One Forgotten Night Page 20

  “Can’t we just stay here?” Nina ventured.

  “Not for much longer. A few people know about this place. It used to belong to my partner—Jack Renzo, the guy I told you about.” Nina glanced at Mike’s face, but it held only a gentle sadness, not the wrenching misery she’d seen there when last he spoke of Jack Renzo. She thought that perhaps his deeply buried hurt had begun to heal, and she was glad.

  “He left it to me in his will,” Mike went on. “We used to come up here together to fish and talk about what hotshots we were.” His face and voice were remote and wistful, as if he were looking at something long ago and far away. Then his expression cleared and he returned to the present. His eyes were laser bright and sharp this morning. Everything about him radiated energy; he was like an athlete who had geared himself up to face a daunting challenge.

  “The point is, I could be tracked up here. We have to get on the road as soon as we can. But we’re not Bonnie and Clyde. We’re going to turn ourselves in to the authorities—but we have to do it in the right way, so that maybe we have a chance of being listened to. Although,” he added with more than a trace of grimness, “I don’t know how we’re gonna convince anyone that Irons and Duchesne are the bad guys. All we’ve got is my hunch. And your psychic visions.”

  “They’re real,” Nina insisted.

  “Yeah, maybe.” Mike didn’t sound convinced. He wasn’t relishing the prospect of trying to persuade Morris Hecht that Nina had had a vision of the future in which a senior FBI agent had tried to kill him. Hell, Hecht would probably be ready to kill him himself. But it had to be done.

  “I’m going to drive down the road to town and try to call Morris Hecht,” he explained. “He’s the chief of my detective division, and he’s known me for a long time. He’s not too pleased with me right now, but maybe I can make him listen to what we have to say. If I can just get him to raise the question of Irons’s guilt, or Duchesne’s, the feds will send some other officers in to clear it up, and we should be safe.”

  “Unless they discover that I’m part of the smuggling ring,” said Nina, not angrily or defensively but forthrightly, meeting Mike’s gaze.

  “We have to take that chance,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s true.”

  Nina’s heart flooded with gratitude. “Thank you,” she said, soft voiced.

  Mike shrugged into his leather jacket. “I’ll be back soon,” he said. “But, Nina...if something happens to me, you try to get in touch with Hecht. And make Armand Zakroff get you a damned good lawyer.”

  She ran to him and put her hands on his chest, feeling the strong and steady beat of his heart. “Nothing’s going to happen to you,” she said fiercely.

  He lightly kissed a cookie crumb away from the corner of her mouth. “Get cleaned up and ready to roll.”

  She nodded, and he slipped out of the cabin into the cool mountain morning.

  Nina stowed the remains of their meal in a trash bag and brushed her teeth at the sink. Then, shivering a little, she dropped her blanket and stepped into the shower.

  Mike had been right, she decided in the blessed, steamy heat of the water. Showered and with her hair washed and combed, she would feel a little better able to face the day. She had just turned off the hot water–reluctantly—when she heard Mike coming up the path. She grabbed a towel and headed for the door to greet him.

  The door burst inward with a rending crash, and a dapper, dark-haired man in a gray overcoat strode into the room. He was carrying a large gun. Nina recognized him at once.

  “Irons.”

  He raised his brows and smiled thinly. “I see you know who I am. Sorry about kicking in the door. Apparently—” and his eyes roved over her wet body, barely covered with the towel “—you weren’t expecting me.”

  “Where’s Mike?” Nina tried to sound brave, but she heard the quaver in her voice. She was afraid for herself, and she was right to be. The hard glitter in Irons’s eyes left her in no doubt about that. But she was even more afraid for Mike. “What have you done with him?”

  “Don’t ask questions,” Irons ordered, brandishing the gun. “Don’t say another word unless I tell you to talk.”

  She opened her mouth to protest—and then closed it again. Irons was watching her like a basilisk. “That’s right,” he said malevolently. “Do what I say. Believe me, nothing would please me more than having a reason to beat the crap out of you. You have no idea how much you’ve cost me. Now get dressed. Hurry.”

