
A moment later tremendous thuds from the front of the house galvanized every muscle in my body. Flailing free of the blankets, I snatched my gun from the holster I still wore.
Comprehension penetrated my haze of adrenaline as the thuds continued.
Pounding on my front door.
Shit, again?
Gun in hand and my back to the wall, I slipped around the corner into the hallway. The shouting from my front porch was audible by the time I reached the kitchen.
“Open up, bitch!” The door shivered under another barrage of kicks. “Get the fuck out here, you suck-ass cunt!”
The c-word. Guaranteed to piss me off even at the best of times. But after a shitty day and a shattered sleep…
The world went red except for a small aperture of clarity around my gun sights as I drew a bead on the door.
About chest height. I’d give him two rounds to be sure, plus one just for shits and giggles.
Or… My sights drifted lower. Could I blow his nuts off with my first shot? I could try…
Fortunately Hibbert chose that moment to bang on the door again, dragging me back to reality.
Parr’s bug would pick up the sound of the shots. Bad idea to let him know I was armed. Not to mention having to clean the blood off my porch and get rid of another damn body…
Hibbert was still bellowing insults and obscenities punctuated by kicks to my door, and I let out a shaky breath and returned my gun to its concealed holster.
“What do you want?” I shouted when he paused for breath.
“Open up, bitch! I’ve got something for you!”
“Fuck off! I’m calling the police!”
A moment of silence. “Better not if you want your cheque for fifty grand!”
Now it was my turn to hesitate. Arlene Widdenback loved money above all else.
“Leave it in the mailbox!” I yelled.
“You sign the release or you get fuck-all!”
“Leave the release in the mailbox!”
“What’s the matter, bitch? Too scared to face me after you ratted me out to Parr?”
“I didn’t-” I began, but he was still shouting, hitting the door so hard I began to worry it might give way.
“You better be fucking scared!” Bang. “You might be Parr’s pocket pussy now, but he’ll dump you fast!” Bang. Bang. “And when he does…” Bang. “…I’m going to pay you a little visit…” Bang-bang. “…and fuck you up the ass so bad you’ll have to shit in a bag for the rest of your life!” Bang-bang-bang…
The sound of his kicks faded under the hammering of my heart as the flashback seized me.
His vicious hands forced me down. His thick tongue gagged me…
I sucked in a breath and crushed the memory. That wouldn’t happen. I was armed.
Open the door. Face the fear.
“Put the papers on the porch and back away!” I hoped he couldn’t hear the weak terror in my voice. “Or in five seconds I call the police! Five! Four! Three…”
Silence reigned outside, and I tottered forward to peer through the fisheye lens.
Hibbert stood at the bottom of my porch steps. I couldn’t see my door mat. Had he put an envelope there?
Or something worse?
Drawing my gun again, I held it behind the door frame while I unlocked the door and opened it a crack.
Hibbert was still taunting me but my fear blanked out his words.
Envelope on my door mat.
I grabbed it and slammed the door shut again, twisting the deadbolt home.
Back pressed to the wall, gun trembling in my hand, I forced my shallow panting into slower, deeper breaths.
Hibbert started kicking the door again, but he seemed a little less enthusiastic. Maybe his foot was getting sore.
I silently wished him the joy of a stress fracture and heaved myself away from the wall to stagger to the table, fumbling the papers out of the envelope.
My brain refused to comprehend even the most basic words on the pages of legalese.
Screw it.
I scrawled a shaky signature on the bottom. It was an alias anyway. Let Sirius’s lawyers deal with it.
Hibbert had stopped kicking the door and switched to graphic descriptions of the atrocities he planned to commit on various parts of my body. Gun in one hand, papers in the other, I jammed the heels of my hands against my ears to block him out.
; “Back off or else!” My shrill cry wasn’t the intimidating roar I’d intended, but it seemed to work. When I cautiously unstopped my ears, I couldn’t hear him anymore.
Another peek out the fisheye lens revealed that he had retreated to the bottom of the steps again. I cracked the door open, flung out the envelope, and relocked the door almost in a single movement.
“Leave the cheque in the mailbox,” I bellowed.
My trembling legs barely carried me into my office to watch the security camera feed. Sure enough, Hibbert was marching down my lane. He paused to stuff an envelope in the mailbox at my gate before driving away.
I collapsed into my desk chair.
Breathe. Just breathe.
I closed my eyes.
Inhale. I willed my quivering belly to expand. Nice and slow. Draw in the calm.
Exhale. Let out the fear.
In, two… three… four… Out, two… three… four. Just like ocean waves…
At last I regained enough strength to drag myself out of the chair, and eventually back to bed.
I didn’t sleep.
The next morning I shuffled into Sirius Dynamics and propped myself in front of the security wicket a few minutes before nine. The guard greeted me with a wide smile.
“Good morning, Aydan! Did you have a good holiday?”
I plastered an answering smile on my face as I signed for my security fob. “Yeah, thanks, Leo. How about you?”
“Great! Ate too much; drank too much…” He practically glowed with complacent cheerfulness, and I squelched my surge of bitter envy.
“That’s great. See you later.” I turned away to slap my fob on the reader with perhaps a little more vigour than necessary.
I was the last to arrive at the meeting room. Sliding into a chair with a mumbled apology, I took stock of the assembled group.
Dermott and Stemp sat near the head of the table, a study in opposites. Dermott’s ruddy complexion and frizzy, thinning hair made him look almost clownish next to Stemp’s monochrome colouring and subtle aura of reptilian menace. Their clothing reinforced the impression, with Dermott’s rumpled casual shirt and slacks in sharp contrast to Stemp’s sober business suit.
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