Kiss Me Deadly

by Susan Kearney

  “Good, I’m starving.”

  For Dana a meal probably meant a short drive downtown, perhaps to Mise en Place or Bern’s Steak House, but for Mandy, it meant eating with Gabby.

  A clank that echoed behind her broke into her thoughts.

  “Did you hear that?” Mandy glanced back over her shoulder. But she saw nothing unusual, merely a couple of senior citizens rolling their luggage into the elevator.

  “I didn’t hear anything besides thunder.” But Dana picked up the pace, her heels clicking on the pavement, and changed the subject. “Should I tell Mom about Zack?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you notice how he refused to answer me when I asked about his injuries? Damn closemouthed brother of mine.”

  “You’re worried?”

  “Yeah,” was all she said. Then added, “Mom will be, too.”

  Mandy nodded, still uneasy over the noise she couldn’t explain. She peered down the row of parked vehicles and clutched her umbrella tighter. Thunder clapped and she jumped, her mouth dry despite the humidity. “Maybe we should go back.”

  “And face those reporters again?” Dana kept walking, her pace even faster. She’d just reached the rear bumper of her sporty Jag when a black Saturn pulled down their aisle and squealed to a stop, blocking the Jag.

  Mandy tensed.

  He’s just going to roll down his window and ask for directions.

  Maybe a reporter had caught up with them.

  Or a photographer wanted their picture.

  So why was she clenching her travel umbrella? Why were her calves and thighs tensed as if she might be forced to run for her life? Reminding herself that if her picture showed up in tomorrow’s newspaper, it wouldn’t kill her, she tried to relax.

  But the window didn’t roll down. Instead, the driver’s door opened. A burly African American man with a dark mustache and beard that didn’t quite hide skin-deep acne scars approached. He wore a stained sweatshirt torn at one elbow, gold chains, and dark sunglasses. But it was the weapon in his hand that shot a shiver of terror down Mandy’s back—a gun he pointed directly at Dana.

  Fear for her friend pumped adrenaline straight into Mandy’s veins. Her thoughts raced. The guy had made no effort to hide his face, so if he left them alive they could identify him. Perhaps he hadn’t thought ahead. He could be all hyped up on drugs, but his eyes looked clear. Mean. Wild. Dangerous. But clear.

  “Hand over your purses.”

  Oh . . . my . . . God. He meant to rob them.

  Dana tossed her bag at his feet. “Don’t hurt us.”

  Mandy had grown up in a rough neighborhood and wouldn’t make it easy for him. Unlatching her purse with trembling fingers, she turned it upside down and threw it, scattering the contents across the pavement. Her wallet flew one way, her lipstick and cell phone the other.

  The thief’s eyes didn’t immediately focus on the twenty-dollar bill sticking out of her wallet. He didn’t seem to be after cash or jewelry. So this probably wasn’t a random robbery.

  He was after the lottery ticket.

  And if he intended to steal it, he likely wouldn’t leave anyone to contest his ownership. Ice shot down her spine and curled into her gut. Fear swelled up her throat.

  She had to do something or they would die.

  His gaze centered on the scattered contents of her purse, and he scowled. She took a chance, slamming her umbrella down on his wrist.

  Dana gasped.

  The man shrieked and dropped the gun. “Shit, lady. You broke my hand.”

  With an umbrella? She didn’t think so.

  His injury didn’t prevent him from yanking the umbrella from her grip and tossing it aside, where it snapped open and then refolded. She’d lost her weapon. And she hadn’t hurt him enough to keep them safe.

  Cradling his wrist, he picked up the gun and lunged at Dana as if she wore a red cape and he were a charging bull. Dana shifted to one side, ran out of room, and slammed into a neighboring car.

  Mandy stuck out her foot to trip him, but he kicked her leg out from under her. She fell hard, banging her shoulder on the Jaguar. The coppery tang of blood filled her mouth.

  Dazed from the pain, she teetered to her feet, determined to help Dana, who was nursing her arm and had retreated until her back was against the bumper of the next vehicle. Dana’s voice turned fierce. “Take it all and leave us the hell alone.”

