by Sharon Sala
“Yes, we’re aware of that,” he said shortly. “However, we would appreciate it if you would check the man out. He has a record. It shouldn’t be all that difficult to locate him.”
“Sure, what’s his name?” Dawson asked.
“Pharaoh. Pharoah Carn.”
Avery Dawson rocked back in his chair.
“Not the Pharaoh Carn.”
Clay frowned. “You know him?”
Frankie gasped, then leaned forward, her own pizza quickly forgotten. “What?” she whispered.
Clay pulled her forward, then held the receiver so that they could both hear what Dawson was saying.
“No, I can’t say that I know him personally,” Dawson said. “But I certainly know of him. However, it remains to be seen if the Carn you’re talking about is the same one I’m thinking of.”
“What’s so special about your Pharaoh Carn?” Clay asked.
Dawson snorted beneath his breath. “I wouldn’t call him special. More like notorious.”
Frankie’s fingers curled as her pulse reacted. She glanced at Clay, her eyes wide with shock.
“What has he done?” Clay asked.
“Nothing the law could prove,” Dawson said. “But in certain circles it’s a well-known fact that he’s Pepe Allejandro’s number-one man.”
Clay’s gut tightened. “Allejandro…as in the California crime family?”
“One and the same,” Dawson said. Then he added, “Jesus Christ, LeGrand. If we’re dealing with these people, neither one of you will be safe.”
“There’s something else,” Clay said. “A couple of weeks before Frankie disappeared, the AP ran a picture of her. It didn’t amount to anything except a pretty girl laughing in the rain, but it ran in papers all over the United States. She thinks that might be how he found her.”
“Well now, why didn’t this ever come up before?” Dawson asked.
“It wasn’t me who thought of the connection, it was Frankie,” Clay said. “So how soon can you find something out?”
Suddenly, Frankie bolted out of bed and headed for the bathroom. Clay was torn between following her and needing to finish this conversation.
“I’ll do some checking,” Dawson said. “We need to know where this Pharaoh Carn grew up. And where he’s been for the past two years, and, even more to the point, where the hell he is now.”
“Okay,” Clay said. “We’re heading back to Denver tomorrow.”
“Call me the minute you get in. If any of this pans out, we might need to discuss some other options. That gun your wife bought won’t solve anything if the Allejandro cartel is involved. It would be like throwing peanuts to try and stop a raging elephant.”
“Yeah, right,” Clay muttered as his hopes continued to drop. In the next room, he could hear water running. He got off the bed. “Hey, Dawson,” he added.
“Yeah?”
“Hurry…okay?”
“I’m on it now,” Dawson said.
The line went dead in Clay’s ear. He laid the pizza box on the table and headed for the bathroom.
Frankie was sitting on the side of the tub with her elbows on her knees and her hands over her face. There was a wet washcloth dripping water on the floor next to her feet.
“Baby…are you okay?”
She looked up. “I thought I was going to throw up.”
“Are you okay now?”
She nodded.
“Come lie down,” he urged, and helped her back to the bed, then stretched out beside her. She was trembling uncontrollably, but every time he tried to hold her, she kept pushing him away.
“Francesca, don’t fight me,” Clay begged. “I’m on your side, remember?”
Her face crumpled. “Oh, Clay…oh my God.”
“Don’t cry, honey. It’s going to be all right.”
“How can it be?” she wailed. “You heard him. The man is dangerous.”
“But we don’t know that the boy who was infatuated with you is the same man involved with Allejandro. And even if he is, that doesn’t mean he’s the one responsible for kidnapping you.”
She laughed bitterly. “Please, Clay…just how many Pharaoh Carns do you think there are in the United States?”
He sighed. There was no denying that the uniqueness of the name certainly lessened the odds. And the fact that she had not been physically harmed during her two-year absence leaned toward the theory that, however twisted the reasoning, whoever had taken her had cared about her welfare. That fit the profile of the young man Addie Bell had described.
“I want to know the truth, don’t you?” Clay asked.
Frankie stilled, her face streaked with tears, her eyes glittering with anger.
“Do you think you can face the truth?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” he said.
She rolled away from him and sat up in bed, unable to look him in the face. “What if I was his…what if he…?”
Clay’s voice deepened with anger. “You mean, what if he had sex with you? Goddammit, Francesca, do you think I haven’t thought about that a thousand times since your return?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “We haven’t talked about it, and I just—”
“Do you think I’m so shallow that I’d judge you by circumstances beyond your control?”
She didn’t answer.
“Look at me, dammit.”
She did.
His voice softened. “If you’d been attacked on the street and raped, do you think I would not love you anymore?”
“No, but—”
“There are no buts,” he whispered. “It’s the same thing. Whatever happened to you was not by choice. We just need to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
“I’m scared, too,” Clay said. “But as long as we have each other, we’ll get through.”
Her voice was still shaking. “If this criminal is the same man I knew as a child, and if he’s the one who kidnapped me, then we’re in a lot of trouble, aren’t we?”
