“You did not gun her down,” Zeke muttered as he sat beside Goldie. “She was given plenty of opportunity to give herself up.”
The reporter continued speaking as the camera homed in on Mrs. Volto’s estate. “Twenty-nine-year-old Marsha Volto was shot and killed by an agent assigned to protect Louisa Volto, wife of alleged mafia boss Leonardo Volto, as she prepares to testify against her husband and his brother this Thursday. And it would seem that the agent who killed Marsha Volto is now in the line of fire herself. There are multiple reports of a bounty having been placed on the head of Agent Marigold Simmons by the Volto family, who have promised the sum of two million dollars to the first person to hunt her down.”
Zeke groaned. “This is terrible reporting. They’re basically advertising the hit on behalf of the Mafia.”
“Agent Simmons is no longer in the residence of Mrs. Volto, and her whereabouts are unknown,” the reporter continued. “While the FBI remains tight-lipped about the shooting incident, the Bureau has confirmed that Agent Simmons has gone into hiding far away from Pennsylvania.” A slight smile touched her lips. “And with a bounty of two million dollars on her head, who could blame her?”
Zeke picked up the remote control from the armrest and turned off the television.
“We should complain to the news station,” he said. “That was totally unethical.”
“It won’t make a difference,” Goldie replied. “Leave it alone, Zeke.”
“That sounds defeatist to me. I’ll ask Karl to make a complaint on your behalf.”
Goldie slumped forward, her hair falling over her face. She felt so empty and alone in this situation, having been stripped of power and authority. She could no longer make her own decisions and was entirely reliant on others, Zeke in particular as he had been assigned to shadow her.
“I learned a long time ago that the only person I can rely on is myself,” she said. “But now I have no control over my life. I’m stuck in this gilded cage while other people get to make all my choices and take care of me. It’s like being a child again.”
“Try to think of it as a blessing,” he said. “Perhaps the time is right for you to slow down and make some changes in your life.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “Think of it as a blessing? That’s a good one.”
She had irritated him. The flare of his nostrils told her so.
“Not everything in your life can be controlled,” he said. “When something bad happens, you have two choices—you can get mad about it or you can try to change it, however limited you are.”
“I choose the mad option.”
He clicked his tongue. “That figures.”
Now she was irritated too. “It’s all been so easy for you, hasn’t it, Zeke? You grew up in a nice big house with two great parents and a hot meal every evening. You never had to worry about your father gambling away the grocery money, and you didn’t have to hide behind the couch when debt collectors knocked on the door. You never had to watch your dad stand up in church and proclaim God’s goodness right after telling you to keep your mouth shut about the eviction notice you got the previous day.” Her heart was hammering. “It’s easy to see hardship as a blessing when you’ve known nothing but privilege.”
“I lived all those hardships with you, Goldie. I was the only person you confided in and I carried the burden with you. Or at least I tried to.”
Zeke was right. He had helped to carry the burden, and that was why she’d struggled so very much after moving to Ohio. With nobody to lean on, she had turned to God, pouring out her misery to Him. Yet, just like Zeke, He apparently did nothing.
“I know that my life has been more privileged than yours,” he continued. “But I can’t do anything about that. All I can do is try to understand your journey and work out ways I can help you heal. Two things I can definitely do are pray for you and protect you.”
She raised her eyes to the ceiling. Zeke’s words sounded so incredibly naive.
“When my dad dragged us all to Cleveland and rented a rat-infested apartment in a sleazy neighborhood, I realized something.” She turned her head dead center to his. “I realized that I can’t trust God to care for me.” Her voice dropped to barely a whisper. “And I can’t trust you either. Save your prayers, Zeke, because they don’t work.”
He took a long time to consider his response, rubbing his chin.
“Once again, I don’t think you’re being very fair to me,” he said. “Or to God for that matter. Your childhood was awful, something no kid should ever have to suffer, but look at you now. You’ve served your country, and you’re a highly respected FBI agent. Your life turned out pretty good in the end, so why are you still so mad about the past?”
She didn’t want to answer. Zeke’s probing questions were forcing her to confront issues that she would rather keep buried deep.
“My life turned out okay, but it’s too late for me to have the things I truly wanted,” she said. “I’m nearly forty years old and I’m still alone.” She crossed her arms. “I wanted to get married and have kids and give them the beautiful family life I never had. That’s what we were meant to have together, Zeke. It’s what I thought God had planned out for me.” She threw back her head and laughed. “I’m such an idiot.”
He ran a hand down his face. “Oh boy, Goldie. There’s a whole lot going on in your head.”
“I believe the official term for someone like me is a hot mess,” she said. “And it’s not a great place to be when there’s a price on your head.”
“I told you that I’d keep you safe,” he said. “Whatever happens, I’m here for you.”
“Yeah. You said that over twenty years ago, so you can see why I might be a little skeptical.”
Now his patience seemed to snap. “Let it go, Marigold. What’s done is done and you have to move past it. Your life is in danger, so let’s focus on that instead, okay?”
“I already told you, Zeke, it’s Goldie now.” She picked up the remote control and flicked on the TV. “Marigold died a long time ago.”
