Текст книги "Irish Sex Fairy"

Автор книги: Kelly Jamieson

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Kelly Jamieson
 Irish Sex Fairy

Chapter One

Los Angeles, California

Keara slid her shaking arms around bent knees and hugged them, the marble floor of the bank lobby cold and hard beneath her bottom.

Nervous energy shimmered around her, her employees also crouched on the floor. Soft sniffles from Carla filled the heavy silence.

“Shut up!” The words echoed in the lobby, stone floors and columns reflecting the sound waves. The man in the balaclava glared at Carla. Carla gasped. The tension thickened.

“Please,” Keara said. “Let them go. I’ll stay.” They’d been like this for almost an hour.

“No!”

At that moment an explosion rocked the building, shattering the dense quiet. Screams and crying erupted around Keara, and she grabbed Jessica beside her.

“What the hell!” The robber froze, then lunged for Keara and dragged her to her feet. His fingers dug painfully into her arm.

“Police! Nobody move!” A voice thundered over the chaos from the direction where the explosion had occurred. They’d blasted a hole in the wall between the bank and the office building next door.

Two men dressed in black bulletproof vests, ball caps and carrying what looked like machine guns appeared, weapons pointed in the direction of the people huddled on the floor of the bank.

Oh dear God. Machine guns. Keara’s gaze flickered to the others, back to the police officers, just as terrifying to her as the man who now wrapped an arm around her throat and pointed his own gun at her head with his other hand.

She was going to die. If the police tried to shoot the robber they could kill her too. If they didn’t, the robber would.

Three guns. All pointed at her.

Her whole body shook as the robber started walking backward, dragging her with him. His arm tightened on her esophagus. Her eyes bulged and she gasped for air.

“Put your gun down!” an officer shouted.

“Like hell,” the robber muttered. He dragged Keara into a hallway and then the vault area.

She fought him. She wasn’t going to die without trying. She clawed his arm, twisted and jerked against him. She felt the damp of his clothing, smelled his sweat. Her throat ached. Reaching up, she grabbed hold of the balaclava covering his face, squeezed it tightly, and as they struggled he hauled her into the vault.

He shoved the door shut behind them then released her with a push that sent her to her knees. Her fingers still clutched the soft knit hat and it came with her as she fell. Her knees burned and she stayed on all fours, panting, frozen, waiting for the shot that would end her life from behind her.

She heard the click of the door lock.

She turned around and rose up on her knees to face the robber, every muscle tight and quivering. Oh Jesus.

Gary.

She knew him.

He’d worked as a security guard at this branch for what…twenty years? Until six weeks ago. When she’d fired him.

“Gary,” she whispered, covering her mouth with her fingers. “What are you doing?”

“I told you what I’m doing. I want half a million dollars. And I want it now. Or you are going to die.”

“But—” She began to climb to her feet, but he sprang at her and knocked her back down. The hard floor smacked her butt and her breath whooshed out of her.

Oh God. Frantic thoughts tumbled around in her head. What was he doing here? Why was he doing this? Was he crazy? How could she have never noticed he was psycho?

“You fired me.” Sweat dripped down his face, flushed cheeks grizzled with gray stubble. Thick gray brows lowered over his eyes as he stared at her. Her stomach clenched. The gun still watched her with that steady eye. “You ruined my life. And my family’s life.”

Keara’s mouth quivered and she swallowed painfully. “It was a business decision,” she choked out. “It was nothing against you personally, Gary. I had to make cuts. It came from head office. This branch hasn’t been performing well.”

“That’s why they transferred you here, isn’t it? That’s why they made you manager. A hatchet lady.”

She shook her head, but it was more or less true. She had been charged with turning the branch around when made manager a year ago. She’d spent the last year working her ass off, trying to improve the branch’s performance and minimize the cuts that had to be done. She stared at him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I had to do it. They wanted twenty positions cut. I got it down to eight. Only eight people had to go.” And Gary had been one of them.

“Great,” he sneered. “That doesn’t help me, does it?”

She licked her lips.

A warbling ring tone came from his pocket and they both froze. Still holding the gun with his right hand, he reached for the phone, slowly brought it out and flipped it open. “Yeah?”

Keara’s stomach churned. She could only hear one side of the conversation.

“I want the money,” he snapped. His eyes shifted to Keara and then he stepped away from her, paced up and down the hall in the back of the bank. “I won’t kill her if I get the money.”

