Fugitive Heart - By Bonnie Dee Page 0,57
that for you, have they?”
No. They did it to me and my family.
“Have you found Bert Esposito yet?” Nick asked.
Brown didn’t answer for a moment, then surprised Nick by talking again. “I think he took off from a small airport, ninety miles south of here. A friend in the state police is checking on that.”
Nick only said, “I’ll talk to the feds but, like I said, only to Agent Tom Giordano.”
He didn’t have a lot he could give them, but if anyone could squeeze something useful from Nick’s description of the book and flash drive, it would be Giordano.
The agent was a humorless workaholic but Nick was fairly sure he was an honest jerk. As certain as Nick could be—he trusted only a couple of people in the world.
Brown reached for a mug of coffee and drank, watching Nick over the rim. Nick gazed at the swirling script on the mug spelling out World’s Best Uncle. He amused himself for a few seconds, imagining Bobby Brown’s relatives presenting him with the gift.
Brown tapped his fingers on the side of the cup and nodded. “All right. Where are you going to be staying? At your house?”
Nick wasn’t going to volunteer anything he didn’t have to. “You have my cell phone number. I won’t leave the town limits, so it’ll be easy to find me.”
Brown drained the coffee and stood. “You’re right. I got nothing to keep you here. And nothing on Les Delgado and Danny Duflin.”
Nick raised his brows. “You got their names that fast?”
“Both have been arrested before. Never convicted, though, so they’re allowed guns.” Bobby Brown frowned again and put down the mug firmly. “Okay. I’ll call your Agent Giordano. They probably already know I’m interested because of the Internet search I did.” He muttered something about goddamn feds.
“Giordano’s in the New York office,” Nick said and flashed back on all the hours he’d spent in Federal Plaza. But more time there would be worth it, to keep Ames safe—and maybe get the Espositos to leave him be. Even after the last few weeks of misery he wouldn’t mind if Elliot got off scot-free. The jerk might have messed up Nick’s life, but he’d given him something—Ames.
Brown led him to the front of the police station, which also operated as the village hall. They found a couple of uniformed cops, a janitor…and Ames. His heart soared like in some greeting card or love poem, and the strength of his emotion made him finally understand what all the fuss was about when people declared their love. He feasted on the sight of Ames—deceptively soft and vulnerable looking with her wide eyes shadowed from the long night and her hair tangled in a frizz of curls. But he knew she wasn’t really that soft, nor was she weak. The woman had a will of iron and the bite of a tigress. She was a survivor, and she would protect her own. Astonishingly, she apparently viewed Nick as someone worth calling “hers”.
A small, gray-haired woman with eyebrows plucked into surprised arches sat behind the desk at the front entrance of the jail. She smiled at him and looked ready to talk, the way so many people in this town did, simply chatting up random strangers.
Nick needed Ames alone, where he could hold her, so he grabbed her and pulled her past the nosy receptionist into the fresh evening air. He drew in a lungful and felt as if he could breathe for the first time in days. He wanted to haul Ames up against him and kiss her until the whole world went away, but Brown and the others might be watching them from the ornate brick municipal building. He didn’t give a rat’s ass who saw, but this was Ames’s town and she might care.
She looked up and down the sidewalk and crossed her arms against a cool breeze. “What’re you going to do now?”
“I promised I’d stay in town. Deputy Brown is going to contact me soon.”
“You call him Deputy Brown?”
“He seems to want to keep our relationship formal.”
Finally she looked at him, her brow puckered with concern. “Poor Nick. Was the questioning awful?”
“Nope. Not even close.”
“Did Bobby tell you anything new? Like maybe something about Elliot?” She sounded so hopeful he wished he could say something optimistic, but was too tired to put a spin on it.
“Not a word. I’m sorry. The Esposito guys in the hospital aren’t talking.” He took a step toward her, unable to resist getting