Seven
Anton Baba was in the back seat of his limo with a burner phone, setting the dogs in his world on to Star Davis’s trail. From so-called bounty hunters to guns for hire, to every hard-up loser he knew that would sell his mama for a hit of cocaine. For five hundred thousand dollars, he’d set them all on the hunt.
It was unfortunate for him that Star had a good two hours head start on her escape before he knew she was gone. He didn’t know where to start and couldn’t guess where she might go, because the truth was he had no idea where she’d come from. All he knew of her past was that she was a virgin when he took her off the auction block, and that she was part of a shipment from the Southern states.
He didn’t think she would go far without Sammy, but she’d surprised him so many times now that he couldn’t be sure. The Feds couldn’t legally use Sammy to force her to testify. But she was pissed, and there was no telling what she would do. What he did know was that the Feds were far too close up his ass. As soon as he hung up from the last call he lowered the window between him and the driver.
“Ivan, I’d like to take a drive out to the Hoover Dam now.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Baba,” his driver said and moved into another lane to loop back in the other direction.
Anton broke the seal on a bottle of whiskey, added a couple of ice cubes to his glass and poured a double shot in the tumbler. The whiskey was aged and smooth as silk until it hit his belly with a welcome kick. Tired of the day and all the repercussions, he took another sip and began a mental countdown of what had yet to be done.
It wasn’t like he’d never had issues before. In his line of business there were always issues. The difference now was that he’d let things get personal. It had been pure ego to want a son, and Star was as good in bed as he’d ever had. He’d let both of them get under his skin.
With the current state of things, his gut said it was time to get the hell out of Vegas. But he’d underestimated Star before, and these were the consequences. She’d seen too much. She knew too much. She threatened his safety and everything he’d spent his adult life creating. He did not want to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder. He needed to see her take her last breath before he could disappear. As for the son they had, maybe it would be best to leave him behind. If the boy became too important in his life, he would be vulnerable to his enemies. He’d have a weakness. That was always a mistake.
“Sir. We’re coming up to the dam,” Ivan said, interrupting his thoughts. “Is there any place in particular you want me to park?”
“I want you to stop at an overlook,” Anton said and downed what was left of the whiskey in one gulp.
A few moments later the limo began slowing down. As soon as they stopped, Anton slid across the seat toward the door.
“Stay here. I won’t be long.”
“Yes, sir,” Ivan said, looking straight ahead as Anton exited the limo.
The sun was white-hot, the rays refracting on the water like floating diamonds. Anton felt the heat all the way through the soles of his shoes as he walked up to the railing. A small group of tourists were a few yards down taking pictures, but they were of no consequence to him. He palmed the burner phone he’d used to make the calls relating to Star’s bounty and slipped it through the railing. Then he opened his hand and let it go, watching until it disappeared into the water below.
Satisfied there was no way to trace the calls back to him, he was on his way back to the limo when one of the tourists hailed him.
“Hey! Hey, buddy!”
Anton paused, then turned around to see the man jogging toward him with his iPhone.
“Are you speaking to me?”
“Yes! Would you mind taking a picture of us? I’d like to get the whole family in one together to commemorate our last day here.”
Taken aback by the innocence of the request, Anton accepted the phone.
“Thanks so much,” the man said. “I’m George, by the way.”
“Anthony,” Anton said.
George grinned.
“Nice to meet you, Anthony. Really nice of you to do this for us.” He pointed at an icon on the face of the phone. “Just press here when we’re ready, okay?”
Anton watched them pushing and shoving to get in place, but still laughing as they settled. A big blond man with a sunburn. The woman with mousy brown hair who needed to lose thirty pounds. Two teenage boys with the same face, and a short, skinny girl with big boobs and purple hair. If they were representative of an all-American family these days, he was not impressed. But then the silliness ended, and he watched as they leaned in together shoulder to shoulder, and wondered if it was an accident that the woman was dead center in the group, or if it was instinctive. A woman in the family was always the heart of a home.
