Sleepwalker

by Karen Robards

  “There they are,” Terry Abrizzo shouted from the back of the pack, pointing out to the other guys what they had clearly already realized. Well, Abrizzo had always been a little slow on the uptake. Short and faintly pudgy, he had a perpetually worried expression that had just become even more pronounced than usual as he tried to keep his balance in the snow while taking in the scenario in front of him.

  “Hold it right there!” Lenny Otis yelled, his gun coming up and his feet planting on the walkway as he got his act together and assumed lock-and-load position. Bald and beefy, Otis was older than the others, had been on Uncle Nicco’s payroll for years, and tended to be more intelligent than Uncle Nicco’s average thug. Thus, the group seemed to look to him as an unofficial leader. Mimicking Otis, everybody’s guns came up and their feet planted.

  “Don’t fucking move,” a bunch of them screamed in almost perfect unison.

  “Stay back!” The thief yanked her against him and imprisoned her with an arm wrapped around her throat. Caught by surprise, Mick lost her footing. The brick walkway down which they had been racing was cleared of all but the newest snow, but underneath it was icy; her flip-flops were already wet, and they slipped on the brick like bowling balls sliding down a lane. When her feet went out from under her, she dropped like a rock and, in the process, lost her grip on the suitcase. Her chin caught on the thief’s hard-muscled upper arm, snapping her jaws together, jarring her teeth, wringing a surprised oomph out of her. She hung there, choking, feet scrabbling for purchase, shocked to find herself in such a position. Uncle Nicco’s guys, most of whom she’d known for years, goggled at her in astonishment. Her momentary discomfiture embarrassed her as much as it surprised them, and even as she fought to regain her balance she glared fiercely back at them.

  I can kick all your butts, and you know it, so you can just quit looking at me like that were the words she mentally hurled at them. She would have shouted it out if she hadn’t been choking at the time.

  As she desperately clutched at the thief’s imprisoning arm while fighting for breath, it was all she could do not to react to her predicament with a sharp elbow jab to his ribs, which would have freed her in a heartbeat. But by keeping the endgame firmly in mind, she managed to hold off on doing him bodily harm long enough to get her feet underneath her again.

  Coughing, wheezing, shifting from foot to frozen foot as she regained her balance and stood up, Mick looked around to find the suitcase tipped onto its side in the deep snow beside the path. Mick had thought that her fall had stopped their escape cold. Now she realized it had been his refusal to abandon the stolen money.

  “Get the damn suitcase,” her captor muttered in her ear.

  “Oh my God, can’t you think of anything else?” she hissed back. “You think they’re going to let you keep that money in jail?”

  “Get it.”

  “Let her go,” Otis yelled, reclaiming their attention.

  “Back off,” the thief yelled in reply. Mick felt her gun jab her in the side. Her primary reaction was more annoyance than alarm: she knew the gesture was not so much threat to her per se as posturing for the benefit of the guys. Then, into her ear at a volume meant for her alone, he added, in the tone of a man whose patience was being severely tried, “We’re going to move, then I want you to lean over and pick up that suitcase.”

  “What are you going to do if I refuse?”

  “Believe me, you don’t want to find out.”

  “Ohh, there you go, scaring me again.”

  “You know what? I’m surprised somebody hasn’t shot you before now.”

  “I’m not saying I think you’re Einstein or anything, but I’m guessing you’re smart enough not to shoot me when I’m all that’s standing between you and them.”

  She nodded at Uncle Nicco’s numbskulls, who, clumsy in their confusion, jostled each other and watched as, during the course of this whispered exchange, the thief jimmied her to the edge of the sidewalk next to where the suitcase lay in the snow. Having so many guns aimed at her by her longtime friends and acquaintances was unnerving, she discovered as she faced them. Brains weren’t these guys’ strong suit. It was clear that, faced with a problem such as the one confronting them now, they had no clue what to do. Watching and elbowing one another while making indecisive sounds and vaguely threatening gestures with their weapons was just lame, in Mick’s opinion.

