Ace Is Wild (3 page)

“Come on,” she said, bouncing on her toes, antsy.

It took a minute for her meaning to batter through the brick wall of attraction he felt for her, and then he had to wrench his eyes up to the crown of her head before he could translate her instructions into action and formulate a plan. Such as it was.

He hopped down, ready for the pain that shot up his bad leg. He winced, though, made sure she saw it on his face as he stumbled forward, half bent at the waist and reaching forward as if to catch his balance. She wasn’t fooled. She stepped back and brought the gun up so the barrel was practically buried in his left nostril.

“That still cocked?”

“Yep.”>

“Just checking.” He straightened and backed off a step so he could see something around that big black hole. But she wasn’t watching him. Her eyes were unfocused, and he saw her cock her head slightly. Before he could do more than think about disarming her, she snapped back. She climbed up onto the stage and peeked through the curtain just as a male voice shouted, “Everyone stay calm.”

Of course, all hell broke loose. Men yelled, women screamed, chairs thudded over as people jumped to their feet. Daniel joined Vivi at the curtain opening and saw two men in black, right down to the guns in their hands and the ski masks covering all but their eyes, at the other end of the Oval Room. One of them was busy securing the doors, the other looked like Jerry Lewis, darting a couple of steps in one direction then the other. Both hands were flapping in the air, including the one holding the gun, and he was yelling instructions.

The crowd ebbed and flowed like a school of fish, herding away from the guns but not paying any attention to what the guy was saying, which probably had something to do with the fact that nearly everyone in the place had a cell phone out. If it was one thing these women could do, even with their manicures, it was speed dial.

The other guy finished with the doors and turned around. Daniel could have sworn he was rolling his eyes. “Shut up,” he roared, and when that didn’t work, he fired a shot into the floor. If the guy believed that would get him what he wanted, he must not have had a lot of dealings with women from the upper echelons of Boston society—or women in general—because the screaming rose to a level that could have shattered all the glass for a five-mile radius. Human ears were at real risk, but Daniel wasn’t worried about ears so much as the bodies they were attached to. And not just from the guys with the guns. There was a better than even chance someone was going to get trampled.

“I hope nobody gets trampled,” Vivi said at his shoulder.

“You a mind reader?” Daniel wondered out loud.

“Something like that,” she said, which might have gotten his attention if he hadn’t been focused on the gun she was pointing at him. Again. “It’s time to go.”

“If you’re going to shoot,” he said, “do it, because that’s the only way you’re going to stop me from going out there.”

“Nine-one-one is probably choked with hysterical calls by now. It’s only a matter of time before the police arrive.” And Vivi was wondering how—or if—she’d manage to get Pierce out of the Fairmont and keep herself out of jail, too.

Especially since he was hardly being cooperative.

He walked away from her. She followed, not bothering with the gun since he wasn’t paying attention to it anyway and shooting him, while it had its attractions, would defeat her purpose. There was a table at the end of the stage with water for the bachelors when they’d been waiting for their moment on the auction block. Daniel whipped the cloth off the table, sending bottles flying, and took it over to the two people still handcuffed at the back of the stage.

“As soon as we’re gone, unlock the cuffs and get out of here,” he said to the cop. “You’ll be safe as long as you keep your heads down. And stay quiet.” He directed the last comment to Cassandra. She didn’t look very happy, but she nodded.

Vivi caught the edge of the tablecloth and waited until he turned to face her before she let it go. “You can’t go out there.”

He looked at the gun still in her hand. “If you want to stop me you’re going to have to use that.”

Standing on the edge of the stage, Vivi was only a few inches taller than Daniel. She still felt like he was looming over her. She held her ground anyway. “If you go out there, you’re going to die.”

“Then give me the gun.”

Vivi said, “Okay,” and when he bent to toss the cloth over Cassandra and Officer Cranston, she gave him the gun. Across the back of the head.

He folded like an amateur at a table full of poker pros.

“If you want to keep him alive,” she said to the cop as she jumped down from the stage, “you’ll keep him here.”

She popped the clip out of the gun and pocketed it, dropped the gun in Officer Cranston’s lap, and slung the tablecloth over the three of them before she headed for the exit door a few yards behind the stage. She didn’t look back.

VIVI WAS DOZING IN DANIEL’S LINCOLN WHEN HE CAME out of the Fairmont around two A.M. He didn’t look surprised to see her.

“You really ought to lock this,” she said when he slid into the passenger seat.

“Nobody bothers my car. It looks like a mob ride.”

“Or a hearse.”

“I was going for image.”

“Sure, big, black and boring screams government employee.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t wait all this time to insult my car.”

“No, but it seemed like a good icebreaker.”

He rubbed the back, of his neck. “I think you already covered that.”

“I didn’t hit you that hard.”

He gave her a long, silent stare full of attitude.

Vivi caught herself fidgeting and stopped. “So what happened in there after I left?”

“Everything was dark for a while—no wait, that was while I was unconscious.”

“Hey, you have a sense of humor. They teach you that in law school?”

“It’s homegrown. But it comes in handy with some of the criminals I run across.” The expression on his face said he was including her in that lineup.

It shouldn’t have bothered her. But it did. “You going to answer my question, Ace?”

“The name is Daniel Pierce.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Then use it,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck again.

