Magic by Moonlight (5 page)

He was arrogant, all too sure of himself,
lecherous, and infuriating.

But he kissed like he’d been born to it.

And she reacted like a woman too long
without a man. That was all there was to it, she decided. It wasn’t
him, it was her own unplanned celibacy that had her hormones raging
when he touched her. She’d never been good at choosing men. Every
time she got involved, the guy turned out to be a loser, and so
she’d decided to avoid the opposite sex entirely. That had been
over a year ago. She guessed her body had its own opinion on the
subject.

So maybe she should try again. But not with
Al. Absolutely not with Al.

Why not?

Hell. He was too sure of himself, too
old-fashioned, probably to the point of being chauvinistic, and he
was going back where he came from just as soon as all of this was
over.

And that, she realized, was the heart of the
matter. He was going back, and there was no sense in her forming
some sick attachment to him in the meantime. No sense at all.

All morning M. C. and Aunt Kate helped Al
practice the role he was about to play. They talked him through it
over and over again. Waiting for his turn in line, what he’d say to
the teller at the window, how they’d take him into another room
where he’d insert his key into the box and the banker would insert
hers. He’d memorized everything from the box number to the fact
that he must address the teller as Mr. or Ms. rather than “my
lady,” or
“ma chérie.”

M. C. believed she’d thought of
everything.

Before noon, he seemed ready. Aunt Kate had
run into town to buy him a dark-colored trench coat that reached to
mid-shin, since he was so damned insistent on wearing his sword.
She’d also had a copy of the safe deposit box key made. M. C.
thought it best, just in case, and she put the extra key in her
jeans pocket where she could get at it in a hurry if she needed to.
Despite Al’s protests, they’d managed to talk him into wearing the
Kevlar vest that M. C. had practically lived in for the past few
days. And in spite of his objections, Mary Catherine was going to
be waiting right outside the bank to back him up if all hell broke
loose.

Her stomach was churning when all was
finally ready and she got into Aunt Kate’s car to drive back to
Newark. She was forgetting something. She was sure of it.

Al, on the other hand, was far less
concerned about the job at hand than he was about their mode of
transportation. He eyed the car warily before getting in, then took
his passenger seat looking a bit pale.

“It’s perfectly safe, Al,” M. C. assured
him. “Put your seat belt on.” When he frowned at her, she
demonstrated by fastening her own. Lips tight, he pulled the belt
around him, and snapped it.

“Good,” she said, and then turned the
key.

The motor came to life, and M. C. shifted
into gear and pulled onto the street. Al’s hand gripped her knee,
and for once, she was certain it
wasn’t
a come-on. His
knuckles were white, and the pressure pretty intense. She closed
her hand over his. “Easy, Al. There’s nothing to this, I
promise.”

He met her eyes and seemed unsure. “We are
traveling very quickly, are we not?”

She glanced at the speedometer. “I’m going
thirty. We’re practically crawling.”

Another car approached, and Al looked up
fast, eyes widening. “Watch out, lady!”

His shout startled her so much that she
jammed the brakes and came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the
quiet street. The other car passed, its driver sending her an odd
look. M. C. shook her head, glancing in the mirror and thanking her
stars that no one was behind her. She’d have been rear-ended for
sure.

Sighing, she turned to Al. “Look, Al, I’ve
been driving for over a decade now. Will you relax? Please?”

He closed his eyes slowly. “Forgive me,” he
said. “You must think me very cowardly.”

She shook her head slowly. “I think you’re
only about half as nervous as I’d be in your shoes. Listen, Al,
this is going to get worse. Once we hit the highway we’ll be going
a lot faster, and there are going to be lots of other cars on the
road with us. Are you going to be okay with this?”

He licked his lips, nodding slowly. “It is
just so new and strange to me.”

“I know. You’ll get used to it, I promise.
Look, do you trust me?”

He stared into her eyes for a long moment.
“Oddly enough, Mary Catherine, I do. It is good,
non?
Since
I am placing my life in your hands?”

She smiled. “I’m an excellent driver.”

The blast of a horn made Al jump out of his
skin and whirl around. M. C. glanced back to see a car behind them.
She let off the brake, pressed on the accelerator, and got
moving.

