Rosa edged to one side and with a swift movement veiled by the shadows launched the turnip so hard and fast it careened from the side of Maguire’s skull with a loud crack.
Maguire, stunned, buckled as his knees gave way. Before his body hit the ground, Rosa was there, an arm around his neck, knife held to his throat.
“Is this your idea of loyalty?” she asked the suddenly silent crowd. “Are you all cowards? Not a man among you ready to fight the bastards who killed your comrades?”
The men stirred, a few having the good grace to look sheepishly at the ground. But there was just Rosa and two of her men between them and an end to their war—at least that’s what Maguire had promised them. After being half-drowned, almost dying for a crown they served reluctantly, who was this girl to stand between them and freedom?
A few stood, towering over Rosa. Paddy glanced at her men who stood beside him. Both remained relaxed, one of them chuckling as he handed a jug of wine to the other. Did they not realize how dangerous his shipmates were? Perhaps they didn’t understand English?
Paddy stepped forward into the light to stand beside Rosa. She glanced at him, assessing his threat then dismissed him to focus on the others. Maguire moaned and squirmed in her grasp until she tightened her grip, angling her knife against his jugular. He froze, his eyes dilated with fear, gleaming in the lamplight.
“I will not keep you here,” Rosa continued. “Even as my men and I risk our own lives to save your comrades before the Vichy swine sell them to the Nazis. I will not threaten, I will not ask you to stay and fight with us. We do not fight alongside cowards and traitors. You are all free to go.”
She threw her arms open, releasing Maguire with a shove that sent him sprawling into the laps of the men before him.
“Now?” an anonymous voice came from the crowd. “Into the storm?”
“With no food or water?”
“Or map? We’ve no idea where we are.”
“Come on, mates,” cried another. “Forget this French bitch. We’ll make our own way.”
“There’s sure to be provisions in the farm house,” another said. “Look around. They obviously had a good harvest.”
“Not to mention weapons, clothing.”
“Women,” another suggested, his tone jovial.
“Why wait?” Maguire said, spinning to face Rosa. “Why not start with this wench?”
Rosa stood straighter, her smile an unpleasant sight that sent the hairs on the back of Paddy’s neck tingling. He couldn’t believe these were the men he’d served side by side with, now talking rape and pillage of the very people who had just saved their lives.
“So, now, you’d be contemplating raping this girl, Jimmy Maguire?” Paddy demanded. “And what would your good wife and your own daughter say to that, do you think? Your gal, she’s what, eleven? Wouldn’t she be proud of her da? And you, Donald Kraven, wasn’t it you who told me how thankful you were that your ole mam was being taken care of by neighbors while you were gone? You’d repay the charity of these who risked their lives to save yours by turning on them?” He strode forward, positioning himself between Rosa and the crowd. “I’m ashamed to know any of you, talk like that.”
“You’ve no love of the English yerself, Paddy Hart,” Maguire said. “Why should we risk our lives to save a bunch of officers? We didn’t sign on to fight nobody’s war.”
“Then do as the girl said. Take your leave. But you leave here and now and without a fuss, hear me?” Paddy held his arms out wide, fists bunched, making himself appear bigger. One man against thirty; wouldn’t be much of a fight, but it would give Rosa and her men time to get up the ladder and escape.
The ladder behind him creaked as someone climbed it and rapped on the door hidden in the barn’s floor. A few minutes later, a gust of night air blew into the cellar. The men cowered, raising their arms high in surrender.
Paddy glanced behind him and saw why. While he’d been chattering on, trying to reach the numbskulls with his gift of gab, Rosa had taken a far more practical approach. She’d sent her men up the ladder and out into the barn while she climbed onto the upended bushel of turnips. In her hand she held one of the kerosene lanterns aloft. Not to light the low-ceilinged cellar draped in shadows. Rather, she gripped the lantern by its base, ready to hurl it into the huddle of suddenly silent men.
“You,” she nodded to Paddy. “Padraic Hart. You go. Now.”
Paddy backed up until he was against the ladder. “Don’t do anything rash. They’re just exhausted, scared. Give them a night and they’ll be right.”
“Go,” she repeated, never glancing his way, her gaze focused on the men.
“No. I’ll stay with my mates.”