The moment he thought it, his gut knotted. He wouldn’t describe the setup he’d had with Star and Sammy as family, exactly, but their presence had been a routine he usually enjoyed. Looking back, he couldn’t recall exactly why he’d decided to send Star with the next shipment to Dubai, but it had thoroughly fucked up his little nest.
“We’re ready!” George shouted.
Anton snapped six shots in succession, and then George came running.
“Really appreciate that, Anthony.”
“Sure,” Anton said.
“Have a nice day!” George said and then ran back to his family and began herding them toward a big white SUV.
Anton noticed the Iowa license plate—right out of the heartland, he thought—then got into his limo and closed the door.
Both the air-conditioning and the plush interior brought him back into the moment as he poured himself a second drink.
“I’m ready to go home now,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” Ivan said.
Anton closed the window between them, then added a fresh ice cube to the glass. Star was on the run, and his future depended on her demise. Hopefully his hunters would bring her in soon, but in the meantime he needed to get the hell out of town.
* * *
Star had been cutting her hair for over an hour, and now she paused to stare at herself in the mirror. Most of her long blond hair was in a trash can...and in the sink and on the floor. Butchered was a better description than cut, really, because the scissors she’d purchased weren’t meant for cutting hair. The longest hair left on her head were the bangs. Every time she blinked they got caught in her lashes. The rest of it ranged from three to four inches long, leaving her with the appearance of having fallen headfirst into a Weed eater.
She had looked at the boxes of hair color at the pharmacy, pretty shades of chestnut brown and sunset red. But she’d decided that this transformation needed to be much more dramatic. She sighed, then opened the first can of color spray and put streaks in her hair that were a vivid shade of purple. Then she opened the second and third cans of color spray and finished off what was left with streaks of pink and a few streaks of neon green.
She stepped back to look at herself again.
The pink-and-green bangs were resting just above black lashes. The purple spray was in her ears.
“Shit,” she muttered and went for a wet washcloth, removing the excess, including what was on her hands.
She dug through the makeup she’d purchased, turned her black lashes gold, put a ring of black eye shadow around each eye and swiped a lipstick called Black Heart on her lips. As a finishing touch, she hung the skull and crossbones earrings through the piercings in her ears, then stepped back to get the full effect.
Startling was the kindest adjective she could think to use.
“If Beetlejuice and My Little Pony had a baby...”
She grimaced, thinking of how horrified Anton would be to see her like this.
“How do you like me now?” she muttered, then raked everything left over into her backpack and started wiping up the hair from the floor and then out of the sink. Everything else she washed down the drain.
It was past time to deal with her injuries, but she was dreading this. She took off her clothes, grabbed a bottle of alcohol and stepped into the shower because she needed to make sure she was washing off any germs or bacteria from the used clothes she’d put on. She scrubbed bath soap all over one of the T-shirts she’d bought and began scrubbing, washing every inch of it clean. Then she rinsed it twice, wrung it out and tossed it in the bathroom sink before tending to her back.
Her hands were shaking as she removed the bandage from her back and tossed it on the floor. She removed the lid and emptied the contents onto her wounds, letting the antiseptic properties of the alcohol wash through every raw and healing cut in hopes it would kill anything from the clothes that could infect her wounds.
Tears were a reflex of the burn. She was shaking so hard by the time the bottle was empty that she slipped on the puddle beneath her feet. In a panic, she grabbed on to the shower curtain with both hands, barely catching herself before she fell. She stepped out of the tub onto the bath mat and dropped to her knees, sobbing.
Tears ran down her face in black streaks as she made herself rise. She got the wet shirt out of the sink, shoved the shower curtain aside and threw the shirt over the shower bar to dry, then picked up her clothes, staggered out of the bathroom and sank down onto the side of the bed.
In the midst of the pain, her belly began to rumble. She was surprised that her hunger could actually surpass the danger and pain she was in, but eating had to wait. There was something else she needed to do first.
