Running Scared

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Firenze settled back again. “What were the goods?”

  “Gold.”

  “You’re strong as a bull, I give you that, but even you couldn’t carry a million in gold.”

  Socks didn’t quite follow what his uncle meant, so he stuck with what he did understand. “Tim’s bitch said the stuff was worth a million, and it was gold—little statues like toys and stuff—and she’s so fucking smart she oughta know, right?”

  Firenze felt a headache coming on. A big one. Its name was Cesar. “Tim, the guy you whacked, right?”

  Socks nodded.

  “So where’s his bitch now?” Firenze asked.

  “I was getting to that,” Socks said, his voice close to a whine.

  “Get to it faster.”

  “Okay. Right. She killed the old man, took the gold toys, gave ten to Tim and kept more for herself. We sold four to Joey and he hosed us big time. We went to get the gold back and he had already turned it to Shapiro and Tim shot him and I shot Tim and then I went to see the bitch to get the rest of the gold and she damn near yanked my dick off and ran, so I went to her room and she’s gone but another bitch comes in and says she knows where the gold is and so we go downstairs to the casino—”

  “Casino!”

  Socks just kept talking. “—so she goes to the women’s can to get the gold but the bitch double-crosses me and cuts out so I shot at her but she’s running like a fucking racehorse and I miss so I ran out and here I am.”

  Firenze didn’t bother to ask how many people had seen Socks. It didn’t matter. The whole thing had been recorded digitally and was now in the belly of a casino computer. “Where?”

  “Huh? Here, just like I said.”

  “You did this in the Roman Circus?” Firenze asked, shooting upright with a furious snarl.

  “Nah. I’m here. The bitch was at the Golden Fleece.”

  The pounding in Firenze’s head settled into a steady, vicious stabbing.

  “Remember what I told you about security cameras?” Firenze asked softly.

  “Uh . . . yeah. I wore a ski mask.” Most of the time. But he wasn’t going to talk about that part of it. Even his tight-assed uncle wouldn’t expect him to wear a ski mask on the main floor of the Golden Fleece, would he? Socks yanked the mask out of his pants pocket. “See?”

  Firenze gave the limp mask a look. “Anything else you want to tell me?”

  “Like what?” Socks said.

  “Like what you want me to do about any of this.”

  Socks brightened. “I figured you could unload the rest of the gold for closer to what it’s worth, see? Then—”

  “Wait.” Firenze held up his hand. “You said the bitch had the gold and she got away.”

  “With most of it, yeah.” Socks rolled one thick shoulder and caught the backpack as it dropped. “But Tim had some more in his backpack.”

  For the first time since Socks started talking, Firenze looked interested. “Bring it here.”

  Socks hurried up to the big, ultrasleek black desk, which looked like something out of a Star Trek rerun. No papers littered the shiny surface. A single ebony pen lay across thick, creamy paper that was decorated with the Roman Circus logo: two roaring lions flanking a bare-breasted chorus girl.

  “I ain’t had time to really look at this shit,” Socks said as he yanked impatiently at Velcro and buckles.

  “Where are your gloves?” Firenze snapped.

  “Huh?”

  “Listen and listen good. You don’t want your fingerprints all over stuff that goes straight back to the guy you killed.”

  “I made it look like Joey killed him.”

  Firenze’s headache just got worse at the thought of his numb-nuts nephew trying to concoct his own alibi. “Wear gloves.”

  “I tossed my last ones.”

  “Buy more. Until then don’t touch the goods. Got that?”

  “Yeah.”

  Glumly Socks poked a hand around in the backpack. One at a time he fished out six lumps wrapped in socks or underwear and laid them out on the polished desk. Firenze watched like a vulture trying to decide if his next meal had finally given up and died. When Socks started to shake out one of the pieces, his uncle gestured him back with a slicing motion of his hand.

  “I’ll do it. I don’t want you scratching up my desk.”

  With a delicacy that was surprising in a man as thick-bodied as Firenze was, he eased the first gold piece out onto a creamy sheet of paper. Despite his care, the figurine thumped audibly when it hit. His eyes opened, then narrowed. He unwrapped the other five pieces one after another.

