by Unknown
“Ooh, getting rid of me to talk business,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him while simultaneously trying to send him an apology.
“Please go,” Ian said.
So she went.
Up the stairs. Figuring she could check the clothes herself, rather than searching for one of the women who drifted like ghosts around the big house.
She could hear the murmur of Ian’s voice as she turned on the laundry room light and opened the still-spinning dryer.
There were, in fact, dozens of reasons why a woman wouldn’t wear her wedding ring, other than I’m working some kind of illegal job, undercover, with my husband or I’m painting my house. She could well have taken off her ring for safety’s sake before going into a dive like Henrietta’s. That would’ve explained it quite neatly. Or maybe the ring was so gargantuous that she only wore it out, or in the evenings. Maybe she was a potter, and worked all day throwing clay. Or she was a painter—but not the house kind. Or a dental hygienist, who had to wear latex gloves.
Except why, then, wouldn’t she at least wear a simple gold band? Unless she was pretending that she wasn’t married, while working some kind of con with her devious husband.…
Maybe Phoebe had said the right thing, after all.
Inside the dryer, their clothes were mostly done. Ian’s jeans were still a little damp, so she left them in as she took her underwear back into the guest suite’s bathroom to pull it on beneath her robe. Her jeans and T-shirt hadn’t been bloody, and she’d hung them on the back of the door. She put them on, too—Ian really had bled far less than she’d thought in those first terrifying moments in the car.
God, she’d been scared.
At the time, Phoebe had been certain Ian simply hadn’t realized how badly he’d been injured. She’d imagined him dying in her arms, while she was completely unable to help him.
It made her uneasy—knowing that Davio Dellarosa’s men were actively looking for Ian.
And maybe, the next time they found him, whoever was aiming the rifle wouldn’t just graze him.
Phoebe suddenly needed to sit and put her head between her legs—she was dizzy, just thinking about it.
But she couldn’t show any sign of weakness. She’d just been downstairs talking and laughing and pretending she was Ian’s wife.
Ian’s wife wouldn’t go all girly and light-headed.
Ian’s wife, married in Vegas to the man of her dreams, was made of sterner stuff.
But Phoebe was not Ian’s wife.
In fact, Phoebe had to pee rather badly.
She looked at the garishly colored frame where Ian had said the bathroom camera was hidden, and channeling Ian’s wife one more time, she flipped it the bird and blew it a kiss.
Then she put the bathrobe up and over her head, covering herself in a terrycloth tent as she pulled down her jeans and panties and sat, completely hidden from the camera’s view, on the commode.
* * *
“I’m going with you,” Aaron announced.
Francine looked up from her replay of the FBI surveillance video, streaming in from the Dutchman’s house, in which Ian told their suspect that he had a standing order for his second-in-command to pick him up between eight and midnight at a bowling alley in Miami Gardens, should he ever go missing like this. Since Vanderzee had access to a second embassy car, he was going to drive them over and drop them there. Although, this time, his bald-headed bodyguard was going to ride along.
Francine now looked at Shel and he met her eyes, before they both looked back at Aaron.
Francie spoke first. “Ian implied that I should pick them up—”
“He didn’t say I shouldn’t go,” Aaron pointed out.
“How was he supposed to say that you shouldn’t go,” Shelly asked as he kept Rory quiet by rocking him back and forth, shifting from one foot to the other, “while he’s having a conversation with the Dutchman? I think we can take it as a given that he doesn’t want either one of us leaving this house while Davio’s still actively hunting both you and Ian.”
“Well, what about what I don’t want?” Aaron asked. “I don’t want Francine going anywhere near Ro-freaking-berto—and I’m a little taken aback by the fact that you actually seem to consider it an option.”
“What?” Shel said. “You want me to pull an Ian and tell her what she can and cannot do? She’s a big girl, and if she wants to do this—”
“No way does she want to do this,” Aaron countered. “But do you honestly think she’s going to admit that?”
“Hello, she’s standing right here,” Francine said, but neither looked up because they were both so intent on widening this terrible rift between them—a rift that she had, in part, helped to create.
