Crazy Kisses

by Tara Janzen

  But it had been the best available choice, he reminded himself. And how could he have known somebody was going to drag a screaming woman into the car?

  But please, not into the trunk.

  Somebody rattled off a stream of angry Spanish. Somebody else answered, contrite, and the next thing he knew, the trunk was slammed shut.

  Well, not exactly shut. Jack was having a bad night, but he was no idiot. He’d used the jumper cables and his knife to rig the trunk not to lock, but still to close enough to keep the inside warning light from going off.

  He’d been in plenty of tight spots before, and a couple of times, he’d been in the trunk of a car.

  The doors closed with more slams, and the Cadillac took off, sedately, like a Cadillac should.

  But the car behind it took off with a squeal and the gunning roar of a big engine.

  He peeked back out the crack he’d left in the trunk. Geezus. Raymond was following the Cadillac.

  Geezus. This sucked. This sucked unbelievably.

  So now what? he wondered.

  He didn’t have to wonder long. His options were pretty damn slim and narrowed down to doing nothing. Bailing out of the trunk with Raymond on his ass would be counterproductive and probably leave him greased on the road.

  So there was nothing to do but stay put and hope for the best.

  Hell, that had been too much of his life, holding on and hoping for the best. When he’d finally gotten it together to make the best happen for himself, Raymond had started horning in on the Empire.

  He settled into the trunk, getting comfortable, and hoping Raymond got tired of the game before they got to wherever they were going. If Raymond caught him in the trunk, it wasn’t going to be pretty.

  The car was nice, though, all class, a smooth, quiet ride—so quiet, Jack could hear the conversation going on inside. He couldn’t understand it; the kidnappers only spoke Spanish. But he could hear it, and Jack was one fine listener in any language. If he was going to be stuck in this trunk all the way to Phoenix or something, the quicker he figured it out, the better off he’d be. He wanted to get away from Raymond, sure, but he didn’t want to leave Denver. His big deal was going down in three days, if he could hold Raymond off that long, and once he unloaded all the merchandise out of the Empire, he had plans, big plans.

  California plans. Beaches, bikinis, and babes. That was the life for him.

  Something said inside the car caught his attention like a slap on the face, bringing him front and center and fully focused. He listened more intently, hoping whatever it was he’d thought he’d heard and recognized would be said again.

  It was, and a big grin curved his mouth.

  Oh, this was perfect.

  Club Azteca is what he’d heard, the Aztec Club, which just happened to belong to Raymond’s sworn enemies, the Locos.

  No matter what else, the night had been damned interesting, and it was only going to get better—or a whole helluva lot worse.

  Robin Rulz would have loved it.

  Maybe Jane would, too, and damn, she really needed to know about the kidnapped woman. Someone stolen out of a fancy place like Toussi’s was probably front-page news.

  He lifted his butt in the confined space and slipped his cell phone out of his back pocket.

  One ring, and somebody at the gallery answered.

  “Hey,” he whispered. “I need to talk to Jane Linden.”

  CONSECO had her. Fear unlike anything Kid had ever known gripped his brain and damn near paralyzed him. He leaned against Toussi’s back door, holding his aching side, trying to pull himself together. That’s all he needed, to split his gut—again.

  “What do we do now?” Travis asked, his breath coming short.

  They’d both run their hearts out in the last fifteen minutes, trying to stop a disaster that had already escalated beyond their control.

  Suzi Toussi had seen the abduction, seen Nikki being hustled out the back door—but the crowd, geezus, the crowd had made it impossible for her to be heard, impossible for her to get to Nikki, to raise the alarm, to get anyone’s attention. By the time Kid had reached the buffet tables, Nikki had been gone for at least a couple of minutes by Suzi’s estimation, and the pandemonium Suzi had generated in those two minutes had only added to the confusion.

  Travis had instantly understood what Suzi had struggled to get out between her choking sobs, and he’d been out the door almost before Kid. But there’d been no one in the alley. Nothing on Seventeenth. Travis had taken the south end of the street. Kid had taken the north, looking in every car, slapping them on the hood when the sight of him bearing down on them with a drawn gun hadn’t been enough to stop them.

