Snow Blind-J Collins 4 (27 page)

No response.

In for a penny; in for a pound. “Did he ever touch you inappropriately? Or try to touch you, especially when it seemed like he was helping you do chores?”

More silence.

“Did he try to get you alone?”

Breezily, Brittney said, “I don’t gotta clue to what you’re talkin’ ’bout. And it kinda makes me mad you’d call me up just to ask gross stuff like that. Are you trying to make me feel worse? Because it’s working.” She sniffed. Loudly.

What a manipulative kid. She didn’t stand a chance of lying to me face to face, or dodging my questions with emotional blackmail. I’d give her a couple of days before I forced the issue. “I’ll drop it for now, but if you need to talk, call me. So, you all healed?”

“Pretty much. I still get headaches. I thought since I’d gotten hurt you’d show up here to take me out for ice cream or something. But I guess you’re too busy.”

I ground my teeth. It seemed the more I did for her, the more she expected.

“You want me to have Dad call you back?”

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“No. In fact, don’t even tell him I called.”

“Okay. See you.”

“Not if I see you first.”

She giggled, but it didn’t make me smile like usual.

I closed the office and implemented the “catch people off guard” line of thinking by heading to Fat Bob’s. My rearview didn’t pick up a tail. Didn’t mean one wasn’t there, just meant he was sneakier than Dietz.

My lifetime ban on hanging in the biker bar ended when the reign of Harvey, the Hombres former enforcer, ended. The bouncers waved me through. By the time I’d reached the door to the back room, Big Mike leaned against the wall.

His gigantic grin was a thing of beauty. “Nice shootin’ earlier.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “And if you tell bossman I said that, I’ll deny it.”

I mimed zipping my lip.

“He didn’t tell me you were coming.”

“He doesn’t know.” I skirted a bartender rolling an empty keg out of the walk-in cooler. “It’s a surprise.”

“Ah, he ain’t one for surprises, but I’m sure he’ll be appreciative after he’s done with his meeting.” Big Mike paused outside the steel door to the private suite.

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“Then again, maybe it’d be best if you chilled at the bar with a beer until he’s finished. Shouldn’t be long.”

“Who’s he meeting with?”

He shrugged and looked away.

And then I knew. Tony was meeting with a woman.

Curiosity made the cat . . . catty. I pounded on the door.

The profusion of locks snapped. No-neck poked his head out and glared at Big Mike. “Didn’t he tell you—”

“You didn’t tell me,” I said sweetly. “I’m the one huffing and puffing on his door.”

“Julie. He’s in a . . . a meeting. Maybe you should—”

“—do the same thing to this door that I did to the 4Runner today? I’d let me in if I were you. Right.

Fucking. Now.”

Big Mike muttered
shit
behind me as I strolled inside.

A leggy brunette almost dressed in a slinky scarlet cocktail dress was perched provocatively across from my man. They pored over stacks of papers on the coffee table, an open bottle of red wine and two half-empty glasses between them.

Martinez looked up, annoyed. “I said no—”

“You never say no to me, sugar.” I bent down, kissing him exactly like he’d kissed me in front of Trish.

“Thought I’d pop by and say hello. See if you had any 279

more car problems.”

His gaze threatened to char my retinas.

When I straightened, I feigned surprise at seeing the sexpot. “Oops, sorry, I didn’t notice you. I’m Julie.”

“Maddie.”

I skipped the “nice to meet you” bullshit as I’d focused all my attention on Tony, gifting him with a sultry smile. “I won’t bug you. What time will you be home tonight? Should I plan dinner?”

“No. It’ll be late.”

“Mmm. Too bad.” I gave him another long kiss.

“But I’ll wait up. See you.” I sauntered out and didn’t look back.

Kim was wrong. Lots of things made me happy.

In fact, I was feeling much happier already.

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My cell phone jolted me from deep sleep. I mumbled, “Hello?”

“Julie. It’s Big Mike.”

Big Mike? What the hell? Big Mike never called me unless Martinez was unexpectedly called out of town.

