Race Against Time

by Sharon Sala

  When he exited again on the second floor, he shuffled out into the hallway, retraced his steps to the stairwell exit and went down the same way he’d come up.

  The guard was on duty now and seemed surprised to see the worker come down the back stairs, but as Anton passed him, the guard chose to ignore him.

  Anton nodded politely to the guard anyway and exited the building with his shoulders in a slump, his feet shuffling. He walked out into the sunshine, got into his truck and drove away.

  In less than an hour, he’d found himself a nondescript motel, whipping out a driver’s license with his picture and the name Manny Petrova beneath it. He signed the register without a hitch, paying for two nights in cash, then took his bag and toolbox inside the room. Once there, he flushed the contents of the plastic bag down the toilet, then went back into the room.

  “One down, two to go,” he said and crawled into bed and closed his eyes.

  * * *

  Quinn wanted to look nice for dinner at the Chavez house, but didn’t have much in the way of clothes that fit the event. She finally opted for her best pair of jeans and a simple yellow top. After she had figured out her clothes, she went looking for Nick and found him in the garage filling up the tank in her Harley and checking the oil.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Checking it out for you.”

  “Are you running me off?” she asked.

  Without warning, he swept her into his arms and pushed her back against a wall.

  She saw a glint of hunger in his eyes just before he centered his mouth on her lips and kissed her breathless.

  He let her go as abruptly as he’d grabbed her.

  “I’ll take that as a no,” Quinn mumbled.

  He shook his head.

  “You are a smart woman who persists in asking the dumbest questions. I thought maybe you needed show-and-tell.”

  She shrugged.

  “I almost forgot why I came looking for you. I have a favor to ask.”

  Nick stroked the side of her cheek with the back of his hand.

  “What do you need, baby?”

  “I want to wash my hair.”

  “Okay. You have plenty of time. Wash away.”

  She sighed.

  “I can’t...uh... I don’t want... It’s not possible to wash my hair in the shower.”

  The realization of what she was saying swept through him in one horrifying memory of her falling to pieces during the hospital fire alarm.

  “Oh, hell, Quinn, I’m sorry. I forgot. How can I help you?”

  “So, I have two options, both of which involve your participation because of my shoulder.”

  Nick put his arms around her and pulled her close to him, then rocked her where they stood.

  “I will do anything to make that easier for you. What’s your plan?”

  “You wash my hair at the kitchen sink so I can keep a towel over my face, or you get in the shower with me and wash it there. I can cope if I have my back to the water...if it’s not coming down at me, or in my face, but I have been taking baths not showers since my back got infected.”

  “Which would you rather do?” Nick asked.

  “You wash it at the kitchen sink.”

  “Then that’s what we’ll do. You go get whatever you need and I’ll be in the kitchen waiting.”

  Quinn hugged him.

  “Thank you, Nick. You’re the best.”

  He kissed her again, but this time slow and softly, brushing his mouth across her lips in a featherlight touch.

  “We’re partners here, right? So that means we do the hard stuff together. Go get your towels and shampoo.”

  “I’ll be right back,” she said and hurried out of the garage and into the house with Nick following behind her.

  It didn’t take long for them to get set up. Quinn covered her face with a towel and then leaned over the kitchen sink while Nick proceeded to shampoo her hair. Just before he went to rinse, he stopped.

  “Honey, are you doing okay?”

  She just nodded, her face still covered with the towel.

  “Right now I’m going to rinse it, then put the conditioner on it and rinse it again, and we’re through.”

  She took a breath and readjusted the towel.

  “I’m ready,” she mumbled.

  Nick turned the water back on and worked as quick as he could, but her hair was long and curly and getting all of the soap and conditioner out was time-consuming. By the time he was finished, he noticed her shoulders were shaking.

  “All done,” he said and wrapped a dry towel around her hair.

  She stood up and put the wet towel aside that she’d been holding over her face. That’s when Nick saw she’d been crying.

  “Quinn...baby...why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you tell me to stop?” he asked, as he took her into his arms with wet hair dripping all over both of them.

  “I couldn’t stop the tears, but I didn’t get scared. I knew it was you,” she said.

  Nick was sick with knowledge that he’d been the cause of her tears.

  “This is never happening again,” he muttered as he helped towel-dry her hair. “You’re going to find a hair salon and never put yourself through this misery another time.”

  “I will,” she said and then stopped him with a kiss. “I’ll finish it from here. You are forever my knight in shining armor. I just wanted to look pretty for you at dinner.”

  Again, the naïveté of her need, and what she was willing to go through just so he would be proud of her, made him sad. She was warrior-strong in some ways, and in others, so fragile she broke his heart.

  Oblivious of what Nick was thinking, she gathered up the wet towels and took them all to the utility room and put them on top of the washer, then hurried back to her bedroom to wet-comb her hair before it became an unmanageable mess.

  Nick was still rattled, and he hadn’t told her the truth about why he was checking the Harley. He needed to know that if she was ever here alone and needed to get away that she had the means. Until Anton Baba was behind bars, he wasn’t going to rest easy.

