Choked Up Read online

  Rounding the cart, I glanced back at the SUV. The newspaper-reading driver waited patiently for whatever VIP slime Coles was courting. A small silver badge mounted next to the front door winked in the early afternoon sun, discreetly proclaiming the Range Rover was the ultimate elite model, an Autobiography Black.

  I gave a low whistle. Coles’s VIP may be a whale, but he was an orca. Sly enough to pay $230K for a car whose exterior was indistinguishable from its $85K counterpart. Except, of course, for the 7.8-inch longer wheel base and non-glare bulletproof windows.

  I wasn’t a car fanatic by nature, merely osmosis. Only two topics of discussion held center stage at McGrane family dinners. Bad guys and badass cars.

  I popped the Interceptor’s trunk and retrieved my standard emergency kit—Costco baby wipes and Hefty bags. I opened the passenger door, using the jamb as a step, and started swiping eggs off the roof into the garbage bag.

  How does a parking enforcement agent handle the public’s adoration?

  A glob of egg slid down inside my shirtsleeve to the elbow.

  Gingerly.

  I hopped off, closed the door, and started wiping it down, ignoring the honks and howls of passersby. And people think New Yorkers are dinks.

  At least the sidewalk in front of City Hall was a desert wasteland since it was after lunch hour.

  I moved to the hood.

  Perspiration misted my forehead. I reached across the hood, straining on tiptoe to scrub the tiny flecks of shell already stuck cement-style to the top of the windshield.

  I can honestly say I’m not gonna miss this.

  A heavy weight landed between my shoulder blades, pinning me to the hood. “Where’s Bannon?” a man’s voice demanded.

  My tongue went thick in my mouth. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.” The hand on my back crushed the breath from me. “Uhnngh.”

  “You sure about that?” he said.

  Hank’s Law Number Four: Keep your head.

  “No sir,” I lied. “I mean, yessir, I don’t know any Bannon, sir.”

  His right hand went between my legs. “How about now?”

  “Please don’t.”

  His hand grasped and twisted at my groin, fingers wrenching my heavy polyester cargo pants and underpants. “Stop!”

  He didn’t. “Hank and I, we used to share everything.”

  Not me, you sonuvabitch!

  I went dead weight. He lost his grip as I dropped my full 116 pounds on the hand between my legs. When my chest hit the Interceptor’s bumper, I blasted up from the ground, aiming for his chin with the top of my head.

  Nothing. Just air.

  He’s fast.

  I threw a high hard left elbow that didn’t connect, using my body’s rotation to unleash a vicious spinning kick that landed . . . back where I started. My foot slammed into the Interceptor’s hood and I stumbled backward up onto the curb.

  “Damn, you’re slow.” He shook his head. “Not quite as slow as the stringer I left on your car, but close.” Caucasian, brown and brown, six feet tall, 180 pounds. The kind of man that was intentionally unremarkable in every way.

  A killer wearing Levi’s and a Gap tee. He leered. “Where is he, Maisie?”

  He knows my name. My brain stalled.

  The really horrible thing about learning hand-to-hand combat from an ex–Army Ranger is that you know when you’re outmatched. Instantly.

  Gap Tee was faster, stronger, and more experienced.

  I was armed with . . . unpredictability. He was too close to my cart and City Hall was too far. If I could get the Range Rover between us, I could run circles around it until someone intervened or he gave up.

  Gap Tee appeared immobile, but his weight was on the balls of his feet, arms loose at his sides, jonesing for me to make a move.

  I glanced over my shoulder at City Hall. A group of dark suits converged on the steps an untenable thirty yards away. I let my eyes linger, hoping Gap Tee would turn his head or step left. He didn’t.

  Shit. Plan B.

  I clicked the radio on my vest. “Code Blue, Code Blue.” I took a step toward him. “City Hall. Felony Assault.”

  Gap Tee’s eyebrows arched in disbelief.

  I stepped closer. My radio buzzed with static. “Police notified,” Dispatch replied. “ETA ten minutes.”

  I kept my hand on my radio trying to look terrified—which I was—and secretly unhooked it from the clip.

  He snorted in amusement. “You think that’s gonna help?”

