Broken Wings (19 page)

“
There’s something about him
all right,” Rio said, her eyes glued to the painting.

“
But there’s something
different in your eyes when you look at Tajan’s painting.” Carole
waited until Rio looked at her before she said, “You long for him.”
She studied Rio’s face. “While the rest of us merely dream about
him...you truly miss him.”

Rio turned away, and hid her face with
her hand. “Carole…you’re embarrassing me.”

“
Wait here.” Carole pushed
herself up from the table and left the dining room.

Sadness laced with Rio’s fascination as
Tajan’s portrait consumed her. The pride in his stoic expression.
The depth of his chocolate eyes. Every inch of his chiseled
features called to her recently awakened affections.

Rio had no idea how long Carole had
been gone when she returned with her husband, but the intrusion was
met with a half-hearted acceptance.

He had a rectangular jewelry case with
him. He set it on the table and slid it toward Rio. “You should
have these. After all, you made them.”

Inside the case, Rio found the
bracelets Maggie had made for herself and Tajan. They were neatly
laid out against the black velvet. She knew what they were. And
that tore at her heart. The pain of it welled tears around her
eyes.

“
Someday you’ll meet
someone, and you’ll marry.” Bill laid her future out before her
like he was privy to some inside secret. “And you and your husband
can carry on the tradition that Maggie and Tajan
started.”

Rio looked down at the bracelets and
was instantly engulfed in grief. She eased the case shut and let
her gaze linger on it until she found the courage to slide the
jewelry’s container back toward Bill. “That’ll never happen.” She
blinked at the tears and glanced back at Tajan’s painting. “I could
never share those with another man.” Her voice cracked as hopeless
laughter invaded her tone. “There’s not enough room in my heart for
anyone else.”

“
I don’t know the
particulars,” Bill said. “But someday you’re going to want these
bracelets. So I’ll keep them safe for you…until you’re ready for
them.”

~~~~

CHAPTER 39

Rio’s plan to distract Turner’s goons
was set in motion at the base of Prison Hill. Janey, donning a red
wig, sat on the hood of Rio’s car. Billy was draped over Janey.
They had their arms tangled around each other. It was supposed to
be an act, but it was turning more and more passionate by the
minute.

Billy
ran his hand along the smooth skin of her leg and up underneath her
skirt. Hunger spiraled through him. And then a glimmer of what they
were doing there raided the party.

He removed his hand from beneath her
dress. “I’m sorry.” He caressed her face. “But you make me
crazy.”

Janey arched her back, trying to pull
Billy back down to meet her lips. “Right now we have to put on a
show for them,” she said between her soft, sensuous kisses.
“Because they’re watching...right?”

Billy towered above her. “But…” he
said, shaking his head. “I won’t disrespect you by getting too
carried away.”

“
We have to make it look
real.” She wrapped her hands around his neck and pulled him down as
she rose to meet his lips. “But later…” She continued her seduction
with kisses. “You’re going to take me back to your place and finish
what you started...right?”

“
As you wish.” He chuckled
and moved his mouth over hers, devouring its softness.

Off in the distance Biggs eagerly
watched the couple through a pair of binoculars. “I think they’re
having sex!” he exclaimed, still glued to the sight before him.
“This guy thinks she’s his cousin, and he’s screwing her!” He
passed judgment but made no move to stop watching.

Overtly excited to locate the couple in
his sights, Taylor grabbed the extra pair of binoculars and scanned
the base of the mountain until he located them. “Oh, my God! They
are having sex!” But he didn’t stop looking any more than his
cohort had. “Would you look at that.” A devious snicker rose up his
throat. “He’s banging the shit out of his cousin!”

* * *

While it’s true, Billy and Janey were
kissing and making out—they weren’t having sex. Billy had made it
clear that he thought more of Janey than to do something like that
under these circumstances.

“
You think they’re out
there?” Janey asked. “Watching us still?”

“
Yes, I do.” The seriousness
in his tone was chased away by a smile. “Are you still going to go
out with me?”

“
You’re kidding, right?” She
laughed. “I’d go anywhere with you—do anything you
asked.”

Billy smiled. “That’s my
girl.”

~~~~

CHAPTER 40

This was the night that would lead to
the day Rio had been waiting for, not to mention working toward,
for several years now. Tomorrow, all would reveal itself. She was
relieved it was going to be over. The whole thing had begun to
weigh heavily on her mind.

Over the last few weeks, she had done
everything she could to protect and provide the best possible
solution for the Tajans. She’d had an agenda when she came in to
this thing. She couldn’t alter her strategy, at least not too far
from the original plan. But no matter what she’d set out to do a
long time ago, there was no way she could do anything that would
end up harming the Tajans.

She was at Billy’s parents’ house,
waiting with Carole for everyone else to return. The whole while
she’d been pretending to watch the television. They couldn’t do
anything. They couldn’t go anywhere. Rio had to stay out of sight.
After all, Rio was supposed to be at the base of Prison Hill with
Billy.

Fatigue wrapped around her like a
straightjacket and she stretched out on the couch. Rio was drifting
off when the front door eased open. Billy and Janey came in and Rio
sat up.

“
Is Dad back?” Billy
asked.

“
No.” Carole shook her
head.

Rio looked at her watch.
Three
a.m
. When had she dozed off? It seemed like seconds ago that
she’d lain down.

Billy and Janey sat down on the couch.
They were holding hands.

The phone rang and Carole sped across
the room to answer it. “Hello...” She was silent for a bit. “You’re
okay then?” she questioned the caller. “All right.” She seemed to
be giving in as she hung up the phone and turned to
Billy.

