Tell Me No Spies (36 page)

“Oh, no, they’ve
arrested Dave?” I wailed. “Shit, shit…”

“No, they let him go.
Shit, Dave, let ‘em get outta the parkin’ lot first…”

“Oh…” The air whooshed
out of me. “Thank God.”

“That’s it, Dave,”
Hellhound coached aloud. “Let ‘em drive away before ya come over
here… Just a little longer…” He relaxed. “They’re gone.”

The rear door opened
and closed, and Hellhound wasted no time in driving away. I
belatedly relinquished my hold on his crotch, and he shot a grin
down at me.

“Damn, Dave, ya coulda
taken a little longer. It’s okay, darlin’, ya can sit up now.
Unless ya wanna stay down there an’ play with my stickshift some
more.”

I sat up and twisted
around to face Dave, whose blush was visible even in the
semi-darkness. “What happened? What did they want?” I demanded.

Dave massaged the
centre of his chest, gasping. “You. They described you. Lady at the
computers told them she saw us come in together. I told them I
didn’t know you, you just gave me fifty bucks to watch out the
window and then you left. Shi… crap, thought they were gonna arrest
me, but they just gave me directions to the homeless shelter.”

Hellhound laughed.
“Lucky ya got that homeless look goin’ for ya…
shit
!”

He seized a handful of
my jacket and yanked me down again.

“Demanding, aren’t
you?” I mumbled into his lap.

“That was Mark
Richardson. Again,” Hellhound growled. “That sure as hell ain’t
coincidence.”

My heart stopped. “Did
he recognize you?”

“Nah. He was lookin’
around the sidewalks an’ the parkin’ lot, not at the traffic.”

I blew out a long
breath and tried to stop shaking.

Hellhound chuckled.
“If you’re tryin’ to blow me, you’re doin’ it wrong.”

“Very funny. Can I sit
up yet?”

He glanced around
warily. “Better stay down there for a bit. I wanna get farther away
from the centre of attention here.”

He drove a few minutes
longer, making several turns, before speaking again. “Okay, ya
should be fine now.”

I sat up and
finger-combed the hair out of my face, peering anxiously at the
passing traffic.

“Did ya find out
anythin’, darlin’?” Arnie asked.

“Not much. They still
haven’t found Nichele or Dante. I asked if Kane was still okay, but
I didn’t stick around to get the answer.”

I blew out a
disheartened sigh. “There’s no way that was coincidence. There was
just enough time for Spider to trace the IP address and make a call
to the police. And to Richardson. I hope he wasn’t lying to me
about Nichele and Dante. He was really trying to get me to come
in.”

I slumped in the seat
and rubbed my hands over my face. “We’re pretty much out of luck
for any more communication with Spider, I guess. The next time we
talk to him, we’d better have some information about Nichele,
because we’re not going to be able to keep dodging him. He’s too
smart, and they’re reacting too fast.”

Arnie’s hand closed
over mine. “Then I guess we better get some good intel tonight,” he
said.

“What if your guy
doesn’t know anything, though?”

“Don’t worry, darlin’,
we’ll think a’ somethin’.”

I blew out a tense
breath. Everywhere we turned, the net was tightening and time was
slipping away.

“Arnie, maybe it would
be better if you called Kane and told him you’re coming in,” I
said. “You haven’t done anything wrong. If you and Kane work
together, you might be able to nail James and find Nichele, and
you’d be protected just in case James has a contract out on you,
too.”

“I ain’t gonna leave
ya,” he said with a touch of irritation. “When’re ya gonna get that
through your head?”

“But, Arnie, you’d
have a better chance of saving Nichele that way.”

“I ain’t tradin’ your
life for Nichele’s,” he growled. “Lemme talk to my guy tonight, an’
we’ll take it from there.” He consulted his watch. “Better get
goin’.” He pulled off into a strip mall parking lot. “Aydan, ya
better drive, just in case I gotta make a fast getaway.” He
grinned. “I might just fake it so ya stand on it again. That was a
blast.”

“A little hard on all
our hearts, though,” I pointed out. “Let’s aim for boring,
okay?”

“Yeah, darlin’, I hear
ya.”

Back on the road
again, I followed Arnie’s directions to the Foothills Industrial
Park, and we drove the deserted streets in silence.

