Reckless (21 page)

“You were still in high school. What could
you have done?”

“Something. Anything. I shouldn't have let it
go on so long. I shouldn't have let him....” She stopped and tried
to swallow the lump in her throat.

Nick touched her arm. “You couldn't have
changed what happened, Toni.”

“I could. I knew when he left the house that
day...it was in his eyes. I shouldn't have let him go.”

He was quiet for a long moment. Maybe he
finally believed her. Not that it mattered.
She
knew. She'd
always known. When he took her chin in his hand and turned her to
face him, she wished he'd just drop the subject.

“You know what I think?” Nick asked. She
shook her head, and he went on. “I think you feel so guilty about
it that you want to be punished. I think that's why you challenge
death at every turn. Maybe you're hoping it'll beat you one of
these times. Maybe you think, somewhere deep down in that pretty
head of yours, that you don't deserve to live when he didn't.”

In the dark, quiet car, Nick deftly opened
the festering wound in her soul and let the infection begin to
heal. Toni felt her lips tremble. She couldn't speak. How could he
see so clearly the truth she'd kept hidden from herself for such a
long time? The accuracy of what he'd said was so clear to her all
at once. Why hadn't she seen it before?

“It wasn't your fault, Toni.” He watched the
changes in her face for a moment. “Do you think your father
would've wanted you to spend your life paying for his decision that
day?''

She shook her head. “No, but—”

“You know how bad you've felt since he took
his own life?” His arms suddenly encircled her shoulders. He
brought her close to him, until she was held like a child. “That's
how bad your sister would feel if you followed his example. Do you
want to be responsible for causing her that kind of pain?”

She shook her head hard, moving it against
his shoulder where it was cradled. “No! I never meant...I didn't
realize...” She released all her breath at once. She felt like
crying. The huge burden she'd been bearing for so long suddenly
grew lighter. It didn't vanish; some of it remained. For the first
time in a very long time, though, she thought she understood it.
God. This changed the scope of her very existence! She felt free
all of a sudden.

She sat up slightly and studied his face in
awed fascination. “You should have been a shrink. My God, how do
you see so much?”

He shrugged. One hand stroked a wisp of hair
away from her face. “You’re getting to be a little bit transparent
to me. Maybe because we've been together constantly for the past
week. Maybe because I’ve wrestled with a lot of the same demons
myself. For a long time I blamed myself for not being able to save
my brother. So I know you. I know you on a level I think few people
ever know another. Except...”

“Except what?”

He released her and settled back in his seat.
Toni settled back, too, but close enough so their bodies touched.
“Did you ever want to do anything else?” he asked. “I mean, besides
write tell-all books to clear your conscience?”

She allowed a small smile. “I love to write
and I'm good at it.”

“I'll let you know after I read your latest
book.”

She smiled fully. Finally the easy, relaxed
atmosphere between them had returned. “I had a plan, you know. A
long time ago before, I got so wrapped up in being a crime
fighter.”

He folded his arms, clasping his hands behind
his head. “Tell me.”

Toni closed her eyes and envisioned the life
she'd allowed to exist only in her dreams. “Rural town,” she told
him. “Not suburban,
rural.
I'm not even sure my road is
paved. The house is a rambling old Victorian—white with black
shutters and huge open porches. I have a big office with a window
that overlooks the enormous back lawn. There are yellow roses
growing there and a flowering crab apple tree. I write wonderful
books with happy endings. When I get tired of sitting at the
computer, I walk the dog.”

She didn't need to look at him to know his
brows shot up. “The dog?”

“Um-hmm. He's a huge gray-and-white sheepdog.
He's so shaggy I have to trim the hair around his eyes every few
weeks so he can see. His name is Ralph. We walk together every day,
down the path to the duck pond, and—”

“This is one vivid plan,” he said slowly.

“I'm a writer. I live to fill in the
details.”

Headlights approached once more, and Nick sat
up straighter. This time the oncoming car veered into the parking
lot and pulled up alongside. The driver's window lowered slowly.
The man sitting there was not Carl.

“My boss,” Nick muttered, then lowered his
window. “Harry, what the hell's going on?”

The white haired man in the other car met
Nick's gaze, all but ignoring Toni's presence. “It isn't good,
Manelli. Carl's dropped off the radar. No one's been able to find a
trace of him.”

Nick flinched as if he'd been struck. The man
in the other car kept on speaking. He glanced at Toni. “Her sister
didn’t show for her flight, Nick. We haven't been able to locate
her, either.”

“Damn.”

Toni shook her head rapidly. “No. It isn't
what you're thinking. I know my sister. She probably just set her
heels and decided she wasn't leaving. When I talked to her earlier
and explained the situation—” she swallowed and cleared her throat
“—I should have known she agreed too easily. She's stubborn as a
mule sometimes.”

“Must run in the family,” Nick muttered under
his breath.

“I hope you're right,” Harry said. He
returned his attention to Nick. “Why's she still with you, Manelli?
You had orders—”

“She would have come right back and become a
target,” Nick said. “It was safer to keep her with me.”

“I'd appreciate it if you two would stop
talking as if I'm not here.” Toni looked at Nick, feeling a dark
terror creep into her heart. If Taranto had her sister...

“What do we do now?” she asked.

Harry reworded her question and put it to
Nick. “Do you have enough on Taranto to make an arrest stick?”

Nick shook his head. “He paid me to kill
Toni—but that's no good because I don't have enough to prove it and
Toni isn't dead. He sent me to witness Vinnie's hit, but he never
really confessed to that on tape. The man knows enough to talk in
circles. He says all he needs to say without ever admitting a
thing.” He looked down and shook his head.

“What kind of evidence do you need?” Toni
asked.

