“You’ve probably seen plenty of movies where someone disarms an assailant who’s carrying a gun, right?” Drew’s cousin Riley lectured as we all sat cross-legged on our mats and listened. “How many times have you seen the hero or heroine grab the gun and pull? That’s a good way to get yourself shot.”
Tall, with broad shoulders and a curvy build, Riley still looked almost dainty compare to him when she used Drew to demonstrate.
“See how he’s holding the gun with his finger on the trigger? If I pull it toward me like they do in the movies, his automatic response is to resist. His finger tightens, and as I pull on the gun, it almost forces him to pull the trigger. But, if I do this—” Palm up, she slammed the heel of her hand hard against the end of the barrel. The force of the blow shoved the fake pistol right out of Drew’s hand.
“I eliminate that automatic reflex, and the unexpected direction of movement causes him to drop the weapon.”
Directing us to partner up—naturally, I chose Neena—Riley had us all practice the maneuver a few times before Drew took over the class.
“Pretend the pad is your attacker.” Drew fitted his arm through the straps of a rectangular pad. “This is his torso.”
He lifted the pad, braced in front of his upper body.
“You’re going to grab him by the shoulders and pull down while bringing your knee up to make contact with his midsection. The goal here is to take the wind out of him, so aim just below the ribcage with your knee and use the pulling motion to add momentum to the blow.”
Turning sideways so we could see, he moved toward Riley, who demonstrated the proper technique several times. Each time she brought her knee up to make solid contact with the pad, Riley yelled, “No.”
“Okay,” She said when she was done. “Now, it’s your turn. Line up, single file, and don’t be gentle. The pad will take most of the force, and Drew’s prepared, so you won’t hurt him. Use those knees like you mean business, ladies.”
“Don’t forget to use your voice,” Drew said. “Tell your attacker no, and make it loud. The noise serves more than one function. It can draw the attention of bystanders who might come to your aid, and it brings the element of surprise. Voicing your power also increases the ferocity of your counter-strike.”
I ended up in the middle of the line, so I had time to watch the women who went ahead of me. Some twittered, some seemed too preoccupied with Drew’s muscles to follow his directions.
When it was my turn, I didn’t hold anything back. The pad was harder, firmer than I expected, but when my knee made contact, the word no came up from somewhere deep inside me.
I said no to every person who had ever hurt me in the past. I said no to Paul, and to Reva, and to the situations that had turned my gut into a pit of fear. I took back my power, and it felt good. It felt primal.
And I wanted to do it again.
So I went to the back of the line, took another turn.
Most of the time, we go through life doing what needs to be done, and if anyone asked, we’d be reasonably confident we were awake and aware. I realized I hadn’t been. Not entirely. Not with the same level of connectedness I felt when the force of the blow sang from my knee to my thigh.
“Don’t hold back,” Drew said my third time around. “Give me everything you’ve got. I can take it.”
Seeing Paul’s face instead of his, I switched legs once, twice, then again and again until my hair hung in sweaty strings, my face burned red, and my breath came in pants and gasps.
“One day, you’ll tell me what’s behind all the pent-up aggression.”
I shook my head and went back to stand with Neena and wait for what came next.
Where had this been all my life?
We moved on to punching and kicking with Drew demonstrating some of the finer points of where and how to hit to cause the most pain. Disable and escape.
“Turn your fist over, and sweep down. Aim for the bridge of the nose. A hard hit to that spot can break the nose, but at the very least will make the eyes water. Despite what you’ve been told, a man can still fight after he’s been kicked in the misters, but he won’t be as efficient if his eyes are watering.”
“But one of those is far more satisfyin’ than the other.” Neena offered, and everyone laughed.
“If you have an opening to do both, take it. Whatever it takes to get the job done.” Drew grinned and then offered one final lesson.
“If you control the head, you control the rest of the body.” He asked Riley to demonstrate his point, which she did by slinging an arm around his head, and with a swift downward, twisting motion, sending her cousin to the mat. The maneuver ended with her kneeling on Drew’s head.
Someone behind me snickered, but I could see how everything I’d learned might have helped me the day Hudson’s killer had attacked me in my own home. Or the day when another murderer had gone after Jacy.
“And that works even if you’re smaller than the person attacking you? Can’t they just reach back and grab you?”
“Not as easy as you’d think.” Riley kept her knee firmly planted and leaned over to press Drew’s arm to his side. “Try to keep enough weight on the head to inhibit movement, but also spare enough to hold his arms. This technique creates something of a stand-off situation, so it’s best used to buy enough time for someone to come to your aid.”
Singling me out of the group, she demonstrated again, offered a few pointers in a low voice, and then told me to give it a try.
“Don’t hold back,” Drew repeated. Order or challenge didn’t matter to me. I needed this more than I needed to breathe. “Because I won’t.”
He came at me then, and I moved in. Lifted up on the balls of my feet, judged the distance, and sprang forward to wrap my arms around his head. The momentum carried me forward, gave power to the twist of my body. I bore him to the mat, ended just as Riley had shown, with his head pinned under my knee and my throat sore from my victory cry.
Nothing had ever felt this good.
