Fifteen
Since his arrival in Mexico, Anton had been deep-sea fishing, frequenting a different bar each evening and entertaining a different woman at his estate each night. He was oblivious as to what was going on within his empire because he’d misplaced his phone the first night—a mistake that now seemed to him an unplanned blessing. It was almost as if the troubles of home didn’t matter anymore. If he didn’t know about them, they couldn’t hurt him.
On his third night away, he’d brought home a young woman from the village and was already making plans to coerce her into the business when he went back home. He had lots of customers wanting Spanish-speaking hookers, and this one was stunning. Even though he usually depended upon Mr. Stewart to populate his bordellos, it never hurt to pick and choose a woman himself now and then, so he chose Estella.
Anton spent the entire night in what some would call an all-out orgy involving Estella and two other women. Anton was exhausted when it was over, but thoroughly sated.
The next morning, he rose from bed and made a call to his kitchen staff to ready his breakfast as the women were getting ready to leave. One of them was down on her hands and knees looking beneath the bed for a missing shoe. When she stood a few minutes later, she’d not only found her shoe, but Anton’s missing phone, as well.
“Senor...is this yours?” she asked.
Anton looked up from his coffee and the paper he’d been reading on his laptop with surprise.
“Yes! Where on earth did you find that?”
“Beneath the bed, Senor.”
“Thank you,” Anton said, and he tipped her an extra hundred dollars for the discovery.
As soon as they were gone he got the phone cord out to recharge, plugged it in and went down to breakfast. It was midmorning when he remembered the phone and ran up to his suite to retrieve it.
He read the first message in horror and then saw repeated messages from all of his holdings in Nevada, as well as a message from his lawyer that there was a federal warrant out for his arrest.
“Damn it all to hell,” he muttered and then went down the list of people he needed to contact. This was exactly why he hadn’t missed his cell phone.
The law firm was the first on his list.
“Prosper, Prosper and Gooch,” the receptionist said.
“This is Anton Baba returning Conrad’s call.”
“Yes, sir, one moment,” she said and put the call through.
“This is Conrad.”
“Conrad, this is Anton.”
“Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to contact you for days! Are you in Vegas?”
“No. I’m not even in the States.”
“Well, then. We need to discuss this situation.”
“I’m coming home,” Anton said wearily. “I’ll come by the office when I get back in the city.”
“The Feds will have you in jail the moment you cross back into US territory.”
“Not if they don’t recognize me,” he said.
“Okay, it’s your call. But if you wind up behind bars, call me and we’ll see about getting you arraigned quickly and out on bail.”
“This arrest warrant is going to go away,” Anton said.
“Are there witnesses?”
“Not for long,” he snapped.
“I don’t want to know, but stay in touch,” Conrad said.
“Yes, of course,” Anton said.
Then he began returning the many missed phone calls.
It didn’t take long for the bordello managers to figure out Baba had an enemy who was trying to take over his holdings.
“Just don’t let on that you’ve spoken to me,” Baba said when he’d learned about what Stewart had been up to. “I’ll see to him, personally.”
One by one, the managers agreed.
When he called Lucky Joe’s to put them on guard, he soon found out Stewart was using the casino penthouse for a residence, and swore the manager to secrecy.
It was midafternoon by the time he called his pilot, Paul Franklin. The phone rang three times before Franklin picked up.
“Hello? Paul speaking.”
“Paul, this is Anton. Listen, has anyone contacted you about using the jet?”
“No, sir. Should I be expecting them?”
“No. Just making sure where I stand. I have someone who’s trying to take over my holdings.”
“Oh no!” Paul said.
“Exactly,” Anton said. “So I need you to come get me.”
“Yes, sir. What day and time?” he asked.
“Tomorrow morning around 10:00 a.m. Vegas time.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll file flight plans tonight.”
“I don’t want anyone to know you’re coming after me,” he said.
“Not a problem, Mr. Baba. I can work around that. Don’t worry.”
“Perfect,” Anton said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh...and don’t bother bringing Linda. The fewer people who know I’m coming, the better.”
“No problem,” Paul said.
Anton disconnected.
Now all he needed was to call Paco Cruz and find out if he truly did find one of the witnesses.
He tried to contact him by phone but got voice mail, and he wasn’t about to leave a message. He’d just have to try later.
Right now his focus needed to be on getting back into the States undetected, and he’d long ago prepared for such a contingency. He’d not had a haircut in weeks, nor had he shaved since his arrival, and now the salt-and-pepper beard he was growing was going to prove useful.
