by Lisa Harris
Nicole was only two more stalls away, but Reg would be discovered before she was.
His stall door was kicked violently open.
“You move, and I’ll shoot,” Reg said. “Back away and drop your gun.”
The guy chuckled. “You can’t shoot me before I shoot you. There’s no escape.”
“Oh yeah?” The gun fired.
A scream erupted. Reg! Her heart jackhammered.
Ears ringing, Nicole realized she’d been the one to scream and clamped a hand over her mouth. With the move she lost her balance and fell from where she’d perched on the toilet to keep her feet hidden. They’d been made, and there was no point in hiding now.
The bouncer groaned.
Reg had shot him. Not the other way around.
She opened the door. The guy was on the floor and held onto his bleeding leg. They needed to get out of here, but he would bleed out if they didn’t act quickly. Nicole lifted her gaze from the wounded guy on the floor to the man who held her sister in a death grip. He could twist her neck and kill her in a split second.
Reg aimed his gun at the man.
“No,” Nicole said. “You could accidentally shoot Jillian.”
“Your buddy is going to bleed out on the floor.” Reg set the perfect threatening tone. “Your boss isn’t going to be happy about that. His death will be on you. If you harm his fiancée, you’ll be made to pay for that as well, and you know it. Let her go now, or I’ll shoot you too.”
The man shoved Jillian forward into Reg.
Chapter Fifteen
Reg caught Jillian.
In that moment, that millisecond spent protecting Jillian and handing her off, the bouncer reached forward and disarmed Reg while landing a beefy fist in his face.
Behind him, screams ignited. Blood gushed from his nose. Blinding pain prevented him from escaping what came next. Unnaturally-sized arms grabbed him in a chokehold.
Reg fought for air.
He elbowed the man. Head butted him. Used every defensive move he’d ever learned. Without success. Darkness edged his vision.
His head might explode before he passed out.
Suddenly the burly arms released him.
Reg collapsed forward.
The bouncer fell next to him, rigid. Reg sucked in oxygen. Dragged in another breath.
He climbed to his feet on a chorus of coughs.
Jillian held a Taser and stared down at the big man. “We have to get out of here now. Before he gets back to his feet.”
He glanced at the other guy. Nicole had used Jillian’s scarf to tie off his leg. She was on her cell phone calling 9-1-1 for an ambulance.
Reg retrieved his gun and the bouncers’ guns as well.
Jillian pressed her hand over his arm. “We’re leaving now.”
She rushed through the exit, tugging Nicole with her. Reg remained a few moments longer looking at the two men. The ambulance would be there soon, but given Jillian’s insistence that they were in danger being here, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t face more of these kinds of bouncer-types before the police arrived. He backed out of the restroom and made to follow the ladies. He wanted to interrogate the two men, officially, but that wasn’t happening. With Grandmother’s life on the line, he didn’t have time to get trapped here by trouble-makers connected to Chameleon or this private club.
He rushed forward then realized Jillian and Nicole had disappeared. They weren’t in the dining room. More men burst through the doors across the restaurant. Reg backed up unsure where Nicole had gone, and how to get out of this. He started for the door across the way where he’d noted people coming and going.
“Reg, what are you doing?” Nicole whispered and grabbed his arm.
Startled, he jerked his head around. She must have come back for him. She motioned for him to follow her down a hallway around the corner.
At the end of the corridor, Jillian stood at a door, waiting. She frowned and tapped her foot. Impatient? Scared? Or both.
He followed the women through a back door. Sunlight burst through a break in the clouds. Noisy traffic resounded from the streets. They bounded down steps to a red sports car with the top down.
A convertible Aston Martin DBS Superleggera.
Jillian jumped into the driver’s side. “Let’s go!”
Nicole stopped. “There are only two seats, Jillian. I’m not going without Reg.”
“There’s a backseat.”
“That’s not a backseat!”
“No time to argue.” Reg slid into the passenger seat and pulled Nicole onto his lap.