“Everly.” Drew’s voice broke through the rushing in my head. “You wanna let me up now?”
“Oh, sorry.” I stood, and this time, I didn’t go to the back of the line, but stood alone and waited until the class had ended. The last to go, Neena joined me as Riley declared the class to be over.
“Do you need to head right home?” I asked. “I need a minute.”
Neena waggled her eyebrows and allowed she had plenty of time, so I should take all I needed.
“Sign me up.” I approached Drew. “I need more.”
Neena might have misunderstood my reasoning, Drew did not. “Tuesday night.”
I nodded, and as I turned to leave, heard him say, “Whatever you need."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE DARK WIG made my scalp itch, but between it and Jacy’s skillful makeup job, even my own mother would have a hard time picking me out of a crowd as I strolled into the restaurant where Patrea had arranged a blind date. Bill certainly wouldn’t recognize me as the hostess seated me alone at the table for two next to the one reserved for him and Neena.
“Will anyone be joining you tonight?” she asked.
“No. I’m sorry, it’s just me.” Why I was apologizing, I’ll never know. Once she was gone, I scooted my chair and place setting to a position close enough to eavesdrop.
On the table, my phone vibrated.
—He’s on his way. I read the message from Patrea.
—We’re good to go, I relayed to Neena and settled in to wait.
“Everly? That is you, isn’t it?” Drew’s voice gave me the shivers every time I heard it. What were the odds he’d show up here and now?
Then again, if he’d spotted me through the disguise, Bill might. I’d just have to hold my menu over my face or something.
“I … uh … I do have a good reason for all of this.” I indicated my face and hair. “But I don’t have time to explain it now.” Bill would walk through that door any minute, and after waiting just lon
g enough to have him worried he’d been stood up, Neena would arrive. That part had been her idea. She said it would put him off his game.
“You’re meeting someone on the sly.” Drew tilted his head and squinted at me. “Bookie? No. That’s not it. Torrid affair with a married man?”
The disgust on my face made him grin.
“I’m not meeting anyone, and you have to go.” I leaned sideways to look past him but didn’t see any sign yet of the paralegal.
“Stalking someone? Or … this is even better … you’re in the CIA and on a mission. That’s it, right? You have a secret life.”
We could not be having this conversation when Bill walked in.
“Me? I’m an open book. No secret life here.” Except for being a ghost magnet, but that was another discussion we weren’t having now. Or ever.
I turned the tables on him. “And what are you doing here? We’re not in Mooselick River anymore, so you’re probably on a date. Don’t you think she’ll be annoyed if she sees you hanging around talking to me?” The thought of him on a date hurt a little.
Drew threw back his head and laughed. “No, I’m not on a date. I think we both know who I'm interested in seeing. I’m a one-woman guy.” He circled the table, leaned down close enough his breath shivered across my cheek. “You look good, Everly Dupree. But don’t wear the wig on our first real date, okay?”
All of a sudden, I couldn’t breathe. Or think. Or remember why I was there.
That was the moment Bill chose to walk through the door.
“You have to go.” I snapped back to the present, my eyes on the other man as the hostess greeted him and made ready to lead him to his table. “I promise I’ll explain later.”
Drew turned his head to follow my gaze, saw Bill, and quirked a brow. “He doesn’t look like your type.”
“I don’t have a type, but he’s not here for me.” As Bill was seated at the next table, I hissed, “See? Now, go. Please.”
Curiosity piqued, Drew shook his head and whispered in my ear before settling into the seat opposite me. “I think I’ll stay and we can pretend we’re on a date. Call it a preview for the real thing.”
I closed my eyes and took a couple of deep breaths to settle my nerves. It was too late to do anything about the situation, so I picked up my menu, scanned the options, and made my choice as Neena walked into the room.
She’d chosen well when given access to my closet, and filled out the little blue dress better than I ever had. Well enough to draw plenty of attention from the men in the restaurant.
Drew picked up on my interest and turned his head to look. His eyes flicked back toward me once, then he watched Neena’s progress toward the next table. Whatever he might have said got cut off as our server arrived to take our order.
“I’ll have the garlic chicken.” I cocked a brow at Drew.
“Well played,” he murmured and ordered the same.
At the next table, Neena and Bill made first contact.
“Bill Deal?” Neena all but purred.
Stuttering at the magnitude of his good fortune, Bill introduced himself and gallantly rose to help Neena push in her chair.
The music of the south more pronounced in her voice than usual, Neena started out with the getting-to-know-you version of small talk designed to charm Bill into talking mostly about himself.
“Go, Mata Hari,” I whispered as she got him talking about his work.
“What are you—” Drew’s question ended abruptly when I reached across the table and surreptitiously pinched the back of his hand. Somehow, my attempt to shut him up ended with my hand trapped in his, but at least he wasn’t talking.
“Oh my stars,” Neena laid it on a little thick. “Do you mean the Winston Durham that was murdered?”
I went still and waited for Bill to answer.
“The very same.”
“You must have some idea who had a reason to kill that poor man. Being right on the spot, and all.”
