A Kiss to Die for. Gail Barrett
for a red light. “Go on,” he said in his rusty voice.
The light changed to green, and she stepped into the street. “One of those girls was Brynn, the friend we’re going to see. She had a camera she always carried around. She wanted to be a photographer, even then. She’d decided to take some pictures of an abandoned warehouse. We tried to talk her out of it. Baltimore didn’t have many gangs back then, but there was one, the City of the Dead, and they ruled the neighborhood where the warehouse was. But we couldn’t convince her to stay away.
“Nadine and I went with her, but I was scared so we waited on the street outside.” A mistake she’d regretted ever since.
She swallowed hard, her belly tightening at the memory, but she forced herself to go on. “We were right to worry. She stumbled across a crime scene, a gang execution. She caught it on film.”
“They saw her?” Sully guessed.
She nodded. “They chased her. They chased us all.”
“So you saw them, too?”
“No. Brynn came flying out of the warehouse, shouting at us to run, so we did. I didn’t look back. And then I heard shots....”
Lost in the gruesome memory, she tripped. Sully lunged over and steadied her arm. She glanced up at his face, intending to thank him, but for an instant, his dark gold eyes held her riveted, the sheer maleness of him arresting her thoughts. And once again, his incredible appeal rolled through her, making her breath back up in her lungs.
He dropped her arm and stepped away.
Her face burned. Embarrassed at her reaction, she looked away. Lovely. This was all the poor man needed. They had their lives on the line, a vicious gang hunting them down—and her hormones chose this moment to go berserk.
Steering her thoughts back to her story, she cleared her throat. “Anyway, another runaway we knew was nearby. Tommy McCall. He was Parker’s younger brother. He got in their way, giving us a chance to escape. He saved our lives.”
“Was?”
That was the worst of it. “The gang killed him.” Tommy’s gallantry had cost him his life.
She lapsed into silence again, the guilt plaguing her even now. Tommy had died because of them.
Several cars sped past. The cold wind picked up, and she hunched deeper into her coat to escape the chill.
“So you never saw the shooters?” Sully asked, drawing her attention back to him.
“No, but they didn’t know that. And they saw me.”
“But your friend took pictures. So you know who they are.”
“Yes, but both of the shooters are dead now. The last one died a couple of weeks ago.”
He angled his head to meet her eyes. “Then who’s trying to kill you? And what does this have to do with the Ridgewood gang?”
She sighed. “I told you it was complicated. About ten years ago, the City of the Dead disbanded. Most of their members were dead by then. The ones who’d survived ended up merging with the Ridgewood gang. And it seems the leader of the original gang—the head honcho who ordered that execution in the warehouse—was one of the ones who survived.
“We don’t know much about him, just that he now has power. Lots of power. We think he even has ties to the police. In fact, he had Markus Jenkins released from jail—he’s the head of the Ridgewood gang.”
“And that’s who’s after you.”
“It’s the only explanation that makes sense right now. No one else would want me dead. What’s ironic is that none of us can identify him. We don’t have a clue who he is. But I guess he doesn’t want to take the chance.
“I don’t understand how he found me, though. We went on the run after that shooting. We changed our names and moved around the country for years. I only came back here a couple years ago to be closer to Brynn. And I’ve kept a really low profile since then.”
“But somehow he found you. He sent his gang after you.”
It was worse than that. She came to a stop. The dread inside her grew. “I haven’t used the last name Burroughs since I left home. I told you, I go by Haley Barnes now. So this killer knows who I really am. He’s figured out where I live.
“And he knows that you helped me.” Fear for him chilled her heart. “He’ll come after you, too, now. You’ll never be able to escape.”
And unless she managed to stop him, history would repeat itself. And another innocent man who tried to help her would lose his life.
* * *
Sully didn’t know what disturbed him more, to think of Haley as a teenage runaway or that she had a gang contract on her head.
He sat across from her in her friends’ Baltimore apartment, still reeling from what she’d revealed. She looked so damned fragile huddled on the sofa, her face drained of any color, her full lips flattened with worry, dark circles smudging her soft eyes. Every instinct inside him urged him to drag her off to a distant cave, to hole up with her somewhere safe and keep the danger from coming her way.
Not that she was defenseless. Far from it. She’d taken down that gang member. She’d run straight into a firefight to save that pregnant teen. But a powerful killer wanted her dead, a man who’d hunted her for fifteen years. How was she going to fight that?
It wasn’t his business. He’d done his job. He’d gotten her to Baltimore and informed her friends about the attacks. They’d added some details to Haley’s story—that the victim executed in the warehouse had been a junkie named Allen Chambers, and that one of the shooters had been a cop.
But he’d done his part. And now it was time to go. Her friends could take it from here.
They emerged from the kitchen just then. Brynn Elliot, a diminutive redhead with a heavily bandaged shoulder, settled next to Haley on the couch. Her fiancé took a seat on the armchair opposite his. Parker McCall was tall, nearly Sully’s height, with a steady, unflinching gaze—a man who inspired trust. He had one arm in a sling, courtesy of the same gun battle that wounded Brynn.
“We made some calls,” Brynn told Haley. “Parker can get you into a safe house. Both of you,” she added, glancing Sully’s way.
“Thanks, but I’ll be all right on my own.”
“I’m not going into hiding, either,” Haley said.
“It’s not forever,” her friend told her. “Just until we track this guy down.”
“But—”
“Haley, you’ve got a reward on your head.” Exasperation tinged Brynn’s voice. “The Ridgewood gang’s going to be searching for you everywhere. You’ve got to go somewhere safe.”
The cop shifted forward, drawing their gaze. “Brynn’s right. It’s too dangerous. You need to go to a safe house.”
“You’re not hiding,” Haley pointed out. “And you’re in as much danger as I am.”
The redhead shook her head. “No, I’m not. There isn’t a contract out on me.”
“That you know of.”
“Right. But I’ve also got Parker to watch my back.”
Whereas Haley was on her own. Sully clasped his hands, trying not to care. Not his business, he reminded himself fiercely. He needed to forget her plight, forget the fear shadowing her lovely eyes, forget how soft she’d felt when he’d held her arm.
“It’s only for a while,” her friend argued. “Only until we find out who’s behind all this.”
“And how long will that take? Months? Years? You said you aren’t making progress.”
Sully