  A couple of hours later they were dressed and on their way to Juana and Tonio’s house.

  “Santino and his wife will be there, too, right?” Quinn asked.

  “Yes. Her name is Lara, remember?”

  Quinn nodded, but she was too quiet.

  Nick sighed. There were only so many ways he could show her she was loved. The acceptance would have to come from her, so he started talking about the family.

  “I think I told you already, but in case I didn’t, Juana and Tonio have two children. Melina is younger than Santino but they’re both older than me. She and her husband, Aidan, live in Bakersfield, California. He works at a body shop repainting cars. She teaches school.”

  “So there are no babies in the family?” she asked.

  Nick threaded his fingers through hers.

  “No. No grandbabies for them yet, although we all get less-than-subtle reminders now and then.”

  Quinn thought about little Nicks running around, and her heart fluttered. She glanced at him.

  “How do you feel about babies?” he asked.

  “You mean do I want children one day? The answer is yes. But I didn’t want to have any without setting up a place to call home first,” she said.

  Nick gave her another glance, but she was staring out the window with a sad look on her face, and he didn’t want to ask her what she was thinking about.

  He slowed down for a stop sign, and then as soon as he stopped, he lifted her hands to his lips and kissed them.

  “When you were little, you had a baby doll you called Mary. Mary went everywhere with you. Even when our foster mother told you
to leave her at home, you still took her. Do you remember that?”

  Quinn nodded.

  “Why wouldn’t you leave her at home?” Nick asked.

  “Because she was my baby, and I promised I would never leave her behind like my mama left me.”

  Nick was silent for a couple of blocks and then next time he had to stop for a red light, he got up the courage to ask.

  “Did you ever know your mother, or why she left you?”

  Quinn shrugged.

  “Not until I was older.”

  Nick stayed quiet, waiting to see if she would elaborate on her own.

  “When I was in high school, one of the case workers let it slip that my mother was dead. She thought I knew the story, since it was the reason I’d ended up in care. I pretended I did know so she would keep talking, but she clammed up pretty soon afterward.”

  “Did she say what happened? If you had any family anywhere? Stuff like that?”

  She shrugged. “All I know is she committed suicide. The man she loved dumped her. She killed herself out of grief. I was two.”

  Nick shook his head.

  “That’s horrible.”

  “I guess,” she said and looked out a side window as he began slowing down.

  “So you had no other family?” Nick asked.

  “I guess not. None that ever came looking for me, anyway,” Quinn said bitterly.

  Nick realized he’d ventured too close to a touchy subject.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get so personal.”

  “No worries. If we’re going to make this work, you have to know what makes me tick,” Quinn said.

  “And what hurts you,” Nick added. “I have to know what hurts you so I’ll know how to protect you.”

  “I appreciate knowing you will always be my backup, but I’m not a baby. I know how to take care of myself,” she said.

  Nick smiled.

  “Duly noted, and here we are,” he said, as he pulled up into the driveway of a gray stucco house with white trim around the windows and white shutters. The landscape was typical Vegas, tiny gravel, sand and cactus—one of those water-saving touches that mattered when people built a city in the middle of a desert.

  “Santino is already here,” Nick said. “That black Camaro is his.”

  Quinn was getting nervous butterflies again but managed to hide her anxiousness.

  As Nick helped her out of the car, he was more than a little mesmerized by the bright yellow shirt she was wearing and the way the setting sun highlighted the long red curls framing her face.

  “It’s going to be a beautiful night, but not as beautiful as you,” Nick said and kissed her. “Mmm, your hair smells like oranges and lemons.”

  She grinned.

  “I have a great hairstylist. If you want, I can give you his number.”

  Nick laughed as they went up the steps and knocked at the door. Uncle Tonio welcomed them inside with a grin and a hug.

  Quinn was just getting her first glimpse of the house Nick had grown up in when the room erupted with noise. Juana came out of the kitchen, Santino and his wife, Lara, behind her, and everyone began hugging and kissing and talking at once. She vaguely remembered being introduced to Lara in the midst of it all.

  Later, as they were getting ready to sit down to dinner, Nick leaned down and whispered against her ear.

  “So, how do you like my family?”

  “They’re wonderful,” Quinn said.

  Nick put his arm around her waist.

  “You asked me once what it felt like to belong to a family. Well, this is it,” he said.

  Quinn leaned against him for a moment, yielding to the pull of their physical attraction.

  “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” she said.

  He smiled.

  “Yes, baby, it’s pretty wonderful.”

  * * *

  Paco Cruz was pissed.

  He’d been picked up for nothing more than drunk and disorderly. He should have already been arraigned and bonded out. But he was still in jail, and all they would tell him was that he’d been turned over to the FBI.

  So he’d demanded a lawyer and been told one was coming, but still none had shown up, and he was about to spend his second night in jail. Furious, he demanded his phone call, claiming he hadn’t asked for one last night when they jailed him, and if they were keeping him again without arraignment, then that phone call was his right.

