by Amy Atwell
The gardener shrieked as the bear pitched toward him. He scampered clear of it, but the bear toppled onto its side, uprooting flowers and rerouting the flow of the trickling waterfall. Water started to spray straight into the air.
Catcalls and jeers burst from the onlookers. Anyone with a camera aimed it at the destruction while the gardener continued to stare at the bear he’d killed. Even Sergei fiddled with his cell phone—probably wanting to capture the moment. Kidnappers or no, Iris decided now was a good time to get out of here.
Allie sidled up to them with Edgar safely in her arms. Although wet, the rabbit didn’t look any worse for his adventure. “Got him, poor thing. Uh oh.” She motioned with her head for Iris to look over her shoulder.
Fearing that Jock or—worse—Pebbles was coming for them, Iris turned to find four black-suited security guards. As luck would have it, she didn’t recognize any of them. At least the two thugs stalking her had melted back a few rows deeper into the sea of onlookers.
“Fun’s over. Come out of there now.” One guard motioned them forward.
Iris ushered the other two with her. “Even if they threaten to arrest us, don’t argue. Just go with them.”
Allie craned her neck. “Where’s Justin?”
She rolled her eyes heavenward. What, like that tea-drinking detective was going to rush to their rescue? No one had ever done that for Iris. “Who knows? He booked out of here ten minutes ago.” Right after Mickey. “We’ll be fine.”
Sergei stepped over the railing first, only to be manhandled by two of the guards. He looked to Iris and spoke in Russian. “What if they threaten violence?”
With a grimace, she replied in his native tongue. “It means nothing. Go with them.”
The two guards holding Sergei yanked his arms behind him.
Iris voiced her outrage, in English this time. “Hey, easy there! He didn’t do anything but step on a couple plants.”
Another guard grasped her arm and practically lifted her over the railing. The fourth guard reached for Allie, but confronted by Edgar’s flattened ears and bared teeth, he wisely backed off and allowed her to step over on her own.
The tall, beefy guard holding Iris leaned into her face. “What did you say to each other?”
She leaned in to read his silver name tag. Butcher. That didn’t bode well. She swallowed the initial urge to belt him. “He was worried that you meant him harm, and I told him it would be all right and to go with you.”
“Do you think we should call Homeland Security?” one guard asked the others.
Like this weekend’s experiences wouldn’t be complete until she was labeled a terrorist. She jerked her arm free. “Come off it. We were looking for the rabbit.”
All four guards paused to consider Edgar.
The gardener plowed forward, heedless of the flowers he trampled. Ivy stuck out from the band of his pith helmet as he pointed a trembling gloved hand. “Hold that rabbit for animal control. He could have rabies.”
Iris turned on the ruddy-faced little troublemaker. “It’s not like he bit you.”
“Look at all this damage!” He huffed until he could find more words. “That rabbit destroyed all this work. It took months to shape that topiary. Just look at him—he’s a menace.”
The four guards scowled at Edgar.
From the safety of Allie’s arms, the rabbit raised his ears and wiggled his little whiskered pink nose. Iris would have sworn he was laughing. Even her lips twitched.
Cosmo would have loved this. The thought broadsided her, making it hard to breathe. After all, this was exactly the kind of absurd anarchy he was always perpetrating. The kind she always avoided.
Maybe she’d been missing out on a lot of fun all these years.
The beefy guard addressed her again. “Whose rabbit is it?”
“He’s mine.”
Iris whipped her head to glare at Allie. “No, he’s mine.”
“She’s holding the rabbit,” one guard pointed out.
“Yeah, but this one seems to be in charge,” another replied. He made it sound like it was a flaw for a woman to take command.
Iris resented the hell out of that. She’d always guided her own destiny, ever since she was a teenager. Who else was she supposed to count on?
She drew breath to rip into him, but a boisterous male voice interrupted the scene.
“Ah, here they are! I told you we would find them.”
Like the Red Sea before Moses, the crowd opened a path for Marko Gorseyev to roll his aunt’s wheelchair through.
Iris froze. “What are they doing here?”
