“I think Uncle Maury is harmless, but sometimes the way he gets caught up in his stories worries me—” Joe’s phone rang again. He exchanged a look with Meg and answered it on the second ring. “Uncle Maury? Is that you?” He nodded at Meg to let her know it was.
She looked so concerned, waiting to find out what Maury would say next, that Joe couldn’t resist putting an arm around her and pulling her close. He wasn’t sorry when the action squeezed her breast against his side.
“Really, Uncle Maury, did you have to hang up a minute ago? Are you okay? Your voice sounds funny…. You’re in the men’s room at the pool house? Why? What are you—Of course, you’re hiding. Look, stay there where you feel safe. Uncle Maury? Hello? You just dropped the phone? Why’d you drop the phone?”
He listened and then said to Meg, “Because he thought the mobsters were shooting at him, but it turned out to be a car backfiring.”
Meg leaned into him. “I might need to sit down, Joe.”
He took her arm to steady her and returned his attention to his great-uncle. “Is anyone else in there with you, Uncle Maury? Hell, no, I wasn’t suggesting you and another man—Yes, I do know how it would look for two guys to exit a one-holer bathroom together. Look, just sit tight and—”
Joe pulled the phone away from his ear. “Son of a—The line went dead again. When we get to his place, Meg, I swear I’m going to kick his ass. I don’t care if he is in his eighties and only five feet tall. I’m still going to kick his bowlegged, Mr.-T-gold-wearing, toupee-headed ass. Come on, let’s go see about my great-uncle, the nutcase.”
THEY WERE IN THE CAR with its front-mounted vanity plate that read “The Stogie” and on the way back to Meg’s apartment complex when she first became aware that she and Joe were being followed. Or, at least, she thought they were.
“Joe? Do you see—”
“Yes.”
Meg’s breath caught. “Oh my God, we are being followed.”
“I don’t really think so. Try not to let my crazy uncle, with all his mobster talk, get to you, okay?”
Too late for that. Meg turned to look over her shoulder at the occupants of the car behind them. “I kept seeing their bright lights in the side-view mirror, and I wondered.”
“Same here. Funny how quickly someone else’s paranoia can infect your mind, isn’t it? Still, maybe you shouldn’t turn around and stare at them.” Joe’s voice was level, like the patient one a parent might use to reassure a small child convinced that his bedroom closet held a monster. “And why aren’t you wearing your seat belt? Turn around and put it on, okay?” He glanced in the rearview mirror and then over at her. “No sense alerting them that we’re onto them.”
“Do you think we’re really being followed?” she asked, more interested in the action going on behind them than in his safety instructions.
“I really don’t.”
“Well, it’s possible.” Excitement and fear had Meg melting down onto the bench seat. From this new vantage point, she looked up at Joe. “Why can’t the car behind us just be a bunch of innocent people who’re going the same way we are?”
Joe looked over at her—or where she should have been—and then down to where she was. A puzzled frown claimed his features. “They could be. What are you doing?”
“Clearly, I’m hiding. Besides, I got a good look at those people. What we’ve got are two guys dressed in black on our tail.”
“Mobsters aren’t the only people who wear black. I occasionally wear black. Maybe these guys are some partying Goths heading to a nightclub.”
She stared at Joe’s profile, absorbing his handsome features. “But maybe they aren’t.”
“There’s one way to prove it to you.”
Meg became aware of another sensation. “Are you slowing the car down, Joe?”
“Yes. If these guys behind us are two partying Goths on their way to a night of clubbing, then they’ll be in a hurry to get around us, won’t they?”
“Yes.” Meg was silent, allowing for time and events to pass. When she couldn’t stand the suspense anymore, she said, “They didn’t pass us, did they?”
“No.”
“Oh, God.” But judging by the squealing tires and all the curses being flung their way, everyone else in Tampa was in a hurry to get around them. Meg heard Joe muttering something back at the other drivers, but it was nothing she could actually make out.
“So, Meg,” he said abruptly, “I have to wonder what the two guys in the really slick car behind us think you’re, uh, doing right now, since you’ve disappeared from view in the front seat.”
