Fugitive Heart (11 page)

“Sure.”

While Jake went to the wheezing old Frigidaire and pulled out a pair of bottles, Nick walked to the Mustang and ran a hand over the rolled-down ragtop. “Gonna be a beauty when you’re finished.”

“Someday,” Jake agreed, handing him a beer. “So what brings you all the way to the heart of Wisconsin?”

“Heard about Arnesdale from a friend. I’d had enough of city life, and it seemed as good a place as any to start over.”

“Uh-huh.” Jake’s eyes narrowed, and Ames realized immediately that he knew something about Elliot and the trouble in New York. He didn’t seem at all surprised that a New Yorker would randomly pick Arnesdale to move to. Crap. That was bad. It meant he’d try to cover for his pal Elliot like he always had and would reveal nothing. She knew she shouldn’t have brought Nick here with her.

Ames inserted herself between the two men and made eye contact as she accepted a beer from Jake. “I’m so thirsty. Thanks.” She licked her lips, then sipped from the bottle as suggestively as she could—anything to distract Jake from his suspicions about Nick.

“Hey, have you heard from Elliot lately? You know I’ve been trying to reach him for literally months, and I’m really starting to worry about him.” She’d already asked Jake about Elliot in passing, but this was the first time she watched him carefully for a nonverbal response.

His quick frown might signal worry or the fact that he
had
heard from Elliot. She wasn’t sure which.

“No, Ames. Wish I had. I’m worried about him too.” Jake started drumming his fingers against his beer bottle, and Ames had her answer. She used to play poker with Elliot and his pals sometimes, back in the day. She knew Jake’s tell.

“Seriously, Jake. If you talked to him, you’d tell me, right?” She moved closer, crowding him a little and looking up into his eyes and practically batting her lashes. It was mean to manipulate him when she knew he liked her, but desperate times…

And there it was, a flicker of something in Jake’s eyes while his fingers tapped faster. She had a strong feeling he’d talked to Elliot face-to-face. She would have bet real money that her brother had been right here in Arnesdale and hadn’t come to see her.

She followed her instinct, pushing Jake to admit the truth. “What did he say?”

“Nothing,” Jake burst out, then tried to backpedal. “I mean, I haven’t talked to him in like a year.” It was a poor performance with no conviction.

Ames glanced at Nick, who was wisely remaining in the background near the car, letting her interrogate Jake. Ames decided to let a little truth shine through in order to win Jake’s trust.

“I believe Elliot’s in some serious trouble in New York. I think he got caught up in some stuff and some dangerous people may be after him.”

Jake immediately looked at Nick. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

Yeah, right you don’t know. What was Elliot doing, confiding in Jake?

She suppressed the wave of fury by gulping down a big mouthful of beer. “I think he could dig himself out of the situation if he returned something that didn’t belong to him.”

Jake shrugged. “Like I said, I have no idea about Elliot’s business. Wish I could help you, but I can’t.” He set down his beer bottle and walked toward the open door of the shed, signaling it was time for them to leave. “Nice meeting you, Sam. Sure I’ll see you around town.”

Amiable Jake had never sounded so icy. She’d pushed too hard and gotten nothing out of him except a certainty he knew more than he’d let on. So now what?

She dug in her heels. “Look, Jake, I’m putting all my cards on the table. I know for a fact that Elliot’s in deep, and no matter what you say, I think you’ve had contact with him. If you know anything about a…a package he may have hidden, you have to tell me.”

“Christ, Ames. Are you suggesting I’m in on some kind of criminal conspiracy? Does that sound like me?”

Had she said anything about criminals? “No. But being a loyal friend does. If Elliot came to you for help—”

“I told you I don’t know anything. You should go now.” He jerked a thumb toward the driveway.

Nick moved to join her moving in that graceful, slightly menacing way of his. He stopped in front of Jake. “Guess you’ve figured out I know Elliot from New York. We were friends in college. Trust me, I’m trying to help him too, and the only way I can is by returning what he took. So if you know anything—”

“I don’t.”

