Wayward Dreams

by Gail McFarland

  Taking a step back, hands and legs loose, Harry heard the man in the building cackling gleefully when another line of smoke came through the window and twisted through the air. The men in front of him stared and said nothing when Harry took another step back. He suddenly realized who they were. “Payne.”

  Kelvin straightened, then remembered and dropped back into his crouch. His hands opened and closed, then knotted into fists. “Why don’t you just turn around and leave?”

  Harry’s hands rose slowly, palms out. “I need to know what’s going on in there,” he said, keeping his gaze on the men in front of him.

  “You never heard? Curiosity killed the cat.” The other man grinned, weaving slightly and moving a step closer.

  “He’s Payne, that would make you Mann.” Harry shifted slightly and the other man bounced on his toes, trying to hold Harry’s attention. “You need to be more careful of the company you keep,” Harry said to Payne.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Alin Mann has a brother, and you’re in business with him. Think that’s a coincidence?”

  When Alin moved, it was with a roar and more power than Harry anticipated. Fast and wiry, he tried to serve up a lunging kick—just like in the movies. The kick caught Harry’s wrist and sent stinging pain through his hand. Struggling to turn and follow his quarry, Alin’s hands dragged through the dirt. KPayne rushed between them, throwing orphan punches. Backing away, staying outside the attack, Harry kept one eye on the smoke pouring from the window. That man was still in there, and so was Bianca.

  KPayne stood between Harry and the window. Throwing his arms wide, his features knotted, he stamped his feet and shouted rage. “What now, big man? What?”

  Head down, long legs driving, Harry’s shoulder smashed KPayne into the legs of a man hanging half in, half out of the window and took him down like a sack of flour. “What the hell?” KPayne found his feet and came up swinging wildly, connecting with Harry’s arm. Emboldened, he swung again and missed, connecting solidly with Alin’s chest, doubling him over and knocking the air out of him.

  The man in the window scrambled through and looked back with big eyes as Alin’s heel jammed hard against Harry’s leg, sending him to his knee, but he wasn’t there long. Moving from the ground, Harry brought an uppercut with him and drove it straight into KPayne’s face.

  Coming around the opposite side of the building, knowing where his payday lay, Gene locked his hands and ran. Breathing hard and sweating, he clubbed Harry from behind, using all the force he could push with his tightly knotted hands. The blow glanced and Harry started to turn. Knowing he wouldn’t get another chance, Gene swung hard again.

  Harry’s eyes rolled back and he fell like a puppet with cut strings. As he lay sprawled on his face, Gene looked from KPayne to Alin. “Who the heck is this?”

  “He’s that big slant-eyed dude,” Alin recalled, kneeling beside the unconscious man, testing him with a poke or two. “The one who was with her that time at the restaurant.”

  Suddenly more nervous than he’d ever thought possible, KPayne swiped at his bleeding mouth and squatted beside Harry’s prone figure. “So why is he here?”

  “Probably following her like we did. You know some brothers feel like they got to protect women,” Alin said.

  Gene drew back his foot and kicked, making Harry moan. “That’s a big-assed man. What do we do with him?”

  “Shove him through the window.” Alin’s voice was cold steel.

  KPayne frowned. “I don’t think…”

  “You don’t have to. Just shove him through, and we’ll do what we came to do.” The toe of Alin’s boot struck Harry hard and when his head moved, they all saw the red pool spreading beneath him. “Let’s do this,” Alin ordered, shoving his hands under Harry’s arm and glaring.

  This wasn’t the way he’d seen things working out and the difference scared him, but Kelvin shoved his hands under Harry’s other arm and hefted him high enough to fall through the window. He landed heavily on the other side with a sickening thud, and Payne swallowed hard. Not my fault. Big man dies in there, it’s not my fault. I didn’t hit him…

  CHAPTER 20

  In the cutting room, fingering the bolts of beautiful fabric, Bianca stopped and listened harder. Gaia’s talk about burglar alarms and the way they’ve got this place locked up is making me jumpy, I’m hearing things.

