The Long Game (19 page)

I shook my head. I had to be dreaming.
“Tommy, what are you—”

“What kind of coward kidnaps a
nineteen-year-old girl? Goddamn it, Shay, tell me where she is.
Now.” Tommy turned on me suddenly and grabbed my shirt in both
hands. He slammed my back against the wall, and only the tips of my
toes scraped the floor. “Tell me.”

I couldn’t do more than blink at him. She?
Kidnap? “Tommy, I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about. Did
something happen to Spencer?”

“Like you don’t know.”

My mind switched from blank to panicked in
under a second. I shoved him back and heard my shirt tear as
patches of the fabric went with him. “I don’t. I left you at the
bar and came straight back here. My bus leaves for New Orleans—” I
checked the wall clock. “—in one hour.” I pointed to the ticket
still on the table where I’d dropped it.

Tommy glanced down at the ticket, then back
up at me. “Is that supposed to prove something?”

“I’m not sure what you want me to prove. Tear
the place apart if you want, but she’s not here. What’s this shit
about kidnapping?”

“What do you think? I got the voicemail
message your friend left,” Tommy said. He shoved a hand into the
pocket of his suit jacket and pulled a thin, black phone from
inside. He slid his thumb across the screen, flicked at a small
green icon, and held the phone up for me to hear. Judd’s voice was
gleeful as it played through the speaker: “Well, hey there, Saint
Thomas. I’d say it’s a pleasure, but to be honest, it makes me sick
even to be talking to the recording of a dirty snake like you. But
I guess sometimes we all gotta get down on our bellies, don’t we?
See, the thing is, you have something I want, and now I have
something you want. I would suggest you call me back at your
earliest convenience. Assuming you ever want to see this tasty
little daughter of yours again.” Judd paused. There was the
unmistakable sound of a woman—of Spencer—sobbing. Then it was
muffled again by a closing door. I was sure then that I would kill
him. I didn’t care if it took me the rest of my life; I would snap
his neck with my bare hands before I took my last breath. The
message continued. “But Tommy, no rush. I’m sure Cherry and I can
do something to pass the time.” I could practically feel his
windpipe collapse under my fingers.

“You’re telling me you had nothing to do with
this?” Tommy asked, though he’d clearly made up his mind
already.

“Tommy, I swear I didn’t.”

“But you know who did.”

I hesitated. I might not have directly helped
Judd, but I was the reason he was here. “Judd Sheedy,” I said. “He
came up a few weeks after me to make sure I got the job done.”

“Michael’s youngest boy?” Tommy sounded
incredulous. “You’re telling me he pulled this off on his own? That
little asshat couldn’t keep the drool in his mouth the last time I
saw him.”

“Still can’t. But he’s crazy as hell, and
there’s no telling what he’ll do to Spencer if we don’t find him
fast.”

“Do you have any idea where he might have
taken her?” Tommy looked sick at the idea of asking me for help,
but he was out of options.

“I don’t—” I stopped. My eyes flickered to
the matchbook still on the table where Judd had left it.

Telling Tommy where Judd had taken Spencer
was as good as drawing a line in the sand and then doing the long
jump right over it, but I was out of options too. Spencer’s safety
was the only thing that mattered. I walked to the table and slid
the matchbook off of it, then turned it over in my palm. I tossed
it to Tommy, and he caught it in one hand and looked down at
it.

“How fast can you get us there?”

CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO

TOMMY DRUMMED NERVOUS fingers on the
leather-wrapped steering wheel of his Lexus. “Are you sure they’re
in there?”

“That’s his car.” I pointed to the black
sedan in the spot next to us. “And the clerk says a guy matching
Judd’s description checked in earlier today and hasn’t left his
room since.” I stared at the green door through the windshield.
Room 19. “They’re in there.”

Tommy lifted the ledger from the center
console where it had ridden between us on the twenty-minute drive
to the motel. It had been the longest twenty minutes of my life,
spent imagining Judd’s hands on Spencer’s skin, the terror in her
eyes. I forced the images away for the hundredth time and refocused
on the motel door in front of us.

“So what’s your plan?” Tommy asked.

“I don’t have one,” I said as I popped open
the door and stepped out of the car.

“Fantastic,” Tommy said and did the same.

I circled around the back of the car, doing
my best to avoid the room’s front window. The thick curtains were
pulled shut, but it didn’t mean he wasn’t watching. The more
surprised Judd was to see us, the better chance we’d have at
getting out of this alive.

