Amy Atwell - Lying Eyes

It was a logical story, but she’d heard too many lies from him. She’d gotten that one phone call from her security company that Cosmo had entered her store, but that had been before midnight Friday. Wait, Cory had seen Cosmo on Saturday afternoon-but that still left all of last night. Why wouldn’t Mickey have chased him down and tried again? Maybe that’s where he’d gotten that drawing of the crown.

“Is that why you needed a shower at my place this morning? To wash the rest of the blood off your hands?” She barely kept down the bile that rose in her throat.

“I didn’t kill him, Iris. Look, here’s the deal.” He met her gaze, his blue eyes twinkling in the shadows. “I’m just in this for the stones. I don’t owe Turner or his boss any loyalty, in fact, I was supposed to be in and out of this really quick. Only Cosmo beat me to the gems. So, naturally, I threatened him-but I never meant to harm him. And then he got away without telling me anything, and I haven’t seen him since.”

She’d steeled herself to renounce the lie, but this sounded plausible. But then, that was Mickey’s best defense-he made everything sound plausible. “So you never intended to find Cosmo and help him, did you?”

He swallowed. “It wasn’t at the top of my agenda, no.”

“And you’ve been lying to me all along.”

“Can you honestly say you haven’t lied to me-wait, what’s that?” He cocked his head.

Iris stilled until she heard the faint chirping. “It’s a cell phone.”

They both listened. Jock’s muffled voice drifted into the bedroom, until- “What?” burst from him. He appeared in the doorway, agitation rising off him like steam. “Mickey, you son of a bitch. Did you slash it?”

“Relax. The tire’s fine. It’s just flat.”

Iris looked from one to the other, unsure what they were talking about.

“I’ll be right down,” Jock said into the phone before he snapped it shut. “Now I’ve got to go down there and help him change it.”

“Pebbles can change a tire.”

“Nah, he’ll lose the lug nuts or something. It’ll go faster with me helping him.” His good humor-if you could call it that-restored, he grinned at them. “Don’t you two go anywhere while I’m gone.” He walked away, and the front door opened and closed again.

A snuffling sounded as Edgar’s shadow stretched out on the floor. He hopped slowly into the room. There were no other noises within the apartment.

“Hah!” Mickey’s exultant laugh caught her by surprise.

She lifted a brow at him.

“I just bought us five, maybe ten minutes.” He fumbled about on the floor, trying to find a way to stand. “We just need to figure out how to get loose.”

“I think I’m halfway there,” Iris said. Gritting her teeth, she raised her arms from behind her, over her head and down into her lap. Her wrists were still bound, and her shoulders ached with the strain.

Mickey had almost found his balance when he looked in her direction and toppled to the floor again. “How the hell’d you do that?”

“Double jointed. Mom said my Nikolaevsky ancestors were acrobats.” The problem was, with her hands bound, she couldn’t rotate her shoulders back into place. She needed to get this rope off.

Renouncing the pain, she bent over to work on the cords binding her thighs to the chair seat.

“That’s great. Now untie me, and I’ll untie you.”

“Go to hell.” With her legs free, she stalked past him to the living room, intent on finding her things. Jock had left her purse and her keys right on the dining table. Beside them lay Mickey’s cell phone, wallet and gun.

She tossed her keys in her purse before considering her bound hands again. She was going to look great hailing a cab-assuming she could find a cab in this neighborhood. She didn’t have a very clear idea of where she was.

“Iris.” Mickey’s voice carried from the bedroom. “Turner’s not going to accept any excuses for me handing over fake stones. If you leave me here, they’ll kill me.”

Good. But she closed her eyes as she thought it, once again trying to evade that image of Pebbles shooting Mickey in the head. She picked up the gun from the table, being sure to keep it pointed away from her. She didn’t know that much about guns, and with her hands tied, she had limited range of motion. She walked back into the bedroom to find Mickey sitting on the chair she’d vacated.

His eyes grew round when he saw the gun. “Whoa now, tiger.”

“Just tell me, where’s his body?” She wanted to find it before Turner did. That was the least she could do for her sisters.

Mickey watched Iris approach. Vengeance brightened her eyes, making him sweat. “I swear to you, he’s alive as far as I know.” He tilted his chin to the right to avoid the muzzle of the gun. “Do you know anything about handguns?”

“Not really. You just pull the trigger, right?”

Shit. “First off, you only point it at someone you intend to kill.” He braved a direct look to appraise her mood. Iris was tied up in knots that had nothing to do with the cord still around her wrists. She was exhausted and scared and angry-not to mention, she had to be in pain-any of which could have her accidentally pulling that trigger. “Could you just point that at the floor?”

“Not as much fun when you’re not in control, is it, Mickey, ol’ pal?” But she lowered the gun. “I don’t know what to do with you. You say you didn’t kill Cosmo, but I can’t be certain. I can’t trust you anymore. I think it’s better if we part company here.”

Mickey’s heart sank. Oddly, it wasn’t the thought of being left here to die, it was the thought that he’d had her trust and lost it. But he knew what he had to do.

“Look, Rissie, we don’t have time to chat about it. You need to get out of here, now. Take that gun with you-turn it into the police. They’ll know what to do with it.” With luck, Hunter would find his body one day.

She wavered. “I’m sorry.” Self-preservation made her eager to bolt, he could tell.

“I’ll be fine,” he said with all the bravado he could muster. Anything to get her out of here. If this were the only way to save her, so be it. “Don’t worry. I can talk my way out of anything. Now go.”

She swiped at what he suspected was a tear, then she walked out. He heard sounds in the other room. Iris gathering her things, her low voice reassuring Edgar as she worked.

“Leave my phone, will you?” he called out to her. “I might be able to call my next of kin.”

“It’s on the table.”

He heard a door open and close. And then, silence.

Heaving a breath meant only to refresh his lungs, Mickey balanced on his feet again and made his way into the living room the only way he could-hopping like a goddamn rabbit. But there was his phone. If he could get it open and speed dial Hunter, he might survive the night.

Although, if he couldn’t find Cosmo, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to look Iris Fortune in the face again.

He used his nose to nudge the phone near the edge of the table, then turned around and fumbled the phone with his hands until he managed to get it open. He felt along the buttons, feeling pretty sure that he’d dialed *9. When he tried to put the phone back on the table so he could turn and talk into it, the phone slipped and fell to the floor.

“Shit.” He dropped to his knees, which hurt like hell, but it beat having them shot off, which could still be on tonight’s agenda if he didn’t get this right. He heard the phone connection ringing, but couldn’t see-ah, there, underneath the table.

“Hello?”

Double shit. He’d dialed *8. “Mom?”

“Michael! What a nice surprise. Two calls in two nights. You must be wrapping up that case of yours.”