Nickel City Crossfire by Gary Ross (popular romance novels .txt) 📗

tonight and Bianca did nothing to stop it, this secret would have killed them as a couple. Bianca would have blamed herself and transferred her misery to Jen until it broke them apart.” I paused. “I like them a lot, your friends, just the way they are.”

“They showed you the text. What about—”

“Was Bianca the only one you told what you planned to do?”

“Yes.”

“Then it doesn’t matter.”

She was quiet a moment. “I have to do this, for Odell. For Mom and Dad. Sometimes you have to be willing to make the sacrifice.” She shook her head, eyes moistening. “If I don’t, Odell died for nothing.” She started to stand. “I’m going to clear his name.”

“You’ll die,” I said, taking her arm and gently pulling her back into her seat. “If Dante is anywhere in this building tonight, he will try to kill you.”

She wrenched her arm free. “I told you, I’m willing to make the sacrifice.”

“He wants to kill me too but I’m not ready to go.” I offered her tissue from one of my pockets and waited for her to dab her eyes. “Now, I think I know what you want to do. This loft is too far away.”

“I wasn’t going to shoot from here!”

“Course not,” I said. “I think your plan is to sneak downstairs, go through the basement, and come up near the front. Then you’ll step in and make your move. Right?”

She said nothing.

“The trouble with your plan is that Loni expects you.”

“So?”

“So, her brother and at least one of his men are in town. There may be more. She’ll have somebody at each door. They’ll have guns, maybe with silencers, or cord to strangle you—while people are singing gospel songs on the other side of the wall. You’ll never get close enough by trying to go around.”

She looked at her gun before returning it to her bag. “I still won’t let you stop me.”

“I’m not here to stop you. I’m here to keep you alive.”

“How are you going to do that? By walking me right down the aisle?”

“Yes.” I took her hand in mine and looked into her eyes. “If we think it through, you can finish this tonight. You can get justice for Odell, and we can both walk out of here alive.”

48

Loni must have entered through the parking lot door. The first sign we had anyone else in the building, about thirty minutes before the start of service, was the squeak of the side door being opened from the inside, followed by Loni’s voice saying, “Come inside, quick!”

Then there were men’s voices greeting her and the scrape of feet, first on a doormat and then hitting the stairs that led to the narthex.

Keisha and I were still sitting on the floor in the dark in the choir loft. During the previous half-hour, I had made a phone call and sent two text messages before I explained to her all I had learned since our meeting in Tim Horton’s. Now, left index finger pressed to her lips, I held her right hand with my own. My fingertips felt her pulse racing. For a moment I was afraid the tension might cause her to exhale too loudly and set things in motion before we were ready. Someone switched on the narthex ceiling fixtures, which threw muted light up to us, enough for me to see her eyes widen with fear. I took a few deep but quiet breaths, calming myself. Then I raised my eyebrows as if to ask if she understood what I wanted her to do. When she nodded, I removed my finger. She caught her lower lip between her teeth.

We waited. Listened.

“I told you before I wished you’d brought more people, D,” Loni said. “Least two.”

“Told you, QC and I could handle things.” The voice was deep and melodious as if the vocal cords had been cut off an upright bass and sewn into his throat with angel hair filament. “Holiday time keeps my people busy organizing for the new year.”

I raised my eyebrows toward Keisha again. She nodded. Dante.

“Problems here might mean problems everywhere. Local cops get on to something interesting and hook up with the feds—Jesus, all it takes is a thread. This shoulda been simple. Follow the guy hired to look for her and take her out when he finds her—him too if necessary.”

“He made us the first day.”

“So you rented other SUVs. Gave him room to do his job. Passed him back and forth by cell phone when you saw him. One morning you followed him home from the hospital, so you started watching his place. Good plan. Sooner or later he’d lead you to her, and he did.”

“Damn it, Loni. Once we saw they were together in the coffee shop, we passed them like we were supposed to. I mean, we coulda gone in and made a massacre out of it, but the idea was to keep a low profile. Nobody told Tito and that dumb biker hillbilly to make a run at a moving car. They were just supposed to follow and pass them back to us for the kill.”

“Maybe Grizzly Man was pissed Rimes beat up his bitch in the hospital,” Loni said. “I don’t know these clowns on the flip side. A wall of protection, deniability—that’s the whole point of compartmentalization. They fucked up the hospital hit and ended up killing some meth addict, which led to the fire. God knows how much we lost in product and cover in that mess. I hope there’s nothing to connect those fools to us. They’re your responsibility.”

“Tito was yours. He fucked up just as much as the white boys. He was supposed to shoot at the bitch’s parents, not hit them. Like we needed another investigation.”

“Don’t go blaming Tito! You liked him just fine when he made this business hook-up possible. There woulda been no investigation at all if you’d got it right the first time.”

For a few seconds, no one said anything.

“Nobody knew Tito