Big, heavy, and clamped to the rear wheel, the hunk of bright orange metal said only one thing to her: She wasn’t going anywhere, not in her dad’s damn minivan.

CHAPTER FIVE

Dressed to kill and driving a minivan?

Johnny double-checked the direction of her gaze and ended up right back at the same POS minivan he’d thought she was looking at-the butt-ugly brown-and-tan one with the license plate number LVH3590 and the big orange boot on it.

From her crestfallen expression, she knew that baby wasn’t going anywhere tonight. To her credit, the news only waylaid her for about three seconds, before she turned and stuck out her hand to him.

“Well, it was great to see you… really,” she said, giving his hand a firm shake when he took hold of hers. One shake, then she let go of him. “Good luck with my dad tomorrow. Maybe we can have that drink sometime.”

Sure they could, he thought, watching her take off across the street, dodging the traffic. Talk about a bum’s rush.

From the other side of Wynkoop, she hailed a cab, but the cabbie passed her by. That was her problem, not his. His problem was… hell, he didn’t have any problems. He’d done three combat tours and gotten away with nothing worse than a sprained ankle, a bajillion flea bites, and a few stitches once when a round hadn’t quite missed him.

He didn’t have any problems.

Except for the skinny, blond-haired guy getting out of the passenger side of a Buick LeSabre about halfway up the block on her side of the street. Two things bothered him about the guy. One, Johnny knew him. His name was Dan Smollett, more often known as Dovey, and he worked for a bookie up in Commerce City named Franklin Bleak. Two, Dovey was looking straight at Esme as he was getting out of the car, which made this as close to a high school reunion as Johnny had ever gotten- him, Dovey Smollett, and Easy Alex. They’d all graduated from East the same year, and apparently, only one of them had gone straight. Surprisingly enough, it hadn’t been the class valedictorian.

Dovey closed the door on the LeSabre and started toward her, and Johnny felt another knee-jerk reaction coming on. Goddammit.

Civic duty, he told himself. They were in the middle of lower downtown, Esme had not yet seen the scumbag zeroing in on her, and Dovey was coming up on her strong side. The element of surprise could really work against old Dovey in this situation, given that Esme had a.45 strapped under her arm, and from the extra little bit of adjusting she’d given the messenger bag, Johnny was guessing she practiced drawing out of her shoulder holster, which had the potential of making her fast.

Not that he thought she might accidentally shoot old Dovey. No, he figured if she shot somebody, it probably wouldn’t be by accident.

Kee-rist. He stepped off the curb, checking the traffic both ways, and made his way across the street. She saw him coming, he made sure of it, and she didn’t look happy about it, but that was just too damn bad.

He headed for her left side, to put himself between her and Dovey, and no doubt, Dovey was going to see him, too, and no doubt he’d tell Franklin Bleak what and who had happened to his bird, which meant Johnny was going to have to call Sparky Klimaszewski and have him put the heat on Franklin to set things right and get the bookie off his ass.

It was amazing really, how quickly life could get complicated, amazing just how quickly a guy without any problems could acquire a whole boatload of them.

Case in point: Being in debt to Sparky usually required felonious restitution. Sparky was only interested in one thing, cars and the grand theft auto thereof.

Hell. Johnny hadn’t stolen a car since he’d been fifteen. Okay, seventeen, but that had been a strictly one-off job for the last time he’d needed a favor from Sparky. But fine, he could deal with Sparky, because Sparky, for all that he ran more cars through Denver than any other chop shop, was not an undersized psycho who tried to compensate for his lack of physical stature by committing violent acts of retribution against losers who didn’t pay and anyone else who got in his way.

Franklin Bleak was all that and more, a verifiable freakazoid. He had a very nasty reputation, well earned, for doing very bad deeds-and he’d sent his errand boys to pick up Esme Alden.

Johnny didn’t particularly bother to explain all this, or himself, to her when he stepped up on the curb on the other side of Wynkoop.

“Let’s go.” The command was short, succinct, and impossible to misinterpret, his specialty, and before it was even out of his mouth, he had ahold of her, one of his arms going around her back, his hand gripping her upper right arm, his other hand going across his front and taking hold of her left biceps. Without expending too much effort, he had her under control, half lifted off her feet, and heading back across the street.

“Wh-what in the… who do you think…whwhat in the hell?”

“Incoming at nine o’clock.” He kept walking, hustling her along. Given half a chance, she might have resisted, but he didn’t give her half a chance. He’d grabbed her, and they were moving back through the traffic, fast, too fast for her to get any leverage against the hold he had on her.

“Incoming? What the… dammit … This is a bad move, Ramos,” she said in a tone of voice that reminded him that besides the.45 he could feel through her jacket, she had a knife, that she had a knife for a reason, and that he’d just become one of those reasons.

Sonuvabitch. That was not the sort of information he was used to forgetting. That was the sort of information he was used to hardwiring into his brain.

“Do you remember Dan Smollett?” he asked, his grip still very firm on her, very close to a death grip. He couldn’t afford to have her squirming away just yet, or going for one of her weapons, or doing any damn thing, not in the middle of the street, or anywhere else for that matter. He was in charge, and that was for the best almost one hundred percent of the time.

“Dovey?”

Obviously, she did remember the cretin.

“He’s thirty yards behind us and closing.”

She let out a short sound of disgust. “If you’re on the run from Dovey Smollett, that’s your problem, not mine.”

“No. It’s your problem, babe.” They reached the other side of Wynkoop, but he didn’t relent with his grip. He kept her moving. He had a plan, and it didn’t involve letting Dovey Smollett catch up to them.

“The hell it is. I don’t give a damn if Dovey Smollett is in LoDo, or if he dropped off the edge of the earth. Now let go of me, you…you… jerk.” She tried to twist out of his grip, and got exactly nowhere-for a damn good reason. He was well trained in the ways and means of physical restraint, and he could bench-press Esme Alden, all hundred- and-what pounds of her.

Hell, he could bench-press three Esme Aldens.

“Can you run in those heels?”

“Yes.” She didn’t hesitate with her answer. “But-”

“There’s no but,” he cut her off. “If I say run, you keep up. Got it?”

“Go to hell.” Short, succinct, and impossible to misinterpret-he had to give her credit for that much.

He opened the next door they came to and pushed her inside ahead of him, straight into the crush of people jamming O’Shaunessy’s back bar.

“Excuse me… sorry…” Johnny edged his way through the crowd, keeping one hand wrapped around her waist, keeping her close. Nobody was getting to her without going through him first, and the only people in this town who could get through him were on his side.

She could thank him later-but he wasn’t going to hold his breath.

“What the … oh, cripes. You’ve got a…a… dammit,” she said, her voice low.