Both men looked at her, and Nick said, “What
kind have you
got
?”

She did a mental inventory of the evidence
she’d gathered while researching her book, trying to think of the
most damning. “I have photographs of Lou Taranto passing a large
manila envelope to a man named Santos. Santos was later arrested in
Colombia for murder.”

“Right,” Harry interrupted. “Last year. He'd
tampered with the plane that was supposed to carry Juan Perez to
the U.S. to stand trial for drug trafficking. The plane crashed
after takeoff. Perez died, along with the three DEA agents who were
escorting him back.”

“Juan Perez was Lou Taranto's cocaine
supplier in Colombia,” Nick said.

Toni nodded. “That's right. And if he'd made
it here to stand trial, he might have been offered a deal in
exchange for his testimony against Taranto. Santos took that
envelope from Lou and left for Colombia within six hours. And when
he got there, a large amount of money suddenly appeared in his bank
account.”

“Toni, how the hell do you know all
this?”

She met Nick's intense look. “I followed Lou
for weeks researching this book. One day I saw him meet with Santos
in a little cafe. I slipped the waitress fifty bucks for her apron
and got close enough to eavesdrop. Took the shots of Taranto
passing Santos the envelope, and they never even glanced up at me.
When they left the diner, I decided to follow Santos and the
envelope instead of Lou. That's how I know he went straight to
Colombia. I still had connections down there from the last book and
I called one of them. Larry Wetzel. He has a lucrative little
investigations agency going down there. He'll testify if you force
him to. Anyway, he met the flight and tailed Santos on that end. He
reported that Santos had checked into a motel and got himself a job
at a small airfield. The next day Perez's plane took off from that
same airfield and crashed.”

Nick stared at her and shook his head.
“Slipped the waitress fifty bucks...” he muttered, more to himself
than anyone else.

“How much of this is documented?'' Harry
seemed eager.

“The photograph of Lou handing Santos the
envelope is irrefutable. I have another one of Santos boarding the
flight to Colombia. You already have proof that Santos sabotaged
the Perez’s flight. He would've been tried for that last year if he
hadn't been found hanging by the neck in his cell.”

“If that was self-inflicted, I'll eat my
badge,” Harry said softly.

“Still, it's not solid,” Nick put it

“I have the envelope. There's a coffee stain
on it, identical to the one that shows in the first photo. My PI
friend grabbed it out of a trash can where Santos had dropped it
after lighting a match to it. Larry managed to douse the flame
before it did too much damage.”

Nick looked at Harry, then at Toni again.
“Come on,
Katrina,
don't keep us in suspense. What was
inside?”

She couldn't help smiling a little smugly. “A
five-by-seven glossy of Perez, and a handwritten note with the name
of the airfield, the flight number and the time and date of
departure. The only thing that wasn't there was the money, and that
is still in Santos's bank account.”

Harry's long, low whistle came at the same
moment that Nick asked, “Where is all this evidence?” She didn't
answer. His hands clasped her shoulders, and he squeezed them
between his fingers. “Don't play games, Toni. Tell me.”

She shook her head. “I'll take you to it.” He
frowned, and his grip tightened, but she only stuck her chin out a
little farther. “If I tell you, you'll try to stash me somewhere
while you go after it alone.”

His hands fell to his sides. He nodded.
“That's right.” He glanced downward for a long moment, then faced
her again. “Your apartment. That locked room, right?”

She shook her head, but not before he'd seen
the answer in her eyes. His gaze pummeled her. “All right, yes. But
you don't know the combination for my safe, and I won't give it to
you.”

“I'll get into it whether you give me the
combination or not.”

“But that’ll take time. Isn't time of the
essence here?”

“She's got you there, Manelli,” Harry
interrupted. “Take her along, we're wasting time arguing. I'll get
a team in place outside her building. You'll have backup. One
hour.”

Nick glared from Toni to Harry. “I don't like
it— she'll be a moving target.”

“We'll take precautions,” Harry told him.
“Beginning right now. Get out of the car.” Nick hesitated. “Come
on, Manelli, I don't have all night. You've been driving that one
through this entire operation. Taranto knows it. We'll switch. I'll
get that thing out of sight for a while. You two wearing
vests?”

“Not yet,” Nick said.

“There's a pair in my back seat. Get into
them.” Harry got out of the car as he spoke and yanked Nick's door
open. “Come on, let's not sit here all night.”

Toni could see that Nick didn't want to
comply, but the moment he opened his mouth to argue the other man
held up a hand. “Consider it an order.”

Lou Taranto leaned back in his overstuffed
chair. He took the cigarette from his lips and held it in front of
him, studying the smoke that spiraled up from the glowing tip. He
released what he'd inhaled, and his face became a blur in the
center of the stark room. Viper stood at his right hand, his button
eyes gleaming. He alternately clenched and opened his red-knuckled
hand.

“Bring him around,” Taranto ordered.

“He's had it, Lou.” Viper thumbed one of
Carl’s swollen, purple eyelids open and let it fall. The only
things holding Carl upright were the ropes that bound him to the
straight wooden chair. “He's told you all he's gonna.”

“He's told me nothing. But he will, damn
lousy cop. Bring him around!”

“I told you, he's had it. Damn near comatose.
Be dead in a few hours.”

“Stubborn little son of a bitch,” Lou
muttered.

Viper rolled his eyes. “You don't need
Salducci to tell you what you already know. Nick's a cop, too. It's
obvious. They came in right around the same time. They were both in
on the shipment that was taken.”

“Nicky took a bullet that night!”

“And Carl patched him up. You know he's a
Fed. You think he'd have patched up my leg? Yours? No way. He'd
have smiled while we bled to death. What do you need? A signed
confession? Manelli's a cop. I say we off him.”