Stacked Deck

by Tracy Watkins

  This time the door sprung open.

  He held the door until she could get herself off of him and through the opening. She pushed herself up the rest of the way, then crawled out and sat on the door frame.

  He was able to work his way out from beneath the steering column, and she helped him with her free hand, the other holding the door while he worked his way out.

  He slid to the ground.

  She let the door close and then turned so he could help her down so she didn’t have to put too much pressure on her foot.

  When she touched the ground she let out a sigh of relief, shivered, then regained her strength. She was glad to be out of the car.

  They stood for a moment in the dark silence of the woods, looking up the hill at the torn fence.

  She turned back to the car. “What were you saying about those bullet holes?”

  He tilted his head. “Nobody likes a smart-ass.”

  She smiled, and realized that her bottom lip was cut. It stung, and she pulled it in and ran her tongue over it. She could feel the swelling and taste the blood.

  “You okay?”

  “It’s nothing compared to what could have happened. How about you?”

  “I’m all right. Been in worse crashes than this.”

  “I’m sorry, I am. But I didn’t want you to make that call.”

  He pulled his shirt up and wiped the blood from his face.

  “This car is a wreck,” he said, gazing back at the Bugatti. He shook his head.

  “It’s just a car.”

  “Giambi’s gonna have a heart attack. It’s his pride and joy. He won it from—”

  “He has insurance, doesn’t he?”

  “I imagine.” JD turned to her. “Okay, maybe now is a good time to tell me what—”

  He stopped. A car pulled up to the spot where they’d gone through the fence above. It was a good fifty yards or so away and in the dark the men probably couldn’t see them. Beth heard them talking, looking at something with a flashlight. Probably the tire tracks.

  She whispered. “I think it’s the same guys.”

  There were two men at the top of the hill looking down toward them.

  “Don’t they ever give up?”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Beth urged, tugging on his arm for support. “Where’s the gun?”

  “Should be in the car, unless it fell out in the roll. Your window was open, mine only part way.”

  The men headed toward them.

  Beth reached into the car and grabbed her purse, then looked for the gun. “I can’t find it,” she whispered.

  “It’s in there somewhere. Let me look.”

  He stuck his upper body in and started looking around.

  “They’re too close,” she said grabbing him by the belt. “We need to get out of here. It probably fell out.”

  They ran deeper into the woods. Her foot hurt like hell, but certain death was a great pain reliever. They continued for about half a mile along a narrow stream.

  JD stopped there, one hand up, motioning her to be silent. Then he said, “This way.”

  She followed him into a ravine and up the other side. He seemed to have some idea what he was doing, where he was going.

  Her foot hurt with each step, but she had no choice but to ignore the pain. It eventually slowed her down and JD had to help her over some dead trees.

  He motioned for her to follow him across a second narrow stream and started back the way they’d come.

  She stopped him and whispered, “What are you doing?”

  “I’m a Tennessee mountain boy, remember? I know how to move around in the country. I hunted before I knew how to ride a bicycle. Just stay with me.”

  Instead of running away from their pursuers, he’d circled back, keeping in the tree line.

  Then he found a good hiding place. It was a thick clump of mixed bush and trees and some deadfall.

  They crawled into a tight place and got comfortable. To her it seemed very risky. If found, they had no chance at all. On the other hand, they might easily be found out in the open. She acceded to JD’s decision to hunker down and wait.

  “These bastards are probably after Giambi,” JD whispered as they sat shoulder to shoulder.

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Some hit team sees us drive out of his private garage in a car only he drives. They think it’s him.”

  “They didn’t see it wasn’t him at the bar?”

  “Maybe they held back and waited.”

  “It doesn’t matter what they started out to do,” she said. “Right now their intentions are pretty clear.”

  She didn’t say that this was round number two for her this week, or that it could be they were after her, which would mean Giambi had discovered her ruse.

  Voices filtered down to them from along the hillside, but nothing came of them. When they heard the voices again they were off in the distance. Beth hoped the men were giving up the hunt.

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  JD turned and said, “You didn’t answer me. Who in the hell are you?”

  She didn’t have time to answer that question. At least not yet. “We should get out of here while we can.”

  Though he was obviously curious, JD agreed with her. They headed around the side of the hill in the opposite direction of their pursuers. Beth leaned on JD for support. The valleys were lush. A river gleamed in the moonlight like a strip of mercury running through the ravine. There was a village embedded in the distant hillside.

  They headed out of the trees and across a field. Her feet were taking a beating now on the rocky soil. She so wished she hadn’t kicked off her shoes. She made a vow to herself that no matter what, from now on her shoes were staying on her feet.

  The world of farms was already awake for the day, lights on in some of the farmhouses. Country life. In Vegas, at this time of morning, half the city would still be in full swing.

  She was a total mess now, her dress ripped and dirty, blood matted on the side of her head from another cut, her feet bruised and cut from the rocky terrain.

  “You know this area?” she asked.

  “Not really, but there are villages scattered all around these hills.”

  She sat down on a rock to check her feet. She shivered from the early morning chill.