It must be the SWAT team again. They’d talked to him earlier on the bank phone, when he’d given them directions about where to park a car for him to leave with the money. With her.

Her stomach tightened along with every quivering muscle in her body. God. She was going to die. Right here, right now. She was only thirty-one years old.

“How’d you know who I am?” he demanded into the phone.

Keara resisted the urge to look at the security camera up high in the corner of the room. Gary had been a security guard. Did he not remember it was there? The police were probably watching them. She closed her eyes briefly then opened them again as he spoke.

“I’m not telling you that,” he snarled into the phone. “Have you got the car ready? ’Cause Miss Callaghan and I are coming out in a few minutes.” A pause. “Yeah, I said an hour. But now I know I can’t trust you, I’m coming out sooner. With the money.” He looked at her. “Right, Miss Callaghan?”

She stared at him. What was she supposed to do? What?

Gary was listening to the voice at the other end of the phone line. “Of course I can do it. After what she did to me, it won’t be hard to put a bullet in her head.”

Oh. Oh no. She swept a hand over her hair, loosened from its usual low ponytail she wore to work. Would he really do it? She could not believe the man she’d worked with for almost a year, who’d greeted her every day with a cheerful good morning, would actually shoot her. But this man…was not Gary. He was different. Desperate. Tense. Oh Lord.

“What do I care?” he said. “I got nothing to live for.” Another pause. “Yeah. But she doesn’t even know who I am anymore.” His voice cracked. “I just wanna make sure she’s gonna be okay.”

Keara swallowed. Who was he talking about? Clearly it wasn’t her, since he’d just said he’d shoot her in the head. Her brain turned frantically. His wife? Had she heard something about his wife being sick? How bad was it? Why would he do this?

“Just get the car ready. Fifteen minutes.” He snapped the phone shut and shoved it into the pocket of the navy windbreaker he wore.

He gestured with the gun. “Get over there.”

She scuttled into the corner.

He pulled out a shopping bag from another pocket. “Let’s put the money into this.”

“I can’t do that, Gary.”

“Yes, you can.”

She shook her head. “I can’t. I need another person to get into the vault.”

“Bullshit! You’re the manager! You know how to get in.”

She pressed her trembling lips together. He was right. She could.

“Why are you doing this, Gary?”

He stood before her, legs spread, gun pointed at her. “You fired me. I can’t get a job. Who’s gonna hire someone my age? I worked my whole adult life here at the bank, and for what? A measly severance package that didn’t even last six weeks.” He paused, his throat working. “This is my only chance. To look after my wife.”

“What’s wrong with your wife?”

He glared at her, then his gaze drifted away. “She has Alzheimer’s. Doesn’t even know me anymore, sometimes. Doesn’t know our son. She’s in a home. They look after her there, but…it costs money. I got no money.” His voice thickened. “What do you expect me to do?”

Keara’s gaze flicked from the gun back to his face.

“Oh Gary.” The words sighed out of her. “I didn’t know that.”

“What difference does it make? You saying you wouldn’t have fired me, if you’d known? Bullshit! You fired Mike and he has a brand-new baby to support. Born too early. Needs all kind of expensive care. You don’t give a shit about anyone. All you care about is the bottom line. Money. Numbers. That’s all we are to you.”

“That’s not true,” she whispered. She did care about her staff. But she had a job to do.

His cell phone trilled again, an incongruous cheery sound in the echoing room. He opened it. “What?” This time he listened for a while. “Yeah. That’s right.” His shoulder slumped a little. “I know. Yeah. I know.” He paced across the room, but kept Keara in his sights. She sat there, gaze fastened to him, his earlier words buzzing through her head.

This was all her fault. If she hadn’t fired him, he wouldn’t be so desperate as to do this. She was going to die because of it. How could she make this right? She leaned her head back against the wall. Sweat prickled her underarms. Heat suffocated her. She wiped a hand over her mouth.

“Let me talk to her,” Gary said. He looked defeated. “Let me talk to her. Then I’ll come out.” Pause. “Yeah. With Miss Callaghan.”

A moment of silence while Gary paced again across the room. “Rosie? Hi, baby. How are you?” His face changed, his eyes softer, his mouth unsteady as if he might cry.

