Ava's Crucible- The Complete series Box Set

by Mark Goodwin

  “Blackwell, he’d be disappointed.” She wisped mascara through her eyelashes. “But I don’t owe him anything.”

  Ava’s conscience wandered around inside her mind a while, looking for a space where the quandary over right and wrong didn’t weigh on her like a dead elephant. No such place existed inside the confines of her personal gray matter. She did however, find a remote outpost of the predicament, one that was slightly removed, impersonalized.

  “What if this were Hitler? Would I assassinate him?”

  She considered every atrocity committed by the Nazis. “How was such unabated evil ever allowed to fester to such a point? Six million Jews were gassed, starved to death, worked to death in labor camps, or shot outright then burned in ovens.”

  “They were liberated of their right to bear arms,” Ava told the woman in the mirror grimly. She’d found her first similarity in Hitler and Markovich. “The Nazis were unopposed, permitted to kill with impunity. Hitler would have succeeded in eradicating the earth of Jews. Then he’d have gotten rid of the handicapped, the blind, deaf, mentally challenged, and those born with birth defects. I’m sure he’d have proceeded to get rid of all people of color.”

  “But God would have never let him kill off all the Jews. He didn’t. He didn’t let him. How did God stop Hitler then?” she asked the unrecognizable person in the mirror.

  The woman standing opposite Ava tightened her jaw, stiffened her back, then replied, “God stopped Hitler with a horrendous act of violence delivered via the tanks, guns, and planes of the Allied Forces. He smashed Hitler with the sacrifice of young American heroes—some who came home wounded, some who came home whole, and some who did not come home at all.”

  Ava considered the reasoning of the woman with too much makeup. “Okay, so if I lived in the forties and had the chance to assassinate Hitler, I guess I would have done it. But Shane Lawrence is my own countryman. Does he deserve the same level of demonization as Hitler?”

  The woman quickly retorted, “Six million Jews were killed under Hitler. To date, Shane Lawrence and the socialist policies he espouses have killed sixty million unborn Americans. And in their mothers’ wombs, no less. At least those Jews had a chance to see a blue sky, laugh, feel the warmth of the sun. No such luxury was ever afforded to the murdered masses killed in the abortion mills of America.

  “And that’s just the beginning. If Blackwell is right, Christians will be euthanized if they don’t renounce their faith, their organs sold off on the open market. You have a chance to throw sand in the gears of this hideous machine. Will you take it?”

  Ava shook her head. “I don’t know? What would God want me to do?”

  “What are the greatest commandments?” she asked.

  Ava remembered the words of Jesus. “To love God with all your heart, mind and soul. And the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. The golden rule. Do unto others as you’d have done unto you.”

  The woman in the mirror challenged, “If another person had the opportunity to put an end to this evil, to allow you to remain free, to read your Bible, worship in public, and live in peace with those you love, wouldn’t you want that person to take that opportunity no matter what measures had to be taken?”

  Ava nodded but did not reply.

  “Then it is a sin, a godless transgression, a cowardly shame if you do not.”

  A deluge of resolve flooded into Ava’s soul. Where hesitation and doubt had been, certainty and fortitude stood tall in their stead. She touched up her lipstick, placed the cap back on the tube, and walked out of the bathroom.

  Ulysses came back in the room. “Are you ready?”

  “Oh yeah!”

  CHAPTER 14

  For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.

  Romans 13:4

  “Tamara, can you get us some more glassware? We need to have at least six champagne flutes on each of the VIP tables.” Mercedes continued folding napkins on the corner of each table and placing a champagne ice bucket on top. “If you can’t find any clean ones, you might have to run a couple racks through the dishwasher.” Like all the girls working at Lure, Mercedes was young, thin, and beautiful. And like all the girls at the club, she dressed provocatively.

  “Sure. No problem.” This was Ava’s first chance to get away from Mercedes’ watchful eye. She stopped by the back-service room and retrieved the tiny toolkit from her purse. She’d have to disable the fire alarm on the emergency exit before she was missed.