It took her a second, but she finally got his drift—and her face burned. She popped upright and finger-combed her hair out of her face. “Is this really the time to be amusing yourself with pornographic thoughts?”
He spared her a quick grin. “I was just trying to get you to sit up and put on your seat belt, which you still need to do.”
Soberly, Meg said, “I think we ought to go to the police.”
“Because of what I just said? Really?”
“No, because if these guys behind us are with the—and I use this word every day—mob, then we should find a police station. Every woman knows, or should, that if she’s being followed, she heads for the nearest police station.”
Joe stopped and thought for a moment, then nodded slowly. “Okay. Where’s the nearest station?”
Meg thought about it and shrugged. “I have no idea.” Joe leveled a look at her and then concentrated on the road. “Well, I’m sorry. I haven’t been followed before. This is new to me.”
He reached for her hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry. Look, don’t worry about it. Can you actually see us going to the police with this story? What would we tell them? My sweet but crazy-assed great-uncle thinks the Mafia is after him—and us—because we have keys to something that contains a lot of money? What would you do if you were the cops and someone came into the station with that story?”
“I’d bust them for being high and lock them up.”
Loving his warm touch and the feel of his strong fingers clasped over hers, Meg held on to Joe’s hand. For just a moment, she let herself imagine how those same hands would feel on her body. Then, focusing again on their current plight, she said, “Maybe we need to take Maury seriously for just a few minutes. I mean, I know he’s the king of exaggeration, but maybe there’s a grain of truth to this tale.”
Joe riveted his gaze on her for far longer than it was probably safe to do while driving. “Meg, do you really think the mob was there and pounding on his door? I mean would they really want all the attention they’d get from about five hundred of his closest neighbors if they did that?”
She eyed him suspiciously. “You seem to know a lot about how the Mafia works, Joe.”
He took his hand back and put it on the steering wheel, holding it tight. “I’ve probably seen the same movies you have.”
Meg flushed with self-consciousness. “Touché. Still, what if something’s up—”
“Meg. Pizza delivery guy at the wrong door. Car backfiring. Nutty, paranoid great-uncle, whom I love very much, put two and two together and came up with the mob. End of story. What we’re going to do is go to his place and see for ourselves what’s up. So, please, buckle your seat belt.”
She quickly stretched the nylon straps across her chest and lap and snapped the buckle into place. “Okay. Done.”
“Good. Hold on. I’m going to speed up.”
Sure enough, the car jumped forward with a lurch and a stutter that wrenched Meg back and then forward and nearly made her bite her tongue. Once she regained her equilibrium, she gave voice to her current thought. “Joe, how can these guys behind us be the mob if they’re at the apartment with Maury?”
Joe changed lanes, moving to the inside-left one. “You’re not going to let this go, are you? All right. I suspect, Meg, that if it’s the Mafia we’re really dealing with, they probably have more than two members.”
; “Good point.” She felt so dumb—and tried to cover it. “But how many of them do you think they’d send after one little old man?”
“Depends on the little old man. And what he might have of theirs.”
“True. Are we still being followed?”
He glanced into the rearview mirror. “If you mean is the same car still behind us, then yes it is.”
A chill washed over Meg. “Okay, that’s it. Pick a street and turn onto it. Don’t signal. We need to give them the slip. If they just go on by and don’t try to follow, then we have our answer. But if they stick with us, then we’ll know that they really are after us.”
Joe shot her a quick glance. “What were you—a gun moll in a past life? Think, Meg. If they are supposed to be Mafia, and they are following us, and there are other—I do not believe I’m even saying this—gangsters with my uncle, then these guys behind us already know exactly where we’re going. There’s no point in trying to lose them.”
“Darn. You’re right. So what are you going to do?”
“Exactly what I said. We’ll go to my uncle’s.”
She watched Joe for a minute, focusing on the curve of his cheek and the strength evident in his jaw. “Joe, if we don’t make it out of this alive, I want you to know one thing. You’re a really great kisser.”
He grinned. “Thanks. So are you.”
