“Love?” Harry shakes his head. “You’re just another notch on my belt, baby. Those midgets last night were twice the woman you are. And no icky scars.”
Alex pats McGlade on his leg, the one with the rusty nail brush sticking in. He howls.
“I owed it to Charles to do it this way. To eat this dish nice and cold. I could have taken you at any time. You too, Jack.”
Alex goes to Latham, pushes him over to the shelving unit.
“Unfortunately for you, cutie, you just got in the way.”
She uses Jack’s keys to uncuff his left hand, pulling his arm through the metal scaffolding before cuffing it again.
Jack is still on the floor, huffing and crying. Pathetic.
Alex goes to the table, sets the Glock and the Wolverine next to her bullet-making equipment.
“So here’s what’s going to happen next. I’m going to give you a chance to save the day, Jack. Isn’t that generous of me? But you’ll have to prove yourself.”
As Alex talks, she loads the guns.
“You’re going to have to prove you’re better than me, Lieutenant Daniels. You think you’re woman enough?”
Alex sticks the Wolverine into the waist of her jeans, then approaches Harry. With one hand, she unbuckles his belt.
“Can’t get enough of the love stick, eh, Mrs. McGlade?”
“I couldn’t even find it half the time.”
“Maybe you would have enjoyed it more if you pretended I was a blood relative.”
Alex tugs off the belt and tosses it in front of Jack.
“Stand up and put that on.”
Jack, her face streaked with tears, slowly stands up and winds the belt around her waist.
Alex presses the gun into Jack’s neck and drags her, by the belt, over to an open area of the warehouse. Using her left hand, she removes the Glock from her jeans and shoves it into Jack’s belt.
Alex puts her lips next to Jack’s ear and whispers, “I’m going to prove, once and for all, I’m better than you are.”
Then she walks backward, slowly, keeping a bead on Jack’s chest.
When she’s forty feet away, she stops, tucking the Wolverine into her waistband.
“You think you’re faster than me, Jack?” Alex smiles. She’s never felt this alive before.
“Draw, whenever you’re ready.”
Chapter 50
ACALM CAME over me. The same calm I felt when I was in Diane Kork’s bathroom, with the house burning down around me. I stared at Holly, perhaps fifteen yards away from me, a dazzling smile creasing her perfect face, and I knew I was going to die.
Holly was better than me. She played me, and Harry, for fools. What she said about getting to know us to hurt us worse was true.
If I’d just been grabbed by her and killed, it would have been bad enough. But coming from someone who I knew, someone I trusted, and not seeing it coming; that was like a gut punch.
And to add injury to insult, she just killed my best friend, and was going to kill the man I loved, and me, and my cat. And even stupid Harry, whom I found myself developing a soft spot for. A very small soft spot, but a soft spot nonetheless.
I looked at Latham, and mouthed “I’m sorry.” He was crying, which made me feel even worse.
In my head, I said good-bye to Herb, and to my mother.
“Come on, Jack!” Latham yelled. “You can do it!”
But staring at Holly, I knew I couldn’t do it. She would put ten rounds into my chest before I even got a shot off. The woman was better than me at everything. She wouldn’t have set this little scenario up if she didn’t think she’d win.
“Anytime, Jack. Or would you prefer I try this with Latham instead?”
My knees were rubber. My mouth went dry. My hands were shaking worse than Bud’s.
I couldn’t win.
Latham said, “You can do it, Jack! I love you!”
I couldn’t win.
Harry said, “Jackie, just drop the bitch so we can go home.”
I couldn’t win.
Holly said, “Or maybe I could play this game with Mr. Friskers. I don’t think he’d be as scared as you look right now.”
I couldn’t win I couldn’t win I couldn’t win.
But goddammit, I could sure as hell try.
I reached for the Glock, tugging it from the belt, bringing it up and at the same time stepping forward—Holly went for the body shot, and a profile is harder to hit—and my arm fully extended and I watched as Holly’s eyes went wide and she grabbed for her gun and fired first, but I wasn’t going to be duped this time by trying to outdraw her, I was going to make sure my shot counted and I took careful aim and felt the wind as her slugs tore the air in front of me and I squeezed the trigger and fired.
