Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet (28 page)

“Fuck you,” the guy said. “I ain’t going to prison for that skank.”

Skank?

“Get your mask off,” Donovan said, his tone sharper than I’d ever heard it. “We’re
almost at the drop point.”

Did he call me a skank?

“And fuck you, too,” he said to Donovan. “She sees my face, she can testify in court.”

Before anyone could respond, Michael was on the guy. He charged forward, took him
by the collar, and jerked his mask off. “She can testify anyway, dipshit.” He threw
the mask to Eric, who stuffed it into the same bag with the others.

The guy nodded in astonishment. He had blond hair cut so short, he looked almost bald.
His skin was leathery from too much New Mexico sun, but his cheeks had a ruddy complexion.
I didn’t remember seeing him, but I’d been to their house only once, and it had been
a very tense situation. “Great,” he said, his anger hitting me like a wall of heat.
“Now we’re all going to prison.”

“We’re going anyway if this doesn’t work,” Donovan said. “Quit your whining or get
out at the next stop.”

The guy worked his jaw as he peeled off his outer shirt as well, but he kept the black
military pants on.

“How we doing, darlin’?”

“Ten seconds,” the driver said.

Eric zipped the bag just as she took another sharp turn, this time down an alley and
into a parking garage. She skidded to a stop, sending me flying forward. And yet I
was the only one. I had serious gravitational issues.

The driver grinned down at me.

“Hi, I’m Charley,” I said as Eric opened the door and jumped out the second the van
stopped.

“I know,” she said with a soft laugh. “I’m Sabrina, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t
repeat that in court.”

“You got it.”

I watched as they transferred the money to the trunk of a yellow Hyundai and the bag
with the clothes to the back of a green Dodge Ram truck. But the part that fascinated
me the most was the fact that Michael and Sabrina peeled a plastic wrap off the sides
of the van. I couldn’t see what the van now looked like from my vantage, but surely
they had just changed its entire appearance.

They wadded the wrap and stuffed it into a storm drain; then Michael tossed Eric a
set of keys. He jumped in the truck and started it up as Sabrina headed for the Hyundai
while Michael took her place behind the wheel of the van.

“I’m going with the money,” the blond said, but Donovan pulled him back in and closed
the door.

“We stick to the plan. Unless you want to give up your share and leave now.”

The guy sat back, his expression full of anger, and most of it was directed at me.

“Hold on to your panties,” Michael said as he charged forward. The Hyundai and the
Dodge followed until they were out of the garage; then everyone went their separate
ways.

“You just signed our arrest warrant,” the blond said to Donovan.

He unsheathed a wicked-looking knife, and my gaze locked on like a laser-guided missile.
My chest weakened, the walls caving in as I withered inside myself like paper. I’d
felt a knife once as it slipped past layers of flesh and tendon until it hit bone.
It was not something I wanted to repeat.

He pointed it toward me. “Either she goes in the dirt,” he said, shifting the pointy
end toward Donovan, “or you do.”

Adrenaline pumped hard through Donovan’s body, so if this chain of events surprised
him, I couldn’t feel it. Without a hint of hesitation, he pulled his Glock and fired.
For the third time that day, a gun went off way to close for comfort.

I should’ve known the day was going to turn out bad when it started with my father
trying to kill me. They always went downhill from there.

“Fuck!” the guy yelled, ducking long after the bullet flew past him and broke through
the glass of one door.

He’d ducked, too. For some reason, that made me feel better about my earlier reaction.
But not about the sound. Nausea punched into my stomach and pushed hard, but I was
getting used to the massive adrenaline dumps. I tensed and fought the surge of bile,
forcing it down and holding it there.

“Drop the knife, and the next round will never leave the chamber.”

The guy tossed the knife right at me, but more as a warning than an attack. It hit
my shoulder and landed harmlessly on the metal floor with a clang. I grabbed it before
the guy could change his mind. The blade was as long as my forearm, and holding it
did little to alleviate the fear coursing through me. I couldn’t help but wonder if
Reyes had been right. I was afraid of a guy with a knife. Two months ago, that would
only have registered about a 4 on my Richter scale, but now the slightest offense
seemed to rocket my fear response off the charts.

