~*~
It wasn’t smart to smoke and work on gasoline-powered machines, but Aidan had to light one cig after the next: the only thing keeping him sane. He’d wanted to get trashed last night and sleep all day. Instead, he’d gone to bed, awakened, and clocked in ten minutes early. Baby coming. That meant he had to work regular hours and earn his full paycheck. It meant he couldn’t sit around and feel sorry for himself about Sam.
Even if he wanted to scream and howl.
She hadn’t returned any of his calls, but he kept calling. Voicemail after voicemail. “Baby, call me back, please. I want to talk to you.”
He worked with furious focus, the tools clattering loudly onto the concrete as he set down one and picked up another. He almost didn’t notice Tango leaving, but caught a flash of white that was his friend’s shirt and glanced that way.
Tango was pulling a hoodie down over his garage shirt; he’d washed the dirt and grease off his hands, and when the hoodie was in place, he tidied his hair.
“Going somewhere?” Aidan asked.
Tango wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Lunch.”
Aidan didn’t have any patience at the moment. “Another of those long lunches, clear across town?”
“You worry about your own long lunches.”
This wasn’t normal, them sniping at one another.
“Do what you want,” Aidan muttered, turning back to his bike.
“I will,” Tango said, more defiant than he’d ever been, and walked out of the garage.
~*~
“You shouldn’t be going off on your own so much,”Ghost had told him a few weeks ago. Tango figured the sternness in the man’s voice had more to do with his destination than his solitude. So for a while he’d tried to sneak away, tried to make up excuses, tried not to be away for too long.
But something had snapped inside him on Halloween, one last tiny bone in his heart giving way, and he just didn’t care anymore. Let them talk, wonder, and worry. He was fast running out of the ability to give a damn. About anything.
He traveled through the heart of the city and toward Ian’s high rise at a reckless clip, changing lanes, weaving, the wind scraping his face raw.
He was turning right on a red light when he spotted the car tailing him. Black Caddy, like Maggie’s, but newer. It followed him through two turns. After the third, he got concerned. He took a detour, swooping down a narrow side street.
The Cadillac followed.
Okay, time to ditch whoever this was. He cranked the throttle and swerved hard right into the next turn, down a small street, gunning for the intersection ahead.
When asked later, he’d have the most distinct memory of the black Escalade rolling across both lanes up ahead, blocking him. It was then that he remembered Ghost’s words, and that he was wearing his colors…and that Ellison’s crew drove Caddies.
Twenty-Five
Whitney Howard clicked the Shut Down icon on her computer screen and felt her pulse scatter. It was official now. All afternoon, as the seconds clicked excruciatingly past on the white face of the clock above the water cooler, she’d been able to pretend that this evening was a bad dream, and nothing more. The day had dragged, and she knew her smiles had been brittle. Karen and Jill in the neighboring cubicles had bitten at their lips and given her curious glances, knowing something was wrong, but too polite to pressure her. They were just acquaintances, here at work, and not true friends.
But suddenly, her computer screen went blank, there was nothing else to do at her desk, andthis was happening. This. Her fool’s errand.
Her palms were slick; her breathing was erratic. She swore she felt the fat bundle of cash, solid and heavy as a brick weighing down the purse in her lap.
Her gaze slid to the framed photo beside her computer. Her brother, Jason, his cute, plump wife, Madelyn, and their two girls, Charlotte and Ashley. Jason was tan and lean and handsome in the picture, on that May afternoon three years ago, at the barbecue where Madelyn had tried to set Whitney up with a dull-faced coworker. Three years – before the car accident, before the pain pills…the heroin. Before Jason had flushed his entire life down the john.
Jason was the reason for the cash in her purse, her entire life savings – which was fairly impressive for a twenty-year-old paper pusher, if she said so. Jason was the reason for the phone call she’d received two days ago: “You have forty-eight hours to come up with the cash your brother owes me, or I’ll start sending him home to his wife in pieces.”
What could she do? She had no parents, no husband, no children…not even a cat at home. And Jason had a family who depended upon him…even if he was a junkie. She’d made peace with that, finally, whispering the word to herself.Junkie. Her brother was a junkie, and he was going to be hacked to bits if she didn’t take money to the address the man on the phone had given her.
Whitney pulled in a deep breath and got to her feet. Her legs almost gave out, weak as water with nerves. But she made herself walk down the row of cubicles and hit the elevator button.
“Heading out?” Mark asked, appearing beside her, making her jump. “Whoa, you okay?”