  “Keep away,” the thief warned when Otis took a step forward and a couple of the others followed suit. Otis looked undecided, and Mick knew the others would take their lead from him.

  “Do what he says,” Mick yelled to help them out in the decision-making process.

  “Good girl,” came the slightly surprised sounding whisper in her ear. The arm around her neck shifted abruptly. She felt his fist curl into the back of her tank while the gun eased off enough so that, while it was still aimed at her, it was no longer touching her. “Now pick up the suitcase.”

  I’ll give you good girl, she thought as she did as he told her, but this was not the time. For now, much as she hated to face it, his objective was hers, as well: they both needed to get out of the compound as quickly as possible. Peripherally she was aware of fat flakes of snow falling like fresh-sifted flour, forming a gossamer curtain between her and the guys. They settled on her bare skin like frozen bits of New Year’s confetti and melted where they touched. She blinked as flakes caught on her lashes. Her nose had to be as red as her pants, she knew. Her feet felt like blocks of ice. As soon as she straightened with the suitcase, the thief’s arm once more curved close around her throat.

  Choked again. This time she did elbow him in the ribs. Not hard enough to free herself but with just enough force to get her message across. He grunted, then slightly relaxed his grip.

  “Jackass,” she hissed, just loud enough so that she could be sure he heard.

  “Let her go,” Otis shouted, while the group jostled around and pointed their weapons at her and the thief some more. But the jostling had purpose, Mick saw: the guys were spread out in a C shape now, sneakily working on cutting them off.

  “Don’t come any closer,” the thief yelled and started dragging her back toward the pool house. Every single gun swerved to track them. At the thought that they all probably had their safeties off, Mick’s skin crawled. Her heart, which was already pumping pretty fast, kicked it up another degree or so. The potential for disaster was terrifying, but dwelling on it did no good. Deliberately she closed her mind to the possibility that at any minute somebody’s trigger finger might twitch. Even so, she could almost feel a bullet ripping through her flesh.

  We’ve got to get out of here.

  We—as in her and the thief. The thought of what side of the fence she was now on was mind-boggling.

  “Stop right there!” Otis yelled. He was holding his gun so tightly that it quivered.

  “I’ll kill her,” the thief warned. Making a token show of reluctance while taking good care that she didn’t actually hamper him in any way, Mick stumbled backward in his grip while eyeing her would-be rescuers warily. Besides an accidental discharge, it was always possible that an individual idiot might take it into his head to try to shoot the thief to prevent an escape. Which, since she was plastered against him and had grave doubts that any of the contingent on duty tonight could put a bullet in an eighteen-wheeler parked inches away, could end badly for her. Plus, she had her own iron in the fire here. What she needed was for them to let him drag her away unhindered.

  “Otis, all you guys, don’t try anything!” she called to them with what she considered a truly artistic degree of shakiness in her voice. “You heard him: he’ll kill me.”

  “We can’t just let him take her.” Bobby Tobe sounded panicked. “The boss’ll be pissed.” Around Mick’s own age, he was thin and nervous. Even across the distance that separated them, she could see that his gun hand shook slightly, and she winced in response. Accidental shootings were just as deadly as on-purpose ones.

  “You ne
ed to let us go,” she called to them again, not even having to fake the conviction in her words. “If you don’t, if I get killed, the blame will be on you.”

  “Nice,” her captor approved in her ear, prompting Mick to longingly picture three different scenarios in which she decked him. But that, like many other things, was going to have to wait for later.

  His arm was once again locked beneath her chin as he pulled her backward with him, but he wasn’t choking her anymore, at least not on purpose. As long as she kept pace with him, as she took good care to do even while doing her best to appear reluctant, his grip allowed sufficient room for her to breathe.

  “Stop! I’ll shoot,” Otis bellowed, assuming firing stance as the thief dragged her within a few yards of the pool house, in the shadow of the tall shrubs that ringed it. The others immediately followed Otis’s lead.

