Fade To Midnight (28 page)

She gestured at the gun tucked into the small of his back. “Aren't you afraid that gun will, um…go off?” she asked.

His flashing grin came and went. “No,” he said.

No time for feeling silly. He flung his coat over her shoulders. “Wait here. I'm going to get my bag downstairs.”

“Wait here?” She looked around, confused. “How's that?”

“We're going out the back way.” He gestured at the side windows.

Her belly clenched. Heights were not her thing. “You think they won't notice a girl in a puffy pink gown playing Spiderman?”

“They're renovating the building next to mine. Gentrification has come to my neighborhood. It's covered with scaffolding, practically touches my fire escape. Makes my building a big security risk, but it's handy for a quick getaway. We'll go out that building.”

“But…but you're parked right next to the—”

“We'll take a different car.”

Of course. He had another car. But she dove after him as he headed out the bedroom door. “I'm coming out, too. For the food.”

He whirled around so fast, she ran right into him.
“What?”

“I'm hungry, and it's the middle of the night, and all I've got are animal crackers in my own cupboards,” she whispered fiercely. “I've already packed it all up, for God's sake! All I have to do is grab the bag!”

He grumbled all the way down the stairs. She grabbed the big sack of food, tried to hang onto it when he grabbed her arm and swept her along, but he jerked it out of her hand and led her back upstairs.

He pulled the window open and helped her onto the fire escape, where she concentrated very hard on not looking down. Kev stepped with appalling calm over the three-foot gap over the four-story drop to the dark alley below, dangling his duffle and the food bag with a casual air that she found very irritating.

He leaned out from his perch on the scaffolding and held out his hand. She clenched her jaw. Goddamnit, she was a dangerous, feral, sexy wild thing now. Crawling around on scaffolding four stories up in the air was nothing to a wildcat like her. Even in Jimmy Choo peep-toes.

Kev pulled her to himself, right into his arms, but she didn't have a moment to congratulate herself for living through it before he was dragging her through the pitch-black. She followed him, since he seemed to know exactly what he was doing, but could anyone always know exactly what he was doing? They were going to break their limbs. Fall into a hole. Brain themselves on a beam. Get eaten by rats.

They didn't. He pulled a little flashlight out of one of his many pockets, and shone it in front of himself, leading her down dusty concrete stairs. When they got to the ground floor, he slung the duffel over his shoulder, passed her the food bag and swept her into his arms.

She squeaked in alarm. “What the hell? Kev?”

“No floor down here,” he said. “It's all chunks of brick and broken pavement. You'd hurt your little naked painted toes. Can't have that.”

He held her when they got to the door, and peered out of the building. Three dark figures stood at his front door. One of them took out a pick gun, and inserted it into the lock. A loud thudding sound echoed in the deserted street.

“They're going right on in,” Kev whispered. “That's weird. What the fuck is this all about? Who are those guys?”

The door opened. Two of the men went in. “I don't want to find out tonight,” she said. “Please, let's just go.”

“Shh. This guy's looking our way. When he turns, we go, and run around the corner. Fast. Get ready.” His voice barely caressed her ear. He ventured another peek, and wrenched on her arm. “
Now
.”

They took the corner and ran down the block, to where a silver Volvo was parked, and leaped in. Kev drove slowly at first, barely rolling, without turning on the lights for a couple of blocks.

When he picked up speed, she started breathing again. “Wow. Breaking and entering. I had no idea Dad's guys would go so far.”

“Live and learn. Would have been a lot better if you'd listened to me. We'd have been gone a half hour ago. Don't think I like dragging you over four-story drops and into an unlit construction site for fun.”

She shot him an outraged glance. “Excuse me? You appeared to be enjoying yourself on our little detour.”

His eyes gleamed. “I never said it wasn't good,” he said. “Just that it wasn't smart. But it's a mistake I won't make again.”

“Mistake? You call sex with me a mistake? You graceless clod.”

His grin flashed in the dark. “Tell you what, Edie. You win this argument. You fucked my judgement. You won, I lost. And I learned a valuable lesson. You won't win again.”

