Countdown - Iris Johansen [123]
“I’ll be here.”
She pulled her hand away and stood up. “Then we’ll worry about going to dinner and watching TV together then.” She headed for the door. “I think I’ll go down and sketch Jock and Mario together. They’re an interesting contrast, aren’t—”
“Jane.”
“Okay. I’m avoiding talking about it.” She stared him in the eye. “You want sex? Fine. I love it with you. I just can’t— It’s going to take me time to become close to anyone. And if you can’t accept that, you’ll have to deal with it.”
His lips tightened. “I can accept it.” He suddenly grimaced. “And I’ll damn well take the sex.” He turned back to the house. “I’ll hit the computer and see if I can come up with anything else on Demonidas.”
They must be just sitting around twiddling their thumbs,” Wickman said when Grozak picked up his call. “No sign of any action at all. Why don’t I take a few men and go in and stir things up?”
“Because it would be stupid,” Grozak said. “I’m surprised you’d even suggest it. I told you I wanted the woman, and the minute you try to use force, they’ll start circling the wagons to protect her. And if you don’t succeed, it will show Reilly how inept we are. The bastard respects strength.”
“I’m not inept.”
“I know you’re not,” Grozak said quickly. “It would only be an appearance.”
“Five days, Grozak.”
“You don’t have to remind me. I’m in Chicago now arranging the shipment of the explosives to Los Angeles. Then I go to Los Angeles and make sure the bribes are in place.”
“All your fine plans won’t do any good if we don’t give Reilly what he wants.” Wickman hung up the phone.
Grozak’s lips tightened as he hung up the phone. Wickman was becoming more arrogant every time he talked to him. He was beginning to regret the day he’d hired the son of a bitch. Wickman might be smart and efficient, but there were moments Grozak felt as if he was losing control.
Have him killed?
Not yet.
He glanced at the calendar on the desk and felt the muscles of his stomach clench.
Five days.
Four Days
Hello, Jock.” Jane sat down on the porch steps beside him and gazed out at the splendor of the sunset before flipping open her sketchbook. “It’s peaceful here, isn’t it? It reminds me of Joe’s cottage on our lake at home.”
“Do you have mountains there?”
“No, just hills. But the peace is the same.”
He nodded. “I like it here. It makes me feel clean inside. And free.”
“You are free.”
“Right now. But I always wonder if I’ll stay that way.”
“I know how you feel.” She held up her hand as he started to shake his head. “Okay, no one could know unless they’d gone through what you did, but I can imagine. I don’t think there’s anything worse than being controlled like a slave. It’s my worst nightmare.”
“Is it?”
She nodded. “And Trevor told me that Reilly would just love to try his hand at controlling me. It made me sick.”
He frowned. “But there weren’t any women there at the compound except Kim, and she works for Reilly.”
“I was evidently going to be the exception.”
He nodded. “Maybe it’s because you look like Cira. He liked her. He kept asking me about her and if the laird had found out anything about her gold or—”
“He did?” Her gaze flew to his face. “You remember that?”
“Yes, little things have been coming back to me in the last few days.”
“What else?”
“Four eight two.”
She felt a surge of disappointment. “Oh.”
“That’s not what you wanted me to say.”
“I just thought that you’d already come to terms with that.”
“Now I have. Now that I’ve remembered that I did all I could.”
“Would you like to tell me what happened that night?”
“There’s not much to tell. Reilly gave me the address and the victim and I went to do what he told me.”
“Why a child?”
“To hurt Falgow. Something to do with the Mafia. I think Reilly had been paid by them to punish Falgow for not cooperating.”
“But a little girl . . .”
“It would hurt him. It hurt me. I couldn’t do it. But if I didn’t do