by Unknown
“I told her to stay put,” Martell continued. “That we had a situation that needed my attention, that I’d have to call her back. I didn’t let her say anything else, just stressed that she should stay where she was and wait for contact.”
And wasn’t that unexpected and remarkably astute? “Thanks,” Ian said, and he must’ve sounded surprised.
Because Martell added, “Yeah, I’m not a total idiot, Dunn. Call me if there’s anything I can do to help. FYI, we’re safely on the move.” He hung up.
A helo extraction would’ve been helpful, but as of yet, Martell and his FBI buddies hadn’t even managed to get Ian a sandwich—let alone extra handguns to arm his motley crew. And since no way had Ian been willing to leave Aaron without a weapon, that meant he himself was currently out here carrying only a Bic pen.
Ian moved closer to the complex, mentally working out a Plan B, since his Plan A was no longer feasible. Of course, his Plan A had been super-simple—walk up the driveway, find condo 204, knock on its door. Hey, Phoebe. C’mon. Get your stuff. Let’s go. Move it.
Now, thanks to that car parked out front, he was going to have to go all covert and shit.
Fricking pain in his ass.
Ian focused on the building, looking past the decorative railings to the layout and architectural structure.
The Dockside was an artfully arranged series of attractively stuccoed buildings. It had a lot of windows and ornate balconies—i.e. hoo-hahs to grab and swing from, should grabbing and swinging become necessary. It also had copious waterfront views, with several of the structures overlooking one of Sarasota’s many canals. There was a relatively high wall around the nonwater side of the property, with one driveway leading both in and out, and a pedestrian gate at the north end of the grounds.
He was pretty sure, from the relaxed postures of the two men he could clearly see sitting in the car, that they hadn’t recognized Phoebe as she’d walked past them.
While Ian’s Plan A had been to grab her and leave, his Plan B was to do the exact same thing, but without the men in the car seeing them.
Except now that he’d found out that Phoebe’d used her landline to call Martell …?
Any minute, whoever was tapping her home phone was going to sound the alarm, and call the thugs in that car. They were about to find out that their target had just made an outgoing call, therefore, she must be home. She was there, and she was abduc-table.
And Ian knew that the men in the car would abduct her rather than attempt to follow her, because she’d obviously evaded them once already. Rather than risk her getting past them again, they’d play it safe and get Ian’s whereabouts from her the good old-fashioned way.
By tying her to a chair and beating her up.
Sure enough, as Ian watched, the two men now got out of the car. The driver was on the phone. And because he didn’t know Ian was lurking in the bushes, he didn’t bother to keep his voice down.
“Well, what’s their facking ETA?” he asked in an accent that screamed Boston Southie, with an attitude that dripped of ripe annoyance. It didn’t take a degree in rocket science to theorize that he’d been chastised and told to wait for backup before going in after Phoebe.
And that was both good news and bad. Good, because the waiting-for-backup thing gave Ian a little more time to get into Phoebe’s condo, explain what was happening, and get her the hell out of there. Bad, because if something went wrong, he’d have to deal not just with two Dellarosa goons, but instead a larger, undetermined number.
As Ian kept to the shadows, soundlessly moving closer to the Dockside’s wall, Southie ended the phone call, his aggravation radiating from him. “Go keep an eye on the other gate,” he told his compatriot. “Yeah, the footpath. She must’ve come in that way. Although, Jesus. Who the fack walks around in this heat?”
The other guy’s voice didn’t carry, but Southie responded to whatever he’d said with, “No, watch and wait. Mr. D’s on his way.”
Ian went up and over the wall, dropping lightly into one of the Dockside’s many courtyards. He was well aware that the Mr. D in question was Davio Dellarosa, and that Davio wouldn’t show up with anything less than a small army to protect him. Particularly since he knew that Ian was on the loose.
Ian moved swiftly through the courtyard, searching for condo 204 … 204 … Please let it be in the long, low building—only three stories high—that sat right at the edge of the canal. And yes. It was.
