Hooked

and Colin drove by, looking straight ahead.
    She thought back. After Charles announced the police were at the door, Mario met her pleading gaze with a hopeless shrug. Business, his gesture indicated. Just business.
    She drew in a breath to scream, but Reggie clamped a hand over her mouth and held her in a viselike grip while Colin followed Mario’s instructions to find something to restrain her. No question who called the shots.
    Colin returned with a roll of duct tape, tore a piece, and slapped it across her mouth the minute Reggie let go, sealing any chance of making herself heard. She tried to squirm away from the big man, but she might as well have tried to move a mountain. His muscular arms didn’t even twitch in answer to her pitiful attempt to free herself. Colin grabbed her arms and pulled them behind her. She marveled at the small man’s strength as he wrapped a long strip of tape around her wrists.
    Mario spoke to Reggie quietly and gave him a key. Colin listened. Why Reggie? Though neither Reggie nor Colin were candidates for MENSA, Colin appeared to be the brighter of the two. She determined Reggie would more likely follow orders without asking questions, confirmed when Colin started to say something and Mario cut him off.
    “Get her out of here,” Mario said to Reggie. Colin huffed but avoided looking at the crime boss when he did.
    As Reggie pushed Tawny ahead of him, Mario whispered that he’d see her later. So they weren’t going to kill her right away. That was the one positive note in a long, ugly evening.
    Reggie and Colin hustled her into the elevator and descended to ground level. She was a rag doll in Reggie’s hold, unable to break loose. They exited the back door to a walled-in patio where the scent of lilac filled the air. Colin separated one key from a ring and unlocked the gate.
    The minute they dragged her through the door, she heard, “FBI. Let the girl go, and turn around.” Reggie handed her off to Colin as if they’d practiced the move, turned, and ignoring the demand to stop, launched himself at the agent so fast, Tawny couldn’t keep track of what was happening until she saw the gun fly out of the cop’s hand. Reggie whacked him again and kept whacking him until he went down and didn’t move. Tawny feared the guy was dead.
    No matter how hard she tried to free herself from Colin’s hold, the little man held firm until Reggie once again took control. Her feet barely touched the ground as he dragged her through patches of green, past the backs of three buildings, and into an alley where their car waited. She let out a deep-throated moan, hoping to attract the attention of someone in the buildings, but it faded into the sounds of late-night street traffic, music that thrummed from one of the apartments, and the wind that had kicked up since early evening.
    “Shut up or I’ll put you to sleep,” Reggie said.
    She didn’t doubt for a moment he could or would. He pushed her into the backseat of a small car, got in beside her, and they rolled out of the alley onto the street, another car in late night traffic no one noticed. That’s when she saw Walsh, and all hope of rescue faded.
    Reggie tied a rag over her eyes. Good. They wouldn’t see the fear that mixed with tears. She wondered why it mattered if she saw where they were taking her. She had little chance of escaping and less of survival, especially now that Mario had taken charge.
    How naïve she’d been all those years. How Mario’s caring, almost fatherly attention had lulled her from what everyone in the world knew but her. She’d refused to believe his other side existed. Now she knew enough to put everyone in that room on death row. She’d wind up like the other two women and the Hansen guy, in either the harbor or a garbage container, or maybe a landfill, covered by tons of trash. By the time someone found her, if they did, the cops would need dental record s to identify her.
    Benny―poor, stupid Benny―was the victim of his own greed and voracious sex drive. A reluctant accomplice by way of his murderous wife, a woman afraid to lose everything, and who, in the end, would. The days of Upper Eighties were numbere d. Tawny wished she could warn the women who worked there that now would be a good time to take an extended vacation before the police pulled them in and exposed their lives. That was the threat she and many others faced in choosing their lifestyle. Death had seemed a remote consequence.
    Tawny