Anton had always told her that if she ever betrayed him, he would find everyone she loved and kill them. She’d believed him until the federal agents who were helping her escape told her different. Anton didn’t keep track of where his girls were from. It was all a ruse to keep them from running. All these years she’d stayed with him because she’d believed the lie. She got sick to her stomach thinking of how many times she could have called for help and didn’t.
But things were different now. If Anton killed her and got away with it, the authorities might give Sammy back to him. A DNA test would confirm his paternity, so everything she was doing now was to make sure that never happened.
She sat on the side of the bed, wrapped in a towel and staring at the buttons on her phone. Her hands were shaking as she started entering the number. She still hadn’t forgotten, even after all this time. As she hit the first digits, her fingers shook with doubt. What if the number was no longer valid? What if something had happened while she was gone and all of her family really was dead or had moved away?
Then she thought of Sammy.
To hell with “what if.”
As the call began to ring, she noticed the clock on the bedside table. It would be after seven o’clock in Tennessee. The phone rang twice, then three times. Now her gut was rolling, and she was struggling hard not to cry. On the fourth ring, she heard someone pick up.
“Hello?”
The voice was familiar...and sounded like everything Star remembered as home.
“Mom...? Mom...it’s me.”
The outcry of disbelief on the other line was not unexpected.
“Starla? Starla, baby, is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
Her mother screamed and then started crying so hard Star could barely make out the words.
“I told them you weren’t dead. I told them. Oh, my God, John! John! Get on the other line!”
Star heard an extension pick up, then heard her dad’s gruff voice.
“I’m here. What the hell’s wrong? Who’s talking?” he asked.
“Daddy, it’s me!”
She heard him gasp and then heard the tears in his voice.
“Sweet Mother of God,” John Davis said. “Where are you? I’m coming to get you.”
“No, no, listen to me, both of you. I don’t have time to explain the past seven years over the phone. I just need you to know what’s happening right now because I finally have the chance to be free—but I need help. I’m on the run. I’m hiding from the man who’s been holding me captive, and if he catches me, he’ll kill me because of what I know about him.”
Connie Davis moaned.
“Oh, my God. My baby, what has he done to you?”
“None of that matters now. Just listen. The FBI is involved in this. Two of their agents were helping me escape when they were killed. The FBI has Sammy, and I need you and Daddy to know that if anything happens to me, you have to get Sammy. Contact the FBI and tell them who you are. That’s all you have to do.”
John interrupted her.
“Wait, Starla—who’s Sammy?”
“He’s my son, Daddy. He’s two years old. He is my world and the only thing that matters.”
Connie began to cry all over again. “We have a grandson? John! We have a grandson!”
“I heard her, but what I want to know is what does the FBI have to do with this, and why haven’t they helped you all this time? Call the police right now, baby. They’ll help you until we can get there.”
“No, Daddy, you don’t understand. The man who had me is a very powerful man. He has people everywhere. If I tell the cops where I am, someone in the precinct will tip him off before anyone can help me, and the next time I disappear it will be for good.”
Her father went from tentative to outraged in a matter of seconds.
“Don’t tell me I can’t come get you. We searched nearly two years straight for you before everyone else gave up. Now I hear your voice and know you’re alive, and I’m coming! Tell me where you are! Do you understand? I will find you, Starla.”
Star was crying now. Wishing it would be just that easy.
“I will never be safe until Anton Baba is behind bars or dead.”
There was a long moment of silence in which Star realized she’d just said his name. She froze, terrified at what this mistake might cost her—and her family.
“The Anton Baba who owns the Lucky Joe’s Casino in Las Vegas?” her mother asked in a small, shaky voice.
Star was shocked. How did they know about Lucky Joe’s Casino in Vegas? But regardless, she figured it was too late to lie about it.
“Yes.”
Connie began sobbing.
“Your father and I were there Christmas before last. Are you in Las Vegas? Have you been there all this time? I can’t believe we were so close to you.”
“Yes, but I won’t be here for long. I have to get out of the city before he finds me. I just need you to promise you will take care of Sammy.”
