Page 71 of The Money Man
Alice wasn’t sure if she’d made a tactical error in provoking her separation from Derek. She should have guessed that Barsky wouldn’t let them go together but she was convinced that the apartment would have some kind of secret alarm or escape route. She’d wanted to give Derek a chance to get to it. Now, as she walked down the hall to the media room, the space between her shoulders felt as though it had a target painted on it.
She ventured a quick look over her shoulder to find that Ivan had lowered his gun to hang by his side. Evidently, he didn’t consider her a serious threat, which was, unfortunately, an accurate assessment. The only thing she could think to do was hurl one of her cats at him but that wouldn’t fly for the simple reason that she wouldn’t put Sylvester or Audley in danger of being injured or killed.
Yup, she was a crazy cat lady, all right.
She stopped at the door.
“Open it,” Ivan said, keeping his distance from her. She chose to consider that flattering, even if it was more likely to be an unconscious action on the part of a highly trained bodyguard or whatever he was.
She eased the door open in case one of the cats was waiting on the other side. However, no cats were in sight. Sylvester and Audley were demonstrating very good sense in hiding from their captors.
She walked into the room. “Sylvester! Audley!” Not that she expected them to come. They were cats, after all, but they might emerge from their hiding places. She called again but no kitties showed up.
She couldn’t stop herself from sneaking another glance at Ivan. He must have seen from the look on her face that she was wondering if he’d really kicked the cats because he gave her a terrifying stare. She practically jogged to the other end of the sofa to get away from his menacing presence.
But his glare brought up the blood-chilling question she’d been trying to ignore since she had figured out why Myron Barsky was holding them hostage: Was he going to leave her and Derek alive to tell tales once he got his money?
They could identify him and his thug but so could a lot of other people, so she wasn’t sure whether that played into the decision. Barsky was annoyed with her about costing him money but was he angry enough to shoot her? She had no experience with criminals other than the fictional ones on television, so she really couldn’t gauge the situation accurately.
She just knew with gut-wrenching certainty that she didn’t want to die. And she didn’t want Derek to die either.
Shoving down panic, she got on her knees and peered under the sofa. Sure enough, two pairs of golden eyes looked back at her. Maybe she should leave the cats there in relative safety. But Audley wriggled out to greet her.
There was immense comfort in holding the soft, warm body of her purring cat in her arms. Strangely enough, tears prickled in her eyes, making her blink rapidly. She wasn’t going to show weakness in front of Ivan.
“So, you found your cat. Let’s go,” he said in a flat voice.
“I just want to check their food and water, please,” she said, hoping courtesy would score her some points.
He nodded from his post by the closed door, so she carried Audley to the cat-feeding station. The automatic dispensers were full, and she noticed that the cat litter had been used. That meant she could cross off one small worry from her mental list. Her cats had adjusted well enough to their new environment.
Now she could go back to worrying about how to avoid getting shot.
Chapter 17
Derek rolled his shoulders to ease the tension as he waited for Alice to return from her expedition to check on her cats. He didn’t want to try to pull his phone out of his pocket when there was no reason for movement. Even more stressful was wondering if she was safe with Ivan. He didn’t trust Barsky’s assurances that nothing would happen to her. The big Russian had the flat eyes of a psychopath. Unfortunately, despite his willingness to talk, Barsky’s were equally empty.
When Alice walked back through the kitchen door, looking nervous but unharmed, relief eased the knot in Derek’s stomach. He waited until Barsky glanced in her direction before he slipped his phone out of his pocket and slid it between his thighs. Now he could answer whatever messages Leland and Tully sent him. Once the phone was in emergency mode, it looked dead to the average observer but was sensitive to tapping; hence the Morse code. They’d even developed a shorthand for “yes” and “no” to facilitate communications.
Ivan waved Alice back to the table beside him without any comment.
“Are the cats all right?” Derek asked. Barsky didn’t look up from his phone and Ivan simply stared at them from his station behind the counter.
“Yes, thank goodness.” She reached under the table to take his hand, twining her fingers with his in a way that made him wish he had Superman’s cape of invulnerability to wrap her in. “It was a little scary, though.”
“I can imagine. Had either Sylvester or Morse eaten?” He tapped his thumb against her palm in the classic Morse code rhythm for SOS: dot-dot-dot-dash-dash-dash-dot-dot-dot.
He kept his eyes on the two men but he felt her fingers tighten around his and hoped she had not given anything away with her expression. “It’s, um, hard to tell because the food dispenser is automatic, you know,” she said. He could hear the slight distraction behind her words but caught no telltale startled movement out of the corner of his eye. His Alice could keep her cool.
His heart leaped when she shifted her grip to lay her thumb against the back of his hand. Her spelling was slow but she tapped out an understandable, “Yes.”
That was one advantage to falling in love with a nerd. For a moment, his brain froze on the thought. He’d used the word “love.” But he didn’t have time to focus on that for longer than a split second. There was no point in worrying over how he felt about Alice if they both died at the hands of Myron and Ivan.
He decided that Alice needed to be in on the secret of the phone, in case something happened to him. He camouflaged his movements by rolling his head as though loosening the muscles in his neck. While he hoped his upper body was distracting Ivan, he sandwiched the phone between his palm and Alice’s. Then he tapped on the back of her hand, “Feel phone.”
She responded with a swifter “yes” this time.
Barsky placed his cell on the counter. “So far your so-called tech wizard hasn’t broken through my firewalls,” he said, standing up and tucking his gun into the back of his waistband. “I’m going to use the facilities. Believe me when I tell you that Ivan can easily handle the two of you. He won’t hesitate to kill you if you’re too troublesome, so I suggest that you sit still.”
