Annie on the Lam: A Christmas Caper (20 page)

“Your mother was a grown woman, too.”

“I'm not my mother.”

“I was beside myself, afraid you were in over your head.”

“So you hired a cab driver to protect me? Or is that a lie, too, Joe? A cover…”

“No, I've driven a cab part-time since I quit the force while—”

“You lied to me, Daddy. You lied so that I'd do whatever you wanted instead of letting me make my own decisions. You trusted a stranger's judgment over mine.”

“Mr. Brady is also a private detective.”

“So I hear.”

“He was recommended by Ed Simms, a retired investigator who checked out Frank Reno for me after your mother's death.”

“
I
didn't lie to you,” Joe said. “Not about anything important.”

“And what about what you said this morning, Joe? Was that important?”

“Of course it was,” he said quietly. “That was the most important thing of all.”

For several moments, only silence emanated from the other side of the door.

Finally, Joe said, “When your dad told Ed he needed to hire a private investigator in New York City and Landau's name came up, Ed's radar kicked in. He's an old family friend…used to be a cop with my dad. We talk about things. He knew why I'd turned in my badge and that I was trying to piece together all that had happened to me.”

“So what you're saying is that you just didn't tell me everything, is that it, Joe? You didn't exactly lie, you simply left out a few crucial details. You have some nerve to think that you can pick and choose the information you think I need to know. Both of you.”

“I'm telling you everything now. Ed knows the connection between Landau and Frank Reno. So when your father mentioned him, Ed called me.” He paused. “Look, I didn't want to take this case. Even before I met you, I didn't like the fact that your father was keeping so much from you and expecting me to follow suit.”

“Mr. Brady,” her father hissed.

“It's the truth. I didn't like it one damn bit. But I felt I had to take the case anyway. I couldn't pass up the chance to see if it might lead me a step closer to nabbing Reno. And, the fact is, I needed the cash.”

Annie pushed away from the door. She needed to think, and she couldn't as long as they were hovering over her. “Go away. Both of you. I'm going to take a shower.”

She walked to the bathroom, turned on the shower and stared into the spray, too stunned to take off her robe and get in, too numb with shock to cry or even scream from frustration. She thought of her mother, of the betrayal and humiliation and self-recrimination she must've felt the moment she realized she had trusted the wrong man, that Frank Reno had taken advantage of her.

Annie closed her eyes and whispered, “Mama.” Now she understood how easy it was to make a mistake, to trade your pride for a dream, something that didn't really exist, that had never existed.

A squeak pricked through her hazy state of mind. Opening her eyes, Annie turned toward the sound.

Willis stood in the bathroom doorway.

Before she could scream, he lunged and grabbed her, covered her mouth with his hand, pinched her nostrils together so she couldn't breathe. He shoved her head under the streaming hot water and held it there.

“The briefcase.” Yanking her head from beneath the spray, he allowed her one quick breath. “Tell me where the briefcase is.”

 

J
OE HAD TO BITE
his lip to keep from calling Milford Macy every foul name he knew as he followed him down the stairs, through the great room and into the kitchen.

“What in the hell were you thinking?” he snapped. “That was no way to tell her. You knew how she'd react.”

Macy went to the window and opened the shutters. “It slipped out when I realized what you've been up to,” Macy said angrily. He paused to glare at Joe. “I should rearrange your face, you sorry good-for-nothing son of a bitch.”

Joe held Macy's gaze without flinching. “I deserve that. But don't fool yourself. You're no innocent in all this, either. You might have meant well, but you're just as guilty of humiliating Annie as I am.”

Macy's face flushed. He lifted his chin. “I would never intentionally hurt my daughter. I happen to love her.”

Joe crossed his arms, rubbed his hands up and down them, cold all the sudden. “So do I.”

“You barely know her.”

“I know her better after only a few days than you do after a lifetime. Have you ever talked to her as an adult rather than as a child? If not, you're about twenty years late getting started. It's—” Joe stopped talking abruptly and followed Macy's worried glance toward the swinging door they'd just come through. “What's wrong?”

“I hear something.”

Turning, Joe pushed through the door again and entered the great room. The door leading onto the porch stood ajar, creaking quietly as the wind blew against it. How had he missed that before?

But he knew how. He'd been so upset with Macy, he couldn't see anything else but the red flare of his own anger. He'd let himself become distracted. Again.

“No wonder it's so cold in here,” Macy said from behind him. “I would've sworn I closed that when I came in.”

The hair on the back of Joe's neck prickled as he recalled checking the door when he came down this morning. “You did.” Pulling his gun from his waistband, he bolted toward the stairway. This couldn't be happening. Not to Annie. He couldn't have let someone slip past him again like he did the night he guarded Emma Billings.

