by Ryan, Jenna
The stairs went on forever. So did the shadows. They clung to the high corners, gave her heart yet another reason to race. As if she needed that with her head on the verge of exploding.
To keep herself balanced, she counted. Panic wanted in, but she shoved it back. Deal with the now, react later, she told herself.
Or not, she thought as a loud clunk reached her from above.
Okay, now she had to react.
She spied the red exit sign. Careful not to catch a heel, she ran for it and shoved on the bar.
It barely budged.
Feet slapping the treads above seemed to be gaining speed.
“Open,” she hissed, and shoved again.
This time the door flew back. Because she’d expected it to stick, momentum threw her across the threshold.
Straight into a black wall.
WHERE THE HELL HAD she gone? Marlowe was out of places to look.
He’d tried their suite, the casino and all the corridors surrounding it. He’d gone through a legion of hotel shops, six lounges and seven restaurants. And turned up nothing. A floor-by-floor search was all that remained.
Enlisting the help of two security guards who’d seen her earlier, Marlowe expanded his perimeters.
Sirens blasted through the terror that wanted to swamp him. He heard a shot, out of time and way out of step with the situation.
Faces circled, overlapped. Some were hazy, others were more clearly defined. Darcy’s was the most clearly defined of all.
One corridor bled into another. Until…
Far ahead, a guard waved an arm.
“Got something here, Marlowe.”
Four people stood, leaned and swayed around him. Three of them wore lopsided smiles. The fourth lounged against the wall, eyes closed, mouth open.
“These people saw a blonde woman who looked like Ms. Nolan behind the casino.” The guard winced as the lone female stepped on his foot. “They said she was with someone.”
“It was a man,” the woman confided in a loud whisper that reeked of alcohol.
“Tell me about the blonde woman,” Marlowe demanded.
“Nice hooters,” one of the men piped up. “Killer legs.”
“Killer shoes.” The woman toppled into Marlowe’s chest.
He took her by the arms. “Did you see who she was with? The man? What did he look like?”
“Not sure. Think he was wearing a hat. Red. Or, no, that was the shoes.”
Marlowe shook her to keep her on track. “Was he tall, short, heavy, thin?”
“Not fat,” she said, then frowned. “Don’t think. No, not fat. Maybe brown hair.”
“Blonde.” The man with the closed eyes chortled. “Man, she was a looker. Face of an angel, but, whoo hoo, more than a tad tipsy. Guy wound up carrying her.”
“Where?” Marlowe asked.
“Elevator.”
“Wouldn’t let us on,” another man put in. “Jerk got there after we did, barged in and closed the door…And his hair was black, like the hat.” He cocked a thumb at his chest, missed and jabbed the underside of his chin. “Black hat, black hair, red shoes. That’s him.”
The last man, shorter than Marlowe by six inches, crept in low to peer up at his face. “You, uh, mind letting go of my woman there, dude?”
Marlowe removed his hands. “Look, all I want is my own woman back.” And one clear shot at the bastard who’d taken her.
“It was the hat that made his hair black.” Pushing the short man away, the woman leaned back into Marlowe. “I like dark hair, so I’d have noticed if he’d had it. Like I noticed her shoes.”
“Try seven,” one of the others suggested. “Think maybe the elevator stopped there.”
“Or that’s as high as he can count after eight shots of whiskey,” the smaller man added.
Marlowe moved aside, spoke to the guards behind him. “Let’s go with seven.”
It was only two flights up, less than ten seconds away by elevator. But every one of those seconds read like an hour in Marlowe’s mind.
When they exited on the seventh floor, one of the guards went left. The second, who’d come with him, rolled his eyes as they rounded a corner. “Man, what a night. Drunks everywhere.”
This particular drunk was cursing as he attempted to pull a fire door open.
“Swings away from you,” the guard called, and gave it a shove.
Marlowe snagged the drunk’s jacket to keep him from falling, then did a quick double take as Darcy tumbled across the threshold into his chest.
Her knee came up automatically. Unprepared, Marlowe took the full force of the blow.