By early afternoon, they were back in
Newark, and she thought it was a good thing Al had been given
several hours to get used to traveling by car before facing the
city traffic. What a mess. At any rate, he’d calmed down a lot.
Enough so that he was now asking questions about how the car
worked, and whether he could try driving it himself. The very
thought had her almost as nervous as he’d been when he’d first got
into the thing.

She parked a block away from the bank. Her
hat and sunglasses were firmly back in place now, and she wore her
leather jacket like a shield. “That’s the bank, over there,” she
said. “You won’t have to cross any streets. That’s a lesson in
itself around here. I’ll stay here, where I can keep an eye on you
in case anything goes wrong. Okay?”

“Yes, fine. I know what to do.” He glanced
around, his nervousness gone, every bit the protector now. “Do you
see any of your enemies about?”

She dragged her eyes from Al and looked
around. Then she nodded. “That dark sedan with the tinted glass,
right across from the bank. That’s one of Guido’s goons inside
it.”

Al spotted the car and nodded. “Perhaps you
should await me elsewhere,” he suggested. “You’ll be alone,
unprotected while I retrieve the tape.”

“Not quite unprotected,” she said, and she
took out her gun, then gave the cylinder a spin. “He comes near me,
he’ll wish he hadn’t.”

“I still don’t like leaving your side, Mary
Catherine, with one of them so close.”

“He doesn’t know this car, and he can’t
possibly recognize me from there. Go on, Al. Get the tape. It’s the
only way to end this thing.”

Sighing heavily, he nodded. “I will be as
fast as possible, my lady.” He fiddled with the door handle for a
minute, finally made it work, and started to get out without
undoing the seat belt. It tugged him back down, and M. C. reached
over to release it for him. Impulsively, she touched his shoulder.
“Be careful, Al.”

“Do not worry,” he said, then he smiled at
her and got out, striding purposefully toward the bank in his long
dark coat, looking this way and that all the way there.
Inconspicuous, he definitely was not. At least his sword didn’t
show.

His sword. It was at that precise moment
that M. C. realized what it was she’d forgotten. This bank had been
robbed six times in the past two years. As a result it had been
equipped with metal detectors at the entrances and airport-like
X-ray machines. “Oh, hell!” She had to stop him. But she’d never
get inside with her gun. Quickly she pulled it from her jeans and
jammed it under the front seat.

She jumped out of the car and ran toward the
bank to stop Al, but he was already heading through the entrance.
By the time she got to the door, a security guard was guiding Al to
the X-ray machine and asking him to walk through it. She shoved the
door open, lunged inside, saw the X-ray guy’s eyes bug out as he
looked at the screen, and then saw three security guards pull their
weapons and head for Al, even as he reached for his sword.

“Al, no!” she shouted. Too late. In a flash
the weapon was in his hand, whipping to and fro like lightning. The
guards’ guns sailed from their hands as if they’d sprouted wings.
The bank’s alarm shrieked like a banshee, and Al smiled, his eyes
gleaming as he held the guards at bay. He was
enjoying this,
she realized in disbelief.

He backed past her toward the door, glanced
her way briefly, and inclined his head. Then he was gone, out the
door with the guards in hot pursuit. Already she could hear
approaching sirens. She looked outside to see the dark sedan
pulling slowly away from the bank. No doubt Guido’s goon had a
record and didn’t want to be caught within a mile of a bank
robbery. She looked up and down the street for Al, and caught sight
of him as he leapt nimbly from the sidewalk to the hood of a parked
car, swung his sword in an elegant arc to fend off his pursuers,
and then leapt off the other side. She should go after him, she
thought; she should help him.

But he’d all but told her to go after the
tape. And she could always bail him out of jail—or the loony bin,
where he’d more likely end up—later.

Poor Al. She hoped the cops didn’t shoot
first and ask questions later. She knew she’d belter hurry. He’d
never survive without her.

Quickly she went up to a frightened teller.
“I know this is a bad time,” she said, “but this is truly an
emergency. My life is in danger unless I get into my safe deposit
box right this minute.”

