by Kylie Brant
“Nothing is going to change my mind.” She didn’t sit down. She didn’t want to get that close to him. In a gesture of defiance, she jammed her hands in the pocket of her robe, all too aware of the recorder in there. “I didn’t build my business by caving in any time a smalltime hood made some demands.”
He said nothing at that. He didn’t have to. The animosity shimmered off him in waves. “You want to be real careful. Your cooperation is a given. At least, if you want to keep Boucher alive.” He shrugged, a small smile settling on his lips. “That’s the deal. You give me what I want and he gets to breathe a while longer. It’s a rough city. Lots of things can happen.”
Icicles of fear speared through her. Even knowing that the reaction was exactly the one he wanted couldn’t help her control it. She’d known he’d come armed with threats. She’d expected no less. But she’d assumed they’d be aimed at her. She’d been prepared for that.
She was certain the man would be only too happy to follow through on this threat. There was something in his voice whenever he mentioned Lucky. There was bad blood between them, maybe because Lucky had walked away from his organization.
“Nothing to say?” His smile grew unpleasant.
She hugged her arms around her waist and bit her lip, her response not totally feigned. Real fear was coursing through her. “I’m the owner of the company, and I’m the one who makes the decisions about the investigations. This has nothing to do with him.”
“I think it does. Sit down.”
Swallowing hard, she chose the chair farthest from him and sank into it.
His eyes held a gleam of satisfaction. “Now that you’re ready to listen, I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. You’ll continue the assignment old man Garvey hired you for, but the reports you make will make it clear that Mark Garvey is the only family member fit to take over the old man’s business. Have you told him about our talks?”
“No,” she lied. “I just updated him today, but didn’t mention it. I didn’t want him to take the assignment to another company.”
Tomsino looked pleased. “Good. Because if he pulls the job from you and I have to start over with someone else, I won’t be happy. With me unhappy, things won’t be healthy for your lover.”
“It’s not going to be as easy as you think.” She manufactured a tremor for her voice. “To make it appear legitimate, I have to continue my investigation. I’ll need to find evidence proving the other three grandchildren unfit, as well as continuing to look into Mark Garvey’s background. I can’t be sure that mine is the only company J. Walter contracted with. Sometimes a client will hire two to work independently of each other and compare the results. Money certainly would be no object for him.”
“He hasn’t hired anyone else,” the man said surely. Jacey’s interest piqued. How the heck did he know that? And how had he found out about him hiring her agency? “Focus all you want on the other three, but Mark is off-limits. The old man isn’t going to know the difference whether you make up the reports or actually follow through on the investigation.”
Mentally she congratulated herself for the accuracy of their guess about Tomsino’s connection in the Garvey family. Now all they had to discover through the surveillance teams was what hold Tomsino had over Mark Garvey.
She decided to be straightforward about her interest. “Why are you so interested in having Mark at the helm of Garvey Enterprises? What’s his association with you?”
Tomsino gave her a wink. The jovial gesture on that menacing face was oddly repulsive. “Let’s just say, it’s in my best interests to have him there. That’s all you need to know.” He slapped his hands on his knees and rose with some difficulty. Taking his cell phone out of his suit pocket he asked, “What’s your cell number?”
Reluctantly, she recited it for him.
“I’ll contact you for regular updates. Are you doing written reports for the old man?”
“Of course.” In truth, she never would have considered it. Putting things in writing was far too risky, as evidenced by the information that already somehow landed in Tomsino’s hands. With the explosion of technology, there were far more secure ways to share details, if the reports needed to be documented.
He nodded, headed toward the door. Now that he’d gotten what he’d come for, he appeared eager to be gone. “Get me copies of everything you’ve shared so far with the old man, and anything else you prepare for him.”
Satisfaction laced through her. He’d get copies all right. But they would be copies that contained phony information. She followed him as far as the hallway, waited impatiently for him to go. But she wasn’t prepared for him to turn from the door suddenly and reach for her.
