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“It’s just down the street, at the Seaside Seascapes Gallery.”
Simon nodded as she closed and locked it behind him, then he turned and started back the way he’d come, taking his time, the small painting tucked under his arm.
He waited for the two men to accost him as he walked down the street. Two blocks from Willa St. Clair’s art studio, and he hadn’t seen anyone who wanted to kill him. Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe he’d hidden the disk and blown off his delivery meeting for nothing.
He should have been relieved. But instead, it made him angry. He’d panicked for nothing. Now he would have to go back and get the damned disk after the studio was closed. Worse, he would have to set up another delivery meeting. Any change of plans always increased the danger.
At his car, he beeped open the doors, the lights flashed and he reached for the door handle.
They came at him from out of the darkness, surprising him. Simon reached for his weapon, but he wasn’t fast enough. The small painting he’d bought fell to the ground with a thud as the larger of the two grabbed him, the smaller one taking his gun and searching him.
“What the hell do you want?” he bluffed, recognizing them both. “You scared the hell out of me. You’re damned lucky I didn’t shoot you both.”
The smaller of the two men scooped up the painting from the sidewalk and tore the canvas from its frame, tossing it aside when he didn’t find what he was looking for.
Simon considered whether he could take them both and decided he’d be dead before he even had one of them down. No, he thought, he had a much better chance if he could get them to take him to their boss. He’d managed to bluff his way this far. He had to believe he could get himself out of this, as well.
“Where is it?” the small one demanded as he jammed a gun into Simon’s kidneys.
He groaned. “Where’s what?” The big one hit him before Simon even saw him move. The punch dropped him to his knees.
“Not here,” the smaller one snapped and Simon heard the sound of a car engine.
A moment later he was shoved onto the floorboard of the back seat, something heavy pressed on top of him.
He tried to breathe, to remain calm. The disk was hidden. If he played his cards right, he could get it back and still make delivery. Too much was at stake to give up now.
If there was one thing Simon Renton was good at it, it was talking his way out of trouble. Didn’t everyone say he was like a cat with nine lives?
He just hoped he hadn’t run out of lives.
CHAPTER TWO
Simon was dead.
Landry Jones stood in the large office of the Tampa warehouse fighting the urge to put a bullet hole into the brains of the two men who’d killed Simon. Stupid fools.
But then he’d have to take out their boss, Freddy D., and that wasn’t part of the plan. At least not yet.
“We almost got him to tell us who he was working with,” said the larger of the two thugs, who went by TNT or T for short, no doubt because of the man’s short fuse.
The other man, known as Worm, was smaller, cagier and meaner if that were possible. “I told T to back o
ff a little but Simon was giving him a lot of grief.”
Knowing Simon, he would have purposely got T going, so the fool killed him before he gave up the names of the other undercover cops who’d infiltrated the organization.
Landry swore under his breath. “That’s why I wanted to handle this. I would have gotten the names out of him.”
Freddy D. studied him from beneath hooded gray eyes. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
Landry shook his head angrily. “So where’s the disk Simon supposedly made?” he asked the two thugs. “Or did you kill him before he told you that, as well?”
“Easy,” Freddy D. said, but turned his big bald head to take in T and Worm. “Tell me you got the disk.” The tone of his voice made it pretty clear that T and Worm might not be around long if they didn’t.
Landry held his breath. T squirmed but Worm looked almost cocky. “He told us where to find it,” Worm said.
Landry let out the breath he’d been holding. “Great. You don’t have the disk, you don’t even know if it exists or if Simon was a cop or not.” He felt the corpse-gray eyes of Freddy D. shift to him again.
