Down & Dead In Dixie (Down & Dead, Inc. Series)

by Vicki Hinze

  “I see.” The hurt inside him shone in his eyes, pounded off him in waves. “So when do you leave?”

  “Soon.”

  “Tonight?” He looked a shade shy of panic.

  “No, not tonight,” I lied, knowing if I didn’t, he’d stick to me like glue, try to stop me, and that could get us both killed. “Tomorrow evening at the earliest. Flight is being arranged.” He’d assume I meant air travel and, God forgive me, I let him.

  “By whom?”

  My face burned like fire. Oh, but I made a lousy liar. Still, I had to do it. This was for him. To spare him and keep him safe and out of danger. “My brother.” I pecked a kiss to Mark’s cheek. “We’ll talk more about it tomorrow. Right now, Rachel needs something. She’s signaling me to come to her. I’d better see what it is.”

  “Mark. Great to see you.” A rowdy man clasped Mark’s shoulder and claimed his attention.

  I cut through the crowd, paused to give Rachel’s hand a last squeeze. “Take care of him. One day when it’s safe, tell him the truth, and tell him I didn’t want to leave him.” He would feel abandoned. Again. I knew and hated it. But what else could I do? Plunk him down right in the middle of all this? Have his neck on the line, too? I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t.

  “I’ll tell him. When it’s safe,” Rachel promised.

  My eyes stung and I bit my lower lip to divert my attention. Tears never had solved anything. “Tell him, I’d have given everything to not leave him, but I couldn’t risk getting him killed.” His family and now her. Even if given no choice, they’d all left him and he did feel abandoned. That hurt so deep I couldn’t tell where the pain even started, only that I felt it skin to bones. Memories of Jackson and me waiting for our mother to come back flashed through my mind, making the pain worse. The despair. The desolation. Abandoned and deemed worthless. Alone.

  “I’ll tell him.” Rachel interrupted the assault. “Be safe, and hurry.” Her gaze wasn’t on me. It was on the door.

  Lou Boudin had arrived—and not ten feet behind him, Victor Marcello and his entourage of body-guard goons walked in. My heart skipped a full beat and my legs turned to jelly.

  “Go!” Rachel whispered a shout, motioning away from the men.

  I couldn’t move. It seemed like I’d frozen in place. Why couldn’t I move?

  Lester and Emily moved in and planted themselves between Boudin, Marcello and me.

  Emily shrieked, then yelled. “Don’t move!” She spread her arms wide and spun in a circle. “I’ve lost a contact. Help me find it. I can’t see a thing.”

  That caused a stir that had everyone around her halting in place, bending their necks to look at the floor.

  Rachel provided cover for me, and my legs decided to work. I slipped out the door, seeking one last look at Mark before heading down the steps.

  He’d apparently been watching me and now pushed through the crowd toward the door. I turned and flew down the steps, determined to get to the car before he could catch me. Honestly, I just wanted him safe, and I wasn’t convinced I had the strength to walk away from him twice.

  At the curb, I spotted a man standing outside a black limo dressed as a carriage footman. He motioned to me.

  Had to be Rachel’s husband, Chris. I headed toward him.

  He opened the door. “Hurry, Daisy. Mark is—”

  I dove into the back of the car. The door slammed shut, Chris ran around, got in, and pulled out into traffic, leaving half his tires on the pavement.

  “Uh-oh.”

  “What?” I righted myself in the back seat, unwrapping the gnarled gown from my legs.

  “Lou Boudin just tackled Mark.”

  I spun in the seat to look through the rearview. “Why?”

  “It’s obvious. They think he knew about you.”

  “Slow down.”

  “No way.” Chris hit the gas and did a one-eighty in the street, then stomped the pedal and headed back to Jameson Court, whipped into a slot across the street. “They’ll kill him, Daisy. He can’t stay here any more than you can. Not now.”

  My heart ripped open. The heavy tint on the windows protected me from being recognized, but I cracked my window so I could better hear. The street was well-lighted so everything outside the limo was clearly visible, and chaotic. “Oh, God. I didn’t want this. I’ve ruined his life.”

