Fugitive Heart (18 page)

She ran after him and grabbed his arm. “Don’t you dare. You’re going to walk right into a gunfight and get yourself killed. Let Bobby handle it. He’s really not that bad at his job, and he’s got Jake for backup. You stay with me. I’m serious.”

For a moment, Nick resisted her grip, no doubt determined to do the macho-male thing and assume no one could handle anything without him. But then he stopped trying to pull away from her. “I can’t believe this. All these townspeople popping up out of nowhere. It’s crazy.”

“It’s Arnesdale. Everybody’s always up in your business, but sometimes that turns out to be a really good thing.”

All of a sudden, Ames’s legs buckled. The adrenaline she’d been operating on seemed to evaporate from her system, leaving her weak and jittery.
I could have been killed. Nick could have been killed. Any one of the gang from the diner could have been killed. Killed! As in “shot through the heart”, and not in a song-lyric kind of way.

Nick caught her as she slipped toward the ground. “Whoa! Are you all right? Were you hit?” He started patting her all over, searching for a hidden wound.

“Just noodle legs. Let me catch my breath and I’ll be all right.” She clung to his solid strength and breathed him in. “It was kinda scary,” she admitted, glancing toward the two criminals who’d held her captive. “Even if they did seem more dopey than lethal.”

“Trust me. Both those guys could be plenty lethal. It’s their job, and they’d shoot somebody with no more qualms than if they were running any other errand for their bosses.”

“Speaking of… I wonder if those guys got away.”

As if in answer to her thought, another gunshot rang out, making Ames jump and grab on to Nick even tighter. “Oh God.” She pictured Jake or Bobby sprawled on the ground—still and bleeding.

A moment later, Jake rounded the corner, pale and retching. He wiped his sleeve across his face. Ames and Nick broke apart and hurried toward him.

“What happened?”

“They were digging around in the woods. Bobby shot one guy, but the other one ran off. Bobby went after him.”

“Which guy got shot?” Nick asked, and Ames remembered that he’d once been buddies with Bert Esposito.

“He’s dead.” Jake continued to scrub at his cheek with his jacket sleeve, smearing red down his jaw. “His head exploded. Right on me. I’ve never seen anybody die before, except my grandpa, but that was, you know, in a hospital bed.”

Ames put an arm around him, and Nick helped Jake stagger over to the front porch and lowered him down. “I’ll get you some water.” He disappeared into the house, while Ames urged Jake to put his head between his knees and breathe.

“What’s going on?” Marty joined them. “Did Bobby get the bastards?”

“One of them,” Ames answered. She looked over to Gopher and Dennis, who were driving their trussed-up prisoners toward the vehicles.
Citizen’s arrest.
She had to suppress a giddy laugh at the crazy sight of the locals herding the thugs along like cattle. There was nothing funny about any of this, she reminded herself.

Nick returned with several bottles of water, which he passed around. Ames hadn’t even thought about being thirsty, but she gulped the bottle down until the cheap plastic crumpled. Immediately, she started to feel better.

Footsteps crunched on the gravel, and Officer Bobby emerged from the darkness. His face was as pale as Jake’s, but his hands were steady as he holstered his gun.

“Gopher and Dennis took the other guys to your squad car,” Marty announced.

“Good.” Bobby nodded. He turned to Nick. “One of the perps got away. You want to come and identify the other? If you can.” Bobby pulled in a deep breath but recovered fast. “And then I’m going to have some questions for both you and Ames.”

The wail of an approaching siren and red lights flashing through the trees heralded the arrival of an ambulance and another squad car.

Then things got pretty official fast, even if the Back Porch patrons stayed and milled around. Yellow crime tape was strung around the yard, the other two cops in town walked around taking notes, and the EMTs carted off the dead body of Mobster Number One, which meant Bert was still at large.

