Key West

by Stella Cameron

  Why didn’t anyone squeal?

  Because Cory said he had something on each of them, and his own record was squeaky clean. Chris had heard all he needed to hear.

  What did Cory have to do with Sonnie?

  Chris continued to scrutinize the ducts, and then he found what he was looking for. At one point a separate branch left the main line. He figured this must be connected to a vent into a bedroom. He wasn’t sure which one. Where the joints had originally come together, there were scratches, and the seams had been forced apart. Inefficient for the cooling system, but possibly useful for other things. He shone the flashlight into the opening and instantly saw that he hadn’t been far off in his theory about drills. Pinpoints of light showed against the sloping walls, and when he bent to look at the other side of the ductwork, he saw where a number of holes had been drilled.

  Chris made his way back to the second floor and went to Sonnie’s room. Wearing a fresh white cotton jumpsuit, and with her hair brushed back and coiled at her nape, she sat on the side of her bed. Beside her was a scattering of powdery valentine heart candies—each one faceup, where she could read what it said.

  She looked abashed. “I’m too nervous to just sit here. Frank loved these. He always kept them in his drawer.”

  “No accounting for taste.” He wrinkled his nose at the sweet, perfumed scent of them. “Sonnie, l’ve found what I expected to find. In the attic. There’s nothing wrong with you, sweetheart. I want you to stay where you are. Expect to hear your name.” He wafted a hand airily. “Somewhere up there. If you do, shout back to me.”

  Sonnie crossed her ankles and sat rigidly upright.

  Chris made another expedition to the attic. When he reached the first duct that had been tampered with, he put his mouth close to the metal and said, “Sonnie?” He raised his voice and repeated, “Sonnie?”

  “Yes,” came her answer.

  “Does that sound as if it’s floating by the ceiling?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it is. It’s coming through holes in the air-conditioning ductwork. Now walk around upstairs and see if you hear me again.”

  He crawled all over the attic and found join after join pried open, and more holes drilled in between. He continued to shout, and Sonnie continued to respond. “Okay, let me take a few photos. There’s a cape and some wigs I want you to look at. Try to relax till I’m done.”

  Sonnie smiled so hard her face hurt. She shouldn’t be so happy to learn she’d been set up, but she was. They’d done a great job of convincing her she was losing her mind. But, thanks to Chris, they’d failed. She walked downstairs, aware of the toes on her right foot being swollen. Once all this was behind her, she’d concentrate on getting the best of treatment to help her manage her injuries better. And, when it was time, she’d go ahead with the facial plastic surgery.

  And maybe she and Chris would have a life together. But she needed to make sure she could also be independent. She ought to have something she could do. Maybe she’d like to study interior design. She’d often been told she had a flair for creating appealing home spaces. Why not make something of that?

  Wimpy showed up with leaves sticking out of his fur. She set him on a chair in the parlor and picked them out. Then she spread a throw and settled him on top. He rested back, and she would almost swear he made a swooning noise.

  She heard the front door open and started for the foyer. They hadn’t locked it? If she yelled, would Chris hear her? She should stay where she was. The wind was picking up yet again and could have blown the door open.

  Wimpy whined.

  Sonnie retreated to sit beside him and stroke him. She bent over him and whispered, “It’s okay. I’m here.”

  Someone wearing sneakers was taking his or her time to walk across the tiled floor in the foyer. Every few steps, the noise stopped. The person mounted the stairs.

  Chris. What if they surprised Chris?

  If she did anything impetuous, she could cause him to be harmed. This could be someone who’d wandered off the street looking for shelter—or to steal.

  Minutes had never passed so slowly for Sonnie. And as they passed, her terror mounted. She heard footfalls overhead, but they were still soft, light.

  Please don’t let Chris call out again.

  Wimpy made pathetic snuffling noises and croaking half growls that seemed to surprise him more than Sonnie.

  If Chris climbed out of the attic he could walk directly into harm’s way without expecting anything to happen. Sure, he had a gun, but would there be time to use it if he was totally surprised?

  She didn’t want to think about him shooting someone.

