by Nora Roberts
Zack took a pull from a bottle of mineral water. Rachel saw his eyes change, recognized the relief in them before the shutters came down.
“Hey, barkeep—” Rachel slid onto a stool “—got any coffee?”
“Sure.”
“Make it two,” she said, sending a meaningful glance in Nick’s direction.
He said nothing, but he did sit beside her.
“There’s an old Ukrainian tradition,” she began when Zack set the cups on the bar. “It’s called a family meeting. Are you up for it?”
“Yeah.” Zack inclined his head toward his brother. “I guess I can handle it. What about you?”
“I’m here,” Nick muttered.
“Hey.” A man, obviously well on his way to being drunk, leaned heavily on the bar a few stools away. “Am I going to get another bourbon over here?”
“Nope.” Carrying the pot, Zack crossed over. “But you can have coffee on the house.”
The man scowled through red-rimmed eyes. “What the hell are you, a social worker?”
“That’s me.”
“I said I want a damn drink.”
“You’re not going to get another one here.”
The drunk reached out and grabbed a handful of Zack’s sweater. Considering Zack’s size, Rachel took this to be a testament to the bourbon already in his system.
“This a bar or a church?”
Something flickered in Zack’s eyes. Rachel recognized it, and was slipping out of her seat when Nick clamped a warning hand on hers.
“He’ll handle it,” he said simply.
Zack lowered his gaze to the hands on his sweater, then shifted it back to the irate customer’s face. When he spoke, his voice was surprisingly mild. “Funny you should ask. I knew this guy once, down in New Orleans. He favored bourbon, too. One night he went from bar to bar, knocking them back, then staggering back out on the street. Story goes that he got so blind drunk he wandered into a church, thinking it was another bar. Weaved his way up to the front—you know, where the altar is? Slammed his fist down and ordered himself a double. Then he dropped dead. Stone dead.” Zack pried the fingers from his sweater. “The way I figure it, if you drink enough bourbon so you don’t know where you are, you could wake up dead in church.”
The man swore and snatched up the coffee. “I know where the hell I am.”
“That’s good news. We hate hauling out corpses.”
Rachel heard Nick’s muffled chuckle and grinned. “Truth or lie?” she whispered.
“Probably some of both. He always knows how to handle the drunks.”
“He wasn’t doing very well with the blonde earlier.”
“What blonde?”
“Another story,” Rachel said, and smiled into her coffee. “Another time. Listen, would you be more comfortable doing this upstairs, or—” She broke off when she heard a crash from the kitchen. “Lord, it sounds like Rio knocked over the refrigerator.” She started to rise and go check. Then froze. The kitchen door swung open. Rio staggered out, blood running down his face from a wound on his forehead. Behind him was a man in a stocking mask. He was holding a very large gun to Rio’s throat.
“Party time,” he snarled, then shoved the big man forward with the butt of the gun.
“Jumped me,” Rio said in disgust as he staggered against the bar. “Come in front upstairs.”
There was a quick giggle as two more armed men, their features distorted by their nylon masks, stepped in. “Don’t anybody move.” One of them accentuated the order by blasting away at the ship’s bell over the bar. It clanged wildly.
“Lock the front door, you jerk.” The first man gestured furiously. “And no shooting unless I say so. Everybody empty their pockets on the bar. Make it fast.” He gestured the third man into position so that the whole bar was covered. “Wallets, jewelry, too. Hey, you.” He lifted the barrel of the gun toward Lola. “Dump out those tips, sweetheart. You look like you’d earn plenty.”
Nick didn’t move. Couldn’t. He knew the voice. Despite the distorted features, all three gunmen were easy for him to recognize. T.J.’s giggle and shambling walk. Cash’s battered denim jacket. The scar on Reece’s wrist where an Hombre blade had caught him.
These were his friends. His family.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded as T.J. pranced around the bar, scooping the take into a laundry bag.
“Empty them,” Reece demanded.
“You’ve got to be crazy.”
“Do it!” He swung the barrel toward Rachel. “And shut the hell up.”