Jake stared at Nick until he nodded. “Okay, then.”

As they walked back to the car, Nick rested a hand on Ames’s back and leaned in close. “He knows something.”

“Yeah. But we can’t beat it out of him, and even if he’s talked to Elliot, he might not know where the money is. I don’t think Elliot would trust him with a bundle of cash.”

“So it’s back to searching for something we don’t even know for sure is here.” Nick voiced her discouraged thoughts.

They couldn’t both be in negative mode at the same time, so Ames brought on the positive. “We’re exhausted. Tomorrow we’ll search again. In the woods again, maybe.”

“I told you I already dug craters in that clearing you showed me. It looks like a blown minefield.” He held her car door open—the end of a perfect date. “I’m starting to think I should head back to New York and try to convince Bert I had nothing to do with any of this and that Elliot’s probably gone for good. Maybe we have enough history that he’ll trust me and let me off easy.”

“Or maybe he’ll have you whacked.” Why in the world did she keep using that word? This wasn’t some mob movie. This was the real thing. “Anyway, you think the guy’s on his way here since I tipped off his girlfriend, Sandy. Why not just wait for him and have it out here? Your turf instead of his. Plus he’ll see you’ve been searching hard and that you can’t do any more than you’ve done.”

“Maybe.” Nick looked doubtful, but it was hard to tell because he frowned a lot of the time. He closed the car door and came around to the driver’s side.

She caught a faint whiff of his scent when he slid behind the wheel, warm male and soap. Riding beside him in his car already felt completely natural, as if they’d done this a hundred times, even though they’d known each other only a couple of days.

“It’d be better if you had something to offer him, wouldn’t it?” Ames thought aloud. “And we know Jake knows more than he’s saying. Maybe we should, I don’t know, stake him out or something.”

“Bug his garage? Trace his calls? Put a GPS on his car? Believe me, I wish I knew how to do any of that stuff.” Nick pulled the car away from the curb without talking about where they might go next.

“Look, I think we should…” She paused, not even really sure what they could do next. Her head swam.

“Not right now. You’re right. We’re both worn out. We need to get some sleep. Tomorrow we’ll make some decisions.”

“Will we have that much time?”

He sighed, tapped the steering wheel. “Maybe not.”

Chapter Ten

Ames argued that they should go to her place, but he put the kibosh on that idea. “We can’t go to your apartment. Period. Not gonna happen. Sandy knows your name.”

“The house isn’t much better. They’ll track you down,” she said. “You’re using an alias, but everyone in town knows you’re a New Yorker.”

He shook his head.

“It’s true,” she protested.

“Yeah, I believe you. I just can’t imagine living in such a small world.”

“I like life here.” She sounded defensive, but then she shifted in the passenger seat and gave a breathy sound of amusement, or disgust. “Well, I like it except when I hate it. Then I want to run away to a place no one remembers the time I set my mother’s living room curtains on fire.”

“You did? Tell me that story. I could use a little distraction at the moment.”

“Nuh-uh. You’re maybe the one person in the world who doesn’t remember it. No way I’m going to ruin that. You see me as an adult, right? Let’s keep it that way.”

“Yeah, I see you as an adult, all right.” Thinking of all her adult parts was a more interesting distraction than any stories of her past.

She made another, breathier little sound that told him she’d understood his implication. She squirmed on the seat, leaning toward the window. Away from him. “Nick, seriously. The fact is these bad guys from New York will track you down at the house soon.”

Back to live action in the real world. “How can they manage that now? Who’re they going to ask once Arnesdale closes down for the evening?”

“True. That’s a point. I guess we have until tomorrow sometime. The Back Porch closes soon for the night, and I suppose the kids who work at the fast-food joint at the edge of town probably won’t know about you. They couldn’t care less about grown-up business.”

