“Don’t ask me. You married her.”
“Yeah, but... Nicole?” That was a sight he’d never expected to see, but it was her, by hell, big round Hollywood sunglasses and all. What she do, fall off the deep end? She punched the gas, ramming the back of the cab with her pricey ride and pushing them into a spin. He hung on tight while the cabbie struggled for control. The cab swung too far left, then over-corrected the other way before it righted itself and landed firmly on all four wheels.
“Will you get down, Tucker?” Melissa barked. “You’re not well enough for this. Do what you’re told for once.”
“Bullshit,” he snarled at his dearly beloved, the woman whose ass he was definitely going to paddle if she didn’t stop telling him what to do. “You got a weapon?”
“You can’t kill your son’s mother,” she shot back at him.
“No, but I can blow her tires.” “Speaking of which, where the hell is Deuce?”
“He’s with me,” Isaiah replied promptly. “I’m trying to get between you and your crazy, umm, relative.”
“You got a gun? I’ve got nothing.”
“Yes, you do. I stashed a pistol under Melissa’s seat just in case things went bad like they usually do.”
“Thank you, sir,” Tucker replied humbly as he bent over and fingered the weapon out of its hiding place, racked it, and took aim out the back window.
“Where’d you get that?” Melissa barked, her eyes wide with fright and her arms full of Deuce’s frightened friend. “Stop, Tucker. Don’t shoot her. You can’t.”
“I’m not going to, but...” Tucker shot her a baleful glare, “... you and I are going to have a serious talk about who’s in charge the next time we’re in the same room together, young lady. Keep it up and I’m going to tune your backside good when we get home. Now get down and keep Luke safe.”
Her eyes were wide at his blatant threat and she ducked to the floor, but damn it. She had to understand that he, and only he, ruled the Tucker Chase roost. Only him. When guns were involved.
Another round hit the cab, striking the rear window frame before it ricocheted to the left. The poor cabbie hunched into the steering wheel, grumbling but still going. Melissa screamed. Safety glass flew everywhere, and still that damned Mercedes plowed into the back of the cab again. What drugs was Nicole on?
Tucker aimed low even as his psycho ex pointed her shiny silver pistol out the window and took a shot at him, screaming her guts out by the looks of it, her blonde hair rife with the wind.
“You bitch,” he hissed as he put one round in her front tire. “Shoot me, will you.”
She screamed something at him, her mouth wide open and her lips working, but honestly? He’d heard it all before. Sirens shrilled in the distance. The police were coming. Things were about to get damned ugly.
She slammed on the brakes when her tire blew, and the cabbie left the ex-Mrs. Chase behind with the police on her tail for a change. From there, the cab took a sharp left down a narrow alley lined with blackened dirty bricks, then another left and a quick right while Tucker tried to hang onto the seat and stay on his knees. Where’d this guy learn to drive? Running moonshine in the back hills of Tennessee?
At last, the flustered driver pulled into a garage so narrow, it seemed they’d never be able to open the cab doors. Tucker tapped Melissa’s shoulder, his heart still pounding like a mother. “Are you okay?”
She lifted her tear-stained face. “It’s Luke. She... she shot him.”
Tucker scrambled over the seat to Melissa. “No,” he growled, pissed at the getaway that should’ve ended better. Not like this.
The cabbie had already hightailed it through an inner garage door, and in seconds, he returned with another man in spectacles. The older guy sidled alongside the cab and gently pulled Tucker out of the way. “You go now,” he said. “I fix.”
Tucker stood back while this guy took over, but Melissa was covered in blood, and he couldn’t do anything but stand there and watch.
“He my uncle,” the cabbie offered somberly. “He good doctor.”
“I’m sorry, who are you?” Tucker asked, his memory spotty at best.
“I Jacob Giang. Your girlfriend driver,” he replied, his dark eyes glued to what was taking place in the front seat of his cab. Tucker listened to Melissa’s soft, sad murmurs as she crooned over Luke.
“I owe you,” Tucker said humbly. “I owe you a car and for helping us and…” God, not this.
“Tucker, what’s wrong? Did you guys get away safely?” Isaiah asked from wherever he and Deuce were.
