Deadly Games

by Mary Stone

  “What’s up, man?” Jacob looked from Linc to Faith and back again, a confused look on his face. “How did you two…?”

  Linc had known the big, burly ginger since kindergarten. They’d been through a lot together. Jacob may have been in-tune with Faith, but he loved Kylie just as much. What Jacob was trying to imply was simple: Don’t tell me you’re two-timing Kylie with your ex. If you’re gonna do that, let me have your leftovers.

  “It was innocent. We just ran into each other. That’s all,” Linc said, finishing off his coffee and pushing in his barstool. “You here for a reason, or are you just playing hooky from your job, Detective?”

  Jacob grinned. “Just in the neighborhood to take a witness statement for an accident. Same boring shit, different day. You leaving?”

  Linc nodded. “Got to pick up my phone next door and meet Kylie.” If she’ll let me. “You guys have fun catching up. I’ll see you around.”

  They waved at him, but by the time he reached the doorway and looked back, the two of them were deep in conversation, smiling at each other, heads almost touching. Linc almost had to pinch himself to make sure he actually existed, because it was clear he hadn’t needed to be there.

  That’s interesting, he thought, heading to the phone store.

  But that was Jacob. He didn’t miss the chance to flirt with a hot girl. And Faith was outgoing and bubbly and hot and fun.

  They were both nothing like him.

  Neither was Kylie, for that matter. But whatever it was about Kylie, he felt like he was missing a big something without it. Without her.

  As the store clerk showed him his new phone, all Linc wanted to do was grab it, call her, and hear her voice. The second he got it in his hands, he tapped her number.

  It went straight to voicemail.

  He gnashed his teeth as he got into his truck. He’d spent a good chunk of his first deployment beating himself up over fucking things up with Faith, but Faith had seen what he couldn’t. They didn’t belong. Kylie, though? Kylie belonged with him. It had taken him time to know what was right, and he’d never been so sure as he was at that moment.

  Kylie was everything he wanted.

  14

  Rhonda Hatfield loved going out on her rounds when she wasn’t working.

  These days, her rounds involved stopping at three different supermarkets near her house, trying to get the best prices for her food. She’d clipped coupons and saved maniacally when Kylie was growing up, so now, securing good buys and spending less was a sport for her. She enjoyed it almost as much as some people enjoyed binge-watching their favorite shows or playing their favorite games.

  First, though, she had to stop at the pharmacy and get her prescriptions for her blood pressure, and the post office to get stamps.

  Unlike most people, she loved running errands. Rushing about and checking things off her to-do list. Also unlike most people, she’d never go out without a full face of makeup and dressed to the nines. How people could go out in their ratty clothes and curlers was beyond her. She might not be actively looking for a man, but it didn’t mean she had to look like she didn’t care.

  It was all so exciting for her. So, when she had the chance to dress up and go out, she did so to the nines, wearing her full makeup and a pretty outfit she’d gotten from the Chadwick’s of Boston catalog.

  After she picked up her medication, she drove to the little post office on Main Street. This one was less crowded than the one by her home, but that was because parking was awful. The only parking was on the busy, narrow street itself, which made for a lot of accidents and close calls. Rhonda decided to brave it, considering the other post office wasn’t on the way to Harris Teeter Supermarket.

  As she slipped out of the car, a truck roared by, going way above the speed limit. There was a time, when she was Kylie’s age and in New York, that no truck driver could pass by her without giving her a beep. It was funny, she thought, that things like that annoyed her daughter. Rhonda would’ve loved to get some positive male attention these days. It’d been decades since she’d gotten even a compliment from a good-looking man.

  Sighing, she thought of her daughter and her new mission to find her dad. If she was looking for positive male attention, she wasn’t going to find it by way of Adam Hatfield. That, Rhonda was sure of.

