One Kick

by Chelsea Cain

  Kick didn’t like the way he looked at her. His gaze pulled at the roots of her hair. She took another step toward him, steadying the Glock. Her fingers were still wrinkled from the shower. “Who are you?” she demanded, trying to keep her voice calm.

  Monster’s ears perked up.

  “You can call me Bishop,” the man said, turning the ball in his hand.

  The way he said it made her wonder if it was really his name. Kick narrowed her eyes at him. Maybe if she shot him in the kneecap, he’d tell her something true.

  “Frank recommended you for a job,” Bishop continued. He let the ball go again, and it hit the same two points and then landed neatly in his palm.

  Monster barked for him to do it again.

  Kick eyed Bishop warily. There was something coiled about him, as if he were holding in something dangerous that he wasn’t ready to let out. “I don’t want a job,” she said.

  “Frank said you’d say that,” Bishop said.

  Kick didn’t like it when he said Frank’s name. It made her bite her tongue a little. “I haven’t seen Frank in years,” she said.

  “Well, he remembers you,” Bishop said. He tossed the ball up in the air with a flick of his wrist and caught it. Kick was getting tired of that ball; she was thinking about shooting it. Monster’s tail thumped rapturously on the floor.

  Kick let out a sharp whistle.

  Monster’s ears lifted and angled toward her. He leaned forward, but something was preventing him from moving. He pawed lightly at the floor, his nails scratching noisily against the wood, and Kick realized that he was straining against a short tether. Bishop had used it to secure Monster to the base of the chair.

  She crossed the rest of the room in three steps, stood in front of Bishop, and pointed the Glock squarely at his forehead. Monster scratched at the floor some more and strained to touch her knee with his wet snout. She inhaled his dog smell: flea soap and fur and old-dog stink.

  Bishop’s eyes darkened. He let the purple tennis ball drop from his hand. It bounced twice and then rolled under the red couch.

  “I told you to get away from my dog,” Kick said.

  “You don’t want to shoot me,” Bishop said. “You’ll ruin that lovely new gun. Firing an empty Glock puts tension on the firing pin. Pin could come loose. You know that.”

  Kick glanced at the Glock uncertainly. She had been so relieved to find it still in the backpack, she hadn’t thought to check to see if it was still loaded.

  Bishop’s face was absolutely, unnervingly still. Monster whined and pulled at the tether. “Personally, I’m not a fan of guns,” he said. “They make it too easy to hurt someone.”

  Kick’s brain was racing. A loaded gun and an unloaded gun felt exactly the same. There was only one way to know for sure. Kick ejected the magazine and her fingers went cold. The magazine was empty. She pulled the Glock’s beveled slide back and checked the chamber. Nothing. “Shit,” she said.

  Bishop reached up and took hold of the Glock’s barrel. “Want to know an interesting fact?” he asked. “People who keep guns in their homes have a 2.7 times greater chance of being murdered.” He moved his hand along the barrel toward the grip. Kick flinched as his fingers grazed hers, but she didn’t let go of the Glock.

  Bishop sighed. “Fine,” he said. “Let me try another tack.” His gray eyes settled on her. “Adam Rice,” he said.

  Kick stared at him, stunned.

  Bishop’s fingers moved over hers. She could barely feel the gun anymore. She couldn’t tell where her flesh stopped and the gunmetal started. He continued to try to pry the Glock from her grip, and she continued to cling to it. She thought about using it to bludgeon him.

  His eyes showed a flicker of impatience. One of his fingers moved to the inside of her wrist. “Mia Turner,” he said.

  Blood pounded in Kick’s ears.

  “Think they’re connected?” Bishop drew a small circle on her wrist with his fingertip. It sent shudders up her arms. Her hand opened, and he lifted the Glock from her palm and set it on the end table next to his chair. She couldn’t stop it.

  “Who are you?” Kick asked him.

  “An interested party,” Bishop said with a faint, dark smile. He reached into the pocket of the blazer and removed a handful of .45 GAP bullets and set all ten, one by one, on the end table next to the gun. “I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t shoot me,” he said. “Before we had a chance to talk.”