Joe took the stairs two at a time, and when he reached the bedroom door, he heard the shower running. He tried the knob, found it still locked. “Annie!” he called, and she cried out. Aiming his gun at the lock, Joe fired and pushed through the door.

On her knees beside the dresser, Annie struggled to catch her breath. Water dripped from her robe and hair onto the floor.

Willis stood over her, aiming a gun at her head, a gasoline can and Landau's briefcase at his feet. “Back off, Brady.”

Lifting his hands out in front of him, Joe stepped backward. From behind, he heard Annie's father gasp her name.

“You too, Slick,” Willis said to Macy, then nodded at the gun Joe held. “Drop it on the floor.”

Joe lowered the gun.

“Toss it over here close to me. Nice and easy.” When the gun hit the floor, Willis kept aim on Annie and stooped to retrieve it, then wedged it into his belt. “Now…where are the copies you made of these files?” Willis nudged Annie's temple with the gun barrel.

Keeping his hands out in front of him, Joe said, “We didn't make copies. There wasn't time.”

“I saw your car at the library. I figure you were there to make copies. I tore that GTO apart and didn't find anything, so they're here somewhere.” He shrugged. “If you won't tell me where, guess I'll just have to play it safe and torch the place.”

“No! Don't burn down my aunt's house!” Annie cried out. “There aren't any copies in—”

Willis jerked her to her feet, pressed the revolver into her side and nodded toward Joe. “Brady, you take a walk to the bed and get comfortable.” He shifted to Annie's father. “Slick, turn around and back toward me with your hands up. Slowly.”

Joe glanced at Milford Macy, saw terror in his eyes. Willis planned to toast them along with the house, and the old man knew it. Macy reached Willis at the same time Joe reached the bed. Joe's heart slammed against his chest and Annie screamed when Willis shifted the gun and hit the back of Macy's head. Annie's father passed out cold and crumpled to the floor.

Annie spun around and started pummeling Willis with her fists. He caught her around the waist and pulled a pair of handcuffs from beneath the back of his coat. “Miss Macy is going to help me out here,” he said.

She shook her head and struggled against him. “No. You'll have to do it yourself.”

Joe had never felt more helpless, more frustrated and angry as he watched the tears spill down her cheeks. “Why did you get involved with Frank Reno, Willis?” he asked, trying to buy time. “He's the one running this show, isn't he?”

“What do you think?”

“I don't think, I know.”

“Took you long enough to figure it out.”

“You were a good cop. One of the best.”

“And where did that get me? I've made more money in the past year working on the side than I'll earn in five as a cop.”

“Do you really think you can get away with this? I've talked to some people. They'll link this to you soon enough.”

Willis chuckled and shook his head. “Sometimes you can be a real dumb-ass, Brady. That's why you made the perfect stool pigeon.
They
aren't coming after me or anybody else involved in this. We've covered our tracks.”

Joe suddenly wondered who else was named in Landau's diary, and wished desperately he'd taken the time to read it to the end.

“Did
you hear what I said? Cuff Brady to the bed.”

Annie glanced down at the handcuffs, then up at Willis. “And I said do it yourself.” She dropped the cuffs to the floor.

He bent, snatched the cuffs up, dragged her over to the bed, then pointed the gun toward where her father lay unconscious.

“No! Don't shoot him!” She darted a desperate glance from her father to Joe. She didn't care about nailing Reno or Harry anymore. She only wanted the two men she loved most to live.
She
wanted to live. “The copy—” She looked up at Willis. “It's on a disk. There's a car in the garage, an old Buick. The disk is in the glove compartment.”

“Good girl.” His lip curled up. “I'll make sure the car burns, too. Now
cuff
him.”

She twisted, tried to jerk her arm from his grasp. “I told you what you wanted—you can't do this!”

He pushed her hard against the bed. “Watch me.”

“Leave her alone!” Joe sat up abruptly, but eased back again when Willis cocked the trigger.

Trembling, Annie bent over Joe. Her fingers brushed his arm, and she fought back more tears. “I'm sorry,” she whispered, then forced herself to meet his gaze.

She saw love in his eyes. Joe loved her. She was sure of it. He hadn't lied about that. In that instant, Annie forgave him. And she forgave her father. The past was over. The only thing that mattered now was finding a way out of this mess, a miracle that would allow them all a future.

When Joe was handcuffed to the headboard, Willis tugged Annie backward to where the briefcase sat. He shoved her to her knees, made her pop the latches and open the lid. Stepping to her side, he reached for the gasoline can.

Fumes filled the room as he doused the contents. She turned away, heard the scratch of a match, smelled the pungent scent of sulfur, saw flames leap in her peripheral vision as the files caught fire.