“He has a gun,” I said over my shoulder, my
back pressed against the brick wall outside Judd’s door.

“You didn’t think to mention that before
now?” Tommy said in a harsh whisper.

“Would you be doing anything different?” I
shot back.

“Knock,” Tommy said.

I wrapped my knuckles against the door, then
covered the peephole with my thumb.

After a moment, a voice came from inside.
“Who’s there?”

Tommy and I both flattened ourselves against
the building in case he looked through the window when he couldn’t
get a view through the peephole. “Management,” I said, disguising
my voice. “Problem with your card.”

The chain on the door rattled, and the knob
turned. “I didn’t use no—”

I threw my weight into the door, and it
banged open, sending Judd stumbling back. Tommy followed me inside
and closed the door quickly. I scanned the room. A terrified
Spencer was huddled at the top of the far bed, her knees pulled to
her chest and her arms clinging to the headboard. She wasn’t tied
up, as far as I could tell, and her jeans and t-shirt were still
intact. Thank God for small favors.

Judd regained his balance quickly and aimed
his gun at my chest. “Nice of you to finally show up,” he said, in
a tone too friendly for our current circumstances.

“You know, Prince, I’m getting awfully tired
of you pointing that gun in my face.”

“It’s true?”

Every head swiveled to look at Spencer. She
still crouched against the headboard, but now the fear in her face
was replaced by angry disbelief.

“Are you all right, sweetheart?” Tommy
asked.

“It’s true?” she asked again, ignoring her
dad to keep her eyes locked on me. “You know this guy?”

I exhaled a deep sigh. Tommy might have
decided not to tell her the truth about me, but Judd had apparently
not been so considerate. “I know him,” I said.

Spencer flew from the bed and charged toward
me. She thrashed at my face and chest with her fists, and a small
part of me wished Judd had tied her up. I took several steps back,
trapped between her and the wall, and lifted an arm to shield my
face. But I wasn’t going to stop her. I deserved everything she did
to me and more.

“You bastard. You lying bastard!”

“All right, darlin’.” Judd laughed. “As much
as I’d love to see you beat the shit out of him, the men have
business to discuss.” He grabbed her by the arm mid-swing and
tossed her like a rag doll onto the closest bed. Tommy took a step
toward him, his face creased with rage, but Judd turned the pistol
in his direction and brought him up short. “Uh-uh. I wouldn’t do
that, friend.”

“You touch her again, Judd, and you’re going
to need more than that peashooter to keep me from killing you,”
Tommy growled.

Spencer didn’t move from the bed, but Judd’s
manhandling hadn’t slowed her tongue any. “So it’s true. You’re
working with him?” she asked, her eyes still boring into me like
knifepoints.

“No,” I said but thought better of it. “Yes.
Kind of. We’re both here for the same reason. But this…” I swept an
arm around the room. “This wasn’t part of my plan.”

“What was your plan then? To get me into bed
to get closer to my dad?”

I winced and looked at Tommy. He was still
watching Judd and his gun, and I hoped that was enough distraction
from what his daughter had just announced. I turned back to her. “I
came for a book. That one.” I pointed to the book in Tommy’s hand.
Judd’s eyes followed and locked greedily onto the ledger. “That’s
it. I just wanted the book back.”

“A book,” she said, practically spitting the
word back at me. “You did all this for a stupid book?”

“It’s not… I can’t really explain it, but
it’s important to someone in my clan and they want it back.”

“Your clan!” I could tell by her expression I
wasn’t helping my cause.

Judd laughed again. “I tried to explain it to
her too, but I don’t think she’s as smart as you said, Buffer.”

The muscle in my jaw twitched as I bit down
on my response. There were only so many battles I could fight at
once. “I’m not a transfer student from Loyola. I’m not even really
enrolled at Balanova. I’m from a Traveler clan in Louisiana, and I
came up here to settle a score. That’s the whole story.”

“What does this have to do with my dad?”

Okay, maybe not the whole story. I looked at
Tommy again, and this time he looked back. It was bad enough that
Spencer had to find out everything about me; I wasn’t about to dump
all of Tommy’s history on her too.

Once again, though, Judd decided to do the
honors. “You mean you never told your little girl all about the
trouble you caused, Saint Thomas? I’m surprised at you. You know
what the Good Book says about liars.”

