by Sheedy, EC
Dollar or not, she shouldn’t be here; for what it was worth, Mayday Security was his job. Annoyed now—or maybe frustrated—he glared down at her. “Don’t you ever nod off?”
She ignored him. Her attention fixed on Erica, she took some steps to get closer. “What are you doing down here, Erica?” she said, tilting her head. “Are you all right? Are the babies all right?”
Stark was right as rain as far as Gus could see, and nosing around for a reason. At Keeley’s question, the woman’s eyes darted to the stairway, gauging the possibility of escape. Her face was drained, rigid with confused tension.
Gus took a step back and sat on the stairs, making flight impossible. Might as well get to the bottom of this now, rather than later.
Keeley touched Erica’s hair, then stroked it. “It’s all right. Whatever it is, you can tell us.” She stroked again.
Erica shook her head and stepped away from Keeley. When the tears started flowing again, she reached into her robe pocket—and pulled out a gun.
Keeley stumbled backward.
Gus shot to his feet.
“Stay away from me. Both of you.” She ran the back of her free hand over her cheek, her mouth. “I didn’t want this to happen, but I don’t—I don’t have a choice.”
Keeley, whose face had gone gray the second the gun came out, looked at her openmouthed for a moment. “You’ve got a gun,” she said, stating the obvious.
Erica swallowed. “And I’ll use it. Don’t think I won’t.”
Gus stepped forward and pulled Keeley away from the muzzle of the gun. She moved awkwardly as if mesmerized by the cold steel in Erica’s hand. When he had her tucked at least halfway behind him, he put out his hand. “Give me the gun before you hurt someone—and that includes yourself.” He didn’t expect she’d hand it over. No one ever did. But he needed think time. How the hell did a man defend himself and the woman he lov—
Gus’s blood surged. Everything stopped. For a lifelong split second his brain was more paralyzed by the word forming in his mind than by the Glock pointed at his chest. His thinking stumbled.
He righted it, called back his current problem; how to defend himself and Keeley against a pregnant woman—without hurting her. He had no fucking idea. Erica’s condition might be delicate, but the 9mm in her hand wasn’t. He had to do something and he had to do it fast.
“I’ll give you the gun when she”—she wagged the gun in Keeley’s direction and Gus’s heart stopped a second time—“tells me what I need to know.” Her voice had steadied somewhat, as had the gun she now held with both hands.
Gus felt the brush of Keeley’s shoulder against his arm when she stepped from behind him to face Stark.
Her face might be gray as smoke, but her back was straight, and her eyes possessed a serene calm when she rested them on Stark. Drummed-up courage. He recognized it. “Give Gus the gun, and do it now. There’s no place for violence in Mayday House. Do you understand?”
The cool authority in Keeley’s voice seemed to get Erica’s attention; then she laughed. “Now who’s lying, sister?” she said. “Mary Weaver killed my father in this fucking house. That’s as violent as it gets.” Gus stared at her. This was sure as hell breaking news, because either two men were killed in Mayday House, or this flash meant Erica and Christiana were sisters.
“And you know this how?” Gus asked, even though he’d guessed the answer.
“The old bat called my brother.” Her lips twisted. “She wanted our father’s abandoned children to forgive her. Said she didn’t want to die with us thinking he’d deserted us. I guess she thought it was better we know she killed the bastard.”
Keeley’s face went even whiter, but she let the shock pass, didn’t falter. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t you just say so when you came here? Why didn’t you call the police?”
“Because the police don’t pay. Our father did squat for us while he was alive, so if there’s a silver lining in his death, we intend to find it” She looked distressed when she added, “I intend to find it.”
“So, you want someone to pay you. For your father’s death?” Keeley said, sounding confused. Not getting it.
Gus got it—loud and clear—but then he was more familiar with greed than Keeley. More familiar with sin.
Erica focused on Gus. “Weaver said we had a sister born here, at Mayday. And where there’s a sister, there’s a mother—a mother who likely was involved in the murder. Someone who’ll pay to keep that ugly little fact from anyone who might give a damn. Like the cops.”
