Deadly Games

by Mary Stone

  With nothing to do, she was hit with an urge to google the hell out of her father and his perfect second wife again.

  She needed to suppress that. Down that road dwelled madness. She’d done that last night and all she had was a pounding headache to show for it. She didn’t think she’d ever recover.

  “Greg,” she said hopefully. “Do you have any new cases for me?”

  He shook his head. “Sorry. Slow time, kid.”

  She clung to the edge of the desk in desperation. “Don’t you have anything for me to do?”

  He smirked and pointed to a pile of filing.

  Oh, hell.

  She stood up and walked to it. It was the thing that she’d initially been hired to do. The thing she detested more than anything. But it was something to fill the time. She picked up a stack of papers.

  For the first time, she was happy to do it. It didn’t really help her to stop thinking about yesterday, but at least it kept her itchy fingers from their urge to google herself into complete psychosis.

  An hour in, Greg got a phone call. He spoke to whoever was on the other end for a few minutes, then hung up, and started to pull on his ratty old blazer. “Sorry, kid. Got my walking papers. I’ve been called away.”

  That was nothing unusual. “For the day?”

  “For the rest of the week, at least. Impact has me working a fraud case in Raleigh. I might be over there for a while.”

  Lucky bastard. She fought the urge to throw herself at his feet and scream, Take me with you! “Well, I guess I could…” she looked around helplessly. Short of finishing the filing and answering the one phone call they got each day, there really wasn’t much on the docket.

  “Hey, kid?” He gave her one of his serious, fatherly looks. “You look like shit. Take my advice. Extend that vacation. Even if you’re not spending it with Mr. Dreamy. You might just need time for yourself. To think. Relax. Get that sweet little head of yours some perspective. And maybe…a makeover.”

  A makeover? She looked down at herself. She’d accidentally buttoned her blouse wrong, but other than that, she didn’t think she looked that bad. She quickly fixed the buttons and spied her reflection in the glass of the old storefront. Okay, her hair did look like she’d stuck her finger in an electrical socket. And she’d totally forgotten makeup. Her clothes were mostly wrinkles.

  Yeah. She probably looked like she could’ve used more than one day of vacation.

  “I don’t really have anywhere to go,” she said. Or anywhere I want to go. Especially alone. “Would you mind if I worked from home? I can forward the incoming calls to my cell.”

  He shrugged. “Have at it, but I expect you to give me a report every day.”

  “I w—”

  Greg held up a hand. “Actually, don’t give me a report. Go off the grid. My company’s been around thirty years. It ain’t gonna suffer much if you check yourself out for a few days. Relax. Seriously. That’s an order.”

  She sighed. She wished she could check out and relax, but she knew she’d just end up doing what she’d done last night—moping. “Okay,” she mumbled, powering down her computer and reaching for her bag.

  She told him goodbye and went out to her car. When she slipped into the driver’s seat, she sat there for a very long time, her hands on the steering wheel. Then she glimpsed her face in the rearview mirror. Pale skin, bloodshot eyes, hair from hell.

  Greg was right. She did look like shit. Everything had gone to pot in less than twenty-four hours.

  Sighing, she threw her Jeep into reverse, pulled out, and headed back to her apartment, wondering if she’d need a date with a couple of Linc’s Ambien in order to get some decent sleep tonight.

  Then she realized she was going back to her place, and the sleep meds were at his. And she knew she’d be memorizing every little crack on the ceiling, again, tonight.

  Linc got a late start that morning, all because of one furry little troublemaker, who was almost as much of a problem as his owner.

  Vader. No matter how many obedience lessons he gave the dog, he had a mind of his own, and a little bit of a mischievous streak too.

  Just like his owner.

  Linc wasn’t one to be tied to his cell phone. He didn’t feel naked or jittery without it, the way Kylie did. In fact, he often left it lying around when he went out, and only realized he didn’t have it when he wanted to use it for one of his infrequent calls or texts.