Pain burst outward from his groin. His face went pale and his limbs turned to rubber, but he didn’t slacken his grip, and his eyes never lost their focus.
“Darcy, stop. It’s me.”
Her fist only plowed halfway into his stomach before her head shot up.
“Marlowe?” Her startled exclamation ended on a long release of breath. She dropped her head to his throat. “Thank God. I thought he’d gotten ahead of me.”
Gripping her arms, he pulled her upright, searched her eyes. “Are you hurt? Did he hit you, cut you, anything?”
“No…No.” Focused urgency returned, and she swung her head around. “There’s someone behind me. I think it might be him.”
One of the security men squeezed past. “I’m on it. Up?”
“Fourteen,” Darcy told him. “Room number’s 1472.”
Marlowe brushed the hair from her cheeks while she struggled with a memory.
“I didn’t see him, or anything really. I think he was on the phone. I heard a voice, but it sounded weird, like Charlie Brown’s teacher. No distinguishable words.”
“And you’re sure you’re not hurt?”
“I’m fine. He used chloroform, same as at my place. I stopped breathing right away, so I didn’t inhale as much as he thought I did. Still, I got enough that I knew I was going to pass out. There were people, though, I remember that. Voices—talking, laughing. Pink nail polish.”
Marlowe let his forehead fall into hers. “I talked to the people you saw, Darcy. Their descriptions of the man holding you varied widely. The woman was blinded by your shoes. The men appreciated…other things.”
“They thought I was drunk, didn’t they?”
“Face of an angel, soul of a sot.”
A sigh escaped her. “I’d have probably thought the same thing myself.” Her gaze returned to the stairwell. “I could have sworn he was behind me. It must have been someone else…” She trailed off, gnawed on her lip. “I felt him when he grabbed me, Marlowe. He had the same build as the guy at my place. Whippy muscles. Really strong. That’s not it, though. When I woke up…” She curled her fingers into his shirt, concentrated. “Something about an angel.”
“What, like a picture?”
“No, like what you just said. Face of an angel. Or maybe it was a devil.” She hummed a tune he almost recognized. The third time through, recognition struck. “That’s it!” she exclaimed. “The music! It was different in the room than in the hall outside. He was playing ‘Devil in Disguise.’” Her gaze snapped back to his. “He was playing Elvis.”
NIGHT SLOWLY MELTED INTO day. No surprise to Darcy, a search of the stairwell came up empty. So did the suite where she’d woken up. No one could remember who’d reserved it under the name Darcy Shannon or prepaid for its use in cash. The best the desk clerk could offer was that it had been a “regular kind of guy.”
So much for the power of observation.
With her glam sunglasses securely in place and skinny silver shoes replacing the red ones from the previous evening, Darcy used the heat and sunlight on the boardwalk to exorcise the last of her headache. That plus four extra-strength aspirins.
She hated to think how many painkillers Marlowe must have needed to offset the damage she’d inflicted with her knee.
They’d spent most of the morning at police headquarters. The hotel room had been duste
d for fingerprints and scoured for clues. Nothing had come of it so far, and Darcy didn’t expect much would. The bathroom hadn’t been used, the bed hadn’t been touched, the minifridge remained fully stocked.
“And so, heads down and racing, we slam into yet another brick wall.” She glanced at Marlowe as they walked. “So far this trip, we’re coming up empty. I haven’t even seen Vince Maco yet, and he’s the main reason we’re here.”
“Which either means he doesn’t know you’re here because he’s not behind the attacks, or, if he is behind them, he’s smart enough to distance himself.”
“Opt for the second, unless you like the hands-on suggestion I put forward at breakfast.”
“That Maco’s doing his own dirty work?” Darcy was glad to hear Marlowe chuckle. “I think you can relegate that one to the bottom of the list.”
“I don’t know. You said you saw the baseball-cap guy after you caught the thief in the hotel lobby. You also said he ran out of the building.”
“What, he couldn’t have reentered through another door?”
