by Maisie Dean
Busty nodded. “Her pain is very real, and she’s highly sensitive. She doesn’t consciously know about me or the others, but I think there’s some kind of awareness below the surface that produces her anxiety,” she said. Busty had nearly finished undoing the tape.
“Vivian said she drugged you, or Annie, I mean,” I said.
“Annie was in so much pain and distress that she accepted the pills from Vivian,” Busty said, shaking her head. “Poor girl. She’s still so trusting after everything that’s happened to her.”
“But the pills...they didn’t knock you out too?” I asked.
Busty gave her head a dismissive shake. “Annie took them, not me,” she said, as if that explained everything.
I had read that it was possible for the alters to be capable of having their own physiological states and reactions almost simultaneously. There had been cases that showed it was possible with prescription drugs and even alcohol.
Busty must have seen the struggle to keep up dancing across my face. “It’s the same reason that I don’t feel the soft tissue damage that Annie has from the accident. That happened to Annie too,” Busty said. “For her, it’s real as it would be if it had happened to you. I unfortunately was out-to-lunch, as they say, when Vivian hurt her.”
I was surprised to see a mix of anger and shame flood over Busty’s face. She was supposed to protect Annie. She must have felt as though she failed the day the boxes came tumbling down. But how do you protect someone when you can’t see the danger coming?
Finally, Busty cast the last of the tape to the side and pulled me to my feet. The pounding in my head came fast and furious. The room swayed and I tripped towards the table. Busty caught me by the arm and pulled me against her.
“Come on, girl. Let’s make it out here in one piece,” Busty said. Her voice rumbled smoothly from her chest. I could feel it as she held me against her and marched us out of the room and down the hallway back to the restaurant.
A fresh wave of tears threatened to pour from my eyes against my will as we passed directly in front of the stage where the band was still in full swing. A few people in the restaurant looked between me and their entrees a few times with displeased expressions. I later realized they must have thought I’d gotten food poisoning. Busty was taking my weight and escorting me from the premises. In the painful, pounding haze of my mind, I was transported back to our first meeting when Busty had helped me inside to take care of my cuts.
No one tried to stop us all the way to the front door. Busty used her shoulder to push open the frosted glass door, and we were greeted with fresh evening air. It had never felt so good as it did then against my panicked, sweaty skin.
“That’s my car,” I said, gesturing towards the old Prius with the mismatched door. Busty was guiding me towards it when we heard a gunshot.
“Stop!” Vivian screamed from somewhere behind us.
The two of us spun around quickly to see Vivian aiming the small gun towards us with a quivering arm. She must have fired Busty’s small gun into the air, because there didn’t appear to be anything or anyone that was damaged in the parking lot. The lot wasn’t empty. There were plenty of witnesses on the nearby sidewalk and getting in and out of their cars. Neil happened to be one of them. He must have just been arriving for the evening. He took in the situation and turned white with shock and fear.
“Viv...what is…” Neil began but he trailed off as his gaze landed on Busty. Annie’s hair was falling free around her shoulders. Busty hadn’t had time to collect the wig. It was evident by Neil’s slack jaw that he hadn’t known that Annie had, well, another side to her. And that side was his sassy, butt-kicking, evening waitress.
“Annie? But...Busty? What is this…” Neil said. With one hand he grabbed onto the right side of his face and the other tugged on his mop of hair. He wasn’t standing too far away from Vivian, but instead of acting like the restaurant manager he was supposed to be, he was looking at her like a scared puppy. In Neil’s defense, his managerial duties likely didn’t often extend to angry girlfriends shooting guns in the parking lot. But my head hurt too much to take any pity on him at the moment.
“Finally, I can get rid of you, once and for all. Neil and I will be happy now, without you ruining our future,” Vivian said. She had the gun pointed right at Busty, who had courageously stepped slightly in front of me, blocking most of my chest. My stomach turned and my whole body suddenly flooded with heat.
“Vivian,” I said, holding up my hands in front of me. “Don’t do this! You don’t have to do this. It won’t solve anything,” I said.