“Park over there.”
Arnie indicated a spot under a burned-out streetlight. “This
shouldn’t take any longer’n last time. Same thing, get ready to
run.”

He leaned over to kiss
me, and I trailed my lips around to his ear. “Come back in one
piece,” I whispered. “I want to stroke your stickshift and rev you
out to redline later.”

He chuckled and turned
to nuzzle my ear in turn, sending shivers down my neck. “Wouldn’t
miss it for the world, darlin’,” he rumbled. He swung out of the
car and vanished between two buildings.

Dave and I sat in
silence while my shoulders slowly climbed toward my ears. I drew in
a deep breath and tried to release the tension, but to no avail. I
shifted to yoga breathing, slow and deep.

Dave’s voice made me
jump. “Are you okay?”

“Fine.” I blew out
another long breath, trying to convince my heart to slow down. “I’m
just doing some breathing exercises to keep calm.”

“Does it work?”

I twisted around to
survey his tense face in the semi-darkness. “Yeah. Just breathe
from your belly. Long and slow. Think about ocean waves rolling in…
Jesus!
”

A tap at my window
made me snap around in the seat, adrenaline pumping. My heart
achieved panicked-gerbil rate when I recognized the source of the
sound. A gun barrel. 9mm. Pointed right at me.

“Shit!”

“What do we do now?”
Dave’s voice cracked.

I realized there were
two shadowy figures outside the car. I couldn’t make out the faces,
but the gun barrels against the windows were crystal-clear. One for
me, one for Dave.

“You. Out.” The gun
barrel rapped against Dave’s window. “Slow. Or she gets it.”

“Okay,” Dave
quavered.

Another tap on my
window. “Don’t try anything, or you’re both dead.”

Frantic thoughts
rocketed half-formed through my head. Why hadn’t I left the car in
gear? I could have stomped on the gas…

The rear door clicked
open and I felt the car’s suspension lift as Dave got out.

The driver’s door
opened from outside, and the gun barrel stared me down. “Now
you.”

“I just have to tie my
shoe…” I started to reach for my ankle holster and pain exploded in
my head. I vaguely heard a scuffle and Dave cried out. A hard yank
on my hair made me stumble up and out of the car to avoid being
half-scalped. The ground heaved under my feet. I clutched at the
car for balance.

Suddenly, I was
sprawled facedown over the hood while rough hands groped me
intimately. My head throbbed and sour bile rose in my throat. Dave
yelled again, but I couldn’t tell whether it was pain or
defiance.

The hands were
efficient. In seconds both my gun and my waist pouch were gone, and
another jerk on my hair indicated that I should stand.

This time the world
stabilized, and I focused on Dave’s drawn face. He was clutching
his chest.

“Dave!” I reached for
him, but was yanked back by my hair, pain shooting through my head
again. “He’s having a heart attack!” I shrieked, pure terror
pumping through my veins.

Dave’s knees buckled
and he sank to the ground. His breath came in shallow gasps while
his fist clenched over his heart.

“Yeah, I think he is.”
My captor sounded amused.

“Help him!” I plunged
toward Dave again.

“Hold still.” A jerk
on my hair accompanied the command, and the cold gun barrel jabbed
under my chin.

“Dave!” My breath
caught in my throat, my heart galloping as if it would beat for
both of us.

It wasn’t enough. Dave
crumpled, head bowed. At the last second, his trembling hand
reached out to the leg of the man beside him. The arc of the stun
gun flashed in the dimness, and both bodies collapsed to the
ground. One twitched and quivered.

The other lay still.
So still.

“
Dave!
” My
throat tore with my scream and I lurched forward, heedless of the
gun under my chin and the hold on my hair. I swung wildly with one
arm and my captor swore when I connected with his nose. His hold
released, and I flung myself to my knees beside Dave’s motionless
body. My throat burned, and I realized I was still screaming.

I was reaching for
Dave when electricity sizzled through me. I only vaguely registered
my impact against the ground.

A confused jumble of
activity. By the time a measure of comprehension returned, I was
slung over a hard shoulder in a fireman’s carry while my captor
strode along. Moments later, the breath jolted out of me when he
dropped me.

“You didn’t kill her,
did you?” a male voice demanded.

“I’m not stupid,” my
captor growled. A foot nudged me none too gently. “Had to stun her.
Dumb bitch acted like she didn’t give a shit whether I shot her or
not.”

