She gave up on that bed and moved to the other one.
“Oh, but wait,” Harry said, feigning a sudden realization. “You don’t think he’s really put out a contract on you. That’s why you were going to call him, right? You think two car bombs in your garage is the result of some kind of clerical error.”
She stiffly kept her back to him as she turned down the sheets of the second bed.
“So, tell me, Allie,” he continued. “What were you planning to say to him when you got him on the line?” He did a poor imitation of a female voice. “ ‘Please, Mikey, tell me it’s all been just a big mistake.’ And what do you think he’s gonna say to you when you say that? I’ll give you a few extra seconds to think that one over—I don’t want you to strain yourself.”
Alessandra turned to face him, letting herself hate him. “I’d like you to get out of here.”
He moved then, but it was only to sit in another position, his back against the headboard, his legs stretched out comfortably on the bed. “He’s gonna say, ‘Why, of course, Mrs. Lamont.’ ” This time he did a rather chillingly accurate imitation of Trotta’s dulcet tones. “ ‘It is indeed a mistake, Mrs. Lamont. Please come into my office, Mrs. Lamont, and I’ll take care of everything.’ ”
“Maybe he will say that. I gave back the money.”
Harry laughed, arranging the pillows more comfortably behind him. “Oh, yeah. He’ll say it. But you know what happens next? You know how he’ll ‘take care of everything’? You can go in there and flash him the goods all you want, sweetheart. You can even go further, put your mouth where your money is, so to speak. Yeah, I’m betting Michael Trotta won’t have any problem at all with you giving him a blow job before he kills you.”
She flinched. “You’re disgusting.”
“The truth is disgusting. Don’t confuse the messenger with the message.”
Alessandra pulled herself up to her full height and gazed at him with as much haughtiness as she could muster. “Please. I’m exhausted.”
Harry smiled. “The ice bitch thing doesn’t work with me either, Al.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“What? Ice bitch or Al?”
She held herself tightly to keep from shaking. She wasn’t sure if what she felt was anger or fear or just sheer desperation. All she knew for certain was that the thought of losing her identity scared her to death, and that she missed baby Jane so much she ached. “My name is Alessandra.”
“Not for long.” Harry stood up in one smooth motion. “Here’s the deal, Allie.” His voice was harsh. “I know you don’t believe your dear friend Michael really wanted to blow you into a million little pieces, but if you so much as dial his phone number, you’ll be out on the street, on your ass, faster than you can spit. Because if you call Trotta, he’ll know exactly where you are within minutes. And then not only will you be dead, but George and I will also probably die attempting to protect you.
“If you really have a death wish, I can get you a T-shirt with a great big target on it, and you can wear it as you walk out of this hotel. It’ll be a short walk, though. You’ll only get a few blocks before you’re spotted and taken down.”
She didn’t believe him. She couldn’t believe him. And he knew that just from looking at her.
He picked up the phone and with one swift, effortless yank pulled the wire right out of the wall. “Maybe this will reduce the temptation, huh?”
“Are you intending to lock me up in here, too?” Her voice shook.
“You’re free to leave whenever you want. My advice, though, would be to get your personal effects in order first.” Harry turned toward the door but then turned back. “Oh, and Al? If you get in touch with Trotta, either by calling on the other hotel line or any other way, and he finds out where you are, you’re toast. Even if his hitmen somehow manage to miss you, you’ll be dead. Believe it. Because I’ll shoot you myself.”
“Hello?” Kim’s breathless voice sounded impossibly young and innocent. Nicole had never sounded that young. Not even when she’d first come up from the Academy.
“Hi, babe. It’s me—George.”
“Who?”
He had to laugh. “Jeez, it’s been that memorable, huh? George. Remember? George Faulkner?”
“Omigod, George! I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you. It’s noisy in here and … God, of course I remember. Where have you been? Wait a minute, let me move to another phone.”
