by Trixie More
She opened the door to her apartment to the sound of off-key singing. Dorothy. Good, she wanted to ask her about advertising her corporate catering ideas. She bent, loosened the laces on her dress boots and toed them off, stacking them haphazardly on the shoe-rack inside the door. That was Dorothy’s idea, the two of them had been one person too many when it came to shoes, and since Allison wore only three different pairs of shoes, that one person hadn’t been her.
Down the straight hallway, she could see the living room windows, black with the night, reflecting back the interior of the apartment. Dorothy never put the shades down. Passing the kitchen on the way to pull the blinds, it was easy to confirm the source of the noise was Dorothy but if you could actually call it singing was up for grabs.
Dorothy sang something about wishing she had shoes and stamped her bare feet on the tile, doing a little jig as she plunged her arms up to her elbows in soapy water. She scrubbed what looked like an entire half of a charred chicken breast off the broiler pan as she sang “Girl in a Country Song,” making ferocious faces at the Brillo pad, while Maddie and Tae ripped every country singer a new one from the android phone propped against the backsplash.
“I’m home,” Allison said and had the pleasure of watching her roommate shriek and climb the sink.
“What the hell, Allie?” Dot bitched. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Yeah? Why should I be the only one?”
“The only one to scare me?”
“No, girl, the only one scared,” Allison said. “That guy I went to dinner with?” Dot nodded. “He dropped the L word.”
“Really?” Dot shrugged. “Why wouldn’t he? I love you. Everyone should.”
Dot was a like a golden retriever. All happy-love and easy-friendly.
“Really, it was a maybe L, so you are probably the only one.”
“Nope, you just told me, there’s at least one man out there who feels the same way I do.” Dot hit replay and teed up Mattie and Tae again.
“What is it with you country lovers? You just listen to the same three songs over and over.”
“So, what’s his name?”
“Construction God.”
“Really,” Dot said, deadpan. “His parents must have been under a deadline.”
Allison laughed. “Construction God for now. I think his folks call him Derrick.”
“You’re going to need a better nickname name than that, even for you, that’s lame.” She hit replay, and the song started again.
“That song never even finished,” complained Allison.
“You keep interrupting it.” Dot looked at her as if this was the most obvious answer on earth.
“Country fans is weird people.”
“So why isn’t he in here, hooking you all the hell up?” Dottie was back to scrubbing.
“He wouldn’t come upstairs.”
“Yep, that’s a man for you. They’re damn hard to actually reel in. Slippery little suckers.”
“He has to work tomorrow.”
“A fine trait in a man.”
“And he’s coming over to watch Netflix on Sunday.”
“And now, we’re getting somewhere.” Dot turned to Allie and grinned. “And you want me to … what? Put in earplugs and zip myself into a sleeping bag in my room?”
“You can listen all you want if that’s your thing,” Allie retorted. “Look, I want you to help me with some ideas I had for the catering business.”
Dot was all ears, and once the dishes were done, they stayed up for a couple of hours. Dottie worked while Allison cooked another chicken breast and fed her. Together, they made a pretty good team. And when Derrick got tired of her? Allison would still have her business and the roommate she was swiftly bonding with. Who would have guessed living with someone would feel so good? Allison kind of liked not being alone all the time.
Dottie pushed some sketches across the table and closed her laptop. “I’m beat. I have some cool ideas though, especially for some fun themes. Here’s what I think will happen: we’ll put up a website with the fun themes on it, and that will draw the people who actually book these things in. Then, we’ll put the boring, routine offerings in the center of the page, because they know, and we know, that their boss will never go for the fun stuff. So, they can enjoy looking at the bright colors, attractive pictures, and cool layouts, and then go ahead and order the bagels and fruit we all know they have to get.”
Allison laughed. “That’s pretty cynical.”
“That’s marketing.” Dorothy got up and stretched. “You know the guy we met at the bar the other night?”
“Cute Irish Bar Guy?”
