What else could she do? Fleeting, she considered dialing Tryg, but she snatched her fingers away from the phone. She knew he’d demand an explanation, and then he’d know she wasn’t with Jack. She’d have no chance of helping Kirrily then. She didn’t know which men Tryg had sent Kirrily to meet or why, but nothing about the situation sounded good, and Kirrily’s strangled gurgle as she’d hung up the phone echoed through Liana’s brain again and again, forming a tunnel of fear. She thought back to the times Jack had hurt her—shoved her into the door, wedging her body between the doorframe and the door, then slamming it closed again and again. It’s for your own good. Why do you make me do this? This is hurting me more than it hurts you.
She shuddered, covered her face. She knew what that pain was like. She should be able to stop it, but she couldn’t. Not for herself, and not for anybody else, it seemed. She rested her head against the window slowly, feeling suddenly helpless, overwhelmed. Here she was running away, and it seemed trouble had followed her.
The woman across the aisle reached out and tapped her. “Are you okay?”
“I—” She bit her lip. Out the window, she spied a highway sign—the exit to Cincinnati was only twelve miles away. In an instant, her decision was made. She leaped out of her seat and dashed to the front of the bus.
“I’d like to change my ticket. I’d like to get off in Cincinnati.”
“Ma’am?” the driver glanced at her in the rearview mirror, confused. “But your ticket is to—”
“I know what I bought. But I can use it later, can’t I?”
“I’m sorry; it’s nonrefundable.”
“I don’t care. I’m getting off in Cincinnati.”
The driver kept his eyes on the road, but she could almost see him shying away from her in his seat, as if she were one of the crazies his on-the-job manual had warned her about. “If you want.”
The woman narrowed her eyes, her shoulders swiveling, as Liana returned to her seat, heart pounding. She perched on the edge of the purple upholstered seat, eyes focusing everywhere and nowhere—the gum wrappers shoved into a chink in the wall, the mother with the cranky toddler walking the aisles, taking him back and forth to the restroom, swaying with the motion of the coach, the cars cruising by on the highway, their drivers’ elbows sticking out of windows, enjoying the unexpectedly warm spring afternoon. All of it was familiar, all of it meaningless.
She rummaged around in her purse, glancing hesitantly at driver, willing him with every part of her body for him to press on the gas pedal, as if she had her foot on it herself. She wanted to run up to the front of the bus and scream in his ear. Can’t you drive any faster, for God’s sake?
When the bus finally exited the freeway and lumbered into the station, she was momentarily relieved—until she saw the black Mercury wedged into a spot right next to the entrance—and she knew something was seriously, seriously wrong.
Her heart started thumping, an automatic response, a holdover from her time in New York when she had to peek around every corner, when she couldn’t walk, sit or sleep without fear. And now the embodiment of that fear had caught up with her. No, turn around, her mind was screaming at the driver now as he shifted into park. I didn’t mean it. Go back!
“Honey?” asked the woman across the aisle, her eyes crinkling with concern as Liana reached for her phone.
But she knew it was already too late as she saw the unusual expression form on the driver’s face as one of the station employees waved him down. She heard shouting from outside, activity as employees rushed toward the bus. Heart thumping, her fingers paused over a number she’d only put in the day before. There was nobody else. It had to be him. She only had enough time for one word—
Help
—before the door to the bus flew open and heavy boots thundered up the stairs, and a voice that sounded like coiling snakes announced the words she hadn’t hoped to ever hear. He was a cop, born and bred, and he knew how to intimate, to make the entire bus go silent. His badge around the neck over his black t-shirt and leather jacket, his Glock brandished menacingly at his side. Still, his voice oozed boyish charm.
“I’m awfully sorry to disturb you fine folks today, but my name is Sergeant Jack Camus, NYPD. I just received good intelligence that there’s a fugitive from justice aboard this bus. If the individual who I’m referring to will give him or herself up without a struggle, we can be on our way without any trouble.” Jack looked directly at Liana and smiled.
A woman behind Liana gasped.