  “You do, she dies,” the thief warned.

  Mick felt her gun shift from her side. A split second later she felt cold steel nuzzle her temple. Alarm shot up her spine. Her pulse rate instantly skyrocketed.

  “No!” she cried to the guys. “Stand down! I’m giving you an order.”

  The guns pointing at them wavered. Otis’s dipped; he looked uncertain. Because she was considered practically a member of the Marino family, and because she was a cop, her words carried weight, she knew.

  “You tell ’em, baby,” came the maddening voice in her ear.

  Later, she promised herself grimly. Even though she was 99.9 percent certain he wouldn’t shoot her, knowing that he had a gun pressed against her head was scary. She had no idea whether or not he was competent with a weapon, or what kind of nerve he possessed. If he should get jittery, the consequences could prove fatal. But she knew for a fact the safety was on, because she could see it from the corner of her eye, so how wrong could things go? Obviously very wrong, considering how her New Year’s Eve was already turning out, but she didn’t want to think about that.

  “Want to get the gun away from my head?” she growled.

  “What, am I scaring you now?”

  “As incompetent as you’ve been so far tonight? Oh, yeah. Absolutely.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to pull the trigger. As long as you behave.”

  Mick seethed. But with Otis’s and the guys’ eyes on her, she grabbed her self-control with both hands and held on. Ordinarily, just the fact that a criminal had turned her own service weapon against her would have made her boiling mad. And, being boiling mad, she would have reacted strongly. But this instance was unique. Having him think he was calling the shots suited her. Having Uncle Nicco’s guys think she had been taken hostage suited her. Therefore, instead of doing her best to take him out, she relaxed in his hold, letting him use her as a shield, helping him out, facilitating his escape, even though doing all those things went against every instinct she possessed. Her pulse raced, and she was breathing faster than normal, but that was from the situation in which she found herself, not fear. She was shivering, but that was from cold, not fear. She was doing what her captor said, but again fear was not the motivating factor. The good news was, she doubted anyone else could tell that, and she deliberately exaggerated her reactions so that hopefully fear was what the guys saw. She even tried to keep a look of wide-eyed panic on her face, just so the gang would register it and report how scared she was to their boss later.

  It was all a matter of keeping her options open until she could figure out what to do for real.

  “He’s getting away,” somebody—she thought it was Abrizzo—cried out in alarm as the shrubs around the pool house, unfortunately bare of their foliage now, partially obscured them from view.

  “Go,” somebody else answered, and the pack moved after them in a group surge.

  “No,” Mick yelled, real fear in her voice now at the idea that the thief might be killed or captured and she might be “freed” to await Uncle Nicco.

  “Stay back,” the thief yelled at the same time. Her gun nudged her temple. The arm around her neck tightened. He still wasn’t deliberately choking her, just taking her with him as he picked up the pace, but the net result was the same: if she moved in any direction other than the one he wanted her to take, she couldn’t breathe. They had reached the walk that led around the pool house now. Another couple of feet, and they could duck around the corner and out of sight.

  From there, she could only hope his escape plan was sound.

  “I gave you a fucking order,” Mick screamed at the guys, who were still following them in a slow-moving but relentless advance. “What part of ‘stand down’ don’t you understand?”

  Her voice came out sounding more high-pitched than usual, probably because she was terrified they were going to rush them, but it stopped them in their tracks. The situation was touch and go: she could feel the thief’s tension in the rigidity of his muscles, in the heat he emanated, in the rapidity of his breathing. She could almost hear the gears of his brain grinding as he tried to work out what to do next.

  “What do we do?” Kevin Touro demanded of his companions. He was a thick-set, hairy, twenty-something punk, but he had a good heart. She could see him clearly because he was standing at the edge of the gang, almost directly beneath one of the security lights. He stared at her bug-eyed, biting his lip, his gun jiggling nervously. A number of the guys looked at him, but no one replied.

