Evan Arden 05 Irrevocable (32 page)

Becca doesn’t approve of anyone we’ve checked out to help her.  She had dismissed each and every applicant with one excuse or another.  Some of them were good, too.  They checked out but not enough for her tastes.

There is some good new though.  Alina gave me a bottle of stinky skin softener and swore it would get the Soccer Mom sticker off the Camaro’s bumper.  And damn if she wasn’t right!  The stuff gets the bumper clean but leaves me smelling like a whorehouse.  It takes two showers before the scent leaves my skin.

I’m trying to keep myself occupied, but all I really want to do is find a nice, high place on a building and take a few potshots.  When Alina is around, she keeps me busy with making a thousand changes to the apartment to make it homier.  I told her she could do whatever she wants, but she insists on my opinion about everything.  Currently, she’s off running some errands while I play with the dog to keep my mind off everything else.

“What?  You need some kind of reward just to bring me something?”

Maisy tilts her head at me, and the expression on her face as she cocks her ear makes me chuckle.  I hold up the treat, and she sits down, staring at me intently.  I’m determined to teach her to fetch, but nothing seems to work.  I’m used to dogs who are natural retrievers, and this ball of fluff just isn’t.

“Get it!”  I toss the little rubber ball again, and it stops just a few inches from her feet.  She sniffs at it, and I give her a treat.  “Good girl!”

I do this a couple more times until she finally picks the ball up.  I rub her, give her more treats, and generally fawn over her until she’s ready to try again.  It takes several tries, but eventually she’s at least going and getting the ball.  She won’t bring it back or give it to me afterward though.  Instead, she tries to bark with the ball in her mouth, and I have to laugh at the effort.

I hear a text come through on my phone, but it’s out of my reach.  Maisy’s got the ball, and as she comes up for her treat, she drops the ball at my feet.  I give her a bunch more praise, the phone forgotten, and do it all over again.

My phone dings again, but I don’t want to stop the game.  She’s finally starting to get the hang of it.  She’s dropped the ball twice now for treats.  I just need to get her to actually bring it closer to me.  By the time the phone goes off for the third time, she’s actually managed to bring the ball back to me twice.

“All right,” I tell her.  “Break time.”

She stays right at my feet, ball in her mouth, and stares up at me as I walk over to the kitchen island to retrieve my phone.  The texts are from Alina.

Need to talk NOW

Don’t want this in text—must talk

Trying to get where I can call you.  Are you there?

Scowling at the phone, I type back a quick message.

I’m here.  What’s going on?

I stare at the phone, willing a response.  There’s a tickling feeling on the back of my neck, and I don’t like it.  Allina hasn’t proven herself to be much of a texting person—she usually just calls—and the tone of the messages has me concerned.  When I don’t get a response within a couple of minutes, I call.

No answer.  I go back to texting.

Answer the damn phone now!

Still no answer.  I call again and again.

Nothing.

My skin goes cold, and I quickly dial another number.

“What’s up LT?”

“Trace Alina’s phone now.  I need to know where she is.”

“Alina?”

I realize I haven’t said anything at all to Eddie-boy about Alina, and he has no idea who I’m talking about.

“My girlfriend!” I yell into the phone.  I rattle off her number and her carrier and tell him to get on it as I run for the door.  I call Jonathan on my way down to the parking garage.

“I think Alina’s in trouble,” I say as I jump into the car.  I take off down Michigan

“That’s your hooker?”

“Yeah.  She was texting me, but now she isn’t answering.”

“Maybe she’s taking a shower or something.”

“No.  Something is wrong!  Eddie’s tracing her phone, but she’s supposed to be at her apartment, turning in her keys and whatever.  I’m heading that way now.”

“Want me to meet you?”

“Yes.”  I give him the address.

“You got it, boss.”

I slow down to turn, curse at a red light, and then get moving again.  Alina’s apartment isn’t all that far, but the more I think about her messages, the more panicked I become.  I have no idea what’s going on with her, and I fear the worst.

A couple of minutes later, the phone rings.

It’s Alina.

“Where the fuck are you?” I scream into the phone.

“I’m just a couple of blocks from your place,” she says quietly.

Growling, I immediately turn around and start heading back in the other direction.

“Why didn’t you answer?”

“I didn’t want them to hear me!”  I can tell she’s crying.

“Who?”

“Teto and some other guy.  They were outside the apartment when I was leaving.  I heard them, Evan.  I heard them talking about you.”

“What guy?”

“I’ve never seen him before.”

“What are you doing up this way if you were at your apartment?”  None of this is making sense.

“They were taking the bus.  I think they are looking for you.  I followed them.”

“You followed them?”

“I think they’re going to try to kill you, Evan!”

“Where are you exactly?”  I try to breathe deeply and keep my voice calm.

“Just off of Lake, the Walgreens near Atrium Mall.”

“Stay there.  I’m heading your way.”

My phone beeps with another call.

“Don’t you move!”

“I won’t.”

I switch calls, and Eddie-boy is on the other line.

“I got her near Lake and LaSalle.”

“I just heard from her, and I’m heading that way.  Meet me there.  Follow her signal.”

“Will do, LT.”

There is nowhere to park on the street, and I end up pulling up by a fire hydrant on the corner of Lake and Clark, across from the Walgreens.  Let them fucking tow the car; I don’t care at this point.  I just need to see her and make sure she’s all right.  I’ll deal with Teto and the mystery man later.

I find her fairly quickly.  She’s right where she said she would be, partially hiding behind a display of energy drinks.  The relief I feel seeing her unharmed washes over me as she runs to me and wraps her arms around my neck.