They’d been monitoring the conversation between Ian and Georg Vanderzee, and Francine knew—from the skeletal description of the alleged “job” that Ian had described, that he was intending to take heavy advantage of the latest olive branch that Berto had extended to her.
I’m working a deal with Berto Dellarosa. I can’t go into details until I clear it with him, but our buyer has just backed out. So we’ve got product that we need to move, fast. With your contacts, I’m certain you can connect us with someone who wants what we’ve got—at a deeply discounted price. And, of course, you’ll collect a finder’s fee.
After hearing that, Francine knew that after they got Ian safely back here, he was going to ask her to contact Berto and arrange a face-to-face—get him to be a major player in this con.
And Berto was going to say yes.
She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that, but right now she didn’t have the time or energy to sit and explore her vast array of emotions. She was going to have to settle with Seeing Berto again was going to suck. But then again, nearly everything in her life sucked, so how could it be all that much worse?
“Look, I’m going to go pick up Eee,” she told her brother and Aaron, taking Martell’s car keys out of the bowl on the counter and going to the equipment closet to grab the bug sweeper. Knowing Ian, he wouldn’t be willing to say more than Hey, how’s it going until he and the lawyerette had been swept clean—and until he was certain they weren’t being tailed. That should make for a really shitty, tension-filled ride. Whee. “I’m just going to the contact point—the bowling alley—and back. If you really want to come along, knock yourself out.”
“Well, I’m not going to go, because someone’s got to keep Rory safe,” Sheldon said, heavy with the snit.
Aaron was already heading for the door to the garage, where Martell’s car was parked, and he didn’t look back.
“Please say good-bye to me,” Shel called after him. “Aaron!”
But Aaron didn’t stop and the door closed behind him.
“I’m so sorry,” Francine told her brother. “For what it’s worth, I’ll keep him safe. I’ll bring him back in one piece.”
“Don’t bother,” Shelly said as he started to stomp away. But then he stopped and turned back, holding tightly to Rory. He kissed the top of the baby’s head. “I don’t mean that.”
“I know,” she said quietly.
“And you don’t have to have any contact with Berto,” he said. “Not if you don’t want to. I wouldn’t want to, and I’m related to him.”
“I think I might,” Francie said. “Want to. Is that weird?” She didn’t wait for her half brother to answer. She just went out the door. “I’ll call when we’re on our way back. Lock this behind me.”
“Tell Aaron I love him.”
Francie looked back at her baby brother. “He doesn’t deserve you.”
“You’re right, he doesn’t. He doesn’t deserve any of this crap,” Shel said, then closed and locked the door behind her with a click.
Ian was bullshit.
Bull.
Shit.
“You know the drill,” he told Phoebe as Vanderzee and his thug dropped them in the shadows at the edge of the Bowl-a-Rama’s parking lot and then drove away. “No
talking—at all—until I give you the all-clear.”
She nodded, and actually obeyed him for once. She was aware that she’d messed up. She just had no idea how badly.
After the Dutchman had pulled out of the bowling alley lot and back onto the main drag, a set of headlights went on from over where most of the cars were parked. And sure enough, Martell’s POS pulled toward them. Francine was driving, with freaking Aaron riding shotgun.
Ian opened the back door and Phoebe scrambled quickly into the car, without his help, before he climbed in behind her.
Francine started driving away before he got the door closed. She glanced into the rearview mirror to briefly meet his eyes, and Ian shook his head—taking her silent what-the-fuck and raising it a million.
Aaron activated the sweeper, handing it back to Ian so he could do a more thorough check. It was highly unlikely that the Dutchman had tagged them with a ride-along surveillance device. Still, Ian was nothing if not cautious.
“Clean,” he announced, and as soon as he said it he realized he had to clarify, adding, “but not yet clear,” because, sure enough, Phoebe had drawn in a deep breath, in preparation for the dozens or maybe hundreds of sentences that he knew she was dying—dying—to say to him.
But they wouldn’t be clear until they were certain—without a doubt—that they weren’t being followed by the Dutchman’s men, or by anyone else for that matter.