  It had been insane. He knew it, like he knew a dozen cop cars were probably headed to Seventeenth and Wynkoop to arrest a pistol-wielding madman in the street. Good. He needed the police.

  “We get help,” Kid said, as much help as possible. The more people looking for Nikki, the better their chances of finding her.

  Jesus Christ. Conseco had her. He didn’t have a doubt about who Suzi had seen.

  Forcing himself back into action, he pulled the door open. Inside, he heard Skeeter demanding details, information, asking questions of everyone, and trying her damnedest to organize the people who had seen anything from the hundreds who hadn’t.

  How many men had there been? she asked. Who had seen what? When? Had anybody seen the car?

  “A black Cadillac pulled into the alley when I was helping the caterer bring in the last of the Merlot,” a white-haired man said.

  “Three men,” a tall, bald man in an expensive suit said. He’d shoved his way forward, sideways through the crowd. “They stood out. I noticed them cruising through the gallery, looking at people’s faces, not the paintings, which I thought was a little strange. They were all Hispanic, well dressed.”

  Suzi was on the phone to the police. “No. I need to talk to Lieutenant Loretta Bradley, now. It’s an emergency.”

  Skeeter would have given her Loretta’s name—a good call. They needed someone on their side who understood that they were dealing with SDF, and what that implied about the seriousness of the situation.

  It all looked crazy to him, felt crazy. He’d been holding Nikki in his arms less than twenty minutes ago. She’d been safe—and now . . . Fuck!

  “Cocaine,” he said. No one seemed to hear him, except Skeeter. She turned her gaze on him like a laser.

  “Why?” she asked.

  Frozen in fear or not, his brain was still working.

  “Conseco doesn’t have any connections in Denver,” he said, his voice raw. “Nothing personal. That only leaves business. He won’t know any names, but he can get them. His pipeline empties out here like it does everywhere else. There’ll be people in that pipeline, big dealers, the biggest, and they’ll bend over backwards to help him.”

  Skeeter swung her attention back to a girl Kid hadn’t noticed before, a girl with silky dark hair and green eyes. “Who do you think moves the most cocaine through Denver? Bloods or Locos?”

  “Parkside Bloods,” the girl answered without hesitation. “After the Bloods, it’ll be Baby Duce and the Locos, then the Playboys.”

  Travis, Kid noticed, had moved next to the girl’s side.

  “Yeah,” Skeeter said. “Yeah, I agree. It’s going to be the Blood King or Baby Duce, then Playboys, and that means we need to cover the River Lounge, the Aztec Club, and that hellhole of a house up off Highway eighty-five. Somebody at one of those places is going to know something.”

  And Kid was just the guy to get it out of them.

  He met Skeeter’s eyes. “We’re going to have to split up. Take Travis with you.” He turned to the blond-haired man. “Are you up for this?”

  “Yes.”

  The guy’s lack of hesitation was all the convincing Kid needed. It was all he could afford.

  He pulled his 9mm out from under his left arm and handed it over.

  “This gun is loaded. The
re’s a round chambered, and this is the safety.” He pointed out the small lever. “Do you know how to use a pistol?”

  “Yes.” Again, the guy didn’t hesitate.

  Kid looked to Skeeter, who nodded. It’s what he’d expected. Travis had been on the firing range with her this afternoon when he’d called.

  “I’ll take the River Lounge,” he said, hoping the odds were in his favor. “You two take the Aztec. Suzi,” he called to the gallery manager, who was still on the phone. “Have you got Lieutenant Bradley yet?”

  The woman shook her head no.

  Dammit.

  “When you get her, tell her we think Juan Conseco, one of the biggest cocaine barons in Colombia, has kidnapped Nikki, and he might be heading to the River Lounge, the Aztec, or the Playboys’ crib up on eighty-five. We need her on these places, especially the Playboys’ place. Be sure and tell her about the Cadillac, and that it’s me they’re after. That’ll help her put it in perspective.”

