Skin (37 page)

Frankie knew she was in a car. The steady hum of the engine beneath her body warmed the floorboards. She groaned and rubbed the lump at the base of her skull. She opened her eyes and saw only black, but immediately felt something tied around her head. Blindfolded.

“Don’t even try to get outta here. I have no problem giving you a matching lump for the first one.” The heavy New York accent was unfamiliar to her.

“Who do you work for?” she demanded.

“None of your business.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“On a airplane ride.”

She tried to stretch out against the bindings. Her back cramped and she moaned. “Whatever your boss is paying you, my uncle will double it.”

He laughed, the sound anything but amusing. “Hear that, Jimmy boy? She’s gonna pay me with all that money she stole.”

Frankie went rigid. “Peanuts? Are you here?” she cried out, the implications if he was confusing her beyond reason if it was him. The New Yorker’s guttural laugh sent shivers down her spine.

“Jimmy!”

“Be quiet, Frankie, it’ll all be over soon,” her cousin said from in front of her.

“Not you too,” she cried. “Not you too.” Was no one who they appeared to be?

“Shut up. Before I shut you up,” the New York wiseguy said.

Frankie chose to keep quiet, the sense of hopelessness permeating her every pore. For Jimmy to be in on her demise meant her uncle was too. She felt light-headed. No. Not Unk. He loved her like the daughter he never had. Jimmy must be working his own angle. With Anthony. She sobbed once, then clamped her mouth shut.

As she tried to work every angle, every twist, every turn of the recent events in her life, she came up clear on two things. Reese used her in the worst possible way a man could use a woman, and not only was her brother after her, but he’d elicited the help of Jimmy Peanuts. Her father’s bodyguard and now her uncle’s. She gasped as a thought blindsided her. Had Anthony ordered the hit on their father? And had Jimmy carried it out?

Jimmy was the first of Father’s men to arrive at the brewery; he was the one who doled out the hazy details. And now he worked for Unk. Was Unk next, after her? Was Anthony methodically weeding the family of potential problems so he could rule his underworld unfettered?

Was
Skin
that important? Why? Her frazzled brain continued to add. The money. Those thugs in the Carmel house had said “Judas bitch,” obviously referring to her. Who set her up? And was that why her father was so angry at her? He thought she stole from him?

Who was skimming?

Her head throbbed, it was too much to comprehend.

The sudden halt of the car woke her, and she had no idea how much time had passed. The blindfold was so dark and so tight, she couldn’t tell if it was light out.

The door opened and cold air hit her in the face. “C’mon, sweet cheeks.” The New York thug pulled her roughly from the vehicle, and she stumbled. Her legs gave way and her knees hit concrete. He hiked her up and the sound of a plane engine in the near distance caught her attention.

After she was hustled up steps, she was shoved down what she surmised was an aisle. A narrow one, by the way her knees hit the ends of seats. She was pushed down and quickly belted in.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” she said, and it wasn’t a ploy.

The thug grumbled, unbelted her, and hiked her up. He pushed her forward. After several steps her face hit into a wall, or door. He pulled off her blindfold and she blinked against the bright light in her face.

An ugly, unfamiliar face greeted her. “In there,” he said, pointing to a door two feet away.

She held up her bound hands. “I’m not a man.”

He yanked at the rope. “If you was you’d be dead by now.”

As the rope came off, he pushed her back into the bathroom. “Make it quick, we’re about set to go.”

As she came out of the bathroom, she looked toward the main area of the jet. She stopped in her tracks.

Anthony sat in one of the single seats and smiled dangerously.

“Hello, big sister.”

She was shocked speechless. Reese had been right when all of her instincts told her Anthony wouldn’t go so far.

“I won’t have Sal tie you up again if you promise to be a good girl.”

Her anger mushroomed. “Anthony, what the hell is going on?”

“You tell me.”

She’d never seen him so composed,
so
sure of himself. He’d always been cocky, but that was false bravado, this was deeper now, an innate sense of self he’d never shown her. And it unsettled her. Frankie shook her head. Nothing could surprise her now. She sank down into the seat across from him, trying to get a grasp on what the hell was going on here. While she and Anthony had never been close, she never thought he hated her so much to put a hit out on her. “I’m not sure what you’re fishing for, Anthony, but other than the fact I’ve had too many encounters with goombahs and bullets recently, there isn’t much to tell.”