Keeley glared at her. “You’re talking about blackmail.”
“And who is this mysterious mother?” Gus asked.
“The million-dollar question and the one you”— she swung the gun toward Keeley, desperate again— “are going to answer. I want the 1980 records, and I want them now.”
Gus’s stomach clenched, and he released the blade back into his hand, palmed it, his gut a hard coil.
Keeley looked down at the gun, then up into Erica’s face. “Death doesn’t scare me, Erica, so threatening me with it won’t do you any good. I won’t be party to blackmail.” She stopped. “So put the gun away and we’ll talk things out.”
“Talk things out?” She looked wild now, as if she were the one trapped, the one staring down the muzzle of a loaded gun.”You don’t understand—”
Keeley took a step forward. “I understand you’re not a killer, that you’re a pregnant woman with lives other than her own at stake. I understand you’re not going to fire that gun. That if you do, whatever plans you’ve made for your life and”—she looked pointedly at Erica’s distended stomach—“for your children’s lives will end when you pull the trigger.”
Erica rested one hand on her stomach, and the tears started again. Gus knew she couldn’t see clearly, that this was his moment.
“You don’t understand,” she said again. “He has my brother. He has Paul! I can’t let him hurt Paul. I can’t!”
“What are you talking about? Who has Paul?” Gus asked, aware of her rising panic, a panic making her dangerously volatile.
“Mace. Some guy named Mace. He knows about the sister, told me to get the information on the mother or he’d kill him. Two days”—she swallowed hard—“he said two days, or he’ll kill Paul.” Her voice turned shrill, her eyes darting and frantic; then she leveled them on Keeley. Wide, crazed eyes. “You have to tell me. You have to.” She raised the gun, aimed it at Keeley’s face.
Gus threw the knife.
CHAPTER 15
The sounds …
The whir of steel slicing through air, the sharp clink of metal on metal, the even sharper intake of Erica’s breath.
The soundless …
The splatter of blood against a rounded tummy, the movement of bare feet over cement floor, flannel shifting against her legs as Keeley rushed toward Erica.
“My God! What did you do?” Her gaze shot to Gus as she reached for Erica’s hand.
“What I had to.” He walked to where his knife had fallen and picked it up—the gun, too. The six-inch throwing blade he slipped back into his wrist grip. Wearing sweats, he had no place to put the Glock, so he dangled it at his side.
Erica looked at him, her eyes stunned wide. “You could have killed me. Killed my babies.”
“No. I couldn’t.”
Keeley shot him an unreadable glance, then turned her attention to Erica’s bleeding hand. He heard her exhale loudly. “It’s a shallow cut. Some antiseptic and a Band-Aid should take care of it.”
Erica continued to stare at Gus with a look of utter incomprehension.
Keeley touched her face, then tugged her chin, forcing their eyes to meet. “Are you all right? No pains?” She rested her hand on Erica’s stomach. “Quiet?”
Erica closed her eyes, nodded.
Through Gus’s eyes, she didn’t look fine. She looked as though she’d keel over any minute. He looked warily at her stomach. He knew nothing about pregnant women, but he did
know a shock might bring on labor. Hell!
“Let’s get you upstairs, take care of that cut.” Keeley urged her toward the stairs, while looking at Gus as if he were an axe murderer.
“No.” Erica shook her head. “I can’t. Paul needs me. You don’t understand, he’s all I have.” She pulled away from Keeley, damn near toppled over.
Gus steadied her until Keeley could get a better hold. “If you want to help your brother,” he said. “Best you do what the lady says.”
“Paul will be okay,” Keeley said, shooting another glance toward Gus, this one less hostile. “We’ll figure something out, won’t we, Gus?”
Gus didn’t give a rat’s ass about Erica’s brother, but he agreed anyway.
With one arm around a trembling Erica, Keeley gestured angrily toward the Glock dangling from his hand. “Get rid of that filthy thing.”