If she ever decided to stop painting and shop keeping, Neena could have had a career on the stage. She hit all the right notes.
“There’s not much I can say without breaking attorney/client privilege.” But it sounded like he wanted to, and who could blame him? Here was this gorgeous creature hanging on his every word.
Come on, Neena. Push just a little.
I heard her suck in a breath, which, based on the way that dress fit her, probably did exciting things to the bodice. “Oh, Billy. I wasn’t askin’ for names or anything personal.” She lowered her voice a little. “But it’s just so … excitin’”—she put a lot of sexual innuendo into that one word— “to be around someone connected to such a scandalous crime. Isn’t there somethin’ you can tell me?”
The server took that moment to show up at their table. Neena ordered raw oysters and then asked for chocolate sauce. “Can you be a love and put that sauce in a container to go?”
With my attention focused on Neena, I’d almost forgotten about Drew until he made a low, choking sound. If he blew this for us, I’d take the first opportunity to see how well he handled a knee to the solar plexus without three inches of padding to take the hit.
I pinched him again, this time using my nails for a little added emphasis, and he managed to get his face under control as our food arrived. Amid the flurry of activity in getting the plates settled and making sure we had everything we needed, I lost the thread of Neena and Bill’s conversation.
When I tuned back in, he was telling her—a long ramble, but put in the vaguest of terms—about how the ex-wife of one of Winston’s high-profile clients was under investigation, and would probably be indicted on charges of fraud and money laundering. I knew he meant me, and it sounded like he thought I was Winston’s killer.
Then he clinched it. “Once a criminal, always a criminal.”
My jaw clenched so hard my teeth clacked together.
“I think I heard about that on the news. Weren’t the police looking at the husband, too?”
Easy, Neena. I thought when her tone went a little sharper than it should. Easy.
By now, Drew was paying as much attention as I was to the conversation at the next table, and I wondered what he knew or thought he knew about me. Enough, probably, to fill in that gap anyway. When he put his fork down and reached over to squeeze my hand, it seemed like I’d been right.
“The husband was a high-profile client.”
As if that was the only measure of a man.
“Not just on the legal side of things, either. Winston managed Mr. Has—the husband’s personal portfolio. Or some of it, anyway.”
Now that was something I hadn’t known, and now that I did, I had questions.
So, apparently, did Neena.
“Oh, really? I didn’t know attorneys did that type of thing. How does it work?” I could imagine Neena propping her elbows on the table and leaning forward to listen intently.
“It’s not uncommon,” Bill said, “for an attorney to also provide financial advisory services for either a flat rate or a percent or two of the managed funds. Such an arrangement can be quite lucrative for both parties.”
“Or it could be a motive for murder.” Neena must have read my mind. “People make mistakes, after all. What if Winston lost the husband’s money?”
There was a pause while Bill pondered. “I suppose that’s a possibility. I didn’t work with Winston on the financial side of his practice.”
And a second pause while their meal arrived.
“Everything looks so delicious,” Neena gushed. “Now, what were we talking about before?”
“Murder,” Bill promptly answered. “Don’t you think we should change the subject to something more palatable?”
By the slurping sound, I assumed Neena had chosen an oyster. “Oh no, I’m utterly beguiled. The whole time you worked there, you were inches away from danger. It makes me shiver just thinking about it. Danger turns me on.”
Okay, that one even dragged a smile acros
s my face, and I planned to mercilessly taunt Neena over it later.
“Certainly not,” Bill disagreed. “I don’t mind saying—and I told the police the same thing—I think Winston was killed over a personal matter, not a professional one. He was a stickler in the office. He made it a point to adhere to the letter of the law.”
Ignoring Bill’s changing stance on my role as murderer, I rolled my eyes at Winston being a paragon of legal virtue, and Drew quirked a brow at me. “I’ll tell you later,” I mouthed because after sitting with me this long, he deserved to know what he’d stumbled into.
“When you say personal, do you mean romantic-type personal or the friends-and-family kind?”
“All this talk of murder seems inappropriate for a first date. Why don’t you tell me something about you? I can tell you’re not from around here. What brought you to the frozen north?”
“A man, darling. What else? But I will confess something.” She paused to whet his appetite for the revelation. “I normally hate first dates, and blind dates are the worst of the worst, but you’ve been a breath of fresh air. I could sit and talk to you all night.”
That was my signal. Keeping it sheltered from Bill’s view, I tapped Neena’s contact number on my cell phone.
On cue, I heard her ring tone, and then her cheerful tones assuring him she needed to take the call.
“Oh, no!” Neena said to no one at all. “Is she all right? Are you sure? No, it’s fine. I’m leaving right now.” A pause. “I’m sorry, but I have to cut the evening short. There’s a minor emergency. One of the children.”
“Children?”
“Yes, of course. Didn’t Patrea tell you about the children?”
“She must not have thought to mention them. How many do you have?”
Without missing a beat, Neena said, “Oh, just the six right now.”
“Six.” His tone was flat.
“Two sets of triplets.”
Bill made no effort to follow her out or ask for a second date. He paid the bill and left while I finally started to pick at the food on my plate.
“That was—” Drew started to say.
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