“No. I’ll survive in the back . . . Crawl space.”
Men burst through the back door.
Jillian sped from the curb.
Gunfire pinged against her car.
“Oh, come on!” she shouted into the wind.
The engine revved as she raced through a stop sign. Cars skidded, stopped, and honked.
“Where are you taking us?” Reg raised his voice above the cacophony of wind and traffic. “I hope you have a plan, but I doubt that right now. If you had a plan, you would have arrived in a bulletproof hummer instead of this less than protective car that can be crushed like a soda can.”
“So you’re the man with the plan?” She gave an incredulous laugh. “Anyway, you need to be quiet. I have to focus on getting us out of here.”
“Take us to my vehicle,” he said. “I’ll get us out of here. There’s more room. More protection from bullets. Besides, your car is much too recognizable.”
“There’s no time. I’ll lose them, don’t worry.”
“I’d like to know who ‘them’ is, Jillian.” Nicole leaned forward so she was between Jillian and Reg. And why you’re engaged to Chameleon.”
Wind whipped Jillian’s hair around her sunglasses and into Nicole’s face. “I’ll explain everything but we need to get airborne first.”
“Airborne?”
“I have a plane waiting.”
“My stuff is back at the hotel room,” Nicole said.
“My laptop is in my vehicle,” Reg added. “I need to get that.”
Jillian whipped her little red car around the next corner. “You want to go back? Okay, we’re going back. But be quick.”
“I parked a couple of blocks from The Blue Door.”
Jillian slowly drove along the street as Reg directed her then parked behind his vehicle.
“We should all get into my vehicle. Switch rides.”
“No,” Jillian said. “That’ll take too much time. I know where I’m going and I need to drive. Changing things up will mess up my rhythm. It’s already off cadence as it is. Besides, unless your vehicle has a 5.2-liter twin-turbocharged v12, can make 0-69 in 3.2 seconds and can hit 211 mph, then we’re taking mine.”
“Wow, Speed Racer. When did you become such a motor head?” Nicole stared at her sister’s profile.
Jillian glanced at Reg. “If you’re not back here in one minute, I’m leaving without you.”
Reg scrambled from the Aston Martin. What about Grandmother? If he went with Jillian, he could be jeopardizing Grandmother’s life. Then again, she could be his best connection. He bent down to the floor board and pushed a jacket aside that he’d thrown over his laptop to hide it from prying eyes. The sports car revved. He snatched his laptop from the Ranger and rushed back to the . . .
Jillian’s sports car was gone.
She’d told him one minute. He’d taken less than thirty seconds.
Nicole had recognized the men in a vehicle a block up from the club. She’d told Jillian, who’d hit the gas. The sports car would give them away too quickly.
“You cannot leave Reg. If you don’t stop somewhere and wait for him, I’m getting out of this car. Do you hear me?”
Jillian whipped the Aston Martin around the corner into a parking garage.
Nicole grabbed her phone and typed a text.
Meet us three blocks over in the bank parking garage.
The men would
eventually look in the garages—an obvious place to hide—but she hoped they would be long gone by then.
“You sure we shouldn’t just switch out vehicles?” Nicole asked.
“There’s no time for that.”
“Of course there is.”
“I’ve already explained a fast car is exactly what we need to get away. I’ll add that the agent you brought is slowing us down.”
“It’s not like that. Harriet . . . Never mind. I’ll explain later. You know I can’t leave him behind.” I won’t.
“I’m not suggesting that you should.” Jillian peered in the rearview mirror.
“I’m getting out. I need to find him. He’s had enough time to get here. Something must have happened.” Nicole moved to climb out of the back seat.
“Stay where you are,” Jillian said. “I see him.”
Nicole glanced around and spotted Reg speed-walking in the shadows, a raincoat thrown over his arm. Hopefully his laptop beneath that. Once he entered the darker shadows of the parking garage, he ran toward them and hopped into the passenger seat.