Ames and Nick were ushered into the backseat of one of the other squad cars. Ames felt completely disoriented and fragmented, not to mention exhausted. So much had happened in so little time. This morning was surreal, and she thought about the customers who’d be stopping by the Back Porch expecting their breakfasts and finding no one there to serve them.

As they waited alone in the back of the cop car, she inched closer to Nick and rested her head on his chest. He mumbled something.

“What?”

“Clusterfuck,” he said. “I’m so sorry, Ames.”

“No, no. You kept your promise. I’m fine.”

“Most of Arnesdale did that, not me.” He stroked her hair back from her face. “And thank God for Arnesdale. If Elliot came back here, he’d be safer here than anywhere else. I can’t imagine the Espositos will come back here in any big fat hurry.” He chuckled. “I wish you could have seen Bert’s face when he looked out the window and saw the crowd of people coming over the hill.”

She sighed and snuggled in closer, soothed by the thump of his heartbeat, slow and steady. The danger had passed for now, but… “Will he keep coming after you?”

Nick absently twirled one of her curls around his thumb. “He got what he came for—most of it, anyway. I told him we don’t know a thing about Elliot, and he believes me.”

“Why do you think he believes you?”

His hand on her hair stilled. “I know him. He believes me.”

“But what about his father? He seems to be the really dangerous one.”

“Bert will fix it with Cesar.”

Was he lying to make her feel safe again? She twisted so she could look into his face, and he smiled down at her. The warmth shining in his brown eyes made her feel more secure than any assurances about the Espositos backing off.

She wanted more, so much more from him—but not enough to ignore this moment, safe and in his arms after the fear of the morning, when she’d thought they might both be killed. These seconds wrapped in his arms felt like a gift.

At the station, Bobby and Ted guided Ames and Nick into separate interrogation rooms. Actually, one was the interrogation room; the other was a break room for the staff. Ames watched the coffeemaker dripping in the corner, and answered Ted’s questions to the best of her ability. She’d never meant to expose Elliot, but here she was anyway, and all she could do was tell the truth about her brother.

“So, all you know is what this guy Nick told you? This story about Elliot stealing money and records? How do you know Nick isn’t part of it?”

Ames shook her head. “I just do, but, uh, I don’t think I should really be talking to you without a lawyer.”

Ted snorted. “Come on, Ames. This is me here. Just tell me the truth, and everything will be fine.”

“Nevertheless.” Ames folded her arms and sat back in the metal chair. Time to clam up. She hoped Nick was doing the same. She’d watched enough TV shows to know that even if a person didn’t have anything to hide, whatever they said during questioning could come back to bite them in the ass later in court.

“Fine. Whatever,” Ted said. “Want some coffee?”

“No, thanks. My stomach’s too jumpy.” Again, Ames felt as if she was in a dream, switching from talk of criminal activities to mundane chitchat. “Honestly, Ted, I’m exhausted and kind of overwhelmed. Can I go home now? You guys can question me later. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”
Besides, I don’t even
have
a lawyer.

“Sure, Ames.”

“And Nick. You’ll let him go too.”

“I don’t know. Bobby might want to hang on to him awhile longer.”

She sat up straight. “What? Why?”

“Because Sam Allen or Nick Ross or whatever his name is seems to have a lot to do with why these guys were in town. We can’t just turn him loose without a lot more questioning.”

“He’s not going to skip town. Nick’s not like that.” Even as she said it, Ames could hear how naïve she sounded. She didn’t really know Nick, despite everything they’d done together and the fact that he could make her body glow. The old Ames would be appalled by her words.

She had been cautious all of her life, dreaming about her house and never taking the steps to move into it. She’d worried about Elliot but hadn’t gone east to look for him.

Trusting Nick, believing him, went against her prudent nature. What was more, the time to act on her usual, reasonable doubts had come and gone, and she’d ignored it. And she realized that once she’d informed him that she’d uncovered his real name, he’d stopped lying.

She knew his name and
knew
him in all the ways that counted.