  He took off his jacket. “Put this on. It’s cold.”

  “That’s okay. I’m fine.”

  “I have a T-shirt and a long-sleeved shirt over that. Take the jacket.”

  She took the jacket and thanked him.

  They both glanced back into the predawn darkness, but saw no signs of the men. They started up again, but at a slower pace.

  He stopped her at one point. “You’re going to cut your feet all to hell and you won’t be able to walk at all.”

  “You going to give me your shoes?”

  “A little big for you. I’m going to make you some shoes.”

  He took off his shoes and socks. Then he took the jacket from her and with a pocket knife he cut away some of the leather around the bottom. He made little pads. He then cut strips of the inner lining.

  He told her to put her foot up on his leg. He attached the leather to the bottom of her foot and tied it with the lining, then he slipped his sock over the whole thing to hold it together. He took the other foot. His hands were gentle and firm and he concentrated intensely on the task.

  “They’re not your Jimmy Choos, but they’re a hell of a lot better than nothing.”

  “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “You’ve done this before?”

  “Not exactly like this. When you grow up in the mountains of Tennessee you learn to make something out of nothing and I now live with Giambi, the son of a family of shoemakers from way back. He would be proud. If it’s not handmade, he won’t wear it.”

  “This jacket you ruined for me isn’t nothing.”

  “It’s replaceable. You’re feet aren’t.”


  Never in her life, at least not since her father’s death, had a man been so caring toward her. She really didn’t know how to react to such kindness.

  He put her leg down and looked up at her. For a moment, it was as if he could see right through her, and she didn’t like the feeling. It made her uneasy for having to lie to him.

  “Try them out,” he said, beaming at his invention.

  She stood. After walking a couple miles on her bare feet, they felt great. “A thousand percent better.”

  “Good.”

  “Thank you. Again,” she said, and gave him a gentle kiss.

  “I’ll take more of that later,” he offered. “Now we just need to keep going.”

  JD stared at Anne—or whoever she was—in the moonlight. Her dress ruined and dirty and bloody. Her shoulder scraped. Her lip, cut. His makeshift shoes on her feet. She looked like a refugee from a natural disaster. She was a natural disaster. But, for all that, she looked incredibly beautiful. How that was possible he didn’t know, figuring he must still be a little drunk. She’d come into his life half a dozen hours ago and now men with guns were trying to kill him. This woman had pretty much destroyed his plans. Giambi would never forgive him for wrecking his car, so JD’s dreams of getting back in a race car were pretty much over. Just when he’d gotten his explosive temper under control, found a backer, this femme fatale waltzes into his life.

  He shook his head and a frown tightened his face as he looked around. JD had other thoughts going through his mind. Like, why didn’t she let him call Giambi in the first place? And what kind of rich widow acts like she walked off a James Bond film set?

  They moved through another grove of trees and skirted along the bank until they found a place to cross the stream.

  Whatever she was, he admired how she handled herself. Never showed panic or hysteria. Always seemed to be under control. But after what they’d just been through he didn’t believe anything she’d said now. Giambi was right. Everything they’d gotten off the Internet was probably made up.

  At any rate, the party was over. The sexy, rich widow was not what she said she was. Not when she handled herself like a damn ninja.

  He had no time to third-degree her.

  She grabbed him. “What?”

  “We wait here a little. Then cut over that field and get into the next valley,” he said.

  “That would put us out in the open.”

  “Yes. But the roads are pretty far. If we’re spotted, we can make a run for it.” He had no time for games anymore. He wanted to get back and try to explain things to Giambi before the man heard about his car on the local news.

  “I think it would be better—”

  “Look, I’m cutting across here and getting back to the casinos. You can do what you want.” He knew his tone was harsh, but she was messing up his life and he couldn’t allow that to happen. He loved racing more than his next breath, and nothing and no one was going to get in his way, even if she was the finest woman he’d ever met. There were plenty of women out there. Women who didn’t lie…at least not as much as this one.

  She followed right behind him, but he refused to look back.

  When he reached a hill he finally stopped next to some trees to turn around. Not for her. He didn’t care one lick about her. Well, maybe he did care, a little, but he wasn’t about to let that stop him now.

  He had a long field of vision, and couldn’t see anyone coming from any direction.

  She was still right behind him. He had to hand it to her, even with that bad foot, she managed to keep up. “Okay, I think we’re good here. At least for a while. Now, tell me something that I can believe.”

  “We’ll discuss that at a more appropriate time. I want to get back to Monaco.”

  “Not until I get some answers.”

  He was tired of being pushed off. “You’re cool under pressure. Maybe too cool. You know how to shoot, and you know how to survive. That makes you more than some grieving widow with a few bucks in the bank. I want answers before we take one more step.”

  She put a finger on his lips. “Okay. With two conditions.”

  “Conditions?”

  “First, call Giambi,” she said, pulling a cell phone out of her bag.

  “I thought you didn’t want me to call him. That’s why we crashed the damn car.”

