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When Cornie started to speak, she shushed her with a raised hand. “Tommy, it’s April. I hate to bother you, but could you answer one question for me? Does the name Noah mean anything to you? Cornie found it in Phylly’s stuff, a postcard from a place called Tofino.” She listened. “Really?” April glanced at Cornie then away. After what Tommy had said, she had a million questions for him, but not now—with Cornie’s eyes glued to her. “No, this has nothing to do with Rusty. But it might be a clue as to where Phylly’s gone. If I find out anything, anything at all, Tommy, I promise I’ll call.” She clicked off and again looked at Cornie. “Your mother once dated a guy named Noah. Noah Bristol.” That was all she needed to know right now; the rest was Tommy— talk and conjecture.

“When? How long ago? The date on the card is only two years ago. I don’t remember a Noah. Do you?”

April shook her head, tried to look as if she were doing a memory search instead of figuring out how to avoid that how-long-ago question. No way did she want to go there, open a path neither of them had time to walk on. She decided, for now, to throw her off scent. “Was he the one from San Francisco, do you think? He was here with that dentist’s convention . . . maybe three years ago.”

“No, I think that was Nathan Pond.” Cornie took back the card, studied it for what April was sure would be the millionth time.

“Right.” April took her arm, relieved her diversion worked, and led her toward the elevator. “Doesn’t matter anyway. We’ve got the name, we’ve got a starting point, and we’ve got Joe’s help. We’re going to find Phylly.” She didn’t bother to mention that the
we
she was referring to was her and Joe. If she’d learned one thing, it was never to start a war of wills with Cornie one second before you had to. If she got so much as a whiff of Tommy’s opinion—that Noah was Cornie’s father, and opinion was all it was— there’d be no holding her back. The girl made
The Little Engine That Could
look like a used car with a cracked block.

Cornie tugged her arm free from April’s grasp, stopped. “Joe doesn’t care about Mom, you know. The only reason he came here was to get you in bed.” Her statement was made without heat or accusation.

“That’s not true.”
I hope . . .

“Have you? Slept with him yet?”

“That’s not your business.” The words shot out of her all starchy and prim. Unfortunately, they were accompanied with rapidly heating cheeks. “Damn it, Cornie, you really are . . . too much at times.”

She shrugged. “I knew if I left you two alone it would happen,” she said. “We should tell him to get lost.” She lifted the postcard—and her chin. “Now that we have this, we don’t need him.”

April knew it was her disappointment talking. Tough as Cornie was, she’d expected more from Joe, at least a trace of brotherly concern. So far, all Joe had dished out was indifference. She was hurt, although a flock of crazed and hungry blood bats wouldn’t get her to admit it.

April took her by the upper arms, met her willful gaze. “We might not need him, but Phylly might. Have you thought about that? It was your idea to find him, remember. Well, we found him. And he’s here to help—whatever his reasons.” She stopped, knowing the only thing that worked with Cornie was the truth. “But you’re right, he doesn’t care about Phylly the way we do—he has no reason to, and he doesn’t know her like we do. When he does, when your mom and him get a chance to set things straight, that will change. He’ll come to love her as much as we do.”

“You believe that?”

“Yes, I do.”
I have to.
She smoothed some strands of Cornie’s dark hair off her face. “He already loves you—he just doesn’t know it, yet.”

Cornie tilted her head then shook it. “You know it’s way too early for drinking, right?”

April smiled. “Come on, smart-mouth, let’s go. I’ve got plane reservations to make.”

And I’ve got to figure out how to keep you safe and as far away from Noah Bristol as possible. It was bad enough April had broken Phylly’s trust when she’d found Joe. The can of worms—aka Noah Bristol—was all Phylly’s.

Phylly just made the ferry, and after it left the dock, packed with holiday travelers and a zillion RVs, for the first time in days she felt safe—if only for the hour and a half it would take to cross whatever water she was crossing. After that, she had maybe a three-hour drive. If things went according to plan, she’d be in a place called Tofino—well beyond the edge of her known universe—by early evening. With even more luck, she’d have located Noah Bristol’s house before the sun went down.

