Sucks to Be Me

by Painter, Kristen

  That’s all she’d stumbled into. A couple of weirdos playing vampire in the cemetery. The word had no bite now, pun intended. What did the kids call that whole dressing-up thing? Cosplay?

  Freaks. She shook her head. If it didn’t go against everything the family had drilled into her, she’d have dialed 911 and turned them in right then. Biting people was not cool. Neither was smearing them with fake blood. Or making them think they were drinking blood!

  She couldn’t imagine what kind of sickos got off on that. All she wanted to do now was go home and take a shower.

  Just as soon as this drop-off was over, that’s exactly what she would do. Then she would eat some more of that cannoli cake. Possibly while watching The Bachelor. In bed.

  There were no limits on her newfound freedom, apparently. Although she might need to set the bar higher than indulging in carbs and reality TV. Baby steps.

  She slowed down and checked her GPS, but it was showing she’d arrived, and she knew this wasn’t the right spot yet. This wasn’t the building number Vinnie had given her. She leaned forward to see more of the building.

  She turned into the next section of buildings and saw a car. This had to be it. The lights weren’t on, but she was pretty sure someone was in there. She could just make out a shape. Amazing, considering how dark it was back here. She’d wanted to be the first one to arrive, but the creepos at the cemetery had ruined that.

  Should she drive closer? She wasn’t sure. She’d never done this before.

  Almost like the other driver knew what she was thinking, he flashed the car’s lights. Okay, maybe that meant closer. She inched forward until about ten yards separated them, then the other car’s lights came on. That seemed like a signal that she’d gone far enough. She parked but left the engine on. That put her in a canyon between two buildings with the other car directly in front of her.

  Her nerves were itching, but she chalked that up to two things. The night she’d already had and the desire to get this over with.

  She glanced at the glove box, but if she went for the gun now, it might be obvious what she was doing. That might look bad. She didn’t need to tick off whoever she was handing this bag off to.

  With a frown, she left the handgun where it was and said a little prayer that she wouldn’t regret that decision. Then she touched her crucifix and said another prayer that Big Tony had informed whoever she was meeting that Joe wasn’t the one showing up here today.

  They had to know that, right?

  Because if they didn’t, they were in for a big surprise. She put her hand on the door latch and eased it open. No sudden movements seemed like the best possible plan. She grabbed her key fob out of the console. If nothing else, she could hit the panic button and hope for a small distraction, but she needed the fob to open the trunk anyway.

  Then she stepped out. With the car lights shining in her eyes, she couldn’t see much of what was going on in the other car.

  Did they have a window down? Could they hear her? She hoped so. She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “I have to get the bag out of the trunk.”

  She stood there for a moment, waiting for some response, but there was none.

  This was nerve-racking. She left the door open as she backed toward the trunk. She tapped the button on the fob to open it. The little thunk that sounded when the lock released sounded like a distant gunshot.

  Her heart was racing, but she was doing some of this to herself. Nothing had happened yet that she needed to be worried about. Sure, it would be nice if someone would get out of the other car, but then, maybe that’s not how these things went. Maybe you just left the duffel and never saw the other person.

  Big Tony hadn’t said anything about an exchange. Just a package delivery. She didn’t really need to see anyone else for that to happen.

  She pushed the trunk all the way up, blocking her view of the other vehicle.

  Footsteps. Running. Behind her. She turned in time to see a big man in a ski mask barreling toward her.

  Before she could open her mouth to scream, another one came around the side of the car. He grabbed her, looped his arm around her neck, and pulled her back against his chest.

  She gasped for air. Her heart pounded in her ears, drowning out all thought but the immediate choices of fight or flight. Fight won. As the first man approached, she grabbed the second man’s arm around her neck and used it to swing her feet up and shove them into the first man’s gut.

  With a whoosh of breath, he hinged forward as he flew back. Then she dug her nails into her attacker’s arm and opened her mouth to scream. His hand clapped over her face, covering her mouth.

  She bit him as hard as she could.

  He cried out and let go with a snarled curse, giving her a chance to break free. She spun away from him and punched him in the face with everything she had.

  His head snapped back, and he went down hard.

  The pain she’d expected in her hand never came. Good old adrenaline. That had to be what was giving her such strength too.

  A grunt turned her around. The man she’d kicked was getting to his feet. At the same time, a door on the other car opened and closed. Before the first guy could get up, she kicked him in the crotch, thankful she’d worn boots. They weren’t steel-toed, but they were hard.

  He made a soft, sharp inhale as he bowed inward, then collapsed, a rerun of their first encounter.

  A gunshot cracked the stillness, the bullet whistling past her so close that she swore she could feel it. A second shot rang out right behind it.

  Pain lanced through her shoulder, and she knew she’d been hit this time.

  Red, fiery rage exploded within her, pushing rational thought and natural reaction out of the way. More adrenaline coursed through her. Where this was coming from, she had no idea. She shook with the energy that demanded to be spent. There was no stopping what had already begun. And she was not going down like this. With an animalistic growl, she launched toward the third man.

  The shooter.

