Evasive Action (Holding the Line Book 1)

by Carol Ericson

  Adam’s hand darted to the back of his head and he shoved his fingers into his long hair. “No, it’s okay.”

  Clay asked, his face still tight, “Did you ever convince them you didn’t have that flash drive?”

  “I don’t think so. That’s probably why they let me live. If they offed me, they’d lose that information. They figured they could always pick me up again if they wanted.”

  “I wonder why they didn’t just tie you up and leave you while they dealt with the cops.” Clay rubbed his knuckles along the edge of his jaw.

  “How am I supposed to know? I didn’t have a clue how that guy’s mind operated.”

  “And yet you were willing to marry off your sister to him.” Clay’s hands curled into fists at his sides.

  April hopped off the couch. “Did they say why the cops were looking for Gilbert?”

  “I didn’t get all of that.” Adam tucked his hair behind one ear and made a wide berth around Clay on his way to the kitchen. “You got a beer?”

  She shifted a glance to Clay and took a deep breath. “We do know.”

  Adam ducked his head in the fridge. “Why were the cops after Gil?”

  Clay strode across the room and hunched over the counter. “The guy you set your sister up with sent two mules—women—into one of those Las Moscas tunnels, but they didn’t make it. Las Moscas caught them, beheaded them and proceeded to leave their body parts around Paradiso.”

  “Damn.” Adam took a long pull from his beer. “That’s brutal.”

  “Do you remember Gilbert’s girlfriend, Elena?” April came up behind Clay and put a hand on his back. His rage at Adam kept bubbling to the surface and she didn’t want to clean up any more of her brother’s blood from this kitchen.

  “I remember.” Adam held his hand about chest-high. “Cute little Latina chick with a tight little body.”

  “That cute little Latina chick doesn’t have a head on her tight little body anymore.” Clay smacked his hand on the counter.

  Adam jumped, and the blood drained from his face. “Are you kidding? Gilbert sent his own girlfriend into the tunnel?”

  April set him straight...in case he didn’t already know. “His name isn’t Gilbert. It’s Jesus, and he and Elena have been quite the Bonnie and Clyde over the years. That’s how the cops traced her to Gilbert.”

  “Unreal.” Adam shook his shaggy head and gulped down some more beer.

  Clay fell back on the stool at the counter, straddling it. “You wouldn’t happen to know the older woman Elena was working with, do you? White, maybe in her forties.”

  Adam rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “Doesn’t ring a bell. Damn, can’t believe they used women. Did they think Las Moscas wouldn’t kill a female mule?”

  Clay ground out, “They were wrong.”

  “Are you going to stay here, Adam?”

  Clay kicked her foot.

  “I’ll leave you guys and stay at my place, now that I know it’s safe.”

  “Why’d you come back here?” Clay stood up and grabbed his gun from the counter.

  Adam’s gaze tracked Clay’s weapon into his hand. “Honestly, just to get my drugs. I didn’t know you’d be here.”

  “I didn’t mean this time. I meant why’d you come back here when you knew Jimmy was looking for you?”

  “I knew it was empty. I figured he’d try my place first or Kenzie’s, so I wasn’t going to go back there. Just needed a quick place to crash.”

  “And get high.” Clay jabbed his finger at Adam. “You need to get clean, get your act together. April’s not going to be bailing you out anymore. She doesn’t owe you a damned thing.”

  April pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. Of course she owed Adam. She owed him for being her parents’ favorite. She owed him for inheriting all of their mother’s assets. She owed him because he’d been the one to find Mom murdered on the kitchen floor while she’d been off at school enjoying herself.

  “Kenzie’s thinking about going into rehab. I might join her.” Adam tossed his empty bottle in the trash. “This just might be rock bottom for me.”

  “Did you drive my car back? Where did you park that you didn’t realize someone was here? Clay’s truck is in my parking space.”