  The guy grabbed Dana by the hair, jammed the gun into her side while issuing orders to Mandy. “Gather all your crap into the bag.”

  The guy shook Dana with his good hand and yelled into her face. “What do you have to say now, bitch?”

  “Do as he says, please.” Face white, Dana spoke through gritted teeth.

  Mandy fought down nausea. Behind Dana, her attacker glowered, and Mandy tried to memorize his features. Brown eyes. Corn rows. Shaggy beard. Thick nose. Acne scars. Medium height and weight, in baggy jeans and tennis shoes, he looked strong, but average—until she caught his wild gaze that seemed to lack pity and any shred of humanity.

  “Hurry.” He glared, his eyes cruel, mouth spraying spittle.

  Mandy groped for her phone, keys, and lipstick. Her wallet had flown open. Wind picked up the bills and blew them everywhere. She found a twenty smashed against a tire. A ten stuck under her umbrella handle. She grabbed the bills in shaking hands, but didn’t spot the ticket on the ground with her cash. She’d been careful to tuck the winning ticket deep into her wallet, so it was likely still there. The ticket didn’t matter. Their safety did.

  Gathering the wallet with the rest of her things, Mandy placed them all into her purse. If she gave him what he wanted, would he let them go? Or would he shoot them because she’d fought back? Mandy wanted to resist, but how? What would Zack do if he were here?

  Beat the guy to a pulp?

  She didn’t know karate.

  Sweet-talk him?

  Her mouth was so dry with fear, she couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think.

  Just as she placed the last twenty into her bag, the elevator doors opened and reporters spilled out. At the sight of the press, their attacker snatched the purse from Mandy and shoved Dana against a column. Her head smacked the concrete with a sickening whack.

  Then he rushed past, jumped into his car and burned rubber. Mandy didn’t try to stop him. Instead she lunged and caught Dana, breaking her fall to the pavement.

  God. She looked bad. Blood trickled from her mouth. Her face had lost all color. Had he snapped her neck?

  Mandy eased Dana down to the concrete and cradled her head in her lap, slightly reassured by the rapid pulse at her throat. Gingerly, she smoothed back Dana’s hair, and her hand came away sticky with blood.

  “Dana. Talk to me. Please.” Dana looked too white, so pale and fragile.

  “What happened?” A reporter stuck a mike in her face. Others gathered around. Photographers snapped more pictures.

  Mandy’s first thought was to slap away the mike. But she wanted whoever had done this to Dana to be caught and punished. Furious, thoughts whirring, she vowed to use the press, but first, Dana needed medical attention.

  To her own ears, her voice sounded more like a plea than an ultimatum. “Call 911, and I’ll answer your questions.”

  “I already did. And I called airport security, too,” one handsome African American reporter said, proof that some in his occupation had human instincts. He even handed Mandy a clean handkerchief.

  “Thanks.” She dabbed the blood from Dana’s face. Her eyelids fluttered.

  Mandy bent over her, hope rising that she would recover with no side effects. “Talk to me, Dana. Can you hear me? Open your eyes and tell me you’re all right.”

  Dana blinked, opened her eyes and spoke, her voice weak. “My head hurts.�
��

  “You hit your head. But you’ll be okay,” Mandy tried to reassure her. But she didn’t like the way Dana looked. Fuzzy and confused.

  “Were we in a car accident?” Dana asked.

  “We were attacked. You bumped your head.” Please don’t let her have amnesia. They’d been through enough lately. The idea of seeing Dana so helpless made Mandy determined to protect her. Dana tried to sit up. Mandy shook her head and held her down. “Don’t move—not until the ambulance arrives.”

  Dana frowned. “I don’t remember—”

  “Who am I?” Mandy asked.

  “Hillary Clinton.”

  “Very funny.”

  “You’re Mandy. I’m Dana. That much I know.”

  Relieved that Dana seemed mostly okay, Mandy held Dana’s confused gaze. “What’s the last thing you do remember?”

