Impossible Dreams (43 page)

Before the other man could produce his gun, Axell swung. He
had enough fury behind the swing to crack something. Unfortunately, it was the
kaleidoscope and not the dealer’s brick-hard head.

The man staggered but remained upright and groping for his
weapon.

Well, he hadn’t spent his adolescence in a bar without
learning to fight dirty. Feinting with the remains of his weapon, Axell waited
for his opponent to dodge, kicked high and hard, and almost winced in sympathy
as his foot connected with its soft target.

The other man screamed in mortal pain and crumpled.

“My God, Axell,” Cleo whispered prayerfully,
leaning over the counter to watch her tormentor squirm in agony. “Can you
kill him now?”

“Call the cops and give me something to tie him
with.” Axell glanced around and found an extension cord plugged into
Maya’s mobile collection. He snapped it out of the socket, then glanced
warily at Cleo, who hadn’t moved.

“I can’t call the cops,” she murmured.
“They’ll revoke my probation. I can’t go back to jail.”

“He’s a dealer, you can’t protect
him,” he said coldly.

“He’ll hurt Matty if I don’t,” she
whispered.

“Not after I’m done with him.” Axell
jerked an expensively cuffed wrist away from the source of his prisoner’s
pain and wrapped the cord around it. “Call the cops.”

“You gonna pay for this,” the man on the floor
muttered from between clenched teeth. “Nobody messes with me, man.”

Axell ignored the empty threat and pinned his gaze on Cleo.
“Where’s the dope?”

He gave her credit for not being stupid enough to deny the
obvious. She glanced nervously toward the back of the shop. “In the boxes
labeled ‘china.’” She still didn’t reach for the phone.
“Take him out of here, please,” she begged. “I’m
straight. I promise. But I owe him a lot of money, and he’s got friends — ”

“Damn straight,” the dealer shouted. “And
you’re gonna pay, like I make all double-dealers pay.”

“Go find that box,” Axell ordered. He’d be
damned if he let the drug cops claim his building for illegal possession, and
he’d be damned if he let a dealer go free.

“You don’t touch my stuff, man!” the
dealer screamed. “You got no right — ”

Axell jerked the extension cord tighter around cuffed
wrists, then searched the pockets of the pin-striped suit, locating the gun and
car keys. “And call the cops or I’ll turn you in with this
animal.”

Terrified, Cleo ran toward the back and returned with a
couple of small cardboard boxes. “This is all I could find.”

“Don’t you dare!” The dealer struggled
against his bonds as Axell stood up. “That’s high-quality stuff.
Look, I’ll cut you a deal, same one I had with the old man...”

Axell halted and stared down at the panicky dealer, his
brain finally kicking in. “What kind of deal?” This man threatened
kids. This man could kill people.

“You just give me a key to this place, like I had in
the old one. I need a new place to stash my stuff. I’ll cut you a piece
of the take, just like I did with the old dude. You don’t have to get
your fingers dirty a’tall.”

“How much of the take?” Axell demanded, grasping
for clues.

“Depends. The old man had lotsa places to meet so the
cops wouldn’t get suspicious. This one piddly building ain’t
much.” More confident now, he negotiated.

“What if I have lots of buildings?” Axell asked
quietly.

“Then we’re talking,” His eyes narrowed
warily. “But you ditch on me, and you end up like Pfeiffer. He owed me
big time, and I made him pay, and I got my own back, too.” He looked up
at Cleo who had picked up the receiver again. “You’d better not
finish that call, girl.”

While the dealer was looking away, Axell shook his head
slightly at her. Cleo hovered with her hand above the phone, watching both of
them uncertainly.

“You got your own back?” Axell asked calmly.
“How?”

When Cleo didn’t hang up, the dealer turned over and
glared at Axell. “I ain’t sayin’ nuthin’ more.”

Axell jerked his head at Cleo and threw her the car keys.
“Put the stuff in his trunk where it belongs, then set the car on
fire.”

“Wait!” the dealer screamed.

Cleo halted with her hand on the door.

“I got connections,” the man threatened.
“They’ll do most anything for a price. They take care of things for
me. They’ll take care of
her
,” he warned, jerking his chin
in Cleo’s direction, “if you don’t let me go.”