“Quiet,” Vivian said. She adjusted the gun slightly to point it at me rather than Busty. “You’re the reason all of this is happening, you stupid girl,” she spat. “If you had just left us all alone, I wouldn’t have needed this.” Vivian waved the gun around.
Neil still hadn’t moved from where he stood. He was literally shaking in his boots.
“Viv, you don’t have to do thi—” Neil began in a high-pitched voice.
“Shut up, Neil. Can’t you see I’m doing this for us? It’s what we need for our life together to truly begin. I’m sure of it,” Vivian said.
Neil shook his head but no more words came out.
Vivian turned back to Busty and me where we stood near my car. “Unfortunately for you, little Miss-Detective-Wannabe, you didn’t leave us alone, did you? No. I should even thank you for making it all so easy for me. It’s like a two-for-one. Or should I say three-for-one,” Vivian joked darkly. A dangerous glint appeared in her dark eyes and she settled her arm in our direction. I couldn’t tell who she was aiming at and I didn’t plan on waiting to find out.
“Come on, Neil!” I shouted. “Be a man!”
There was a moment where everything slowed down. Vivian glanced in Neil’s direction with a smug smile on her face, confident in her knowledge that Neil didn’t have the first idea about being a man. But in a blur, Neil’s gangly body dove towards her. The expression on Vivian’s face changed. Her mouth opened and her eyes flew wide open as Neil’s body slammed against hers. The two of them collapsed heavily onto the oil-stained asphalt. The gun clattered to the ground and landed a few feet away from Vivian.
“That’s a first,” Busty said, and gave a slow clap for Neil. Busty’s comical acknowledgement of Neil becoming a man came a little hot on the heels of being held at gunpoint for me. I could only nod.
At that moment a man pushed through the front door to Rockburger. He appeared to be in his late fifties, and he was wearing a plastic lobster bib. He yanked out what looked like a leather wallet from his khakis.
“I’m a cop!” the man said, holding out his badge. He kicked the gun away and moved into the struggling pile of limbs that was Neil and Vivian.
Busty stood beside me. We watched as the off duty cop took control of the situation. Someone had helped by getting a pair of handcuffs from his car. As the man pulled Vivian to her feet I heard the sound of sirens. Their deafening drone grew as they got closer and it made my head reel. The police would arrive any minute. Everything was okay. We were okay. We were safe. I could almost feel the adrenaline draining from my body like liquid heat. Its absence left me stiff, tired, and throbbing. I had to take a few steps towards my car and lean on the hood so as to not lose consciousness again. Several cop cars arrived at the parking lot at the same time. The red and blue lights filled my field of vision, and I watched as Busty’s face flickered between being bathed in a deep blue and then a bright red. Blue. Red. Blue. Red. Back and forth, back and forth.
CHAPTER 26
After taking the minimum two days off recommended by the doctor, it was back to work for me on Friday morning.
The blow to the head Vivian had so enthusiastically bestowed on me had apparently resulted in a mild concussion. That night, in between answering questions and being checked out by the EMTs, I had called Rosie. Even though I’d asked her not to, she called all of the Booker brothers as soon she’d hung up. Her c
ar was in the shop and she wouldn’t be able to get to the restaurant herself in any reasonable length of time.
Within minutes of hanging up the phone with Rosie, Owen had shown up. He was nearly speechless with worry for the first twenty minutes. Then Harrison had pulled up right alongside the crime scene tape that had been rolled out at the perimeter. He argued with the officers until they let him cross to come see me sitting in the back of the ambulance. Lucky had shown up last. He was in a sleek black suit with a crisp white shirt and looked sheepish.
“Sorry it, uh, took so long to get here…” Lucky mumbled. He gave me a once-over, and then another, and another, until he was satisfied that I was actually okay.
My head was in a foggy state. The paramedics had only given me a few extra strength Tylenols for the time being, but I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to get on Lucky’s case. “ Did you just come from a date?” I asked him.