“There’s a reason you cook for a living,” Dorothy said. “Promise me you’ll let Marley or me name all your children.” She bent over and touched her toes. “Yeah, Flynn is his name.”
“Oh, the guy you wore the dumb snowflake boots for, so?”
“Well, we’re going to hang out tomorrow and maybe go see a movie or something.” Dot stood up again, grinning. “He’s so adorable. I’m a sucker for dimples.”
“You’re a sucker for anything in pants that’s nice to you,” Allison said.
“Hmmm … pants …” Dorothy moaned. “I think you want something in pants, too. Tell me about construction dude, is he the guy that came into your kitchen the other day?”
No, he was the guy that almost came in her kitchen, she thought. The feeling of lightness and fun fled. Allison felt her usual prickliness return. “Nothing to tell. Tonight was a mistake.”
Dorothy’s blue-green eyes took on a look of disappointment. She tipped her head to the side and started to … was Dot going to try to hug her? Absolutely not. Allison took a step back and held up her hands. “No way. I don’t need a pity hug from you, you … you … overgrown puppy.”
Dorothy was undeterred. She swooped around to the side and wrapped her arms awkwardly around Allison’s neck. A firm squeeze and it was over.
“You are so cute when you pretend not to like a guy,” Dorothy called over her shoulder as she left the kitchen. “Good night!”
Was that true? Did she pretend not to want a man? Of course.
I’m not so dense that I don’t realize what I’m doing, she thought. Allison went about shutting off the lights, clearing the table, putting things away for the night. It’s better not to get my heart set on things I can’t have.
The apartment plunged into darkness as she shut off the last light and turned in for the night.
Chapter 12
Derrick wasn’t sure why he’d said it. Now that Allison was out of the truck and inside her apartment building, it didn’t seem like such a good idea. Maybe I do. Leaving the implied word hanging there between them. Admittedly, it had felt good to get the last word finally, but who did that after a couple of hookups? Almost hookups, he thought. Maybe that’s what got into him. His head and his dick disagreed regarding what kind of day it had actually been. That, plus, it was kinda true. He knew enough about her to know he wasn’t going to find another one of her anywhere.
Derrick pulled up to Connelly’s Garage, easing his truck up to the bay door. This time of night, the neighborhood was quiet, the garage isolated. He got out of the vehicle and shut its door, looking carefully to each side. He didn’t see anyone. Using the key that George had given him, he raised the bay door. Light spilled out onto the sidewalk, setting Derrick’s nerves on alert. Nobody should be here at this time of night. George must have left the light on. He stepped inside the garage, hearing the sound of movement coming from the office. Yellow light was spilling through the slightly open door. Derrick knew whoever was in there heard him open the big bay door.
“George? That you?”
The rustling stopped. Footsteps and then silence. Derrick’s scalp prickled. The three other bays contained cars in various stages of repair. The Torino sat closest, resting on its tires, hood propped up. Beside it, a Honda Civic sat on the lift, high enough for George to walk under but too low for Der
rick. The front of the car blocked part of Derrick’s view of the office door as he moved cautiously forward.
“George?”
Now there was only silence, but a change in the light caught his eye. There was definitely someone in there, and they were casting a long shadow. Derrick glanced around, keeping some of his attention on the doorway. On the workbench at the back of the building, lay a tire iron. Derrick stepped to the side lightly, moving toward the tire iron. By doing so, he was giving the intruder a better path to escape. As Derrick moved to the back of the building, anyone could leave the office, head to the front of the building and escape out the front door.
Discretion was the better part of valor. Derrick moved quickly to the bench, picked up the tire iron and, with its heavy weight swinging in his hand, he crossed in front of the Honda and the far neighbor, an older Buick with brown paint, the shine a distant memory. Three more steps and he was on the other side of the Buick, almost to the office door. Standing even with the hinges of the door, he reached out his left hand to push the door gently open.
