Running Scared Read online

  “Can’t do it alone,” he said to the darkness. “Need the channel. Need her now.”

  For a few minutes he put his head in his hands, pushed trembling fingers through thick white hair, and gathered his strength to face the darkness again.

  At least Lady Faulkner would be with him this time.

  The thought gave him enough courage to call the number he remembered even when he forgot other things. But not everything. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t forget the hell he would have sold his soul to forget.

  If he still had a soul.

  Motionless but for the tremor in his hands that never stopped these days, he waited for his channel to pick up the phone and answer questions about the state of his soul.

  Chapter 4

  Camp Verde, Arizona

  Halloween night

  The telephone’s relentless ringing finally dragged Cherelle Faulkner from a drugged sleep. Naked, she sat up and peered groggily through eyelashes clogged with mascara. Outside the window whose only curtain was dust, the motel’s faded neon sign blinked on and off, on and off, a slow heart beating in the darkness advertising rooms by the night or the week or the month.

  The phone kept ringing.

  She shoved her hands through the bleached length of her hair and kicked the man sleeping beside her. “Chrissake, Tim! Get the fucking phone!”

  “Shit,” mumbled Tim Seton. “Listen to you. And here you’re always telling me to watch my mouth around the dumbs.”

  “The only dumb in this bed is you, and we all know that assholes don’t have ears, so I don’t have to watch my fucking mouth, do I?”

  Tim turned his beautiful profile away from her and fell back asleep.

  The phone kept ringing.

  With a hissing curse Cherelle clawed her way across Tim until she could see the Caller ID readout.

  “Virgil,” she muttered. “Shit.”

  Virgil O’Conner was one of their best dumbs—clients, she corrected herself silently. Paid cash. Up front. No hassle, no bouncing checks, no credit card trail. She wished they had fifty more like him. Hell, even five. With that and a little luck in Vegas, a girl could do as well as her childhood pal Risa already had.

  Thinking of Risa made Cherelle slide back toward the good old days, when two smart Arkansas orphans had stuck it to the—

  The phone was still ringing.

  She shook off the last of her half-sleeping memories, pulled her vortex persona around her like invisible robes, and picked up the receiver. When she spoke, her voice was hushed and gentle.

  “Good morning, Virgil. I sense that you’re having a difficult time.”

  “Gotta see you.”

  “Let me check my—”

  “No,” he interrupted. “Now, Lady Faulkner. It’s gotta be now. While it’s still dark. That gold is killing me.”

  She barely bit back the gutter words that were doing back flips on her tongue. “Gold, hmmm? Did you fall asleep over the pictures in one of your old books again?”

  “Got things better than any damn book. You come quick. You’ll see.”

  “Virgil . . .” It’s the middle of the fucking night, you moron. She clenched her jaw, swiped hair out of her eyes, and said carefully, “All right, I’ll come, but I’ll have to ask for double the usual fee. I’m sorry, but that’s the—”

  “If you get here before dawn, I’ll give you four hundred,” he cut in.

  “Cash?”

  “Yeah.” It was all the money he had left, but he wasn’t worried. If this appointment didn’t do the trick, he didn’t think there would be any others. “But you gotta get here fast.”

  Cherelle swallowed. “I’ll be with you before dawn. Peace and prosperity, Virgil.”

  Before the client could answer, she dumped the phone in its cradle and shook her partner hard enough to make his blond-streaked hair fly. “Up and at ’em, pretty boy. Virgil has four big ol’ bills waiting for us.”

  Tim opened one beautiful blue eye. “Who do we have to kill?”

  “Ha, ha. You can’t even step on a cockroach. You have to have your jailhouse buddy do it for you.”

  The other blue eye opened. He smiled like a china angel. “It gets done, don’t it?”

  With a sound of disgust she dropped his shoulders and finished crawling over him to get out of bed. “Haul that sexy butt out of the sheets. We have to be at Virgil’s before dawn.”

