Ace Is Wild (10 page)

The firemen dove for the pavement, the crowd freaked and scattered, taking the hit men with them, and Patrice slumped into Daniel’s arms.

The cops had pulled their guns, but they didn’t have a chance in hell of catching the shooters. So they focused on Vivi. “I didn’t do anything,” she protested.

“Where have I heard that before?”

“Officer Cranston.” She stopped struggling, closing her eyes for a minute and wondering when her luck had gone sour. When she opened them again, Daniel was there.

“I’ll take it from here,” he said to Cranston.

“This time I’m arresting her.”

“For what?” Vivi and Daniel asked in unison.

Cranston didn’t answer, but he was thinking pretty furiously. Vivi wasn’t sticking around to see what he might come up with. She would have preferred to disappear from the scene entirely, but she had her pride, and Daniel was giving her no choice but to go with him.

The paramedics on hand had sprung into action, so Patrice was lying on a gurney, one of the paramedics starting an IV in her right arm, the other bandaging her left.

“Gunshot wound to the upper arm,” one of the paramedics said. They started to wheel her toward the ambulance, but she held out a hand to Daniel.

He took it, and for the first time Vivi noticed the blood on his shirt. And the look in his eyes. Whether or not he was in love with Patrice Hanlon, Daniel clearly valued her, and while he might not blame Vivi for the fact that Patrice had been shot, he wasn’t letting her off the hook, either.

“They gave me something for the pain,” Patrice said to Daniel, and although her voice was weak, her resolve wasn’t. “I’m not going anywhere until I know what’s going on. You can start with an introduction.”

Daniel took a deep breath, held it for a second or two, then let it out. Explosively. “Patrice Hanlon,” he said, “Vivienne Foster.”

Since both of Patrice’s hands were occupied, Vivi returned her smile and murmured a “nice to meet you,” all the while trying to get a read on her. She was blocked, though, probably fuzzed by painkillers.

Patrice barely spared Vivi a glance. She had a death grip on Daniel’s hand, and it was crushed to her bosom. “I’m sorry,” she gasped out, “I should have warned you, but when I saw the guns I just froze, and then . . .” She closed her eyes and took a shuddering breath. Going for the Oscar, Vivi thought, as the woman released Daniel’s hand to clutch instead at his shirt. “Did the police catch them?”

“No.”

“You need to get somewhere safe,” Patrice said. “Whoever it is, they must be serious to start shooting in a crowd like this.”

“All you should be worrying about is yourself.”

She waved him off with her uninjured arm, looking over at Vivi. “Are you trying to help him?”

“So she claims,” Daniel answered for her. “The jury’s still out.”

“How are you trying to help him?” a man asked, shoving a microphone in Vivi’s face.

“Manetti.” Daniel sounded like he was chewing on something particularly disgusting.

“Pierce,” the reporter shot back in the same tone, then turned his back to confront Vivi again, minirecorder and all. “I don’t believe we know each other.”

“Rudy Manetti,” Daniel said.

“You left out one side of that introduction,” Rudy pointed out.

“Hey, you caught that. Good for you.”

“Well, then, no pleasantries.” He shoved the recorder in Daniel’s direction and pasted “investigative reporter” on his face. “Do you think Anthony Sappresi is responsible for the murder attempt on you two days ago?”

“He’s your uncle. You tell me.”

“I’m not the one who’s prosecuting him for something he didn’t do.”

“Are you moonlighting for the
National Enquirer
? Because that version of reality ranks right up there with two-headed aliens and the squash that looks like Jesus.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘no comment.’ ”

“I’m sorry, did you ask a question?”

“No, but here’s one for you: Is she the woman you went backstage with at the charity bachelor auction two nights ago?”

Daniel didn’t answer, but Vivi noticed that when the reporter shifted, so did Daniel, keeping her and Patrice firmly behind him.

“Not talking about the woman,” Rudy said. “How about the tablecloth?” When Daniel maintained the silent treatment, he prompted, “The one you were hiding under.”

Vivi had to give Daniel credit, he held his temper. “I was unconscious, not hiding.”

“Pretty convenient for you.”

A cop hustled over and planted himself in front of the reporter. “You need to get behind the tape,” he said.

“Someday the cops won’t be around to run interference for you,” Manetti said.

“Apparently that’s not today.” Daniel turned his back and walked right by Vivi without acknowledging her. It didn’t stop her from following him.

Patrice wasn’t getting with the Ignore Vivi program. “Who are you?” she said to Vivi, “and how did you know someone was trying to kill Daniel?”

“Just some nutcase,” Daniel said, again before Vivi could answer. “Claims she’s a psychic.”

“Well,” Patrice winced, squirming to find a more comfortable position on the stretcher. “If she predicted this, I’d listen to her.”

“I really need to get her to the hospital,” the paramedic said to Daniel. “Are you going with us?”

“Yeah.”

Vivi caught his arm before he could walk away. “What happens after the hospital?” she asked him.

“Look it up in your crystal ball.”

“If I could do that, I’d know who’s trying to kill you and this would all be over.”

“It is over for you. I can take care of myself.”

“You couldn’t stop your girlfriend from getting shot.”

Daniel took that like a slap in the face, going white-lipped and narrow-eyed.

