Warrior Without A Cause
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She took a shallow breath and made herself meet his steady stare. She couldn’t let his sullen silent-screen-star looks distract her from what he was. He was a killer. A man who trained assassins for the government. A man so dangerous and beyond the laws she revered that she felt soiled just speaking to him. He had no respect for her cause or for honor; men like him never did. They had their own agendas, outside the rules that governed her world. But he was just the kind of man she needed to see those rules bent to her advantage.
“I’ve been threatened.”
Her simple statement had the impact of a ten-pound sledge. The evasive glassy look was gone from his keen gaze, replaced by a sharp understanding. “Is that verbal or physical?” He was studying her battered features, betraying no reaction to the sight. She forced herself not to cover the ugly reminders. Better he look and judge for himself.
“Both.” She didn’t care to go into more details with a stranger. He didn’t need to know that she lay awake at night listening for a telltale footstep, that if she was lucky enough to fall into a restless sleep, she always woke from it screaming and drenched in a sweat of dread. But he did need to know that the stakes were, as he’d said, serious.
“Just phone calls, lately. And I’ve been followed. Someone’s been in my apartment. More than once. The second time I walked in on them. A robbery gone bad, the police called it.” Her chin trembled slightly until she clenched her teeth. She could hear the voice whispering in the back of her mind and shook her head slightly to chase it away. Easy to do here in the light with noise and the companionable smells of coffee, grease and cigarette smoke to surround her. She fought to keep her own tone level.
“So far, it’s just a game of intimidation but I don’t like games with no rules, Mr. Chaney. I play to win. I always have. And to have any chance at all in this game, I have to be able to compete on their level.”
He made no comment on that, no judgment. “Do you have a gun?”
“No.”
“Get one.”
“I will. But when I do, I need to know that no one is going to take it away from me. I’ve been a victim once and I didn’t like it much. Next time they come for me, I want to be prepared. They hurt me and they scared me. And they killed my father. But they don’t know me. I’m not going to run and hide, Mr. Chaney. And I’m not going to give up. That’s why Stan sent me to you. I’m a sitting duck and I don’t want to be. Teach me how to protect myself so that I can see justice done for my father and see those who killed him brought to trial.”
Teach me how not to be afraid.
She didn’t have to say that. She knew he saw it in her face, in the shaky hands that nested the bottom of her coffee cup seeking the warmth she lacked inside. But would he do something about it?
Would he make it his fight?
“You’re wasting your time, Miss D’Angelo.”
His crisply spoken summation struck the wind from her lungs, the hope from her heart. For a moment she couldn’t respond, so he continued with that same detached calm.
“Go to the police. This is their job, not mine. I won’t give you any false confidence so you can go out and get yourself killed. I train professionals who are already without fear to do a job they have no illusions about coming home from. I don’t do Girl Scout camp. I’m sorry if Stan misled you.”
He didn’t look sorry.
He placed his hands on the table and started to rise. With nothing left to lose, she pulled out all stops.
“I don’t suppose it would do any good to speak to your innate sense of decency. Men like you can’t afford any, can they?”
A thin smile warped his lips. “No, ma’am. We’re not do-gooders like your father. We’re not flag wavers who think justice will always triumph. We know better. That’s why people like you always come to people like me. I have no illusions left.”
“I feel sorry for you, Mr. Chaney. How sad not to believe in anything worthwhile.”
“I believe Detroit will have another crappy year despite a new billion-dollar home field. I believe the new fall season on television will end up in early midyear replacements. I believe a man can spit in the wind and have a better chance of not getting wet than you’ll have in proving your father is innocent of the nasty things this paper says about him.”
“I believe you’re a coward, Mr. Chaney.”
“Then you would be right, Miss D’Angelo, if being a coward means never taking on a fight you know you can’t win.”
He gathered up his heavy coat and laid two wadded bills on the tabletop. He no longer bothered with eye contact. He obviously didn’t want to see her disgust.
“With or without you, I’m not giving up.”
“Good luck, Miss D’Angelo.”
And he was gone, just like that.
