by Lauren Carr
“I could shoot you now,” Mac said, “and no one would shed a tear for you.”
“And my men will shoot you.”
“But you’ll be dead,” Mac replied, “and the contract on Archie will be null and void with no one to pay it.”
Tommy Cruse laughed. “Is this woman really worth you getting killed over?”
“Yes.”
“Bigger fool than I thought.”
“Don’t, Mac,” Bogie said. “Let’s all just take a deep breath and everyone back away.”
“Yes, Mac,” Tommy said in a mocking tone, “Let’s all just take a deep breath and back away.” He let out an insane sounding laugh.
Archie’s hand was on Mac’s arm. “Let’s go, darling. This all was a bad idea.”
“I suggest you take the little lady home and enjoy her company while you still can,” Tommy Cruze said. “You won’t have it for long.” He laughed again.
His laughter was cut short when Archie shoved Mac’s gun out of the way so she could reach in through the window to grab Cruze by the front of his shirt. Her handgun was in his face. Light blue, it resembled a toy. No one doubted that it wasn’t.
“Now you listen to me, Cruze. I’d wipe that cocky grin off your face if I were you, because it ain’t working. Neither are your big threats about coming after me, because I see them for the crock of horse poop that they are. You seem to have forgotten that I put your ass in jail for over ten years. This very morning, I killed two of your people. That’s right. I blew them away with my little pink handgun, which is now in evidence.” She growled when she said, “I really liked that gun, Cruze. All this blow hard bravado about how tough you are is a big fat waste of your hot air, because I know the truth. It’s you who’s afraid of me.” She cocked her head in his face and glanced down inside the car. “What’s that I smell?” She sniffed. “Oh, I know that odor. It’s the smell of fear. I smell it. Gnarly smells it. All of us here smells it. You reek of fear, Cruze. I suggest you go home and change your underwear before your men smell it, too.”
She shoved him back into the limousine. While all of the men stood in shock at the petite, little blonde’s display, she picked up Gnarly’s leash and headed back down Spencer Lane to home.
In stunned silence, Cruze’s driver and body guard climbed into the limousine and drove off.
Bogie said, “I don’t know about you, Mac, but Archie scares me sometimes.”
“She just scared the living daylights out of me.”
“Will you stop following me?”
It was an order, not a question.
As soon as Archie and her entourage got back to Spencer Manor, Mac launched into a recount of everything she had done wrong during their encounter with Tommy Cruze. She tried to ignore him and take her mind off her circumstance by unpacking her clothes and hanging them up in his closet.
Bogie and Hector were both calling in more security to keep Spencer Manor safe.
While Archie was uninterested in hearing what he had to say, Mac was following on her heels to make his point. He was so focused on Archie that he didn’t notice Gnarly up on the bed, where he was not allowed to be, watching them circle around the master suite during the debate.
“I’ll stop following you when you stop walking away from me and listen,” Mac said.
Carrying an armload of clothes, Archie went through the dressing room to the walk-in closet. “I am listening to you.” With one arm, she pushed all of his clothes aside to make room for her dresses. “You pulled your gun on him first, and that was okay,” she said. “I pulled my gun on him, and that was wrong.”
“You didn’t just draw your gun on him, Archie, you called him out. You called him a chicken.”
“I did not use the word chicken.” She turned to him. The corners of her lips curled. Her emerald eyes twinkled. “Did you see how scared he was?”
“Any man is scared when a crazed woman sticks a blue gun in his face.” He grasped her by the shoulders. “To tell you the truth, I’m more frightened by a woman pointing a gun at me than a man. Women tend to be more emotional. When you mix emotions and guns, bullets tend to fly.”
She shook her head. “No, Mac. I’ve heard it before, but now I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Bullies are chickens. They cover up their cowardice with bravado like a child in a mask on Halloween. Their bullying covers up how scared they really are. Maybe they can even forget it themselves.” She shook her finger, her nail dipped in rose-colored polish. “I called him on it.”
“Yes, you did.” Mac’s tone was somber. “And his men saw it. That’s why now he has to kill you. If he doesn’t, his men won’t respect him. If they don’t respect him, then he can’t rule the syndicate.”
The cell phone vibrating in his pocket broke their stare down. The screen announced it was David. Mac put it on speaker phone. “Yeah, Dave?”
“We found the leak,” he said.
“And?” Mac asked.
“She’s dead,” David reported. “She was the assistant at the marshal’s field office in Cumberland. She sold Archie out and kept us in the dark about Cruze’s release. Finnegan is looking at her financials now. It looks like she did it for cold, hard cash. When Finnegan called in about the hit on Archie, she ran and made the dumb mistake of calling Cruze’s people for help. They helped her all right. They sent over one of their psychopaths to tie up the loose end. How are things there?”
“We had a run in with Cruze,” Mac said, “live and in person.”
“Is everyone okay?”
“I think Archie made Cruze pee his pants.”
She giggled at the reference; however, David’s tone was serious. “She didn’t. Archie, I swear! You spent way too much time with Robin Spencer. How many times do I have to tell you? You don’t go around agitating maniacs. It’s not a good idea.”