  Kid knew all he had to do was wait and Juan Conseco would get in touch with him. The word would go out to the DEA’s Bogotá office, and come here to Toussi’s, Conseco’s only connections to him, telling him exactly where Nikki was being held, and what he had to do to get her back. But he also knew that every second she was in Conseco’s power, she was in more danger than she could possibly conceive. She had an incredible imagination, but she had no idea what Conseco was capable of doing to her.

  Kid did—and he wasn’t waiting for anything. He was going to bring the whole fucking city down on Conseco’s head, hard and fast.

  “Let’s go, Skeeter.” He started to shove his way through the crowd, but stopped when Rocky rolled up.

  Oh, geezus. He couldn’t do this now, even less than he could have done it an hour ago.

  He put out his hand anyway. He didn’t know what else to do. “Mr. Solano.”

  Rocky took hold of his hand. His grip was amazingly strong.

  “Kid Chaos, right?” The man looked devastated.

  “Yes.” He didn’t know what else to say.

  He started to release the guy’s hand, but Rocky gripped him tighter and held his gaze, until it dawned on Kid that the guy probably knew a whole lot more about Kid Chaos Chronopolous than Kid knew about Rocky Solano, despite all Nikki’s rambling at the Parrot.

  It was odd, weird, being trapped in this awkward, awful moment with her fiancé.

  Ex-fiancé, he reminded himself.

  “If there’s anything I can do,” Rocky finally said.

  “I’ll let you know,” Kid promised, feeling the seconds tick away. “I won’t come back without her.”

  If the guy knew anything about him, he’d know he meant it.

  Turning away, he headed toward the door with Skeeter and Travis, when the gallery’s phone rang on the second line.

  Everyone went silent. Kid hadn’t expected Conseco to call this soon. It usually took hours. Kidnappers usually wanted to get everybody good and freaked out before they made their demands.

  Within one ring, Suzi had switched lines and said hello. After listening for a second, she held it out toward Jane. Her voice trembled. “It’s for you. A boy. He says he’s in a car with the woman who was taken from Toussi’s.”

  CHAPTER

  22

  NIKKI WAS SO frightened, she could hardly breathe. The men who had kidnapped her had shoved her into the backseat of a Cadillac and all but piled in on top of her. She was being squeezed from both sides, and one of the bastards had his hand on her knee.

  “Nicole Alana McKinney,” the bastard with his hand on her knee said with a bright, super-white smile, his voice silky smooth, his accent noticeably foreign. “I am Juan Conseco. I have gone to a great deal of trouble to find you. Do you know why?”

  She shook her head, too terrified to speak, which she wouldn’t have dreamed possible. Motor-mouth McKinney always blabbered when she was scared—but she was beyond scared, well into the fear-knows-no-bounds zone. The car was moving fast, heading west, over the freeway to God knew where, and her palms were sweating, her pulse fluttering.

  “Because you, my dear, are going to bring me my heart’s desire.” With his bright smile firmly in place, he smoothed his hand over her knee and partway up her thigh.

  A fresh bolt of fear froze her in place.

  Oh, God. This was a nightmare, and it had all happened so fast, was so unbelievable. Why in the world would someone kidnap her?

  The question no sooner formed than she knew the answer. These were the men from last night, from Panama, and unbelievably, they had tracked her to Denver.

  “You are much prettier than your photograph,” Conseco continued, pulling a piece of paper out his breast pocket and unfolding it for her to see.

  Or not so unbelievably, she thought with a sick sense of realization and heightened fear. She’d left one of her flyers for the showing on Kid’s kitchen table.

  “Peter Chronopolous?” Conseco said. “You know him, no?”

  Oh, God, Kid. She’d brought this horror down on his head.

  “He will come for you, yes?”

  “Yes,” she managed, knowing it was true, knowing Conseco knew it was true.

  The bright smile faded. “He is a killer, this man, el asesino fantasma. He has killed many men. He killed this man’s son.” Conseco gestured at the man on the other side of her.

  Without thinking, Nikki looked, and immediately wished she hadn’t. The man on the other side of her was grim-faced, his gaze full of burning hate. Like Conseco, he was expensively dressed in a black suit and tie.