“I know I can help you figure this out,” Vivi said, making an attitudinal adjustment before she ran him off entirely. “If you give me a chance.”

He stared at her for another moment, smoldering, and not in a good way. “My office,” he bit off, “first thing in the morning.”

“Mr. Pierce?” the paramedic prompted, holding the back door of the ambulance open.

Daniel climbed in, leaving Vivi behind without a backward glance or another word. He didn’t need one, the look on his face had been threat enough. No need to worry about running him off anymore—if she didn’t show up in the morning, he’d come looking for her, and when he found her it wouldn’t be pretty.

Chapter 7

“MIKE SENT YOU.”

“Yep.”

“You’re not a spook anymore.”

Tag Donovan sat back in his chair, grinning. “Apparently I’m irreplaceable.”

Daniel sat back as well, but he wasn’t nearly as relaxed. Or amused.

“Mike says she keeps slipping past the guys he’s putting on her.”

“Yeah,” Daniel said on a heavy exhale. It had been a long night, which he’d spent at the hospital, talking to the cops and doctors, waiting for Patrice to be released. Thankfully it was only a flesh wound. He’d gotten her home and settled, then gone home himself to take a shower and head for the office, fueled up on caffeine and fury.

Tag had been waiting for him when he arrived. Tag, however, wasn’t either one of the people Daniel wanted to talk to. Vivi was number one, but Vivi was absent. Predictably. Number two was present, via speakerphone, and not sounding any happier about the situation than Daniel felt.

“Her landline is tapped,” Mike said, “no cell, and I put an agent on her.”

“Who? Mr. Magoo?”

Daniel ignored Tag.

So did Mike. “She gave him the slip,” he continued. “Claims he never took his eyes off the front door except to blink, and she still poofed.”

“That supposed to be funny?”

“My guy says she didn’t go out, but about an hour into his stint, here she comes waltzing along from up the street, arms filled with groceries, and goes into her place.”

“Maybe she was never inside to begin with,” Tag put in.

Mike snorted. “I wouldn’t put an agent on her who was green enough to make that kind of mistake. She was there, and before you ask, there’s a back door, but it opens on an alley. No reason to go out that way.”

“Unless she knew the front was being watched,” Daniel said.

“He swears she didn’t make him, but that’s the only explanation.”

No, Daniel thought, but it was the only explanation he was prepared to believe.

“So then I put two guys on her,” Mike was saying. “Not exactly in the budget, but I figure if somebody wants you dead bad enough to hit the Oval Room, they won’t wait long on the second attempt.”

“She ditch them again?” Tag wanted to know, clearly getting a kick out of it.

“She took them coffee.”

“Christ, Mike, who’d you get to watch her, Laurel and Hardy?”

“They were good guys,” Mike shot back, going from frustrated to pissed. “So I put six new guys on her, two at either end of the alley behind her place where she can’t possibly see them, rotating the other guys out front in teams of two.”

Daniel blew out a breath, trying not to be impressed. Or worried. But there was no way around it, Vivi had slipped by four agents in order to show up at Cohan’s.

“My boys swear at least two of them were eyes on at all times. Nothing happened until about eleven last night.”

Which would have been after the attempt, Daniel added silently to himself, after he’d sent her home and headed off in the ambulance with Patrice.

“The agents in front of her place said she pulled the same act on them as the first agent. They never saw her go out, but they saw her coming back in. She made sure of it.”

“She must have a way out of that place you don’t know about,” Daniel said.

“I’m not a complete moron,” Mike rasped. “I had the building checked out before I put the first agent on her. One door and some windows in the front, same in the back. Sides are common walls with the buildings next door. No doors, no windows. Same with the basement.”

“How about the roof?”

“No exit.”

“So how did she get out, Mike?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t like the way she smiled at the agents on her way back in. Like she’s telling us she can ditch her tail any time she wants. Like she knows what we’re going to do before we do it.”

“You going
Outer Limits
on me?”

“I’ll put some more experienced guys on her.”

“Maybe Mulder and Scully are available,” Daniel suggested.

Mike snorted out a laugh. “I was thinking more along the lines of Tag Donovan.”

Daniel grinned, looking over at Tag. “He did fall out of a plane, with no parachute, and live to tell about it.”

“And if it makes you feel better,” Mike said, “I can draw a big
X
on the file before I give it to him.”

THE U.S. ATTORNEY’S OFFICE WAS LOCATED ON BOSTON Harbor, across the Fort Point channel from downtown Boston and the West End. The Joseph John Moakley Court-house was fairly new and interesting enough, a redbrick semicircle with a huge curved glass front facing the harbor and the downtown area. The outside was nothing compared to the pretention inside. Supposedly, the judges’ chambers were outfitted with Jacuzzis and saunas, so apparently those robes were hiding a lot of wrinkled skin.

Vivi had her own wheels, but she rarely took them out for a spin, seeing as the vehicle they hauled around had belonged to her grandmother, and that made it more of a memento than anything else. The fact that it was a 1952 Ford truck, built like a tank—a flatulent tank—generally had something to do with her reluctance to take it on the road. People liked to look at it, but they rarely appreciated being behind it. So she’d taken the T . . .

And she was stalling again, standing in front of the court-house, waiting for fate to provide her with a reason not to go inside. Fate, however, wasn’t coming to her rescue. Fate was like that, never around when you needed it.