  Kick glanced at Monster. Monster growled.

  Bishop leaned back in the chair and regarded her with his dead eyes.

  Kick inched her right foot forward on the floor, between his orange sneakers, and softened her knee.

  Bishop’s eyes traveled slowly down the towel that covered her. He didn’t leer, but there was something about the attentiveness of his gaze that made her skin crawl. His eyes weren’t the color of stone, she realized. They were more the color of concrete. “I’ll wait,” he said. “If you want to change.”

  Kick brought her knee up, aimed, and snapped her lower leg forward. The ball of her foot connected with the crotch of his jeans. She could feel the give of soft tissue underneath the denim. He doubled forward and coughed hard like he was choking on something and then slid off the chair onto his knees on the floor. His hands cradled his midsection. His head was down, dark hair in his face, but she could see that his forehead was flushed and lined with pain. She adjusted her towel and waited for him to collapse fully. When he didn’t, she put her hand lightly on his shoulder and gave him a small push, and he fell over on his side on the floor into a fetal position. She knelt and hurriedly untied Monster’s tether.

  Bishop moaned, his knees clenched together, and rolled onto on his back. He looked like he was trying to talk, but he couldn’t stop grimacing long enough to get the words out. Pulling Monster protectively behind her, Kick snatched Bishop’s jacket from the back of the chair and started going through the pockets. She found a black leather wallet and flipped it open and shuffled through the contents, keeping one eye on Bishop as he struggled to get a breath.

  A Washington State driver’s license said his name was John Bishop. She pulled out other cards: a black American Express card with the same name on it, insurance cards, a private banking card.

  Bishop squirmed, his eyes following her.

  Kick put the wallet back into his jacket and felt around for anything else, her fingers landing on a folded piece of paper that was tucked in an inside pocket. She pulled it out and quickly unfolded it.

  It was a satellite photo of a house. The house had a rectangular roof, a second-story deck, and a large fenced-in backyard. There were neighbors on either side, but neither close enough to ask too many questions. A white SUV was parked in the driveway.

  Kick glanced down at Bishop, who was still on the floor. “Is this the car from the Mia Turner Amber Alert?” she asked.

  Bishop nodded at her, his face still tense with pain.

  “Why do you have this?” Kick demanded.

  “I wanted to show it to you,” Bishop said, gasping between each word.

  Kick studied the photograph. She needed to get this to the police. They could identify the people who lived in this house. They could identify the owners of the car.

  She sensed movement an instant too late.

  Before she had time to react, Bishop was off the ground and had one arm hooked around her waist, the other around her neck, the crook of his elbow pressed under her chin. The photograph fluttered to the floor. Kick tried to twist free of him, but he just tightened his grip. She flailed her arms around her sides, fingers curled to scratch, but he just moved with her, his body against hers, reading her, anticipating her movements. Monster was growling at the air, hackles raised, disoriented. Kick jabbed her elbow back, expecting to make contact with Bishop’s gut, but he just shifted sideways so that her elbow cut through the air, wrenching her shoulder. The towel loosened as she struggled, like she was sloughing off an extra skin, until the arm he had around her
waist was all that was keeping it up. She was out of breath, panting and grunting. She managed to get a handful of Bishop’s T-shirt and heard a satisfying rip as the cloth tore before she lost her grip. She kicked at him, and he heaved her up off the ground so that she was flailing, unmoored, with no leverage, her blackened toe skimming the floorboards.

  She hated him.

  Monster was trembling now, ears flat against his head, tail tucked under. Kick could feel saliva on her chin. Threads of it snapped in her throat as she breathed. “It’s okay, boy,” Kick called. But Monster kept pacing.

  Kick’s hair was stuck to her face. The towel was around her waist, exposing her breasts. She couldn’t get Bishop off her by brute force. The pressure of his arms was unrelenting. He was stronger. He knew how to do this. But she was smarter. And she knew something he didn’t: she knew that she would not be forced to do anything against her will, ever again. She let herself go limp, to make her body heavy. Five years of yoga and progressive relaxation had been good for something. As her muscles softened she felt his grapple start to give, and then he slowly lowered her feet back to the floor.

