I hunched over, trying to get a better look, and flung the bag over my shoulder. The cat squalled and moved around inside, making my grip tenuous.
"Patience, cat," I said and leaned further.
Yes. A stamp. Scorched in like the hand print on the cat's fur.
That did it. I was not high on absinthe this time. This time, I couldn't explain it away.
When met with the terrifying impossible, a girl should feel afraid.
But I wasn't a girl any more, and all I felt was giddy. At least until I caught sight of Scottie's henchman heading my way.
Then the terror flooded in just the way it should have in the first place.
CHAPTER 13
I RECOGNIZED THE MAN from the coffee shop who had bought my latte, and I was pretty sure he recognized me too. If he was indeed in Scottie's employ, then he was hired long after I'd taken flight because I didn't remember him from my tenure. That didn't mean he wasn't a threat to me, though. Scottie might be many things, but he wasn't a stupid man. He would send someone to fetch me that wouldn't give away his intent by showing me a familiar face. All the better to take me unawares.
Except the man had tipped his hand when he'd bought my latte. He had lost that element of surprise. Probably didn't even know how important it was. Some men were just like that.
Lucky for me, he was one of them.
I gave him a quick grin, letting him know I knew him for what he was. He smiled in return. That perverse delight in knowing he'd threatened someone was written all over his face. Well, I wouldn't show him my fear. I wouldn't give him that satisfaction. Back in the coffee shop had been different. I'd thought I was safe. I had become complacent in all of the little safeguards I had thrown up around myself to remain invisible from the likes of law enforcement and my past.
He was a mere three feet away by now, shouldering his way past a group of teens shoving greasy pizza slices into their gobs. A particularly surly looking youth swore at his back and gave him the finger when he pushed past. It would take no less than two heartbeats for the man to grab hold of me.
I stood my ground stubbornly. We both knew he wouldn't do anything to me in the middle of a busy street in broad daylight, but he wouldn't let me out of his sight of either.
That meant I couldn't go home. It also meant I couldn't just wait it out and explain myself away in the hopes he'd take pity on me. Some guys were like that too. They took one look at my diminutive stature and girlish looks and felt all fatherly and protective.
This one was not one of those sorts.
But there was one more good thing about being small. I could give just about anyone the slip. I just had to wait for my moment.
He had his eyes pinned to me as he trolled forward, coming at me down the sidewalk. I stood stock still, letting him think he had me. I scanned my environment from the corners of my eyes, careful not to look like I was going to bolt. A tall man in a suit stepped outside the door of the pizza parlor with a sixteen inch box cradled in his arms. He was about to heft it above his head to avoid a kid on a bike.
It was my chance. I stepped sideways, thinking to melt behind the even taller man who was blabbering into his cell phone beside him.
One moment of self-satisfaction was all I got, then the feeling of victory popped like a balloon.
Someone bumped me from behind as I sidestepped and I ended up stumbling forward, right into the arms of the brute I was trying to avoid. I almost dropped my bug-out bag and my cat hissed from its confines.
At the same moment, his arms went round me as though he was a man meeting a long-awaited lover. His chest felt very much like a brick wall. The muscles beneath my palm had no give.
And yes, there was a pistol beneath his jacket.
"I can see why the boss wants you so bad," he said over my head, laying his chin down over top my ball cap. "You're small enough to fit in a man's pocket."
I adjusted myself in his arms, taking my time to run my fingers over his chest and slipping over his ribs, letting the back of my hand linger over the pocket with the pistol. It was small, an afterthought weapon. The other one was no doubt tucked into his hip band.
"You got a thing for little girls?" I said. "Cause that pocket feels pretty hard for something so small."
He didn't laugh.
"I got a low tolerance for smart-ass bitches."
He withdrew his arms to squeeze my hand with meaty fingers. He pulled the arm of the hand not gripping my bag around his waist beneath his coat. Ah. There was the bigger gun. Holstered to his side. I should have known.
