by Sarah Atwell
I stared at the point where he had vanished, wondering just how he had managed it. Finally I nudged Cam. “Let’s go.”
Wordlessly he put the car in gear and slid forward, the engine loud in the predawn stillness. We covered the next two blocks in under a minute, then pulled over at the curb. Cam turned off the engine, and we could hear the ticking of the motor as it cooled. No cars moved, and in the parked ones there were no people visible.
Cam’s hands gripped the steering wheel, and even in the dim light I could see his knuckles were white. “Where the hell are they?” he hissed.
“Frank said wait. Let’s assume they’re checking us out, waiting to see if anyone followed us.”
An eternity crept by. I studied the buildings around us, looking for any sign of life. Boarded-up storefronts, two-and three-story buildings with broken windows. Trash littering the sidewalks. I wasn’t sure whether darkness improved the view, but it couldn’t have been pretty under the best of conditions.
Cam nudged me. “Car,” he said quietly. I followed his gaze: A car, headlights off, had pulled to the curb half a block away, on the side opposite us. We sat, frozen. Finally, after yet another eternity, someone got out of the car. I felt an absurd rush of relief when I recognized the man as Thug Number One. Or maybe it was Number Two. I didn’t care: At least I recognized him.
“Stay here,” I told Cam, and then I got out of the car and stood beside it. For a moment I flashed back on years of gritty Western movies, where the good guy and the bad guy met on the main street of some dusty cow town for a final shoot-out. I almost expected to hear background music, with an ominous thumping bass beat. I waited.
When Thug Number One had decided there was no army with me, and I wasn’t about to launch an attack, he sauntered toward us. I looked past him, trying to see if there was anyone else visible in his car. There wasn’t, or at least there was no one sitting up.
When the thug had reached something close to earshot, I said, “Where’s Allison?” The hell with protocol—I just wanted this to be over.
“Where’re the diamonds?”
“In a safe place,” I countered, resisting the urge to pat my pocket just to be sure.
“So’s Allison.”
Stalemate. This was ridiculous. “Look, pal, you’re not going to see the diamonds until I see Allison.” Back at you, creep. “You said you would bring Allison and we would make the switch,” I said, as though explaining to a firstgrader. I half expected him to stick out his tongue at me.
“Trusting broad, aren’t you? I had to be sure you were on the up-and-up. Some local guys said you were tight with a cop.”
Oh, shit. It had been three goddamn years. . . . “Ancient history. I dumped him.” I admired my sangfroid in the face of danger. Oh, I was one cool dame. “You said no police—do you see any police here? You want the diamonds, and we want Allison. Simple. Where is she?”
“Hand them over and we’ll let her go.”
This man was not paying attention to me. “Let her go and we’ll hand them over.”
“Nope.” Thug Number One reached into his pocket and pulled out a gun. That gun and I were getting to be old friends. “Where are they?”
Oh, dear. Frank and I hadn’t discussed this contingency, and I didn’t have any cue cards. Luckily I didn’t need any, as Frank emerged silently from the shadows behind Thug and whacked his gun arm. Unfortunately the gun went off on the way down. In unbecoming panic, I dropped flat on the pavement. I lay there quivering, trying to follow the sounds of the struggle while keeping my head down and making myself as small as possible. The gunshot had been hard to miss, but nobody in the neighborhood seemed particularly concerned. They were either dead or doped to the eyeballs, or gunshots were a normal part of any night around here. Then I registered that I had heard the gun hit the pavement and skitter off. I peeled open one eye: Yup, there it was, some fifteen feet away from where Frank and Thug were wrestling with each other. I decided my assistance was not required. Cam apparently had other ideas, and had managed to scramble out of the car by the time Frank subdued Thug. I had to hand it to Frank: Thug was at least twenty years younger and outweighed him by forty pounds, but Frank had him under control. Frank had a lot of hidden talents. I really liked Frank.
And then another voice broke in. “What the hell is going on here?” Matt.
The Mounties had arrived.