The other buildings, on the noncanal side of the complex, were taller—seven or eight stories—with upper-level condos that offered excellent views despite their distance from the water.
Of course, this meant that the roof of Phoebe’s building was probably decorative and sloping, not flat and ugly. Since it could be looked down upon from all of those high-rise balconies, the roof was probably covered with barrel tiles, which could be slippery as all hell.
Going up to the roof to escape Davio’s men was Ian’s backup Plan C, or maybe he was up to D by now. He bypassed the elevator and took the outside staircase up to the second floor, where he spotted a sign telling him that 204 was down toward the left. But he quickly went up one more flight—to get a partial view of the street where Davio’s goons were parked.
He couldn’t see their car, but he could see what looked like three, no four, no—shit—five additional vehicles pulling up, their headlights blazing.
Apparently, Davio’s ETA was now.
Ian took the express route back to the second floor, making each half-flight in a single jump, holding on to the banister for support.
He sprinted down the outside hallway to condo 204, skidding to a stop as he hammered on the door with one hand, even as he found and leaned on the doorbell with his other.
“Come on, come on, come on,” he muttered, and he finally heard movement from inside, so he stepped back slightly so that Phoebe could see him through the peephole.
As she unfastened the locks, he saw that although she had three on the door, they were nothing special. Davio and his army would blow through them in short order. And that meant that Ian and Phoebe had to leave. Now.
“What are you doing here?” Phoebe asked in amazement as the door finally opened. She’d washed her hair, and it hung around her face in shiny waves.
Ian lost a full two seconds just staring at her before he pushed past her. “Glock,” he said, aware as hell that she smelled really good. “I need it. Now.”
“My Glock?” she asked. “Why?”
“Yes, your Glock. Hello. Does anyone else here have a Glock?”
She was wearing jeans that fit her far better than the pair he’d given her in Aaron and Shel’s panic room. And while the shoes she had on were significantly less stupid than the heels that had come off in the swimming pool, she was going to need something with better traction.
“Sneakers,” he told her, snapping his fingers and pointing at her feet. “Get your sneakers.”
But she was standing there, staring at him, her brown eyes wide behind her glasses as she waited for an explanation, so he clapped his hands and added, “Move! Now!” even as he realized that this was, absolutely, the proof beyond all proof that she wasn’t Agency or even former military. This woman had no clue how to take an order.
Ian had learned through time that when dealing with civilians, concise explanations worked better than Because I’m in charge and I say so, so do it, God damn it! So he went with “Davio Dellarosa has tracked you here. Get your sneakers. We’ve got to leave, now.”
But he could tell from the way she was looking at him that she still honestly didn’t think she was in danger, so he continued, “He’s got six cars out there. At least twice as many men. All armed. These are not people who only want to talk to you. In fact, what Davio wants is for you to talk to him. To tell him where I am. To reveal the location of the safe house.”
“But I’d never do that,” she said.
“You might,” he countered. “After the second or third beating.�
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Doubt flickered in her eyes. “You seriously think …?”
“I don’t think it, I know it. I know Davio. There’s a very good chance that Sheldon’s getting the shit kicked out of him right now. And I’m standing here, screwing around with you,” Ian told her. “This isn’t a game. Glock and sneakers. Now.”
Finally, thank God, Phoebe leapt into action, dashing from her foyer and into a condo unit that was virtually empty of furniture, with unpacked boxes lining the wall. She called back to him, “The Glock’s in my bag—kitchen counter. I’ll get my cross-trainers.”
“Yeah, ’cause you wouldn’t want badminton shoes at a time like this,” he fired back at her. Cross-trainers, Jesus.
The condo’s great room—a spacious, high-ceilinged Floridastyle combination of living and dining room—was barely separated from the equally enormous kitchen by a granite island counter. The big combined room had one wall that was entirely glass, made up of a series of huge sliding doors that led onto a massive screened lanai-style balcony, complete with three giant ceiling fans overhead.