Again, John interrupted.
“We’ll get your Sammy, but you’re the one I’m saving first. All I need right now is for you to tell me where you are.”
“You can’t do that, Dad. You’re too far away and I need to be gone. Now.”
“Oh, but I can. The reason we were in Vegas at all is because Justin is an officer with the Nevada State Police. Give me your address, baby girl, and your brother will be at your door within an hour...do you hear me? One damn hour. Don’t run anywhere.”
She was stunned, but unable to speak. Was it possible? Could this nightmare really be over in only an hour?
“The address, Starla. Give it to me now.”
Star was too shocked to argue. After all this time, maybe fate was finally rolling things her way. She recited the name and address of the motel she was staying in.
“Okay, I’ve got that,” John said, writing down everything she said. “Call us again after you’ve been picked up. I can’t believe we’re getting you back after all this time!”
“One other thing, Daddy. Warn Justin that he won’t recognize me. Anton has people hunting me, so I had to change my look completely. Lingering too long in one place is dangerous, but I have this place for the night.”
“Yes, we understand, and I’ll tell him what you said. I love you, Starla, honey. Thank God for this call.”
“I love you, too, baby,” Connie said. “Just don’t leave there, whatever you do. Wait for Justin. He’ll come get you.”
“I love you, Mom. I love you, Dad. I promise I won’t leave.”
The moment the connection ended Star jumped up and began to dress. Her hands were shaking, but for the first time in years she felt hope. She’d just about given up on God, but she was beginning to realize He hadn’t given up on her.
It was way past time to pray.
* * *
The hunters Anton had set on Star’s trail began their search on an equal basis from the same location—Centennial Hill Hospital.
After that, money was flying fast and loose as they paid people off to let them look at the security cameras at their businesses, checking with the locals who lived on the streets, trying to be the first one to get that hit on her trail.
It was a female bounty hunter who was the first to think of checking resale stores where Star might have changed her clothes. A good two hours had passed before she found the used clothing store where Star Davis had made her purchases. At that point she no longer had a description of what she was wearing. The clothing store didn’t have a security camera, so she only had the clerk’s description to go on, and it was pathetically random. A T-shirt, pants. No details at all. Star Davis would be even harder now to find.
A different bounty hunter found a pharmacy clerk who said he recognized Star’s description, and that she was in the store earlier that day. But he couldn’t remember what she’d bought, and the store would not give them access to the security cameras without ID, no matter how much money they offered.
Most of the hunters assumed Star would try to transform her appearance beyond clothing. They began scrambling, looking for motels where she could hide out long enough to make the changes.
They were racing the clock and each other, when word spread that someone had found her. But disappointment quickly turned to elation when it turned out to be a false alarm.
The bounty hunter had captured a Star look-alike, but he realized he’d forgotten to check her back for wounds until too late, and when he found perfectly smooth skin instead, he’d had to let the girl go with a warning to keep her mouth shut. No one had to tell the hooker twice. The hunt was still on.
Cops soon heard from their snitches that there was a bounty on Star Davis’s head, and that Anton Baba had conveniently disappeared from the city. When the FBI found out about the hunt, they upped their game, as well.
Gleason was already kicking himself for not heeding the girl’s earlier warning. They should have taken her straight out of the hospital and to hell with worrying about letting Baba know they were building a case against him. Now that she was gone, there was no more pretending. And unless they found her, there was no more case.
* * *
It was almost sundown when Nick found out Star Davis was responsible for setting off the sprinklers after taking out the guard Baba had on her door. And, if what his partner texted him was true, Baba had put out a half-million-dollar bounty for her safe return, which meant every bounty hunter and creep in the city would be on her trail. But what if Star actually got away? No way could Baba stay in Vegas if he knew the Feds had her again. But would he leave the country immediately, or play it safe and eliminate all the loose ends beforehand?
Quinn was one of those loose ends. Baba would assume she could tie one of his men to what happened out in the desert.
