The Collector
Page 85

“About half her life, then.”
“Close enough.”
“You have details about her, information,” Ash began, “but you don’t know who she’s working for now.”
“Not yet. We’re working on it, we have good people working on that,” Fine said briskly. “We’ll get to whoever’s paying her.”
“Even if you did, even if you were able to get to him, it wouldn’t stop her.”
“All the more reason you need protection.”
“Lila and I are going away for a few days. You should come,” he said to Luke, to Julie. “We’ll talk about it.”
“Where?” Fine demanded.
“Italy. We’ll get out of New York for a while. If you get her while we’re gone, problem solved. I want Lila safe, Detectives. I want my life back, and I want the person responsible for Oliver and Vinnie caught and locked up. None of that happens until Jai Maddok is stopped.”
“We need your contact information in Italy, when you’re going, when you plan on coming back.”
“I’ll get you all of it,” Ash agreed.
“We’re not looking to make your job harder,” Lila told them.
Fine leveled a look. “Maybe not, but you’re not making it any easier.”
Lila brooded about it after the detectives left.
“What are we supposed to do? Go off somewhere and hide until they find her and put her away—which nobody’s had a lot of luck doing for over a decade? We didn’t start this, or ask for it. I looked out the window. You opened a letter from your brother.”
“If hiding would take care of it, I’d do everything I could to make you hide. But . . .” Ash came back from locking the door, sat beside her again. “You were right when you said she could—and likely would—just wait. If she goes under now, there’s no telling when and where she’ll come at you again.”
“Or you.”
“Or me. So, Italy.”
“Italy,” Lila agreed, then looked over at Julie and Luke. “Can you go?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about taking any time off right now. I’d love to,” Julie added. “But I don’t know what we’d do.”
“Cover more ground,” Ash pointed out. “Four of us instead of two. And after today, I don’t want Lila to go anywhere alone. Being able to handle yourself,” he added to forestall her, “doesn’t mean you always have to.”
“Safety in numbers. I could probably work something out,” Luke considered. Then he caught Ash’s eye, read the message—Need some help here—nodded slightly. “Yeah, I can work it out. Julie?”
“I could morph it into a business thing. Visit some galleries, scope out some of the sidewalk artists. I’ll talk to the owners, play it that way, and since I’m coming off a couple of major sales, I think they’ll go for it.”
“Good. I’ll take care of the rest.”
Lila turned to Ash. “What do you mean you’ll take care of the rest?”
“We have to get there, stay somewhere, get around once we’re there. I’ll take care of it.”
“Why you?”
He put a hand over hers. “My brother.”
Hard to argue with the simplicity and sincerity of that, she decided, and turned her hand under his to twine fingers. “Okay, but I’m the one who contacted Antonia Bastone. I’ll take care of that.”
“Which means?”
“When we get there, stay somewhere, get around somehow, it would be helpful to have some entrée into the Bastone villa. I’ll take care of that.”
“I bet you can.”
“Count on it.”
“Looks like we’re going along for the ride. I need to get back,” Luke said, “unless you need me.”
“I’ve got it from here.” Ash skimmed a hand down Lila’s hair as he rose. “Thanks. For all of it.”
“I’d say anytime, but I hope I don’t end up stanching your lady’s wounds again anytime soon.”
“You did it so well.” Rising, Lila stepped over to hug him. “If I ever need wound stanching by a calm, efficient hand, I know just where to go.”
“Stay away from crazy women with knives.” He gave her a light kiss, exchanged another silent message with Ash over the top of her head. “I’ll take you back,” Luke told Julie. “And come get you when you’re done for the day.”
She stood, angled her head. “Are you my bodyguard?”
“Looks that way.”
“I’m fine with that.” She went over to Lila, hugged her again. “Be careful.”
“I promise.”
“And do something you excel at. Pack light. We’ll shop in Italy.” She turned to Ash, hugged him in turn. “You watch out for her, whether she wants you to or not.”
“Already there.”
She pointed at Lila as she and Luke walked to the door. “I’ll call you later.”
Lila waited for Ash to set the locks again. “I’m not reckless.”
“No. Tendencies toward risk taking aren’t necessarily reckless. And tendencies to take care of details aren’t necessarily controlling.”
“Hmm. It can seem that way to someone used to taking care of her own details.”
“Probably, just the way for someone used to taking his own risks, having someone determined to take them with him might seem reckless.”
“That’s a little bit of a dilemma.”
“It could be, but we have a bigger one.” He crossed to her, laid a hand lightly on her injured side. “Right now, my priority is seeing this never happens again. The way to that is finding the way to put Jai Maddok behind bars.”
“And the way to that may be in Italy.”
“That’s the plan. If I’d known this would happen, you’d be hurt, I’d never have approached you at the police station. But I’d have thought of you. Because even with everything that was going on, you got in my head. First look.”
“And if I’d known this would happen, all of this, I’d have come after you.”
“But you’re not reckless.”
“Some things are worth the risk. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next chapter, Ash, so I want to keep going until I find out.”