“Oh, no?” She made her voice very sweet. “Is that a challenge?”

“If you want to take it as one,” he said. “But we don't have sex unless we are locked inside an environment that I have judged to be one hundred percent safe. Get your head around it.”

“Ah.” She chewed on that. “A secure sex zone.”

His grin flashed. “Exactly.”

“Get ready for sexual torment,” she told him cheerfully.

“Whatever. Just keep in mind. Every second of sexual torment, you pay for ten times over. I will have no mercy. None.”

His voice sent a thrill through her. He didn't let her glimpse his hidden intensity very often, his iron control was so complete.

But when she caught a flash of it; his depths, the power that the severe conditions of his life had forged in him, it stole her breath.

It would have been terrifying, if she hadn't been crazily head over ass in love with him. She felt like one of those girls on the covers of the fantasy comic books and novels she'd read as a teenager, on her knees, clutching his muscular leg. Checking out his furry loincloth at lovingly close range. Helpless love slave. Mmm. Sign her up for sexual torment.

She pressed her thighs tight around the flush of excitement.

But her pride stirred, too. He could radiate all the sexy macho charisma he wanted. She would radiate right back. Ka-pow.

“Threaten all you like, you big brute.” She made her voice light. “We'll see who's begging on his knees in the end.”

He laughed, delighted, and jerked to a stop at the curb. She was startled that they'd already arrived.

He got out first, surveying the street for a long moment before he let her door open. “This has to be quick,” he said. “This will be their next stop, too. Three minutes. Preferably less.”

She scooted and scurried to keep up with his long strides. He made impatient noises while she rummaged in the silly little clutch bag for her keys. The keys dropped, with a rattling clink. He shoved her aside, picked them up and opened the door. “No lights,” he growled.

Great. Packing in the dark, with trembling hands, and a huge, impatient man breathing down her neck. She rushed around, grabbing things off her drawing table by feel, shoving them into her sketch bag.

“Hey. Didn't we come for clothes?”

“I need my sketchbooks!” she shot back. “I need pencils and pens and charcoal, and my pencil knife, and—”

“Just get them,” he said, resigned. “Don't waste time explaining.”

She tossed the art bag at his feet and dove into the closet, hissing unladylike expletives until she found the suitcase. Then she blundered into her bedroom, bumping her shins hard enough to make her gasp.

“Two minutes over,” he said.

“I'm going as fast as I can in the dark!” She wrenched open drawers, grabbed stuff at random. Underwear, T-shirts, something that she hoped was a sweater. Next drawer, jeans. She kicked the ridiculous shoes off her abused feet, and pulled on her red high-tops, with a sigh of relief. Though they would look very special, with the dress.

“Grab a coat, and let's go,” Kev rapped out. “Now.”

“But my toiletries, and my—”

“We'll buy some.” He grabbed the suitcase.

Edie scuffed her feet on the ground and caught the door jamb, blocking him. “Kev, I need to leave a note for Jamal!”

He froze, dismayed. “You can't turn on a light.”

“But I can't just disappear on him,” she pleaded. “Please. Kev. He's only eight. He depends on me. He's my friend.”

Kev was silent. “Edie, I'm sorry,” he said gently. “But I have a bad feeling. Other people will read any note you leave for him. I don't think you should draw attention to Jamal. He has enough problems.”

He'd hit on the one argument that could scare her into sheeplike compliance, and she still fought it. “But…but—”

“You'll have to make it up to him later.” He slung the book bag over her shoulder, grabbed her suitcase. Shut her door, locked it.

Kev went ahead, making no sound, even on wooden boards that always groaned. He pulled her out onto the rickety landing of the staircase that zigzagged down the side of the building.

Black figures fell silently from above, a heavy rain of death.

Thud, thud…thud
. One landed on top of her, crushing her to the stairs. Knocking out her wind before she had a chance to scream.