  She was at him instantly. She plowed her good shoulder into his chest and was rewarded with the sound of cracking ribs and his cry of pain. Surprised by her sudden attack, he dropped the gun.

  She kicked it into the darkness.

  He staggered for a moment, then righted himself and drew a fist back.

  In a move that defied her capabilities, she let out a grunt and shoved him with both hands, sending him flying into the side of his car.

  The driver’s window shattered, and he crumpled to the ground, out cold.

  She looked at her hands. Was this really just adrenaline? Or was this one of those things where women could move cars when their children were trapped underneath? A moment of superhuman strength brought on by a life-or-death situation? She had no idea, but she was thankful.

  Whatever it was, it had saved her.

  Trembling with the remnants of the energy that had propelled her, she stumbled back to her car. All that mattered now was getting home, but she had to close the trunk before she could leave. That purpose kept her moving, because she was afraid if she stopped, she’d fall apart. She stepped over the second man to get to the back of her car.

  The first man was still down too. She hoped they all stayed like that long enough for her to get away. None of them seemed to be making any attempts to move, though, so maybe she was good.

  Except she wasn’t good. Any minute, the reality of what had just happened would set in, and she’d probably pass out as the adrenaline’s surge faded.

  Did she have any hope of making the drive home like this? She’d been shot, after all. She felt her shoulder, but it was hard to tell how bad the wound was through her trench coat. Grazed, maybe? But still. She should probably go to a hospital.

  But that would mean questions. A lot of questions, given who she was. She wasn’t up for that. Home would have to do. She could patch herself up. She was a mom. She’d handled more than her share of minor medical emergencies in her time.

 
; She took hold of the trunk, about to shut it, when she changed her mind and reached for the duffel bag instead. She had a few questions of her own.

  With her last bit of adrenaline, which was probably also keeping her from feeling any pain, she ripped the zipper open, popping off the small brass padlock.

  No drugs. No money. Just bundles of cut newspaper taped together like wads of cash.

  “Mary and Joseph.” Her whole body went cold. She’d been set up.

  Chapter Six

  Set up.

  The words raked down her spine like nails on a chalkboard. Anger helped erase some of her exhaustion. Anger at whoever had done this, but also anger at herself for being so gullible that she hadn’t anticipated this might happen.

  Had her years of marriage to Joe taught her nothing? She stopped short of berating herself. Big Tony’s promise of freedom had been all she’d focused on, so it was no wonder she’d gone after it with such blind confidence.

  And she wasn’t a soldier. She didn’t have the years of experience that Joe’d had. Didn’t know what to expect like he had. She cut herself a break for that.

  Despite all that, she’d still managed to survive. Another point for her.

  A few seconds ticked by as she got her head wrapped around this new betrayal and tried to make sense of it as best she could. Freaking out wasn’t going to help. She had to be analytical. Figure out where the threat was coming from. There were two possibilities. Either Vinnie was behind this—he was the one who’d stressed how critical it was that she not look in the bag—or this was Big Tony’s doing. After all, he’d felt this drop-off was important enough to talk to her about it at the funeral reception.

  The memory of that caused a third possibility to kick in.

  Lucinda.

  Donna slammed the trunk closed, picked her key fob off the ground where she’d dropped it earlier, then got in the car. She started the engine and put it in reverse, careful not to also back over any of the men, not that the thought didn’t occur to her. But she wasn’t looking to finish them off. She wasn’t a killer. Besides, better to leave them alive so they could take a message back to their boss that she wasn’t to be messed with.

  At least she hoped it worked like that.

  Her mind quickly returned to Lucinda. Could she actually be behind this? Donna had no idea how much Lucinda knew about Big Tony’s operations, but Donna was pretty sure the woman knew enough to pull off something like this. She had the nerve too. She’d demonstrated that at the funeral.

  As for motive, the incident at the funeral might be enough. Especially if she’d been listening at the door of Joe’s office. Lucinda would have heard all about the drop-off.

  But if she hadn’t, if she’d only known that Big Tony was talking to Donna, would that really be enough for Lucinda to try to have Donna killed for talking to Big Tony? Was she that crazy? Or maybe she hadn’t thought it would go that far. Maybe she’d just thought she’d get Donna in trouble. Or give her a good scare.

  No. Wait. Donna growled in frustration as she shifted into drive and pulled out of the industrial park. She wasn’t thinking straight. Those men had attacked her before they knew the duffel was full of paper. So if Lucinda had done that, her plan hadn’t even had a chance to work.

  Think, Donna, think. Those men weren’t even Big Tony’s guys. They were working for whoever Big Tony had wanted that package delivered to.

  So those lunks belonged to some other mob boss. Which meant they’d been about to use her to send a message to Big Tony. Or declare war.

  Holy Francis, she’d really gotten into the middle of it this time. She drove on, letting all the details percolate in her head.

  If Joe had been the one making that drop, he might have been the one killed. Or taken prisoner. Or whatever those men had intended to do. Instead, it had been her.

  Where did that leave her, then?

  She really wasn’t sure. She just knew she needed to think this through when she wasn’t still buzzing from the chaos of it all. And when her shoulder wasn’t bleeding from a gunshot wound.