Tessa sat for a moment, struggling to take a decent breath. Now what was she going to do? All her bold statements blew apart like smoke in a sudden breeze when she thought of the darkened corners of her parking garage and the 2:00 a.m. ringing of the phone. There would be shadows and threatening silences. And she would experience, all over again, the crippling panic of being helpless.
To hell with Jack Chaney. He was about as useful as the Metro police. Both wanted to take the easy way out in spite of the very real danger she was in. So be it. Tomorrow she would buy a gun. And she would keep right on digging for the truth until someone stopped her with something more than whispers over the phone and footsteps in the dark.
With something more than a beating disguised to be a robbery.
It was cold outside. October bit with the force of January but she’d been cold even before she’d left the diner to traverse the near empty streets. When she’d arrived, the only space available had been three blocks away. Now, with the curbs abandoned and the sidewalks a wasteland of tumbling wind-tossed litter, it seemed like three miles.
Gripping her keys, she started down the walk, hurrying between the weak pools of light spilling out from liquor stores and places of dubious entertainment value. She didn’t look around but stayed focused on her goal: a lone silver Lexus promising warmth and protection with the turn of a key and click of a latch.
Footsteps.
Her own quickened in pace with her heart. She fought the fatalistic desire to turn around, to confront the skulking threat head-on. What kind of weapon was a car key gripped in a sweaty palm against the fear that banged within her breast?
The footsteps grew bolder, closer, more determined in their cadence. The urge to run the length of that last block twisted within Tessa’s belly and trembled down her legs. If she ran, there was a chance she would be pursued. Could she outrun whatever followed? Her breathing shivered noisily as she bunched her calves and cursed the heels she’d worn to impress Jack Chaney. Three inches of fashionable thinness. She might as well be on stilts.
Anxiety knotting through her, she held her coat together and readied to bolt for safety.
And just then, safety in the person of Jack Chaney separated itself from the shadow of her car ahead. A true professional, he’d checked her background to learn what she drove. He’d been leaning there, waiting for her. She didn’t have to listen to know there were no longer footsteps behind her. Intimidation was a solitary business, not one meant for an audience.
“This is a dangerous neighborhood for a lady alone at night.”
She smiled crookedly at his generic observation. “You have no idea.” She came to a stop in front of him and was momentarily surprised. She thought he’d be taller. He’d seemed like a veritable giant seconds ago. Nervously she risked a look over her shoulder.
“He’s gone.”
Her gaze jumped back to him. “Who?”
“We didn’t exchange names. I noticed him outside Jo’s and wondered who he was waiting for while trying so hard not to be seen. Shall I try to catch up to him?”
“No.” Her hand flashed out to fasten upon his coat sleeve just in case he might be serious about leaving her alone on the barren sidewalk. “It doesn’t matter who he was. I know what he was.”
Jack took the keys from her cold, cramped fingers and unlatched her door. He opened it for her and stepped aside as she slid in behind the wheel.
“Would you like me to follow you home?”
Yes!
She bit back that frantic cry and forced a competent smile. “I don’t think I’ll have any more problems tonight.” At least not until she closed her eyes. But what could she do? Ask him to sleep at the foot of her bed like a faithful watchdog? He’d already said in so many words that her problems were her own. “Thank you, Mr. Chaney, but I’ve taken up enough of your time.”
He didn’t shut the door on their conversation. He draped his forearms over it and gave her a long, assessing look before asking, “And how much of your time are you willing to spend to see this thing through?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“A day, a week, until the thrill rubs off and the work gets too hard?”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t think you have what it takes to take what I dish out.”
She stared up at him, hope crowding into her throat. She forced a steady stare so he wouldn’t know how close she was to believing what he said. Her words were heroic even though she quivered in frail doubt inside.
“I can take it.”
“Really? Day in, day out, until I think you’re ready? Not until you think you are? Do you have that kind of commitment, Miss D’Angelo? I run a boot camp, not a Club Med. What I do isn’t a trendy gym class in pseudo-self-defense for bored housewives. I’ll work you until you drop and push you until you beg for mercy.”
“I won’t beg, Mr. Chaney.”
Begging hadn’t helped her before.
Her fierce statement gave him pause. “Maybe, maybe not. But I guarantee it’ll be on your mind every minute. You’ll either cry uncle or I’ll shape you into something that will make them think twice before sneaking up on you in the night.”