  Boudin and Mark fought in the street. Marcello walked out with his goons and one did something at the corner of the building. They hustled into a waiting limo and sped away.

  “They’ve done something bad over there.” I sensed it down to the tips of my toes.

  “I saw it.” Chris apparently agreed. He whipped out his phone and hit someone on speed dial. “Rachel, get out of there. Get everyone out—now!” A pause, then, “Are you leaving yet?”

  Lester and Emily came down the stairs to the street, Lester yelling for everyone to run. He and Emily kept moving. What had alerted him to the danger to others?

  People flooded down the stairs and kept going, running down the street. Rachel ran among them, snagged a megaphone from uniformed police officer and, holding it to her mouth, she ordered everyone to vacate the premises.

  A second police officer, one the size of a mountain, yelled, “Mark!”

  “Tank. What’s going on?” Mark and Boudin paused swinging at each other long enough for Mark to answer, and Boudin used the distraction to back into the crowd. He disappeared beyond the light, swallowed by the shadows.

  Tank bellowed over the hysterical din of terrified voices. “Bomb threat!”

  My heart stopped. Just stopped. “What should I do?”

  “Stay put,” Chris said. “Marcello obviously tipped off the cops. He’s giving them time to clear the building.”

  “There’s a bomb in Jameson Court?” Mark looked dumbfounded.

  “Another minute and it’ll be empty. Get out of here.”

  “Not while anyone is still inside.”

  “We’ve got it, Mark. Go.” Tank shook Mark’s arms. “They want you dead, man. You hear me? They want you dead.”

  “Me?” He looked baffled. “Who? Why?”

  “Lily Nichols,” Tank said. “She’s really Daisy Grant.”

  Mark lifted his hands. “Who is Daisy Grant?”

  That was the one. The last nail in my coffin. I couldn’t stand anymore. If anyone got hurt, I’d never forgive myself. Ever!

  “Let her explain. You’ve got to get out of here,” Tank said. “Marcello thinks you lied to him to protect her. He’s going to kill you for it and so long as you’re here, all these people are at risk. Go, Mark. Go!”

  Mark looked devastated, destroyed and as lost as I felt. I should never have come here. If I’d had any idea Mark had known Edward or that the Marcello family had operated here before moving to Biloxi, I wouldn’t have come to New Orleans or to Mark. But that was history and it was too late. I had come, and now I’d cost Mark everything. His home and business and perhaps his life. Tears flooded my face.

  Chris groaned, opened his car door and then jumped out and waved. “Mark! Over here!”

  Rachel joined Chris. “I’m going to get a few blocks away but I need to be close since Mark can’t be here. I’m the only other one who can do things at the Court.”

  “Get in,” Chris told his wife. “I’ll take you to the casino on the riverfront. You can wait there until Tank calls and gives you an all clear.”

  Rachel nodded, then slid into the front passenger seat.

  “I’ll call as soon as I can,” Tank said to Rachel and then looked at Mark, his eyes deadpan serious. “Disappear. Don’t come back. There’s a contract out on you, buddy. A big one. I can’t protect you.” He urged Mark into the limo in the seat beside me.

  Too choked up to utter a sound, I relied on silent tears to let him know my regret.

  Tank took a call on his radio. “Building’s empty,” he relayed to Mark. “Go—and don’t look back. Never come back.”

  Chris got in, slapped
the gearshift into Drive, and then took off down the street.

  Mark didn’t say a word. He wouldn’t even look at me. Rachel turned in the front seat, looking back at Jameson Court. “Police are pulling back,” she said. “Everyone’s definitely out.” She blew out a deep sigh. “Thank goodness.”

  That was good. Very good.

  Mark stared straight ahead as if stunned. “Who is Daisy Grant? What’s she got to do with me?”

  I opened my mouth to confess, but Chris checked the rearview and blurted out, “Isn’t that—”

  Rachel gasped. “It’s Anthony Adriano.”

  Edward’s shooter. I craned my neck but still couldn’t see well. “What is he—“

  An explosion down the street rocked the car.

  I hunched down, covered my head with my arms, then sprung up and looked back toward the sound at the same time Mark spun to look.

