One Last Chance. Justine Davis

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СКАЧАТЬ extra-brawny, he thought wryly. At two inches over six feet and a solid two hundred pounds he was hardly tiny, but these guys made him feel inferior.

      “Sorry, sir,” one of the bow-tied walls said with impeccable politeness, “no guests allowed beyond this point.”

      “Oh?” Chance tried to look surprised; actually he hadn’t expected to get this far. Meanwhile, his eyes were scouring the hallway, noting each door and the barely visible stairway at the end.

      “No, sir.” They were closing in, subtly urging him back toward the crowded main room.

      “Wait,” he said, grasping at a reason he told himself was only a cover. “I just wanted to see the lady, tell her how much I enjoyed her singing.”

      “Visitors aren’t allowed, sir.”

      “But I only wanted to see her—”

      “She sees no one, sir.”

      “No one?”

      “No one.”

      Chance shrugged, as if he were nothing more than a frustrated fan. “I guess I’ll just wait until she’s done, then.”

      “I wouldn’t bother, sir. She won’t see you then, either.”

      This was starting to irritate him. “Oh? Why not?”

      “She sees no one, sir,” the left bookend repeated. “Boss’s orders.”

      Something cold crept down Chance’s spine. “The boss?”

      “Mr. de Cortez.”

      “Does he own her, or what?” The chill had settled into a frosty knot in the pit of his stomach.

      “You might say that. He’s put her…shall we say, off-limits?”

      The “sir,” Chance noticed, was gone.

      “I’d say that’s for her to decide, isn’t it?”

      “She does,” the right bookend said warningly, “what Mr. de Cortez tells her to do.”

      That cold lump shifted, changed, spreading out with creeping tentacles, making him fight off a wave of nausea. That lovely vision with the huge eyes and the voice that could melt the most frozen of souls was involved with slime like Mendez?

      Get real, Buckner, he told himself fiercely. After all these years, you should know that the most innocent, most beautiful of exteriors often hides the darkest of hearts.

      “I suggest you return to your table.”

      Suggest? Chance almost laughed. He would have, if he hadn’t been reasonably certain it would get his arm broken. Realizing that any normal patron would have disappeared long ago, he shrugged and managed a careless grin.

      “Can’t blame a guy for trying, can you?”

      The bookends relaxed a little. “No, sir.”

      “You guys here every night?” he asked in a joking tone.

      “Yes, sir. Every night.”

      With an exaggerated sigh of surrender, Chance shrugged again. Then he turned and walked casually back into the room, wandering here and there, looking around, until the two wardens apparently decided he was harmless, and disappeared. Only then did he go back to the table.

      “So,” Quisto said as he sat down, “what’s her name?”

      “I was checking the hallway,” Chance answered in automatic protest.

      “Sure. What’s her name?”

      Chance’s mouth twisted in a wry grin. “I never got that far. Two of the those tuxedoed linebackers stopped me.”

      Quisto’s brow furrowed. “They hit you or something? You look a little green.”

      “No.” It was short, clipped. He wasn’t about to admit that the thought of the woman who had haunted him for days being connected—intimately—with someone like Mendez made him sick.

      “So what’s the story? Why’d they stop you?”

      He took in a steadying breath. “I gather she’s…private property.”

      Quisto’s brows shot up. “Oh? De Cortez?”

      “So it seems.”

      Chance could almost see Quisto’s quick brain working, reassessing, placing the vibrant gray-eyed woman in a new niche. A niche that was on the wrong side of the line that he had been walking for the past two years, and Chance for four. Four years that seemed like four centuries.

      “A shame,” Quisto said quietly.

      “Yeah.” There was a world of bitterness in the single syllable, and Quisto stared at him.

      “Chance—”

      “Three doors in the hallway,” he said abruptly, cutting his partner off. “Two on the left, one on the right. One’s got to be a dressing room of some kind. She disappeared too quickly to have made it to the stairs.” At least he knew she was real now. “Nothing’s labeled, but we know the office is upstairs. There’s a door at the bottom of the staircase. From the layout, I’d guess it opens into the alley.”

      “Lock?”

      “Not too tricky, but it’s rigged to the fire alarm. Have to take it out first.”

      “I’ll check it out. Just in case.”

      Chance nodded. “How many men you figure?”

      “Twenty, tonight. Let’s hope that’s just for the big opening. I wouldn’t want to have to deal with all of those clowns through this whole thing.”

      “I’d guess the two I ran into are permanent. I’ll check the pictures we got on Mendez—de Cortez’s crew from Florida, see if I can spot them.”

      Quisto nodded. He shifted in his chair to look around the room again, then turned back. For a moment he watched his partner, who sat staring at the roses on the table.

      “Red roses,” Quisto heard Chance mutter as he reached out and plucked a petal from one of the blooms.

      “I’m sorry about the lady, partner.”

      “Yeah.” The petal disappeared, crushed in a tightening fist. “Me, too.”

      Then, as if realizing what he’d admitted by that answer, by even acknowledging that he knew what Quisto meant, he shut down. His face became stiff and impassive, his voice cool.

      “Your turn. Why don’t you check for any other exits, or unexplained doors?”

      Reluctantly, Quisto went. He knew there wasn’t any point in arguing when Chance got like that. When he closed himself off, there was СКАЧАТЬ