“I’m assuming you had no luck contacting Manny at the hospital,” she called from the other room.
“He was unable to take a meeting,” Ian told her as he stepped closer to the balcony to see … Yes, it directly overlooked the canal. Which meant he now had a last-ditch Plan Z. “Hurry.”
But hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that.
Phoebe’s kitchen was chef-worthy, with a gas stove and rich wood cabinets, but Ian didn’t give it more than a quick glance as he beelined for what had to be her bag on the counter. It was different from the lady-luggage she’d had earlier in the day—a light beige leather, which wasn’t good for those hiding-from-the-bad-guys-in-the-night moments that were sure to come. But the darker one was probably still wet. This was equally gigantic though, with a zipper he had to unfasten before diving in.
Sweet Jesus, did she really carry all of this shite around with her, as necessities? Power bars, makeup, tampons, twenty thousand pens of various colors, an assortment of different-sized notebooks …
But he was not here to judge. Something as heavy as her Glock would’ve sunk to the bottom, so he searched with his hand, just gingerly reaching in and feeling around, on the assumption that the weapon would be hard to miss. He was right. He found it quickly enough and pulled it and its holster free, only to have a bra come with it. He untangled the two, jammed the bra back into the bag and the handgun into the back waist of his jeans. And look. His disturbance had caused her house keys to float to the top of the debris. He pocketed them, too.
“Any extra ammo?” Ian called out, even as he opened the cabinet under the sink, searching for trash bags. Bingo. A box. Except they were white. “Shit.”
“Some. Not a lot. It’s in one of these boxes,” Phoebe said, emerging from her bedroom with her sneakers—her cross-trainers, forgive him—already on. She’d grabbed a sweatshirt, too, which was provident, since it was dark blue and therefore exactly what he needed. “Sorry, I don’t know which one. Although, for the record, I’d prefer it if you didn’t kill anyone with my gun, please.”
Ian zipped her bag back up as he carried it and met her in the middle of the empty great room. “I’ll do my best not to,” he told her. She grabbed for her bag, but he held it out of reach as he took her sweatshirt from her instead. He put the light-colored bag inside the torso of the sweatshirt, turning it into an easier-to-carry hobo bundle by tying the two arms together. Only then did he hand it to her. “It’s dark out there.”
She nodded. “Your shirt?”
Was white. She clearly understood the concept.
“I’ll take it off,” he said. “If they see us. I can use it to misdirect.”
He could tell she didn’t quite understand, and Ian didn’t want to take the time to explain the vast intricacies of E&E—escape and evasion. One time-honored trick was the art of changing one’s appearance midchase. If everyone was looking for a tall man in a white T-shirt, then ditch the T-shirt.
“Just like this afternoon,” Ian told her instead as they moved to the door, “in the pool. When I tell you to do something you do it. No questions, no hesitation.”
Phoebe nodded, but then said, “I’m not sure why we’re not simply calling the police.”
“They won’t get here in time.” Ian opened the door just a crack to look out.
“Before what? Dellarosa’s men kick down my door, and drag me out, scratching and screaming? I think my neighbors might notice—”
“No,” he told her, pulling her out with him onto the outdoor corridor. “They won’t. Dellarosa’s men’ll do it quickly and quietly. You will not be conscious. They’ll make sure of that. Now, shh.”
To most people, shh meant stop talking. Phoebe chose to interpret it to mean that she shouldn’t speak quite as loudly. “So why don’t we make it noisy, right now?” she whispered. “Why don’t we start shouting and banging on doors—get as many of my neighbors out here as possible, create an anti-abduction flashmob?”
It was, at least in theory, an interesting idea. But it carried a huge amount of risk. “And put them in danger?” Ian asked. “That’s if anyone actually bothers to come to our aid. Which is assuming a lot. Most people won’t even open their door after dark. They’ll pretend they don’t hear.”