Her car was on the second deck at the front of the ship, and although the bridge allowing the cars to drive on was pulled up below, from there she looked out over a gate to a broad expanse of calm water. She wished some of its calm would settle into her. But more than that, she wished she could claw back the years that had brought her to this frightening place in her life, and erase the rash, selfish living now causing pain—
and death
—to those she loved. She closed her eyes against the tears and murmured, “Forgive me, Rusty. Dear God, forgive me. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”

She grasped the steering wheel, her knuckles bone-white from her grip, and leaned her forehead against her knuckles and wept, and wept, and . . .

Joe clicked off the phone, picked up the notes he’d made while talking to Julius and Kit, paced for a few seconds, then strode to the window. The watercolor from Worth’s wall was exactly what he thought it was, a beach area on the west coast of Vancouver Island, somewhere along the twenty-five or thirty miles of its west coast accessible by land.

From here to there, with a stop in Seattle, the usual airport crap, and
if
he and April made good flight connections, he figured travel time to be a minimum of seven hours.

He shook his head. Trust his mother to head for one of the remotest parts of the largest North American island in the whole damned Pacific Ocean—and to have attracted the undivided attention of one mean motherfucker who had no trouble killing his way to get what he wanted.

It had taken Kit less than ten minutes to confirm that Henry Castor was as bad as they come, with a sheet to match; a total of nine years supported by the state of Washington for armed robbery, extortion, aggravated battery, and assault. And the charges that didn’t stick were worse: Assault with a deadly weapon and attempted murder. After the nine-year stint, he had hooked up with Victor Allan, described in the obit Kit ferreted out from
The Seattle Times
as a self- employed businessman. Some fuckin’ business. Selling kids and God knew what else.

An old boyfriend of Phylly’s.
That’s what April had called him.
Jesus.

Joe pushed the light drapery aside, stared down into the busy street. He didn’t like where this mother-quest was taking him—or the mixed emotions marching along with it.

The knot in his gut was baseball-size, and Phyllis Worth put it there. Thinking about her hanging out with scum like Victor Allan made the knot thicker.

Not going there—or to any other guy in Phyllis’s past, present, or future. No point.

Plus he had other things to think about.

Like how this thing between April and him might just go the distance. And while it felt damn strange, it also felt right. Very right. And that going-the-distance thing? It was an untried road for a guy who’d gone it alone for as far back as he could remember. Any kind of . . . togetherness wasn’t even on his radar until April walked into his life on those endless legs of hers. He wanted to see where the craziness between them would lead. And for that he needed time.

What he didn’t want was April at risk—or Cornie—or—
he rolled his eyes
—Phyllis Worth. Because if she mattered to April and his sister, she mattered to him.

He’d stood watch for cautious businessmen, celebrities and their families, politicians, but none of it was personal. He’d never felt the fear himself, the bone-deep worry of having someone you cared about hurt, or worse, taken from you, until now. Until April, Cornie, and his jelly-brained mother. Now he was watching out for his own, and it was so damned personal it made his brain ache.

When he heard voices coming down the hall, he checked his notes, committed the address Julius had given him to memory, and shredded the hotel stationery he’d written it on.

The Miami address, a long shot that might or might not be a lead to Gus Hanlon, April’s long-lost brother, belonged to a woman called Dinah Marsden. But the woman was somewhere in Europe, and would be for at least a month, maybe more. Unable to confirm Julius’s information, Joe would keep his mouth shut about it.

What April did
not
need right now was false hope.

The last bits of paper fluttered into the wastebasket as April and Cornie walked into the room.

April didn’t waste any time. “Show him the card, Cornie.” Before it was in his hands, she added, “His name’s Noah Bristol and he lives on—”

“Vancouver Island.”

Cornie gave him a dark look, through red-ringed eyes. The kid looked rough. “Trust Mister Know-it-all to . . . know it all.” She blurted out the last as if she were too tired to create her usual kick-ass sarcasm.

“Cornie—” April started.

Joe touched her shoulder. “It’s okay. Besides she’s wrong. I didn’t know the name, and I was barely within twenty miles of the place. Having this”—he lifted the card—“will make all the difference.” He coughed. “Thank you, Cornie.” Cornie’s eyes narrowed, and April’s eyebrows raised. Jesus, you’d think he’d shouted a French curse rather than the kid’s—Cornie’s—name.