Francine was well prepared, as usual. She’d used whatever wait time she’d had to map out a route, and she now took them swiftly and surely through a series of right and left turns, taking back roads that only longtime Miami residents used.
And she said it first. “We’re clear.”
Phoebe looked at Ian. She finally seemed to understand that the words had to come from him. So he said what he always said. “Take it one more time around the block.”
They did.
He caught a flash of Francie’s eyes in the mirror as she nodded to him again.
“We’re clear, but don’t speak,” he told Phoebe. “Just sit there, silently, while I ask my brother what the fuck he’s doing in this car.”
“He’s not mad at you,” Phoebe leaned slightly forward to tell Aaron. “He’s mad at me.”
“Oh, no,” Ian said. “I’m pretty fucking mad at both of you right now. And I’m pretty sure I’m capable of being mad at Francine simultaneously, too. So come on, France. Hit me. What’s the latest thing you’ve done either to put yourself in deadly peril or to jeopardize the mission, or hell, why not make like Phoebe and do both at the same time!”
Phoebe drew in a very loud, very outraged breath. “I was saving the mission,” she told him, and he knew that she believed what she was saying. This wasn’t just an attempt to deflect the blame or to otherwise cover her ass. “I was protecting our cover story. Badly, okay, but I’m new at this. And all I could think was: I’ve gotta give him a reason for why I’m not wearing a ring. At least I caught the mistake—you didn’t even realize it was a problem.”
“It wasn’t a problem,” he said. “Some people don’t wear rings. I don’t. I’ve never worn a ring, and I never will.”
“Well, my character—happy-flirty-sexy Ian’s wife—she wears a ring,” she told him. “And I’m sorry, but your character does, too.”
“My character?” Ian repeated. “I don’t have a character. I’m me. I’m always just me.”
Phoebe spoke right over him. “A man who goes to all that trouble to surprise the woman he loves with a wedding in Vegas …? Guy’s gonna wear a ring. So where is yours, Ian? Oh, it’s in the safe deposit box with mine. Of course. Detail handled. You’re welcome.”
“You’re welcome?”
“The detail wasn’t handled perfectly,” she continued. “I know that. And I’ll fully take responsibility. But at least Vanderzee’s not going to sit up in the middle of the night going, She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring; they’re not really married—it was just a con, I better kill Ian the next time I see him!”
Aaron spoke up from the front seat. “She’s got a point.”
“Sage words, douchebag,” Ian shot back at his brother. “What’s your excuse for putting Francine in danger like this? You wanted to punish Shelly? Nice work.”
Aaron definitely wanted to join this fight. “You put France in danger all the time.”
“Not for bullshit reasons,” Ian said.
“But don’t you see?” Phoebe interjected. “When I did what I did, it was precisely not for bullshit reasons! It was to make sure that you’re safe and—”
“When you did what you did,” Ian repeated, turning back to her. “What did you do, Pheebs? Do you really understand the enormity of what you’ve done here? The massiveness of how thoroughly you screwed up?” Even as he asked that, Ian knew that she didn’t know. She honestly thought that she’d saved the day more than once in the past few hours. And Jesus, maybe Aaron was right and she had. A ring was a detail that he hadn’t considered, because until that afternoon he’d never had anyone, not even Francine, pretend to be his wife. Wedding rings. Shit. “Why don’t you tell me? Start back at the beginning, when you got out of the fucking van.”
Phoebe was undaunted. “I got out of the van, when, yes, I know, I promised that I wouldn’t,” she said. “But I had to. It was me or Yashi, so it had to be me. And then, okay. I said that we were married, which complicates things.…”
“Oh, keep going,” he prompted her.
“And then, because of my lack of a ring, I said that I was working with you—”
“Oh, ding!” Ian said, ringing the same imaginary bell that she’d rung in the shower. “Dingity ding! Georg Vanderzee now believes that you work with me—because you told him that you work with me. With. Me. So now you’re gonna have to work with me—and with this asshole psychopath that I didn’t want you anywhere near—because not only did you tell him that you work with me, you told him that you’re my lucky fucking charm—after I told you, I told you, that he was superstitious!”
