"I can take care of myself," I said.

"Yeah, I've seen how well you do that." Carlucci pushed off from the wall and looked down at me. "People get right pissed about three million dollars," he said. He took a step closer and I felt the heat radiating from his body. "You don't know what they'll do to get their money back."

I shuddered involuntarily and Jack started toward us.

"Maggie, you ready to go?"

Carlucci stared at him, but Jack didn't move.

"In a couple of minutes," I said. "I'm just finishing something up."

Jack took the hint and moved back a few feet, still unwilling to let me be alone with Carlucci.

"So, you gonna let them kill him too?" he asked.

"Stop it!" I hissed.

"Stop acting like an idiot and I won't have to continue to bombard your small mind with the realities of your current situation."

"Jack's is the safest place I can think of," I said.

"You want to stay alive? Come with me and let me put you someplace safe."

He was too close. I had the sudden urge to turn and run, but didn't.

"I'm not playing with you, Maggie," Carlucci said. "Ditch your friend and let's go."

I looked at Jack, saw him watching, and smiled a tiny, tight smile.

"They'll kill him to get to you, Maggie, and he'll die trying to defend you. And don't think they won't hunt you down, because they will."

"What makes it any safer with you?"

Carlucci looked at Jack, then back to me. "Because I don't love you, Maggie. This is what I do for, a living, straight up. I find people and I protect people. I'm trained and I'm objective. Your friend isn't any of those things. He'd defend you to the death; you can see that in his eyes. I won't have to."

I looked over at Jack and saw that Carlucci was right. I turned away and walked over to where Jack waited.

"He wants me to go with him," I said, "and I have to do it." I raised my fingers to his lips when he started to argue. "It's all right. This is what I want to do."

And I walked away, knowing I'd hurt him.

Chapter Nineteen

I woke up at five a.m. because I could feel him watching me. Tony Carlucci had played an elaborate shell game with my car and his motorcycle before putting me on the back of his bike and driving me in a zigzag pattern across Greensboro, south of town to the small village of Pleasant Garden. He stopped several times, waiting, watching, making sure no one followed us, and then proceeded to drive his Harley across a field and up onto the back of his property.

It was a long, narrow piece of land, rimmed on three sides by a tall, barbed-wire fence. Tony stopped the bike by a gate, unlocked it, and drove the Harley through before returning to lock it behind us.

"Do you live in a prison?" I asked. Floodlights spotted the backyard, which was filled with fruit trees.

"Nope, I'm the caretaker," he said. "It's a concrete factory. They let me live in the house that was here on the property. In return, I keep out the riffraff."

He drove across the yard, up to the deck that spanned the back of the tiny, brick ranch. The instant we pulled close, a Doberman lunged out at us, his neck bound by a heavy collar that was attached to a thick chain. The muscles corded and strained against the collar and the dog drooled in his attempt to get to us.

"Popeye," Carlucci called. "It's me, bud."

Popeye growled, unwilling to accept that I was a guest. I was equally unwilling to accept that Popeye could ever be considered a pet. It was a standoff that only got better once Tony took me inside.

His house was a monument to cleanliness and order, almost military in its precise attention to detail. Everything had a place and there was no sign of clutter or the dust bunnies that called my house a home.

Carlucci supplied me with a toothbrush, a comb, even pajamas. But Carlucci was lacking in one essential: There was no guest bed.

"I'll take the couch," he said.

"I'm fine with a couch."

"Be that as it may," he said, "I'm still sleeping on it."

I stood looking around his room, staring at the pale blue walls, the blue plaid sheets on the bed, the matching pillows, the curtains that hung just so at the windows, and the dresser that had no personal belongings upon it.

The couch in the living room looked more comfortable than the hard mattress of Carlucci's bed, but beggars couldn't be choosers. I closed the door behind him and was asleep within minutes. How I ever awakened from my coma would remain a mystery, but I did. I felt him watching me, even in my dreamless sleep, and I rose up through the mire of unconsciousness to find him in a chair at the other end of the bedroom, his smoky eyes staring into mine.

I sat up, still startled and in between sleep and wakefulness. "What are you doing?"

"Thinking."

I tugged at the covers, pulling them tighter around me, suddenly cold.

"What?"

Carlucci looked at me for a slow moment. "About you."

He still wore his black jeans, shirt and boots, but the jacket was gone. The way he said about you made my skin tingle as little hairs rose up on the back of my arms.

"Not like that," he said, reading me again. "Well, maybe some of that, but I told you, I don't do complicated. You're complicated." He stretched and stood, walking slowly toward me. "I was thinking about your situation. I'm thinking you and Bess King oughta talk."

"So you had to come in here and watch me sleep?"

His eyes followed the outline of my body under the covers, moving slowly, like I was a consideration and he was biding his time.

"Yeah, something like that. That and I thought I heard something a little while ago, so I just thought I'd sit here, just in case."

I looked at him and didn't believe him.

"The dog didn't bark."

Carlucci laughed. "How would you know? You were snoring too loud to hear much of anything."

"I was not!"

At that moment, Popeye went crazy. His deep, excited barking filled the air, lights flicked on in the backyard, and a gun materialized in Tony's hand.

"Get out of bed and down on the floor," he commanded.

I jumped, hitting the cold wooden floor next to the bed with a sharp slam.

Tony walked to the window, stood to one side and pushed the curtain away with the barrel of his gun.

"It's probably nothing," he said. "A cat maybe, or a raccoon." And for the second time in as many minutes, I knew he was lying.

Popeye was hysterical. Carlucci let the curtain slip back into place. "Stay right where you are." He tossed me the cordless phone. "If I don't come back in five minutes, call nine-one-one."

"Wait! Don't go out there! That's stupid."

Popeye screamed, a dog howl of anguish and pain, and Carlucci was gone.

I heard the front door open softly, then close. Popeye was silent. There was no sound from the outside at all for a moment, then gunfire. Two or three blasts close together, then the sound of a car starting up in the distance and pulling away.

I hit the buttons on the phone and heard someone say "Nine-one-one, what is the nature of your emergency?"

"Someone's shooting at us," I said.

"Okay, ma'am. Just tell me where you are," she said.

And mat's when I stopped. I didn't know where I was. I hesitated, looked up, and saw Tony step into the doorway. "It's all right," he said. "Tell them you're fine. Tell them never mind."

I looked at him, not believing that he was serious.

"It's fine. Tell them."

His voice was hard.

"I'm fine. I'm sorry. It was a mistake."

"Ma'am," the 911 operator said, "are you sure you're fine? All you have to do is say no and we can send a car."

I tried to calm my voice, to convince her. "I'm sorry," I said, "I guess I got a little frightened. It was just a car backfiring." I laughed apologetically. "It woke me up, and I guess I got carried away."