Nick kept his eyes on Reece as he complied. “This is the end, man. You crossed the line.”
Behind the mask, Reece only grinned. “On the floor!” he shouted. “Facedown, hands behind your heads. Not you,” he said to Zack. “You empty out the cash register. And you—” he grabbed Rachel’s arm “—you look like mighty fine insurance. Anybody gets any ideas, I cash her in.”
“Leave her the hell—”
“Nick!” Zack’s quick and quiet order cut him off. “Back off.” As he emptied the till, he watched Reece. “You don’t need her.”
“But I like her.”
Rachel swallowed as the hand tightened on her arm, squeezing experimentally.
“Fresh meat,” he called out, smacking his lips. T.J. erupted into giggles. “Maybe we’ll take you along with us, sweet thing. Show you a real good time.”
The furious retort burned the tip of her tongue. Rachel gritted her teeth against it. The heel of her foot on his instep, she thought. An elbow to his windpipe. She could do it, and the idea of taking him out had her blood pumping fast. But if she did, she knew the other two would open fire.
When Nick strained forward, Reece locked his arm around Rachel’s throat. “Try it, dishwasher.” His teeth flashed in a brutal challenge. “Do it, man. Take me on.”
“Cool it.” Reece’s attitude toward the woman was making Cash nervous. “Come on, we came for the money. Just the money.”
“I take what I want.” He watched as T.J. scooped the contents of the till into his sack. “Where’s the rest?”
“Slow night,” Zack told him.
“Don’t push me, man. There’s a safe in the office. Open it.”
“Fine.” Zack moved slowly, passing through the opening of the bar. He had to control the urge to fight, to grab the little sneering-voiced punk and pound his face to pulp. “I’ll open it as soon as you let her go.”
“I got the gun,” Reece reminded him. “I give the orders.”
“You’ve got the gun,” Zack agreed. “I’ve got the combination. You want what’s in the safe, you let her go.”
“Go on,” Cash urged. His hands were sweating on the gun he held. “We don’t need the babe. Shake her loose.”
Reece felt his power slipping as Zack continued to watch him with cold blue eyes. He wanted to make them tremble. All of them. He wanted them to cry and beg. He was the head of the Cobras. He was in charge. Nobody was going to tell him any different.
“Open it,” he said between his teeth. “Or I’ll blow a hole in you.”
“You won’t get what’s inside that way.” Out of the corner of his eye, Zack saw Rio shift from his prone position. The big man was braced for whatever came. “This is my place,” Zack continued. “I don’t want anyone hurt in my place. You let the lady go, and you can take what you want.”
“Let’s trash the dump,” T.J. shouted, and swung his gun at the glasses hanging over the bar. Shards went flying, amusing him enough to have him breaking more. “Let’s kick butt and trash it.” He grabbed up a vodka on the rocks and slurped it down. Then, howling, he hurled the glass to the floor.
The sound of the wreckage, and the muffled cries of the hostages on the floor, pumped Reece full of adrenaline. “Yeah, we’ll trash this dump good.” Over Cash’s halfhearted objections, he fired at the overhead television, blasting out the screen. “That’s what I’m going to do to the safe. I don’t need a damn woman.” He s
hoved Rachel aside, and she overbalanced, landing on her hands and knees. “And I don’t need you.”
He swung the gun toward Zack, savoring the moment. He was about to take a life, and that was new. And darkly exciting.
“This is how I give orders.”
Even as Zack braced to jump, Nick was springing to his feet. Like a sprinter off the mark, he lunged, hurling full force into Zack as Reece’s gun exploded.
There were screams, dozens of them. Rachel swung out with a chair, unaware that one of them was her own. She felt the chair connect, heard a grunt of pain. She caught a glimpse of the mountain that was Rio whiz past. But she was already scrambling over to where Zack and Nick lay limp on the floor.
She saw the blood. Smelled it. Her hands were smeared with it.
The room was like a madhouse around her. Shouts, crashes, running feet. She heard someone weeping. Someone else being sick.