Her head snapped back as if on hinges, and she sprawled out onto the concrete floor, her gun skittering off into the darkness.
Cheering, from Latham and Harry. I walked toward Holly, saw the blood streaming down her face, and then limped over to Phin, digging at his neck, feeling for a pulse.
He surprised me by opening his eyes.
“. . . buttons . . .”
The relief I felt was tangible.
“I’m getting an ambulance, Phin. You’re going to be okay.”
“Bullets . . .” he moaned. Then he said buttons again.
But it wasn’t buttons. It was batons.
Batons were specialty bullets, used by police for crowd control. Made of rubber. Non-lethal.
I looked up at the table, saw Holly’s bullet-making equipment.
She wouldn’t have risked killing me so quickly. She had other plans.
I heard Harry and Latham yell just as Holly kicked me from behind.
Chapter 51
THE BLOW KNOCKED me sideways. I rolled with it, tucking in my head and coming up in a kneeling position, my arms up to block.
I saw little flashes of light, and my vision was lopsided, but I was able to see Holly—her face a Halloween mask of blood and rage—move in and attempt another front kick.
Instinct took over. I swiped away the kick with my left forearm, and my right hand formed a fist and I gave her a sharp jab in the inner thigh.
Holly yelled, retreating two steps. That gave me time to get to my feet. I kicked off my heels and adopted a ready stance, left foot behind me, keeping the weight off my injured right ankle.
Holly wiped a sleeve across her eyes. Her forehead was bleeding like mad. Though baton rounds weren’t lethal, they were still like getting pegged with a slingshot. The blood in her eyes was to my advantage, and I used it.
Biting back the pain, I swiveled my hips and brought my left leg forward, aiming the kick at her chest. Holly leaned away, as I expected, and I brought the left foot down and moved forward, going into a round kick with my right foot.
I extended my knee and felt my heel connect with her chin.
The shock of contact made me gasp and see red, but Holly took the worst of it. Both of her feet left the ground and she hit the floor ass-first—not the preferred landing on concrete.
Pressing my advantage, I lunged forward, wanting to get on top of her and strike at her face or throat.
I was too hasty. Holly scissored her legs out and swept my feet out from under me. I also hit the ground hard.
When a fight goes to the floor, the stronger opponent usually wins. Holly wasn’t only stronger, but her Marine training probably made my police academy training look like ballet. I rolled backward, two or three body lengths away, before getting up on my knees.
Holly moved like lightning, and hit like a baseball bat, throwing a roundhouse punch at my face that I barely deflected in time, taking the hit on the left shoulder.
My whole arm went numb.
She followed up with an equally vicious kick to my chest. I bunched up what little pectoral muscles I had, but her big construction boot knocked the wind right out of me and I went skidding backward across the dusty floor on my butt.
I let mom
entum take my legs up over my head, and rolled to my feet. My lungs tried to take in air, but they weren’t working. It’s a terrifying feeling, not being able to breathe. I’d been hit in the diaphragm before, and knew that in just a few seconds the muscle would stop spasming and allow me some air, but rationality doesn’t mean much in the throes of panic.
Holly sensed my struggle, and came at me with snarling, bleeding fury, taking two running steps and launching herself into a jumping double kick.
I slipped the first kick, but the second caught me under the chin, cracking my lower jaw into my upper jaw, spinning me around like a top.
I would have hit the floor, but instead slammed into the metal shelves, and was able to grab on and keep from falling.
My breath came back, and I gulped it in, began to choke when something got caught in my throat, and spit out a chip from one of my teeth.
My right ankle was pudding. I kept my weight on my left foot and clutched the metal railing.
“I thought you were third dan,” I said through the new gap in my front teeth. “You fight like a yellow belt.”
Holly wiped the blood from her eyes and fell into her cat stance, her palms flat and fingers extended for pyonson keut.
