The Wife Who Knew Too Much(87)
“No,” Connor said, taking a step toward her menacingly. “That is not happening. You let her go, now.”
“What’s the attraction here? I honestly don’t get it. She’s all right, but I’m better. We could have had it all. You were in line to be a very rich man. And you go and bring a wild card into the mix and screw up everything I worked for, everything I planned.”
Connor lunged for Juliet, but she was too quick. She stepped back and fired, this time at the ground near his feet. Connor yelped and collapsed onto the bed, grabbing his left wing-tip in his hand. Crimson blood leaked between his fingers.
“Jesus Christ, you shot my foot! You lunatic.”
“You need to understand that this is not a joke, and I am not playing. Next time you try anything, I’m shooting her.”
Connor tugged frantically at the laces of his shoe. The smell of burnt shoe leather and fresh blood made me gag.
“You,” Juliet said, turning the gun on me. “Where is the bug? Tell me now. You know I’m not afraid to use this.”
“There is no bug, I swear. Just an ankle bracelet.”
“Then, why was that cop here for so long?”
“He had to set up my ankle monitor. I don’t think he knew what he was doing, and he couldn’t get the signal to work. Do you want to look at the bracelet? It just looks—I mean, I don’t know how one is supposed to look—but it looks normal to me.”
She nodded, gesturing with the gun. Next to me, Connor had gotten his shoe off. He groaned in pain. The tip of his third toe was missing, and blood spurted over his hands. We could die here, I thought, as a wave of nausea swept over me. I slapped my hand over my mouth, fighting the vomit.
“What are you waiting for?” Juliet said to me.
“He—he’s hurt. He needs a doctor.”
“It’s his toe, for Chrissake. He’ll live. Show me the bracelet, or no doctor is gonna save you.”
I struggled to roll the tight jeans over the bulky black plastic device with shaking fingers. When I finally managed to work it free, I twisted my ankle to see the screws. The panic-button screw looked just like the others, small and deeply recessed into the thick plastic rectangle. Why the hell did they have to make it that way? There was no way to activate it without Juliet knowing I was up to something.
Connor grabbed a pillow from the bed, muttering as he stripped off its case to make a tourniquet for his foot. In the process, he jostled the pile of pillows, revealing a corner of the pink leather diary, which must have slipped from the towel it was wrapped in. Juliet, leaning down to inspect my ankle monitor, didn’t notice. The next moment, we were all distracted by the door flying open, and Steve Kovacs sprinted in. For a split second, my entire being sang with relief that this ordeal was coming to an end. Then Kovacs raced to Juliet’s side.
“Are you okay? I heard shots fired. Jesus, what’s with his foot?”
I saw that Kovacs was in this with her, and my insides went liquid with fear. Juliet with a gun was bad enough. Add Kovacs, and we were doomed.
“I was trying to get her to tell me where the bug is.”
“So you shot Connor?”
“She’s fucking crazy, Steve. You need to call the police,” Connor said.
“Yeah, right. I’m not calling the cops. Let me see.”
He grimaced when he saw Connor’s wound.
“Jesus Christ. Why’d you shoot him, Lissa?”
“Because he was rushing me to get the gun. He’s with her, and she’s a snitch and a liar. She claims the guy was just here to install that thing.”
Juliet waved her gun at my ankle.
“Maybe he was. I never said I knew for sure there was a bug. What the hell did you do?” Kovacs said.
“I’m trying to protect us. We need to take precautions.”
“Use your brain. Now he’s shot, he’s pissed off. God knows who else heard the gunshot. Any minute, Dennis or Gloria are gonna come around here and—”
“I can handle them.”
“They could call the police. Maybe they already did. You forced our hand. Now what do we do?”
“We should get out of here. Now. That’s what I’ve been saying.”
“Yeah, and go where?”
“Somewhere we can regroup. We take them with us.”
“What, like hostages? That’s very ambitious, Lissa. You think very highly of yourself.”
“Are you scared? I thought you were some kind of operational genius.”
“I am, and I’m telling you, that’s not gonna work. We’d need a remote location that isn’t tied to either of us, where we could stay for long enough, undetected, to convince Mr. Ford here to get with the program, or failing that, make plans to flee the country. You have a place like that?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
He paused, frowning. “Oh,” he said. “Right.”
“What about that?”
“It could work. Cover them, will you.”
I didn’t know what Kovacs’s background was, whether it was military, or law enforcement, or organized crime. But he knew what he was doing, and he was careful. As Juliet held a gun on us, Kovacs had us turn around and lie facedown on the bed. He left the room briefly, presumably to get some restraints, then returned and bound our hands with heavy plastic zip-ties. He then ordered me to sit up, as he carefully unscrewed my ankle monitor. Hagerty had warned me that cutting through the band would alert the police that I was attempting to escape. Kovacs obviously understood that and wasn’t taking any chances. He left the monitor intact, on the bed, right where they’d expect me to be. My only hope was that, somehow, the process of unscrewing the “panic button” screw had set the thing off. If not, they wouldn’t know I was gone until I failed to show up to my lawyer’s office two days from now, as we’d agreed. By the time Hagerty and Pardo figured out I was missing, God knows where I’d be. Hell, I’d probably be dead. So would Connor. And our baby.