“Let’s go—”
Jillian was already pealing from the parking garage.
She steered slowly onto a side street and tail-gated a slow-moving van.
Nicole leaned forward so her head was between Jillian and Reg again. “What are you doing, driving slowly in your fast car?”
“The SUV with our pursuers is in front of this van. I don’t want them to see us.”
“See you.” Reg chuckled. “They can hear the engine purr. They don’t need to see you. They can just follow the sound.”
The van signaled a right turn.
“You’re not going to be able to hide when they turn.”
Jillian turned with the van. “Maybe not, but the men after us can’t make a U-turn on that street, and we’ll be long gone by the time they circle back.”
She took the freeway entrance and merged into traffic.
“They’ll expect us to take the freeway.” Nicole protected her eyes from the hair whipping in her face.
“They can’t catch us,” Jillian angled her head so Nicole could hear her.
Right. Fast car and all that. Who was her sister? A twin she hadn’t known before—who’d taken the opposite path as Nicole—and now seemed like a complete stranger.
Jillian’s long multi-colored hair rippled behind her into Nicole’s face, so she hunkered down in the small back seat, the wind rushing over her. Her sister sped along the busy freeway, took a few more turns, and finally drove along a two-lane road, shifting gears and driving uncomfortably fast.
Nausea and fear coiled in Nicole’s stomach. How would Jillian feel if Nicole threw up in her back seat? She didn’t bother sitting up and shouting her request. Jillian wouldn’t slow down, no matter what. Besides, conversation was prohibitive at the current speed. Nicole wanted to close her eyes, but she couldn’t pretend she was safe in the fast-moving vehicle. She watched the scenery go by until, finally, Jillian steered into a small airstrip.
She drove right into a hangar and parked the car.
“Come on.” She hit the button to close the top as she got out.
“Are you kidding?” Nicole climbed out before the top caught her. “We could have driven with the top to protect us?”
Jillian didn’t respond. Instead she popped the tiny trunk open and snatched up a slim briefcase.
“Where are we going?” Unease grew in Nicole’s gut. She wanted to stop everything from moving to get some answers.
“My plane.”
Nicole stopped walking, and Reg slowed to wait for her.
“What plane?” she asked.
“Are you blind?” Jillian called over her shoulder. “The Piper outside. I told you I had a plane waiting.”
Nicole rushed to catch up. “It’s your plane? I guess I was thinking you meant a jet with a pilot. That you had chartered a jet, or owned one or something.”
“I owned a jet? That costs millions of dollars.”
“And the car wasn’t expensive?” Nicole couldn’t hide her complete incredulity. “And . . . where’s the pilot?”
“I’m the pilot.” Jillian shoved her sunglasses on her head and glanced at Nicole.
“Since when do you fly?”
“Since when I got my pilot’s license. The plane was . . . It’s an engagement present.” Jillian pointed to the wing. “Climb up and get in. There’s only one door. I need to get in last.”
“What’s going on, Jillian? You got engaged and didn’t tell me or Mom.”
Reg opened the door and motioned Nicole in. She climbed into the back seat, small but bigger than the Aston Martin. She’d let Reg sit next to Jillian. For all Nicole knew, Reg was a pilot too.
She didn’t even know her sister.
Why should she be surprised?
For all she knew, too, Jillian was taking them right into the dragon’s lair. Maybe even the mouth.
Jillian climbed into the pilot’s seat. Donned a headset.
Reg twisted around. “Looks like we’ve got company.”
“I’m not surprised,” Jillian said. “They had to figure out I would come here.”
“How fast can you get this off the ground?” Reg asked.
“I had Bones do the pre-flight check for me, otherwise we wouldn’t make it.”
Nicole wouldn’t bother asking who Bones was.
Jillian tried to start the engine. It sputtered. She tried again. “Oh, come on!”
She pounded the yoke.
“Maybe Bones did something to keep you from getting away.” Reg shifted in his seat.