  The intruder was going through every bedroom. So slowly. So slowly before he descended the stairs making a sound as if he took a step, then brought the second foot to meet it. As if he was injured.

  Could Cory Bledsoe have escaped and come back? Who knew what his part was in all this? He’d been injured—tortured, really. Perhaps that happened because someone else wasn’t happy with whatever he was supposed to have done about her. Now he might be here to try to prove he could do the job better.

  He came toward the parlor.

  Α sound came from overhead, a ringing. She turned cold, then hot. Chris’s cell phone. Α faint ringing, but surely the intruder would hear and wonder where it came from.

  Sonnie stood up with Wimpy in her arms. Her heart beat hard. “Hush,” she told the dog, “don’t be frightened.” But she knew the message was for herself.

  The door swung open, catching on carpet as it always did so that it had to be repeatedly pushed.

  “Oh, Sonnie, there you are. I didn’t know where I’d look for you next. No one knows I’m here—yet. But they’ll catch up “

  Wimpy struggled and Sonnie couldn’t hold him anymore. He dropped to the floor and stood there, panting.

  “Come here and let me look at you, Sonnie.” Frank Giacano, so like his brother facially, had always been much thinner, but never as thin as he was now. Now he was little more than skin stretched over bone. His eyes still had the liquid quality Sonnie had fallen in love with, and with his facial bones accentuated he was almost unbearably handsome. “I came to you first, to let you know how important you are to me.”

  She blinked to clear her vision, and felt light-headed. Everything in the room seemed to tilt away at an angle. She took a step to steady herself, but her legs wouldn’t stay braced.

  “Cara mia,” Frank said. “Υou have been through so much, and now I have shocked you. Come, let me help you to bed. But first you must introduce me to my child.”

  She felt him hold her wrists, but could do nothing to resist, or to help herself. “I don’t want to go to bed, thank you,” she said, aware of the enormity of this exchange.

  Frank released her. He laced his emaciated fingers together, and she saw how he trembled. Α purplish hue shaded his deepened eye sockets. “Tell me what I should do,” he said. “I…I don’t know what to do.”

  “Perhaps you should sit down.” What should she tell him to do? She didn’t want him here—he frightened her, yet she was sorry for him.

  Frank sat on the couch, just as she’d suggested. His clothes hung from his shoulders. On his feet he wore canvas sneakers with holes across the toes. His hair, black when she’d last seen him, hung to his shoulders and was liberally streaked with gray.

  Sonnie had never expected to feel pity for Frank, but she pitied him now. “What have they done to you?” she asked him. “I’ll call a doctor.”

  “No,” he told her, smiling faintly. “A doctor cannot help. There’s a lot I’d like to share with you, but not tonight, not so soon. Tonight I only need to be with you.”

  He had never treated her with either such gentleness or such singular attention. “I will tell you that I was abducted,” he said. “They took me from place to place until I no longer knew where I was. At first they said they intended to hold me for ransom. Then they said I would become more valuable as a hostage
they could offer in exchange for some of their own people. I never even knew who they were. But you don’t need to worry about that. Sonnie, I’ve had a long, lonely time to think. I missed you so much. In the middle of all that time, all I could concentrate on was you, on needing to be with you and take care of you. I have prayed that you will allow me a new chance. Allow us to start again, Sonnie. Please.”

  Chris descended the stairs so fast he barely touched them. A jumbled call had come for him, jumbled but with enough detail for him to get the message. He had to get to Roy. One of those damned old wooden racks over the bar at the Nail had come loose. Glasses had cascaded down, and Roy had been in the line of fire. He’d been rushed to the emergency room at the hospital on Stock Island.

  “Sonnie, where are you?” he yelled, and skidded to a halt in the doorway to the parlor.

  “Chris?” Sonnie said. “It’s Frank.”

  He needed no introduction to recognize the man—even though he’d never seen him. “Back from the dead,” he said, too bemused to temper his reactions.

  “Sonnie?” Frank Giacano said. “Who is this man?”

