Reckless (19 page)

When Nick had left the room, taking the
remote with him, Toni had followed, shouting warnings as a
distraction and holding the doorknob in her hand as he pulled it
shut. She hadn't let it close all the way, so the lock did not
engage. As soon as Nick's footsteps had faded, she opened the
bookcase door and silently followed. She would not sit still while
he went down there, wounded and alone, to face Lou Taranto and
whoever was with him. She didn't like the odds. Besides, she had to
hear this conversation. She'd convinced herself again that Nick
couldn't possibly be in Taranto's employ. The man he was when he
was alone with her was not that kind. Granted, he was entirely
different when he was with Taranto. She had to know, once and for
all, which Nick was the real one.

She sat just out of sight and well within
earshot at the top of the curving stairway. All the air left her
lungs in a rush when she heard Nick make the offer he just had. Her
throat tightened until she couldn't swallow, and her eyes were
scalding. He'd sounded ruthless, vicious.

Not the Nick I know,
she told herself
as she struggled to contain the panic she felt spreading like ice
water through her veins.
He wouldn't hurt my sister—he promised.
This is just an act.

Maybe, she thought. And maybe not. She wanted
to trust Nick. More than anything, she wanted to believe her
instinct that he wasn't capable of such cruelty, that he truly was
the gentle, caring man she'd come to know. She felt it so strongly
she would have trusted him with her life.

But can I trust him with my sister's? And if
there's even a one-in-a-million chance I'm wrong....

She shook herself. She couldn't think
objectively about Nick. Her attraction to him always got in the
way. And her sister was obviously in jeopardy now, if not from Nick
then from Taranto himself. She had to get out of there, get to
Joey, warn her.

Nearly frantic as she fought with images of
what the filthy Viper might do to her sister, Toni jumped when Nick
stood to walk Lou to the front door. Then she saw her opportunity.
She raced down both flights of stairs as soon as they were out of
sight and ducked into a small room off the opposite end of the
living room. She had only one thought in mind. She had to protect
her sister. She'd failed her father; let him leave when her
instincts had told her to stop him. She wouldn't repeat the
mistake.

She held her breath and waited, giving
Taranto ample time to drive away and Nick time to remount the
stairs and, she hoped, reach the third floor. It would take him
longer than usual, due to the bullet wound. She tried to be
patient, knowing he'd try to stop her, no matter which side he was
truly on. She couldn't let that happen.

When she thought enough time had passed, she
moved to the nearest window. It faced the rear of the house, and
beyond it she could see only darkness and slashing rain. It was
locked, naturally. She was out of patience with Nick and his locks.
She picked up the first thing she saw, a marble sculpture of a
rearing stallion, and hurled it right through the glass. If only
Nick had been honest with her, none of this would be necessary. A
tiny voice of doubt whispered in the back of her mind that it might
be more necessary than ever, but she refused to listen.

She climbed through the window, her only
thought that she had to save her sister. She had no plan of action,
no thought of getting past the gate or of how to reach Joey in time
to protect her. With her knack for knowing things before they
happened, maybe Joey would know, and take precautions, but Toni
couldn’t depend on that. She had no qualms about running into the
fury of a summer storm dressed in nothing but an oversize shirt and
her underwear. She didn't feel the jagged shard that raked across
her upper arm. She didn't flinch from the bits of glass that jabbed
into the bottoms of her bare feet as she made her way over the wet
ground and away from the hulking gray stone mansion.

When Nick walked through the third-floor
study and found the bookcase standing slightly away from the wall,
all the blood rushed to his feet. He moved quickly into the
apartment, knowing already that he wouldn't find her there. He felt
the emptiness in every room as if it were a presence in itself. He
didn't need the flashing light to confirm it. He shut off the
system before the alarm bell could start in.

Where the hell was she? Somewhere on the
grounds, he rationalized. She had to be—she wouldn't take off. Not
now. Unless... Nick's gaze moved to the monitor. Unless she'd
overheard his conversation with Lou and believed his act. But she
couldn't have. He had taken the remote...

...and dropped it on the table in the
study as he rushed through.
He turned now and went to find it
still resting there, beside the unplugged telephone. He grabbed
both items and ducked back into the apartment. He inserted the
phone's cord into its jack, punched in Carl's number with one hand,
thumbed the monitor to life with the other. He was scanning each
room for a sign of Toni when Carl picked up.

“I'm calling it,” he said without prelude.
“Pull out, Carl.”

“What do you mean, 'pull out'? Are you nuts?
We just—”

Nick continued flicking buttons on the
remote, his gaze intent on the screen. “Lou's too damn unconcerned
about losing that shipment. Almost like he expected it. It stinks
of a setup, Carl. He staged it. A loyalty test. And I don’t know
which of us he was testing. But he’s gotta know one of the men who
was at that warehouse last night tipped off the cops. Pull out now,
and watch your back.”

Carl swore. “Okay. All right, if you say so.
Listen, how's the leg? I—”

“Later. I have to move.” Nick replaced the
receiver slowly. He'd stopped flicking buttons when he'd seen the
small sitting room with the smashed window. “My God, if she was in
there...”