  The smooth-talking New Yorker had certainly pulled the wool over her eyes in the year they’d been together. She’d come to think of Adam as caring, good, a little sloppy for her tastes, but a diamond in the rough. She thought he had a good heart. But the way he’d left? Only a monster could be so cruel.

  That was what Adam Hatfield was. A monster.

  As much as Rhonda attempted to shield her daughter from what Adam Hatfield had done to her, her life had been utterly shredded by his disappearance. She’d been unable to get out of bed for weeks, and her self esteem still hadn’t gotten over his betrayal.

  She didn’t hate him. Not now. But she had. For a long time, and very deeply.

  But even though her hate ran deep, she couldn’t help thinking that if he showed up and explained himself, she’d have taken him back in an instant. That was how much she’d desperately wanted things to work out between them, how much she wanted Kylie to have the stability of a father.

  It was too late now, but if Kylie somehow found him and brought him into her life…what would she do? What would he say? What could he possibly say to make what he did all right?

  Nothing. He could never be a part of her life now. Any explanation he’d give wouldn’t matter.

  She picked up her book of stamps and was so deep in thought as she crossed the street that she didn’t notice the yellow sports car until the brakes started to squeal. It had almost stopped by the time it made contact with the backs of her thighs, sending her flying up onto the hood.

  After the initial shock, she was more embarrassed than hurt, since her flowered skirt had flown straight up, baring her undies to the world. Rhonda hurried to push it down. The young woman in the driver’s seat just stared at her with wide-eyed shock.

  Rhonda started to apologize profusely as she climbed down off the bumper, shaking in time with the revving motor underneath her. Only when she took the first few wobbly steps toward the edge of the road did she feel the pain.

  She limped across the rest of the street, focusing on getting to her car where she’d left her purse, thinking the cops would be there soon and would need to see her identification. Or something. She touched her temple with trembling fingers, trying to think.

  Rhonda expected the woman to either ask if she needed medical assistance or demand she fix some dent in the vehicle. Instead, the yellow car lurched forward and disappeared around the corner, tires squealing. Rhonda leaned against the side of her car, heart beating madly, trying to catch her breath.

  “Are you all right, ma’am?” a voice said from behind her.

  Rhonda turned her spinning head to see a man running toward her on the sidewalk. He was tall and distinguished in a tailored dark suit, his neat gray beard and a full head of white hair seizing her attention. Suddenly, despite wearing her best outfit, she felt underdressed, like her underwear was still on display.

  When she said nothing, his look of concern grew, and he took her arm. “Can you walk?”

  She nodded, still a bit dazed as he helped her onto the sidewalk.

  “I saw the whole thing,” he said, touching her hands, her arms, her shoulders. “I missed the license plate of the car that hit you, but…where do you hurt?”

  She pointed vaguely toward her thigh and her hip. Her shoulder felt a little strange too. They were starting to ache now that the adrenaline was wearing off and she was shaking from the shock of her close call.

  She tried to smile, tried to reassure him that she was okay, but as she gazed into his kind blue eyes, words escaped her.

  He lifted a phone to his ear. “You should be checked out by professionals. I’m calling for a—” He paused and listened, then spoke calmly but a
uthoritatively into the receiver. “Yes. I witnessed an accident. A woman’s been hurt. Please send an ambulance to the corner of Main and Third. Thank you.”

  Her daughter had always been so embarrassed when Rhonda used the word “hunk” to describe Linc. Maybe there was a more modern word for it, but if there was, she didn’t know what it was. And it didn’t matter. Because right now, there could be no more fitting word for the man in front of her.

  He was a tall, white-haired hunk. A silver fox if ever she saw one.

  Rhonda was normally a woman of many words, and she hadn’t had a man strike her speechless since…Adam. When she did gain control of her vocal cords, she cleared her throat. “I’m all right.”

  “You don’t know that. You might be in shock,” he said, leading her toward the passenger side of her car. “Why don’t you sit down in here, where you can catch your breath? Can I get you anything?”