* * *
Quinn didn’t remember anything about the ride home from the doctor’s office and had no idea how much she’d revealed about herself.
What she did notice over the next two days was that Nick seemed rattled by the fact that the infection popped up the morning after their first time making love, and that he’d been treating her like she might break ever since. She’d dropped hints that she wanted him to take her back to bed, but eventually he came right out and told her he wasn’t putting her in that danger again until she was well.
In her opinion, it wasn’t all his decision, and she certainly wasn’t on the same page. She wanted that closeness and the mind-blowing sex that came with it back again.
She wanted him.
And it was hard not to want him when he was around all the time. He’d been working on some cases from home recently, so he could be around to take care of her. When he wasn’t doing that, he spent time with Quinn, and by now they had learned a number of small details about each other. He knew her favorite color was yellow. She liked ginger ale and eating cheese sandwiches with potato chips between the bread and cheese, and she liked yoga.
She knew his favorite color was red. He liked Budweiser beer and hot dogs with homemade chili, and he was really good at dancing the two-step.
And every evening after the sun went down, Quinn went with him out to the pool, sat on the side with her feet dangling in the water and watched him swim his laps.
What they didn’t know was that someone else was watching them, too. Someone named Paco Cruz. It had taken him two days to find out where Nick Saldano lived, but when he’d come to check out the address and found the redhead there, he was already counting the money Anton would be giving him for that info.
He watched them through a crack in the privacy fence just long enough to determine they seemed to have a personal relationship as well, and then slipped away.
Unaware Quinn’s safety had been compromised, Nick continued to swim, trying to wear himself out so he’d be able to sleep, when all he wanted was to take her to bed and make love until the sun came up.
Eventually, he got tired and swam up to where she was sitting.
“It’s about time you came to rescue me,” Quinn said and put both hands on his wet chest and pulled him close.
“I didn’t know you were in danger,” he said as he waded between her legs.
“I’m not yet, but I was hoping you might feel reckless.” She locked her hands around his waist.
“You have no idea what’s going through my mind,” he said, then slid his hands beneath her hair and kissed her until she was trembling.
“Are you cold, baby?” he asked.
But before she could answer, Nick heard his front doorbell ring.
“That’s weird,” he said, as he climbed out and grabbed a towel, tying it around his waist as he took her by the hand and went inside. “Wait here,” he said.
She stood in the darkened hallway as the doorbell rang again. Nick turned on the exterior light and looked through the peephole, then opened the door to see one of his neighbors standing on the doorstep.
“Hey, Rick, what’s going on?” Nick said.
“Hey—listen. This may sound strange, and it might not mean anything, but you need to know there was a guy on the back side of your security fence watching you while you were in the pool just now.”
The skin crawled on the back of Nick’s neck.
“Did you get a good look at him?”
“So-so. He was so busy looking at you, he didn’t even know I was in my backyard. He was Latino, I’m sure of that. Midthirties, I’d guess. He ran with a limp and drove off in an old car.”
“I don’t suppose you got the license plate?” Nick asked.
Rick grinned. “As a matter of fact...” He handed Nick a piece of paper with the tag number on it.
Nick grinned.
“This is great, Rick! Thank you.”
“Hey...you give the whole neighborhood a sense of safety because we have a cop living among us. I’m happy to give back. Have a nice night.”
“You, too,” Nick said and closed the door. As he turned around, Quinn walked into the room.
All the joy that had been on her face was gone.
“They found me, didn’t they?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to run this plate and then we should know more. Come to the office with me while I call this in.”
And just like that, Quinn was afraid all over again. She’d sold herself on this false sense of security because it was Nick protecting her, but she could no longer kid herself. She needed to be making a backup plan. Nick might not always be around.
Nick circled the desk to get to his computer, logged on, then made a quick call on his landline to his department.
“Homicide, Daniels speaking.”
“Hey, Daniels, it’s me, Nick.”
“Saldano...how goes it, buddy? Still got an extra hole in your head?”
“It’s healing,” Nick said. “Doctor won’t release me for duty yet, but I’m okay. Listen, I need a favor. One of my neighbors just caught some guy doing a Peeping Tom routine in my backyard tonight while I was in the pool. He got a tag number. I need you to run it for me.”
“You got it,” Daniels said. “Give me the number.”
Nick read it off.
“Okay...got it. Just give me a few seconds to run the plate,” Daniels said.
Nick winked at Quinn as he waited, but she wasn’t even pretending everything was okay.
“Okay...here we go,” Daniels said. “Are you ready?”
“Yes,” Nick said and grabbed a pen and a notepad.