There was a thud then only bar sounds—loud music, laughter. Then a click and Kim’s voice was back. “Hang up, Carol.” Louder. “I said, hang up.” Then deafeningly, shrilly, “I said, hang the motherfucking phone up! Now!”
The bar sounds disappeared and Kim was back, as sweet and breathlessly innocent as ever. “Baby, I’m so glad you called. I was starting to think you’d forgotten about me. Where have you been for the past three days? Can I see you tonight?”
Cold and hot. Psycho and sweet. Kim was an actor—George knew that. He was something of an actor himself.
“I’m on assignment,” he told her. “I can’t get free. Not tonight, anyway.”
“Where are you now? If you can come over here right this minute …” Her voice trailed off, leaving George’s imagination to fill in the blank.
He was too tall for the so-called privacy shields built around the pay phone to make any kind of difference. Still, he ducked awkwardly closer to the phone, wishing he could crawl through the line, wishing he could steal half an hour. He had a very good imagination. “I thought the club had a rule about what goes on in your dressing room.”
“Are you in town?” Her voice was even more breathless now. Whispery, intimate. “Because if you are, I’d like to show you just what I think about the rules when it comes to me and you.”
George sighed. “I’m here—for the moment anyway, but I can’t get away,” he told her. “I’m breaking every rule in the book just calling you.”
“I don’t suppose you can tell me what you’re doing.”
“Not a chance.”
“Not even if I beg and make all kinds of promises?”
The images that called up were heart-stopping. Kim could do things with her lips and tongue that could win her a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. “Nope.”
“Is it terribly dangerous?”
“Incredibly dangerous,” he teased.
There was a pause, and when she spoke again, her voice was different. Quieter. “You’re being careful, right?”
For several seconds, George was silent. She actually sounded as if she cared. “Yeah,” he finally said. Damn, maybe she did care. Wouldn’t that be an ironic twist? He finally finds the perfect sexual relationship, one based purely on twisted psychological needs—both his and hers—and she begins to develop a warm spot in her heart. “Of course I am.”
“When am I going to see you?” she asked, still in that quiet voice. It frightened him, that voice. But at the same time, he liked it. Too much. God knows Nicki had never spoken to him in a voice like that.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It could be another week. Maybe longer.” He glanced at his watch, wishing he could talk longer, desperately glad he couldn’t. “Look, babe, I’ve got to go.”
“George.”
“Kim, I’m sorry, I’ve really got to—”
“Call me as soon as you can. I’ve got a surprise for you.” She then completely blew any chance of surprise by telling him, in exact detail, exactly what she was going to do to him when she saw him next.
By the time George hung up the phone, he was gripping the privacy divider so hard his knuckles were white. He took a deep, shaky breath and let the air out all in one whoosh.
He lit a cigarette and took his time walking back to the hotel, feeling the fresh spring air cool against his face. This next week was going to pass far too slowly. But it would pass. And then he would see Kim.
And he would close his eyes and pretend he was with Nicki again.
* * *
&
nbsp; “Gentlemen and ladies,” Nicole said as she opened the car door and stepped back to let the passenger out, “may I introduce Mrs. Barbara Conway.”
Harry coughed to hide his laughter as Alessandra gracefully emerged from the backseat of the town car.
She should have had her long hair dyed a nondescript shade of brown and cut into as unflattering a style as possible. She should have been wearing ill-fitting department store clothing and little to no makeup at all.
Instead, she looked like some kind of movie star. Dressed in a curve-hugging black turtleneck and slim-fitting black pants, with a funky pair of heels that made her a solid inch taller than he was, she was about as unnoticeable as a parade of elephants marching through the Holland Tunnel. Her hair was long and dyed sleekly black. The new hair color made her eyes stand out, making them seem brighter and even more startlingly blue. It framed her pale face, accenting her carefully made-up features, her long elegant nose and full, graceful, very red lips. It was pretty damned remarkable. The new hair color actually made her even easier to identify.