And … fack, as the driver of the first car would say. Dellarosa’s men were already in the courtyard. There was no going down the stairs. Their only options were up to the roof, or back into Phoebe’s apartment.
Ian quickly unlocked her door and pulled her inside.
“This can’t be good,” Phoebe correctly surmised.
“It’s not,” he said, as he went into the great room and picked up the nearest box. Jesus, what did she have in here? Although the fact that the boxes were heavy was a good thing. “Help me.”
She caught on fast enough and helped him pile the boxes in front of the door, creating a barricade.
“This is not going to keep anyone out for very long,” she pointed out as he grabbed another and another. She was right behind him. “Not if they’re determined. I mean yes, it’ll slow them down—”
“That’s all we need,” Ian told her. “Just to slow them down.”
“Except I can’t help but notice that we still haven’t called the police,” she said.
“They still won’t get here in time,” he said again. “And even if they did, the Dellarosas have people working for them everywhere. We wouldn’t be safe.” Ian humped the last few boxes as she stood there, staring at him. “Grab a knife from the kitchen, will you? A paring knife if you have one. Something small and sharp.”
His request snapped Phoebe out of whatever disbelieving reverie she’d fallen into, and she swiftly went behind the island counter to open a drawer.
“Oh my God,” she said. “We’re going off the balcony, aren’t we? I have to warn you, I have terrible upper-body strength. The thought of climbing down … I just don’t think I can—”
Ian interrupted her. “Don’t worry about that.”
“Why?” she asked. “Do you really think you can carry me?”
“Don’t have to.” He smiled because he knew from the look in her eye that she’d already figured out what he was going to say next.
“Oh my God, Ian …”
He said it anyway. “We’re gonna jump.”
* * *
Phoebe looked down into the murky depths of the canal, to where the water came up against the wall just outside of the Dockside condos. She’d seen large, deep-keeled sailboats pull right up to that canal wall, so she knew that the water there was plenty deep enough for a two-story plunge.
She also knew that Ian could swim really well, being a former Navy SEAL.
That didn’t make it any better.
“Do you have a case or something for your glasses?” Ian asked, because no, they would not stay on her face when she hit that water, way down there. She untied the arms of her sweatshirt so that s
he could get her glasses case out of her handbag.
Oh my God, they were really going to do this—she was really going to do this. Still, she couldn’t help but make a small sound of pain and despair as he used one of her new kitchen knives to cut the balcony screen.
“This won’t be hard to fix,” he said.
“As opposed to the kicked-in door and the damage to the apartment done by looters after the place is left open?” Phoebe asked, taking off her glasses and closing the hard case with a snap. It was better not to watch.
“I’ll keep these in my pocket.” Ian took the case from her, which was his subtle way of telling her that she was probably going to lose the entire contents of her handbag in the canal.
This was all her fault. She’d naively refused to believe that she was in danger, refused to accept that she’d stepped into a situation that was right out of the pages of some fantastic fictional spy thriller. Although truth be told they hadn’t even gotten to the spy part, complete with its Mission: Impossible rescue of those poor kidnapped children. They were here, sidetracked—indeed, her fault entirely—by the murderous mob boss and his thugs, who were out for blood, and who could’ve gotten her to reveal the location of the safe house after her second beating, if not her first.
Phoebe had truly believed that her being a lawyer made her untouchable. But no doubt about it, she’d become the woman who idiotically went into the basement to check the circuit breakers when the lights went off, with a serial killer on the loose.
She was, officially, too stupid to live.
And yet Ian had come after her.
“I don’t want to do this,” Phoebe said.
Ian nodded. “I know. But you don’t have a choice.”
“God, I hate this. I hate you,” she said.
“Yeah, I know that, too. I’m sorry. Give me your bag, I’ll take it. Come on. Climb up here.” He patted the balcony railing.