Keara’s heart squeezed and ached. She put a hand to her mouth and watched him. Listened.

“I love you, Rosie. Just remember that, okay? Always remember I love you.”

Oh God. What was he going to do? It sounded as if he thought he’d never see her again. Panic trickled down her spine in a cold drizzle. Her legs twitched on the floor.

He closed the phone and gestured again with the gun. “Stand up.”

She rose to her feet, legs weak and shaky. He opened the door and stood aside. “Go on.”

She stared at him. “What?

“You can leave. Go.” He motioned with the gun again.

“Just go?” She couldn’t believe it. Would he shoot her in the back as she walked away? And why wasn’t he coming?

He nodded, subdued, an aura of overwhelming loss and defeat surrounding him. Keara stopped. What was he going to do? Oh God. Oh no. She knew why he wasn’t coming. Her stomach heaved.

Now her fear wasn’t for herself. “Gary.” She put out a hand. “Come with me.”

He shook his head. “I can’t. They’ll put me in jail.”

Throat squeezing, chest aching, she shook her head. “We’ll find a way, Gary. A way to help Rosie.”

“Yeah right. I told you. There is no way. Not anymore. This was my last hope. I told you to go!”

“No! The bank can help you. Please, Gary, come with me. We’ll work something out. We’ll look at an early pension payout, maybe a way to continue your benefits, some kind of loan…there are lots of options.”

His eyes, earlier stony and cold, regarded her with cautious hope for a stretched out moment. “Really?”

“Yes. I’m sorry, Gary. I really am. I’ll try to help. To make up for it.” And she would. Her heart ached for the pain she’d seen in him when he talked to his wife. She’d never loved someone like that, but it had to be excruciating, to see someone you loved dying from the inside out, slowly, not even knowing who you were anymore.

He considered it. She waited, legs so shaky she thought she might fall down. So close. Would he do it?

“You know I keep my word,” she said softly. “I may have to make decisions people don’t like, but…I’ve always done what I said I would.”

He still hesitated, stared at her warily.

“Okay.” He bent down and grabbed the balaclava off the floor and pulled it on.

Why was he doing that? They already knew who he was. Her gut tightened again. He took hold of her, this time in a firm but not painful grasp, still holding the gun on her.

Was he being honest? Or was he still going to kill her? Her heart thudded painfully as he gently urged her forward, down the hall and into the lobby of the bank. But the anguish and love she’d seen in this man’s eyes were not the emotions of a cold-blooded killer. As they moved forward, him behind her, his hands on her but this time gentle, she knew he wouldn’t kill her. Probably never had intended to kill her.

“Keep your hands up and in sight,” he told her.

Why? Obediently, she did so as they walked out the front door of the bank.

Oh Jesus. In the sunshine outside the bank, a spinning impression of crowds of people, television cameras, SWAT officers, guns, vans and cars assaulted her. She kept her hands up. Gary held the gun pressed to the side of her head.

His finger could accidentally pull the trigger. Even if he didn’t intend to kill her anymore. One of those SWAT officers could shoot her, aiming for him. They could scare him and his finger could so easily…pull…the…trigger.

Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot.

Her eyes flickered around. Distant shouts mingled with Gary’s harsh breathing in her ear. A loud pop split the commotion. Gary’s weight dragged her down, the pavement of the sidewalk meeting her knees in a harsh kiss, and she cried out.

Chapter Two

She never felt more alone than in the middle of the night, when the world was dark and quiet and still, everyone else asleep in their beds.

“Oh, Keara.” A heavy sigh came from the other end of the phone line. “What are you doing up again?”

Keara swallowed and sank down onto her couch. “I just had an idea for what we can do for Monica’s birthday next weekend,” she told her friend Paige.

“What! Why are you calling me about that in the middle of the night? You had another nightmare, didn’t you?”

“No. I haven’t had one for a couple of weeks,” Keara lied. “You know me, I just get thinking about things and I…I can’t get back to sleep.”

“Maybe you need to go back to that shrink…what was his name?”

“I don’t need a shrink,” Keara snapped. “I told you that before.”

“Then why haven’t you gone back to work?”

Keara pressed her lips together. She’d tried to go back to work. She hadn’t even told Paige about that embarrassing incident. She’d really flip out if she knew about that. She’d be picking her up and driving her to the psychiatrist herself. Which. She. Did. Not. Need.