“The plate belongs to a perp named Paco Cruz. He’s got quite a rap sheet. Done time in a federal prison... Whoa...here we go.”
“What is it?” Nick asked.
“Used to work for Anton Baba.”
Nick’s heart sank.
“Used to?”
“Last known employment is a cleaning service, but nothing linked to Baba.”
“Do you have an address for him?”
“Yes. Are you ready?”
“Give it to me,” Nick said and then wrote down the address. “Thanks a lot, man. I owe you.”
“Just get well soon. We miss you. Murphy’s not near as much fun as you are,” Daniels said.
Nick heard him laugh and knew Murphy had probably thrown something at him.
“Thanks again,” Nick said and disconnected. Then he typed in the address on his computer to get a location and printed off a map of the area.
When he turned around to talk to Quinn, she was no longer in the office. He got up and went looking.
She was standing in the middle of her bedroom looking as lost as she had the first day he’d brought her home.
Nick walked up behind her, slid an arm around her waist and kissed her behind her ear.
“Well, is he connected to Anton Baba?” she asked.
Nick sighed.
“Yes.”
“I need to leave,” she said. “Staying in Vegas is suicide. I should have left days ago.”
Nick’s heart skipped a beat.
“No, no, you can’t leave,” he said and turned her around to face him. “He would just follow you until he found you somewhere else, only then I couldn’t protect you.”
“We’re both nursing bullet wounds,” she said. “Who’s to say we’d be so lucky as to survive a second round of gunshots?”
Nick was trying not to panic as he took her in his arms.
“Please, Quinn. I’ll keep you safe. I promise. I don’t want to lose you. Ever.”
Quinn’s composure shattered. He’d finally said what she’d been longing to hear, but now there was no joy in hearing it. She started crying.
“I don’t want to lose you either, but you already got shot once because of me.”
“Hell, no,” Nick said. “That’s my job. It could have been anybody, and I still would have jumped in front of that bullet. That’s something you’ll have to come to terms with no matter what. My job is to protect people. And I’m always going to have someone pissed off at me, but I’m not going to live my life in hiding. If someone else had shot me—someone completely unrelated to Baba—would you leave me?”
“No.”
“Then this is the same thing to me. Just part of my job. I hate that in this case it’s also a threat for you, but if you left me, it wouldn’t change the danger I face every day. And on top of that, I’d be so lonely without you. Damn it, Queenie...is this where you suddenly decide you can’t love a cop?”
She leaned forward, her forehead against his chest and her fingers in the belt loops of his jeans.
“Just shut up. I can’t think when you’re making sense.”
Relieved, Nick put his arms around her and pulled her close.
“We’ll figure this out together. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“And no leaving me.”
“No leaving.”
“Promise?”
She looked up.
“I promise I will never leave you...so if you happen to come home some day and find me missing, you better come looking for me, because I left under duress.”
“I will. Quinn, I’m sorry this is happening, baby, but we both knew Baba would not give up easily. He has a lot to lose if he goes to prison.”
Her shoulders slumped and she sighed, but then she seemed to gain some resolve, looking up with a sultry grin and a gleam in her eye.
“Well, I don’t give up easily, either. Now tell me, do you think I’m still too delicate to take to bed?”
He laughed out loud.
“Probably not.”
“Then lock the doors, set the alarm and follow me. And don’t waste time. I might start without you.”
She poked him in the chest with her finger and then left him standing in the hall as she walked away.
Nick took off through the house, locking up and setting the house alarm, and then headed for his bedroom on a run.
The room was dark but the night-light from his bathroom was on, and it was clearly enough light for him to see that Quinn was in the middle of his bed, her long red hair splayed out across two pillows, and naked as the day she was born. With only swim trunks to shed, he was naked and beside her in seconds.
“Thanks for waiting,” he said.
“Time’s up,” she said and parted her legs.
He moved between them, and without so much as a pretense at foreplay, he slid inside her. She locked her legs around his waist as he began to move.
Nick was hard and Quinn was hot, and making love didn’t get any better than this. They rode the blood rush all the way to a hard and fast climax, then settled into a slow-motion repeat of the same.
Sometime after four in the morning they fell asleep, only to wake again at dawn, making love one more time before facing the ugly truth of a new day.
* * *
Paco Cruz got drunk, then he got himself arrested. All of his belongings, including his phone with Anton Baba’s phone number, were in a big manila envelope with his name on it, and if he got bonded out he got his shit back. If they sent him to jail for something else, he didn’t. He was so pissed off at himself he couldn’t think what to do. He had this important info that could be worth hundreds of dollars in his pocket, and he had no way to let Baba know.
