Caress

by Grayson Cole

  “What was that?” Shots fired in the distance as Michael dashed around the back of the building. He ran as fast as he could, his legs pumping strongly beneath him. He ran for the fence he had seen earlier next to the street. He could hear the heavy footsteps behind him as he ran a jagged route, praying that no bullet would find its mark. He got to the seven-foot-high fence topped with barbed wire. He silently thanked God that he’d had the good sense to wear jeans and a t-shirt. Physically fit, he had no problem hurling his well-toned body up and over the fence. There were several more shots. He felt two whistle past his head, but he kept running. He could see the cluster of trees hiding the path that led to the road just beyond the sign reading Hatsheput Industries, St. Thomas Distribution Center. Only a few more yards, he thought with relief. His breathing was becoming labored, but he pushed it from his mind. He needed to get out onto the road where there was traffic. Miraculously, speeding up the road at that moment was a taxi. Waving frantically, Michael quickly stepped into the path of the rapidly approaching vehicle.

  The taxi skidded to an abrupt stop, and the driver hopped out shouting, “What’s wrong with you, man?” Michael bent over and rested his hands on his knees. He was too winded to speak. The taxi driver took note that the young man was sweating profusely. “This isn’t the best place to be out drinking,” the man scolded, showing concern.

  “No, no drinking,” Michael panted.

  “Eh, you’re Nya’s boyfriend.”

  Michael looked and finally recognize the Seymour’s family friend, Jerry.

  Then Jerry yelped, “Lord have mercy!” Michael followed the older man’s horror-filled gaze. It must have been the fence. Michael’s hands were bleeding profusely. “Get in the taxi, man. I’ll take you to get patched up.”

  Michael looked behind them, checking again for anyone following them. He hoped they hadn’t seen him take the taxi. Elphonse had turned out to be a dangerous man, but Mandolesi was probably the most unpredictable, intelligent, and lethal man in the Caribbean.

  “Get in. Get in. I take you to the villa straight away. Hatsheput will be able to check your hands.”

  Michael crawled into the back of the car and dropped against the seat before Jerry took off.

  When they arrived Jerry ran ahead of Michael, opening the door and calling to anyone who could hear. Michael was close behind him, trying to stop him from waking the whole household. It didn’t work. Soon Nya was out of her room and running down the stairs, her mother not far behind.

  As soon as Nya saw the blood on Michael’s shirt and hands she pressed one hand to her mouth. Hattie pushed past her and took Michael’s hands in her own. “Jerry,” the matronly woman urged. “You hurry and get me some towels, some alcohol, and some bandages.”

  Without hesitation, the man skittered off down a long hallway. Hattie rushed Michael into the bathroom where she clucked over him as if he were her very own small child. “I don’t know what you were thinking, Mr. Reporter Man. You have to be careful, I tell you. You’re worse than that crazy girl in there.”

  Michael listened to her patiently and only flinched slightly when she poured the alcohol Jerry had retrieved over his hands. He looked over her shoulder to see Nya looking on with a wan expression. She looked as if she were going to cry. He wanted to go to her and hold her and tell her that he was fine. Hattie continued cleaning his wounds, saying that he wouldn’t need any stitches, only a few bandages. He would be fine. After Michael had been tended, they all went into the great room and sat down with cups of tea.

  When Hattie asked Michael for all the details of his adventure, he was hesitant in answering. He looked toward Nya for approval but could not read her gaze. “I was at Hatsheput. I decided to take a walk out there tonight, and there were some guys who wanted to start some trouble, that’s all.”

  “You sure?” Hattie asked and Michael could tell that this woman knew there was something more.

  “Yes,” he responded when he saw Nya’s bland expression break into one of pleading. She didn’t want to talk about this with her mother at all.