  “A friend,” Sonnie said. “My good friend.” She kept her eyes trained on Chris’s as if he could magically change what was happening—or make it go away.

  “I have to leave,” Chris said. “Now. I want you to come with me.”

  “Trouble?” Sonnie asked.

  He would not discuss anything personal in front of a stranger he hated on sight. “Yes. Let’s go.”

  Sonnie stood close enough to her husband for him to grasp her hand. “Don’t leave me,” he said—begged. “I could come with you, if you must go.”

  “Frank”—Sonnie looked at him—”wait for me here. I’ll come back as soon as I can.”

  The man stood up and clutched her arm. “Please, no.” He fought, unsuccessfully, against tears. “I can’t bear to be alone again.” Turning his attention to Chris, he said, “Give me some time with my wife, please. I don’t know you, but if you are her friend, then allow her to comfort me.”

  “I can’t—” He’d started to say he couldn’t leave her with him. “Sonnie? I’ve got to go.”

  Fear stretched the skin over her facial bones. He felt how she held back questions about whatever was troubling him. “Go,” she said. “I’ll be fine. But get back as soon as you can, okay?”

  “Okay.” Still he couldn’t make himself leave. “Sonnie, maybe—”

  “Just go.” Her eyes were moistly luminous. “Now. Hurry.”

  “Yes. You’re right. I’ll call the second I can.” He couldn’t make himself look at Giacano again. The most important thing to carry with him was that Sonnie didn’t want to be with Frank—she stayed because her husband was pathetic and in obvious need of help.

  Chris walked out, and when Sonnie finally drew her gaze from the spot where he’d stood, she looked into Frank’s sad face. “Did you find someone else while I was gone?” he said. “How can I blame you? I can’t. Loneliness and fear are too much for someone as weak as you. But I am with you now, and I will always be with you.” His trembling grip turned to steel on her fingers.

  Thirty-fοur

  “What in hell’s name is going on around here?” Chris said, walking into the guest house. He glared at Roy. “There’s a hurricane brewing out there. For real this time. If it doesn’t hit us straight on, we’ll still get bounced around good. I get a call from some maniac—don’t ask me who—telling me there’s been an accident and you’ve been carved like the Thanksgiving turkey, so I grab a cab and rush to Stock Island, only to find out they don’t know a thing about any accident at the Rusty Nail. Then I get back here to find Pep tending the bar on a busy night and you two hanging out in my pad. What gives?”

  Occasionally shaking rain from the hat he held, Roy stood behind Bo at Chris’s computer. He spared Chris a glance, but only that. Bo sat at the keyboard, apparently checking Chris’s E-mail.

  “Is anyone going to talk to me before I have to leave again?” Chris said.

  Flynn came through the open door, said, “Hi, all,” and went directly to swing a leg over the Harley’s saddle and sit.

  “This day started out as a fraud,” Flynn said. “Sunshine to fool us. Just listened to the weather. They reckon we’re going to get the edge of a hurricane by sometime tonight.

  They’re not talking about evacuation, but they are suggesting battening things down.”

  “Thanks for the weather forecast. I don’t lean on your Mustang; get the hell off my Harley,” Chris said, not caring how juvenile he sounded. “Then go away, all of you. Do something useful, like find something to batten. But first, did something fall on you in the bar, Roy? Did you have to go to the hospital? And did you get someone to call me?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Roy said. “You see any sign of me needing to go to the hospital? We came over because Aiden called in and said we should watch for a message from some friend of his. Haven’t seen anything since we got here.”

  “Right,” Chris said. “So I fell for a setup. I’m outa here.” And his heart did nasty, suffocating things.

  Flynn sounded the Harley’s horn, sending all hands to ears. Then he grinned and said, “Got your attention.”

  Fortunately the urge to land a punch on Aiden’s grinning mouth didn’t last long enough for Chris to follow through. “Frank Giacano surfaced again. He’s at Sonnie’s. Looks like he’s wrecked, but I don’t trust him. I’ve got to get back there.”

  “Holy hell,” Aiden muttered. “What a shock. You think he’s dangerous to her?”