  “I didn’t want to advertise my presence.” Adam jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I parked down the block. Can I take your car to Kenzie’s? You can pick it up tomorrow morning, but I will need my allowance a little early.”

  “Allowance?” Clay’s eyebrows snapped together.

  April ran her hand along the corded muscles in Clay’s forearm. “Take the car, and we’ll pick it up tomorrow morning. Leave me Kenzie’s address because I have no idea where she lives, and she hasn’t been answering my calls to your phone.”

  “Good girl. She probably turned it off so Jimmy couldn’t track me.” Adam pulled open a kitchen drawer and grabbed a pen and a sticky note. “I’ll write her address here, and I’ll leave the car on the street in front of her apartment building. You can pick it up tomorrow morning.”

  “That’ll work.” She peeled the sticky paper from Adam’s proffered finger. “And Clay’s right. The two of you need to get clean. Stop associating with people like Jimmy.”

  Adam formed his fingers into a gun and pointed it at her. “Got it. Think allowance.”

  April cranked her head around the apartment. “Do you have anything else here?”

  “No, unless you were kidding about those drugs.” Adam raised his eyebrows at Clay, who scowled at him.

  “I guess that’s it, then.” Adam skirted the counter and pulled April into a one-armed hug. “Take care. Let me know if you want me to pack up this place and get you moved out.”

  “You, too.” April’s nose stung. She couldn’t help it. Adam would always be her little brother, a little lost and confused from the start.

  He backed out of the apartment, jingling the car keys. “I’ll leave these tucked in the visor in case we’re not home.”

  April called after him, “Be careful. Jimmy might be dead, but we don’t know anything about the others or the guys who killed him.”

  Adam waved a hand behind him before slamming the door.

  Clay turned toward her stiffly. “Allowance?”

  “Don’t blame me.” She patted her chest. “That was a condition of Mom’s will. I got everything, but I pay out an allowance to Adam from the money. It’s a cash stipend so he can’t blow it all at once.”

  “He must love that you control the purse strings.”

  “He’s used to it, but it’s what fuels his get-rich-quick schemes or that’s just genetic from Dad.”

  “Why are those schemes always illegal?”

  “I don’t know.” She wrapped her arms around Clay’s waist and rested her head against his broad chest. “I’m just glad he’s safe—for now. And thanks for not ripping his head off.”

  “You could tell I wanted to?”

  “And so could he.” She caressed his face. “Let’s go to bed.”

  Clay kissed the top of her head and then set her aside. He went to the front door and flicked the dead bolt at the top. “Too bad he didn’t leave your keys.”

  “He’ll need them if I have him empty out this place.”

  “If?” Clay slipped his hands behind his back and rested against the door.

  “With Jimmy gone and his associates on the run, maybe I can settle in Albuquerque. It’s not a bad place.”

  “Adam is here.”

  “For now.”

  “Do you think he’s going to give up on his dreams of El Gringo Viejo?”

  “Probably not.”

  Clay swore. “As long as he doesn’t involve you, because if he goes traipsing down to Mexico asking the wrong questions of the wrong people, his encounter with Jimmy Verdugo is going to look like a picni
c.”

  “I don’t know.” She plucked up the remote control and turned off the TV, which had been silently running in the background of their drama. “Maybe he learned his lesson.”

  Clay pushed off the door. “It didn’t look like Jimmy taught him much of a lesson. Except for that redness around his eye, Adam didn’t have any marks on his face for a guy who’d been beaten by a couple of thugs.”

  “He said Jimmy hit him on the head. That’s probably where all the blood came from. Head wounds bleed a lot, right? That was enough to incapacitate Adam and allow Jimmy to take him away.”

  “Maybe.” Clay covered his face with his hands and then dragged his fingers through his hair. “I’m sick of Adam and his problems. Promise me you won’t fall prey to one of his scams again.”

  “Yeah, no, I’m on to him.”

  Clay drew close to her and brushed the pad of his thumb across the skin on her chest, right above her hammering heart. “You have a soft spot for Adam, and he knows it.”