That earned him a glare. He stood, his bulk blocking her own exit. Above him her men called down, asking if she wanted help, but she waved them off. “You come with me. Hostage. You behave, nothing happens to them. They behave, nothing happens to you.”
Clever girl had an answer for everything. Up close, the lamplight making her features glow, he finally realized how young she was—and how absolutely fearless. He stepped back, giving her a courtly bow—the product of the nuns’ class on deportment—and gestured his surrender.
“
Mais oui, mademoiselle
. I am at your command.”
“STAY WITH DENISE,
the kids,” Drake told Jimmy as he headed to the door. If Kasanov was a federal problem, then he sure as hell was getting the feds and all their resources on board. A personal appeal would be more effective than a phone call. “They’re safe. Keep them that way.”
Unlike his own family. He had no idea why Kasanov had chosen his family as targets or what he wanted from Drake. But one thing Drake was certain of: Kasanov wouldn’t live to see the inside of a courtroom if he touched Hart or Muriel.
He’d spent eleven years of his life working to rebalance the scales of justice, to bring some semblance of sanity to the chaos that threatened to drown the world. His father before him had spent over twenty years doing the same thing, died on the job while chasing down a petty thief who’d stolen thirteen dollars and change.
Kasanov had taken much more than that from Drake. And Drake would sacrifice everything he believed in to see Kasanov rot in hell—even if Drake ended up there alongside him.
The certainty burnt like frozen steel twisted in his gut. Cold, hard, implacable truth.
Denise circled her arms around Jimmy’s waist before releasing him with a quick peck on the lips. “We’ll be fine,” she said. “Meet us back home.”
Drake heard the undercurrent in her voice and knew what she meant—she wanted her
entire
family home and safe. That included Hart. And Drake. He wasn’t as good at hiding his emotions as he thought if Denise was assigning Jimmy to him as a watchdog.
Jimmy rubbed his cheek along her head, mussing her sleek, blond hair. Then he stood straight and stepped away. “Come on, partner.”
“Wait!” Tessa’s voice commanded them from the top of the stairs. “I need to talk to you, Drake.”
Drake sighed. The old woman was a dear friend but he had no time for her rambling stories and homilies. Not while a madman held his mother and Hart. “I’ll be back,” he assured her.
She frowned as if listening to an unheard inner voice. “All right then. But don’t wait too long.” They started through the door and she called out. “And bring Cassandra with you!”
Drake paused, his shoulders hunching against Tessa’s tone of certainty. It was too painful to hope he’d get either Muriel or Hart back at all, much less in a condition to go on social calls. Almost easier to imagine them already dead—to start accepting, preparing against the harsh reality.
He was a cop, had seen it all. There was no way they were alive, he told himself as he stumbled out the door. Each word struck like a bullet, bouncing off the newly forged steel in his belly. He repeated them, tempering, hardening himself. Each word was also a promise—a vow that Kasanov would pay dearly.
“Don’t give up on Hart, kid.” Andy’s voice startled him. The ex-cop stood up from where he waited on Tessa’s porch swing. “She’d tell you never to give up—Lord knows she never gave up on you.”
Drake stared at his friend, his father’s old partner, the man who had first trained him to be a cop. Where had this sudden optimism come from? What happened to the cop whose first words of advice to his rookie partner had been, “You can’t take everything to heart. Learn to let it bounce off like you’re wearing Kevlar on the inside. You take it home and you won’t be long for this job or this world, kid.”
Pretty much the way Drake’s father had handled the trauma of the job. Probably why he died of a heart attack at such a young age.
Words failing, Drake shook his head at Andy and continued on to his car. He didn’t have time for philosophy right now, couldn’t spare the energy for hope.
Then a woman’s voice came to him.
Life is hope, love is faith
.
He almost dropped the keys as he whirled. Hart’s voice, whispering something her gypsy grandmother had once told her. He looked around, ready to cry for real this time. Christ, she’d sounded so close, so real—was he losing it?
Or was she already dead? Haunting him? Hart believed in things like that, thought Rosa’s ghost lived with her.
“You want me to drive?” Jimmy asked from the opposite side of the car. Drake merely shook his head, still stunned. She was dead. No, she couldn’t be dead, not Hart. She was dead. No. Never. The debate roared in his mind.