“Where’s the other
one?”

My captor grunted.
“Dead. Hit Larry with a stun gun and then croaked. Heart attack. I
left them both there. Larry can deal with the body when he wakes
up.”

“That’s convenient.
One less body to dispose of. We can just prop him up in the car,
and it’ll look like a natural death.”

I tried to marshal my
twitching muscles into some useful movement, and failed. My breath
came shallow and fast while my heart thudded in my ears. Come on,
for shit’s sake, get it together. I struggled for control.

Too late. A rough grip
jerked my hands behind me and the cold click of the handcuffs sent
despair trickling through my veins. At least they hadn’t tied my
feet. Yet.

I lay unmoving, trying
to get a sense of where I was by peering through half-closed eyes.
My face was mashed into the floor, so my view was limited to a
blurry dark object barely inside the range of my peripheral
vision.

I was beginning to get
control of my breathing when I was grabbed by the shoulders and
pulled upward.

“On your knees,”
commanded the second voice.

My muscles refused to
cooperate and I fell. The back of my head smacked against the
floor, sparks dancing behind my eyes in fireworks of pain. A hard
blow to my shoulder wrenched an inarticulate cry out of me, my
tongue still not working well enough to form words.

“Cut it out! She
can’t! The stun ain’t worn off yet!” Arnie’s bellow made me pry my
eyes open, and the mystery of the blurry dark object was solved. He
knelt on the floor a few feet away, his feet tied, hands bound
behind his back.

“Man up, little
brother, you always were a whiner.” James’s precise diction would
have made me shudder if I’d had sufficient muscle control. He
crouched beside me and turned my head to look into my eyes. “Hello
again, Aydan. How nice to see you.”

My uncooperative lips
formed the words, “Fuu… u.”

“How uncivil.” He
stood, and I lost sight of him as he moved away. “I have private
business here. Go and wait for the buyer.”

There was a mumble of
agreement, and I heard the door open and close.

He spoke again from
outside my range of vision. “These are two lovely gifts you’ve
brought me, little brother. Nichele has been very useful, and now
you’ve given me Aydan, too. How can I ever show my
appreciation?”

“Ya could choke on a
dick an’ die.”

“Now, now. Is that any
way to talk to your big brother? I was thinking of a different kind
of reward. I’ll let you live, and I’ll set you up in the family
business. You’d have to work your way up the ranks, of course, but
there are many opportunities for advancement.”

Arnie snorted. “Ya
ain’t my fuckin’ family, an’ I’ll take a fuckin’ bullet to the
brain before I’ll get in your line a’ business.”

James burst back into
my field of view as his arm scythed through the air. The blow that
hit Arnie’s face sounded like a rifle shot, and he pitched over to
land heavily on top of me.

“Arnie, oh, God,” I
mumbled, realizing how incredibly painful that had to have been
after all his earlier injuries. I managed semi-controlled movement
at last, craning my neck in an attempt to see him.

James seized Arnie’s
shoulders and jerked him to his knees again. Arnie made no sound,
his nose misshapen while blood poured down. His eyes burned with
hatred.

“Why aren’t you
crying, little brother?” James taunted. “Little baby Arnie, always
crying about something.”

When it became clear
he’d get no response, he spoke again into the silence. “Think about
it, little brother. This is your chance to make something of
yourself.”

He shot a contemptuous
look at Arnie’s jeans and leather jacket. “You’re pathetic. All
your life, people have bent over backward to give you special
treatment, and look what you’ve done with it. You’re a loser.
Nothing but a biker wannabe, riding around on your Harley. You
can’t even string together a grammatically correct sentence. You
live in a tiny apartment, and you’ve got no money to speak of. I
had to fight for everything I got, and I made something of
myself.”

“Yeah,” Arnie mumbled
thickly. “Ya made a fuckin’ asshole a’ yourself. ‘Course that ain’t
no stretch. Ya always were a fuckin’ assho…”

His last word exploded
into a grunt when James drove a fist into his stomach. Arnie
doubled over, gasping, and James grabbed a handful of beard and
yanked Arnie’s chin up to glare into his face. “I started out as a
sleazy little gangbanger, and I taught myself to speak and act like
a businessman. Now the gangbangers answer to me. I got where I am
today through my own brains and balls, not through handouts and
coddling.”