“You’re breathing, aren’t you?” Hannah’s voice came right above me and I stifled a whimper. “Are you injured?”
She waited for a heartbeat that felt like an eternity to my lungs. Then I heard the weapon being cocked and my heart finally stopped beating altogether. I wanted to move, to surge out of the tub, to do something, but I was petrified. I could only wait for the bullet to hit and hope it wouldn’t hurt.
“Hold! Drop your weapon. Raise your hands and turn around, slowly.”
I’d never heard more beautiful words in my life. The cop sounded like Jackson, but even if he was a stranger, I’d love him forever for saying them.
“No.”
I froze again.
“Mrs. Williams, I will shoot you if you don’t put the weapon down right now.” Definitely Jackson. His tone was assertive and firm. I knew he’d come for me.
“Even if you’re the fastest shot in the world, I’ll still manage to shoot this one first.”
There was no delay this time round. The bathroom echoed with the roar of the shots, making it impossible to hear what was happening. I pressed tightly against the bottom of the tub, marveling how nothing hurt. Had to be the adrenaline.
And then it was all over. Hands were patting me, urgently, from head to toes. “Tracy, are you all right?” Jackson’s voice sounded muffled, my ears still ringing from the noise.
I opened my eyes, and I swear he was the most wonderful sight I’d ever seen. He looked panicked as he studied me for injuries.
“I don’t know,” I managed to say. I tried to get up, but the tub and my odd position made it impossible, so he pulled me up. Then he was hugging me as tightly as he could and I tried to hug him back, only my arms had gone numb.
“Ouch.”
“Are you hurt? Did she hit you?”
“No, I think…” I turned to look at Carol Marr, who was moaning as she began to regain consciousness. Blood was running from a wound in her arm—the arm that had been closest to my head.
“She missed.”
“I didn’t.” He looked grim.
He lifted me out of the tub, as if I didn’t weigh anything, just as the police swarmed into the bathroom, their weapons pointed at us. They clearly recognized Jackson, because we weren’t shot.
“It’s over,” Jackson said. “Get the paramedics. The one in the tub needs medical attention. The one on the floor doesn’t.” His voice was hard. He’d shot a woman for me.
“Thank you,” I managed to say as he carried me out of the bathroom and to the living room, where more police were arriving. He just squeezed my shoulder more tightly, before lowering me into a chair.
I tried to make my brain operate again, but all I managed was to stare ahead with unseeing eyes. I got an impression of a large, elegant room, but I couldn’t make my mind focus on anything.
“Is the boy alright?” I remembered to ask after a while.
“The one she knocked unconscious? Yes, he’ll recover.”
“Good. Good.” That was about the only thing I could think of to say.
“So who is she?” he asked, when the paramedics carried the captive out of the apartment a silent eternity later.
“Carol Marr.” Then I sighed. “Look, I’m sorry I broke in here, but we heard her shout and had to do something.”
Jackson crouched before me and looked me in the eyes. His were serious, mine were still off focus. “I’m just glad you’re okay. But the next time you pull an idiotic stunt like this, I’ll shoot you myself.”
I managed a smile. “Fair enough.” Then my face crumpled. “Will you go to jail now?”
“We’ll see.”
“Do you mind if I cry?”
A horrified look flashed across his face, but then he reached out and pulled me into a hug. “Well, I already saw you naked today. This can’t be worse.”
With such encouragement, what could I do but cry.
Epilogue
Larry Williams told the police everything when he learned that Hannah was dead. He’d only kept quiet because he’d been afraid of her. She’d been the brains of their gambling scams. They’d been successful too, although not as successful as her legitimate—and less legitimate—operations on the stock markets with the money she’d won at tables.
“Not that I ever saw a penny of it,” he told the police. He promised to co-operate with the Feds and the IRS over them.
When Vegas had grown too hot for them, they’d moved to New York and started anew. Then he’d met Sheila and decided he wanted out. When Hannah was barred from gambling in New York, she had demanded they move again, so he had told Hannah about Sheila and that’s when things went wrong.