“What about you and that cop? What did you tell him about family business, Frankie?”

“You knew he was a cop?”

“I know everything.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? You could have saved me so much —” She bit off what she was going to say.

“You never could read men, Frankie. You’re too trusting. Not a good trait to have in this family.”

“So because a cop duped me, you’re trying to kill me? Because you think I’m ratting out the family?”

“I’ve never made bones about my feelings for you, big sister, but putting out a hit?” He leaned forward and continued, “I’m a big boy now. I’d kill you myself.”

“How did you find me?”

He smiled. “You should know by now we have eyes and ears everywhere and when those eyes and ears need a nudge, cash works wonders.”

“But —”

“I had a hunch you’d run to Carmel. You never were smart that way, Frankie. So imagine my surprise when I find two dead out-of-towners in the driveway and your clothes in your bedroom?”

“But how did you know I was in Wyoming?”

“The janitor at the Monterey airport overheard the flight plan. When we started asking around, he was happy to share when he heard the price for any information. He had a memory, that one. Showed us everything. It didn’t take Sally and Jimmy long to find out the airstrip you came in on is owned by your cop friend’s father. Getting the address was a piece of cake.”

The captain popped out of the cockpit. “Buckle up, folks, we’re cleared for takeoff.”

“Why all the trouble to find me, Anthony?”

“I want Father’s will,” Anthony softly said.

“I don’t have it.’

“Then, until it shows up, and if you want to stay alive, I suggest staying close to me.”

Frankie looked at her brother for a long time, unsure of his meaning. Did he mean to off her once the will turned up? “What happens when the will turns up?”

He smiled grimly. “The whole world changes.”

Reese fought the raging turmoil in his head and heart that pushed him to an emotional low. He looked up the stairway toward the woman who tore him up. Several times he stepped up to the landing, wanting to go to her. To talk, to demand that she put all the cards on the table and give him the entire truth about her father.

He thought how he kissed away her tears before they made love, how she cried in his arms. He took the steps three at a time to her room. He didn’t know what he was going to say or what he was going to do, but the powerful feelings in his gut told him she needed to know, for what it was worth, that he cared. He opened the door and stopped short.

It was empty and his instinct told him she hadn’t returned to it when she left the barn. While he’d loitered in the barn, had she managed to leave the ranch? How?

He scowled. Where the hell was she? He moved to the window and pushed back the curtain. He stepped back and looked closer at the room. Nothing disturbed. It looked like she hadn’t even been in it. He hurried down the stairs to the kitchen. Slowly his eyes scanned the room. There in the corner of the floor — the camera. “What the hell?”

He picked it up; he could almost feel Frankie’s energy on it. He walked to the door and opened it. He stepped out onto the porch, his eyes scanning every inch. As he walked down the plank steps he stopped. His blood ran cold. There, on the ground, peanut shells.

“Fuck!”

He hurried back into the house and grabbed the phone. He dialed Jase’s cell.

“Yeah,” Jase answered.

“They have her.”

“Who has who?”

“Frankie. Carmine’s men took her from here, the ranch.”

“Calm down, buddy, and think about it.”

“Think about what? She’s gone — kidnapped.”

“Gone, but not kidnapped.”

The full meaning burst in spectacular Technicolor in Reese’s brain. There was no denying it now. “She found a way to let them know where she was,” he slowly said, not wanting to believe the words he’d just spoken. Every shred of his denial dissolved.

“I’m really sorry, buddy. It’s why I love ’em, then leave ’em.

It had been Reese’s modus operandi as well. So much for taking a chance. He’d never do it again.

“It’s time to make our move, Reese.”

“I’ll be back in town in less than seven hours.”

“W
hy are we in Monterey?” Frankie asked Anthony as they deplaned and loaded into a waiting limousine.

“We’re going back to the Carmel house.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s where Father’s will is, and we’re going to find it.”