  Windows shattered. Doors blasted off. Flames licked at every opening and all of Jameson Court belched thick, black plumes of billowing smoke. My quiet tears turned to unabashed sobs.

  Mark stared at his burning restaurant, his face as impenetrable as carved stone.

  Rachel dialed her phone. “Tank, Tony Adriano did it. I saw him.”

  “Are you crazy?” Her husband crashed the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. “You want to be on their hit list, too?”

  “Unofficially, Tank,” Rachel said. “Just so you know.” She paused, listened, then told Chris, “Drop me off at the casino, then get them out of here fast. Tank says the car is still safe but not to mess around.”

  So Tank had helped protect the waiting car. He was in on my flight, too. Would Mark do as they suggested and leave with me? I expected that as soon as I admitted I was Daisy Grant, he would want to get as far away from me as possible.

  He could take the car Rachel had intended for me and put me out of the limo and onto the street. I wouldn’t blame him, any of them, for that. In fact, I should be brave enough to insist on it myself. I needed to get far, far away from all of them before someone found me and hurt them.

  I cleared my throat, hoping my voice worked. “When we get to the car, Mark, you take it. I’ll find another way.”

  He looked a little stunned and immensely angry but said nothing, and he didn’t ask again about Daisy Grant. Either he’d figured out Daisy and Lily were one and the same, or that no longer mattered to him. Considering he’d just lost the last traces of his family—the antiques at Jameson Court—his silence could be due to either or both.

  At this point, it didn’t really matter. Nothing he could say would make me feel any more guilty than I already felt. I cared about him, and I had ruined his life.

  The full weight of that pressed down on me in the way only messing up really bad on something critically important that can’t be undone or fixed can bear down on a woman.

  How in the world was I supposed to live with this? He’d worked so hard to build his future and I’d cost him everything he had. I didn’t even have the right to apologize for it and ask his forgiveness.

  Once he learned the truth—that I am the reason he’d lost everything—he’d hate me forever.

  I couldn’t blame him. I hated myself.

  Chris’s gaze snagged on the rearview and then he turned to look. “Oh, no.”

  “What’s wrong now?” Mark asked.

  “Someone is following us.”

  Mark and I both turned to look back, but it was too dark to make out more than headlights. Chris hooked a last-minute turn that removed all doubt.

  We definitely had picked up a tail. The words tumbled out of my mouth. “I’m sorry. I’m so . . . sorry.”

  Chapter 9

  THREE TURNS LATER, Chris out-maneuvered the car tailing us and it lost track. Once certain it wouldn’t pick us up again, he made a beeline for an old warehouse near the river. It wasn’t the sort of place you’d drive in the light of day much less deep in the night. Lights peppered the street, though more than two-thirds had been busted out, and groups of rough-looking men loitered on every corner. No women were in sight, and considering the odds ranked high that I’d be walking out of here alone, that fact elevated my anxiety level which already flirted with straddling the stratosphere.

  Between two tall brown buildings, Chris braked to a halt. The shadows dragged so deep I couldn’t see a thing beyond the tinted glass. “Why are you stopping here?”

  “Two buildings down, in the back alley, you’ll find a black Honda Civic. He passed back the keys with a little grunt and a ruffle of fabric; his sleeve brushing against the back of his seat. “There’s a spare key in the glove-box.”

  I didn’t reach for the keys. I didn’t have the right.

  Frowning in my general direction, Mark took them.

  “Will you two be together?” Chris looked back at us. “Rachel’s going to want to know…”

  Before Mark could answer, I did. “No. I’ll be going on alone.”

  “She won’t,” Mark contradicted me. “Tell Rachel, yes, we’ll be together.” Pausing to glare at me, he went on. “I’m not losing everything else and you, Daisy. Wherever we go, we will go together.”

  Daisy. He’d worked through it and put the pieces together, and still, he wasn’t kicking me to the curb to face my enemies on my own. I swallowed hard, so moved and relieved I didn’t dare try to speak.

  “Where are you going?”

  I started to answer Chris, but then thought better of it. The less he knew, the better. Safer for him and for Rachel.