Nick was still reeling from the shock of knowing what her life had been like, and since she had no one to speak up for her, he’d already made it his business to take care of her before the world fell down around her again. He needed to talk to his lieutenant. Despite the late hour, he quickly made the call, and when his lieutenant answered with less than enthusiasm in his voice, Nick was braced for the worst.
“Saldano, something better be on fire again for you to be calling me at this time of night.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but there’s a situation here. Is it true Baba has put a bounty on Star Davis’s head?”
“That’s what I was told.”
“Am I still ordered to be off duty?” Nick asked.
“I’d ask you if you’re home in bed resting like you were told, but I suspect you aren’t. But, yes, you are officially off duty.”
“Thank you, sir,” Nick said. “And just for the record, I am going home.”
Nick hung up, buzzed the nurses’ station to ask for help, then stood in the hall outside the door, waiting for someone to show up.
It wasn’t long before a nurse was hurrying over to him.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
“I’m checking Miss O’Meara out tonight. The situation regarding her safety has escalated, and I need to move her. Unfortunately, I can’t wait for her doctor’s permission, so I’m just letting you know. What I need right now is for you to show us the quickest way out of here without being seen.”
“She doesn’t have any clothes. If she’s walking down the street in an open hospital gown, that’s going to be pretty conspicuous,” the nurse said, tapping her foot for a moment as she thought. “We’re pretty close to the same height. I’ll be glad to donate a set of scrubs if it would help?”
“That would be great,” Nick said. “You’re helping me save her life.”
“I’ll be right back,” the nurse said, then turned and ran.
Nick went back inside to wake Quinn. He hated to disturb her because it had taken so long to get her settled down after she’d cried herself to sleep, but necessity took precedence.
He leaned over her bed and gently shook her.
“Quinn, honey, I need you to wake up,” he said.
Quinn’s eyes fluttered open. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m checking you out of the hospital. There’s been a change in the case, and I want you gone from here with as few witnesses as possible.”
She didn’t ask what was happening. She didn’t panic. She just reached for his arm, and he was relieved at the sense of trust she seemed to place in him.
“Put down the guardrail for me. I want to go to the bathroom.”
“All your stuff is still with your bike, but a nurse is bringing you a set of scrubs so you’ll have something to wear,” he said as he lowered the safety rail.
Quinn finger-combed her hair and then swung her legs over the side of the bed and let Nick help her down.
“I’ve got this,” she said and slowly made her way to the bathroom.
By the time she came out, the nurse was waiting with the change of clothes, and Nick was on the phone with Hospital Security.
Quinn was trying to get dressed when Nick got off the phone. She had the pants on, but because of her shoulder wound she couldn’t get the top on over her head.
“Just put your hospital gown back on over the pants, Queenie. We’re not stopping anywhere, so you’ll be fine until we get where we’re going.”
Grateful for the reprieve, she reached for the gown and let the nurse tie it at the back of her neck and at her waist again.
Nick grabbed a blanket from her bed, draped it over her head and shoulders and helped her into the wheelchair.
“Now pull the blanket around your face, lower your head as if you’re asleep and don’t talk. We need to hide that pretty red hair—it’s too easy to identify you.”
She gave him a thumbs-up, dropped her head and pulled the blanket tight beneath her chin.
The nurse pushed Quinn out of the room with Nick matching her pace as she quietly moved them to an elevator the public wasn’t allowed to use. They rode down in silence. When the car doors opened, they were met by four hospital security guards. She pushed Quinn out, gave Nick a thumbs-up as he took control of the wheelchair and then took the elevator back up.
“Detective,” one of the security guards said as he nodded at Nick. “My name’s Walker. My boys and I have got your back. Get your car. We’ll bring her out that door as soon as we see you pull up.”
Nick hated to leave her alone, but there was no other way to make this happen.
He knelt in front of her.
“Okay, Queenie... I’m going after your coach. Hang with the royal guards for a few, and I’ll be right back.”
In spite of a new wave of panic she felt at having him leave her side, he’d made her smile.
As he exited the building, the security guards encircled her.