  Standing on her tiptoes, she kissed Clay’s irresistible lips. “I have a soft spot for you, Clay Archer.”

  He swept her up in his arms. “That’s funny. I have something hard for you.”

  She halfheartedly pummeled his chest with her fists. “You have a one-track mind.”

  “Jimmy’s dead. Adam’s safe.” He strode to her bedroom and kicked open the door. “What’s stopping us now?”

  * * *

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, April packed up again and went from room to room to make sure she wasn’t leaving anything important behind.

  As she cleared the bottles of water from the fridge, Clay entered the kitchen. “Are you going to leave those beers?”

  “Might as well keep them here for Adam. It’ll be his payment for closing up my apartment if I decide to leave Albuquerque.” She shook out a plastic grocery bag and put a bottle of water inside. “Speaking of payments, I think I can find that guy’s house again—the one with the car. Maybe I could even leave him my car as payment.”

  “I suppose you could do that if you’re not attached to your car. The one you got from him is a junker.”

  “Mine is only slightly better, and I owe him for his trouble.”

  Clay touched her waist. “When are you going to stop feeling so guilty about everything? And when are you going to start spending some of the money from your mom? Why are you driving an old car when you can afford a new one?”

  She balled up a fist and pressed it against her midsection. “Would you be freely spending life insurance money you got from your mom’s murder?”

  “Your mom had the policy and named you beneficiary. However she died, she wanted you to benefit from it. That’s how life insurance works. Look at my mother. After my dad died, she didn’t hesitate to use his life insurance money to enjoy her life. It’s what he would’ve wanted.”

  “Your father wasn’t murdered.” She tossed another plastic bottle into the bag.

  “A car accident isn’t much prettier.”

  Rubbing Clay’s back, she said, “Your dad was a great guy. I miss him.”

  “But not my mom.”

  “Your mom never liked me, so it was hard for me to warm up to her.” She lifted the bag and swung it from her fingertips. “She must positively hate me now.”

  “She’s on a cruise somewhere in the Caribbean. I don’t think she hates anyone right now.” He snatched the bag from her hand. “I’ll put a couple of these in the front for the trip, or one...you can take the other in your car when we pick it up from Kenzie’s place. You can follow me. I’ll keep you in my rearview.”

  “You don’t have to worry anymore, Clay.”

  “What are you going to say if Detective Espinoza finds out you were engaged to Jimmy and questions you?”

  “Tell him the truth. I was engaged to Jimmy, didn’t know his line of business, left him when I had my suspicions.”

  “And if he asks you about Gilbert? He showed us his picture when he was Jesus.”

  She shrugged. “I never saw Gilbert or Jesus or Elena or any of them.”

  “You’d be lying.”

  “Sometimes you have to tell lies that don’t hurt anyone if those lies protect other people.” She grabbed her purse and hitched it over her shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”

  As she locked the dead bolt from the outside, Clay clicked his tongue and said, “Keep telling yourself that, April.”

  When they reached Kenzie’s block, April spotted her blue compact across the street from her apartment complex. “There’s my car. At least he followed through with something.”

  “Does Adam have a car, or does he always use yours or Kenzie’s?” Clay glanced over his shoulder as he parallel-parked his truck three cars down from hers.

  “He has a motorcycle.” She threw open the door of the truck and stepped onto the curb. “Now let’s see if he followed through with the keys.”

  Clay slammed his door and locked the truck with a beep. “Are you gonna go up even if he did?”

  “No. By leaving me the car keys, I think he made it clear he didn’t need to see me before I left town.”

  April held her breath as she stalked up to the car. She pulled the door handle and released a sigh. “It’s open.”

  She ducked into the car and flipped down the visor. Her key chain, with the big red A for the University of Arizona, slid down and she caught it.

  Jingling the key chain at Clay, she said, “He actually followed through.”

  “Give the guy a medal.” Clay smacked the top of the car. “Pop the trunk.”