“Oh, God. Oh, please.” She was pressing her hands against Nick’s chest as Zack sat up, shaking his head clear.
“Rachel. You’re—” Then he saw his brother, sprawled on the floor, his face ghostly pale. And the blood seeping rapidly through his shirt. “No! Nick, no!” Panicked, Zack grabbed for him, fighting Rachel off as she tried to press her hands to the wound.
“Stop! You have to stop! Listen to me—keep your hands there. Keep the pressure on. I’ll get a towel.” With prayers whirling in her head, she scrambled up to her feet and dashed behind the bar. “Call an ambulance,” she shouted. “Tell them to hurry.” Because terror left no room for fumbling, she clamped down on it. Kneeling by Zack, she pushed his hands aside and pressed the folded towel on Nick’s wound. “He’s young. He’s strong.” The tears were falling even as she felt frantically for Nick’s pulse. “We’re not going to let him go.”
“Zack.” Rio crouched down. “They got away from me. I’m sorry. I’ll go after them.”
“No.” Revenge glittered in his eyes. “I’ll go after them. Later. Get me a blanket for him, Rio. And more towels.”
“I’ve got some.” Lola passed them to Rachel, then dropped a hand on Zack’s head. “He’s a hero, Zack. We don’t let our heroes die.”
“He got in the way,” Zack said as grief welled into his throat. “Damn kid was always getting in the way.” He looked at Rachel, then covered her hands with his over his brother’s chest. “I can’t lose him.”
“You won’t.” She heard the first wail of sirens and shuddered with relief. “We won’t.”
Endless hours in the waiting room, pacing, smoking, drinking bitter coffee. Zack could still see how pale Nick had been when they rushed him through Emergency and into an elevator that snapped shut in Zack’s face.
Helpless. Hospitals always made him feel so helpless. Only a year had passed since he’d watched his father die in one. Slowly, inevitably, pitifully.
But not Nick. He could cling to that. Nick was young, and death wasn’t inevitable when you were young.
But the blood. There had been so much blood.
He looked down at the hands that he’d scrubbed clean, and could still see his brother’s life splattered across them. In his hands. That was all he could think. Nick’s life had been in his hands.
“Zack.” He stiffened when Rachel came up behind him and rubbed his shoulders. “How about a walk? Some fresh air?”
He just shook his head. She didn’t press. It was useless to suggest he try to rest. She couldn’t. Her eyes were burning, but she knew that if she closed them she would see that last horrible instant. The gun swinging toward Zack. Nick leaping. The explosion. The blood.
“I’m going to find food.” Rio pushed himself off the sagging sofa. The white bandage gleamed against his dark brow. “And you’re going to eat what I bring you. That boy’s going to need tending soon. You can’t tend when you’re sick.” With his lips pressed tightly together, he marched out into the hallway.
“He’s crazy about Nick,” Zack said, half to himself. “It’s eating at him that he didn’t round up three armed men all by himself.”
“We’ll find them, Zack.”
“I thought he would hurt you. I saw it in his eyes. That kind of sickness can’t be disguised by a mask. He was going to hurt somebody, wanted to hurt somebody, and he had you. I never even thought about Nick.”
“It’s not your fault. No,” she said sharply when he tried to pull away. “I won’t let you do that to yourself. There were a lot of people in that bar, and you were doing your best to protect all of them. What happened to Nick happened because he was trying to protect you. You’re not going to turn an act of love into blame.”
This time, when she put her arms around him, he went into them. “I need to talk to him. I don’t think I could handle it if I don’t get to talk to him.”
“You’re going to have plenty of time to talk.”
“I’m sorry.” Alex hesitated at the doorway. His heart was thumping, as it had been ever since he’d gotten the news. “Rachel, are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” She kept one arm firm around Zack’s waist as she turned. “It’s Nick…”
“I know. When the call came in, I asked to handle it. I thought it would be easier on everybody.” His eyes shifted to Zack’s, held. “Is that okay with you?”
“Yeah. I appreciate it. I’ve already talked to a couple of cops.”