  “That was then, this is now. He needs to know something happened. Don’t tell him much. Just that somebody came after us, shot at us, we crashed and then ran away on foot. If somebody finds the car and the police run the plates they’ll be calling him and he’s going to be really pissed.” It was risky, but she believed she had a hold on JD, that he was ready to accept the need to work with her.

  “You’re not telling me anything that I don’t already know.”

  “But we can’t go back there yet. Please trust me on this. It isn’t safe. Just tell him we’re staying with a friend of yours. Or mine. That you have no idea what this is about. Tell him where the car is and leave it at that. If he starts grilling you, tell him you aren’t in a situation where you can talk. Tell him you’ll call him later with the details.”

  JD stared at her. He didn’t want to trust her, after all he didn’t even know who she was. But there was something about her…. Something about how she looked at him, how she spoke, that made him want to give her another chance.

  He took the phone and dialed Giambi’s private line. The call went right to the message box. JD told him what Anne had said, and added the car’s location and told Giambi how sorry JD was about the accident.

  “I’ve had some rough dates, but this beats ’em all,” he said as he returned her phone. “What’s condition two?”

  “A nap.”

  Chapter 11

  T hey were still nowhere, but Beth simply couldn’t walk another step. Daylight had captured another morning, and it was way past her bedtime. She lay down in the tall grass, slipped her tiny bag under her head and sucked in a deep yawn.

  “A nap?”

  “Yes.”

  Beth closed her eyes, but her mind was spinning. She knew how close she was to losing this whole operation. Somehow she had to prevent that from happening. Yes, she needed rest, but more than that, she needed time to think. How could she get things to move even faster? How could she get JD securely on her side? Who were those men chasing them? And if Giambi was the key both to Athena’s problem and her father’s killer, Beth was getting into his computers and files no matter what she had to do.

  She needed a believable story, one that Giambi would not question. If he was as paranoid as JD said, then she had to make sure it wasn’t her he should be worried about.

  If she played this right, the thing with the Bugatti could work in her favor. But for that she needed a damn good story.

  No matter how wired you were, how much adrenaline had flowed, how frightening or strenuous the circumstances, eventually you hit a wall. That’s how Beth felt now. She needed to rest. JD was up and alert, but she just couldn’t stay awake one more moment.

  Not long ago she’d been in Las Vegas running from a gunman. Then booking a flight to Virginia, the absorption of a mass of information, the change in identity. The flight to Monaco. Meeting Giambi. JD. The drive. His kiss. The escape from more gunmen. A nasty crash. Walking endlessly through unfamiliar countryside. And now sleep. Deep, much-needed sleep. Even ten minutes of sleep seemed not only desirable, but necessary and unavoidable.

  Her last image before she slipped away was of JD Hawke staring at the sky, lost in thoughts. He was probably thinking terrible things about her…too bad. Changing his mind about her would take a miracle, and she was fresh out.

  JD stared at the approach of morning over the tranquil countryside, a time of day he didn’t often see, unless he was on his way home from a party. The events of the night had sobered him in a profound way. He knew he was in the middle of something that was going to change the course of his life and he had no control over it. Not even any knowledge of wha
t it was.

  He turned and looked back at Anne. How she could sleep was beyond him. Unless this kind of danger wasn’t so unusual for her. He, on the other hand, was so wired up from being shot at he could have run the rest of the way over the hills and down into Monaco.

  He argued with himself about calling somebody in spite of her obvious desire that he not do so. The only thing holding him back was not knowing who she was or what was going on.

  The sun rose slowly as he paced and worried over each car that passed. Finally daylight flooded the hills with a warm, buttery yellow glow.

  He sat down and waited for her to wake, staring at her with curiosity and interest as she slept. A ray of light pierced some branches behind her and set her pale blond hair on fire. She was dirty, and badly bruised. He gently brushed a lock of hair from her face, and wondered who the real woman was behind this facade. He took a hard long look at her, and found that his emotions were somewhat shocking.

  Even a little depressing.

  He found her—in some strange way—even more attractive than she’d been last night, before all this started. How was that possible? He figured he saw fifty great-looking women in a single day in Monaco, minimum. A hundred every night. Yet this woman had a strange effect on him. If he were an artist, he’d paint her just as she was. Or if he were a photographer, he would snap her picture with just the right exposure to capture her beauty.

  He liked how she breathed, the soft rhythm of it. He liked the curve of her mouth, the nose that wasn’t quite perfect. The long, fine whiteness of her neck.

  He laughed out loud. A laugh heavy with sarcasm. He felt like a doomed guy from a noir flick, blissfully waiting for his world to come crashing down.

  JD stood up and paced, watching the road for that black Ferrari, shifting back and forth on his feet, wishing he had some gum to chew, or some coffee to drink, and food. A nice hot breakfast. His stomach growled from the power of the suggestion.

  From time to time he stopped and looked at her. She was trouble. Big trouble. Right now, at this point in his life, trouble was the last thing he needed.

  This night had put his career into the wall and he was damn well going to find out why. If somebody wanted Giambi dead, how was Anne connected to that?