"Like them submissive and compliant, huh?" I said. "I wouldn't have figured it for a genteel knight such as yourself. Then again: Such is the dichotomy of attraction."
"What the fuck are you on about?" he demanded.
"Can't stand smart women, either, I guess," I said.
In response, he pushed me hard enough in the direction of the alley that I started to panic. What if Scottie was there waiting for me? I might be all bluster and vinegar in front of a minion, but the real thing was terrifying.
"You've been tormenting my land lord," I said to distract him. "Scottie won't like it if he knows you've left a trail." I stumbled beside him as he walked me along to the mouth of the alley. I slipped my free hand casually in my pocket, then swung the bug-out bag wide.
"You might be cute," he said. "But you're bat shit." He aimed me to the left of a crowd of women inspecting each other's shopping bags. "Who am I to question if the boss likes 'em crazy."
"My landlord," I said, keeping the conversation on track because it was the only kind of reason I could find that he would care about. "You've been hanging outside my building. He's in a delicate spot with his neighbors. He might decide to report a suspicious-looking hang-about."
He gave me a shove toward the alley, not so inclined to look like a fawning lover now that we were close to being out of sight of the street. I lost my grip on my bug out bag's handle and the cat inside mewled in fear. I might have grabbed for it with my other hand, but it was already full of pistol.
I didn't bother to peer into the gloomy and damp spaces. I didn't want to peer in there and find whether or not a shadowy figure about five feet six inches tall and seven feet wide lurked within waiting for me.
The brute had released me in his macho move of aggression and I spun around, his tiny pistol in my hand, right at groin level. I wasn't above grinning at his surprise that I'd liberated it.
"What Scottie wants of me is something you wouldn't understand." I braced my feet and leaned sideways to pick up the bag. When I came back vertical, I jammed the nose of the pistol upward.
"My guess is your sack is fleshy enough to muzzle the shot," I said. "But I'm also guessing you don't care about the noise."
He went rigid.
"You wouldn't," he hissed.
"I'm crazy," I said. "Right?" I was terrified he'd find a way to strong arm me but I kept my expression carefully placid. Confident. That's how a dangerous threat looked, right? Arrogant. Cocky. Determined.
His mouth twitched. "I never went near your apartment. I have no idea where you live."
He was telling the truth. I could tell by the slightly desperate tone in his voice. He thought it was about me telling on him to Scottie.
"Doesn't matter," I said.
"What do you want then?"
"Take out your gun."
"What?"
"Your gun. Take it out." I wiggled the nose into the folds of his trousers. "Take it out and lift it high over your head."
"You really are crazy."
I flicked aside the safety and I knew he heard the latch engage.
"Okay. Okay." He took pains to move slowly so I wouldn't get nervous or retaliatory. He pulled it in front of his jacket. "Now what?"
"Raise it over your head and fire."
"But—"
"Fire," I hissed, "or I will."
"You won't get away with this."
"I've got nothing to lose," I said. "I f
ire, the cops come. They arrest me. I'm safe." I shuffled my feet sideways, giving myself the space to spin and run. "You fire," I said." The cops come. They arrest you. I'm safe."
"You'll never be safe from the boss's reach."
"I've got a snub-nosed pistol breathing in the stink of ball sack that begs to differ."
He sighed heavily but I knew he would give in. Didn't matter if Scottie was just a breath away in the alley. My guess was it was just the two of them.
Far too many seconds had already gone by that I was losing my sense of surprise and the upper hand that went with it. Just in case my abductor was thinking he could turn the tables, I pressed the mouth of the pistol a little harder into his junk.
I heard someone scream before I heard the shot he fired. By the time chaos erupted around me, with a dozen cell phones moving in a blur to ears and photo-bomb position, I was at least a yard away, sprinting down the block and dodging down the alley on the other side of the street.
I didn't bother to look back and see if the guy got away, but I was willing to bet his face would be plastered all over the news come supper time.