  “Socks won’t like it if we aren’t here when—”

  “Socks can fuck himself.”

  “Hey, you’re always down on my buddy.”

  “I never went down on him, not even when he offered me a hundred.”

  Snickering, Tim stretched. He liked jabbing at his lover. It was his way of getting even for not being half as smart as she was. Neither was Socks, for all his bragging. Next to Cherelle, they were both stupid. But that was okay.

  Thinking was a pain in the ass.

  So he left thinking to Cherelle unless it was more up his buddy’s alley, like fencing the occasional TV or DVD player. He didn’t tell Cherelle about that part of it. She would shit a brick if she knew Socks was burgling some of their clients. Not all of them. Hell, even he could figure out that would be stupid. Just a few of them when they left for the winter, the ones that had so many TVs they wouldn’t miss one or two.

  Anyway, it was Cherelle’s fault. If she wasn’t so tight with cash, he wouldn’t have to moonlight with Socks. But she had a bug up her ass about saving enough money to get a place somewhere that nobody knew them and they wouldn’t have to be looking over their shoulder all the time. That took money, and that meant he was lucky to see a fifty from her once a week so that he could have a few beers with Socks and—

  “Timothy Seton, get your ass out of that bed!”

  “Bitch, bitch, bitch,” he said, but he made sure she didn’t hear. “I’m up, I’m up!” Then he looked down at his early-morning woody and laughed. “Sure enough, I am. How about it?”

  She gave him a look that took the lead right out of his pencil.

  Rather wistfully he glanced down at his deflating glory. Oh, well. There was more where that came from. And if she didn’t want it when it came around again, there were others that did.

  Whistling, he headed for the shower that Cherelle had finally cleaned last week. About time, too. There had been enough crud on the floor to tickle his feet.

  Chapter 5

  Las Vegas

  Halloween night

  The lobby of the Wildest Dream hotel/shopping/theater/gambling complex was decked out like a Halloween tart in black velvet and neon orange. The most photogenic of the Strip’s gambling glitterati milled around the champagne fountain and dipped black crystal glasses into the fizzy orange wine. Gail Silverado, sole owner of Wildest Dream Inc., was famous for her yearly Halloween bash. It started loud and just got better. By 3:00 a.m. the party had developed a really shrill edge that would just get worse every half hour until dawn, when the bubbly fountain would finally run dry.

  But that was several hours away. With a smile brighter than the shimmering faux pearl beads that outlined her figure in loving detail, Gail held her tenth glass of champagne—one sip from each, no more, no less—and looked at her watch without appearing to. She still had a few more minutes before she would be called away on business.

  Even if a meeting hadn’t been arranged, she would have wanted to get away. The high, sexy heels she was wearing had been designed for a younger woman, one who hadn’t spent too many of her fifty-odd years strutting her well-kept butt in front of whichever man could afford it. Her feet were screaming.

  Her smile never wavered beneath the exotic, pearlescent feathers that framed her face like loving fingers. There was too much young ass in Las Vegas for a woman over thirty ever to let down her guard. But even if she had been playing against a field of dogs, Gail would have gone through the same arduous workout and surgical schedule that she did now. She needed to look fifteen years younger than she was. Twenty would be
better.

  “Shane!” she called. Her smile tipped into the megawatt category. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”

  With a wave, Shane slipped through a costumed throng of devils, some Hell’s Angels—who may or may not have been in costume—more “showgirls” than had ever pranced down the Lido’s runway, and some truly reptilian aliens with heads that would have made Medusa turn and run.

  “I should have Carl throw you out,” Gail said to Shane when he came to stand beside her, but her approving look said otherwise.

  “Why sic your head of security on me?” Shane wasn’t quite shouting, but it was a near thing. The volume of the party had reached frenetic. A lot of people relished it. He wasn’t one of them. He was here for business, not pleasure, and all that noise got in the way. Almost shouting just to have a conversation wasn’t his idea of fun.

  “Because, honeylove,” Gail said, hands on her narrow waist, “you’re not in costume.”