  And then he just stared at them. Two figurines, a ring, some weird kind of pin, a choker-style necklace of braided chains, and what might have been a four-inch-wide armband that made his skin crawl to look at it. “What the hell are they?”

  “I told you. Gold.”

  “I can see that. What kind of gold?”

  “Dunno. Joey said Shapiro paid him fifty thousand for four pieces like that. And we have, what, six? That should be worth, uh, more.”

  Jesus, the boy can barely count. Firenze dragged his mind away from his nephew’s shortcomings to the problem at hand. Shapiro was a hustler who chiseled and whined over every penny he paid out of his pawnshop.

  “If he paid fifty,” Firenze said, “it’s gotta be worth five times that. Hell, maybe even ten.”

  “That’s what I thought. But Joey ain’t gonna do nothing dead and I don’t trust Shapiro and the bitch probably has a buttload more gold and I can’t get it without help. So I come here to my favorite uncle. I can trust family, right?”

  “Sure you can,” Firenze said absently. “Does the bitch have a name?”

  “Cherelle Faulkner.”

  That kicked up Firenze’s heart rate. He opened the folded piece of paper on his desk and looked at the information that had been passed up the line after a blind phone call came in from someone who didn’t want to do Tannahill any favors.

  Risa Sheridan and Cherelle Faulkner know each other real well. Look into it and you’ll have Tannahill where it’s short and curly.

  “Tell me about her.”

  “Great tits, an ass that won’t stop, and—”

  “I don’t give a shit about her body,” Firenze said, talking over his nephew. “Is she a hooker, a thief, a hype—what?

  “She don’t hook no more. She and Tim run a channeling scam out of Sedona. Gets them into rich houses and then Tim and me clout them when no one’s home. She loves smoking crack and snorting blow, but she don’t do the needle thing.”

  “Has she done time?”

  “Dunno. Not in the last few years, for sure.”

  “How did she get onto Risa Sheridan?”

  “Who?”

  “The bitch you tried to shoot in the casino,” Firenze retorted. Christ, he knew more about Risa from a blind phone call than Socks did from kidnapping her. “Didn’t you even know her name?”

  Socks shrugged. “From what Tim said, the two bitches grew up together. Like, sisters or something.”

  There was silence for a moment while Firenze sorted through what he had and didn’t have.

  “Anyway, Tim’s bitch whacked the old man that owned the gold.”

  His nephew’s casual afterthought made Firenze’s blood pressure rocket. Cherelle was a murderer, and she and Risa were like sisters—Risa, who knew all about old gold art.

  Firenze chuckled. Right now, in his hands, was a lever against Tannahill’s in-house gold expert. Risa could tell Firenze what his nephew’s gold was really worth. Then she could sell it to her boss, who just might find himself an accessory after the fact to murder one.

  Socks looked uneasily at his uncle. He hated it when Firenze laughed that way. Usually it meant someone was going to get the shit kicked out of him. Socks, for instance.

  For a few gorgeous moments Firenze thought about what a coup it would be to bring Shane Tannahill down without the help of the other casino bosses. It would make him a
big man around town, just the way his father and grandfather had been. Men of respect. But Firenze didn’t want to end up the way they had—one murdered, one serving life for murder. No, the smart thing to do would be to use the information to trade up the ladder of power. Not as much fun, but a whole lot safer.

  Unlike his nephew, John Firenze was smart enough to know when he was in over his head.

  Even so, Firenze’s hand hesitated as he reached for the phone. If he had more information, he would get a bigger piece of the pie. Not the whole pie. But a great big juicy chunk of it. At a minimum he needed more than his dumb nephew’s estimate of the gold’s worth.

  Settling back in his chair, he played with ways to get hold of Risa Sheridan for a fast, very quiet appraisal. He could go to her openly, but that would bring in Tannahill.

  Firenze shook his head. Not smart.

  “Uh, Uncle John?”

  “Shut up.”

