Heart Wounds (A Miranda and Parker Mystery) (22 page)

She followed Parker to a spot at the end of the bar where someone had vacated a stool and sat down. Parker hovered behind her. She could feel his body tense and ready to pounce like a wolf on the hunt.

They scanned the room.

Three couples stuffed into a booth across the way. Four card players at a table next to them. Miranda eyed the faces at each table one by one. When she got to
the end of the row of booths, she thought the last one was empty. Until she saw the shape of a booted foot sticking out.

A
dark figure leaned forward from the wooden seat and rose.

The leather and chains were almost camouflage in this place. But the spiky hair, the
narrow face and nose, the sunken eyes gave him away.

“It’s him,” she whispered over her shoulder to Parker.

“I see.”

Shrivel
stuck his thumbs in his belt and sauntered over to the bar like he thought he was a cowboy in an old Western. He pushed the people in front of him away and glared at the redheaded barmaid.

She ignored him.

His fist came down hard on the bar’s surface. “Service!” he bellowed.

Alarm in her eyes, she turned and hurried over to him, presumably to shut him up.

As soon as she reached him he grabbed her by the lapels of her vest and gave her a shake. He pulled her close and muttered something to her.

Miranda went rigid. She felt Parker’s body tighten behind her.

“Patience,” he breathed.

Winnie took
Shrivel’s hands and pulled them off her as she replied.

Yeah, patience. But if that jerk did anything else,
Miranda was going to have to go over there and bloody his lip. If Parker didn’t beat her to it.

The bastard reached for Winnie again but she ducked away in time. He was about to lunge. Miranda
shot up from her stool.

But before she could move s
omeone came up behind the guy and yanked at his arm. He spun around. They spoke just a few words. Then they turned and headed out the door.

“Let’s go,” Parker said.

But Miranda was already pushing through the crowd.

As soon as they stepped outside and into the damp night air, Miranda saw Shrivel and his buddy hop on a motorcycle and take off.

“Damn.”
She turned and scrambled for the rental car with Parker right beside her.

The car was around the corner, down the street
. They raced to it as fast as they could. But as Miranda yanked the door open and jumped inside, she feared they’d already lost him.

Parker started the car and tore off down the street and around the corner. Finall
y, the glow of the cycle’s taillights appeared as they halted at a street light and Parker slowed.

“We’ve got them now,” he breathed and she heard the anxiety in his voice.

“Where are they going?”

“We’re about to find out.”

They tailed the cycle through a maze of old, narrow streets, the shops growing grimier, the buildings rattier, and the corners darker as they went. At last the cycle turned down a tiny little road with a brick wall on one side and rows of old rusty warehouses on the other. Chicken wire and chain link fences and locked gates stretched along the properties, all topped with barbed wire to keep out intruders.

The cycle pulled up to one
of the gates. Shrivel hopped off the back, opened the entry with a key from his pocket. The bike cruised into the yard. Shrivel shut the gate while his partner leaned the cycle against a wall, and the pair went inside the building through a side door.

The warehouse had a sign boasting batteries and car repairs, but most of the lettering was worn off. Still there were enough
service vans and vehicles in its shadowy parking lot to indicate it was still in business.

The heavy garage-type doors were shut and there were no windows on this side. A dim street lamp was the only light and it cast
creepy shadows along the walls.

Parker idled near the entrance,
a black van parked along the street hiding the rental car from view. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel.

Miranda eyed the
gate. “That barbed wire looks electrified.”

“There might be another way in.”

“You think we should go in?” She was all for rough and tumble, but they had no idea if anyone else was in there. Or how many of them there were. Or what they were doing.

“Let’s see what we can find.”

He eased around the block, past houses and hedgerows, a filling station, more houses, until he reached another repair shop that seemed to border the other one. This one was bordered with chicken wire and the enclosure here was lower and didn’t have barbed wire.

“We could scale that fence,” Miranda said.
But would that lead to the right place? Even if it did what would they do when they were inside? They didn’t even have weapons.

Parker studied the grounds for a long moment then pulled off again and headed back around to the first
repair shop.

They were just passing it
when the side door opened and several dark figures emerged from the shadows. Two big thug-types. Shrivel. The buddy. And a shorter, stocky guy. If she wasn’t mistaken…

“Is that Scorpion?” The guy in the picture Ives had shown her in Wample’s office
? The leader of the street gang named the Stingers?

“Keep an eye on them.”
Parker passed by slowly, as if he were heading straight home while Miranda twisted around in the seat to get a better view.

It didn’t look li
ke anybody had noticed the car.

The short guy gave
Shrivel a hard shove, and he stumbled backward, catching himself on the hood of a car. The guy waved his hands then pointed to the two thugs.

Shrivel
made a pleading gesture.

Short guy pointed at the cycle then off in the distance.

Shrivel nodded and headed for the bike while everyone else disappeared again into the repair shop’s shadows.

“The leader looks like he’s mad at
Shrivel about something,” she said. “He just sent the jerk away on the cycle.”

“Some sort of errand?”

“Doesn’t look like he’s going for fish and chips.”