The scene on the surveillance feed we’d witnessed had been Hannah telling Sheila she couldn’t have Larry. Sheila later told him about it, and he had assured her he would leave Hannah. They’d even had plans ready.
“When Hannah killed Sheila, I knew she could do anything. I went to warn Carol, but there was only a note on her table that said she’d left for her mother’s. But I knew that couldn’t be. That’s when I went home and told Hannah that we could leave, but it was too late, the police had already found me.”
And only because his wife had hired P.I.s to follow him. She had likely meant him to take the fall for the murder from the start, but we’d never know for sure now.
Jackson was questioned for the shooting, but since it was clearly in defense of me and Carol, he wasn’t charged for killing Hannah. I was questioned for breaking and entering, but Ryan testified that we had heard the woman shout, so I wasn’t charged with anything either.
But that happened later. First I had to go to the ER and have Tessa stitch up my knee again. That final plunge into the tub had torn the wound open. This time round she ordered me not to move, and even forced me to take crutches. I hobbled into work on them the next day.
But that first evening I just lay on the couch at home. Mom and Dad came over and brought food, which made me cry. I’d been overly emotional ever since my rescue, but I had high hopes I’d get over it soon enough.
“There, now, pumpkin,” Dad consoled me. “Everything’s going to be all right.” With his calm presence, and with the food Mom had made, everything kind of was.
“There’s no point in asking you to quit, is there?” he asked when they were leaving.
I sighed. “I know I said I’d quit the moment people started shooting at me, but now that I’ve faced that, I can’t. It would feel like giving up.”
“Good.” And the way he said it felt like praise.
“Do you want to keep the car?” Mom asked. She’d been stoic about the incident, the way she’d been stoic when Trevor did his stint in Iraq.
“Actually, if you want it, you can have it back. I don’t like driving in traffic, and if I have to do a stakeout I’ll just borrow it.”
So she took the car.
I wasn’t terribly surprised when Moreira showed up at the agency the next afternoon, while Jackson was present even. Jackson didn’t try to kill him, which was more surprising. He brought flowers for Cheryl and treats for Misty, but he only shook mine and Jackson’s hands. I wouldn’t have minded chocolate myself.
“Thank you for finding Sheila’s killer,” he said gruffly. “And while I would’ve wanted to deal with the bastard myself, I’m happy with the outcome.”
Since Jackson wasn’t entirely happy he’d had to take a human life, he only grunted in answer. I smiled at Moreira.
“No problem. Please, convey our condolences to her family.”
“I will. She’ll be buried this Saturday, if you want to attend.”
Travis came by too, to tie-up the case, and he had good news for me. “I’ve reached an agreement with your landlord. Your rent won’t go up. It is a rent stabilized apartment, after all. But there was an unfortunate loophole in the original lease that allows him to raise the rent in moderation when you switch roommates.” He gave me a reproachful look for not having him check the lease when I ren
ted the place, but I’d been in a great hurry to declare my independence after my divorce. “So the next time you have a change in housemates it’ll go up the entire five hundred.”
“Let’s hope Jarod and I won’t have a falling out, then.”
Jarod and I seemed to be doing all right. He was proud he’d been able to help with the case, and worried for me for how things had turned out. He and Cheryl had called the police and Jackson—and a good thing too, because he’d lost Hannah’s trail coming out of the subway. He wouldn’t have been there in time.
Jarod and I were happily watching TV the next evening, eating pizza he’d brought, and chatting about this and that. We didn’t have that much in common, to be honest, but we liked the same nerdy TV shows, and that was plenty when it came to roommates. He wasn’t a girlfriend like Jessica had been, or the girls at work, people I could gossip with, but he was pleasant company.