* * *
Karl looked to be tense and stressed as he entered the house followed by a brown-haired man and a blonde woman. It was pitch-dark outside, night having fallen on a long and eventful day.
Closing and locking the door behind him, Karl motioned for the two strangers to sit in the living room. Zeke waited for Goldie to turn off the TV, but, when she failed to do so, he reached for the remote instead. Goldie seemed to be in a world of her own, and he tried not to judge her too harshly for zoning out. She had a lot on her mind. Yet it did not excuse her rudeness.
“Zeke, Goldie,” Karl began. “This is Special Agent Angela Martin and Special Agent Garth Cooper. They’re here to replace you on the protection detail for Mrs. Volto. Agent Cooper has been drafted onto the case because he’s an expert criminal investigator.”
“An expert investigator?” Zeke queried, shaking hands with his new colleagues. “You really went all out, huh, sir?”
“Garth has a great track record, and I wanted to get him onto the assignment to utilize his skills and experience.” Karl took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. “He’s got a ton of contacts in the criminal underworld, so if Goldie’s position here is leaked, he should be the first to know.” He looked over at Garth. “Isn’t that right, Agent Cooper?”
“Absolutely.” Garth sat next to Goldie and leaned in close. “I’ve been briefed on your situation, and I want you to know that I’ll do whatever I can to make sure your whereabouts remain a closely guarded secret. I’m sorry you’ve been targeted just for doing your job, Agent Simmons, but that’s the risk we take in law enforcement, right?”
“Please,” she replied. “Call me Goldie.”
As Zeke watched their introduction unfold, he found an unpleasant and unwanted sensation sneak into his veins. After twenty-one years of being apart, could he still be attract
ed to Goldie? Was he feeling a stab of jealousy at seeing her sitting so close to another man? He and Goldie had been besotted with each other as teenagers, spending every possible moment together. He would’ve expected his attraction to have waned after all this time, yet she still made his heart skip. Considering her strong hostility toward him, he consoled himself with the likelihood that any lingering feelings would be burned to ashes before long.
“Garth and Angela have been brought in from our headquarters in Washington,” Karl said. “I thought it would be best to recruit outside the state, given that we still don’t know who passed the classified document on to Marsha.”
“Do we have any leads on that?” Zeke asked.
“None at all, I’m afraid,” Karl replied with a sorrowful shake of the head. “Everybody with access to the Volto case file seems to check out. But we’re leaving no stone unturned in the investigation.”
Angela wandered through the room, running her hand across the marble mantel and sculptures. “This is the most beautiful home I’ve ever seen,” she said. “It’s a shame it’s been built with drugs, racketeering and extortion.”
“While I agree with you, Agent Martin,” Karl said, “I’d rather you kept those kinds of opinions to yourself when meeting Mrs. Volto. We don’t want to upset her after her recent ordeal. She says the baby is doing fine, but she won’t see a doctor. She’s incredibly jittery about strangers coming into her home, so cut her a lot of slack, okay?”
“Sure thing.” Angela pointed to the hallway. “Shall Garth and I go meet her now?”
Karl led the way. “I’ll introduce you. She’s in the conservatory with her lawyer, and you have my permission to cut him no slack at all.” He turned his head as he left the room, pointing to the window. “Close those drapes. All points of entry must be covered from now on.”
Zeke went to the window and dragged one of the heavy drapes across it, before noticing Goldie with her head in her hands yet again, her body language radiating misery.
“My life is over,” she said quietly. “I only just fully realized it. The Mafia hit on me won’t ever expire. It’ll just run and run until I’m found. And then someone will pocket two million dollars and I’ll be dead.”
He wasn’t sure what to say. It was true that most people caught in the crosshairs of the Mafia disappeared, either into the Witness Protection Program or a shallow grave.
“The Witness Protection Program can help you,” he said, going to sit next to her. “They’ll relocate you, give you a new life. You’ll be safe.”
She ran her fingers through her beautiful, long curls, pulling back the strands to reveal her porcelain, freckled skin and vivid green eyes. To his surprise she suddenly smiled, her childlike dimples taking years off her true age.
“I guess that’s the one good thing about having to start over again,” she said. “I can change my awful name. I’ve always hated it.”
“Stop it,” he said, punching her playfully. “Marigold is cute, kind of like sunshine.”
“You only think it’s cute because your name is worse,” she said.
“What?” He was glad that the mood was lightening. “What’s wrong with Zeke?”
“It sounds like a birdcall. Or a zipper.”
They both began to laugh, naturally slipping back into their old familiarity, Goldie leaning against Zeke with her shoulder and he resting his cheek on top of her head. For a few seconds, the years fell away and they were teenagers again, hanging out, being happy. Without thinking, Zeke reached out and held her hand. It was something he’d done a million times over.
“What are you doing?” Goldie jumped up. “Everything is different now.”
He was mortified at his lapse. “I’m sorry.” Just like Goldie, he didn’t want to stir the pot. “I guess the old habits are still strong.”
She stood, bathed in the light of the overhead bulb, her hair shining like copper wire, lustrous and glossy. But something else was glinting on her head, something red and skittish—a dot that bounced across her hair and came to rest on her forehead.