He closed his eyes slowly, opened them again.
She had heard everything. And she'd obviously believed every word
he'd said to Lou. He shook himself and went into the bedroom,
yanked a dresser drawer completely out and flipped it upside down
on the bed. Now that it didn't matter, she believed his cover
story. Her timing was damn near awful. He tore free the envelope
taped to the bottom of the drawer, ripped it open and took from it
a small leather folder the size of a wallet. Slipping it into his
pocket, he ran unevenly back through the apartment and down the
stairs, ignoring the stabbing pain each step sent shooting through
his leg.

In the little sitting room at the bottom of
the stairs, the wind blew the curtains wildly. Rain slanted in,
wetting the floor and the wall beneath the window. Nick paused only
long enough to find a flashlight and then he climbed out the same
way Toni had, noting the trace of blood on a pointed finger of
glass. On the ground, he squinted through the downpour to try to
make out her shape in the darkness. He aimed the flashlight’s beam
onto the muddied ground in search of her small footprints. If
anything happened to her, he would never forgive himself.

Toni slipped in the rain-slick grass more
than once as she ran from the mansion. She decided not to go near
the front gate, certain that would be the first place Nick would
look for her, and instead, headed for the woods behind the house.
Maybe the place wasn't as secure as he'd said. There might not be
fencing all the way around, and even if there was, there might be
some way over or under or through it.

The trees closed themselves behind her as
soon as she breached the first cluster of them, hiding the house
from her view. She stumbled onward, rain streaming between her
shoulder blades. It had plastered the hockey jersey she wore to her
skin and soaked her hair within minutes. Her limp curls stuck to
her face and neck, heavy and wet and cold. She had to blink
raindrops from her eyes every few steps just to see where she was
going, but she pushed on, trying to keep to a straight course,
refusing to think or to feel. Her every sense was focused on
moving, on seeing through the rain and on putting as much distance
between herself and Nick Manelli as she could.

She resisted the subconscious masochist that
wanted to replay, over and over in her mind, the horrible things
she'd heard Nick say. She didn't want to hear again the change in
his voice from the moment Taranto had told him who she really was.
She didn't want to wonder if that knowledge had made a difference
to him...had made him hate her as much as it sounded like he
did.

A sob tore at her throat as those thoughts
ran through her mind, despite her determination not to let them.
The seed of doubt grew larger. As the trees grew closer together,
they blunted the force of the rain. Pines, she realized dully as
their needles continued brushing her arms and their scent reached
out to offer solace. The wind couldn't slash at her there. The rain
still came through, but more gently, filtered through the boughs.
The ground seemed to sink under her feet, as if she was walking on
soft sponges instead of several inches of wet, browning needles.
They made a carpet for her cold, bare feet.

She slowed her pace, beginning to feel the
biting shards of glass she'd stepped on, and the painful cut in her
right shoulder. Eventually she had to stop. She'd walked for what
seemed a very long distance and still hadn't come to a fence
demarcating the border of the property. Bracing one hand against
the sticky trunk of a pine, she heard its needles whispering above
her head as the rain hissed down through them to sprinkle her. She
glanced around but could see no farther than two or three trees in
any direction. The glimpses of sky she could catch between the
sheltering arms of the pines showed her only a bleak, gray
thing—the perfect sky to match the way she felt. She couldn't
understand the intense pain that seemed lodged in the center of her
chest. But she knew it grew with every step she took...and each
time she felt herself doubting Nick, it grew even more.

She bit her lower lip, and a chill rushed
through her as the wind found its way to her bare legs. Had she
allowed herself to indulge in a silly infatuation? Had she deluded
herself with a fantasy image of a man who didn't exist?

She thought about last night when her heart
had iced over at the sight of his blood-soaked leg. All she’d
wanted was to ease his pain, to make him all right. She'd held him
when his fever had climbed. She'd rocked him in her arms as she
would her own child, and she'd felt the wrenching pain in him when
he'd dreamed of his brother. Toni had convinced herself that no man
who'd loved a brother as he had could work for Lou Taranto.

It couldn’t have all been in her imagination.
Even now, she wished she could turn around and run back to him,
fall into those big, strong arms and pour out her fears as he held
her and promised her that everything would be all right. Only fear
for her sister kept her from doing just that...fear and a kernel of
doubt that wouldn't let go.

She folded her arms against the tree and
lowered her head to them. “God,” she moaned softly. “How could I
have been so wrong about him all along?”

“You weren't wrong, Toni.”

His voice was so near her ear that she
stiffened in shock, then pivoted, flattening her back to the wet,
stringy bark to see him standing mere inches from her. “Don't try
to take me back, Nick. I have to go to her...I have to—”

He caught her hand in one of his, turned it
slowly and pressed the flashlight he held into it. He folded her
fingers around it as Toni frowned and shook her head, not
understanding. She opened her mouth to ask what he wanted from her,
but his finger pressed to her lips and silenced her. He caught her
other hand and lifted it, palm up. He took something from his
pocket and lay it flat on her palm.