  But when he woke up that morning, he practically tore open the bag of rice to see if his phone would power on. Nothing.

  And now things were at a desperate level. He really needed to get in touch with Kylie. Knowing her, she was probably so angry at him, she’d spit in his face. Worse than that. Knowing her, she’d give him the silent treatment…forever. This was Code Red.

  He tossed the dead phone on the counter and looked at a mystified Storm. “What should I do, girl?”

  She simply walked to her water dish and had a drink.

  “Guess that’s an ‘ain’t got a clue.’”

  Awesome.

  “Guess I better put a trip to the phone store on my to-do list for today too, huh?”

  But first, Kylie. As he grabbed his keys from the kitchen counter, he checked the clock on the microwave. It was after nine. She’d probably already made a voodoo doll in his likeness and was getting ready to prick the hell out of it.

  They needed to talk. She’d probably give him the silent treatment to end all silent treatments, but eventually she’d come around. It’d be hard to apologize, and he dreaded the thought of doing it, but it couldn’t wait any longer.

  He’d thought about the situation all night.

  Kylie’d come home early, and she’d taken an Uber to surprise him. Ordinarily, he’d have been thrilled to see her, but then he started to wonder why she’d come home so soon. Had the work trip ended sooner than she thought? Or was it even a work trip? Had she actually thought he was cheating and had been setting a trap to see if he’d take the bait, and then Faith and her bad timing had shown up, confirming Kylie’s wayward suspicions?

  Was his luck really that terrible?

  Did she really not trust him?

  A couple weeks ago, he’d asked Kylie to move in with him. Hell, he’d practically begged her, promising her cart blanc if she’d just let him take care of her. He’d even delivered the lamest line in the world.

  If you want to protect me and I want to protect you, living together makes sense.

  God, he was pathetic.

  Since then, he hadn’t brought it up, and even when more and more of her stuff showed up in his house, he never said a word, just made more room for her.

  Even while they’d gotten closer, had this crazy idea of him cheating been brewing in her head the entire time? Had Faith showing up at that exact wrong moment only solidified those feelings in her head?

  Probably.

  Shit. Maybe this was worse than he thought. Maybe she wouldn’t talk to him. Maybe she wouldn’t come around, no matter what he said. Maybe this was the end.

  And maybe that was for the best.

  He was still working on himself, after all. Trying to get on top of the guilt and sorrow he still felt from his last days in Syria. The days he’d repressed for so long. The nightmares that made them still seem so vivid.

  Getting into his truck, he turned the key in the ignition and as it roared to life, gazed out at the mountain ridges that seemed to go on forever. The reds and golds of fall in their spectacular glory. The view was magnificent, even with the clouds that obscured the sun.

  He’d hoped to share all this with Kylie, but now…?

  He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel as he headed down the mountain listening to Garth Brooks, then shut off the radio entirely as he pulled into a parking space across from Starr Investigations. It looked dark inside. That, and he couldn’t see Kylie’s new Jeep anywhere on the busy street. And the yellow thing was a hard thing to miss.

  He climbed out of the
truck and jogged over to the old brick storefront. As he did, he noticed a young man peering in the picture window. He wore a leather jacket and sunglasses despite the gloom of the overcast day. With his hair slicked off his face, he reminded Linc of a weasel.

  “Can I help you?” Linc asked as he approached.

  The man spun in the other direction and walked away at a fast pace. A thousand possibilities for that guy to be staking out the place whirled through Linc’s mind, all of them bad. He tried to think more like Kylie, who never assumed the worst.

  Maybe he was just checking his reflection in the glass?

  Linc didn’t buy it. He was overly suspicious, precisely because Kylie was sometimes so oblivious and too trusting. That’s why they made a good team.

  If they even were a team now.

