The Bride Wore A Forty-Four

by Maggie Shayne

  Beside it arranged on another set of hangers, were a pair of black leather pants, a ribbed black tank top, and a leather jacket On the next hook there were holsters and guns.

  "Did you know about all this, Anita?"

  "All what Kira? What's going on?" Anita narrowed her eyes and studied her.

  "I don't know. I decided to go through those trunks last night. Anita, what was I doing with all these weapons?"

  "Are you starting to get your memory back? Is that what this is?"

  "Maybe. A little. Bits and pieces. But I don't know what it means." She turned and speared Anita with her eyes. "Has there been—have I been—involved with anyone? Besides Peter?"

  Anita's shock turned to a look of stark disapproval. "You're getting cold feet, aren't you? You're thinking about calling off the wedding."

  Lowering her head, she nodded. "Yeah. I am."

  "You can't do that. Good God, you can't. Just...oh, hell. Wait here."

  Anita turned and hurried from the room.

  Hell, it didn't matter. She had to do what was right for her. She reached for the white dress. She would at least put it on. It would give her more time to decide what was the right thing to do. And if she decided to go through with this thing, she'd be ready.

  She put the dress on. Even added the little glittering tiara and the layers of veils. Then she looked into the mirror. And then she rolled her eyes. "No way. It's just not happening."

  "Marshall, we've got trouble."

  Marshall tilted his head to one side when the voice came through his earphone, moved a few yards away from the crowd, and spoke into the mouthpiece. "What is it?"

  "She's starting to remember. I think she's going to call off the wedding."

  He thought every cell in his body smiled. God, it felt like it, and he was damned if he could keep the relief and joy from showing on his face.

  "We've got to do something, Marshall. We can't make the arrest until the reception. Everything's set up there, not here. We have to stick with the plan. She calls off the wedding, it's going to ruin everything."

  Marshall sucked in a calming breath and nodded. It wasn't as if the license she'd been issued was a real one, after all. The vows wouldn't be valid. But goddamn, it had been killing him to watch her moving forward with all this, and believing it was real.

  Killing him.

  Still, he had to stick with the plan. Peter would be taken into custody after the ceremony, when the rest of his cronies arrived. Some could only attend the reception. Marshall was to gather them up for a group photo, take them off a little way from the rest of the crowd, then give the signal for the troops to move in.

  They wanted them all together.

  Things had to move forward. Just as planned.

  "Wait a minute," the voice on the radio said. "Wait, I think we're okay. She's coming out."

  Marshall frowned. "She's going through with it?"

  "Well, she's wearing the gown."

  He looked back toward the house, and then he saw her. She stepped out the back door and waited there, shifting her feet Swallowing the rush of disappointment Marshall turned to face the crowd, signaled the string quartet

  They began to play, and the guests took their seats and grew quiet. As soon as they did, the quartet changed to the wedding march.

  Marshall turned back toward the house.

  Kira stood there, looking as if she were paralyzed. Hell. He was going to have to go back there. Talk her through it. Help her gather enough courage to walk down the aisle...to marry another man.

  He took three steps toward her—and then all hell broke loose.

  Kira didn't know what was happening. She'd run out of time for contemplation and had decided to go out there, as she was, send someone to fetch Peter for her, and then tell him as gently as she could that she didn't want to marry him. That she couldn't marry anyone, not until her memory was fully restored.

  But the second she stepped out of the house, the band struck up, and the next thing she knew everyone was looking at her, and the wedding march was playing. Hell! She just stood there, not sure what to do. If she walked down the aisle to her beaming groom, would she get caught up in the riptide and end up married? If she turned and ran back into the house, would everyone think she'd lost what little remained of her mind?

  She stood there like a doe in headlights. And then she saw Marshall. He stepped into the aisle and started toward her. And she couldn't wait for him to get to her. She couldn't wait. She had to be near him, to touch him—to talk to him—now.