  The gun was still on the end table, several arm’s lengths away, the bullets a neat line of brass soldiers beside it.

  Bishop hooked his left foot around her leg and then placed his orange sneaker on the floor between her feet, forcing her knees apart and securing her to the spot. Their embrace was so tight, she could feel his rib cage expanding against her as he breathed. His arm around her neck was like a choke collar, tightening if she made even a micromovement from where he wanted her to be. She could smell him, a faint clean odor like lime. She felt his arm unwind from her waist, and braced herself. Without his arm to hold it up, the towel dropped to the floor and Kick felt the air like cold hands on her naked body. Her stomach muscles went rigid. She tried to bring her thighs together, but it was impossible with the hold that Bishop had on her. He wanted her afraid? Well, screw him. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Monster nosed around her feet at the towel. Kick held on to the arm Bishop had around her throat. Goose bumps covered her skin; every hair was on end. But she didn’t try to cover herself, and her body didn’t give an inch.

  “We’re ready,” Bishop said quietly.

  Kick craned her head around. Bishop was on his phone. Another voice was saying something in response to his, but she couldn’t make out the words. In her peripheral vision she saw him lower the phone and then felt him tuck it back in a pants pocket. Her pulse throbbed against the inside of his elbow. Some of her hair was caught under his arm, and her scalp stung where it was being pulled. Bishop’s lower leg was still hooked around hers, keeping her legs open. Monster licked her ankles, like he was comforting her. Her nakedness felt like another person in the room. When she got the chance, she’d go for Bishop’s eyes.

  She felt the sound in her skin first. It flushed across her body like a fever. The faraway thrum of helicopter blades. The vibration of the engine came through the floorboards, up through the soles of her feet, and echoed inside her hips. Even Monster looked up. Kick’s body went stiff. Bishop clenched her tighter.

  “That’s our ride,” Bishop said, his breath hot in her ear.

  She couldn’t stop it this time. Her fear crept up her legs, through her stomach and her spine, and finally settled in her heart. “I’m not going with you,” Kick said.

  Bishop gave her neck a wrench, and Kick’s vision went momentarily black. She dropped her arms to her sides and let her body go slack. “If you don’t,” he said, “two kids will die.” Kick was motionless. Bishop’s lips were inches from her temple. “So hear me out.”

  His voice was chilling in its matter-of-factness. She felt it: a physical cold. Monster, too, seemed to sense it, and he began to whine, his anxious whimpers muffled by the steady churning of the helicopter blades. Bishop unhooked his leg from hers. She remained perfectly still, waiting for his next move. Then, slowly, like a man releasing a feral animal in the woods, he cautiously removed his arm from her neck.

  The helicopter was louder, closer.

  She turned and stepped back from him, naked, panting, the towel a circle of yellow around her feet. She didn’t look at the ten bullets on the end table. She didn’t calculate the time it would take to load the magazine. She didn’t want to be distracted. She didn’t cross her arms over her bare breasts, or move to pick up the towel to cover herself. She kept her eyes on Bishop’s, brought her index and middle finger together, bent them slightly in case she hit bone, and shifted her weight back onto her left foot.

  “Before you try to blind me, look at the sat photo again,” Bishop said. He didn’t sound particularly concerned about the blinding bit. He didn’t even make a defensive move, which irritated her. Try to blind him? She could jab her fingers knuckle deep into his cornea before he could lift a hand to stop her. “I need you to look at the sat photo again,” he said, a little more urgently.

  She noticed then that he had barely broken a sweat. He knew how to do this: how to subdue someone, how to break into an apartment.

  How long had he been waiting there, biding time until she stepped out of the shower? He’d known to ambush her at her most vulnerable.

  The windows of the apartment rattled in their frames, and the vibration under Kick’s feet made her think of Beth, of that last night on the farm. She let her hand relax.

