floor. At least, I think it was a gun skittering across the floor. That’s not a sound I’d ever heard before, but I dared to open my eyes just in time to see Gina stomping a black-booted foot down on the top of—sure enough—the gun.
“Oh my God,” Gina said, glaring over at a now-incapacitated Mick. “I can’t believe you fell for that. You are so not smarter than you look.”
Chapter 28
“Violating parole is going to get you into serious trouble, O’Malley,” Leo said to a now-handcuffed Mick. Not surprisingly, Gina had supplied the cuffs from inside her jacket. “But possession of a firearm will get you thrown back into the slammer for good. We’re willing to make a deal. You leave the island with us, promise to never come back, and forget everything you ever knew about Jimmy Novak or Dmitri Krushnic, and my partner and I will escort you safely back to Florida just in time to meet your parole officer, end of story.”
“I’m supposed to believe that? Why would you let me go free? What’s to stop me from getting another gun and coming back here for my share of the take?”
“There won’t be anything left of the take,” Dmitri answered. “I’m turning over everything I have left to these two so they can return it to the Wellington family. I’m about to become a law-abiding citizen.”
The matter of Mick having pointed a gun at all of us, especially at me, seemed to be of secondary concern to everyone. “How about we arrest him here?” I said. “That seems like a better idea to me.”
Dmitri’s face fell. “I know it’s a lot to ask, Brooke, but I’d still like to keep Harlan and the law out of this.”
That seemed like a bad idea. This guy was more than a menace—he was a dangerous menace—but after all was said and done, I had the chance to keep Dmitri’s past in the past. Not sure I owed him that, considering the fact that he’d lied to me and everyone I cared about for the past thirty-some years. But then again, I couldn’t ignore the reality of what Dmitri, the Dmitri I knew, meant to me. “I guess,” I said with a sigh.
Gina motioned me to the side a few minutes later. “Don’t sweat it,” she murmured in my ear. “We’re going to deliver Mick straight to the cops as soon as we hit the mainland. The only jewels in Mick’s future will be the ones shaken in his face during shower time for cell block eleven. We just want to keep him quiet and compliant for as long as possible.”
That was a mild relief, although the “quiet and compliant” part hinted at what Leo had done to me, and a fresh wave of hurt and dismay washed over my skin. How could I have been fooled again? Did I have gullible tattooed on my forehead? Technically Leo had saved my life today, what with him flinging himself into harm’s way to knock down the man with the pistol, but Leo was also the reason I’d been in that predicament to begin with. My emotions were in chaos. This was going to require some serious self-reflection about my life choices. And a lot of vodka.
“Is this everything?” Leo asked a few minutes later, surveying the kitchen table now laden with the most beautiful pieces of jewelry I’d ever seen in my life. There were diamond-encrusted necklaces, chunky emerald bracelets, teardrop ruby earrings. I hadn’t seen so much sparkle in one place since I’d watched the Oscars on television last year.
“That’s everything,” Dmitri said, looking more sad than remorseful. “After Brooke was here the other day, I moved everything from the bee houses and cleaned it up. My plan was to move it all to a safety deposit box in Manitou, but I guess that won’t be happening.”
I couldn’t resist picking up one of the more garish necklaces and holding it up to my throat in front of the mirror on Dmitri’s wall. I caught Leo in the reflection standing behind me.
“That looks really pretty on you. Sorry I can’t let you keep it.”
I pulled the necklace away and turned around. “Yeah, well, given all the other stuff you should be sorry about, that’s pretty low on the list.”
He took a step closer and lowered his voice so only I could hear. “Brooke, I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am about all of this. I wish I could go