Michael must have let the phone rang twenty times before he hung up. The first time he called, he suspected she might be in the shower, but there was absolutely no way she could still be in the shower after all this time. Just to be sure, he waited another fifteen minutes and called again. The phone kept ringing, and he slammed the receiver down with enough impact to jar a figurine off the table.
“Damn it, Rochelle! What in the hell are you trying to do to my mind?”
Even as he cursed her, he cursed himself for leaving her in that damn empty house. His intentions earlier that day had been to have her pack a bag and come home with him, but his anger blew out of control and prevented that. He knew she was hurt when he had walked away and left her, just as she was hurt that night at the motel when he walked out of her room. Anger, self-deprecation, and guilt rode on his back, and as much as he wanted to make things right between him and Rochelle, his mind seemed constipated with the green sickness.
While he was showering, his intention had been to hit the sack after he called her. Now, sleep would be next to impossible until he knew where she was and that she was okay. He felt entirely exhausted, the long trip depleting his energy, and his damn arm and shoulder were aching where that bastard's bullet blasted through it.
He slid on jeans, a pull over shirt, and stuck his feet in socks and sneakers. He left the house, backing his car from the garage.
While he drove to his birthplace, fear began mounting in his gut like a time-bomb ready to go off. He silently reprimanded himself for not considering that Tobias might have some of his men fly straight here. They would have had plenty of time to arrive ahead of him and Rochelle since his party spent two nights in a motel.
“Damn!” He cursed his ignorance and foolhardy jealously. He drove like a maniac until he arrived at the house, pulling up in the driveway, and darting from the car to the house. Pushing the doorbell several times, he looked through the glass panel in the door to see the foyer light still on. Nothing appeared disturbed. He pulled the extra key from his pocket and inserted it in the lock, went inside, then pushed in the code to stop the alarm's beeping.
Racing up the stairs, he began calling her name. He came to a sliding stop in her bedroom and flicked on the light. The comforter covered the bed, undisturbed. He saw the soiled clothes she had been wearing, tossed in a pile on a chair. Her terry cloth robe hung on the bathroom door and felt moist from her shower. Her purse that had been on the bureau was now missing. Remembering her car, he tore out in a run back down the stairs and through the kitchen where a porte-cochere joined the house to the garage.
Her car was still inside, the hood cool. “Damn it, Rochelle, where are you?” he asked aloud, his voice taking on a desperate quality. Had he risked the lives of himself and five men to bring her here, only to allow Tobias to walk in and take her away again?
He made his way back through the house, and started turning out lights when the phone began ringing shrilly. He snatched it up before the first ring ended, lifting it to his ear with marked impatience, wanting it to be Rochelle.
“Mikey, what are you doing there?” Mabel asked. “I've been trying to call you at your house. Sweetpea is here with me. She thought you might be worried if you tried to call and she didn't answer.”
“Might be worried!” he yelled into the phone. “What in the hell is she doing with you?” Relief flooded through him, it fueled by adrenaline that turned to boiling anger.
“Calm down, Mikey. I can tell you are half out of your mind, but she is all right and she is right here with me. Do you want to talk to her?”
“Hell no, I don't want to talk to her. Just tell her to get herself ready and I'll pick her up in ten minutes.”
“Now wait a minute, Mikey...” Mabel started, but the phone went dead in her hand.
Mabel looked at Rochelle in bewilderment. “He's not just upset, he's sort of out of his mind, maybe even a little crazy. He said he will pick you up in ten minutes.”
Rochelle, just a few minutes ago, told Mabel how Michael and his team had rescued her from Tobias's home. She also told Mabel how Michael dropped her off at the Matheson house and rode off in the taxi. After trying not to cry, and barely managing to keep her composure, she now shook her head, her auburn-gold hair flouncing about her shoulders defiantly. “I won't go with him. He cannot keep treating me this way. I do not want to see him. Just tell him to go away and leave me alone.”
Mabel looked a bit sheepish and helpless. “Now, Sweetpea, if you had heard him, you would know he won't leave here without you. You might as well get your bag and be ready because I have a feeling he'll carry you out if you refuse to go with him.”
“Like hell, he will! I'm sick of men dominating my life.”
“I think I might be inclined to agree with you.”
“I won't go with him. Mabel...” The imploring words, she was about to voice, were cut short by the ring of the doorbell. Then the door sounded like someone trying to break in as Michael's fist pounded against it.
Mabel came to her feet, shaking her head back and forth, expelling a long bewildered sigh. She pulled the door open, barely missing the crash of Michael's fist as he issued another pounding stroke toward the door. Fortunately, she stepped back just in time to avoid it. Before Mabel could say anything, he pushed past her, and came to a stop just inside the living room where he spotted Rochelle sitting.
“Let's go!” he commanded. His face was cast in bronze, portraying cold, angry determination.
Rochelle squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “No, I'm not going with you.”
“Rochelle, you have pushed my patience beyond limits. I'm fed up with your foolishness.”
She pounced to her feet.
“My foolishness!” she screamed, her eyes glaring at him in disbelief. “Damn you, Michael! Who was it that dropped me off like a piece of baggage? You cannot treat me this way. I will not let you.