Our comfortable evening was interrupted by a knock on the door. I was up before I remembered I wasn’t supposed to move, and limped to the door with the help of one crutch. A familiar figure stood behind it, a woman my age with blond hair in a ponytail, her slim body dressed in a T-shirt and skinny jeans.
“Jessica! What a delightful surprise. I was just thinking that my life would be perfect if I had a girlfriend to gossip with.”
“Well, your wish is fulfilled.” She pointed at the suitcase behind her. “Harris and I broke up. I’m moving back here.” And she swept in past me.
What the hell?
About the Author
Susanna Shore is a pen name for the writer of Tracy Hayes series of funny urban detective stories, and Two-Natured London paranormal romance series. Susanna also writes contemporary romances with billionaires and intriguing heroines as Hannah Kane. When she is not writing, she is reading or—should her husband manage to drag her outdoors—taking long walks.
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Stay tuned for Tracy Hayes, P.I. to the Rescue coming up in February 2017.
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Extract from Tracy Hayes, P.I. to the Rescue
I was hit by a storm as I stepped out of the elevator on my way to work in the morning. And by storm I mean the psychic whose office was next door to the detective agency I worked for, and by hit I mean pulled into a hearty hug.
And I do mean hearty: over two hundred pounds of woman, most of it in her bosom right at the level of my face. She was a very tall woman. I was only five foot six.
“Good morning, Tracy,” said the storm—I mean Madam Amber.
“Gah,” said I, trying to breathe.
Madam Amber’s real name was Rhonda Goodwin and she was nearly as wide as she was tall, especially with the layers upon layers of skirts, dresses, and scarves she always piled on herself. Cornrows reached to her waist, most of it her own hair, but there were extensions in bright colors in there too, all tied into a thick bundle with a silk scarf that covered her head. In her ears she had large golden hoops.
She put her hands on my shoulders, making the dozens of bracelets in her wrists chime, and pulled back to arm’s length—which still left me uncomfortably close to her impressive chest. “I feel today is a good day to read your destiny,” she beamed at me, all too cheerful for such an early hour.
“It is?”
This wasn’t the first time Madam Amber had told me it was a good day to read my destiny, but I’d managed to avoid the ordeal so far. I didn’t particularly wish to know my future. I didn’t want to know what good or bad awaited me. And I especially didn’t want to learn that there would be neither, that my future would be infinitely dull.
I’d only recently managed to leave behind the dull, stagnant life I’d fallen into since my marriage had failed six years ago. I was no longer Tracy Hayes, college dropout, or Tracy Hayes, unemployed waitress, or Tracy Hayes, divorcee, I was Tracy Hayes, apprentice P.I. I didn’t want to find out that I might become a nobody again.
“Absolutely. And as it so happens, I have free time.”
Arm around my shoulders, she began to guide me towards her place. I looked longingly towards the agency, but the door was closed and no one saw me being abducted. I considered yelling for help, but even though Cheryl Walker, the agency secretary, was a formidable woman, she was shorter than me and would likely lose to Madam Amber.
A shiver of horror ran down my spine when I imagined the tug of war between the women, with me as the rope.
Madam Amber’s small boudoir was everything I could hope for in a psychic reader’s chamber. There were soft oriental carpets, large floor pillows, and colorful drapes hanging from the walls and covering the windows. The lampshades were tasseled and cast a dim, red light to the room. The scent of incense pervaded everything, making my eyes water.
In the middle of the room sat a small table covered with a silk scarf, with chairs on both sides. At the back was a low, wide coffee table surrounded by floor pillows. On it sat a deck of cards.
“Would you like me to read your palm, or consult the cards?”
Ummm…
“Which one is more accurate?”
Madame Amber gave a hearty laugh—really, everything about her was hearty. “This isn’t an exact science, Tracy. One reveals one thing, the other something else, and all of it is true.”
“In that case, I choose the palm.” I didn’t care either way, but I hoped the palm reading would be faster. If I had to linger in the fumes of incense long, I might develop an acute case of asthma.
“Wonderful. I’m feeling a particular affinity towards it today.”