  “I was hoping—” I flung the radio at his face and sprinted toward the Range Rover. He caught me by the ponytail and yanked. My fingertips glanced off the hood.

  He tightened his grip on my hair, walked me forward, and smacked my head down on the hood of the SUV.

  The driver lowered the newspaper and raised it again.

  I guess a rescue is out.

  I kicked backward. My work boot glanced off his shin.

  He let go of my hair and pinned me by the neck. His thumb ground into the soft tissue pressure point beneath my jaw. Involuntary tears poured from my eyes. He kicked my feet apart.

  Oh Jesus.

  I looked sideways up at him.

  He drew back his arm, but he didn’t make a fist. Instead his fingers curled into a tiger’s claw. “Don’t worry. I’ll leave you recognizable.”

  I didn’t flinch. Refused to close my eyes. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  A shadow crossed behind him. Gap Tee’s head cracked off the Rover’s steel windshield frame and disappeared from sight.

  I rested there, ignoring the scuffling sounds, my cheek pressed to the cool metal hood, blinking, trying to stem the streaming sinus tears.

  A pale, angular, close-shaven face with bright and wild blue eyes appeared next to mine. “He is gone.”

  I tried to smile. My lips trembled. I pressed myself upright and turned to face my savior. A lean and lithe five-nine in a Gieves and Hawkes suit, raven-haired, with an Eastern European accent.

  Russian?

  Three suit-wearing gorillas ringed a protective detail around him, each managing to look simultaneously detached and pissed off that Gap Tee had escaped.

  “You wanted help, yes?” the man said.

  “Yes.” I am an infant. Raised on a desert island by other infants. I wiped my cheeks on my sleeve and held out my hand. “Thanks. Very much.”

  He took it in both of his. “You are welcome . . . ?”

  “Maisie,” I said. “Maisie McGrane.”

  “Stannis.” He grinned and said something I couldn’t understand to the men surrounding him. “You will tell me, Maisie.” He nodded, still holding my hand. “My driver. He did not help you?”

  A bodyguard went around to the driver’s door, opened it, and dragged the driver over.

  Uh-oh. “He wasn’t—”

  Stannis let go, took two quick steps, and backhanded the driver across the face. The man fell to one knee, head turned away as Stannis spoke in his ear. The driver’s face went the color of green chalk.

  I recognized a couple of swear words. Not Russian. Serbian. Watching grown men cry on FIFA World Cup Soccer has its perks after all.

  Stannis returned to me, all smiles and nods. “He works for me.” He tapped his chest. “He represents me. You understand?”

  Sure. The Serbian Mob has come to Chi-town. “Yes,” I said.

  Behind Stannis, the driver clutched his left hand to his chest, tripping over his feet in his haste to get back behind the wheel.

  “Now you call police?”

  Oh jeez. The police . . . Why the hell did I do that? “I did,” I said. “On my radio.”

  Hank, all icy fury and efficiency, would want to handle Gap Tee his own way. Violently. The last thing I needed was my trio of cop brothers showing up, nosing around and getting curious. Or worse. Da.

  Jaysus Criminey. I gotta shut this down. Now.

  I scanned the sidewalk for the little black plastic box.

 
One of the gorillas handed it to Stannis, who offered it to me. I plugged the radio back into my vest and popped the button three times. “This is McGrane. Cancel Code Blue.”

  “You sure about that?” came Dispatch’s scratchy reply.

  “Positive. Cancel Code Blue. McGrane out.”

  Stannis frowned at me. “I would wait. Tell his likeness to police.”

  “No point. You chased him off.” I looked up at him through my lashes and changed the subject. “Why did you do that?”

  He bared his lower teeth, crooked and white. “Maybe one day you help Stannis.”

  “I owe you.” Super. Always fun to owe a criminal a favor.

  “So, my new friend. Tell me. Why no police?”

  Out of the FryDaddy into the lava pit. “Um . . .”

  Hmmm. How best to explain to a Serbian Mobster he’s just rescued me from one of my dark horse boyfriend’s enemies?

  Don’t even try. “He’s a bad man.”

  Stannis’s blue eyes were electric on mine. “So am I.”