K
ev blocked the blackjack, grabbed it, torqued it round the arm of the bastard, and launched him headfirst down the stairs, but the second one was at him before he could draw gun or blade. A club whipped down. He blocked, lurched back out of range of the kick that would have gotten him square to the groin, but didn't have enough stair. A nanosecond out of balance, and the bastard scooped his legs from under him. Kev jabbed an elbow into the guy's face, felt teeth clack. Garlic breath. The man yanked him off his feet. Down they went, rolling like a many-limbed thudding octopus down the stairs. Pink chiffon flashed by the corner of his eye.

Edie screamed. The sound cut off to a squeak.

He struggled to control the terror while he wrestled with the muscular, python strength of Garlic Breath. He'd never fought in these conditions, his mind divided by fear or emotion. He'd always been cool, detached, a perfect fighting machine. Free of fear, guilt, anger.

Not now. He'd put her in danger for a goddamn fucking
suitcase
.

A roar of fury ripped out of him, helped him flop Garlic Breath onto his back and pummel the guy's cheekbone, his nose. Blind impulse whipped his head to the side and down, just in time for a booted foot to swoosh over where his head had just been. A finger jab up into his attacker's exposed groin, and a gurgling howl of pain ripped the night.

His hand chopped down to the bridge of Garlic Breath's nose—

“Stop, or she dies.”

Kev's eyes flicked up. The third masked man was above him on the stairs, clutching Edie. Her breasts popped out over the pressure of his big arm. He was bigger than the others, bulkier. His knife pressed her jugular. Her throat worked. The knife dug in. Red trickled down.

Kev shifted away from the guy who lay panting and limp on the landing, and rose to his feet. This wasn't Parrish security staff. Parrish's lackeys would not hold a blade to the boss's daughter's throat.

These guys were something else. Something worse.

“I'll tell you what's going to happen now, so we all understand each other,” the fat guy said. “You're going to turn around, real slow, and put your hands together behind your back. Ken, get off your ass and put the cuffs on this piece of shit.”

The guy named Ken groaned and grunted as he struggled to his feet. The one who'd gotten the scrotum stab. He was still reeling. Good. He'd learn all about what pain meant, before Kev was done with him.

Kidnappers.
They wouldn't kill her yet. They would need to demonstrate that they had her, that she was alive, to get their money. She probably wouldn't survive a kidnapping, though. Edie's best chance for survival was concentrated in the next few seconds.

He couldn't move enough to draw the gun, not with the knife to Edie's throat, but the weighted dagger in the sheath stitched to the side of his thigh was near to hand. “Don't hurt her,” he said.

“Don't make me,” Fat Guy taunted.

“Get your hands off her body. And I'll accept the cuffs.”

“Accept?” The guy chuckled. “Fuck you. What makes you think you have anything to bargain with? I can do anything I want with her.”

To illustrate his point, Fat Guy dropped his hand to Edie's crotch, grabbing a handful of chiffon, digging with his fingers. Edie gasped.

Kev stared into her eyes, willed her with all of his strength.
Fall forward, Edie. Fall now. Now!

She swayed, sagged forward. The knife at her throat shifted as Fat Guy dropped his hand across her chest to block her forward tumble.

Kev whipped it out, let the knife fly. It lodged, quivering, in Fat Guy's thigh. He let out a huffing grunt of shock.

“Now!” Kev bellowed, already spinning. The kick caught the guy named Ken on the side of the head. He whapped against the banister, sagged. Edie wrenched away, fought. Fat Guy struggled with her as Kev bounded toward them.

He shoved her forward, and she tumbled into Kev's arms. He reeled beneath her weight, slight though it was, slammed against the banister, slid, struggling to catch her as Fat Guy thundered past them.

The men had dragged themselves to their feet. They hurled themselves down the stairs. Kev set Edie down and leaped to the bottom of the landing, pulling his SIG 220, but he couldn't get a clear shot through that dark zigzag of stairway, and didn't want to risk shooting through a wall and hitting someone innocent. He heard thudding, stumbling, their furious muttering, but by the time they staggered out and he had a clear shot, they were out of pistol range. He needed a rifle.

The attackers limped through the gate and piled into a black SUV. Lights flashed. It roared away. Too far to make out plates.