We hit a rough spot as Michael barreled forward, and then the world went dark. Everyone
exited out different doors: Michael out the driver’s door, the blond out the back,
and Donovan out the sliding side door. He grabbed the last bag and nodded for me to
follow him. We were in his detached garage.

Michael was busy taking off yet another wrap; this one had yellow letters that read
D & D PLUMBING
. Now the van that had been black when I first saw it was white. Clever.

“You kidnapped me,” I said to Donovan.

“We didn’t kidnap you. We borrowed you.”

“You took me hostage.”

“Which is like borrowing.”

I marched behind him and he busied himself with this task or that one. “Why banks?
Why do this?”

He dropped his gaze and fiddled with his gloves, unsnapping and resnapping the strap.
“Sadly, we won’t see a penny of that money we took today.”

“What? I don’t understand.”

“That was the goal.” He lifted his brows into a shrug. “It was always the goal. We
had to make it look like we were just robbing banks randomly. Like we just stumbled
upon a fresh shipment of cash by accident. Like we didn’t know it would be there.
Waiting.”

I’d wondered how they happened upon so much cash.

He took out a saddlebag and stuffed it with some personal effects. “The deal was we
get to keep everything we’ve taken so far. That’s our payoff. But the money from the
heist today all goes to one guy.”

“And who would that be?”

“The guy who’s blackmailing us.”

The air siphoned out of my lungs as I laughed; then I realized he was being serious.
“You’re being blackmailed to rob banks?”

“Stranger things have happened,” he said, lifting one shoulder.

“Not to me.” When he offered me a skeptical stare, I said, “Well, okay, but this is
still a bit out there, even for me. Donovan, what happened?”

“I happened.” Eric walked up then. He’d apparently ditched the truck and strolled
up to us with hardly a care in the world. “I was jumped one night outside a club by
a group of guys, and I killed one of them. This guy filmed the whole thing.”

“He has evidence that would put all of us away for a long time. We were there. I watched
it happen. Eric was holding his own, so I didn’t step in. But we just left the guy
there.”

“We didn’t think he’d die,” Eric said. “Those guys fucking started it.”

“But if it was self-defense?”

“Not when you’re a Golden Gloves champion boxer,” Donovan explained.

Michael shoved Eric to the side. “And these dipshits fled the scene.”

Donovan gave him a stern look. “He would have gone up for a good stretch either way.”

“And when this guy came to us,” Eric continued, “he knew everything about banks.”

Michael nodded in agreement. “Said he could get us in and out, told us what to take
and what to leave, how to avoid the cops, everything.”

“Then he set up every job to make it look completely random,” Donovan said.

“So, who is this guy?” I asked, hoping they’d tell me.

A slow grin spread across Donovan’s face. “I’m going to a lot of trouble to keep your
ass alive and unharmed. The last thing I’m going to do is feed you to the wolf.”

“But he works at the bank you robbed today, right? That’s how he knew about the shipment.”

“Yeah,” Michael said with a wink, but he was lying. I could feel it as easily as I
could feel cool breeze on a hot summer day.

“Thing is, I don’t think it was going to stop here. I think he was going to force
us to hit one more bank. He’s been talking about it for a while. When we told him
it couldn’t be done, he said he had a guy on the inside. The fact that you made us
basically saved our asses.”

“We’re out,” Michael said, a smile playing on his mouth. The same mouth that smirked
more often than not, so the smile was nice. Genuine.

Eric was at my back then, too close as usual as he bent over me. “You saved us from
ever having to do this again. There’s no way he can force us to continue now.”

“We’re off to Mexico anyway,” Donovan said. “This just seals the deal.”

“Not for me, it doesn’t.” We turned as the blond strode in, his movements sharp with
anger. “This guy had no idea who I was. That I was even involved.” There was something
odd about his anger. He wasn’t being completely honest, I just couldn’t quite figure
out which part he was lying about.

“He still doesn’t,” Eric said.

“But she’s seen my face. You insisted on it, remember?”

Donovan grabbed him by the collar, clearly as sick of his whining as I was. “You were
the one who wanted in on this. We stick to the plan.”

