“Is the movie not going well?” she asked as Carly started the engine.
She pulled out of her parking space before answering. “We had a few rough days,” she said at last, “but things seem to be all right now.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Okay, Lisa, there is a problem, but I can’t talk about it and drive in the traffic at the same time.”
That bought a silence that lasted, with only a few random comments from Lisa, until they’d made it all the way up to the highway.
“There’s not much traffic now,” Lisa said then. “So can you please let me in on what’s wrong?”
Carly shot her a miserable glance, told herself she was not going to cry, and said, “It’s Nick.”
“Ahh. Nick of the warm gray eyes. He should have been my first guess.”
By the time they’d traveled another twenty miles, Carly had recounted pretty much the entire story. And she had managed not to cry, even though she’d come close.
Lisa gazed silently out at the ever-darkening day for a minute, then said, “But you are in love with him.”
“I thought I was, but…Lisa, I feel as if he suddenly pulled the rug out from under me. No, not just the rug, the whole darn floor. And I’m still sitting on I don’t know what—absolutely stunned.
“I mean, I was going merrily along thinking what a darling he was for helping me out. So to discover that he was mostly concerned with taking care of his own interests…And he was probably laughing at me the whole time because I’d been so gullible.
“And if that friend of his hadn’t phoned, I’d never have known the truth. I mean, Nick sure wasn’t going to volunteer it.”
“I thought he told you he was just waiting for the right moment”
“Oh, sure. You know how long he’s been here. Can you really believe there was no right moment in all that time? It just makes me…Oh, I don’t know whether I feel more stupid, hurt or angry.”
That said, Carly focused her full attention on the road, because a whole horde of bikers on serious motorcycles were roaring past. Despite the hot mugginess of the afternoon, they were wearing jackets— some denim, some black leather, all with Devil’s Dice emblazoned across the back.
“So,” Lisa said once the sound of their engines was fading. “After Nick’s friend phoned and the two of you were having your big fight, did he come up with some reason for lying?”
Carly shrugged. “It was a darned lame one. He said…Well, as I told you, until he walked into Bill Brown’s office, he thought Gus had left the entire estate to him. And when he discovered that wasn’t true, he realized he’d been pretty dumb to just march in and quit his job. So his excuse for not telling us was that he didn’t want us to think he was an idiot.”
“Well, it was a pretty dumb move, so I can understand that.”
“Maybe at first it made a little sense,” Carly admitted grudgingly. “But as soon as he suggested staying on to help out and I asked him if he’d be able to take the time away from work…Well, that’s when he definitely should have admitted the truth, right? Instead of making that stupid fake call and pretending his boss had told him he could stay for a while.”
“Yeah, that was pretty dumb.”
“And since he’s been at the house, there must have been a zillion times he could have explained things to me. But he just didn’t.”
“Well, I guess the longer he kept quiet…”
“Are you trying to make excuses for him?” Carly demanded.
“No,” Lisa said quickly. “I was just thinking about that line, ‘Oh what a tangled web we weave…’ I mean, you sound as if you’re certain he made a conscious decision to deceive you, but—”
“You are trying to make excuses!”
“No, I’m just wondering if maybe…He seems like such a nice guy, Carly. It’s hard to believe he’s deepdown rotten.”
“I thought he was a nice guy, too. Until last night.”
“Well, maybe after the first lie or two, he just figured he’d already dug himself in too deep to tell you the truth without looking like a major idiot.”
“If that’s the case, then he is a major idiot.” As she said that, Carly caught something in her peripheral vision and glanced to her left.
Her heart leapt to her throat. Two burly Devil’s Dice members were riding alongside the van, and they were both motioning her to pull over onto the shoulder.
“Gun it,” Lisa said nervously.
Before Carly’s brain relayed the message to her foot, one of the bikers swerved in front of them. A second later, his brake light went on.
“Oh, no,” Lisa said as Carly hit her own brakes.
The biker in front slowed to a crawl, while the one still riding along beside them motioned toward the shoulder again.
“What do I do?” Carly said, half wishing Nick was with them, and half wishing she didn’t want his help.
“Can you pull out and pass?”
“Not without driving into the one beside us.”
“Then pull over. Otherwise, someone’s bound to rear-end us.”
Trying to eontrol her panic, Carly pulled off onto the shoulder and stopped—now desperately wishing Nick was there.
Despite how angry and upset she’d been last night, despite thinking she never wanted to see him again, he’d demonstrated he was a good man to have around when there were problems.
The motorcycle in front of the van had stopped when she did. The other one had pulled up tightly behind it. And within seconds, both bikers were standing beside her door—one of them holding a sports bag. The other one motioned Carly to roll down the window.
“Don’t do it,” Lisa whispered.
“Let’s cooperate, lady,” the man said, producing a gun. He held it close to his chest, so nobody driving by could see it, and motioned again for Carly to roll down the window.
Her hand shaking, she did.
“Okay,” the one with the sports bag said. “There’s a problem up ahead and I wanna put this bag in your van. Stick it on the floor in back.”