He was just imagining what they could do with the rest of the night—he wanted to see if he could make her moan again—when her stomach gurgled.

“Speaking of fast food,” he said. “Let’s detour to a drive-through. What do you want?”

“I couldn’t care less. Food.”

They went to the drive-in restaurant where an actual roller-skating kid served them. They wolfed the food in the car, looking out over the nighttime parking lot inhabited by groups of teens perched on car hoods under the tall lights or skateboarding around the darker spaces.

Nick had been living on fast food for weeks. He rubbed a french fry in ketchup and wished he could take Ames to the Afghan restaurant near his apartment. They’d sit on the big pillows and eat with their fingers. “Have you been to New York before?” he asked.

“No. I kept meaning to visit Elliot, but life around here…” She took a bite of the burger and stared out the window. “Take away ten years and that’s me out there. I haven’t come very far. Fifteen feet or so from my high school days. ”

He wiped his fingers with a napkin and shoved it and the last couple of bites back into the bag. “This is temporary. As soon as we figure out how to handle Bert and his father, we’ll head to the city.”

“We?” She put down her burger—more than half of it remained. Either Ames was a slow eater, or she was still nervous.

He started the car and backed out of the spot. “Why not? I’ll take you on a tour of my town, and you can spend hours with your head tilted back saying, ‘Wow, the buildings are so tall’, and I’ll laugh at you. Sound like a plan?”

She lost her distracted frown. “You bet. Thank you. I’d love to take you up on it. Thank you.”

“Why thank me twice?”

“You’re trying to make me feel better. I appreciate that. And you’re helping me find my brother.”

“I’m trying to find him for my own reasons. But okay, you’re welcome.” He risked resting a hand on her thigh for a moment. “I hope he’s all right.”
And that he hasn’t spent all the damn money.

If Elliot had spent it, his ass was grass, though perhaps they’d allow him to live—maimed of course as an illustration. The Espositos didn’t torture to get information, but they did occasionally make examples of people. And because Bert’s dad had a penchant for that sort of activity.

Nick stopped the car at the beginning of the narrow drive leading to the farmhouse. “Wait here. I’ll hike in and see what’s going on. No need to announce our arrival if someone’s visiting.”

“How about we drive in with the lights off. That way, if someone’s there, we can make a quick escape.”

He thumped his fingers on the steering wheel. “Yeah, okay.”

She gave a small gasp.

His heart sped, and he glanced around, but the too-dark night seemed peaceful. He wished there were streetlights out here. “What is it?”

She shrugged. “Nothing. It’s just you.”

“What? I haven’t done anything.” She wasn’t a mind reader, was she? Because in his mind, he frequently had her naked and begging, and that might make a woman gasp.

“No, it’s just that you changed your plans after I made a suggestion.”

“Smart-ass.” He threw the car in gear and started down the drive, peering over the wheel to see out into the near-total darkness. Once they got near enough, he’d cut the lights.

“Anyway, why wouldn’t I change my plan? You’re right. It’s safer to be in a car than on foot.”

“I’m not used to guys listening. I mean, I wouldn’t expect it from a guy like you.”

“Yeah? Like me?”

Lights off. He slowed even more. The brush on the side of the path blocked any moonlight. “If I get out of this, I’m going to eat more carrots. They help night vision, right?”

“
If?
You think there’s a chance you might not?”

Mistake. He could hear her uncertainty and fear. “Just kidding,” he reassured her. “Tell me what you mean about guys like me.”

“You’re kind of dangerous. I mean, you seem that way. A little macho and swaggering.”

“Huh.” He wasn’t sure he liked the swaggering bit. Macho and dangerous might be okay.

“Guys like that are usually unwilling to shift their plans, especially if they’re challenged by a woman.”

He shook his head in amazement. “I think maybe you know some major assholes.”

The windows were open, so they heard the soft cry of an owl, even over the car engine. The house lay in the dark, with no sign of life.