Amy Atwell - Lying Eyes

“Maybe the pool today. Do you think it will be too hot for her?” Marko sipped his coffee.

His brother took a bite from his danish. Setting it down, he brushed powdered sugar from his upper lip as he chewed. “Rent her a cabana.”

An excellent suggestion, but the telephone rang before he could tell Viktor so. Heaving himself up from the table, Marko answered the phone on the desk.

“Marko?” The voice on the other end was nearly breathless in its rush to speak.

Cosmo. “Such a surprise to hear from you. You never answer your phone.”

“Marko, listen to me. I need your help.”

The stress in Cosmo’s voice caught Marko by surprise. “I’m listening.”

“I’m in some trouble, rather big trouble. Someone has kidnapped my daughters.”

“Iris?”

“Iris…and my other two daughters.”

Marko blinked. Waving to Viktor, he motioned for him to pick up the telephone extension.

“I can’t explain it all. I’m going to try and get Iris now. But the other girls are being held in the downtown district. I need you to get them free.”

Marko drew a breath. “This is a large order to ask when you have lied and cheated us. Why should we risk ourselves to help you?”

“Please. They’re Iris’s half sisters, and if I screw this up, they’re going to be killed.”

Across the living room, Viktor stood and laid his phone back in the cradle with a nod. He strode to Tatiana’s bedroom and knocked on the door.

“Very well,” Marko said into the phone. If his brother agreed this was worth doing, he would do it. “I’ll need whatever details you have.” Quickly, he gathered a pen and transcribed the address and instructions Cosmo dictated. “Are you sure about all of this?”

“No, so be careful. And if they’re not there, call me right away.”

“Of course. Will you be working alone?”

“I’m taking Mickey with me.”

“Good.” He had long since abandoned the dramatic flair of working alone, but one could never tell with Cosmo. And Mickey struck him as a worthy ally. “Beregi zdorovie.”

“You take care yourself,” Cosmo said gruffly. “And Marko, thank you.”

Marko hung up the phone and tore off the sheet of paper containing his scribbled notes. Already, adrenaline was coursing through him, rejuvenating his limbs and making him stand taller. When he turned, he found Viktor had routed Sergei and Aunt Tatiana from the adjoining room. The three of them waited expectantly.

“What is it we must do?” Tatiana asked from her wheelchair.

“Viktor and I must run an errand for Cosmo. Sergei will stay here with you.” With a heavy frown at his nephew, he made it clear this was a command.

Tatiana beat the floor once with the tip of her cane. “The hell you say.”

Not that he’d expected her to accept being left behind willingly. “Aunt Tatiana, we must work fast, and it could be very dangerous.”

She leaned forward, her eyes gleaming with a clarity he hadn’t seen in months, maybe years. Already, color was blooming in her cheeks at the very thought of an adventure. “Finally, we are to have some fun here, yes?”

Marko had to admire her grit. Gaining a silent nod of assent from Viktor, he surrendered the notion of leaving her behind-she’d only make his life hell afterward. In fact, now that he thought of it, she might prove very useful.

Mickey lay in the white room covered with white sheets. He’d long since turned off the television, preferring to let the various beeps and whirs of the monitors fill the silence.

He still felt oddly numb, and while he wished he could blame it on residual anesthetic, he didn’t think that was likely. She was gone, and with her, he’d lost sensation. The bleakness had returned, worse this time.

Just his luck that he’d chosen a woman whose history made it impossible for her to accept his profession. Still, he gave her credit-she hadn’t asked him to give it up. Instead she’d blamed her own shortcomings, and she’d walked away.

Mickey didn’t believe Iris had any shortcomings.

If he could have stood up-hell, if he could have thought properly, he never would have let her walk away.

He still wanted her.

He raised his chin to stare at the white ceiling. So, where did that leave him? Lying here, thinking of Iris, thinking that winning her meant giving up the very core of who he was.

Had Suze understood that about Brian?

A sound at the door made him close his eyes. God help him, if another nurse tried to take his temperature or make him swallow another pill, he was going to squeeze that IV bag until his veins burst and put himself out of his misery.

“You’re making this all too easy, Kincaid.”

Mickey’s eyes opened at the sound of Turner’s condescending voice.

Turner stood over the bed like an angel of death. “Once again, you failed to kill your target. Let me show you how it’s done.”

Like a strobe effect, one second Mickey was staring into Turner’s cobra eyes, and the next he was fighting off a choking grip on his throat. Frantically, his brain sought options while his hands came up to fend off the attack. He’d lost track of the call button, Hunter had left the building, and-dammit!-he couldn’t drag enough air into his aching lungs to yell for help. He couldn’t even grunt.

He was going to be murdered if he didn’t pull it together.

From the corner of his flagging vision, he thought he spied a nurse enter the room. Only she didn’t seem to think anything odd about the man murdering him. She saw the death-fight happening at his bed, but instead of screaming for help, she calmly walked forward, her shoes barely squeaking on the linoleum.

And then she beaned Turner on the head with some piece of metal that knocked him completely senseless. As Turner’s body slumped across Mickey’s chest, the nurse-her odd long metal weapon in her hand-winked at him.

What the hell? He reached for his call button.

“Don’t.” The nurse shook her head, a serious look in her eyes. She checked Turner to be sure he was really out cold, then laid her weapon on the bedside table.

From her heavy jowls, she was old enough to be his mother. Mickey tried to be generous, but even on those terms she was frumpy. Beneath her lab coat, her boobs swayed heavily as she moved to his bedside. She wore too much makeup. Who told her the false eyelashes and blue eye shadow or that garish red lipstick-

Crap.

“Cosmo?” Mickey whispered.

“Shhh.”

“What are you doing here?” He swallowed. “Besides saving my life?”

“Busting you out.”

“Oh.” The answer was so matter-of-fact, Mickey wondered if the shyster had been drinking. Not even Cosmo was crazy enough to breeze in here in drag, knock out a killer and try to kidnap him from his recovery bed. The magician looked rather tired, but the lipstick and rouge lit up his face like neon. And then Mickey realized what was so different.

“You shaved off your beard.”

“I had to. I’ve got to save Iris.” Cosmo silenced any rebuttal with a raised finger to his lips. He dragged the chair over and pulled Turner’s prone form into it, then searched their nemesis. From a pant pocket Cosmo withdrew a capped syringe. “Good ol’ Turner. Always carries a spare.” The trickster pocketed the syringe in his lab coat.

“What is that?”

“Sedative. Turner keeps it on hand for people he needs out of the way but not out of the way.” He turned up a gun equipped with a silencer, which he tossed on the bed. “You may need this.”

“For what?”

“Catching Donovan.”

Mickey chuckled. That only made him cough, which hurt-a lot. “No one told me my ribs were going to stab me every time I breathe,” he muttered.