She made me sit in the chair by the tall table and took the opposite chair herself, making the poor thing creak under her weight. Then she lit a scented candle on the table, adding another fragrance to the already full bouquet. My head began to swim.
“Please give me your hand.”
I wiped my suddenly damp palm on my jeans, then rested my forearm on the table and placed my hand on hers, palm up. Her hand was warm and dry; its brown contrasted nicely against my pasty Irish skin.
“What an interesting hand you have,” she said, leaning in to study it closer. I leaned in too, wondering how she could see anything in the dim light.
“I do?”
“Oh, yes. Such wonderful things I see here.”
I couldn’t see anything but my ordinary palm.
“Like what?”
“This here line…” She drew a finger over my palm. “Promises long life.”
I straightened, delighted. “That’s good to know, what with people always trying to shoot me.”
Well, twice now, and it had been a month since the previous time, but that was twice too often for someone who was only an apprentice P.I.
Madam Amber gave me a reproachful look. “Complications like that I cannot foresee. But if you can avoid being shot, you’ll live a long life.”
“Damn.”
“No profanities, please.” She drew a finger over another line on my palm. “And there is romance.”
“There is?” I didn’t know how to take that. I’d put my love life infinitely on hold when I found my husband—now ex-husband—balls deep in a groupie of his band.
“Yes. Someone tall, dark, and handsome.”
Figures.
“Can you be more specific? Because I have a few men of that description in my life already without any romance whatsoever.”
The first of them was out of romance territory by virtue of being my brother, but otherwise Travis fit the tall, dark, and handsome description perfectly. At thirty-five, he was eight years older than me, a defense lawyer at the Brooklyn Defender Service and as busy as a bee who had to hold three minimum wage jobs, but it hadn’t stopped him from meddling in my life. Now that I was a P.I we actually spent more time together, as the agency occasionally investigated for the Defe
nder Service.
The second T, D, and H was my boss, Jackson Dean. He was Travis’s age—and his old school friend—and had a nice, long-limbed, wide-shouldered body, and dark brown hair currently growing out of its cut—the man had some sort of hate relationship with hairdressers. You wouldn’t instantly think he was handsome—he had a curiously unmemorable face—but once you noticed its special quality, you couldn’t unsee it. His strong character shone through.
But he was out of romance territory too. He was my boss, for one. For another, he saw me only as an employee—and possibly a nuisance. And I’m sure there were other reasons too, but with my brain addled with incense, those reasons escaped me.
Then there was the even more impossible candidate who liked to pop into my life regularly to mess it up: Jonny Moreira. Definitely tall, definitely dark, and pretty handsome too. But he was a henchman to a drug lord, so even if he didn’t date supermodels—which he did and I wasn’t—he would be out of the question. I did have a thing for bad boys, but not quite that bad. Just because he tended to be nice to me wasn’t a reason to overlook his occupation.
“I’m afraid not,” said Madame Amber. “Like I said, this isn’t an exact science. Mere impressions.”
“Well, as long as you don’t see tall, blond, and promiscuous there, I’m good.” That would be my scumbag of an ex, Scott Brady, who had returned to my life recently—though I did try to keep away from him.
I often failed.
Madame Amber smiled, knowing who I meant. We shared our stories over multiple cups of coffee whenever she popped into the agency to have a chat with Cheryl.
“I can’t see the past as well as I do the future.” She pointed to another line. “There’s a crossroads coming. Pause and think carefully when you reach it, so you won’t regret your decision.”
“I’m not very good at that.” I’d married the scumbag only after a couple of weeks of knowing him and then followed him on tour with his band—and I definitely came to regret that. But I’d also decided to become a P.I. on a whim after losing my latest waitressing job, and despite having been shot at, twice, not to mention falling into a stinky dumpster, I hadn’t regretted it yet.
Tracy Hayes, P.I. and Proud (P.I. Tracy Hayes 2) Page 13