“Take your hands off me,” she warned in a deadly tone. Her defense training might not be enough to help her get the better of the man, but the urge to find out was coursing through her, searing through caution. His fingers were wrapped so tightly around her wrist she could feel bone grinding on bone. Her skin crawled beneath his touch.
“Don’t worry.” His tone was insulting. “I’m not interested in Boucher’s leavings. You play by my rules and nobody will get hurt. Make sure you keep your boyfriend from doing anything stupid.” He dropped her hand and walked to the door.
The moment it closed behind him she locked it. Then reaction slammed into her and she let out a shaky breath, felt her knees weaken. She was swamped with an overwhelming need to shower, to scrub the feel of him from her flesh.
Lifting her wrist to examine it, she saw it was already red, the outline of his fingers showing clearly. It would bruise, and she knew the mark was meant as a warning to Lucky. Tomsino was attempting to use each of them to keep the other in line. Knowing his ploy didn’t detract from its effectiveness.
Finally remembering the tape recorder in her pocket, she took it out, turned it off. At least now she had some evidence of Tomsino’s involvement, and the threats he made. But even as she had the thought, she realized it was going to take far more than a record of their conversation to ensure Lucky’s safety.
Chapter 12
The alley was dark, and smelled of stale urine and cheap wine. There was an occasional rustle of rats foraging for food. Lucky figured it was a fitting enough location for the meeting he’d arranged.
The environment didn’t seem all that foreign to him. The days when he’d spent all too much time in places identical to this one seemed only too recent.
There was a sound at the entrance and every muscle in his body tensed. This was a dangerous gamble, one that could backfire easily. But it was the best plan he could devise for outwitting Tomsino. It wouldn’t be enough to double-cross the man. To make sure he didn’t come after them when it was over, they had to take him down.
The people he was meeting tonight would be tools to that end. If they showed. And if they agreed.
A shadow loomed, then a figure stepped into the alley. “Boucher?”
Lucky recognized the voice. Enrico Ramirez was the first on the scene. “I’m here.” He stepped closer, saw the man had come with two of his bodyguards. He’d expected nothing less. Raising his hands, he submitted to the pat-down without a word. He felt the guard’s hands pause when they found the weapon strapped to his ankle.
“Knife,” the guard reported.
“Leave it,” Lucky advised. But the man waited for some unseen signal from Ramirez before he did just that and rose.
“Check the rest of the alley.” Ramirez had the wheezy breathless voice of the chronic asthmatic. Rumor had it that he carried an inhaler in one pocket and a Glock in the other.
The two men came back in moments. “Nothing here.”
Ramirez nodded. “Okay, Boucher, let’s hear what you’ve got.”
“Not yet,” he responded. “I told you, you’re not the only one invited to this party. Let’s wait for our other guest.”
As if on cue, a late-model silver sedan drove slowly by. Moments later, it pulled over, and footsteps approached the alley. Dai
ly had arrived.
The man appeared, flanked by three others, and Lucky was struck by the contrast between Tomsino’s two foes. Daily was tall, broad and blond, while Ramirez was short, wiry and swarthy. But they were two of a kind for all that. They both made their living on the wrong side of the law, and they were united in their hatred of Tomsino.
The earlier scene was re-enacted as Daily ordered his guards to frisk Lucky. There was a short tussle when it became apparent neither Ramirez nor Daily was going to submit to a search by the other man’s bodyguards.
“Why don’t I do the honors?” Lucky suggested, as tempers flared. Grudgingly each man agreed, and he performed the act briskly. “Ramirez is carryin’ a piece and Daily’s got a knife,” he announced, rising. “Do we want to dance here all night, or are we goin’ to give up our weapons for the duration of the meetin’?”
There was silence, long enough for worry to begin gnawing before each man gave up their weapon to their respective bodyguards. It was with more than a little trepidation that Lucky handed his knife to Ramirez’s guard. All his instincts were honed rapier-sharp.