  She gathered her skirts up and started toward him, but then gunshots rang out. Automatic weapons, her mind told her. And she launched herself at Marshall and knocked him flat on his back, landing on top of him. Her momentum kept them going as she wrapped around him and rolled to the side, out of the open, into the cover of the rose of Sharon hedges.

  "Kira?" he asked.

  "Stay down!" She pushed his chest, reaching to her side for a weapon and only belatedly realizing she had none. And why would she expect to find one there?

  Marshall was easing her off him, setting her on the ground, beside him. She could see between the branches, everyone was on the ground. Men in black suits with blacker rifles fanned through the crowd. One of them gripped Peter by the shoulder.

  "I gotta go, babe," Marshall said harshly. "Stay low. Stay under cover. You're not ready for this."

  "Ready for what?"

  He hesitated, then he yanked her hard against him and took her mouth in a kiss that was like a hurried mating. When he jerked his head back again, he said, "Just stay here."

  She sat back on her heels, as Marshall crept out the opposite side of the bushes and, using them for cover, made his way back toward the wedding party.

  Someone was doing the same on the other side.

  The men were herding Peter away now. But then Marshall sprang from the cover with a gun pointed at them. And from the other side, Anita did the same.

  Anita! Standing there in a crouch with her black uniform and white apron and a big silver gun in her hands. "Freeze!"

  They didn't freeze. Shots rang out again. Anita went down, and the gunmen turned their attention to Marshall. But by that point, Kira was already charging down the aisle, screaming words she couldn't believe were coming from her lips.

  "Drop the fucking guns! Now!"

  Faces turned her way, as she drop-kicked the first guy, then sprang upright again to deliver an elbow to the throat of the second, and then she had his gun in her hands.

  Someone hit her from behind—a big crack to the back of her head, not the least bit cushioned by the veils, no matter how many layers thick they were. Her tiara tilted over her eyes, her head swam, and she went down hard.

  Blinking and sitting up, she saw the men running toward cars that had pulled onto the back lawn. Peter was shoved into the back of one. Marshall into another, a gun to his head. And then they took off, as she struggled to her feet

  The guy lying facedown on the ground beside her started to get up. She put the barrel of her rifle on his forehead. "Stay down for a sec."

  He frowned at her, so she put her foot between his shoulder blades and slammed him down.

  "It's all right everyone, you can get up." She nodded at the minister. "Hold him a minute?"

  The minister nodded, came forward, and put his foot in the middle of the offender's back. Kira bent low. "Wiggle, and I'll pop you. Got it?"

  "Yeah."

  She kept one eye on the man as she hurried to where Anita lay still on the ground. Kneeling, Kira pressed a palm to her cheek. "You alive?"

  "Yeah." It was a pained and breathless whisper. "You back?"

  "I don't know what the fuck I am. Much less who. Hell, I'm not even sure what my mother's cook is doing with a 9-millimeter Ruger." She closed her eyes. "Or how I know a Ruger from a Glock. Hell."

  "Go after him," Anita said, and Kira knew without asking that she was talking about Marshall. "They'll kill him. We can't wait."
>
  "I'm going." She put an arm around Anita, helped her sit up, put the rifle in her arms. "You got him?"

  "Yep," Anita said.

  "Great." Kira looked around the lawn. Her mother had fainted, but a dozen relatives surrounded her. She would be fine. "I'll get my gear, Anita. Be two minutes."

  "Make it one."

  Her head was spinning, and she was damned if she knew what was going on. But she raced to her room, stripping off the veils and tiara as she went kicking free of the shoes, unzipping the dress. She flung it aside and pulled on the other clothes, the ones she'd laid out because they were the easiest ones to get to.

  The leather pants, tank top. Then the straps and holsters. She didn't think first she didn't need to. They went on automatically, shoulder strap, thigh strap, hip straps, slip into the boots with the hidden sheath, dagger in place. She checked the guns to be sure they were loaded and slammed them into their holsters. Put on the jacket and shoved spare ammo into her pockets. Then she was racing back down the stairs.