  “Running from the reporters. Exiting the elevator. The storm. Then . . . nothing.”

  More relief washed over Mandy. She’d heard that after car accidents, people with head injuries often couldn’t recall the incident. If that was all that was wrong with Dana, then she was lucky. Their assailant could have shot her. He could have shot both of them. If the reporters hadn’t been following them . . . she and Dana might be dead right now.

  Mandy started to shake. Last week a truck had rammed her off the bridge. This week a different attacker seemed to have staked out the airport and waited for them. Maybe he’d even known the Jag was Dana’s car. Although they’d been robbed and Dana was injured, the thief hadn’t once mentioned the lottery ticket. Surely it couldn’t be a coincidence that he’d chosen to attack them? That he’d picked them at random.

  No way. Why hadn’t he demanded they hand over the ticket if that’s what he’d been after? What the hell was going on?

  Would the man have shot them if the reporters hadn’t arrived? Was this attacker connected to the man in the silver pickup truck or had he simply wanted to steal the lottery ticket? Were the two incidents unrelated? Mandy couldn’t seem to put any pieces together—except that she’d been attacked twice, and both attacks had been connected to a parking garage. But it appeared that someone wanted to hurt her, and she didn’t know if she’d be safe until she found out who was after her.

  As the reporters asked questions of their own, she realized no one had gotten a license plate number. With her short-term memory loss, Dana couldn’t even give a description of the attacker or his vehicle.

  But the attacker now had their cell phones, their credit cards, driver’s licenses, and home addresses. Damn, he had her keys. He could get into her condo.

  She had to call her mother. Change the condo locks. She hoped she could find a locksmith who was willing to work this late.

  And money was once again a factor. Because the lottery ticket and her purse were gone.

  Frustration and anger and fear welled. Although she tried to dial down the surging emotions, the facts were overwhelming her. Someone wanted her dead.

  And they’d just lost three hundred and sixty million dollars.

  Chapter Nine

  MANDY WOKE UP with a bad taste in her mouth and her head on a hard . . . leg? She scrambled to a sitting position and took her bearings. A television announced the morning news would come on soon. The weather was sunny. Life went on. Mandy was still in the hospital waiting room, where she must have fallen asleep. Only she’d been alone then, with the chairs empty, the frayed magazines and the sofa all to herself. Now she was no longer alone.

  She blinked the sleep out of her eyes, the fuzz from her brain. “Zack?”

  He captured her gaze in his. “After someone canceled the protection I’d arranged to meet you and Dana at the airport, Mom called me, and I caught the red-eye.”

  Her stomach knotted. Zack was here. In Tampa. He’d made the trip he’d promised, sooner than she’d expected. Probably sooner than he’d expected, too. She wondered what he thought about that. With his tousled hair and circles under his eyes, he looked as if he hadn’t slept in days, but he was still sexier than any man she’d ever met, and her pulse ratcheted up a notch. As adrenaline rushed inside her, twisting her emotions into knots, she remembered . . . Dana.

  It all flashed back at once. The attack at the airport, the stolen ticket. The reporters. Dana’s ambulance ride to the hospital.

  Oh . . . God. In the emergency room, Dana had seemed okay, but the doctors had taken her for more tests and had said head injuries were tricky. “Is Dana—”

  “She’ll be fine.” Zack was quick to reassure her in a gentle voice that was rough around the edges. “Catherine and Sam are with her now.” He handed Mandy a cup of lukewarm coffee. Their fingers touched, and she noted the ridges in his nails, their shape so similar to Gabby’s. Damn. Zack was in town—in the same state as Gabby. She chugged the coffee, needing the caffeine kick to engage her brain.

  Last night after the attack at the airport, after Mandy had spoken to the police, Catherine had heard that their attacker was now in possession of their driver’s licenses and keys. She’d insisted that her mother and Gabby remain at her beach house in Clearwater on the Gulf of Mexico, where they’d be safe. Grateful, Mandy had explained to her mother the necessity of remaining out of town while Mandy stayed near Dana at Tampa General Hospital.