“
That was Dad?” he asked as
if he already knew the answer.

“
Yes…they’ve switched the
treasure and re-buried it. As soon as he hides the real one, he’ll
be home.”

“
Okay. I’m going to take
Janey and Rio to my house in your car,” Billy said. “When Dad gets
home, you guys come on over.”

They headed to the garage through the
kitchen. Rio climbed into the back seat of Carole’s car, lay down
and curled up, safely out of sight. Janey, still wearing the red
wig, rode up front with Billy.

He backed out of the garage and headed
down the street. He didn’t have to drive far before spying the
familiar black SUV sitting on the side of the road.

They’d pass right by them, and they’d
be too close. Close enough for them to see that Janey wasn’t Rio.
Just a few yards from the SUV, he pushed Janey’s head down toward
his lap. He eyed the driver as he passed by their pursuers. The guy
gave him a thumbs up.

“
Both of you stay down,”
Billy said, barely moving his lips. He glanced into the review
mirror. “By the looks of what I just saw...I’d say you were right,
Rio.” Billy’s disgust flashed back at him in the mirror. “Those
goons were eager to witness some incest going on.”

“
What’s going on?” Rio
asked, but didn’t move from her hiding place in the back
seat.

“
We just passed right by
them.” Billy checked the mirror again. “I was afraid they’d see
that Janey wasn’t you, so I shoved her head down, like I was
pushing her into my lap.” He glanced down at Janey, who was lying
face up on the edge of his leg. She smiled. “I’m sorry about
that.”

“
Seriously?” Rio
asked.

“
Oh, yeah...” Billy’s voice
shuddered with disgust. “They assumed I was doing what they thought
I’d been doing all night.” He checked the rearview mirror again.
The SUV was following them and attempting to hide a couple of cars
back. “When I passed by them, the driver gave me a thumbs up.” His
laughter was fueled by disgust. “What a couple of
idiots.”

At Billy’s house, they snuck in through
the garage, and Rio headed straight to her bedroom and her
laptop.

She wasn’t worried about getting
caught, figuring Billy would be preoccupied with Janey. She typed
her email with swift precision and then hit the “send”
button.

Dear Uncle Gabe…The birdie
will be captured later today. Its final resting place will be in
Brunswick Canyon. You should be in place before eight a.m. tomorrow
morning…Your Loving Niece, Rio.

~~~~

CHAPTER 41

Early the next morning an entourage of
vehicles left Billy’s house and filed into the street one right
after the other, all heading in the same direction.

The guys in the SUV looked a little
nervous as the parade of cars passed them by. The passenger had his
cell at his ear and the driver boldly got in line behind the last
truck and followed them.

Rio and Janey were with Billy in his
Jeep. Rio was in the backseat and on the phone with Billy’s friend,
Danny, who was in a truck several vehicles behind them.

“
They’re following us?” Rio
asked, already easily guessing the answer.

“
Oh, yeah,” Danny said with
a slight laugh. “It’s time to reel ’em in.”

“
Perfect.” Rio smiled,
slapped the phone shut and leaned toward the front of the
Jeep.

Billy chuckled. “They’re following us,
huh?”

She knew he didn’t need a response to
his inquiry. He knew the score. “They’re so
predictable.”

Rio, Billy, and Janey gathered in
Brunswick Canyon with about thirty tribe members. Several of them
scrambled to dig up the site again before their friends were able
to realize, from a distance, the place had already been dug up
recently.

Rio knew Turner’s goons were somewhere
nearby. If they were smart they were staked out on the high ridge
across the canyon. Common sense told her it afforded an
unobstructed view of
them
. And the best part—it was far
enough away to shield what they were really doing.

* * *

In Turner Atkins’s Vegas warehouse, the
phone on his desk rang. He snatched it up and said into the
receiver, “Talk to me.”

“I think they found the place, Boss.”
Biggs’s voice filtered in with great news—if it was
true.

“And what makes you think so?” Turner
asked.

“
They’re up in this canyon
right now,” he said, relaying the morning’s chain of events.
“They’ve got about thirty, or so, people with them.”

Turner propped his feet up on the desk.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said in a poised tone. “By the time they
get it dug up…I’ll have an army of men at the bottom of the
canyon.”

He dropped the phone back into the
cradle and patted the desktop. After all, if it hadn’t been for
this desk he would’ve never found the map fragment—the one single
object that was going to give him triple—maybe quadruple—the wealth
that he currently had.

Had Sammy Styles known what he was
giving away in exchange for a debt settlement.... Well, not
everybody could be lucky. But Turner was one lucky son-of-a-gun to
have happened upon the map the way he did.

It wasn’t the map he’d taken as
payment. It was the desk, after he’d verified that it had once
belonged to the wife of a California State Supreme Court Judge back
in the 1800s. He liked the idea of taking a historical artifact
directly related to the justice system and using it in a such an
illicit manner.

He’d happened upon the map some time
later, while tinkering with the desk. After listening to all his
grandmother’s stories he just knew there had to be a secret
compartment in it somewhere—and he was right. Even so, he’d
expected to find something better than old scribbles on a single
piece of paper. He put it back in the desk’s compartment—it seemed
like the thing to do—and never gave it a moment’s thought until
Audrey Tajan waltzed into his life and told her about her own
family’s legends.

The fact that they had their own map
fragment did pique his curiosity, but he kept his mouth shut about
what he had found. The more he learned about her family’s history,
the more he realized that his map and her family’s map were two
halves of the same map.

At that point, Turner had one goal—to
get his hands on the Tajans’ half of the map.