Читать книгу Undercover Justice - Nico Rosso - Страница 12

Stephanie woke with a gun in her hand. Several other noises had pulled her from a thin sleep, but the footsteps down the hallway had her fully aware and gripping her automatic. The metal was cold, the chill extending all the way into her bones. This was the world she was in now. Any second she might have to make the choice to pull the trigger.

The footsteps took a turn into the bathroom and she soon heard water running. Her watch told her it was after eight o’clock. Not nearly enough sleep, but her own discomfort couldn’t matter until after this job was over.

She set her gun down and quickly changed into a fresh set of clothes before repacking her bag, including her pistol, and arranging herself for the day. The chair she’d wedged under the door handle remained in place; no one had tried to get in. She removed the chair and stepped into the empty hallway.

A second later, Arash opened the bathroom door. Water glistened in his dark hair, which had been released from its short ponytail to brush about his shoulders. He wore a tank top, revealing well-muscled arms and dusky skin. The flush of heat over her chest at seeing him this exposed proved that her body was still operational with little sleep. But she kept her face neutral and said only, “Morning.”

He ran his hands through his hair, showing off the muscles of his shoulders. When she could see his face again, he was wearing a small, pained grin. “Why you gotta hurt me like that?” His voice was low and gravelly. Straight out of the bedroom.

She cleared her throat to erase the image of his piercing eyes glowing in the early dawn, his body surrounded by a tousled bed. “The truth hurts.”

With a groaning laugh, he stepped out of the bathroom doorway and ambled toward his room. “What’re the chances there’s coffee around here?”

Ellie descended the stairs at the end of the hall with an answer. “Take the car in the garage.” She tossed him a set of keys. “Keep your kit with you. Be ready to jump.” She breezed past Arash and Stephanie without another word and disappeared out the front door of the house. An engine revved outside, then drove off. The house was quiet.

Stephanie was alone with Arash. “Two minutes,” she told him, then closed the bathroom door. She emerged within her time frame to find him in the kitchen, fully dressed in his clothes from yesterday, nudging boxes of breakfast cereal on the counter. He still wore his hair down, making him seem more accessible and less like the man she saw running from a crime scene the night before.

“I’m driving.” He dangled the car keys.

They went into the garage to find the Mercedes already gone. Her sense of loss was quickly swept away with the idea that the car had died a hero, getting her into Olesk’s gang. Arash didn’t seem to have any lingering feelings about it and climbed into the low sport-tuned import that remained in the garage. She tossed her bag into the back seat and climbed in next to him.

His hands hovered over the steering wheel and shifter for a moment. She understood this moment of assessing a vehicle before entering into a relationship with it. The car was modified and bare-bones. Racing seats and analog gauges. It didn’t even have floor mats. But when Arash turned the engine over, she could feel the power in the quick growl. She hit the garage door opener on the visor, letting daylight in. Arash put the car in Reverse and eased out.

“How is it?” She closed the garage once they were clear.

“It’s good.” He didn’t sound convinced. “But I could make it better.” Throwing it in First, he sped them away from the house. “Find us some breakfast, and a mall. I need clothes.” From the way he was squinting, he needed sunglasses, too.

She put on her own sunglasses and pulled out her phone to search for their next stop. Again, the urge to contact the others at Frontier Justice made her pause before switching to the navigation. But she was still far from being in a safe space. She knew the whole internal debate didn’t last long enough for Arash to see her hesitation. He drove without comment as she directed them toward a mall.

Lack of sleep put a frothy edge around the bright, cool day. Things grew more ordinary when they parked and walked to the chain coffee shop on the perimeter of the mall. The morning crowd was still in full effect, restraining Stephanie and Arash’s conversation to the bare minimum. They certainly couldn’t compare notes about their first night in the midst of a criminal gang.

She ate and felt more human with each sip of her latte. Arash leaned his elbows on the table, both hands around his cup of coffee. He glanced surreptitiously at the others around them before asking, “What do you normally drive?”

The unexpected question made her shiver, as if an intimate barrier had been crossed. “’74 Datsun 260Z.” No way would she have pretended to steal that one for Olesk.

He sat back and assessed her with surprise. And there was a hint of sadness in his eyes that blinked away before she could fully explore it. He mouthed a couple of words, then finally said, “You’re hot.”