Clay sighed. “I won’t lie to you, Frankie. If that’s the case, it won’t be easy to protect ourselves. But we’ll do it. Remember, if it’s him, we have an advantage this time that we didn’t have before.”
“What’s that?”
“We know what he looks like.”
“But, Clay, people like him hire thugs to get things done. He wouldn’t come himself. We have no way of protecting ourselves against strangers. It could be anybody.”
“Then we’ll hide, Francesca. At least until your memory comes back, or until the police get enough evidence to arrest him.”
She frowned. The idea of hiding didn’t sit well with her. “I don’t know,” she muttered. “What if neither happens?”
“But it will, and in the meantime, trust me to take care of you.”
Frankie reached for him then, falling into his arms and burying her face against his chest.
“Make love to me, Clay. Make all of this ugliness go away.”
“Abracadabra,” he whispered, and lowered his head for a kiss.
And it was magic indeed.
It went on and on and on, until Frankie’s head was spinning and her heart was on fire. She was gasping for breath and begging him to take her, and still Clay wouldn’t give in. His touch was tender, his skill at hitting all her pulse points maddening.
“Clay…”
“Not yet, Francesca.”
She sighed.
Then he moved away, and for a fraction of a second the abruptness of the motion left her stunned. Before she could object, he gently rolled her from her back to her stomach, leaving her facedown on the sheets.
“What are you—”
Suddenly, the question became moot. Clay was kissing the bottoms of her feet, then the backs of her legs. When he got to the bend of her knees, she moaned.
“Clay.”
“Shh.”
She closed her eyes and gave herself up to his demands.
And then his hands were in her hair and he was moving it aside. She felt the warm, wet stroke of his tongue against her neck, then her cheek, and then he centered his mouth on that damnable tattoo.
She groaned, and heard him chuckle.
With one hand across her breasts and the other on the flat of her belly, he rolled onto his side, taking her with him. Before Frankie’s world had stopped rocking, the hand on her belly slipped lower, stopping at the juncture of her thighs.
She jerked, and then gasped as his voice vibrated against her ear.
“Easy, baby, just follow the feeling, it’ll take you where you want to go.”
He started to move, stroking gently at first, and then harder and faster until Frankie was lost. Everything shattered, including her mind.
Duke Needham breathed a sigh of relief as he hung up the phone. Finding people who were not only willing, but able, to follow his orders had not been easy. But Duke had persevered. He had no intention of being the bearer of bad news and winding up like Stykowski, with a hole in the middle of his forehead. He headed for the exercise room, hoping the news he had just gotten would change Pharaoh’s attitude for the better.
Pharaoh’s hair was wet with perspiration, as were his T-shirt and sweats. The muscles in his legs were burning, weak from enforced inactivity. His heart was pounding as if he’d been running for miles, when in fact he had yet to walk two. He kept staring at the treadmill’s digital readout, certain that it was not registering correctly, and getting more and more pissed by the minute. He did not tolerate weakness—not even in himself.
He’d been out of the hospital a little over a week. According to the doctors, his recovery was going well, even beyond expectations. But it was not going fast enough for him. In his business, it was dangerous to be weak.
He shifted his mind onto a different plane, refusing to focus on the shaking muscles and stabbing pains. Learning of Francesca’s fate was all the incentive he needed to get well.
It was ironic that the L.A. cops he had on his payroll could not help him in a matter like this. Initiating a search, or acknowledging they knew anything about the woman’s presence in Pharaoh’s life, would directly involve them in her abduction. In normal circumstances, there would have been one or two who could have done some checking without raising any notice. But these weren’t normal times. The earth had rocked and cracked, destroyed—and killed. And Pharaoh could hardly put out a missing-person report on a woman he had literally stolen.
He gritted his teeth and lengthened his stride as he thought back over the past two years. He’d envisioned their reunion as something out of a movie—that she would see him and fall into his arms, swearing her undying devotion. Instead, she had screamed with fright and tried to run. He’d grabbed her then, reminding her of his vow to take care of her, reminding her that she belonged to him. But she had argued, saying she didn’t belong to anyone but Clay.
That was when he’d made his mistake. He’d slapped her. It didn’t matter how many times he had tried to apologize later, she still flinched when he came close and fought his every touch. And while her sorrow was almost his undoing, it became a matter of pride not to weaken. The fact that she didn’t want him was almost secondary to the fact that he couldn’t let her go. Everything good had returned after she’d come back into his life. Francesca had gone from being not only his heart’s desire but his luck, as well. And like the bird in the proverbial gilded cage, she had everything power and money could buy, except the thing she wanted most—her freedom.
“Son of a bitch,” Pharaoh muttered as his legs suddenly gave way.
He grabbed at the treadmill, but missed. The floor was coming up to meet him when his momentum stopped abruptly. Dazed and disoriented, he reached toward a wall as Duke lifted him to his feet.
“Get me to a chair,” he muttered.
“Yes, sir,” Duke said, and slid an arm around Pharaoh’s waist, then all but carried him to the leather sofa nearby.