Harry glanced at George, who was having a sudden coughing fit, too. The other agents, Christine McFall and Ed Bach, looked embarrassed. This entire operation would succeed only if they did their jobs badly, and Alessandra was living proof that they’d done just that.
If Trotta were looking—and Harry knew he would be looking, particularly since they were about to drop some not-too-subtle hints about this location in his lap—he’d have absolutely no problem finding Alessandra Lamont in this hick-town haystack.
Alessandra slipped a pair of sunglasses on over her pretty eyes as she took a look at her new home.
Paul’s River, New York.
It was upstate, along the Connecticut border, about twenty miles north of the end of Route 684. It was rural, with plenty of houses like this one, which sat separated by two very wide acres of land from its nearest neighbors. Farmland dotted the gently rolling hills, making for extremely picturesque landscape—and plenty of room to ward off a mob hit while only risking the lives of a few stray cows. And the big bonus: It was within a two-hour drive of New York City—a manageable commute for hitmen and agents alike.
As Harry watched, Alessandra took in the postage stamp-size white Cape Cod cottage, from the peeling paint on the twin dormers to the peeling paint on the faded red door. It wasn’t much of a house—at least not compared to the palace she’d lived in in Farmingdale. But to her credit, she didn’t gasp in horror or exclaim in dismay. She didn’t even curl her lip in disgust.
She simply looked.
The front flower beds were overrun by weeds, the lawn—if you could call it that—was knee-high in places, barren and dusty in others. There were no trees at all on the half acre of land surrounding the house, and the spring sun shone glaringly down. In the summer the house and yard would be as hot as hell. The backyard was surrounded by an ugly high chain-link fence. It was the kind of fence you might put up after installing a swimming pool, but there was no pool in sight.
One of the front windows was broken, the glass taped. The garage—a stand-alone structure—looked as if it would collapse in the next mild gust of wind. Compared to Alessandra’s house in Farmingdale, this was a big—a very, very big—step down, indeed.
She turned to watch as the town car pulled away.
“We should go inside,” Nicole told her. “For the first few weeks, you’ll need to keep a low profile.”
Alessandra looked away from the dust being kicked up by the disappearing car, her eyes hidden by her sunglasses. “I thought I’d be safe here.” Her voice was low and controlled. “Are you telling me I’m going to have to hide inside the house?”
“It’s just a precaution,” George said smoothly. “Just for these first few days.”
“Days?” Alessandra asked. She looked at Nicki. “Or weeks?”
“I’ve got the key to the back door.” Nicole sidestepped both Alessandra and her question, heading down the long driveway, toward the gate in the chain-link fence.
Bach and McFall both turned away, too, uncomfortable with the part they were playing in this task-force operation. George had already followed Nicole.
That left Harry.
Alessandra didn’t look at him for more than half a second before she turned, clearly believing that he, too, would dodge her question.
“Weeks,” he told her, and she turned back, surprise temporarily breaking through the nearly expressionless Imperial Princess face she’d been wearing since she stepped from the limo.
He gestured for her to precede him down the cracked tarmac of the drive. Your Majesty. “It’ll probably be weeks.”
She didn’t like his answer, but she liked it better than not getting any answer at all, so she nodded. “Thanks.” Her smile was very small and slightly crooked, and not at all part of the princess act. It was quite possibly sincere.
Harry caught a whiff of her perfume as she went past. It was sweetly fragrant, deliciously fresh, and very familiar. It was the same fragrance she’d been wearing when he’d first gone to her Farmingdale house, the night of the break-in and vandalism.
If Trotta’s team of hitmen didn’t see her coming from a mile away, they could always sniff her out.
God, this setup made him nervous. Harry didn’t know what it was—if it was the situation, or the timing, or the target.
The target. Alessandra Lamont made him nervous in more ways than one.
But he’d worked protecting beautiful women before. What was it about this one that had gotten under his skin?
Nicole had been fumbling with the lock on the fence, but she finally got it open and pulled back the gate, gesturing for Alessandra to go in first.