“I’m sorry,” the woman said. “But in the
middle of all this, I can’t possibly—”

“Please. I’m not kidding you, I could be
killed if you don’t help me.”

The woman searched M. C.’s face, frowning.
Then nodded. “All right. But... be discreet. I could lose my job
for this.”

“Thank you.”

Within a few minutes, M. C. had the tape.
Getting out of the bank with the cops there questioning people
proved to be another challenge. But she found herself pausing to
eavesdrop as she overheard the guards who had returned from the
chase, telling their story to the police.

“The man was insane,” one said. “Some kind
of acrobat or something.”

“Look what he did to my uniform!” said
another, fingering the neat slash across the front of his shirt.
“He coulda killed me.”

“No way,” a third commented. “He was too
good. If he’d wanted to kill you, you’d be dead.”

“Man, I never saw anything like it. He
ducked into an alley, and we thought we had him cornered. But then
he jumped onto a Dumpster and did a backflip right over the fence.
And he wasn’t even winded!”

Poor Al. Out there, being pursued like a fox
by hounds, in an unfamiliar city. But she shook her head in wonder
at the way he’d handled himself. She almost wished she could have
seen it.

She tucked the tape into her pocket and
sidled over toward the group of customers who’d already been
interviewed. Briefly she thought about handing the tape to one of
the cops on the scene, but it was too risky. If he were honest,
he’d insist on taking her with him to the station, and that would
leave Al alone on the run. If he were less than honest... She knew
full well that there were several cops on Guido de Rocci’s payroll,
and it would be just her luck to pick one of them.

No, she wasn’t handing this evidence over to
anyone other than the top guy. The D.A. himself. But first, she had
to find and rescue her self-appointed bodyguard before he got
himself killed.

A cop gave the group of customers the okay
to leave, and she slipped out with them. Then she ducked her head
and pulled her cap lower as the dark sedan passed slowly by.
Circling the block like a damned hungry shark. She couldn’t walk
around searching for Al. Not yet. She had to get to the car. She’d
drive around looking for him. It would be safer that way. At least
she could make a run for it if they recognized her.

The guy in the sedan passed her, and did a
double take. Oh, hell. He was picking up a cell phone now. She
walked faster. She was nearly to her aunt’s beat-up Buick when a
second dark car pulled to a stop at the corner just beyond it. A
man got out. Suit, sunglasses. Damn.

She ran for the car as the thug came toward
her on the sidewalk, his hand reaching inside his tailored Italian
jacket. She thought of her own gun, tucked under the front seat of
the car. Hell. Almost there. She grabbed the door handle.

A hand gripped her arm, spun her around, and
she stood face-to-face with Guido de Rocci himself. The barrel of a
handgun jammed into her belly, and she held her breath.

“The tape,” he rasped. “Hand it over, or
die.”

“I gave it to the cops already, de Rocci.
And I hope they fry your ass.”

“You’re a liar,” he said. “Hand it
over.”

She met his shaded eyes and simply shook her
head. “Shoot me and those cops will be all over you like ugly on an
ape, pal. From the feel of it, I’d say there’s no silencer on that
piece of yours.”

“Oh, I’m not going to shoot you, Miss
Hammer. Not here, at least.” He tugged her away from the Buick,
just as the other car came to a halt in the street beside it. And
she knew if they got her into that vehicle it would be all over.
She closed her eyes and prayed for a miracle.

The miracle she was praying for appeared.
Guido de Rocci stood on the sidewalk, facing the street, holding
her pressed up against her aunt’s Buick, his gun jabbing into her
belly. His goons in their dark sedan had pulled to a stop in the
street beside the Buick.

When de Rocci suddenly stiffened, she didn’t
know why. Until she looked downward. Al crouched comfortably on the
sidewalk behind the man, and the tip of his sword nestled at the
base of Guido’s spine.

“Unhand the lady,” Al said softly. And his
eyes glittered.

He was smart, her Musketeer. The guys in the
car couldn’t even see him down there. The oversized Buick blocked
him from their view.

Guido didn’t move.

“Release her, man, or I’ll run you through!”
Al put a little more pressure on the sword, and Guido flinched.