“Close your eyes,” Willis ordered, moving next to her again and pressing the gun to her temple. “See, I'm not heartless. I'll shoot you first so you won't have to see me shoot the old man.”

A terrible sense of hopelessness gripped Annie. Is this how her mother had felt that night with Frank Reno in his car? Had she given up?

Jolted by that question, Annie knew at once that she couldn't just close her eyes and passively let Willis have his way. He might kill them, but if he did, he would walk away with at least a few injuries of his own. What did she have to lose?

Annie turned her head and sank her teeth into Willis's leg.

He shrieked and recoiled.

She fell to her side and rolled away from the fire.

She glanced back at Willis as a white object the size of a small cantaloupe sailed into the room and hit him in the head, exploding a spray of liquid that drenched the cowering cop and splattered Annie, as well. Willis stumbled backward as Coleman, wearing his red Elmer Fudd hat, rushed in as fast as his bad leg would carry him. He drew back his arm, threw another plump, pale cylinder at Willis, then another. Willis reeled backward, and in the next second, all two hundred and sixty or so pounds of Nate barreled through the door and into Willis, knocking him to the floor. “The key to the cuffs,” he yelled at Coleman. “He put them in his pocket. I'll hold him down.”

As Coleman dropped to his knees beside the two men, Annie pushed to her feet, ran over to the fire and began stamping it out.

 

C
OLEMAN CHUCKLED
. “Found a bunch of those little square packets on the floor downstairs. Make pretty decent water balloons in a pinch.”

Joe tried to suppress his grin but failed. He watched Annie's face turn as crimson as the tips of her father's ears at the mention of the condoms Coleman had used as a weapon to distract Willis.

“They must've fallen out of my purse,” she said quietly.

He held her gaze. “That seems to happen a lot.”

“The latch is bad.” She glanced away.

After all that had happened, Joe had hoped she might forgive him. Or at least give him a chance to explain. But now he wasn't so sure. Awkwardness, as thick as the smoke in the air, hung between them.

Taking the handcuffs with him, Joe crossed to where Nate stood over Willis beside the smoldering briefcase. Ignoring the man's dazed protests and strangled coughs, he knelt beside him, twisted Willis's arms behind his back and clicked the cuffs into place.

“I'll call the sheriff,” Nate said, and crossed to the phone.

“There's another rat in the cellar out back,” Coleman said.

Joe frowned and looked up at him. “A rat?”

“His partner,” Coleman explained. “After we dropped Mr. Macy off here, Nate and me were driving down the road and I spotted the guy in my mirror sneaking around the house. We knocked him out. Then we dragged him to the cellar, locked him up, and came looking for you.”

Nate hung up the phone and said, “Sheriff's on his way. May take him a while to get out here. He's older than the devil. Hell, he's even older than Coleman and me. Should have retired ten years ago but nobody else in the county wants the job. Not enough action.” He grinned. “Until you two showed up, anyway.”

Joe tugged Willis to his feet and shoved him out the doorway and down the hall toward the stairs.

He doubted Harry Landau had filed any formal complaints with the police about Annie taking his files. Still, Joe worried about the sheriff getting involved in all this. Things were coming to a head. He guessed they'd find out soon enough if Annie would suffer any consequences for her actions.

Less than ten minutes later, Joe heard a siren's wail. He looked across the great room and caught Annie's gaze. This time, she didn't look away, allowing him to see a hint of the pain he had caused her.

Wearing her father's coat over her robe, she said, “I'm going up to throw on some clothes before the sheriff arrives.” She started for the stairs.

Joe wanted to follow her, to take her in his arms and make things right. But he knew that wasn't an option. Not anymore. Now that she knew the truth about him, he wondered if he would ever hold Annie again.

 

T
WO HOURS LATER
, Annie stepped into the shower again, hoping for no interruptions this time. Earlier, she and the others had followed the sheriff into town when he took Willis and Prine to book them into the county jail. They had spent more than an hour answering questions. Annie had half expected the sheriff to detain her, and though he didn't, she knew the time might come when she'd face more questions about taking Harry's files. After all she'd been through today, the possibility that she might get in trouble for her “crime” didn't scare her. She was convinced she could survive anything, now.

Annie felt the tears coming as she thought again of her mother. For some reason, she couldn't
stop
thinking about her today. She still didn't have all the answers she'd hoped for. Maybe she never would, but she felt she at least understood her mother better now. And herself. They were alike in some ways, different in others. They had each made mistakes.

But Annie was a survivor.