“Let me talk to Bobby,” she said. “I’ll vouch for Nick—at least what he’s been doing for the last day or two.” She ignored the interested twitch of Ted’s eyebrows. Something else for the Arnesdale gossip mill—although after the moment she’d seen all those people coming down that driveway, she couldn’t despise her hometown. “If you’re not going to bring charges—and I don’t see how you can, because he hasn’t done anything—then let him go home with me.”

Ted looked at her sharply. “To your house, Ames? Jeez, he’s only been in town a few weeks.”

“So?” She felt like a petulant teen being asked to explain her behavior to her parents. She squared her shoulders and remembered her age. “It’s not really your business,” she said less belligerently.

“Just don’t want to see you get hurt. You don’t know anything about this guy, and he seems to be in bed with some really bad guys.”

“Just like my brother,” Ames responded dryly, then remembered that anything she said might be used against Elliot, and she zipped her lips again.

Ted shook his head. “All right. I’ll go talk to Bobby and see where he’s at. You sit tight.”

He left her alone in the break room. She looked longingly at the coffeepot. The rich coffee aroma almost quelled the stench of old popcorn, and she wished she’d accepted a cup. She was shivering, probably from nerves, and could use a warm brew.

Ames slumped in her chair again and drummed her nervous fingers on the plastic tabletop. What now? For the past few hours, she hadn’t thought beyond getting Nick free of his obligation to the Espositos. Now she had to worry about being drawn into a court case. Maybe Nick would be asked to take a stand against the crime family and end up relocated in witness protection. Would Ames be forced to tell everything she’d learned about her brother? Could she bring herself to betray him? It was far too much to think about right now, when all she wanted was to lie down and snatch a few hours of oblivion.

And Nick? What about Nick? Is our fling over just as quickly as it started? Will he go back to New York? What happens next?
She wondered if she’d go after him if he went back east and almost smiled when she realized that, yeah, she might.

“I can’t tell you anything without speaking to a lawyer first,” Nick repeated for what felt like the fortieth time.

They’d let him stew for at least an hour before coming in to talk to him. He’d worried about what they’d do to Ames but then decided she was one of their own. They’d treat her well, at least for the moment. That helped. Instead of growing more agitated with fear, he’d taken the opportunity to grab a quick nap.

Now Bobby Brown, the deputy, not the rapper, stared him down with pigheaded stubbornness. Likely this was the biggest case he’d had in his career as a law enforcement officer. Traffic tickets and public loitering were more his domain. “Cooperate and you’ll get off lighter. Just give me a simple statement.”

“I request a lawyer, please.”

“You’re not under arrest.”

Nick was fairly certain that was only because Brown hadn’t found something he could throw at Nick.

He waited.

Bobby crossed his arms. “Like I said, you don’t need a lawyer.”

Nick gritted his teeth and shifted in his chair. Despite the nap, he was bone-tired and so anxious to see Ames he could hardly think straight. Police involvement was exactly what he’d been trying to avoid
. Thanks a lot, Jake.

“Look, Officer Brown, I’m not trying to be uncooperative, but it’s been a helluva night. I’m sure it’s been for you too, having to shoot that guy.”

“Who you identified as
not
being Roberto Esposito. You might as well tell me everything. I’ve already heard most of it from Jake anyway.”

“What did he say?”

Yeah, like Brown was going to volunteer that information. But then the cop surprised him with a grunt. “He had a lot to say. The most interesting thing he told me was that you, Elliot and Ames Jensen are up to your armpits in organized-crime nonsense.”

“She’s not.” Nick’s answer was automatic, though he was stupid to volunteer a single word. It just happened that way when it came to Ames. His response was knee-jerk: protect her. Keep her safe.

He closed his eyes and thought about those last few moments in the house after the gun had gone off outside.

Nick had panicked. He’d swept all the money into the garbage bag and shoved it at Bert. “Go on, leave,” Nick had said. He’d given them fast directions around the woods back to the main road.