  Surprisingly, they let him have it, and now he was about to enact his own little version of payback for that asshole cop’s stunt. But he didn’t call a bondsman or a lawyer. He called his brother.

  The phone rang three times, and just as Paco was starting to panic, his brother picked up.

  “Hello?”

  “Jesus, it’s me. Get a pen and paper and hurry. I don’t have much time.”

  “Paco? Where are you, bro?” Jesus asked.

  “Jail—being held by the Feds. Don’t ask. Just do this for me. Please.”

  Jesus didn’t argue.

  “I’m ready. Tell me what you need.”

  “I need you to call a number and this is what you say. Tell them you’re my brother, then say ‘Paco’s last message was from the cops—it’s a trap. She’s not there. The woman you want is at this address.’” Paco carefully recited Saldano’s address, the place he knew the redhead was really holed up. Then he gave him Baba’s phone number.

  “Madre de Dios,” Jesus said. “Brother, what have you gotten yourself into?”

  “It doesn’t matter. But I’m being fucked over by the cops and the Feds, and I don’t want Baba to think I ratted him out.”

  Jesus gasped.

  “This number belongs to Baba?”

  “Yes. You need to give him that address—it’s the house of a cop named Saldano—and tell him to ignore the other text. Don’t mess this up, Jesus.”

  “Yeah, okay. I wrote it all down. I promise,” Jesus said.

  “My time is up. Gotta go,” Paco said. Then he hung up and smiled to himself. He might still be fucked, but at least now so was Saldano.

  * * *

  Anton was dreaming he was in the pool playing with Sammy. Star was reclining on a chaise watching them, and he was about to toss Sammy up in the air when the dream shattered around him. It took him a few moments to go from the dream to the realization that what he was hearing was his phone.

  He rolled over, fumbling for the phone on the bed behind him, and finally answered with a muffled hello.

  “Mr. Baba, my name is Jesus Cruz. I’m Paco Cruz’s brother. He gave me a very important message for you.”

  Anton sat up. Paco had just broken protocol by giving someone else his number.

  “And why the hell wouldn’t he give me the message himself?” Anton said.

  “He’s in jail, sir. Paco called me in a panic and gave your number to me. He said to tell you that the text you received earlier was from the cops...and the Feds, I think. Paco said to tell you it was a trap. He said the lady you’re looking for is someplace else—”

  “Where is she?” Anton snapped, and he heard Jesus swallow nervously before reciting a new address.

  “Apparently it’s a house that belongs to a cop named Saldano?”

  Anton stifled a gasp. He knew Saldano was responsible for Dev Bosky’s death. He threw off his covers and hurried to the nearby desk.

  “Give me the cop’s address again,” Anton said, writing quickly on the motel notepad as Jesus read it off.

  “If this is a trap, you will be sorry,” Anton said, then heard the tears and panic in the caller’s voice.

  “No, sir, no, sir, I swear on the name of the Holy Mother that I am Paco’s brother and this is the message he asked me to give you.”
r />   “And he’s in jail?” Anton asked.

  “Yes. He didn’t say why and that’s all I know. He used his one phone call to warn you.”

  “Is this all?” Anton asked.

  “Yes, sir, this is all,” Jesus said, and as he was listening, the line went dead.

  He was shaking when he hung up. He didn’t want to be on the wrong side of Anton Baba. People died who crossed this man.

  Eighteen

  Before the evening with the Chavez family was over, they had all fallen in love with Quinn, mostly because they could see how much Nick cared for her. If Nick loved her, then they did, too. And in a family of people with olive skin and black hair, Quinn O’Meara’s pale skin and red hair was unique.

  Lara was the first to comment and told her how beautiful it was. Quinn thanked her.

  Santino made a joke about fiery redheads, but Quinn didn’t bite. She just laughed at the joke along with everyone else and let it go.

  Then Juana asked Quinn what she remembered most about Nick from when they were little.

  “Ah, come on, Aunt Juana, give her a break. She was really little. I doubt she remembers all that much,” Nick said.

  “I don’t mind. I remember enough,” Quinn said.

  “Okay, then, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Nick said, wondering what she might say.

  Without thinking, Quinn laid her hand on his arm.

  “I remember lots of things...how he wouldn’t let the bigger kids pick on me, how he taught me to tie my shoes. Oh...and he gave me my nickname, Queenie.”

  Juana’s eyes welled, sympathetic to a little girl with no family and all the things she’d had to learn on her own.

  A shiver ran up Nick’s spine. Such small things had been a big deal to a little girl, and he’d never known it.

  “That is so sweet,” Lara said and then poked Nick to tease him. “Why did you call her Queenie?”

  “I’ll tell you,” Quinn said. “I got it in my head one Halloween that I wanted to be a princess. I was really little, but the foster family didn’t spend money on costumes for us, and of course I was sad. So Nick made a crown for me out of cardboard and tinfoil and said I could be a queen, that they were better than princesses.”