“Reentered, located and drugged me, switched his cap for a hat, then whisked me up to a room he’d reserved under the name Darcy Shannon?”
“The name’s irrelevant, and the time frame’s tight but workable.” Marlowe lifted his sunglasses to regard her. “In any case, we don’t know that Baseball Cap’s a solo act. He probably has backup.”
“Courtesy of Vince Maco, who, I promise you, would have made a point of being in that suite when I woke up.”
“Uh-huh. So you think it was Vince you heard in the bedroom.”
“Could have been.”
“Describe him to me.”
“Tall, dark, long arms, broad shoulders—a bit like the baseball-cap guy, actually. Enough like him that without seeing his face, I still say it could have been Vince who grabbed me. Except—” she made a wafting motion “—there was no cologne.”
“Is that significant?”
“No, just a point. Vince was in love with cologne three years ago.” She shrugged. “Maybe his tastes have changed. Whatever the case, Vince’s last words to me were ‘Someone, someday. Anyone, any day. With me being the most likely anyone of all.’ End quote.”
“You’re not going to open your mind here at all, are you?”
“If I can avoid it, no.”
But really, she reflected, was there such a vast difference between Vince wanting her dead and someone else wanting the same thing? Just because Vince Maco might prefer to kill her personally, that didn’t mean he would. For all she knew, the man in the plaid shorts walking five feet in front of her could be on the Maco payroll.
And wasn’t that a cheerful thought?
She swept up Marlowe’s hand and gave it a playful pull. “To hell with death, hit men and Vince Maco. I’ve gone over what happened so many times, I can’t see it clearly anymore. So—” her eyes began to dance “—as long as we’re nearby, and before the horror crashes back in, I’d like at least one Ferris wheel ride out of this trip.”
Of all the responses he could have made, every muscle in his body going tense wasn’t the one Darcy expected. Ferris wheels were fun things. Weren’t they?
Unsure, she touched his arm. “Marlowe? Are you all right?”
She could tell he forced the tension down. Didn’t lose it, but took it to a manageable place.
“Yeah, I’m good.” A faint smile hovered on his profile. “Some people have skeletons, I have a ghost. Life’s all about deflecting our demons.”
Darcy nodded, but said nothing. When someone mattered—and she was beginning to realize he did—she could lock her curiosity away and toss the key.
“Look, if you’re hungry we can go…” She stopped, stared, then drew back, palms raised. “Okay, that’s it. I’m officially freaked.”
Marlowe frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“Look left. There’s a man playing hide-and-seek behind one of those bronze columns. Unless I’m seeing things, that poorly hidden man is Trace Grogan.”
Chapter Eleven
The sun was a big orange ball by the time Marlowe let her coworker escape. Even from a distance, Darcy was impressed. The man might not be a cop these days, but he could still bring the goods to the table. Or to the boardwalk, in this case.
Caught red-handed, red-faced, Trace hadn’t put up much of a fight. He’d spluttered for thirty minutes. He’d denied for another ten. Then finally, left with no out, he’d caved.
He’d admitted to following Darcy from Philadelphia. His mission? To obtain a story with which to placate his cousin and boss.
“Word’s out that some part of my past has caught up to my present,” Darcy told Marlowe as they continued to walk along the boardwalk. “Ding, ding, light goes on in Trace’s head. Discover what that something is and maybe he can avoid a pink slip.” She offered him some of her popcorn. “On the other hand, maybe he’s lying.”
Marlowe smiled. “You think?”
“Well, he could be on the Maco payroll. His current job’s in jeopardy, so I can see him selling out.”
“How would he know who to sell out to?”
“News flash, ace. He’s not above eavesdropping. Anytime, anywhere, even outside my house if he thought it would be worth his while.”
“We’ll see.”
Darcy watched him sift through the dwindling crowd on the pier. He disliked amusement parks; she got that part. What she couldn’t figure out, and was still resolved not to ask, was why.
Something to do with the mysterious Lisa perhaps? He’d spoken of a ghost. Maybe there was a fatality involved.