When the guards had all withdrawn the two men turned as one and Daily spoke. “Let’s get to the business that brought us here. You got five minutes, Boucher.”
“We’re all here because we have one thing in common. Each of our lives would improve if Vinny Tomsino weren’t in it.”
He’d said as much to the men when he’d called them earlier to set up this meeting. And they were interested. Their presence tonight attested to that. Whether they were interested enough to put aside their distrust of each other, and of him, remained to be seen.
“I have a plan to get rid of Tomsino.” Lucky leaned a shoulder against the next-door building facing the two men. With his back to the dead end of the alley, and the other two at its mouth, his was the most precarious position. “But in order for it to work, I need to have him distracted, his resources divided. From what I understand, neither of you has a big enough organization to take him on alone. What I’m suggestin’ is that you join forces, at least for the moment.”
“Why the hell should we do that?” It was Daily speaking. His voice sounded like it came from a gravel truck.
“With Tomsino out of the way, the two of you could split up his territory and his operations. Both of you stand to gain a great deal.”
“And what do you stand to gain?” Ramirez wheezed.
“I stay alive. An important detail for me. I don’t care about a share of whatever you take from Tomsino in the course of this whole thing. You can divide everythin’ between yourselves. I’m offerin’ to give you information about his deliveries, his payoffs, schedules, locations of his operations…whatever details I get will be turned over to you. And you two take it from there. But I need you to act fast, hit hard and often.”
“I don’t like it,” Daily said. But he was intrigued. Lucky didn’t have to be able to see his face to know that. “How do we know this isn’t a setup by Tomsino to take us both out?”
His voice patient, Lucky said, “It’s not like you’ll be carrying out the attacks yourselves. You send some of your men to take care of a delivery and something goes bad, how does that affect you?”
“I’m in,” Ramirez interjected. “I can handle this on my own, though. I don’t need no help.”
“That’s up to Daily. If he’s not interested in partnerin’ with you for this operation, it’s yours.” Lucky hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Greed was getting in the way of any good sense Ramirez might have possessed. He doubted he had the manpower to carry this thing off without help.
“If he’s in, so am I.” The response, although grudging, relieved something inside Lucky. “But we need details and time to plan how we’re going to pull anything like this off.”
“I can help you with that.” Lucky reached inside his jacket, then stilled when he saw the other two tense. “Relax.” He pulled out some folded papers and smoothed them out. “I’ve got some details here, and I even did a little of the plannin’ for you.”
“You’re later than you thought you’d be.” After letting him in, Jacey followed Lucky from the hallway to the living room. “You missed Tomsino.”
He whirled so quickly then she almost ran into him. “He stopped by here tonight?”
Her wrist throbbed, as if in response. “He was here. It’s Mark Garvey, Lucky. I didn’t get a clue as to what the connection was, but he’s the one Tomsino wants sanitized.”
A grim mask had descended over his features. “What did he say? Did he threaten you?”
A shiver snaked down her spine at the menace in his voice. At that moment, she would have bet that Lucky and Tomsino were evenly matched when it came to sheer danger. “He threatened you. He said you’d be killed if I didn’t cooperate.”
To her dismay, he nodded, as if in satisfaction. “Good. That tells me he’s thinkin’ twice about harmin’ you. Your family is too high-profile in the city for the likes of him to take on.”
His casual dismissal of the threats fired the concern that had been gnawing at her all night. “Don’t dismiss it so easily. I had the impression that he would be only too happy to get rid of you.”
“Don’ worry, cher.” He came closer and took her shoulders in his hands, brought her close to him. Resting his chin in her hair, he murmured, “He thinks he has you scared for me, and that will make him feel invincible. He’ll be less likely to see what’s comin’ at him until he’s been hit.”
“What exactly is coming at him? What were you doing tonight?”
