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  “You look like you just lost your best friend,” said Frank.

  “Pirro must have taken Ryan to be sure he had leverage in case the cops had him cornered. But now that he’s free, there’s no reason for him not to kill his hostage.”

  “They didn’t find a body. That’s a good sign, right?’

  “I suppose. I’ll get out of your hair. Thanks again.”

  “No problem. Hey, good work finding Gloria.”

  “Thanks. Tell me if you hear anything about Ryan.”

  Frank nodded. “I will.”

  Charlotte returned to Declan’s car and pointed it in the direction of his shop. She was nearly there when she found herself making a U-turn and heading toward Jackie’s club.

  Why would Pirro head right for the swamp?

  There had to be a hideout there she’d missed. He wouldn’t return to Jackie’s club. That wouldn’t make any sense.

  Something was eating at her.

  The pipeline they’d followed to escape their own personal disco-Alamo had a hatch that popped up in the middle of the swamp.

  Could he have headed for that?

  No. There wasn’t any reason to try for that entry point. First, it was locked from the inside—she’d made sure of that—and the only other place it lead was—

  The diner.

  That’s what’s eating at me.

  Mariska said the diner hadn’t had any pie. There’d been a kitchen, but no food. There had been some men sitting in the dining area having coffee...

  She recalled the map Jackie had found in her parking lot and the half-hearted second pipeline leading from what turned out to be the diner.

  What if it wasn’t a diner at all. What if it was a pretend diner, serving as a nexus between pipelines. A popping out point.

  If Jackie’s club had been the warehouse, maybe the diner served as the pickup spot for distribution, a spot where they could supply dealers without revealing the location of their warehouse.

  And if there was a second pipeline leading from the diner, where would it go?

  Warehouse, distribution center...

  Safe house.

  They needed a safe house. Stash houses and warehouses could be discovered and raided. They needed a safe place to hide if things went bad.

  Wouldn’t that be where Pirro would go?

  Charlotte hit the gas. She needed to find the entrance to the second pipeline. It would lead her to the safe house.

  It would lead her to Ryan.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Stephanie’s chest hurt. The operation had gone well, her lung had been inflated like a beach ball, but everything hurt.

  It had been a terrible twenty-four hours.

  First I forget my gun, then I get shot...

  It was like she’d never even killed someone before.

  She wasn’t sure how much longer she could lie in bed. There was no way she’d be eating hospital food, so they’d have to set her free or watch her wither away and die of starvation.

  There was a thud on the door of her room and she watched it shudder. It opened six inches, and a face, about waist-high, appeared.

  An angry old woman muttered beneath her breath.

  “Will you give me a push, Ruslan?”

  A young man appeared above and behind the woman. He opened the door wide enough to roll the wheelchair-bound woman into the room.

  Stephanie recognized the young man. He was Louis’s flunky, the boy who’d popped his head into the room during her last meeting in Louis’s office.

  “What are you doing here?’ asked Stephanie. It still hurt a little to talk.

  Ruslan nodded toward the old woman as he parked her beside the bed.

  Stephanie lowered her view to focus on the old woman. She had an impressive coif of dark hair and a determined glare she used to hold Stephanie’s attention before speaking.

  “I need you to earn your million.”

  Stephanie arched an eyebrow. “My million?”

  “My son offered you a million dollars to wipe out his rival.”

  Stephanie pictured the photograph she’d seen in Louis’s mother’s bedroom. The woman posing with her husband was considerably younger in that image, but Stephanie could see the similarities. She also detected the touch of a French accent.

  “You’re Georgette? I thought Louis put you away in a home.”

  Georgette smirked. “You’re charming.”

  Stephanie chuckled, stopping when the pain started.

  “Do you want to know who eez rival eez?” asked Georgette.

  Stephanie licked her lips. Lying in her hospital bed with nothing else to do, she thought she’d pieced together the identity of her target. She felt stupid, not having realized it sooner.

  She smoothed her blanket. “Let’s assume I know what you’re talking about.”

  Georgette nodded. “Let’s.”

  “Good. Now, if I were an assassin, hired by your son to kill his rival, I would guess the mystery man was...” Stephanie looked at the tall young man standing against the wall behind Georgette. “Can I get a drumroll?”

  Ruslan’s eyes widened. “Me?”

  “Who else?”

  He glanced at Georgette. She didn’t turn to give him any indication of her feelings on the topic, so he stuck out his index fingers and pretended to drum while fluttering his tongue to approximate the rhythm.

  “Thththththththththth...”

  Stephanie held up her right hand—holding aloft her left hurt too much—and made her announcement with flair. “Pirro!”

  The drumroll ceased.

  Georgette’s expression didn’t change.

  Stephanie frowned. “Pirro. Right? He’s pretending to help Louis while building a gang of his own?”

  “Wouldn’t ’ee have killed you when you started snuffing his underbosses?”

  Stephanie shrugged with her right shoulder. “He did. I mean, he tried to.”

  “And then?”

  “And then?”

  “’Ee didn’t try again?”

  “Aah...no.” Stephanie pouted. The old broad had a good point. “I figured he was too afraid Louis would be mad at the news of my death?”