  Thinking of the sisters made her check the time. Had Gaia really only been gone less than twenty minutes?

  Maybe I should call Harry, just for company. She set the bolt of cloth on the cutting table and reached for her purse. Oh, yeah, she recalled, no signal. Looking around, she spotted the cordless phone on the counter. Grateful, she walked over to it and punched in Harry’s cell number. “That’s odd.” She stared at the cordless phone. “I could have sworn I just heard Harry’s phone.”

  She looked over her shoulder at the open door, and then walked over to it. Stepping into the empty hallway, she looked from right to left and back—nothing. The shiver that crept beneath her skin made her look up and down the hall again. She pressed Harry’s number into the phone and waited for the ring before she moved the phone against her ear, and in the distance she heard the sound of a phone, and the ring sounded exactly like his.

  Coincidence. But the peculiar feeling of being watched persisted and she tried her call again. The phone rang once in her ear and echoed somewhere in the building. Why is Harry’s phone here? She took tentative steps in the direction of the sound. When a man’s voice answered the phone, she stopped moving.

  “What?” The voice was gruff and vaguely familiar, but for the moment, all that registered was that the voice was wrong. She heard muffled sounds in the background. Speakerphone? “Harry?”

  The man’s breathing was heavy, but the voice was still familiar. “You in the building? Better get out while you can.”

  The words made her think of dead roses as she took another step. “Why do you have Harry’s phone?”

  “Don’t run,” a taunting new male voice came through the phone. “Stay right where you are and everything will be just fine.”

  Caught in shadow, she pressed her back to the wall and looked around her. Can they see me?

  Crouched against the floor in the small storeroom at the rear of the warehouse, KPayne ignored the smoke and made a grab, repossessing Harry’s phone. His shoulder hunched Alin away and he held on, bringing the phone close to his mouth. “I can’t help you, you’d better run.”

  “Kelvin?” Still clutching the phone, she moved along the wall and eased toward the door. “If this is about the money…”

  “You’ve been warned. You don’t move, it’s on you.”

  A different voice? How many are there? Bianca pressed her back against the wall. “Times are rough for everybody. Maybe I could talk to Harry about it and…”

  “Oh, that’s his name? He can’t help you; he can’t help hisself. Last time—get out.”

  “I’m locked in,” she said, kneeling to remove her pumps. “I can’t get out.”

  “Then that’s just your little problem, ’cause we’re gon’ do what we came to do.”

  “What did you come to do?” She heard the hysterical edge to her voice and her heart was beating hard enough to jar her vision when the phone went dead in her hand.

  Telling herself that it didn’t matter, that all she really needed to do was to find Harry and get out of the building with him, Bianca took stealthy steps. In the hall, she heard the voices more clearly, but still couldn’t identify them. She followed the sound around a corner and through the Winstons’ kitchenette.

  Bianca slid her feet over the tiled floor and moved forward. Ahead of her, she could see a haze hanging in the air, and she knew before she smelled it that it was smoke. They were trying to set the building on fire and they had Harry’s cellphone. She could almost feel Harry, just around the corner. But he’s not saying anything…What if he’s dea…hurt?

  He�
�s not. She refused to let the thought extend itself as she moved forward, sliding her bare feet across the cool floor. Heavy footsteps slapped the floor in the hall and she froze. Standing in the dark, wearing black, she stood there holding her shoes and the phone, praying that Gaia or Amaya wouldn’t decide to call and check on her.

  “You see her?” The whisper was as loud as a shout. Biting her lips, Bianca stood in the middle of the kitchenette—waiting. I can’t stand here and make it easy for them. She silently lifted one foot and then the other, moving herself away from the center of the floor and back into a shadowed corner. The man in the hallway seemed to stop and turn before shuffling in the direction of the back storeroom. Harry was in that storeroom, she would have bet her life on it. Watching the empty doorway, she realized that from this point on, she was betting her life on Harry’s.