IN LESS THAN TWENTY MINUTES, Meg stood with Joe in the dining room of Maury’s apartment. The Goths, or whoever the innocents had been in the car behind them, had finally turned off, to Meg’s infinite relief, so they’d made it here without further incident…only to find the elderly man gone.
Before coming inside, Joe had checked the men’s room of the complex’s community pool, only to find it empty, too. But the note they found on Maury’s dining room table in the tidy apartment—no sign of a struggle—stated where he was. “On the run from the mob.”
Meg stood rigidly at Joe’s side, peering around his arm at the note in his hand. “Oh, no.” Her voice was breathless with fear and worry. “He was telling the truth.”
Joe frowned. “He asked me to feed his goldfish.”
“Well, how thoughtful. And odd.” Still, she looked from Joe to the note, like she might find a clue she’d missed. “If he was able to write this note, I guess they never made it into his apartment.”
“Meg, there is no ‘they.’ This is Uncle Maury’s idea of a joke. Or, worse, a scavenger hunt.”
“A scavenger hunt?” What was Joe talking about? She studied his profile. Yes, he was very handsome but he might also be very nuts. Like his great-uncle. She remembered Wendy talking about Maury and Joe being from the same murky gene pool. “No matter what’s going on, your uncle’s missing. Shouldn’t we be worried?”
“If he doesn’t show up soon, we should. But reading this note, Meg…well, it’s more like it’s just some big game he’s devised and he wants us to chase him all around town finding clues.”
Now she understood what he meant about a scavenger hunt. She let her gaze play over his chiseled features again. He was back to being unbelievably handsome, and not nuts at all.
She again studied the slip of paper. “You got all that out of his note?”
“I told you, he’s done this before,” Joe continued. “When I was a kid and the family would all be together, he’d make up cops-and-robbers games just like this. He’d hide from us and have us kids running all over the place looking for him because he had the prize.”
“What was the prize?” Meg realized it probably wasn’t the most relevant question right now, but she couldn’t help herself.
Joe’s blue eyes bored meaningfully into hers. “The same thing it is now. Money.”
4
MEG BRACKETED HER WAIST with her hands. “Are you kidding me? Money? So, this is all a game to him? Here we’re worried sick and he’s getting a big laugh from it? If you’re right, when we find him, I’m going to kick his ass, the little stinker.”
“Feel free. But let me think out loud a minute and figure out where we are, all right?” When Meg nodded, he continued. “Okay, he told us not to come here. Which he knew we would. So he left us this note to guide us to the next clue.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?” Joe held the note up to her as if it were evidence.
Meg frowned. “I’m having trouble seeing the game in all this, Joe. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, you stick with the scavenger hunt thing, I’ll go with the Mafia, and we’ll both consider a huge mental snafu. That way, we cover all the bases.”
“Makes sense. How do you see it?”
“Well, maybe they—the gangsters who were actually here—don’t know he left the note.”
Joe rubbed his jaw as if that helped him to reason. “But the note was in plain view on the dining room table. How could they not see it?”
Meg shrugged. “Maybe they’re dumb gangsters.”
“Or not.” Joe eyed her levelly. “And in your running-from-the-mob scenario, how is my uncle getting around? We have his car.”
“A cab, maybe?”
Joe nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking. Or maybe some of his cronies are in on this, too, and driving him around. Remember those guys he said were coming over for cards?”
“Oh, that’s right. Maybe it wasn’t for cards…at…all.” An unexpected yawn got away from her, claiming the last few words. Embarrassed, Meg clamped her hands over her mouth. “I’m sorry.”
Joe’s face softened into a sweet expression of sympathy, making her heart melt.
“Hey, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. Look, it’s after eleven already. Why don’t I walk you to your door and go chase Uncle Maury down by myself? There’s no reason for both of us to miss out on sleep.”
Meg waved her hands in protest. “No way. I’m not missing out on the best adventure I’ve had in years.”
“You’re a good sport, but I’m not so sure of my theory that I can just toss yours out. We could be riding right into something dangerous. I don’t think I could forgive myself if anything happened to you.”
“I don’t think I could forgive you, either,” Meg assured him mock-seriously. “So don’t let anything happen to me. Besides, if I’m right, I need to go with you for backup.”