Cat meowed from inside the bag, furious at being jostled about.
"Suck it up," I told her.
I ran without stopping to look back or sideways. I knew exactly where I was in the city and exactly how many alleyways and streets I needed to bolt through to get clear. With any luck I'd left the man behind me to face dozens of irate citizens and maybe even a policeman or two. But just in case I hadn't, I planned to abscond to the one place I knew most people refused to frequent.
Rot Gut Alley. Straight to the bar where Fayed would be coming on for his shift in a few hours.
It had taken me a lot of patient finagling to get accepted there. While I wasn't exactly safe, Fayed had given me the cursory going over. Until the last time, when the stranger accosted me and the bar patrons had made a move on him, I'd been safe there. No one touched me when I was there. I wasn't foolish enough to think it had anything to do with anything except Fayed. It was his acceptance of me that lent me that safety, and I'd never felt that any more keenly than that night.
I was never really sure why Fayed preferred the night shift. He'd once told me that he refused to work days and who was I to argue that? Besides, it suited me fine. The man with his obvious pull working during a time frame when I was most likely to frequent the place worked in my favor. More than that, I always had a feeling that he had his own secrets and that suited me too.
In fact, as threatening as the bar could be to a stranger, and had been to me at one time, once I had been accepted by Fayed, there was an almost code of silence that hung in the air. If you knew what it felt like, you could take it like a pulse.
I fell into a dark corner of the bar and put my bug out bag, cat and all, down onto the chair next to me. Breathing hard and with lungs burning, I left my back to the wall and pulled out the chairs from around the table, pushing them aside so that if I needed to make a quick run, I could do it unimpeded.
I didn't expect Scottie's henchman to follow me in here, and I certainly didn't expect Scottie to have taken up the pursuit. Even so, a girl didn't get this far away from dangerous men by being sloppy.
I did a quick check of my cell phone and pulled my cap down over my face. At least two hours before Fayed's shift. From the smoke hazy windows, I could see the sun going down outside over the shorter buildings. The mere hint of darkness made me feel just a little safer.
I hailed a waitress for a glass of water and lemon and crossed my arms over the table, waiting quietly to catch sight of either Fayed arriving for his shift or for the man named Maddox.
I'd already decided it couldn't be the same man. If his sort hung out here like Kassie had said, surely I would have seen him before. And I would've remembered him had I lain eyes on him. He was far too large a man, far too handsome a man, for anyone to forget.
It was Fayed who arrived first. I watched as he stooped to clear the lintel of the door frame on his way in from the back, and realized for the first time how tall he was as well. I was short enough that everybody looked like Giants, and so I rarely took notice of exactly how much taller than me people were. A gal doesn't want to be reminded that she looks like a kid.
But I rarely got an opportunity to study Fayed from a quiet corner where he was unaware I was watching him.
It almost seemed that the moment he arrived, was some sort of signal. Like cockroaches scuttling from dark corners when the lights go out, the room seemed to fill with all sorts of people. Fayed took his place behind the bar, with his hands displayed shoulder width apart, fingertips touching down on the surface. From there, he surveyed the room, nodding to patrons he obviously knew, which looked like everyone. A couple of them made a concerted effort to approach him. To both of them he gave a silent nod and the shoulders relaxed visibly before they found a place at a table close to the door.
He looked ethnic, with a hint of Whistler's Grandmother. His blue eyes made the ethnic skin all the more creamy looking.
He crooked his finger in my direction and I realized he'd known I was there all along. I grabbed my bug out bag, fully prepared to pull a few bills from the interior to pay him to keep my presence here tonight a secret.
I slid into place on the stool in front of him. He scanned me top to bottom quietly before he spoke.
"You've been running," he said.
I wasn't sure how he would know that, since it had been at least an hour since my panicked sprint. I probably looked like a mess, all sweaty and adrenaline soaked.
"Nothing keeps a girl in better shape," I said.
One black eyebrow quirked almost humorously.