* * *
It had taken John and Connie Davis a little over two days to drive from Henderson, Nevada, to Nashville, Tennessee, with their precious cargo aboard. Starla and Sammy had been good travelers, but they’d stopped far more often for the baby to run and play than they ever would have for themselves.
Now they were less than five miles from the city limits of Nashville. Starla had traded seats with her mother a couple of hours ago so that she’d get a break and Connie could play with her grandson some more. Though she was beginning to recognize some of the landmarks, she was also shocked at how much had changed in the seven years she’d been gone.
“There are new apartments and condos everywhere,” she said.
John nodded.
“I told you our old neighborhood had changed, too. Lots of people still chasing dreams here in Nashville, and lots of new businesses built up, as well.”
“I’ll find a job when this mess with Anton is over, and I’ll get an apartment for Sammy and me.”
“You don’t have to do that,” John said. “You’ve been gone so long, we are in no rush to be rid of you.”
“But I want to,” Starla said. “I haven’t had a life of my own, and I need some independence to grow a different kind of guts. It would be far too easy to let you and Mother take care of us.”
“Well, we’ll talk about it after all the danger has passed,” he said.
“Talk about what?” Connie asked from the back seat.
“Oh, nothing...just plans for the future,” Starla said.
“Do you see where we are now?” John asked.
“The mall! We’re almost home,” Starla said and then teared up. “I didn’t think I’d ever be here again.”
Less than ten minutes later, John turned down a tree-lined street and watched Starla scoot to the edge of the seat. When he turned up the driveway and parked beneath the portico, Starla began to shake.
“Wait until I get the door unlocked,” John said.
She nodded, then looked over her shoulder. Her mother and her son were looking at her.
“Hey, little boy,” Starla said. “We’re home!”
Sammy liked the tone of her voice and laughed, then crawled over the seat and into her lap.
When John motioned for them to get out, Starla was the one who carried Sammy into the house. She walked from room to room in total shock. It was as if she’d only been gone a few hours, just back from a quick trip to the store. Everything was exactly the same. Even the furniture.
“It’s just like I remembered it,” Starla said, as she turned to her parents.
“We left it this way on purpose,” Connie said. “Just in case we ever found you. Just in case you came home.”
Still holding Sammy, she walked into their arms and had one last cry for the years she’d lost. Then she made a silent promise to herself and to Sammy: from this day forward, it was all about the future.
* * *
Anton was standing at the airstrip waiting for his jet to arrive, but Franklin was not going to recognize him.
He was wearing his gardener’s clothing, huaraches on his feet, and he’d dyed his shock of white hair black as coal, though he’d left his full beard its natural salt-and-pepper color. He had a worn-out sombrero on his head for shade, and his money belt with ID, credit cards and cash was around his waist and well hidden by the loose cotton shirt hanging over his baggy pants. He had an old bag with a few small belongings hanging over his shoulder—it was all he needed to go home and finish what he’d started.
When the jet finally flew into view and landed on the strip, he hurried toward it and met the pilot coming down the gangplank.
When Anton started up the steps, Paul stopped.
“I’m sorry, senor, but this is a private plane.”
Anton paused and looked up.
“So, I did pass muster, didn’t I?”
Paul’s expression ran the gamut of emotions.
“Mr. Baba? Is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me, Paul. Are you ready to go, or do you need to refuel?”
“Refueling here would be wise,” he said.
Anton waved him back into the plane and then ran up the steps and into the cabin. Paul pulled up the steps and then taxied toward the hangar, killed the engine and got out to refuel.
Anton was making himself comfortable inside the plane, pouring his own drink and gathering up some snacks to eat on the way back.
By the time Paul reentered, Anton was on his iPad checking messages. If the Feds had his email hacked, which he assumed they would, they’d think he was in Saint-Tropez, because that’s where he’d had his computer tech route the signals.
It wasn’t until he’d checked his phone a while later that he realized he had a text from Paco Cruz. Why the hell that hadn’t shown up at his estate was beyond him.
He read it with interest. It appeared Paco had actually seen Quinn O’Meara, the woman from the desert who’d found his son. Baba wasn’t sure what the Feds had on him, but if they’d finally filed charges and had a warrant out for his arrest, he had to assume the evidence was substantial and likely backed by witnesses willing to testify. Getting rid of the two women who held the power to incriminate him should level the playing field, so this information couldn’t have come at a better time.
He wanted to call Paco back, but decided to wait until he got to Vegas and got a burner phone—no need to add more heat to the fire. So he took a sip of his drink and settled down to eat while he waited for takeoff.