Sergei leaned toward her ear. “I texted them. How you say, the cavalry?”
“But I don’t want to see the plants!” Tatiana’s strident voice carried through the conservatory like a bullhorn. Seated in her chair, she gripped her cane across her lap like a quarterstaff, and it vibrated with her frustration. “Who are all these people? I want to go back to the spa!”
Getting a clearer view, Iris’s jaw dropped when she saw that her aunt wore a bright orange swimsuit over her very pale and flabby body. Her hair was covered by an oversized clear plastic shower cap.
One of the guards tried to redirect them. “You’ll need to go around.”
The old lady stared at him so hard, Iris swore she could smell flesh sizzle. Finally her aunt spoke. “Do you know who you are addressing, young man?” Those last two words stole half his power.
“Aunt Tatiana,” Sergei called out with a wave.
She focused on him with a frown. “Where have you been all morning? I never got my back rub.”
The crowd started to thin, but those who were left chuckled at this free entertainment. Even Allie stared at Marko and Tatiana, dumbfounded.
Sergei flushed with good-natured embarrassment. “I’m sorry, aunt, but I had to help Iris look for the rabbit.”
Tatiana’s eyes narrowed as she surveyed the scene, and Iris tried to imagine what the old girl must be thinking. Security guards held Sergei as if he were public enemy number one. Lovely Allie had lifted Edgar’s front paw to wave at the crowd, many of whom snapped more photos for posterity.
Iris had no doubt Aunt Tatiana would lay the blame for this fiasco right at her feet. Realizing she was still barefoot, she jerked free from her captor and slipped into her heels.
“Rabbit? What rabbit?” Tatiana asked tersely.
Iris held her breath. Surely her aunt could see it.
Edgar’s ears swiveled.
“You remember the rabbit, aunt,” Sergei said calmly. He tilted his head toward Allie. “His name is Edgar.”
“Edgar?” Tatiana snorted. “Ridiculous name for a rabbit. From now on we shall call him Boris.”
“Boris?” Iris couldn’t keep the incredulity from her voice. That was all the old girl had to say? Were her Russian relatives all nuts?
Allie, who had moved beside her, elbowed her in the ribs. “Let it ride,” she said softly.
Iris sighed. She’d always suspected Cosmo was teaching the younger woman to be a con artist. This just proved her theory.
Marko laughed jovially for the security guards. “There must be some misunderstanding. This is my nephew and my niece…s.” He neatly added the s to include Allie.
The tall security guard eyed him with evident distrust. “And who are you?”
“Marko Gorseyev.”
The suits stood around, unsure what to do with this information.
More of the crowd dispersed, but Iris could still make out Jock and Pebbles waiting on the fringe.
“Someone needs to take responsibility for the damage here.” The security guard named Butcher stepped forward to address Marko in a more conversational tone. “As head of the family, I assume that would be you.”
Tatiana whacked him in the leg with her cane. “Do not be impertinent young man. I am head of this family. You may address your questions to me.”
Instead of bristling, Butcher had the grace to apologize.
Marko attemp
ted to placate. “We arrived only yesterday from Russia. My aunt, she is still overtired from the trip.”
“Quit telling everyone how you think I should feel. I’m not tired. You interrupted my sauna and dragged me here.”
“I should get her to lunch.” As an aside, Marko added for the guards’ benefit, “Blood sugar, you know.”
This made the guards twitchy, as if they feared the old lady would suffer a diabetic attack any moment.
Iris watched her aunt with new concern and would have sworn the old lady winked at her. Before she could be sure, Tatiana was pounding the arm of her wheelchair with her fist.
“When can I go back to the sauna?”
Butcher pinched his nose, clearly at the end of his diplomacy rope.
That damn gardener wasn’t through yet. “We need to know who the rabbit belongs to—”
“The rabbit belongs to me,” Tatiana said emphatically. “The girls were watching him while I went to the spa.” She speared Iris and Allie with her hawk-like stare. “Bad girls.” She made it sound like they were toddlers.
“And may I get your name, ma’am?” Butcher asked.
She drew herself erect in the wheelchair. “I am Tatiana Gorseyev, Countess of Petrimovsluitskaya.”