Parker pulled around the block
once again. At the end of the last road they found Shrivel cruising along.

He
slowed at a corner, made the turn onto a main road, and with the rental car tailing right behind, the cycle roared off into the night.

Street after street they followed the cycle’s red taillights.

Through a dozen intersections, past parks and shops and government buildings.
Miranda was grateful for Parker’s superb tailing skills or Shrivel surely would have made them by now.

“This has to be about the dagger,” she said half under her breath.

Parker nodded. “I suspect Shrivel tried to intimidate Toby through his sister again.”

“But he’s in jail.”

“He’s probably called and told Winnie where he is by now,” Parker surmised.

Miranda blew out a breath.
“And if Winnie told Shrivel her brother is in jail, it made him blow his stack. He thinks Toby’s ratted him out. But that doesn’t explain where he’s going now.”

Parker turned another corner.
“Perhaps to see a fence?”

“And get rid of the real dagger?”

“Perhaps.”

That didn’t sound right. Why would the seemingly fearsome Scorpion, leader of the Stingers, send a guy like
Shrivel out with a priceless relic? Alone? On a bike? “Maybe the fence is holding out.”

“Perhaps.”

No, Scorpion would have sent more thugs if he thought someone was double crossing him. He’d have gone himself. She let out a long breath. “And what does this have to do with Lady Gabrielle?” She could still see those lifeless green eyes staring out at nothing. They had to find whoever did that to her.

“No.”
Parker was quiet.

She knew him well enough to know he was putting the pieces together in his mind. Or trying to. Like her, she supposed, he couldn’t make them quite fit.

She looked out the windshield and saw they were heading toward the city. The buildings were getting taller and more modern, the traffic heavier, the pedestrians trendier. Music and laughter echoed from nightspots. Up ahead the strange cone shaped structure loomed, twinkling with a thousand lights from its windows.

They went through m
ore traffic lights. Passed more buses. More pedestrians. Where in the hell was that sonofabitch going?

They plowed through all of it and crossed London Bridge, the waters of the Thames
dark and green and gurgling beneath them. The shadow of the Tower loomed in the distance. That place where long ago kings had had their wives’ heads cut off when they were through with them.

Her stomach twisted at the thought. There were still men today who thought women could be done away with and discarded like yesterday’s trash.

They followed the motorcycle’s taillights into another shopping district, down a few side streets and finally into a lane lined with rectangular four-and-five story buildings that looked like apartment dwellings.

In the next block the motorcycle pulled over to the curb and
Shrivel hopped off. His lanky, black-clad legs carried him over the walkway and up the darkened stairs to one of the buildings. Just as Parker eased up beside the cycle, Shrivel disappeared inside.

Adrenaline pumping through her veins,
Miranda hopped out of the car and raced up the walkway.

The door was locked, of course. Only residents could enter. Heart pound
ing, panting with frustration, she glared at the side panel.

A
n intercom. Access for secure entry. Names of the residents were listed, one for each button.

S
he scanned the names and her heart began to beat so hard she thought it might jump out of her chest. She recognized only one of them. In number four-oh-six.

Trenton Jewell.

It was only a few moments before Parker was at her side. When he trotted up the stairs she pointed to the intercom. “Look.”

Parker
scowled, his face displaying the same shock she was feeling. “Jewell?”

Miranda waved her hands at the name.
“Why is Shrivel visiting the attorney for George Eames?”

“He does represent criminals.
”

That was true. “Maybe he wants to confess.”

Parker’s expression grew darker. “Or he’s following orders from his boss.”

“What orders?”

“Can’t be sure. We need to get inside.” He studied the door as if sizing up what it would take to pick the lock.

Miranda was about to mention that might not be a good idea in a foreign country
, when she heard a bus stop on the corner and laughter spill out as the doors opened. She turned and saw a noisy group of partygoers getting off the bus and coming up the walkway.

She waited, watched them—not too steadily—turn in at the apartment building. They were in luck.

“There we are,” Parker murmured in her ear.

As the group neared, he grabbed her
and drew her close. For good measure he kissed her. Hard.

He was doing it so as not to look suspicious lingering here at the doorway
, waiting for a way in, but it still took her breath away.

His lips pressed against hers and her heart burst into a fiery sizzle. Not something she needed right now, but the reaction was involuntary. As so was her mouth pressing back against his, devouring the warmth of his lips, their comfort. Maybe she did need this. His strength, his fire steadied her. Soothed the ragged
edges of the pain she’d been carrying around since this afternoon. Carried her away to the memory of their first kiss on her own porch so many months ago.

And as she drank in his scent, it hit her hard how much she needed this man. How much she loved this man.

The giggling group came up the steps and Parker pressed her against the wall and deepened the kiss. He was making her dizzy, but the partiers were close enough to smell the alcohol on them. Had to keep up the impromptu cover.

“
I believe I’m positively bladdered, mates,” one of the young men slurred.

A
woman made a high pitched hee-hee noise. “Watch yer step, now, Terry.”

“Right,” a second man chimed in. “
Can’t have you going arse over tit.”