“Go pack, Cornie,” April said. A small smile turned up her lips, and she did that gimme thing with her fingers in his direction. “It’s airplane time,” she said.

He dug out his card and handed it over. “One thing about you two, you’re not cheap dates.”

April took the card, glanced at Cornie. Her smile widened. “We’re Vegas girls. We don’t do cheap.”

When Cornie went into the bedroom to pack her things, April drew Joe to the far end of the living room. “We can’t take her with us to Tofino.”

“Why not? She’s safer with us than here alone.” Doubly safe when he picked up what was waiting for him across the border. If there was a country on earth where Julius couldn’t arrange the necessary
artillery,
Joe didn’t know its name.

“It’s complicated, but it would be better if she didn’t come along. I’m going to call her friend at the ranch, see if she can stay there.”

“I’ve got a better idea.” He walked the two steps to the phone, dialed. “Kit,” he said into the phone, looking his fill at April for the first time in hours. Damned if his breathing didn’t snag in his throat. “You’ve got your first real job. Maybe even get to use those new pecs of yours. . . . I’ll drop the client off later today and fill you in then. And call Julius, tell him I want you and the client to stay at his place—Yeah, the Zern Bunker.” He listened, glanced at April. “It’s . . . my sister. She’s fifteen—so don’t go getting any eighteen-year-old ideas. Her name’s Cornelia.” He gave a few other instructions about time and place, then added. “And get that computer game, the one with the bats—that’s the one. I should have known you’d have heard of it . . . . Uh-huh? You think? Well, I say prepare to get your ass whipped . . . . Yeah, see you.” He hung up.

April smiled at him. “I think I love you,” she said.

His damn heart stopped.

As if her breezy declaration was the equivalent of
can-I-have-mayo-with-that
, she went on, “You didn’t have to do that, you know. Not that anything about staying behind is going to make Cornie happy, but the game thing? That was nice.”

He wanted to say he’d happily kill a few dozen dragons for her, instead, he said, “The warning I gave Kit was ‘nice.’ The game idea was simply a sedative to help get him through the next few days with Cornelia.” He handed her the phone. “Better get started on those reservations, just get us to Seattle, I’ll have Kit take it from there.”

She took a step closer, stood on tiptoe, took his face in her hands and brushed her mouth over his. “When I say you’re nice, you’re nice.” She kissed him again, and this time he kissed her back, taking what time he could—which wasn’t enough.

When he pulled back, he knew he’d better speak before his vocal cords seized up completely. “If being nice gets your mouth on mine, I’m not going to argue.” He sucked in a lung-filling breath. “But considering we don’t have the time to take this where I’d like it to go—and there’s a minor in the next room—I’d say your timing is seriously off.”

Her face turned sober. “You’re right.”

“Yeah, sadly. I’m right as hell.”

April dialed the phone, glanced up at him. “Is Kit really only eighteen?”

He nodded. “Last birthday.”

“Even so, you don’t have to worry about Cornie—and those ‘eighteen-year-old ideas’ of his.”

He tilted his head, waited.

“Cornie plans to stay a virgin until she gets married.”

Joe lifted a brow. “I’ve heard that before.”

“Not from Cornie.” She turned to the phone and started to book their reservations.

A half hour later the three of them were in a cab heading for McCarran Airport.

Chapter 19

Henry made Tommy Black, with his pit boss slick and silk suit, within ten minutes of stepping into the Sandstone’s casino area. Now all he had to do was wait for him to finish his business in the pit.

Sitting at a slot machine that had a good view of the tables, Henry loaded it with a hundred-dollar bill.

Fifteen minutes later, Black left the pit. About time, too. Henry was already down eighty bucks.

Black walked past him, stopped at a blackjack table a few feet away from Henry and his mermaid-themed slot, and spoke to one of the dealers, giving Henry time to give him a solid once over. The guy looked like a pushover, and it sure as hell looked like the sister got all the looks in the family—and the height. Black wasn’t much taller than Henry and probably forty pounds lighter.