  To hell with it. She wasn’t about to wait for any of them, the thief included, to figure this thing out.

  “Tell them you’ll let me go as soon as you’re safe out of here,” she instructed her captor in a husky whisper.

  Before he could respond, Ed Snider and Ray Petrino burst through the French doors she and the thief had exited moments before. The goons pounded toward Mick and her captor, riveting everyone’s attention. Clearly they’d been the first responders, the ones who’d rushed into the house, the ones she and both thieves had been fleeing.

  “Stop them,” Snider screamed. Tall and thin, with a watch cap pulled down over his head to his eyebrows, he snapped his gun into firing position as he ran. “Iacono said hold them. He’s on his way!”

  Behind him, Petrino’s eyes locked with hers as he, too, ran with his weapon at the ready.

  “Stay back,” the thief yelled, dragging her farther along the path. Just a short distance more and …

  “Yo, look out, he’s got Mick,” Otis shouted at the newcomers, as if they couldn’t see that for themselves.

  “I’ll kill her,” the thief roared, and Mick was once again supremely conscious of the gun held to her head.

  Snider slid to a halt. Petrino had already frozen in place a few paces back. Weapons at the ready, they looked from Mick and the thief to the gang of their colleagues, clearly undecided.

  “He’s got Mick,” Petrino repeated, staring at them. Petrino was one of the reasons Mick hadn’t called the security staff for backup in the first place. Good-looking if you liked guys who looked like they belonged on Jersey Shore, he’d been coming on to her for years. The fact that she’d been more or less serious with Nate for the last six months hadn’t even slowed him down.

  “I’ll let her go when I’m out of here,” the thief yelled, picking up on what she’d told him earlier. He was already in the act of dragging her around the corner of the pool house. As she was moving backward, she didn’t have a view of where they were going. But she knew the property well: to her right were the tennis courts, and all the way around behind the pool house were an overflow parking area and a service driveway. She presumed the parking area and driveway were his goal, as the sidewalk they were on led directly there. Hopefully the getaway vehicle—she was assuming there was a getaway vehicle—waited there.

  “Hurt her and—” Petrino’s threat, uttered as Mick was pulled around the corner of the pool house out of the guys’ sight, was drowned out by a sudden explosion of gunfire that made Mick jump and sent her heart leaping into her throat.

  Crack. Crack. Crack. Shots fired in rapid succession were ac
companied by shouts and a flurry of movement. But they didn’t come from Otis’s crew, or from Snider and Petrino. They came from the opposite direction.

  “Sonuvabitch,” the thief said, stopping dead as Mick, eyes swiveling toward the sounds, sucked in air. The suitcase dropped with a thud, but this time neither of them paid the least attention. The firefight, because that’s what it obviously was, was taking place behind the pool house, where the getaway vehicle should have presumably been waiting. Blocked from their view by the pool house’s marble wall and yet another eight-foot-tall hedge, the action was impossible to see.

  “Halt!”

  “Shoot ’em!”

  “They’re getting away!”

  The shouts from behind the pool house were punctuated by squealing tires and more gunshots.

  “Fuck. That’s it. The van’s gone,” the thief said.

  The arm around her neck slackened noticeably. Mick could almost read his thoughts, could almost feel the calculations running through his brain. The quickening of his breathing, coupled with his sudden, turned-to-stone stillness, provided confirmation of the obvious: his escape plan had just been blown to hell. Mick thought she had a fairly good handle on what had happened: Iacono and crew had arrived via the property’s second and only other entrance besides the main one, surprising the getaway vehicle. In consequence, the thief’s ride out had just left without him—and her. Dodging bullets and peeling rubber all the way.

  He now found himself, literally, left out in the cold. The problem with that was, so was she.

  And the guys with the guns were closing in.

  “Come on!” It was Otis’s voice, sounding nearer than ever and breathless. He was running, Mick realized. Her stomach knotted as she heard and identified the crunch of half a dozen pairs of feet rushing toward them through the snow.