  Georgette laughed, coughed, and then laughed again. “Have you met my son?”

  “Yes. I—”

  “Do you think Pirro would ever worry about disappointing Louis? Of losing control over him?”

  Stephanie sighed. “I guess not.”

  “Why?”

  “Because your son is a schmuck. No offense.”

  “None taken. You’re right. Eez an idiot. But eez my idiot. Which is why I always keep eyes on him.”

  Stephanie and the young man exchanged a glance.

  “So you had spies.”

  Georgette jerked a thumb in the boy’s direction. “Ruslan is on loan from a Russian business associate of mine.”

  “So you know about me. And you know Pirro is using Louis.”

  Georgette nodded.

  “But Pirro isn’t his rival on the streets. Pirro genuinely wanted me to wipe out the rival leader and his crew?”

  Georgette nodded.

  “But that man waiting to kill me—only Louis and Pirro knew—”

  Georgette used her eyes to point at Ruslan behind her. “You suspected a mole, perhaps?”

  Stephanie glanced at the boy. The mole.

  She stared, wide-eyed at Georgette.

  “You? His mommy is the rival drug lord?”

  “I’m the only drug lord.”

  “But he had you committed to a home.”

  Georgette shrugged. “Eet’s not like I need to stand on the corners myself. And where could I be less conspicuous?” Georgette coughed. “I also own the place and I’m dying of lung cancer, so it isn’t a bad place to be. I’ve grown very good at mahjong.”

  “I haven’t learned to play that yet.”

  “It’s fun.”

  “I’ll check it out.” Stephanie had a thought. “Oh no. I owe you an apolog
y.”

  “For what?”

  “The finger wreath...”

  Georgette grunted. “Hm. Yes. That was unfortunate. They were some of my best men.”

  “Not the one who tried to kill me. He was terrible.”

  “True. I underestimated you.”

  “Because I’m a girl?”

  “Because my idiot son hired you.”

  “Ah. Good point. So, where do we stand?”

  Georgette sighed. “After I appeared to go legit, I tried to steer Louis away from the, uh...family business. It didn’t work. When I realized the little twit was bound and determined to follow in his father’s footsteps, I hired Pirro to be his second-in-command and keep him out of trouble.”

  “Why didn’t you let him work under you?”

  “Ee doesn’t listen to me. Plus, ee’d get himself caught and blow my cover. It took me a decade to make eet look like the family had gone straight. Ee’d have destroyed everything in the time eet takes him to finish one level of his stupid video game.”

  “Fair enough. So Pirro got power-hungry?”

  Georgette nodded. “It was only a matter of time before he killed my boy and me as well. When I heard about you, yes, I tried to have you killed at first—but then I thought you might come in handy, especially after you killed my captain.”

  “Again, sorry about that.”

  “I meant to approach you before you got to my second captain, but my health took a bit of a bad turn and things happened too fast.”

  “Again, I’m so embarrassed. The wreath—”

  Georgette waved her away. “Water under zee bridge.”

  Stephanie realized the old woman might be able to answer a question she’d had for a while. “Hey, what’s up with Pirro’s hair?”

  “His mother told him his father had been a Scottish business man.”

  “He is tall for a Columbian.”

  “He became obsessed with the Scots. Rumor is heez seen Braveheart over a hundred times. Screams Freedom! every time he’s excited or wants to leave.”

  “Huh.”

  They fell silent while Georgette dug for a tissue and coughed into it. When she’d caught her breath, Stephanie continued following the old woman’s logic.

  “So to earn my million, I need to kill Pirro?”

  Georgette nodded. “Yes. But there eez a catch.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I need you to do it now.”

  Stephanie gaped. “Now? I just had my lung inflated.”

  “I need to extract Louis from a situation right now and I can’t have Pirro loose. That weasel is headed toward our safe house. He’s without his men and he won’t be expecting you.”

  Wincing, Stephanie sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her chest throbbed in time with her heartbeat.

  This is going to be difficult, but not impossible.

  “Fine. But I want a two hundred and fifty thousand dollar bump.”

  “For what?”

  “For having the strength and will to pull this off in my condition.”

  Georgette laughed. “You wanna talk strength and will?”

  The old woman’s voice suddenly sounded very different. Stephanie pushed aside her pain and looked up to find Georgette smiling.

  “Girly, I’ll show you strength and will. I’ve been copping this stupid French accent for fifty-five years. I’m from the Bronx.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  As Charlotte drove to the swamp diner she decided it might be a good idea to carry a gun in the future. The deeper she drove into swampland, the more reckless looking for the second pipeline on her own seemed.

  I should have asked my boyfriend, Jean Claude-VanDeclan, to join me.

  No. He would have tried to talk her out of it. Or insisted she bring an army of police, and she knew the police wouldn’t jump to action based on her hunch about a second pipeline leading to an imaginary safe house. Showing them a map that looked like a first grade project wouldn’t help.

  Maybe Frank would have come, but he gets so cranky...

  Charlotte stepped out of the car and fished a flashlight from her trunk. She took a deep breath. Mariska had called the building a diner, but it didn’t have a name across the front. Just crime tape. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be a diner and only looked like one from the inside. Maybe it wasn’t all that odd it had no pie. Maybe Mariska had just really wanted pie.