  Biting her lips to keep them from trembling, Nina turned her back on him and pulled on her clothes as fast as she could, shaking with rage and terror and shame. The only thing that kept her from breaking down was the thought that Irons was probably not at all interested in her nakedness; he had other things on his mind. That, and the hope that Mike was still alive and was calling for help.

  Keeping the gun aimed at Nina, Irons took a quick look around the cabin. “You may be wondering why I haven’t shot you already,” he said conversationally. “Don’t get your hopes up. I am going to kill you. But not here—bodies have the damnedest way of turning up, even if you bury them in the middle of the woods. And not with a gun that could be traced to me. So we’re going to take a little ride. You’re going to walk down the path and get into the back seat of my car. Don’t even think of trying anything. I said I wouldn’t shoot you. But I can hurt you so much that you’ll pray for a bullet.” The purr in his voice froze Nina’s blood.

  They walked down the path, golden leaves crackling underfoot. Nina stumbled once and heard a warning snarl from Irons, who was walking behind her. When they reached the car he said, standing well back from her, “Open the back door. Get in.”

  She followed his orders.

  “You’ll find a pair of handcuffs on the seat,” he continued. “Fasten one of the cuffs around the handgrip on the back of the front passenger seat. That’s right, now pull it so I can see that it’s fastened properly. Okay. Now fasten the other cuff around your wrist. Left or right, it’s your choice.” He smiled.

  Nina handcuffed herself and demonstrated that the cuff was snug.

  “Good girl. Now lie down on the seat.” Nina did so, and Irons slid into the driver’s seat and started the car. He turned and looked down at her. “You’re going to lie there and not make a sound until I tell you otherwise. Got it?” She nodded.

  Irons shifted gears and they drove off. Tears trickled down Nina’s cheeks and she struggled not to sob. She was pretty sure that Irons would classify crying as making a sound, and she didn’t want to know what he would do if she disobeyed him.

  * * *

  A long time passed—an hour or so, Nina guessed. Her right arm, held at an unnatural angle by the handcuffs that shackled her to the car, was beginning to ache. She focused fiercely on the physical pain, trying to blot out the fear that was lapping at her like a black sea. What would Mike do? Quelling the tears that threatened to flow again each time she thought about Mike, she told herself that he would stay alert and pay attention to what was happening. He’d want to gather as much evidence against this bastard as he could...just in case he ever had a chance to use it.

  They had traveled straight and fast, without any turns, since soon after leaving the lake. The interstate, Nina thought. Irons was probably heading back to Philadelphia by the most direct route.

  The car slowed. Irons pulled off the main road and eased to a stop. She could see part of the front seat through the gap between the bucket seats, and now she saw that Irons was dialing a cellular phone.

  “I’ve got her,” he said. “You know what we have to do now.”

  Then he said, “No, we’ll go in one car. Yours is too conspicuous, he won’t recognize this one. Meet me here. I’m at the rest area near mile marker 90 on the interstate.” I was right. At least I know where we are, thought Nina. It wasn’t much of a triumph, but she clung to it. “Leave this minute—we don’t have a lot of time,” Irons was saying. “Yes, of course I’ll tell her. I’ll do it right away.
And for God’s sake, don’t get stopped for speeding,” he added disgustedly. “I can’t get you off this time.”

  Irons clicked off the call and then punched in another number. “It’s me. No, nothing yet. I’ve got men checking the highways. You keep an eye on her place in town. I’ll get back to you in a couple of hours.”

  He hung up and turned to Nina. “We’re going to take a little rest here. As far as anyone knows, you’re asleep. Keep your eyes closed and stay quiet.” He took a silk scarf from around his neck and draped it over Nina’s arm, hiding her hand and the telltale handcuffs from the casual glances of anyone who passed by. The last thing that Nina saw before she closed her eyes was Irons pouring himself a cup of coffee from a Thermos.

  An hour and a half crept by, maybe longer. Time passed with agonizing slowness. Occasionally a car would pull into the rest area, and Nina would hear voices and laughter, or the patter of footsteps passing their car. Each time someone approached she felt a wild stab of hope. Maybe this time help was arriving. Maybe Mike had gotten through to Morris Hecht. Maybe every cop and state police officer in Pennsylvania was looking for Irons right now.

