Fade To Midnight (44 page)

Then Davy had shouldered the duty of the firstborn. He'd found a job on a construction crew. As soon as Con had followed suit and was earning money too, Davy had joined the army and gotten shipped out to Iraq. The world in constant flux. All those unexpressed feelings were tied up in the swirling shifts and shadings in that painting.

As a twelve-year-old, Sean had lost himself staring up at Kev's painting, as he lay on his bed. He had let the image swirl him up into its vortex and carry him away, washing his mind blessedly clean, so that he could breathe. Even sleep, sometimes. Kev's special gift.

Kev had not forgotten them, Sean realized abruptly. His brothers were there, in Kev's head. They loomed large. He couldn't cancel them out. And looking at that ceiling, it didn't seem as if he wanted to.

“It was a message, you know,” Liv said.

“Huh?” He tried to fish her words out of his short term memory, but the task was too much for his boggled mind. “What?”

“The kite,” she said. “It was a message to you. He's been calling out to you for years.” She let out a shaky breath. “And you finally heard him.” Her voice choked off. She pressed her hand over her mouth.

They stood staring. Then Liv gasped, let out a delighted laugh.

“What?” he demanded. “What is it?”

“The bed! Look at that!”

He looked at the rumpled bed. The duvet and sheet were turned down, and…horror exploded inside him. “Jesus, is that blood?”

“No, you silly!” Liv sat on the bed, scooped some of the withered dark spots up into her hand, and sniffed them tenderly before letting them flutter back down. “Rose petals. Oh, God. How romantic.”

Sean let out a sharp sigh. “Jesus Christ. You scared me.”

She sniffed the petals clinging to her hand. “I'm so glad. He can't be too bad off. Not if there are rose petals on his sheets.”

“Yeah, right. He's getting laid, at least,” Sean said grumpily.

“Don't be crass,” she said. “Rose petals are not about getting laid. They're a tribute to a woman's hunger for tenderness. Sensitivity. Wordless understanding. You know. Those things that girls like.”

“What's this, Liv?” he demanded. “Are you telling me I'm not tender or sensitive? That I don't feed your womanly hungers enough?”

Her sexy, rosy mouth quivered as she fought hard not to smile. “I'm just happy, for Kev and his lady friend. That he get's it. That's all.”

“Oh. I see. You mean, it wasn't enough, the time that I got the paintbrush and the chocolate and caramel swirl sauce and did that great Postimpressionistic artwork all over your—”

“Absolutely not the same thing,” she said crisply. “That was extremely enjoyable, and you get points for using sugar and chocolate, but there is no comparison.”

“And the time I spent eight hundred bucks on sexy lingerie for—”

“Do not even mention sexy lingerie to a woman well into her third trimester,” Liv warned. “It will break her heart.”

Sean bit back a snarl of frustration. “When I get my hands on my brother, I'm going to have hard words with him. About making trouble between me and my wife. Creating unrealistic expectations. Rose petals? My ass, Liv. It's a fucking circus trick. That's all!”

“Is it? Well, you go ahead. Have those words with him,” she suggested. “Maybe you'll even learn something. Wonders never cease.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Soon as we get back to the hotel room, we're going to have a long talk about your womanly needs, babe. And just exactly what it is that you think you need to fulfill them.”

Her eyes glowed with sensual promise. “I think that sounds like an excellent idea.”

The air combusted. He was so turned on, he wanted to use Kev's bed then and there, to show Liv just how deep his commitment to fulfilling her womanly needs went. That was to say, to the hilt. All night long. And forever, while he was at it.

But through the fog of lust, another thought pricked him. How smoothly she'd wrangled him through this encounter with his brother's home and life. Not letting him hit the ceiling. Soothing, lecturing, scolding, teasing. And when all else failed, she just seduced him.

He was such a goddamn puppy. Sit, wag, roll over and beg. Eating out of her hand. Or better yet, eating chocolate caramel off parts of her that were even more sensitive. Any time. Any damn time.