  “I have no idea. Someplace . . . else,” Mark said, then focused on me. “Did you hear what I said?” He pushed for an acknowledgement I didn’t want to give him.

  The less Chris knew the safer we’d all be, including Mark. “I heard you.”

  “And you planned to go . . . where?”

  I looked Chris right in the eye and said nothing.

  Mark frowned, short on patience and not bothering to hide it. After what had happened to him tonight, who could blame him? “I don’t think she has a clue. But even if she did, with the Marcello and Adriano families up to their necks in all this with the FBI and locals, you don’t want to know. They’ll just add you to their hit list.”

  “I can’t tell Rachel that,” Chris objected. “She’ll stay wired for sound, worrying about you. We’re trying to get pregnant, remember? No stress.”

  Something in Chris’s body language had my internal radar alerting. I had no idea why. The man had been nothing but good and kind and had put himself at considerable risk for me, but something warned me that stress and Rachel conceiving came secondary to something else. I couldn’t see him crossing Mark. And he and Rachel had put their necks on the proverbial chopping block, helping me. Still, something wasn’t quite right there, and because it wasn’t, I kept my intentions to myself. “She won’t stress,” I said. “Rachel is practical and she would agree. The less said the better.”

  “But she’ll—”

  The thread of Mark’s patience broke. “Listen, you can’t know, okay? They’ll hurt you or Rachel—or both of you—to make you tell them. You can’t tell what you don’t know. It’s that simple. Now let it go, Chris. The subject is closed.”

  “I get it,” he said, his mouth flattening to a thin seam. “I’m just thinking of my wife. She loves you, Mark. She’s going to be terrified. Give me something.”

  “I already did,” Mark said, his tone thick with frost. “I told you we’d be together and we will.” He motioned, frustrated. “Do either of you even hear a word I say? We are going together, Daisy. That’s it. Let it go.”

  “I hear you.” I placed a hand on Mark’s, resting on his knee. “And I am sorry, Mark. If I’d realized—”

  “So you’ve said. Drop it. I need to process all this, okay? Give me time.” He let out a stuttered sigh. “Let’s move. Sitting here isn’t a good idea.”

  Chris turned in his seat, looked at Mark. “To get word to Rachel, text my cell. Ditch yours now and get another. T
ext me or leave a draft email in my gmail account. Don’t send it. Just start a draft to David and save it. I’ll check it a couple times a day. We’ll send money, whatever you need.”

  Mark’s expression soured. The weight of all this was coming home and bearing down on him. It showed in his posture and grim expression. “It’s a good thing I gave Rachel full power of attorney.”

  “I’m sorry we need it.” Chris avoided looking at me. “Draft emails are a way for us to converse without anyone being the wiser. Since they’re not sent…”

  “That doesn’t work anymore,” I corrected Chris. “NSA sees even the drafts.”

  “So be cryptic—unless you have a better idea.”

  “Cryptic works,” Mark said.

  Something about this whole exchange with Chris bothered me. I couldn’t pinpoint why. It just felt . . . off.

  “Better get going,” Chris said, vigilant, watchful. “Daisy, be well and stay safe.”

  “Thank you.” I faked a smile and kept my misgivings to myself. “Thank Rachel for me, too.”

  Chris nodded.

  Mark and I left the limo and half-walked, half-ran across the uneven, cracked concrete to the Honda. By the time we got there, my ankle was throbbing up to my knee. Dancing with Mark had it tender. Running had pushed it back over the edge.

  In the weeks since I’d gotten to Jameson Court, Mark had tried multiple times to get me to go to the doc, but I didn’t want to expose myself any more than I already had. Too many had seen me already. Maybe Detective Keller had been right and I had broken a bone in the original fall.

  “You okay?” Mark asked, holding the door and motioning me to get inside.

  “Fine.” I scooted onto the seat and buckled up.

  He went around, got in, then shut his own door.

  I dreaded mentioning the internal alarms Chris had triggered, but I couldn’t not mention them to Mark. I worked at a logical reason to not say a word. I just couldn’t find one, and so I gave in. “Mark, something wasn’t right with Chris. I don’t know exactly what, and I started not to mention it… I know you trust Rachel implicitly, but—”