There was no way out now. Jack and his gun blocked the entire aisle, and no doubt a whole fleet of other black-and-whites were merely a phone call away. Slowly, trembling, barely seeing or feeling, Liana got to her feet. She couldn’t bear to think what the kind lady who had offered her a banana was thinking. The woman’s eyes were open so wide there was more white than pupil, and she was mouthing something under breath—Liana could have sworn it was a prayer. Lord help me, that nice young lady was a violent fugitive the whole time, and I didn’t even know it. What has the world come to?
Liana froze like a block of ice as a hand latched onto her elbow like a claw, swinging her backwards as her back collided with the expensive black leather of his jacket, a familiar scent of Vetiver cologne that now made her stomach sink into her knees.
“What’s the matter, princess?” Jack whispered as he fastened the cold metal of the handcuffs around her wrists and shoved the barrel of the Glock into the small of her back. Liana didn’t know which sensation she hated more as he marched down the aisle past seemingly endless rows of wide-eyed, gaping passengers. “You’re an actress. I thought you loved putting on a show.”
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
At the buzz of his phone, he jerked awake suddenly, disoriented. This wasn’t new for him; most of the time he slept with one eye open, or at least felt like he did. He had no idea what time it was; days and nights had begun to blur, but the shaft of sunlight streaming through the narrow window had begun to fade into the gloom of dusk.
“Liana?” Clawing the floor, he managed to send the phone skidding across the wood and under the radiator. He ignored it for the moment, scanning the floor for his discarded clothing and throwing it on hastily. The room was empty, cold as it had been when he’d lived there. He was shivering, in fact. The radiant heat of the woman who had fallen asleep next to him, her hand next to his face, her legs pulled up against his torso, had left him colder, more bereft, because all that lay beside him now was an empty span of floor. “Liana?” he shouted again, ignoring the phone for a moment, getting up and running to the bedroom door, calling her name again, echoing down the ghostly hall.
There is no sign of a struggle, he thought as he scanned the room, the bare floor where they’d lain, where her warm, smooth skin had been nestled in the space next to him, finally where she had been meant to be, always. He stared at that spot, briefly, transfixed, then turned away. How could she have left him? There was no sign of a struggle, no sign of anybody having broken in—smashed windows, a kicked-in door. Besides, wouldn’t he have heard that? If Jack Camus had managed to locate them, wouldn’t he have woken up Nick simply for the pleasure of seeing the torture in his eyes, of having to watch Liana walk away from him again? No, it seemed increasingly likely that she’d left on her own. That she’d simply walked away from him, without looking back. He steadied his hand on the railing, feeling shaken.
Noel Richardson’s house had never been home to him; he’d never felt wanted in it. At times it had felt malignant, haunted, even. But it had never felt this empty. He went downstairs, into the kitchen with its staged breakfast nook, champagne glasses set for two—with no champagne in the house, of course. What a bitter joke. He even opened the front door, only to be greeted by the same suburban inertia he’d hated the first time he’d lived here: the guy across the street on his riding lawn mower, a FedEx truck clattering by. He closed the door quickly; despite Becky’s assurances that she’d taken care of things, the last thing he nee
ded was the neighbors catching onto something suspicious. He sank down into the kitchen chair.
He should have expected this, he realized, burying his head in his hands. There was no other logical outcome. Nick hadn’t succeeded in convincing her to stay; he’d seen the steely resolve in her eyes as she’d pulled away from their kiss and turned her face toward the ceiling, as if she’d set her mind on some higher, nobler purpose. He remembered throwing out all those grand possibilities—places like Fiji and Australia. She was just humoring him. For people like them, there was no way out of the life they led. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep, he cursed himself. He might have been able to keep her here. But by knowing she was determined to leave and still demanding she stay, he’d be no better than Jack Camus.
From upstairs, he heard his phone vibrating again, knowing it was probably Tryg, demanding some task from him as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn’t just demanded his vice president give up everything for the club. At least he still had the Sparks, he thought bitterly. They’d protect him; they’d back him up. But what did it mean anymore, if, without Liana, he didn’t feel like there was anything worth protecting?