I've lived in hell for five years and I won't let you put me through it again.”
All the anger seemed to puff out of him in one long shuddering breath, his shoulders slumping dejectedly, and he knew he was to blame for all of this.
Grasping the back of a chair, he tried to appeal to her. “Look, let's understand each other. You may think you are safe now, but Chandler will not let this pass. I don't know any damn man who would look the other way while strangers come into his home and abduct his wife. In brief, the son of a bitch will come after you again, and that means you have to take some precautions. All I'm asking is that you come home with me until we see how all this is going to play out.”
“If you're so concerned about me and what Tobias will do, why did you go off and leave me as you did? I knew you were upset, and I hoped you might come in so we could talk about it. Instead, you dumped me and took off as if you could not wait to get rid of me. I have feelings, too, Michael, in case you haven't noticed.”
Mabel stood quietly in the background watching an emotional drama unfurl while the resolution slowly began spinning toward a peaceful draw.
“I know you have feelings, honey, and I respect them. I am sorry for the way I have acted. It isn't my choice to feel this way. I don't know what the hell's wrong with my head.”
“It wasn't just this evening, Michael, but that first night, too. Do you have any idea how you made me feel, walking out on me like you did. The fact that you admit you have a screwed up head is reason enough why I am not going to go with you. I will never put myself in the position again of letting a man mistreat me and dominate my life. Neither will I take responsibility for someone's jealous rages. I've done nothing wrong, and I won't defend myself to you.”
“I guess I've made a terrible mess of everything,” he said contritely.
“Yes, you have, Michael. I refuse to go with you. I don't want to be with you until you your demons under control.”
“Rochelle, I admit I've been a terrible idiot, but I'm asking you to please come with me.”
Mabel could see that was her exit cue, so she turned and went up the stairs.
“I can't, Michael.”
“Can't or won't?” he snapped, beginning to pace. “Don't do this to us, Chelle. I am asking you now to come with me. Don't do this to us.”
“If that's an ultimatum, Michael, then I refuse. I would also like to remind you that I am not doing anything to us. You did it yourself.” She turned her back on him. “Please go,” she said persuasively.
His hands and arms fell like dead weights, and his shoulders seemed to bend like an aging man as he stared at her for a lengthy interval. “I hope you can be happy with the decision you've made,” he said with deadly calm before dispatching himself out the front door.
The slamming of the door marked a final sound that echoed with harsh reality in Rochelle's ears.
TOBIAS WAS WALKING THE FLOOR in his hotel room in Columbia, a drink in one hand, the phone in the other pressed to his ear. “Has he returned yet?” Tobias barked into the phone. He listened impatiently, pacing forward a couple of steps, and then turning about to pace over the same space. “I have to leave here.
There's been a major problem at home I have to deal with,” he told the man on the other end of the line.
He listened some more, and cursed agitatedly. “I know he told me to wait here, but just how damn long does he expect me to wait?
I have obligations of my own.”
The voice at the other end became so loud that Tobias moved the phone away from his ear. “You stupid son of a bitch, you'd best cool it! Your fucking ass is already in hot water over the Monroe Tatum situation. If you fail to get the bastard off, they will make a deal with him and fry your ass along with our entire organization in Miami. So I am telling you for the last time; Sanchez will be back tomorrow. Go out and find a broad to occupy your time. You have nothing else to do but wait.”
The phone went dead in Tobias's ear, and he slammed his phone down with a loud clang, strolling across the floor to begin pacing again.
There had been no reason for Sanchez to call him to Columbia four days before seeing him. It was the son of a bitch's way of letting him know who was in charge. Tobias had been pacing the whole four days, not patient at waiting. After Dave called him with the message someone had abducted Rochelle, Tobias had been antsy as hell to get back to Miami.
The bitch had pushed him too far this time. He promised to bury her if she ever tried to run again, and he would keep his promise when he found her this next time—and he would find her! Gritting his teeth, clamping his jaws shut, and balling his fists, he could only visualize the pleasure he would receive when he put a gun to her head and watched her eyes as he blew half her skull away.
He opened the door to his room and stomped out in the hall, heading for the elevator. Downstairs, his eyes automatically scanned the lobby before he headed for the bar. He looked over the patrons, seeing a dark haired woman at the bar alone. He walked over and sat on the stool next to her.
“Scotch and soda, and give the lady what she wants,” he said, motioning toward the woman's drink. The solid gold watch upon his wrist caught the woman's eye, as did the large diamond on his finger. He still hadn't bothered to shave, at least, nothing more than the trimming the barber did, and the dark growth mirrored how he felt, angry and dangerous.
The woman nodded her thanks for the drink, and sent him a grateful smile, then reaching up pinched her fingers around a tuff of beard and said, “Nice.” In less than five minutes, Tobias sloshed down his drink, took her hand, and marched her to the elevators, and up to his room.
He spent the rest of the night, off and on, pretending the woman was Rochelle, and banging the hell out of her. The next morning he slapped a couple of hundred dollar bills against her palm and pushed her out the door.
He picked up the phone to see if Sanchez had returned.