“I want them to think twice, Mr. Chaney.”
“Then you think twice, right now, while you can. If you come with me, I’ll show you no mercy.”
“I’m in your hands, Mr. Chaney.”
His features tightened into a sudden impenetrable mask. “I don’t want you in my hands. I’ve got enough on my hands to last a lifetime. I’ll train you to survive, but no more than that. Don’t expect me to get involved in your cause.”
Tessa’s elation took a grounding nosedive. Jack Chaney was no hero come to rescue her. He was a tool for her to use in her own rescue.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Chaney, I know exactly what I can expect from you.”
He nodded once. “Good. Pack a bag. I’ll pick you up tomorrow at three. You’re going to camp.”
Chapter 2
Stan Kovacs looked worried.
As he watched Tessa pull the zippers up on her suitcase, his expression had all the forlorn characteristics of a droopy-faced basset hound.
“Stan, it was your idea,” she reminded him as she set the case by the door of her apartment. She tried not to notice the significance of the chains and new dead bolt locks. “If you didn’t trust him, why did you insist I call him?”
“Oh, I do trust him. With my ex-wife, my money, my life. But not necessarily with my best friend’s daughter. Chaney can be…”
“Difficult,” she supplied. “Yes, I know. But we’re not dating, Stan. I don’t care if he’s difficult. Just as long as he’s as good as you say he is.”
Stan’s features didn’t alter at his mournful reply. “Oh, he is. No doubt about that.”
She fussed with the tags on her luggage, trying to think of how best to broach the subject. “I know in your business you’ve met all sorts of rather unsavory people.”
“The dregs in the cup, so to speak,” Stan agreed.
“How did you meet Jack Chaney?”
He smiled thinly. “Long story.”
“The Cliff’s Notes version. How did you get tight with a mercenary?”
That did manage to rearrange Kovacs’s dour look. “What? Where did you get the idea that Chaney was a merc?”
“You.”
“Oh.” He glanced away sheepishly. “Guess I was trying to impress you or maybe scare you off from taking this particular path. Jack’s a lot of things but he’s not an indiscriminate killer.”
“So he’s the discriminating kind.”
“He’s the military kind. The Black Ops covert, no-record-of-his-name, disavow-all-knowledge-if-caught-or-killed kind. He’s worked in a lot of places I’d never want to visit. His call sign was Lone Wolf. That’ll tell you all you need to know about Jack Chaney.”
“CIA?”
“I’m sure there are some initials involved but I don’t want to know what they are. He’s no angel but he’s not the devil I obviously let you think he was, either. Sorry.”
“For letting me think that or because he isn’t?”
They shared smiles and a long silence. Realizing Stan had never exactly answered her question, which meant he had no intention of doing so, Tessa sighed.
“No matter his initials, I need him. And, Stan, I need you to keep on top of things while I’m gone. I can’t let the trail to the real killers grow even colder.”
“I plan to. I’m not giving up on your dad. He didn’t give up on me when he had every reason to.”
She touched his arm, eager to defuse his umbrage. “I never thought you would, Stan. Not for a second. I just want you to be extra, extra careful.”
His face relaxed into a grin. “Yeah, like a fat, ex-alcoholic is going to put the fear of God into Martinez’s men.”
“I’m just a girl and I worried them plenty.”
They both sobered. Stan nodded.
“I’ll be quiet as a mouse. They won’t even hear me scratching around.”
She squeezed his beefy forearm through the truly ugly sport coat. “Good. Keep me posted. See if you can find out what Martinez had on Johnnie O’ that was so bad he took jail time just to set up my father.” That was the part of the case that had convinced the police to look hard at Robert D’Angelo. Johnnie O’Casey, three-time loser and small-time drug pusher, hadn’t tried very hard to barter his way out of prison. He’d accepted the sentence and still named the district attorney as his accomplice. If saving his own worthless hide hadn’t been the motive, something else had triggered his sudden desire to name names.
The wrong names.
But for what price and who had paid the bill?
“I’ll look in on your mom, too.”