  He opened the door for her and guided her onto the seat, then crouched in front of her, right at her knocking knees.

  Despite the Autumn sun beaming down on them, she was shivering. It probably was shock from the accident. Or maybe quite a different kind of shock. She couldn’t tell. She said, “No. Thank you.” She reached into her purse for her phone. “I should probably call someone and let them know I’ve been in an accident, so they’re not worried about me.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I can imagine you’re very shaken up.”

  She searched through her purse, slowly first, then frantically. “Oh. I forgot my phone.”

  She was always doing that, despite Kylie’s urgings to keep her phone with her at all times. She’d lived so much of her life without one, and spent so much of her time at home, that she was always leaving it on the kitchen counter.

  “Well, here,” the man said, handing him hers. “You can call your husband from here.”

  She smiled and held up her left hand. Was he fishing for information about her? “No husband. I wanted to call my daughter.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” His smiled grew wider, and Rhonda noticed that he wasn’t wearing a ring, either. “A beautiful woman such as yourself, I just assumed…”

  “Thank you,” she said, on the verge of giggling. She hadn’t giggled in how many years? She needed to control herself. The last time she’d giggled, she’d ended up pregnant with a husband who promised to love her for the rest of her life. Well, at least I can’t get knocked up now. “I’m really…I’m fine. You look like you have somewhere to be. I can manage by myself.”

  “Don’t be silly,” he said, leaning against her car. “What kind of gentleman would I be if I left you here? I was just headed to the hospital myself.”

  She blinked. “Oh! Are you hurt too? Or visiting someone?”

  He laughed. “No. That’s where I work. I’m an ENT.”

  A doctor? Her mouth went dry.

  She’d gone through her entire life regretting falling so fast and hard for Adam and had resolved that it would never happen again. And this man—this perfect stranger—was making her want to toss all that out the window.

  Had she hit her head? That was the only explanation she could come up with.

  “Oh. How nice.”

  He shrugged. “I wish I could be more help in your current situation, but trauma isn’t my specialty.” He pointed to her knee, which was starting to turn an unflattering shade of purple. “May I?”

  She stared, confused, as he crouched down and gently folded her skirt back and touched the purpling skin, his fingers like a gentle breath.

  He had to have noticed the goose bumps that popped out all over her. And she thought goose bumps were just for school kids. She was wrong.

  He met and held her gaze. “My name is Jerry Phillips. Pleased to meet you…”

  “Rhonda,” she breathed, as he still gently touched her skin. “Rhonda Hatfield.”

  “Rhonda,” he said. She’d never heard her name said that way. So sensually, in such a way that the deep, rich timbre vibrated inside her.

  Then, much to her own dismay, she opened her mouth and actually giggled like a schoolgirl.

  15

  It felt better to get home and change into comfortable boxers and a camisole, but once Kylie sat down on the couch and looked around, she decided the rest of the day would be for moping. Not relaxing. Not binge-watching her favorite television shows. Not cleaning or catching up on errands. Not any of the things she wanted to do whenever she was working.

  Moping. The end.

  Her mostly empty apartment was so lonely and depressing, since she was surrounded by all these “rejects”—the things she hadn’t needed or wanted enough to take them on the nights she stayed with Linc. It was a perfect place for the activity.

  She felt a little like a reject now too. She knew she’d only feel worse if she allowed herself to dwell on it.

  But dwell, she did.

  Grabbing her laptop, she opened it up and started to google everything she could possibly think of regarding William Adam Hatfield. When she’d exhausted herself by looking at every picture of him and his new family on the internet, she threw herself back against the couch, half-hating him, half-mourning his lack of presence in her life.

  What was it that lady at Cityside Garbage had said? Something about the owner of the company being arrested? Her father had been in thick with the family, and they’d been criminals. He’d wanted Kylie to get away. In fact, he’d seemed desperate to get her out of his office. Maybe that had something to do with his odd behavior. Maybe that’s why he’d wanted to get her mother away, all those years ago. Maybe he was protecting them.

