It's A Wonderfully Sexy Life (21 page)
TAN TRENCH COAT
covering her skimpy costume, Mandy emerged from the club. Ahead of her, two Baltimore City police officers led a cuffed Tommy the Terminator toward a waiting squad car.
She shook her head, lighter now that she’d gotten rid of the wig. “Yeah, well, we’ll see about that. For your sake, you better hope you’re in for a nice long incarceration. Personally, I wouldn’t want to be you when the Romeros find out you fucked up. I’d say your career is definitely over and maybe your life, too.”
A second police car pulled off and she caught Lenny’s eye from the caged back seat. Earlier she’d had the satisfaction of reading him his rights and slapping the bracelets on him personally. The glare he shot her as the squad car sped by had her hugging her coat more tightly around her, but she reminded herself he would very likely be the governor’s “guest” for a good long while.
As for her, it had been a long night filled with some of the most stressful moments of her career. Now that the adrenaline rush was running out, fatigue was settling in. What she really wanted was to find Josh and go back to his apartment, or better yet, splurge and check them both into a luxury downtown hotel, thaw in a long, scalding shower, and then slide naked beneath the hundred percent Egyptian cotton sheets for some rest and recreation—with emphasis on the recreation part.
She turned to McKinney as the agent was finishing up a phone call. “Where’s Josh?”
“He went off to take a leak.” He nodded to the alley.
“Why would he go to the bathroom in an alley when there are plenty of men’s rooms inside the club?”
McKinney shrugged. “Who knows, maybe he thought the alley would be cleaner or maybe that cell phone call scared the piss out of him.”
All at once, Mandy’s adrenaline started to spike “Someone called him on his cell?”
“It was you calling from inside…wasn’t it?”
“No.” She shook her head, her lulled senses coming back to full alert. “But he’s still a federal witness, right? Other than you, me and Walker, who would be calling him on his cell at this time of night?”
Before he could answer, Special Agent Walker materialized from the front of the building wearing a dark overcoat identical to McKinney’s. Walking briskly toward them he said, “I just spotted someone who could pass for Joshua Thornton’s identical twin climbing into a cab a few blocks down.”
“Fuck, he told me he was going to take a piss.” McKinney punched a fist into the air.
Walker shook his head. “That’s the oldest trick in the book. Any ideas why he’d want to give us the slip now?”
Mandy shook her head. Gut instinct told her Josh wouldn’t run off without good reason and yet once again he’d chosen not to confide in her. A part of her couldn’t help feeling shut out, abandoned even. But now was the time for taking action, not nursing hurt feelings. There would be plenty of time for asking questions
after
they tracked him down.
Thinking out loud, she said, “There aren’t all that many downtown cab companies willing to service this area.” Addressing herself to Walker, she asked, “What did the vehicle look like?”
He didn’t hesitate. “It was solid yellow, taxi-cab yellow as they say.”
The cop part of her brain kicking in, she said, “That would be Yellow Cab Company. They’re on Lombard Street, right downtown. If he just left, we should be able to call and get his destination from their dispatcher.”
McKinney graced her with a grudging nod. “Good thinking, Delinski.” He grabbed his cell phone off his belt clip and punched 411 for information. “I need the number for Yellow Cab on Lombard—and hurry!”
IDING INSIDE THE CAB
, Josh was trying to focus on how he would handle things once he got to the drop-off point when his cell went off a second time. He wasn’t really surprised to see Mandy’s number show up on the display window. What did surprise him was how much discipline it took for him not to pick up. In the short but intense time he’d known her, he’d gotten so used to sharing things with her, the good as well as the bad.
From the front seat, the cabbie called back, “Hey, mister, can you switch that thing over to vibrate or somethin’? I’m trying to drive up here.”
The call ended and bell-like prompt told him a voice message waited. Not trusting himself to listen to it, Josh settled back against the cracked leather seat.
Sorry, baby, I can’t let you take any more risks for me. I can’t and I won’t. This time, I have to go it alone.
OME ON
, J
OSH
, pick up. Pick up.”
dead
body, had been found on Christmas morning the week before. Whether his murder had taken place last week or in some parallel universe no longer mattered to her. All she cared about was keeping him alive in whatever time construct “the present” existed.