“Why don’t we sit down?” He waited while Zack sat on the edge of a chair and lit another cigarette. “Any news on your brother’s condition?”
“They took him into surgery. They haven’t told us anything.”
“I might be able to find something out. Why don’t you tell me about these three creeps?”
“They wore stocking masks,” Zack began wearily. “Black clothes. One of them wore a denim jacket.”
Rachel reached for Zack’s hand. “The one who shot Nick was about five-eight or nine,” she added. “Black hair, brown eyes. There was a scar on his left wrist. On the side, about two inches long. He wore engineer’s boots, worn down at the heel.”
“Good girl.” Not for the first time, Alex thought that his sister would have made a damn good cop. “How about the other two?”
“The one who wanted to trash the place had a high-pitched giggle,” Zack remembered. “Edgy. Skinny guy.”
“About five-ten,” Rachel put in. “Maybe a hundred and thirty. I didn’t get a good look at him, but he had light hair. Sandy blond, I think. The third one was about the same height, but stockier. At a guess, I’d say the guns made him nervous. He was sweating a lot.”
“How about age?”
“Hard to say.” She looked at Zack. “Young. Early twenties?”
“About. What are the chances of catching them?”
“Better with this.” Alex closed his notebook. “Look, I won’t con you. It won’t be easy. Now if they left prints, and the prints are on file, that’s one thing. But we’re going to work on it. I’m going to work on it,” he added. “You could say I’ve got a vested interest.”
“Yeah.” Zack looked at Rachel. “I guess you do.”
“Not just for her,” Alex said. “I’ve got a stake in the kid, too. I like to see the system work, Muldoon.”
“Mr. Muldoon?” A woman of about fifty dressed in green scrubs came into the room. When Zack started to rise, she gestured to him to stay where he was. “I’m Dr. Markowitz, your brother’s surgeon.”
“How—” He had to pause and try again. “How is he?”
“Tough.” As a concession to aching feet and lower back pain, she sat on the arm of a chair. “You want all the technical jargon so I can show off, or you want the bottom line?”
The next lick of fear had his palms damp. “Bottom line.”
“He’s critical. And he’s damn lucky, not only to have had me, but to have taken a bullet at close range that missed the heart. I put his chances now at about seventy-five percent. With luck, and the constitution of youth, we’ll be able to bump that up within twenty-four hours.”
“I’m telling you I don’t like to work that hard and long on anyone and lose them. We’re going to keep him in ICU for now.”
“Can I see him?”
“I’ll have someone come down and let you know when he’s out of Recovery.” She stifled a yawn and noted that she’d spent yet another sunrise in an operating room. “You want all the crap about how he’ll be out for several more hours, won’t know you’re there, and how you should go home and get some rest?”
“No thanks.”
She rubbed her eyes and smiled. “I didn’t think so. He’s a good-looking boy, Mr. Muldoon. I’m looking forward to chatting with him.”
“Thanks. Thanks a lot.”
“I’ll be checking in on him.” She rose, stretched, and narrowed her eyes at Alex. “Cop.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I can spot them a mile away,” she said, and walked out.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The pain was a thin sheet of agony layered under dizziness. Every time Nick surfaced, he felt it, wondered at it, then slipped away again into a cocoon of comforting unconsciousness. Sometimes he tried to speak, but the words were disjointed and senseless even to him.
He heard a disconcerting beeping, annoying and consistent, that he didn’t recognize as his heartbeat on the monitor. The squeak of crepe-soled shoes against tile was muffled by the nice, steady humming in his ears. The occasional prodding and poking as his vital signs were checked and rechecked was only a minor disturbance in the huge, dark lack of awareness that covered him.
Sometimes there was a pressure on his hand, as if someone were holding it. And a murmuring—someone speaking to him. But he couldn’t quite drum up the energy to listen.
Once he dreamed of the sea in a hurricane, and watched himself leap off the deck of a pitching ship into blackness. But he never hit bottom. He just floated away.
There were other dreams. Zack standing behind him at a pinball machine, guiding his hands, laughing at the whirl of bells and whistles.