As the water washed over her face, she let her thoughts drift to Joe. Falling in love with him had been almost as impulsive, passionate and reckless as anything her mother had done. But despite his deception, she couldn't regret their time together. It was through him that she had learned the most about herself. She knew her own mind, now. Who she was and who she was not. What she wanted and what she didn't.

When she had thought they were all going to die, the secrets he'd kept from her hadn't seemed important anymore. Their love was all that mattered. And that's what she had seen in Joe's eyes before Coleman and Nate arrived to save the day. Love. The best actor in the world could not pretend that look. Seeing it, Annie had forgiven him. She still did. But the hurt remained, and it would take time to forget.

Annie rinsed the suds from her hair, turned off the water. She stepped from the shower and towel-dried her hair. Then she dressed in a pair of her aunt's jeans, a T-shirt and socks.

She stretched out on the unmade bed. No matter what happened now with Joe, she could never go back to the way things had been before she moved to New York. She was no longer the same woman, afraid to go after what she wanted, afraid to admit that the mother she remembered had often been troubled and distant, restless and selfish. Afraid her discontent with her own life might mean that people were right when they said she was like Lydia Macy.

Annie refused to make the same mistakes Lydia had. She would rely on her good sense to guide her from now on. Not her father. Not her fears. Not her emotions. And right now, her good sense told her she had to put the past in the past and move on.

Yawning, Annie let her eyes drift shut. She was exhausted. Or maybe she was only using fatigue as an excuse to postpone the inevitable conversations that lay ahead with her father and Joe. Either way, she told herself she needed to lie here for just a little while, close her eyes for only a minute.

Two hours later, Annie awoke. The room was cold. She slipped on a pair of her aunt's bulky house slippers and walked downstairs. At the bottom of the staircase, she looked out the window. Joe's GTO wasn't in the drive. She walked over to look outside.

“He's gone back to the city,” her father said, coming up behind her.

Annie's heart sank. “When?”

“A couple of hours ago. Not long after you went upstairs.”

Annie swallowed hard, determined not to give in to the tears she felt gathering. She hadn't wanted him to leave. She had only wanted some time alone to think before they talked. Why hadn't he at least said goodbye?

“I wrote him a check and he—”

“He took money from you?”

The look on his face was the only answer she needed. Lance's betrayal had felt like a pinprick compared to the pain that sliced through her now. She walked outside into the snow-packed driveway, away from her father's concerned gaze. Glad for the biting cold and the small measure of numbness it brought, Annie put her hands to her face and started to cry.

The door squeaked behind her and moments later she felt her father's hands on her shoulders. “You love him.”

Annie couldn't face him, much less respond.

“He tore up the check, Annie.”

She twisted to look at him. “What?”

“Brady tore the check in half.” He held out an envelope. “He asked me to give you this.”

As her father went back in the house, she pulled a folded sheet of paper from the envelope, opened it, read.

Annie, I figured you could probably use some time to yourself. I'm sorry for everything I did that hurt you. I love you. That's the truth. When you're ready to talk, you know where to find me. Joe
.

Snow crunched beneath her feet as Annie started for the house. She found her father in the kitchen making a sandwich. He looked up, lowered the knife he'd been using. “I owe you an apology, Annie. I've been a fool, trying to hold onto you. I've been so afraid I'd lose you like—” He bowed his head.

“You'll never lose me.” She moved toward him, placed a hand on his shoulder, noticed for the first time how old he looked, how tired. “I may be like her in some ways, but not in the ways that worry you.”

“I know that, sweetheart.” They went to the table, sat next to each other. “You aren't troubled like she was. I knew your mother was unhappy,” he said with sadness. “I didn't want to believe it, though, so I pretended. I tried to hold onto her. I guess I held too tightly. I smothered her…that's what she said.”

The anguish in his voice broke Annie's heart.

“When she died,” he continued, “I did the same thing to you. You'd think I would've learned my lesson.” He huffed a humorless laugh. “I was so afraid you would leave me, too. That you'd get hurt like she did. And then, when you ran to New York—”

“I'm not running away from anything, like she was. I'm running
toward
something. But wherever I end up, my life's always going to include you, don't you know that?” Annie's throat tightened. She took his hand, squeezed it. “I need you. No matter how old I get, I always will. I've tried hard to make up for her loss, but I can't anymore. I have to do what's best for me.”

Her father looked across at her, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “I'm so sorry. I should've told you everything a long time ago.”

“I understand now why you didn't.” She blinked at him, wanting it all out, all the hurts and confusion, so that they could move past them. “What I don't understand is why you don't think I'm capable of controlling the bank?”

He frowned. “Why do you think that?”

“Matchmaking me with Lance? And before him, Avery and Chuck?”

“That had nothing to do with the bank. I wanted you to have someone. I could see you weren't content. I thought—”