“No,” he reported sadly. “One casualty. How about you? Is my son safe? Please say yes, damn it.”
“Yes, but... who? Not Melissa.”
Tucker didn’t want to say until he was sure. He held his breath, hoping against the odds that ricochet hadn’t wasted a young boy’s life. That Nicole hadn’t gotten the revenge she’d promised with her final threat.
Jacob’s uncle lifted his head, sadness in his eyes. He blinked and took his glasses off. He never said a word, but Tucker knew the second Melissa let out a slow, sad whimper. He gulped hard and projected the heartbreaking news to Isaiah and Deuce. “Shit. Man down. Luke is… dead.”
He heard it then, the high-pitched mental anguish of his son for his only friend. “No, Dad. No! He can’t be dead. He... he can’t!”
“You hold still for me.” Jacob’s uncle was a patient man. Somber. Old. He smelled like fish and the river, probably because his home was a solid wood Vietnamese junk. Tied up alongside a city of shanties on stilts along the polluted Saigon River, the two-level pagoda-style craft was no small boat like the bevy of sampans beside it. This elegant watercraft bobbed in the gentle waves and wakes of other boats. It looked fairly modern from what Melissa had seen of it. Clean, wooden plank floors led to a hall and several small examination rooms. It seemed Jacob’s uncle was a traveling doctor, tending to patients and families up and down the Saigon.
But Melissa couldn’t hold still. Sorrow kept sneaking up and choking her. Poor Luke, most likely Luc, Jacob had explained, a simple mistake for a naïve American boy to have made.
Jacob brought her another cup of tea while his uncle stitched the crease on her left bicep, the wound Nicole’s bullet had left on its way to murder an innocent child.
Jacob had taken Tucker below. She’d checked on him before she let herself be treated, but he was mercifully sound asleep. Melissa suspected Jacob’s uncle had given him something to knock him out or he never would’ve succumbed as quickly as he had. Not after this.
Another tear trickled down her cheek.
“There, there,” Jacob murmured, patting her back, still her faithful companion.
His uncle wrapped a sterile length of gauze around her arm.
“May I know your name, please?” she asked, fighting her emotions.
“My family name is Giang, but you may call me Dr. Noah,” he said kindly.
“You have unusual names for Vietnamese.”
He nodded, his eyes on the tape he’d pressed to her bandage. “We have taken Christian names.”
“You’re Christian?” Another surprise.
“And Buddhist and Taoist.” Jacob shrugged, winking at her. “All are good.”
She got that, but this day hadn’t been good. Because Isaiah and Deuce had witnessed the shot that killed Luke, they were both held at the scene for questioning. Isaiah had actually used that beat-up Chevy to box Nicole in until the police got through the traffic to her. It was a brave move with a psychotic woman with a gun, especially for a man with a record, which now she understood both Tucker and Isaiah had. What a mess this goodwill mission to Vietnam had turned into.
Isaiah had provided a first-hand account of Nicole’s other underhanded activities up to the point of the shooting. Poor Deuce was held for questioning, too, but when Isaiah handed over a copy of the audio clip of Nicole’s brash proposition for Tucker to murder her husband and his two sons, the cards were stacked ag
ainst her. Karma proved she couldn’t get away with everything. Just most things. Just all the wicked things she and Vinnie had heaped on Deuce before his father had shown up. Just killing Luke.
That close encounter with the police had raised another problem: Tucker’s failure to adhere to the imposed deadline to get out of the country. The police officers on the scene hadn’t seemed too interested once they understood all that Deuce had gone through at his stepfather’s hands. They all knew of the wealthy garment manufacturer. Nguyễn Vin Li was on their list of child slavery suspects. They just hadn’t caught up with him yet. After they released Isaiah and Deuce without further questioning, they took Nicole off to jail.
Jacob returned to her side with a steaming pot of tea. “I fix,” he said simply as he arranged the pot alongside a row of porcelain cups.
“Do you live here with your uncle, Jacob?” It seemed strange there were no women or children on their boat.
He lifted his shoulders, his answer for many of her questions. Handing a steamy cup to her, he motioned for her to take a drink. “You feel better soon.”