  Her car was at the back door, a sacrilege parked across her mother's perfect lawn. Anita must have had someone bring it out for her. The cook was already shoving the thug into the passenger side. His hands were cuffed behind him. She slammed the door and looked up at Kira.

  Kira eyed the bloody spot on her white apron. "You gonna be all right, Anita?"

  "Cavalry is on the way. Medics, too. I'll be fine. And it's Kelly."

  Kira lifted her brows and wondered what other revelations were awaiting her. But she didn't take time to ask, she just jumped behind the wheel and took off.

  As she spun the tires and shifted the gears, she looked at the man beside her and told herself not to focus on the insane feeling that she didn't know who the hell she was, who this person was who seemed to have taken control of her body. It didn't matter, not now. All that mattered was finding Marshall in time. And Peter, too, she supposed.

  "Now, you're going to tell me where they are, understand?"

  He said something vile, so she cracked him upside the head with the gun. Then managed to shift gears without setting the weapon down. She headed out the driveway and left, the direction she'd seen the others take.

  'Talk. Where are they?"

  There was blood trickling from a small cut on his cheekbone. He thinned his lips. "If you think I won't kill you, you can think again," she said. "I've got nothing to lose."

  He narrowed his eyes on her. "I was told you were harmless. That you'd been as good as lobotomized."

  "Yeah? Well, don't believe everything you hear." She slanted him a look as they came to a crossroads. "Come on, Duke. Which way?"

  She didn't know why she called him by name, she only knew his eyes widened when she said it.

  "You do remember," he whispered.

  "Which way, Duke?"

  He swallowed hard. "Left."

  She didn't move the car. "To where?"

  His eyes shifted downward. "There's a house out in Kentport."

  "Is there?"

  He nodded.

  She didn't move the car. Just revved the engine, letting the clutch up just enough to make the vehicle push itself forward, like a horse tugging at the bit."

  "Cause you know when we get to this house in Kentport, you're coming in with me. And if they're not there, I'll put this gun barrel in your ear and squeeze the trigger."

  She saw him shiver and thought he actually believed her. Apparently, he'd known her in the past. Apparently, he had reason to think she could make good on the threat. Damn, what kind of a woman had she been?

  What kind of a woman was she now?

  "You know I'll do it don't you, Duke?"

  "Yeah."

  "So you still want me to turn left?"

  His Adam's apple swelled briefly. "Go straight There's an apartment. Vacant. In the city."

  She nodded, satisfied. "You get me to where they are, Duke, and you can walk. I never saw you. That's a promise."

  He thinned his lips and nodded.

  "You believe me?"

  He met her eyes. "You never break your word. Everybody knows that. I'll get you there."

  Chapter 5

  The apartment building was in a dead neighborhood. It sat below the base of a bridge across the river. Before they put the bridge up, this had been a ferry stop. Houses and shops cropped up around it. But once the bridge went in, the thriving community died. Shops closed. Owners moved and either sold their houses dirt cheap or rented them the same way. Things were let go. Repairs were seldom made. Some of the places ended up vacant, boarded up, and became way stations for the aging homeless, until they were pushed out by the street kids, who were pushed out in turn by the gangs. Now the decrepit buildings that hadn't fallen down, been torn down, or gone to arson, were crack houses, whorehouses, and gang hangouts.

  Kira didn't know how she knew all this, but the knowledge was there, and had been there all along, lying silent and invisible with so many other things, like layers of sediment at the bottom of the sea. Only now, the formerly calm waters were rough and choppy, and the junk at the bottom was getting stirred up.

  The bums holed up on the hill, underneath the bridge for shelter. At night they came down and set fires in the barrels along the waterfront. Mostly the gangs left them alone, unless they were feeling particularly mean. There were other homeless they could roll, farther away. These were sort of their own.