Maybe he’d been delusional, even insane, to think Liana had ever had any intention of staying with someone like him, who could only offer her violence and death and disgrace, a life on the run—everything that was the opposite of what she deserved. If she’d stayed with him, she would have been in even more danger—both from Jack, whose jealousy and obsession were like poisons, and from the Black Sparks themselves, who wouldn’t be able to forgive the fact that one of their own had turned on them, and in the process, sunk their chances of victory over the Vipers.
Yes, deep down, he knew why Liana had left. That didn’t make it any easier for him to accept. And what sat in the back of his mouth like a bitter pill was the knowledge that Jack Camus was still out there. Liana may have thought she was making a clean break—both from Nick and Jack—but that was an illusion. Jack had tools, resources, the entire power of the metropolitan police force behind him. If he wanted Liana, if he had to chase her to the ends of the earth, he’d find a way.
Maybe he already had.
And maybe Nick was delusional to think only he could get rid of Jack for good. But even if Liana didn’t want him after that, even if she was rightly fed up with living her life, even if she wanted to go off and live life free on her own terms, he wouldn’t begrudge her that. But he couldn’t leave her now. Not when Jack was out there, too, hunting her.
He reached down to pick up the phone, and his eyes froze in horror on the one word Liana had sent.
Help.
From a mile away, the whine of a siren rattled the double-paned windows of the house, a sound that turned his insides to cold iron. He stood still in the doorway. There was nothing about the police that had ever signaled anything good for Nicholas Stone. Disgrace, displacement, judgment, blame—that’s what the police represented. He had to get out of here, he realized starting down the stairs and into the garage, focused on slipping out the garage door as quickly as he could—and then going to look for Liana.
But it was already too late.
“Freeze!” shouted a cop’s voice as he moved to throw open the service door.
The spinning tires as the cop car pulled up, the rotating red-and-blue lights like some kind of grotesque carnival were made even more bizarre by the peaceful suburban scene surrounding Noel’s old house. And in that moment, he thought of Noel—the twisted man’s revenge from beyond the grave, how he’d loomed over Nick, as the boy had stood with his hands against the cool metal of the cop car, being patted down like the criminal he was now convinced he was destined to be, because that’s how everybody—save for one person—had treated him. And that was person was gone now, again.
“Hands in the air!” shouted the cops standing in the doorway, their Glocks pointed at him as if he they expected him to open fire any minute.
But he didn’t even have a weapon. His weapon was his bike; it was the protection, courtesy of the Black Sparks. But he couldn’t reach that now. Liana was gone, the Sparks were gone, and something else gone had terribly, terribly wrong. Slowly, defeated, he raised his hands.
“Who put you up to this?” Nick demanded as the cops rushed toward him. “It was Jack Camus, wasn’t it?”
“You’re under arrest for murder,” said the female cop, her husky voice strangely reminiscent of some of the guards in Circleville.
Nick felt himself break out into a sweat; the memory he thought he’d ditched for good now returned in terrifying full color.
“Murder?” Nick demanded. “Murder of who?
“Daniel Kinski.”
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
“This doesn’t have to be hard, Nicholas,” said the detective. “It can be very easy. All I want is the truth.”
“I told you,” Nick said, drawing a deep breath, reminding himself that losing his cool would only land him back in a holding cell with two black eyes. “The truth is that the there’s a girl out there who’s in serious trouble, and you guys aren’t doing shit about it.” He spoke through his teeth, practically seething.
Across the metal table in the interrogation room, the woman, who had introduced herself as Detective Madigan, wore a gray pinstriped suit, a badge around her neck, and had eyes boring down on him like little chunks of coal. She was older, but she might have been good-looking under different circumstances. However, Nick knew, she had drunk too much cop Kool-Aid to be capable of revealing that there might be a human being somewhere in there. His eyes flickered to the Styrofoam cup of water sitting at the edge of table. Big mistake.
“Thirsty?” she asked tauntingly. “Mouth a little dry?”