  The guy picked up his pace, not looking back, then jaywalked across the road and disappeared down one of the side streets. Linc turned to look in the window. The lights were off inside. The shades were down in the doorway, the Sorry, We’re Closed sign hanging crookedly at its center. Even so, he tried the door, because she should’ve been there.

  If she wasn’t, where else would she be?

  Her apartment, maybe? But it was the middle of a workday. She might have gotten a new assignment and was out tracking down leads. Or she might be out buying the materials to finish his voodoo doll.

  He reached into his pocket and looked at his dead phone. He’d have better luck calling. There was a phone store right around the corner. He could probably get the phone fixed or exchanged quicker than he could run all over town looking for her.

  When he got there, the place was empty. The service tech looked the phone over and proclaimed it DOA. “You might as well just give it back to your dog,” the man said. “Seeing as how it’s his new favorite chew toy. It’s beyond repair.”

  Linc scratched at his jaw as the man started showing him the latest and greatest new models of phones, phones that could do a hell of a lot of things that Linc didn’t give a shit about, but many of those apps came in handy once in a while. “Just fix me up with the latest iPhone.”

  “You got it,” the man said. “Have you backed up your data recently?”

  Of course he hadn’t. “No.”

  “If you want me to transfer all your data over, that’ll be about an hour. You’re welcome to wait here or come back.”

  Linc looked around. At the waiting area, there was a television blasting the day’s news, and he knew that would only upset him. Since his PTSD had come to a head, he’d been careful to avoid all the things that stressed him out too much, and stories of death and gloom on the news qualified. He remembered the coffee shop next door. “Thanks. I’ll be back.”

  He went one door down and pulled open the door to the little shop, and a bell dinged overhead. As he waited in line, thinking of what he’d say when he got his new phone and called Kylie, he looked over at the bar and…there was Faith, waving at him from over her latte.

  Holy shit. He hadn’t seen her in nearly ten years, and now…twice in less than twenty-four hours? When the bell on the door rang, he looked back, expecting to see Kylie. Because…of course he would.

  But it was just a kid with too many facial piercings, looking like he wanted to destroy the world with the beams of his ice-blue contacts.

  Linc turned back to order his coffee, then waited at the pick-up station, keeping his back to his ex, not caring if he was being a bastard or not.

  Coffee in hand, he turned and nearly plowed Faith over. “You following me?” she asked with a grin.

  She wasn’t serious, but he felt like fate was trying to throw them together, and by now, he was regretting the position it’d put him in. “Nah.”

  “Come sit with me. I have something important to talk to you about.”

  Linc looked around, expecting Kylie to be somewhere nearby. When he didn’t see her, his eyes trailed over Faith’s things as she moved them over on the bar to make room for him to sit next to her. She had a fashion magazine open. Clearly, she was still really into that, since she looked like a magazine cover herself.

  Faith was big on not having a hair out of place, which he’d never been able to understand. The first thing she used to do every morning was put on her face, something she never needed because she was naturally beautiful. But, in her words, she wanted to be perfect.

  To Linc, perfection wasn’t only unattainable, it was downright exhausting to attempt to achieve.

  No, thank you.

  Faith was just different. In law school, she’d spent most of her time competing with Linc to get better grades than he did. She also had to win every argument, even if she was on the wrong side of it. The woman was exhaustingly always trying to prove to the world that she was the best and had the best of everything. She probably kept her multiple social media feeds full of selfies, constantly seeking the validation of others.

  But as competitive as Faith was, she could still be a very sweet person. Even her Dear John letter had been a nice, overly apologetic one. She’d mentioned falling for one of their classmates—a Jim Something, who was kind of a douche. In the few times he’d thought about her since their break up, he’d expected they’d get married and open a law firm together and have had a half-dozen children by now.

  Warily, he sat down next to her, sipping his coffee. “Dog killed my phone, so I had to buy a new one. That’s why I’m here. They’re transferring the data over next door.”

  “Ah,” she said. “That’s why I was always more of a cat person.”