  What a night. Thankfully, whatever buzz remained in her system was keeping her pain level to a minimum.

  Forty-five minutes later, she made it home and into the garage. She took the handgun out of the glove box so she could put it away but left the duffel bag in the trunk until she figured out what to do with it. And what to do about this whole mess.

  At some point, she’d have to tell Big Tony what had happened. Wouldn’t she? She tucked the gun into her waistband. Wasn’t he going to wonder why his delivery hadn’t been made?

  Or maybe he wasn’t going to wonder, because he was the one who’d filled the bag with worthless paper.

  Her head hurt from so much thinking and so few solutions. She locked the garage door behind her, then turned on the house alarm before going into the kitchen. There, she dropped her purse on the counter and fed Lucky, then went straight for the cabinet where she kept the wineglasses. With no appetite for cannoli cake, she poured herself a big glass of red and took it upstairs. The glass went on her nightstand. The gun went into her nightstand drawer.

  After tonight, keeping it close felt like a better idea.

  She put a home shopping channel on for company. Something about the background chatter made her feel safer. Like she wasn’t home alone.

  Which was crazy, but considering what she’d just been through, nothing was that crazy.

  She cranked on the shower, then went back for a sip of wine. Lucky was on the bed, cleaning himself. “Hey, baby.”

  He kept cleaning himself.

  With a little smile, she shucked her clothing into a pile on the bedroom floor. She’d figure out tomorrow if any of it had to be tossed.

  Then she knotted her hair on top of her head and climbed under the spray. It stung her skin with delicious heat. She inhaled the steam, letting it warm her and calm her down.

  She started to soap up, then ran her hand over her shoulder. The bullet had grazed her, she was sure of it. She’d felt the pain of it. But there was nothing on her skin. No mark that she could find. She glanced through the glass shower wall at the mirror opposite to see if she could find the spot, but the steam had fogged everything.

  Was there no wound? She swore she’d been hit. Grazed, sure, but what about the pain? That had been real. She looked down at her body. No bruises that she could see either. But then as she replayed the evening in her head, she’d done most of the hitting.

  How was that possible?

  No idea. Nothing about tonight made sense. In fact, she was ready to stop thinking. She soaped up, spent a few more indulgent minutes under the hot water, then got out, wrapping herself in a towel.

  She padded to the mirror and wiped away a circle of steam so she could do a closer inspection. Her shoulder was unblemished. So was her neck where she’d thought she’d been bitten.

  With a sigh, she shook her head. Enough. Whatever had happened—or hadn’t happened—she’d spend more energy on it tomorrow. For tonight, she was done. The Pinot Noir was calling her name. So was some mindless television.

  She put on a tank top and a pair of boyshort underwear and slipped under the covers. She drank her wine while watching an old Cary Grant movie, then turned the TV off and fell asleep dreaming about simpler times and men in fedoras. Lucky curled up on the pillow next to hers, his soft snoring a sweet reminder that she wasn’t alone.

  When she woke up, she had a moment of uncertainty. She blinked at the fog that clung to her. What time was it? What day? Had she been asleep for an hour or ten?

  The room was dark, so maybe it was still night.

  She sat up, a little more awake suddenly. Despite the dark, everything was easily visible. Like the little decorative crystal clock on her dresser, which was usually unreadable even with the lights on.

  But she could see it plainly. It said nine seventeen. Nine? As in the morning? That didn’t make sense. There was no light glowing at the edges of the drapes. And it
couldn’t be nine p.m. because it had been almost eleven by the time she’d gotten home last night and close to midnight when she’d finally turned off the television.

  The clock battery must have died.

  So what time was it? She reached for her phone, remembering a second later that she’d left her purse on the kitchen counter.

  She turned the television on, the guide coming to life on the screen.

  Nine eighteen.

  She stared at the numbers. Had time gone backward? What was going on? She didn’t feel like she’d been in bed for almost twenty-four hours, but that was the only explanation.

  After last night, she didn’t know what to think about anything anymore. Things were making less sense. That wasn’t a great direction for her life to take. Not when she was on the verge of reclaiming her freedom after all these years.

  “Okay, Donna, get a grip. There has to be a reason for all this.” Was this what being premenopausal felt like? She hoped not. But then she hadn’t had a hot flash all night. She hadn’t sweated through the sheets, either, and that was even more unusual. “Maybe last night just really wore you out. Get up, get a shower, and catch up.”

  She slipped her feet to the floor, expecting to be sore all over after the fight she’d put up, but not a single muscle complained. “I guess the Pilates are really paying off.”

  Lucky ran into the room, meowing his head off.

  “Hey, big man. You must be starving, huh? I guess that’s proof I really have been asleep for a day. Just hold on for another minute or two, okay? I need to pull myself together.”

  She went into the bathroom and flipped on the light, catching her reflection in the mirror. It stopped her cold. “Holy—is that me? I should always sleep that much.”

  The woman in the mirror was her. But…better. And not just med spa better. Turn-back-the-clock better. She poked and prodded at her face. Everything bounced back with the kind of elasticity she’d taken for granted in her twenties.