  The satellite photograph was on the floor. She crossed to it and knelt, and Monster was immediately at her side, pressing against her, like he was shielding her naked body with his own. Kick reached for the yellow towel and brought it under her armpits and around her chest. She kept one hand on her dog as she reached for the photo, scratching his muzzle, and moving her fingers over the soft velvet of his triangular ears, trying to reassure him with her touch. By the time she turned back to Bishop, she had the towel secured and a hand coated with dog hair.

  Kick’s eyes searched the photograph, stalling, battling for equilibrium. House. Car in the driveway. Plants on the deck. Backyard. What was she supposed to see?

  The whir of the chopper was directly above them. She glanced up. It sounded like it was landing on the roof. Kick could hear it inside her head like a memory. She stole a peek at the Glock on the end table, useless to her. Bishop stood nearby, too close, his coiled calm an implied threat. Monster was limping in circles around them, gazing occasionally at the ceiling. Even her deaf dog could hear that racket.

  The helicopter rotors were slowing, the sound becoming a dull throb. The chopper had landed and was cycling down. Whoever was up there, time was running out.

  House. Car in the driveway. Plants on the deck. Backyard.

  Wait. House.

  She squinted at the photograph, at the second-floor window at the front of the house. The glass looked dark at first glance, but if you really looked you could see a shape, like a small face, like a child looking out. Kick snapped her head up at Bishop. He had his hands in his pockets, eyebrows raised. Shit. The photograph was trembling in her hands. She was doing it again, going down the maze. She could feel her skin start to tingle with excitement, the thrill of possibility, of hope. She lifted the photograph and peered at it closer, to convince herself that it was true, that her mind wasn’t playing tricks on her. Because she knew that face. It was on her bedroom wall; it stared at her as she slept. She had studied it, committing it to memory, burning it into her brain, so she would always know that image, no matter how many years passed. There was no doubt in Kick’s mind that she was looking at Adam Rice. He was alive.

  She didn’t know if Bishop was good or bad, trustworthy or not. Maybe it didn’t matter.

  This was what she had been waiting for.

  Her brain was already going a mile a minute. The white SUV in the driveway connected this house to Mia Turner’s abduction, so this was possible proof that Mia Turner and Adam Rice had been abducted by the same people.

  She looked up from the photo. “What are you?” she asked Bishop.

  Bishop step
ped forward and lifted the photograph from her hands. “I used to sell weapons,” he said.

  “As in guns?”

  “Among other things,” he said.

  “ ‘Other things’?”

  Bishop shrugged. “I made a lot of money.” He held the satellite photograph up. “And a lot of friends with access to expensive toys.”

  “I’ve never heard of you,” Kick said.

  “That’s funny,” Bishop said with a faint smile. “Because I’ve heard of you.”

  Kick didn’t know what to make of him at all. “You should have opened with that,” Kick said, indicating the photograph.

  “I was planning on getting around to it,” Bishop said, walking back to the chair and picking up his jacket.

  She noticed that he moved a little gingerly. “Did I hurt you?” she asked.

  Bishop shrugged the blazer on. “Only a little,” he said.

  “Next time I’ll know to do it harder,” Kick said.

  “Next time I won’t give you the chance,” Bishop said.

  Kick considered hitting him in the nuts again, right then and there. Instead, she did the next most aggressive thing that occurred to her: she peeled off the damp yellow towel, held it out at arm’s length, and let it drop.

  Bishop didn’t react; he didn’t even avert his eyes.

  Flummoxed, Kick stepped directly in front of him, stark naked; all hair and breasts and pubic hair, scrapes, bruises, and strained muscles. She drew herself up taller, shoulders back, feet apart. Except for the sound of Monster pawing frantically under the couch for something, it was quiet. No rotor noise. Which meant that the chopper was parked, waiting, on the roof above them.

  Bishop regarded her thoughtfully. “You have some intimacy issues, don’t you?”

  She had wanted to see what he’d do. Now it felt more like he was testing her.

  “We’re wasting time,” he said, glancing upward.

  “I haven’t said I’m going with you,” Kick said.

  “Yeah,” Bishop said. “And I haven’t told you that my nut sack hurts so much I can barely stand.” He grimaced and adjusted himself. “But we both know it’s true.”