  “Humph,” Hattie huffed and gathered her robe around her. She rose gracefully and started towards the stairs, mumbling to herself about ungrateful children. Michael smiled as he watched her disappear. Jerry excused himself shortly, after trying unsuccessfully to get a description out of Michael. Now that they were alone, Nya moved over to sit on the sofa next to Michael. She dropped her gaze to his neatly bound hands and took them gently in her own.

  “Reach into my pocket,” Michael said softly.

  Nya eyed him warily.

  He chuckled. “There’s something you need, and my hands hurt like hell.”

  Nya retrieved the flash drives. “Where did they come from?”

  “Flash drives from a crate marked Bernard French.”

  “You found it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, my God, what’s on them?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m willing to bet we hit pay dirt.”

  Nya ran out of the room and returned with a laptop. She powered it on and inserted one of the drives.

  “There are dozens of files here.”

  “But what are they?” Michael asked, coming over to crowd her in front of the screen.

  “I don’t know, my laptop can’t read them.”

  Michael whipped out his phone and started dialing. He spoke into it and turned to Nya. “We’re going to send copies to Derrick and to the Bureau. My money’s on Derrick cracking the encryption first, but hey, it doesn’t matter. If these files are what we think they are, we’ve got Mandolesi. We’ve got him!”

  Nya began to upload the files as Michael watched. After she’d gotten to the fifth drive, she said to him, “You were right.”

  Michael waited for her to continue.

  “What you said earlier. I do care for you. I didn’t want to, God help me, I didn’t want to. I guess I couldn’t help myself, though. From that first day when I saw you on the plane—” Nya pressed her hand to her lips for the second time that night, speechless as she thought back to those first few moments she’d spent with Michael.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart. I understand.” Michael brought her close. “There is one thing I’d like from you, though.…”

  “What’s that?”

  “I want you to say, ‘You were right, Michael.’ ”

  She punched him in the chest, but Michael stayed her hands with a heart-rending kiss that freed her like nothing else had.

  “Nya, there is something serious we have to talk about.”

  “Yes?”

  “Deklerk swore to Mandolesi that he would kill you.”

  h

  “You stay at the house!” Nyron yelled into the phone.

  “I had intended to do just that, Daddy.” Nya was starting to get angry. She had intended to just call her father, tell him everything she knew, and let it go as Michael had suggested. Instead her father had immediately started in, telling her that he didn’t want her around the Hatsheput offices. He didn’t want her out of the house, even. He wanted her to stay at home and do nothing until he got there. It was the same thing all over again: Him rushing down to save the day as if she were incompetent. She listened to him rail on about what she shouldn’t do for another half hour. Nyron was obviously convinced, as usual, that this was somehow Nya’s fault, that if she were to try and fix it, she would just cause more trouble.

  She heard a knock at her door and Michael entered. Perfect timing. She smiled at him simply because she couldn’t help herself. He was everything she had ever wanted, and, in her whirlwind life, he was something that was sure. And she was falling more in love with him with every minute. He came over to her and pressed a light kiss on her lips. “Did you talk to him?”

  “Yeah,” Nya replied irritably.

  “That bad, huh?”

  “That man is nuts!” she yelled. “He’s got it all fixed up in his head that somehow this is my fault. I should have known.”

  �
�Maybe he just doesn’t want to think that it’s his fault he didn’t catch it sooner.”

  “That’s still putting the blame on me, where it doesn’t belong. The only way he’s going to let up is if I fix it, like always.”

  “Wait a minute, Nya,” Michael said hesitantly. “Didn’t we talk about this last night? You aren’t going to do anything that might put you in danger…” Nya shook her head noncommittally. “Nya?”

  “Listen, Michael. I’m not going to do anything.”

  Michael was unconvinced. “You can be so stubborn. Nya, I know your father doesn’t want anything to happen to you. Regardless of what his words were, I’ve met the man, and I know that he loves you and only wants you to stay safe.”

  Nya dipped her head. “I know. I’ve let myself be blind to a lot of things, but I can’t do that anymore. He might not want me to take Hatsheput when he’s gone, but my father does love me.”