Lucky cleared his throat. “I, uh, well, yes. I came from a date,” he said.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I told him. “Really, I’m fine. None of you had to rush over here. I told Rosie to—”
Harrison put his hand on my shoulder gently and cut me off. “We wanted to,” he said.
Owen nodded and leaned against the bumper of the ambulance beside me.
“But, Lucky, you left some girl at a restaurant alone?” I asked.
Lucky shrugged. “She understood. Besides,” he said. “My main girl was in trouble. What’s a guy to do?” Lucky grinned.
I expected Harrison and Owen to make fun of him for the amount of cheesy lines he was spouting, I was about to, but they didn’t say anything. Harrison rolled his eyes, but based on their genuine smiles and unwavering gazes at me, all three of them appeared to be in agreement.
I tried to laugh it off and keep my feet firmly in sarcasm-ville, but I couldn’t. I chalked it up to the head injury, but it literally warmed my heart and all the rest of my tired, achy body. Most people were lucky to have even one great person in their corner, but at that moment I had three. And they were handsome and well-dressed to boot.
On the doctor’s recommendation, I took a couple days off from the office. Rosie cashed in two of her own sick days to stay home and look after me. We’d mostly chatted, cleaned the apartment a little, and painted each other’s toenails. Rosie must have made me three hundred cups of tea in forty-eight hours, and every time it was black tea she had insisted I drink a cup of water as well. I napped a few times, but Rosie diligently woke me up at intervals the way the internet recommended for head injuries. As much as I loved my girl Rosie, I was eager to get back to the office on Friday morning.
Little did I know that Owen would become Rosie 2.0. Owen had done the first two years of pre-med and then dropped out, which was news to me. He didn’t say why he’d dropped out, but he did insist that the two years of experience gave him the ability to properly assess the recovery process in concussions. Throughout the day he had made me pause my work so he could check on my pupil response and general cognitive function every two hours. He’d also persuaded Harrison, which took no effort because he was just as overly concerned, that I should be relegated to handling the physical paperwork rather than anything that required a screen. Lucky had been there in a flash each time I had needed to carry a heavy box of files or get something down from a tall shelf. I was more than capable, but I knew that it made them feel better to be able to be there for me. It was sweet.
Because it was Friday, when the work day ended we locked up the office and piled down the stairs together to go to Doyle’s. I felt comfortable sitting there on the red vinyl booth bench. I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. Owen sat next to me, and Harrison and Lucky were across from us.
Moments after we sat down, Doyle showed up alongside of our table.
“Will Mrs. Booker be joining you tonight?” Doyle asked.
“Yes, she said she might come later, but that we shouldn’t wait for her,” Owen relayed.
Doyle nodded and slid a chair from the nearby table to the end of ours.
“It’s nice to see you back, Kacey. You had us worried,” Doyle said to me while he dealt out our menus like cards.
“Thanks, Doyle. I’m doing great though, really,” I told him.
“Doyle,” Lucky interjected. “I have to ask...what is this rumor about you breeding rats?” Lucky asked.
The four of us turned our gaze on Doyle, who groaned and ran his hands through his hair.
“I had a plan,” he said morosely. “I was breeding them to set loose in my competing restaurants, but they got too smart. It must have been the vitamin formula I was mixing in with their food. They figured out how to get out of their cages and they went straight to the walls. I’ve got to get an exterminator, know a good one?”
The four of us shook our heads and turned our attention worriedly to the wall beside us. Doyle’s right brow lifted at the edge. He looked confused for a minute and then smacked both of his hands down onto our table.
“Of course they’re not in the restaurant!” Doyle said. His tone conveyed he was shouting on the inside, but for the good of the populated diner, he wasn’t going to yell about rats. He placed a hand on his hip and his moustache lifted upwards with his eyebrows in shock. “I was doing it at home, not at the restaurant. Do you think I’m insane?” Doyle asked.
Lucky opened his mouth as if to say something, so I quickly gave him a kick under the table. He shot me back a mock scowl.