  One set of footsteps came closer and closer to the car. It could be Mike, coming like an avenging angel to tear Irons apart....

  The footsteps reached the car and the door opened. Nina’s eyes flew open. Julien Duchesne was climbing into the front seat. “Hello, darling,” he said with a sneer. “Surprised to see me again so soon? That was a cute trick you pulled at the airport,” he added viciously. “Who tipped you off? Your cop buddy?”

  “Shut up,” Irons said dispassionately. “Did you bring it?”

  “What do you think?”

  Neither man was looking at Nina now. Carefully, trying to move slowly and imperceptibly, she craned her neck and peered into the front seat. She saw that Julien was carrying an attaché case. He opened it and withdrew a metal strongbox. Glancing around to make sure that no one was looking at the car, he lifted the lid of the strongbox and showed its contents to Irons.

  Nina got a quick look inside the box. It was full of green fire: a fortune in emeralds. It was the very same box she’d seen during her vision in Armand Zakroff’s office. She remembered describing the vision to Mike, and now it had come true. She prayed that she’d have the chance to tell him about it.

  Irons saw her looking at the emeralds and drew his gun. Nina cried, “No!” and shrank back, as far from him as the handcuffs would let her go. He reached into the back seat and casually struck her hard across the side of the head with the barrel of the heavy gun. She crumpled onto the floor in a dead faint, dangling from the wrist that was still pinned to the back of Julien’s seat.

  * * *

  As he drove back to the cabin, Mike worriedly pondered his next move. He’d been unable to get in touch with Hecht. The station operator had said he was in a meeting. Had her voice been tinged with suspicion when she said, “Who is calling, please? Can I take a message?” Could they be tracing the call? Or was Mike just getting paranoid?

  He snarled in frustration. He knew that Nina would be expecting him to come up with some kind of salvation, and he didn’t want to watch her face fall when she realized that he had nothing to offer. The best he could think of was to call some trustworthy people he knew on the force and try to arrange a meet—

  Mike was out of the car and running as soon as he saw the open door of the cabin. He forgot that he no longer had a gun. He didn’t think about the fact that someone could be hiding in the cabin waiting to jump him. All he thought about was Nina. Oh, God, what’s happened to her?

  He knew at once that she’d been bushwhacked. The splintered frame of the kicked-in door told the story. He looked into the cabin, heart pounding wildly, and nearly fainted with relief when he saw that it was deserted. He realized then that he’d been expecting to find her body.

  Okay, so somebody snatched her, probably Duchesne or Irons. They’ve taken her somewhere, maybe to see how much she knew about the smuggling operation. Mike thought of Nina being manhandled, beaten, tortured.... Nightmare images of the hellish things he’d seen during his years as a cop swarmed into his mind. His fists clenched, the veins stood out on his forehead, and in a cold fury he swore a profane oath against David Irons and Julien Duchesne. Then he considered his options.

  He was already in deep trouble with the authorities. He knew that it would take time—lots of time–to convince Hecht or anyone else that he had a case against Irons and Duchesne. And time was just what Nina didn’t have. He pounded his fists against the wall. Damn it! Where would they have taken her? Back to Philadelphia? To some hideout where they could waste her?

  Mike hadn’t been gone long—not more than half an hour. So they couldn’t have much of a start. But the lake was just minutes away from a network of highways; they could be headed in any direction. He didn’t have a clue.

  Or maybe he did. “You’re crazy,” he said to himself. But he couldn’t just blow off what might be his only lead. Perhaps, just perhaps, the clue lay in Nina’s “visions.” Hadn’t she said she’d seen him fighting with Irons? Mike gave a harsh chuckle. Let him get his hands on Irons, and she’d see a fight, all right. But the fight hadn’t happened yet. If Nina were right about the visions—it was going to happen. What else had she said about it? Were there any clues about where this fight was supposed to take place? Her voice echoed in his mind: “rolling around on a wooden floor.” That wasn’t very helpful. There were a lot of wooden floors in the world. Maybe the fight was going to happen right here in the cabin.