With a roll of her eyes, Archie went back to the closet with another load of clothes to hang up.
Mac asked, “Does Finnegan have any ideas about what Cruze would be doing here in Spencer?”
“One idea comes immediately to mind,” David said. “Archie was the prime witness that sent him to prison. She was the eye witness who saw him commit the murder. In spite of Cruze’s best efforts during the trial, he was never able to scare her into backing off.”
“Which had to infuriate the hell out of him,” Mac said.
“He’s come to Spencer to personally oversee her death.”
Chapter Six
David O’Callaghan and Randi Finnegan returned to Spencer Manor in time for a dinner of Cincinnati Three-Way Chili, an old family recipe from Mac’s childhood. It was one of the few recipes he could cook on his own.
Archie and Mac had a lot of mouths to feed with the full house of security officers from the Spencer Inn and police officers, the deputy chief, police chief, and one US Marshal.
When David and Randi came through the front door, everyone forgot about the dinner and left the sunken dining room to go up to the living room to learn the details about the leak in the US Marshal’s office. Randi carried an overnight bag that they had stopped at her home in Cumberland to collect in anticipation of a long haul protecting Archie.
“Unfortunately, we can’t get any information from Ginger Altman,” Randi said. “Cruze’s people quieted her real good.”
“Don’t you people run security checks on your office help?” Bogie demanded to know.
“Hey, I didn’t hire her,” Randi shot back. “But I guarantee you that she wouldn’t have been hired without passing a background check—I suppose all those stories about cops turning dirty are just urban legends.”
“Considering that this was a witness who gave up her whole life as she knew it to put away one of the most dangerous men east of the Mississippi,” Hector replied, “you’d think the US Marshal’s office would hav
e seen the importance of checking their people inside and out.”
Randi looked like she was about to take both Bogie and Hector on single-handedly when David stepped between them and held out his arms to hold them back. “That’s enough. I’ve had it up to here with everyone.”
Bogie started to object. “She—”
“She didn’t betray Archie,” David said. “Finnegan is on our side. She cares as much about Archie as all of us. That’s why she’s here. What’s been done is done. Now we need to focus on keeping Archie safe and getting Cruze back behind bars.”
“He’s right,” Mac said, “We need to keep our heads clear and figure out how to stop Cruze.”
Randi gestured at the cell phone she wore clipped to her waistband. “I have a call in to my contact with the FBI organized crime bureau. This afternoon, he told me that they’ve been keeping close tabs on Tommy Cruze’s organization. After Cruze went to jail, his second in command, Ray Bonito, took over the operation. According to their sources, word is that Bonito isn’t happy about being kicked down to second in command since Cruze got out. There’s an internal war brewing, and Bonito is trying to get support from the men to back him. If that happens …” Her voice trailed off to let them to use their own imaginations.
Mac said, “Which makes it important for Cruze to keep face with his men. If they see him being taken down by a little spitfire …”
“I don’t like Cruze being in Spencer,” David said. “If he’s here, so are his people. If a turf war breaks out, there’s no telling where it will happen and who can get caught in the crossfire.”
Bogie agreed. “We better cancel all time off until Cruze and his people leave town.”
“An interesting thing that my source told me,” Randi said, “Bonito is paranoid. He’s been running things completely from behind the scenes and is never seen in public.”
“Maybe there’s a contract out on him,” Archie said in a joking tone.
“Exactly,” Randi said with a serious note. “Bonito liked being in charge. Cruze definitely sees him as a threat. So far, Cruze has been offering him the chance to step down quietly. That offer isn’t going to be on the table for long.”
Combing his fingers through his blond hair, David went to the stairs leading up to the bedrooms on the second floor. “I’m going to go take a shower and change.”
Grumbling about the incompetence of the federal government in protecting its witnesses, Hector and Bogie returned to the dining room for their dinner.
“I’ll show Randi up to one of the guest rooms,” Archie told Mac, “while you show these guys how you eat Cincinnati Three-Way Chili.”
After giving Mac a kiss on the cheek, she led Randi up to the second floor, which contained six bedrooms, two of which were suites with their own private baths. Gnarly trotted up the stairs ahead of them. At the top of the stairs, Archie turned to the right to go down the hallway at the end of which was the master bedroom suite that she was sharing with Mac. Gnarly trotted in the opposite direction to the other master suite, which looked out over the gardens of the estate and the lake on the other side of the point. At the end of the hall, Gnarly jumped up and, planting one paw on the door frame, with the other pushed down the door lever to open the door and slip into the suite.
Archie got halfway down the hall before she realized Randi wasn’t behind her. Turning around, she saw that the marshal had stopped at the top of the stairs and was staring down the hallway into the suite in which Gnarly had entered. The king-sized bed was encased with a green silk comforter. The furniture was leather and suede.