Chapter 19
graal: a glass technique where a blank is blown, annealed, coldworked, reheated, and picked up on a blowpipe, and made into its final form (Edward T. Schmid, Advanced Glassworking Techniques: An Enlightened Manuscript)
I lay there for a moment, considering. Thug no longer had a gun. Matt had a gun. Matt trumps Thug. It was probably safe to get up, unless Thug Number Two was lurking somewhere.
Wait—what was Matt doing here? Cam hadn’t seen any police lurking in the shadows. But then, Cam was an amateur and Matt wasn’t.
Time to peel myself off the pavement and . . . do what? The best defense was a good offense, or something like that. I sat up. “Gee, Matt, I’m just fine and dandy. Thanks for asking.”
Matt’s eyes didn’t leave the recumbent Thug, with Frank standing over him. “That bullet didn’t go anywhere near you. Of course, if you listened to me you wouldn’t need to duck when bullets started flying.”
I stood up and dusted myself off. “If you and your crew had been doing their job, I wouldn’t have to be here. Cam, you okay?”
Cam hadn’t left his post by the car. Obviously his response time was a bit slower than mine. Poor baby, he really wasn’t cut out for a life of crime, any more than I was. Although at least he hadn’t fallen flat on his face. Instead, he’d frozen. “I’m fine.”
Matt emerged from the shadow of a building and stalked toward the thug and Frank, stopping only to pick up the gun and pocket it. When he reached the pair, Frank released his hold on Thug and stepped back—grinning. Damn the man, didn’t anything rattle him?
“Who’s this?” Matt took possession of Thug Number One with a firm hand on his arm. The whites of Thug Number One’s eyes flashed—he hadn’t counted on dealing with the law in a strange town.
I crept up behind Matt, cautiously. I wasn’t sure if he was referring to Frank or the guy on the ground, but I knew I had priorities. Except I couldn’t remember how much Matt knew—we’d kept him out of the loop. “That’s one of the guys who killed Jack Flannery and broke into Allison’s apartment.”
“Huh,” Matt replied. “And him?” He nodded toward Frank.
“Allison’s uncle. From Australia.”
“And what’s he doing here in Tucson in the middle of the night?”
“That’s kind of complicated. But—what are you doing here?”
“Following you. I said I’d keep an eye on you, didn’t I? Good thing. Beats me what any of you is doing in this part of town at this hour. You know it’s not safe?”
Duh. How stupid did he think I was? “I know. But we had a good reason.”
Thug Number One squirmed in Matt’s grasp, diverting his attention. “Okay, but let’s take this one thing at a time. You—you’re under arrest.”
“No, wait!” Cam and I squawked in near-perfect unison.
At least we got Matt’s attention. “You going to tell me why?”
“Because he’s got Allison. Or his buddy does. Anyway, he knows where she is.”
“Allison,” Matt said slowly. “Is there something I should know about Allison?”
“Well, you or your patrol officer conveniently missed seeing this guy and a buddy of his drag Allison out of my studio at gunpoint earlier tonight. Or yesterday night. Whatever.”
In the dim light I couldn’t make out if Matt actually looked contrite. But his voice didn’t sound happy when he said, “I see. Details?”
I took a deep breath, and shot a glance at Cam and Frank to make sure they let me take the lead. “Allison was kidnapped at approximately five o’clock last evening by this man and another
man.”
“You didn’t happen to mention that when I stopped by earlier. I assume you think you had a good reason? And would you mind sharing it with me?”
I had forgotten that Matt could do snide as well as I could. I felt a stab of desperation. Allison was still who knew where, in the company of Thug Number Two, and now I had to take time out to explain why Matt couldn’t arrest Thug Number One. “His buddy still has Allison.”
Matt sighed. “Em, there’s still something you aren’t telling me. What would he or his colleague want with Allison?”
There was no way around it. “Diamonds,” I said. It sounded incredibly melodramatic as it came out of my mouth, but then, the whole scene was straight out of a cheesy thriller. In any case, from what I could read from his expression in the near dark, that was not what Matt expected to hear. “I told you it was complicated.”
“Then I suggest we adjourn to the station and sort it all out.”