“Shut your mouth, Judd, or I’ll shut it for
you,” I warned.

He moved the gun to me again. “I’d like to
see you try.”

“Dad?”

I heard Tommy’s long sigh but couldn’t take
my eyes off Judd’s gun to turn and look at him.

“Go ahead and tell her, Tommy,” Judd coaxed.
I wanted to tear his lips from his face rather than look at his
smile a second longer, but the gun in his hand kept me where I was.
“I, for one, would be very interested to hear you try to explain
this.”

“Before you were born, I was a member of the
same Traveler clan. I was a conman, and I was good at it.” Tommy
paused, and when he started again, you could tell how hard it was
for him to spit out the rest of his story. “Twenty or so years ago,
I was running a scam with another Traveler named Jim—his dad.”
Tommy indicated me with his head. “I had a bad feeling about it
from the start. Something was off about the mark. I tried to talk
Jim out of it, but it was a bigger score than either of us had seen
and he wanted it. Turns out I was right. When the mark realized
what had happened, he went ballistic, came after us with a shotgun.
Jim was killed, and I knew I had to get out. I couldn’t keep living
the way I was.”

It felt like all the oxygen had left my body.
Tommy hadn’t killed my da. He’d gotten himself killed for the sake
of a big score. Just like Jimmy Boy had said. Now I was staring
down the barrel of a gun because of my own goddamn ambition.

I finally tore my eyes away from the pistol
to look at Spencer. The devastation on her face was much harder to
take than the anger that had been there a moment before.

“Spencer,” I said, taking a step toward the
bed despite the gun trained on me.

“Stay the hell away from me,” she said,
scrambling back like a scared crab. “You’re a monster!”

The word hit me like a baseball bat to the
face. I hung my head, deserving every word, but surprisingly, Tommy
spoke up. “Spencer, he may have lied to you, but in the end, he
chose you. I offered him this.” He held up the battered book that
had caused all of our trouble. “But he chose you. He’s no
monster.”

“This is just great.” She laughed bitterly.
“You’ve been completely opposed to any guy I’ve liked since the
fourth grade, and this is the one you finally decide to
defend?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Judd’s angry
question brought all of our attention back to him and his weapon.
“You had the book in your hands and you chose that?” He waved the
pistol in Spencer’s direction. “I should kill you now,” he said,
pulling it back to me. I never thought I’d be so relieved to have a
gun pointed in my face.

“All right. Enough,” Tommy said. He took a
step forward, shouldering me out of the way so he could stand
between Judd and I. “I’ll give you the damn book, and you’ll let
her go, right?”

“You really think you’re in a position to
negotiate?” Judd sneered at him.

“You want the book. I want my daughter safe.
I don’t think I’ve been in an easier negotiation in my life.” The
steadiness in Tommy’s voice was impressive.

“Fine,” Judd said.

Tommy tossed the ledger onto the bed in the
same way Judd had tossed Spencer. It bounced once, then slid to a
halt at her feet. “There. You’ve got it. Let her go.”

“You heard him, sweet tits. On your feet.”
Judd beckoned to Spencer with the gun but kept it pointed at Tommy
this time.

Spencer didn’t move for a long time. She
looked from Judd, to the book, to me. I pleaded with her silently
to get up and come to me so I could get her out of that room.
Mercifully, she slid from the bed and took several shaky steps
toward my arms, which had lifted instinctively to reach for
her.

“Oh, but there’s just one more thing,” Judd
said, as if it had only now occurred to him. “See, Pop knew that
Buffer here would be too much of a chickenshit to finish the job,
which is why he sent me.”

“And now it’s finished,” I said. “You’ve got
the ledger.”

“Right, but that’s not the end of the game.”
Judd lifted the gun and pointed it straight at Tommy’s heart. “This
is.”

It only took one glance between Spencer and I
to work out what we’d both do. In the same instant that Judd
squeezed the trigger, she grabbed his forearm and yanked it hard,
and I threw myself into Tommy, sending us both crashing into the
wall. The shot was deafening. Heat exploded through my upper arm
before it went numb and a red stain started to creep across the
fabric of my torn sleeve. Spencer clamped her teeth onto Judd’s
wrist, and he shrieked. The gun flew from his hand and tumbled
under the bed. He shoved Spencer back, then dived for the ledger,
rolled onto the floor, and got back to his feet in one motion.