  She straightened up and folded her arms on top of the open car door. “You don’t need to put my bags in the trunk. I told you, I plan to leave this car with Ryan in exchange for the other one.”

  “I know that. Adam said Jimmy loaded him in the trunk of this car after holding him and dropped him off in the desert.” He pounded a fist on the trunk. “Humor me.”

  Cocking her head to one side, April pressed the button on the remote to open the trunk. It clicked and sprang up a few inches.

  Clay pushed it up and bent forward, shoving his sunglasses on top of his head.

  April joined him, bumping his hip with hers. “Find what you’re looking for?”

  “I don’t know what I’m looking for.” He reached into the trunk and pulled out a hand towel, shaking it out.

  April sucked in a breath and stepped away from the bloodstained towel. “Well, there you have it. Jimmy must’ve stuffed a bleeding Adam into the trunk. I even recognize the towel as one of Jimmy’s.”

  Clay jerked the towel by one corner so that it danced in the air. “This is a towel from Jimmy’s house?”

  Wrinkling her nose, April pointed to the edge of the towel. “It’s the same color as the towels in his guest bathroom downstairs and has the same raised pattern on the bottom.”

  “All right.” Clay kept hold of the towel and shut the trunk.

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “You can’t leave a bloody towel in the trunk of a car you plan to give away.”

  “You have a point there.” Avoiding the towel, she leaned in for a kiss.

  They jumped apart as a voice called from above.

  April twisted her head around and spied Adam waving from a second-story window. She lifted her hand. “I wonder if he wants us to come up.”

  Then Adam disappeared from the frame and closed the window.

  “Guess not.” Clay opened the car door for her. “I’ll follow you over to this guy’s place. Do you think it’s safe?”

  “They’re a couple of young guys whose only violent tendencies probably come from the video games they play.”

  “Who got duped into trading a car for a worthless rock.”

  “I’m going to make good on that.”

  “You’
ve never been the best judge of character, April.” Clay shut the car door on her retort and strode back to his truck.

  She bit her lip as she watched him in the rearview mirror. The only character she’d ever accurately judged was his.

  The drop-off with Ryan went smoother than expected. That might’ve had something to do with Clay’s large and in-charge presence hanging over the negotiations.

  She made things official by signing off on a transfer and then joined Clay in his truck.

  They spent the hours-long ride back to Paradiso catching up, as before they’d been too busy discussing heads and headless bodies and Jimmy and Adam and mules. Jimmy’s death had freed her, and she couldn’t even feel sadness for the man he’d been when they first met—because he’d never been that man. That Jimmy had been Adam’s creation—and she’d fallen so easily into his trap in her desire to push away the memories of Clay.

  She turned her head to the side and drank in his strong profile. As if she could ever forget about Clay.

  Maybe they had a chance now. Maybe the ugliness that had swirled around her after Dad murdered Mom and disappeared had taken a permanent hiatus, and she could start living the life she wanted.

  Clay jerked his head to the side. “What?”

  “Just contemplating my future.” She stretched her arms in front of her, entwining her fingers.

  “Our immediate future involves getting back to Meg’s so that I can pick up Denali.”

  She adjusted her sunglasses as Clay headed west on the turnoff for Paradiso. “I wonder if Meg and Kyle have gone on a date yet. He’s not married, is he?”

  “No. You think they hit it off?”

  “Duh.” She cracked open her window, preferring fresh air to AC. “I’m surprised they hadn’t met before. Paradiso is hardly a bustling metropolis.”

  “I’ve never played matchmaker before—except maybe between you and Denali. Now, that was love at first sight.”

  She whispered, “I missed...that dog.”

  “He missed you.” Clay’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel. “And he’ll miss you again.”

  April pressed her lips together as a pulse beat in her throat. She’d have to play this by ear. She had no right to spring random thoughts on Clay until she’d had a chance to examine all angles. Hell, maybe he didn’t want her back, anyway.