“What if I want something taken care of?” Axell
asked quietly, afraid to hear the answer but too close to the truth to stop
now.

The prisoner sensed the danger in his captor’s voice.
Narrowing his eyes, he watched Axell carefully. “I get a piece of the
action,” he warned, “so it costs.”

“If I want one of my places burned?” Axell
suggested. Hiring arsonists to scam Yankee insurance companies was almost a
Southern tradition.

“Untie me, and we’ll discuss it.”

Axell considered him. “What do you do if someone
botches the job? Take him out, like Pfeiffer?”

“Do it myself,” his prisoner exclaimed with
disgust. “You know all about it, don’t you? All you white boys
stick together. Well, I took care of the problem. That crack head messed up,
but I fixed it last night. You’re working with a real professional. No
one sees smoke at night. That heat just been smoldering until by now, the whole
place is so hot, it will go up all at once. Even if it’s daylight, the
place will be in cinders before they can stop it.”

Axell thought his lungs would collapse and his heart stop.
If he understood right...

Heart beating wildly, he turned to Cleo. “Report a
bomb threat at the school. Get the whole damned county out there.” He
kicked the thug on the floor. “Where did you plant it? You’ll fry
right now if you don’t tell me.” He reached to plug the extension
cord into the socket — a useless maneuver, but he figured he could cut the wires
and intimidate the hell out of the bastard if he didn’t get the answer he
wanted.

“Don’t do that!” the dealer screamed,
eyeing the cord and the socket. “The old man’s dead. It ain’t
as if I’m hurtin’ anyone.”

“There’s a house full of children out
there!” Axell shouted back. “Now tell me where you planted it or
you’ll go to hell right here and now, without appeal.”

Cleo was already yelling into the phone. The man looked
terrified, then beaten. “Under the back porch, man. I didn’t mean
to hurt no kids. The place was empty last night.”

Dropping the cord, Axell dashed out the door.

Before Axell could reach the Rover, Ralph Arnold stopped in
his path, blocking his way. “You said we’d talk about the school,
Holm.”

Wrapping both hands in the mayor’s lapels, Axell
lifted him from the sidewalk and dropped him to one side. “You can have
the bar, Ralph. You can have the restaurant and the whole damned town. But
you’ll fry in hell before I’ll let you have Maya’s
school.”

Maya would have kicked his shins if she’d seen him
roughing up the mayor.
Maya
. Axell’s soul screamed in agony as he
bent over the steering wheel and roared the engine into life.

He could almost smell the flames from here.

We are born naked, wet, and hungry. Then things get worse.

Axell saw the smoke billowing over the forest of trees long
before he reached the school. His gut clenched and a cold chill spread through
him. If he didn’t think about it, he wouldn’t feel it.
Don’t
think, Axell. Do.
That always worked. Keep moving, keep an eye on the road
ahead, don’t feel, don’t imagine life without Maya...

God.
Maya
. His insides cracked and memories poured
out of him despite his best efforts. Maya grinning proudly over a spinning
dragon treasure. Maya frustrated, with Baby Alexa beating at her breast.
Alexa
!
Damn and triple damn. Shudders rippled through him. He couldn’t bear it.
Couldn’t think of another tiny infant...

He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t lose any more
people he loved. He must be a jinx. There must be something wrong with him. He
should never have dared bring Maya into his home, to open up to her, to love
her...

To love her.
Oh, God, how he loved her. He’d
never known it hurt so much. Agony crawled around under his skin. He should
have told her. He might never get the chance to tell her.

A Buick pulled in front of him and slowed to a crawl as its
driver gaped at the black clouds of smoke spewing into the cloudless blue sky.
Axell cursed. He slammed his horn. The smoke billowed higher. Was that a flame
shooting up?

“Lord, give me a giant bat to swat these damn Yankees
off the road,” Axell growled as the Buick continued its crawl on the
winding back road.

Abruptly, Axell shot the Rover off the road, slammed across
a drainage ditch, and plowed through an old tobacco field. Ahead rose the fence
line of trees with black smoke mushrooming higher. The utility vehicle bucked
and swayed as it hit erosion ruts and old furrows, but Axell concentrated on
doing and not thinking. Mercifully cold numbness replaced rampaging panic.

Flames shot through the smoke.

