Rock Her (Rocked, #1)

by Liz Thomas

  Anyway, he flew over fifty successful missions in the Army Air Corps. That was the Air Force before it was called the Air Force. Most others had a life expectancy of about seven or eight missions. But he kept pushing the envelope. That’s how he was about everything.

  In both crashes his plane took flak and was ripped to pieces, killing half of his crew before the plane even went down. Planes were flown by wire back then. The pilot pulled the wheel, and the wheel was attached to a wire that went to the back of the plane and was attached to the elevator, the elevator would go up, and the plane would go up. When he turned the wheel to the right, the wires would pull and the plane would turn right. So when the flak hit the plane, it ripped all the wires apart, making the plane impossible to fly. My father was able to instruct the guys that were left to pull on certain wires, and help guide it to the ground as best as they could. He saved their lives.”

  “Incredible story!” Annie said thoughtfully.

  “When my dad got back to the states, he came up with the idea to go wireless on the planes. All the planes functions would be controlled by radio control. You pull the wheel back, it sends a radio signal back to a receiver in the tail, and the receiver would make the elevator go up. Simple as that. Nothing so spectacular today, but in nineteen forty seven it was a huge leap. He sold the idea to the military and then again to Boeing and McDonnell Douglas and so on. It’s how he began his fortune. Then he made investments. You know, oil, minerals, all of the stuff that made people rich in those days. Then he started to buy companies and retool them, making them more profitable. By the time I was born in nineteen seventy he was a millionaire several times over. At one point in the nineteen eighties he was even a billionaire, but the internet bubble and all. You know.”

  Annie nodded.

  “So, I grew up in the lap of luxury. My mother, God rest her soul, made sure I went without anything. I was a spoiled rotten little kid, I can assure you. But my father would always bring me back down to earth when he saw how spoiled I was getting. You know, we had a sixty foot yacht with crew and all…”

  Still do, actually.

  “And he would take me fishing on an old wooden rickety bridge just outside of a town called Gordell. And we’d walk with our fishing poles over our shoulders through the little town. It was a really poor place, and it made me see how little others had. We’d do that a couple times a year. Once he took me to a small place in Mexico. We drove down. This was the poorest place I have ever seen. People were sick and drinking water from filthy polluted holes in the ground. I will never forget it. But this was the kind of stuff he did to make sure I didn’t lose my head in all of the wealth I was normally surrounded by. I suppose it worked.”

  “The ironic thing was it made me appreciate things I had more than he expected. My mother died in nineteen ninety five. She had cancer. And all of my father’s money couldn’t save her from that. Then during nine eleven I watched the towers fall from my apartment right here in Manhattan. I could not believe what I was seeing. As soon as I came to my senses and I realized that this was going to mean war I went down and enlisted. I thought my father would have been proud of me. I was going to follow in his footsteps. But when I told him, he just shut down. He tried to explain to me that he intended for me to inherit the business and carry on the family fortune. But I was not listening. Oh, I heard him, but I just kept saying that I would take over when I got out. It was only a four year enlistment, after all. But he already knew he didn’t have four years. He was already sick. He just would not tell me. I don’t know why he wouldn’t. He was just like that. Never wanted anyone concerned over his health. He was a hard man. But I was acting like a spoiled punk again and said some really cruel things to him. I know I hurt him. I told him I didn’t want anything to do with his business, his money, or him. Looking back, I still don’t know why I said those things. I was an angry little shit.

  “Anyway, like I told you at dinner yesterday he called me. He apologized for his silence and told me the business was still there for me to run when I got back. He told me how proud he was of me, and he left everything to me. Everything. And then I was taken in that firefight. The rest you know. I missed him by three months.”

  “We still have about nine blocks to go,” Annie said quietly.

  Kip scooted closer on the seat and put his arm around her. “You’re going to make me do this aren’t you?”

  “Kip, you’ve agreed to have me write your biography. Like I’ve already told you, there is no way to do it unless I know it all.”

  Kip looked down at his feet on the dirty cab floor. Annie moved in closer and kissed his cheek. “Kip, maybe it is time to open up about the things that bother you so much.”

  “Annie, I’ve already told you I would tell you everything. I just want to make sure you don’t put it all in. Like I said yesterday.”

  “And I agreed.”

  Kip took a deep breath and examined his nails. “Okay, then.”

  They arrived at four forty four Prescott Avenue and the cabby let them out. Annie led Kip into the building and up the stairs. The place was run down and there were kids playing in the halls and on the stairwells. The smell of cooking grease filled the place and a couple could be heard arguing a few floors up.

  Kip followed her up the stairs. When they reached her floor she stopped in front of her apartment, which wasn’t far from the landing. She stood before the door a moment. Kip looked around the hall. He heard children laughing and playing, and mothers yelling at them. Their voices echoed throughout the hall. Finally Kip realized that Annie hadn’t moved as he looked about. She hadn’t even dug in her purse for her keys.

  “Annie?” he said.

  “Kip, something is wrong.”

  “What is it,” he asked, moving closer to her and putting his hand on her shoulder. Then he saw what had her worried. Her door was ajar. And there were clear marks around the jamb where it had been forced open.