Through the open doorway, Randi watched David, who had taken off his shirt, stretching his arms up over his head to loosen his back, aching from the long ride to and from Cumberland. Mesmerized, she gazed at his firm, taut back muscles gracefully flowing down to his slender waist and tight buttocks.
“Like the view?” Archie hissed into her ear.
Startled, Randi gasped.
Gnarly, who was sprawled out on David’s bed, whirled around.
David turned around and saw her. His toned, smooth muscular chest was scarred by a wound on his left breast.
Archie smiled when she saw Randi’s cheeks turn red. “Maybe you should close the door, David.”
He slammed the door shut.
Archie giggled over Randi’s embarrassment. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of. David is a hottie.” She led her down the hall to the bedroom closest to her and Mac’s suite.
“He hates my guts.”
“David doesn’t hate anybody’s guts.” She threw open the door and went inside. The guest room had a homey feel, but didn’t contain as many of the personal touches that decorated the rest of the house.
Setting her overnight bag on the luggage stand, Randi noted that they had not stopped to pick up clothes for David to spend the night. However, he seemed to have already made himself at home in the suite down the hall. “Did someone pick up David’s clothes from his house for him?”
“He’s been staying here at the manor ever since his mom went into the nursing home,” Archie explained.
“Why?” Randi opened her suitcase to take out her belongings.
Uncertain about how much of David’s personal business she could reveal, Archie hesitated. “You know his mother has dementia—Alzheimer’s?”
“He told me that she stabbed him with a fork and that was why he put her in a home.” Randi took her toiletry bag and set it on top of the dresser.
“He ended up in the emergency room. That fork wound was deep,” Archie said. “When David left the hospital, he came here and has never gone back to his mother’s house. I guess it has too many bad memories.”
“His father Pat seemed like a good guy,” Randi said. “Why would David’s mother want to stab him?”
Archie shut the bedroom door. “Violet suffered from emotional problems. Paranoia. Pills. Drinking too much. Suicide attempts. Several times, she ended up in the hospital. Once, Robin told me that Violet was in the hospital for a full year, and they didn’t think she was ever coming home. Pat worked long hours and couldn’t take care of David alone.” She shrugged. “So, when Violet ended up in the hospital, he would bring David here and Robin Spencer would take care of him. This became his second home. Robin said he could come here anytime he wanted, for as long as he wanted.” She added, “Mac has honored that. When David left the ER that night, he came here and has been here ever since.”
Randi was staring out the window.
Wondering if she had betrayed David’s privacy by telling Randi about his childhood, or maybe if she had given her some insight into his and Mac’s relationship, Archie concluded, “So that’s David’s story.”
“Thanks,” she replied. “Now I know.”
“Now you do.”
“Maybe we should have put Agent Finnegan in the guest house,” Mac joked when he slipped under the covers next to Archie. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to have her and David under the same roof.”
“Those two don’t belong on the same planet.” Recalling how mesmerized Randi was while watching David without his shirt on, she grinned. “I think she’s got a thing for David.”
“I have no doubt.” Under the covers, he reached for her and slid over to hold her close. “It’s called hatred.”
“No, she likes him—a lot. She just isn’t secure enough to let him know. So she pretends she hates him. In her mind, it’s easier to accept that they can’t get together because she’s rejected him rather than him rejecting her.”
“I really don’t want to talk about David and Randi right now.”
She turned to see that Mac was close. He had his arms wrapped around her. His eyes were soft as they gazed into hers.
The house was quiet, but no one was asleep.
Everyone was on alert.
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Nighttime was the best time for Cruze’s men to attack under the cover of darkness. Two of Hector’s men were patrolling the estate with two of David’s officers. Another one of his officers and a security guard were inside the house.
Gnarly was down the hall in David’s room. Randi Finnegan was next door in the guest room.
“All this because of me,” she murmured to him.
“You’re worth it.”
“Do you really think so?”
Mac brushed his fingers through her hair, cropped short to her head. He wondered how she had worn it before—before being in the wrong place to witness Tommy Cruze killing a man he accused of being with his wife.
Talk about life changing in the blink of an eye.
“Archie,” he said softly, “today, when Finnegan told you to get in the car—when she was going to take you away—I felt like the core of my whole being was being ripped out of me.”
“Mac, I’m not going anywhere.”
He cupped her face in his hands. “Have you ever heard the saying that you don’t realize how important something or someone is to you until they’re gone?”
Emotion flooded her. Her eyes filled with tears. She nodded her head. She could see tears coming to Mac’s eyes.
“That was when it hit me… I can’t imagine you not being in my life.”
“Me either,” she mumbled.
He pressed his mouth against hers. When they parted, he held onto her tightly and whispered into her ear. “When this is over, will you marry me, Archie?”
Gently, she brushed her fingers across his face while gazing into his blue eyes. “Oh, Mac, …”
Chapter Seven
Unlike Mac, David didn’t have any issues with Gnarly sleeping in bed with him, which was why the shepherd gravitated to his suite after he had moved in. Truthfully, David liked the feel of Gnarly’s warm body next to his during the dark of the night. The four-legged companion chased away the ghosts in his mind.