  After a few more frowning minutes, Firenze decided that the quickest, cleanest way to Risa was just to grab her. If she wouldn’t cooperate . . . well, there was always the desert. She wouldn’t be the first person to go out there and not come back.

  Chapter 35

  Las Vegas

  November 3

  Late afternoon

  Shane closed his office door behind the LVPD detective who had asked more questions than Risa could answer. When he turned back, Risa was still sitting in the informal conversation area that adjoined his office. Sagging against the sage green cushions, she looked exhausted. Pale skin, smudges under her beautiful eyes, hands lax, even her saucy cap of dark hair looked dull. He suspected he knew why.

  And it pissed him off.

  “You did everything you could to cover Cherelle’s ass,” he said roughly. “That’s a hell of a lot more than she did for you.”

  Warily Risa lifted her chin and looked at Shane. “What do you mean?”

  “Your pal turned her key over to a—”

  “No,” Risa cut in. “Cherelle loses stuff like keys. She always has. It’s just the way she is.”

  “So you’re saying some jerk finds an electronic key somewhere in Las Vegas and just happens to know that it belongs to your room and how to get to that room without asking directions?”

  Her mouth opened, then closed. “I can’t explain that part.”

  “Then maybe you can explain why you’re so eager to put a halo of innocence around a piece of work like Cherelle Faulkner.”

  “That ‘piece of work’ is as close as I come to family,” Risa shot back. “We’re sisters in everything but blood. She wouldn’t set me up like that.”

  “You keep saying it often enough, you might convince yourself.”

  Risa came to her feet on a surge of adrenaline and rage. “What do you know about friendship? You don’t have any friends! You’re too cold and calculating to know what it’s like to need—” Abruptly she stopped talking and turned away from him. She didn’t want him to see the tears that burned beneath her anger. “I’m sorry. That was way out of line. You go ahead and believe the worst of Cherelle because she dresses sexy and doesn’t spend her time doing good works for charity. Just don’t ask me to sing along with the chorus.”

  “You didn’t think I was cold in the elevator,” Shane pointed out with deadly calm. “I’ll concede the calculating part, because I remembered the camera and didn’t fuck you blind for the entertainment of the men on God duty.”

  Risa winced at the cutting edge of his voice. Angry, impatient, thoroughly irritated with her. Part of her agreed that Shane had a right. Another part of her wanted to scream that Cherelle was her friend. Her only friend. They’d been through too much together to ever betray each other.

  “I can’t believe she sicced that thug on me,” Risa said.

  The stiff line of her back and the strain thinning her voice made Shane feel like slime for pushing her. She’d been through enough in the last few hours without him hammering on her about what a double-crossing bitch her childhood friend was.

  Silently he walked over and put his hands on Risa’s tense shoulders. She jerked with surprise, then didn’t move again.

  “Do you have any idea what went through my mind when I saw that goon pointing his gun at your back?” Shane asked quietly.

  She shook her head.

  He bent until his lips were a whisper away from the nape of her neck. “If I could have killed him, he would have died where he stood.”

  The warmth of his breath as much as the certainty in his words sent a quiver through her.

  “And that was before we were lovers,” Shane said. “I don’t know why you have such a hold on me. But you do.”

  She took a shivering breath. “Lust. That’s all. Just . . .” Her voice died when she felt the warm tip of his tongue touch her nape once. Lightly. “. . . lust”

  “If I thought that, I would have slept with you before I hired you,” he said. “You wanted me the first time we met at Rarities. I wanted you. Easy math, right? A hot week in the sheets, handshakes all around, and off we go on our merry, separate ways.”

  “R-right.”

  “Wrong.” He tasted her again. Lightly again. He didn’t trust himself to really kiss her. He wanted her now even more than he had earlier. A lot more. Now he knew exactly how good it would be. “It’s deeper than lust. You knew it. I knew it. And we both ran like hell. Can you at least admit that much?”

  She wanted to refuse. She couldn’t. “It scares me.”

  “Me, too. Then I looked at a monitor and saw that son of a bitch trying to shoot you. I went crazy. I don’t even know how I got to you. All I know is that I’m through running away from whatever it is that pulls us together. I want to . . . help you.”