  As it sunk into her sluggish mind that Zack wasn’t likely to accidentally run into her mother and daughter, Mandy found the courage to question him. “How long are you staying?”

  He raised one sexy eyebrow. “For as long as you need me.”

  Oh . . . my. He was doing it again. Focusing all his intensity on her. Making her feel special, making her feel . . . too much. Turning from him to the coffee, she poured a hot refill from the pot and did her best to ignore the donuts. She couldn’t afford the sugar in her system to mess with her already raw emotions.

  Zack might be pure temptation, but her reaction had to be better managed than the last time he’d been here. Life was far, far more complicated now.

  Mandy chose her words carefully. “Dana and your mother will be glad you’re here.”

  Zack came up behind her, so close she could feel his heat. He leaned into her and spoke, his voice husky. “And what about you? Are you glad I’m here?”

  She spun around so fast, the coffee spilled over the cup, a few drops burning her hand. “Don’t toy with me, Zack.”

  “You could have been hurt last night.” He picked up a napkin to dab at the coffee.

  She snatched the paper from his hand and mopped it up herself. Damn. Why couldn’t she pretend he didn’t matter? For Gabby’s sake, she had to get herself together.

  “Last night was scary,” she admitted. “I tried to help Dana but couldn’t do more than hold her until the ambulance came. Now she’s lying in a hospital bed.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “Maybe it is. Maybe that man was after me and Dana only got hurt because she happened to be with me. I’ve been attacked twice this week.” She fisted her fingers, then forced them open. “It’s not random. I need to find out what’s going on.”

  “We will, and I’m not letting you out of my sight until it’s safe to do so,” he stated with an infuriating take-control attitude.

  “And I’m quite certain that your mother asked you to come out here to help her and Dana,” she countered, drilling him with her best fierce expression, “not me.”

  “You didn’t used to be so independent.”

  “You didn’t used to be so bossy.” She drew in a deep breath, trying for calm, and released the air slowly. She wasn’t being reasonable, and she knew it. She really wasn’t ready to deal with him again. “I thought you were a professional. Act like one. Your family needs you.”

  Zack didn’t flinch at her accusation. He didn’t raise his voice. He simply stared at her as if trying to underst
and why she was annoyed. Obviously he wasn’t buying her your-family-needs-you-so-I-don’t-want-you-with-me tactic. Instead he looked at her as if she was a code he had to decipher—except the look was far from impersonal.

  For a moment his searching gaze seemed to penetrate her soul. What was he seeing? That she was rattled? That she had a secret that was about to mess with his life? She held his gaze, but, damn the man, he only smiled.

  “So,” he said nonchalantly. “You want my professional advice?”

  “Dana and your mother do.” She didn’t back down. She didn’t budge. She didn’t want anything from him. She couldn’t afford to want . . .

  “Mom’s asked me to protect you 24/7.”

  Not even the caffeine helped that statement sink in. “Protect me? But—”

  “Sam will watch out for Dana at home, and she’ll have protection, too. So will Mom. Right now, every lottery winner will have an armed bodyguard with them at all times.” The teasing left his gaze. His tone was absolute, as if she had no choice, as if he had information she didn’t yet possess.

  She frowned at him. “Why me? Why aren’t you protecting your sister or your mother?”

  He threaded his fingers through his hair. “I asked the same question. But Mom didn’t answer. She’s barely holding herself together. She’s already buried a son. The idea of losing another child must terrify her. Or maybe she thinks I don’t have any objectivity where my own family is concerned. I didn’t argue. I just agreed to do whatever she asked.”

  “But we no longer have the ticket. The danger’s over, isn’t it?” Mandy stared at him, sensing he hadn’t yet told her all the news.

  “Lisa Slocum’s dead.”

  What?

  Lisa was dead? Oh . . . God. Dead?

  Zack plucked the coffee cup from her hand and set it aside. He steered her to the sofa and made her sit. Mandy didn’t resist, just sank down, her emotions churning. Surely the lively twenty-three-year-old, a paralegal who’d intended to become a lawyer, couldn’t be dead? No.