  Scratching her head, Kylie thought back to the man’s name. Joey Gallo? She typed it in, along with Cityside Garbage.

  Hundreds of results poured forth. The first one was an article from The New York Times. Cityside Garbage Services Top Man Nabbed for Extortion, Possible Mafia Ties.

  Kylie’s eyes widened. Mafia?

  Kylie clicked on the article, but it told her that she needed a subscription. She found another one, down farther, for another New York newspaper that was similar and clicked on it. It was a later article, mentioning that the case had never been brought to trial, and Gallo had been released because of some no-show witnesses. At the end of the article, it said, Gallo is suspected of having ties to one of the city’s most notorious crime families, the Colombo syndicate.

  As she read, that spidey sense inside her, the one she always got when something was wrong, started to buzz. The Colombo crime family?

  Gallo’s arrest had happened just about the time that her father had switched to the new job in Manhattan. Around that same time, he’d told Kylie’s mother that he wanted to succeed in life and provide for the baby and seemed ambitious enough to go after it. Had his ambition gotten him involved in the mafia? Was he still involved now? Was that the reason he’d left her mother with no explanation whatsoever?

  She googled the Colombo crime family and got millions of results. They were one of the five families, the most powerful mafia syndicate in the city. Murder, extortion, gambling, prostitution…you name it, they were involved. Had her father really been that stupid and desperate to provide for her that he’d gotten tangled in that?

  And if providing for her had meant that much to him, then why did he just disappear? Was it for her protection?

  A finger of ice stretched down her spine. She pulled a blanket around her shoulders and stared at some mug shots of a few of the most notorious gangsters in the group. They were all tough looking, frightening. Linc would’ve gone nuts if he’d known how close she’d gotten to them.

  Linc.

  If she hadn’t been so angry at him, she’d be calling him right now, asking for his opinion. Her spidey sense was going off, but she usually needed a good dose of common sense from Linc to round her out and stop her wild theories from growing inside her head and becoming half-cocked and ill-advised action.

  As she was contemplating what she should do, her phone rang on the coffee tab
le.

  Linc was her first thought. She lifted it up and frowned at the screen. Not Linc. It was a number she’d never seen before. Coming in through her direct line, not through Starr Investigations, where she’d forwarded the calls.

  The number was local, and she didn’t usually answer those since damn robo-callers so often spoofed local numbers. She let it go to voicemail, intending to block the number if they didn’t leave a message. Not that it would stop the scammers from trying a different number, but what else could she do?

  Gnawing on her thumbnail, she set her laptop down on the coffee table and absently went to the kitchen, searching for something to munch. She always ate when she was stressed, and only when she opened the fridge did she remember she hadn’t any food at all in the apartment.

  That meant she’d have to go out. Unless…Chinese. Lots and lots of Chinese.

  She picked up her phone and called the place on the corner, ordering enough food for several days. As she hung up, she saw that the robo-caller had left her a voicemail.

  Probably a salesperson, trying to get her in on an in-ground pool or some other thing that was completely useless to her life. She was about to delete it but decided to listen anyway. She heard a familiar voice, which she quickly realized was her mother.

  “Hi, hon. I don’t want to worry you, but if you want to call me back, just call the hospital. I left my phone at home, but I’m here. Everything’s okay…”

  Kylie felt a bit lightheaded. Her mother was in the hospital? Why hadn’t her spidey sense sprung up, telling her to answer the phone when her mother was in trouble?

  Was she in trouble?

  Kylie played the message again. The tone of her mother’s voice was odd. No, Rhonda didn’t sound very much like she was in trouble. She sounded almost…thrilled. Did she have a concussion? Or was she on pain meds that made her giddy?

  Kylie quickly exited out of the voicemail and redialed the number, hoping that the owner of the phone her mother had borrowed was still nearby. A moment later, a deep male voice came on the line. “Hello?”