Harry saw the dog before Alessandra did, before any of them did.
It had been standing silently, menacingly, in the fenced-in yard, in the shade of the garage, but now it lunged, an enormous German shepherd with sharp-looking teeth and a very convincing snarl.
Harry threw himself forward, pushing Alessandra back and out of the way as he kicked the gate shut just in time.
Even Nicole squeaked in alarm as the dog hit the fence with a crash, shock waves rattling it against the posts as Harry wrestled with the latch.
Alessandra had fallen down, onto the driveway, and George and the two other agents helped her back to her feet as the dog began to bark and snap viciously at Harry’s fingers. The noise was deafening—nearly as loud as any burglar alarm he’d ever heard.
Finally, finally, with Nicole’s help, he got the latch secured with all his fingers still attached.
George had pulled Alessandra out of immediate ear-splitting range. She clung to him now, her face buried against his jacket, her body trembling. She’d torn her pants and skinned at least one of her knees, but she didn’t seem to notice. She just hung onto George as if she’d fall thirty thousand feet to the earth below if she let go.
Damnit, that could have been him with her arms around his neck.
Harry pushed that thought away as quickly as it had arrived. Stupid. It was completely stupid to think about this woman that way. And although he was no genius, he sure as hell wasn’t stupid.
“Who put in an order for a guard dog?” he barked even louder than the dog in question.
Nicole’s face was flushed with anger, but Harry bet she was more pissed at making that decidedly female shriek when the dog first attacked than the fact that an unauthorized guard dog had shown up on the premises.
Bach rustled through the paperwork on his clipboard, frantically looking for someone to blame. He didn’t have to look far because McFall stepped forward.
“I did,” she said, calmly ready to face both Nicole and Harry’s wrath. “We knew Mrs. La—Mrs. Conway had a problem with dogs. It was part of the information in her file. We thought a watchdog would provide a good cover, simply because of that. Anyone looking for her wouldn’t expect her to have a dog. I put in the order before …” She glanced at Alessandra, aware she was about to sa
y just a little too much.
She’d put in the order before she knew this entire assignment was going to be a setup, before she knew that the task force wanted Michael Trotta to find Alessandra Lamont.
“The dog’s name is Schnaps.” To Harry’s surprise, George spoke up, raising his voice to be heard over the racket. “Joe Harris is her trainer. I worked with them both about three years ago.” He tried to pass Alessandra off to Bach, but the flustered agent could barely juggle both his clipboard and his pen, so she was thrust in Harry’s direction instead.
Harry tried. He really did. He first tried to step aside and then to push Alessandra toward Nicole, but Nicki was busy being the irate boss.
That meant that Alessandra was all his. She seemed to be okay standing on her own, so he held on to her arm with only one hand, touching her with as few fingers as possible.
“Take her around to the front,” Nicole ordered him sharply before glaring at George. “Can you make this dog shut up?”
Alessandra was all too eager to go toward the front of the house, and she broke free from Harry and headed for the cars at a near run. He had to jog to keep up. As he turned back, he saw George make some kind of hand signal and, as if by magic, as if he’d flipped a switch, the dog stopped barking.
George Faulkner had worked with dogs. Go figure. Harry would’ve thought his partner would be completely adverse to getting dog hair on his designer suits.
“I’m especially good with bitches,” Harry heard George say with his usual, soft-spoken, deadpan delivery.
Harry had to laugh, picturing Nicole’s slow burn, knowing she’d be unable to respond to her ex-husband’s subtle barbed remark in front of the two other agents. But she’d want to. Man, would Nic want to blast him.
Alessandra was holding on to herself, arms tightly folded across her chest, as if she’d fall apart if she let go. “You think this is funny?”
Harry instantly sobered up, well aware that the last thing she needed was to think he was laughing at her. “No,” he said. “No, I was just … It was just George. I didn’t know he’d ever worked with dogs.”
Bodyguard Page 9