  Ava first went to the dish room. She found several racks of clean flutes but sent a rack through the washer for an alibi. While they washed, she scurried to the exit door. She quickly removed the housing over the alarm, cut the wires to the alarm, and began replacing the housing.

  “Tamara?” Mercedes called out from around the corner.

  Ava’s heart skipped a beat, she quickly secured the push bar and tossed her tools in the trash can by the emergency exit. “Yes?”

  “Don’t go out that door. The alarm will sound.” Mercedes looked at her curiously. “We can take a smoke break after we get set up. But let’s finish. How’s it coming with those glasses?”

  “I ran some through the dishwasher.” Ava walked toward the machine which had just finished.

  Mercedes grabbed a rack of the champagne flutes. “These are already clean.”

  “Yeah, but they had spots all over them.” Ava pulled the rack from the dish machine.

  “The spots wipe off with a napkin. Now we’re going to have to dry those that came out of the machine, which will take much longer.” Mercedes led the way with her rack of glassware.

  Ava followed with the dripping rack. “Sorry, I didn’t know.”

  “That’s okay. Is this your first service job?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did you do before?” Mercedes began shining the dry champagne flutes with a cloth napkin.

  “I was a professor at a school in Utah. I taught literature.” Ava dried her glasses.

  “Utah? I’d kill myself. Well, welcome to LA. Literature, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I read. Magazines, mostly.” Mercedes laughed. “Who am I kidding? I don’t read. Who has time?”

  “But you must be a forward thinker,” Ava said. “After all, your SVA score was high enough for you to work the party tonight.”

  “We only had a few people score too low to work tonight. I mean, unless you believe in some cosmic spaghetti monster that created the universe out of nothing, you're automatically in good standing. And all the social policies, well that’s just common sense. It’s what everybody thinks. Unless you live somewhere like Utah. You poor thing, I can’t imagine.”

  Ava smiled and continued to help set up.

  Two hours later, the guests began to arrive. Ava kept an eye out for her target. Mercedes was very helpful in pointing out some of the lesser-known celebrities that a hayseed from Utah probably wouldn’t recognize.

  “So you keep up with all of these people?”

  “It’s part of the job. At least that’s what I tell myself.” Mercedes giggled at her own shallowness.

  “I saw on TMZ that Shane Lawrence has a new girlfriend, but nobody knows who she is. Is she from Hollywood?”

  “No. She’s some rising star on the political stage. But I won’t even bother memorizing her name. Shane goes through girlfriends like I go through cigarettes. I guess you have a crush on him like everyone else?”

  “He’s cute.” Ava shrugged.

  “Yeah, well, he’ll be surrounded by starlets tonight who are fighting to be his next fling.”

  Ava feigned a looked of disappointment. “At least I’ll get to say I was in the same room with him tonight.”

  “You’ll do better than that, little Ms. Tamara from Utah; he’ll be in our section tonight.”

  “Oh, really!” Ava�
��s delighted expression was genuine, just not for the reason she’d implied.

  Roman walked up to the two girls. “Tamara, Mercedes, the catering company didn’t get the memo about the SVA score requirements until they showed up. They had to send three of their servers home. I told the woman that it’s not our problem, but they don’t have enough help to pass hors d'oeuvres. Give them a hand if you can, but don’t let it interfere with your drink service.”

  Mercedes sighed. “Let’s go.”

  Ava followed her to the service room and grabbed a tray filled with cocktail shrimp and tempura vegetables.

  The woman making up the appetizer trays said, “Thanks for bailing us out. They’re going a little too far with this new social-pecking-order thing if you ask me.”

  Mercedes picked up a tray filled with smoked salmon and cream cheese on bagel chips. “You better watch that attitude, or you’ll get a demerit and be sent home too. Then who will make up the hors-d'oeuvres trays?”

  The woman quickly looked down at her work and humbled her tone. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “I’m kidding! Don’t be so serious!” Mercedes headed out to the club to pass around the food.