“Whoever you are, come out of there. I’m not coming in, but I am going …” He heard a movement beside his right ear. Shit. He dodged to the left, a hard blow falling across his shoulder and back. A sickening crack rang in his ears, and the sound of tire iron dropping on the concrete floor rang out. Derrick went down hard on his right knee, the door to the office opened wide, and he saw a slender man run past him. Behind him, another man’s voice, sounding hoarse, called to his accomplice.
“Yo, move it, man.” The voice got slightly louder. Derrick could tell the person was speaking to him now. “You, just stay right where you are, keep looking at da floor if you wanna live.” Derrick froze, head bowed, one hand on the filthy cement, stopped in mid-crouch.
Behind him, he heard the person moving away. He held himself still, years of climbing steel keeping his legs steady, his quads strong. Should he turn? A trickle of sweat rolled down between his shoulder blades. The person might be far enough away to make it safe to turn. The cold, clear sound of a gun cocking changed Derrick’s mind. He stayed frozen, ears straining for the sound of retreating footfalls. When he heard nothing, he risked a glance over his shoulder. He was alone.
All the breath rushed out of him at once as he jumped to his feet. The minute he was at his full height, he felt safer, but his head swam. What had hit him? He never saw it, but his shoulder hurt like a mother.
“Uh …” a wet groan echoed in the garage, and Derrick’s heart leaped in his chest. He backed himself up against the wall. The burglars were gone. Who else could be … he thought, oh no. Not George.
“George!” Derrick recovered the tire iron, walked to the door and kicked it open. The sight before him scared the shit out of him. George was slumped in the ratty old office chair, behind his cheap steel desk. Was he alive? Derrick’s stomach clenched. George’s blue striped work shirt was dark and wet just below the embroidered name patch. His left eye was swollen and livid, his left arm hung at an odd angle. Blood ran from his nose and mouth.
“George! Hold on, I got you,” Derrick said. When the right eye blinked at him, he exhaled in relief. But George made no attempt to rise, his right arm slung across his abdomen, his feet splayed before him. Derrick laid his hand on George’s shoulder, afraid anything he might touch would injure the man more, pulled his cell phone out of his jeans and dialed 911, never taking his eyes off his friend. “Hold on, George, I’m getting you help.”
Dispatch was quick and efficient. The woman on the phone took the information and instructed Derrick not to move George until the EMTs arrived. Derrick hung up, checked on George, and, deciding he could risk it, went to the main garage and turned on the overhead lights. He could see where the man who ambushed him might have been hidden. At the far end of the workbench was George’s cash register, in pieces. Beyond that, if the man had ducked down, Derrick might have not seen him in the shadows, focused as he was on the office door. He returned to the office, the room a shambles. The filing cabinet was open, papers yanked out, desk drawers lying on the floor, their contents tossed across the dirty tile. Ice cold crawled through Derrick as his gaze came to rest on the white towels, splotched with blood, lying on the desk. That they’d wrapped their fists in towels and beaten George was the only conclusion he could draw. George’s functioning eye looked at the cloth, probably seeing where Derrick’s gaze had landed. Then George closed his eye.
“Hey, stay awake.” Derrick got moving. He came up to George and put his hand gently on the other man’s face. The eye fluttered. “George, you can’t sleep, don’t close your eyes.”
One of the limp feet gave an irritated kick, rising only an inch from the floor. At least there was that. Feeling a little better, Derrick let out his second, long breath of the evening.
“Look, I took a hard one to the shoulder,” he said. George’s foot twitched. “So you owe me, man.” He studied George’s chest, rising and falling evenly. Thank you, Lord, he thought. Derrick felt himself a relax just a bit. “Open that damn eye. I gotta know you’re awake.”
George’s gray eye opened, narrowed in pain. He coughed, the motion obviously causing him great pain, droplets of blood spraying. Derrick was more concerned with the blood on his chest. He gingerly touched the front of George’s shirt, tugging it just a bit to make the cloth lie flat. He didn’t see any hole.