Keara’s throat clogged and her chest tightened. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”

“Keara…”

“’Night, Paige.”

She clicked the phone off and dropped it to the butter-colored upholstery beside her. She tipped her head back and blinked at the ceiling, eyes stinging. Damn.

She could call Monica.

But no. Monica had gone away to San Diego for the weekend with the new guy she’d been seeing. And she couldn’t call Essie. With her new baby, she might be awake in the middle of the night. But if she was asleep and Keara called and woke her up—again—she’d kill her. She’d made that mistake once before. Besides, if her friends all talked about how she kept phoning in the middle of the night, she’d never hear the end of it.

She padded on bare feet out to the kitchen of her condo in the Los Angeles high-rise. She ran some cold water, then held the cool glass to her sweaty forehead. Her eyes fell on the bottle of pills sitting on the counter. She could take those and sleep. She picked up the container.

There was no shame in using medication, the psychiatrist had told her. And yet, she really didn’t want to take drugs to solve her problems. Hell, she didn’t even understand what her problems were. God! She clutched the bottle in her hand and closed her eyes. She was fine. Totally fine. Tell that to her body, though, which betrayed her time and time again, with a speeding heart, tight and trembling muscles and a stomach constricted with nausea. And she’d been doing so well. No dreams, no flashbacks for a couple of weeks. What had triggered that nightmare tonight?

A noise alerted her ears. A scrape against the glass doors leading out onto her balcony. She lived on the third floor of the building, which wasn’t likely to be a target for a break-in, but recently she’d found herself wishing she lived in the penthouse, twenty stories above.

It was nothing. Wind or something.

Then she heard it again.

Her heart, which had been slowing its beat, picked up speed, blood surging through her veins. She stepped out of the kitchen and focused on the curtains drawn over the sliding glass doors—not opaque enough to completely blot out the city lights, nor the shadow moving on the balcony.

Her stomach lurched. Oh dear God. There was someone on her balcony. Her living room shifted around her and adrenaline flashed through her body. She lifted a hand to her throat. Stared at the window. She had to be imagining it. Nobody could climb up three stories. Nobody would climb up three stories.

But another scraping noise outside the window, like someone was working at the lock, had her reaching for the telephone. Crap, she’d left it on the couch. She scurried over and grabbed it off the sofa, then fled to her bedroom on trembling legs. She shut the door and leaned against it. Fingers shaking so hard she couldn’t hit the right buttons, she finally managed to punch in 9-1-1.

“Nine one one, what is your emergency?”

“Someone’s breaking into my condo!” she hissed into the phone, fingers gripping it so tightly they hurt. “Please, send the police, quickly!”

The operator asked her questions and kept her on the line while she leaned against the door, shaking inside and out.

“The police will be there soon,” the voice on the phone assured her. “Stay calm, ma’am.”

Calm. Calm? Shivering in her sleep shorts and tank top, Keara kept the phone pressed to her ear. She moved silently to the far side of the armoire, slid down onto the floor where she couldn’t be seen from the door. She dropped the phone to the gray Berber carpet beside her, bent her knees, wrapped her arms around them.

The marble floor of the bank lobby was cold and hard beneath her bottom as she slid her shaking arms around bent knees and hugged them …

No! She wasn’t in the bank. She was at home in her apartment. She focused on her bedroom. The bed skirt was crooked. She’d tucked it up under the mattress on one corner when she was making the bed. She’d have to fix that. Hell, what was she thinking?

With knees pressed to chest, her heart thumped painfully and her lungs expanded and contracted against them with every shallow breath. In. Out. In. Out.

Please, please let them get here quickly. She laid her forehead on her knees, shoulders hunched up around her ears. And waited.

She pictured someone on the balcony trying to get in, her ears attuned to the sound of breaking glass or the familiar scrape of the door opening.

The security buzzer sent her nerves on another blastoff. The police. Please let it be the police.

She scrabbled for the phone. The operator was still there. “Is that the police?” she demanded.

“Yes, that’s the police. They’re at the entrance to your building.”

“Thank God, thank God.” It seemed like an hour since she’d called them. She climbed to her feet on unsteady legs and stumbled to the security system, but as she went to buzz them in, she paused. How did she know it was the police? What if it was someone else trying to get in?

She knew in her head that was crazy, but…she pressed the intercom button. “Who is it?”

