Dangerous Melody (18 page)

The creak of the trapdoor swinging open was followed by the thump of the cover being tossed aside. Stephanie fought to keep her breathing quiet.

Maybe the person coming down the stairs was Tate.

She hung on to the thought. He’d caught up with Eugene, and he was back looking for them.

But he would have called out,
wouldn’t he?

Maybe not, if he’d heard the shots.

Her palm grew sweaty where she gripped the iron bar. A squeal from the stairs indicated someone was on their way down.

One step, then another. Then a pause. Then a few more steps.

Stephanie kept count in her mind. Fifteen steps, and the person coming down had made it through seven. Five more steps, and they’d know if it was Tate...she
swallowed hard.

Or Ricardo.

Her courage faltered for a moment, and she wondered if she would have the strength to overcome the man who’d shot Maria. If she didn’t, Maria would have no chance, and neither would her baby.

Gripping the bar tighter, she waited for the footsteps to come closer.

A shadow crept into the glow of the flashlight. Stephanie’s heart pounded so hard she
thought the person approaching must be able to hear it. Willing her knees to stop shaking, she watched as the shadow descended.

Her heart thudded to a stop. The shoes coming down the ladder were not Tate’s.

She raised the bar.

It was wrenched from her hand so abruptly, she staggered back.

The figure stepped down into the light and tossed the bar into a far corner with a deafening
clang.

“I’ve missed you, Stephanie,” Joshua Bittman said.

NINETEEN

T
ate opened his eyes. When the blurriness subsided, he remembered why he was lying underneath a pile of broken crates. Ricardo.

Jerking fully to his senses, he kicked as hard as he could, knocking enough wood aside for him to scramble free. He was not sure how much time had passed as he ran to the room where he’d left Stephanie. The door was pocked with bullet holes
and smashed open with such violence that the jamb had splintered.

Fear twisting his gut, he pushed inside, not sure what he might find.

The room was empty. A flicker of movement from outside the broken window caught his attention. He made it to the broken glass in time to watch Ricardo vanish into the tree line in the direction he thought he’d heard a helicopter earlier.

He’s checking
it out.

If Tate was right and Sartori had returned via helicopter, she’d have a chance to arrest him. Sartori was tough and savvy, a good match for Ricardo.

He returned his attention to the empty room. Droplets of something dark stained the corner floor. Blood. He swallowed the panic and searched farther, finding his way to the open trapdoor in moments. Some sort of basement.

His
mind screamed at him.
Stephanie, get to Stephanie.
Throwing caution aside, he plunged down the ladder into the darkness, emerging at the bottom.

Stephanie stood there, seemingly unharmed, staring at him as deep gratitude filled every fiber of his body. He started forward, stopping abruptly as Joshua Bittman drew into the circle of light.

“What...?” The pieces fell into place. The chopper
had not been Sartori’s.

Bittman waved a small handgun in Tate’s direction. “Ah, the oaf.” He handed Stephanie a pair of plastic restraints. “Put them on him, please.”

Stephanie’s lips were pressed tightly together as she walked forward, circling his wrists with her fingers. Fear and anger shone in her eyes. She was trying to tell him something, but Bittman shifted so he could see her
face. “Now.”

He nodded to reassure her.
Buy time,
he wanted to say.
We’ll get out of this somehow.

Her touch was ice cold as she slipped the restraints around his wrists.

“Tightly,” Bittman advised.

Stephanie complied. “You don’t need to do this,” she said. “We will get your violin.”

“I know, but things were dreary back in San Francisco. Your father is a crotchety old
man, trying to escape at every opportunity. He’s quite wearing out my staff. I knew you were here in Lunkville.”

“Did your spies fill you in?” Stephanie spat.

“When you worked for me, I had a device placed in your phone that activates the GPS and pings your location back to me.” He laughed. “It also triggers the camera in your phone. I’ve gotten plenty of interesting snapshots of your
life—everything from picnics to pie.” His eyes swept over Stephanie.

Rage boiled up inside Tate. Bittman was more than a crook; he was a deranged stalker, obsessed with Stephanie. “You’re sick,” he barked.

Bittman trained the gun on him. “And you are nothing. Poor, uneducated, powerless. You should have died in that crash instead of your father.”

Tate jerked. “So you’ve been keeping
tabs on me, too?”