  Kip pulled her back behind him and pushed the door open. Light flooded the dim hallway. Inside he could see that the apartment had been ransacked. The curtains were torn from the windows. The flat screen TV was torn from the wall and smashed atop the coffee table, a gaping hole on the wall where it had once been mounted. All of the pans, dishes and utensils were strewn about the entire kitchen area. Kip held his hand back, motioning Annie to stay put, as he entered the apartment.

  He stopped just past the ripped open couch and peered down the short hallway toward her bedroom. Pictures were off of the walls and smashed on the tile floor of the hall. Light was also beaming from the open door to Annie’s bedroom and bathroom. He walked slowly down the hall, aware of the fact that Annie had not stayed put where he told her to. She was now in the standing behind him.

  Kip asked her: “Anything missing?”

  Annie shook her head slowly, trying not to allow the tears that were welling in her eyes from rolling down her face. “I don’t know, Kip.”

  “Well, I’d wager nothing is.”

  “How can you be so sure?” She asked.

  “This doesn’t look like a normal burglary. Why would someone break in to steal something, spend the time to wrestle the Plasma TV from the wall mount, then let it fall onto the table? No. Something else has happened here.”

  “What, Kip?” Annie asked, her voice cracking. She had never been burglarized before, even in this low income building.

  “I don’t know. So, I am going to look around and try to learn what I can. Now, I mean it, stay put,” Kip said sternly, jabbing his finger to the spot she currently occupied.

  Kip turned and continued down the hall, glass cracking under his shoes.

  He turned and disappeared into her room for a moment, then reappeared again, only to vanish into her bathroom again. A few minutes later, he was standing by her side.

  “I am sorry, your bedroom and bathroom look pretty much like this,” he waved his arm around the room. “This may have been a burglary, but whoever did it was looking for something
in specific.” Kip raised his eyebrows at Annie. It was a questioning look.

  “What?”

  “I am just wondering what you have in here that is valuable, hidden and that someone knows about. Valuable enough that they would break in and trash the place looking for it.”

  “Kip, I don’t have anything of value. The TV is the most expensive thing I have, and there it is.” She pointed to the shattered glass and plastic hulk in front of her. “When I left Stewart I left with nothing. I live writing job to writing job. The TV was a gift to myself after I got the senator’s biography published. The royalties barely paid for it. I haven’t had new clothes since I left him. Except for the ones you bought me last night.”

  “Okay, well, there must be something else then,” Kip said, “Something I missed.” He looked around the room again. Then he stepped over to the window and looked out upon the busy street below. Scratching his head, he turned back to the room, but stopped, something clicking in his mind.

  “Why the curtains? He asked.

  “What?”

  He shook his head. “Why tear down all of the curtains? I mean, some might get torn during the trashing of the house…”

  But all of them have been deliberately torn down. The whole apartment, living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom, is exposed to the building across the street.

  “Annie,” Kip said urgently, “when I was in the Marines, the most important thing in combat was to have cover and concealment.”

  “I don’t understand, Kip. What is that?” Annie said, shaking her head in confusion.

  Kip moved quickly and pushed her forward as he headed toward the door.

  “It’s something we don’t have right now.”

  As they reached the doorway, Kip reached back to grab the door and pull it shut behind him. As he did, the glass window shattered and the plaster wall exploded just inches from his face.

  Kip slammed the door closed and grabbed Annie’s hand. He pulled her down the hallway, yelling to the playing children to get into their apartments and close their curtains. Annie was crying and when she looked at Kip’s powder covered face she screamed in horror. Kip grabbed her by putting both hands on her face and held her still. He pushed her up against the hallway wall.

  “What is happening?! Kip, what is going on?” She cried.

  “I don’t know, Annie.” Kip look as confused as she did. “I need to figure this out. Somebody wants either you or me dead. But I can tell you that we are safe for now. Whoever was shooting was across the street. We are safe here in the hallway. Please try to calm down. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “Kip, who would want us dead?” Annie asked as she wiped the tears from her face.

  Kip froze and held her tight. He looked around the hall as the children disappeared into their apartments. Their mothers shooing them in and giving Kip evil looks. As if all of that was his fault. Hell, it may be!

  “I don’t know Annie, but I intend to find out.” Kip said, and he left her there against the way as he bolted back to her apartment door. “And Annie, I mean it, you stay right there.”

  Annie nodded quickly. She did not intend to move from that spot.

  “Hero” By Skillet

  Kip stopped just outside her door and when he downloaded enough courage he shouldered through it, breaking it open. Then he dropped and rolled through the glass and debris until he stopped behind the kitchen counter. From there he spied around the edge through to the shattered window, surveying the windows in the building across the street. Most of them were drawn open but there were a few that had the curtains closed. But in only one of them could Kip see the curtains moving, being blown by the slight breeze. This told him that the window was open, but the curtain was pulled. Exactly what he would do if he wanted a concealed place to shoot from.

  Just then a flash between the curtains and the countertop pinged as a bullet ricocheted off of it. It impacted into the cabinets above his head.

