It wasn’t until a street or two later that he realized the guy in front of him seemed to be heading the same way as he was. In a suit that was out of place in this environment—European tailoring—and muttering too softly for Evan to hear, the guy was probably a vendor or something who had an appointment with the grocer. He didn’t think anything of it until, as he was about to close the distance between them, he recognized what language the man was speaking to himself.
Greek.
He halted abruptly, Bingo dropping to his haunches beside him, as the guy approached the Baileys’ apartment door, reaching his hands into his suit coat pocket. And then he pounded on the door—foot first.
It was the stranger from the bar who had been asking about Reynolds’ girlfriend. No big surprise there. The gun in his hand wasn’t much of a surprise either. If he’d been meaning to play nice, he would have knocked.
“I don’t want no trouble,” the guy said as Tommy pushed Cassie behind him.
It was amazing how guys with guns felt so free to use that expression.
Tommy wished, for probably the first time since he had left big-city life, that he had a piece too. Trouble was hard enough to avoid when you were looking down the barrel of a gun at it unless you were able to even the odds.
“Put your hands up.”
Tommy complied though he could feel behind him that Cassie had not. Her hands were fisted in the back of his shirt and he could feel her breath on the back of his neck, she was standing so close.
“What’s the problem, mister?”
“You got the girl here, don’t you? Where is she?”
“I told you back at the bar I hadn’t seen her.”
“And then you come right here. Right. Like I believe that. You got some kind of three-way thing going, don’t you, kid? Well, I got nothing against that. I’d like some of that action myself.” The look he gave Cassie turned Tommy’s stomach. Maybe he wouldn’t need a gun after all if this guy tried to touch her. The way Tommy was feeling he just might be able to rip him to shreds.
Hopefully before the guy shot him and, God forbid, Cassie.
Tommy tried for a blasé tone. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, man. There’s no other girl here. Just me and my girlfriend is all.”
“You.” The man gestured to Cassie with the gun and followed it up with tugging her out from behind Tommy. Tommy stepped between them again but the gun barrel sort of necessitated taking a step back. “Where is the girl you picked up in your boat this afternoon?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know who she was. She just asked for a ride and I gave it to her.”
It was a perfectly reasonable response, but Tommy could see she was trembling. Fuck.
“See, I told you we don’t know any girl you been looking for.” He tried to tug Cassie back to his side and this time he succeeded.
“You’re lying!” the guy spat out for good measure.
“I’m not!”
“What’s this all about anyway?” Tommy asked. “Who is the girl?”
“None of your fucking business, kid.” He yanked Cassie back, this time all the way into his arms, one beefy one along her waist and the other in a sort of a headlock along her shoulders, that one with the gun in it. “Now you are going to tell me the truth or this hot little thing is going to—”
“Okay. You’re right. Let her go and I’ll tell you where the girl went.”
Cassie’s big eyes shot to his face, but she said nothing.
“Yeah?” he prompted.
“Let her go.”
“First you talk. Or better yet, if she’s in the apartment, go get her.”
As a foreigner, he apparently wasn’t familiar with the Yankee concept of thriftiness. An apartment adjoining a country grocer didn’t exactly have a great room or master bedroom sprawled off somewhere. What you saw was what you got. About nine hundred and fifty square feet of it. So unless the girl was cowering under the bed of one of the two open bedroom doors in sight, she wasn’t there, obviously.
“She’s not here.”
The arm around Cassie’s shoulder lifted a little until it was practically around her neck.
“But I can take you to her.”
“Where?”
Tommy tried to think fast. “You’re wrong about a threesome. Cassie here isn’t into that. In fact, she was pissed about the, ah, girl.” He didn’t even know her name as he tried to fake it. “And I came over here to try to make it up to her. The girl, ah—”
“Babs,” Cassie supplied unexpectedly.
“Right. Babs.”
The guy scowled, making Tommy suspect whoever this mysterious girl was, she wasn’t exactly giving out accurate personal information.