“Only to make sure you were removed from Stephanie’s life.”

Tate opened his mouth to press further, but Bittman cut him off. “Where is she? Maria?”

Stephanie shrugged. “I don’t know.”

He smiled, teeth glinting in the lantern light. “Such a bad liar. There was blood in the outer room, and you’re not injured. Either you managed to wound the person who shot up
the door and window, or she’s in here.” He flicked on a small but powerful light and beamed it around the space.

“Maria, why don’t you come out from behind those bricks? It’s filthy back there.”

Tate’s mouth fell open as Maria emerged, violin in hand. His eyes were drawn immediately to the makeshift bandage around her waist.

“Are you hurt?”

She gave him a small smile. “Only
a little. Ricardo shot through the window.”

Bittman’s eyebrows raised. “Ricardo? The man who worked at my father’s shop?”

Tate watched Bittman as he mentally filled in the rest.

And the man who set the fire that killed my brother.

“He’s out there right now, checking out your helicopter,” Tate said. “He was on his way to find Stephanie when he heard your approach. He might have
shot you if you’d arrived a few minutes sooner. Pretty lethal for a pool guy.”

“What are you blabbering about?”

Tate gave him a slow smile. “Oh, you didn’t know that Ricardo was working at your estate trying to ferret out information about the Guarneri? You have state-of-the-art security systems, and you didn’t even know the enemy was right there on your property?”

Bittman’s face
was incredulous for a split second before the mask settled back into place. “Immaterial.”

“You probably never even bothered to meet the pool guy. It must have been beneath you to rub elbows with the common folk. Feel stupid now, don’t you, Bittman?”

Bittman’s lip twitched. “He knew the Guarneri had resurfaced. He presumed the fastest way to find it was to let me do the work.”

“Probably
beats cleaning pools.”

Bittman took a step toward him, and Tate figured he was in for a fist to the face. Stephanie tensed by him, but instead Bittman handed Stephanie another pair of restraints. “You may bind her, too.”

Stephanie complied, leaving the bands loose around Maria’s wrists until Bittman forced her to tighten them. While she did so, Bittman prowled the space, keeping the
three in his peripheral vision.

With a catlike movement, he snatched up the violin. His eyes glittered, mouth curved into a smile. When he spoke, it was almost a whisper. “The Guarneri. Finally.”

He gestured for them all to sit on the steps while he balanced the case on top of an overturned pallet. With trembling hands he opened it, his gaze roving over the interior like a hungry lion
sizing up its prey.

He removed the violin and brought it closer to the lantern, which picked up the gleam of the rose-colored wood. Suddenly he jerked the violin from its case.

The three prisoners watched in astonishment as he brought the violin down full force on the pile of bricks, smashing it to bits.

* * *

Stephanie cried out as pieces of the ruined instrument scattered
over the space. “What are you doing?”

Bittman regarded the debris strewn across the floor. Then he turned to Maria. “It’s a fake.” He moved closer, and Tate stood in front of the two women.

“She didn’t know that,” Tate said.

Bittman raised the gun. “I don’t care about you or your sister. I would be happy to kill both of you.” He stared at Maria. “Where is my violin? Tell me, unless
you would like me to shoot your brother, one limb at a time.”

“No!” Maria cried.

“Don’t tell him anything,” Tate hissed.

Stephanie desperately tried to think of a way to help. Her hands were free, but she did not dare make any moves with Bittman’s gun leveled at Tate.

Bittman’s tone was flat. “You know I mean it, Maria, don’t you? I am not a sentimental man. I will start with
his crippled leg, and then the other. Then one arm...”

“Eugene has it,” Maria yelped. “He must have given me the fake. He ran out with his backpack. He’s here somewhere, close by, but he’s not a troublemaker. Please don’t hurt him.”

Bittman shook off her comment. “That’s better. We’re going to find my violin and this tramp who took it. Back up the stairs. Now.”

Stephanie went up
the ladder after Maria, who moved slowly. She wondered how much blood Maria had lost from Ricardo’s shot.

As they made their way out of the warehouse, she scanned the tree line. Ricardo would have discovered by now that the helicopter was Bittman’s. In another few minutes, he would return to finish what he’d started. Stephanie saw Tate chafing against the restraints, which did nothing but
cause them to cut into his wrists.

