This woman could give a man whiplash with her subject changes. "At the downtown Marriott."

"Nice digs. Got enough room for one more?"

What the f.u.c.k?

He hadn't expected it to be this easy to keep her nearby, but he wasn't going to argue. "I have a king-size bed and a pullout sofa."

"Perfect." She tucked her slim hands into her back pockets, pulling her shirt taut across two perfect b.r.e.a.s.t.s, just the right size to fit his palms.

He swiped sweat from his neck. "What about your yard shark?"

"Buster has a doggy door and self-feeder. He should be fine until I can get the spare key in the morning."

"Not that I want you to change your mind, but why are you giving in so easily?"

"I might be tempted to sleep with Eli. Not a problem with you."

Ouch. "You're great for a guy's ego."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. You're so obviously a crumbling ma.s.s of insecurity, Hotshot. So, are we roomies or not?"

"Like you even have to ask." He pa.s.sed her a helmet, glad the loaner had come with two. He straddled the motorcycle and fired it to life. "Mount up."

She swung one long leg over the back of his bike, settling in behind him. The heat of her thighs clamped around him, but she kept her hands off, gripping the seat instead. Out of a.s.surance of her balance from riding with others or determination not to touch him any more than necessary?

Either way, just the press of her legs against him was enough for him to know that this was a c.r.a.ppy idea.

East Side Mercenaries, FEAR 4-Ever.

Webber shook his head, ponytail brushing his back. Whichever moron had sprayed that by the mall's service entrance had totally screwed them all over. This would be the last time they could hang out at night in empty store units. More of those new task force dudes would be crawling all over the place by tomorrow, taking notes, getting help from Shay Ba.s.sett in trying to "a.n.a.lyze" their heads.

As if that would change anything.

He juggled his box of carryout Chinese food as he slid through a slim part in the service entrance door propped open with a broken brick, and tried not to think about how scared Shay had sounded when he'd called in the threat. He'd gotten through the thing undetected, and that's what really mattered.

Thank G.o.d their guy had sent someone to spring them out of jail after a couple of hours. Some dudes thought getting jacked up made them tougher in the gang. He worried more about becoming some big mother's b.i.t.c.h by sunup.

At least he had a safe place to stay tonight. Webber padded quietly down the winding halls until he found the right door number and twisted the k.n.o.b. He held his breath.

Sweet. Open and no alarm.

He put a swagger in his step-a man had to always be represented-and went into the room where Amber already waited, sitting cross-legged on a tarp, her belly heavy and low. He averted his eyes from the reminder that she banged some other guy.

She reached into her fast-food bag. "It would have been nice if you would have whistled a warning."

"Sorry." He screwed up everything else in his life. Why should now be different?

Amber bit into her hamburger, grease and lettuce spitting out the other side of the bun onto the wrapper. The lazy rent-a-cop here usually slept through his shift and rarely checked out these empty store cubicles. The security system was a piece of cake to disarm.

And on the rare occasion they got caught? They hot-footed it away from a groggy security guard armed with just a stick and a radio.

"What happened to Caden and Rickie?" she whispered, not quite able to keep the worry out of her eyes as she asked about Apocalypse members.

They hadn't always been on opposite sides.

"Pulling an overnight in a holding cell. Pride for Apocalypse and all that."

Cracking open his container of sweet and sour chicken, he leaned back against scaffolding sprawled along one wall and started shoveling in fried rice. At the first bite, his stomach cramped. He'd been too nervous back at the center to eat more than a slice of pizza and couldn't remember when he'd eaten last.

"Hey, Amber? You feeling okay?" He worked hard to keep his voice neutral, his eyes down on his food in case Amber suddenly figured out how he felt about her. Fat frickin' chance, but still.

"I'm good. Miss Ba.s.sett made sure I got out of the way."

"Good, you gotta look out for the baby."

She glanced down at her stomach, her layered T-shirts pulling tight across her tummy. He didn't know much about pregnant women, so he wasn't really sure when the kid was supposed to be born. Amber didn't like to talk about it, and neither did he, actually. But wow, she looked about ready to pop.

He searched for something else to say, a joke, anything. He didn't get to be alone with her that often. Maybe if he'd figured out a way earlier, she wouldn't be having somebody else's baby.

"Hey," she said, pointing to his arm. "You added another jewel."

Webber glanced down at the warrior sword tattooed on his arm. He got gemstones inked on the handle sometimes. This time he'd added a golden stone. Amber-colored.

Would she figure it out? If she did, would she think it was hokey?

"I did that last week." He tore the wrapper off his fortune cookie and pa.s.sed it to her, palm up. "Here."

She looked at it, and her eyes said loud and clear how much she wanted it. "No, it's yours."

"I already ate tons of junk at the center," he lied. "This could be your lucky cookie. Come on. Play along."

She should be playing like a kid instead of having one. They should all be kids, but life just sucked for some people. For them.

Amber took the cookie, her fingers soft and cool against his skin that felt too hot and tight for his body these days.

"Thanks." She cracked it open and read, her lips moving silently along. Then she smiled.

"What does it say?"

She waggled it in the air between them. "How bad do you want to know?"

"Hey, it's my cookie."

Laughing, she clasped it to her chest. "What will you do to find out?"

Anything.

"Dude," a voice broke through the room, jolting them both. A person needed to stay on alert.

"Dude," his Mercenary brother repeated, calling through the door before Brody walked inside, too loud and out of control for his own good, "Lewis is here."

Amber shoved the cookie in her mouth and tucked the fortune in her pocket.

Lewis ducked into the room, sweeping aside a tarp hanging from the scaffold. "How's it hanging?"

Amber bit her lip and rolled her eyes where Lewis couldn't see. The guy was always trying to talk cool around them.

"Good, it's all good, old man."