“I know,” Phoebe said. “That’s why I said it. I thought it was perfect. I thought, otherwise he won’t believe that someone like me could possibly be working with you—”
“Oh, he believes it,” Ian shouted at her. “Now, he really believes it. So now you can’t suddenly go visit your mother, or stay home to house-train our adorable new puppy, or whoops, hey, looks like I did get you unexpectedly pregnant so now you’ve got to stay home and sleep all day—no! We can’t use those convenient excuses to keep you safely out of danger, because if my fucking lucky charm’s not along for this job, this asshole’s gonna get spooked and bail!”
Phoebe was wide-eyed behind those glasses, and for once she was speechless. Or so Ian thought. Wrongly.
Her silence was only temporary. And when she spoke, she actually had the audacity to sound testy. “Well, maybe if you’d been clear that he was that superstitious … I mean, dangerously, pathologically, insanely superstitious. You made it seem like a quirk. Like, he collects four-leaf clovers, and hangs horseshoes—”
“You weren’t supposed to get anywhere near him!” Ian shouted. “You were supposed to stay in the van! God damn it! I was hours—hours—from moving you to a safer location, to a different safe house in a different fucking state! I wanted you farther away from me, not in the up-close-and-personal danger zone of this motherfucking, nut-crushing, bullshit, gun-to-the-head con job from goddamned hell! Jesus Christ! You’ve been driving me goddamn crazy!”
And … okay. Now Phoebe was speechless. Up front Francine and Aaron were barely breathing, too.
Probably because Ian was huffing and puffing and sucking all of the oxygen in the car into his angry lungs. In the sudden silence, he sounded like a raging bull.
Jesus, he had never lost it like this before. Never.
And yeah, he may have gone too far, said too much, been too brutal.
But Christ. If something happened to Phoebe, if he couldn’t keep her safe … The mere thought of that made his
stomach churn.
Phoebe had turned away from him and was looking out the window at a passing car, and the oncoming headlights made her eyes glisten with her unshed tears.
As Ian finally got his breathing back to near normal, the silence in the car was deafening.
But then Phoebe surprised him by speaking. “I’d say that I’m sorry, but I’m not. Well, I’m sorry that I’ve been driving you crazy. That having me around was so … unpleasant and difficult for you. I didn’t … realize that.” She cleared her throat. “But I’m certainly not sorry that I got out of the van. And I’m not sorry that you’re not dead because I did get out of the van. I’m just not.” She turned and looked at him, and with her chin slightly raised, she was a picture of defiance. But she was unable to hold his surely still-crazed gaze for very long and soon turned away, again, to study the darkness on the other side of the car window.
From the front, Francine delicately cleared her throat. “Well, since that’s handled,” she said, “why don’t you fill me in, in terms of what you want me to say to Berto.”
* * *
Martell was ready to go.
He stood in the garage as the door went up. Ever since he was a kid, automatic garage doors made him think of Star Trek and the shuttlecraft landing bay. As he watched, Francine pulled his car inside, the door went back down—The Galileo is secure, Captain—and Ian, Phoebe, and Aaron disembarked.
Phoebe made a beeline past him for the door to the house, not even nodding hello as she pushed her way inside.
“You’re going with Francine?” Ian asked Martell, adding “Good,” at his affirmative. The former SEAL looked exhausted. “I’ll be riding along in the van, with Yashi and Deb.”
“I still think Francie shouldn’t do this,” Aaron said with a boatload of challenge in his voice.
“And I think Berto’s proven himself an ally,” Ian countered.
But Aaron hadn’t waited for his brother’s response. He was already heading inside the house, tossing a “Whatever” over his shoulder.
“With all due respect,” Martell said to Ian. “If the plan really is just for Francine and me to meet Berto Dellarosa, make sure he’s not wearing any kind of wire, and then bring him back here, maybe it’d be best for you to let us do that. Stay behind and take one of those crazy Navy SEAL combat naps, instead of doing something that Yashi and Deb can do well enough on their lonesome.”