Behind her, Marko coughed into his fist.
Tatiana frowned but a second at the interruption. “I recommend you have your hotel manager draw up a list of charges for any damage we may owe. He can add it to our hotel bill.”
“You’re a guest here?” Butcher asked, clearly relieved that this might offer a workable solution.
Marko nodded. “We’re staying in the Presidential Suite.”
Like magic, these words transformed the security guards from adversarial to accommodating in a blink.
“I believe we can work that out as you suggest, ma’am.” Butcher all but bowed to her. “Everyone here is a part of your family?”
“Have I not said so?” Tatiana demanded in return. She looked toward Allie. “Give me the rabbit.”
Iris would have hesitated. After all, Edgar hadn’t reacted well to big leather gloves. Who knew how he’d take to that orange swimsuit? She watched Allie carry Edgar over and plop him down on Tatiana’s lap.
Tatiana stroked the giant rabbit with her gnarled hand. In return, Edgar sat up to touch noses with her.
Around the conservatory, an “aww” rose from the remaining onlookers. Even Allie sniffed at that little tableau, and Iris’s eyes stung with tears. She chalked it up to relief that they’d found Edgar and gratitude that Aunt Tatiana had played her role so well.
“We must go back to the room,” Tatiana announced. “Edgar is tired from all this excitement.”
“But what about your sauna?” Marko asked from over her shoulder.
“I cannot take a rabbit into the sauna. What are you thinking?” Her voice was intense but not loud enough to startle Edgar, who was now sniffing at her shower cap.
Marko gave a beleaguered sigh. Overdramatized, but it did the trick. The four male security guards nodded with commiseration, then hastily retreated to their other duties, while Marko spun his aunt’s wheelchair around.
Spotty applause broke out from the scattering crowd, and Tatiana gave a princess wave as they exited the conservatory. Iris stuck close behind them, instinctively knowing there was safety in numbers, until Sergei leaned in to her.
“Where did they go?” he whispered. He pulled Allie close while his eyes scanned the lobby full of humanity.
“They who?” Allie asked.
Iris was busy searching the crowd for Jock and Pebbles, but they’d disappeared. Where had they gone? What were they up to? Instead of relief, their absence rattled her. After all, how was she supposed to avoid what she couldn’t see?
***
Outside the county jail, Jock and Pebbles waited in the double-parked purple PT Cruiser.
Pebbles’s hand rested on the steering wheel. “How long do we have to sit here?”
Jock gritted his teeth. It was the thirteenth time Pebbles had asked the question since they got here. “I told you, we wait for Turner’s call. He doesn’t want Mickey to get away this time.” Neither did Jock. He was still pissed Mickey had flattened their tire.
“Mickey said I could have the bunny. He lied.”
“Yeah, Pebbles, he lied.” Jock looked at his partner. Honestly, it was like hanging out with an elephant, except an elephant had more brains. “He’s a bad man.”
Pebbles smiled at him. “Thanks, Jock. You’re always on my side.”
“Yeah, I’ll always be on your side.” Jock leaned his head back against the seat. Three in the afternoon, and it had to be over a hundred degrees out here. “Could we please turn on the AC?”
Pebbles shook his head. “It’s bad to idle the engine. You want my fan?” He held up one of those tiny hand-held plastic things and pointed it toward Jock.
The whirring breeze in his face made him squint. “Get that thing away from me.”
“Sorry.”
Jock’s cell chirped. Finally. He flipped the phone open. “Yeah.”
“Bail him out and bring him to me now.” Turner’s command brooked no argument. “Mess this up, and you two are dead.”
“Yessir.” Jock fingered his tie. “Might I just say—”
The phone went dead.
“Yeah, well, fuck you very much.” He popped the phone back into his pocket. Jeez, ever since Mickey and Fortune’s daughter escaped last night, Turner talked to him as if he and Pebbles were a couple of morons. Find Cosmo—hell, the old guy was supposed to be two days dead—no, wait, don’t worry about Cosmo, go get his daughter. Yeah, that had been a circus. She’d had herself surrounded by an army, and all Pebbles could talk about was that goddamn rabbit. Then, out of the blue, Turner called all pissed off and demanded they drop everything and go bail Mickey out of jail. No, wait—go there and sit until Turner said to move.