But now was not that time. He looked away from the sultry glow in her eyes, the flushed lips, her absolutely lickable, suckable tits, and cleared his throat with a harsh cough. “So. Let's be methodical.”

“Oh, yes. Please, let's,” she murmured.

“Stop it, Liv,” he warned. “Let me concentrate. The elements fit together. The doors were forced. Pink scented candles, rose petals on the bed, so sex happened. The dishes were left undone for days. And there was no apparent sign of violence. Nor has anyone reported a break-in. So they haven't been back. Like the Parrish chick's place.”

“So?” Liv said. “Conclusion?”

“So they come here, and Kev's prepared a big romantic meal, with candles, etc. They chow down. Then, they go up to the bedroom, and do whatever it is that they do with their magic fucking flower petals.”

Liv cleared her throat, stifling a giggle.

“But while they're up in the bedroom, they hear someone coming,” he said. “Kev has to protect her, so instead of going down and getting into it…” He walked over to the window, the one whose blinds were blowing inward, and peered out. “They crawl out on the fire escape, step across onto the scaffolding, and flee out of that building.”

“Leaving the dishes to fester,” Liv said. “Very good. I like it.”

“But where are they now?” Sean mused. “And who is after them?”

A gust of icy wind swept through the blinds. He shivered with a strange foreboding. Suddenly he had yet another reason to add to the long list of compelling reasons to get out of Kev's place and back to the cozy bed in their hotel room. “Let's go,” he said. “This place is not safe.”

Liv followed him, with no back talk. She'd caught the same spooky vibe. He slunk out the bedroom door, pulling Liv behind him.

The vibe was building up into something approaching panic. A sense of having miscalculated, fucked up. Missed something important.

Of course, at that moment, the cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Thank God he'd turned off the ringtone. He yanked the thing out.

It was Davy. Movement down below caught his eye. The front door, silently swinging inward.

He yanked Liv to the floor beneath him, clamped his hand over her mouth.
Company,
he mouthed, jerking his gaze toward the door.

Two men, peeking in the door. Big guns. They moved in, tippety tapping like ninja cat shadows, and here he was, like an asshole, all alone with his wife, with the precious little space shrimp paddling around inside her, and one dinky fucking six-shot emergency revolver.

He eyed the bedroom door behind them. The room with the escape route. Too far. That much movement to the end of the loft would catch the eyes of those men, even slithering. Liv was wearing a bright red sweater coat. He was wearing drab gray and jeans, but she looked like a peony in full bloom up there, against the red brick walls. A pregnant peony. God help them.

He shoved Liv toward the bathroom door, hanging blessedly open from his previous inspection of Kev's choice of bathroom fixtures. She slithered in on her side, face pale, mouth clamped, teeth digging into her lower lip. Not a peep out of his Amazon queen.

He followed, feet first, crawling backward over the slate-colored bathroom tiles. He tapped in a message to Davy.

Sent, he shoved the phone in his pocket. His brother's apartment was so fucking huge, he'd need a rifle to take those guys from here. And now they were trapped. Far-fucking-out. He might have known.

Kev was a McCloud, after all. This crazy shit was inevitable.

 

Kev parked on the far side of the building next door to his own. His sixth sense was screaming, so he figured his chances of getting in and out without tripping an alarm were slim. Then again, they would have watched for his return until this morning, but after they'd taken him, there was no reason for them not to turn their eyes away.

Unless they'd found Ava. Always a possibility.

The safe with the ID info was built behind a hidden sliding panel inside his bedroom closet. He had various other caches in other parts of the house. He'd installed them as he remodeled the place from the naked bricks some years before. He even had a few outside the building. Ten thousand bucks and one of his fake IDs were shrink-wrapped in impermeable plastic and stowed in a fake utility box that was mounted on the light pole outside the building.

He shimmied up, pried the box loose with a rock, retrieved it. Another cache was tucked behind a loosened brick outside his bedroom window, puttied up to seal out the damp. He'd get that one, too.

He'd known he was being paranoid to the point of urgently needing medication when he prepared the hiding places and their contents. He hadn't understood the impulse, and he hadn't tried to. He just wanted to be able to get the necessary basics, and be able to cut and run without entering his building, should he ever find the need.

