Return to Poughkeepsie (45 page)

Rodolfo again said nothing for a very long while. Beckett swore he could hear himself sweating.

“You will wear my brand,” Rodolfo finally announced. “Get the brand, Boston.” He put the safety back on the gun and nodded toward Eve. “This weapon you have, she’s unpredictable. Can you keep her under control?” Rodolfo waved Boston back in and the man set up his tools: a blowtorch and million-year-old iron brand.

“She’ll listen to me, but she leaves.” Beckett had no idea if Rodolfo would let her live. This whole scene was a crapshoot.

“She leaves, but you do not.” Rodolfo countered. “I need to discern whether you actually have any value. I fear I already know the answer.” He took the heated brand from Boston. “Hold out your arm.”

Beckett braced himself, and the old man pressed the red-hot metal to the skin just below his
Sorry
tattoo.

When Rodolfo pulled it off, Boston followed with a handful of salt. Beckett didn’t flinch, but his balls crawled into his stomach. He looked into Eve’s blue eyes. For her he would die. For her he would take any pain. Boston followed the salt with lemon juice straight from a fresh-cut wedge. When the searing aggravation was completed, Beckett looked at his arm. Although bloody, he could make out the shape—some sort of twirly letter V, kind of like a tree.

Rodolfo nodded at his men. “Bring him in tomorrow after I’ve had some sleep. I’m going to bed.”

The old man hobbled out the door, and all guns remained trained on Eve, except for Boston’s, which honed in on Beckett. A guard stepped over and sawed through the plastic on Eve’s ankles.

She stood with her hands still bound and refused to look at Beckett.

“Hey!” he called. “She gets to take my car. And I want to see her get in it. I need to know you let her leave with my men.”

The guards conferred among themselves and finally came to agreement. One of them outfitted Beckett with his own set of tight plastic bracelets and relieved him of his car keys. Under heavy guard, they let him walk by Eve’s side until she went out the front door. They cut her wrists free and handed her the keys skittishly, moving away from her as quickly as possible as if she might explode.

His men looked shocked when she came carefully down the steps and sat in the Challenger.

“I’m staying. Take her home.” Milton nodded, and Beckett could feel Eve’s intense glare on his back as he turned and went back into the house. Finally he heard the gravel kicking up as his car and the van pulled away.

34

Underestimate

H
E
H
ADN’T
B
EEN
A
BLE
T
O
S
LEEP
for two nights now, and they weren’t letting him come in to work, so while Ryan waited for a call from McHugh about Eve, about Beckett Taylor, about
anything
, he made a big pile of all the weirdness Trish had brought into his apartment and Windex-ed the lipstick off the mirrors.

He groaned when the intercom buzzer sounded—what the hell time was it, anyway? Not even eight a.m. He ambled over and paused for a deep breath before he hit the button. “Trish, you’re an insane cow udder. Go away. Actually, you know what? Never mind, I’m coming down. I want my damn key.”

Ryan yanked open the door, but instead of him walking out, Eve walked in, blood all over her hands.

“Sorry, I came up when someone opened the door. I’m sorry I came here.” She staggered a bit, and Ryan grabbed her.

“Whoa. Wait, what the hell happened?” He eased her inside and onto his couch. He reached for one of her hands, and she hissed. Her wounds completely encircled her wrists.

“Jesus. We need to take you to the hospital. Let’s go.”

She shook her head. “I just need to bandage them up. I’m going to be fine. I—I can’t go to the hospital. My dad works there…I’m undercover…this is a huge mess…Please. I just need a few minutes.”

“Holy shit.” Ryan waited for more of a response. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.” Ryan pointed at her. She looked like crap. Her face was gray.

“Don’t worry, copper. Even you could catch me if I tried to run now. You do what you gotta do.” She attempted a smile.

He slammed the front door behind him and double-timed it downstairs, returning with the first aid kit from his truck. It was the expensive one from Target, and he hoped to hell it had what he needed. Her eyes were closed when he returned.