  She pulled the car to a stop behind the brick remnants of a one-time gas station, its upper half long gone, and killed the engine. "Which building?"

  Duke nodded, because he couldn't point. "Farthest one down, right by the water. Red brick, see it?"

  She nodded. And she believed him. So she reached behind his back and pressed the handcuff key into his palm. "Leave the cuffs and the key on the seat and get out of here."

  He nodded.

  She got out of the car and pulled the .44, leaving him to fumble with the key. It would take him a few minutes to maneuver it into the cuff's lock and get himself free with his hands behind him that way. She figured that gave her time—she doubted he'd try to screw her over, but even if he did, it would be ten minutes. Okay, maybe five.

  She kept her back to the sides of buildings, inching along each one, then darting across the alley to the next When she reached the redbrick building at the end of the row, she skirted it in search of a less obvious entry than the front door.

  Broken fire escape in the back. Twenty feet gaped between it and the ground. No good there. But she found a basement window busted out and crawled in there, standing still and facing the darkness to give her eyes time to adjust

  And her mind time to try to puzzle this out.

  She'd been in Africa. So had her father, and Marshall, and so had Peter. She'd been engaged to Peter, but screwing Marshall. She didn't think she'd slept with Peter, or if she had, it must not have been too impressive, because she didn't have any memories of being twisted up naked with him. The memories of her and Marshall though—well, hell, they got her hot even thinking about them. And this was no time to be distracted, so she'd better stop.

  Sighing, her eyes seeing things better now, she moved through the basement, avoiding the shapes of boxes and giant metal contraptions that might be normal basement things. Big, square, boxy.

  So apparently, someone was involved with criminals. Armed men with automatic weapons who kidnaped people from weddings equaled criminals, right? They couldn't have been cops or feds or anything, she thought, because if they were, they wouldn't have brought their victims here. They'd have taken them to some official place "for questioning" or whatever.

  So that meant the men in the suits were bad guys.

  Apparently Anita was involved, though not on the criminals' side. Anita must be a good guy.

  So why had the criminals taken Peter and Marshall? Were Peter and Marshall good guys, or bad guys?

  More importantly, what about me?

  Her black boot kicked something that scurried, and she didn't ev
en wince. It was odd to expect to react and then feel nothing. She just kept moving and found a set of stairs leading upward. She took them, and when she reached the door at the top, she pushed it open slowly, peering around into a dimly lit hall. Sun filtered by a dirt-streaked window at the far end gave enough light to make her blink. Seeing no one, she stepped into the hall and started along it, pausing near each and every door to listen.

  And hearing only silence.

  She came to another set of stairs and crept up to the first landing, around it and up farther, but when her head reached above the floor of level two, she ducked quickly, pausing on the steps.

  Someone was standing in front of one of the doors up there.

  She dipped a hand into one of the numerous pockets of her jacket and came out with a little mirror. Then she placed it on the floor above her, facing the man, adjusted it until she could see him, left it there, and settled in for the wait.

  Patience, she told herself, was as important as stealth or skill or smarts. And it only came with experience.

  Must be I've been at this awhile, then...whatever this is.

  It took time. And during that time, she found herself marking exits. The stairs that continued up. The window, at the far end of this hall, just like the one below. Probably within jumping distance of the ground. And the stairs back down again. That was about it, not counting any escape route inside the apartment itself. Number 207, she noted. And the guy standing outside the door was armed, and smoking, and flipping through a flesh magazine so old the pages were swollen.

  Good. Take a good look, she thought.

  She decided to hell with patience and crept up the stairs, making not so much as a sound. When she got to the top, she moved into the hall, in the opposite direction from where he was standing, and ducked into a door well. She had to press herself flat to do it, but hell, it was shadowy. He wouldn't see her.

  Then she dug a coin from her pocket and tossed it toward the stairs. It flew perfectly, heading down a long way before hitting and pinging and bouncing the rest of the way down.