  Chapter 4

  After Stannis and his gorillas drove away, I got in the Interceptor, locked the doors, and forced myself to take two full minutes of deep breaths, trying to get the rusty gears of rational thought to mesh together for a tactical response.

  What the hell was that?

  On the plus side, I now knew what the killer looked like. Minus side, he was using me as leverage against Hank. And he was as brazen as a devil in the Delta.

  I realized I wasn’t going to get any calmer and called in.

  “Mr. Bannon’s office,” the secretary answered in her languorous drawl. “How may I help you, Ms. McGrane?”

  “I need to speak with him.”

  “I apologize. That’s not possible. Mr. Bannon is still in-country. Two hours and three minutes until he’s able to receive messages.”

  A bark of laughter escaped my throat. “Great.”

  “Level of urgency?”

  For me? Off the freaking charts. For Hank? I was, after all, fine. “Low to moderate.”

  “Ms. McGrane, the vocal imprint system is detecting a significant amount of stress in your speech. Mr. Bannon has several assets on retainer I can make immediately available to you at this time.”

  Assets? More like associates. Cripes. This was getting worse by the second. “Um, no thanks.”

  “Your message?” Her soft lilt turned metallic. I’d be leaving one or else.

  “Please tell Mr. Ba—er, Hank, I met the guy who left the message yesterday and I’m staying at my parents.” I hung up before she smooth-talked me into more trouble.

  I drove all the way back to the Traffic Enforcement Bureau lot, surfing the panic wave, head swiveling like an owl on Adderall. Inside the barbed-wire, camera-laden, armed-guarded parking enforcement lot, I started to relax. Slightly.

  I hosed down the Interceptor, so the cart dogs wouldn’t be scrubbing egg adhesive all night, then went inside the office, got a Coke from the vending machine, and sat down to write up my reports.

  The pink Interceptor accident form was first. I wrote it up, tucked it in my pocket, and started on the incident report. But Gap Tee getting the jump on me was pretty much all I could think about. It took forever and an hour to fill in the short worksheet and describe the idiotic band of feathered hoodie wearers’ egging.

  A hand slapped down on the table across from me. “You wanna ’splain that Code Blue recall, McGrane?” I looked up. Leticia Jackson’s four-eleven bulk loomed over me, an open sack of Cheetos clutched in her hand.

  “I panicked.”

  “Bullshit.” My stubby supervisor rolled her eyes in disbelief. “A Code Blue’s a three-day mandatory leave. Why you go mess up an all-paid vaycay?”

  “Because taking a ration of shit from my brothers for the rest of my life is definitely not worth it.”

  Leticia gave a musical titter and in a surprisingly deft motion pulled the chair back with her foot as she swept her hand across the table, snagged the report, and sat down. She tipped her head back and poured in a mouthful of Cheetos. Crunching, she scanned the form. “Don’t see no mention of the B-A-D, McGrane.”

  “The what?”

  “Big ass dent in the hood o’ your Interceptor.”

  “Yeah. That’s on me.” When my spin kick missed Gap Tee by a country mile. I removed the pink accident form from my pocket and handed it across. “Dock me. It wasn’t part of the egging. I did it.”

  She snickered. “With what? Your imagination? Your tiny white onion couldn’t make a dent in a cardboard box.”

  “I . . . uh, kicked it.”

  “What, you take a ka-rah-tay class after work and now you think you some kinda Bruce Lee ninja?” Before I could answer she tore the pink form in half, took a pen from her shirt pocket and clicked it three times. “Get me a Kit Kat. Those hoodie motherfuckers are gonna take the heat on this.”

  I returned with a candy bar and a Dr Pepper. Leticia stood up and gathered the snacks and the incident report to her chest. “Go on home and rub a lil’ Vaseline on your behind, McGrane.”

  “Huh?”

  She laughed. “Must be chappin’ your ass not to pay for that dent.”

  I watched her strut to the locker room, wondering where the hell she got the idea that I was some kind of saint, seeing as I was about to lie like a legless dog to my entire family.

  Still, $150 not docked from my soon-to-be final paycheck. Not everything about the day sucked monkey balls.

  The iPhone chirped. A text from Hank’s office.

