Page 7 of Heston
“You the bloke what’s looking for his wife?”
Alex glared at the guy asking the stupid question.Bloke?Interesting word choice. Interesting Irish brogue, too. The guy was slender enough to be called athletic and sported a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard, which made him look older,but Alex pegged him at thirty-five, maybe forty. Dressed in spit-polished black boots, black jeans, a black L.L. Bean down-jacket, and a light-gray ballcap, the guy stayed a good ten yards uphill from Alex. Away from the river and behind the nearest pine. Half-hidden in shadow.
“I am,” Alex answered as civilly as his growing despair allowed.
The man reached inside his jacket and pulled out a rolled package, then tossed it to Alex. He caught it one-handed, pissed that he wasn’t even armed. But that was what happened when you were so stricken with your wife’s absence that you lost all track of operational security.
His two pistols were somewhere in the river, swept away in the icy torrent along with his holster rig. Kelsey’s was probably still in her backpack. Which was why she’d sunk out of sight so quickly. Why she’d sunk at all. If she had. He wasn’t sure of anything. The entire disaster, everything that contributed to her death, pointed at Alex. He would carry this new shitload of guilt until the day he died.
“Open it,” the almost friendly, probably not friendly at all, stranger encouraged. “The next step’s up to you.”
A chill ran up the back of Alex’s neck. “What’s going on?” he growled, even as he kept an eye on the guy and let his fingertips slide into the package’s seam. The cloth separated and an embroidered black rose the size of his palm fell out.
Shit.This was why Kelsey’d been shot? The Black Irish Rose Tavern in Boston? The one Lucy Delaney had blown to hell when she’d cleaned house of her criminal father’s faithful henchmen? Sure, she’d wined and dined them first, got them drunk and mellow, made them believe her takeover of Pops Delaney’s illicit business would go down peacefully. But she’d killed them just the same.
Alex thought of his sickly, conniving father, Mel Stewart, and Mel’s continual lies about his relationship with Pops Delaney, Godfather of the Irish Mafia in Boston. Lucy Delaney’s old man. Pops had been a thug and gunrunner straight out of Ireland to terrorize America. In a jolt of pure luck, Alex’s protocol officer, Maddie Bannister ended Pops during a gunfight a year ago. Shortly after, Lucy had died a hard death, courtesy of TEAM Agent Jameson Tenney’s sharpshooting, on that same dock in Boston the same day she’d killed her father’s men. Problem was, Mel had then revealed that Pops was his brother, making the boss of the Irish Mafia in America Alex’s uncle and good old Lucy his gawddamned cousin. Come to find out Pops had changed his name from Stewart to Delaney when he’d run away from home and fled back to Ireland. God, the swamp of lies Mel Stewart had fabricated to excuse the illegal side of his family. Alex’s flesh and blood, damn them.
And to think that old fart now lived on Alex’s dime. In his house. With his children! But only because Mel had Alzheimer’s. He should damned well thank Kelsey for his more than generous circumstances today. Because Alex would’ve turned his back on the son of a bitch, not invited him in to stay and live out his remaining days in comfort. Not after the shit ton of crap Mel had dumped on his one and only son since the day he’d been born.
Thank God Lexie and Bradley were with trusted neighbors for the duration of this damned getaway. Double thank God that Alex had put Mel in an assisted living home before he and Kelsey left on this disastrous adventure. But if Mel’s past was behind what happened to Kelsey today? Mel could rot in that nursing home for the rest of his worthless life. He could and he would. Alex swore it. He never should’ve let the bastard back into his life.
Still fingering the embroidered rose, he lifted it high enough for the stranger to see. Not saying a word. Not admittinganything. Not giving anything away. If this had to do with the Irish Mafia, like it appeared, things could go south in a blistering second. All Alex gave thisblokewas his chin.
The man cleared his throat. He was nervous.
He damned well should be.
“D-don’t worry, she’s alive. F-for now,” he stuttered, then cleared his throat again and lifted both palms to Alex, as if warding off an attack. Which he damned well had coming. “You got a decision to make, son, and it’d better be the right one. Understand what I’m saying?”
“I’m not your son! Where is she? What have you done to her?” His body assumed a fighting stance. His borrowed boots spread far enough to balance his weight if he needed to attack this asshat, to strike first. To hit hard. His fists curled into hammers that could and would bludgeon the Irishman to death. All his past agony boiled to the surface. He wasn’t a successful businessman tonight. He was only Kelsey’s husband. Which made him Armageddon.
His body grew taut and hard with a rage so fierce, it hurt to hold it inside. Without her in his arms, his heart was a scorching cauldron, bubbling with revenge. His blood pumped hot and heavy. Maybe that explained the thumping behind his ribs. Maybe his heart had known all along she was gone. That she needed to be avenged. The thought, the merest hint of her being dead, killed, just killed!
When the Irishman didn’t answer, Alex bellowed, “Have you seen her? Did you hurt her? If you—!”
“Wha’d’ya think I am? A bloody wanker who hurts defenseless women?” the imbecile hissed, like he was the offended one.
“Yesssss! You’re a bloody bastard!” Alex hissed back, taking a step forward, needing to choke the shit out of this Irish moron to get the answers Kelsey needed to live. “Where is she?”
“I didn’t shoot her. If you hurt me, she dies. Stay back,” the blithering idiot proclaimed, his hands still up like the coward he was, his clean shiny boots moving him farther into the shadows and away from Alex and the beatdown he had coming.
Alex froze. How’d this guy know Kelsey’d been shot? Alex hadn’t told anyone but Bates. The urge to attack lifted Alex’s hackles, but logic prevailed. No sense driving this moron away. He wasn’t the mastermind behind this new development. Definitely not the shooter. He hadn’t the nerve or the intellect. Now was not the time to lose his temper. Kelsey deserved better, and if this guy was to be believed—ifbeing the key word—she was, at least, alive.
“Where. Is. She?” Alex asked again.
The Irishman dug into his jacket again and pulled out a cell phone. With a toss, he sent it flying in an arc over Alex’s head, high enough he had to stretch to catch it. When at last he had it in his hand, he looked back at the man. The bastard was gone.
Alex bolted forward, pissed he’d lost his one link to Kelsey. The damned phone in his hand rang. By then, he was on the trail that, at his left led to camp, at his right led into the darkening forest. No sound of a vehicle. No sound of anyone running away. Which meant the Irishman might not be as stupid as he appeared. Which made sense. Whoever was behind this attack had planned well. Maybe all they wanted was ransom. Too bad. All they’d get from Alex was dead.
He hit the answer button, lifted the phone to his ear, and spat, “What?”
“Ah, Alex. Alex Stewart. So good to finally hear your voice,” a cultured but definitely male voice purred. His Irish brogue wasn’t thick, just enough to be noticeable. Hell, it might’ve been fake. Alex was too angry to care. “Hope that little love tap I gave you hasn’t caused much trouble. You are still alive, aren’t you? You can breathe well enough to converse, right?”
“You shot my wife!”
“Tsk, tsk. Such hostility in the face of infinite wealth and power.”
“Where is she? Where’s my wife?”
