LITMIR.BIZ

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the way Kelly had looked the first time he’d watched her climb down from a plane and stride across tarmac?

      Tight jeans and a baggy sweater. Long, loose stride. A smile that hit a man dead in the gut and kept going.

      Myron closed the door to his office, and Nick straightened.

      “How’s Lily?” Nick asked as they headed for the elevator.

      “Okay. Better than me.” Myron shifted his briefcase to the opposite hand and reached into his pocket for his keys. “I finally agreed to put the house on the market, so we’re at least talking again.” He glanced at Nick, offering a weary smile. “She’s like Bev. Determined.”

      “She’s like Bev in other ways, too.”

      “Suppose she is,” he admitted, seeming to give additional thought to the observation. “Can’t cook like her mother, though.”

      Nick followed Myron into the elevator. “Different generation.”

      “You can say that again.”

      “You’re a dinosaur.”

      “Lily has another term for it, a long word that manages to sound like a compliment, but isn’t.” Myron stepped out into the parking garage and Nick followed.

      “How about we catch that sandwich tomorrow night? Maybe shoot a few games of pool?”

      “Sounds good,” Myron called and offered a small wave.

      Four minutes later, Nick’s car skidded into the parking garage.

      After taking the ticket from the entrance machine, he entered the parking structure. At this time of night, the garage, which catered to bank customers and employees, was mostly empty.

      What in the hell was going on? Was Kelly hauling for Benito? Nick felt his gut tighten at the possibility.

      His sports car roared up to the top level. A clear, star-studded Florida night spread overhead. Tall buildings, several lit to reveal the bold architectural details of the New South, surrounded the structure.

      As soon as he circled around the ramp’s guard wall, he spotted Ake’s car, one of the few vehicles parked on the unprotected rooftop. He pulled alongside the large sedan expecting to see Ake sitting behind the wheel, but the Buick was empty.

      But, then, he was more than ten minutes late. Maybe Ake had decided to stretch his legs.

      Nick climbed out, stood next to his own vehicle. In the distance, interstate traffic hummed. Closer, an ambulance wailed. He searched the lot for movement. What had made Ake think of a deserted garage as a meeting place? Only rookies considered deserted lots and buildings good places for private conversations. He preferred crowded restaurants with loud music and booths. As did Ake usually. So what was different about this time? What did Ake want to show him?

      He walked out into the driving lane, looked toward the far wall, then behind him. Nothing.

      Backtracking, he glanced inside the Buick, front seat, then back. John’s child seat was strapped in place, a diaper bag sat on the seat, and Ake’s briefcase lay on the floorboard.

      He tried the door and found it unlocked. The damp stickiness on his fingers registered at the same time the interior light came on.

      Dropping into a crouch in front of the open door, he released the strap holding the 9mm secure in the shoulder holster, flicked off the safety as soon as steel broke free of leather.

      Blood glistened on the charcoal upholstery. At least one bullet had missed its mark and torn into the seat back, the blood-splattered guts of the upholstery leaking out like torn flesh. Not a lot of blood, though.

      He could taste the vaporized gun powder against his tongue now. Only minutes old. Which meant whoever had done this might still be close by, might have Ake pinned down somewhere.

      “Ake!”

      Nothing.

      Looking down for the first time, he spotted more blood leading toward the rear of the car. A lot more.

      He shouldn’t have waited on Myron. He should have sensed something was wrong. Reaching in, he removed the keys from the ignition. As he backed out of the path of the dome light, his shoe sent an object pinging across the pavement. A small caliber casing from the sound of it.

      Stopping short of the rear of the car, he rested his back against the fender of his small car, distancing his body the same way he attempted to distance his mind.

      He’d opened doors and trunks in his career, often knowing what he would find inside. He’d seen the bodies of men tossed into large shipping cartons after their illegal contents had been emptied, their remains left there undiscovered for days, until the stench of death brought help too late.

      Nick shoved the key into the trunk lock and turned it. As the lid came up, the interior light blinked on.

      He staggered back as if he’d taken a couple of shotgun blasts to the chest and gut. The pain was real. Not physical, maybe, but still burning and messy.

      Ake’s body was folded nearly in half, the gray carpet beneath him rapidly turning crimson.

      The wave of nausea hit Nick with the solid vengeance of a Louisville Slugger.

      It was several seconds before Nick could move again. Refusing to look back, he calmly walked to his car, almost daring the shooter to take him out, too. Better the pain of a bullet tearing into flesh than what he felt inside.

      He called it in. As he waited for homicide, for the FBI and the crime scene technicians, anger replaced shock; determination, the pain.

      He could hear the keening of sirens. The muffled, mechanical scream as they climbed through the bowels of the parking garage. But they were nothing compared to the raw howls roaring inside his head.

      Ake and he went way back. Had gone to school together. Played basketball on weekends. He’d been the best man at Ake’s wedding. Was godfather to both of his boys. Ake was one of the few people he truly trusted.

      And now he was gone.

      Somehow, Nick would find whoever had done this. Someone would pay.

      Chapter Two

      Hell was probably ten degrees cooler than the Abaco Islands in late July, Kelly Logan decided.

      Massaging the stiffness in her neck, she tried to ignore the way her clothing stuck to her skin. The corrugated metal sides of the airplane hangar, when coupled with the island heat and the ceiling fan revolving slowly in the dense, skeletal shadows overhead, turned the structure into a large convection oven. Everything seemed to cook faster. Except for the company books.

      She lifted the top page of the bank statement. What she wouldn’t give to just cram all six months’ worth in the trash can. She could fly anything from a single-engine prop to a heavy cargo plane to a small jet, but even the simplest accounting managed to defeat her. She just wasn’t a numbers person.

      Fatigue overtaking her, she checked the time. Ten-thirty. No reason to take a dinner break at this point. In fact maybe she should just pack it in.

      And maybe she could have if her mechanic, Ben, Bird of Paradise’s only other employee, had managed to come back as promised after his dinner break.

      Closing her eyes, she scrubbed her face. What was she going to do if the ads didn’t bring in more business? Cutting fares again wasn’t an option; the margins were already nonexistent, and there was more meat in a poor man’s stew than left in her operating budget. And fuel costs were expected to continue to rise to the record levels of early 1970s.

      What was going to happen when she couldn’t keep it together any longer? What then?

      She studied the plane sitting thirty feet from her and wondered where in the hell she had gotten the dumb idea she could build an airline from the ground up?

      Her father had taught

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