  Michael nodded at her.

  “So… You ready to see your first carnival tonight?”

  “I didn’t know it was the season for one.”

  “It’s always the season. From Christmas to Ash Wednesday, they will get more and more outrageous, so this one will be mild. We can’t do any more about the case tonight, so at least we can finally have a little fun,” she replied.

  h

  Nya spun around in the night air, wondering at the way the island breeze never failed to make her feel dangerous and free. Yet it was nothing in comparison to how beautiful Michael Harrison made her feel. Bandaged hands and all, he had been perfect company all night. They had danced in the street with bright colors and heavy aromas swarming all around them, making them drunk with excitement. Michael had teased her, kissed her, been next to her, solid and caring. She wasn’t sure she had ever had a better night.

  As they danced in the street, they were overtaken by another couple and separated. She watched an old friend of hers dance Michael away. She waved at him and motioned that she was going to get something to drink. She fanned herself as she made her way to a row of seafood stands.

  h

  Michael looked around frantically, wondering where Nya could be. They’d been having a beautiful time together and he’d been thinking all night how he wanted her with him, wanted her mind, body, and soul for a long time to come. But she’d gone for a drink and seemed to have slipped away altogether. Where could she have gone? He saw a red dress disappearing around a crowded corner and immediately took off in that direction. When he got hold of that woman!

  As he rounded that corner he saw something that made his heart drop to his toes. There was Nya kicking and screaming and being stuffed into the back of a limousine. He ran as fast as he could but he couldn’t catch the car speeding off into the distance.

  He took out his cell phone and called the Seymour house. He was more than surprised when Nyron Seymour answered the phone. “She did what?” the older man bellowed. “I’m going to kill that crazy girl when I get her back.”

  “Do you have any idea where he might have taken her?” Michael asked, trying to remain calm.

  “I’m not telling you. You’ll go do the same stupid thing she did. I know how to get my daughter back.”

  “With all due respect, sir, I’m going to look for her whether you tell me or not.” And with that, Michael heard one of the most unbelievable things he’d heard yet in dealing with this Hatsheput case.

  h

  Michael seized his chance and ran into the ill-lit room as soon as Mandolesi left. Nya watched his stealthy approach without a word, without a single movement. She knew the importance of not triggering suspicion. Quickly, Michael’s fingers worked to free Nya from the gag. The rope stays were not as easily dispensed with.

  “Your knife is in my pocket,” Nya whispered. Michael fumbled furiously with his bandaged hands for the knife. Once he got it, he sawed through the rope and freed her. Wordlessly, he took her by the hand and led her back into the shadows and into the closet where the secret window was hidden. Once through the window, he took a relieved breath and squeezed her hand. Still silent, they started cautiously for the fence, feeling close to safety. That feeling was short-lived.

  “You have underestimated me, again,” they heard from behind them as they were bathed in floodlight. “Did you think you would get away from me? Did you actually think that? I thought you were smarter, pretty Nya.” Slowly they turned to face him. He was leaning against the hood of the limousine and smiling coldly at them.

  “A pity I’m going to have to kill you both.”

  “Yes, a pity,” came another voice out of the shadows.

  “Oh, Elphonse, here for the fun, eh? I don’t think I will let you kill her anymore. I think I’d like to do the honors. You can kill the reporter.”

  “El! How could you do this to us, to me? How could you?” Nya exploded. She ran towards him and began to pound on his chest, not caring what the consequences were.

  “Nya, get off me,” El said, swatting her away, annoyed. “Get off me!”

  Michael used this diversion to lunge at Mandolesi. He took the smaller man down with ease and had him pinned to the ground when he heard the gunshots ring out. His heart dropped as he looked up realizing that it was Deklerk with the gun. Nya was on the ground with her arms covering her head. Michael froze, his eyes riveted to her stiff, balled up form there on the ground. Elphonse Deklerk walked slowly towards him with both his hands holding the gun and his arms stretched tautly out in front of him. He moved so slowly and the moment was so silent that Michael could only sit there defeated, his eyes frozen on Nya.