He passed it through the window. Carly put it in the back. It was heavy, and she was afraid to even think about what might be in it.
“After you get a couple of miles past the trouble,” the man continued, “pull over and wait for us.”
While he was speaking, a cell phone began to ring. The other biker took it out of his pocket and answered.
“Yeah, yeah, we already heard,” he muttered. “We got it under control.”
As he stuck the phone back in his pocket, he said, “Don’t even think about ditchin’ the bag, eh? Or about not waitin’ for us. ‘Cuz it’d take about two minutes to get the address that goes with your plates, an’ if we hadda waste time comin’ after you, we’d be damn mad. Hear what I’m sayin’?”
“Yes,” Carly told him, her heart pounding. “Yes, loud and clear. But what’s this trouble?”
“You’ll know it when you see it.”
Without another word, the two men got back on their bikes and took off.
Carly looked at Lisa, seeing her own fear reflected in her sister’s pale face. “Now what do we do?”
Lisa shrugged nervously. “Do you want them coming after us?”
“Of course not!”
“Then we’d better do as they said.”
Shoving the transmission back into Drive, Carly checked the rearview mirror and pulled out onto the highway—telling herself there was no other real option. Metal guardrails divided the eastbound lanes from the westbound ones, so she couldn’t turn around. And even if she could, she certainly didn’t want those two coming after them.
“What do you think’s in that bag?” Lisa asked, her voice cracking a little.
“I don’t know. Other guns maybe. Or drugs.”
Lisa gave her a “Yikes!” look and didn’t say another word.
A couple of miles down the highway, the traffic slowed abruptly. Up ahead, Carly could see what the “trouble” was. It made
her throat go dry and her palms grow wet.
“Oh, no,” Lisa whispered. “It’s a takedown.”
Carly swallowed hard. There was a line of motorcycles parked on the shoulder, and there had to be at least two dozen cops wearing bulletproof vests. They were armed with semiautomatic rifles that they had trained on the Devil’s Dice members.
Some of the bikers were simply standing on the shoulder. Others were being searched by yet more cops. And, up ahead, three other officers were stopping each passing car and exchanging words with the drivers.
“Oh, Lord,” Carly murmured. “What do we say when they stop us?”
“I don’t know. Yes I do. You’ve got to tell the police what happened.”
Carly knew Lisa was right, but it didn’t stop the fear that was nibbling away at her insides. What would happen after she told the police? Her palms sweating, she slowly drove on until it was her turn to stop.
“Afternoon, ladies,” the officer said when she rolled down her window. “You don’t happen to know any of those gentlemen on the shoulder, do you?”
She could feel the sides of her lips twitching, but no sound was coming out.
The cop eyed her suspiciously for a moment, then peered into the back and spotted the sports bag.
“Mind letting me have a look at that?” It wasn’t a question.
Lisa made a strangled little sound, then said, “It’s not ours, Officer.” She gave a tiny nod toward the side of the road and added, “It belongs to one of them.”
“All right,” the cop said. “I want you to both keep your hands where I can see them. And I want you to get out of the van slowly. Then you just stand facing it and place your hands on the roof.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Just When You Think You’re Out of the Woods…
NICK HEADED UP THE hill from his afternoon session with Attila, dying for a cold drink. It was hot as hell and so humid he couldn’t believe it wasn’t raining yet.
But when he reached the house the phone was ringing, so he grabbed it instead of a beer.
“Oh, Nick,” Carly said before he’d even finished his hello. “Thank heavens you’re there.”
She sounded so frightened his heart lurched.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded, visions of traffic accidents dancing before his eyes. “Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m just scared half to death. Lisa and I got arrested. The police think we’re bikers’ chicks.”
“They think you’re what?” He couldn’t have heard right.
“Bikers’ chicks.”
He had heard right, and under different circumstances he’d have had a hard time not laughing. Whatever was going on, no cop in his right mind would take either Lisa or Carly for bikers’ chicks—especially not when they were dressed for lunch in the city.
“There was a takedown on the 401,” she was explaining. “And two guys from the Devil’s Dice stashed a bag of cocaine in the van. Then the police were stopping all the cars, and when they stopped us the cop asked about the bag and we said it belonged to one of the gang members. And now Lisa’s terrified, because if a teacher ends up with a drug conviction she loses her job, and—”
“Carly, try to calm down and listen. This is just a misunderstanding. Everything’s going to be all right Neither of you is going to end up with a drug conviction. You’re probably not even going to be charged. They haven’t charged you with anything, have they?”
“Oh, Nick, I don’t even know. They said we had to come with them to the detachment, and when we got here—”
“Which one? Where is it?”
“At Whitby.”
“Fine. I’ll be there just as fast as I can. And if they want to question you, tell them your lawyer’s, on his way and you’ve been instructed not to answer any questions until he arrives.”
“But you’re not a lawyer,” she whispered.
“If you need one, I’ll get you one. But I should be able to straighten this out myself. Now, you’re going to be all right until I get there?”