Thoroughly focused now, he swung the Rover between tall
Georgia pines, over sumac and willow oak saplings, through thick beds of brown
pine needles, screeching to a halt only when he reached the row of sycamores
and azaleas on the outskirts of the property. The tires skidded in the debris
and the Rover’s front bumper crumpled against a sweetgum trunk. He shot
out of the car before the tires stopped spinning and the air bag exploded.

Children milled in the front yard, and as he ran toward
them, Axell strained to count heads, searching for the faces etched on his
heart. Maya had an entire school full of children on her hands this time. How
many teachers did she have? Three? Could they get all the kids out?

And Baby Alexa, who couldn’t walk on her own. Who had
Alexa?

Mind screaming in anguish, Axell burst through the forest of
trees and shrubs into the swarm of terrified, crying children in the drive. He
finally located Matty clutching a squirming guinea pig and staring with huge
dark eyes at the flames leaping from the back of the house. One of the teachers
held a wailing Alexa, and Axell’s stomach dropped to his feet. If Maya
wasn’t holding Alexa...

Two of the older children stumbled out the front door, one
carrying a rabbit cage and the other a fishbowl. Axell didn’t even have
to question the teachers shepherding the children down the stairs — he knew at
once who was inside, organizing the retreat, looking after everyone but her own
damned self.

All the icy shards of his frozen insides splintered and crumbled
as another spurt of flame erupted on the back roof and children shrieked.
Maya
is inside.
Not stopping to think, to calculate logistics, or use any
rationale whatsoever, Axell dashed up the stairs. As he hit the smoke-filled
hall, his only thought was that the children needed Maya. He was expendable,
but he had to save Maya. The world didn’t need another yuppie bar. The
world needed Maya. Constance needed her.

He would die without her.

Saying his prayers and screaming her name in the murky
dimness, he fought his way down the wide hall — and nearly crashed into her.

“Axell!” she screamed in joy, before shoving a
cage in his arms. “Thank God. Muldoon ran back in here, and I can’t
find him.” She sounded frantic.

With relief so bone deep tears formed in his eyes, Axell
crushed her in his grip, cage and all. Smoke poured from the back of the house
as he hauled her toward the door. If he was expendable, so was the damned cat.
Maya was not.

“Muldoon!” she wept, nonsensically. The whole
damned building was going up in flame, and she cried over a cat.

Attacked by a snaking sensation around his ankles and
refusing to release Maya, Axell shoved the cage at her and leaned down to scoop
up a terrified ball of fur. Hero of the year, he’d saved the life of a
cat with a father fixation.

“I’ll kill you for this, but not now. Where are
your damned teacups?” he shouted, coughing on smoke, shoving her toward
the door while the cat clung to his shirt. He damned well wouldn’t have
her running back in here for china. She might do what she wanted the rest of
the time, but he was still bigger than her right now, and he wasn’t
letting her out of his grip.

“They’re in the car.” Exchanging crying
cat for cage, Maya fought through the smoke toward the front door. “All
my stuff is in the car.”

In the car. The words chimed like church bells in his ears
as Axell finally saw daylight ahead. In the car. She’d already packed her
teacups in the car. She wouldn’t have done that because of the fire. Maya
would never have carried out material things first. Had she been coming home to
him?

Or leaving forever?

Maybe those chiming bells tolled doom.

They gasped as they fell through the front door and stumbled
down the steps to the lawn. Fire trucks screamed up the drive as the teachers
steered the children to safety, away from trees and shrubs that might ignite.
Maya hurried toward them, her arms full of yowling cat. Axell followed. This
time, the damned school could burn. He’d rebuild it personally. He
wasn’t letting her out of his sight, not even for Cleo and her damned
dealer. Let Cleo figure out what to do with him.

Shoving the rabbit cage into the outstretched arms of one of
Constance’s playmates, Axell grabbed Muldoon from Maya, plunked the cat
into Matty’s arms, and caught his wife by the elbow. As the fire engines
slammed to a halt near the porch steps and rubber-coated men leapt out to swarm
over the lawn for the second time in twenty-four hours, he steered Maya to the
outskirts of the crowd and wrapped her securely in his arms so she couldn’t
bolt. He wasn’t surprised to discover she was sobbing with huge gulps of
air.