  She backtracked into the shadows and slowly folded into a crouch. Concentrating on exactly what she knew about Atlanta’s 911 system, she rested her shoes in her lap and angled her body toward the wall. Tucking the phone under her jacket, she tensed and moved her fingers over the phone, turning off the ringer. What was it about 911?

  There was something she remembered seeing on TV and Harry said it was a good idea. She closed her eyes and concentrated. She heard the men’s voices again, and she recognized KPayne’s. Then she remembered. Press 911 and the system would automatically lock onto the phone number and the address, even if she hung up the phone. She held the phone close to her body, and pressed in the emergency code. Holding the phone to her ear, she waited.

  “Fulton County 911…”

  The operator’s voice disappeared as neatly as if it had been clipped off. The men were laughing. Bianca placed the phone on the floor and gripping her shoes, she stood slowly. They cut the phone lines. Her eyes went to the doorway and she could see the panic button from where she stood. Would it even work without the phone lines?

  Moving slowly enough to hear her joints creak, Bianca tucked her shoes under her arm and eased across the kitchenette. Finally reaching the doorway, she stared, gauging the distance between her fingers and the panic button. The scattered voices she’d heard were coming closer, and she pulled back into the shadows with the smell of smoke growing ever stronger, waiting and listening.

  The men’s voices seemed to bend and blend into one great wad of noise. “Getting out,” one of them yelled, but it didn’t matter when she realized that one of the voices was drifting down the hall toward her and the panic button. I need to push that button.

  They were arguing again, scuffling this time, and then, “Hey! Come back here and help me…”

  Harry? Bianca felt her heart jump like a frightened rabbit. Why doesn’t he say something?

  When she heard heavy footsteps drag along the floor and turn away, it was more than the smoke that choked her. Time slowed and Bianca felt like she was moving through jello when she eased a foot forward, then she heard Harry’s phone ring again and her feet stuck to the floor. From her place in the shadows, she never heard the phone answered, but she did see the hand holding the gun as it came around the corner.

  * * *

  “There are times when all you can do is deal with circumstances as they are presented…”

  Glaring, Julia turned her face from Kemi to the car window and tried to see beyond the cars and flashing police emergency lights surrounding them on I-85. “What a fine time for a tractor-trailer to jackknife and fall over—all the way across the highway.”

  Kemi sighed and watched her move nervous fingers through her necklace. Parking his elbow against the steering wheel, determined to remain calm, he scooped his hair back. “Time is like a river, Julia. It must be left to flow over obstacles.”

  “You are making my life so hard…”

  “Everything happens for a reason.”

  “You mean like murder? Because I am going to kill you if you keep handing me clichés.” Julia wrenched at her door handle. “Pull over and let me out. I can walk faster than we’re moving.”

  “But we are moving. Besides, where will you walk to?”

  She released the door handle and stared out the window. He had a point. Her face was grim when she turned her face to Kemi. “I’m really going to hate having you as my brother-in-law.”

  “Too late for that, now,” he murmured as traffic began to move. “We put them together; now you’re stuck with me.” He moved them past the accident and into faster traffic. It wouldn’t be much longer.

  But even that was more than Julia could stand. She fished her purse from the floor. Digging deep, she pulled out her phone and pressed in Bianca’s number. The call went to voicemail, and she sucked her teeth. “What is Harry’s phone number?”

  Keeping his eyes on the road, Kemi recited the number. His teeth clamped hard on the inside of his cheek when Julia blinked at her phone. When she looked at him, Kemi’s stomach turned. “What happened?”

  “Some man answered and said ‘He ain’t here’ and hung up.” In the space of a heartbeat, she looked like she was going to cry, and then Kemi saw something fierce move behind her eyes. Whatever it was, it grew and took on a life of its own as it washed over her face.

  Kemi found the turn and rolled off the highway. “Julia?”

  Her lips thinned and her eyes were hard when they left his and dropped to the phone. Her fast fingers moved on the phone. “Who are you calling?”

  “The police. Bianca is my sister, and I just got her back. She just found your brother, and I’m not letting either of them go without a fight.”