“What’s in it?” she asked, not sure if she really cared as long as it helped her sleep. She’d trusted this simple cab driver and his uncle more than she trusted most people.
“It is an herbal blend. Try it. You will like.”
Melissa took a long sip of the scalding-hot brew. Lemon. Rosehips maybe. Something else she couldn’t quite decipher. “Thank you, gentlemen, for helping me and my friends. You don’t even know me.”
Dr. Noah nodded, his dark eyes unsmiling. “The body requires rest to heal. The mind, too. You must go below. Sleep.”
He made it sound easy. Melissa nodded, then headed downstairs to the room where Tucker lay on his side on the double bed, softly snoring and out cold. Deuce had lain down with his dad, his back against his father’s chest. He’d pulled the light blanket over his legs, his hands folded under his chin, his face blotched from crying, and his eyes closed tight. It was the sweetest, saddest picture of a father and son Melissa had ever seen.
She leaned against the doorframe, content to soak in the sight of this passionate father who obviously loved his son more than life. Most men she knew didn’t hug their children, much less sleep with them. It looked as if Tucker would never let Deuce go. She was thankful for the strong men in her life, especially the one with his nose buried in his son’s curly black hair. Deuce could’ve passed for Tucker twenty years ago. At least Nicole had done one thing right. She’d given birth to the little boy that obviously held his father’s heart.
Isaiah would be back soon from the Cho Ray Hospital where the police had taken Luke’s body. Due to Isaiah’s evidence, no official investigation would be conducted. There was no need. Sweet little Luke had no family to insist on one, and the medical examiner who’d come to Noah’s home had already confirmed cause of death, a simple conclusion when a bullet was involved. In seven days there would be a funeral. Until then...
Melissa shuddered at what Tucker might do. He was a man of action. Many things were black and white, clear-cut, to be done quickly without over-thinking. He had a father’s hatred for Vinnie. He wouldn’t just sit around and talk about it. He would act.
“You want mat?” Jacob asked, ever the watchful friend, gesturing down the narrow hall, “or better room? More private for woman. You take?”
Melissa released a heartfelt sigh. “Thank you, Jacob, but I’d rather sleep with my guys. A mat on the floor will be fine.”
Tucker woke slowly. Carefully. Feeling no pain, an odd sensation after spending so many miserable days with something hurting, he stretched.
It was midnight-dark in the room. Deuce wasn’t beside him, and that was okay. Tucker no longer had the rising panic to hunt his boy down to make sure he was safe. He could hear him somewhere on this small boat, chatting with Isaiah about astral projections and other crazy, psychic stuff.
Tucker didn’t want to believe he was psychic. It messed with his tough-guy image, yet he had heard Deuce cry out when Luke was killed. Somehow Tucker had heard him. That mournful scream of pain inside his head was his boy’s. Tucker had no choice. He had to admit. Blessed or cursed, he was a teensy bit psychic.
The sounds of gentle waves lapping against the hull of the junk comforted him. Tucker had barely eased one foot to the floor when he spotted Melissa curled on a simple mat a few feet from his bed with her back to him. Her massive tangles of honey blonde curls were tossed behind her in a lovely pile of gold on the mat. Nothing but a light woven blanket covered her. Her shoulders barely rose with each breath. The crazy woman had come all the way back to Vietnam for him. It didn’t get any better than that. Beautiful. Just plain beautiful.
Lifting off the bed, he knelt beside her, then rolled to his hip and cradled her delicate feminine form within his bigger frame. She fit like a lamb inside its shepherd’s arms. He nestled closer, one arm beneath his head, the other draped along her side, his fingers tucked in behind her knee. “I love you, babe,” he whispered.
She pushed her backside into him and sighed the husky, breathy murmur of a sleeping woman. Warm. Quiet. Trusting.
He nuzzled his nose to her ear. “You make me complete,” he said simply. Honestly. From the bottom of his hard man’s heart. “I’ve been looking for you all my life, Melissa McCormack. Don’t ever leave me.”