Josh’s voice mail picked up on the sixth ring. “This is Josh. Sorry I missed your call but leave me a message.”
Mandy had no choice but to do just that. “Josh, it’s me. I’m on my way to you now with Walker and McKinney. I don’t know why you walked away or why you’re headed to Recreation Pier but whatever the reason is, don’t go there, baby. Don’t go inside.”
HE CAB PULLED UP
in front of the Recreation Pier Building. The driver glanced at Josh in the rearview mirror. “You sure this is where you want me to let you out?”
The shuttered brick building was dark as he’d known it would be. Ducking inside the arched entrance used for ground-level parking, he made his way through the building.
“Tiffany. Tiffany, can you hear me? Tiffany…”
“I’m up here, Josh.”
She sounded scared but he told himself that if she could talk, they must not have hurt her. Senses on alert, he came to a doorway marked Stairwell. Fortunately it wasn’t locked. He turned the gummy knob and entered, the smell of urine hitting him in the face like a fist. Finding the metal rail post, he climbed upward to the top. He opened the door to step outside, and a gust of wind hit him full force, the pressure so intense he had to keep his shoulder to the door so it didn’t fall back in his face.
Though the pier was unlit, there was enough ambient light for him to find his way to the cordoned-off entrance. He swung a leg over the chain and started down, feeling like the condemned walking the plank on a pirate ship, an apt analogy in his case.
Gaze darting about, he called out, “Let her go, it’s me you want.”
A muffled cry drew his attention to an open archway running along the building’s side. Peering through the shadows, he spotted Tiffany. Dressed all in black, her long blond hair pulled into a ponytail, she appeared to be alone. Drawing closer, he saw the swatch of duct tape covering her mouth and surmised the kidnapper had muzzled her in response to her crying out.
If so, he must be close by indeed. Treading carefully, he advanced and came up beside her. “Are you okay?” At her tearful nod, he reached out to tear off the tape.
Predictably she let out a squeal. Swiping the back of her hand over her reddened mouth, she said, “It’s fucking freezing out here. What took you so long?”
In the midst of his crazy mixed-up life, it was good to know there were still some constants in the universe, in this case his ex showing herself to be just as ungrateful and bitchy as ever. “I got here as fast as I could. What’s going on? Where is—”
The hard metal jabbing into his abdomen caused him to leave the sentence unfinished. Staring down, he saw her slender hand holding the pistol, the barrel digging into his gut. “What the hell?” He jerked back up to look at her.
She shook her head, blond ponytail catching on the wind. “Sorry, Joshy, I really am. You’re a good guy and an amazing fuck, and frankly I’m going to miss you. If only you and Grady hadn’t gone sticking your noses into my business, we all might have been one big happy Thornton Enterprises family.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Grady got too close. I didn’t have any choice but to have him…eliminated. He was a nice guy, too, but frankly he was a bore. Having him taken out didn’t really bother me all that much. But you, Josh, I resisted getting rid of you for a long time. I tried to save you from yourself, really, I did. I thought if I could keep you busy enough in bed and then with the wedding plans, you’d leave well enough alone at the office. But that New England work ethic of yours kept getting in the way. You wouldn’t leave well enough alone, and when I found out you went to the FBI and snitched, well, I didn’t have any choice.”
“Are you saying you’re in league with the Romeros?” At this point, he supposed the details didn’t matter a whole hell of a lot, but the longer he kept her talking, the longer he had to stay alive. And life had never seemed as precious as it did at this very moment when it was about to end.
She shook her head. “I am a Romero, on my mother’s side. Tony is my first cousin. We thought we had a pretty good plan, he and I. Marry into the firm, get control of the stock, and then corner the WiFi market for the entire East Coast for starters.”
He shook his head, amazed he’d ever missed the ugliness simmering beneath all that surface beauty. “I never would have gone along with that. Sooner or later I would have found out and shut you down.”
“That’s too bad because we could have been so good together, you and I. We were good together, a power couple, at least until that thin WASP blood of yours got in the way. What do you say to a farewell kiss for old time’s sake?” Lips parting, she leaned in.