  “Get up,” Elphonse said to him and Michael did, moving over to Nya, not caring if Deklerk shot him, too, not caring about anything. He slid his hands under head and lifted it.

  “Thank you, Elphonse. This may mean a promotion for you, man,” Mandolesi said, standing up and dusting himself off. He looked up to realize that the cold metal of the gun Elphonse carried was aimed right between his eyes.

  “I don’t want a promotion. All I wanted was to stay in this long enough for us to get the proof to send you to the chair. But, wait, we don’t have a chair. So I’m going to have to take this into my own hands. Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to kill you? At first I couldn’t get near you. Then, when I did, they wanted me to gather intel. No problem. I could bide my time. I could make sure that no one rose to take your place once you were gone. I could help them make the case. But you are mine, Rinaldo. You have been mine since you took Dina from me.”

  “Don’t do it, son,” another foreign voice said from the shadows. The raised arms began to shake as Elphonse could not move the gun from the target.

  “Don’t do it,” the voice called again authoritatively.

  Beneath him, Michael felt Nya move. He could not bear thinking that he was hallucinating. But then she was sitting up and speaking, “Daddy?” she called, looking past him.

  “Is this how it is, then?” Mandolesi asked with a smirk. “I should have known. You don’t have to tell him, Nyron. He doesn’t have it in him to shoot me. Not like the way I did his girl.”

  The gun trembled even more. “No!” Nya called and for a moment Elphonse turned to look at her, look right into her eyes. And with that he lowered the gun. Mandolesi turned to run and then realized that he and his men were surrounded by twenty men or so in black. They were all cuffed and being loaded into a van.

  h

  “My God, I thought you were dead.” Michael stroked Nya’s face in disbelief.

  “No,” Elphonse said as he sipped the coffee he had prepared for them all. “Nya’s just afraid of guns. I shot into the air and she went right down. It was the only way I could get her off me.”

  Nya smiled wanly and felt her sister Jenine squeeze her harder. “I don’t understand any of this. Please, someone tell me from the beginning.”

  “Nya,” Elphonse replied, “you know the beginning. After Dina, I was devastated; everyone knew it. The DEA approached me last year. They figured
they could provide me with revenge and get one of their most wanted at the same time. I couldn’t say no.”

  “But what you could have done was tell me.”

  “Oh, no, he wasn’t going to tell you anything,” Nyron stated firmly. “We didn’t want you involved in this at all. He was smart coming to me first.”

  “So you could provide him with a way to trap Rinaldo?”

  “That came later,” Nyron retorted. “But, yes, I would have done anything to make that man pay for what he’s done to us.”

  “And the photos in Norfolk?”

  “I was sent there to get them. I didn’t know Rinaldo was sending one of his gangsters to make sure nothing went wrong. He’s the one who knocked you out. He’s also the one that tried to run you down. We’ve had him locked up for two weeks now.”

  “But you could have told me. I could have helped.”

  “Girl, if you think I would have put you in danger…” her father said. “Bad enough you went and got yourself kidnapped.”

  Nya grimaced, realizing she’d done just that. She looked up at Michael, who watched her with intense feeling in his eyes.

  Elphonse reached out a hand to her and she took it. “Nya,” he said, “I can’t tell you how hard it was. I still see it in my head every day.”

  “You loved her.”

  “I did,” he concurred. “That’s why I had to do this. I’m sorry we kept you in the dark, but I didn’t want it to happen all over again.”

  Nya considered all they had told her. Elphonse had been working all this time to bring down the man who had nearly destroyed his life. Her father had helped, feeling just as affronted. And then she remembered something as her eyes found Michael, who had been sitting quietly at her side after everything that had transpired that night.

  “Why did you tell Michael about the corruption? Why did you set him up with Marshall?”