Dropping the popcorn bag in a trash bin, Darcy hooked his arm and steered him away from the rides. It surprised her that he resisted.
“I thought you wanted to ride the Ferris wheel.”
“I do, but you don’t. I’m trying to be nice. We can play the slots instead, have a quiet, candlelight dinner and, barring disaster, see what develops from there. No pickpockets, no chloroform and, for what it’s worth, no Elvis.”
“That’s called a clue, Darcy, a potentially solid lead.”
“Oh, good. So we’ll just round up all the Elvis fans currently staying in Atlantic City and see what jumps out at us, shall we? Maybe R.J. Wilkie, vanishing news anchor extraordinaire, decided to ditch his life in order to become an Elvis impersonator. Or Constantine Lyons is living out one last fantasy before he dies. Even Vince could have a thing for The King. And let’s not forget our most likely candidate, Nelda Hickey’s Tennessee-born son, although that accent sounded off to me. He makes his living mimicking singers.”
Marlowe smiled ever so slightly, then unhooked and ran his hands over her arms. Bringing her slowly onto her toes, he gave her a kiss that, for all its brevity, sent an arrow of need from her mouth straight to her belly.
“Wow.” She made a cascading motion with her fingers. “Think I’m seeing stars. You’re an incredible kisser, Marlowe…Uh, was I talking before you did that?”
“Yeah. You were trying to distract me. While I appreciate the effort, I have to face my demons sometime, and tonight works as well for me as tomorrow.”
She could have pressed, was truly dying to know, but she smiled instead and dropped her sunglasses back in place. “Okay. If you insist.”
Marlowe eyed the oversized wheel that rose several stories into the twilight sky. “This should be interesting.”
His cell phone rang as they were settling into the cage.
Darcy looked around the pier while he talked and let the jumble of puzzle pieces in her head fall where they chose.
Not that there were many to fall. The hotel and casino surveillance cameras hadn’t revealed much. Whoever the guy was, he knew how to work a security system. If he’d gone into the casino, no one could pick him out of the crowd. And he must have altered the view of the corridor cam, because all the disks revealed was a great deal of wall and carpet.
Okay, maybe they’d gotten a shot of the guy’s feet. It hadn’
t helped.
As for the elevator cam, the consensus was that he’d draped a napkin over the lens before it had captured him.
Planning and execution, Darcy reflected. This guy had sized the situation up, played the odds and won.
Until she’d regained consciousness.
The wheel bumped up, then stopped to let more riders on. Lifting her face briefly to the early-evening sky, Darcy tuned back in to Marlowe’s conversation. Except there wasn’t any because he’d just ended it.
She slanted him a circumspect look. “Was that a good or bad call?”
“One of the security guards at the hotel is sending a picture of Vince Maco.”
“Do I want to see?” she asked when the cell phone beeped.
“Your call.” But he handed the cell phone over and left it to her to decide.
“Why do I know this is going to be—Oh my God!” Disbelief fostered near shock. “Is that Vince?” She shook the phone as if to alter reality. When nothing changed, she used the zoom to bring him closer.
Setting an arm across her shoulders, Marlowe grinned. “Doesn’t look quite the same as his DMV shot, does he?”
For the life of her, Darcy didn’t know what to say. The man who’d grabbed her both last night and outside her home had been agile, one hundred and eighty pounds at best.
Unlike Vince Maco, whose current weight almost certainly topped three hundred.
“YOU’RE A COP.”
They were the first words out of Vince’s mouth. He scowled a little but didn’t look overly worried. Waving the hotel staff away, he settled back in the Cove Lounge with his hands folded over his more than ample belly.
“If this is about my Uncle Remo’s trip to South America last week, he’s visiting a lady friend. You should know that. You’ve got people following him from one side of Buenos Aires to—”
“It’s about Umer Lugo.”
“Who?” Vince’s thick brows came together. “Is he a cop, too?”
“He’s a lawyer,” Marlowe said. “A dead one.”
“Well, my sympathies to his family. Am I supposed to know him?”