Blood risk

punch?"
        "Wait," Tucker said, smiling. He apologized pleasantly to Baglio for his partner's overeager attitude. He said, "I'm sure our friend's in this house. Otherwise everyone's story would match. Otherwise-a lot of things. Now, where is he?"
        "No," Baglio said.
        Tucker nodded, looked at Shirillo. "Tie him to the chair, then go keep our friend company at the stairwell. You could cover the back stairs while he watches the main ones."
        "Expecting trouble?" Shirillo asked.
        "It's going to take longer than I thought," Tucker said. "And Mr. Baglio may be screaming loud enough to attract his boys outside before I'm done with him."
        Shirillo nodded, used a letter opener to cut down the cords of the draw drapes and expertly lashed Baglio to the straight-backed chair. The older man offered no resistance.
        "What about her?" Shirillo asked.
        "I can handle her."
        "Sure?"
        "Positive."
        Shirillo left to join Harris at the stairs.
        Tucker looked at his watch: 5:10 in the morning. Shortly the dawn would come. Would the two men stationed outside the house leave their posts when the sun had fully risen?
        Tucker shook off the thought and directed the woman to move her chair away from Baglio, which she did, putting it down so that it faced him from the side. When she was seated again, like a spectator at a sporting event, Tucker stood behind her, watching Baglio, tracing his fingertips along her warm neck.
        Baglio laughed out loud, even though that must have hurt his face.
        "Something funny?" Tucker asked. He let his hand become more sure, lying full against her throat, feeling her pulse. He hated himself for trying to get to Baglio through whatever relationship he enjoyed with the woman. He kept thinking how it would be if things were reversed, if he were in the chair and Baglio were caressing Elise.
        "That won't work," Baglio said.
        Tucker moved his hand, traced the edge of her jaw-line, tenderly tilted her head up. She responded to his touch, or he imagined that she did.
        Baglio said, "I've always got a different woman around. Women are nothing to me, nothing at all. I've got nothing special with her. I wasn't the first with her, and I know I'm hot going to be the last, so go ahead, be my guest." All that talking made a tiny stream of thick blood run from the corner of his mouth, down his blackening chin. He made no attempt to lick it away, perhaps because his tongue was cut and swollen-or perhaps because he didn't notice it, his entire attention riveted on Tucker's proprietary hand.
        "I think you're lying," Tucker said.
        "Think what you want."
        "It would get to a man like you if a stranger walked into his house and made him watch, powerless, while-"
        "Powerless" was the word that did it. Baglio flared up again, inwardly, hatred rising in his eyes and burning brightly a moment before he veiled it again. "See if I care."
        Tucker turned her face toward him, tilted it higher, looked into her green-blue eyes. "If I were to pistol-whip her?" he asked Baglio. "Put a couple of scars on her face -say, from the hairline straight down to the chin-break a few of those perfect teeth?" If Elise could hear him now, what would she say? It wouldn't be good.
        But Baglio laughed again, more genuinely this time, or with his act more under control.
        The girl stiffened, looked worriedly up at Tucker, shifted her eyes sideways, straining to see Baglio. She hadn't expected this. And in her eyes was a hatred more intense than Baglio's, not for Tucker but for her lover. Her former lover. She'd been made aware, in one brutal instant, that though there might be more between them than just sex, the old man found her expendable. Watching her now, as her face set into grim lines, Tucker knew she would perform a vendetta far better than any Sicilian ever could.
        Now that her circumstances were clear, she adjusted quickly, recovered her composure; and decided what she must do. Earlier, Tucker had imagined that she reacted favorably to his caress, but now the reaction was real and not imagined at all. His hand slid down her throat until it lay just above her heavy breasts; and she sat up straighter, leaning into his hand, trying to accommodate him, tempting.
        Baglio noticed.
        She smiled at Tucker, turned to Baglio and smiled at him too, though