He sized her up and apparently found her wanting. “Backup? You?”
“Hey, don’t get all macho on me. I have pepper spray, remember, that could come in handy,” Meg warned.
“Yeah, that ought to scare the hell out of a bunch of gangsters.”
“Along with that little knife you don’t even know how to use?”
Joe narrowed his eyes. “We’re not getting anywhere trading insults.”
“You started it.”
“Meg.”
“All right, all right.” She pointed to the note in Joe’s hand. “So, what do we do next?” Meg looked up at him, noticing anew the deep blueness of his eyes.
“We should forget all this and just go to bed. Let him wonder where the hell we are, instead of the other way around.”
She’d stopped listening when he’d said they should just go to bed. Blinking away the sexy images that served up, she smiled. “But what we’re really going to do is…”
Slumping tiredly, Joe scrubbed his hands over his face and then stretched mightily, presenting her with an eye-popping vision of male muscular vitality. “I’ll drive, you navigate.”
“I’m in.”
He looked at her questioningly. “Okay, but feel free to call it quits anytime you want. I have no idea how long he’ll drag this out.”
“If it’s him dragging it out.”
“Okay, if it’s him.”
Though she remained skeptical, the danger just didn’t seem real. Instead, a thrill of pleasure at the thought of being with Joe even longer raced over Meg’s skin and revived her. “Okay. Let’s get started. A minute ago you said Maury left us a clue. What is it?”
“I’m not sure. See what you make of this. He says we’re to go to M
ario’s. Who the hell is Mario? Have you ever heard him talk about this guy?”
Meg frowned. “No. Even if he had, how are we supposed to know where some guy named—Oh, wait! Of course. I love Mario’s.” Meg grinned. “It’s not a who, Joe, it’s a place. Come on. I know exactly where your uncle is.”
“Then let’s go.”
“Not until we feed the goldfish.”
FORTUNATELY, IN JOE’S VIEW, Meg had realized that Uncle Maury meant the upscale, happening restaurant and bar on busy Dale Mabry Highway. This was one big, bustling place of low lights and formally attired waitstaff. A place where liquor and laughter flowed. Where movie stars, rock stars and sports figures had signed their pictures “To Mario, with Love” or “with thanks.” They didn’t say for what, and Joe didn’t want to know. As he watched Meg scan the room, her pretty face glowing with the thrill of the chase, her shapely hips swiveling as she carved a path through the room, he couldn’t help but wish for more intimate surroundings—say, dim lights and a soft mattress.
Back in the café and bar section of the restaurant, where Joe and Meg had been seated, even more framed eight-by-ten glossies hung above intimate booths filled with classy women and tough-looking guys. He just sure as hell hoped he didn’t have to exchange words with any of them. But there was no telling with Uncle Maury. In fact, Joe was beginning to fear his great-uncle did, indeed, belong with this crowd of heavies.
Unsettling him further were Meg’s excited tales that actual Mafia figures were reputed to hang out at Mario’s. She’d told him that the newspapers periodically reported mysterious goings-on in some discreet back room here. As she’d talked, her brown eyes had shone bright with excitement. Joe had merely grinned at this, remembering that this was the same woman who, earlier, had ducked down in the car seat at the first hint of “bad guys.”
Right now, though, the place was filled with happy Friday-night revelers all jostling for position, all trying to see or be seen. Joe leaned his elbow on the wood bar and kept Meg close to his side with his other arm wound tightly around her trim waist. She didn’t protest the liberty, in fact, she had just as close a hold on him. He marveled at the way their bodies seemed to fit perfectly together, and couldn’t help but imagine how that would translate in bed. Joe didn’t quite know yet what this meant for him and Linda, but he didn’t want to go there right now. He just wanted to hold Meg and enjoy how totally right and incredibly exciting it felt. He’d deal with the whole Linda issue later, when he had a minute to think about anything aside from where the hell his great-uncle was. They’d given their drink order to one of three busy bartenders—an Italian looker named Dina, according to her name tag—and waited now while she mixed them up.
Blind Date Page 5