“Oh. Thanks, Stan. I’m sure Dad would want you to.” Her lack of enthusiasm implied that it wasn’t her priority. Stan simply nodded. He never intruded on their family dynamics even though Tessa could tell by the pursing of his lips that he wanted to.
A knock at the door had Tessa taking a quick, involuntary breath as Stan reached for the knob. A silly reaction. Did she really expect one of Martinez’s hired hit men to knock?
“Hey, Jack,” Stan greeted jovially. “How’s your dad?”
“Wondering when you’re going to stop over for a little five-card.” Jack Chaney stood in the hall looking dark and sleek and dangerous. Just the man she needed to see. Tessa released her breath in a relieved gust. She hadn’t been sure he’d go through with it. Take nothing for granted, her father had always told her.
Stan laughed. “I haven’t recovered from the last fleecing he gave me.”
“It’s your face, Stan. Your secrets are written all over it.”
Pleasantries exchanged, Chaney looked down at Tessa’s three-piece set of matched Gucci luggage without a blink. But he frowned at the sight of the cat carrier and the pair of glittering yellow eyes glaring out at him through the mesh door. Noting his disapproval, Tessa hoisted up the carrier, giving a defiant lift of one brow.
“Tinker goes with me. Love me, love my cat.”
A dark brow arched. “An interesting but unlikely suggestion.”
Wondering which part he found the most distasteful, Tessa stated, “I’m ready, Mr. Chaney.” She picked up the medium-size suitcase. “Can you get the other two?”
“Yes, ma’am. Your chariot is out front. It’s the Dodge Ram. Just toss your stuff in the back.”
Frowning to think he meant Tinker, as well, she was distracted by Stan’s quick hug and peck on her cheek.
“Behave,” he warned in a whisper.
“I will if he will.”
After Tessa started toward the stairwell, Stan confronted the younger man candidly.
“She’s tougher than she looks.”
“I hope so, for her sake.”
“You behave, too.”
Jack offered a lopsided smile. “Don’t I always.”
Stan rolled his eyes. Then the merriment was gone. “Watch over her, Jack. Keep her under wraps until I can find out if there’s any truth to what she’s saying.”
Jack gave a snort. “Or to what she wants to believe.”
“Somebody beat the hell out of her. I’m not willing to take any chances that it wasn’t just a coincidence.”
“You think her father is innocent, Stan?”
The P.I. frowned a minute then answered. “Right now, I don’t care. Rob D’Angelo is beyond their reach, but she isn’t. I don’t want anything else to hurt her, Jack.”
“What about the truth?”
“By the time I find it, she’ll be ready to hear it. Like I said, she’s tougher than she looks.”
Jack shrugged noncommittally. “If you say so.”
“What shall I tell anyone who asks about her?”
“Tell them she’s going to camp.”
“Saying your goodbyes to the old homestead?”
Tessa, who’d been staring up at the curtain-covered windows of her apartment, gave a start then a rueful smile. Saying goodbye to the sleepless nights, to the insidious terror that had her checking behind doors and under the bed in a manic cycle of fear? Good riddance was more like it. Whatever she was heading toward had to be better than that.
She suddenly realized that she didn’t want to return to the rooms with the upscale address she’d so proudly decorated with trendy furnishings that toted her independence. She now saw the shadowed corners of the second-floor rooms as a prison when they’d once represented her freedom. She couldn’t open the front door without seeing the glass glittering on the floor, without hearing the sinister whisper of her attacker’s voice.
No, she would never put her belongings back in that place where she no longer belonged.
For now, she was making her home with Jack Chaney. And after that…Well, she’d just have to improvise.
“Let’s go, Mr. Chaney.”
“Before you change your mind?”
She met his smug assertion with a cool glance. “Or you change yours.”
He opened the door for her to climb up into the four-wheel-drive vehicle, then scowled at the sight of the cat carrier on the floor of the passenger side.
“Not an animal lover, I take it.”
“Sure. I love them with gravy and potatoes on the side.” He shut her inside the truck before she could manage a curt reply.
Sticking her fingers through the wire grid, Tessa murmured, “Don’t mind him, Tinker. He’s just being…difficult.” A wet nose touched her fingertips in seeming agreement.
Chaney dropped behind the wheel and started the vehicle, provoking the engine into a series of coughs and grumbles. The smell of something scorching filled the cab.