Not again. “What’s up?”

“Bossman wants you to come to Bare Assets.”

I yawned. “When?”

“Ah. Now.”

“What’s he doing there instead of Fat Bob’s?”

“Business. He wants to see you.”

I waited a beat. “Why?”

Silence.

“Christ. Is he pissed about me showing up at Fat Bob’s earlier? It was supposed to be a funny payback after what he did to me! Why should I—”

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“Don’t bite my head off. I’m just doing what I was told.”

“Why isn’t he calling me himself if he’s so hot to see me?”

“Because he’s occupied with another matter.” Big Mike paused, staying calm in light of his boss’s girlfriend’s bitchy attitude.

The clock on the DVD player read 11:10. My gaze swept my darkened living room but I couldn’t remember why I’d fallen asleep on the couch rather than my bed. Waiting for Martinez, probably. At least I was still dressed and sober. I swung my feet to the floor. Cold air bit into my ankles, clearing the fuzzi-ness from my brain.

“So, can I tell him you’re coming or what?”

“Yeah. I’ll be right there.”

Big Mike expelled a sigh. “Good. Park in the private lot and come to the back door. About half an hour, then?”

“Roughly.”

He hung up without another word, mimicking Martinez’s phone manners to the letter.

I grabbed an extra pack of cigarettes and a Diet Pepsi before I bundled up in my subzero coat and winter wear. Damn arctic weather. I’d gladly welcome global warming when the thermometer on the porch displayed a glacial four degrees.

No moon made the sky an inky black. The absolute stillness in the air defied logic; the wind always 282

blew in South Dakota, but I was grateful the windchill factor wasn’t in the forty-below range. My boot steps made a
squeak
rather than a solid
crunch
as the thick tread of my sole broke through the snowy crust.

Took forever for my truck to heat up. I was so damn cold I didn’t even fire up a smoke on the trek into Rapid City.

Bare Assets was hopping on a frigid February weeknight. The second I stepped over the chain separating the private lot from the alley behind the bar, Bucket materialized from the shadows.

I gasped like a horror movie queen. “You scared the crap out of me!”

Bucket looked like the Grim Reaper, acted like him, too: silent, watchful, and deadly. Black skull-cap. Black trench coat. Big black boots. He carried at least one gun under the duster and probably a couple of knives. A Taser. The shudder rolling through me wasn’t entirely from the cold.

Bucket didn’t utter a peep—nothing new for him. He merely beat on the door four times with his gloved fist.

The door swung open and Big Mike popped his head out. His warm breath cut the night air in a cloud of white steam. He and Bucket exchanged a nod before he thoroughly scanned the parking lot. “Come on upstairs.”

Bucket followed me inside, securing the service entrance behind us.

Big Mike unlocked the steel door to the staircase.

283

Being a big man, his heavy footfalls should’ve echoed down the short hallway as loudly as a buffalo stam-pede. But his boots made a soft
shush shush
on the Berber carpet. Why did the sounds seem magnified times ten?

He stopped in front of the door to Martinez’s private suite and knocked, four solid raps, just like Bucket had done downstairs.

Weird. I’d never seen anyone on this level of the club, let alone anyone near Martinez’s residence. Why didn’t Big Mike—or anyone else—have keys to these rooms? Especially with all the damn locks and the rigid security measures?

Anxiety rippled up my spine.

The door opened. Big Mike let me pass through first. I was starting to get creeped out, not from the safety precautions—those, I was used to—but from the unspoken tension.

After Big Mike secured the room by snapping the half-dozen locks on another reinforced steel door, he spun around.

The wariness in his eyes scared the shit out of me.

“What?”

“Julie, I have to tell you something. But I need your promise you won’t freak out.”

Then I knew why Tony hadn’t called me: something had kept him from calling me.

“What happened?”

“Can you stay calm?”

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“Tell me right fucking now what the fuck is going on. Where’s Martinez?”