Lewis walked deeper into the room. "Everyone is old in comparison to you, kiddo." He wore jeans and a ball cap with a team logo, as if clothes would make him one of them. The only way he was like them? He answered to a bigger boss in his chain the same way they did in their gang. They were all just errand boys.

"You guys did well tonight." Lewis was smiling, but something dark and p.i.s.sed off lurked in his eyes when he watched Brody. "The boss will be pleased with how the bomb threat freaked everyone out."

Brody pounded fists with Webber, FEAR tattoo glaring across the knuckles. "It was balla, dude, hanging out behind the Dumpster and watching everybody run out of there, scared as s.h.i.t just because of your stupid call."

Lewis propped a foot and elbow on the ladder, a Band-Aid peeking free on his arm. A lot of old bangers hid their tats later. Could Lewis be "cooler" than they thought?

"Webber, you did well phoning in the threat and not showing you knew the truth while you walked around after. We really need to shut up this Ba.s.sett woman. Do-gooders like her get people all riled up. Then you've got more cops crawling all over your every move. Slows down business." Lewis paused, the p.i.s.sed-off part of him sweeping out everything else. "I hear somebody took her purse."

He wanted to correct the guy and tell him it was a chick backpack, you f.u.c.king fathead. The guy promised a ton but demanded even more. Too much, sometimes.

The guy also sniffed out lies, and Webber had enough to hold on to. Better to 'fess up, because something in Lewis's eyes hinted he already knew the answer. "That was me."

Amber pivoted toward Webber. "Why would you do that?"

He shrugged, shoving away his sweet and sour chicken. He did it for the same reason he did everything else, just to make it through the day as best he could and figure out how to fix the mess tomorrow.

Lewis stepped closer, as if he needed any help scaring the h.e.l.l out of them. "Have you used any of the credit cards yet?"

"Nah, I figured she would cancel those anyway. I just used the cash." And kept the gun. "I left her keys," he lied, but Lewis would have no way of checking that, since those keys were in the bottom of Lake Erie, nowhere near the bag. "I know the keys are important."

"But you used the cash." Lewis stared pointedly at the Chinese food.

"That's why I took her backpack. I'm short on food, and Mom is two months behind on rent."

"Give me the woman's bag."

"I threw it in the lake, along with her credit cards." And her keys. He'd wanted to give the pretty backpack to Amber. He'd seen her look at it often enough. "n.o.body'll ever find it."

"You better hope so. We need to be careful."

Why was her speech in front of a bunch of tight-a.s.s politicians so important? There were other people who could talk about the local gangs in her place, people who specialized in following them around with notepads trying to figure out what move they would make next.

They didn't have a frickin' clue. Not like Miss Ba.s.sett.

And there was his answer.

The woman really did stand a chance at changing things around here with her words and her actions, something Lewis couldn't afford to let happen. There was too much power at stake, growing every day here.

He snuck a quick look at Amber. He might not be able to save himself, but he would do his best to keep her and the kid safe. "That big guy, though, the air force dude-he needs to go home now. He's too smart. He makes me nervous."

Lewis crouched beside him. "Why do you say that?"

"He doesn't look at us like she does, like she can save us. He looks at us like he knows us."

Keeping people alive around here was tough enough without the mind games. He just hoped Lewis bought his story about wanting the bag for money. Showing a weakness was killer. He knew better. But something about that woman's voice over the phone got to him. For the first time, he felt like somebody really cared.

Stupid lady.

Losing Shay's backpack and everything in it was important. It wasn't the answer, but it would buy time. Because he hadn't lied about a bomb being planted by one of Lewis's b.u.t.t kissers. Except it wasn't in the center.

It was in Shay Ba.s.sett's car.

NINE.

Shay scrubbed a towel through her wet hair, her face muzzy in the steamed mirror.

One thing was completely clear. Her body hummed with awareness from a simple motorcycle ride along the Lake Erie sh.o.r.e with Vince. What was wrong with her and this disconnect she seemed to have between what her mind knew and what her body wanted?

Well, she had about five minutes to get herself together before Vince returned from whatever errand he'd run, after he'd locked her in the hotel room. He'd even set up a code knock for when he returned, which seemed a little paranoid to her, but the past few days had been beyond bizarre.

Before tonight, she certainly couldn't have foreseen a scenario that would land her in his hotel. All jokes about Eli aside, she had friends. She wasn't a total workaholic. Much. But her friends were all married with families. A call to them meant waking up babies or interrupting couple time for Angeline and her hubby.

So here she was. She tugged one of Vince's T-shirts over her head and shrugged into a hotel robe. In fact, n.o.body knew where she was.

Maybe she should call her dad, just to let him know she was all right. Shay reached for her cell phone-thank goodness she'd kept it in her pocket rather than her backpack-and typed in his number.

Four rings later, his voice mail picked up.

"Don Ba.s.sett," his level tones echoed through the earpiece. "Leave a message after the tone."

"Uh, Dad, it's me, Shay. You may have seen the news tonight about a bomb scare and gang fight at the center. I'm fine. Mom already called to check in. She was pretty freaked out, as you would expect." But it felt good knowing her mom cared, even if Jayne had been a sobbing mess. "So I've had a chance to speak with her." Unlike Don, a man who hated rambling messages. "And uh, I guess that's it. Bye . . ."

A knock sounded at the door. Her chest tightened. Two more quick taps, pause, one more.

It was Vince.

She shook her head to loosen her short, damp curls-d.a.m.n her vain lapse-and rushed over. She slid the chain, the safety bar, and the dead bolt before tugging the door open.

Vince filled the entrance. "You should have asked who it was to be sure."

"I just love being reprimanded like a six-year-old." d.a.m.n. That sounded snippy. "Thanks for the T-shirt to go under the robe."