“Changed the timing and compression ratio for more horses.” She adjusted the hang of her bob along her cheek. “Got the suspension low and tight, just how I like it.”

He moaned sensuously, drawing a couple of looks. After licking his lips, he ventured, “Color?”

“Brick red. Matte.”

“Hell, yes.” He thumped the side of his fist on the tabletop. A growing sexual energy in him caught her up. Breath ran hot in her and an effervescent tingle spiked her fingers and toes. And in a moment it was gone. Arash’s face frosted over and he focused back on his cup of coffee. “I’d like to see it sometime.”

She leaned forward and whispered, “Just don’t steal it.” Part of her missed the brief carnal connection they’d shared, but she knew it was for the best to keep this kind of contact shut down.

“No promises.” He stood and nodded toward the door. She moved with him and they were soon back in the bright, cold sun. They’d only walked a couple dozen yards from the coffee shop when a car started up nearby and Arash froze.

His sudden reaction sent her into high alert. Electric charges shot through her legs, ready to move. She’d left her pistol in her bag in the car, knowing they were in too populated an area to carry it, but she did have a switchblade in her pocket. “What is it?” she hissed, looking about for the threat.

“Can you hear it? Car trouble.” He motioned her toward the idling, twenty-year-old sedan in a nearby parking spot and approached the driver with a greeting wave. A Latina woman dressed for an office job sat in the front seat, eyeing him cautiously. He pulled up at a nonthreatening distance and pointed at the front of the car. “I’m not trying to sell you anything. I just heard a little problem.”

The driver rolled her window down, her gaze switching between Arash and Stephanie. “I’m on my way to work and I don’t have time...”

Arash kept his hands open and nodded. “I want to get you to work. No BS. If you could just rev the engine for a second.”

The woman kept her hand on the shifter, ready to throw it into Drive and run, but did give the engine some gas while idling. Arash cocked his head, then nodded again. He maintained his distance and turned to Stephanie. “Do you hear it?”

She listened to the revving motor and found nothing out of the ordinary for a car of that age and make. But when the driver released the gas and brought it back to idle, a faint metallic double knock caught Stephanie’s attention. “I think I got it.”

Arash turned his attention back to the driver. “So there’s a sound, a double knock, that goes away when you rev, but I hear it in your idle. Get your ride to a mechanic you trust and tell them that you might have a bad piston pin. They’ll track it down. Take care of it soon, before it turns into big trouble.”

The woman revved the engine again, squinting and concentrating when she brought it back to idle. Stephanie picked up the double knock again, but couldn’t tell if the driver detected the sound. The driver seemed less skeptical and warmed with a small smile. “Thanks. I’ll get it looked at.” She put her car in Drive and headed out of the parking lot, waving out the window before she turned onto the boulevard.

Once she was gone, Arash continued his walk across the parking lot toward the mall. Stephanie strode with him, studying his face out of the corner of her eye, trying to find the motivation for what he just did. Instead of looking smug, or downright cocky, his expression was neutral. “You’ve got a good ear,” she told him.

He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket. In the light of day she saw that it was a simple black work jacket, heavy cotton with a corduroy collar. “Been living next to engines long enough.”

“But you’ve got a soft heart.” She couldn’t puzzle him out at all.

“Not when it comes to business.” His eyes hardened. He tipped his head in the direction where the woman had driven off. “I wasn’t going to make any money off that ride. Wasn’t going to fix it, steal it, part it out, joyride it or use it in a getaway. She was just trying to get to work, and I know a lot of people like that.”

Sure, that sounded on the level, but did he know that by taking the gig with Olesk, Arash would be running boys and girls for some of the worst criminals in the country? Those people were just trying to live their lives, as well. Stephanie’s chest tightened thinking about them. Before that anger took her over and she railed at Arash, she asked simply, “So what’s your ride?”

“Mazda RX-7 Turbo II, ’89.”

“I can see that.” He would fit well into the low-slung sports car, and there were plenty of opportunities to tune the ride into a well-handling street rocket. “White, with a turquoise roof?” It was from the ’80s, after all.

He chuckled. “Matte black, completely murdered out.” A hint of warmth cracked through his stony face. “That car...it’s what my parents would’ve driven if they’d had any money once they’d settled in the States after getting out of Iran in the late ’70s.”