He’d get rid of it, all right, when this mess around Mayday House was over—a mess with the pattern of a dropped egg. He’d thought the Dinah, Christiana, Hagan trio was bad enough, but now, according to Erica, there was a new player in the game, another vulture circling Mayday House, some thug named Mace. Gus intended to make his acquaintance at the first opportunity.
For now, all he could do was follow Keeley’s pink toenailed feet up the basement stairs.
Keeley’s mouth was dry and she was cold, shivering as though she were naked in the January Arctic. Half an hour of listening to Erica, crazed with worry about her brother and the “family business,” while trying to keep her own nerves from jumping out of her skin, had exhausted her.
God, Erica Stark was a pornographer! A hardcore pornographer.
Keeley didn’t want to judge, but—
Knowing that but would lead to the judgment she wanted to avoid, she shut it down. She’d think about Erica later, tomorrow when her head was clear, when she could make sense of things. Right now she had to get out of here.
She looked at the sleeping woman. Her brow was deeply furrowed; one arm rested outside the covers, its hand bandaged and fisted. Keeley hoped she hadn’t made a mistake, assuring her again and again that she—and Gus—would keep her brother safe.
Certain Erica was in a deep sleep, Keeley lifted her injured hand and tucked it under the quilt. She stood on her unreliable legs and briefly leaned against the bed for support.
She had to get to her room. Fast. Needed to be alone.
She made her way to the door, stopped when her hand closed over the knob, and shut her eyes against the smothering feeling creeping over her like a dank fog. Her heart quivering in her breast, she tightened her grip on the latch, ignored the palpitations, the tingling in her arms, and opened her door.
Damn it to hell! She wasn’t a weak-kneed, useless fool. She could control this. She could. It might have got the better of her a few times in Africa, but not here. Not at home.
Dear God, all I have to do is get down a few stairs. Can you lend a hand?
Erica was in pain and Keeley ached with it, had absorbed it, trembled with it. Damn it. She didn’t have time for a bout of self-indulgent, quivering panic. Whether she liked Erica or not, she needed her, and her babies needed her. She had to be strong, face the evil encroaching on Mayday House. Tonight that evil had lurked in the black shaft of Erica’s gun, disabling her, pushing her mind into the blank white of fear.
Like before.
She closed the door on Erica’s room and slumped against the wall, planning to rest a second, get her bearings.
When she saw Gus standing at the top of the stairs, she knew he’d been waiting for her, and the heat of embarrassment warmed her neck, made her try to straighten. She didn’t want to be seen like this, weak- kneed and wobbly.
Without a word, Gus had helped her get Erica up the stairs and into bed; then just as wordlessly he’d left her to calm the distraught woman, soothe her as best she could, and make promises she wasn’t at all sure she could keep.
Now he stood in front of her, stone still, his shadowed gaze sliding over her, smooth and intense—as if he were a doctor studying a complex X-ray. “You okay?”
Her throat was so tight she couldn’t speak, but she managed a nod. Any hint of the truth and he’d think she was crazy.
She pushed away from the door, took a couple of steps, then stopped, focused on clearing her head and fighting her body’s weak-muscled urge to let go and crumple to the floor.
“I don’t think you are okay.” Gus walked to where she stood, leaning like a rag doll against the wall. “Put your arm around my waist.” He pulled her to his side. Too busy battling back her panic demons, she didn’t fight him. Didn’t want to fight him.
He was strong, and solid, and with each step down the stairs, their bodies shifted and rubbed against each other, the friction warm and reassuring.
She didn’t know whether to be angry at him for throwing a knife, or grateful he’d saved her life. Whether or not Erica would have pulled the trigger, she’d never know, and wasn’t sure she wanted to. In this moment, she was grateful for Gus’s strength, the heat of him seeping into her cold bones.
She stumbled on the last stair and leaned into Gus to keep from falling, her fingers curling around his belt.
“Easy, I’ve got you.” He pulled her closer.