  “How many, Uncle, has el asesino killed? Besides your own dear Ruperto?”

  “Between our men and the NRF freedom fighters, we have counted thirty-four dead since you ordered the other gringo crucified.”

  Nikki felt the blood drain from her face, the full, shocking realization of her predicament suddenly becoming horrifyingly clear. Kid’s brother, J.T., had been crucified—and these were the men who had done it. The barbaric act had set a whole series of events in motion, including Kid’s mission, and if what these men were telling her was true, the deaths of thirty-four men.

  Thirty-four. It was nearly inconceivable, but in her heart she knew.

  She knew what Kid had done.

  “And how many ghost killers, Uncle?”

  “Two, maybe three.” The uncle’s expression did not change, and he did not take his eyes off Nikki, not for one second.

  She didn’t take her eyes off him, either. She was mesmerized, like prey held in a snake’s hypnotic gaze. His eyes were dark, and cold, and empty of everything except the fire of his hatred for her. He wanted her dead, and he wanted her to suffer. The message was clear and almost beyond her comprehension. They were strangers.

  Thirty-four men in seven months. Oh, God, Kid. Hawkins had been with him, and Creed, but my god, what they’d done.

  No wonder no one told her anything.

  No wonder he hadn’t come home.

  No wonder, when she’d asked how everything had gone for him in Colombia, Creed had smiled that strangely dangerous smile he had and said only one word: “Successfully.”

  “Plus our two men from last night, Tío Drago,” Conseco prompted.

  “Thirty-six,” Drago corrected himself.

  Conseco grasped her chin in his hand and pulled her head around, making her give him her undivided attention. “This man will die, Nicole Alana. He is a plague on my family, my business, and my friends. And for you, his novia, his sweetheart, he will come to me.”

  “Yes,” Nikki said, believing it with all her heart, counting on it, hating it, and helpless to stop it.

  Kid would come for her—if he could find her. She hadn’t recognized a landmark since they’d left LoDo, didn’t know where they were except in a part of Denver where she’d never been, probably a part where she shouldn’t be, given the sudden old and run-down look of the buildings.

  Drago, the man was called who hated her, Tío Drago, and he was going to
do something horrible to her. She knew it as sure as she was sitting there feeling her skin crawl and her heart pound. When the Cadillac turned into a dark alley and pulled to a stop behind an old brick building, a sob escaped her. Wherever they were, this was the place. She had an imagination. She read the newspapers, and terrifying things happened to women. It would be what she did to Travis, only worse, with real pain, and real horror, and real blood—hers.

  When the door was opened and they pulled her out of the car, she made a desperate attempt to free herself, twisting and kicking and screaming, but even to her own ears, her screams were little more than gasps for breath, and her kicking and twisting got her nothing. She jerked backward, trying to pull her arm out of Conseco’s grip. For her troubles, he cuffed her up the side of her head, the flat of his hand coming up hard against her cheek and ear and almost knocking her senseless. She slumped toward the ground, held up only by the arm he still hadn’t released. Then Drago took her other arm, and the two of them dragged her toward a large opening that led into the basement of the building.

  “Get the ropes out of the trunk,” Drago said, and Nikki felt her stomach churn. Oh, God, how many times had she tied Travis up, subduing him with her make-believe bondage, and then “torturing” him with her lights and music and the strange journey of her artistic compulsions?

  Too many, she thought. Too many times not to know what was going to happen in the basement. She wanted to throw up, something, anything, to make them let her go.

  Behind her, even with her ears ringing, she heard a commotion taking place at the car when the trunk was opened—and then there was another hostage being dragged onto the platform that had lifted to fill the opening into the basement. It was a service elevator, and in the next second, it ground into action, heading back down into darkness.

  KID stood absolutely still in the shadows of the Aztec’s basement, his breath soft, even, soundless, every muscle coiled with barely repressed energy, his brain screaming.

  Nikki.

  They’d tied her wrists together and hung her from a ceiling rafter by a length of rope. She was only about a foot off the floor, but it might as well have been twenty. All her weight was hanging from her arms, and it had to hurt like hell. Her dress had ridden up, exposing her from the hips down.