  Ava followed her without making any comments.

  “Can you believe that woman?” Mercedes chuckled once they’d left the back room. “She acted like she thinks we’re in the KGB or something.”

  “Yeah, right?” Ava played along, wondering how long it would take Mercedes to understand the ramifications of Markovich’s new leadership style.

  The guests made short work of the appetizers and Mercedes led Ava back for another round. They picked up two more trays, one with bacon wrapped scallops and the other with king crab legs already removed from the shell. The club began erupting with applause as they left the service room.

  “What’s going on?” Ava asked.

  Mercedes looked toward the entrance. “Shane is here.”

  Ava stood on her tippy toes to see. Shane Lawrence was coming in, shaking hands with all of the famous guests who’d arrived before him. In his wake was an entourage of big security guards and tiny girls wearing tinier dresses. Ava saw a red-head, a blonde, a brunette, and the one on his arm had short jet-black hair. Ava scanned the crowd coming in with Lawrence, then did a double take of the girl with the black hair. No! It can’t be!

  “I’ve got to run to the restroom. I’ll be right back,” she said to Mercedes.

  Mercedes seemed to be enamored with Lawrence and all the pomp surrounding his grand entrance. “Take your time. We can’t pass out appetizers or get drinks until all of this has settled down.”

  Ava quickly retrieved her phone from the back-service area and hurried to the women’s room. She sent her father a text. Bad news. The new girlfriend is someone that knows us both.

  Ava waited for his reply. Seconds later, she read silently. Then we need to move up the timeline to limit the odds of you being noticed. Meet me at door in 30.

  Ava tucked her phone in the back of her skirt so she could keep track of the time, then rushed back to find Mercedes.

  “Hey! There you are.” Mercedes placed a stack of cocktail napkins on her tray. “I’m going to start taking drink orders. You can help Skylar serve champagne. But don’t take that cheap garbage around our section. Shane bought a case of PJ for his guests. It’s chilling in that big cooler by the ice machine.”

  “Sure.” Ava was happy to be assigned to help out in another area. She’d have to avoid Shane Lawrence and his entourage until it was time. Ava assisted Skylar with pouring the house champagne for the various guests over the next twenty minutes.

  “I guess that’s it for now. Why don’t you go back to helping Mercedes?” Skylar chucked three empty champagne bottles in the trash.

  “Okay.” Ava quickly ducked into the ladies’ room once more. She sent Ulysses another text. I’ve got a few seconds. If you could come now, that would be great.

  Right away he replied. Five minutes out.

  Ava gritted her teeth, hoping she could steal away again without arousing suspicion. She wasted no time finding Mercedes. “We’re done with the champagne service. What else do you need?”

  “I’ve got like a gazillion Cosmos to run. The bartender is making them by the pitcher. Just start loading up a tray and running them out.”

  “How will I know who ordered them?”

  “Number one, only girls drink Cosmos, so that slims down your odds. The girls who really want theirs will be waving you down when they see you coming. If someone takes one that didn’t order it, it doesn’t matter. Shane is picking up the tab and the bartender is making extra.”

  “Okay. I’ll get right on it.” Ava swiftly made her way to the bar and began loading her tray with tall martini glasses filled with a light pink concoction. She expeditiously ran the drinks out to the floor and auctioned them off. She estimated that it had taken her less than two minutes. “I should have time for one more delivery.”

  Ava headed back to the bar and reloaded. Once that tray was emptied, she checked her phone. “One minute left.” She didn’t want Ulysses to be caught loitering around the emergency exit by security, so she headed to the fire door.

  She listened for the sound of her father walking up and kept an eye on the time with her phone. Exactly five minutes after the last text, she heard the faint sound of footsteps. She pushed the door open.

  Ulysses quickly stepped through and handed her the bottle of VX nerve agent. “The girlfriend, is it who I think it is?”

  “Yep,” Ava said.

  “Tamara! Where have you been? I need you on the floor!”

  Ava spun around to see Mercedes glaring at her.