The truth was his shirt had begun sticking to his back; it was hot as hell in here under the lights. A lock of his damp hair fell in his face, and since his hands were still cuffed to the metal folding chair, all he could do was flip it out of the way.
“You want those cuffs off, too?” Her had the teasing lilt of a fourth-grade bully.
But Nick knew enough not to show any weakness. Liana’s life might depend on it. He blinked, trying to shake away the idea that the girl he loved was trapped somewhere, screaming in pain—
“Once again, Nicholas, “ said Madigan, putting one leg casually up on the other chair, “that’s not the truth I want to know. I want to know about you and Helena Kinski.”
Nick slumped against the chair. “You know the truth, Madigan. She set me up.”
“Who set you up?” she sneered.
“Helena.”
“Helena Kinski, celebrated society wife of industry titan Daniel Kinski?”
Nick knew she was phrasing it to make him sound as ridiculous as possible, and he had to admit, hearing it repeated back to him, it did sound preposterous. But it had to be true. It explained all of Helena’s behavior over the past few days. She hadn’t wanted him—at least not him, as a person. She’d wanted him as a pincushion, a convenient target to stick all of her crimes on. He wouldn’t be surprised if she’d been planning her husband’s death for months—years, even. Then, like an idiot, he’d come along and fallen right into her trap.
“She’s already told me everything. How you two have been playing hide the pickle.”
“Hide the pickle? Seriously?”
Madigan forged on. “How you sweet-talked her into running away with you, about how the two plotted to bump off Tryg Ryan and you would take over the Black Sparks, and how you tried to convince her that the only way you two could be together was to off her husband so she would inherit his money—and how when she tried to back out of the plan, you snapped and murdered him anyway—and tried to murder her.“
“That lying bitch! That was all her idea! She set me up!” Nick leaped up from the table, trying to shove it aside, but, of course, it was bolted to the floor. Another burly cop rushed in, shoving him down into his chair. “Sit down, kid,” he barked. “Don’t make me light you up,” he said, taking hi
s taser and turning it around menacingly in his hand.
Nick seethed. Still, that’s the last thing he needed, to be writhing around helpless on the floor. If he had any chance of talking his way out of this, he’d need all of his faculties about him.
“Hey, Watson,” shouted a familiar voice from the doorway, calling to his partner.
The burly cop’s head swiveled, and Nick looked up automatically, recognition dawning when he saw the stocky young copper-skinned cop who had rushed into subdue him.
“Chucho?” The young cop’s eyes lit up, his lips parted in a knowing, twinkling smile Nick knew well.
He took a step back. “Nick?”
“You two know each other?” asked Madigan, an infuriating little smirk of amusement on her face. “How sweet,” she said dismissively. “However, if you’ll excuse us, I still have a lot of questions for this individual to which I have not yet received adequate responses.”
Chucho shook his head, but he winked at Nick, who managed a small smile. He had never been more grateful to see a familiar face before—even if the memories it brought back were of razor wire, cinderblock ceilings, and tasteless meatloaf. “Well, I believe federal regulations require that all suspects be offered a drink of water after every thirty minutes of interrogation. Anything else constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.”
Madigan rolled her eyes. “I believe interpreting the finer points of the U.S. Constitution is a little above your pay grade, Sanchez. Now beat it.”
With a sympathetic glance, Chucho shut the door as firmly as Madigan had, leaving Nick licking his sandpapery lips, imagining the drink of water that had almost been within his grasp.
Still, seeing a familiar face gave Nick a glimmer of hope—but every time the hope flickered in it was replaced by an image of Liana flashing through his head, every time worse than the image before—whips and chains lashing across her delicate golden skin, blood flowing through cuts, tears of fear filling her eyes, and Nick not there to protect her as he’d vowed to do. He tipped his head back, closed his eyes. She sent that text message to him on purpose, expecting him to do something, because she’d had no else to turn to. And now here he was, sitting helpless in the very place he’d been trying to outrun for the past six years.
Long Ride: A Motorcycle Club Romance (Black Sparks MC) (Whiskey Bad Boys Book 1) Page 21