  Shane looked down as though surprised to find himself in the same leather jacket, open-collar cream shirt, and black slacks he had worn to the meeting at Rarities. “I’m in costume.”

  “As what?”

  “Normal twenty-first-century male of the species Homo sapiens sapiens.”

  Gail laughed. “Point to you. The last thing anyone would accuse you of being is normal.”

  He looked over the crowd with a practiced eye. No matter how unlikely their costumes, he easily spotted the security guards. They were the only ones not drinking. It was the same upstairs, on the catwalks hidden behind ceiling grilles and one-way mirrors surrounding light fixtures. Security people walked overhead and manned each Eye in the Sky while the cameras worked. At the Wildest Dream, as at other big casinos, every bit of the action was captured and put into digital storage. Though the records were accessed as bytes on minidrives more often than on videotape, everyone still referred to the records as “tapes.”

  “Great crowd. Who’s on God duty tonight?” Shane asked idly, referring to the security people upstairs.

  “Whoever lost the toss.”

  Gail must have signaled a server, because one left a hole in the crowd getting to Shane to offer him whatever his heart desired. He waved off the leggy girl whose breasts bobbed like waterlogged coconuts above her low-cut neckline. Other than an eyeful, Shane couldn’t decide what her costume was supposed to represent. Chartreuse and silver kitty-cat, maybe.

  And maybe not.

  “You’re not going to stay long enough to eat or drink anything, is that it?” Gail asked when he waved off the server.

  “I just got in from L.A. I’m way too tired for your crowd.”

  She didn’t believe it for a second. She knew just how much energy and stamina the man had. What she wanted to know was how to get him back in her bed again. It had been too many years.

  At first she had thought it was the age difference that made Shane stop calling her. Gradually she had realized it was worse than that. He simply didn’t want any more from her than the enjoyable affair they had already had.

  If there was no other choice, she could live without him in her bed. There were plenty of energetic males in Vegas. But it really chapped her ass that Shane couldn’t see what a perfect business match they were. He was the only man she had ever met who could crunch numbers as fast as she could, whether or not the computer was up and running. He could speed-read a balance sheet and know instantly if things were kosher or in the toilet. So could she.

  Together they could rule Vegas.

  And whoever ruled Vegas controlled the biggest little money laundry in the world. When you controlled that laundry, all kinds of delicious opportunities came knocking on your back door.

  The broad, powerful figure of a Celtic warrior in full—and quite imaginary—regalia appeared out of the crowd behind Shane. As though he had eyes in the back of his head, Shane turned and took in the full effect of helmet, leather shirt, gilded metal armbands, earrings, sword, and the hairiest thighs this side of a sheep pen.

  “Hi, Carl.” Shane held out his hand. “Nice helmet. You swipe those horns off a Texas Cadillac?”

  Carl Firenze grinned as he shook Shane’s hand. “Gail picked it out for me. Said she wanted to be able to find me in a crowd.”

  “Crowd, hell. She could find you in a stampede.”

  With a bark of laughter Gail’s head of security released Shane’s hand and looked toward his boss. “Call waiting for you, Ms. Gail.” He checked the window of the small computer unit that kept him in touch with the most important things that were happening in the Wildest Dream. “Berlin.”

  It was the signal Gail had been waiting for, but suddenly she was reluctant. Even when she was positive she wouldn’t ever take a certain road again, she hated burning bridges behind her.

  On the plus side, she was used to it. She had set fire to more than her share of bridges on the way to her present multimillionaire status.

  “Thanks, Carl.” She turned to Shane. “Still no chance of becoming business partners?”

  Shane took one of her perfectly manicured hands in his. He liked Gail and respected her razor-edged business mind. Yet his instincts whispered that it would be a bad match. He had learned the hard way never to go against the voice that spoke so silently somewhere inside himself.

  He brushed a kiss over her scented cheek. “You know we’re better as friends and competitors than we would be as partners.”