  Msg received. ET of contact: 0500.

  An overwhelming sense of relief washed over me, leaving me loose-limbed and determined to prove to Hank I could play it smart and take care of myself. Which meant I had to leave the Accord, arm up, and never be alone.

  I got my gear and called my youngest older brother Cash for a ride home. Because if a girl isn’t safe in a house full of cops and lawyers with semiautomatic weapons, where is she really?

  A bright yellow Ford Mustang pulled up in front of the Parking Enforcement office. Subterranean Ska blasted through the stereo, the bass shaking the windows. A younger, rowdier carbon copy of Flynn and Rory leaned out the window. “Cash’s Taxi Service.”

  I got in. “Thanks.”

  “What’s wrong with the wheels?”

  “Something wasn’t quite right!” I yelled, knowing better than to ask him to turn it down. “I didn’t want to risk driving it!” Mostly true.

  Cash lowered the volume. “Why? Was there a body on it, too?”

  “Funny.”

  “ ’Fess up. You wanted an armed escort.”

  “What can I say?” I fastened my seat belt. “I think security guard and you’re the first one to come to mind.”

  “Ba-da-bum. Chshhh.” He hit my head at his cymbal clash. “So was it bad or really bad?”

  “Moderate blood. Above-average gore. It wouldn’t make the Top Twenty or anything.”

  “Didja recognize him?”

  “No.” I sighed and lied, “Neither would Hank. Just another random Chicago snuff that keeps us America’s Murder Capital.”

  “I hear that’s what Detective Forman thinks, anyway. So—” He tagged me in the shoulder with a playful punch. “Where to? James Bond’s super-secret hideout?”

  “Home, Jeeves.”

  He nodded, a self-satisfied look on his face. “About time.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Start on Hank.”

  “Christ, I wasn’t about to. Last time I looked in the mirror I wasn’t Da or Flynn or Rory pissing on your leg just because you got a boyfriend.”

  “Yeah, well—”

  “Bannon’s a stand-up guy. I’m cool with him.”

  Whoa. “Sorry.”

  “You should be.” Cash’s jaw edged forward. “You’re killing Da, Maisie.”

  “Hardly.”

  He shook his head. “You gonna nurse thi
s grudge into the ground or what?”

  Great. Cash, once firmly on my side, was now sliding traitorously toward Team Family Unity. “I wouldn’t get too cocky if I were you. Da waited until the last minute to stick the knife in my back. You’re not wearing a SWAT uniform yet, cowboy.”

  “Wanna bet?” He grinned. “My transfer’s official next week. The delay was all on Vice’s end. They begged SWAT for one more month of Cash McGrane’s patented mayhem arrest magic.”

  “That’s terrific. I’m really happy for you.”

  He glanced at me, waiting for a punch line that didn’t come. “Uh . . . thanks.”

  “You bet.” I closed my eyes and chewed the insides of my cheeks. My God, if he knew—hell, if they all knew—I was BOC, they’d explode like Roman candles dipped in kerosene.

  Cash, hoping I was considering forgiving Da, decided to keep his mouth shut. We drove the rest of the way home thinking our own thoughts.

  He hit the clicker for our security gate and drove in.

  No cars in the driveway. Which didn’t mean much. With five older brothers, there were always a couple malingering about. Cash pulled into his stall. Mom’s Jag, and Da’s Mercedes were there, but their date-night Aston Martin was gone. The other stalls were empty.

  My shoulders sagged in relief. For once, no one was home.

  “You wanna put on a headset, knock back some beers, and play a lil’ Halo or MOH Warfighter?”

  “Rain check?”

  Cash snorted in disgust. “Wuss. Whatevs.”

  We got out of the car. I left him monkeying with his gear and went inside. Mom had left a note on the kitchen counter.

  Cash,

  Da and I are at an NRA fund-raising dinner with the twins. Thierry made roast chicken with white bean tapenade. Apricot cakes for dessert.

  Love,

  Mom

  P.S. Leave some for Flynn and Rory.

  Thank God.

  I bypassed dinner, snagged a tub of Häagen-Dazs Vanilla Swiss Almond from the freezer, and went directly to bed.