“Should I call the nurse?” he asked.
“Not unless you’re tired of breathing,” Pharaoh snapped.
Duke paled. As weak as Pharaoh was, he still feared the man.
“I’ll get you some water.”
Pharaoh sighed as Duke headed for the bar. He leaned back and closed his eyes, listening to the clink of ice cubes, then the sound of water being poured in a glass.
“Here you go, boss,” Duke said.
Pharaoh took the water while coldly eyeing the bland expression on Duke Needham’s face. If he’d seen pity…He grunted his thanks and lifted the glass to his lips.
Duke was waiting to deliver his news.
It occurred to Pharaoh, as he drained the glass, that Duke’s arrival must have been more than fortuitous. His men knew better than to disturb him when he was on private time. He set the glass aside and looked up at Duke.
“What brings you down here?”
“Good news, boss. We’ve found her.”
Pharaoh’s expression stilled. “Where?”
Duke hesitated momentarily, but there was no getting around the truth.
“Where you suspected she might be…in Denver.”
Pharaoh said nothing, but inside, he was screaming. She was alive…and she’d gone back to him.
And then it hit him. She’d gone back, but she hadn’t told. If she had, the cops would have been all over him by now.
“What else?” Pharaoh asked.
“Details are sketchy, but word is she has some sort of amnesia.”
Pharaoh leaned back on the sofa. That explained why he was still here and not battling a court proceeding.
“You want we should pick her up again, boss?”
“No,” Pharaoh snapped. He didn’t want her to see him like this—weak and helpless. “Not yet.”
Duke shrugged. For a man who’d been out of his mind wondering what had happened to her, or if she was even still alive, Pharaoh showed little concern. But it wasn’t for him to judge. As far as he was concerned, they were better off without her.
“Yes, sir,” Duke said, and started to leave, when Pharaoh called him back. “Sir?”
“I want Law to stay on that house 24-7, do you get me?”
“Yes, sir. Round-the-clock surveillance.”
Pharaoh waited until Duke was gone before he dragged himself off the sofa and headed for his living quarters in the west wing. By the time he reached his bedroom, he was perspiring profusely, mostly from pain. With a silent curse, he stripped off his clothes and headed to the shower.
The bathroom itself was a masterpiece of architectural design. Bottle-glass bricks in lieu of windows and floor-to-ceiling tiles of mirrored glass. Green plants hung from the ceiling; others grew in pots upon the floor. The towels were white, offset by the antique-gold fixtures and yellow-gold soaps in the shapes of pyramids.
As he walked inside, the reflection of his nudity was thrown back at him from every angle. Although his six-foot frame was slim and firm, healing scars still showed a dark, angry red, and there was a faint purpling on his ribs. In spite of the obvious trauma he had endured, it was the small tattoo in the center of his chest he saw first. He walked closer to the mirrors, and then closer still, until he could see the throb of his pulse at the base of his throat.
The tattoo was a mockery.
Eternity.
Francesca did not know the meaning of the word. He splayed his fingers across the center of his chest, while his heart beat a tattoo of its own against his palm.
He wanted her to love him as he loved her. He wanted her undying de
votion. But he wasn’t going to get it. What he would get, though, was his way. He would have her back, even if he had to kill her husband to do it. But first, he had to get well.
“What do you mean, you don’t know where he is?” Clay asked.
Detective Dawson shrugged. “Just what I said. You have to understand, there’s a lot more going on out in L.A. besides running down a man for questioning. Everything is in turmoil. Emergency services are still not up and running full blast. There are areas of the city that people still can’t go into. They’re still uncovering the occasional victim. That earthquake was the worst in years. What did they say…7.6 on the Richter scale?”
“Something like that,” Clay muttered, and then gave Frankie a worried look. Oddly enough, she seemed calmer than he felt.
“So what do you know?” Clay asked.
Dawson flipped open the file on his desk and leaned forward, making a mental note to get his eyes checked. For the past few months, words had begun to blur.
“Okay…Pharaoh Carn, of the Allejandro cartel, was raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at Gladys Kitteridge House. He was working as a groundskeeper on the premises when he was arrested for armed robbery. He did five years.”
“After that…where did he go after that?” Frankie asked.
Dawson shuffled a couple of papers.
“Hmm, looks like the next thing we have on him, he was arrested for assault in Orange County.” Dawson looked up. “That’s in California.” Then he returned to the file. “However, the charge didn’t stick. After that, he began working his way into the cartel, doing a little muscle work here, a little legwork there. Within a few years, he was one of the men giving orders rather than taking him.”
Frankie shivered. “It’s weird to think I once knew someone like that.”
Dawson nodded. “Yeah, I know what you mean. One day, about ten years ago, me and my partner were working narcotics when this bust went down. When we got inside the house, damned if I didn’t wind up arresting a man who’d been one of my college professors.”
Clay wasn’t interested in Dawson’s past. It was Frankie’s that was making them all lose sleep.
“So the young man who was obsessed with Frankie is the man who’s part of a crime syndicate now.”