Eyes Like a Wolf Read online

  “Darling, are you quite well?” he asked, attempting to take my elbow and guide me back to the table.

  “I'm fine,” I said, evading his touch as I had been all night. “Perfectly fine. I just want a little fresh air, that's all.”

  “I'll come with you.” Charles started to get his coat.

  “No,” I almost shouted. Then, forcing myself to be calm, I said, “I mean, I just need a little alone time, that's all. Give me a few minutes, all right?”

  “Well, if you're certain…” He looked at me doubtfully, as though I was a house pet that might wander off if he let me outside.

  My calm broke. “I said I'm fine, Charles. Now, will you please give me one goddamn solitary minute of peace?” I bit out. I turned from the petulant, pouting expression my outburst provoked and headed for the exit. If I didn't get a moment alone, without my clinging fiancé on one hand and my seductive, secretive older brother on the other, I was going to lose it completely and start screaming.

  Chapter Eleven

  Outside it was dark and chilly and silent because Bern's takes up almost an entire block by itself, and there aren't any other businesses around it. I took some deep breaths of the cool night air and began to calm down. I felt like I'd just left a room where the atmosphere was tinged with a low-grade poison gas, and I needed to clear my lungs of it before I could feel normal again. Not that I knew what normal felt like anymore.

  Bern's is located on the far end of South Howard—the SoHo district, trendy South Tampa residents call it. I knew that if I took a left I'd hit Bayshore Boulevard and from there it was only a few blocks to Charles's house. But more importantly, there was a long strip of sand running the length of Bayshore that was as close to a beach as you could get on this end of town. I decided that what I really wanted was a long walk beside the water, digging my toes into the sand and smelling the cool, salty air of the bay. I needed to clear my head away from both Richard and Charles and re-evaluate where my life was headed.

  I thought about telling Charles where I was going, but I was a big girl, after all, and it wasn't like I needed his permission. As for Richard, let him wonder for a while. It might do my annoying brother some good to not be so sure of me. He and Charles both seemed to think they knew exactly what was right for me, and I was beginning to feel like a pawn in a badly played game of chess. I'd been on my own before, and I could take care of myself.

  I didn't want to walk on the main road because of traffic, so I turned down a side street that was still headed in the direction of the bay. This part of South Tampa was more residential, and the houses on either side of the street I walked on would sell in the millions, easily. They were stately old homes, surrounded by carefully landscaped lawns and huge, ancient trees that cast thick, black shadows in my path. It was still a good two weeks until the next full moon, and the few streetlights didn't do much to illuminate my way, not that I needed them to since I've always had great night vision. The expensive Jimmy Choo heels Charles had bought me were killing my arches, and I was just thinking of taking them off and walking barefoot when I realized I was being followed.

  They must have been behind me for a few blocks at least, creeping up quietly, and I hadn't noticed because I was so caught up in my own thoughts. I might have been taken completely by surprise, but one of them stumbled and cursed in the darkness. When I turned my head, I saw two black shapes in the gloom behind me. Two big black shapes.

  I'm a prosecutor, so the first thing I thought of was the rape/murder case I'd worked on with Detective Genevieve Marks a few months before. A girl had been found in one of the dumpsters behind a downtown restaurant with her throat slit and evidence of multiple sexual assaults. The PD had gotten one of the perpetrators and we had managed to put him away, but they were pretty certain there had been more than one to start with. Genevieve had speculated to me that there might have been as many as three attackers, but the man we were prosecuting wouldn't give up any other names.

  So the minute I saw the two men following me, my mind jumped to the first scary conclusion it could find. I was sure the friends of the man I had put away were after me, intent on paying me back. My heart started trip-hammering in my chest, and my palms went cold and clammy. My mouth felt like I had tried to swallow a handful of cotton balls.

  “Shit,” one of them said in a deep, grating voice. “She saw us.”

  “Get 'er!” the second man commanded in a nasal tone.

  I kicked off the Jimmy Choos and ran.

  I thought of going up to one of the mansions that lined the street and pounding on the door, but most of the windows were dark. By the time I'd roused someone out of bed to come to my aid, the two men would have gotten to me and dragged me off to do who knew what horrible things to me. My only chance was to keep running until I got to Bayshore, and maybe I could flag down a car.

  I could hear the men behind me gaining on me—no surprise since they weren't running barefoot over sharp gravel the way I was. I needed to get off the road. To my right was a small park surrounded by a wrought iron fence. It wasn't the kind of place you took your kids because there were no swings or teeter-totters. It was just a lot of ornamental plants and carved stone benches that were dedicated to different people, probably by old South Tampa residents who wanted their relatives memorialized. I didn't care about any of that, though. I thought that I could make better time on the lush, green grass than on the street. Maybe I could even lose the two men pursuing me in the decorative arrangements of trees and bushes.

  I zigged right and ran under the ornamental wrought iron arch that served as a front gate of the park with the two men right behind me. I could hear at least one of the men puffing and blowing, which gave me hope that I could outrun them. How close were they? I had to look. I whipped my head back around to catch a glimpse of them, which turned out to be a mistake. My foot caught on a flowering shrub, and the next thing I knew I was flat on my face, sprawled in the grass that had looked so inviting moments before.

  I tried to scramble up, but they were already all over me. Rough hands pinned my arms behind my back, and dragged me to my feet. I opened my mouth to scream, but a large, beefy palm slapped over my lips before I could get out so much as a peep.

  “Don't think so, girly,” the man with the grating voice panted. He was a balding guy, built like a Mack truck, with a gut to match. It was his palm that was covering my face, and I could smell cigarette smoke on his skin. No doubt that had something to do with the grating voice and shortness of breath. At the moment, however, I was more concerned with my health than his.

  “She's kinda pretty.” My other assailant was a thin, rat-faced guy who looked considerably younger than his counterpart.

  “Shut up and do it.” The older man grabbed my hair and yanked my head back, baring my throat. “Make it look good—Mister Andretti says he wants to send this guy a message.”

  So this had nothing to do with the murder/rapist I had put away—it was something worse. My mind raced. Andretti—as in Momo “the shark” Andretti? What would a mob boss want with a peon ADA like me, and what guy were they teaching a lesson to? Then I saw the silvery glint of a knife in the rat-faced guy's hand and knew what the older man meant by “do it.”

  My heart, which had been beating double-time up until then, started beating triple-time instead, until I felt like it might burst right out of my chest. These men were going to kill me—I had to get away! I bit down hard on the beefy palm over my mouth and kicked at the same time, catching the skinny, rat-faced guy in the lower shin. He went down hard, the knife still clutched in his hand.

  This would have worked out fine if the guy holding me would have let go when I bit him. But though the nauseating, coppery-sweet taste of fresh blood filled my mouth, he kept a firm hold on my hair, and I couldn't get loose. He did yank his hurt hand away, however, and I was able to scream for help. If I could just get someone's attention, I was sure they would call the police. This wasn't the kind of neighborhood where blood-curdlin