Keeley tried not to tremble and quake, to fight the dizziness, but she was losing the battle. She had to lie down. Curl into a ball. Hold herself together until it passed. She hoped it wouldn’t be days—like the last time.
“Here we go.” He opened the door to her room and helped her into her bed with the same deft movements he’d used with Erica earlier. “This happen often?” He reached over her for a second pillow and put it under her head.
Keeley tugged the ancient quilt up to her neck and shivered. “Not lately,” she murmured, still cold despite the heavy quilt. “And it’s not nearly as bad.”
He turned on the bedside lamp. “Delayed stress. It’s not every day you stare down a gun barrel.” He picked up the glass on her bedside table, took it to the bathroom, and filled it with water. “Here.” He placed his hand at the back of her head, tilted it, and held the glass to her mouth.
She sipped, then sagged back against the pillow and snuggled deep under the covers. God, she was a wimp. She couldn’t stop the shakes. He went back to the bathroom, returned with a damp facecloth. When he touched her cheek with the coolness of it, she took it from his hand—or tried to. “I can do it. Thanks.”
For a second both of them held onto the cloth; then Gus let go. He sat on the edge of the bed, and she felt his hip against her thigh. “Can I get you anything else?”
“No. You can go now.” She sounded ungrateful, dismissive, but couldn’t help it. Her heart pounded scarily in her chest, and unless she wanted him to literally see her sweat—it always came with these attacks—she’d best get him gone. “And thanks … again.” With that she covered her whole face with the cloth and closed her eyes, intent on breathing slowly instead of pumping air through her lungs as if she were tuning a pipe organ. Most times it worked, the breathing business.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
His words filtered through the damp facecloth. “Until you’re asleep,” he added.
“Sleep will be a long time coming,” she said from behind the cloth. “I’m okay. Really,” she added.
Breathe, Keeley, breathe. You’ll be fine. Everything will be fine. She took another breath, and except for her throat constricting as though it were in a noose, and the prickling sensation in her arms, she felt a little better.
Gus took the cloth from her face and gave her a serious scan. “You are not okay. What you are is a mess.”
The light hurt, and she pulled the cloth back over her eyes. “Mayday House is a mess. Me, I’m all right. So go.”
He put his hand on her forehead, smoothed her hair back, and then said, “Roll over.”
“What?”
“Get on your stomach. Either you do it, or I do it for you.” He tugged the clot
h from her hand.
“I don’t think I—” Actually she didn’t know what she thought. Her stupid panic episode was swamped by her body’s unexpected—and currently indecipherable—reaction to the man looming over her bed in the middle of the night telling her what to do, as if it were a normal occurrence.
“Do it, Farrell. I know what I’m doing.” His tone was softer, more cajoling, but no less determined. “I won’t hurt you, and I won’t touch anything you don’t want touched.”
She set her eyes on his, and he didn’t blink. Neither did she. What she did was roll over.
The next second the quilt was down to her hips, exposing nothing but her thick flannel nightgown. “Shift closer to me.” Using both hands, he gripped her waist and moved her toward the edge of the bed.
“Concentrate on your breathing—like you were doing before,” he instructed. “Now relax your arms.” He positioned her arms at her sides, inches from her body, then returned his hands to her waist, sliding them up her back to her shoulders in one long, firm glide. Gripping and kneading her shoulders with strong fingers, he pulled down, released, pulled down and released, before sliding his hands again to her lower back. This time when he started back up, he used more force, probing her spine with his thumbs and applying pressure to her sides and back with strong, expert fingers. Then the neck again, easy, rhythmic … Her eyes drifted closed.
Dear God, it was heaven.
It had been so long since she’d been touched.
“The breathing, remember? Deep. As deep as you can. In. Out. Concentrate. Good.”
Keeley did what she was told, matched her breathing to the rhythm in his hands. His amazing hands.
“You’re doing great. Keep it up.”
Why was he whispering? She tried to open her eyes, but they felt too heavy to bother with.