  The shooter was still there. And a really bad shot.

  Kip wished he had his M-16 in his grip. I could take this clown out in one shot. And he could. Kip had qualified expert on the range every year in the Marine Corps. His marksmanship was legendary. He had been invited to sniper school out of combat training, but he chose not to go. He wanted to stick with the friends he’d trained with.

  It was just a matter of zeroing in on the flash from the last shot of the assassin across the street. But I don’t have my M-16, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do now that I am pinned down.

  Then Kip heard sirens getting louder from the outside. Someone must have called the police. Suddenly a burst of fire erupted from the window across the street and wood and glass shattered all around him. He covered his head as debris rained down upon him as multiple shots were fired at him. Then the gunshots stopped and Kip peeked around the edge. He saw the barrel of the rifle jerk to the side, disturbing the curtains, then disappeared. The shooter is running.

  The sirens were so loud, it sounded as if they were right below the window at the entrance of the building. Knowing he was out of immediate danger, he jumped to his feet and bolted toward the door. Annie was on the other side about to go in, despite Kip’s order to stay put. She heard the gunfire and thought Kip had been shot. The door burst open and knocked Annie back against the wall.

  “Get down against the wall,” Kip yelled. Then he ran down the three flights of stairs. He threw the doors of the main entrance open and ran out across the street. Police cars and rescue vehicles were pulling up, and he dodged them in the road and disappeared into the building across the street. The building was the mirror image of Annie’s building. He ran up the stairs to the third floor, knowing that enough time had passed that the shooter was no doubt on the run.

  Kip tried to picture the building from the outside as he tried to figure out which apartment to invade. Fortunately, the building was not complicated, and the apartment in question was fairly obvious. As he reached the third floor a quick look down the hall showed him that the door to the apartment he wanted was open. He walked quickly, hugging the wall in case the shooter was still anywhere nearby. When he reached the open doorway, he used his military training to eyeball the room. He squatted low and made a quick scan into the doorway. Then he stood high and looked again. He confirmed that the open living room was empty.

  Of course, the shooter could have been hiding in the bathroom or bedroom. But Kip’s common sense told him that the shooter was on the run. The police sirens outside would have guaranteed that.

  So Kip bolted down the hall. Clearly the fuck hadn’t come down the main stairs or Kip would have passed him on the way up. He didn’t know the building but he was sure there had to be a back stairwell at the end of the hall. And when he arrived there, his assumption was confirmed.

  The door was ajar, and Kip nearly forgot all of his training and burst through it. But at the last second he remembered himself. This was a classic set up. Leave a clue to follow, and then set an ambush. Kip had handled situations like this countless times but always with a weapon, his rifle, or a grenade. He cursed at being empty handed.

  Without anything to defend himself, he stepped aside and pushed open the door. Immediately a burst of automatic weapons fire shattered the wall opposite him. Kip hunkered down against the wall letting the dust from the drywall coat him once again. Then the fire stopped and Kip heard footsteps pounding down the stairwell. Kip jumped to his feet and followed, listening for the echoing of his quarry’s feet slapping the stairs. If he heard them stop he would be in dire straits. He was in a closed area with him, and he had nothing to protect himself. But Kip heard the stairwell access door to the ground floor open below and the sirens from the emergency vehicles echoed into the stairwell. The shooter was making his way outside.

  Kip made a quick look around the stairway rail and below. The shooter could not be seen. But he could make out the top of the door cracked open and holding still. The shooter must have been squatted and look
ing outside, surveying the alley.

  This was a perfect time to make his move, but there was no way for him to take even one step down. The acoustics in the hall were such that the footstep would be echoed throughout the stairwell, no matter how light he planted it.

  Kip searched his mind and memory of his combat tactics for a solution, and before he finished his thought, he found himself rising and launching his body over the rail. It was this kind of thing that got him a John Wayne label back in Afghanistan: acting before fully thinking things through. He thought more on the way over the rail, and realized this was a deadly bad idea. Another realization came to him on the way down as he first laid eyes on the crouched would be assassin. Fuck, I know this asshole!

  The asshole looked up and saw Kip flying toward him just before the rocker slammed into him. The shooters rifle slammed against the cracked open door and it flew open. Both of the men, locked together, Kip with a death grip on his prey, rolled out into the sunlit but still wet alley behind the apartment building. They rolled together through the puddles and garbage that made up the potholed and cracked pavement until they crashed into a cluster of galvanized garbage cans, sending them scattering against the opposite wall. Kip let the man free as he stumbled to his feet. The shooter lost his rifle in the attack, and it skittered away across the alley. As the man stood, Kip steadied himself for his rush. He recognized the same dirty overcoat from two nights before. The homeless looking autograph seeking assassin. What the hell is going on here?

  The man rose slowly and began to circle as he pulled his torn and filthy duster back into place. He was obviously trying to get closer to his rifle, which had come to rest by the stairwell door they had just burst through. Then he raised his head and looked into Kip’s questioning eyes. He reached up and smoothed out his beard, and Kip noticed more oddity. His hands were clean. This is no bum.