"You don't look like the tracksuit type," he said.
I held my hands up in surrender. "You got me. Truth is, I'm looking for someone."
His face closed up. "No one ever comes here," he said pointedly.
"I understand," I said. "But I'm not looking to get anyone in trouble. I'm actually supposed to be waiting for someone."
While his expression didn't change, I noticed his shoulders relaxed.
"Well then if you're waiting for someone, they should be along shortly." He made a move to slip away but I wasn't done with him.
"Actually," I said, reaching out and touching him on the forearm. "I was hoping you could give me some background on the guy."
He swung that lamplight gaze on to me again. "Scary sort?"
"Blind date," I said carefully.
"We don't get many blind date hookups here," he said.
I shrugged. "I'm here so much it's like a second home," I said. "I feel safe."
He smiled for me, revealing perfect white teeth with rather longish canines that I'd always thought looked rather predatory.
"You are safe here," he said. "I wouldn't let anyone hurt you. Not while I'm here."
The way he said it made me think there were plenty of people that frequented the joint who would hurt me after all. All those men I'd assumed had accepted me and let me be out of respect or some hard earned moxy. For a second, I was taken aback and felt uncomfortable. I couldn't help looking over my shoulder. Sure enough, two men averted their gazes as I scanned the room.
The back of my neck crawled.
"I guess I've been lucky, then," I murmured, turning back around to face Fayed. He too had caught the eyes of those men and his expression had been a hard, ugly one until he noticed me watching him. Then it softened, not enough to look fawning. Just that bland, careful expression he always wore.
"The sort of folks that come here aren't always the friendliest," he said by way of explanation. He leaned down to pull out a bottle of Rot Gut and I shook my head. I had to keep my wits.
He pursed his lips and flicked his gaze to the men again before putting the bottle back under the counter.
"Well then," he said. "Tell me who this blind date is that you're meeting and I'll let you know if you can trust him."
I told him I didn't know much about th
e man, just his name. That he was connected. That his "sort" hung out there.
His eyebrows cocked at the words sort, but he said nothing until I dropped the name.
"Maddox?" he said. "You're meeting a man named Maddox. Tall guy. Man bun?"
I nodded. The bug-out bag stretched and undulated. My cat poked her head up through the hole in the zipper. One look at Fayed and she hissed, the prissy thing.
"Get back in there if you can't be civil," I told her. She withdrew back inside and I shrugged at Fayed.
"Rescue," I said of her. "She doesn't trust anyone."
"A sound policy," he said.
"So," I said. "Do you know more about him? Maddox, I mean."
"I know a Maddox," he said. "Fits the bill. And his sort does hang out here."
"And?"
"You trust me?" he said.
I nodded.
"Then trust me when I tell you to leave. Don't stick around to meet this guy. Whatever "date" you think you have with him, it's not what you think it is."
A scuffle sounded from the side of the room where the men had taken up spots near the door. I turned to look but Fayed grabbed my arm.
"Trust me," he said. "Stay away from him."
"Too late for that," said a drawling, dusty voice from behind me.
CHAPTER 14
THE VOICE REMINDED me of roasted dates and smoky bacon. I knew it was Maddox behind me without turning around to confirm his russet hair, probably pulled up in a man-bun exactly like he had in the pawn shop. His gray eyes would look like they'd been chinked out of an ice block.
Fayed's fingers lingered on my hand in a warning touch, and his gaze flickered over my shoulder. I knew it landed on Maddox behind me, but there was no welcome in his gaze. Rather, it was confrontational as he leaned back against the bar and crossed his arms over his chest. Pectoral muscles flexed beneath his charcoal T-shirt and his full mouth twitched.
No harm would come to me while I was here. That's what Fayed had said. I repeated it to myself in my mind. Even before I turned around, I could see in my periphery more stocky men filtering in and finding seats throughout the room. The buzz of conversation was laden with curses and threats one man to another, and yet it was the man behind me that made me nervous.
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