“I’ve been through that place and so has Unk, and I bet your mother paid a fortune to have it tossed top to bottom. It’s not there.”

“It has to be.”

“So what if we find it? Then what?”

“Payback begins.”

“I won’t help you unless you tell me what’s going on. I want to call Unk.”

“We’ll call Unk when the time is right.”

Frankie looked out the window and the landscape that whizzed by her. If she reached out it would elude her, just like her options.

From beneath lowered lashes, she observed her bother. His dark eyes sparkled, his gaze locked on her. “You’ll regret this, Anthony.”

“Not as much as you will.”

Frankie blanched at the venom of his tone. With calmness she didn’t feel, Frankie sat back in the soft leather in the back of the limo and thoughtfully stared at her brother. His quiet confidence had disappeared, replaced with nervous energy. His fingers constantly drummed the seat edge.

“Who was the man with Jimmy who kidnapped me?”

“Kidnapping is such a harsh term, Frankie. Let’s just say he brought you to me.”

“He’s out-of-town. Why?”

His eyes narrowed. Avoiding her direct stare, he looked out the window.

“The two dead guys in my townhouse were out-of-towners.”

“Consider me resourceful.”

Frustration mounted. Why was Anthony being so vague? She pushed back hard into the leather seat. As they drove through the open gates to the estate, fresh memories of her time there with Reese launched into her mind. A warm shiver skirted along her flesh, and her stomach tightened. A damn cop! Fucking her while trying to pump her for information. Son of a bitch, how had she been so stupid? “You only see what you want to see, Frankie,” her mother always told her. Hadn’t Reese told her the same thing?

It was so much easier to believe in a person’s integrity instead of always suspecting duplicity. Even after Sean, she just couldn’t quite dismiss humankind as the unsavory, distrustful lot her family tried to convince her they were. If she ended up coming out of this mess alive, she vowed never to trust another human being as long as she lived.

Her new motto would be: Expect nothing — suspect everyone.

She pushed Reese from her thoughts. The New York man opened the door for her. She slid out off the backseat when he gave her a polite but deadly smile. He’d snap her neck with just a nod from Anthony.

When she didn’t move fast enough, New York pushed her forward. “You look like you’re going to the guillotine, Frankie,” Anthony said.

“I wonder why?”

As they entered the house, Frankie’s brain went into rescue mode. Her only hope was Unk.

“We’ll divide the house in half,” Anthony said. “Jimmy will work with you and Sal with me.”

Hope lit inside her. Jimmy always had a soft spot for her.

“No ideas, Frankie. Leave Jimmy alone and just do the job. Until that will is located, I guarantee you, your ass is grass.”

As they went their separate ways, Jimmy materialized from thin air. He gave his cousin a narrowed glare. “Don’t try anything, Frankie. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will.”

Setting her jaw, Frankie nodded. “I see how it is, Jimmy, and don’t think for a minute I won’t forget any of this.”

She stalked past him and climbed the stairs to the guest bedroom at the far end of the south wing. When she entered it, she realized it was the one Reese had used when they were there. She quelled her rising emotions. “I have to use the bathroom, Jimmy,” she said over her shoulder. And, she thought, the telephone in it.

Unzipping her pants, she sat on the toilet and picked up the phone. As quietly as she could, Frankie dialed Unk’s cell phone. After several rings it went to voice mail. “Unk, I’m at the Carmel house with Anthony.”

Just as she hung up the phone, the door opened.

“Jimmy!”

He flushed a deep shade of red and closed the door. Thank God the phone was at her side, out of Jimmy’s sight.

After Frankie washed her hands she came out of the room and scowled. “That was just rude.”

“Sorry, wanted to make sure you didn’t call anyone.”

Frankie stiffened and began looking for the elusive will.

Several hours later, hungry, tired, and with too much time to think about things she shouldn’t be thinking about, Frankie met Anthony and Sal down in the atrium.

Exhausted, she sat down in her father’s cane-back recliner.

“Any luck?” he asked her.

“No, it’s futile. If there was a will here, it’s gone.”

Anthony began to pace the stone floor. “I have to find that will!”

“Is having everything of Father’s so important to you, Anthony?”