He tucked the gun into his pants, turned to Edie. “You OK?”

She looked up, owl-eyed, from where she sat in her cloud of dirty, torn chiffon. Bright red shoes peeked out of the bottom of the skirt. “I…I…Oh, my God,” she squeaked. “My God. That was…that was—”

“Let's get the fuck out of here,” he cut in.

“Yes,” she agreed fervently, but she flung herself at him when he pulled her to her feet. Her book bag had fallen to the foot of the flight of stairs, as had the suitcase. He retrieved them, and pulled Edie behind him. She walked drunkenly, stumbling. Wrecked. Fucking bastards.

He stared at Chiliker's Volvo with unfriendly eyes as they got into it. He was relatively sure he'd taken off from his place unobserved, and nobody knew the car belonged to him yet. He'd parked here, and those guys hadn't been here when they arrived. Maybe Edie's house was their next stop. Or maybe someone had let the men know they'd arrived. Her apartment could be under physical or video surveillance, which meant the car could've been compromised, with a bug, a GPS device. He'd have to take it apart piece by piece to be sure. Who the fuck had the time?

He got Edie settled, and roared away from the curb, punching the number of his car service into the cell. He set the meeting place for the passenger drop-off zone for international flights at the Portland Airport. If someone was following a GPS tag, let the search end there, and fuck you very much. He kept his hand on Edie's knee.

He couldn't tell from her frozen profile just how wonky she was. If he should be rushing her to the hospital. That was probably the responsible thing, but nothing in his life was cut and dried. He couldn't secure her in a hospital. He didn't trust Assface and his men to do it. They were just another thing to protect her from. Whenever Parrish got his shit together to sign the piece of paper that authorized them to lock her up. To keep her away from dangerous lowlifes like himself.

Her breathing was shallow. He could hear her teeth chattering. By the time he got to the airport, he'd come to a decision.

He spotted the car he'd called, and pulled in behind it. He took her hand. It shook in his. So delicate and slender, like a baby bird. But she was anything but fragile. No matter how delicate she seemed.

“Hey,” he said. “I need your input.”

She dragged in a jerky, hitching breath. “Me?”

“Yeah, you.” He petted her trembling hand, trying to sooth it. Aw, fuck this. He shoved the center console up, slid over and seized her, pulling her into his arms. Hugging her tight.

It helped. Her heartbeat started to calm from a frantic gallop after a few minutes. He could feel the effort she was making to breathe deeper, pull the shattered pieces of herself together.

“My input,” she said, her voice tight and strangled. “So tell me.”

He popped the door. “Let's get out of here. Car could be bugged.”

She followed him out, swaying, clutching her purse to her chest. He wrapped his arms around her, scanning the people and cars that came and went as he whispered into her ear. “There are two ways we could go. We could get into the car I called, go to a cheap roadside motel outside the city where I pay in cash, and leave no trail. We chill, get some sleep, think about our options. Or I take you to an emergency room where you can be examined and treated for shock. Your call.”

“Ah.” She gulped. “Um…I think I'm OK. A few bruises, maybe.”

“If I took you to the hospital, I would worry about security,” he went on grimly. “We'd have to call the police, make a report, get smeared all over the grid. Your people would have you in a fucking vise. And they would have some serious, indisputable reasons to keep you locked down. Christ, I could hardly blame them, at this point.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, that's true.”

“Any clue who those guys were? Not your father's people, I assume.”

A fresh shudder racked her body. “No idea,” she said. “It was no one I knew. No voice I recognize.”

“A kidnapping attempt, then,” he said.

“Oh, my God.” She buried her face against his chest.

“We didn't even see their faces,” he said. “If I took you to the hospital, one of those guys could dress as a doctor or a nurse or a tech, and walk right past me, and I wouldn't have a fucking clue. But I can't drag you off to some hotel to hide if you need medical treatment. So tell me, Edie. But tell me quick, because staying still makes me nervous.”

Her fingers kneaded his chest, like a kitten's claws. Her breath bloomed, warm and quick and frantic against his collarbone.