She kept reminding herself to hate him, or at least that she couldn’t trust him, but hearing his softer tone when talking about his parents, or seeing the way he’d gone out of his way with the woman in the parking lot, Stephanie started to recognize that her job seeking justice was going to be way more complicated than she’d anticipated.

* * *

ARASH CURSED HIMSELF for helping the woman in the parking lot. He couldn’t make any more mistakes like that. Not while Stephanie or anyone else from Olesk’s gang was watching. She’d said he had a soft heart. Usually, he’d take that as a compliment, especially after all he’d seen growing up in the city. But a conscience had killed Marcos, and Arash had to stay alive to get revenge.

He hadn’t been able to read Stephanie when she called him out. She wasn’t directly looking down on him, or complimenting him, either. Her conscience remained a mystery. Under different circumstances, he’d try to trace her wiring, find out more of who she was. If this was just a simple road-trip fling, it would be different between them. So far there hadn’t been much friction. Neither was trying to pull too much leverage over the other.

As they walked past the sliding glass doors to the mall, he wanted to reach out and take her hand. Maybe they could rush away from Olesk and this mess together. Or he could convince her to run while she still had the chance. Then he could find her once it was all over. He kept his hands in his pockets. The urge was impossible. She’d wanted to join up with Olesk. How the hell could he convince her to break that? One wrong word to her and she’d go to Olesk, putting a target on Arash’s back. The only chance he had was to surprise the gang when they were all in one place. The big gig Olesk mentioned. He hated to think that he’d have to take Stephanie down, as well.

The morning people at the mall went about their business, wrangling kids, hurrying for last-minute items or strolling aimlessly like they had all the time in the world. None of them looked at Arash and Stephanie as if they were criminals. He navigated through the ordinary world, very much outside of it.

“Department store.” Stephanie pointed to a multilevel store that anchored one side of the mall. “That should set you up, and I need some things, as well.” She cruised forward, like she was completely comfortable in her skin.

While he was edged with bands of tension around his joints. Helping the woman in the parking lot was a lousy attempt to collect karma, and it hadn’t offset that he was a bad guy again. It didn’t matter if he had the best intentions. For the first time since running with burglars and car thieves in high school, he was part of a bad crew about to do bad things.

Stephanie stopped walking and stared at him as if waiting. He blinked at her and she spoke slowly. “Menswear.” She moved her gaze deliberately to a sign off to their right. “That coffee hasn’t kicked in?”

“Gonna need a gallon.” Not true. He was fully awake, mind buzzing between guilt and revenge.

“Rally,” she said. “Olesk could text any second and we have to be ready to burn.”

“I’m on.” He rolled his shoulders to move his blood.

“Do you need me to wait outside the dressing room?” she sassed.

“You can help me decide between boxers or briefs.” He was a breath away from inviting her into the dressing room and testing how well they really balanced.

She took her time looking him up and down, giving him the sensation of cool river water running along his body. A shiver shook him and he was left thirsty for more. She finally gazed into his eyes and blinked slowly. “Split the difference. Boxer briefs.” And she was gone, before he could answer or see if there was really a hint of heat in her eyes. She cruised easily toward the up escalator. He stared too long and she knew it, waving without turning around.

He turned and walked toward menswear. If she was watching from the escalator, he didn’t give her anything except a casual strut. But inside, he stormed. He barely paid attention to the clothes he was grabbing. T-shirts, spare pair of jeans, sweatshirts, all of them dark colors. It didn’t take long for his arm to be full, making his search through the socks and underwear more awkward than it should have been. Stephanie had called his bluff and identified his preferred underwear choice. No doubt she’d gloat if she saw the packages of boxer briefs on top of the rest of his pile of clothes.

A division of the menswear area had sport clothes and shoes, where he picked up a backpack to contain everything. In his normal life, he’d have been watching the price tags closer, but he had an envelope full of dirty cash in his jacket and wouldn’t miss it once it was gone.

Arash peeled some hundred-dollar bills out of the envelope and pocketed them before walking his clothes to the cashiers at the front of the store. The young black man manning his station was cheerful and bored. They went through the requisite small talk, Arash saying he didn’t need a bag because of the backpack. The cashier didn’t blink when Arash handed over the crisp cash to pay, then took his change.