What, like they were a couple of trained dogs?
Jock looked at his bumpy-headed partner whose mouth hung open while he enjoyed the breeze from that goddamn whirring fan. “Wait here. I’m going in to get Mickey.”
The big guy nodded.
Entering the jail made Jock’s skin crawl. He’d been here himself a couple times—well, five, if anyone were keeping count. Actually, the uniforms around here did tend to keep count, and they reminded you of it all the time. Thirty days in this place sucked the brain energy from you, made you do stupid things. Like make friends with an elephant.
Well, today he wasn’t here as a prisoner. Today, he had the upper hand. Jock decided to play it cool.
That plan fell through within two minutes.
“What do you mean he’s not here?” he asked the cop at the desk. “Where’d he go?”
The cop peered over a pair of half glasses at him, too bored to even frown. “You want to be smart? Get the hell out.” He flinched as someone slid a clipboard bursting with papers beneath his elbow. “Someone else bailed him out first. If you’ve got a problem with that, don’t talk to me about it.”
Jock’s fingers twitched as they always did whenever he’d been played for a fool. This was so goddamn Mickey. Here they’d been sitting out in that car for the past hour and a half, and Mickey wasn’t even here.
Shit, what was he going to tell Turner?
“Excuse me, sir?” Jock smacked his lips at the distasteful necessity of being polite. “Can you tell me who bailed him out?”
The cop pulled his glasses down his nose to sneer at him. “Oh, so now you want to get on my good side, is that it?”
Jock reminded himself this was a matter of life and death—his own. Grinding his teeth together, he forced his next words out. “Please, sir?”
“Hold on.” Papers flipped and shuffled. “Michael Kincaid, released thirty minutes ago. Says here a Cosmo Fortune posted his bail.” The cop chuckled. “Now there’s a stupid name. How’d you like to be stuck with that all your life?”
“Don’t know.” De
pends on how long your life lasts. For Cosmo, that wasn’t going to be long. Jock stormed toward the exit, wondering how Mickey and that magician had gotten out of here without him seeing them. As soon as he cleared the doors, he dialed Mickey’s cell phone.
Mickey picked up after only two rings. “How’s that tire doing?” The smug sonofabitch.
“Is Cosmo with you?” Jock snapped.
“Haven’t seen him.”
“But he bailed you out.”
Mickey chuckled. “I posted my own bail. I just asked them to tell you that.”
“Why the fuck would you do that, man?”
“It got you to call me, didn’t it? Now I know exactly where you are. How long have you been sitting out there, Jock? An hour? Two?” Mickey laughed some more.
That rumbling chuckle grated Jock’s nerves. Every time he’d gone head to head with Mickey, that bastard had bested him. It would be a pleasure to make sure Mickey got what was coming to him. “You’re a dead man, Kincaid,” he sneered into the phone.
“Jock, I’ve got news for you—it takes one to know one.”
***
It was late afternoon when Allie serpentined through the tables at the Venetian in search of her sister’s dark curls. Zeroing in on them, she sidled up to the table, devoid of players at the moment, and seated herself.
Cory’s eyes darkened at the sight of her. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m fine.” Her brows rose in a clear order for Allie to leave her alone.
She ignored the message.
Cory sighed. “Hell, are you even old enough to gamble?”
Setting her jaw in a hard line, Allie guarded against the brimming tears. She would not cry. Her sisters already thought she was a baby. Well, screw it. She didn’t need their approval. She just wanted them to accept her as family.
“Don’t start, all right? I’ve already had a run-in with Iris today, and I’m over it. She’s pissed at Cosmo, you’re pissed at your mom, and I’m tired of being the scratching post. Go sharpen your claws on someone else.”
“Why was Iris pissed?”
Allie coughed up a sharp bitter laugh. When wasn’t Iris pissed? “She just discovered she’s got Russian relatives on her mom’s side, and they’re in town.”