“Goldie!” he yelled, springing from the couch. “Get down.”
He had just enough time to wrestle her to the carpet before a bullet shattered the window and lodged in the wall above their heads.
THREE
In the silence that followed the bullet, Goldie and Zeke remained on the floor, like spoons in a drawer, Zeke behind Goldie and clutching her tight. He heard footsteps and raised voices heading their way from the conservatory, obviously drawn by the gunshot.
“What’s going on?”
Karl entered the room only to be immediately sent back by another bullet, this one ricocheting off the mantel and slamming hard onto the heavy glass coffee table. The surface shattered like a car windshield, creating a perfect hole surrounded by a hundred fanning cracks.
“Stay back!” Goldie yelled. “There’s a shooter out there.”
“I’ll get Louisa and Willy into the panic room,” Karl shouted. “And I’ll call for a SWAT team.” He peeked around the door, moving his head just in time to avoid a bullet splitting the wooden door frame above his head. “You two stay where you are.” Zeke detected anger in his boss’s voice. “I thought I told you to pull the drapes.”
Zeke knew that the fault lay with him. He had allowed Goldie’s despondency to distract him from the task. But laying blame didn’t much matter now, because somewhere outside was a sniper with a line of sight between their hiding position and the door. They were trapped.
A series of shots tore through the closed drape, causing random damage, hoping to seek out their prey. A vase of lilies on a plinth burst with an explosion of water and glass and petals, and Zeke scooted across the carpet, dragging Goldie with him, positioning them both at the base of the sofa, where they had some degree of protection. Bullets peppered the silk cushions, sending tiny white feathers dancing through the air. The shooter was doing his best to flush them out into the open, into the space not obscured by the drape.
“Don’t move,” Zeke said into Goldie’s ear, cradling her head, feeling her curls twine through his fingers. “He wants us to run.”
As if to prove his theory was right, an even more ferocious hailstorm came raining down, bullets fired in quick succession spraying the wall, creating small craters in the plaster, smashing pictures in their frames, shearing limbs off the upright statues and sending the television set crashing to the floor.
When the noise abated, Zeke heard only the sound of Goldie’s breathing, heavy and quick. She had curled tightly against him and feathers had settled on her hair, as soft and gentle as fresh snow. Directly above her head was a ragged hole in the corner of the couch, the exit site of a bullet. Having entered through the back, it had bypassed the frame and traveled all the way to the front, and was now firmly lodged in the wooden leg of the shattered coffee table. It was the sight of this bullet, so close to Goldie’s head, that persuaded Zeke to change his mind about running.
“Listen to me, Goldie,” he said, taking advantage of the lull in gunfire. “I’ll provide cover while you get out of here. Start your run on the count of three.”
“No,” she protested. “I won’t leave you here all alone.”
“Please,” he begged. “You said that you can’t forgive me for not trying to find you all those years ago.” This was one sacrifice he was prepared to make in order to save her life. “Well, let me try to make up for it now.”
“That’s not fair on you,” she said. “How about I provide cover while you escape?”
“The longer we spend arguing about a plan, the less time we’ll have to actually carry it out.” He wriggled away slightly and took his gun from its holster. “You ready? Go on my signal, okay?”
But they’d run out of time, because a new hailstorm of bullets began to rain down, creating another cacophony of noise. The huge gilded mirror above the
mantel broke into several pieces, and razor-sharp shards started to topple from the frame in their direction. They now had no choice but to move in order to escape the makeshift knives. Zeke pushed Goldie from the path of the shards and she rolled over and over on the carpet, across the debris and strewn feathers. She came to rest beneath a wide dresser, almost certainly an antique, and lay there, facedown, hands covering her ears.
Meanwhile, Zeke crawled on his forearms like a soldier in battle around the sofa and to the window, where he sat in a hunch, knees drawn up to his chest. All he could think of was how to force the shooter to stop and protect Goldie’s life. With the sound of sirens floating on the wind, he sprang up and stood at the broken window, firing his gun into the air, high enough to be sure of hitting nothing. Firing blind, he just wanted to spook the shooter, to make him believe that a counterattack was taking place. The strategy worked. The incoming gunfire ceased immediately, and Zeke was able to confidently shout an order to run.
Goldie scrambled out from beneath the dresser, and Zeke ran to her, grabbed her hand and pulled her from the room. Only when they reached the safety of the hallway, far away from any windows, did he allow himself to feel a flood of relief. And with Karl anxiously standing guard at the front door, Zeke pulled Goldie into his arms and buried his face in her hair, thanking God for bringing them out alive.
* * *
Goldie paced in her bedroom with the windows locked and blinds drawn. She felt like an animal in a cage, forced to continually walk around the small space for exercise and to release her pent-up anxiety. She’d been confined to her room for the entire day, as workers and tradesmen came and went, cleaning up the destruction of yesterday’s incident. Of all the things Goldie hated most, solitude took the number one spot. She preferred to stay busy, to fill her time with activity and chase away the painful thoughts that often crept into her mind.
A soft knock sounded on the door. “Hey, it’s me. Can I come in?”
“Sure.”
Hunted by the Mob Page 4