  She almost closed her striking hazel eyes for a moment. It could have been a lazy reassessment. It could have been regret. Either way, both ways, nothing changed. “Yeah, I suppose. It’s just . . . ah, hell. Can’t fight karma, can you?”

  He squeezed her hand and released it. “How about selling your gold collection to me?” he asked. “It doesn’t really fit in with the Wildest Dream’s fantasy theme.”

  “Not a chance.” Gail knew her gold was the only thing that really interested Shane, but she didn’t admit even to herself that was the reason she competed with him whenever a choice gold object came on the market. She wanted his attention, pure and simple. And bitter as hell.

  She kissed him soundly on the lips. “Catch you later, honeylove,” she said. “Gotta fix my face for an international video conference.”

  It was only half a lie. She definitely was going to repair her makeup before she confronted the business waiting for her.

  With a bit of nostalgic regret, Shane watched Gail glide into the colorful, blaring crowd. She was a hell of a woman, but she wanted more than he had to give, and he wanted more than sex and business from his woman, which was all she had to give him. He didn’t know exactly what he wanted, but he knew there had been something missing when he was with Gail.

  When he heard his own thoughts, his mouth curled at one corner in a sardonic smile at his own expense. He knew just what was missing. Something in him. In her, too, he supposed.

  Maybe they were a good match after all.

  The voice inside him whispered that he knew better. He didn’t bother to argue.

  Snagging some cold shrimp from a passing server, Shane munched as he walked toward the main casino, which surrounded the lobby the way a wheel surrounds its hub. When people called out to him, he greeted them whether he recognized them or not. He didn’t like the public part of being the wunderkind of Las Vegas, “Prince Midas,” the “Man with the Twenty-four Karat Luck,” “Golden Boy,” or whatever else the chic media tagged him whenever they needed another splashy article to separate their ads. Nor did he appreciate the endless gossipy speculation that had him sleeping with every good-looking female east of the Pacific Ocean, but he knew that the prurient interest came with the territory of being the bachelor owner of the biggest, most successful resort casino in Las Vegas.

  Besides, the constant speculation about his private life was free advertising for the Golden Fleece.

  The electronic unit that had descended from the old personal data assistants vibrated discreetly at his waist. Since he had turned off his normal pa
ging number, he knew this call was urgent.

  He pulled out the hand-size unit and automatically decoded the message as it scrolled across the window. It was from the pit boss who oversaw the baccarat tables. One of the Japanese “whales”—someone who could and did drop a million dollars gambling—was riding a winning streak. Six hundred thousand and counting. Did Shane want to change dealers before the shift ended in hope of breaking the whale’s luck?

  Shane sent back a negative reply. It had been a while since the Golden Fleece had had a big winner from Japan. In the long run, the free publicity more than paid for the losses.

  Letting the party shriek and gyrate around him, he continued scanning his call log. Risa had tried to reach him several times. She wanted to talk to him, but not enough to put in the override code.

  Smart lady. But then he already knew that.

  He opened his e-mail and saw that the Portuguese chef was having a fit over the shellfish that the Golden Fleece’s suppliers flew in daily from various seaports around the world. Too many of the Penn Cove mussels had cracked shells. The New Zealand green mussels looked gray. The Boston clams were too big. The scallops were too small. The raw oysters tasted like snot.

  Shane snickered. He had always felt that way himself about uncooked oysters. In his opinion the only thing worse than a raw oyster was a cooked one.

  A flick of his thumb brought up the next message. This time it was the wine steward who was complaining. The French supplier was gouging. The Italian supplier was sending inferior labels. Napa Valley wines were too expensive for the quality. Would he consider substituting some of the fine wines from the Southern Hemisphere?

  Shane bit back an impatient curse. Part of the trouble with running something like Tannahill Inc. in general and the Golden Fleece in particular was that employees worked round the clock and expected him to do the same. But unlike his employees, Shane didn’t put in only one eight-hour shift per day. He put in two and then some.