They left the building. Bittman surveyed the area. “Where would he hide?”

Maria shrugged. “Probably in one of the abandoned buildings along the road. We’ll have to search.”

Bittman stared at Tate. “Or maybe there’s a faster way. Eugene!” he shouted. “You’re here somewhere. I know you have my father’s violin. I want it back. Come give it to me,
and we’ll let the whole matter drop.”

The silence was broken only by the sound of an animal scavenging through the bushes.

“He’s not here,” Stephanie said.

“Eugene,” Bittman said louder. “I’m sure you’re a reasonable man. You don’t want to be responsible for a murder, do you?”

Stephanie’s blood went cold. Murder?

Bittman shoved Maria forward.

Tate charged, headfirst
like a bull, but Bittman cuffed him on the head with the gun. He crashed to the ground, and Stephanie ran to him. By the time she’d helped him to his feet again, Bittman had the gun pressed to Maria’s temple.

“This girl, she says she’s a friend of yours, Eugene. Why don’t you come out so we can talk? If you don’t, I’ll have to shoot her. She’s pregnant, you know, so it would be two birds
with one shot, so to speak.”

Tate jerked, his eyes shifting from Maria to Stephanie.

She could see the question there. Pregnant? Stephanie nodded slowly, and Tate’s face crumpled as he realized the truth.

It was as though she could see all the regret and shame unroll across his face like the subtitles in a movie. She’d told Bittman about the pregnancy, and he’d rejected her. Tate
had failed his sister, removed himself from her life while he fought his own addiction. Now she was pregnant, with a gun to her head.

Bittman’s attention was fixed on the entrance to the tunnel.

Stephanie remembered the knife in her pocket and the radio clipped to her belt. She sidled up a few inches closer, and Tate understood her intent. He quickly pulled the knife from her back pocket
and hid it between his hands. She was trying to figure out how to access the radio without attracting attention when a voice floated out of the mine tunnel.

“She’s my friend. Don’t hurt her,” a thin voice wailed.

Bittman smiled. “Of course I won’t. Come out, Eugene. We have plenty to talk about.”

“No.”

Bittman shifted slightly, his tone soothing as if he spoke to a child. “Then
I’ll have to shoot her. That would be sad, wouldn’t it, Eugene? She’s so pretty. It would be your fault, too.”

Stephanie wanted to call out to the terrified man, to tell him about the monster named Bittman, but she was too scared of the gun pressing into the side of Maria’s head.

The board across the cave entrance trembled. “Don’t hurt her. You can come in.”

Bittman’s eyebrow raised.
“How do I know you have the violin?”

There was a long pause, and then the sound of music, light and delicate as windblown petals, danced through the air.

Stephanie had never heard any sound more beautiful.

The reaction in Bittman was shocking. He tensed, mouth slightly open, the veins on his neck standing out.

“You learned that song from my father. He played it all the time.”
Bittman’s hand tightened around the gun.

She saw Tate edging closer, and she did the same.

The music kept on, Bittman’s voice rising over the sweet melody. “You learned that from my father, and then you stole his instrument. How dare you? He let you live in our shop, eat from our table, and you stole from him.” A drop of spittle flew from Bittman’s mouth. “Stop playing, stop immediately.”

The song died away.

Bittman took a deep breath, and his tone was calmer when he spoke. “I will kill her if you don’t come out.”

“You’ll kill me if I do,” Eugene said, voice hoarse.

Bittman wiped a hand over his mouth. “We’re running out of time. There’s another man here, the one who set the fire. It is a matter of time before he arrives to kill you. I merely want the violin.
Give it to me, and I will let you go.”

“And Maria?”

Bittman looked at Maria as if he’d forgotten about her. “Yes.”

A soft thud indicated Eugene was kicking at the boards from the inside. One finally fell away, revealing a dark hole.

“You can come in,” Eugene said. “If you promise not to kill her.”

Bittman smiled, and the chill in his expression took Stephanie’s breath
away.

No, Eugene. He’ll kill you. He’ll kill us all.

But no words would come.

Bittman shoved Maria ahead of him, then gestured with the gun for Stephanie and Tate to follow her. In his panicked state, if Eugene had a weapon, he would use it on one of them first, she thought grimly.

With hands thrust before her, she stepped into the perfect darkness.