While Arash was stuffing his new clothes into the backpack, he could see out the front windows of the department store and into the mall. On the floor above him, Stephanie walked out the doors of a cell phone carrier and disappeared up the walkway. She wasn’t moving too fast or looking over her shoulder, but it was still sketchy. He packed faster and hurried out of the department store with a thanks to the cashier.

When he hit the walkway in the mall, Stephanie was nowhere in sight. He got up to the second floor via a flight of stairs, trying to figure out all the justifications that she could’ve been at that store after not mentioning it before. And if she was doing something that wasn’t in the best interest of Olesk and the gang, would Arash tell them? The convolutions knotted around him.

“Did you get your tighty-whities?” Stephanie’s voice unfurled behind him.

He spun with surprise, unable to see how the hell she got there without him seeing her. He gathered his composure as quickly as possible. “Decided to go commando.” That got a little laugh out of her and the convolutions complicated into a deadlier web. He pointed at the black bag she always carried and looked in her face, not at the cell phone store behind her. “Get what you needed?”

“I did,” she said more cheerfully than he expected. “I’d forgotten a phone charger.” She opened her bag and showed a DC charger branded with the store name she’d left a few moments ago.

A clean alibi, but maybe too deliberate. “Seems like something a planner like you would’ve thought of.” He kept the tone casual.

“Not for the car.” She started walking toward the exit of the mall and he strode next to her. “Didn’t know we’d be on the move this much.”

“Good point.” He hadn’t even thought to bring along a wall charger.

“Don’t worry—it’ll charge two phones at once.”

“You do think of everything.” But he wasn’t entirely convinced she wasn’t sketchy. But then again, in the light of day, they were both crooks.

“Even had some time to buy some jewelry.” She held up her hand to show that two of the fingers were encircled with fine gold bands. One formed an X, the other crisscrossed, like the tracks of a planet orbiting her. “And...” Her hand disappeared into her bag before he stared at it too long. “I found something for you.” She produced a box containing a burly sport watch.

He took it as she offered it, but he didn’t open the box. The watch was definitely his style. But he couldn’t figure out what the endgame was for her. Part of him burst with a small flare of pleasure at her gesture. “I can’t take this.”

“It’s not from me,” she explained, holding out her palm in refusal to take it back. “It’s from the woman with the faulty piston pin.” A warmer light shined in her eyes, pulling him closer to her. “I know you didn’t do it to get paid.” Neither spoke for a moment.

“Thanks.” He opened the box and put the watch on his wrist.

Stephanie backed off a bit. He wanted to reach for the connection again, but he didn’t know if he could trust it. She fixed the edges of her hair. “Besides, Olesk has us on a tight schedule. I can’t have you driving and checking the time on your phone.”

“Always planning.”

“Exactly.” She reached into her bag again and produced a pair of black sunglasses, which she held toward him.

He backed away, shaking his head. “But I’m all out of good deeds.” Yes, he didn’t have any sunglasses and she took the time to notice. Any pleasure in her thoughtfulness was overshadowed by the complex and deadly maze he found himself walking blindly within.

“These are from me.” She stepped to him, sunglasses still extended. “If I’m riding shotgun, I can’t have my driver squinting into the sun.” Her face was serious, without a wry smile or irony in her voice.

The labyrinth around him shifted and spun. He’d steeled himself with heartless resolve for this journey of revenge and hadn’t expected to find any good here. But Stephanie wasn’t good. He had to keep reminding himself that to combat the lightness in his chest she could evoke with the smallest gesture.

“I’m your driver.” He took the sunglasses.

For a moment, they seemed exposed. He was free from the lies and the crime and faced her as a man facing a woman. She stared back at him boldly, without artifice. And there was a heat in her eyes, a reflection of the attraction that pulled him closer to her. Her lips parted with a breath, and he wanted so much to know what she tasted like. What she would feel like slammed against him.

Then the moment was gone. She stepped back and pulled her buzzing phone from her back pocket. “Olesk,” she explained, a slight huskiness in her voice. She cleared her throat and erased the warmth in her eyes. “We’re on the move. He says to get a full tank of gas and head east. More instructions to follow.”

The labyrinth erupted all around Arash again. He strode with Stephanie into the parking lot, slipping his sunglasses on. “I’m your driver.” And he couldn’t let himself feel anything anymore because every turn ahead was deadly.