“I’m so glad you’re here!” she says, crying against my chest.

“It’s all right, baby,” I tell her.  “It’ll all be okay.  Just tell me what happened.”

“I was turning in my key and saying goodbye to Loretta,” Alina says.  Her eyes are red and swollen as she looks up at me.  She’s obviously terrified.  “I’d just picked up the last of my mail when I saw Teto.  I was going to say hello to him and let him know what was going on, but he was talking to someone else.”

“What did the guy look like?”

“Tall and blond,” she says.  “He was wearing a suit and dark glasses.  I thought it was a little weird because it’s so overcast today.”

I nod.  It’s very possible the man she described is Joshua Taylor.  My heart beats faster.  Could he really be right in this area?  It’s the first lead I’ve had on his location, even if it is a rather flimsy one.

“Go on.”

“I got closer, and I heard them say your name.”  She rushes her words together as she speaks, and I can barely understand her.  She clings to my shirt with a death grip that whitens her knuckles.  “I stopped in the doorway and listened.  The guy was asking if Teto had seen you, and he said you used to come around, but now you had…well, you had me now, so he hadn’t seen you.  The other guy…he said you’d gone too far, and that you weren’t going to be running things much longer.  He wanted Teto’s help getting to you, and he gave him a large envelope.”

She stops and takes a big breath.

“He’s going to try to kill you, Evan!”

“It’s all right,” I say.  “I’m here, and I’m fine.  Just tell me what happened next.”

“I followed them,” she says.  “I didn’t want Teto to hear my voice, so I tried to text you, but you didn’t answer.  I followed them to the bus stop.  They didn’t see me get on with them, but I still couldn’t call you.  They got off around the corner.”

She takes another deep breath and looks over my shoulder at the door.

“Are they still around here?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” she says.  “I thought Teto might have seen me, which is why I ducked in here.”

The bell on the door rings, and Alina jumps.  It’s Eddie-boy.

“He’s with me,” I say as I wave him over and tell him what Alina just told me.

“It has to be Taylor.”

Eddie-boy nods in agreement.

“You think he’d try something out in the open?”

“No idea.  I can’t imagine he’d do something here in public though.”

I grab my phone out of my pocket and call Jonathan.  He’s still twenty minutes away from us.

“Take Alina back to your place,” I tell Eddie-boy.  “I don’t want her near my apartment until I catch up with these guys.”

“No, Evan!”  Alina starts to protest, but I cup her face in my hands and silence her.

“This is my business,” I tell her.  “You don’t question me on this.  You just do what I tell you.  You’re going with Eddie-boy where you’ll be safe.  Jonathan is on his way here, and I need you out of the way.  Capisce?”

She nods slowly as a tear drips from the corner of her eye.  She’s still gripping my shirt, and I have to pry her fingers from the fabric before I can wipe the tears away and hand her over to Eddie-boy.

As they walk out of the store, a text from Jonathan arrives.  He says he’s stuck behind an accident on Lake Shore Drive.

“Fucking awesome.”

I go over the story Alina told me as I walk back out to the street and start looking around for obvious meeting spots.  The little restaurants and bars in the area don’t seem ideal, so I walk a couple of blocks further down to the bus stop where Alina last saw Teto and the blond guy.

That creepy being-watched feeling crawls through my skin.  I look all around me, trying to decide if the feeling is based on instinct or paranoia.  If Teto and Taylor are looking for me, they are more likely to be heading for my apartment, but why get off the bus here?  There is a much closer stop to my building.

They must be meeting someone else, but who?  Junko?  Omarie?  Is Landon Stark going to suddenly appear out of the woodwork after his post-tournament disappearance?

I pull out my phone and call Bastian.

“What’s up, bro?” he says with a laugh.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” I tell him.  “Do you have any contact with Landon Stark?”

He’s quiet for a moment.

“Not for some time,” he finally says.  “I’ve seen him once since the tournament, and it wasn’t a very pleasant encounter.  As far as I know, he moved out of the country.  I don’t think he even speaks with anyone in Seattle anymore.”

“Any chance he’s here in Chicago?”

“None,” Bastian says.  “He cut his losses and got out of the business.  Why?”

“One of his former associates is stalking me.”

“Which one?”

“Joshua Taylor.”

“Oh, yeah?  I know him.”

“What do you know?”

“He used to train with me,” Bastian tells me.  “If you ask me, he wasn’t all that great at it or anything, but he tried.  Landon kept him around as a backup, but he didn’t like him much.  Thought he was too cocky.  Josh always wanted a bigger cut, but he just wasn’t worth it, ya know?”

“Yeah, I know the type.”

“He had a brother, too, but I think he got killed or something.”

“I heard that as well.”  I grin to myself but don’t say anything more about it.

“If you’re thinking Landon is working with Josh Taylor, I’d say no.  I didn’t like the guy.”

“Thanks a lot for the intel,” I say.  “I gotta run.”

“So, you only going to call when you need fucking information?” Bastian asks.

“You’ve never called me at all.”

“Touché,” he says with a laugh.

“So, how’s the fam?”

“Ha!  Nah, you don’t get off that easy.  Next time we talk, it better be personal.”

“It’s always personal.”

“Later, bro.”

“Later.”  I hang up and fit his information into what I already know about Taylor.

He’s greedy—that much is obvious.  Since he was working with Beni, he must have had his eye on more of Rinaldo’s business profits.  Beni must have promised him a stake in the business, based on the assumption that Beni would marry Lucia and end up in control.  When that didn’t happen, and Beni died for his betrayal, Taylor must have resorted to another plan.

But what is the plan?  Just kill me?  Does he think it will be that easy to take over?