“Arrangin’ for Tomsino to be distracted. With his attention on a dozen different things goin’ wrong at once, he’ll have less time to focus on what we’re up to.” He gave her a brief, and she was sure, very abbreviated version of his evening.
Frost slicked up her spine. “Given their occupations, those two men are probably little better than Tomsino. You took a huge risk meeting with them both tonight.” The nonchalant shrug he gave infuriated her. “You should have discussed it with me first, Lucky. This is my case. We assess the risks together. How do we even know this will work? Maybe we ought to take what we have to the police.”
“The police?” His tone was derisive. “And tell them what, darlin’? That mean ol’Tomsino said bad things to you, threatened my life? How you goin’ to prove that?”
“With this.” She reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out the mini-recorder. With a push of a button she replayed a portion of the tape for him before shutting it off again.
A delighted smile crossed his lips and he picked up her hand, kissed the palm. “That’s my brainy lady. But you took a risk, and it really wasn’t worth it. He could have discovered what you were doin’, and there’s no tellin’ what he would have done. He’s a nasty bastard.”
She didn’t need the reminder. “What do you mean, it wasn’t worth the risk? It’s evidence.”
“It might interest the police if they tripped over my body and needed an idea who to look at, but right now this would be worthless to them.” Cupping her shoulders in his hands, he kneaded them gently, his gaze steady on hers. “Trust me. This is the best way. The only way I can think of.”
She looked away. She wasn’t so sure, but at the moment she had nothing better to offer. “How do you know what details to give those men? He’s bound to have changed his operation since you worked for him.”
“But my friend worked for him as recently as a few days ago.” And Remy, he remembered, hadn’t hesitated to tell him everything when Lucky had called him this afternoon. That kind of unselfishness had nearly unmanned him. By giving Lucky the information that could dismantle Tomsino’s operation, he’d ensured there would be no job for him to return to.
And if his plan failed, there was a good chance that Tomsino would start looking hard for the source of the leaks. It wasn’t only Jacey and Lucky’s lives that might hang in the balance here. It could well be Remy’s, too.
A bolt of determination tigh
tened through him. He was humbled by the risk his friend had taken without question. And Remy’s involvement just raised the stakes. He wouldn’t fail. He couldn’t.
“I still don’t like it.”
There was a little frown on her brow, the one she always got when she was trying to puzzle something out. “Whether you want to or not, there’s going to be a time when the police will have to get involved. If we find evidence that will nail Tomsino during the course of this investigation, we’d be better off letting law enforcement handle it.”
“T’es bien.” He kissed her forehead. “That’s right. But that time isn’t now. I just set the plan in motion, darlin’. We have to give it some time for things to start happenin’.”
He could feel her muscles relax beneath his fingers, a fraction at a time, so he brought her closer, rubbed his hand in slow circular motions at the base of her spine. She arched into him like a cat.
“How will we know when the time is right to act?”
He began walking backwards, urging her to the staircase that would take them to her bedroom. To heaven. “It’s like bein’ a demolitions expert, mon ange. Tonight I sprinkled the minefield. All we have to do is wait for the detonation.”
The next day seemed to crawl by, although there was plenty to keep them busy. She and Lucky took turns monitoring the laptop and keeping in contact with the surveillance agents. Two teams had followed Mark Garvey to a restaurant the night before, where he’d met a woman for dinner, then Mark had proceeded later alone to a nightclub, where he’d stayed until 2:00 a.m. before going home. Photos had been taken of the woman he’d dined with, as well as the locations where he’d spent time.
One team had followed his companion home and Jacey was digging up her identity now, based on the address. Hours of poring over property transfers had paid off when she was able to put a name to the face. Imelda Braun. The name wasn’t familiar. She ran a NEXIS on her, figuring it would probably be a dead end. From what Garvey’s neighbor had said, the man had a revolving door for a social life. She’d been surprised he’d gone home alone.
