Page 12 of Her Keeper
“I’ve got a problem. Michael found out what was going on and my cover’s blown. He knows everything. He knows about you and the story. I need out.”
“What?” she shrieked. “You told him?”
“No, I didn’t— I mean yes, I did, but only because—”
“You little bitch!” she hissed. “What the hell were you thinking? What did you do, crack while he was fucking you over a desk? Or is this just pillow talk, you little slut?”
I jerked like she’d just slapped me, shocked not only by the accusation but also the way she’d done it.
“No, he figured it out on his own,” I told her, my voice laced with cold anger. “And then he threatened to kill me. I was trying to save my own life.”
“Well now he’s going to kill you, so I hope you’re running for your life,” she said, her tone just as cold. “And he’s going to come after me.”
“He’s coming after me first,” I pointed out. “I need help.”
She actually scoffed at that. “You’re right; you do. But you’re also not my problem. Get out of town, Penny Lane. Our contract is over.”
The call ended before I could answer that and I stared at my phone, breathless with the panic flood through my veins. Not her problem? She was the one who’d put me in that situation in the first place! And now that it had gone wrong, she was just going to throw me to the wolves?
Of course she is,a cold, cynical voice in my head told me.You didn’t actually think she was your friend, did you?
Of course I didn’t, I told the voice furiously.
That didn’t mean I’d realized she’d just throw me away, though.
Right. Next plan.
The problem was, I didn’t have a next plan. I knew Michael thought this thing was bigger than it actually was, and though I didn’t know what he thought was going on—he’d made connections he hadn’t told me about—I did know that it was going to cost me my life if he found me.
Monica was right. I had to get out of town. And when it came to getting out of town quick, I happened to know an expert. A fixer, as it happened, who always knew a back door out of every building.
I just hoped she knew a back door out of the city itself.
And that she was more loyal to our friendship than she was to Joseph Rossi.
* * *
Iran down the stairs of my building, unwilling to take the elevator, and hefted the bag I’d packed onto my shoulder. It had been a terrible risk to come back here but I couldn’t leave town without some of my things, and I was hoping that anyone looking for me would think I was too smart to go home.
Obviously I wasn’t. But no one else knew that.
I forced myself to slow down right before I hit the front doors, and managed to get out onto the sidewalk at a more casual pace, my chin up and my sunglasses on. Looking, I hoped, like any other woman walking on the sidewalk on a New York afternoon. A woman who happened to be carrying an overnight bag packed with everything she valued.
A woman currently running from the Irish and Italian mafia.
I searched the street beside me, praying for only deserted cars, parked for the day on a street where good parking places were impossible to come by. I marked them as I saw them. Deserted car, deserted car, deserted car.
Perfect.
Then I saw a car in the parking lot across the street that definitely wasn’t deserted. A man sat in it, dark sunglasses and dark hair long enough to brush his shoulders. Broad cheekbones, tanned skin, and a mouth pulled taught.
Most worrisome was the fact that he was looking right at me.
I pointedly turned away from him and increased my pace down the sidewalk. Maybe he’d just been looking at me for a moment. Maybe it had just been a coincidence.
But there were too many people looking for me at this point for me to blow it off entirely. That guy could be a Rossi or a Brennan or even a Caruso. He could belong to another family who had heard that I was close with Michael. He could be a spy for Monica.
And if he belonged to any of those groups, it meant he had bad intentions.
