Married To The Mob. Ginny Aiken

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      Okay. It wasn’t the nicest thing he’d ever done. But he was frustrated, they hadn’t taught him how to deal with this kind of witness at Bureau training, much less law school, and she took too much pleasure driving him nuts. He slammed the door shut the minute her rear hit the seat.

      And he had to keep her alive long enough to get convictions on her family and their dubious friends? He shook his head, rounded the vehicle, sat behind the wheel and peeled away, all without another word.

      While he drove in silent mode, he continued to fume. Now he had to call Eliza, his supervising Special Agent. Not something a man—anyone—in his right mind would want to do. But from where he stood, he had no choice.

      To be more accurate, Carlie had left him no choice. He didn’t know if he could keep her alive much longer. She refused to cooperate.

      The next light turned against him. He sat and watched seconds crawl by. At his side, Carlie began to hum.

      Dan hated humming.

      And everyone had always called him laid-back. He scoffed. They oughta see the man he’d become post-Carlotta Papparelli.

      She slanted him a look.

      He ignored it.

      The light turned green, so he drove on toward the safe house the Bureau had set up for Carlie in a massive, Lego block–type apartment complex.

      Moments later he heard the faint whee-uhn, whee-uhn, whee-uhn of an emergency vehicle approaching from behind. He glanced in his rear-view mirror. The cherry light on the roof of the squad car strobed closer by the second. Dan pulled over to the shoulder.

      “I hope no one’s hurt,” Carlie murmured.

      Dan glanced her way. She’d closed her eyes, clasped her hands in her lap. Her expression, for once, was serious, intent. Somehow he knew she’d begun to pray.

      Who for? The unknown—and only possibly injured—party?

      Strange.

      He merged back into the heavier-by-the-minute late-afternoon traffic. Carlie didn’t speak. Neither did he.

      Then sirens started up again. They approached from his right, so he eased up to the left shoulder. This time, an ambulance zipped up and rounded the corner. In less than three minutes, three more squad cars, an additional ambulance and two fire trucks raced by.

      “Must be big,” he murmured.

      “I’m afraid so,” Carlie answered, her voice softer and more serious than he’d heard it yet. She really wasn’t that bad.

      “I’m sorry.”

      She made a startled sound. “What for?”

      “I acted like a jerk back there. I didn’t need to slam the door on you.”

      “Thanks for the apology, but I’m not totally innocent either. I tend to have a smart mouth, and I gave you a pretty hard time. I know you’re trying to do your job, and I understand you want to keep me alive, but I’m not used to all these restrictions. Besides, if the Lord wants me home at His side, then I’m ready to go.”

      A chill went through Dan. “Don’t be so ready to croak, okay? You’re very young. You’ve a long life ahead of you. By the way, how old are you? I mean, I have all that information in your case file, but I don’t remember everything that’s in it.”

      “I prefer to keep that piece of data private.” A touch of humor came back into her voice.

      “Not for long. When I get back to my place tonight, you’ll be busted.”

      “I’ll take what scrap of privacy I can get these days.”

      With an air of comfortable companionship between them, they turned the corner three blocks away from Carlie’s apartment complex. As they approached, a nasty feeling took root in Dan’s gut.

      A hideous orange glow tinted the blue sky, and clouds of smoke spread and hovered on the light wind. Right over the complex.

      Dan slowed the car. At his side, Carlie caught her breath. His pulse pounded through him, throbbed in his temple.

      Every one of his internal alarms detonated.

      Which is what seemed to have happened to the structure, a detonation of some sort. All the emergency vehicles that had passed them no more than ten minutes earlier were lined along the backside of Carlie’s apartment building. A HAZMAT team had joined the party, too.

      That nasty feeling morphed into a ravening certainty. Still, he had to know. “You stay here,” he said. “And I mean it, Carlie. Don’t move.”

      She nodded, her eyes glued to the scene. Firefighters in their yellow suits ran around the trucks, some climbed the giant ladders, others helped people to the ambulances. Uniformed cops talked to a throng of civilians.

      Dan approached an officer. “What happened?”

      The woman turned to him and shrugged. “We’re not sure. That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

      A burly man in a white muscle undershirt and tan shorts walked up. “You wanna know what happened? I know what happened.”

      Officer Shenise Davis turned keen hazel eyes on the guy. “So tell me what happened, already.”

      “Easy there.” The guy’s bearded jaw pushed out. “Don’t get your feathers all ruffled up, you know?” He shook his shaggy head. “Kids! Anyway, there’s this blond broad who lives across from me, and either her gas line went nuts or something else did. All’s I know is the place went kaboom! The whole building shook like one of them California earthquakes. Smoke started to stink up my place, and I opened the door. Well, the babe don’t have much to go back home for—if she wasn’t home, know what I mean?”

      Dan knew. Too well.

      The walking, talking wealth of information ran a massive paw through the wild thatch on his head. “Either the explosion busted her place to pieces, or else the fire ate it all up.”

      Although sure he already knew, Dan asked, “What floor was this?”

      “Tenth, over in the middle section.” He pointed an arm heavy with dark hair. “See? The ladder’s up to the window to the right of the babe’s place. Mrs. Schulz is seventy-five. Sure, she’s got more vinegar to her than I got hair, but she can’t go running or nothing like climb down on her own. I figure they’re gonna have to carry her down….”

      Dan gave what he hoped the officer and the verbose bear read as a nonchalant shrug, then walked back the excruciating distance between him and Carlie. He got in the car, turned the key, then shot her a sideways look.

      “We’re outta here. Your friends and family came calling, and they left you a calling card. Of the exploding kind.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Don’t ask me where we’re going, because I don’t know. I have to call in, report this, check СКАЧАТЬ