Doyle, oblivious to our interaction, continued. “Obviously, I learned from the possum thing. Thanks for the faith, boys. And Kacey.” Doyle tilted up his nose and started collecting the menus from us even though we hadn’t ordered yet.
Possum thing? That must have been something that happened before I started at the agency. I’d get Owen to fill me in later when it didn’t seem like such a sore spot for Doyle.
“Oh, come on, Doyle. We’re just messing with you...right, guys? And Kacey?” Lucky said. He grinned and batted his eyelashes with his hands clasped together on the table. “Please forgive us, Doyle.”
“We’ll pay our tab tonight,” Harrison suggested.
A pleasant smile washed over Doyle’s face. “Well, why didn’t you say so?” he asked.
Lucky turned to Harrison and shook his head in disappointment.
“Need these back?” Doyle asked, waving the stack of menus he’d just plucked from each of us.
“No,” we all said in unison.
We picked our meals and Doyle headed back to the kitchen to deliver our order. Using menus was just a reflex, anyway. I was pretty sure all four of us had nearly photographic memory of those pages. It was strange, the power our brains had to determine what was “important.” Brains could choose what sort of physical reaction would happen in your body from just a passing thought, or look from someone. In Annie and Busty’s case, their brain could decide who she should be in a given moment, hour, or day.
“Do you know if there’s anything new happening with the Annie Berry case?” I asked.
Harrison crossed his arms. “Despite the strangeness of her condition, she’ll be paid out well. Vivian is, or was, technically the assistant manager at Rockburger. Annie was intentionally harmed, and that opened a whole new world of legalities. We put Annie in touch with a great lawyer the other day. I’m confident she, and Busty, will come out of this with deep pockets,” Harrison said.
Owen turned to me and added, “And part of that money will be specifically allocated for support and therapy for her...condition,” he said.
My head was still sore, but I felt as if a thick, heavy blanket had been taken off of me. “That’s perfect. Busty will be able to let someone take care of her for a change,” I said.
Just then, a pot or pan clattered to the floor somewhere back in the kitchen. My head pulsed and I automatically brought my palm up to my temple and winced. “Ouch,” I said.
Harrison frowned. I could tell he was concerned. “Kacey, I know this has all wor
ked out from the agency’s side of things. The insurance company was happy, and glad to have the facts for the case, but what you did… You can’t work a case on your own like that. We never do that,” Harrison said, gesturing to his brothers. “I don’t know how I would have... It could have been much worse. You should have at least called us in for backup, let alone the racing into danger part.” Harrison was wringing his hands just thinking about it.
“You were very brave,” Owen said quietly. “And...and you care, and—”
Lucky leaned forward and interrupted Owen, who was struggling to find his next complimentary word. “What my brothers are trying to say is that you are,” Lucky paused to clear his throat, “important to us, Kacey. We’d like to keep you around, in one piece. Ideally without bullet-hole scars and long-term brain injuries,” Lucky said.
“I know, I know. I’m sorry I worried you all. I’ll text our group chat the next time I get to urge to run towards gunfire,” I said. But apparently my joke didn’t land. The Booker brothers just stared at me. “Okay, then. I’ll call?” I said as a question.
Lucky cracked a smile and shook his head. Harrison and Owen followed suit.
“That’s our Kacey,” Lucky said.
Our food arrived and the four of us dug into plates of fries and gravy, and juicy burgers fitted with two pickles for me. Harrison whispered something to Doyle before he walked away again. Perhaps Harrison knew a good exterminator after all. Over dinner, we discussed how the film would play out if someone made a movie about the Booker Brothers Detective Agency. No one could agree on anything.
Midway through a fry, Lucky pointed at Owen. “Did you bring down the thing I gave you?” Lucky asked Owen.
“What thing?” I asked.
“Owen showed us those photos he did up of you. The ones where you’re old, remember?”
I covered my faced and nudged Owen with my elbow. “Owennn,” I said.
Owen reached beneath the table to where he’d placed his messenger bag and pulled out something white-blonde. For a second I thought it was an animal, but then Owen unfolded it.