“The whole thing, first and last, or should I call you Mr. Pierce?”

He gave her a look.

“Just give me the
Reader’s Digest
version,” she said. “Ace.”

“Fine, condensed,” Daniel said, taking the high ground on the nickname. They weren’t going to be together long enough for it to be an issue. “By the time I woke up, the police were there and the gunmen were gone, along with most of the auction attendees. I convinced Mrs. Hobbs—”

“Who?”

“The nice lady you handcuffed.”

Vivi could have argued with the term “nice,” but she was in long-story-short mode, feeling an urgency again.

“Mrs. Hobbs agreed to keep her humiliation private.”

“What about the cop?”

“No such luck.”

“I would have thought he’d be glad to have his gun back.”

“He was, and I assured him the FBI will handle you.”

“The FBI.” Vivi sat back in the driver’s seat, not liking that notion. But the FBI wasn’t there yet, and she didn’t see any reason why she couldn’t avoid them, just like she’d slipped past the notice of Boston’s finest.

“Officer Cranston was relieved about the gun,” Daniel continued, “and since he’d gotten the handcuffs off, I had come to, and the bad guys were gone with no one getting hurt, he was looking pretty good by the time his coworkers arrived.”

“And that wasn’t enough for him? He couldn’t just pretend he never saw me?”

“I’m almost sure there’s no chapter on turning a blind eye in the police manual.”

“Cops are such sticklers for the rules.”

“Not a lover of law enforcement, huh?”

On the contrary. In fact, Vivi could have told him that the law, specifically the FBI, was the very reason she’d crashed the party tonight. But it was too soon. He didn’t trust her—she’d hardly given him reason, after all. If he knew exactly why she was so frantic to save his life, he’d trot her off to jail and throw away the key. And he’d end up dead, too.

“Your turn,” he said. “Why were you in there? And why are you here?”

“Take a look out there,” Vivi said, having caught a quick flash of movement through the windshield.

Daniel had parked on the top level of a structure across Dartmouth Street from the Fairmont. It was five levels, or maybe six—the slanted floors always confused Vivi— surrounded by taller buildings, and very poorly lit.

Daniel peered through the windshield, lingering on a denser, man-shaped piece of darkness at the edge of the roof before he searched the shadows beyond each of the other windows. There was an SUV parked on the driver’s side, and cars to the left and behind, so admittedly there wasn’t a lot to see. “The other guy must be behind a bigger vehicle.”

“Nope,” Vivi said, eyes closed, concentrating. Until she heard the rattle of keys. “We have to get out of the car.” And since she knew he would argue, she reached over and plucked the keys out of his hand.

He tried to get them back, predictably, and as much as she enjoyed grappling with him like teenagers in the front seat, there was more to worry about than hickeys and unplanned pregnancy. Namely, the van that screamed up to block in the Lincoln. The driver’s door opened, but Vivi didn’t wait to see who was coming out. Not that it was a mystery anyway.

She fumbled the key into the ignition, hands shaking, heart pounding so loud she barely heard the engine catch, and she completely freaked out when she pushed her foot forward and found nothing but empty air. It took her a few precious seconds to realize that Daniel was close to a foot taller than she was, and then to scoot herself forward in the seat.

This time she found the gas pedal, simultaneously slamming the car into reverse as she jammed her foot to the floor. The car traveled all of six feet, crashing into the van and sending the guy standing between the two vehicles into a panicked dive for his life.

Daniel reached for his door handle, but she said, “No, this way,” fisting her hand in his jacket and hauling him out the driver’s door just as the windshield on the passenger side exploded.

He dropped into a crouch, ignoring the screaming of his crippled leg and cursing himself for giving up the practice of keeping a gun in the glove compartment of his car. Because he’d never expected to be in this position again.

And he probably shouldn’t be enjoying it, but he was. The adrenaline rush, pitting his wits against the bad guys, protecting an innocent . . . Okay, Vivi what’s-her-name wasn’t innocent, and there was the possibility they’d both be riddled with bullets at any moment, which kind of blunted the rush, but it got him moving.

He curled his hand around hers and weaved between the vehicles, working his way down the levels with her in tow, trying to circle around to the hotel. The structure was mostly full, so it shouldn’t have been that difficult to make it back to the Fairmont in one piece. Except the hit men seemed hell-bent on preventing that.

Daniel flattened himself against the side of a minivan on the first level, easing over until he could see through the van’s windows, peering in the dark toward the hotel. A suggestion of movement caught his eye. All he could make out in that direction was an indistinct patch of deeper darkness, but it told him a lot. None of it encouraging.

In the brightly lit Oval Room, the two had looked like garden variety thugs who’d gotten lost on their way to hit the local gas station for a few bucks and a six-pack of beer. In the gloom of the parking structure, it was a different story. They blended almost seamlessly into the night. Even their guns seemed to suck up what little light there was and give nothing back, no chrome or nickel to reflect the weak overhead lights, and the steel of the barrels must have been scuffed and blackened. Definitely a professional hit. The question was why? And how did Vivi know about it?

It was a question for later, one he intended to be alive to ask, which wasn’t as simple as it sounded. His car was blocked in, and even if they broke into another, the gunmen would be on them before he had time to hot-wire it. It was after-hours for the office buildings around the Fairmont, and the gunmen were between them and the hotel. Which left only one option.