He’d never seen her so…unaware. Broken. He cleared his throat, and she opened one eye. He knew some basic first aid, but he didn’t like the look of the deep wounds in her wrists.

“Can you feel your fingers?” He wet a paper towel and sat next to her.

“I’ve got swelling and nerve damage. It’ll be fine.”

“You sound like a lady with a lot of handcuff experience.”

She didn’t respond. He took her right hand and set it on his lap. He gently wiped as much of the blood as he could from the wound before slathering her wrist with antibiotic cream and winding gauze into place. He repeated this process with her left wrist.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” He looked at her skeptically.

“Nothing that’ll kill me.” She closed her eyes again. “Do you need me to leave? I don’t have a car. They were going to drop me off at my dad’s, but I didn’t want to burden him with this.”

“Ahh…okay…” Ryan couldn’t come up with anything intelligent to say, and he had even less idea what to do.

“How are you feeling? Were the ribs broken?” She looked him up and down.

“I’m fine.” Ryan replied dismissively.

“That’s good. Your face looks better. Can I shower?” Eve pulled herself to standing.

“Well, that’ll get your bandages wet.”

“It’ssssss okay.” Eve slurred a bit, but she moved determinedly down the hall.

“Listen, I don’t have towels at the moment, so there’s some of my clean laundry in there…” Ryan listened for a reply, but heard none, just the water starting in the shower.

He sat for a moment, paralyzed, before his police protocol kicked him in the ass. He pulled out his phone and dialed his boss.

“McHugh,” he answered gruffly.

“Captain, I have Eve Hartt here at my place. She looks like shit, but she’s safe. I’m not sure where she came from or what’s happened.” Ryan waited for more direction.

“That’s good. Ahh, for now listen to what she says and report back. She’s been with the Vitullos, I believe.” McHugh sounded distracted. “I haven’t heard from Taylor, so I’d really like the know what the hell he’s up to.”

“Okay, of course, sir. I’ll be in touch.” Ryan was about to ask whether he should contact Eve’s father—or the hospital—when the captain hung up.

He threw the phone on the dresser and straightened up his place some more, cursing Trish for stealing all his crap—again. He didn’t even have sheets now, or a blanket to cover her Sharpie message on his mattress. After it’d been a stupid long time, he knocked on the bathroom door. Everything he’d ever learned about women told him you never, ever open the bathroom door on them. Ever. So he waited a bit longer. The steam from inside the room seeped under the door.

Finally, he tested the knob. It turned easily. She hadn’t locked it. He opened it a crack and called her name a few times. No response. His heart leapt to his throat when he saw her curled up naked in his tub, water pounding down on top of her. He twisted the knob to the off position and climbed in, quickly confirming that she was breathing.

Her body was bruised in strategically horrible places. And it looked like she’d been Tasered quite a few goddamn times. His anger got the best of him for a few seconds. In repose she looked so serene, so peaceful. But he knew she was like a tranquilized panther. Carefully he positioned himself and lifted her, shocked at how heavy she was. Pure muscle. His pants tightened, and he cursed his body’s reaction. She was helpless, for fuck’s sake. She was also slippery, and he had to concentrate.

Her eyes fluttered open. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled before closing her eyes again. She was fucking exhausted.

After laying her on his bed, he examined her injuries. Someone had Tasered the crap out of her. All over her body: her breasts, her stomach, the bottoms of her feet.
Jesus.
He’d needed a nap after one shot from one of those things as a rookie. And here she’d dragged herself all the way to his place. Her wrist wounds were bleeding through the sopping wet bandages, and now he noticed her ankles didn’t look so good either. He gently covered her with a brown robe his mother had bought him for Christmas, but he never wore.