  What about the other vision in which Irons had appeared, the first vision that Nina had had? Mike strained to remember the details. A blond man and a dark-haired man—Julien Duchesne and David Irons—in a “tiny room.” “And the room looked like it was moving,” Nina had said. An elevator? Then Mike remembered another of Nina’s visions, the one in which she’d seen Julien aboard his sailboat. Of course! The tiny moving room was a boat’s cabin, and the wooden floor was the deck. They must have taken Nina to Julien’s boat.

  Mike was halfway out the door when he realized what he was doing. He was pinning his faith—and maybe Nina’s life—on the reality of her psychic visions. He wished that she could know that he was finally taking her at her word. Crazy or not, he had to believe that she really had seen glimpses of the future. Because if she hadn’t, she might have no future left at all.

  Mike hurried back to town, back to the phone booth where he’d tried to call Hecht. He had one card left to play. He called the station house again—and got a different operator this time, to his relief. He asked for Officer Simms. The rookie cop had been on the street the night Nina was picked up after the shooting. He’d seemed smart and sympathetic. It was taking a chance, Mike knew, but it was the only way.

  Simms came on the line.

  “Don’t say anything for a minute, Simms,” Mike said quickly. “Just listen. This is Mike Novalis. I need your help. So does Nina Dennison—remember her?”

  “Where the hell are you, Lieutenant?” Simms hissed into the phone. “And what did you do? Hecht and everybody else is after your ass.”

  “Never mind where I am. Are you gonna help me or not?”

  “You’re suspended, man. And there’s a warrant out. I could lose my job right now for not turning you in.”

  “Yeah, I know. How about it?”

  Simms didn’t answer for a minute. Mike forced himself to wait while Nina’s life hung in the balance.

  Then Simms said in a low voice, “What do you want me to do?”

  “Julien Duchesne, one of the principals in that Zakroff and Duchesne business, keeps a boat somewhere down on Long Beach Island. The Diamantina, it’s called. There’re a dozen or so marinas there, and I need to know where that boat is. Fast. And without anybody finding out about it. Can you make a call to the shore police for me and call me back?”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Simms replied guardedly.

  “Okay, here’s the number.
Memorize it, don’t write it down. And step on it.”

  Mike went half-crazy, waiting in that parking lot for Simms to call him back. Every second that passed was carrying Nina farther from him. For the first time, he wished he were a smoker. Anything to give himself something to do. He didn’t even want to pace—he was wary of attracting attention to himself. So he sat in his car next to the phone booth and watched the second hand of his watch, trying not to think about what he’d shared with Nina last night. What he might have lost forever.

  It was a long, long five minutes before the phone rang.

  Simms delivered his information rapidly, in a low voice: “Duchesne keeps his boat at the Shore Haven Marina, just north of Harvey Cedars.”

  “Good job, Simms. Thanks.”

  “Good luck, man.”

  Mike hung up and climbed into his car. Fortunately he’d filled the tank earlier in the morning. It was a long drive to the New Jersey shore. He didn’t dare speed; he might be pulled over, and he wasn’t protected by his police status now. Every patrol car on the highway was probably looking for him, anyway. He’d be lucky not to get nailed.

  His luck held. He pushed it as much as he dared, sailing a few miles above the limit for most of the trip, and he didn’t get stopped. On the way he alternately cursed Irons and Duchesne in a low, vicious monotone and prayed that Nina was still alive.

  Mike had asked himself a hundred times if he loved this woman who had come into his life a scant two weeks ago. Now he knew beyond doubt that he did. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. He’d spent such a long time feeling dead and cold inside, and she had brought him back to life. She’d looked at him with her clear-eyed, courageous gaze, and she’d seen everything good that was left in him. He had despised himself, but she had shown him that he was worth loving. Then he reminded himself that she didn’t know everything about him. I wonder how she’ll look at me when she hears the whole story. He checked his watch again and gave the car a little more gas. He was finally ready to tell Nina the truth about himself—if it wasn’t too late.