“No!” Cam interrupted. “They’ve got Allison! God knows what they’ll do to her.”
“Cam, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m a law enforcement officer. That’s the kind of thing we handle.”
He still didn’t get it. “Matt, no!” I said desperately. “Listen, once you take him into custody, then a whole lot of things start happening, and we don’t have time for that.” The whole creaky legal apparatus would lurch into motion, and give Thug Number Two time to do . . . almost anything, none of it desirable.
Matt eyed me coldly, or at least I thought so—it was dark. “You mind telling me just what’s so urgent that I can’t arrest this punk here?”
I was getting desperate. “Junior here was supposed to meet us and swap Allison for the diamonds, but he didn’t bring Allison. So I’ve got to believe that she’s still with the other guy, and he’s waiting to hear that he’s got the diamonds back. And you damn well know that if you put this guy in the system, it’ll take forever, and Allison could be dead by then!” Nothing like a little exaggeration—but I was afraid it was true. “Can’t we at least talk to this guy and find out what the story is? You know as well as I do that he and his pal have already killed two people, and that’s just this week.”
I knew that Matt was not stupid—at least not about the law. Maybe about romantic relationships, but that didn’t apply here. Still, it was almost dawn and no one had had much sleep. I watched anxiously as it took him a few seconds to process all the implications.
“Let me get this straight. You’re saying we should hold off on arresting him and hope that he’ll lead us to Allison?”
I nodded. “Something like that. Look, Matt, we don’t have much time. . . .”
Matt ignored my words, the gears still grinding in his head. “Kidnapping’s a federal offense. . . . So we should notify the FBI.”
Matt didn’t look too happy about that idea, so I pressed on. “And that means Agent Price. Do we really have to wait until he gets himself to Tucson and you fill him in? The clock is ticking here.”
I held my breath as Matt stared at me in the dim light. I couldn’t read his expression. I knew that he was a good and honest cop, and as far as I knew he had always played by the book. I could only hope that he realized we were running out of time.
Finally he spoke. “Em, you’re asking me to bend all sorts of rules, if not break them outright. You’re telling me that this man here is a killer and a kidnapper, but I can’t arrest him because the paperwork would take too long?”
“Matt, please—just hear the whole story, and then you can decide what to do.”
He wavered. This was exactly the situation I had hoped to avoid, but here we were. I hated to use our shared past as leverage, but that cut both ways. He knew me, and therefore he knew that I wouldn’t ask him if I didn’t think it was important—I wasn’t some ditzy blonde spinning a crazy tale. When his shoulders sagged, I knew I had him.
“All right. Your place?”
“Fine. Aren’t you going to cuff him?”
He gave me a look of disgust—but he did cuff Thug Number One. “Anything else, ma’am?” Sarcasm did not become him.
“Actually, yes. You might check the trunk of his car and make sure he hasn’t collected any more bodies in the last day or two.” And make sure Allison wasn’t stuffed in there, alive or otherwise—but I refused to give voice to that thought.
Matt dragged Thug Number One with him as he went to the car. “Keys?” he said.
“Jacket pocket,” Thug replied. I wondered if the fact that he didn’t protest was good or bad.
Matt fished in the man’s pocket and pulled out the keys, then opened the trunk lid. I found I was holding my breath. What if . . . ? Matt looked at me and shook his head, and I gulped air again. “Let’s go.”
We dispersed to our cars. Matt took “our” prisoner along with him, and the rest of us went back to Cam’s car. And still no one had noticed our presence on the street. How reassuring. I reminded myself never to let myself be stranded in this part of town.
Once in the car, I turned to Frank. “Frank, you’re not about to bail out on us now, are you? We need your side of the story.”
“No worries, Em. I said I’d see this through until Allison’s safe. And I haven’t broken any laws—in Tucson, anyway. Your copper seems like a good type.”
“He’s good at his job,” I said. “But we’re putting him in a difficult position.”
“He’s doing this for you.” Cam’s eyes were on the road.