“LAPD.”

She hit the button and let them in. Moments later they pounded on her door.

She peered through the security peephole on her door and saw two uniformed officers. Fingers still shaking, she unlocked the door and let them in.

“Someone’s on the balcony!”

The female officer stayed close to Keara while the male officer walked straight to the doors and yanked the curtain aside. He peered outside, then flicked open the lock of the door and slid it open.

Keara gasped and tensed. He didn’t even have his gun drawn. Who knew what kind of nutjob could be out there?

He stepped out onto the balcony, turned his head from side to side, walked to the railing and looked over. Then he turned back into the condo.

“There’s nothing here,” he said.

Keara blinked at him. “Yes there is.” She looked down at the phone she was still holding. Was the 9-1-1 operator still there? She shook her head, dropped the phone. Whatever. “There was someone out there.”

“No, ma’am, there’s nothing. Come look for yourself.”

She followed him hesitantly out onto her balcony and peered around. The dark wind whipped her hair around her head, and she shivered.

He was right. There was nobody out there.

She peered over the railing, holding the cold metal tightly with both hands, and stared at the ground three stories below.

“What if he’s on the balcony underneath?” She turned to the officers. They exchanged a glance. Keara pressed her lips together. “Well, he could be. He could have dropped down to the balcony on the next floor.”

“I don’t think so,” the male officer said. “That would be pretty tricky.”

“I’m telling you, there was someone on my balcony!” Keara pressed her fingers to her mouth. God. She sounded hysterical.

“Come back inside,” the female officer said, her voice gentle. She put a hand on Keara’s back as she stepped inside, then slid the door closed.

“Why would someone climb up three stories to break in?” the male officer asked. “Unless it’s you they were after. Is someone stalking you?”

Keara shook her head. “No. Of course not. My life is boring.”

“Not that boring,” he replied. “Weren’t you just involved in a hostage taking a few weeks ago?”

Her stomach tightened. They’d checked her out. They knew about the robbery. They probably knew she’d been seeing a shrink. No wonder they thought she was nuts.

She answered a few more questions but she led such a vanilla life there was no reason for what happened. Which only made her feel even more stupid.

“It’s pretty windy tonight,” the woman officer said. “Maybe something blew around on your balcony.”

“Yeah.” Keara sucked in a long, restoring breath. “That must be it.” She’d been nervous because of the bad dream she’d had. Maybe her nerves and imagination were hypersensitive. Okay, that wasn’t a maybe, it was a definite, oh hell yeah. Plus she still felt shaky from that weird episode she’d had the other day. The doctor said it was a panic attack, but Keara wasn’t convinced of that. It had felt too physical—spinning head, dizziness, nausea—it was more likely low blood sugar or something, but whatever it was, she still felt the effects and it didn’t take much for her to get all agitated.

The police thought she was crazy. Cheeks burning, she locked the door behind them, but when she turned back to her empty apartment, fear wrapped around her in such a ferocious grip she couldn’t move.

She couldn’t stay there alone.

She had to stay there alone.

She’d already annoyed Paige, Monica was away and Essie had a new baby. So Keara sat up all night watching television with every light in the condo on, and a heavy trunk in front of the balcony door.

All she wanted was to get better. She didn’t want to be like this—the nervous tightness in her stomach, the feeling of impending doom. What was wrong with her?

She had to think. What could she do? Her friends weren’t an option for her right now. She had no family—her parents had died almost eight years ago. No siblings. The only family she had was Great-aunt Maeve in Kilkenny.

Crazy Maeve. Seventy years old, never married, she owned a sex shop in the quaint tourist town just north of Santa Barbara. Keara used to spend part of her summer vacations there with her great-aunt. She liked Maeve, although as a teenager she’d been embarrassed by Maeve’s brilliant red hair, eccentric dress, and oh yeah, most of all about the way she earned her living. But everyone in the town loved Maeve.

Maeve had called her, after the incident at the bank, to make sure she was okay. Keara had reassured her aunt that she was fine. Promised to keep in touch. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” Maeve had said.

Well, maybe there was.

Maybe she just needed to get away for a bit. A little vacation. Lord knew she never used all her vacation time, workaholic that she was. Maybe that was the problem.

So as the sky lightened and the sound of morning traffic on the streets began to build, she picked up the phone and dialed her aunt’s number.