She groaned a luscious, grumbly, “Never.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Mornings on the Saigon River were noisy and busy. Tucker stood with his arms crossed over the heavy wooden rail at the bow of Noah Giang’s junk, taking in the view. The doctor’s boat was a spectacle of a thing, right out of a tourist destination poster. Its diesel engine was stowed aft behind a modern and well-equipped pilothouse. It boasted eight cabins in all, four on the main deck and four down on the second deck, all with en suite heads. Tiled showers. Hot and cold running water. Real toilets instead of bombsights.
Both decks boasted full-size, shuttered windows instead of the customary portholes. Two orange sails lifted loftily overhead, their canvases rippling in a stiff south-by-southwest five-knot wind that made Tucker long for his days in the Navy. He suspected the rig had once been a commercial tourist enterprise, as squared away as the galley, mess, and cabins were. The teak bulkhead still gleamed with a good, thick coat of marine varnish, as did the rails and deck. You wouldn’t know it to look at the old guy, but Dr. Giang must turn a goodly profit to be able to afford a junk this grand.
It was early. Tucker hadn’t seen Isaiah or Deuce yet, but they were around somewhere. They couldn’t have gone anywhere, not with the junk set loose from the dock, its sails billowed and full of morning sun and wind. He’d seen plenty of kids and guys scramble from one sampan or barge to the next, but that was what folks on the river did. They got around.
When Melissa joined Tucker at the rail, she planted her hip firmly against his as the sounds and smells of the busy river drifted their way. Tucker smiled at the simple contact. It might seem like nothing to most people, but with it came a sense of oneness he’d never experienced before. He felt as if he were half of a matching pair of salt-and-pepper shakers, she being the better half.
He could finally see out of both eyes, probably because of the herbs and seeds in that poultice he’d found plastered on his eyeball when he’d woken up. Whatever was in Dr. Noah’s homemade concoction, it worked. The swelling was gone, and his eye didn’t feel like raw hamburger any more. It didn’t even sting when he’d peeled back the eyelid to see if the FBI’s mechanized lens still functioned. Thank God for small favors. His pupil dilated and closed properly, and the lens zoomed in and zoomed out like it should have.
His bandaged ribs felt better, too. He felt stronger. Healthier. Too bad his heart still hurt like a mother. Too bad Deuce still felt like shit. A father never stopped wanting to shield his child from life’s hard knocks. What had happened to Luke hurt most of all.
River life was busy with entire families hauling their wares o
f fish, vegetables, and fruits to market. Colorful rafts piled high with oranges and melons floated by. Parents called to children. Men shouted at their neighbors. Others fished what looked and smelled like polluted waters. Life and business abounded.
He wished it would stop. Take a break. Call time out. Game cancelled. It never seemed right how Time marched on after Death called, like it had with Luke. There ought to have been, at least, a moment of silence out of respect for the passing of a motherless child from this life. The sun should hold still in the sky for one minute. It should! People should stop their senseless squabbling and fighting and listen up for a change to what really mattered. They really should.
Because a kid had died, and that singular life did matter. A child’s death was enough reason to stop all the wars in the world if Tucker had his way. Melancholy shifted over him like a cold, wet blanket. Maybe a shroud. He wrapped an arm around Melissa’s waist, settling his palm to her hip, his fingers splayed on her backside. At least the barriers between them were down.
He needed her in ways he’d not realized until then. She wasn’t just his better half, she was the light to his darkness, the glimmer of hope that kept his head above water when he was drowning. She was the goddess who made him want to strive to be a better man.
He’d always thought of himself as the toughest dog in the fight, but now, he wasn’t so sure. Melissa had always radiated a calm peace that called his bluff and bluster from the first time they’d met. If anything, she was the quiet eye of the hurricane and he the storm whirling around her, needing her to center him. To give him something real to hold onto. Something permanent.
The good doctor’s houseboat offered many amenities, including phone service. Of course, Melissa had already called Nancy Tao to ask how Pich and the girls were doing, Mimi, Peewee, and the Dangs, too. Nancy had sent a picture over Jacob’s cell phone of Pich in a pretty turquoise silk dress, her hair in two pigtails off the sides of her head, and a shy chocolate-fudge ice cream smile on her face. It did Melissa good to see those girls safe and happy, after the hardships they’d endured.
King of Hearts (Deuces Wild Book 1) Page 27