There was a momentary pause, then she said, “Yes. Yes, of course. I feel better already just knowing you’re coming.”
He couldn’t help smiling at that. It was the nicest thing she’d said to him since last night. Hell, it was the only nice thing.
“Oh, and don’t breathe a word to my parents. My dad had a heart attack a couple of years ago, and if you told him we’d been arrested, he might have another one.”
“Don’t worry, they’re not around. They were just watching me work with Attila, and when I finished they said they wanted to take a walk in the woods before it starts to rain.” Which meant, he realized, he couldn’t ask her father for his car. But he’d borrow one from somebody else.
With a quick goodbye, he hung up, then strode rapidly down to the camp, where he spotted Jay talking to Royce.
When Jay saw him, his expression turned as black as the day had grown. Earlier, Nick had introduced Carly’s parents to the director, and they’d told him about the lunch excursion to Toronto.
Jay had not been pleased to learn his stars had flown the coop, and…
It suddenly struck Nick, that Carly hadn’t said a word about Sarina and Garth. So what was the skinny on them? Had they been arrested, too? Hell, if they had, Garth would have thrown a tantrum the size of Alberta.
“You look like a man in a hurry,” Royce said.
“Only because I am. Carly had a little trouble on the highway. I need to borrow some wheels to go help her out.”
“You can take mine.”
“You mean Sarina and Garth are stranded in a broken-down van in this heat?” Jay demanded. “What if one of them gets heat stroke or something? It could throw my schedule off.”
Nick was tempted to tell him that if they got tossed into jail for possession it could really throw his schedule off. Instead, he said, “I’m sure Sarina and Garth are fine. The place Carly called from was probably air-conditioned.”
THE ONTARIO PROVINCIAL Police detachment at Whitby looked like a dozen different cop shops Nick had been in, and when he walked through the front door he felt right at home.
It would have been nice to still have his detective’s ID to flash, but at least he knew the ropes. Within minutes, he was talking to Paul Robson, the sergeant on duty, who turned out to know a couple of fellows on the Edmonton police force.
“Biker chicks?” Paul grinned. “Did she really say we thought that?”
Nick nodded. “I didn’t figure any of your guys would seriously think they were, but when she said they’d been arrested…”
“Oh, hell, they’re not under arrest. The guys just brought them in for questioning. You know how it is. They had a healthy stash of coke in their van, so even though it wasn’t theirs, we couldn’t just let them drive on.
“But there won’t be any charges.”
Paul shook his head. “All we’ll do is take their statements and have them look at a lineup. We figure we know which bikers had the stuff, but we want a positive ID.”
“Then it’s okay if I see Carly and Lisa?”
“Well…yeah. But, for the record, I’d better go along. Come on,” he added, starting off. “They’re in an interview room.”
“What about the other two?” Nick asked, falling into step.
“What other two?”
“Weren’t there two other people in the van? A couple of movie stars?”
“Movie stars? Not that I heard about. And if there had been, our guys would have brought them in, too. Along with the bikers’ chicks,” he added with a grin.
Nick forced a grin of his own, but what the hell had happened to Sarina and Garth? If Carly’d lost them, Jay would go ballistic.
When the door of the interview room opened and Nick walked in, relief swept through Carly. She’d never been so happy to see anyone in her life, and before she even knew what she was doing, she was wrapping her arms around him.
“Hey,” he whispered. “Does this mean I’m forgiven?”
“It means I’m really, really, glad you’re here,” she whispered back. “We’ll talk about the rest of it later.”
“You okay?” he said, glancing at Lisa.
“Yes, but I could use one of those hugs, too.”
Nick laughed, then went over and pulled her up into his arms.
Watching them, Carly realized she already knew how that “later” talk was going to go. Sitting in this little room, she’d been staving off thoughts of a drug conviction by thinking about Nick.
And now that she’d taken time to consider everything, she could kind of see how maybe his first innocent omission had started a chain reaction until he’d gotten in so deep that he’d dreaded the prospect of ‘fessing up.
And if, as he’d kept insisting, he hadn’t intentionally set out to deceive her…After all, it wasn’t as if he’d been concealing the fact that he was a serial killer or something.
He finished hugging Lisa, then looked over at Carly.
She gave him a little smile, and the warm one he gave her in return made her glad she had. She wasn’t entirely over her anger, but she was so in love with him that the thought of never forgiving him had been getting very difficult to contemplate.
“Okay,” he said. “Sergeant Robson and I discussed things, and it turns out you’re not actually under arrest. All you have to do is give statements and identify the bikers who put the coke in the van.”
“You mean from behind a one-way mirror?” Carly asked hopefully. She’d far rather not have to face them again.
“Sure, we can do it that way,” Robson said. “And I’ll have a couple of officers take your statements right away.” Glancing at Nick, he added, “You can wait in my office if you’d like.”
“Thanks. I just want to ask them a quick question first” He looked at Carly. “What happened to our stars?”
“They’re staying in Toronto overnight I gathered that was their plan all along. They just didn’t bother mentioning it until after lunch.”
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