“We could have taken my car,” she posed diplomatically.
“Your car is easily traced to you. Just swallow your pride and enjoy the ride.” He shifted and the beater shuddered away from the curb with a roar. “From now on, you’re officially undercover.”
And off the face of the known world, she mused, staring out the window as familiar scenery whizzed by. She let it go without regret.
“You never asked where we were headed,” her driver observed as he checked the crooked rearview before blending into freeway traffic.
“It doesn’t matter,” was her philosophical reply. Then, after a pause, she asked, “Where are we headed?”
“No place you could ever find on your own, even if a map existed. No man’s land.”
No woman’s land, she’d be willing to bet as she studied his profile. A nice profile. Clean, strong, good bones, firm chin. Handsome in a dark, effortless way. Like a pirate.
He was the kind of guy who would have had girls lining the street in front of his house when he was a teen. With his easy confidence and dark, melting eyes, he could have been anything from class president to class clown, star quarterback to under-the-bleachers bad boy. But studying him more closely, she figured him for the cool, sardonic loner who could have had anything he wanted and shunned all of it. She’d hated guys like that, the ones who never lived up to their potential. Had Jack Chaney grown up knowing he wanted to be a government hit man? Had he planned from an early age to skirt the fringe of acceptability with a wry, indifferent scorn?
She could see ex-military in him. In the way he carried himself, erect, alert, even when he seemed relaxed behind the wheel. She saw it in the crisp cut of his glossy black hair and squared-away look of his clothing. Efficient, without an extra inch or ounce on him. His dark eyes were always on the move, cutting between the mirrors in a precise circuit that allowed for no surprises.
And it disturbed her to find that he made her feel safe.
Suddenly uncomfortable with the turn of her thoughts, she tried distracting them with conversation.
“So how do you know Stan?”
“What did he tell you?”
“He did a lot of talking but never really answered my question.”
Jack nodded his approval and for a minute Tessa didn’t think he would answer. Then, with a casual shrug, he said, “He and my father were partners on the force a lot of years ago.”
“The police force?” Why did the notion of Jack coming from a law enforcement family surprise her so? Because usually law and order was passed on as a tradition. Apparently not in his family.
“You said you owed him.”
“I said too much,” he muttered, but he didn’t withhold the information. “About twenty years ago they got caught in a cross fire. My dad was hit. Bad. Stan could have left him and gotten to safety but he didn’t. He stayed at my dad’s side, keeping him from bleeding to death, keeping the scumbags off until reinforcements showed up. He rode with him to the hospital and later broke the news to us that Dad had been shot and would never walk again. Stan stayed with my dad through therapy and bankruptcy—with a whole lot more loyalty than my mom who figured the going wasn’t going to get any better so she got going and never looked back. They don’t come any better than Stan Kovacs in my book. That answer your question?”
And then some.
“Stan said your call sign was Lone Wolf. That sounds a little…”
“Unfriendly? Aboriginal?” he finished for her. His tone hadn’t changed but a certain tightness sharpened the edges of his swarthy features until she could see the hint of American Indian in the sculpted highs and lows. “On my mother’s side, way back. Just enough so I could run a casino if I wanted to. But that’s not where I got the moniker. Lone Wolf isn’t my Indian name, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“Where did you get it?”
“From my enemies, because I prefer to hunt alone. And I prefer my own company to those who never seem to run out of nosy questions that are none of their business.”
Well, he didn’t need to put a finer point on it than that.
The rest of their drive passed in a taut silence.
In the lull, it was easy for Tessa to drift into a sleep-deprived REM state. She’d only meant to close her eyes for a moment but when she blinked them open, it was to find that man-made structures had given way to soaring examples of nature’s architecture. Spreading oaks ablaze with color, ramrod-straight pines standing at attention and ghostly poplars with their pale white trunks and flutter of graceful yellow leaves lined a two-lane highway upon which they were the only travelers. She’d fallen asleep in the inner city and had awakened to a deeply forested Oz.
Tessa leaned away from the window where her cheek had left a circular print and immediately checked for any trace of embarrassing drool. Chaney caught the movement and quirked a smile in her direction.