Kev was disgusted with himself when he felt his dick throb in reaction to her scent, her softness. Talk about bad timing. “Decide,” he said. “This car is compromised, and we have to get moving.”

Edie kissed his chest. “I opt for the hotel. I feel safer with you.”

Relief flooded him, triumphant joy. Lust, too, roaring up like a fire doused with kerosene.
Cool it, dickhead.
She'd just been threatened with rape and murder. The famished little head could wait for its fun.

But the look in her eyes made his heart thud. Back straight, head up. Those scumbags hadn't flattened her. They wouldn't get a chance.

She'd chosen him. His eyes fogged, his throat clutched up.

Fatuous asshole. He had to toughen up, be strong for her, to do the hard thing. Which was to clamp down on soft feelings, lock them in the vault for later. That was how it had to be, to keep his shit together.

“Let's go.”

Edie let him settle her in the taxi. He tossed the suitcase in the trunk, book bag onto her lap, the big shopping bag of food in at her feet, and slid in next to her. “Cascade Locks,” he told the guy.

“You didn't say you were going that far! It's four
A.M
.!”

Kev pried out his wallet and pulled out some bills. He shoved them into the grizzled man's hand. The guy looked at them, slid them into his shirt pocket, then peered back at the car they had just abandoned.

“You gonna leave that car parked there?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Kev said.

“This is an airport drop-off zone, man. They'll bill you up the ass.”

“We've got worse problems,” Kev said.

The guy glanced over his shoulder, took in Edie's torn dress, the mask of smudged makeup, the bruise on her cheek. The scrape on Kev's cheekbones, the blood on his knuckles. They looked like hell.

“I don't want to know what your problems are,” the guy said.

“That's good, because I wasn't going to tell you,” Kev said evenly. “Get there in less than thirty minutes, and you get another hundred.”

The car leaped away from the curb with a muscular surge of gas. Kev leaned back and wrapped his arm around Edie.

His mind raced. Three on one, but they'd almost taken him. So they were pros. He'd felt it, in their training, their style, their silence.

So if they were pro, why the fuck hadn't they just shot him? It would have been so much easier, quicker. Why the cuffs? Any of them could have blasted him with a silenced gun. Edie was the valuable one.

It didn't make sense. He should be dead. Something important was missing from the puzzle. It scared him, and being scared made him angrier. They'd hurt her, struck her, scared her. His beautiful Edie, who deserved to be treated like a goddess, who deserved none of this shit.

He would hunt down those scumbags, and inflict such pain as they had never known existed. But for now, he had to chill.

He closed his eyes, put it all in the deep freeze. After a few moments, he could breathe again, unclench his fists. No more red fog in his vision. With one significant difference.

The harder he tried to force it into the deep freeze, the harder his dick became. That particular door wouldn't lock anymore.

Edie had blown it right off its hinges.

 

She must have slept. As soon as she was in contact with Kev's big, warm body, his arm wrapped around her, his heartbeat thudding beneath her ear, she'd crashed. But ten miles past Gresham, she shook awake. The headlights lit up I-84 East, through the Columbia Gorge. The mountains of the Cascade Range towered up, steep and dark, covered with conifers. She tried to make sense of what had happened that night, but she could only think of one tiny piece at a time.

“I wonder if those guys had something to do with what happened to my father tonight,” she murmured.

He glanced down. “Thought you were asleep. We're almost there.”

“Do you think that—”

“We'll talk at the motel.” His voice sounded as if he were angry.

Kev kept her glued to his side when they got to the motel. They registered with a bald guy who looked like he'd been dragged out of his bed and was anxious to return to it. Finally, the door closed behind them. She looked around the cramped room that smelled of cigarettes and room freshener, and was so grateful, she could have wept.

Kev looked around. “Sorry it's a dump. Mike lets me pay cash. I don't know what kind of reach these guys have, but I'm guessing it's long enough to track my credit card purchases.”

“The room is fine,” she assured him. “I'm grateful for it. So do you think that this could be about Dad? The attack he had tonight?”