Nicole suspected he was as uncomfortable with this situation as she was.
Finally, the engine rumbled to life, and Jillian taxied onto the small runway and accelerated.
“Don’t you need to talk into your radio the weird pilot language?” Nicole asked.
“Right now, I just need to get away.” Jillian increased speed.
A forest green SUV steered across the airstrip and parked to prevent Jillian from taking off. Nicole vaguely remembered a forest green SUV at the viewpoint outside of Windbarrow. Same guys? The plane headed straight for the vehicle.
Nicole squeezed her fists, her whole body tense. “Jiillliiaannn!”
Jillian pulled back on the yoke. The Piper lifted, swooping over the top of the SUV in a near miss. Bullets pinged against the fuselage.
God, please don’t let them have a rocket launcher.
Nicole kept praying for their safety as the plane put distance between them and the men with guns. She peered out the window at the airstrip now well behind and below them, and slowly exhaled. Resting back against the seat, she let her breaths slow.
She had no idea where they were going, and for the moment, she only cared they were safely away. The events of the last few hours crashed through her mind and they all swirled around one particular thought that remained front and center. One question.
“So, Jillian,” Nicole said. “About your engagement.”
“I’m sure that’s off now.”
“How could you get engaged to this Chameleon to begin with? I mean, it seems he’s involved in criminal activities, what with all those gun-toting guys coming after us, threatening us like that. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong, but I have a feeling I’m right. Didn’t you learn your lesson?” Nicole hadn’t wanted to pry. They’d kept their distance, and Jillian had been an informant when needed. But now, Nicole was definitely prying.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Nicole. Because of you, my cover is blown.”
“Cover. What are you talking about?”
“I’ve been working for the feds.”
The feds?
Chapter Sixteen
Reg had never been a fan of small planes, especially in turbulence and especially when he had his doubts about the pilot’s abilities. But he had bigger issues to keep him occupied.
“Just what feds are you working for?” he asked.
<
br /> “All in due time,” Jillian said.
He pushed down his irritation. What better time than now? “We need answers, Jillian. Because . . .”—he hadn’t yet told Nicole the news—“Because right now my grandmother’s life is in imminent danger.” He explained about the text and images he’d received.
“Oh, no, Reg . . ." Nicole gasped from behind him. “And we sent her away, believing we were keeping her safe.”
“We couldn’t have known.” But he bore the guilt all the same. “I’m not sure she even knows she’s in danger. The image he sent showed her having a great time. He was in the picture with her like they were friends.” Grandmother couldn’t know that her new friend was connected to Reg’s past undercover work, and not in a good way.
How had this happened? He rubbed his left temple.
Jillian glanced at Reg. “I need to know more about your grandmother’s paintings.”
“The paintings are what led me to call you,” Nicole said. “Her Ashton Darrow paintings were stolen. We learned there are two such sets of paintings by the same artist.”
Reg watched out the window at the scenery below. “Grandmother owned two of them—one set. Someone tried to kill us to get to them.”
“And now someone is threatening her,” Nicole added.
“And the same man behind the thefts now wants all four paintings in exchange for Grandmother.”
“What else is going on?” Nicole sat back. “I wasn’t involved in art trafficking that included such aggressive and lethal tactics. Who is the man behind all this?”
Reg sighed. He needed to disclose everything. “I worked undercover to bring down a transnational organized crime group. Keaton Rhodes, one of the leaders of the western hemisphere, is involved in drugs and arms trafficking, and now apparently art trafficking. He’s affiliated with terrorist organizations, no doubt there.” Reg squeezed the bridge of his nose. “The paintings would replenish the money he believes I took from him when I handed off all the financial intel on a USB drive, or at least I thought I’d handed off to the FBI. Or rather, I handed off to the ASAC.” Reg’s boss Tye Sorento claimed Reg hadn’t given him the USB. But he wouldn’t say more. He might have already said too much in front of Jillian—how much could he trust her?