“And that wedding dress made your ass look huge.”
She yelled, “KIYAA!” and struck with her fingertips at my neck. I pivoted my head around and her fingers met the steel bar supporting the giant shelf.
The shelf won.
I executed an elbow strike, cracking her across the cheek. An illegal move, but hey, no refs.
Holly hit her head against the shelving unit, and I grabbed her hair and helped her hit her head two more times. There was no tae kwon do name for that maneuver, but it felt great.
I was going for thirds when her hand grasped my wrist and she dropped all of her weight down to one knee, flipping me onto my back.
Before I could get my hands up, she used the knife edge of her good hand to break my nose.
I’d never had my nose broken before, but I know she did indeed break it because I heard the snap and the pain brought fresh tears to my eyes.
Again, using blind instinct, I rolled away. The rolling intensified the pain and dizziness I felt, and when I came to a stop I titled my head to the side and threw up.
“Jack!” I heard Latham yell, but he seemed very far away. My vision was a kaleidoscopic mess, but I could make out Holly stumbling toward me, looking like Sissy Spacek at the end of Carrie, bloody and murderous and out of her freaking mind.
A foot away from me, still in his cat carrier, was Mr. Friskers.
“Hang on,” I told him.
Holly lunged.
I picked up the carrier and thrust the corner into Holly’s face. She staggered back, and the door popped open. Mr. Friskers hopped out, gave each of us a disappointed look, and ran off into the shadows.
I switched my grip to the carrier handle, got to my knees, and hurled it at her.
She ducked it, and came at me again.
Standing up wasn’t going to happen for me. It looked like I had a small pumpkin growing out of my foot. My nose made even the tiniest movement of my head pure torture.
Holly looked to be faring better. Her right hand was mangled, and she had some visible bumps on her head, but that didn’t seem to slow her down.
“Enough of this bullshit.”
She reached into her back pocket and pulled out the hunting knife. Charles Kork’s knife. The one I’d so cleverly tricked her into bringing along.
How quickly things could go from bad to worse.
I got onto all fours and crawled away as fast as I could. Harry was the closest thing to me, so I headed for him, reaching out my hand for his chair, and then I felt Holly’s iron grip on my bad ankle.
That pain was bad enough. But when she slashed the blade across my thigh, I thought I’d died and gone to Pain Hell.
I twisted around, the pain giving me superhuman strength, kicking out at Holly with my good foot and knocking her off me.
I stretched out my hand, fumbling for Harry’s lap, my fingers locking around the handle of a what looked like a hairbrush, but when I pulled it out McGlade yelped and I saw that instead of bristles it had a dozen nails sticking out of the end.
Holly jumped at me, bringing down the knife.
I let out a war cry, my reptile brain screeching with rage and fear and pain, and my left arm blocked the downward arc of the knife while my right swung the hairbrush with everything I had, digging into Holly’s face, and tearing much of it off.
Holly spun in a semicircle and hit the floor.
I sat there, clutching the brush, breaths coming out in ragged gasps, waiting for her to get up so I could give her a second helping.
She didn’t get up.
“I wet my pants again,” Harry said.
I crawled over to her, not looking at the ruin that was once a gorgeous face, not listening to the gurgling coming out of the hole that was once a beautiful mouth, taking the knife out of her hand, digging around in her pockets until I found my handcuff keys.
Dragging myself across the floor, I uncuffed Latham, who hugged me gently and kissed my fingertips.
“Nice job, Jack. I forgot how exciting life with you was. We’ve been apart for months, and not one person has tried to kill me in all that time.”
“So you’re taking me back?”
“You couldn’t keep me away if you tried.”
“Hey lovebirds!” Harry yelled. “Can you save the kissy face for later and get me the fuck out of here?”
Latham ran off to get help. I stared at Phin, and he gave me a weak thumbs-up.
Returning to Holly, I cuffed her hands behind her back and pulled off her shirt to try to stop some of the massive bleeding coming out of her face. It didn’t help much.