  “Right.” Kemi’s foot pressed the accelerator and the Infiniti tore through the red light.

  * * *

  The prospect of facing a gun left Bianca with her mouth open. She thought about Harry, wondered where he was, then saw the gun tremble. Whoever is holding that gun is as scared as I am. Clutching her shoes, Bianca looked across the hall and past the hand with the gun. She stared at the panic button and tried to remember where Gaia said the others were. Unsure, she knew that if there were others, she would have to look for them. The hand beyond her hiding place wavered, started to turn away, then moved slowly forward again. Bianca watched the hand and made up her mind.

  Praying for steady hands, she shifted her shoes away from her body. Gripping them tightly, she took a deep breath and tried to time the movement of the gun hand. When it swung away from her, she made a leap and flailed for all she was worth.

  She felt the meaty thickness of the man’s hand with her first strike and would never be sure which of them hollered first or loudest, but she knew she screamed when the back of her hand slammed into the panic button. Still screaming, she slapped at the man’s face with the heels of both shoes, felt them hit something solid, and then ran like a bat out of Hell.

  “Harry!” She screamed his name and ran, turning chairs and small tables over in her wake. Slamming the cutting room door behind her, she realized she was leaving a path and didn’t care. Still running, she screamed Harry’s name again as she ran toward the front of the warehouse. Sliding in and out of shadow, eyes wide, and listening for every possible sound, she slowed. She was at the front of the building and there was no sign of Harry. But a bulky, hard-breathing shadow filled the door she’d run through, and from the swing of his head, she knew he didn’t see her.

  Tempted to sink to the floor and crawl under a table, Bianca eased back against the wall. Thankful she’d chosen the black shantung pantsuit for the day, she held her breath and waited for her pursuer to give up.

  “I don’t see her in here,” he called and then trotted to the back of the building.

  Barefooted, Bianca eased along the wall and realized what she was about to do. I have never sacrificed myself like this for another human being. She swallowed hard. I must love him even more than I thought I did.

  Listening, she heard the men arguing again, but she couldn’t make out the words. Harry’s phone rang again, and her heart struggled to beat when she heard the phone smashed. When
heavy footsteps headed in her direction, she turned into the clothing storage room and pulled open the first door she came to. It was a closet. Large enough for her to comfortably stand, it smelled of cedar, giving her a quick and disturbing headache. She closed her eyes, held her breath, and waited for the heavy steps to pass as they ran for the front door.

  My car, she remembered. Maybe they’ll think I just ran away. Her eyes popped open when she remembered her purse on the table. Yes, they’ll believe that if a woman leaves her purse, she’ll leave anything. She took a deep breath and closed her hand over the doorknob. Except Harry. I’m not leaving here until I find him.

  Inching the door open, finally satisfied that she was alone, she stepped out of the closet and dropping to her knees, she crawled under the nearest table to survey the empty room. What happened to the cops aplenty, and where the hell are Gaia and Amaya? Her eyes stretched wider, trying to see in the dark.

  Guess the cavalry is not coming. Fingers tight on the table leg, she looked around and wondered how to get the men to go out of the front door. If they would go out, maybe looking for her, then she could look for Harry.

  Still clutching her shoes and the last of her courage, Bianca made a crazy dash for the front door. Once there, she dropped the shoes and snapped every bolt and latch on the heavy door and pulled it open. The air that washed over her felt fresh and necessary, but she hesitated. Just over the wall, parked next to her Jaguar, was Harry’s Audi. Her feet refused to move.

  He’s still in here.

  Leaving the door open, she turned and ran back into the depths of the warehouse.

  * * *

  KPayne watched Alin stride back into the storeroom with his lips twisted. One hand moved gingerly across the deep and bloody groove in his cheek, and his eye looked bruised. Gonna be black tomorrow, Payne guessed. He watched Alin look at the gun in his hand, then slam it against the wall and throw his hands in the air. When he dropped into the hard-backed wooden chair, KPayne was still watching him. “What happened to your face?”