  The thought of Cherelle casually screwing her old friend made Shane want to splinter every bone in Cherelle’s high-mileage body. But he didn’t think Risa was ready to hear that. She might never be.

  It was too bad Risa didn’t feel that kind of bone-deep attachment to her lover.

  Not that Shane was surprised about the lack of feeling on her part. According to his father and mother, he just wasn’t the lovable sort. So, like his father, he had settled for being rich. Unlike his father, for Shane rich wasn’t enough.

  But Shane hadn’t learned that about himself until he saw a thug in a Hawaiian shirt setting up to kill Risa.

  “How do you feel about it?” he asked. “Still want to run?”

  “No. Yes.” She gave a broken laugh. “I don’t know.”

  He could have slid his hands over her, kissed and stroked her until she was the way she had been in the elevator—hot, mindless, ravenous for him. He knew she would burn for him as no other. He wondered if she knew, if that was what she feared as much as she wanted. From what he’d seen of her childhood background, she’d spent as much time denying her feelings in order to protect herself as he had.

  “All right.” Shane lifted his hands and turned away. “It’s almost dinnertime. Do you want to eat before we check out your apartment?”

  “No.” The word came out raggedly, so she cleared her throat. “No, thanks. You don’t have to come along. No one will be hiding in the closet this time.”

  “Too bad.”

  She turned around and saw the ghost of a hunter’s smile still on his lips. It wasn’t a pleasant smile. It was as cold as a winter moonrise. For the first time she understood, truly understood, that he would have killed for her without a second thought. The idea made her feel odd.

  No one, not even Cherelle, had been that protective of her. Ever.

  “In any case,” Shane continued, “until the cops catch the man who tried to kill you, you’re not going anywhere alone. Especially to your apartment.”

  “He won’t come back.”

  “He shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

  “He must have followed Cherelle.”

  “If he did, he was invisible. Security has run the data from your hallway camera for every hour from two days
before Cherelle got the key right up to the present. He only showed up twice. Once on the way in today and once on the way out with you.”

  Risa opened her mouth to defend Cherelle again, then realized it wasn’t necessary. Shane wasn’t attacking her friend. He was simply pointing out an unpleasant truth: the man hadn’t followed Cherelle to Risa’s apartment.

  My God, Cherelle. What happened to the children we once were?

  “Okay.” Risa let out a sighing, hitching breath. “Okay. I’ll try not to take it out on you because I’m scared and angry and full of adrenaline. But . . .” Her voice faded to a whisper. “God, it hurts. I was just trying to give back to her some of what she gave to me when we were kids. A place where no one harmed you. And I still think—I still believe that she didn’t set me up. I believe that she’s out there somewhere, running scared, just like we used to do. Only now she’s alone.”

  There was nothing Shane could say that would make Risa feel better, so he simply squeezed her shoulders. “Ready to do that inventory for Detective Wilson?”

  Without thinking, Risa turned her head and brushed her mouth over one of Shane’s hands. “Okay. Maybe Cherelle left something for me. A note or . . . something.”

  Shane traced the line of Risa’s jaw with his fingertips and reminded himself of all the reasons he shouldn’t seduce her right here, right now, right where they stood. And the best reason of all was the fatigue showing beneath her beautiful eyes.

  “I want you again,” he said. “I never stop wanting you, even when I can’t get any deeper in you.”

  She laid her head against his chest. “It’s the same for me. I don’t know what to do about it.” She sensed as much as heard his laughter. “Okay, I know about that part just fine. It’s the rest that . . . you know.”

  “Yeah, I know. Ready for the inventory?”

  She blew out a breath. “Sure. At least that’s something I understand.”

  Taking her hand, Shane led her to his private elevator and punched in the code. The doors opened and then swiftly closed around them. The thick, specially woven rug was a medley of muted colors that absorbed all mechanical sounds. The paneling was an exotic wood with subtle gold streaks through its grain. The air was fresh, smelling of high mountains and swift streams.