“Use a tourniquet,” McGlade suggested. “Put it around her neck.”
I crawled over to Phin, not wanting to move him in case of a spinal injury. He had two bullet wounds in his left shoulder. Holly hadn’t wanted him to die, probably because she wanted him around for a while to torture.
I slipped off Harry’s belt and tied it around Phin’s arm to slow the bleeding. Then I picked up some tin snips off the table and crawled to Harry, setting him free just as the sirens howled in the distance.
Harry hugged me.
“Thanks, Jackie. I owe you one.”
“Just take me off that damn TV show.”
“Take you off? Do you know what kind of amazing episode this would make? Shit, Jack, we’d hit number one in our time slot.”
“Harry . . .”
“Fine. You’re off.”
The sirens got closer, and Latham came back in, toting my cell phone. He sat beside me, holding me tight. And I began to sob. But it wasn’t from pain, and it wasn’t from shock. It was from pure relief.
A purring sound made me turn around. Mr. Friskers was sitting in McGlade’s lap, a dead rat in his jaws.
“Good kitty,” Harry said. “Good fucking kitty.”
And he continued to pet him until the ambulances arrived.
Chapter 52
WE WERE ALL taken to Alexian Brothers Hospital in Elk Grove. Latham got stitches. I got stitches too. I also had my nose set and packed, which hurt worse than when Holly broke it, and had a cast put on my ankle for a bad sprain. Phin needed five units of blood, but came out of surgery in good shape.
And Harry—I actually felt sorry for Harry. He had to have his ruined right hand amputated.
“Don’t let them do it, Jackie,” he pleaded as they wheeled him into the OR. “That’s half my sex life.”
I patted his shoulder. “You’ll get one of those cool robotic hands, like on James Bond.”
That made his eyes light up.
“I’ll be able to crush cans and shit like that?”
“Yeah.”
“Do women like those things?”
“They’re sexy,” I told him. “You’ll have to fight the women off.�
�
Alex Kork, whom I knew as Holly Frakes, also needed surgery. She had skin removed from her buttocks, her hips, and her stomach, to try to reconstruct her face. From what I heard, it wouldn’t help much. She’d spend the rest of her life looking like a patchwork quilt.
I also finally got through to Herb, and spoke with an exhausted Bernice.
“Everything went fine. He’s doing great. I’m watching what’s happening on TV. Are you okay?”
I squeezed Latham’s hand.
“Never better.”
“Herb wants to talk to you.”
“He’s awake?”
“He’s still a little dopey. But then, he’s always a little dopey. Here he is.”
“Jack! I’m watching you on TV. It was Harry’s wife all along?”
“Yeah. How’s that for a shocker?”
“Well, at least now it makes sense why someone would marry that moron. For a while there, I thought there was something seriously wrong with the universe.”
“How are you doing?”
“Good. Just like an oil change. You gonna come visit?”
“Hell yeah.”
“Bring donuts.”
Latham and I were discharged at around three in the morning. As expected, my apartment was a full-blown crime scene, infested with cops.
Bud Kork, gut-shot and burned, had died on my kitchen floor next to his common-law wife.
I picked up some essentials and spent the night at Latham’s new condo. With the cat, of course.
“I bought this king-sized bed with you in mind,” he told me.
“Might be a while before I’m ready to break it in.”
“We can take as long as you need.”
Between the two of us we had three black eyes, twenty-three stitches, a nose full of cotton, and a twisted ankle, but we managed to break it in that night.
I fell asleep wrapped up in Latham’s arms, a goofy, chipped-tooth smile on my face.
The next few days were spent playing catch-up. I visited the office and finished my reports, and Captain Bains told me the superintendent was considering a promotion for me. I visited Herb and brought him Cinnabons. I visited Mom and told her everything that happened. I visited Harry, and he showed me his stump and moaned about the tetanus shots he had to get. I visited Phin, who thanked me for a wild weekend. And I visited Alex.
Jack Daniels Six Pack Page 73