I hoped not. I didn’t want to be indebted to Matt. I just wanted him to get Allison back. What had been between us was in the past. “Cam, he’s doing his job. This may be the best way, in his professional judgment, to find Allison— we’ll have to wait and see. He didn’t give up the right to call in the troops.” So we’d better make this story pretty convincing.
We rode in silence the rest of the way home. When Cam pulled into the alley, Matt’s car was already there— and I realized it was his own, not a police car. Had he been keeping an eye on us on his own time? He was waiting beside it, his prisoner in the backseat. He pushed off and stood up straight when we arrived. And he didn’t look happy.
I led the way upstairs and unlocked the door, then stepped aside to let everyone in. Fred and Gloria had bounded forward at the first sound of a key in the lock, but as we filed in they became increasingly confused. I couldn’t blame them. Matt pushed his prisoner ahead of him, first. Doggie response: Matt good, Thug bad. They didn’t know whether to wag tails or growl, and the result was a little schizoid. Cam and Uncle Frank followed, which tipped the balance. Now there were lots of people they liked in the room, and only one baddie. Good odds for everyone.
The sky in the east was just beginning to lighten. “Coffee?” I said, polling the crowd. Nods all around. I went to fill the coffeemaker. That was about as much as I could handle at the moment, but I knew we had a mess ahead of us still, and it didn’t look as though we’d get a nap anytime soon. And I wanted to collect my scattered wits, so I needed something practical to do.
The men had dispersed around the room. Matt sat next to Thug, who was still sporting the handcuffs. “You have a name?” Matt asked, not ungently.
Thug hesitated a moment, and then muttered. “Kevin. McCarthy.”
Ah, another good Irish lad. No surprise there. Or, well, not to me, but Matt wasn’t aware of the whole Irish– Chicago–Australia connection.
“Well, Mr. McCarthy, would you like to fill us in on what you were doing tonight?”
Silence. But I looked at Kevin McCarthy—happy to have a name at last to pin to him—and he looked more scared than tough. And pitifully young now that I could study him. I could tell he couldn’t be more than twenty. Maybe if I got the ball rolling . . .
“Look, Matt, maybe it would help if we started at the beginning?”
Matt fixed me with a carefully neutral look. “Go on.”
Stalling for time, I collected the now-full coffeepot and a cluster of mugs and dumped them on the table in
the center of the room. I wanted to get my ducks lined up, but they insisted on scurrying around willy-nilly. “All right. You knew Jack Flannery was from Chicago, right?”
“Yes.”
“And Allison is, was, his wife. And we kind of assumed he came down here looking for her. And then he ended up dead in my studio because he’d followed her there.”
Matt nodded impatiently. “Come on, Em, can you pick up the pace a little?”
“But we didn’t know who killed him, or why. I don’t know what ideas you—or your pal Agent Price—had on that score, but you didn’t share them with me. Then Allison’s apartment was ransacked—again, no suspects. And then Tim was killed on my doorstep. Two dead bodies, and one apparent burglary, and you guys didn’t have a clue.” I was building up a good head of wrath. “So I ask Allison to stay here with me until all this was cleared up, and we’re minding our own business, working on some glass in the studio, and these two guys break in and say, where are the diamonds? And we don’t have any idea what they’re talking about, and then they say, fine, we’ll take Allison along until you remember where they are. And they did.”
Matt thought for a moment. “What diamonds? And why didn’t you call the police, or me, at that point? No, wait—we’ll come back to that. Do you know where these putative diamonds are?”
“Yes! Well, we do now—we didn’t then, but they didn’t believe us. See, when the Thug Twins were yelling at us, they started throwing things around, breaking things, to threaten us. After they left, we went to clean up the broken glass and we found that there were diamonds embedded in some of the pieces. And the rest were in the frit.”
“Frit? Oh, never mind. How many? A few? A lot?”
“I don’t know how many diamonds are a lot, but Frank said they were worth about half a million.”
Matt let out a low whistle. Then he turned to Frank for the first time. “Maybe it’s time you explained what you’re doing here.”
Frank flashed his white smile. “My pleasure, sir. Name’s Frank Kavanagh, out of New South Wales. Diamond broker. And Allison’s uncle, on her mother’s side.”