  And that’s why I should’ve known we’d never have lasted.

  “Whatever happened to that guy? Jim? You marry him?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “No.” She wiggled her ringless left hand. “Still single. He was kind of a jerk.”

  Linc sucked on his teeth, bordering on regretting asking. Time to change the subject. “You said you had something to talk to me about?”

  She gave him a worried look. “I want to apologize for showing up at the wrong time. That woman last night was…Kylie? Your girlfriend?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  She winced. “Oh, boy, then she really got the wrong idea, that you and I were…I’m sorry.”

  He offered up a chuckle but didn’t find any of this funny. “You said that last night.”

  Color rose to her cheeks. “I know, but I wanted to apologize again for just showing up like that. But she wasn’t wrong. We were together once.”

  Linc sipped his coffee. “The operative word being were.”

  She looked down into her mug. “Yeah, well. I wasn’t wrong, was I? When I said we weren’t cut out for each other?”

  “No, you were right on the money,” he admitted, shrugging.

  When he went to push to his feet, she grabbed his arm, stopping him. “How’s your parents? Your brothers?”

  Faith had always fit in with his family of lawyers better than Linc ever had. They’d adored her. Even though she’d broken up with Linc, his father still blamed him for the end of the relationship.

  “They’re all good. Still ask about you from time to time.”

  She smiled. “They’re such good people.”

  Linc raised an eyebrow. He knew they were, in their own way, and it bothered him a little that his ex had always had more of a connection with his family, who he had nothing in common with, than he ever did.

  Faith was right. They did have very little in common, and it only made him miss Kylie more.

  “So, what are you up to now? I read in the paper about your return from Afghanistan,” she said, closing her fashion magazine. “You’re a hero. Got the Purple Heart, huh?”

  “Syria,” he muttered. If there was anything he liked talking about less than his time overseas, it was all the awards they showered upon him after… Shaking the thoughts away, he took a sip from his coffee. “Now, I do search and rescue and train rescue dogs.”

  “Oh, really?” Faith said in what he knew was mock interest. She never
had struck him as a dog person, much like the rest of his family. “That’s great. It’s really great.”

  The small talk over, Linc was sure it’d just dissolve into awkwardness. If he’d become a lawyer and they’d gotten married, it would’ve been utter misery. He took a big gulp of his coffee and checked his watch, intending to find a way to beg off so he could leave, when a familiar voice called, “What’s this? A party I wasn’t invited to?”

  Faith turned around with a start and smiled broadly, then jumped off her stool and ran up to Jacob, nearly knocking the big guy over with the force of her hug. Linc watched her embracing his best friend, wondering why his own reception had been so much more sedate. The two of them hugged so long that Linc almost felt like he was peeping in on something he shouldn’t be watching.

  “Should I let you two get a room?” he muttered, and they slowly parted, as if they hated to do so.

  “What are you doing here?” Jacob asked, his voice an octave higher and clearly thrilled. He still had yet to look at Linc.

  Faith’s voice was also higher, her words tumbling out a mile a minute, like her latte had been laced with strong speed. “I just came in! I’m working in New York, but I stopped by for a week. I was going to look you up. I tracked Linc down last night, and he said you’re an Asheville detective. Really?”

  He nodded and started to go on about his job. Linc stood there, hands in his pockets, a third wheel if ever there was one. The few times the two of them had double-dated at the movie theater in town, she and Jacob had gotten on famously. Back then, he’d thought it was great. His best friend and his best girl were in tune with each other, like brother and sister.

  But when he looked down and noticed that Jacob was still holding her hand, stroking the back of it very lightly, he started to wonder. What was going on?

  When Jacob leaned down, murmuring something in Faith’s ear, and still hadn’t acknowledged him, Linc cleared his throat. With what looked like great reluctance, Jacob dropped Faith’s hand and faced his friend, his smile transforming into a what the hell is going on frown.

  Jacob clearly wanted to know what was going on too.