He pushed her wet hair out of her face and spread it out on the mattress to dry. He removed the bandages, and she stirred a bit, but didn’t fully wake. He reapplied the cream and used the rest of what the Target first aid kit had to offer. While Ryan made her a pillow out of a sweatshirt, he remembered the prescription painkillers he’d gotten for strained back muscles a few months ago. They’d been some strong shit. He found them under the sink and grabbed a water bottle.

It took a lot to rouse her, but she took the pill and swallowed it without asking what it was, thanking him before falling asleep in his arms.

He held her like that for a while—to make sure the pill didn’t fucking kill her. He felt a powerful need to protect her while she was unconscious. She was so goddamn capable when she was awake. He wondered if she ever let her mind completely turn off. Finally able to stare at her unabashedly, he admired her beauty. When she was awake, her attractiveness was like a costume—seemed like it pissed her off that men were drawn to her. But like this? Christ. Men would fight wars over this kind of gorgeous.

Ryan stroked her hair, trying to help it dry. His buzzer sounded. Hating to do it, he lay Eve back on the mattress.

“Yeah?” He really hoped it wasn’t Trish this time.

“This is Ted Hartt. You have my daughter?” Dr. Hartt sounded frantic down below.

He hit the buzzer and opened his apartment door, waiting. After a few moments the elevator dinged, and Eve’s father practically burst through the doors.

“McHugh told me she was here. Is she hurt?” He pushed into the apartment.

“Yes, sir. But she says she’ll live.” It sounded so hollow, repeating Eve’s lame-ass diagnoses to her doctor father.

Sure enough, he gave Ryan a withering look, so he just took him to the bedroom. Ryan stood in the doorway while Dr. Hartt examined his daughter. He gently prodded her awake.

Eve groaned but allowed her father to look in her eyes and mouth.

“What the hell happened, Eve?” He adjusted the bandages and noted the Taser marks.

“I fell.” Eve struggled to keep her eyelids open. “And I can’t go to the hospital. You know how that is.”

Her father shook his head. “Is she on anything?” He lifted the pill bottle from the nightstand.

“I gave her one of those.” Ryan confirmed. He was second-guessing the shit out of himself now.

“She was tortured.
Tortured
.” Dr. Hartt dug through his bag some more before finding an injectable drug. “This will help with the swelling,” he said more to himself than to Ryan.

“Thanks for coming. She wanted to stay here…is that an option?” Ryan hated to press, her father was still reeling.

“Yes. At least until I’m out of work tonight.” He touched Eve’s face gently. “Baby girl, what have you gotten yourself into?”

Eve was not conscious enough to answer.

“Listen, you have a few minutes? Or are you leaving?” Ryan put his feet in shoes.

“I can stay for an hour or so, then I have to get back for surgery, assuming she’s stable.” Dr. Hartt’s eyes never left Eve.

“Let me run to the store and grab her some clothes, and some blankets and stuff. Anything else I should get? You need anything?” He put his wallet in his pocket.

Her dad wrote a list of things on the back of a drug advertisement pad he had in his bag. “Get these things.”

Ryan left in a hurry and went to Target. Four hundred and fifty dollars later, his cart looked like he was getting married to Martha Stewart. He had the essential medical stuff at the bottom, then clothes for Eve, then blankets and pillows and towels out the ying-yang.

He made two trips up and down, piling the things outside his door. Dr. Hartt opened his door before he could insert the key after the last trip.

“I have to go. They’ve paged me twice. I’ll check in as soon as my surgery is over. Here are the phone numbers I can be reached at, but if there’s anything, anything at all, you call the ambulance. I don’t care what she says.”

“Of course, sir. Sure thing.” Ryan nodded vigorously as the man left.

After Dr. Hartt went out, Ryan dragged all the stuff into the apartment. First he selected some clothes and set them near the bed for Eve. When she woke, she could put them on. Maybe his huge case of perma-boner would settle down when his dick knew she had clothes on. He ripped the tags off the towels and tucked them into the cabinet in the bathroom. All his new bedding was ready for the bed as soon as it was empty.