  “And who is this?” Mercedes lowered her brows as she stared Ulysses down.

  “He’s my friend. He brought me my hand sanitizer.” Ava held up the bottle to show Mercedes. “I’m sort of a germ freak. Sorry.”

  Mercedes’ head began to shake back and forth, slowly at first, but it gradually picked up speed. “Oh, no! I know exactly what’s going on here!”

  “No, really!” Ava insisted.

  “I hope he’s paying you a lot and I hope you got the money up front, because when I tell Roman that you sneaked a paparazzi into Shane’s party, you’ll be fired on the spot.” Mercedes began to turn around but paused to issue a warning to Ulysses. “And you better be gone before security finds you. If they have to escort you out, it could get a little rough. I’ve known people to get black eyes, split lips, all kinds of stuff from tripping on their way out the door, especially paparazzi.”

  Ulysses acted without hesitation. He grabbed Mercedes by the arm, spun her around and put her in a chokehold. He squeezed his opposite bicep with the hand that was around her throat. Mercedes struggled for several seconds, then she went limp.

  “Is she dead?” Ava looked on in horror.

  “Just sleeping. She’ll wake up soon, so we have to act fast. Help me tie her hands and feet with trash bags.” Ulysses grabbed the industrial sized box of fifty-gallon can liners and tore one off. He handed it to Ava, then tore off another. He twisted it into a rope and secured Mercedes’ hands behind her back.

  Ava was less proficient than her father but eventually got Mercedes’ feet bound. Ulysses already had a third trash bag tied around her mouth for a gag.

  “Open the door to the walk-in cooler.”

  Ava complied with his request and Ulysses dragged Mercedes inside. Afterward, he slammed the door shut and pulled the padlock hanging on the door handle. He inserted it into the opening and locked it shut. “Someone will have the key. They’ll find her soon enough, but we need her out of the way for the next few minutes.”

  “We need longer than that. We have to worry about not being seen by our friend.”

  “We may not have the luxury. The girl in the cooler just shortened our available time window. Whatever we’re going to do, we need to do it now!”

  Ava sighed wishing things could go as planned ju
st once. She took out her protective gloves and the towel she would use to apply the nerve agent on Shane Lawrence’s skin. “I left an extra glass of champagne behind the ice bin. You can use that to spill on Lawrence. Hopefully, we’ll get an opportunity when our little friend isn’t looking.”

  “Either way, it’s now or never.” Ulysses found the glass and headed out onto the floor of the nightclub.

  Ava waited a few moments, then followed him out. She bumped right into Roman.

  “Have you seen Mercedes?”

  “She’s up in the VIP section.”

  “She’s not in the VIP section. That’s why I’m looking for her. Shane Lawrence’s trick du jour is barking at me like a menacing little chihuahua wanting to know where her Perrier Jouet is at—as if she’d know the difference between that and Freixenet.” He rolled his eyes. “What’s all this with the gloves? What are you doing?”

  “A girl got sick on the sink in the women’s restroom. I was asked to clean it up.”

  “By who?”

  “The red-headed girl with Shane Lawrence.”

  Roman ran his hands over his face in exasperation. “What a fiasco. Go, go; clean it up and hurry back. Whether I find Mercedes or not, I need you up in the VIP as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, sir.” Ava circled around by the bathrooms before heading to the upper level where Shane Lawrence was standing amidst his suite of adoring companions.

  She saw the girlfriend walk away to talk to Matt Damon whose table was nearby. This is it. This is our chance! Ava felt sure her father would seize the moment, so she began making her way to Lawrence’s table.

  She watched, as if in slow motion, while Ulysses seemed to trip over his own feet and send the contents of his champagne flute hurtling through the air. Ava watched the slow, fluid arc of the substance float effortlessly over the table and splash Shane Lawrence right on the lapel of his designer shirt.

  A sense of glee bubbled up inside her like the champagne which had been flowing so freely for the past hour. Urgency seemed to push her from behind and she darted into action with the towel.