“Since when did the plan involve taking a hostage?”

“I improvised,” Donovan said, pushing him away. Then he turned to me with another
grin. “How much time do we have until you turn us in?”

Oh, they really were leaving. And they knew I would have to turn them in. I was a
little stunned no one was trying to kill me. “As long as it takes me to get free.”

He frowned in confusion, so I showed my wrists. The next grin that crept across his
face could only be described as wolfish. “I can’t make any promises once you’re tied
up.”

I smiled. If Donovan was anything, it was a gentleman. A scruffy, vagabond gentleman,
but a gentleman nonetheless. “I think I’ll take my chances.”

15

Your existence gives me a headache.

Go stand over there.

—T-SHIRT

Twenty minutes later, I found myself hog-tied in a basement-level room in the asylum.
Donovan didn’t want to take the chance that one of his club members would come to
the house and find me all tied up and helpless, so the three of them led me over to
the asylum and down a dilapidated staircase. Eric found a chair, and the tying commenced.
Or, well, the taping. They had no rope, so they brought out the duct tape. Men had
such a thing for duct tape.

Eric bent over the back of the chair and kissed my neck. “See you on the flip side,
gorgeous. Don’t go breaking into anything I wouldn’t.”

I smiled and nuzzled him between my head and shoulder. He was a good kid. And sexy
as all get out. This was such a bad position for someone like me to be in. Tied up
and helpless with three hot guys vying for my attention. I totally needed to get out
more.

He nibbled my earlobe a bit, then left before I could even say good-bye.

Michael offered me that cool smirk he carried with such style and bent to kiss my
cheek. “I have a feeling we’ll meet again,” he said before saluting and heading away.

And that left me alone with Donovan.

He kneeled in front of me, his face quite handsome in the low light that streamed
in from a single high window. He wrapped both arms around my waist and wedged in between
my legs. “You’re a brave woman,” he said, his smile genuine.

I wanted to tell him about Artemis, because before she died, she had been his dog.
I wanted him to know that she was with me and doing well, that she’d saved my life
at least twice already, but I had no idea how he’d take that. He probably thought
I was enough of a freak without bringing his departed dog into the picture, so I decided
to keep that bit of info to myself for the time being.

“You’re really going to Mexico?” I asked.

“To start with. Who knows where we’ll end up, but things are getting too dicey around
here.” He rubbed my leg with one hand, his fingers getting dangerously close to the
crest between my legs, otherwise known as Virginia. “You could go with us,” he said
without looking up at me.

He was dead serious, and I knew he’d let me come in a heartbeat if I wanted to. But
how could I possibly leave? Some women were the drop-everything-and-run-off-to-Mexico
kind of girls, but I was not. I had responsibilities. And a case to solve. And demons
after my ass. Come to think of it, running didn’t sound like such a bad idea.

Nah, I couldn’t leave Cookie. Or Gemma. Or Mr. Wong. Or … Reyes popped into my head
no matter how hard I tried to keep him out. His shimmering dark eyes and long thick
lashes. Who was I kidding? I couldn’t leave him either.

Yet kneeling in front of me was one of the sweetest men I’d ever met. Biker or not,
he knew how to treat a girl.

True, he duct-taped me to a chair, but that had been my idea.

“I’ll let you know where we are when we get there,” he said, not waiting for an answer
from me. “You’ll always be welcome.”

“Right,” I scoffed, not believing him for a minute. “You’ll find some Mexican beauty
who makes you want to get married and have
pequeños banditos
for the first time in your life, and you’ll forget all about me.”

The sadness that washed over him spilled out into me. “Not likely, love.” He ran his
thumb over my bottom lip, then covered it with his own, taking it between his teeth
and suckling before pressing his mouth to mine.

It was a nice kiss, soft and unhurried, and as welcome as a delicate rain on the high
plains. It was what I needed. A healing kind of karma swam around me as he pulled
my hips to his. I spread my knees and reveled in the feel of his erection against
my most sensitive girl part. And I swore if I hadn’t been taped down, I would have
jumped him right then and there. I was such a hussy.