But there was Edie to consider, now. The sister, too. He needed more resources to evade a kidnapping charge and stay on the lam. It would be insanely complicated to go on the run with a woman and a child both. Probably impossible. It was hard enough alone.

So? What the fuck? What else did he have to do with himself? Without Edie, his life was worth nothing. He could only try.

He picked the padlock of the deserted building across from his, and slipped inside into the darkness. Thankfully, the construction site was deserted today. He slid like a shadow through the gutted building, trying not to leave any footprints on the walkways, and crawled onto the scaffolding, stepping across onto the fire escape. He pried out the putty, collected the cash behind the brick, and shoved it into the big front pocket of the black hoodie he'd taken from the guard.

The window was still open a crack. It would be funny if he'd gotten robbed in the meantime by normal thieves. After all the crazy shit going down, something so banal would be almost refreshing.

He slithered through the window, letting the wooden blinds slide across his whole body as he dropped down to the floor in a crouch.

It was silent, but his inner alarms were clanging. He went to the closet, glad he took care to keep doors and hinges oiled. No squeaking as he slid the panel down and tapped in the electronic combination.

Lack of vigilance will get you killed.
He finally understood where that came from. Dad's phrase. And he was just as crazy as old Eamon.

There was a fat money belt, all prepared, with documents inside—birth certificates, voter registration cards, credit cards, bank cards, credit histories, property tax records of his various alternate selves. It was complicated and expensive to keep them current and viable, and Bruno had thought he was nuts. But hey. He felt vindicated as hell today.

Two loaded pistols were inside, with extra clips, a Beretta Couger and a H&K USP. He loaded up the side pocket of his cargo pants with the Couger, shoved the H&K into his pants. Shoved the clips and a box of ammo into a bag, which he slung over his shoulder.

Still more weapons were in the safe on the other side of the closet, but that would be even more greedy and dumb than he'd been already. He felt around, checking to see what he'd forgotten, and his hand brushed the thing, spinning in the empty safe. A detonator for the M18A1 Claymore anti-personnel mines he'd wired into niches in the brick wall downstairs, covering them with artwork. Angled to destroy intruders coming in the front door. He pulled it out, gazed at it, wondering what dark impulse had prompted him to install them.

He slunk back toward the window. He had more caches around the house, but he'd pushed his luck far enough. One more shove, and it would snap. And he and Edie would be fucked.

Then he saw the beer.

A Dos Equis, from the six-pack Bruno had ordered from the Mexican restaurant. A ring of condensation was forming around the bottle on the dresser top. He had not left it there.

He crossed the room, touched the bottle with his fingertip. Half drunk, and ice cold. Just out of the fridge. It was still sweating.

Someone was here, in his apartment. Right now.

But who would come in, open a beer and wander around his place drinking it? Not any of Des and Ava's goons. The times he'd seen them in action, they had been very focused and professional. It was more like something that Bruno would do. But over the years he had trained that insolent slob of a brother to use coasters when he laid beverages on Kev's hand-finished wooden furniture, or risk broken bones and ripped cartilage as a consequence. And Bruno wasn't here. He was with Edie.

Oh, please, God. Please, let Bruno still be with Edie.

He yanked up the dark hood, pulling the cord tight around his face, and got down, wiggling through the bedroom door on his belly to peer through the wrought iron railing of the loft.

Oh, fuck. One guy, armed, poking through his studio. Another, staring at the dining room table. As he watched, two more slithered through the door, dead silent, gesturing at each other with prearranged signals. Looking for someone or something specific. Tense, focused.

Not the beer drinker. Whatever. Fuck it. Let it remain forever a mystery. He was out of here, this name, this place, this life. A blank slate once again, but at least this time, he'd have Edie. If God was kind.

God often wasn't, though. And there were his brothers, now. How could he not contact them, now that he knew who they were?

Not now.
He slithered back into his room, and pushed those confusing, unhelpful thoughts away as he pushed the switch.