  Okay. Let’s go. I’ll be fine.

  Charlotte knew there was a phone in the little building—Declan had used it to call the cops after escaping the tunnel. She’d locate the second tunnel, maybe scoot down it to see what was on the other side, and if she had no cell signal there, she’d run back down the tunnel and call the police.

  Easy peasy.

  She peeled back the tape and found the door unlocked.

  Handy.

  She poked her head inside.

  “Hello?”

  Nothing.

  So far so good.

  If the map was correct—and it had been so far—the pipeline would lead from the right side of the building.

  Tables, chairs and a counter top claimed most of the space in the building’s front room. It did look suspiciously like a little diner. The right side of the room had windows though, so she doubted it could be hiding access to the pipeline.

  She walked through swinging doors to the back. A barren kitchen occupied the space, sans utensils and grease. More crime tape covered a hole in the far wall. It looked as though someone had opened a door through a thin piece of paneling, which had peeled away and knocked over a stack of orange crates.

  Or maybe Declan had karate-chopped through it. Who knew anymore?

  Charlotte turned to her right to find a walk-in freezer. She jerked open the door and found it cold but empty inside.

  I guess drug dealers don’t sweat their electric bills.

  She couldn’t help but think how offended the residents of Pineapple Port would be by this waste of air-conditioning. She’d once heard a lady say the worst part about menopause was the hot flashes, not for the discomfort, but for the extra air-conditioning bills.

  Something about the freezer felt wonky. Charlotte stuck her head outside to check around the corner of the unit and then looked inside again.

  It was shallow. The freezer didn’t run as deep as the rest of the room.

  The pipeline had to be behind the back wall of the freezer.

  She tapped on it.

  It sounded hollow.

  She was about to search for an axe when a large bolt in the center-top of the back panel caught her eye. There were circular scratch marks around it. On a whim she pushed on the metal panel and it swung to the left, just far enough to reveal an opening to a ladder that led down.

  Bingo.

  Flipping on her flashlight, she climbed onto the rungs leading into the second pipeline. Allowing the door to swing back into place, she saw it was possible to secure it on the opposite side. If someone was on the run they could disappear into the freezer, access the tunnel, and then secure the panel behind them. Then the people chasing them wouldn’t be able to swing the wall aside and follow.

  Charlotte walked as fast as she could down the pipeline without breaking into a trot. Just like the tunnel from Jackie’s, this pipeline also possessed an escape hatch. She climbed up to take a look out, finding nothing but swamp.

  She closed the hatch. A nervous thrill ran through her bones as she bolted it shut. She couldn’t shake the feeling that if she didn’t secure it quickly enough, thugs would throw open the hatch and grab her.

  I’m scarred for life.

  Luckily, sliding bolts through swamp hatches didn’t come up that often.

  She continued until she reached another ladder at the end of the tunnel. She climbed the rungs to a landing with a glowing red button.

  This end of the tunnel is high tech.

  She calculated the chances of the red button being a trap. It was hard to say. It didn’t have a sig
n in blinking lights that said PUSH! pointing to it like a cartoon. That would have been suspicious.

  She decided anyone using the tunnel to get to the safe house would be moving fast. They didn’t want to fiddle with bolts. The bad guys had spent more money on the safe house door to make it easier to find safety should the need arise.

  She took a deep breath.

  She pushed the red button.

  A clicking noise began to grind and she winced, covering her head with her hands.

  The wall slid away.

  She peered through her fingers and found herself facing a large, warehouse-like room. A small prop plane sat just inside the open hanger door to the right, and sunlight streamed into the building to reveal the most interesting part of the building.

  The three people standing in the center of the room.

  Six eyes swiveled in her direction.

  Two belonged to Pirro, who held Ryan by the throat, the older man’s head tucked in the crook of the redhead’s arm.

  Two, more wild, belonged to poor Ryan.

  And two belonged to Stephanie, who stood three feet from the other two, a gun trained on Pirro. She wore light blue hospital scrubs. Her feet were bare.

  Charlotte stood still, as if they couldn’t see her unless she moved.

  She heard Stephanie groan.

  “Oh, girlfriend.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Pirro swiveled his gun, which had been trained on Stephanie, and took a shot at Charlotte.

  Somewhere in her locked brain, Charlotte had seen that coming, and had already bolted to the right toward the plane, hoping to hide behind it. At the time, it seemed like a better idea than dropping to the bottom of the tunnel below, but as the sound of a second gun exploded, she began to wonder.

  Stephanie had fired. Blood spattered from Pirro’s shoulder, forcing him to release Ryan. Free, Ryan roared, flailing at Pirro’s gun.

  Pirro fired again, but Ryan’s interference ruined the thug’s aim and a bullet struck high on the wall above Stephanie’s head. Stephanie rolled away apparently unscathed but still yowling in what sounded like pain.

  Pirro’s gun skittered across the cement floor as he backhanded Ryan, connecting his balled fist with the side of the older man’s skull. Ryan’s head snapped back as he spun to the ground.