He jerked back. “You disgust me.”
Her face hardened, making her look older than her twenty-six years but then again maybe her age was a lie, too. “Okay, then, we’ll get straight to business.” Stepping back from him, she raised the pistol, pointing it at his head. “Turn around, get down on your knees, and put your hands behind your back.”
Josh shook his head. He was going to die, that was a given, but he’d be damned if he’d make it easy for her. “Not a chance. You’re going to have to look me in the eye when you pull that trigger.”
She shrugged. “Suit yourself.” There was a clicking sound as she pulled back on the hammer.
“Noooooooo!”
Josh swung around in time to see a female figure flying toward them, her long hair billowing out behind her like a curtain of red silk.
“Mandy, no, stay back. Stay back!”
Tiffany shifted position, the pistol no longer pointed at him but at Mandy. Taking advantage of her turning away, Josh launched forward, grabbing hold of her legs and taking her down on the deck just as she squeezed the trigger.
A shot rang out, and then…silence.
ACING THE FOUR CORNERS
of the hospital’s emergency waiting room at 2:00 a.m., Josh struggled to wrap his mind around the events of the past few hours. Every time he replayed the episode on the pier, which he’d done repeatedly on the ambulance ride over holding Mandy’s cold hand in his, he was torn between gratitude to the powers that be for saving her and a terrible fear that he would awaken and find that this was all a dream, that she was dead after all. Thankfully the physical damage was minor. The bullet had grazed her shoulder, missing the bone and leaving a flesh wound that would heal with time. Because of the bruising and stitches, they’d be sending her home with a sling and a prescription for antibiotics to prevent infection, but otherwise she was good to go.
That she’d apparently masterminded the whole Mafia operation on Thornton Enterprises still astounded him. To give the devil his—in this case
her
—due, she was a hell of a lot smarter than he’d imagined as well as a consummate actress. Her debutante act had fooled him, indeed everyone, from the very beginning. Aside from getting caught screwing the landscaper, she’d played out the game to perfection almost to the very end. And an ambitious game it had been, with the goal being not just to embezzle funds but to hijack the entire firm. Even though she’d confessed it all to his face, he still had difficulty wrapping his mind around that level of deception. The whole scenario seemed straight out of an overplotted fiction novel rather than something that would occur in real life, his life anyway. If they’d succeeded, Thornton Enterprises, founded by his great-grandfather back when technology was synonymous with Bell’s invention of the telephone, would have been a pawn of organized crime. The prospect sent chills sliding down his spine.
A nurse with tired eyes and a friendly smile shuffled in. “You can see her now if you like.”
“Great. Thanks.”
He followed her back to the treatment area. Pulling back on the divider curtain, she said, “We’re going to keep her overnight, but she should be able to go home tomorrow morning.”
“That’s great news, thanks.”
Mandy was lying on the narrow hospital gurney when he stepped inside, pulling the curtain closed behind him. Even with mascara smudges beneath her eyes and her hair a wind-whipped tangle, she’d never looked more beautiful to him.
“Hey, you.” He came up to the side of the narrow bed. Leaning over the raised metal rail, he asked, “How are you feeling?”
Eyelids heavy, she smiled up at him. “A little groggy. They gave me something for the pain.”
“That’s good. I hear they’re going to release you tomorrow morning. I’ll be here when they do.”
Her smile dimmed. “Don’t you, uh…have to get back to Boston now?”
Sidestepping the touchy subject of his leaving, he said, “I’m not flying back until the first, but in the meantime, I told the Men in Black I’m done with that apartment. I think we’ve both earned finishing out the week at a luxury hotel, say a Ritz-Carlton or a Four Seasons.”
“Sounds really nice, but I don’t think Baltimore has either. But according to my friend, Suz, the Renaissance Harborplace has amazing beds, a sky-top cocktail lounge, and a covered walkway over to the Inner Harbor.”
For the first time since he’d picked up Mandy’s limp body from the pier’s planked decking, Josh found his smile. “As long as we don’t have to take any water taxis to get there, I’m sold.”