Big Mike and No-neck exchanged a look. Then Big Mike said, “Keep your voice down. You should sit.”

He gestured to the rumpled cushions of the sectional in front of the TV.

“The fuck I will.” I marched up to Big Mike and got right in his face. “Tell me what happened.”

“Tony was shot tonight.”

Everything went blurry. My knees buckled. Big Mike caught me. I couldn’t hear beyond my mental shrieks of NO NO NO and the instant vertigo. Someone dragged me to the loveseat and forced me to sit.

My innards ripped like I’d swallowed a studded snow tire stuck on spin. Black spots wavered behind my eyelids. I couldn’t suck enough air into my lungs.

I tried to put my head between my knees but the jack-knife position gouged my stomach.

A voice next to my ear said, “Breathe. Slow and easy. Don’t pass out on me, Julie. Come on. Tough it up.”

“Is he . . .” I couldn’t make myself think it, let alone say it out loud.

“No.”

My head snapped up and I blinked through the head rush. “Then where is he?”

“In the bedroom.”

I tried to stand.

Big Mike’s enormous palms clamped over my 285

shoulders and held me down. “First you need to listen to me.”

I stared at him, unable to speak.

“Here’s a brief rundown of his injuries. He was shot in the right thigh, above his kneecap. Another bullet grazed his ribs. The doctor’s been with him the last couple of hours, monitoring him since he removed the bullet from his leg.”

“So it’s not serious enough to send him to the hospital?”

“It is serious. But we can’t take him to the hospital—”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because cops ask questions about gunshot wounds.”

Shit. “The Hombres doctor is a real doctor?”

“Yes, he’s fully licensed, a full-fledged Hombres member, and he makes house calls. He’s patched Tony up before.”

Not the last time you’ll deal with this, Julie.

“He’s done everything he can. Tony was just making him wait for—”

“For what?”

Big Mike studied me for several long seconds.

“For you.”

“What? Me? Why me?”

“He refused to take any painkillers until he saw you first.”

“Oh, Jesus.” I remembered the agony from the 286

bullet wounds I’d received last fall and my thigh throbbed in response.

“I’ll take you in to see him, but I need your promise you can hold it together until he takes the meds.”

“But—”

“No buts.” His blue eyes glinted a warning. “I’m not kidding. He has enough to worry about without worrying about you.”

I nodded and swayed to my feet. I shook off Big Mike’s oh-so-helpful death grip on my bicep when we reached the doorway. No-neck shuffled aside. I swallowed my fear, pushed open the door, and froze just inside the jamb.

Martinez lay flat on his back on the left side of the gigantic bed. Someone had stripped the puffy covers from the mattress and flung them in the corner. A metal IV rack loomed next to the headboard like a silver skeleton. Martinez’s face was ghostly pale against the white sheet; he looked dead.

The instant I cleared the threshold, his eyes opened and his gaze caught mine. “Blondie.”

Don’t cry. Jesus. Be strong.

“It’s not as bad as it looks.”

A small hiccupping gasp escaped my throat before I could stop it.

The doctor snorted. “Right. Luckily the bullet missed the femoral artery. If it would’ve gone half an inch to the left . . .”

Martinez would be in the morgue.

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I reached his side of the bed and fell to my knees.

He was trying so goddamn hard to hide the pain from me I wanted scream at him for his macho stupid-ity. Instead, I took his hand and curled it around my face, like he always did.

I managed to keep my voice steady. “I’d be pissed off if the bullet would’ve hit just a little higher up and nicked something
really
important.”

Martinez didn’t respond with a cocky comment or a make-my-heart-race grin.

“Matching tattoos are passé, so you decided we needed matching bullet holes?”

His sole focus remained on me. His thumb absent-mindedly stroked my cheek. His eyes held pain and pride and something else I couldn’t place—either fear or relief.

I turned my head and softly kissed the inside of his forearm, fully aware we had an audience, fully aware neither of us were into public displays of affection. “So you’re beyond a Big Bird bandage or me kissing it and making it better, huh?”