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
That was Muriel—how many times had he heard that from her? Before every algebra test that he’d spend all night cramming for, every time the phone rang in the middle of the night when his dad was on the streets, that awful sun-filled spring day when the doorbell had rung for real, giving her the news of Drake Senior’s death.
That’s when he realized they were together. Which meant Hart would protect Muriel, with her life if need be. Together, they had a chance of making it out of this alive.
Drake opened the car door just as a uniformed officer he didn’t recognize came running up. “I’ve got a witness,” he panted, pointing down the street to the house on the corner. “Two black Town Cars. The older woman was taken in one that headed east and the lady in the wedding dress was in the second. They headed north.”
Jimmy moved to intercept the officer as Drake slumped against the car. So much for hope.
He fell into the driver’s seat. The Mustang rocked as Jimmy added his weight to the passenger side. He felt Jimmy’s gaze on him but kept his own eyes locked forward, not acknowledging his partner’s look of concern. Jimmy said nothing; what was there to say? They both knew the statistics, both knew how these things usually ended.
Drake prayed they were alive, but in the meantime, he was insulating his heart in Kevlar. Getting ready to sell his soul to the devil. Because what did being a cop, what did anything matter if Kasanov killed the women he loved?
<<<>>>
AFTER WHAT SEEMED
like hours, the car came to a stop. But no one moved to release Cassie. She heard muffled sounds beyond her prison inside the trunk but could make out no words. Then there was silence and she feared they’d left her to die.
She fought to hold the panic at bay, retreating to her favorite childhood memories, and when those didn’t work, she relived, minute by minute, second by second, every moment she could remember with Drake.
Finally, the trunk lid flew open and a blinding light stabbed her eyes. Rough hands reached inside and hauled her out.
Her legs were frozen, asleep from their cramped position. Two men, neither older than twenty, placed her on her feet then removed their hands, laughing as she tumbled onto a concrete floor, unable to catch herself with her hands bound behind her back. She ignored their laughter, blinking hard, trying to focus her mind and her body.
Cassie took inventory. Her mouth was parched, her bladder full, left arm numb from the elbow down, right hand with a painful tingling in it, both legs spasming beneath her.
Equipment and hydraulic lifts surrounded her. She was lying on a grease-stained floor of an industrial garage. What time was it? How long had she been trapped in the car?
She jerked her head up. Where was Muriel?
“Muriel,” the name scraped out her throat, her voice rough as gravel.
“Mrs. Drake will not be joining us at this time.”
Cassie twisted her body to face the direction the voice had come from. Twenty feet away, Kasanov sat on a leather club chair, his tailored suit draping his body in silk, a cigar in one hand and a sapphire-colored bottle of water in the other. Cassie’s eyes riveted on the water, following it as he nonchalantly set it on the small table beside him.
They were inside a large service bay designed for several vehicles, including pits beneath hydraulic hoists; chains dangling from pulleys overhead, ending in heavy, metal hooks; and racks of tools. The only vehicle was the Ford she’d arrived in. There were four garage doors, all closed, one exit door at the far end of the bay, and a door behind Kasanov’s chair that appeared to lead to an office and customer reception area from what she could see through the window beside the door.
“I would expect you’re quite thirsty by this time, Dr. Hart. Would you like some water? I have it imported from Switzerland. It’s quite refreshing.” He dangled a second bottle like a dog biscuit.
Cassie pushed herself up into kneeling position. Her left arm was now pins and needles, shooting darts of pain, but her legs were still useless, quivering masses of over-strained muscles. She bit her lip against the painful cramping in her thighs and tried to find enough saliva to swallow.
“Where’s Muriel?” She managed to not clamp down on the words as a spasm shot through her right leg.
“I assure you she’s perfectly safe. If you’re not thirsty, I’ll just pour the water out.”
If she’d been able to make any tears, Cassie would have cried as he twisted the cap off one of the bottles and tilted it. The life-giving essence dripped out slowly at first then in a stream, forming an oil-slicked puddle on the cement floor. The bottle empty, Kasanov let it drop to the floor, breaking it into thousands of shards of blue glass glistening in the harsh fluorescent lights.