  “No,” Chris said with complete honesty. “I just don’t like her being with him. And I want to know who called me—called me away, folks.”

  “Well, it wasn’t Frank Giacano if he was with Sonnie, was it?” Bo pointed out. “You’d better cool it, Christian J., or you could end up looking possessive and overbearing and all the things Sonnie didn’t like in good ol’ Frank.”

  “Yeah,” Aiden said. “And the way it is now, I think she loves you. Now, that doesn’t say much for her judgment, it’s true, but who ever understood the way a woman’s mind works? And I think you love her, schmuck.”

  Chris rubbed his skinned knuckles. “I do.”

  “Glad we’ve got that straight,” Roy said. “What do you know that I don’t know?”

  “This has been a wild day.” Chris wiped at rainwater that ran from his hair. “Everything Sonnie talked about happened. The voices, the whole thing. It would take too long to go into it now.” He checked the clip in his gun and pulled his jacket over the weapon again.

  Flynn stood up. “Seems tonight’s the night. Showdown time. We’d better get on the road. Cory Bledsoe’s going to be brought back to Key West under guard. Seems the local boys have kindly volunteered to cooperate by staging a little get-together designed to bring on the songbirds.”

  “I don’t get it,” Chris said.

  “Neither did I until—did I mention I flew up to Miami?—I didn’t get it till I got into the hospital and managed not to get assassinated for being NYPD. All it took was humility on my part. I’d looove to work in Miami.” He rolled his eyes. “But we need to get Sonnie out of the way. That means out of her house, because that’s where the action’s expected to take place. Don’t worry; we’ve got time. No need to panic her.”

  “Quit yakking,” Chris said. “Flynn, travel with me. That Mustang is a beauteous thing, but it does get noticed. Roy, I think it might b—”

  “You know where I’ll be if you need me,” Roy said. The voice was light again, but the eyes were old and scared. “Be careful though.”

  Chris looked away and went for the computer. He leaned over Bo’s shoulder. “I’ll just make sure nothing else came in.”

  He looked at the list of mail and said, “No. Hey, Flynn, there is something else from your buddy. Subject says it’s for you.”

  Wind hammered the metal building and the walls moved. Chris glanced from Roy to Flyn
n, but neither of them commented.

  Flynn left the bike and opened the post. “Annette Roberts’s husband was a magician,” he read aloud. “Got a picture of him from a local newspaper archive. Probably won’t help, but I’ve attached it. Later.”

  The downloaded picture opened on the screen. Flynn turned to Chris and Roy and said, “Now, that’s a face I know.”

  “Edward Miller,” Chris said, “alias Mitchell Roberts. This has been weird, but it’s getting weirder. Edward was Ena’s husband. Write back to the guy. Thank him, and we’ll get going. One of us had better stick close to Sοnnie. Then it’s time to see what the club contingent is up to. By the way, I ought to mention that they think they might be happier with me dead, so I’ll be keeping my eyes open wide.”

  “Shit,” Roy said with feeling. “That means the plans go this way. Aiden, you go to the club. I’ll be watching Chris’s back wherever he chooses to be while he’s watching Sonnie.”

  “Who made you chief?” Chris said.

  “I did,” Roy told him. “And that’s the way it’s going to be until I’m not needed.”

  Sonnie wanted to leave. She wanted to go in search of Chris and never come back. But she couldn’t do anything but remain where she was until he contacted her.

  Talking to Frank had already exhausted her, and she wanted to escape the haunted stare from his sunken eyes.

  “Sit with me in the kitchen,” he said. He had paced the room for most of the last hour, stopping from time to time to look at her where she sat on the couch. “I will make us coffee. We have a great deal to talk about. We have a future to plan, cara. And I have to find a way to grieve for our child without making you suffer again.”

  Sonnie made straightening her jumpsuit an excuse for avoiding Frank’s outstretched hand. When she’d told him Jacqueline had died, he sobbed and pointed an accusing finger at her before he begged her forgiveness for his selfishness. She didn’t want to touch him. She got up and went ahead of him into the kitchen.