“You didn’t get shot, did you?”
George’s head moved a millimeter to the side.
“Good, that’s good, buddy.” What the fuck had happened? He looked around. He was not going to use the towel they beat him with. “Stay right like that, don’t move. I’m going to get something to clean you up.”
Reluctantly, he left the office and went to the bathroom. Sirens rose in the distance, and he prayed they were coming his way.
The paper towels were coarse and none too absorbent, but he ran warm water over a wadded-up handful and brought the roll with him. The moment he stepped through the door into the office, he couldn’t get a look at George fast enough. The bastard had his damn eye shut.
“Hey! Open that eye!”
He carefully started wiping the blood from George’s face, checking for cuts. The water seemed to bring him back to life, he moved a bit and tried to sit up straighter. Derrick kept his hand on George’s shoulder, holding him in place. From the way he’d been worked over, Derrick thought a couple of cracked ribs were more than a little likely. The man’s chin was bruised, and he flinched away from Derrick’s gentle wiping. It appeared his nose was busted too.
“George,” Derrick asked softly, “do you know who did this to you?” The wail of a siren split the air outside the garage.
George watched Derrick from his one usable eye. He didn’t give any indication that he’d heard the question. Derrick stepped back. George had a split lip, maybe a busted nose. “Did you hit your head at all George?” The man in the chair looked down and gave a very small shake—negative. From behind him, Derrick heard what he hoped would be the EMTs coming in the garage. “I’ll be right back.” He tried to give George a supportive smile.
Derrick left the office door and waved the EMTs in.
George’s attackers had stopped after one hit when they assaulted Derrick, so why the hell had they beat on George so severely? And who brought a towel to protect their fists if the motive was robbery? The more he thought about it, the more he was sure that the men knew George and this was personal. What the hell was Ben’s brother involved in?
The EMTs bustled into the building with efficiency, gathering information as they went. Derrick told them all he knew. Then they were in the office with George. Derrick followed them.
“George,” he said softly. “The EMTs are here. They’re going to take you to the hospital most likely.” Derrick looked at the nearest medic who gave an affirmative nod. “They are going to take you to the hospital. I’m going to find out which one and come there after I get things secure here, OK?”
George
looked at him gratefully and gave a bit of a nod. He cleared his throat. “Thanks, Derr.” The words sounded mushy and soft. Derrick found himself hoping the guy still had all his teeth. There would be time for questions later.
“I’ll call Debra, is there anyone else you want me to call?”
At the mention of his wife’s name, George closed his eye again. His voice was almost inaudible. “No,” came the whisper. After that, the medics took over, and Derrick stood back, to give them room to work, feeling the unmistakable weakness in his knees, signaling the retreat of the adrenaline from his body.
Derrick’s mind finally allowed reality in. He’d been kneeling on the cement with a gun pointed at his head. Today could have been his last day on earth - a sobering thought. On the way in, he’d been worried about words he’d said. It seemed ludicrous now.
Maybe I do, could have been I’ll never, he thought. He found a stool and sat, his hands spread on his wide thighs looking at the shape of his hands, the veins across the backs, the short fingernails. But the fact was, he was alive.
He watched as George was taken away. He stayed and answered questions for the police as best he could. They asked if Derrick needed medical attention for his injuries. Derrick declined, thinking that if you got over the almost being shot stuff, the damage was about par for a shit-bad day at work. Besides, he still needed to contact Debra and let Ben know. Either way, he was going to get X-rays taken, without the whole circus ride in the ambulance.
From the questions the police started asking, it was clear they didn’t think this was an ordinary robbery any more than Derrick did. Derrick asked them to bag the cash register pieces for evidence in case there were fingerprints, but it was clear they thought George already knew who did this and why. Still, they collected evidence, including the towels and then they were gone. Derrick thought about the man he’d seen in the fall, the man with the very hairy arms. There was no reason to mention him, he’d just been a man on the sidewalk who should have minded his own business.